Lords Sitting of 28 January 1987

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR Oil the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwark.
Lord Parmoor—Took the Oath.

Guildford: BBC Local Radio Station
Lord Nugent of Guildford: 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 have approved the BBC's proposal to set up a local radio station in Guildford and, if so, how they assessed the need for such a service.
The Minister of State, Home Office (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, the BBC local radio station in Guildford was one of several proposals in a report by the Home Office Local Radio Working Party published in 1980, and approved in principle by the then Home Secretary in 1981.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. However, is he aware that Guildford is exceptionally well provided with local radio and that the ILR station has coverage of 41 per cent., the highest in the South of England? Guildford is also covered by Capital Radio from London and LBC Radio from London. The surrounding stations on the north, west and south between them also cover the area. It may well be said to be saturated with local radio programmes.
Will not the BBC be wasting its money, which is much constrained, by setting up a new station, which will be to the disadvantage of all concerned?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, Guildford is by no means unique. There are many areas in the country—in the North as well as in the South-East—that have many different radio stations to choose from and all of them produce a slightly different programme. If the listener does not want to listen to a particular programme then all he has to do is to switch off the radio. However, I am sure that the BBC will read with interest the words of my noble friend.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, is it not the case that BBC local radio has a high speech content—about 70 per cent. speech and 30 per cent. music—compared with commercial broadcasting, which has 30 per cent. speech and 70 per cent. music? Therefore do they not appeal to a different audience? Does not BBC local radio provide invaluable sources of news and other material at regional and national level which it would be a great pity to lose? Does the Minister agree that we need this wide range of local radio stations?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely right in saying that we need a wide range of radio stations. That is exactly why the then Home Secretary approved the report.
Lord Mulley: My Lords, while not in any way wishing to deny the BBC's role in local radio, will not the Minister agree that at a time when we understand that the whole future of local radio, community radio and their regulation is under study, it might be sensible to defer proposals made as long as seven years ago, even if they were endorsed by a very distinguished Home Secretary six years ago.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, it is entirely up to the BBC as to whether or not it wishes to progress with further stations for which it has approval. However, the noble Lord is absolutely right in drawing to the attention of the House the fact that there will shortly be published a Green Paper on radio.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that one of the latest BBC radio stations to be opened was Radio Essex? Is he also interested to know that, in support of my noble friend's supplementary question, I was able to listen to Radio Essex quite a lot during the recent freeze and snow spell, when Essex suffered considerably. Information was given regarding travel conditions, opening and closing of schools, whether local events were on or off and there were offers of help from generous people who were prepared to help those who were stranded.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, it shows the benefits that local radio stations of diverse interests can give to the community.
Lord Aylestone: My Lords, when considering where BBC local radio stations should be sited, do the Government consider the effect on the BBC's finances?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the approval given by the then Home Secretary covered a variety of different stations. It is then up to the BBC and the IBA to determine what to do within their expenditure.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, will not the Minister agree that, although there is a surfeit of information in Guildford, and has been for a great number of years, the people must be fairly sensible because for years they returned the noble Lord, Lord Nugent?
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I could not agree more with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Mellish! Is my noble friend aware that as leader of the local group asking for a local radio station, we should have welcomed a BBC local radio station seven or eight years ago? However, it was because the BBC was unable to come forward with one that we asked for a local ILR station. Is my noble friend also aware that after the local people have put up their money to finance a local station, and taken shares in it—upon which they have yet to receive a dividend—it is rather unfair that they should now have the BBC proposing to come in on top of it?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend would be the first to support the Government in giving listeners the wide range of services which a BBC local radio station can offer. Of course, it has always been known that approval was given for a BBC local radio station at Guildford and it was up to the BBC to build the station when it had sufficient finance available.

Financial Malpractice: Control Measures
2.44 p.m.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, at the request of my noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what further plans they have to control financial activities in the City of London.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Lucas of Chilworth): My Lords, provisions of the Financial Services Act 1986 relating to the conduct of investment business will be brought into operation during the next 12 months. A Bill to strengthen the system of banking supervision is before Parliament. The Criminal Justice Bill before Parliament contains a range of measures for dealing with fraud including the creation of the Serious Fraud Office.
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is considering the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Regulatory Matters at Lloyd's.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, that is a somewhat encouraging reply, but is the Minister aware that there are people in trade, industry and commerce, not to mention shareholders, who believe that that part of the City is in a similar condition to the Augean stables and needs completely clearing out? During the recent scandals the Governor of the Bank of England seemed hopelessly ineffective, and the takeover panel appeared to be moribund. There should be direct ministerial intervention when required. Will the forthcoming legislation make it absolutely clear that there will be ministerial examination and action taken to prevent the terrible scandals which have taken place recently in the City of London?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the recent action taken by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in appointing inspectors illustrates the seriousness with which we consider matters of this kind. Such action also demonstrates the firmness with which the Government intend to deal with malpractice wherever it takes place.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, although many noble Lords may have reservations as to the adequacy of the existing enactments and regulations, we consider it is much more important that there should be the impartial maintenance of law and order? When can the country expect that prosecutions will eventuate against some of
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those who have already committed crimes in connection with operations at Lloyd's? When are we to have action by the Attorney-General and the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to individual allegations of people committing these offences against the Companies Act and being accessories to such offences?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, inquiries into a number of matters, not one of which the noble Lord mentioned specifically (he will know what I mean, as I think I know what he means), are taking place and the appropriate action will be taken when all the relevant information is gathered.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, will the noble Lord give the House an assurance that action will be taken in all appropriate instances and before the people concerned leave Her Majesty's jurisdiction?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I cannot give the noble Lord an assurance in the terms he asks for because neither I nor my right honourable and honourable friends can command the free movements of individuals. I have given an assurance that the Government (as demonstrated by their actions) seek to take a firm stand wherever evidence of malpractice or misdemeanour is brought to our attention, and the rest follows from that.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, is it in order to inquire in this House about individual cases which have been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, my understanding is that noble Lords may inquire about anything at all. What the answer is may perhaps be a little different.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the Minister saying that no action is to be taken to defend shareholders or other people who may have been hurt by these scandals which have been shown on television and have been in all the newspapers and which have concerned the entire nation? Everyone knows that much of what happened was illegal and that there was some form of appalling misdemeanour and misbehaviour.
Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw): My Lords, following the remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Paget, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, appreciates that to make firm statements about a whole lot of things which may have happened but which have not yet in any way been before a court of law or been proved is a dangerous move to make in your Lordships' House. I am sure he will be the first to understand that.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, there is such a thing as contempt of court.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that control of certain operations in the City would be welcomed? I am sure he can assure us that in future we shall be spared the absolutely nonsensical and noisy ballyhoo that took place in the

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region of the Strand and Charing Cross last night in connection with the British Airways flotation.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I do not feel able to comment on that matter. It is very wide of the original Question.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, will the Minister have regard, when they are available, to all the conclusions which the Government may reach as a result of the inquiries and other activities at present taking place? Will they have regard to the overriding interest of this nation that the City should be regarded, if justified, as fully sustaining the responsibilities which it carries?
Is not the good will of so many financial centres in different parts of the world of enormous benefit to our balance of payments and to our various activities? Is it not a great pity that the one thing that we seem to be doing rather better than most other people in the world should be continually derided in this irresponsible way?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question as it underlines the importance of the City. I can certainly tell him that the interests of the nation, to which he draws attention, are indeed the same as the interests of the Government in that connection.
Lord Broxbourne: My Lords, arising from the question of the noble Lord, Lord Paget, and the answer given thereto, is it not at all times desirable to avoid conflicts between the undoubted sovereignty of Parliament and the equally constitutionally entrenched jurisdiction of the courts?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his question, and I confirm that he is quite right. Perhaps I ought to have said to the noble Lord, Lord Paget, at the time I answered him that of course questions other than those which are sub judice are normally allowable in your Lordships' House.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, while we all appreciate and understand what the noble Viscount said, the Government must appreciate that people are beginning to believe that there is one law for the rich and powerful and another law for the rest of us. Does the noble Lord agree that if a local councillor had accepted a meal or a holiday from a building contractor, he would have been charged and given five years in gaol long ago?
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I hope that I can properly, as Leader of your Lordships' House, confine myself to the point that I made and not seek to go further. It was simply that if it was a question of deciding at this stage whether someone was guilty before he had been before the courts, or indeed had had an opportunity of stating his case, that is something that I am sure your Lordships' House would not wish to do.

Robin Hood's Bay: Improvement Scheme
2.52 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will investigate the plans of the Countryside Commission for altering the appearance of Robin Hood's Bay in North Yorkshire against the wishes of the majority of the residents.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Skelmersdale): No, my Lords. Proposals for improvements to Robin Hood's Bay Bank Top are being considered by the North York Moors National Park Authority in conjuction with North Yorkshire County Council, as highway authority, and Scarborough Borough Council. The Countryside Commission is not involved. This is an initiative by the responsible local authorities and is not a matter in which the Government would wish to intervene.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that this village, one of the most beautiful in the country and of great historical importance, is unique, and that there is a great feeling among the residents, as witnessed by organisations like the Residents' and Ratepayers' Association and the Fylingdales Preservation Society, that the actions of the national park are liable both to spoil the vista from the top overlooking the bay and to damage the economy, which I am glad to say is rapidly picking up as people move back to live in the village and start businesses there? Is this not a case in which a bureaucrat has been interfering with the wishes of the local residents as expressed at a public meeting last October, when, by 88 votes to 13, the plans put forward by the national park committee on 7th January were rejected?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I understand that Robin Hood's Bay is the most popular resort in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park and that the local economy depends heavily on tourism. I also understand that, subsequent to the consultation about which the noble Lord has just spoken, the revised scheme—revised to take account of comments made during the consultation—was approved by the national park, the borough council, the parish council, and the local amenities society. I think that all concerned have behaved in an exemplary fashion.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I, too, am familiar with the situation at Robin Hood's Bay following a number of visits? Would he accept that in addition to the information about the procedures that he has explained, the North Yorkshire County Council has consulted far and wide? I have the plans here. There has been full consultation not only with the local amenity and voluntary bodies but also with local residents. The procedures are entirely democratic.
Would the noble Lord accept that the role of the national park committee is purely advisory in making recommendations to the county council? Would he

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accept that there is an urgent need to re-plan car parking and other facilities at Bank Top above the little town, in view of the fact that something like 500,000 visitors visit this beauty spot every year?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, my answers to the noble Lord are yes, yes, and yes. I am pleased that he has backed up my last supplementary answer.
Lady Kinloss: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the scheme for improvements, as it now appears, is the result of discussions with all interested parties? Is he also aware of the need for modernisation of the toilet facilities including provision of toilets for disabled people? There is no such provision for the disabled at present, as I saw for myself when I visited Robin Hood's Bay last Sunday?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords, I am aware of these facts. Indeed, I can tell the House that the councillors of Fylingdales Parish Council have written to the Scarborough Borough Council expressing dismay about the way that the views of the Residents' and Ratepayers' Association objecting to the scheme have been represented in the press as the views of the whole community.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I am not suggesting—
Noble Lords: Question!
Lord Hatch of Lusby: I am not suggesting that what the Minister said should, in any way, reverse the decisions taken. What I am asking the noble Lord is whether he will look into this matter in view of the fact that strong opposition has been expressed by the local community, by the local residents? Unfortunately, his original Answer did not take into account the fact that a public meeting was held and that the result, as I said, was a vote of 88 to 13 against the proposal, and that far from taking that into consideration—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Hatch of Lusby: Is the noble Lord aware that the national park committee officer stated that it was an unrepresentative meeting and that no account need be taken of it? All I am asking—
Noble Lords: Order! Speech!
Lord Hatch of Lusby: All I am asking the noble Lord is whether he will look into this question, which appears to be a matter of a bureaucratic overriding of local opinion?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, when I am asked a Question of this sort in your Lordships' House I review all the available papers on the particular case. I therefore looked at this case with great care, knowing that I would be answering a Question today from the noble Lord. As I have said, my conclusion is that the authorities in question have behaved in an exemplary fashion. They have taken account of the consultation procedure, and they have changed their plans. The
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revised plans are now well known locally, and I do not think that this is a matter on which the Government should intervene.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, would the Minister agree that when it comes to tops and vistas—I choose my vocabulary from the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby—visitors are much more likely to be interested in Maid Marians than in Robin Hoods?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, in this case they are also interested in cliffs.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he agrees that we should leave wild places alone? And naturally included in wild places, of course, is your Lordships' House.

Energy Supplies during Severe Weather
3.p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how effectively the suppliers of energy in the United Kingdom have met the very high demands during the recent severe cold spell.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, the energy supply industries did a commendable job in meeting the record levels of demand brought about by some of the coldest weather experienced in this century.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his reply. Did any power cuts have to be made deliberately, as distinct from the effects of the weather on overhead lines, and did gas supplies run out anywhere?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, in spite of extreme weather conditions, electricity supplies were in general maintained and there were no major breakdowns in the gas supply system.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, may I ask the Minister how much of the electricity supply was supplied from nuclear power, both from France and this country? What percentage of it was nuclear, and have the Government yet had any protest from those who protest about nuclear power?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I cannot give the exact figures for the amount of electricity produced from nuclear power for the particular period, but I can say, so far as concerns imports of electricity, that I understand that the CEGB took supplies from both France and Scotland during the severe cold weather and that those were valuable in meeting the record levels of demand.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, further to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, if the noble Viscount does not know what contribution was made by nuclear power and by the AGRs in particular, will he look into

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that and give us the information? Is he aware that in paragraph 90.18 of the Sizewell Report we are told that impressive improvements in AGR construction performance became apparent during the course of the inquiry? Therefore rather than there being a one in five chance of the AGR being superior to the pressurised water reactor, what has happened in the recent cold spell may point to a much stronger argument in favour of retaining our own gas-cooled reactors.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I admire the way in which the noble Lord has brought Sizewell into this Question. That is another question.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, is it correct that the peak period of demand on 12th January reached a record figure in England and Wales? Does my noble friend agree that the industries concerned are to be congratulated, because if they can get through that severe period they can tackle any other?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I agree that this was a record demand figure and that the workers in all the energy supply industries did a magnificent job in keeping supplies going during this period of exceptionally severe weather. They deserve our heartfelt thanks and appreciation.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware that we wish to associate ourselves with the congratulations that have just been uttered? Will he associate with them also thanks for the personal efforts of those in the transport industry and also those on repairs and maintenance and so on who contributed to there being no significant breakdowns during this very extreme period?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, yes; I am delighted to do so.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, we were told last week from the Government Front Bench that it takes eight years to plan and build a power station. Ought not the noble Viscount to congratulate the Labour Governments from 1964 to 1979 on their careful planning of the power supply for the late 1980s?

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, I should like to say a word about the arrangements for this afternoon's two short debates standing in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, and the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross. It is customary in short debates that the mover is allowed approximately 15 minutes, and that the Minister should rise to reply not less than 20 minutes before the scheduled end of the debate.
In the case of the short debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, it means that all other speeches should be limited to a maximum of 10 minutes. In the case of the short debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, the number of speakers is such that it is not necessary to propose any formal time limit, but I am confident that noble Lords will keep the length of their speeches within limits that are compatible with the spirit of these short debates.

Employment and Training Measures
3.5 p.m.
The Secretary of State for Employment (Lord Young of Graffham): My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall now make a Statement on employment and training measures.
Unemployment has fallen for five consecutive months and is now down by more than 100,000. Vacancies are standing at their highest levels this decade. Our unit wage costs are now rising more slowly than the rate of inflation and are beneath those of our principal overseas competitors. We shall shortly be entering our seventh successive year of economic growth.
All this, building on the firm foundation of the million new jobs the economy has created since 1983, can only be good for employment. But with some skill shortages already emerging and unemployment at its present level there is no room for complacency. The Government have therefore reassessed the scope and direction of the employment, enterprise and training measures within existing departmental programmes. and as a result I am writing to the chairman of the Manpower Services Commission to ask the commission to undertake further measures that will give priority to our task to motivate and train unemployed people, particularly the younger generation, to fill the jobs that are now becoming available.
First, Restart is a success. By the end of March this year the Manpower Services Commission staff should have interviewed all the one and a quarter million people who will have been out of work for over a year. This has been an enormous task. I should like to pay tribute to our staff in the MSC. Not only for the 40,000 interviews a week that they have undertaken but for the enthusiastic and sensitive manner in which they are completing their task of offering advice and help to long-term unemployed people.
We can see already that this programme is bringing help and assistance to the long-term unemployed. In the latest figures long-term unemployment fell in three months by 7,000 when in the previous year it rose over the same period by 25,000. I am confident that this improvement will be maintained as the programme develops and as the economy continues to strengthen. No other industrialised nation provides such a package of individual help to each and every long-term unemployed person. But even this is not enough.
Last October, my noble friend the Leader of the House announced to your Lordships that the MSC would pilot, in nine areas, Restart interviews being offered to those out of work for six months or more. We thought that the earlier the help was received the more effective it would be. The results of these pilots have convinced us to extend the Restart counselling in two ways.
First, there will be an additional earlier interview. From the end of March everyone who becomes unemployed for more than six months will be invited to attend a Restart interview. But we have decided to go further and our second extension is to offer a Restart interview at regular six-monthly intervals. In the future there will be regular contact between

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Manpower Services Commission staff and unemployed people to help them, at different times and in different ways, back to work. The counselling interview is of course only the first step—though a vitally necessary one—in the process of getting the unemployed back into work. This brings me to the second of the new measures I am announcing today.
Last October my noble friend also indicated to your Lordships' House that the Manpower Services Commission would commence piloting an entirely novel training scheme designed specifically to meet the needs of those who have been out of work for six months or more. This scheme has three essential elements. It applies to those who have been out of work for the requisite period. It takes place on employers' premises and it must lead to recognised vocational qualifications.
The Manpower Services Commission has considered the pilots, and last week the commission endorsed the report of a working party on the shape of the new scheme. I wish to accept its recommendations in full. The commission is concerned that quality be pre-eminent and I agree completely. It is further concerned that quality dictates the speed of any extension and I again agree. As I agree that qualifications from recognised examining and validating bodies must be part of every individual programme. Indeed, these will be conditions of the job training scheme which will be available for people who come to their first six month Restart interview.
The reskilling of Britain is vital if we are to maintain our current economic progress and achieve the decline of unemployment. We have therefore decided that the new job training scheme should be expanded on a national basis to coincide with the extension of the Restart programme from March this year provided that the Manpower Services Commission can maintain quality in each area. With that very important proviso we will ask the Manpower Services Commission to provide up to 110,000 places by September of this year. This will mean that in a full year nearly a quarter of a million unemployed people will be given high-quality training in skills that will enable them to compete, and to compete successfully, for jobs in today's labour market. This will offer a fresh start, in particular to the under-25s. They must be our priority.
I have visited too many areas with high unemployment and heard too often many employers complain that they cannot find people with the right skills. I hope that this new training measure will play a major part over the next few years to provide the skills necessary to maintain our place in the world. It will, if the Manpower Services Commission can maintain the necessary quality of provision. I have every confidence that it can achieve that.
The job training scheme is for adults. My third announcement concerns young people. We are already ahead of most other countries in the steps we have taken in the last four years to train school-leavers, but there is a further step that I can announce today. The successful introduction of a two-year YTS last year enabled us to guarantee a place to every unemployed 18 year-old school-leaver. Indeed, out of 475,000
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school-leavers only 2,376 were still awaiting the offer of a place on this training programme by Christmas.
I propose to extend the guarantee of a place to every unemployed 17 year-old school-leaver. This will mean that each and every unemployed young person under the age of 18 is now guaranteed high-quality training leading to a recognised qualification. This guarantee is unequalled by any of our principal competitors. For the first time, from this Easter there need be no unemployment under 18 and anyone under that age who remains unemployed will have chosen to remain unemployed.
Finally, there will be a further increase in the enterprise allowance scheme. Over the last three and a half years more than 200,000 unemployed people have started to work for themselves under this programme. Self-employment is rapidly increasing in all parts of the country. Far from a North-South divide, the increase since 1979 has been greatest in Yorkshire and Humberside—77 per cent.—than it has been in any other region. The 43 per cent. increase in the northern region is close to the 46 per cent. increase in the South-East.
We are presently expanding the enterprise allowance scheme towards an annual target of 100,000 unemployed people setting themselves up in business. Next year that target will be increased to 110,000—an expansion of 10 per cent.—but here again I shall be asking the Manpower Services Commission to pay attention to quality and to the amount of help the new businessmen and women will have to help them succeed.
The measures I have announced today constitute a major redirection of our labour market programmes to help the unemployed back into real jobs. Unemployed people need practical help to get back into work and not empty promises to create millions of jobs on local authority payrolls. They need help and training to compete successfully for the jobs which are already becomng available. We need to have a workforce with tomorrow's skills to compete in tomorrow's world. That is what these new measures will help accomplish, and I commend them to your Lordships.
3.15 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, let me commence by thanking the noble Lord for the Statement he has just made. I should like to take up two or three points with him because I think he will agree that it is a rather long Statement and half an hour does not allow very much time to absorb it. Of course I welcome his statement that since 1983 there have been a million new jobs created. It would be extremely churlish of me not to do so. But is it not a fact that recent Answers in your Lordships' House have shown quite clearly that the overwhelming number of these jobs—I think the last quotation was over 600,000 but fewer than 700,000—were in the service sector and the public sector? Desirable though that is, such jobs are not as important to the economy as manufacturing jobs.
Questions are also being raised across the political spectrum, and outside it, as to whether two years' training is long enough. I should like to ask the Secretary of State whether he is aware that in the

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building industry both the public sector and the private sector are of the opinion that the two-year scheme involved there is not producing the finished article and in fact is putting people into the building trade when they are not ready to be absorbed and cannot be gainfully used by the people who wish to do
so.
It would be wrong of me not to press what I think is the weakness in the noble Lord's claim. I think it is an across-the-board criticism but I relate it mainly to his statement regarding young people. He said:
"For the first time, from this Easter there need be no unemployment under 18 and anyone under that age who remains unemployed will have chosen to remain unemployed".
Is he saying that if they do not go on a training scheme they are in fact classed as refusing a job? If that is the case, I think that quite a number of young people would think they were being subjected to some sort of libel.
The whole tenor of the reduction in unemployment contained in the Statement makes the point that people on training schemes are deemed to be in employment. There is a philosophy that divides us. From my party's point of view and from my own, we do not consider those people to be in work at all. We think it is a welcome innovation, but it is completely wrong to class this type of activity as a job. The noble Lord stands accused—this has been referred to in one of the responsible papers this morning—of massaging the figures in order to get the number of unemployed below 3 million just prior to the run-up to the next general election.
Finally, may I ask the noble Lord how the funding for this will occur? He will be aware that quite a large number of people on the present training schemes receive no additional allowance other than their social benefits. Will a special allowance be paid to the new people who are being absorbed into this scheme in order to make it more financially attractive and to give them a chance to live with a little more dignity than some of them are now able to do?
I have made this point before, as have others from these Benches. I come from industry, like some other Members of your Lordships' House. While these training schemes are extremely welcome, even at their best they are not a substitute for jobs. I do not think the noble Lord today has been able to convince this side of the House that the economy is in the healthy state, or is making the rapid upturn, that he makes out in his Statement and that Minister are continually making out in another place.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, I should also like from these Benches to thank the Secretary of State for making his Statement. I apologise for not being in my place as he began to read his Statement. When I tell him, however, that I was engaged on vetting for an approved training scheme he will perhaps forgive me.
This Statement is welcome in very many ways. I do not wish to sound churlish if I say that I greatly welcome the fact that there will be earlier and more frequent interviews of people classed as long-term unemployed. These frequent interviews, starting earlier, should have taken place a very long time ago. It was a great pity that when the opportunity arose the
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Government cut the numbers employed in the jobcentres instead of keeping the staff there and enabling them in those years to get going on these interviews. Had that happened, it is very likely that far more people would have benefited from training by this time. However, better late than never and it is a very good thing indeed that this is being undertaken.
I do not entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, when he criticises the YTS and the other training schemes as being training rather than employment. The fact surely is that unless we give a good deal more training than we have given in the past, there is not a hope of these people getting into jobs. The two are closely related and training has to precede any opportunity of getting into jobs. In many parts of the country there are jobs available but the training has not been done. Therefore those jobs cannot be done. We are very late. The Statement says that we are doing more than our opposite numbers in other countries. That is true, but that is because they have done so very much more in the past and we are now busily engaged on catching up. However, there is much in this Statement that one must welcome.
I should like particularly to ask one or two questions about the job training scheme which is now coming in on a much larger scale. The Secretary of State has said that this scheme is to lead to real qualifications. It was, I think, six months or a year at the outside for people who have been long-term unemployed. Very many of the long-term unemployed are people who have never done any training before; they are people who have been in the ranks of the skilled, the unskilled or, at the most, semi-skilled. What real opportunity is there, honestly, to pretend that they are going to come back at the end of six months with something which is recognisable as a proper qualification of any kind? Can the Secretary of State tell us—this must have been discussed—how it is proposed to use this period so that it really will give them something approximating to a real qualification?
I should also like to ask how this is to be organised and financed. The Secretary of State says that it depends on the Manpower Services Commission being able to provide places of quality. This means, as I understand it, that employers will have to provide, as they are providing under the YTS, the bulk of that training. Many employers are now going full stretch to give the training that is required for the YTS, and that is highly desirable.
Is the Secretary of State satisfied that employers, with the present inducements offered to them, will be able to provide high quality training? And is it not time, if the Secretary of State is to rely on employers to give all this training—and this I think is right—that the financing of employers who are capable of giving real quality training is such that there really is an inducement for them to do it? They will not be training for themselves. They will be training for other people. When the Government say that employers should invest in training, that is true if they are training for themselves. But when they are training for other people they can reasonably expect good resources from outside.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am indeed grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, for

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many of his points, though I suspect from the points he has made today that he should have a word with the leader of his party in another place. Let me say before he does that—and I shall explain in a moment—that I should like to make one point absolutely clear. It is wrong to imply that manufacturing jobs are vital to the future of the economy of this country and service jobs are not. It is simply that all jobs that create wealth are vital to the future of this country. That is the important thing. Whether that creation of wealth is in the service sector or in manufacturing, all jobs are vital.
The noble Lord said that the building trade is a case in point and he went on to say that he does not regard training schemes as being real jobs. I must tell your Lordships that the party opposite in its claim to reduce unemployment by 1 million—even though we who have seen 1 million jobs created in the past three years have also seen unemployment go up during that time—states that it will do so by putting the half a million unemployed building workers back to work.
I must tell the noble Lord that we have been approached by employers' associations and even by the unions, who say that we must have a great big drive to train more people in the construction industries; and we are. That is what this programme will provide and there, I suspect, disappearing in a puff of smoke, go those half a million unemployed. Then if you look at the next category there are 300,000 jobs on training schemes. I suspect that the party opposite values training schemes, as we do if we are to be concerned for the future, because as a result of this measure that I have announced today, by 1991 there will be 1 million more skilled people in the British economy. That is something that we would surely all applaud.
The noble Lord also asked whether I was implying that young people under the age of 18 who did not take part in the YTS would be regarded as unemployed or were being libelled. There is no compulsion. We are saying to young people under 18–16 and 17 yearolds—"When you leave school, you have a guaranteed offer of a place on the YTS." If they choose idleness instead, I regret it. In the course of time I think they will regret it. But it is a matter for them. I suspect that none of them will. When they see and hear what is happening to their fellows, all will come in. I very much hope that that will be the case and I live in anticipation of it.
Of course unemployed people require a special allowance. They will be paid their travelling expenses. But this is, if you like, a partnership between the employers, the unemployed and government. And we are saying to the unemployed, "Come and work for the same money that you are getting at benefit levels, which varies according to your personal circumstances and travelling." Employers will contribute the accommodation and government will provide for the cost of training. As result of that, what we have seen in our pilot schemes leads me to believe that there will be no shortage of young people, or of older people, coming forward to enter the scheme.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. I accept what she said as a supreme political compliment—better late than never. I recall being
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attacked in your Lordships' House for Restart and being accused of all sorts of things. I am glad it is now so accepted and that I am being gently chastised for not having done it years ago. But at no time in the past did the employment programme introduce or contemplate anything like this.
The noble Baroness was quite right to ask what qualifications can be obtained in six months. Noble Lords may be interested to know that, in the category of those who have been out of work for more than six months and who are under 25, no fewer than 29 per cent. have A-levels or their equivalent. What we are talking about are real, valid vocational qualifications.
I am today writing to the chairman of the Business and Technician Education Council, the City and Guilds and the Royal Society of Arts, saying that this programme will be directed towards qualifications produced by them and by the other validating bodies. We are not in the business of producing new qualifications. We are in the business of helping people to take the existing vocational qualifications, all of which are now being ordered by the National Council of Vocational Qualifications, which is assessing qualification levels.
Finally, I was asked whether the employers will contribute and whether they will afford it. I believe that all in your Lordships' House will be pleased to know that this is not my scheme. It is a scheme that has been agreed by the Manpower Services Commission at its last commission meeting. It is one that has been approved by the employers—by the CBI; it is one that has been approved by the trade unions and it is one that has been approved by education and local authority interests. We have seen no shortage of employers coming forward. We have seen no shortage of young people coming forward, and in the pilots alone over 1,000 people are today on the programme. I believe that we are entering a new era, in which we will give the young and the old in this country a way back towards tomorrow's skills and, I hope, tomorrow's jobs.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, in contrast to the somewhat grudging response of the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, there are many of us who welcome enormously this carefully worked out, detailed and very important scheme which he has announced and which, despite his modest rejection of the suggestion, many of us know owes a great deal to his own personal intervention, care and experience? Is my noble friend aware—I am sure he is—that those of us who have some experience in industry know that one of the problems is the lack of availability of sufficiently trained labour to fill vacancies, and that the unemployment figures are inflated as a result of that? Is he aware that it seems clear from his Statement that that problem will be very substantially dealt with in the future?
In response to the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, that a place on a training scheme is no substitute for a job, is he aware that he is doing a much better turn, particularly to a young person, in giving that young person training which will fit him for a job for life rather than putting him into a temporary job with no economic purpose which is funded by large public expenditures?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I find it difficult to dissent from anything my noble friend has said.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the Minister guaranteeing everybody a job for life, on the basis of what the noble Lord has said?
3.30 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, the noble Lord the Minister has added to his Statement a number of comments of his own. He made an electoral preface to the Statement itself in that he claimed that unemployment had fallen over the last few months. Can he tell the House what the figures would have been and whether unemployment would have fallen if the criteria for counting the unemployed had not been changed over the last five years?
At the same time, the noble Lord said that our competitors, particularly in Europe, showed a very favourable figure. I have asked before whether or not he can tell us what other industrial countries have a lower unemployment percentage than this country. His previous answer to that question was, "Spain and Portugal". Has the Minister been able to find any other countries where unemployment is not lower than it is in this country?
In the Minister's peroration he spoke about economic growth and added further comments contrasting service and manufacturing jobs. Can he tell us whether this economic growth of which he boasts includes an increase over the past year in manufacturing production and production of wealth? Does he not agree that the number of service jobs depends directly on the number of manufacturing jobs that can be created?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby. No doubt the recent economic news is somewhat depressing to the noble Lord. However, I do not think we should enter into a general economic debate at this time. May I just say that it is true that during the last three years we have been losing manufacturing jobs at the rate of 8,000 a month. I am sure that all your Lordships will recall that for the entire decade between 1966 and 1976 we were losing manufacturing jobs at a rate of 10,000 a month. The entire industrialised world is losing manufacturing jobs, and I suspect it will continue losing manufacturing jobs because that is the way in which technology changes.
It is not true to say that service jobs depend on an increase in manufacturing jobs. It is true to say that the health of an economy depends upon sufficient wealth creation in the economy to at least match wealth consumption. Alas, for some decades after the war we were better at wealth consumption than we were at wealth creation.
The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, will be delighted to know that the OECD recently revised the unemployment statistics, so he will soon have another target to talk about. They now agree that the rate of unemployment in the United Kingdom is 11·1 per cent., which is what we say it is. One of the reasons why we have this problem of high unemployment is
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that we have had such a legacy of decades of neglect—and I mean that. When we look at the way unemployment has gone in the last five years, we are actually doing rather well.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that physically and even mentally handicapped people have a contribution to make towards the prosperity of industry within the limitations of their skills? Can he give an assurance that it will continue to be government policy to do all that can be done to help to train such people?
Lord Young of Graffham: Yes, my Lords. Certainly so far as disabled younger people are concerned we shall maintain the present position under which young people can enter YTS one day short of their 22nd birthday and under which they will have an adequate time on the scheme to make up for a more difficult learning period. I am also proud of the work which Remploy's sheltered workshops have done, and the work which has been pioneered recently by the Manpower Services Commission in providing sheltered placement to enable disabled people to work among non-disabled people, which is far better for them than working in areas where everyone is disabled. There is a great deal to be done in this area. Disabled workers are good workers. The Fit for Work Award scheme gets more popular each year. We shall certainly never nelgect our disabled workers.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, the noble Lord has made yet another Statement in a series which he has made on training since he became Secretary of State for Employment. As my noble friend has said, we warmly welcome all constructive training plans which the Government introduce, and we shall support them.
However, is the noble Lord aware that he is in grave danger of creating a mood of euphoria in this country based on the belief that by creating opportunities for training he is also creating jobs? Is he aware that he is doing no such thing? The Minister should tell the House where the jobs are; how many real jobs the Government are creating; and whether they can guarantee real jobs in manufacturing industry. Is he aware that it is absurd to suggest that jobs in service industry are of the same value as jobs in manufacturing industry? Is he aware that the root of the economic difficulties of this country is that the Government have failed to create jobs in manufacturing industry, and that we are approaching a disastrous position?
It is of course true to say that jobs in service industry are valuable. Everyone knows that. However, they are not comparable to jobs in manufacturing industry. The noble Lord should be aware of that and make it plain to the public. Furthermore, can he tell the House whether it is true that this new scheme he has announced is properly funded and that it has not been rushed through, as has been reported in the press this morning, in order to push unemployment below 3 million—for electoral purposes—by the summer? Is he aware that the future of our young people and the provision of proper jobs for them is more important than party politics?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, there is no doubt that good economic news does not strike joy into everyone's heart. We can sometimes see that happening. If we have economic difficulties, it is because the party opposite fails to understand that there is absolutely no difference between the service sector and the manufacturing sector; that a hotel in any area which is earning foreign exchange by taking in overseas visitors is just as valid a method of wealth creation as any factory that exports goods; and that what we must look at time and time again is whether or not we have wealth creation within our society. Whether that wealth is created by manufacturing widgets or producing services is immaterial. So long as we do that properly and create wealth, that is where we have to be and that is where we have to go. I challenge the noble Lords opposite to find any economy in the world in which manufacturing employment is increasing. The noble Lord should have listened to the leader of the party opposite when he spoke to the Welsh TUC and said that even if they came back, they could not guarantee to provide any more manufacturing jobs.
The one canard that I tire of is being told time and time again that these measures are being introduced to bring unemployment under 3 million. I can do no more than quote the National Westminster Bank when is said yesterday that unemployment would be 2.9 million by the end of this year, 2.7 million by the end of next year and 2.4 million the year after that. It seems to me that most commentators are deciding that the economy is growing and that unemployment is coming down.
Perhaps I can reassure noble Lords opposite on how much of this is real and how much is imagined. Out of the fall in the unemployed of 107,000 in the last five months, fewer than 30,000 result from an increase in those coming under special measures. The rest is due to the growth of the economy.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that if international comparison is to form the basis for a judgment on this problem, in this country, per 1,000 of population, more people are in employment than in any other European country except Denmark? That has been the case, not three to six months before an election, but for the last three to four years.
Lord Young of Graffham: Yes, my Lords. I occasionally remind all in your Lordships' House that whereas France and Germany have 59 per cent. and 60 per cent. of those of adult age in employment, and the average for Europe is 58 per cent., we have 65 per cent. in employment. We have managed to produce more jobs for our working population than any other major country in Europe. We are very close to the figure in the United States of America.
Lord Ross of Marnock: My Lords, could the noble Lord say whether the polytechnics and colleges of further education which were set up or restructured some 20 years ago are playing a part in these retraining schemes? Is he satisfied that they are making the contribution that they were intended to make when they were set up and restructured?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, but there is a considerable difference between a polytechnic and a college of further education. The area to which the job training scheme is primarily directed—the qualifications of B.Tech., City and Guilds, and RSA—is suited to colleges of further education. I very much hope that they will play an important role in this as they have in YTS, and they are beginning to respond much more today to the needs of industry.
Lord Ross of Marnock: My Lords, will the noble Lord at some time or other produce statistics for Scotland? Is he aware—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Rochester: My Lords, are the Government proposing to take any further action to ensure that those who will be responsible for giving the counselling in the additional interviews that are now to take place under the Restart scheme, and for the long-term unemployed, will themselves receive adequate training in counselling?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, yes. The Manpower Services Commission will have a further 700 members of staff. Training programmes set up by the Manpower Services Commission have been in progress since the scheme first started last year, and these will continue.
Lord Ross of Marnock: My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister will produce some of these figures specifically for Scotland? Is he aware that the optimistic figures he produced in relation to the fall of unemployment in the country—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Ross of Marnock: My Lords, it may not suit noble Lords to hear bad news. Is the Minister aware that the figures of unemployment he produced, rather gaily I thought, in respect of improvements are not duplicated in Scotland, where unemployment is rising? Has he heard of Caterpillar? Has he heard of the Lower Clyde? Has he heard of Babcock? In the past month, one after the other they have produced figures of tremendous unemployment.
Let me welcome the fact that he has given 1¼ million interviews. Is that not great—that he has interviewed people? There was a time when this was done automatically at the old labour exchanges. It is what follows these interviews that really matters. I want the figures for Scotland. I want the figures in relation to Jobstart interviews. I want to get the training figures, and I want to get the results of the training.
At that point the Minister gave things away: after they get these qualifications they may be fitted for real jobs. How many real jobs have come so far? What is the proportion? I think the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, is correct. Are people going to get qualifications to fit them for life after six months? That is utter nonsense; it is eyewash. I want to know if he really believes that.

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The question of colleges was raised. We are closing colleges. Have we got the colleges in Scotland? They have already spilled over into education colleges in Ayr. But the Government have been closing down education colleges, although the chance to use them for proper training is there. In that he is doing good in training, this is a reflection on our education system and shows how wrong we have been.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I must confess that I do not appreciate the use of the term "eyewash" to describe what is a real training measure. It is true that for the past four or five months unemployment has been rising in Scotland. Scotland has suffered the brunt of the closures in the North Sea oil industry; but there was a period of many months before that when unemployment in Scotland was declining. Nobody took great pains to point out that at the time when I announced figures. Nobody in your Lordships' House came to me and said that although unemployment went up in the United Kingdom please note that it went down in Scotland.
I appreciate that there have been closures at Caterpillar, but it occurs to me—and I will write to the noble Lord with the name—that there was the announcement of the opening of a firm of 2,500 people in Scotland last week. I read that Ford are taking on a thousand more people this week. I read that Jaguar are taking on 700 more people this week. I have continually read of closures over the past five months, and yet unemployment has fallen by 100,000. I suspect that many of us in your Lordships' House would do well if we occasionally said to ourselves that perhaps—just perhaps—the economy is improving, and just perhaps there are more jobs about.
Lord Elliott of Morpeth: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that that part of his Statement which suggested the achievement in percentage terms of near balance between the employment position in Humberside and the South of the country will help further to dispel the very damaging suggestion that there are two nations within the one?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I think I should just say I am not too sure whether that will dispel the notion. My right honourable friend the Paymaster General, when he was in Yorkshire yesterday, pointed out that the increase in self-employment was 77 per cent. since 1979. "Ah, well", a Yorkshireman said, "that just shows you how many people here have been driven into working for themselves." There is no pleasing some people.
Lord Oram: My Lords, when a long-term unemployed person has been through the Restart process, then fails to get a job and returns to the register, is that person no longer regarded in the category of long-term unemployed? To what extent is that a factor in the announcement of the reduction in the long-term unemployed to which the Minister referred?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, anybody going to the Restart interview or going on a short Restart
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course returns to the register but if he does not find a job or goes into a Jobclub, he returns as long-term unemployed. If someone leaves the register entirely because he goes on a six months' training programme he is no longer available for work and gets training allowance and not unemployment benefit; and if at the end of that period he is unfortunate enough not to find work he comes back on the register as an ordinary unemployed person. Since Restart has been going, there cannot be many people who have gone off on a six months' training programme and returned to the register. The vast difference in long-term unemployed is because we are helping long-term unemployed people back into work.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that he would create much more confidence on this side if he did not overgloss the situation? Although he says that in no other country have they got these job retraining schemes, is it not a fact that in our principal competitors countries, for example Japan, these lads would have remained at school until the age of 18? Is it not a fact that so far as concerns them they are turning out trained engineers from their colleges and universities? We have not done that, and we are reducing instead of increasing. Is not this long-term degeneration of our training system something about which we should be concerned?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I wish the noble Lord would not refer to a sober statement of fact as a gloss. When I said that our principal competitors do not run schemes as we do, I meant every word of it. I am talking about schemes such as Restart, in which we bring in the unemployed for interview and offer no less then eight different items of help to all the long-term unemployed. Nobody has yet tried to do that. We have done it, and we are improving on it.
The education system, I suspect, leaves a great deal to be desired; and far too many people leave school with little to show for 11 years of compulsory education. But schools are the responsibility of local education authorities and we should be very careful to apportion the credit, and otherwise, where they lie. There are many aspects that we have to make better but we have started the process of getting people back to work and I am sure that all in your Lordships' House will welcome that.

Private Bill Procedure: Select Committee
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Noble Lords will recall that last year, on 24th June, this House concurred with the Commons' resolution of 18th June that it would be desirable to appoint a joint committee of both Houses to consider the whole question of private Bill procedure. Another place has appointed its members and it now behoves this House to do the same in the terms of the Motion set out on the Order Paper. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Commons message of 20th January be now considered and that a Select Committee of seven Lords be appointed to join with the Committee appointed by the Commons to

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examine the processes of enacting Private Legislation and to consider whether:

(a) there are any matters of a kind at present dealt with by Private Bill which could more appropriately be dealt with some other way, taking account of the interests both of Promoters and other affected parties;

(b) any changes are desirable in Private Bill procedure; and

(c) amendments are desirable to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936 and the procedure thereunder;

and to consider whether any amendments are desirable to the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act 1945.
That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the Lords following be named of the Committee:

Atholl, D.

Bancroft, L.

Bellwin, L.

Jacques, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Oram, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

That the Committee have power to agree with the Commons in the appointment of a Chairman; and
That the Joint Committee do meet on Wednesday the 4th of February next at half-past four o'clock.—(Viscount Whitelaw.)
On Question, Motion agreed to; and it was ordered that a Message be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.

Charity Law
3.51 p.m.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale Lord Allen of Abbeydale rose to call attention to the case for reviewing the charity law and the role of the Charity Commission; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I at last beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I begin by stating that I am a trustee of several charities, I should like to thank all those who have put down their names to speak today, with perhaps a particular word of thanks to the right reverend Prelate.
I am conscious that we debated some of these issues rather less than a year ago but I make no apology at all for returning to the subject today. It is one affecting a great many people and involving a great deal of money. I can only say that so far we have not received very much enlightenment from the Government. Things are always under consideration, but nothing very much actually happens.
The income of charities runs into billions of pounds; tax relief is substantial, to put it mildly; and the continued growth of charitable effort is indicated by the fact that getting on for 4,000 charities apply for registration each year. Since our last debate one or two things have happened. The Finance Act gave further tax concessions and, in a very important provision, authorised the Inland Revenue to tell the Charity Commission if it had suspicions about a particular charity. We have also had an Answer to a Question by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, on 6th
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November 1986 at col. 1248 of the Official Report saying that the Government had no present plans for changes in charity law. I understand that it has been decided, following a Treasury staff investigation, that the Charity Commission may keep its existing number of staff but is not to have any more to cope with new work or to enable it to carry out its existing work more effectively.
Alas, there are still serious delays in registering new charities. There are still doubts and obscurities about whether particular activities will be accepted as charitable. Most charities fail to send in their accounts and not all that much is done about those accounts which do come in. The register of charities remains uncomputerised and I am sure is cluttered up with a lot of dead wood. The Charity Commission does not have the staff to carry out field visits on any scale, and overall its attitude necessarily remains one of reacting to events rather than initiating action itself.
Against this background, it seems to me that there is, to begin with, a strong case for looking again at the statutory provisions involved. I am not suggesting an attempt to define in an Act of Parliament what constitutes charity. That indeed would be to venture into a morass, and I have another approach to suggest in that context. But there are quite a few questions to be thought about as possibly improving the present state of affairs.
For instance, the commissioners, acting judicially, cannot at present refuse to register an institution which is impeccably charitable in law according to its declared objects, whatever suspicion they may have about its real intentions. There is much to be said for giving them power to register a charity on a probationary basis to see if over a period it lives up to its declared objects. Perhaps indeed all charities should be registered provisionally to begin with. Then, as the development of charity law to meet new and changing circumstances rests on judicial decisions and charities cannot afford to go to law, would it not be right to set up a suitors' fund to enable cases involving important issues to be taken to the courts at public expense, a course for which there are good statutory precedents?
Should there be some relaxation of the tight controls in the Charities Act 1960 over the disposal of property and land? Should the cy-pres provisions in that Act he looked at again? Under that Act a charity with an income of less than £15 does not have to register. Should that figure be put up to, say, £100? Should the 1985 Act—it was passed in 1985 although it seems only the other day that we were debating it—dealing with small charities be further simplified and perhaps greater powers of initiative given to the Charity Commission?
Can we not bring up to date the legislation on trustee investment? Should charities be allowed to advertise on television? Should the Official Custodian for Charities be allowed to charge fees for looking after property and investments? Should all charities, and not just those with perpetual endowments, be obliged to submit accounts? Should charities be obliged to make their accounts available for inspection by members of the public who can show good cause? Should charities with an income above a certain limit be obliged to have their accounts audited?
Should the Charity Commissioners be given greater power to remove trustees where there has been maladministration, or to wind up a charity which devotes precious little of its income to the ostensible purposes of the charity? Should there not be a serious examination of the proposals in the report of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations on malpractices in fund-raising, some of them involving legislation? That is an important report on which so far the Government have remained notably silent, as I fear appears to be there wont when faced with reports on charities from Goodman on.
There to start with are a dozen possible changes in the law to be thought about. Come to think of it, I believe it adds up to a baker's dozen, which might perhaps appeal to at any rate one member of the Cabinet. If some of these changes were made it could result in a better use of staff and at least a reduction in the possibility of some scandalous misuse of charitable funds. I have been wondering whether one possible course might be for issues of this kind to be looked at by a Select Committee of this House rather like that which led to the 1985 Act, but I am not sufficiently expert to know whether that is really a starter. Perhaps other ideas will emerge during the debate.
I now turn briefly to the role and the resources of the Charity Commissioners themselves. I sometimes wonder whether the Treasury—I try to forget that it is a department in which I once served—understands what is the role of the commission under the 1960 Act. I notice that no extra staff were provided to cope with the consequences of information handed over by the Inland Revenue under the new powers; though I understand that the small unit which has been created is finding that this involves quite a lot of work. Incidentally, I hope that there will be some ongoing publicity about the progress of this co-operative effort.
I thought I had a significant reply when, some time ago, I asked about certain provisions included in the Finance Bill as introduced last year. It suggested that those concerned had very little knowledge of how charities actually work and the provisions were withdrawn when enlightenment was forthcoming. In that reply the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, confirmed that the commissioners had not been consulted about the proposals and he spoke in terms which implied that, if they had been, the risk of leakage would have been just as great as if any outside body had been consulted. Those exchanges are recorded in col. 6 of Hansard on 21st July 1986.
The charity world, not surprisingly, was astonished that the Government completely failed to take advice from their own professional experts within government. Indeed, this ought not to happen again. I gather that the Inland Revenue subsequently got over its fears of leakage and is currently consulting some knowledgeable people in the charity world before this year's Finance Bill is unveiled to our horrified gaze.
There is widespread appreciation of what Mr. Denis Peach, the present chairman of the Charity Commission, has done during his period in office; but Mr Peach is due to retire within 12 months. Will the Government take this opportunity not only to make a suitable appointment to the top post after open competition but also to strengthen the supporting
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posts near the top in order to equip the commissioners better both to organise their own responsibilities and to function as advisers to government, as they should?
Will the Government also think about the possibility of appointing, say, two extra non-executive commissioners from outside or perhaps giving the commissioners the backing of a pretty high-powered advisory committee—call it what you will—with whom they could discuss tricky policy issues? That could include, for example, the attitude they should take in deciding what constitutes charitable activity in such controversial areas as the relief of unemployment, the advancement of human rights and the furtherance of religion. Perhaps that is a point at which I could look rather expectantly in the direction of my noble and learned friend who is to speak later in the debate.
I know very well that there is currently an expert looking at the scope for using computers in the Charity Commission, that the Home Office is planning a six-week Rayner-type inquiry into the commission and that the National Audit Office is even now scrutinising the work of the commission—it must be the most scrutinised department of all time—but I hope that the Minister will not just rest on telling us that various inquiries are in hand and that nothing can yet be decided.
Social needs have much changed since 1960, including increased reliance on voluntary effort, but the law and the resources have not kept up. We are talking about activities involving the wellbeing of many of the less fortunate members of the community and we do not want them marred by muddle, delays, malpractices or failure to apply the large sums of money involved—much of which is provided at the cost of the taxpayer—to their proper purposes. The arguments for fresh legislative and administrative action are, to my mind, very powerful. I beg to move for Papers.
4.5 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, for his tenacity in again bringing up in your Lordships' House the question of charities. Much of what I have to say underlines what the noble Lord said, and I, too, should like to pay tribute to the Charity Commission, the staff, and the Charity Commissioner, Mr. Peach, who rightly was honoured last year.
The Charity Commission comes in for a great deal of opprobrium not because its staff is poor, inadequate or inefficient but because the commission does not have adequate facilities. I take up a point which the noble Lord, Lord Allen, made. Charities register at the rate of one every half hour of a working day. This betokens two points. The first is the enormous amount of work which the Charity Commissioners have to do and the second is the growing wish among the people of this country to set up charities. Six hundred letters are received each day. There is a backlog of three weeks before any matter can be dealt with. There are 60,000 to 70,000 files stored in the commission's office and to refer to one of those takes three days; and there is a considerable staff shortage.
In this country there is a great deal of complaint about the work of the Charity Commission through no

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fault of its own. It was in my mind to write to The Times and, indeed, to other newspapers, to ask those people who had been dissatisfied with the service received to write to me. However, in the first place I knew I should not be able to deal with the correspondence and in the second place it would have been unfair on the Charity Commission because it would look as if the commission itself was inefficient.
It is not known, and nor has it been quantified, what is not done. Time and again people write to say that they have written to the Charity Commission and received no reply, and I think that that will be borne out—the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, brought such a case to my notice only a short while ago. Therefore, I believe it should in some way be possible to find out, perhaps through community councils or local authorities, what is not being done in the country and what is not known about.
I also take up another point which the noble Lord, Lord Allen, spoke about. I refer to the very excellent report by the Natonal Council of Voluntary Organisations, the chairman of which was Mr. Harry Kidd, on malpractices in fund raising for charity. There are many recommendations for legislation in this report. The malpractices in this country are quite frightening, and they do not come to light.
My arm is in plaster. If I asked every one of your Lordships to sign the plaster, auctioned it and made a lot of money which I said I would give to charity but kept 80 per cent. of the proceeds and gave only 20 per cent. to charity, nobody would question me. One must read the report, because I suggest that that is what is going on in this country. Very many people who are contributing to charity do not realise the malpractices that go on.
It is strange to me that if there is a little trouble in the City there is a great deal of debate in your Lordships' House and in the other place; if there is a fault with local government, it is taken up; if there is a difficulty in a government department, the matter is looked into. Why is it not loked into when there is malpractice in the case of voluntary organisations, particularly when the money is given voluntarily, for specific purposes? It seems wrong that we should throw away and abuse the generosity of the many people who give so much money.
On the subject of the Charities Act 1985 to which the noble Lord, Lord Allen, referred, the Charity Commission has published and distributed 7,000 copies of a booklet. Either because there is not the staff in the Charity Commission or perhaps—I am bound to say this—because the Act was not right, although there was movement when it was first passed, this has ceased to be. Therefore, with small, parochial charities a good deal of money is being wasted and lost.
As to past history, as the noble Lord, Lord Allen, said, committees have been set up again and again to look into charities and to make recommendations—the Nathan Committee of 1952, the House of Commons Select Committee of 1975, the Goodman Committee of 1970 and a report from the Conservative Political Centre in October 1984. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, in 1980 said:
"The legal concept of charity is not static but moving and changing".
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I suggest, as has the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, that the Charity Commission has no political mileage in it and, therefore, nothing gets done.
I believe that there should be a charity council. This council should be advisory and consultative. It should consist of two or three Members of the other place and two or three Members of your Lordships' House, perhaps with outside experts. Such a council would therefore be able to monitor, look at and receive requests or complaints about the administration of charity. I believe that until we get some such council to which people can refer, the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, will be introducing yet another debate, and that nothing will have been done.
4.13 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I am sure that we are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, for once again introducing this subject for a short debate. Last time the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, preceded me in the debate and we were seaparated by a 50-minute interval for Statements to be made in the Chamber. This time we have been delayed by 50 minutes in starting the debate, such are the procedures of your Lordships' House.
It is difficult to avoid agreeing with everybody else in the debate. There is so much common thought and purpose about charities that what we want is for something to happen. There is no sign of serious attention being given by the Government to the numerous problems that arise in regard to charities.
The Government are in a desperate hurry to provide more tax relief to help finance charities. I was criticising last year what I thought then might be the Government's scheme for single gifts to charities to be tax deductible. The scheme that was introduced was less objectionable than that; it did not follow the American model. We all know that deductions under pay-as-you-earn are now for arrangement by employers, which makes it more modest and more widespread than otherwise it might have been.
Even so, more money is being made available to charities this year than before, imposing a fresh drain on the taxation revenue of the public, while not at the same time tackling some of the underlying problems of financial and commercial management of charitable bodies. There is so much money now going into charities and so much public interest involved in support, donations, contributions and tax relief, that it is indefensible that we should continue in this way year after year. After 14 years or so the Goodman Report—the last substantial informal inquiry into charitable law—still stands neglected, and most of it relates to the problems that we discuss from time to time.
It has been said that as a nation we cannot move faster than our institutions will allow. The Government have undoubtedly tackled some of the institutions that have been in need of attention. In general I think that the state is like Gulliver in Lilliput, tied down by unnumerable strands of rope attached to innumerable stakes, all labelled "vested interests", with the charities among them. We cannot get moving because of the antiquity of much of the charity law, the deplorable inadequacy of the resources of the Charity

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Commission and its lack of sufficient authority and power to investigate and do its job.
It is not a scrutinising body. The Charity Commissioners are like policemen on the beat. They are not plain clothes detectives; they act on information received, some of it from the Inland Revenue and a lot of it from rival charities, which will complain about the activities of their contemporaries. That is from where the Charity Commissioners receive so much of their information. Other charities watch their rivals and complain bitterly to the Charity Commission that the rules are being broken. What a way to run charities, yet so we go on.
I hope that this time we are to have from the Minister something more positive than we have had before. We do not want waffle this time. Can we be told whether the Government are to set about an inquiry into charitable law and practices so that we may have some reassurance and give our minds to the changes that are needed? For example, the accounts of all collecting societies of any size should be subject to the comprehensive audit procedure that now applies to local authorities and other public bodies. There is no audit in the charitable world of value for money, nor are all managers in the charitable world good managers. There are many dedicated people in charitable work who are not all that competent in administration and prudent management. I think that that is most important in the public interest.
I hope that the Charities Aid Foundation can develop its role of assisting charities to get higher standards of administration. I am also concerned about the integrity of appeals made by charities. There is a lot of emotional stimulus at present to arouse the public's conscience and to make people feel guilty so that they part with their money in order to assuage their consciences. We are all subject to that. We are distressed by so much on television about the handicapped, the disabled, the deprived and the poverty stricken, and about abused children, and all the social distress that viewers see day after day and night after night. It is most disturbing to those of us who feel deeply about these matters. Many of us can do little more than give our money to charity; otherwise we cannot sleep at night. The charities benefit from this state of mind. More than many people and many institutions, they have a responsibility for the emotional state of those who give their money.
I am beginning to question the role of the BBC in this connection. The BBC is now becoming a very large fund raiser. Is the BBC now a charity? Is it an arm of the charitable world? Day after day, the Children In Need programme went on until they raised a target figure of millions of pounds for distribution to children's charities. Do we know where all the money goes? Do we know the real need of many children's charities that lies behind the appeal? That kind of thing needs to be the subject of scrutiny and judgment.
My noble friend Lord Allen mentioned the possibility of television advertising for charities. Are we going to have that now? If so, is it not time that we had some advertising standards? From my own experience I know that a distressing advertisement of children in acutely deprived conditions is not a picture
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of real life but a commercial product. We must be careful about using commercial advertising agencies for charitable purposes. We must be sure that what is being presented to the public is real and not simulated.
I know the difficulty of photographing people who are in dreadful straits and who wonder whether their pictures will appear publicly so that their neighbours or friends will see their plight. I admit that difficulty, but to conjure up and concoct pictures for advertising purposes for charities is not permissible. I believe that there should be rules. Standards of advertising for charity should certainly be considered.
There are so many appeals. We must realise that the public and its money are easily parted. I need not dwell on the fact that we are a generous and responsive people. However, we must be realists and at least understand that at times charities, like other institutions, may succumb to the temptations of a materialistic society and the corruption of money. Charities must keep their hands clean; otherwise they do not deserve the support of the public.
I am not imputing any criticism to any particular charity. I say only that during the short time that I was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (it is true that this was 20 years ago) and the Minister in the Cabinet responsible for voluntary services, I did not like a great deal that I encountered in the voluntary services movement. I can only hope that a great deal of improvement has been made since then.
In the public interest, we now want the charities, together with the trades unions, the Stock Exchange, insurance services and financial services to go through the mincer and have their affairs more closely examined. I sincerely hope that the Minister will have something more concrete to say. Let us not have an annual debate on charities for no purpose whatever other than to repeat our continuing anxieties, agree with each other and obtain nothing from the Minister which gives us any comfort.
4.24 p.m.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, the House should be particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, for raising this matter a second time having allowed what is about the right period to elapse between the two Motions. The Government have had nearly a year to consider the many questions and suggestions put to them. No doubt, as the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, hopes they will tell us that something concrete will be done.
The first reason for welcoming the debate is the set of very pertinent questions which, once again, the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, put before us. However, there is now an additional reason for some action; namely, the approach of the general election. A general election leads to an absolute spate of lobbying, a great deal of which comes from charities. The Home Secretary himself expressed some doubt about whether that lobbying always serves a useful purpose.
There is only one point on which I must disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Allen, and that is his suggestion of a probation period for charities. I disagree, not because I think that it would do any harm, but because I am not quite certain that it would cure the trouble. It seems to me that difficulties would

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arise at the end of the probationary period. The trouble usually is not that the charities deviate from what they say they will do but that there is justifiable doubt about whether what they do should be termed charitable.
I should like to cite the case of the Moonies which was widely canvassed. At the end of any probationary period, the difficulties about the Moonies would still exist. We can take an entirely different form of organisation. For example, I think that most people in this country wholly agree that it would he entirely beneficial to the community—which is one of the purposes of charity—if enormous sums of money were given to the Alliance. Of course there are benighted minorities in the country who would take a different view, and I am afraid that no amount of probation would reconcile the two.
I quite understand and sympathise with the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Allen, shies away from any definition of "charity" but, presumably, somebody has to decide whether or not something is a charity. Although it may not be a matter of legislation, I think we must face the difficulty about defining what is "a charity" and possibly give some guidance upon it. As the noble Lord has rightly said, charities are now very big business—is it £4 billion a year?—and are being formed at the rate of 4,000 a year. I am afraid that sooner or later we shall have to grasp the nettle.
It has often been said that when a charity is exempted from taxation it means that it receives a compulsory gift, so to speak, from other taxpayers. It may not be a very large gift but by the amount that the charity is exempted, other taxes, presumably, have to be increased. In passing, I should say that I wholly admire the voluntary organisations. But I sometimes wonder whether the word "voluntary" in the case of all of them is really justified. Many receive very large subventions from the Government. And, again, those are compulsory payments by the taxpayer.
The next point I want to make—I made it before but this will be, I hope, my only repetition—is that it is not essential to be a charity to carry out beneficial purposes. The organisation of which, for many years, I was a director—the Joseph Rowntree Social Services Trust—is not a charity. It paid its taxes but expended its money on purposes which the founder thought beneficial and social. Sometimes, it is assumed that because a particular, excellent objective is not charitable, it is difficult to support.
The crucial question that I want to put to the Government concerns Scotland. During the previous debate, it was pointed out that the Charity Commission does not operate in Scotland. As I understand it, the decision is left to the Inland Revenue. Presumably, by now, the Government have looked into whether charitable affairs are better dealt with in England or in Scotland. If, in fact, Scotland manages perfectly well without the Charity Commission, it may be that, with some additional legislation, the whole matter can be left to the Inland Revenue.
If on the other hand the Inland Revenue relies upon the Charity Commission, which I suspect is what it does—the noble Lord, Lord Allen, is nodding his head—I would strongly support (and this is my
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principal reason for speaking again) the suggestions may by the noble Lord, Lord Allen, and the noble Baroness, Lady Faithful!, in the previous debate for, as I understand it, an advisory committee to assist the commissioners. That seems to be simple and inexpensive, and, as I understand, can be done quickly. We may have to have a more general inquiry and new legislation. The proposals of the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, which she has outlined so cogently and which I need not repeat, would be simple and I should have thought helpful to the commissioners.
I have one piece of evidence to support that. The Joseph Rowntree Social Service Trust started paying money some years ago to the political parties to enable it to hire research assistants. This may now have gone too far. It was a departure which at the time seemed useful. We received a great deal of helpful advice from the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, who at that time was the Labour Chief Whip. It is useful for charities, which may be operating on the verges of charitable work, to have advice from people experienced in politics and, as the noble Baroness said, from people possibly outside politics altogether. I hope that the Government have given serious consideration to the matter during the past 11 months.
The noble Baroness was not the only speaker to make useful suggestions. The noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, and the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, also did so and received favourable notices from the Government. Has anything been done about them? That is the crux of the matter.
It seems impossible that the Charity Commission could supervise the accounts of all charities. It should possibly confine its attention to the accounts of the larger charities. When an amount of money of this size is at stake, it is highly desirable that the accounts should be available to the public if they are wanted and that if necessary those of the larger charities should be subject to periodical examination by the commissioners.
I hope that the debate does not cover the same ground as it did 11 months ago but that we shall hear from the Government what progress they have made and what concrete steps they intend to take.
4.32 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester: My Lords, the theory of charity and the action of the law of charity is of course important in my life in many ways. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Allen, for providing me with this opportunity to speak on certain aspects which are particularly in the mind of a bishop. I should like also to thank the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, for what he said about spurious spirituality in charity.
What I wish to say first about the increase in charitable activity, which has been remarked on by several noble Lords, is that it is a matter for profound gratitude that our country is so engaged in charitable activity. But there is a spurious spirituality which is beginning to worry many of those whose spirituality can be labelled easily and clearly as religious. Those people such as the university teacher who recently said to me, "I am not religious at all but I do have a spirituality", are as concerned as we are about this spuriousness.

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I wish to draw attention to some of the doubts about charitable activities which the noble Lord, Lord Allen, mentioned and which verge on the question which he, as I, pose and which the noble and learned Lord may later investigate and refer to. My particular concern stems from my responsibilities as chairman of the Advisory Council on Relations between Bishops and Religious Communities within the Church of England. A number of our communities are contemplative and do not carry out any activity that in a purely secular sense can be seen to be charitable. They are supported, often modestly, by donors whose intention in supporting them is precisely the same as when they support the more obviously publicly well-doing charity. We find that they cannot be regarded as charities under the charity law.
To put it simply, the existing law does not recognise that prayer is charitable. On that matter, the lawyer and the theologian will find themselves unable to agree. The basis of that inability to agree may be because two different definitions of the word "charitable" are being used.
The established Church sees prayer as a charitable activity and so, I believe, do the other religions which I emphasise are of increasing importance in the spirituality of our land. With regard to contemplative communities being regarded as charities, the Charity Commissioners normally refer to a decision given by the Law Lords of this House in the case of Gilmour and Coats. It is an interesting case in which a Carmelite convent was left a sum of money on condition that the convent was engaged in charitable work. If it was found that the convent was not so engaged, the money was to go to the Roman Catholic Converts Aid Society.
The judgment finally declared that the money had to go to the society because the Carmelite sisters were not doing anything that would give public benefit as a charitable work. To put it simply, as one commentator did, the benefits to the public of intercessory prayer were not susceptible of legal proof. One is perfectly willing to agree to that. One would have to go on to say that nor are the benefits of many counselling charities and a good many other activities which now go under the name of charitable.
Curiously, the advance of the Christian religion has been allowed as grounds for charitable work. Apparently prayer is not regarded as part of the work for the advancement of the Christian religion, which to Christians is an entirely unacceptable point of view.
Beside that must be set the question of how we are to cope with non-Christian charitable organisations which are essentially contemplative and do their work through prayer. It appears that at present the law cannot cope with that problem. I suggest that it is important that it does. It is especially important for some of the great deeply spiritual religions which are now becoming so much a part of the life of our cities if not yet of the whole of our country.
I hope the question of how the charitable law refers to purely religious activities will be reconsidered. I know that that immediately opens up in the minds of many the problem of the sects. I submit that that is a
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different question. It is connected with what has already been referred to in relation to how charities are administered and the checking of what is done with the money. I ask that the spiritual basis of charity should be given due weight in further consideration of the improvements that are so necessary in every part of our law on charity.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, perhaps I may add, albeit in a rather hoarse voice, my thanks and congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, on his persistence in following through most contructively a deep interest in the future of charities and the law. As one Member of your Lordships' House who served on the Select Committee on Small Charities, I retain a wish to see conditions improve both for the commission and for its clients.
The fact that the commission is expected to deal with the innermost workings of approximately 150,000 charities, growing I am told at the rate of 4,000 per annum, with a staff of 330 makes its task surely almost superhuman. It is small wonder that those of us who appeal to the commission for advice for our charity grow impatient when its answers take a long time to arrive. We all know that delay can cost money and opportunity but we should be finding a way not to impose this extra handicap on the spontaneous endeavours of voluntary groups of people.
The voluntary groups are important if only to counter the recurrent national and personal tragedies and cases of need that crop up. The wish to help is invaluable but it is a fickle spirit and if snubbed or delayed it is liable to vanish. This is a very lively time in the field of charity. However, the commission appears to be caught. At a time of striving by the charitable world to meet the requirements of today's society, the commission's establishment has virtually stood still.
What can be done to improve the scene? Obviously everything necessary should be done, including the installation of the most modern techniques. I hardly like to mention computers since I would not know how to work one. However, to do less than that is to undervalue the best of the voluntary effort that is so generously offered.
The main thrust of my remarks is to ask that the money which is subscribed by the public with such heart-warming generosity—and so evident in recent appeals—should be used to the best possible advantage. This means that advice has to be quickly obtainable from the commission together with an assurance that care is taken to prevent misuse. There are many and diverse means of raising money as was illustrated by my noble friend Lady Faithfull. The new and important provisions of the Finance Act will further complicate the work of the Charity Commissioners, although the Inland Revenue will also be closely involved. New opportunities could be of great help to worthwhile charities and should help them to achieve their objectives more quickly. That prospect cheers the hearts of those of us who are deeply involved in charities, but we want to see proper safeguards.
It is vital at this stage that the staff of the Charity Commissioners should be empowered to deal

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promptly with present-day requirements. It is for that reason that I strongly support the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale.
4.45 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, as always, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, who embodies in the eyes of many of us the selfless longing to help one's fellow men and women, which is the essence of what we are talking about today. Before coming to my remarks, I should like to say how much I support the intentions of the right reverend Prelate. I only hope that somehow or other his purpose of putting prayer on a footing with good works will be achieved.
We are told in the Gospels—at any rate in the translation available to me—that Mary was supposed to have chosen the better part when she listened to the word of the Lord. Although nothing was said against Martha, Mary would seem to rank on at least the same footing—perhaps a higher footing—as charitable. I can see that it will be difficult, but as has been pointed out, the ordinary charities which counsel in so many forms, cannot really produce results. Therefore I do not see why a new approach should not be made to the matter.
However, it cannot be left to the Government unaided. I think that the right reverend Prelate, with all his spiritual resources—apart from his prayers—and with all his influence in the religious world should be backed up by us all. No one has asked me to speak for the Roman Catholics, but I cannot doubt that they are on his side here even if they might lose something which might otherwise go to the converts' aid.
I hesitated to take part in this debate, although I would always have a prejudice in favour of supporting a Motion put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale. I am not one of those who are perhaps a little nervous about the sums of money going to charity. I should like to see much more go to charity. Therefore, I do not want anything to be said which would discourage charity. I yield to no one in my admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. He gave a vivid account of the way in which his conscience worked and of the sleepless nights when the programmes about helpless children were shown on television. If I may say so, with great respect, I think that that is good for him. I think that the more sleepless nights leading to a wonderful cheque in the morning, the better. I do not say that that is true of him alone. I am sure he is more generous than most of us.
I do not deplore the capacity to inspire guilt which seems to be the modern technique of the charity-mongers. Let them develop that technique and let us all feel more guilty, have more sleepless nights and give much more to charity!
Turning to the general topic, I should like to concentrate on two points. I hope that I shall have the sympathy of the noble Lord, Lord Allen, and, if I am lucky, the sympathy of the House and the Government. The first topic is the position of foreign organisations setting up charities in the United Kingdom. If time permits, I should like to say a word about the graduated registration fee on charities. First, I should like to draw the attention of the House to the
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question of foreign charities. I do not pretend to be a specialist on the matter. It has recently come to my attention through the energy and imagination of the dynamic leader of the Matthew Trust, Mr. Peter Thompson, who has raised these matters with Government and the noble Lord, Lord Allen. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Allen, was, to say the least, sympathetic, but there was not room for this argument in his speech. He is happy, I believe, that I should raise it.
Among well-informed people there seems to be widespread concern about foreign organisations setting up charities in the United Kingdom. There is special anxiety about foreign organisations which set up charities to raise money here and then take the money out of the country. It seems impossible to trace most of that money. I do not say that there are many abuses, but there is no doubt that there are some. To cut a long story short, I think that this whole matter needs to be looked into and to be brought under control. If required, I could give the Minister after the debate various examples of alleged abuses, but he may already have them. However, in the time available I believe that it would be wrong for me to begin mentioning names of organisations which are suspect. I think that it would be unfair to them if I were to handle the matter so rapidly.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to be aware of this kind of abuse. In June 1986 he brought forward various proposals which subsequently became law, including the following:
"A charity's tax relief will be subject to restriction where it makes payments to overseas bodies without taking reasonable steps to ensure that they are used for charitable purposes".
That seems to me to be a step in the right direction, but surely it does not go far enough. It may well be that the Chancellor will go further later on. I hope that there will be wide support for a recommendation of the kind that I am about to put forward, although I am not saying that the wording is perfect: namely, that trustees of charities in the United Kingdom, when charities have a foreign authority, should be comprised of a majority of British subjects to keep the control of the affairs of the charity within the United Kingdom. As I have said, no doubt the wording could be improved or supplemental and other steps taken that may be necessary.
I have given the Minister some notice of the matter, although not a great deal. However, I hope that he will at least agree that—to quote the famous words once used by the then Prince of Wales—"Something must be done".
Before concluding I should like to indicate another and in a sense more far-reaching proposal. I am sure noble Lords here do not question the ability of the Charity Commissioners. We all take their integrity for granted. As was stated by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, and others, every time a new duty is imposed upon them it becomes more obvious that their resources are totally unequal to the task of coping with 150,000 charities.
I venture to suggest that one solution would be to impose a small annual registration fee. I would certainly exempt small charities. I admit I have a slight prejudice in favour of small charities, having started three such charities myself. I have always been very

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well treated by the Charity Commissioners. A graduated fee would enable the Charity Commissioners to acquire the kind of resources which are required if they are to continue to do the job that they are already striving so well to do.
4.51 p.m.
Lord Airedale: My Lords, I have the honour to be another member of that Select Committee on two Private Members' Bills which sat under the very able chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman. Our deliberations led to the introduction of the 1985 Bill which became the Charities Act of that year. We took evidence from the Charity Commissioners, and it is quite clear that one thing that made a deep impression upon our minds was the difficulties of the commissioners as expressed to us in evidence.
In their latest report of 1985, the Charity Commissioners have repeated for all the world to read the difficulties under which they labour. Paragraph 2 of their introduction states:
"The Commission is affected by cash limits and restraints—indeed reductions—in staff numbers, and by our inability to do as much as we should like or as speedily as we should wish. Our work increases, but staff decreases. A recent Debate in the House of Lords (5th March 1986) highlighted the concern about our resources and the undue delay in dealing with work; the incomplete and out-of-date information held in the Central Register of Charities; the lack of a computerised register; and our insufficient supervision of charities. We recognise and much regret these deficiencies. We hope that at least we may be allowed to keep the staff we have; indeed we should wish for a modest increase."
Paragraph 10 states:
"We are constrained by our limited resources from scrutinising accounts of all charities; the degree to which trustees as a whole efficiently, and effectively manage their trust property is not known to us."
This raises the question: what is the use of Parliament setting up an official body and entrusting it with tasks to undertake if the organisation is then to be denied the financial resources to enable it to undertake the tasks imposed upon it?
Our Committee were haunted from time to time by the fear that at some time some scandal would arise concerning funds of some large charity being misapplied for wrongful purposes and articles appearing in newspapers asking what the Charity Commissioners were doing about this and why they were not alert to prevent this scandal arising.
How unfair that criticism might have been. When one considers the amount of work undertaken by charities which would otherwise have to be undertaken by the taxpayer, and even allowing for the fact that some charities receive grants from public funds, one sees that the taxpayer gets an enormous benefit from this arrangement. He gets a tremendous bargain out of it. One thinks of charities such as the Salvation Army, the lifeboat service, charities providing amenities for patients in hospital.
There are 154,000 charities, as has been mentioned already. Let the Treasury go through those 154,000 cases and select those charities that are doing work which would otherwise fall upon the taxpayer to do. Let them add up the total figure and set beside it the figure that would be required to enable the Charity
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Commissioners properly to fulfil their functions with adequate financial resources. I believe that if those two figures were placed side by side we should all be ashamed at the financial stringency being imposed upon the Charity Commissioners. I very much hope that we shall not go on reading in their annual reports that the Charity Commissioners are not receiving the financial support they deserve.
4.57 p.m.
Lord Denning: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Allen of Abbeydale, and let me first say that he has made a strong case for reviewing the charity law and the role of the Charity Commission. My noble friend Lord Airedale has made a strong case for saying that at the moment the Charity Commissioners cannot do their work properly, or at all, because they do not have sufficient staff or other resources to fulfil all the duties which Parliament has imposed upon them.
I propose this evening to speak about one particular group of charities. One of the main headings that charities come under is that for the advancement of religion. That has been carried so far as to enable religious cults to be set up in England, many coming from the United States. Such charities collect money which is amassed by the founders, who have great wealth. They also cause much distress to families by their doctrines.
I should like to give two illustrations. Some years ago the Daily Mail published articles exposing the activities of the Unification Church, called the Moonies. The Daily Mail put forward many young people to show the evil practices that were going on. The church sued the paper for libel. After many days a jury found the allegations were justified and added the comment that there should be an investigation into the tax-free exemption of this Unification Church.
The rest of the story is simple. The Charity Commissioners felt that according to the law the Unification Church was still an advancement of religion. Pressure was such that the Attorney-General brought an action in the courts to test the position to see whether it is a charity. The pleadings are not closed yet. There will be a long trial in the Chancery Division, then the Court of Appeal, then the House of Lords. The best estimate I can get is that it will be five years before it is decided whether or not the Moonies, the Unification Church, are a charity.
Meanwhile there has been a most important case in the High Court of Australia only two years ago about the Church of Scientology. I am afraid that in the courts judges, including me, have criticised those scientologists. But now in the High Court of Australia all five judges of the highest court in their land have held that it is a religious institution and exempt from taxes in Australia.
It was described this way by the Chief Justice:
"Scientology is said to have been discovered, developed and organised by Mr. Hubbard alone. The Library is large and the meaning of much of it is obscure".
No one has been able properly to define religion, but the Chief Justice said:
"The criteria of religion are two-fold: first, belief in a supernatural being, thing or principle, and second the acceptance of canons of conduct in order to give effect to that belief".

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These words in that test are so wide that they not only cover the scientologists but, as I read them, all the religious cults now operating in this country and in the United States.
Your Lordships should know what happens. They choose a leader. It may be Mr. Hubbard for the scientologists; the Reverend Moon for the Unification Church; it may be Mr. Armstrong for the Worldwide Church of God; or it may be Mr. Taylor for the Exclusive Brethren. They have a leader. That leader preaches its doctrine. He gets adherents to go out and collect money for his work. The money goes into his coffers and those of his trustees. There is no tax on it at all. It is not accountable at all. There are no shareholders to complain as there would be in a company. There are no named beneficiaries to complain, as there would be in a charity trust or ordinary trust. There is no one to complain. Therefore these religious cults are not accountable before the law at all.
That is how they are enabled to amass these great fortunes; and I am afraid also—and I have had masses of letters addressed to me—cause great distress in families by separating children from parents and telling children as part of the doctrine that they must have nothing more to do with their parents. I have had masses of letters about that.
I do not know what the House of Lords will say if the Moonies case ever gets here. They may feel that the arguments are so strong that they have to go by them; that these will all be charitable trusts under the head of the advancement of religion.
There needs to be at once and imperatively a committee to go into this question of religious cults; to go into their activities; to go into their moneys and how they collect them. Could not the Inland Revenue be authorised no longer to exempt them from tax under whatever cloak they are put, whether individually or not? At all events could it not make them liable to tax on what they get and also make them accountable in the same way as proper charities?
If the Charity Commission had the staff it could make inquiries. If it had the staff it could have the accounts laid before it and audited. But at the moment there is not the staff to make inquries into them and their integrity. There is not the staff to do all the accounting. That is why I suggest that the Charity Commissioners' staff should be strengthened in many ways; enough for them to do their most important duties. Such a staff would, I hope, be able to deal with all the problems of religious cults. Much is wrong at the moment, and much needs doing.
5.5 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, as usual it is a great privilege for me to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning. I happen to know what he is talking about because I have had the privilege of sitting on a committee about the cults for some years. He has gone into this problem in great depth, and I hope your Lordships have learnt a lot about the problems of these cults from him this afternoon.
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The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, has brought this problem to us for the second time. It is not the second time from him, but he came to this House on 5th March 1986 when there was a similar debate which I read this morning with interest. Much of what was said then is pertinent now. So far as the figures for the Charity Commission are concerned I am afraid that they have not altered at all.
I hope that the Minister, after all that has been said by noble Lords in the Chamber this afternoon, will take note of the fact that, because of the enormous amount of work that is done through the various charities by people of good will in this country, they need adequate people on hand to help. That of course would be the Charity Commissioners.
We have heard, and it is true, that there are 330 people helping the Charity Commissioners. But under the Act five Charity Commissioners are allowed, and there are only three in post. Despite the fact that it will take more money, I hope that the numbers will be made up. From my experience it is vital that the charities should be encouraged, and by no means are they always encouraged when they are told that consideration of a new charity by the Charity Commissioners may well take up to two years.
That was a figure I heard a year ago. I was delighted to hear this morning that it is likely that a new charity will be considered well within that time now, and probably in about six weeks.
Even six weeks seems a long time to people who realise that a new charity is necessary. Six weeks is a long time also for people to go off the boil. They can get interested in starting a new charity, but they then have to go to the Charity Commissioners, and they may be told that it will take some time for their application to be put on the table of the commissioners, let alone for a decision to be made. Unfortunately sometimes those charities may not get under way. As everybody will know, it is vital for a charity to have a charity number; in my experience you cannot ask for money for a charity unless you have charitable status and therefore a number. That is why it is so important that the number of people helping us with our inquiries—perhaps to coin a phrase—should be sufficient to assist in good time.
I am privileged occasionally to lead and certainly to help several charities—the best, in my view. I know I am treading on other people's corns and I am sorry. I must tell your Lordships this because I am so proud of the way people in this country look after other people who are not so fortunate.
I shall quickly tell the House about a charity that some of your Lordships will know about, that my late husband and I started in 1967 and which, round our dining room table, we called Crisis at Christmas. We look after between 500 and 1,000 people for six days and six nights, sometimes in a disused warehouse, sometimes in an unused church. All sorts of properties are made available to us. For six days and six nights we look after people who have no roof, no food, no entertainment, no friends and nowhere to go at Christmas time.
That means, as your Lordships will all realise, three meals a day. It does not take much in the way of multiplication to realise that at least 1,800 meals are

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served, all by voluntary help, people of good will. This last Christmas we had between 500 and 700 people all day and all night on mattresses and blankets and they had adequate food.
What I am proud of most is that 2,066 people offered, indeed queued up, to give us their help to look after those people who had no shelter at Christmas time. Those 2,066 people offered to give up part of their own Christmases. I am very proud to be head of that charity. I had to tell the House about it because if people can do that for other people in distress there is not much wrong with our country at this time.
I also subscribe to the idea of my noble friend Lady Faithfull that there should be a charity council made up of people outside the Charity Commission who can perhaps oversee what is happening. Apart from reading the audited accounts from each of the charities, I suggest that there should be laid down a percentage above which no charity should be able to go for paid administration. Crisis at Christmas works with two paid staff only.
Another charity of which I was the head for 12 years, the Leagues of Hospital Friends, also has only two paid staff, but half a million people work for that charity to their own benefit because it enabled them to work. It should be laid down that only a very reasonable percentage should be allowed for paid administrators. There are many people who will help voluntarily. There are plenty of people who unfortunately are being made redundant but who want jobs to do. They will not do them unless one specifically asks them, but there is plenty of good will among people in this country.
As I understand from the Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security, when he was in America, very soon we shall run up against being asked to provide hospices for those who have AIDS. This again will fall on those who are of charitable mind, who are generous of spirit and who want to help those who have real problems. The Leagues of Hospital Friends, I am certain, will help, but there will be a call, I hope quite a demand, for people to come forward to help these new hospices which I understand we shall be asked to set up. We in the Leagues of Hospital Friends already help two cancer hospices. Not only money will be required but people of good will who will work. I want to emphasise that charity is not just the giving of money; it is also people willing to work, to visit and to do all sorts of things other than dipping in their pockets and saying, "Ah well, I have done my bit".
I should like to emphasise that the millions of pounds donated to charities should be, and should also be seen to be, put in the right direction for each charity. I am certain that after today's debate people will be awakened to where the money goes. I hope that as a result of this debate my noble friend the Minister will be able to tell us that more people will be drafted into the Charity Commission. They are people whom I know have a great workload on their desks, but we depend on them. I hope they know it.
5.16 p.m.
Lord Nathan: My Lords, it is a humbling experience to follow the moving speech of the noble Baroness,
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Lady Macleod. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Allen, for the opportunity of participating in this debate; I did not participate in the debate in March last year. I noted that many of those who spoke today did, and I read with great interest that debate. I intend only briefly to touch on one or two of the matters mentioned then and in this debate and to concentrate on rather different fields.
Reference has been made to the Goodman Report. I was vice-chairman of that committee. I am president of INTERPHIL (the International Standing Conference on Philanthropy) which was heavily involved in the development of the convention to which I shall refer later. I should declare that I am a trustee and an officer of various charities, but I have no financial interest whatever to declare.
The crucial element for charities is the assurance that the money will be used for the purpose intended. This is vital for those who give money to charities; it is vital for the public generally because of the tax reclaims that charities enjoy; and it is vital for the general reputation of charities. Without a good reputation attaching to charities as a whole, and the good reputation of individual charities, support from the public will not be available.
In their report for 1985—this has been mentioned before—the Charity Commissioners refer to the reduction in their resources in money and manpower. They refer to the limited supervision they can exercise. If government really cannot provide the funds, I suggest that charities must do so—this suggestion has been made before by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, tonight—perhaps by some form of registration fee or annual charge. In the Goodman Report we came out against this, but something must be done to fund charity supervision adequately.
When one considers that charity administration is in the hands of just three commissioners, I for one am filled with admiration at the job they do. Nevertheless I think there is a strong case for forming a charity board or charity council, such as we recommended in our report, whose members would be drawn from a wide circle of interests and expertise to whom the Charity Commissioners could refer if desired and which could provide advice on its own initiative to the commissioners. It could also act as a standing commission on charities to advise the Secretary of State either at his request or on its own initiative.
One of the new elements which I believe should fall for consideration by the Charity Commissioners (or, as I suggest, by the charity council or board) is the impact of our closer association with Europe—the European Community, as well as the larger group constituting the Council of Europe. Charitable activity, or, if you like to be less technical, non-profit-making organisations working for the good of the community, should not be confined within this country, when practically every other activity is becoming increasingly integrated in Europe.
A first step has been the constitution of the European Foundation by agreement among the 10 members of the Community, which has been ratified by nine of them, including the United Kingdom, and there seems reason to believe that the tenth will shortly ratify. Its objects are broadly cultural within the

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context of the Community and it would qualify as a charity if it were constituted in England. It has its seat in Paris and is presided over by Ambassador Jorgensens of France, who has been devoted to that cause. I very much hope that his successor will come from this country. I believe this would be a popular move because of the high regard in which the United Kingdom tradition of voluntary giving is held. The foundation is qualified to receive private donations which may be given under convenant, and it has been agreed that where convenants are made the foundation will be able to recover tax from the United Kingdom Inland Revenue department, just as if it were an English charity.
This is a new departure and it is one which it seems to me should be monitored by a body such as a charity board. In particular, since private donations from this country may be made to that foundation, the monitoring of the process of fund raising, if that is carried out, is one of the functions I would envisage in this context.
Then there is the new convention to which I referred and which has long been under consideration on the mutual recognition of non-governmental organisations, many of which are analogous to charities in this country. It comes under the aegis of the Council of Europe and has been signed by Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Greece and the United Kingdom. I understand that there are good prospects of signature by France, Germany, Luxembourg and Spain. Ratification by three signatories will bring it into effect. The United Kingdom, Switzerland and Belgium are particularly important bases for non-governmental organisations, and therefore signature by these three countries is particularly significant.
The convention represents a substantial step forward in international co-operation in a field outside commerce. The promotion of a convention of this kind seems to me to be the sort of activity in which a charity council should be involved. Of course matters would be relatively simple if the law governing voluntary bodies in different countries was more or less similar, but it is not.
A more far-reaching solution to the problem to which I have referred would be to unify or harmonise the laws of different countries in this field. Such was the ambitious purpose of the initiative launched last autumn in the Committee of Legal Affairs of the European Parliament; but it did not receive sufficient support to make progress. I believe that we should progress in the international field slowly and by steps, and that these very ambitious projects do more harm than good. A lot is going on in one form or another in Europe.
The United Kingdom tradition of voluntary giving and of voluntary work for causes beneficial to the community has always been an inspiring example to other nations across the Channel and far beyond. It is important that the responsible department—the Charity Commission and, as I believe, the charity board or council to be formed—should be so organised as to play a full part in fostering the voluntary sector in England and overseas, and particularly in Europe. I very much hope that consideration of these matters
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will fall within the scope of any study made in accordance with the Motion put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Allen.
5.24 p.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, in thanking, as we all have done, the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, for yet another charitable act, if I may say so, in raising the whole question of charities, perhaps it is pertinent in a winding-up speech from these Benches on a subject in which there is no party dispute at all just to remind ourselves what we are dealing with when we talk about charities. Our law has deep roots. None is deeper than the definitions of charity, which date back to the reign of Elizabeth I. In a very learned judgment of a very learned Law Lord, Lord Macnaghten, we have set out four heads: relief of poverty; advancement of religion; advancement of education; and matters which are for the general benefit of the community.
Our first anxiety is always in law to be as precise as possible, but there are some matters where precision is not only impossible but undesirable. We have built up by precedents in our law—and for the benefit of the Charity Commissioners who follow that law—a whole host of cases over a long period of time. Your Lordships may feel that the law stood still and did not take account when these decisions were made by our judges of changing social conditions. If I may say so as a humble lawyer who has tried to study that aspect of the law, this is not so. We have moved in various directions. Some may think that we have not moved fast enough. Others, like the noble and learned, Lord, Lord Denning, may think that in certain directions, and until the law is altered in some way, we have not moved at all: that is, in the admission of the sects to which he referred.
Therefore this is the aspect we are considerng when we look at how it is all working. Your Lordships may feel that definitions of charity beyond the heads that we have and beyond the decisions that have been made may create more difficulties than they will solve. But there are difficulties in this sphere and nobody could better the words of the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, who was the worthy predecessor of a very worthy Minister who will be winding up this debate. He said, in the oft-quoted debate of 5th March 1986 (at col. 220 of the Official Report):
"The charity world is an important and dynamic part of our community life and it is right that your Lordships should bring direct knowledge and considerable experience to bear on issues which affect the operation of charity law and the charity world".
He was right, and your Lordships have been right. In this debate again today a wealth of experience and wisdom has been expressed.
All is not well, as is apparent from that debate and as was apparent from the debate which was also initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, in March 1986. Delays have been spoken of as one of the factors which operate to the disadvantage of charities applying for registration and for guidance. I must say that when we talk about delays in registration it is not just the Charity Commissioners who take time. One must in justice tell your Lordships that on every application they refer the matter to the Inland Revenue, and it has been my experience that the Inland Revenue is as guilty of delays in this matter as

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are the Charity Commissioners. It is a fact without any doubt that delays are causing hardship.
Charities, as the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, reminded us, cannot tell contributors that they have the benefit of contributing to a recognised charity unless the charity is registered; and of course there are then delays in getting in funds. There are hardships caused by failures to advise with promptitude, and trustees throughout the land—little people and big people who have no great experience very often of how to act as a trustee or how the law operates and who want guidance from the Charity Commissioners—very often take a long time to get advice and guidance.
One of the few occasions on which I ever had a ripple of laughter in your Lordships' House was in the early days of the service of the Minister who is to reply to this debate. A Question was put down on delays by the Charity Commissioners. He rose—I think it was almost his first day in his office—to answer the Question. I ventured in a supplementary question to say to him that I hoped that his tenure of office would be as long as it takes to get a reply from the Charity Commissioners.
It is all very well to complain about delays; and, as has been said in this debate, and said very wisely, very properly and very accurately, and as was quoted by the noble Lord from the Alliance Benches, the commissioners themselves have spoken in moderate but pitiful words about the hope that their numbers will not be further decreased and about how difficult, if not impossible, it is for them to cope with their work on their present staffing.
It is extremely easy, especially from Opposition Benches—as the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, will realise when he sits on an Opposition Bench—to say to any government "Spend more money. It is advantageous to the nation". If I may be crude, there are not many votes in increasing the staff of the Charity Commission, and political parties, whether they should or whether they should not, have the habit of acting politically.
I was so pleased when I heard not only the noble Earl, Lord Longford, but also the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, come out with a practical suggestion on which I prided myself when I was thinking about this speech, and now I have to give it not even second-hand but third-hand to your Lordships. It is the practical suggestion which I take from some figures which were given in that very debate on 5th March 1986 (at col. 220 of the Official Report) by the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur. He was dealing with estimates of the total income of the charities sector and he said:
"A recent study of a sample of charities suggested that it might be in the range of £4.8 to £7.3 billion—perhaps 2 or 3 per cent. of gross national product".
If the Government continue to give the amount that they are giving now—and your Lordships will find that amount in the report of the Charity Commissioners for the year 1985—which is £5¼ million a year for the running of the whole of the Charity Commission, of which nearly £5 million is taken up by wages, subject only to an inflationary increase, and if there were added to that some sort of annual charge or annual licence fee only chargeable, if you like, at the rate of ½
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per cent. on the income of charities where that income exceeds £100,000, the question of delay would, in my humble judgment, go out of the window. I ask that this suggestion be very definitely considered.
Then what would the Charity Commissioners' department look like? It is all very well—and nobody listens with greater attention to the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, than I do—to suggest, as others have done, an outside council consisting of those who have some expertise. It is a suggestion that is worth considering and I admit that at once. But when you start setting up these bodies, which operate outside the main body that is supposed to be administering the charities, you walk into confusion and duplication. Very often the various people concerned do not know whether they are supposed to be doing something or somebody else is supposed to be doing something; possibly they are duplicating their work or possibly the decision ought to be made by the other body and not by them. Why should the Charity Commissioners themselves not be built up to do all these various things?
I now move to the next item of complaint—not enough supervision and abuses. Both those things are true. That emerged from this debate and it emerged from the last debate. Why should there not be departments in a new Charity Commission of such importance as the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, described on the last occasion in our national life? Why should there not be a complaints department, why should there not be an accounts department, why should there not be a registration department and why should there not be an advisory department? Why should there not be a commissioner in charge of each one of those departments, with a chief commissioner in charge of the lot? That would mean of course increasing the commissioners to five, as against three as at present, which again I think was a suggestion made by one of the noble Lords who participated in this debate. And, of course, why should there not be speedy computerisation?
I turn quickly to abuse. There is abuse. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, will forgive me if I say that, far from criticising the BBC, I admire the work it does in collecting moneys for very deserving charities, and I think it does it splendidly. As somebody else said, I do not think that it has to operate very much on somebody like the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, to make him sympathetic. It has a very much more difficult job with other people, but it manages and I am glad that it does.
But the point I make is that there are goodness knows how many charities paying out high salaries, paying out commissions and paying agencies. It is not an agreeable part of our national life that that should be so and it is not fair to the public that it should be so. They give their hard earned money in many cases—sometimes literally the widow's mite—to these causes, and it hurts your Lordships and it hurts me that a great portion very often of that widow's mite goes in so-called administration expenses.
Why should it not be law that in any appeal that is made in writing by any charity in our land—and, indeed, it may have to be any foreign charity appealing for help in our land if it wishes to do it in our land—it

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should have to state the percentage of its annual income spent last year in administration expenses? And the term "administration expenses" should be very tightly defined in any Act of Parliament or regulation made under it.
One thinks in terms not of repeating the debate that we had last March, not of coming out with truisms, arguments and statements that have been uttered in your Lordships' House on this vital national subject, where we deserve, as the noble Baroness said, a lot of praise for the way in which we react by services as well as by money in regard to charity. Practical suggestions have been made. They are thrown at the Minister. We all know that he does not have the right at this moment, short of consultation, to say "This idea is accepted. Thank you so much for giving it to me". What we do ask of the Minister is that he will, in truly sincere terms, tell us that these ideas, abuses, wrongs, delays and some of the points put forward to get over them will he duly considered, not in the customary ministerial use of that term but rather actively considered with a report back to this House at an early date.
5.40 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I should like to add my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, for once again giving us an opportunity to debate charities. I know these are matters which are close to your Lordships' hearts and it is good of him to give the House the benefit of the wide experience which he brings to these matters. I am also grateful for the very wide range of experience and benefit which other Members of your Lordships' House have been able to bring to this debate this afternoon.
This debate has been interesting and wide-ranging. But behind many of the points which have been made lie two main strands: first, issues concerning charity law, and, secondly, issues concerning the Charity Commission. I should like to take these in turn.
At the risk of making a point which will be thoroughly familiar to many—though some do on occasions forget it—I should like to distinguish between charity law (properly so-called) and law which consists of fiscal provisions aimed at benefiting charities. Charity law has to do with the protection of charitable trusts and the duties of trustees to keep to their trusts' and to the donors' intentions and to ensure that money given to the charity is used for no other purposes than those intended by the donor. Tax and rating concessions—the main ways in which the Government support charities by directing money from the Exchequer into the funds of charitable organisations—are a separate instrument of social policy. It is a fact that if all tax concessions were done away with tomorrow, the work of the Charity Commission in protecting charitable trusts and the interests of donors and in ensuring the perpetuity of trusts could continue unchanged.
The 1986 Budget introduced a number of measures for the benefit of charities which were foreshadowed in last year's debate—in particular payroll giving and tougher measures to check the abuse of charitable status. Although I am conscious of some remaining issues concerning the application of value added tax, it
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is generally and widely accepted in the charity world that the tax concessions for charity introduced by this Government are the most generous ever seen and serve to create a most favourable climate for fundraising.
Every budget that we have introduced has benefited charities. If that causes the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, to stare with horrified gaze, I dread to think what he would do to some measures introduced by a government of a less charitable nature.
The effect of the most recent changes is that one can give money to charities tax free either through the traditional and very popular covenant or, after April 1987, by a regular deduction before tax from payroll. The Government have both shortened the minimum qualifying time for a covenant from seven years to four and increased the originally announced maximum limit for tax-free payroll deductions from £100 to £120 a year. Through these measures, as well as through the concessions we have given for one-off company donations and the like, we have endeavoured to create a steadily improving financial climate to encourage both private and corporate giving.
I should add that this is against a backcloth of steadily increasing support of the charity and voluntary sector by the Government. Through a variety of programmes and the involvement of many government departments, public sector support for charities has increased substantially over recent years—more than 75 per cent. in real terms since 1979–80—and the trend continues. Government grants to charities are now running at over £0·25 billion per annum. This increased public support is, I am glad to say, now being matched by steadily increasing private sector giving. I am sure it is the hope of all of us in this House that the new incentives for giving which we have now made available will continue to sustain this parallel growth of giving by companies and individuals.
One way in which that growth should take place is through payroll giving, which as I have said will become available with effect from April. As my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced recently when the regulations were laid, employees will be able to donate up to £120 a year—£10 per month—directly to charity and before tax has been deducted. If American experience is anything to go by—and in debates like these we are frequently exhorted to take notice of American experience—payroll giving should open the way to quite considerable sums of new money and new charitable giving.
Turning now to charity law as opposed to the law relating to tax and rates, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Allen, and to my noble friend Lady Faithfull for raising again the working of the 1985 Charities Act. The information we have is that use of its provisions is steady, but perhaps slower than we might have hoped. This means that it may take longer than was originally anticipated before the full effects of the Act are felt.
I was interested to hear the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Allen, about the 1985 Act and whether its provisions could be extended. I think your Lordships will agree that the 1985 Act is sound in

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principle and may indeed pave the way for further relaxation of cy-près if that is thought desirable. But we will have to leave it a little longer before we can be certain that there are merits in trying to simplify some of the procedures.
As to any more general reform of charity law, we are of course studying the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) report on malpractice in fundraising. This was a point raised by many of your Lordships, including the noble Lords, Lord Allen of Abbeydale and Lord Mishcon, and by my noble friend Lady Faithfull. Far from being silent on this report, we have welcomed it warmly. But the House will be aware that the majority of the recommendations are for the voluntary sector itself and do not require government assistance or changes in legislation. At this stage, we are discussing with interested parties how best to give effect to those recommendations which do need legislation. As noble Lords have recognised in this debate, charity legislation is not an easy matter and one should be careful to move, whenever possible, with a clear consensus of opinion. At the moment, this consensus has not yet emerged.
Malpractice in fundraising is only one aspect of abuse of charitable status. There are complex abuses, both connected with tax recovery and the spending of charitable funds, which also require attention. Your Lordships will be pleased to know that, following the arrangements introduced by the Budget for the exchange of information between the Inland Revenue and the Charity Commission, the commission has now established a new investigation unit, with staff with both Charity Commission and Inland Revenue experience, to tackle directly some of those abuses. I am pleased to be able to tell the House about this today and to commend it to your Lordships. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Allen, will particularly welcome these new arrangements.
The right reverend Prelate asked whether we might consider the possibility of some religious communities being regarded as charitable. I note the points that he made. However, I know that he will appreciate that there are considerable hazards in the definition of a religious community. Indeed, he alluded to some of those hazards himself. Those difficulties were also mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning. They relate to the definition of charitable status, in particular of such charities as the Unification Church and similar organisations in general.
My right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General has challenged whether certain registered charities associated with the Unification Church are entitled to charitable status and has taken these matters to the High Court. The current position is that the Vice-Chancellor has given directions as to evidence that it should be set down for hearing immediately, but the case is not to be heard before November this year. In those circumstances I am sure your Lordships will understand why I can add nothing further to that.
I should say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, that very few cults are registered as charities in this country. The Scientologists are not a charitable organisation in this country; nor are many others. The
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charitable status of cults is scrutinised very closely and we are not convinced that it is the right time for the review of cults which the noble and learned Lord has suggested. We acknowledge the distress that can be caused by such organisations.
On the approach to charity law reform, which is a difficult subject, perhaps a more attractive course may be to concentrate on the proper regulation of fund raising and possibly on the better definition of the roles and responsibilities of charity trustees. I know that we are not alone in being conscious that we should not press too much change too quickly on to the charity world. It always takes a little time for charities to prepare properly for major change, such as the introduction of payroll giving, and there are distinct benefits in not going too fast.
The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, and the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, asked about the progress we are making in clearing the way for television advertising by charities. Reservations about what would happen to charities, in particular the smaller ones, if television advertising were allowed has been one of the reasons we have wanted in the past to proceed very cautiously. The House may know that the Independent Broadcasting Authority has been conducting a survey of the attitudes of charitable organisations to television advertising.
The question of advertising by charities on television is therefore under close and detailed discussion within the IBA and its statutory committees and among representatives of the charitable organisations. I think it will be some time before the IBA is in a position to decide whether it wishes to make an approach to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary about any relaxation of the current restrictions on charitable advertising. Until that approach is made I really cannot add anything further to what I have said.
My noble friend Lady Faithfull raised the question of the development of community trusts. I confirm that the support will continue for the designated time. As my noble friend will know, there are a number of community trusts which have established themselves without any funds from the Home Office, and it would not be right to interfere with the arrangements for the experimental schemes during this initial phase.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, asked how we know that money which goes for charitable purposes abroad actually reaches the intended beneficiary and does not get lost on the way. I agree with the noble Earl that this can be difficult, and sometimes there is even the possibility of direct abuse. However, there is a requirement on United Kingdom charities to show that they have taken all reasonable steps to ensure that funds sent abroad are applied for charitable purposes in a way which satisfies both the Inland Revenue and the Charity Commission.
As the House may know, these requirements were strengthened in the last Finance Act. It is too early to say whether we need to do anything more, but we are aware of the problems; and to help us I should be grateful if the noble Earl and any other noble Lord would forward to us any examples of where such abuse is alleged.
The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, raised the suggestion of the possibility of some form of

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probationary registration of charities, and in particular the quesion of a suitors' fund. The noble Lord will appreciate that such a fund involves not only difficult matters of principle but also the provision of funds, and is not something to be embarked upon lightly without giving the matter due thought so that it does not go wrong at a later stage.
I turn now to the important issues raised by all your Lordships about the role, structure and function of the Charity Commission and the resources available to it. I know that this is a matter which is of deep concern to your Lordships' House.
The Charity Commission exists to promote the effective use of charitable resources and it is important that it should be properly resourced and staffed to carry out its statutory and other duties effectively. That is why, in the autumn of last year, when it seemed that real difficulties might arise if the Charity Commission's resources were not increased, we invited Parliament to approve a winter supplementary which raised the money available to the commission. Further increases in planned spending have been included in the Government's expenditure White Paper published earlier this month.
Since 1980 there has been an increase in the resources available to the commission to provide a computer for the official custodian. As the noble Lord, Lord Allen, has reminded the House, the Government properly take a stringent view of all proposals for public expenditure; and for that reason it is vital that the commission should continue to look for ways of improving value for money, taking account not only of the level of spending but the relative priority of the work which is being done, and whether this can be achieved more efficiently.
However, as your Lordships will be well aware, there have been a variety of issues raised about the way in which the commission operates for some time. For instance, we have debated in this House whether there is work of which the commission could be relieved. We have debated whether or not it is desirable for the commission to examine the accounts of all charities. We can hardly believe that it is, but it is a matter which has been raised.
We have debated whether the commission should be differently composed or structured—including the suggestion made again this afternoon by my noble friends Lady Faithfull and Lady Macleod of Borve about an advisory committee; and indeed we have heard the opposite point of view from the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. We have also discussed the more complex questions of how much of the commission's work in registration should be computerised and the costs which this might involve, particularly in the early stages of conversion and programming
As I am sure your Lordships will appreciate, these are difficult and sometimes technical questions. As the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said, there is often an overlap, and indeed some of the suggestions which we have had put to us are contradictory. I am glad to be able to say that progress is being made with some of them. For instance, since we last discussed these matters in your Lordships' House—my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox will be pleased to hear this—computer
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consultants have been working on information technology needs of the commission and the advantages and disadvantages of computerisation.
Other matters, however—and many of these have been raised in the course of today's debate—require very careful thought and analysis. I am therefore pleased to be able to announce to the House today that, not least because of the major resource questions which such issues raise, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has decided that it is right and timely for there to be a thorough review of the way in which charities are supervised and the roles of the Charity Commission and other bodies in this work. This review, which will take the form of an efficiency scrutiny, will begin shortly.
The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, gently chastised the Government about my noble friend Lord Brabazon of Tara's remark:
"The bird is apt to fly from the nest if too much discussion is taken beforehand".
That remark seems to be vindicated in that I thought I should be the first to announce to the House today such a scrutiny.
I listened with great interest to the suggestion put forward by the noble Lord for a Select Committee of this House on charity matters. That of course is a matter for your Lordships' House and I certainly agree with your Lordships that there is plenty of scope for further review. Whether there is a need for the establishment of another Select Committee will, I am sure, require very careful consideration and I do not think the House would expect me to express a firm view about this today.
I can say, however, that the scrutiny that it has been decided shall be conducted will cover a great many of the matters not only raised by your Lordships today but debated in this House from time to time. It will make recommendations about all aspects of the work of the Charity Commission in relation to the supervision of charities; the adequacy of the resources, including the staff, available to the commission and whether these could be better deployed; the scope and justification for the making of charges for services by the commission or the official custodian—a point raised particularly by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, and the noble Lords, Lord Nathan and Lord Mishcon—and any clarification which may be necessary in the respective roles of the Home Office and the Treasury with regard to the Charity Commissioners. The subject for the scrutineers is deliberately wide-ranging. In short, it will be responsible for looking at virtually anything except for the definitive definition of what is or what is not a charity.
The noble Lord, Lord Grimond, will be pleased to hear that the scrutineer will also be asked to examine and make recommendations upon the way in which charities are supervised in Scotland and Northern Ireland, bearing in mind the interests of the public as beneficiary and donor. When they are available, I will place a copy of the agreed terms of reference in the Library of the House, together with an announcement of the name of the scrutineer.
We are sure that a review of this kind will be helpful to the Charity Commission in planning for the years

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ahead. We are sure that is right, and I am sure that this is very welcome to all sides of your Lordships' House. I am pleased to be able to make this announcement today. It goes without saying that I will be delighted to hear from any noble Lord who wishes to write to me with matters to put to the scrutineer. Therefore, having said that, far from agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, and my noble friend Lady Faithfull that nothing ever happens under this Government, I have to say that much has happened; much more will continue to happen, but I do not disagree that there may be more to do on top of that.
The noble Lord, Lord Nathan, broadened the scope of the debate and made some extremely interesting points. I am sure that he will be the first to realise that I am not the person to answer or debate with him some of the points. I will of course make sure that they are passed on to my right honourable friend so that they are taken into account. It may please the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, to hear that the Inland Revenue has recently reviewed its procedures to minimise delay in considering cases referred to it. This should reduce delay significantly. I hope he will appreciate my sentiment when I say that I hope it has no effect on my term of tenure of office.
Perhaps I may deal quickly with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, about the appointment of a new chief commissioner when Mr. Denis Peach retires. I should like to join him in paying very great tribute to the work of Mr. Peach and I am sure that there will be other opportunities for the House to pay its tributes between now and the end of the year. This is perhaps not the time to talk about the precise arrangements for the new appointment, but I have no doubt that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary will wish to maintain the arrangement adopted before Mr. Peach was appointed, under which a wide field of candidates, by no means all from the Civil Service, were considered. The chief Charity Commissioner is not in any way an appointment confined to the Civil Service.
I cannot end without paying tribute to those who work so long and hard for charities and voluntary bodies. There is a danger when we discuss these matters of looking only at abuse and malpractice and forgetting about the truly magnificent work of honest and hardworking trustees and others who work for charities, so often as volunteers. There was no better speech about this point than that of my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve.
The debate has been an excellent opportunity for me to tell your Lordships of the progress which has been made since we last debated charities, particularly but not exclusively through the Budget, and of our plans for the future including this important review of the supervision of charities. In common, I am sure, with the whole House, I have every confidence that we shall continue to maintain progress with these issues over the coming year and beyond in this way and we shall underline the Government's commitment to the vital work of sustaining and supporting charitable and voluntary work in this country.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, I wonder whether he would care to
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comment—if he does not I shall understand it—on the suggestion that on their publications and appeals charities should have to state what percentage on their last annual accounts was chargeable to administration expenses. Does he feel that this matter could be reviewed with a view to legislation?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I think that is a very important matter to be looked at and I believe that it would come within the scope of the scrutineer. But if not, I am sure that my right honourable friend will take due note of what the noble Lord says.
Lord Mishcon: I am much obliged.
6.2 p.m.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, in rising to thank the noble Earl and all the others who have taken part in the debate, I think I can justifiably repeat what I said at the beginning. There is no need to apologise for having this debate today less than a year after the previous debate. It has been an extremely interesting and important one. I should like to read very carefully what the Minister said. I do not claim to have taken it all in and I hope that for his part he will read carefully what we and other contributors to the debate have said.
I should like to say—and perhaps I should have said it at the beginning of the debate—that we very much appreciate the tax concessions to charities which have been made in recent times. But that was not the purpose of the debate today. I should like to assure the noble Earl that the adjective I used about the forthcoming Finance Bill was directed at its drafting, not at its content.
Perhaps I may make three brief points on issues that have been raised in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, rightly said that we do not want a definitive definition of charity. This was the point I tried to take. It is a flexible concept which we need to adjust to changing cirumstances. He said that it rested on an Elizabethan statute which has long since been repealed and a judgment of the High Court (if it was the High Court) issued at a time when perhaps there was not the assortment of religions that we have in this country at the moment and when the education system was not quite as it is now. As he pointed out, the law has been built up by judicial decisions thereafter.
The point I was trying to make is that there are not enough of these judicial decisions and that the cost of going to the courts has meant that a number of these very important issues have not been judicially settled. When I was talking about the suitors' fund, it was to that point that I was addressing my mind, and I remind the House that there are precedents both in sex and race legislation.
Secondly, the list of possible changes in the law which I enumerated, with one of which at any rate the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, rather disagreed, was not a list of changes that I think ought to be carried out but of changes that I think ought to be looked at. One or two other suggested changes have been added to that list during the debate. Thirdly, reminding myself as I did earlier that I used to be in the Treasury, I am afraid that the suggestion that fees should be charged is not an answer of itself, because there is no guarantee that

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the Charity Commission would be around to keep the fees that it collected.
I was chairman of the Gaming Board for some years. It was supposed to be self-supporting and it charged pretty healthy fees for licences and so on that it issued. But it was subject to just the same controls over staff as any other government department. I am afraid that that solution is not quite as straightforward as it might appear at first sight, although I certainly agree that it is well worth considering.
On the whole I found the reply of the noble Earl a little disappointing—the 1985 Act operation was still being looked at; the Government were still studying the NCVO report; they were still thinking about religious cults; they were still considering advertising on television; they still saw difficulties about the suitors' fund; and all the rest of it. In regard to the forthcoming review, a great deal seems to rest on the scrutineer.
I do not know quite what to say at the end of the debate. I think it is fair to say that the attitude of the Government and what they have done so far has not received absolutely overwhelming support from those who have taken part in the debate today. It is not a very satisfactory state of affairs. I hate to think that we might have another similar debate in a year's time when we have had the same kind of putting-off replies about matters still being under consideration. I suppose I must leave it on the basis that I hope some thought will be given to the points we have raised and that if there is not much sign of progress we may be able to prod a little here and there by question and perhaps by discussion outside the House.
Although I cannot go away completely satisfied with the Government's reply, I can go away with much appreciation for the support and suggestions which have been forthcoming from all parts of the House. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Rent Control
6.8 p.m.
Lord Harris of High Lord Harris of High Cross rose to call attention to the effects of rent control on unemployment and homelessness; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I should like to start by saying that I am grateful to my noble friends for allocating their second Cross-Bench debate to a discussion of what I regard as the evils of rent control. I must emphasise that this does not imply any concerted view on these Benches, though I shall be looking for a certain amount of support from behind me. I think it is appropriate that those of us who enjoy the comparative safety of the Cross-Benches should give a lead in raising an issue that is still unfortunately regarded as a political hot potato
On broad issues of economic analysis and development I have before ventured the view that this House is not sufficiently backward-looking. If we are concerned with conditions favourable to economic
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advance we might learn lessons from the past, when Britain was in the van of progress rather than jostling in the rear. Accordingly, for encouragement and perverse inspiration I sometimes turn to the pages of Cole and Postgate's history book entitled The Common People: 1746 to 1938. I hope that that will inspire some confidence on the Labour Benches.
The authors of course provide a strictly socialist interpretation of the transformation which we loosely call the Industrial Revolution and which shows no sign, even today, of slackening. If I were asked what was the characteristic most essential for changes that were to liberate the common people from centuries of grinding poverty, I might as a first approximation offer a single word—mobility. Certainly without occupational and geographical mobility in human resources the new mechanical contrivances could not have yielded their full fruit.
Industrially, before the transformation, Cole and Postgate say:
"England was still hollow—a circumference of activity surrounding a central area which lived largely by self-subsistent agriculture".
The density of the population was then dictated largely by the location of the woollen industry and access to seaborne trade. In 1750, outside London only Bristol and perhaps Norwich might rank in population as major towns well ahead of Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and the rest. Indeed, on Cole and Postgate's showing Norfolk was exceeded in population only by Middlesex, Yorkshire and Devonshire. The growth of new industry and of employment therefore depended not only on the multiplication of population but on its migration from farming to industry, from countryside to the towns, and from the South and the East to the North and the West.
My entire case in this debate is that the past transformation of wealth and standards of living would have been totally frustrated if some well-meaning 18th century crackpot had hit on the disastrous notion of controlling rents, let alone obstructing new building in deference to town and country planning regulations. Today we are faced with the urgency of a shift, not so much from agriculture to industry but from old industry to new industry and from the traditional localised manufacture of goods to the more widely dispersed provision of services—not perhaps from the South and East to the North and the West but more likely the other way.
Once again I believe mobility of labour is required to adapt to new and emerging opportunities, yet movement is severely restricted by a host of policies, including uniform national wage rates and planning restrictions. However, prominent among the obstacles to mobility is the distortion and destruction of a flexible housing market to accommodate the changing and diverse needs of our enlarged population.
There can surely be less dispute today that rent control has been the chief source of the mischief that now afflicts hundreds of thousands of homeless and others who are frozen in unemployment by the inability to move to where jobs that they could do are going begging. It was, after all, the original impact of rent control in 1915 that caused the shortage of homes

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which appeared to justify the building of millions of council houses. It was subsidised council house rents that then became a further brake on people moving home. Moreover, it was the discouragment of house building for rent, reinforced by tax incentives, that led millions more to become owner-occupiers rather than enjoying the flexibility, convenience and choice of remaining tenants at least for some part of their family and working lives.
It is true that professional economists are known to disagree on many issues of policy, although I notice a widening measure of support for market propositions even in recent Fabian tracts, in the speeches of Mr. Roy Hattersley and in the less sensational pages of recent copies of the New Statesman. But I think I can say—as I heard the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, say in this House—that there are few questions on which economists are more unanimous than the evil effects of rent control. As so often is the case, social and economic objectives are in total conflict. After all, rent control is only the application of price control to housing. All price control has what economists call an income effect and also an incentive effect. The income effect refers to the socially desirable result of raising the real income of the consumer or tenant by keeping the price or rent lower than it would otherwise be.
However, the lower price or rent simultaneously and inevitably has an incentive effect which is economically undesirable. For example, a married couple whose children have left home have less incentive to economise in accommodation by moving to a smaller house or flat so long as they have security of tenure at a controlled rent; and so we can predict that rent control will increase the demand for accommodation.
More seriously, at the same time the incentive effect on the landlord of a lower rent operates to reduce the supply of rented accommodation. This may come about by waiting for a protected tenant to die or offering him a cash inducement to quit so that the house can be taken out of renting and sold for the market price to an owner-occupier. Reduced supply has also come about by the decay of property on which the controlled rent, particularly in the days of high inflation, afforded the landlord an income wholly insufficient to cover the cost of repair and maintenance of the property. Even when the rent is closer to the market price, security of tenure imposes a cost on the landlord.
It follows that rent control, introduced for wholly benevolent and social reasons, inevitably has had malignant economic consequences. By increasing demand and reducing supply the politicians have themselves created the famous housing shortage. They have then exploited the resultant distress to indulge in such further mischief as the indiscriminate subsidy of council housing, the costly inducement of owner-occupation for people who would prefer the option of renting and the politically profitable confiscation by leasehold enfranchisement. All these expediencies would become unnecessary if party men would separate the social from the economic aspects of policy by allowing housing to reflect market prices and rents while topping up low incomes to enable the poor to pay.
It must be said from these Benches that all parties have contributed over seven decades to the unholy muddle and mischief which is dignified by the name of housing policy. It gives me no satisfaction to say that the Labour Party has come to play the most obstructive part by meeting every call for reform with the threat to restore full control if it is ever again in government. It thereby frightens off new building and renovation to rent by investors who think the political risk is a possibility, however remote. I look forward to hearing the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, since if only the Social Democrats and even the Liberals would take courage to support this Government as a start in freeing new lettings from rent control, the Labour Party's electoral bluff would be called and its palsied veto on progress would go the way of Clause 4.
The Labour Party attempted to discredit the last effort on relaxation by a Conservative Government by blaming them for Rachmanism. I have spent a great deal of time rummaging through old newpaper clippings in order to establish an accurate view of that matter. I offer two clippings. One is from the Observer, which in July 1963, at the time of that controversy, said:
"For the Rachmans of this world, rent restrictions and controls—the solution advocated by the Labour Party—are not so much an obstacle as an opportunity.".
I then turned to my favourite journal, the Economist, and I offer your Lordships a quotation from 27th July 1963:
"Where the solution cannot lie is in Mr. Wilson's repeated promise that a Labour government would restore and re-expand rent controls".
It continues:
"the re-extension of rent control would extend the area in which Rachmanism would again thrive".
The gap between the controlled depressed rent and the market value of the premises without control provides the temptation even today for harsh or unscrupulous landlords to attempt to resort to efforts of eviction, against which, I am glad to say, the law is fairly strongly established.
I do not attach great weight to such precise statistics as 100,000 homeless, 1 million crude surplus of empty dwellings and perhaps 300,000 job vacancies in areas where housing is not available. But I have no doubt that a major reduction in homelessness and unemployment will be longer delayed unless we tackle the rigidity of rent control to encourage the provision of homes where people want to work and live.
So long as control in its present form survives, the form of rented accommodation most convenient to young people, to itinerant individual workers and to mobile families will continue its tragic decline. The Government would then be drawn still deeper into the swamp, with mounting costs in council house-building that might hardly dent the housing lists and would certainly not cater for the short-term needs of people moving in search of work.
Meanwhile, the very success of the Government's policy in selling off 1 million council houses has further reduced the total supply of rented accommodation from 44 per cent. in 1980 to 39 per cent. of the present housing stock, compared with well above 70 per cent. in 1950 and, in many European countries,

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typically 45 or 60 per cent. of all houses rented through the private sector.
I salute the courage of the present Minister, Mr. John Patten, in opening up the debate on the issue, and I look forward to hearing what measures the Government have in mind for the next session, which may turn out to be their next term of office.
6.23 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, I am most grateful, as I am sure are other noble Lords, to have the opportunity to discuss this important subject, which is led in the usual brilliant manner of the noble Lord, Lord Hams of High Cross. I wish that I could emulate his brilliance. I shall not take very long and therefore will not bore your Lordships for too long.
I agree with the noble Lord that housing is one of the top priorities that we have to face today. It is of course part of the whole problem of homelessness and unemployment. I think that the wording of the Motion is very apposite. The Rent Act and the restriction of rent control therefore play a vital part in both these problems. For the unemployed, for instance, moving house from one area to a job in another is a great problem not only for the man and his wife but for the family. Needless to say, it is unwise to sell a home and move a family until the job is secure. Rented property for a short time is therefore essential.
I have heard that in Buckinghamshire, where a large number of jobs are going, it is difficult to find enough people to fill the jobs, and employers are going up North and bringing people down from the North to fill the vacancies. The tragedy is that there are no homes, there is no accommodation, to be rented or bought. As I have said, anyone coming to a temporary job obviously needs to rent rather than to buy as a first possibility. What they are doing now in my view is tragic. They are bussing home every Friday night and bussing back again on Sunday. What sort of family life is that? I think that something must be done.
I took part in the debate not only because I feel strongly on the subject but because I read the Written Answer that my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale gave to a question posed by my noble friend Lord Colwyn on 13th January.
At col. 542 of Hansard my noble friend Lord Colwyn asked Her Majesty's Government:
"Whether they will take any further steps to improve the prospects for the private rented sector, especially in London".
As we are talking about London, I hope that noble Lords will not mind if I read the second paragraph of the reply by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale. With reference to the Rent Act order that he was then seeking to bring into force, and of which, so far as I know, very few people have taken note, he said:
"The second order amends the Housing Act 1980 so as to remove the requirement on a landlord in the Greater London area who is letting a property under shorthold to register a fair rent for the property. This requirement was abolished in 1981 for properties outside the Greater London area. It will still be open to either landlord or tenant for a property let on a shorthold in the Greater London area to apply for a fair rent to be registered. I hope this will encourage owners keeping property empty in London to now let it secure in the knowledge that they will be able to obtain vacant possession".
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There has, I think, been a great deal of confusion, which I hope the Answer I have read clears up. I believe that it will help, as I gather from the department it has done in the country. I hope also that it will make more properties available for rent in Greater London. I know that the Rent Act does not cover lodgings, but lodgings have always been part of the housing of those going from job to job.
I ask the Government to encourage people once again to have rooms in their houses to rent as lodgings to, say, people without families and young people who have just got jobs. It was easy to obtain that sort of accommodation before the war. It is not easy now because the owners of the property are worried that they cannot get rid of the tenants. However, I understand that if the owner of the property gives the tenant one good meal a day, that is sufficient for it to be called board and lodging, and he can get rid of the tenant.
I must add one warning. In society today many widows who are unfortunately left alone have one or two bedrooms, and would like extra money and some company. I must warn every widow that should she take a man into her household, for what may be the best of reasons, she will probably lose her widow's pension because it will be thought that they are cohabiting, despite the fact that she may be a widow of 75 and the man a young man of 21. Many such cases have been brought to my attention by the National Association of Widows.
However, that apart, I am very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has initiated this debate tonight and I wish him well.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I too should like to begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Harris, on initiating this debate and giving us his interesting and frank opening remarks. It is not the first time that he and many other Members of your Lordships' House have debated this crucial domestic question and I dare say it will not be the last.
The arguments about rent control and the reasons for and against have gone on ever since the question was first introduced in 1915. Having listened to the noble Lord's opening remarks, I think that we are probably further away from a consensus now than we were then. He will not be surprised—and it would not be fair if I did not tell him so—that I am almost totally diametrically opposed to everything that he has said on the question of rents. Nor do I agree with his interpretation of the history of Rachmanism.
It was a period through which I lived and worked as a local councillor and I saw the effects of the policy that he glossed over. I wonder what the people who suffered under that policy would say if they could hear how lightly it has been treated by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, this evening. I speak for myself only at this moment but I think that there is a gap between the noble Lord and me which is far too wide for a short debate of this nature to do anything to close.
I ought to say at the beginning that the Labour Party, which I and others on these Benches support and represent, has always supported the case for rent control in one form or another. We have pledged that

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after the next election and the return of a Labour Government in a few months' time we shall strengthen rent control and security of tenure for all tenants. We shall also lay down in the private sector minimum standards which, if they are not met, will give tenants the right to require a nominated housing association, or in some cases a local authority, to buy out the existing landlord.
We shall also give tenants the legal right to temporary accommodation when repairs or improvements are being carried out, thus preventing the practice of some unscrupulous landlords who winkle out secure tenants—and my recollection goes back to only a few weeks ago when we again experienced the effects of Rachmanism. It will be a legal right to give such tenants security and the certainty of knowing that they will be able to move back into their homes.
Those who have read the true history of Rachmanism will understand the necessity for such a legal right to protect them against harassment. Anyone who experienced Rachmanism in the 1960s and 1970s will readily appreciate the need for such a legal right, because Rachmanism is far from dead. The practice still continues. I have seen instances of it in the London boroughs and read of cases in the local press only recently. It concerns mainly elderly people who are the most vulnerable individuals to this kind of situation because many of them are long-standing rent-controlled tenants. They are very vulnerable to the kind of harassment that one became used to in the days of Rachmanism. Cases are still occurring; they are being reported and mentioned in the other place.
On the other hand, as we know, the Conservative Party—and the Government—are pledged to the total abolition of rent control. They are not saying when they intend to do it. In fact, they have said the opposite. They have said that it will not happen during the lifetime of this Parliament but during that of the next. When I recall the effects of Rachmanism and its impact on the Tory vote in the 1964 general election it is certainly not difficult to understand why they do not wish to undertake such a course before the next election, as it would certainly have the same effect.
The fact that they are toying with the idea of initiating debates in both Chambers and in other places outside the Houses of Parliament in order to push the concept of total decontrol and deregulation will still have the same effect. Indeed, at this moment the Government are preparing the ground for total deregulation probably in order to satisfy their activists and to make it easier to tackle this question after the election.
The noble Baroness who spoke before me mentioned one of the statutory instruments that have recently been announced by the Minister of State. I shall cite two statutory instruments as an example of the move toward deregulation. The first one will abolish phased introduction of higher rents awarded by the rent officer, and the second will abolish the duty to register a fair rent in advance on shorthold tenancies in Greater London.
The arguments put forward by the Minister for these two measures are these. As regards phasing, the Minister has said that because inflation has fallen to
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such a low level there is no longer any justification for delaying full payment of any increase when it is awarded. However, the facts do not bear out this argument. In recent years the retail price index has hovered around the 5 per cent. to 7 per cent. mark but housing costs have increased quite dramatically above the RPI. In the first six months of 1986 they increased by 17 per cent. and there are examples of items increased by 100 per cent. How then is it possible to say that inflation is so low that a rent increase can be afforded in one bang instead of two when there have been increases of the kind that I have just mentioned?
We also know that included among private tenants are many of the poorer sections of the community. A lot of older people are private tenants, as are many parents with young families. In London in 1984, which is the latest period for which I have been able to obtain figures, nearly 40 per cent. of privately rented households consisted of pensioners. Moreover, 90 per cent. of new lettings were to adult sharers, such as students who rely mainly on grants. Many private tenants are not eligible for housing benefit where it exists. Certainly most students are not eligible; nor are pensioners with a small occupational pension; nor low paid part-time workers, who are often single men and women. All these people are vulnerable.
The effect of the policy as it is outlined in these two statutory instruments will be that private tenants will be forced to pay the full increase from the date of registration rather than half the increase in the first year and the rest in the second year, as would happen if matters remained as they are now. In my view it will inevitably lead to more rent arrears, which in turn will lead to more evictions and homelessness. I do not need a history book to tell me that. I have lived all my life in such circumstances and I know that that is the effect of such a policy.
The proposals for shortholds in Greater London amount as of now to effective decontrol of shorthold tenancies in London. Tenants will have to pay more rent—in many cases much more than they are able to afford—which will lead to more arrears, more evictions and more homelessness. There is no argument about it, and it should be perfectly obvious to people who live in the real world that exists outside this goldfish bowl.
Support for my argument can be found in a recent comment on these two statutory instruments made by the spokesman of Shelter, who said:
"These proposals mark the beginning of a new round of Government attacks on private tenants' rights. Private tenants should be in no doubt that these changes are calculated to be the first in a series of body punches which will culminate in the complete removal of rent regulation, and for new lettings the complete removal of security of tenure".
The Organisation for Private Tenants said:
"This measure"—
that is, shortholds and the statutory instrument to which I referred—
"will simply erode the rights of private tenants, and will do nothing to reverse the contraction of the private rented sector in London. Rapidly spiralling property prices will still make sale into owner occupation considerably more lucrative than rental. Reduced tenancy rights will merely speed up the process."
Those are the facts.
The last major attempt, which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, mentioned, to end control after the Second

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World War was the Rent Act 1957. The Government argued then as they do now, and as the noble Lord did this evening, that decontrol would increase the supply of housing for rent, thus reducing homelessness. The facts do not bear out those assertions, because the Act hastened the loss of privately owned dwellings as landlords sold. I witnessed that thousands of times. They sold into owner-occupation. That was often done after receiving local authority grants to convert a property into self-contained units. That made the sale lucrative.
When I tried to introduce a Bill on improvement grants in the other place, I quoted example after example of tremendous increases in prices. Houses that had been bought for £4,500 were sold suddenly, after a tatty conversion, for £112,000 in the area I represented. It is always much more lucrative to sell to private owners than to improve dwellings or put them on the market for rent. That has not changed much. In parts of London it has become worse. We are not now talking about £120,000; we are talking about £300,000, £400,000 or £500,000 for a property. I should be happy to send the noble Lord, Lord Harris, copies of advertisements in my local newspapers from which he will see what obtains in London.
In 1956, before the Rent Act 1957 came into force, there were 6.5 million private rented dwellings. In 1961, four years after the introduction of that Act, there were 5 million. That is a reduction of 1.5 million. That was the Act which was to increase the availability of rented accommodation. It did nothing of the kind. No extra dwellings were forthcoming. On the contrary, they disappeared. The 1957 Act started and led to the biggest increase in homelessness that we have seen this century. It led to misery and unjustice for many private tenants and to Rachman, the most evil perpetrator of harassment.
Much more has been written about that period than the quotations given by the noble Lord. My God, books have been written about it. If he cannot find a book, I should be quite happy to sit down for half an hour and give him a verbatim report of what happened in those days. So great was the public concern that the Government were forced to set up the Milner Holland Committee to inquire into all aspects of housing in London. The Milner Holland report on London found:
"in areas of shortage such as London and the South East there was evidence of very high rents and evidence of abuses against tenants which could not be dismissed as isolated or insignificant."
He went on to argue for the retention of a form of rent control.
Other reports reached similar conclusions. There was widespread agreement about statistics to support the fact that decontrol and high rents had increased homelessness and dramatically reduced the availability of homes for rent. The present state where thousands of our people are living in bed and breakfast accommodation or worse is directly related to the 1957 Act and policies followed since 1979. It is not related to rent control. From the statistics, we know that in 1977 out of 550,000 empty properties in private ownership only between 8,000 and 30,000 could be said to be empty for any reason connected with the Rent Acts.
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I do not think that the noble Lord has produced evidence to back up his case on the first part of his Motion. On the second part of his Motion, relating to mobility, the noble Lord said that he thinks the ending of control would improve mobility. That is a fairy tale. It is impossible. Exactly the opposite would happen. What he suggests cannot happen. At one stage he seemed to be talking about government direction of mobility from the centre which would force people to move if they were living in one room too many. A worker must not have a spare room for friends; if he has a spare room, he should give it up because it is too much for ordinary folk to have; it is too much to have a two-bedroom flat for only a man and his wife.
For most people, mobility is a matter of choice. We want it to remain like that. It should not be at the whim of landlords or governments. Within reason, there should be choice. That principle is accepted in most other areas of housing.
It is ironical that a government who extended security of tenure to council and housing association tenants in 1980 intend to take it away from private tenants, if we go through with total deregulation. New tenants are often old ones moving into different homes, so the suggestion that the proposal will apply to new tenancies only will not make much difference. In industrial terms, insecurity of tenure amounts to unfair dismissal for a tenant. The people involved treat it just as seriously as we treat that matter.
I have heard nothing so far in this debate—I shall listen carefully to the rest of it—or in recent statements by the Minister and others that does anything but strengthen my view that the abolition of rent control, as envisaged by the noble Lord and government supporters, will be a disaster for thousands of old people. It will contribute nothing to the solution of our most serious domestic problem. It will lead to confrontation and hardship the like of which we have not seen since the 1950 rent riots.
I hope that we will debate this matter again soon, perhaps when we receive the report of the present major review into all aspects of housing. That may be a better time to discuss this matter in more detail and at greater length than we can tonight. In the meantime, I hope that we will think twice before we embark on the road outlined by the noble Lord.
6.48 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, has introduced a desperately important subject, and one of great complexity. Listening to him, I felt at times that I was listening to the Secretary of State for the Environment Mr. Nicholas Ridley, because their views seem so alike in so many ways. In fairness to Mr. Ridley, the last time I read one of his speeches on this subject it was one he made to the Institute of Housing conference on 13th June last. It seemed that Mr. Ridley covered his tracks and guarded his escape route rather better than the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has. Mr. Ridley said:
"If rents were set at market levels and there were a large number of landlords, both public and private, with a large number of properties, then a market could emerge which could clear itself at a competitive price".
There are a great many ifs and buts there. I hope that at the end of the debate we shall hear a little more

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about the ifs and the buts. If we do no more than merely remove rent controls, we are likely merely to redistribute the limited existing stock of homes for rent to those with greater market power, while other tenants will end up more poorly housed than they are today.
At least it seems that at long last the Government's sole housing policy is no longer an increase in the percentage of home owners. That is welcome. Home ownership has now reached 64 per cent., higher than in any comparable European country. I think that it is approaching saturation point. There are signs that the Government have recognised that the principal housing need today is for homes to rent. That is wise. I think that that is a view shared by noble Lords in all parts of the House. Whatever reservations they may have about the dangers of private sector rented accommodation, it is nevertheless accepted that the real need today is for more homes to rent. Where are they to come from? That is the problem. The existing provision of rented accommodation comes from many sources. It comes from local authority housing departments, housing associations, private landlords and to a limited extent from other agencies such as housing co-operatives.
It seems to me that a variety of provisions is desirable since it increases freedom of choice for the tenant. Therefore, which of the existing providers—or what new agencies—can do what is required? I think we must accept the melancholy fact that local authorities are not widely perceived as being good landlords. For one thing, they are far too large. They became much larger with local government reorganisation, and very large organisations tend to be remote and excessively bureaucratic. In addition, there are special problems in the metropolitan areas where housing has remained, as perhaps in the Greater Manchester area, the business of the city council. Indeed that particular city council has overspill housing estates many miles away from the city. Therefore, in a sense, local democracy ceases because the councillor for whom the person votes if he lives in an overspill Manchester City housing estate in Hattersley or Marple is not a councillor on the housing authority responsible for his house. I think that there are very great difficulties there.
In addition, many have found local authorities to have a tendency towards being authoritarian as landlords. I have often found experience of that. It is a melancholy fact that the person or the family most likely to get to the top of the local authority housing list is not always the person or the family in most desperate need; it is very often the person or family who makes life intolerable for the people in the housing department. The size of the organisation tends to lead to that kind of problem.
I had some experience of authoritarianism some years ago with the rent books of 17 different local authority housing departments in the North-West of England. I recall a television programme with the late Professor Harry Street, whom many noble Lords will remember as an almost perpetual Royal Commissioner and perhaps the outstanding authority on the common law in Britain. He went through the conditions in the rent books of 17 housing authority
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areas in the North-West of England. When looking through the different sections he said: "That is illegal; that is unenforceable; that is all right", and so on. As a result, the housing authorities withdrew all those rent books and each and every one of them was rewritten to remove provisions which were, frankly, ultra vires and perhaps an intolerable infringement of the ordinary rights of ordinary tenants. Therefore, I am not immensely happy about looking for a vast increase in rented accommodation from local authorities.
Where else should we look? Perhaps we should look at building societies. I mentioned in an earlier debate that now that we have removed some of the restrictions from the building societies we can perhaps hope that they will revert to what they were originally set up to do; namely to build houses. I should like to see some of the building societies building some houses to rent. I have heard rumours that theAbbey National Building Society is considering doing that. However, before building societies make progress in that direction they will need to have consultations with the Government so that the Government can in some way target a part of the subsidies which go to housing towards that source so that the societies can get on with the job.
I should like to see as much assistance as possible going to housing associations, which, because they are smaller and closer to the people who depend upon them, are in many ways more accountable. I should like to see not only more housing co-operatives, but also those housing co-operatives being given more assistance.
As regards private landlords, let us accept the fact that there are no subsidies for private landlords. If there are to be subsidies for private landlords then there must be strings attached. I am not saying here and now what kind of strings, but if we are to expect private landlords to provide more houses to rent at rents which people seeking them can possibly pay, then the Government must give a great deal of thought to the whole question of housing finance.
I should like to move on to the question of how people are to pay their rents. That is one of the problems, and the time is coming when we must get rid of the extraordinary bureaucratic muddle of our present system of housing benefits, which nobody fully understands. They result in people being subjected to an intolerable kind of catechism on all aspects of their life and financial considerations. I believe that we must have modifications there.
I recollect that the National Federation of Housing Associations, which looked at the matter very carefully, took the view that all housing subsidies, including tax relief, should be phased out. That would mean that the housing costs of council tenants and mortgagors would be higher and the householders (whatever the tenure) would be protected, if their circumstances required it, by what the inquiry called a "needs-related housing allowance"—in other words, a housing benefit of some kind.
Even then there would be problems. In 1980, before the recent steep rise in house prices, about 45 per cent. of council tenants were unable to pay their rents without the help of rent rebates or supplementary benefit. I believe that the proportion is now 70 per

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cent. If rents are to be further increased, as is inevitable if there is to be more building but no housing subsidies, even more tenants, council or private, will be unable to pay their rents without still more help. If rents, instead of merely covering costs, are to be based on the current capital value of the dwelling, they will be higher still, as will the bill for housing benefits in some form.
The question arises: can there be any logic in rent levels which few tenants, if any, will be able to pay? Unfortunately that seems to be the unavoidable result of unsubsidised rents. Subsidies for rented housing are inescapable and are certainly a lesser evil than no subsidies if that means rents which have no relationship whatever to the rent-paying capacity of those living or seeking to live in those houses.
I take the view that we should adopt a housing allowance which would not be needs-related at all but paid as of right to all householders, like child benefits or old age pensions, with the tax system amended so that the Exchequer would recover the cost where the allowance was not needed. A system of that kind has considerable merits and warrants examination. However, whatever the system of income support, no part of the cost should fall on the locality. It should be borne by the community at large, through an income support subsidy from the Exchequer.
I should like to return for a moment to the precise terms of the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, which refers to:
"the effects of rent control on unemployment and homelessness".
The link between rent controls and homelessness is of course inescapable and the problems of homelessness are immense. They have been mentioned over and over again in your Lordships' House. In answer to a Question which I tabled, the Government accepted that last year there were 110,000 families homeless in England and Wales, not counting Scotland. That figure is clearly an underestimate if we add to it the very large number of single homeless who are not included in it.
However, the link with unemployment is a little more tenuous. Noble Lords will remember that in our recent debate on the gulf between North and South it was made clear by many noble Lords that while the cost of accommodation remains so very high it has become impossible in London for health authorities to recruit nurses with the necessary qualities or for schools to recruit graduate teachers.
In general, it is a fact that those with jobs to go to seek houses to own rather than to rent. It is right as the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, said, that there are young people who want houses to rent when seeking jobs which may be temporary. However, in general those seeking rented accommodation are the elderly with, on the whole, low incomes, and young, mobile people. I say "mobile" because they have nowhere to work, often because they have nowhere to live. We now have housing rules and board and lodging arrangements which compel them to be mobile, and rather more mobile than I think is socially desirable.
I seek some answers at the end of this debate and I am sure that we shall be given some of them by the noble Baroness. I know that she is familiar with some of the housing problems on Merseyside. We heard Mr.
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Patten saying loud and clear that we wanted "the right to rent". With the right to rent must go a right to be able to pay the rent, and I should like to hear a little more about that at the end of this debate.
Two of the main problems facing our nation today are; first, homelessness, which is a national disgrace, and, secondly, personal indebtedness. The two are very closely linked. We shall not solve one without solving the other. I hope that we solve both of those problems.
7 p.m.
Lord Seebohm: My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, introduced this particular subject because I believe that bad government policy in rent restriction and in housing policy generally since the war has done as much damage to the social structure of this country as any other actions that have been taken. I do not believe that noble Lords will disagree that now there is an enormous need for rented accommodation. Anything that can be done to remedy the situation is desirable and must be looked at very carefully.
There are three categories which interest me most. The first is housing for the elderly, the second housing for the homeless and the third housing for the mobility of labour. I am not going to speak about the elderly because there are many pressure groups—Age Concern, Help the Aged and many other organisations—which are making the urgency and the need for more rented accommodation for old people so obvious that there is no great necessity for me to stress that matter tonight. Mobility has been dealt with already. Therefore, I am going to concentrate my remarks on the issue of homelessness.
There have been many debates during the last year or two on housing. We had long debates on the Scarman Report and on the Duke of Edinburgh's Report, and there have been Questions in your Lordships' House concerning this matter. I am still astonished at the lack of an adequate response from the Government to all the completely conclusive arguments concerning the state of the nation's housing.
The PSI (Policy Studies Institute), of which I had the honour to be president, has just produced a very interesting survey which I received last week called Supplementary Benefit Board and Lodging Payments. The last sentence of the report states:
"It is agreed on all sides that the real solution to these problems does not lie in supplementary benefit payments but in the availability of accommodation for single people. A sufficient supply of independent bedsitters or flatlets, supplemented by cheap private lodgings and hostels, would make the present expensive arrangements to put claimants up in bed and breakfast hotels entirely unnecessary.".
Being a money man I am going to talk about figures and the financing of houses, although I shall not bore the House with many figures. The first figure I wish to give from the latest report I have shows that in 1985 the DHSS handed out approximately £400 million for bed and breakfast and lodgings. From rough calculations I believe that for approximately half a billion pounds (£500 million) it is possible to build a mass of small flatlets and accommodation and to improve what is at present old and inadequate

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accommodation. This would solve half the problems. It is quite ridiculous to continue spending a fantastic sum every year for board and lodgings when for a little capital expenditure it is possible to put a great deal of this problem right.
I have done some more calculations which I believe to be reasonably accurate. It is not possible in the South of England to build a small house adequate for modern standards which could be let commercially at under £100 per week. This is going to put a stopper on the building of new houses. But a single person in board and lodgings is given a grant of £55 per week, and so two single people occupying a house together would save the country money.
I have some figures which illustrate the point better than that. These are figures which were produced by the DHSS in April of this year. They show that for a couple with two children board and lodgings costs £10,800 per annum. It is possible to build a house for approximately £50,000, and if one considers the modern interest rate on the amount that the local authority would have to borrow, it would cost only £6,000 per year. This illustrates a saving when building a house of £4,740 for every family that has two children. These figures have been carefully worked out. This is fantastic.
Using the same figures, one sees that the saving for a couple is approximately £1,390; for single people it is roughly all square. But many single people would not necessarily have to live in a house. If hostels and flatlets were built at least two people could share a room. At university one used to do that and I imagine that young people today can do the same. It is going to cost very much less. There is absolutely no argument whatever that capital, and not an exorbitant amount, should be spent as quickly as possible to cure homelessness. It can be done.
What I cannot understand is why the Government refuse to spend this money, a lot of which is available but is being blocked. The local authorities have the money. But if the Government can get billions of pounds from the public through the privatisation of British Oil, British Telecom and British Gas, which apparently is to be given back to them in taxation, a housing loan or something of that nature, which could be advertised with as much publicity as they gave Sid, would be willingly subscribed by everybody. It would not come out of the PSBR. It would not be produced by the banks and the Treasury. It would be just like the money that was raised for buying British Gas. At the end of the day one would end up with some genuine assets on the ground and not just added personal expenditure. I cannot see the argument against that. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, will tell me the answer in her reply.
One of the biggest sources we can now encourage for rented accommodation is housing associations. It is absolutely criminal that we have stopped giving adequate money to the housing associations, which can be supervised by the National Federation of Housing and subject to the Housing Corporation. Such associations can be properly supervised and managed. This is probably one of the best possible ways of getting housing.
The other point I wished to raise is this. I listened with great care to the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, and
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never once in his speech did he talk about building more houses. If you build an adequate number of houses, every argument he made falls flat on its face. I return to the same point. We could build more houses; we must build more houses. If we do not take the steps necessary to see that within reason everybody in this country has a dry and warm home, we are not a caring society.
7.8 p.m.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, I should like to add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for introducing the debate. It is an extremely important and very clear issue. In a short debate, we cannot conceivably discuss the complexities of the various different solutions that may be suggested. What we are faced with is a clear difference of principle. The noble Lord, Lord Stallard, stated his party's policy clearly and with total sincerity. There is no compromise with the principles behind the policy, as I think he would agree. We are actually talking of a fundamental difference of approach.
I should like to confine my remarks to the relationship, as I see it, between the effect of the Rent Acts and unemployment. I listened with surprise and amazement to some of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley. To suggest that this is not a major problem in the area of unemployment, because the unemployed, when they are fortunate enough to find a job, prefer to purchase property, I find amazing. When semi-skilled or unskilled workers have been unemployed for a year or two, relatively few of them can put together the £6,000 or £7,000 in deposit and legal fees required for even a very cheap small house. The Rent Acts have an adverse impact upon the unemployed.
In my view the policies outlined so clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, would harm those he seeks to protect more than anybody else. To put it bluntly, no one in his right mind would let private property on the conditions he has outlined. That is the problem that we have faced over recent years.
Every so often, a politician, in the course of thousands of speeches, makes one comment—sometimes a good one, sometimes a bad one—which is linked for ever after to his or her name. We can go through the list: "The wind of change"; "You've never had it so good"; "Rivers of blood". Those are just a few examples, and most Members present could indentify the authors.
And so with Mr. Norman Tebbit, a man who, despite herculean efforts to demonstrate a sensitive and lovable personality (a sort of Bishop of Durham with a short back and sides) will always be remembered, whatever else he says or does, as the man who told the unemployed to get on their bikes, as his father had done, and look for a job. It was a comment seen by many people of all parties as callous in the extreme.
However, to many of us, with the same background and from the same generation, it was a perfectly understandable remark in the context in which it was made. It was out of date at the time it was made. But it was understandable because it referred to the experience of hundreds of thousands of the pre-war unemployed who did exactly that.

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My father left Swindon in the 1930s and eventually found work and re-established his family in the south east of London. How did he do it? Because, while there was poverty on a scale unknown today, there was an abundance of low-cost accommodation to rent through out the land. It is not a question of the North and the South. Men cannot look for jobs even in the next county unless there is somewhere they can take their families to live. That is the position for people of every level.
Many in this House, as children, took it as perfectly normal that we should be brought up in rented accommodation in private houses that we sometimes shared with another family—at no great hardship—and subsequently took over, later even owning our own house. Today, however, outside the public sector, there is no rented accommodation available to the ordinary working man. I repeat my disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley. At least a contributory factor has been the spiralling price of housing accommodation which increasingly takes privately-owned houses way out of the reach of the ordinary common man.
The irony is, of course, that some will say, "We have the public sector". There, however, one encounters the paradoxical situation that before one can qualify for a council house one has to live in the area. The council will not normally produce council accommodation for somebody who does not live in the area.
We have achieved the unenviable and lunatic distinction of being one of the few countries in Europe where the unemployed cannot move to other areas where work is available and where it is known that there are vacancies, because, with the best of motives, we have legislated the only accommodation they could afford out of existence.
What is even worse, as so often happens when governments decide to solve fundamental problems, we did it by accident. It was done for the best of motives. No one from either side of the House could support the abominable behaviour of some landlords in the 1950s and 1960s. It was intolerable; it was monstrous. However, it is foolish to say that there cannot be privately-rented accommodation without accepting the excesses and the disgraceful and indefensible behaviour which Rachman signified.
The ability to move in search of a job is not a problem solely of people coming from the North to the South, though that happens. It happened in the 1930s when people came from Wales, Scotland, and the North-East. Incidentally, these are the very areas where high unemployment exists today. I wonder sometimes why, if it is so easy to solve the problem of unemployment, we have made no dent on the geographical distribution of areas of high unemployment in the last 60 years despite the efforts of every government. That is, however, a wider problem.
There are pockets with job vacancies in every region of this country—many areas of high economic activity outside London and the South-East. But lack of rented accommodation means that a worker is confined to a radius of something like 25 miles from his existing accommodation in his search for work. It is not a practicable proposition, nor can he afford, to commute much further from his home.
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It is simply not true that privately-rented accommodation is inevitably vulnerable to the behaviour of a Rachman. That is rubbish. If France, Germany, the United States, and most of the rest of the world can protect private tenants without destroying the only type of accommodation they can afford, I do not believe it is beyond the wit of a British government to be able to do likewise. If one looks at the figures—I come back to the point that there is effectively no privately-rented accommodation in this country now—in France, 33 per cent. of the population live in privately-rented accommodation.
I am the chairman of a multinational company with a large office in Paris where we regularly exchange staff. All the girls in secretarial jobs in Paris have apartments which they could not begin to afford in London. Here, they are lucky if they can find a one-roomed furnished bed-sit for £50, or £60 a week. In the United States, it is the same. Over 30 per cent. of the population live in rented accommodation. In Germany 45 per cent. of the population live in privately-rented accommodation. It is not true that half the population of West Germany lives in a state of permanent exploitation and harassment. It is simply that means have been adopted to solve the problem.
It is also said that Rent Acts are not responsible for the virtual disappearance of privately-rented property. To that, I say, "Look at London". It is probably the only area in the country where there is a great deal of rented property. A visit to any estate agent in central London will confirm that there is plenty of rented accommodation, but even if individuals are willing and able to pay £400 to £500 a week to rent that accommodation, they will not obtain it if it is unfurnished because no one will let rented accommodation which is subject to the Rent Acts. All that accommodation is available only as company lets. None of it is available to individuals, even those able to pay astronomic sums.
I come back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Stallard. The policies he outlines make it impossible to conceive that people are prepared, as they were in the past, when their children had left home or when they had inherited a home from a deceased relative, to keep that house for rent. It is not true to say that they would always sell it. Many working people do not think in terms of the capital value of the property. What they want is cash flow over a period of time and the ability perhaps to move relatives in at some later stage.
A radical reappraisal of the Rent Acts would not end unemployment. That would be an absurdity, but I am convinced that it would provide jobs and hope. The possibility of being able even to look for a job does not exist at the moment for an unknown number of the unemployed. I do not know how many, but I am convinced that the figure would be in the thousands. A radical reappraisal of the Rent Acts would not solve the problem of the homeless. But it would encourage more people to make more accommodation available, and in some areas it might slow down at the margin the crazy spiral of house prices. I speak as somebody who profits from the fact that my house in three and a half years has appreciated by some 250 per cent. Let us not talk about the unemployed nipping round to buy a house when they find themselves a job as a London bus driver!

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In the real world of politics it is not, and probably never will be, possible for the Labour Party to begin to take an objective look at this issue. Part of its charm and part of its problem is that it is trapped in a 1930s time warp. Many of its leaders are convinced that Love on the Dole and How Green was my Valley are contemporary accounts of conditions in Britain today. Its view is a very clear one and it is politically impossible or unrealistic to expect even those who take a different view—there are some in the Labour Party, I know—from the noble Lord, Stallard, who is totally in favour of it. It is not possible to have this discussion in the Labour Party at the present time.
The Conservative Party does not have those contraints. It does not have those excuses. It can speak clearly because it is an argument that is open to discussion within the party. I believe that if it commits itself to action designed to remove the obstacles to the provision of privately rented property, it will achieve every politician's ultimate dream. It will have combined political perspicacity with a long overdue abolition of measures which have in the event caused great hardship to the very people they were intended to help.
All I believe it requires on the part of a Conservative government is the political courage to do it.
7.24 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I first join with previous speakers in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Harris, on bringing this very topical subject before your Lordships to debate today and thanking him. But there, I am afraid, we part company because he opened his remarks by saying he was speaking strictly as an individual. However, the points he made stood well to the right of any pronouncements or of anything I have read or heard from Ministers in the Government today. Nobody has said anything approaching what he said.
I should like to quote from a document that is readily available in your Lordships' Library. It is a quite recently published paper by the research department of the House of Commons Library. It is not a Labour Party document. The main plank for people who think that rent control would be a panacea that would solve many of our housing problems in the housing-to-rent sector has been tried before in the not-too-distant past. The background paper refers to the effects of that. It says:
"The major attempt to end control after the Second World War was the 1957 Rent Act. This legislation was introduced by Enoch Powell, then Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, who argued that there were five 'evils' which were a direct product of rent control:
Under-occupation, due to households not moving to suitable small houses when members of the household left.
The level of rents gave every incentive to landlords to sell the house when gaining possession instead of re-letting.
Control led to immobility, because suitable alternative accommodation was not available elsewhere.
Control was a major reason for low standards of repair.
The whole system was unjust because of the various systems of control in operation, so that there was no relation to the size of property and its rent…
The Government [of the day] argued that decontrol would increase the supply of housing".
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This has been said today:
"In fact it appears that this Act hastened the loss of privately rented dwellings as landlords sold out into owner occupation. Annual figures for this period are not available, but for example Stewart Lansley in Housing and Public Policy (1979) estimated that losses in the private rented sector between 1956–1960 averaged 200,000 a year, a rise from the 1951–56 figure of 180,000 a year"—
a substantial loss which in this document is attributed to the complete removal of rent controls.
"The 1957 Act decontrolled tenancies in two ways: firstly by abolishing controls on houses above a certain rateable value, and secondly by removing control from all new lettings. Rents on remaining controlled lettings would be based on gross value, provided repairs were carried out.
The classic study of the 1957 Rent Act, Joel-Barnett's The Politics of Legislation (1969) revealed that the Government's expectations of the consequences of its measures were inaccurate. The number of units decontrolled by rateable value proved to be about half the estimated number of 750,000 and these consisted mainly of purpose built blocks, and subdivided multioccupied dwellings, rather than the houses with gardens occupied by elderly couples envisaged by Ministers".
That report in part covers extensively some of the points that have been made in the debate.
I have not heard any special pleading today, though they are part of the rented sector, for the small landlords. The Small Landlords Association, according to the report:
"have argued that there have been vast changes in tenure and supply and demand for privately rented housing since rent control was introduced as a temporary war-time measure. In its report; Review of the Rent Acts (February 1985) the SLA point out that the main demand for private lets is now from short-stay tenants requiring quick access to furnished accommodation. The SLA propose market rents and the certainty of repossession".
I believe to go down that road would be a policy of unmitigated disaster for any social form.
I was pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Seebohm, mention that he regretted the Government's cuts in funding to housing associations. This was an area that was mushrooming to the benefit of many people and providing many homes. I fully concur in the belief that it was one of the worst acts of the Government relating to housing. We talk about the homeless; it was only yesterday that I quoted figures to show that, if the present percentage annual increase continues to take place, by the early 1990s as a nation we shall have between 200,000 and a quarter of a million homeless families.
I listened with great care to what the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, said regarding the mobility of labour and the incentive for people to move to jobs in other places based on the fact that houses were empty. But certainly people in the North of England could not go into private rented property in that area if it was free from rent control because we should be talking in terms of £50 to £60 a week rent and the average wages in the North would in no way be sufficient to meet that sort of housing charge.
If it were to happen in London, it would not be the £500 or £600 a week that the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, mentioned. I think there must be some very rich landlords in the private sector if they can refuse to let houses at £500 or £600 a week. I am not sure that security of tenure would dissuade them, as the noble Lord said. But according to the information I have, they are talking in terms of average lets of £100 to £160 a week rent in London for the private sector.

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Can you imagine a person from Manchester, Birmingham or Leeds who was unemployed bringing the family down here and paying 150 a week rent? They would probably be lucky if they had ever seen £150 a week in wages. The only way it could be done would be by means of a government subsidy of such a monstrous size that this Government would not even contemplate it because it would completely blow a hole in all their housing plans.
This is not a new subject. It has been brought before your Lordships today so that we can debate the situation, but a debate also took place in the other place last week. I am not allowed to quote from that debate on this very subject, but I am able to refer to a resolution that was moved which would have done what the people in favour of this Motion want to do: namely totally abolish rent controls. The decision was put to the vote and it went against the introduction of the Bill by 144 to 142. The significant fact was that no government Minister voted in the Division. They were totally absent from the Lobby. The payroll vote was not used.
It is all very well Mr. Patten going to a housing conference to tell everyone what he was going to do. I am not suggesting for one moment that I should have liked the other place to vote on the possibility of that Bill becoming law. Everybody knows how the other place works and very few ten-minute Bills ever reach the statute book. But the Government were absolutly gutless even in giving their intention. I suspect that there was a large element in that abortive exercise of what the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, described. The effect of lifting rent controls would have serious electoral consequences. That the Government are not prepared to face; but they will deal with the matter afterwards.
In his contribution the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, mentioned the effect of Rachmanism. In those days I was a wet-behind-the-ears young councillor in Manchester. represented an area which according to the statistics was, funnily enough, the most populated area in Europe: the ward of Beswick in Manchester. We had a mass of tenanted houses, mostly demolished now because they were rapidly becoming slums. We had a situation of Rachmanism—not islolated cases but rampant ones—and we sent public health inspectors, not environmental health officers, to deal with it. It was like a minefield trying even to find out who owned the houses.
The worst part was that large packages of houses in Manchester and in the other major towns, as well as in the City of London, had been bought by people who did not belong there. They were financiers like Rachman who came from Belgium and Holland. The only way we could deal with the situation, because the houses were in a shocking state, was to put a CPO on them and demolish them.
Who was to blame for that? In my opinion, that is a situation which could recur. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Seebohm. I recall a short while go the excellent way he introduced a debate, in a completely non-partisan spirit, as is his wont, on the report on housing of the Duke of Edinburgh's commission. That report got absolutely total support from the Government Back-Benches and from all the
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parties on this side. It was acclaimed as a first-class objective document on basic housing, and the main component was more money for new house building. It did not say council house building, it said new house building.
Had that taken place in the public sector and in connection with the housing associations, we should have had over half a million more houses today, particularly if the housing cuts imposed in the public sector and the housing associations had not been implemented by this Government. I have to say that it will be a very long time, if ever, before the 500,000 or 600,000 houses lost in the last eight years will be made up.
Next Monday evening we will be debating the Archbishop of Canterbury's report, Faith in the City. The ward from which I took my name is featured heavily in that report. The report talks about disappointments and people trapped in areas for whom there is no escape. I wonder whether that report, which I expect to be acclaimed will receive support from people like the noble Lords, Lord Harris and Lord Marsh, saying that we ought to get on with a massive housing programme irrespective of what happens about the private sector.
I do not want to go on too long. I know there is a long debate to follow and quite a number of your Lordships are interested in the subject of it. However, I should like briefly to quote from a document which comes from Cambridge University. Here again this is not a document from the Labour Party and not a politically-motivated one. It is a press release regarding a research document from the Department of Land Economy at Cambridge University. It has been quite recently released and it says:
"Relaxing controls in the private rented housing sector is unlikely to be enough to revive the sector, according to a new study by researchers, Christine Whitehead and Mark Kleinman, Rather, its main effect may well be to speed up the shift away from the provision of long-term accommodation towards shorter term 'easy access' housing. This could lead to increased hardship for households who have traditionally found their home in the rented market, especially given the current decline in the provision of social housing.
The aim of the study is to provide the sort of information about private renting which is necessary both for informed debate about its role in the housing system and for the analysis of suitable policy proposals.
The study begins by examining why the private rented sector—which now houses fewer than one in eight of all households—continues to be of interest to policy makers. This is followed by a detailed examination of the way the private rented housing market operates, including both a description of conditions currently obtaining in the sector and the role which the sector plays within the wider housing system.
Next a forecast is made of the probable size and composition of the sector over the next 15 years, and a description given of the economic and social factors which affect both the supply of and demand for private rented housing. On this basis, the authors predict that the number of households in the sector will decline from perhaps 11 per cent. of all households in 1987 to about 7 per cent. by the end of the century. Over this period, the proportions of elderly, single person and non-manual households within the sector will all increase. The authors argue that the private rented sector has a role in an ideal housing system. However, this role may be limited to providing for certain categories of households, for example students, newly-forming households and those seeking job-related accommodation.
They conclude that changes in the control system are unlikely to solve the problems of the private rented sector. In the long term what is needed is a restructuring of the system so that private renting is provided by landlords who wish to let to those who want the

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desirable attributes of private renting. This must mean that those for whom it is inherently unsuitable are readily housed elsewhere. This in turn inescapably requires the provision of additional rented accommodation by social agencies such as local authorities and housing associations, however politically unfashionable a view this may be at the present time."
I close by saying that a few weeks ago, just before the Christmas Recess, I attended a seminar based on the possibility of extending the private sector of rented housing. What came across quite clearly was that if anybody is to be invited to contribute huge sums of money, as I think was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, from the building societies towards this new venture, then to get even a reasonable return which one could obtain by placing one's money elsewhere, the astronomical sums of money that would be needed to subsidise the rents because of the wage packets that people earn today would once again have to be found by the Government. It is an inescapable conclusion to which anybody who has studied the subject comes.
Once again, I express my appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for bringing this subject before us. But I have to say as I said when I commenced my speech, that I profoundly disagree with everything he said.
7.42 p.m.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, we are indeed grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, for again concentrating our minds on this important issue, and indeed for his historical analysis and wide review of the social and economic factors involved. This debate has also provided noble Lords opposite with the occasion to state clearly their parties' policies in this area. It will be for the electorate to decide whether even more rigid controls will solve the problem caused to a large extent by existing controls.
The Government are sympathetic to many of the arguments raised during the debate today. We are in no doubt that rent controls have over time contributed to the decline of the private rented sector. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, put this very vividly by saying that no one in his right mind would put property on the rented market today. Be that as it may, there have of course been other factors. The massive slum clearance programmes, both before and after the war, tended very much to replace privately rented housing with local authority housing and social trends have contributed with an increasing preference over the years for home ownership.
But it cannot be denied that where landlords, because of controls, have been unable to get an adequate return on their capital there have been the inevitable consequences. Property was withdrawn from the rented sector. The harassment of tenants in order to obtain vacant possession became a serious problem. Much property remaining in the private rented sector has been poorly maintained, with consequent dangers of friction between landlord and tenant and to the tenants' overall disadvantage. There are those who argue that this decline is irreversible. The Government totally reject this view. We believe that the private rented sector has an important role to play in the housing market, as indeed it does in France,
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Germany and the United States, and we are committed to stimulating new investment in this area.
This debate is about the private rented sector. The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, referred to the right to rent; that is, the freedom to choose to rent rather than to buy. He also said that there should be a right to pay. We recognise that there is a need to look at all sectors and at the ability of unsubsidised private renting to compete with other subsidised sectors. But much depends on landlords' willingness to make property available. They will not do this unless they get adequate returns, as has been said realistically by so many noble Lords this evening. So there is a good case for ending rent control on new tenancies and it is something that we are seriously looking at.
But the private rented sector is not a closed market. The housing market has to be looked at as a whole. Again, I welcome the support of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, for the breaking up of the monolithic local authority housing management system that has been in existence. So what is happening in the local authority sector and the owner-occupied sector has a direct effect on the economics of the private rented sector. And there are many cases where market rents alone would not bring landlords into the field, because the returns would still be inadequate. All those areas have to be looked at together and we are doing that.
However, we have made it clear that this in toto is a matter for a new Parliament. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, will understand that I cannot give him a preview of what is intended, although I was most interested to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, that the Government are totally committed to deregulation. However, in saying that I totally refute the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Dean, that the Government are afraid to introduce such legislation, because they have been taking this subject very seriously and are pursuing a range of measures designed to stimulate private letting within the existing framework. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, may be pleased to hear about some of those.
First, there is the assured tenancy scheme. Under that scheme, landlords approved by the Secretary of State can let dwellings at market rents to tenants who have a similar degree of security of tenure to that enjoyed by business tenants. Until the beginning of this year it was only possible to let newly built dwellings under that scheme, but we have now extended it to substantially renovated dwellings as well. We are confident that that will make many more projects viable for investors and that assured tenancies will now grow much more rapidly than they have so far.
The prospects for growth will be further boosted by the introduction of mixed public and private finance for housing association schemes. This also affects building societies, because it is very much aimed at such institutions and they are in fact responding with imaginative new financing proposals. The Housing Corporation has a budget for giving housing association grant at the rate of 30 per cent. for schemes attracting private finance. Perhaps this goes in some part to reply to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Seebohm, about the encouragement of more

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private finance. So these schemes together with market rents should enable a much wider range of projects to be attractive to investors. We expect £100 million worth of new housing investment from these mixed finance schemes this year.
Then there is the urban development grant, which is another mixed funding mechanism that has been used in some areas to enable assured tenancy schemes to go ahead. I am pleased to be able to confirm the immediate impact of these changes by announcing today that we shall shortly be laying before Parliament an order approving a further 12 bodies as landlords authorised to let on assured tenancies. Two of these are housing associations specifically responding to the introduction of the 30 per cent. housing association grant scheme. Three more are responding to the new scope for letting renovated property. And there has been a steady flow of further inquiries and applications resulting from these initiatives.
Another step that we have taken this month is to lay before Parliament two orders under the Housing Act 1980. These were welcomed by my noble friend Lady Macleod but other noble Lords have expressed reservations. As has been said—I think it worth reiterating—one of these orders will end the requirement that fair rents must be registered on shorthold lettings in London. In fact, this order will be debated in another place on 4th February and is due in your Lordships' House on 12th February. So in response to the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, there is no doubt that there will be further debates on this topic.
Shorthold is the arrangement whereby a landlord can let for between one year and five years with guaranteed possession at the end. It is particularly appropriate for the mobile. Yet while there are a considerable number of shortholds outside London, where there is no requirement to register a fair rent, there are very few in London itself. So we very much hope that this change will bring some of the 90,000 empty private sector properties in London on to the rental market. That is an objective which must be pursued vigorously.
The second order will end the requirement that increases in fair rents set by rent officers should be phased in over two years. This point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stallard. Because inflation has fallen to such a low level, there is no longer any justification for delaying full payment of any rent increase when awarded. This should bring some slight improvement on the return available to private landlords from fair rents. At the same time, tenants who are eligible for housing benefit will of course receive benefit at once on any higher rent.
These measures together, by helping to stem the decline of the private rented sector, make a valuable contribution to tacking the problems of homelessness and mobility, and I shall endeavour to deal briefly with each of those issues.
Turning first to homelessness, this is not a simple matter of housing shortages. Homelessness occurs for many reasons. Young people leave home earlier. Divorce rates are higher. Families are less willing to accommodate elderly relatives. These problems cannot be tackled solely with bricks and mortar.
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In Tyne and Wear, for example, last September there were 128 households in temporary accommodation, yet there were over 6,000 empty dwellings in the area. Some of these figures have already been mentioned. Nationally there are 550,000 empty privately owned dwellings, and over 100,000 empty local authority dwellings. So there is a question of making the best use of housing stock.
There can be no doubt that reducing the number of empty dwellings is something which is being tackled by this Government. The estate action initiative is a major thrust in this area. One hundred and one schemes have already been approved at a total cost of £45 million. Eight of those schemes are specifically directed at the homeless, with a further eight in the pipeline. This year we also propose to issue a general consent to authorities to dispose of dwellings in need of repair to housing associations on five-year leases. We believe that this is providing a flexible response and that these are both areas where encouragement of the private rented sector makes sense.
The noble Lord, Lord Seebohm, emphasised the importance of tackling homelessness. We are endeavouring to do this through a wide range of measures designed both to redress the symptoms and the causes. These measures cover the local authority sector, the housing association sector and the private rented sector, as well as advice and counselling services.
I am happy to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Seebohm, in his call to get away from bed and breakfast. In this context, although I have a full list if noble Lords wish to hear it, I shall only mention the specific arrangements we have introduced under which £15 million of housing association grant is being made available to stimulate £45 million of schemes to provide good quality temporary accommodation to house families who would otherwise be in bed and breakfast accommodation.
I do not think there is any argument that greater mobility is of considerable importance both to the economy as a whole and to individuals. More than one speaker has made this point, but perhaps none more forcefully than the noble Lord, Lord Marsh. The availability of housing is a key factor in promoting labour mobility. Private renting is the form of tenure most likely to meet the immediate needs of many job movers.
All the measures I have dealt with already will help to promote mobility. There are two more I should like to mention. The first is the job movers scheme, again using housing association grant, under which we hope to provide about £15 million worth of schemes of shared housing for young job-movers in London and the South. This, with our earlier changes to make it easier for resident landlords to let accommodation, will assist a group where mobility is particularly high.
Secondly and finally, I should mention the development of shared ownership. This is where a person part owns and part rents his house, buying additional shares as and when he can afford it. Up to now shared ownership has been provided only by the public sector. The Housing and Planning Act 1986 removes rent control and disapplies the Leasehold Reform Act from new shared ownership leases where

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the landlord is a housing association. Noble Lords debated this recently and will no doubt remember our discussions on that particular theme. This opens the way to share ownership schemes with index-linked private finance at rents which are lower than the normal costs of house purchase.
Perhaps I may now turn to one or two specific questions which have been raised in the debate and which I have perhaps not covered so far. The noble Lords, Lord Stallard and Lord Dean of Beswick, both referred, as did other noble Lords, to the evils of Rachmanism, as a result of the 1957 Act. We believe that the tighter the rent control the greater the pressure on landlords to harass so as to get vacant possession and sell. We believe that easy rent controls reduce the likelihood of harassment. Using the 1957 Act as an excuse for inaction is putting our heads in the sand. Circumstances have changed over 30 years and we can learn from the mistakes made then. The loss of rented accommodation occurs because landlords find it more profitable to sell or to simply not do anything at all.
My noble friend Lady Macleod raised a very specific point about lodgers. I wish to reassure her on that point. As she has said, the Department of the Environment encourages householders not to be concerned that they are creating permanent tenancies if they take in lodgers, and it sees lodging arrangements as making a potentially useful contribution to meeting housing needs in certain areas. She expressed a fear about widows having their pensions affected by taking in male lodgers. I can confirm to my noble friend that a widow's pension is not affected by any income received from offering rooms to lodgers. I can also confirm that if the relationship is a genuine one of landlady and lodger, there is no presumption of cohabitation. Only if there were significant evidence that a relationship was more than that would the social services want to investigate the matter further.
The noble Lord, Lord Stallard, and other noble Lords made the suggestion that easing rent controls hits tenants who cannot afford to pay. The question is really whether or not landlords are prepared to subsidise tenants. If they cannot get an adequate return, property simply goes off the market. Events have proved this. Rents on schemes like assured tenancies may well be higher than registered rents. However, the dwellings will be there for those who want them and can afford them. This in turn could release lower cost accommodation. In addition, the housing benefit scheme can provide help with the rent for those in need, and government grants provide help for other schemes such as the homelessness and job mover schemes which I have already mentioned.
I may not have covered all the points raised by noble Lords in the course of the debate, and if so I apologise. However, I hope that I have made it clear that our policy is to stimulate the private rented sector and to reverse its decline. We shall continue to develop measures which pursue that objective. We shall continue to aid those in need of help with housing costs. We shall continue to give tenants the fullest possible protection against harassment and the small minority of irresponsible landlords. I am sure that the private rented sector will perform its valuable social and economic role with renewed vigour as a result of our policies.
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, it only remains for me to thank all the speakers who have taken part in this lively debate, and particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, as the one representative of the Tory Back Benches who always brings her human touch to our discussions.
I must say I regret that the two Labour spokesmen were caught in their time warp, (from which I am delighted to say that my noble friend Lord Marsh has so wonderfully emancipated himself in recent years) and I really believe that their simple confusion is to blame the non-existent free market in the post-war years for the acknowledged abuses of landlords, which I think stem directly from controlled rents and security of tenure.
I welcome the more balanced approach of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and my noble friend Lord Seebohm, who emphasised the various contributions towards rented accommodation from housing associations and building societies as well as private landlords on market terms that work in other European countries.
In conclusion, I was mildly encouraged by the positive ministerial response of the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper. I shall read all the small print in Hansard and perhaps be ready to return to the charge later, but, as other noble Lords are assembling for a possibly yet fiercer joust, I shall ask leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Licensing (Restaurant Meals) Bill [H.L.]
8.1 p.m.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a Third time.
In moving the Third Reading of this Bill I should like briefly to thank noble Lords in all parts of the House who have given support during the various earlier stages. I should also like to thank many other noble Lords who, outside this House and outside this Chamber, have given me an enormous amount of support and encouragement in proceeding with this Bill. I want particularly to thank my noble friend Lord Caithness, who unfortunately cannot be here this evening, for his understanding and constructive comments on the Bill both during the debate and outside the Chamber.
During the Committee stage of the Bill my noble friend Lord Caithness said that the Government looked upon this Bill in its new modified form with "benevolent neutrality". I hope that my noble friend Lord Beaverbrook, who is taking the Bill tonight, will encourage his right honourable friend, when this Bill comes to another place, to increase the benevolence without modifying the neutrality, unless of course that changes to outright support.
This Bill is about improving the quality of life for British citizens and tourists. It puts the restaurant trade on the same basis as in Continental Europe and creates jobs. It is a very short and simple measure and it deserves to succeed. I wish it godspeed, and beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a Third time.—[Viscount Montgomery of Alamein.]
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, I think all of us who have been involved with the passage of this Bill will be very grateful to the noble Viscount for, in the first place, bringing the subject forward yet again, this time in a slightly different guise. Also, we are very grateful to him for his willingness to make some fundamental changes in his Bill at Committee stage as a result of certain suggestions coming from speakers in the debate. There is little doubt that his Bill is now a better Bill and that the proposals it contains really will give restaurant owners the benefit they want, and will also give the users of restaurants and tourists a very much more peaceful way of having their meals. So there is a great deal to be said for the noble Viscount's initiative in the first place, and also for his flexibility in making the changes that were necessary.
The noble Viscount remarked on the Government's decision to look at this Bill with benevolent neutrality. Without wishing to be a real wet blanket I should again like to remind the Government of the very widespread concern that has been expressed recently about intoxication and all the dangers of going too far in liberalising our licensing laws. I think it is the imminent passage of a Bill in another place which has brought out a great deal of concern and comment from organisations and individuals. Also, we have been reminded of some very worrying statistics about the extent in the first place of drink-related accidents on our roads; the number of beds in our hospitals which are occupied by patients suffering from drink-related diseases; and the number of offenders in our prisons who are there for having committed drink-related crimes.
So, although I join the noble Viscount in welcoming this particular change which he has brought about in this Bill, and I would like to support that initiative, I should like again to ask the Government to think seriously of looking at the whole subject, the whole area of alcohol consumption in this country together with our licensing laws, as is happening in other countries in Europe. At the same time, I wish that the Government would make more money available to services for health education and for general public information on alcohol matters.
8.6 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I rise briefly to congratulate the noble Viscount on his efforts. I warmly welcome this step towards a more civilised Britain or, to be more accurate, a more civilised England and Wales, because the Scots set us a good example on this matter some years ago.
I congratulate the noble Viscount, too, on having had the good sense to compromise. If those who supported the Shops Bill had had the wisdom to make even one tangible concession to their opponents we might not have had the misfortune of losing that Bill altogether. With that, I wish this Bill every success in another place.
Lord Beaverbrook: My Lords, it falls to me on this occasion to congratulate my noble friend Lord Montgomery upon the way in which he has steered his Bill thus far. It is not quite the Bill he introduced but, as he has readily acknowledged, it meets the concern of the restaurant trade to be able to offer drinks with
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meals throughout the day. We are grateful to him for restricting the scope of his original proposals so that instead of the prospect of licensed restaurants operating 24 hours a day without adequate safeguards against disorder, noise and nuisance, we have a modest measure but one that will nevertheless be welcome to many. If passed, the Bill will not only ease some of the restrictions on restaurants but may also enable some of us to enjoy a glass of wine with a late lunch. I shall watch its progress in another place with interest.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, in conclusion perhaps I may thank my noble friend for those words of encouragement, and reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, that I do not think that any of the preoccupations that she has expressed—and they are very genuine ones—will in any way be prejudiced by the passage of this Bill. With those few words, I commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

Infant Life (Preservation) Bill [H.L.]
8.9 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
I have introduced this Bill with some reluctance and a great deal of trepidation. It is a long time since a Bishop introduced a Bill in your Lordships' House; I do so only because I have not been able to find anyone here or in another place to do it, and I have received encouragement to take an initiative.
I want to make it clear that I do not belong to any of the many pressure groups about abortion. Perhaps I should add that, when it was suggested in the General Synod by a Minister of the Crown that Bishops should knock on the door of 10 Downing Street on the subject of abortion, I did so. As a result of that I met with Ministers of State both from the Home Office and the DHSS, and I think it is fair to say that my Bill has gestated as a result of that meeting.
In fact this Bill is not about the Abortion Act at all. It is about infant life preservation and in particular about the Act of 1929 which bears that name. My Bill has one moral presupposition, and one only. It is this. It is immoral and wrong to kill a child that is capable of being born alive.
If a child can live when it breathes the air of this world, it is wrong to kill it at that stage in its development if it is in its mother's womb. The only exception to that principle would be a situation where the killing takes place in good faith, solely in order to preserve the life of the mother. I may say that the Infant Life (Preservation) Act does not talk about termination of pregnancy; it talks about child destruction.
These are not only sound moral principles but they are actually embodied in the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929. They are part of the laws of this land. I am sure that there are many aspects of the Abortion Act about which many of us would disagree. I make no bones about the fact that, while I am in favour of abortion in certain circumstances, I think that that Act

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is too widely drawn. I have no doubt that we would disagree about when or if an embryo or a foetus should be accorded the same human rights as a human being. We might disagree about when the soul is infused into the embryo; about whether it is at conception or at some other time or whether it is a gradual development. Indeed, we might even disagree about whether it is right to talk about a soul at all.
All such points of disagreement are irrelevant to this Bill. I mention them only because I want to make it quite clear that my Bill is not concerned with the Abortion Act. I do not propose to amend that. My Bill is concerned only with the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929. The only point of contact it has with the Abortion Act is in Section 5(1) of that Act, which reads:
"Nothing in this Act shall affect the provisions of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 (protecting the life of the viable foetus.)".
My Bill has one moral presupposition only. If a foetus is born alive, it is a criminal offence to kill it. It follows that if a foetus has not actually been born but is capable of being born alive, then it ought to be accorded exactly the same rights, saving only the need to protect the mother's life. I find it very hard to see how this moral position could be gainsaid.
In the 1929 Act it is stated:
"For the purposes of this Act, evidence that a woman had at any material time been pregnant for a period of twenty-eight weeks or more shall be prima facie proof that she was at that time pregnant of a child capable of being born alive".
The Act also states that, however many weeks a woman has been pregnant—say, 24 weeks—it is still a criminal offence to kill the child if it is capable of being born alive. But if you kill a child before it is born, by the nature of the case there is no evidence that that particular child could have been born alive. As a matter of fact most children of 24 weeks' gestation are capable of being born alive, but as the law stands at present there is a presumption that any child is not capable of being born alive unless the pregnancy is at least 28 weeks; and by 28 weeks I mean 196 days after the beginning of the mother's last menstrual period.
Things have moved on since 1929. Medical technology and medical care have enabled a premature baby to survive where formerly it would not have been able to be born alive. I shall not bother your Lordships with statistics, of which I have a good many. Whether one takes the figures in the Report on Fetal Viability and Clinical Practice published in 1985 or the most recent research of Yu and others in Australia published in the British Medical Journal in November last year, they show that a foetus of 24 weeks is not only capable of being born alive but has a 16 per cent. chance (in the British survey) of survival of more than a year after birth and a 33 per cent. chance of survival of more than a year after birth in the Australian survey. As the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists wrote to the DHSS in 1980:
"Twenty-four weeks does, at present and in the foreseeable future, represent the stage of pregnancy at which an expelled foetus might have a prospect of survival".
That judgment seems to me to be endorsed by most professional bodies and experts. In 1985 there was a report by a representative committee comprising the
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Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the British Paediatric Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Midwives, the British Medical Association and the Department of Health and Social Security—a representative committee. Its first recommendation was this:
"The gestational age after which a foetus is considered as viable should be changed from the present limit of 28 weeks (196 days) to 24 weeks (168 days) of gestation".
This change also has the approval of the report of the Committee of the Working of the Abortion Act presided over by the Honourable Mrs. Justice Lane. Its report was published way back in 1974, and it is extraordinary that it has never been discussed either in your Lordships' House or in another place. As your Lordships may remember, the committee did not recommend any change to the Abortion Act 1967, but it did recommend, 14 years ago,
"that the Abortion Act should be amended to authorise abortion up to the 24th week of pregnancy and no more".
So far I have quoted only professional bodies and the Lane Committee in my favour. I know that I must not quote remarks made in another place, but there have been, as your Lordships will know, four attempts in another place to amend the Abortion Act, and of course there was one in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge.
Viscount Craigavon: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate mentioned that those organisations were in his favour and he read out a list of the organisations. Can he say whether all of them, and in particular the BMA, support the Bill?
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for his intervention. I understand that not all of them have met to decide this matter. The Royal College of Midwives supports it. So far as I understand it, the British Medical Association supports it with certain exceptions, though there is a certain vacillation which we have noted before. The British Medical Association was against the Abortion Act when it was first published. It was in favour of the Act when it was implemented. It thought that the period should be 20 weeks at one stage and 24 weeks at another. Now it thinks that it should be 24 weeks, with some exceptions. That is the best answer I can give to the noble Viscount.
Viscount Craigavon: My Lords, I do not want to hold the proceedings up but I was told that the BMA had written a letter to the right reverend Prelate stating specifically that it did not support the Bill.
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham: The BMA did not support the Bill without exceptions. That is how I understood the letter. That is what I tried to convey to the noble Viscount.
When attempts were made in another place to amend the Abortion Act they failed, but this is the first attempt to amend the Infant Life (Preservation) Act. Naturally I looked carefully at what was said in another place because I wanted the Bill to pass there as well as I hope it may pass here. I notice that the mover on the previous occasion had been deflected from his intention to produce a Bill such as mine because the

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DHSS pointed out that it would cause grave legal problems as the Act does not cover Scotland and the different legal system that obtains there. However, the Solicitor-General for Scotland made it clear that that would not be the case and I hope that this particular red herring will not be raised again.
I must not quote from the other place but I believe I am allowed to say that influential people would have voted for my Bill then who could not support the amendment of the Abortion Act, including the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, who introduced an amendment to that effect and was indeed the initiator of the Abortion Act himself.
The great weight of informed opinion, as I understand it, as well as professional advice, favours the change which forms the substance of the Bill now before your Lordships' House. Moreover, we are the only country in Western Europe which permits abortion so late in a pregnancy. In Belgium it is illegal. In Switzerland it is only permitted if the mother's life is in danger or her health is permanently damaged; and the same applies in Italy after 90 days. In France abortion is allowed up to the 10th week. In Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria and Norway it is allowed up to the 12th week. Even in Sweden, that most liberal of countries, it is allowed only up to the 24th week. I am given to understand that the same applies to the United States of America. However, in the United Kingdon abortion is allowed up to the 28th week.
Since I wish to bring forward legislation—
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the right reverend Prelate, but he referred to Sweden, which is the country I originally came from. He is right in saying that abortion is permissible up to the 24th week but will he also take into account that it is permissible on demand by the woman?
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her intervention. But she has emphasised a point which, if I may say so, is a different one to the point I am emphasising and which is merely concerned with the period of gestation that is permissible. However, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for making that point.
I was about to say that I wish to be fair and so I want to consider seriously the possible objections to the Bill. The first group of objections might be called procedural. It is said that Mr. Kenneth Clarke, when he was Minister for Health, obtained a gentleman's agreement with private clinics that they would not allow abortions of a foetus of over 24 weeks. I do not believe that lives should hang on a so-called gentleman's agreement—which is not a phrase that I myself would wish to use in regard to those private clinics. In any case, we now have a different Minister for Health.
Secondly, it is suggested that all that the Minister for Health needs to do to stop late abortions is to send out a circular to all gynaecology departments and clinics to the effect that all abortions of, say, 22 or 24 weeks or so are in breach of the law. However, in view of what I said earlier I am not at all sure that such a circular
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would hold in law against the Infant Life (Preservation) Act as it stands. It is surely preferable to treat that Act in a proper legal way and amend it.
There is a second class of objections based upon numbers. There were 33 abortions of 24 weeks and over according to the statistics of the OPCS for 1985. Is it worth legislating, people have asked me, for only 33 abortions? I hope that that argument will not weigh in your Lordships' House. Would it be worth legislating for 33 acts of rape? Would it be worth legislating for 33 cases of murder? Of course it would. The same seems to me to hold for 33 improper abortions. I must admit that I was tempted—
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, I am very sorry to intervene again, but may I ask the right reverend Prelate whether those 33 abortions that took place after 24 weeks were performed because the risk to the mother's life was too great?
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her second intervention. I am glad to be able to inform your Lordships' House that I telephoned the Office of Population, Census and Surveys the day before yesterday in order to try to ascertain that fact. I was told that it did not know the answer. The office said that is might be possible to ascertain the information on a special computer programme but it simply did not know the answer. I should have liked to have the information myself, but I am afraid I cannot give the noble Baroness an answer.
As I was saying, I was tempted to reduce in my Bill the period of gestation from 28 to 23 weeks because in 1985 there were 1,185 abortions carried out between the 23rd and 24th weeks. A premature baby can easily be born alive at 23 weeks, but in fact very few of them survive; so it did not seem to me appropriate to substitute 23 weeks for 28 weeks in my Bill.
I turn to another class of objection. Some women have irregular menstrual periods and others who think they are menopausal may not believe that it is possible for them to become pregnant. It is said that such women do not realise they are pregnant until after 24 weeks. It seems to me that there is no particular reason, if they did not know at 24 weeks, why they should know at 28 weeks.
Again, there are young women who are too frightened by pregnancy to do anything about it until late in the pregnancy. I recognise that and I sympathise with their problem. It might then be too late for a legal abortion; but I do not think so. If we change the law it would soon become known that 24 weeks is the limit and even the most frightened would know that they must make up their minds before that period has expired whether to carry the child the full term.
The next is to me the most serious kind of objection: that it might not be known until too late that the foetus has some abnormality which makes it undesirable for it to be born in the view of some people and perhaps in the view of its mother. Clause 1(1)(b) of the Abortion Act states that an abortion may be legally carried out,
"if two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion, formed in good faith … that there is a substantial risk that if the child were

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born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped".
That exemption is of course subject to the conditions of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act.
Is there not a possibility that if the gestation period were reduced to 24 weeks some would be born seriously handicapped? The answer to that question I find is reassuring. Medical technology has forged ahead since 1929. Real-time ultrasound is used to exclude multiple pregnancy, to determine gestational age and to check the foetal heart before and after diagnostic procedure. Amniocentesis is practised at a relatively late stage in gestation. However, the figures for 1982 of abortions carried out as a result of amniocentesis given in this report by a representative committee show that a mere 4·7 per cent. were carried out at 24 weeks and after. That is a very small number. In any case, a new technique has been evolved of chorion villus biopsy which is best done in the 9th or 10th week. The latest techniques involve endoscopy and ultrasound. This way is safer, earlier and generally more satisfactory. The danger of children being born severely handicapped is slight.
I quote from the Report on Fetal Viability, which I have mentioned and which is in favour of 24 weeks:
"On the one hand the great majority of foetuses capable of surviving extrauterine life would be protected, while on the other hand it would ensure that with few exceptions women with currently accepted reasons for abortion would still have time to obtain one.".
The Lane Committee, which I have mentioned, deals with the very same point. I quote:
"According to evidence received from those concerned with diagnostic amniocentesis, the diagnosis of chromosomal abnormalities, though possible by 18 or 19 weeks' gestation, may in some cases not be made until the 21st or 22nd week. Further, in the detection of biochemical abnormalities, diagnosis may not be made until 24 weeks' gestation.".
The Lane Committee continues:
"Nevertheless the Committee would not be prepared to recommend an exception to the upper limit on abortion on the sole grounds of diagnosis of fetal abnormality and we consider that such an exception would be unacceptable to the medical and nursing professions.".
Professional bodies and an expert committee do not believe that there should be any exception to 24 weeks and that is why my Bill stands before your Lordships tonight with but a single clause.
I have tried to deal with the reasons for the Bill and I have examined possible objections as fairly as I can, but in my judgment none of them holds good. However, I must add one further point which is not directly part of the Bill although very much connected with it. I have received representations to the effect that the Bill will not be fully effective unless there is a regulation which requires the gestational age of a foetus to be accurately ascertained before abortion can take place.
At the moment a doctor may rely simply on the word of the woman requesting the abortion. A woman may not remember, or may not choose to remember accurately, the date of onset of her last menstrual period. The vast majority of women are from overseas. They come here for late abortions as they are unable to get them in any other country of Western Europe. They may not even be able to understand the doctor's questions. The doctor may not choose to ascertain the weight of the foetus by ultrasound body scan.
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A report of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1984 entitled Late Abortions in England and Wales informs us that the great majority of late abortions, over 70 per cent., are not carried out on the NHS but by private practitioners and there are 11 such—at least, there were then—who specialise in this kind of work and carry out 60 per cent. of it. They are of course being paid to produce not a live child but a dead foetus.
I asked the DHSS, which in turn asked the General Medical Council, whether there is any evidence of malpractice in the working of the Abortion Act. It replied that it knew of none. It is unlikely, I think, that it could know of any. While the NHS tends to use prostaglandins to induce labour in order to carry out late abortions, private practice is far more likely to use—according to this report, more than eight times more likely—what is euphemistically called D and E, meaning dilatation and evacuation, which is medical Newspeak for dilatation of the cervix and then dismembering a small human being limb from limb in the womb and extracting it through the cervix. How could one know in such a case that the baby was capable of being born alive? How could the emergency equipment which the DHSS rightly insists on in case a child is unexpectedly born alive possibly be needed?
The representative committee which produced the 1985 report on foetal viability, which I have mentioned several times, made two proposals: first, in accordance with the World Health Organisation recommendation, a record should be kept of all babies born alive or dead of 22 weeks' gestational age or, if born earlier, weighing 500 gms or more; secondly, confirmation of the gestational age of the foetus by all reasonable available methods, including ultrasound, in addition to a careful clinical assessment, should be carried out before a decision is taken to terminate a pregnancy thought to be of a gestational age of 20 weeks or more.
On New Year's Day I wrote to the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, to ask whether the DHSS would make such a regulation under Section 2(1) of the Abortion Act. Such a regulation would obviously help to ensure that the will of Parliament was being carried out. Unfortunately, I have not as yet received any reply to my letter, and it would assist us all if the DHSS would give us the answer. I realise that this is not a matter for the Home Office.
I want to return finally to the main substance of the Bill. It is a very simple Bill. It states that 24 weeks' gestational age is to be taken as prima facie evidence that a child is capable of being born alive. I believe that it is backed by most medical and professional opinion. It accords with the moral principle that, if a child of 24 weeks is capable of living outside the womb, it is immoral to kill it while it is in the womb. Indeed, such abortions are extremely distasteful to all concerned, so I hope that the Bill will receive the warm support of your Lordships' House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Lord Bishop of Birmingham.)
8.36 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby Lord Houghton of Sowerby rose to move as an amendment to the above Motion, That the Bill be now read a second time, to leave out ("now") and at the end insert ("this day six months").
The noble Lord said: If I may say so with respect, the right reverend Prelate has spent 23 minutes of his speech without coming to the crux of the debate. I want to suggest to your Lordships that the real issue before the House tonight is one not of doctrine or aims but of ways and means.
The right reverend Prelate read to us the recommendations of the group of professional bodies which reported to the Secretary of State in August 1985. That was the culmination of four years of investigation by different bodies at the invitation of the Government. It started in 1980, and the report was presented to the Minister in August 1985. Its first recommendation was that the gestational age after which a foetus is considered as viable should be changed from the present limit of 28 weeks—196 days—to 24 weeks—168 days—of gestation. It is from there that we start.
I want to say categorically that there is no dispute over that recommendation; there is no dispute about the aim that we wish to achieve. That report, however, made no recommendation about amendment of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929. It made no proposal to deal with it by legislation at all. It left that matter to the Government. What it said was that the gestational age should be reduced from 28 weeks to 24. The report was circulated to all the nursing homes, approved under the Abortion Act within the National Health Service. All the professional bodies, everyone who might have an interest in the matter, received at public expense a copy of the report.
Its views were considered by the Secretary of State. He then summoned a conference. At the conference he came to a voluntary concordat with the proprietors of private nursing homes and all those who had special approval to provide abortion treatment after the 20th week. Everyone was consulted and brought together. It was at that meeting that the Secretary of State explained the Government's approach to the position as it then stood, which was to try by alternative non-legislative steps to achieve the aims of the report. It was that that was embarked on in the autumn of 1985.
The right reverend Prelate has suggested that this is a simple Bill because all it proposes to do is to substitute 24 weeks for 28 weeks in the 1929 Act. But what I think the Secretary of State had in mind on deciding on the policy now in full operation was that, while the period of 28 weeks should be reduced to 24, the penology of the 1929 Act should not be altered and brought down to 24 weeks for the present at any rate.
The 1929 Act in Section 1(2) states:
"For the purposes of this Act, evidence that a woman had at any material time been pregnant for a period of 28 weeks or more shall be prima facie proof that she was at that time pregnant of a child capable of being born alive."
That is a prima facie presumption which is rebuttable but which puts the onus of proving innocence on the accused. Short of that, the onus of proof lies on the prosecution.
If 24 weeks is to be the new datum line with the penology of this Act attached to it, then the prima facie presumption of pregnancy of a child capable of being born alive will be brought down to 24 weeks from 28 weeks. The question is: can one safely do that? Can one safely put the onus on the accused at 24
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weeks, as it has been in the 1929 Act at 28 weeks? If so, then the penalty under the 1929 Act applies; namely, a sentence of imprisonment for life.
Is that the proposition? I believe that that is why the Minister decided that it was far better to try, by voluntary means and the discipline of the licences granted by the Ministry to the approved nursing homes, and with the co-operation of the professions, to bring about the aim of the report of 1985 without changing the law at any rate at present. That is the issue. The Minister made that clear in a Statement to the House of Commons on 23rd July 1985. It was then that he circulated the report and convened the meeting.
Then, in a Statement in the House of Commons on 15th November 1985 the Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry said:
"I am pleased to report that the proprietors of the eight nursing homes approved for abortions over 20 weeks' gestation have all agreed voluntarily to cease carrying our abortions at 24 weeks' gestation. This is an important step towards implementing the recommendation in the report of the working party convened by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists on foetal viability and clinical practice. Gynaecologists working in the National Health Service should take account of the report's recommendation in their clinical practice, as the president of the Royal College has sent copies of the report to all fellows and members in this country".—[Official Report, Commons; 15/11/86; col. 289–90.]
That was the acknowledgement that the degree of cooperation necessary to begin this operation had been obtained and that has been the policy of the Government up to the present time.
The question is whether, with that attempt at alternative means (which are believed to be more effective alternative means), this policy should continue longer before we resort to changing the law. That is the issue. I believe that the Minister is absolutely right and I sincerely hope that the noble Lord, Lord Beaverbrook, when he comes to speak, will confirm it.
I wish to point out that the lowering of the age of viability to 24 weeks has been the rule everywhere throughout the system since August 1985. Unhappily, this measure will result in more malformed and handicapped babies being born through inability to diagnose trouble earlier. For the time being at any rate that is the unfortunate consequence of reducing the age to 24 weeks.
I submit to your Lordships that this voluntary but effective clampdown on terminations after 24 weeks, which has been self-imposed and imposed on all concerned, should be allowed to run longer before we intrude upon its operation by an attempt to amend the law. The Department of Health and Social Security gave an assurance in the House of Commons as recently as 10th December 1986 that the working of this scheme was to be monitored by the examination of the reports received under the Abortion Act from all clinics and practitioners. The Minister said that in any case where it appeared that a contravention of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act has occurred, that case would be followed up.
What more can one want? If the Minister is enforcing the aims of the Bill without for the present the statutory power behind it, is it not desirable that it

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should continue without embracing the complications of embarking on further legislation?
For a minute or two I want to describe the complications of this simple Bill. I have already referred to them. I submit to the House that it would be undesirable and perhaps dangerous to try to enforce the Infant Life (Preservation) Act, which now relates to a gestation period of 28 weeks, at the new level of 24 weeks with no experience of the change, without having to resort to the law to enforce it. If the experimental period now in operation should prove unsuccessful, ways and means could be found through the law to enforce the new limit, not necessarily by the means proposed by the right reverend Prelate but probably by amending the Abortion Act.
However, let me point out to the right reverend Prelate that this Bill does not apply to Scotland any more than the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 applies to Scotland. But the Abortion Act does apply to Scotland. That is one complication of using the instrument of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act. I wish to submit to the House that there could be serious difficulties in obtaining a conviction from a jury on the reduced level of 24 weeks if the court were asked to take as prima facie evidence that the woman was pregnant of a child capable of being born alive at 24 weeks when there is the certainty that one could take that charge against an accused person at 28 weeks.
One cannot play about with 24 weeks and be absolutely 100 per cent. certain. In present conditions one can be certain at 28 weeks but not at 24 weeks. It is only by clinical experience and attempts to apply the new level of gestation that we shall know for certain how reliable it will be so as to change the law.
I cannot see that what divides us justifies embarking on the controversial course of trying to change the law. If nothing were being done I should have some sympathy with that course, but when so much is being done one cannot have sympathy with it. If the right reverend Prelate thinks that this Bill is such a simple one that it will be passed without difficulty, he is gravely mistaken. We should have to fight very hard in Committee on this Bill because we should have to safeguard not only the professions but the women—the mothers who might otherwise stand in the dock charged with an offence under the Infant Life (Preservation) Act prima facie because they had a child of 24 weeks' gestation.
I submit that a firm rule can be applied far more effectively at present than the law could be enforced. The DHSS and other authorities can be in full control where the law can never be, and indeed might be an unreliable instrument in the hands of criminal justice. Considerations of criminal justice certainly would arise if it were proposed, as this Bill proposes, to transfer the penology of the 1929 Act at 28 weeks to the new level of 24 weeks, with the possibility of conviction on prime facie assumption of pregnancy, leaving the onus on the accused to prove innocence, and if on conviction there was a penalty of up to life imprisonment. That would be intolerable.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords—
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I shall not give way because I am about to finish. In the
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circumstances, there is every reason why we should set aside the Bill for the time being. That would allow the experiment to continue. I shall not dwell upon the new menace of AIDS, the AIDS virus and unborn babies, but a new problem is obviously looming ahead in that grave area. That again may have some influence on social policy.
In the meantime, let the concordat reached between the Minister and the professions, which is now being tested by experience, continue. Do not let us attempt to back up what by voluntary and other disciplinary means is being made effective. The number of cases of 24-week gestation will come down. We may well eradicate the problem by the system and without any legislation. Guidelines are preferable to a law that cannot be enforced. Juries may hesitate to bring convictions against women who are innocent but whom the law presumes to be guilty.
The Minister should come out boldly and clearly and tell us the Government's position. I ask the House to support the amendment. I hope that the right reverend Prelate will feel disposed at the end of the debate to withdraw the Bill and spare us all the commotion, controversy and bitterness that are almost inevitable if it is pursued towards the statute book. Let us leave the law as it is. We shall then have good will towards one another. We have one aim. Let all sides be willing to give the present policy a trial before we embark upon the contentious course of proposing legislation.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, he said that life imprisonment attached to an infringement of the 1929 Act. I take it that he means that it is the maximum penalty.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: Yes.
The Earl of Longford: It is not mandatory, is it?
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: No, my Lords. It is not a mandatory sentence. It is the highest level of punishment. After all, the offence is murder. There are a number of other heinous crimes for which the sentence is imprisonment for life. I doubt whether juries would find it possible to convict some accused persons who have the possible danger of long imprisonment awaiting them. I beg to move.
Moved, as an amendment to the Motion, That the Bill be now read a second time, to leave out ("now") and at the end insert ("this day six months").—(Lord Houghton of Sowerby.)
8.53 p.m.
Baroness Braye: My Lords, I raise to give my wholehearted support to the Bill. I fully understand why some people regard abortion as an inappropriate subject for a maiden speech. In my experience private conversations about abortion have become so acrimonious that courtesy and good fellowship evaporate at the mention of the word.
I sincerely believe, however, that with regard to this Bill that legacy of bitter confrontation can be put aside. To me the root cause of the bitterness, put simply, is that with regard to the unborn child, where I would speak of "someone" many people with perfect

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sincerity would speak of "something". This dichotomy means that many powerful and impassioned arguments which have grown up from the basic premise on either side are meaningless to the other side. Frustration and fury result. I hope that I am right in thinking that the majority of people would refer to a child capable of being born alive, which is all that we are concerned with tonight, as "someone".
This is by any standards a rational, modest Bill. I am sure that it will elicit a rational and moderate response. According to OPCS figures, the number of abortions over 25 weeks of pregnancy seems to be declining steadily, from 102 in 1982 to 33 in 1985. We are not therefore asking for the reversal of a trend.
There is little that I can add to the right reverend Prelate's exposition of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act as it stands now and as we should like to see it in the future. The intention of the 1929 Act is beyond dispute—the protection by law of any infant capable of being born alive. Advances in obstetrics and paediatrics in the past 58 years are also beyond dispute. Babies frequently survive birth at 24 weeks or even earlier.
The problem begins, as so often, with the definition of terms. At the moment, as I understand it, the only incontestable proof that an infant of fewer than 28 weeks is capable of being born alive is that it should be born alive. Clearly that is now unsatisfactory.
We ask that 24 instead of 28 weeks' gestation should be declared to be prima facie evidence of that capability. This is not so much a change of law as a shift in the burden of proof. A new group of infants would thereby be afforded the full protection of the law. This change of wording would update a piece of legislation which has now been overtaken by events. That the law should be clear and unequivocal is essential, particularly for those whom we expect to carry it out. It would also allow some human beings to be born each year who might otherwise not be.
The issue of the potentially handicapped infant is highly controversial. I should not dream of attempting an exhaustive argument about it tonight. I do not underestimate the mental anguish of knowing that one is likely to give birth to a child who is in some way defective. For a variety of reasons, such as awaiting the results of tests, that knowledge can occasionally come distressingly late. A woman in such a position needs all the support, encouragement and practical help that she can obtain. What she does not need, I suggest, is any kind of pressure to have a late abortion.
There are positive alternatives. None of them is perfect but many of them are excellent. There are also many people ready and willing to help mothers find the best ones. We live after all in a society where more than ever before is done to improve the quality of life of the severely disabled and to proclaim their equality in dignity and status.
I see no reason not to extend that benevolence to the infants with whom we are concerned tonight. In conclusion, we are all aware of the intention of the 1929 Act. We are all aware of the progress in modern medicine. The passage of the Bill would merely mean that the one is brought into line with the other. It is a
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modest measure indeed but a worthwhile one to all of us who believe in the value of every human life.
8.59 p.m.
Lord McGregor of Durris: My Lords, it is my privilege to undertake the one agreeable part of what must be for all your Lordships a debate on an unpleasant and depressing subject. It is the happy tradition of your Lordships' House that the speaker who follows a maiden speech congratulates the Peer who delivered it. In her tightly reasoned and elegantly constructed speech, the noble Baroness has poured a stream of cooling eloquence upon what may develop into a heated debate. We welcome her presence, we thank her for her speech and we look forward to regular contributions from her.
As the noble Baroness said, abortion is one of the subjects about which opinions are sharply and often bitterly divided. Those who traditionally have been most closely involved in the debate—moralists, Christians and medical people—must be presumed in their special fields to be equally learned, equally experienced and equally devoted to the public weal. Yet, as the right reverend Prelate acknowledged, they form groupings which draw conflicting conclusions from the same information. Accordingly, the rest of us, when faced with conflict among the authoritative, must judge choices of action and legislation in accordance with our own estimates of wherein the public good lies.
In particular, we must practise the habit of toleration of other people's views, without which a democratic and pluralist society could not survive. That is very difficult because toleration does not reside in our putting up with or agreeing with views about which we do not feel strongly. The essence of this virtue is to cope with opinions which may cause one pain and anxiety and even at times disgust. I wish therefore to examine coolly the likely social consequences of the change proposed in the Bill, and in doing so I cannot avoid inflicting some statistics upon your Lordships.
If in 1985 the period of gestation had been lowered from 28 to 24 weeks, as the Bill proposes, the number of women who would have been denied abortion would have been some 471. That is rather higher than the 33 cited by the right reverend Prelate. In calculating the number I have allowed for the practice of doctors to allow for a period of two weeks as against the estimate of the period of gestation. That number, 471, is relatively small. Even so, it would have amounted to no more than one-third of 1 per cent. of all abortions in 1985, a very small number.
However, knowledge of the circumstances of the women affected, of the mothers involved, is scanty. The most recent study of late abortions carried out by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and published in 1984 found that women under 20 years of age constituted more than one half of all the abortions performed after the 20th week of pregnancy. A further 19 per cent. were carried out because of foetal abnormality. Of especial concern was the finding that, while most malformations were diagnosed by the 20th week of pregnancy "a significant minority"—that is the phrase in the report—were not identified until week 25 or 26.

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In a further paper based on these data Dr. Alberman concluded:
"The next few years may see the introduction of tests for earlier detection of many defects, so that the age limit of legal viability will be less critical",
as the right reverend Prelate pointed out. It goes on to say:
"Until such tests are widely available, even with improvements in administrative and operative procedures, a lowering of the age limit of viability is bound to impose a limit on the number of legal abortions that can he done for severely handicapping conditions.".
It is to be noted, as the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, pointed out, that the DHSS exercises close administrative supervision over all cases of termination of pregnancy where the stage of gestation is over 20 weeks. An ultrasound scan is required to be performed as a safeguard to patients and in the interests of operating doctors and the proprietors of nursing homes. Since the summer of 1985 the Minister for Health acted to ensure that any private abortion clinic would lose its licence if abortions were performed after 24 weeks. That is hardly in the character, one would have thought, of what the right reverend Prelate described as a gentleman's agreement. Moreover, all such cases must be dealt with by the National Health Service.
Of the women who would be affected by the change proposed in the Bill, two-thirds will be carrying seriously malformed foetuses or will be below the age of 20. Therefore, it is highly desirable when discussing abortion and a change in the period of gestation to take into account the opinions of the women who suffer a procedure which gives serious upset to everyone else involved, be they doctors, nurses, supportive friends or relatives or fathers who will not be.
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham: My Lords, will the noble Lord make it clear whether he is referring to statistics from the 20th week, the 22nd week or the 24th week?
Lord McGregor of Durris: My Lords, I am assuming that the age of 24 weeks applied in 1985. I am taking the 471 women who would then have been denied an abortion under the changes proposed in the Bill and considering the constitution of that group in so far as we know anything about it. As the right reverend Prelate pointed out, OPCS has no further information to offer. All that can be extracted is from the report which I have just cited, and I am applying its proportions to the 471.
Many voices, most of which are male, have been heard overloudly on this subject. Your Lordships' debate is in one sense typical. There are 17 voices of which only three are those of women. We know almost nothing of the views and feelings of the people primarily concerned. Astonishingly enough, a recent issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics carries a report of what I belive to be a survey containing the very first information about the attitudes of mothers to caring for one category of severely handicapped children; namely, children who are mentally handicapped.
The children reported on in this survey are now between the ages of 19 and 25. But, of the 15 mothers interviewed, 10 wished with hindsight that they could have had an abortion rather than a severely
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handicapped infant. Twelve of the 15 thought that such infants should be allowed to die in peace rather than have their lives saved by medical treatment.
The numbers involved in this survey within the North-East Thames Regional Health Authority area are far too small to permit any general conclusion. But the interviews in a pilot survey suggest that many parents in this situation do not look upon a lifetime spent caring for a severely handicapped young adult as time well spent, even though they love their children, have compassion for them and want to do the best that they can for them.
Another recent study asked parents what they would do if they knew that an expected child would be severely handicapped. Seventy-eight per cent. answered that they would want the pregnancy terminated. Thus for such women carrying an abnormal foetus who are denied an abortion because of the change in the period proposed in this Bill, the lowering of the period could have shattering consequences.
When they are asked why they present themselves late to the doctors there are two main answers, as I understand, in the scanty literature. The first answer is that concerning the severely handicapped foetus there may be delays within the health service; there may be an absence of resources; or tests may take a very long time because they have to be repeated. There are a number of administrative problems which can be cured or greatly improved by looking at administrative procedures before we attempt to change the law.
The second group who are late are the ones with whose circumstances I am familiar and about whom I have to declare an interest because I am president of the National Council for One-Parent Families. These are the youngsters, the teenagers, who come late for reasons which are too obvious to mention. They are worried about telling their parents. They are young enough to conceal the fact that they are pregant for up to 24 weeks. These are the people for whom pregnancy may be a life-destroying event. Therefore, I would plead with the right reverend Prelate to consider the administrative changes which may greatly improve the situation and remove the risk to the 400-odd women who are going to suffer under his Bill.
The right reverend Prelate asked whether 33 instances are not adequate for legislation on rape? Of course they are. Are not 400-odd instances adequate to delay a piece of legislation with the likely consequences of his Bill? I hope that your Lordships may be willing to look at this proposal in the light, first of all, of the lack of any pressure for it. Doctors, so far as I am aware, are not clamouring for new legislation. In fact, my understanding is that it is the last thing in which they want to be involved at the moment. There is no clamour.
As the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, pointed out, the present arrangements, though they work badly for the vulnerable groups I have been talking about, are otherwise perfectly satisfactory, and so regarded, again, so far as I understand, by all those involved. I therefore plead with the right reverend Prelate that before involving ourselves, or involving everyone, in a bitter and cataclysmic debate running over months in an area that is currently operating well,

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and, moreover, moving precisely in the direction he seeks, our motto at the moment should surely be to leave well alone.
9.16 p.m.
Lord Robertson of Oakridge: My Lords, I should like first to take up one point made by the noble Lord, Lord McGregor of Durris, about the opinions of women. Before introducing my unsuccessful Bill in 1982 to tighten up the abortion law, I was written to by a number of women claiming to represent the views of other women. I have no doubt that to a certain extent they did. After the Bill's failure, when any views were obviously expressed from the heart and not inspired by pressure groups, I had 20 or 30 letters from women regretting its failure and two saying that the writers were glad that it had failed. Therefore, we cannot be all that certain how the majority of women really feel on the subject.
Like other noble Lords, I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham for initiating the debate. If nothing else we have heard a first-class maiden speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Braye. How I echo her wish—it would be my endeavour to put this into practice myself—that we should discuss the matter without bitterness.
With one important caveat I support the Bill. My caveat is that I feel that it could lead to a misconception. It might be thought that support for the Bill implies not only disapproval of abortions over 24 weeks but approval of abortions under that stage. So far as I am concerned—and there are many like me—this is not the case.
The reason is that there is little difference in principle between an unborn child of, say, 26 weeks gestation who may at that time be capable of being born alive, and an unborn child of, say, 16 weeks gestation who may equally well be capable of being born alive if only left in peace in utero for a further 10 weeks. Both, I feel, are entitled to our love, care, and protection.
With this one qualification, however, I support the Bill. It makes no change of principle but it recognises the advance in medical skills and techniques since 1929 and, above all, it would save lives. Not many, but every life counts! Furthermore, it would spare some unborn children the appalling suffering caused by abortion when it takes place. It is horrifying to learn from the right reverend Prelate that an appreciable number of very late abortions are done by the dilatation and dismemberment procedure whereby the child is torn to pieces in the womb. Therefore, I hope that the Bill has a smooth and quick passage through your Lordships' House.
9.20 p.m
The Duke of Norfolk: My Lords, I should like to congratulate the right reverend Prelate on his speech, which I thought covered the whole subject admirably. He went into it in great detail and put the statistics in the right proportion to support the argument.
I found the speech of the noble Lord, Lord McGregor of Durris, quite frequently slightly
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irrelevant. Some of it was full of non sequiturs. In particular I cannot understand, for example, why he thinks women should know more about this subject than men. It seems to me to be a question of our own human life and nothing to do with whether one is male or female. I felt the same about other points he made.
I now congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Braye. She made an excellent speech, as was shown by all of us as she made it. We thought it was wonderful. It is very unnerving and we were all kind, but we wanted to be kind. The noble Baroness made a wonderful speech and I totally support everything she said.
I want to say a very few words. It was suggested, I think by the noble Lord, Lord McGregor, that there was not a great feeling about this Bill. There is an enormously widespread criticism and clamour to have the abortion laws of this country changed. The Christian Churches and some of the other Churches too are ashamed of our abortion laws.
I know a little about this subject because my daughter had a premature baby in St. Mary's, Paddington. It was born at 28 weeks. That baby, my grandchild, is a happy, flourishing human being whom I saw only last week. When I went to the Paddington hospital to see this little baby in the life support machine I saw many other babies. One of them survived at 24 weeks. It is a live and happy baby now. I understand that there are cases where babies of 20 weeks have survived. Those are figures that I have been given.
Late abortion is normally carried out by dilatation and extraction. That means that the body of the baby is crushed and dismembered in the womb and then removed piecemeal. That is what happens. If anybody thinks that is an admirable thing for human beings to do, to advocate or to allow, I totally and utterly disagree.
Viscount Craigavon: My Lords, the noble Duke refers to that practice being used in late abortions. Can he tell us what he means by late abortions? I understand that what one might call very late abortions, after 24 weeks, are no longer done in the private sector. That practice was being carried on in the private sector, whereas according to the report, to which the right reverend Prelate referred, of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1984 the prevalence of that in the NHS was only 4 per cent.
The Duke of Norfolk: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for his intervention. I am in no way a doctor. I have lived my life largely in the army over the whole world and have seen a great deal of life. I understand that if the baby has reached the size of a 24-week to 28-week gestational age it is so big in the womb that it cannot be extracted without murdering and dismembering it. May I just continue the point? The noble Viscount may interrupt me in a moment. That is a simple fact: the baby has reached such a stage of life that you cannot extract it by any other means.
Viscount Craigavon: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt again. I know I shall have a chance to speak later on, but this is so essential. It is very colourful language, which people remember. It is my

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understanding that that practice, called D and E, which, as I say, at the time of the 1984 report was only prevalent to the extent of 4 per cent. in the National Health Service, would not now apply to abortions over 24 weeks because, as we are maintaining, abortions after 24 weeks are now done only in the NHS and so the factor which the noble Duke is raising really does not apply.
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, may I remind the noble Viscount that he will be speaking later, and he is slightly out of order?
The Duke of Norfolk: My Lords, I am just saying that I think this method of destroying a foetus in the womb at the 24 or 28 weeks' gestation period is a barbaric practice, of which I think our nation should be ashamed. It is a blot on Western civilisation.
I now turn to the fact that London is often called the late abortion capital because in most other countries abortions are not allowed after 12 weeks. I think it is really scandalous that in our country rich mothers come over here, go to private clinics and pay for these late abortions which they could not get in other countries. I do not think it is a happy situation that we in this House should be pleased to allow it to go on. One of the great points about this Bill of the right reverend Prelate is that it would stop that. I strongly support the Bill as a step in the right direction, and I thank the right reverend Prelate for introducing it.
9.28 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I shall speak very briefly and the brevity of my speech will not do justice to the strength of my convictions. I am sure that is true of the silence of many on both sides of the argument who are not speaking tonight. The noble Duke has expressed views which are held far and wide by Roman Catholics and by others, and I need not do much to amplify his arguments. I entirely endorse what he said and particularly join in the tribute to the noble Baroness who made such an outstanding maiden speech.
I am speaking partly and only really for a moment or two because I think it would be a very bad idea if the word got about that the Labour Party was a party that favoured abortion. It would be a pity therefore if no one spoke from the Labour Benches who is in favour of this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, of course has been a champion, honourably and strenuously, of abortion law reform for many years. Speaking as a junior octogenarian, I salute one of my senior brethren, and I only hope that eight years from now I have a quarter of his vigour. That is without prejudice, I may say, to his views about abortion.
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I have no need to say more about my party except that, with the usual tolerance and liberality of outlook—I am informed that this is an entirely free vote—any views expressed, and no doubt expressed by some with much more personal authority than I can muster, will be entirely personal views. My views of course are entirely my own.
I was Leader of this House, sitting on the opposite side, when this abortion Bill came forward in 1967. There were a few veterans of those days, among them the noble Viscount, Lord Barrington, who played a prominent part; and there were others who are also here tonight, such as the noble Lord, Lord Molson, and the noble Earl, Lord Perth. But no one, I think, spoke in that debate except myself. I spoke, the House may be alarmed to hear, for 23 minutes. I have just looked it up. The House is not at all in that kind of peril tonight.
I shall read out just one passage. I left my seat as Leader of the House to speak against the Bill, so your Lordships will see that I felt quite strongly. I said:
"We begin with the conviction that human life is sacred; that the unborn child possesses a form of human life; that to terminate a pregnancy is to take human life and therefore is to commit homicide. There is a strong presumption that it is unjustifiable homicide."[Official Report, 19/7/67; col 311.]
I could not put it better now. At any rate, that is how I put it 20 years ago.
I made the point and I was of course thinking of someone who had then been married for many years and had children and was on her way to having plenty of grandchildren. I had in mind that there would be circumstances in which, if I was asked should the woman in question have an abortion, I would say, yes. I made it plain then and I would say it now. But I was saying there is a strong presumption that abortion is an unjustifiable homicide. I would only add that I then predicted that this would lead to abortion on demand. It was said that that was quite ridiculous, that there is no such thing and that it was a Roman Catholic fantasy. But in fact what happened has been much closer to abortion on demand than anyone predicted or allowed for officially at that time.
I naturally support the Bill. It would be humbug for me to pretend that I am able to pursue the wise and prudent tactical line oulined by the right reverend Prelate. I am sure that that is a very sensible line, but it would be humbug for me not to admit that I come here as an enemy of abortion and I shall support him in the Lobby tonight.
Viscount Barrington: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, as he has mentioned my name may I assure him personally that I have not changed by views in the least from the time when I opposed that Bill at the start, and I very much agreed with what the right reverend Prelate said.
9.32 p.m.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, I should like at the outset to add my congratulations to the noble Baroness on her maiden speech which was, if I may say so entirely exemplary. I should like to quote from the preface of the report on Fetal Viability and Clinical Practice:
"I hope that the legislators will now discuss this matter in a statesmanlike manner free from emotional overtures"—
I think the chairman must have meant overtones—
"which so often seem to dominate debates in this field".
The noble Baroness could not have fulfilled that hope more successfully, and I hope that we shall hear more from her in future. I say that with great sincerity although I differ, as will become plain, from her point of view.
I follow the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, but I cannot say the same of his speech. I cannot say that it was statesmanlike or free from emotional overtones. It was charged with emotion. He talked of Christian clamour. He gave us horror stories of dismemberment in the womb. It was exactly the kind of speech that the chairman of the committee in writing the preface hoped we would not have, and I very much regret its tone and its utterance.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, said that there was to be an entirely free vote, or so he was informed—
The Earl of Longford: I am sorry, my Lords, I can only speak for the Labour Party. I cannot speak for the other lot.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, the noble Earl said he thought there was to be a free vote, or so he was informed, and I am sure there is. But looking around the Chamber, I cannot help wondering. I recall the words of Stalin, "How many divisions has the Pope?" I shall adapt that, if I may, and ask the question, "How many Peers has the Duke of Norfolk?" I see quite a number dotted around, and I hope that they will all have a free vote. Indeed, I see seven Members of the Bishops' Bench, and I hope that the right reverend Prelates will also enjoy a free vote. I see them nodding and I am gratified that that is so.
I find myself in the position of following no less than three speakers who are strongly opposed to abortion altogether and in any circumstances. I do not think that I do them an injustice when I say that. It is, I believe, a plain matter of fact. All spoke for themselves and, I have no doubt, out of strong religious feeling which I very much respect.
In the case of Roman Catholics, they are also following the doctrine and discipline of the Church. I do not wish to misrepresent them in any way. I understand that they are totally opposed to abortion in any form whatsoever and at any stage of pregnancy. I wish to establish that point because it is in strong contrast to the opinion of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham. I took down his words. The right reverend Prelate said that he is not opposed to the abortion laws themselves. He said,
"I am in favour of abortion in certain circumstances".
He also went on to say,
"my Bill is not concerned with the Abortion Act".
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I ask the right reverend Prelate, whom I acquit of disingenuousness, whether it is not possible that he is the catspaw of those who wish to see the end of abortion altogether? That is their aim and the trend of their speeches. They have said that specifically.
There is a fundamental difference between the right reverend Prelate, who is in favour of abortion in certain circumstances, and other noble Lords who have spoken who are against it altogether. I think it fair to draw the distinction between the right reverend Prelate and noble Lords who have spoken in that sense.
I do not wish to press the right reverend Prelate on the moral point. I think he has had a tough enough time already at the hands of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor as regards the Family Law reform Bill. He did say, in all innocence, that this Bill is not concerned with the Abortion Act. However, it is. It is concerned with the operation of that section of the Abortion Act which refers to the Infant Life (Preservation) Act.
The moment one brick is removed from the abortion law edifice, then the rest shifts slightly. Whatever the right reverend Prelate's intentions are and whatever he may say, there is no doubt that his Bill is concerned with the Abortion Act, whether or not he thinks it is. At all events, I believe that the right reverend Prelate has made his position quite clear in this House as well as on television and in the press, and that position differs very substantially from the position of those who have supported him today. That has been plain for all of us to hear. With great respect to the right reverend Prelate, I should say that his initiative today is being exploited by those who wish to go much further than he does.
The views expressed by the Peers who spoke immediately before me are the views expressed by the Save the Unborn Child organisation. In some recently circulated briefing material, it stated the wish to substitute 20 weeks for the present 28 weeks. And, clearly, that would be only an interim measure until legal abortion was abolished altogether. That is so, because it is implicit in the following very revealing sentence:
"Not that late abortions are morally worse than early ones, of course".
That is an honest statement. It was forthrightly echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, and indicates clearly that the right reverend Prelate's Bill is the start of an all-out attack on the abortion laws. I hope that he is aware of that.
I should like to say two things at this stage. First, in our secular society, our plural society to which the noble Lord, Lord McGregor of Durris, referred, our morality is not dictated by the Churches. The Churches are given, scrupulously, freedom of worship and freedom of utterance in our society. I strongly support and applaud that. Due regard is paid to their views collectively and individually expressed. But since we do not live in a theocracy nowadays, the views of the Churches, which, in any case, often differ substantially on moral questions, do not necessarily prevail. Therefore, the morality of the state can and often does differ from the morality of the Churches.

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I take the existing law of the land on this subject to be morally right, kindly and humane. In my view, abortions should be allowed to be performed legally according to the carefully defined rules laid down in the Abortion Act. I cannot expect the noble Duke and the noble Earl to agree with me, but I hope that they will respect my moral sense just as I respect theirs. The noble Duke spoke as if all those who did not agree with him were moral outcasts. I hope he will take the opportunity of dispelling that impression which he certainly gave to me and I feel he probably gave to others in this House as well.
The Duke of Norfolk: My Lords, may I straightaway say that in no way did I suggest that anyone was a moral outcast? If I may say so, I think the noble Lord is saying things which really are not quite fair.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, I should like, with the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, to plead very seriously with the right reverend Prelate to withdraw his Bill, not just for the reasons which I have already adduced but because it is too complex a matter to be dealt with in a Private Member's Bill. It simply seeks to amend the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929. But the abortion laws are highly complex and should not be disturbed without the greatest possible care and consultation.
Apart from the Act of 1929, there is the earlier Offences against the Person Act 1861, the Birth and Death Registration Act and the Abortion Act itself. The Abortion Act of 1967 was the result of many sessions of legislative labour and compromise. It is a settlement which ought not to be disturbed. It has been proved to be well founded in its 19 or 20 years of operation. If it is to be disturbed, nothing should be done without careful consideration by a committee. I am perhaps biased, but I would prefer a parliamentary committee. The overtones are so great that it is right they should be considered, along with the statistics, by those who are in Parliament.
The report of the Fetal Viability and Criminal Practice Committee is undoubtedly of importance. But the right reverend Prelate picked out only one or two of its recommendations. All the recommendations should be considered carefully by the House, preferably by a Committee of the House, before we proceed to pick away, even by one alteration, as the right reverend Prelate suggests.
The Bill ignores the progress that has been made by the DHSS in its controls in 1975, 1980 and in 1985. The last is the most important. I would say to the right reverend Prelate that it is unimaginable that any doctor, whether in the NHS or elsewhere, would conceivably perform a late abortion unless he was bound to do so morally and at the request of the patient. The doctor must be satisfied that the operation falls within the criteria of the Act. According to the morality of the doctors who have to weigh up these heavy decisions, a morality which I share, it is both morally right and humane for operations to be performed on the very small group of
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vulnerable women who for reasons beyond their control seek a termination at 22 weeks or 24 weeks.
Apart from this Bill being too simple, it would be an unacceptable narrowing of clinicians' freedom. For those two reasons only, I very much hope that the right reverend Prelate will withdraw the measure. Failing that, I think it is necessary to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby. Whether or not the Bill will get a Second Reading, I do not know. If it does, serious thought should be given to its being referred to a Select Committee for more minute consideration than it could possibly receive on the Floor of the House.
9.47 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, I am profoundly uneasy about the Bill. In saying that, I should make it quite clear that that is my opinion and not necessarily the opinion of my noble friends on these Benches, as indeed was made clear by the sensible intervention of my noble friend Lord Barrington. This is not a party matter but it is one on which I feel very deeply. I hope, and the hope has already been expressed by others, that those of us who disagree will accept that the opinions we all hold, though different, are held in good faith.
I was very glad that the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, said what he did in response to the noble Lord, Lord Henderson. I should like to say to the noble Duke, whom I respect greatly—we have worked closely together on many matters—and who told us about his young grandchild who survived having been born prematurely, that whatever views I express about this Bill I rejoice when a healthy premature baby survives; of course I do.
I hope noble Lords will accept that my views are quite clear. I was the second sponsor of the Abortion Bill which was introduced by my right honourable friend Mr. Steel in another place; and as a doctor I was responsible for the responses on behalf of the sponsors of the Bill in the debates at the Committee and Report stages on medical matters, which particularly concerned the questions of abnormal or seriously abnormal foetuses. I was brought very much into this question at that stage.
The right reverend Prelate told us that he does not seek to amend the Abortion Act 1967. He may not seek to do so but, as the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, said, he is in fact doing so. Section 5 of the Abortion Act 1967 states:
"Nothing in this Act shall affect the provisions of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 (protecting the life of the viable foetus)".
If one alters the provisions of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, by doing so one is necessarily altering the Abortion Act 1967. That follows. I do not think that the right reverend Prelate is being devious—not even for a bishop, if I may say so—
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham: My Lords, the noble Lord will perhaps recollect that I said the only way in which the Bill affected the Abortion Act is in so far as Section 5(1) is concerned.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate because he has now said that he does seek to alter the Abortion Act; and of course he would alter it quite significantly if his Bill goes through.
I have another worry. The right reverend Prelate said that there had been four attempts in another place to amend the Abortion Act 1967; I repeat, four attempts. In looking at the Long Title of this Bill I see that it is perfectly possible in another place for Members who seek to undermine the Abortion Act altogether to do so—and there are many who are totally opposed to it and would like in some way to put it at naught. There is no limit to the extent to which they may seek to make further amendments to this Bill and therefore further amend the Abortion Act. Therefore, I can foresee what we have had over recent years—a whole number of Private Members' Bills with publicity and argument on matters about which we all feel strongly and which are of the greatest possible importance. I do not think it is helpful to a cause of this kind to have repeated rows of that nature in another place and which perhaps in the end come to nothing.
Certainly I should like to see changes. I hope the right reverend Prelate will accept that, although I told him I was second sponsor to the Abortion Bill, that does not mean I am in favour of abortion. I was extremely angry when accused of being pro-abortion. I am not in favour of abortion. I regard abortion as a highly undesirable procedure, but I believe that there are a certain number of specified cases where it is the course of action of choice, which has to be undertaken, however undesirable. I hope that is accepted.
I also deeply believe that, if abortions have to be performed, the earlier they are performed the better. I am well aware that efforts are being made by doctors, social workers and others, to make sure that that happens wherever possible. But it does not always happen. Because of the bureaucratic inertia present within the National Health Service and because of resistance raised in certain places by certain persons—I am sure with the best of motives—there are many occasions on which the whole process of seeing a doctor, being referred to other doctors, having a second opinion and so on can be extended and lengthened to such a degree that the time comes late, perhaps far too late, and much later than it need have done.
Therefore, we have the delays that arise from the present working methods in the National Health Service, and perhaps occasionally from the lack of resources in certain areas, that in some circumstances result in a woman coming forward for an abortion at a stage much later than any of us would like to see.
The second category of cases about which I am seriously concerned are those discussed at some length and clearly and directly by my noble friend Lord McGregor of Durris when he referred to the seriously abnormal foetus. That is a matter of considerable importance. The right reverend Prelate referred to the law in certain other countries—in France, Germany, Sweden and so on. What is unusual about our law is that when it was passed it was the first time that a law had made specific provision for the termination of a pregnancy where there was reason to believe that if the
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child was born it would be seriously handicapped, mentally or physically. That had never previously been done. On the whole it had been argued on the grounds of the effect on the health of the mother.
At the time we were dealing with that in another place on the earlier Bill it was occasionally put to us that if, for example, the mother contracted rubella or German measles at the dangerous stage of the pregnancy there was the assumption that the foetus may be born seriously handicapped. I have had personal experience of a child who was born after an abortion was refused—it was long before the Act—and where the mother had suffered from German measles in about the fourth month of pregnancy. The child was born blind and deaf. The family had a desperate time. I honestly believe that the child had a desperate time as well, and the family suffered seriously.
I said at that time that one hoped that advances in medical science would make it possible to diagnose with certainty an abnormality in a foetus and to assess the degree of abnormality at a reasonable period in the pregnancy, so that, if it was decided by all the parties concerned and considered advisable, a termination could be carried out.
Progress has been made and diagnostic measures have improved. However, even with the best diagnostic measures, there are cases of very severe handicap which cannot be diagnosed with absolute certainty until quite late in a pregnancy. It is in the main those which have been responsible for the very few cases of late terminations that are now arising.
I rejoice that thay are very few, and I should like them to be very much fewer. I hope that we are moving towards that stage. Indeed, I think that we shall move towards that stage not so much by statue but by improvements in medical knowledge and services and a change in the attitude of practitioners so that this is dealt with in a different way.
As the noble Lords, Lord Henderson of Brompton and Lord Houghton of Sowerby, explained, the steps taken by the previous Minister for Health are indeed being reinforced by present Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Security in its consultations with the medical profession. I believe that steps are now being taken to do everything possible to eliminate abortions wherever possible. I believe that there will always be circumstances when it will be inevitable that late abortion should take place, particularly in a case of very serious foetal abnormality.
As to the noble Baroness, Lady Braye, whose maiden speech I greatly admired—I am very glad that she has returned because I wanted to say that—I was much moved by what she said about a human being being born who would not otherwise have been born. But as a general practitioner with experience in this field, let me refer to two cases. I referred earlier to one case where a termination was not performed and a family was well nigh destroyed by the birth of a desperately handicapped infant, this into a family where there were already three children and difficulties.
I have had experience of cases where there was termination. Where a termination was carried out because of foetal abnormality, with the desire of the

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parents, with their full consent and at their request, there was a tendency for the couple to have another child as soon as possible. My experience with a woman who has been compelled bureaucratically or legally to bear a seriously handicapped child is that there is no way in in which she will bring another child into the world. I therefore say to the noble Baroness that I know of cases of human beings being born into the world who would not have been born had those steps not been taken with an earlier pregnancy.
The right reverend Prelate made much of the report of the joint working party, comprised of many professional bodies, on the age of viability. I think that it is right to remind him that that working party was concerned in the main with the time of viability not so much from the point of view of abortion but because of important considerations regarding death certification, what was and what was not a still-birth, whether a death certificate had to be registered in certain cases and so on. The decision was taken that in view of our present knowledge the age of viability ought to be brought down a little to meet those cases.
Important matters rest upon the consideration of entitlement to certain benefits, certain legal responsibility, certification and registration of a death as against a still-birth. The fact that the British Medical Association agreed with that on the basis of the necessity to bring down the of viability because of the consideration of whether there has been a still-birth, a death, an abortion or a miscarriage does not mean that the BMA supports the Bill.
I am advised by senior spokesmen of the BMA that quite explicitly it does not support the Bill. It would like to see the age of a foetus for abortion come down and to see fewer later abortions performed. The BMA believes that fewer later abortions will be performed but not that this Bill will be helpful to the steps that doctors and other professional people are taking in this regard.
I shall say no more save that I too hope that the right reverend Prelate will think again. Perhaps if the Bill proceeds to another place it could be used as a springboard for a whole series of attempts to amend it still further by those whose desire is not to improve the present arrangements or to deal with the relatively small matter numerically about which the right reverend Prelate is talking but to sabotage altogether the whole issue of abortion. I respect their views. I know that the noble Earl, Lord Longford, and the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, are opposed to abortion under all circumstances—perhaps even abortion to save the life of the mother, I do not know.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord to say that I made it plain when I was speaking, though perhaps he was not present, that in exceptional circumstances I would agree. I emphasised that.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Earl and I am sorry that I overlooked what he said. However, I recollect that he said that on a previous occasion, and I dare say that others believe the same.
The Duke of Norfolk: My Lords, I should like to say that I spoke only to this Bill. In no way did I speak generally about abortion. I think that one of the things that your Lordships have noticed so often is the careful way in which the Bill is framed.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I am indeed grateful to the noble Duke for that information. I meant to say that I understand the point of view of those people who because of their sincere beliefs would like to sabotage the Abortion Act of 1967. There are people who would like to do that, and I am opposed to them. I think that possibly this Bill could give them a launching pad for further attempts of the kind that we have seen during the past few years.
I hope that the Bill will not proceed further. But I say to the right reverend Prelate that I hope that as the years go on we shall see fewer abortions altogether. Not for a moment do I regard abortion as an acceptable alternative to sensible family planning. But I hope that we shall see fewer abortions altogether and I certainly hope that we shall see earlier abortions. I should like to see no late abortions at all. Nevertheless, I believe that it is my duty to say to your Lordships' House that I am convinced that there will always be circumstances in which a late abortion is necessary and proper and that there should be no penalty attached to those who take part in it.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, I should like to thank him very much for having pointed out as a member of the medical profession that in a foetus there may be certain grave disabilities that cannot be discovered too early. Does he agree that a mother who is faced with such knowledge should never be forced to take a decision that day as to whether she will have an abortion? She should be given at least a fortnight to think about it.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I agree entirely with my noble friend that any question of imposing haste or pressure of any kind on mothers in those tragic circumstances is altogether regrettable. I am inclined to think that, as the age is brought down and one appears to apply limitations, perhaps one runs the risk of increasing the pressures that may be applied to certain women.
10.3 p.m.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, when I first looked at this Bill my immediate reaction was in favour of it. I understand that in bringing down the age of viability of a foetus to 24 weeks there remains a strong chance of a healthy infant being born alive and viable. I further understand that, because of the development of the foetus, it is unlikely that the viable term for the foetus would be reduced to 20 weeks or less. It may not reach that far. To set the period at 24 weeks would allow for any mistakes that are made about the age of the foetus.
I am told that it is possible for mistakes to be made, though with ultrasound it is becoming easier to determine the exact age of a foetus. I then started to look at the question of disability and the advances that are being made in discovering when a foetus is likely to be born a disabled person. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, said that in the majority of cases that could not be discovered before 24 weeks.

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I took the trouble to ring up one of the professors at Guy's Hospital earlier this week and I understand that amniocentesis and ultrasound tests can now be carried out in the 16th, 17th or 18th weeks with the result coming through in three weeks, which makes 21 weeks. If the tests are inconclusive, that gives time for them to be carried out again and produce a result by 24 weeks. I gather that it is not all that common for the tests to be inconclusive.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, that it is highly undesirable for, I should say, not just the mother but the father as well to have to make a decision as to whether there is an abortion. I should hope that it would be a family which was involved and not a single parent. Single parents happen, but so far as I can see it is a family matter and a family decision.
At the same time, I understand that there are certain tests that are getting much earlier and that tissue sampling of the foetus—I believe it is called chorion biopsy—can be carried out between 8 and 10 weeks with the result coming at about 12 weeks. That is not for all disabilities. There are still some disabilities that it is difficult to discover up to 28 weeks or beyond, particularly where the disability is a mental one.
I worry about whether medical facilities throughout the country are up to scratch and can produce results at the time required. That started me swinging against the Bill. I am rather like a pendulum on this Bill. I have been swinging for it and against it, because it is an extremely important matter. I have been trying to give it the consideration that it deserves.
It is not often that we have a Bill from the Bishops' Bench. I have, as the House will know, railed from behind the Bishops' Bench at the Bishops' Bench for not supporting certain ethical questions in the past. This time I congratulate it.
I understand that medical services are improving, that more doctors are being trained in the services and that we should be able to discover the disabilities, where they are discoverable, within reasonable reach of where patients are. It is obvious that from time to time there will be human error. We have human error with every Bill with which we deal. It is virtually impossible to legislate against human error.
I finally come down in favour of the Bill. With regard to disabilities, I have spent most of my working day raising funds for John Groom's Association for the Disabled. I see around me people with extremely severe disabilities. I know what worthwhile people they are when given the chance and the right facilities. Not only are we improving the methods of diagnosis so that a decision on abortion can be made early enough in most cases—if it has to be made—but we are also improving the life of disabled people when they are born.
The noble Lord, Lord McGregor of Durris, produced the results of a survey. He will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that he said the sample was 19. That is not a very large sample and I believe that most scientists would be unhappy with the results of a survey of only 19. To get the real results from a survey of that kind one needs to see the questions that have been asked, because they can well skew the results. I have come across a number of people who have had a
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great deal of joy and pleasure from their disabled offspring—both mentally and physically disabled.
This is an extremely difficult subject. It is full of emotion. I have deliberately tried to keep away from the question of abortion because in some respects that is a different subject altogether. I know that it is tied in with this matter, but we are debating the age of a foetus when it can be deemed to be viable, if born, given proper medical attention. We must legislate for proper medical attention. We must keep up to date with the advances of medical and other sciences. We change our business practices. We are gradually changing from a heavy industrial manufacturing country to a service-providing country because that is what the world economy needs. However, that is a totally different subject again. We have to bear in mind and keep up to date with this kind of legislation on medical advances.
I welcome the Bill. I think that it may have some difficulties. I have spent a long time arguing with myself about it as well as listening to your Lordships' arguments, but on the whole I come down in favour of the Bill.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, has he done any checking or conducted any survey throughout the United Kingdom, or throughout England and Wales, of how many units or hospitals are equipped and available to do the testing?
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I am sorry, but I did not catch what the noble Lord said.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, the noble Lord referred earlier to the inquiries which he had made of a friend in London as regards the testing.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I made inquiries from one of the professors at Guy's Hospital. I was told that there are areas of the country where it is not available. It is available, within reasonable reach, throughout the majority of the country, and the position is improving.
10.14 p.m.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, before proceeding to the subject of the debate, I should like to say that when the noble Baroness, Lady Braye, spoke her opening lines, I could tell that she was going to be a natural for your Lordships' House. I shall look forward to hearing her on many occasions in the future.
I take this opportunity to thank the right reverend Prelate for taking the initiative on this matter. Let him not be discouraged by the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, who I am sorry to see is not in his place, drew attention to the fact that the right reverend Prelate had spoken for 23 minutes. I can assure him that I have heard the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, speak for much longer than that on many occasions. I hope that the right reverend Prelate will not withdraw the Bill and will stick to his guns.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, is not in his place. It is not his subject and so I do not suppose that he would be familiar with the words of

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the Prophet Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Tekoa and who said:
"Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have ripped up the women with child".
That may be the kind of statement that my noble friend Lord Henderson calls "emotional". However, it expresses the primitive emotion of a herdsman, accustomed to caring for his sheep in the lambing season, on seeing pregnant women and their children destroyed. I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, is that kind of Ammonite. However, there is another kind of ammonite, an almost jumbo-sized snail which survives in fossilised form and which used to crawl about the primitive oceans of the palaeozoic era. I think the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby's legalism is the kind of fossil we do not have to consider too seriously.
The 1985 concordat and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act have been argued as bearing on the Abortion Act. There are two Committee stage points as to which I should like to put your Lordships on notice. The first point is that in the last 12-month period three children have been born at 23 weeks' term. Quite clearly, the original 28 weeks' term is falling behind medical science and the provisions of that Act must be updated. Therefore, I should like to see the provisions of the right reverend Prelate's Bill extended from 24 to 23 weeks.
The second Committee stage point is borne on by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley. I think that this Bill will need consideration of a schedule of consequential amendments at Committee stage because, in so far as the Abortion Act refers to the 1929 Act, it will have henceforward to refer to the 1929 Act as amended by this Act.
I have been informed that 61 per cent. of abortions at 23 weeks and over involve foreigners in private clinics.
I do not believe that any new problem is raised by AIDS. You cannot kill people because they are handicapped or because they may die soon in any case. You cannot kill people because their parents are too young to bear them. You cannot kill people because nobody loves or wants them. The old commandment "Thou shalt not kill" survives.
I acquiesce in the Abortion Act for one reason only and that is that abortions will take place and the only issue is whether or not they take place in back streets, with all that that implies, or whether they take place under some kind of regulation. That is the condition under which I acquiesce in the abortion acts such as they are.
Where is our old sense of self-respect? Do we want Britain's doctors to be the abortionists of Europe? I find the idea totally repugnant. There again, my noble friend Lord Henderson will say that I am being emotional. I am emotional. I have seen the film called "The Silent Scream", I wonder if the noble Lord has, where by ultrasonic methods one can see the foetus being torn to pieces within the uterus. Abortionists who have seen it are so shocked by what they have done that they have decided never to do another abortion. That is public knowledge.
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There is something sick about our society. You may not take the life of a murderer, however vile, by capital punishment but you may kill as many children as you like, however innocent they may be, provided they are in utero and have not yet taken their first breath.
The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, asked that his moral outlook should be respected as other people's are. But I cannot understand that the noble Lord has a moral outlook other than his own opinions on any subject. If I am going to be guided by other people's opinions I should much sooner be guided by the Pope or the most reverend Primate in what is right or wrong, than by the private opinions of my noble friend.
We must bring old legislation up to date. It is a continuous process within this Palace. I must resist the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby. I am sorry that he is not here to reply to me. He and I have called one another fossils on many occasions in the past and he knows very well that though we often take sides against one another in this Chamber we are on very good terms in the Library or over a cup of coffee. We have been friends and allies on some occasions and opponents on other occasions. He will forgive me for having spoken my mind about his amendment in his absence. I support this Bill and hope that the right reverend Prelate will go ahead with it notwithstanding.
10.20 p.m.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, whatever might have been said from different parts of the House, the fact remains that there is a lot of common ground among your Lordships. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham said that the Bill was not concerned with abortion. He said that he himself was not opposed to abortion as such, and that in certain circumstances it was justifiable. I think all of us would agree with him that we want to see fewer late abortions, and that is common ground among all Members of your Lordships' House.
Some noble Lords who have spoken may take that rather further and be opposed to abortion in its entirety, but whatever position we may have within the different religious sects in the country I think that all of us are agreed on moral grounds that late abortions are to be avoided. We are concerned morally. The families involved are also concerned on psychological and emotional grounds.
The point at which we differ is the point raised by my noble friend Lord Houghton. How can we bring about a reduction in late abortions? There is the legislative route and there is the administrative route. The administrative route was chosen by the then Minister for Health in 1985 and has been supported by subsequent Ministers for Health. The right reverend Prelate is choosing the legislative route.
We have to look at the consequences of the legislative route. He referred to the small number of cases that were involved in abortions beyond 24 weeks. The noble Lord, Lord McGregor, extended that figure to something like 470, because he included the two weeks from the 22nd week to the 24 week. It is fairly widely accepted that if you put a legal limit of 24 weeks in the Bill, in practice 22 weeks is likely to become the operative date. I think it was on that basis

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that the noble Lord, Lord McGregor, brought forward his figures.
I would agree again though with the right reverend Prelate that even though it might be a small number, we must concern ourselves about it. But the issue is not quite so simple as it appears on the surface. As well as concerning ourselves with the foetus, the viability of the foetus and the subsequent life of a child, we also have to concern ourselves with the mother.
The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, said that there was no single moral view. He is right there. There is no single moral view, and it is a moral stance also to be concerned about the position of the mother and, as the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, said about the father too, because we are thinking in the family context. We have to think of what is going to happen to the family as a consequence of reducing the possibility of abortion.
Again like the noble Lord, Lord McGregor, who I thought spoke eloquently about the women involved, we have to ask who are these women and what are the consequences for them. They are caught in four separate sets of circumstances and some of them are covered by more than one of the sets.
The right reverend Prelate tended to limit some of the circumstances too easily, I felt. The first is the inefficiency within the National Health Service which relates to late referrals. I understand that in some cases there is uncertainty and further tests have to be made, so a certain amount of delay is built into the diagnosis. Nevertheless, irrespective of what happens to the Bill we need to consider seriously the inefficiencies within the service to ensure that we do not condemn or submit more women to this dreadful decision at a late date because of the inefficient system. It is a practical problem that we must take account of anyway.
The second set of circumstances relates to foetal abnormalities. A number of your Lordships have spoken about this. The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, indicated from his medical point of view that despite progress within the medical sciences there are still cases where diagnosis is not possible until very late in the pregnancy. We have to take account of that. Indeed, the studies to which many of your Lordships have referred, including that of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, have indicated that a significant minority of cases with foetal abnormalities are not diagnosed until the 25th or the 26th week.
We have to think of the trauma that involves the family in such circumstances. They may be looking forward to a first child or a child to complete the family. Then they are faced with this information and they have to make a decision. It is a difficult decision to take: whether to go through with the pregnancy or whether to terminate it. We must have compassion for families in these circumstances.
Another problem is now emerging. It is the problem arising from the AIDS disease which has occupied the minds of your Lordships on a number of occasions in recent times. This is a new factor that enters into this whole area of abortion. AIDS is now moving into heterosexual activity and innocent victims are involved. A wife may find herself pregnant and realise that she is carrying a child which could be born with the AIDS disease through no fault of her own. It may
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be the fault of her husband, but it is not her fault. What do we do in circumstances such as those? It may be late in the pregnancy when the situation is diagnosed. We must be concerned with that.
The third area of concern mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord McGregor, is that of young teenagers. Some 50 per cent. of late abortions are to young people under 20, according to the study of the Royal College. The pregnancies of some of these girls are not necessarily due to promiscuity or curiosity. Sometimes it is a consequence of abuse or rape and that leads to difficult circumstances. This is a group that needs our understanding and sympathy.
The fourth group has not been mentioned. It might be a rather difficult group for us in your Lordships' House to understand because in a way we are a well-organised group of people. Those who can be listening to or participating in a debate at half-past ten at night have to have some order in their lives; otherwise they would not be able to be here.
I am now talking about that group of women who are socially and psychologically alienated from society. We all know of such groups: women who cannot cope with a situation, let alone cope with an abortion situation. And these are the women who so often are late in going to their own GP—if they have one. Sometimes they are not even on a GP's list. There is a great deal of sadness surrounding the lives of such families, and these are the groups who would be caught by this particular change in the law.
The right reverend Prelate referred to teenagers and said that if they knew it was going to be 24 weeks they would make up their minds and seek assistance before the 24th week. I am not sure that I quite agree with him. I am not sure whether some of these people could actually do that. Therefore I suggest that these are the people who most need our help and who suffer in a way which would not be changed if we changed the law. In other words, their circumstances would remain as they are now.
Therefore I think we have a very difficult situation. We are concerned to give life to the foetus and to protect it, but we are also concerned for the position of the mother and the family. I believe that the dividing line between our moral duty to one group and to the other is a very difficult one indeed. For my part, I would come down on the side of working with the administrative improvements that have been referred to by a number of your Lordships.
I should like to see a tightening up of the procedures and the administration within the National Health Service, facilitating medical research and advances in medical science, more easily available facilities for pregnancy testing and made more uniform throughout the country, with more information on health education and counselling, particularly for young people, and in areas where they are most likely to see that information and to be able to take up opportunities for counselling. If we could proceed along these lines in a positive way we might do more towards bringing about the objectives for which the right reverend Prelate has put forward his Bill than if we pursue the legislative way he has chosen.
10.33 p.m.
Viscount Craigavon: My Lords, I once again apologise to the noble Duke for interrupting him as I did; but I was afraid that the very graphic description he was giving of a method of abortion, unchallenged, would gain currency coming from him. In fact, as I shall explain later, the method of abortion the noble Duke was describing scarcely takes place any longer, certainly not in the private clinics, and certainly not after 24 weeks—which is the issue in the Bill we are talking about.
I should like to refer to one of the key reports in this debate, which is the Joint Report on Fetal Viability and Clinical Practice. Perhaps I may read a passage from the introduction on page 9, where there is a brief comment of the committee to the effect that it was issues of clinical, and not legal, importance which they were addressing. It says:
"There is a need to distinguish between the clinical desirability of a change from 28 weeks and the legal consequences of recommending such a change. The Committee, recognising the complexity of the present legislation relating to fetal viability, did not address themselves in detail to the legal issue, but concentrated on clinical considerations. For this reason they did not attempt to define viability in terms that would be legally aceptable but have described it as it is used by clinicians."
Given that objective, it is quite possible for an organisation which has been represented on the committee not to agree with the legislation proposed by the right reverend Prelate. I gave the example of the British Medical Association, which has specifically said that it does not support the right reverend Prelate's legislation although it was represented on this committee.
The next point that I hope to put right is the, in my opinion, misapprehension from which the right reverend Prelate was suffering about the role of the private sector in late abortions. He was trying to denigrate the present system, which I believe he was calling a gentlemen's agreement, and was hypothesising that this agreement might change because the Minister changed, which, in my opinion, is a ludicrous idea. I hope that the Minister can tell us exactly what is the present situation in the private sector and can confirm what I say. The trouble is that because of the nature of this Bill we have a Minister answering and doing his best, but speaking, as I understand, from the Home Office. A lot of the issues that we address to him relate to the DHSS and that is another difficulty about this debate.
My understanding of the role of the private sector at present is that in 1985 the Minister of Health acted to lower the time limit by administrative controls rather than by introducing legislation. In future, any private abortion clinic would lose its licence if it performed abortions after 24 weeks. That is the position and all clinics now comply with that demand. Also, another control is that the DHSS regularly visits non-NHS abortion clinics to ensure that these regulations are being put into effect. Any clinic not meeting the department's requirements risks having its licence withdrawn. That is slightly more than a gentlemen's agreement.
The reason why I am afraid that some speakers have been under a misapprehension is the briefing material which they have been given. I think it has been
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circulated by the National Council for Christian Standards in Society. It is an A4 sheet containing extracts from the report of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. That is correct, but it is dated 1984 and the figures on which that report is based date from 1981 to 1982. It is from that sheet that some of the figures we have been given tonight derive.
Right at the beginning, the right reverend Prelate read out that over 70 per cent. of the total late abortions are done in the private sector. What I have just said is that the private sector is not now concerned with abortions after 24 weeks. That does not apply. Similarly, on this bit of paper there is a graphic description of dilation and extraction and it says that that method is used in 33 per cent. of abortions between 24 and 27 weeks. The noble Lord nods, but these statistics relate to the practice in 1981, the report was in 1984, the results were corrected in 1985 and we have had this voluntary agreement since that no private clinics operate in this time-scale.
The noble Duke must also have read this paper and the letter which was written with it, when he referred to this country as being the late abortion capital of the world. The figure which has been quoted of 33 late abortions for 1985 is made up of 31 abortions for residents of England and Wales and two for foreigners. So far as this Bill is concerned, when the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, says that the Bill will cure the problem of this country being called the late abortion capital of the world, we are speaking of only two abortions. Therefore, I am afraid that he has been misinformed in the same way.
The Duke of Norfolk: My Lords, I am honestly unable to produce the figures or the statistics. However, I think it is relevant for me to say that in the other countries of Europe, one is not allowed to perform such procedures after 12 weeks. I wonder why that is so.
Viscount Craigavon: My Lords, that may well be a valid point, but what I am referring to and what this Bill is addressing is the problem of abortions after 24 weeks. To repeat the figures for 1985, the number of abortions affected was in fact two in this country.
I oppose the Bill for a number of reasons. I am even more convinced this evening that this very simple Bill cannot bear the weight that has been placed upon it by all the mass of detailed and complex considerations and the ramifications that have emerged tonight. The Bill is altering a general principle, but it is ignoring the detailed implications of that change. That is why I support much wider and more general discussions in this whole area before any change is made.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, has already shown how the sympathetic use of directions and guidelines by the DHSS and organisations like the BMA can provide an effective and flexible approach.
I have spoken to many people, both inside and outside this House, about this Bill. Superficially this simple Bill sounds perfectly plausible. But when one starts explaining the effect of the Bill in terms of individuals and the tragic human details, people realise that it is not the black and white gut issue that they may first have supposed.

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In my opinion, the right reverend Prelate has recently had a good run in the media by talking about killing children who are capable of being born alive. If one does not qualify that (which I know is difficult in the journalistic context), there is a general presumption that the children concerned are perfectly normal and viable foetuses which are being done away with. However, of the 1985 figure of 33 abortions after 24 weeks, in almost certainly the majority of cases there would be serious congenital abnormalities. As has been said, the sooner medical science and human shortcomings can improve the system to deal with these cases at an earlier stage the better. But provision must still be maintained to deal with the unfortunate and tragic hard cases.
Several speakers mentioned a promising system called chorion biopsy. It is justifiable to mention that system. But it is in the very early stages and its use unfortunately causes too many miscarriages at the moment. The development time to perfect the system is about two or three years. In addition, as the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, has said, it does not cover certain abnormalities such as structural abnormalities. That is as I understand it.
Perhaps I may concentrate for a moment on congenital abnormalities. The right reverend Prelate has said that 33 lives are worth saving. However, in many of those cases I should wish to say, "What sort of life and saving for what?" A clear example concerns foetuses with anencephaly—that is, no brain at all. There is absolutely no chance of survival and the prognosis for life outside the womb is a matter of minutes. What sort of life is that child being saved for?
I have the most recently published breakdown of congenital abnormalities in legal abortions at 20 weeks or later from a paper which the noble Lord, Lord McGregor, mentioned. It was published in The Lancet of 2nd June 1984 by Professor Eva Alberman. The paper uses figures for 1982 of confirmed congenital abnormalities. Taking anencephaly, in weeks 25, 26 and 27 gestational age, there are two, one and one terminations respectively for that reason.
The summary says:
"A reduction in the legal age of fetal viability to 24 weeks, in the absence of any other change in practice, would have stopped an estimated 26 abortions for confirmed serious fetal defects other than anencephaly in 1982."
There have been beneficial changes in practice since then, and we are urging that they be continued. But there is still the question in the context of this Bill as to what should happen with foetal abnormalities which, for one reason or another, can only be dealt with after 24 weeks. It seems to me that the controlled flexibility allowed by the present system provides the best answer.
I know that I am taking the clear-cut case of anencephaly, but I am doing so because if there is no agreement on that there is not much hope of agreement on less clear-cut cases. Obviously, one is hoping to diagnose in less than 24 weeks, but I am hypothesising here the case where that has not happened. If it is finally confirmed to a woman that, at 25 weeks, her foetus is anencephalic, are we now saying that she has no choice between an abortion or a carrying to term with a prognosis for the foetus at
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birth of probably a matter of minutes? That choice would obviously be different for different women, and in that tragic circumstance a choice that in my opinion is equally dignified can occur in both cases.
I am content that some people should be guided by their own religious principles in making that decision; but I should not want the guidance of religion to be paramount in that area. This was put particularly well by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, and I would agree with him and with the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, in very much hoping that the right reverend Prelate will feel able to withdraw this Bill tonight.
10.47 p.m.
Lord Silkin of Dulwich: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Longford said in the course of his remarks, with absolute correctness, that on this side of the House—and I am sure in all quarters of the House—there is no party line or party whip, and though I speak from the Front Bench I speak in my personal capacity. However, on one matter I am quite certain that I can speak not only in that capacity but on behalf of my party; that is, in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Braye, on her admirable maiden speech, which was none the worse for—indeed, very much the better for—its brevity and for the sincerity with which it was spoken to the House.
It would not profit the House for me to seek to review the arguments on each side of this matter. Whatever the result may be tonight, the right reverend Prelate has done a service to the House in enabling those arguments to be placed before the House at very great length on both sides so that those who, like at least one Member—I think it is the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen—are teetering on the edge of decision may be better able to make up their minds.
What I should like to do, therefore, is rather to seek to assist the House, if I can, by saying as succinctly as possible what I think are the right approaches to the question which is before the House and what the tests are which ought to be applied. Before I do that—and I hope to do it quite shortly—it would be as well to see exactly what this Bill is seeking to do, since there has been some argument about it. It is a very short Bill and it directly seeks to do no more than amend the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929. Indirectly, of course, it affects the Abortion Act 1967. But the difference between the Infant Life (Preservation) Act and the Abortion Act is very significant. The Infant Life (Preservation) Act established a criminal offence punishable by a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
In seeking to amend that Act so as to reduce from 28 weeks to 24 weeks the period after which it is to be presumed that a child who has been destroyed would have been capable of being born alive, this Bill places upon the defendant the burden in respect of that period of proving his innocence, whereas the law at the moment is in the normal form; that is to say, it is for the prosecution to prove his guilt. The House must start with that knowledge and must ask itself whether anything we have heard tonight justifies altering that burden of proof in a way which Parliament is disinclined, and rightly disinclined, to do, particularly

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when the offence is so serious as to be considered in some cases to justify imprisonment for life.
The issue is not, as some noble Lords have suggested, simply a question of whether it is today medically possible to ascertain after 24 weeks of pregnancy that a child will be seriously deformed or comes within the wording of the Abortion Act as enabling an abortion to take place. There can be many different views on that point. I have listened as a layman to the various views that have been expressed. It may be that medical science has advanced or is advancing to the point at which one can say 24 weeks now, 28 weeks formerly. So far as I was concerned, I certainly was not convinced that that was so. But even if I had been convinced, I should still have had to be convinced that the circumstances would be such as to place those concerned on inquiry in sufficient time for them to take the steps with the doctors in order to discover whether the deformity existed. That is crucial.
I am content to leave that issue in abeyance as not being the real issue before the House, valuable though it has been for the House to have gone around the question and found out from those who have the best evidence what the different views may be. But when we come back to the reality of what we are seeking to do, the questions which I suggest the House must ask itself, and which I have asked myself, are two fairly simple ones, bearing in mind once again that in this Bill we are altering the criminal law in regard to a very serious offence to the disadvantage of the accused person.
The first question is this. Have we heard any evidence of serious abuse which justifies a change in the law? I listened to all the speeches in the hope that one of them would contain the suggestion of abuses that are known to exist in the period between 24 weeks and 28 weeks and would justify such a dramatic change in the law. In recent times we have dealt with amendments to public order legislation and other legislation and in every case the Government or Members of the House have drawn our attention to abuses which have taken place which justified changes in the law to the disadvantage of the defendant. I have not heard a single word of evidence to suggest that abuses exist in this particular area. Therefore for my part I suggest to the House that, on that test, the case has not been made for the Bill.
The second test that I put forward is this: will legislation on these lines set at rest the controversies on abortion which existed before the 1967 Act and which have existed ever since although they have been stilled to a considerable extent over the past few years? Is the Bill likely to set at rest those controversies? I can only say that far from doing so it seems to me that the Bill will only stir them up. Both in this place and in another place the controversies which have raged over this matter will be revived, not merely over the question of this amendment to the Infant Life (Preservation) Act but on the whole question of the boundaries within which abortion should be permitted. Therefore I say that on that test too the justification for the Bill has not been shown to exist. I know of no other test which the House ought to apply.
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There has been difficulty and uncertainty as to exactly what would happen in the event of this Bill, or something like it, becoming law. One cannot of course leave out of account the indirect effect it would have on the provisions of the Abortion Act 1967. I confess that I took a substantial part in the debates in another place on various amendments to that Act which were from time to time brought forward. I always found great difficulty in understanding the provisions of Section 5 of the Abortion Act. It may be that other noble Lords were clearer in their minds about it than I was, but let me simply explain the difficulty and what I think is the solution.
Section 5 of that Act, which has been referred to more than once in the debate, has two subsections. I take the second subsection first. It provides that for the purposes of the law relating to abortion, which is the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, anything done with intent to procure the miscarriage of a woman is unlawfully done unless authorised by Section 1—the section which provides the various justifications for medical practitioners to carry out an abortion.
That is clear enough. It is saying that the Abortion Act, within those limits, overrides the provisions of the previous law relating to abortions which until then applied irrespective of the circumstances. But then Section 5 (1) states something which, on the face of it, contradicts that. It states:
"Nothing in this Act shall affect the provisions of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 (protecting the life of the viable foetus)."
As I explained earlier, the Infant Life (Preservation) Act provides that where a child which is capable of being born alive is destroyed, unless to save the life of the mother, that is an offence which is punishable by imprisonment for life. If that provision is retained, what on earth happens to the provisions that go to the previous abortion law? In other words, why can one not always, except where the mother's life is in issue, go under the Infant Life (Preservation) Act and forget about the previous abortion law altogether, even in cases where there is liable to be substantial malformity, which is expressly provided for in the Abortion Act? Obviously Parliament could not permit that.
I could not follow the apparent discrepancy until I went back to the debates in this House on the provisions of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act when it was a Bill, and then all become clear. In 1929 a learned judge expressed the view—rather a bizarre view perhaps—that where a child had been practically born but still attached to the mother, and in that condition someone, maybe the mother, maybe somebody else, destroyed the child, it could not be murder because the child was still part of the mother and it could not be abortion because there was not a miscarriage and therefore it may be that no offence at all was committed.
In the light of that, noble and learned Lords, including the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack in those days, whose name was Lord Hailsham, brought in legislation in the form of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 to deal with the question of what happens—one may think it very unlikely but they thought it quite likely—where some ill-advised or wicked person, whatever one calls it, destroyed a child

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still attached to the mother. Tht is why that Act has been preserved in the Abortion Act 1967, although the abortion lam, has been greatly amended.
If one takes the view that that is right (I have all the debates here so that noble Lords can look at them if they have any doubts, and it is quite clear from the debates that that is what they were talking about in those days) all that this Bill would do is to affect the situation where somebody (I do not know whether it ever happens these days) destroys a child still attached to its mother between 24 weeks and 28 weeks of pregnancy. I do not believe that the right reverend Prelate thought that he was doing that, but I can assure him that that is what he would be doing.
On that basis as well I suggest that the Bill is quite misconceived, and I very much hope that the right reverend Prelate will think it right after this most valuable debate to withdraw the Bill.
11.3 p.m.
Lord Beaverbrook: My Lords, I have listened with great interest to the views expressed in your Lordships' House on this important and sensitive subject. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham is to be congratulated on his decision to introduce a measure which is designed to reflect the advances of medical science. I should like also to congratulate my noble friend Lady Braye on an excellent maiden speech. I am sure that your Lordships will agree with me when I say that we all look forward to hearing more from her in future.
The law in England and Wales relating to abortion is somewhat complicated and arises from an interaction among the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, which this Bill seeks to amend, the Abortion Act 1967 and the Offences Against the Persons Act 1861.
It may be helpful to the House if at this stage I confirm, as the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, told us, that the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 does not extend to Scotland. I am advised that the very different historical background to the law of Scotland in this general area would make it impracticable to extend that Act to Scotland.
Under the 1929 Act, it is a criminal offence to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive before it has an existence independent of its mother. The Act creates a rebuttable presumption that a woman who has been pregnant for 28 weeks or more is carrying a child capable of being born alive. No offence is committed where the termination is carried out in good faith to preserve life of the mother. The Offences Against the Person Act 1861 makes it an offence to procure an abortion. However, the Abortion Act 1967 provides that a person shall not be guilty of an offence relating to abortion when a pregnancy is terminiated on the authority of two doctors for certain specified reasons and under designated conditions. The doctors must be of the opinion either that if the pregnancy continued it would involve greater risk to the life of the woman or to the physical or mental health of her or her existing children than if it were terminated; or that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would be seriously handicapped by physical or mental abnormalities.
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Nothing in the 1967 Act affects the provisions of the 1929 Act. The effect is that the 1967 Act cannot be used, to authorise an abortion where the pregnancy has reached such an advanced stage that a child is capable of being born alive unless the mother's life is at stake. Under the 1967 Act an abortion may only take place in a National Health Service hospital or in a hospital specially approved by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services.
The right reverend Prelate raised the matter generally of the Abortion Act 1967. Successive governments have remained neutral on proposed amendments to the criteria under which an abortion is permitted by the Abortion Act 1967. We share that attitude. This is a matter that is best left to the individual beliefs of noble Lords. It is not a matter on which it would be appropriate for the Government to take a view.
I should emphasise that the 1929 Act protects all foetuses capable of being born alive. It does not provide a time limit above which it will always be an offence to perform an abortion or below which abortions under the 1967 Act criteria are always permissible. It is an offence under the 1929 Act to destroy the life of a foetus of less than 28 weeks which is capable of being born alive, unless it is to save the mother's life. Equally, no offence is committed if action is taken to destroy a foetus of more than 28 weeks which is not capable of being born alive.
The time limit in the 1929 Act only creates a rebuttable presumption. Thus, if the foetus was less than 28 weeks, to obtain a conviction the prosecution would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the foetus had been capable of being born alive when the abortion took place. Conversely, if the foetus was over 28 weeks, the accused would not be guilty of an offence under the 1929 Act if he proved on a balance of probabilities that it was not capable of being born alive.
The right reverend Prelate mentioned the accurate ascertainment of the gestational age. The Abortion Act 1967 only gives the Government power to make regulations on abortions under the Act. To answer the question that the right reverend Prelate asked me, it does not give power to require records to be kept on births in general. That would require legislation. It could not be done in this Bill and would be outside its scope. I can assure the right reverend Prelate that we shall consider further the need for these changes and, if they are desirable, how they should be achieved.
The time limit in the 1929 Act simply fixes an age at which it can reasonably be presumed that the foetus would be capable of being born alive. That time limit was fixed when the Act was passed in 1929 and clearly reflects the state of medical science at that time. The question therefore arises: does this limit reflect modern medical science or should it now be amended?
The right reverend Prelate has already explained that, in the opinion of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the answer to that question is no and the 1929 Act should be amended to take account of advances since its enactment. That is the purpose of this Bill. The report on Fetal Viability and Clinical Practice of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists remains the best

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advice that we have about the gestational age after which a foetus should be considered as viable. The Government could not therefore support the introduction of a limit below the 24 weeks that the report recommended.
In 1980 we invited the Royal College to consider the question of foetal viability. In 1985 we received from it a document: Fetal Viability and Clinical Practice. This presented the agreed views of the Royal College itself, the British Paediatric Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Midwives and the British Medical Association. During the right reverend Prelate's speech there was some discussion about the BMA's attitude. The BMA has not been in touch with us about the Bill, but it was represented on the committee which in 1985 recommended a reduction from 28 weeks to 24 weeks. Its representative agreed with the committee's recommendation.
The committee recommended that the presumptive age of capacity to be born alive should be reduced from 28 weeks to 24 weeks. The report acknowledged that the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 is about whether or not the foetus is "capable of being born alive" rather than "viable" (that is, capable of being kept alive). However, it commented that the 1929 Act had an influence on clinical practice, clinicians tending to interpret the figure of 28 weeks as the state of pregnancy below which a baby has little chance of survival. The report concluded that this figure is no longer appropriate and quoted a survey in 1982 revealing that the chance of survival of babies of 26 and 27 weeks' gestation was greater than 50 per cent.
So far this advice from the Royal College has been implemented by administrative action. As I have explained, abortions may lawfully be carried out only in National Health Service hospitals or in hospitals approved by the Secretary of State for Social Services. In practice, clinicians now apply a 24-week limit in accordance with the Royal College's advice. In the private sector only a limited number of approved places are permitted to carry out late abortions and in this the Secretary of State has made it a condition of approval that they will not permit abortions to be carried out after 24 weeks. As the right reverend Prelate explained, his Bill carries through this change into the law by replacing the 28-week limit in the 1929 Act with a 24-week limit.
Since the 1929 Act was introduced there have clearly been technical advances. Foetuses of less than 28 weeks' gestation, which would at one time have stood little chance of surviving after birth, now have a greater chance of survival. The noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, gave an example of that. The Royal College's working party was clearly concerned that the 1929 Act should take account of these scientific advances and should reflect good obstetric practice.
The Government agree with the right reverend Prelate that the law should now reflect those changes and we support the Bill he has so ably introduced. If your Lordships agree with me that this Bill should indeed be read a second time some amendment may be necessary in Committee. As it stands, the Bill makes no transitional provisions. If enacted it would
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apply to all terminations, including those that took place before it was enacted. Thus in theory a doctor who, say, terminated a 26-week foetus five years ago could be prosecuted under the 1929 Act, as amended, and the onus would be on him to prove that the foetus was not capable of being born alive. This would hardly be just. An amendment seems necessary to ensure that the new limit applies only to terminations which take place after the Bill comes into force. If the right reverend Prelate agrees with this we would be happy to assist him in drafting the necessary amendments.
At this late hour, I commend this measure to your Lordships' House.
11.13 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham: My Lords, some time ago I said that I introduced this Bill with trepidation and reluctance. I am sorry to have had to bring it before your Lordships' House. It is an unpleasant, emotive and sensitive matter. It is a subject on which we should all listen to one another and be tolerant of one another because we obviously disagree. It is a subject on which we have to accept one another's good faith.
I believe that it is a subject on which we must be sensitive to vulnerable groups. Your Lordships have spoken of vulnerable groups. One of the vulnerable groups that we must include is unborn children and their rights, because they cannot speak for themselves. I understood the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, to say that there would be few whose abnormalities could not be diagnosed before 24 weeks. Of course those who are badly malformed die very soon. That does not necessarily give us the right to kill them, but it is a relief to know that they die fairly soon.
I should like to share with your Lordships' House an experience which I have had for the past nine years on the day before Christmas. I have celebrated with those in a mental hospital in which there are a large number of badly mentally handicapped people. I always find it a particularly moving occasion—one of the most moving that I attend. Although these people have a mental age of children, they call for affection and care from parents, nurses and doctors, and I really could not say that it would be better for them to be dead. I am sure that they would not think that. I feel bound to say that because they are a vulnerable group, as are other groups which have not received as much mention as they might.
Most of those who have taken part in this debate are men, but I am certain that we should listen to what women have to say. For that reason I, like many others, would like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Braye, for what she said. I should also like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, for her intervention and for the way in which she held the balance in the matter.
I am more than grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beaverbrook, for what he said and for the promise of government support, with some amendments, for the Bill. It has made me, and no doubt other noble Lords, think very deeply.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Silkin, to whom one naturally listens with great respect and attention, asked what abuse had taken place. I wonder whether

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he can accept that for some of us the abuse is quite simple: that children who are capable of being born alive are killed. He may not accept that, but it seems to me to be an abuse. He also said that it would cause controversy. I wonder whether he would accept that there is controversy. There are many people who are deeply disturbed, and sometimes we have to face these unpleasant facts. He spoke about the origin of the Act, and it certainly has a very unsavoury origin. However, I wonder whether he would not accept that it is how the abortion Act is used, rather than its origins, which is of importance.
I am grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, for his correction, which I accept, about the changes that have taken place. I took what was in the 1984 report of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to be what is happening now. I should like to apologise to your Lordships' House, and I am grateful, to the noble Viscount for pointing that out. However, I was not so grateful to him when, as I understood him, he said that of the 33 foetuses of 24 weeks or more most contained abnormalities. We do not know the reasons why those pregnancies were terminated.
I was grateful for what the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said. He referred to the medical services as insufficient. Others like the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, also approached this subject. It is something to which great attention must be given because it is a terrible thing for a woman to be delayed administratively in this way. Surely this is a challenge to the National Health Service. If the Bill becomes an Act, the National Health Service must surely face up to the challenge rather than that we should not change the law because we think that the National Health Service is not really up to coping at the moment.
One could not hear the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, without sympathy, but I really wonder whether I am being exploited. No one has proposed the Bill to me; I have proposed it because I think that it is right. If the noble Lord thinks that it can be amended in another place in the wrong way, perhaps I may remind your Lordships' House that it can be amended in this House in another direction if your Lordships think fit. This is a matter which seems to have escaped the notice of some Members of your Lordships' House.
I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord McGregor of Durris, especially for his plea for toleration and for his concern for single-parent families who are in very great need. I am not sure that all doctors allow a fortnight's grace. I should like to know the evidence upon which that statement is based, because I have searched and not found any such evidence. I was concerned that the noble Lord and others quoted statistics from the 20th week and after. Your Lordships will realise that this Bill is not concerned with the 20th week and after; it is concerned with nothing after the 24th week.
Finally, I must approach the words of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby. I listen to him always with respect. I was very grateful for his contribution on the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Bill, but I am sorry to have to disagree with him about
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this Bill. I think that moral matters are important and we ought to deal with them now. I thought I was dealing with ways and means, and I thought I gave reasons why administrative measures are not satisfactory in matters of life and death.
In matters of life and death we should have the assurance of the law. I understood that the law was there for protection of people. It seems to me that we need a change in the law, because as it stands it is not correct. It is no longer simply the case, as it was in 1929, that if a woman has been pregnant for a period of 28 weeks or more it can be proved prima facie that she is pregnant and the foetus is capable of being born alive. Rather, that is true, but we can also say now, because of the advances of medical science, that a woman who has been pregnant for 24 weeks is in that situation. The law ought to reflect the present situation. If this deterrent is so terrible at 24 weeks, it is equally terrible at 28 weeks. If it is such a terrible punishment, it exists in both cases.
I must explain why I bring forward this Bill. Perhaps I am naive, but it was for a very simple moral reason. It cannot be right to kill a child that is capable of being born alive. It ought to have its chance. I cannot believe that we and the Eastern European countries are the only countries that are in the right in this matter, because that would be the situation if we continue as we are.
I am a believer in the democratic process provided we do it tolerently. Amendments can be made to this Bill and if it seems good it will be passed; if it seems wrong it will not be passed. When I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Beaverbrook, and other noble Lords have said, I felt that I must put this matter to the suffrage of the House. I listened carefully to the pleas that I should withdraw the Bill but surely if people hold a belief in good faith the proper course is to submit the decision to the House. After great thought, that is what I think it right to do.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I am so shocked at the speech that the noble Lord, Lord Beaverbrook, made that I cease to be interested in anything that the right reverend Prelate now has to say. The issue is joined fairly and squarely on the government statement.
The Government have gone yellow and deserted all those whose co-operation they sought in 1985 to carry out their existing policy of controlling late abortions by voluntary and disciplinary methods. I say this without fear of contradiction. If this Bill gets a Second Reading we shall have to fight all along the line for the removal of the clause of presumption of guilt from the 1929 Act and see that it does not appear in any amended law. I know of no law passed in recent years which contains any clause of presumptive guilt where the penalty is a maximum of imprisonment for life. That is a blemish upon our criminal law, and now it is to be retained. If the Government get their way, then I think we have to ensure that it comes out.
The right reverend Prelate may now make remarks to which we shall listen ad nauseam when he deals—if he does—with the Bill in Committee. There is a long, bitter trail ahead if this Bill gets a Second Reading. I warn the Government that they will lose the goodwill

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of many organisations and people, professional and otherwise, if they intend to take this line on the Bill.
I must press my amendment. I hope that the House will choose even at this late hour between legislation and voluntary and disciplined control. I sincerely hope that the majority of noble Lords will vote to put the Bill aside notwithstanding what the Government have said, so that we have a further opportunity of judging the experience of what the Government themselves sought to get, and obtained, from all concerned for this trial period of control other than by legislation. I sincerely hope therefore that those who are against the Bill will vote in favour of the amendment that it should be read this day six months.
11.26 p.m.
On Question, Whether the amendment to the Motion (moved by the Lord Houghton of Sowerby) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 31; Not-Contents, 41.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Craigavon, V.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

David B.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

McNair, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Monson, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Morton of Shuna, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L. [Teller.]

Mulley, L.

Nicol, B.

Houghton of Sowerby, L. [Teller]

Oram, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Silkin of Dulwich, L.

Jeger, B.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Lawrence, L.

White, B.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Lockwood B.

Winstanley, L.

McGregor of Durris, L.

NOT CONTENTS

Barrington, V.

Kinloss, Ly.

Beaverbrook, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Belstead, L.

Leicester, Bp.

Birmingham, Bp. [Teller.]

Longford, E.

Braye, B.

Lothian, M.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Buckmaster, V.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Canterbury, Abp.

Norfolk, D.

Chitnis, L.

Parmoor, L.

Coleraine, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Rankeillour, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

St. Albans, Bp.

Denham, L.

Salisbury, Bp.

Fitt, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Gainsborough, E.

Shannon, E.

Halsbury, E. [Teller.]

Stallard, L.

Harvington, L.

Swinfen, L.

Hemphill, L.

Tordoff, L.

Hooper, B.

Whitelaw, V.

Ingleby, V.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before midnight.