Lords Sitting of 20 January 1988

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

BP Shares: Kuwait Holding
Lord Williams of Elvel: 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 refer the acquisition by the Kuwait Investment Office of a substantial holding in British Petroleum plc to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Lord Young of Graffham): My Lords, the Kuwait Investment Office holding is being considered under our merger control procedures by the Director General of Fair Trading. He will advise me whether there may be a "merger situation" which qualifies for investigation and, if so, whether it should be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I am most grateful to the Secretary of State for his response. I understand exactly the situation that he describes. Is it not true that the Kuwait Investment Office is the investment arm of the Kuwait Government, that it now holds over 20 per cent. of BP, which is our largest company, and that there is a problem of national interest here? Should there not be some formal undertakings from the Kuwait Government about their intentions in respect of this shareholding?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, the Fair Trading Act distinguishes three levels of influence on a company which constitute a qualifying merger. It is that point which the director general is at the moment in the process of investigating. These three qualities are the ability materially to influence policy, the ability to control such policy or the acquisition of a controlling interest. It would be as well to await the report of the director general who will then advise me. I can then see what steps should be taken. I am aware of the interest in the matter and of its implications. I assure all in your Lordships' House that we shall be following this through very closely indeed.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, in addition to the reference to the Office of Fair Trading, will the Secretary of State keep in mind his reserve powers in the exercising of the golden share in this case? Will he consider that separately from any report he receives from the OFT?
Lord Young of Graffham: Yes, my Lords, but the golden share is in respect of a company in the North
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Sea; namely, Britoil, and not in respect of this one which is some thousands of miles away.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, may we take it that if, during the course of the inquiries that have been undertaken, anything comes to the noble Lord's attention that leads him to think that the national interest may be affected, he will immediately inform the House?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, if the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (which is the end result of the director general's report) finds that a merger might be expected to operate against the public interest—for this purpose a substantial shareholding can qualify as a merger—my power is to remedy or prevent any adverse effects specified in the report. If a merger is in contemplation I can prevent it. If it has already taken place I can require disposal of all or part of the existing shareholding in the target company.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, will the Secretary of State's department be considering how far rulings in respect of the Rome Treaty clauses, particularly those dealing with competition law, will be taken into account?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am absolutely satisfied that the Director General of the Office of Fair Trading will be considering whether this is a merger situation. If he finds that it is and that it qualifies for investigation, and at that time I so agree, I am certain that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission will be looking at all aspects of the problem.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, how does a minority holding become a monopoly? It sounds off-hand like a contradiction in terms.
Lord Young of Graffham: It surely does, my Lords, but, as I told your Lordships a moment ago, under the Fair Trading Act there are three levels of influence in a company which constitute a qualifying merger. Those levels of influence are the ability materially to affect policy, to control policy or to acquire a controlling interest. That is the law.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, will the Secretary of State tell the House whether the Government have any power, or indeed any influence, to prevent the holding of the Kuwait Investment Office from increasing from what it is at present, which is approximately 20 per cent. according to the latest information, to 29·9 per cent.?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I believed that the latest holding was just over 18 per cent. I have not been following it closely. I also noticed that the chairman of the company seemed to consider that to be acceptable. I believe that we should wait to see exactly what the director general advises me before taking any further steps.

Uranium Oxide: Imports from Namibia
2.43 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 any uranium oxide has been imported into the United Kingdom directly or indirectly from Namibia during the last five years.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, over the calendar years 1983 and 1984 the CEGB, on behalf of the British Civil Uranium Procurement Directorate (which is responsible for meeting the uranium requirements of the UK's civil nuclear programme) imported some 1,300 tonnes of uranium from the Rossing mine in Namibia. This contract ended in 1984, and since that time the CEGB has not imported any uranium of Namibian origin.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is it the case that the contract about which the noble Viscount has spoken was in direct breach of United Nations decree? Is it not further the case that since 1984 a previous contract has been activated and 1,100 tonnes of uranium oxide have been imported from the Rossing mine in Namibia?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, no; that is not the case.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, given the fact that we are domestically in need of uranium, does it matter that it was mined in Namibia, Canada, Australia or South Africa, or, to quote a crack from the late George Robey, "Woolwich, Norwich and all them other places on the Southern Railway"?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I travel on the southern railway, and I have not noticed any uranium mines. The CEGB is currently receiving uranium from both the United States and Canada, and, in addition, it has recently entered into a contract to take supplies from Australia from 1989.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, in those circumstances, and bearing in mind that there are adequate supplies of uranium from Australia and Canada—both civil and weapons grade—can the noble Viscount assure the House that we shall not import further supplies from Namibia in defiance of the United Nations ban on such imported uranium?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I can confirm that the contract ended in 1984. Since that time, the CEGB has not imported any uranium of Namibian origin and does not propose to do so.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I asked whether the noble Viscount could give an assurance that we would not do so in the future. Can he give that assurance?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I have just said so.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, the noble Viscount has not answered my first supplementary question. Is it the case that the contract which he admits was carried out was in direct breach of the United Nations decree? Further, is it not the case that British Nuclear Fuels Limited has a thriving business in the import and export of uranium, much of which comes from Namibia through third world countries? Is the noble Viscount aware of that? When he states that the CEGB will not import any further uranium from Namibia, does that cover every form of import of uranium into this country, either directly or indirectly from Namibia?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, British Nuclear Fuels Limited processes uranium on behalf of overseas customers for subsequent re-export. The origin of that ore is a matter for BNFL's customers.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, if European countries do not buy from Namibia, does the noble Viscount consider that there is a danger that Namibia may look for customers in countries to which we would rather the uranium did not go?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I think that is a strong possibility.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, the noble Viscount has still not answered my supplementary question. Does he admit that it was in direct breach of the United Nations decree that uranium from Namibia was imported into this country? If it is still being imported, that is still in direct breach of the United Nations decree. Is the noble Viscount's answer yes or no?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, always seems to know the answers to the Questions he tables. However, usually they are not the right answers, as on this occasion.

Fraud in the European Community
2.47 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what initiative they propose to take in the EC Council of Ministers to secure Council action in respect of the large-scale frauds set out in the latest annual report of the European Court of Auditors.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, the Government welcome the fact that the Court of Auditors has devoted a chapter of its annual report to the question of fraud. The court's report will be discussed by the Economic and Finance Council later this year, on the basis of a procedure which the United Kingdom was instrumental in setting up. The Government will aim to ensure that the Council recognises the importance of the fight against fraud.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for that partially reassuring reply. Is it not the case that the report referred to in the Question gives evidence of about £82 million-worth of fraud in the year 1986, and that a subsequent Commission investigation into the matter, which was published in October of last year, reveals that there is approximately £2,000 million-worth of fraud within the CAP? If that were not the case, that amount would go far towards reducing the deficit in the EC finances. Will Her Majesty's Government take the initiative at the Council to ensure that these matters are fully investigated within the member states, many of which have so far resisted investigations by the Commission?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, the detected fraud—that is fraud which has been found out—runs at a far lower level than the noble Lord suggests. Over the past five years the average has been approximately £14 million although it was about £20 million in 1986, which is important and should be dealt with. Suspected levels of fraud which have not been detected have yet to be proved.
I wish to assure all noble Lords that we take the matter seriously. It is as a result of procedures suggested by the United Kingdom that we shall be discussing the item later on this year and every year. It is important that procedures are established and followed through by all countries within Europe to ensure that fraud is kept to the minimum possible.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the figures I gave are set out in a report published by the EC Commission last year and referred to specifically in The Times of 15th October? Moreover, is he also aware that the Commission itself does not accept the noble Lord's view that the estimate is an under estimate? Will the noble Lord give the House the assurance that as and when the item goes on the next Council agenda, he will specifically notify the House and will undertake to report to the House on the progress thereafter?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I have little doubt that the report in The Times was correct. It reported that the European Court of Auditors suspected that fraud could amount to £2 billion a year; but suspicion of fraud is not the same as proving fraud. I have read many reports of the suspected size of the black economy in this country and reports vary enormously. However, until it can be proved, there can only be suspicion. We must not listen to reports about suspicion but take steps to ensure that whatever happens we keep the amount of fraud to the minimum. If the noble Lord cares to ask a Question later on this year, I shall be happy to answer in full detail what happens at the Economic and Finance Council.

Surrey Bus Services: Competition
2.51 p.m.
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 what arrangements they are making in the privatisation of bus services in the county of Surrey to ensure that there is a sufficient element of competition.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (Lord Brabazon of Tara): My Lords, the Transport Act 1985 gives the National Bus Company a main privatisation objective of promoting sustained and fair competition. With this in mind the London Country company was split into four separate companies in preparation for sale. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State looks forward to receiving from NBC proposals for the sale of the London Country (South-West) company, which serves much of Surrey.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that partially reassuring Answer. While I realise that most of the privatisation has gone well in Surrey, is he aware that there are two major anxieties in the county about the disposal of London Country (South-West) which is a very big block? First, it is intended to sell it all in one, and that might diminish competition; secondly, it is proposed to sell the garage property separately from the buses, and that might handicap competition. Can my noble friend reassure me that these two anxieties may not be fulfilled?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, perhaps I may reply to my noble friend's first point about breaking up the company into smaller units. As I said in my original Answer, the company is itself the result of a division into four parts of the London Country company. The NBC and our advisers have made it clear that further division would lead to weak companies which would harm competition. On my noble friend's second point about splitting the company between the property and the bus operation, we believe that NBC has advertised the sale of the company on that basis, and it believes that that reduces the risk of asset stripping by a possible property developer who might want to buy the bus company just to close it. It makes it possible for people committed to buses to buy the bus company.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, does the Minister recall that his right honourable friend the Secretary of State commented that a report on the monitoring of the 1985 Act, commissioned by the AMA and the PTA group through the Oxford Universities Study Group, was a very balanced report? Does that report not show that very few new competitors came in under deregulation, particularly on the unprofitable routes? Is not the general conclusion of that report that far from increasing competition in some areas there was no increase in competition whatever?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I would not want to comment on that report apropos of this particular Question which deals with the county of Surrey. However, the county of Surrey saved £1 million of its budget on subsidised services for last year. There has been plenty of innovation in the

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county. Minibuses operate in seven towns, and there is competition between three or four different companies. Therefore, in the county of Surrey it seems to have been a reasonable success.
Lord Glenamara: Is the noble Lord aware that what my noble friend has said does not apply in many areas? Is he aware that in the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1,000 buses a day now enter the fairly small city centre; and that is competition pushed to the point of chaos?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, if the noble Lord wishes to ask me a Question about Newcastle-upon-Tyne, I shall do my best to answer it.

Business
2.55 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like, as usual, to say a word about the two short debates standing in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, and the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick. 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 debates. In the case of the short debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, this means that all other speeches should be limited to a maximum of seven minutes and in that of the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, to six minutes. If any noble Lord should speak at greater length, it would be at the expense of subsequent speakers in the debate.

Cultural Diplomacy
2.56 p.m.
Lord Bonham-Carter Lord Bonham-Carter rose to call attention to the case for Her Majesty's Government to increase the available resources for cultural diplomacy in line with the importance which it has as a central element of Britain's diplomatic effort; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I should like to say how glad I am in some ways that so many noble Lords wish to participate in this debate but how sorry I am that they will have less time than they would like in which to speak. I should like to say in particular how pleased I am that the Motion tabled in my name has forced the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Fawsley, to break his unaccustomed silence, and how much many of us look forward to hearing his maiden speech.
I start from a very simple proposition which is that the projection of British culture and British values is, in itself, intrinsically important and if that is so, it is in our interests and the interests of the rest of the world that the fruits of that culture and the nature of those values be as widely disseminated as possible.
I hope that is not a declaration of cultural imperialism; it is merely a declaration of confidence in the values that lie behind our political institutions, our academic life—now, I regret to say, under threat—and the vitality of our artistic life. It also
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recognises the supreme importance to us and to millions of others of the English language.
I do not propose in the course of my remarks to become engaged or entangled in the semantic arguments set forth in the Foreign Office's rather arid and inadequate response to the very important and substantial report of the Select Committee. The FCO claim to find it difficult, in a horrible form of words—I do not know when they started learning American English—"to separate out" cultural from conventional diplomacy. The distinction is to me, in the words of Sir Anthony Parsons, "blazingly obvious"; and is, moreover, institutionalised in the existence of the British Council and by the existence of external services, to give two "blazingly obvious" examples. It is also recognised by other countries. France spends more than three times, and Germany more than twice as much as we do on cultural diplomacy. I shall try now to get the financial question out of the way as quickly and as briefly as I can.
The external services of the BBC are an essential weapon in our armoury and the Government are to be congratulated on spending money to increase the audibility of our broadcasts by installing new and more powerful transmitters. Over the next three years external services will receive an increase of from 4.1 to 5 per cent. However, there will also be an increase in running costs. The effect of that increase will mean a cut in programme money of 2 per cent. per annum. Therefore, by the third year there may in fact have to be cuts in the number of programmes broadcast. The British Council has at its disposal in total more money than it had before but this is because of aid funds, agency work and earnings. The principal government grant, known as mixed money, which is crucial to its operation and about which I hope the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gwydir, will be speaking, has decreased by no less than 23 per cent. in the past 10 years. This is a very savage cut. As our earlier debate indicated, overseas students diminished from 88,000 in 1979 to 56,000 in the past year.
What has happened has been a real cut in the sharp end of our programme for projecting British values and British culture. There have been cuts in the programmes broadcast; there have been cuts in mixed money; there have been cuts in the number of students being educated at our institutions of higher education.
In contrast to our behaviour in every area mentioned, other countries, whether they be analogue countries like France and Germany or super-powers like the United States and the USSR, have moved in precisely the opposite direction. They have increased their budgets devoted to cultural diplomacy; they have increased the hours which they have broadcast overseas and they have increased the number of students who have come to their institutions of higher education.
The Foreign Office, while admitting that this is the case, observes rather quaintly that,
"the French, the Germans and the Japanese have particular reasons for wanting specially to devote resources to cultural diplomacy that we do not share".

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The Foreign Office does not explain what these particular reasons are or why we peculiarly do not share them. I hope that the Minister will explain what those reasons are and the eccentricity of our posture. What we have had is not merely an absolute decline in the resources devoted to cultural diplomacy but, perhaps more important, a relative decline compared to other countries which is far more substantial.
Perhaps I may now turn to the English language. I do not propose to dwell upon its beauties, its literature or any of those matters, but simply to appeal to the materialist instincts of the present Government. I refer briefly to the book trade, on which I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Stockton, will be speaking later. In 1985, total British book sales were £1·8 billion, and 37·5 per cent. of that was exported. That excludes earnings from reprints, translations and subsidiary rights. Those figures come from the Select Committee.
This very influential and highly profitable position flows simply from the primacy of the English language. But the primacy of the English language depends on the English language being taught overseas to people who do not know it. Believe it or not, the Americans claim to speak English. There is a battle going on about the teaching of English English and American English. Noble Lords who watched the programmes of Mr. Gorbachev's visit to Washington may have noticed that every single one of his spokesmen spoke in American English; not one of them spoke in English English.
If you are taught English English you are likely to buy books and other goods from this country; if you are taught American English you are likely to buy books and other goods from the United States of America. It is therefore an important commercial consideration and one which should not be forgotten. On this whole matter the Publishers' Association reported that the,
"US Information Agency is providing greater support to American English language training than the combined efforts of ODA and the British Council".
The report continues:
"Without teacher training support … key markets will slide inevitably towards the United States".
Thus cultural diplomacy seems to me to be important intrinsically and commercially because people and countries are more likely to be influenced by people whom they understand, with whom they are friendly and whom they respect rather than by people whom they do not understand, do not like and do not respect. I also believe that cultural diplomacy should be active in regard to our friends as well as our potential opponents. I believe, with Dr. Johnson:
"A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair".
Hence, I deeply deplored and deplore cuts in the BBC's external broadcasting to France, Italy, Spain and, indeed, the Caribbean, where at present there is no British Council representative and where the BBC broadcasts 15 minutes of news each day out of its own resources. It seems to me to be a very false economy.
If I may put the other side of the picture, it must be a source of great satisfaction to us that as from 11th
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January Radio Renascenca in Portugal, the biggest private radio company in Portugal, will broadcast 30 minutes of news a day provided by the BBC via satellite. That seems to me to be a very important and useful development.
I should like now to give a couple of examples of the way in which external broadcasting can and cannot work. Shortly before the Falklands conflict the BBC's broadcasts to Spain were cut. As far as I remember, the saving was £230,000—rather less than the cost of a single Exocet missile. After the Falklands conflict an analysis was undertaken of the coverage in the media in Paris, Rome and Madrid of the conflict. It was found that in Paris and in Rome the coverage was very even-handed and British sources were used as much as or more than Argentine sources. On the other hand, in Spain the coverage was almost 100 per cent. from Argentine sources. Without our broadcasts we were in no position whatever to counter that kind of propaganda.
The second example is from Eastern Europe. I have known some countries of Eastern Europe for many years, and hardly a senior official or a Minister will deny that he gets his news quite regularly from the BBC's World Service or language broadcasts. I remember in Moscow, a few years after Suez, having a drink with the then American ambassador. He took me out to the veranda at the back of his embassy and he said, "If you listen now you will hear everyone in this street tuning in to the BBC". Indeed, if you had very sharp ears and a strong imagination you could hear an occasional peep.
When I asked him why it had this extraordinary authority he said that one of the reasons was the way in which the BBC reported Suez. The people said, "If the British broadcast and report bad news about their own country as objectively as that we must be forced to believe the news they report about our country and about other countries". The credibility of the BBC is based on its objectivity and its independence. It is for that reason that the "Real Lives" fiasco was so much more serious in some ways for the external services than for the domestic ones.
I have not much time left, but I should like to emphasise that radio broadcasting is extremely cheap. If the £2 million which I believe has been spent on the Spycatcher affair in law courts in countries all over the world, making us look ridiculous, had been given to the BBC or to the British Council it would have been money much better spent for this country, for its influence and for its reputation.
At the end we come back to resources. In the Foreign Office reply, the fact of the matter is that the resources spent on cultural diplomacy are based on the constraints which apply to all government programmes at the present time. Those constraints were instituted when the present Government said that the economy was extremely weak. They never stop telling us now that it is extremely strong. In that case, one might hope that they would consider relaxing those constraints to a small extent so that we can compete on something more like level terms in propagating the values of this country, in describing how they work in our institutional affairs, and in welcoming more students here, because I believe that

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in all those respects the interests of this country and the interests of the world are well served. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.10 p.m.
Lord St. John of Fawsley: My Lords, perhaps I may preface my few words this afternoon with two observations of a personal character. First, I should like to express my appreciation of the warmth of the welcome your Lordships have extended to me since I was translated to this House two months ago. I had heard of the friendliness of this House; I have now experienced it for myself. I should also like to express my appreciation to the staff of this House for their concerned help which has enabled me not only to stand upon my own feet but also to avoid unnecessarily treading on the feet of other people.
I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, on his choice of subject for debate today. Coming, as he does, from a family which has made such a notable political and literary contribution to the life of this country it could hardly be a more suitable choice. I thank him for his gracious reference to myself, and I hope that he will permit me to say in my maiden speech that I give thanks for the friendship and inspiration of Lady Asquith of Yarnbury, whose use of the English language, with its precision and inventiveness, made me certainly feel fully for the first time what an extraordinary cultural instrument we have at our disposal.
The phrase "cultural diplomacy" has a rather forbidding ring. To pile one abstraction on another is not immediately appealing to a people whose collective mind, as Bacon said, likes to work on stuff. We have all been greatly helped in our understanding of the complexities of the idea and the different roles played by cultural diplomacy, cultural relations, the Central Office of Information, and by the Select Committee report. These have been analysed and we should certainly reflect upon them. But if I tried to take that course in the short time available to me I should certainly flounder and fail.
Therefore I wish, if I may, to look solely at the idea behind the phrase. In my opinion it is simply this: the increase of British influence in the wider world. This increase is not pursued principally for commercial or economic reasons, but because we believe the long, continuous, extraordinarily rich and varied experience of this nation constitutes a unique contribution to the welfare of mankind, and we are therefore under a duty to make it as widely available as possible.
If I were asked what had been this country's three greatest contributions to world civilisation I should reply unhesitatingly: the common law, parliamentary government, English language and literature, and at the heart of all three lies the idea of liberty. I do not believe that we can export our institutions indiscriminately, but by informing people of how they work and flourish, by imparting insights about them, we can enhance the chances for freedom elsewhere.
We have many means at our disposal, but I would single out two as especially valuable: the British Council and the external services of the BBC. The
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quality of the Council is not in question; its quantity is. The council undoubtedly needs a bigger budget. It deserves it. It has earned it. Much of its energies have gone into English language teaching. The benefits of the universality of that language are truly incalculable. I often reflect on the extraordinary disposition of Divine Providence that a language spoken originally by a few thousand savages trapped on a fog-encrusted island on the edge of the North Sea should, in the fullness of time, and in the era of communications, become the common language for the entire world.
The other pole is the external services of the BBC. They constitute for millions of people suffering from tyrannous and oppressive regimes something much more than a cultural extra. They are those people's lifeline to truth. What has built up this priceless asset? Trust, and the twin foundations of that trust have been accuracy of information and perceived independence of status.
One can argue about the figures in the report. I shall leave it to my noble friend to reply to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter. But I think that the indictment is general rather than particular. We have failed to expand those services to meet a vastly increased world demand. In the words of the Prayer Book—if the right reverend Prelates will allow me to say so—we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we should do a great deal more.
Cultural diplomacy creates a context in which British interests may be more effectively advanced. But I put the aim rather higher. As Coleridge, supported by John Henry Newman, said, culture is nothing less than:
"the harmonious development of those qualities that characterise our humanity".
That is what cultural diplomacy ultimately promotes.
Culture may seem a frail boat to embark on the tempestuous waters of great power and international diplomacy. What has that quiet, nuanced voice to say in the world of telegrams and anger?—I think rather more than one might suppose. European civilisation rests implicitly on the idea of man which refuses to reduce him to a function of sociology or economics, and which historically presages for him a destiny beyond the categories of time and space. Culture is thus charged with aims beyond its abilities to establish.
Let me say this in conclusion: worldly powers, dynasties, empires rise and fall, culture and learning abide. They are the achievements by which future ages looking back assess the value of previous generations. Power in the 19th century sense has passed from us, never to return. But it has been replaced by something perhaps even more important—influence. Through the dissemination of our culture that influence can be exercised for the good. Our heritage should not be a fortress for the few, it should be an open city for the many.
I believe that our debate this afternoon has been a small but extremely important contribution towards achieving that end. It has been a very great privilege for me to make my first speech in this House as part of the debate.
3.19 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I should like to begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Fawsley, on his really excellent maiden speech, and I hope that we shall have the opportunity of hearing him again on many future occasions in this House.
I should declare an interest. I am chairman of the General Advisory council of the BBC. I should also own up about my past. I was a member of the CPRS team which undertook the review of overseas representation. After the report was published there was a debate about it in this House. I listened in the gallery. Well over 30 noble Lords spoke and only four spoke in favour of the report. I did not return to this House until I was introduced last April. The debate put me off a little. Few sections of the report escaped criticism and those concerning cultural work attracted quite a lot of criticism. However, many of the report's recommendations have subsequently been implemented, including those concerning cultural work.
I should like to begin with the external services of the BBC. They are a valuable part of our cultural effort overseas, if only because the BBC is able to reach millions of people in a way that is not possible for other types of cultural work. The United Kingdom remains in the top league of external broadcasters. It cannot compete with the superpowers and China in terms of the number of hours broadcast—and I think it would be wrong to try—although of course it is right to compete with them in terms of quality. As the World Service already broadcasts 24 hours a day, the only scope for increasing the hours broadcast is in the vernacular services. The range of foreign languages covered is extensive. There is in my view very little case for expansion, although clearly the distribution of expenditure requires review from time to time.
I am still a little unconvinced that broadcasting in French to the French is anything more than a hangover from World War II. The French do not broadcast to us in English and I suspect that we would think it rather odd if they did. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, I consider that broadcasting in the vernacular to Western European countries should have low priority.
The preconditions of the success of the BBC's external broadcasting are, first, that its programmes can be found on the dial and listeners are not frustrated by difficulty in finding programmes; and secondly, that they can be properly heard. I should like to concentrate on the question of audibility. For many years successive governments failed to deal with the problem of decreasing audibility resulting from obsolescent equipment and the introduction of much more powerful transmitters by other countries, which blotted out the BBC's signal in some parts of the world. In its report the CPRS suggested that there should be a major capital programme to rectify this. Since then the Government have seen the illogicality of making excellent high quality programmes which cannot be properly heard.
It is particularly unfortunate if they cannot be heard in countries without access to unbiased news
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and information where the BBC should be targeting its efforts. I should like, however, to join the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, in congratulating the Government for making some progress in this respect. The new station in Hong Kong will vastly improve audibility in China. The new transmitter in the Seychelles will improve reception in East Africa and Southern Africa. Nevertheless there is still much more to be done.
In India, with huge potential audiences, the signal from Masirah is very weak. As a result the BBC is not competitive there. In South America reception is generally poor and particularly bad in Argentina and Chile. In Central America there are some difficulties in hearing the World Service. For North Africa a medium-wave transmitter situated in Gibraltar is needed. Eastern Europe needs a new medium-wave or long-wave station to improve reception there. In the eastern part of the Soviet Union reception is very poor indeed. Surely it is absurd that Eastern Europe and Soviet Asia should be so badly served and a great pity that parts of Africa and Latin America also have poor reception. Therefore, I hope that the Government will be able to continue the commitment to capital improvements that they have recently made.
I am sure the whole House will agree that radio broadcasts that cannot be heard fit into a modern day version of Alice in Wonderland. The BBC has successfully maintained its reputation for high quality which has been built up since the Second World War. It is regarded as highly professional, objective, impartial and more truthful than many of its rivals. But a good reputation is not of much value in the many high priority areas where audibility is a problem.
I should like to make one other point about the BBC external services. I hope that the Government will support the case for expanding into television in English. The BBC's proposals are modest: just a half-hour daily news programme, making use of its existing network of correspondents around the world, the monitoring service and its specialist journalists in London. The growth of satellites opens up new possibilities and to ignore the opportunities opened up by new technology and the growth of television set ownership would be shortsighted. I therefore ask the Government whether they will find the money for this exciting new project.
I should like now to turn briefly to the British Council. The CPRS report put forward two options. The first involved the abolition of the council; the second involved retaining it and incorporating within it one or two small agencies involved in educational work abroad. The report also recommended a more targeted approach to its work. I had serious misgivings at the time about the first option. I now think it was wrong. It is far better to concentrate educational and cultural work abroad in one organisation rather than try to divide it up among many. The second option, however, I believe was right. Many of its recommendations have been implemented by the council. It is now, I believe, a more cost-effective organisation and its work in the fields of educational aid and interchange and cultural activities should be supported by the Government

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without the imposition of further cuts in expenditure. They have gone far enough.
In considering the council's work many people have seen it primarily as a cultural agency, but of course its main work is concerned with educational aid. But this debate is not about aid; it is about cultural work. I have carefully avoided reference to the term "cultural diplomacy". I think it would be wrong to argue that cultural interchange should be pursued in the interests of economic, political or trading objectives. The relationship is too tenuous. However, I believe that cultural interchange has great intrinsic value and should be pursued in its own right. I hope that the Government will be able to do more to demonstrate the civilised values involved in the exchange of cultural work and will support it with the resources needed in the future.
3.28 p.m.
Lord Greenhill of Harrow: My Lords, I too should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Fawsley, on his maiden speech, and I am only sorry that he was subjected to a time limit.
Cultural diplomacy is recognised as an integral and important part of our diplomatic effort. The argument now centres on whether we should make a larger financial commitment to it. For simplicity's sake I should like to draw a line, a blurred line I agree, between what I call orthodox diplomacy and cultural diplomacy, which is narrowly defined and commonly used to cover the promotion of the arts overseas, the teaching of the English language and the education of foreign students in the United Kingdom. The first, orthodox diplomacy, is inescapable and compulsory; the second, cultural diplomacy, is to a certain degree optional.
I should like to make two points. There is a need to maintain at an adequate level the means of conducting our orthodox diplomacy. There is also a need to point out with reference to cultural diplomacy the factors which determine the regard in which this country is held by foreigners and how the contribution made by the arts, and so on, is considerable but is also very vulnerable.
First, orthodox diplomacy has inescapable tasks and responsibilities for the advancement and defence of our national interest. It is the means by which we take initiatives and respond to the initiatives of others, many of which are hostile to us. If we are to hold our own, the Foreign Office and its overseas missions must be adequately funded for the purpose. They are not so funded at the moment. If the advocates of increased spending on cultural diplomacy—and I emphasise very strongly that I am one of them—are content to see increased expenditure cut significantly into the core tasks of our orthodox diplomacy, they must accept the heavy responsibility and be certain that they have their priorities right. In other words, if a new budget for cultural diplomacy is to be established it must maintain an adequate Vote for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and its overseas missions. I hope the Minister can give an assurance on that.
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The second point I wish to make concerns the particular purpose of cultural diplomacy as it is commonly defined. Tallyrand is said to have instructed French ambassadors departing from Paris to their foreign posts by saying, "Make them love France". That puts, in the most economical phrase, one of the main purposes of cultural diplomacy. The admirable work of the British Council is designed to do just that. So are our inadequate schemes to attract overseas students, which cry out for more support and are surely the most cost-effective and long-lasting way of making friends. There are of course other activities with the same ends. They have the importance of forging bonds with other countries. That importance is undoubted and justifies, as I say, additional expenditure with the proviso that I have already made.
We must consider the foreign perception of this country. It is no doubt beneficially influenced by many of our cultural activities, but these are not sufficient or even decisive in establishing how we are generally viewed by others. Some of their benefits are fragile and vulnerable. The good work done by them can be temporary and often permanently eroded and, at worst, swept away by current unfavourable factors and events. For example, splashed across the newspapers and television screens of friends and foes is the behaviour of our football fans, our crime statistics, regional and racial conflicts and the shame of our inner cities. Some people find it hard to believe that we are not judged only by past achievements, but in fact we are judged by what we are now.
It is not what we think of foreigners but what foreigners think of us which is important. Ugly factors widely and rapidly spread by the modern communications revolution powerfully fix the attitudes of foreigners towards us and settle for the mass of their people how we are regarded. Surely, what influences foreigners most is success. Perhaps I may give one or two examples. I can recall the remarks made to me by an unsentimental Swiss businessman after the Falklands War. He said, "We thought you were finished. We now know how wrong we were". To take a different example, the quality of industrial products of Japan and their world-wide success has revolutionised the attitude of people in this country and every continent, especially the young, towards the Japanese people who faced the world in 1945 with a deeply tarnished image. Your Lordships can think of further examples.
If we in the United Kingdom want to win friends and influence people we must be visibly successful in what we do and how we conduct ourselves. If we are to be well regarded by other countries and draw substantial benefit in this regard, we should try to excel in what we do not only in the limited cultural field but in every area of human endeavour. It is only if we make a substantial contribution to peace, improve the quality of our life, successfully work our democratic institutions, change for the better our social attitudes towards each other and develop our industry that we will command the admiration of the world and re-establish our international standing. In this way, we will do much more than can be achieved by any expanded expenditure on the machinery of cultural diplomacy.
3.36 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Gwydir: My Lords, I regret that the time restriction on speeches prevents me from adequately congratulating my noble friend Lord St. John of Fawsley on his splendid speech. I found it a delight and a speech of real quality, as I know everyone who knows him would expect.
I venture into this short debate because I was a member of the foreign affairs committee in the other place which produced the report on cultural diplomacy. It regretfully had to be produced in a hurry as the general election was looming and Parliament was about to be dissolved. It is therefore an abbreviated report, as indeed are the Government's written observations on it.
One thing we encountered in the course of our inquiry was the difficulty of defining clearly what is meant by cultural diplomacy. The words, as my noble friend Lord St. John of Fawsley said, have a forbidding ring. The FCO described cultural diplomacy as a "Humpty-Dumpty term". In other words, it can mean more or less what one wants it to mean. The British Council, that estimable independent body, saw it as the specific use of cultural relations for national, including political and commercial, benefit. That appears to me to he a realistic view which also seems to be shared by the FCO, which does not see any fundamental differences between the objectives of cultural diplomacy and those of the rest of our diplomacy; namely, the active promotion of British interests.
The Motion calls for an increase in the available resources for cultural diplomacy. I should like in the time available to refer to that. I agree with the Government's observations that there is real difficulty in trying to separate cultural functions of diplomacy into watertight compartments and establishing a separate cultural diplomacy budget. When one talks about the provision of extra resources, what it really means is that these extra resources should be given to the main government cultural agencies, each of which, with the exception of the COI, asked for more money.
In the short time left to me I will confine my observations, as was anticipated by the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, solely to the British Council. The British Council funding of approximately £240 million per year is a growing one. There has been an increase in real terms of nearly 30 per cent. in the past 10 years. The council's difficulty is that while British government agency expenditure and council earnings have increased, the principal government grant which has been referred to and which is called mixed money has declined as a proportion of the total financial programme from 47 per cent. to about 29 per cent. The effect of this decline is that the council's capacity to conduct a wide range of cultural relations work is weakening.
"Mixed Money" is the main source of funds for the council's general cultural relations work. In other words, it is the only resource which is not tied to particular activities and programmes. It is almost exclusively from this money that the libraries overseas, work in the arts, work in the developed
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world and the eastern bloc and much of the work in science and technology are funded.
In the context of public expenditure demands, the British Council seeks modest help. In his evidence before the committee, Sir David Orr, Chairman of the British Council, said this:
"…the sums of money which we are talking about, which would make the difference between our organisation going out and finding important new opportunities, are really, in almost anybody's terms, trivial. If we had an addition straight away to our mixed money budget of something in the region of £5 million—preferably £10 million—it would make an enormous difference to what we do."
He later added that this small figure was
"just the difference between going forward and trying desperately to hang on."
The Select Committee recommended that in cultural diplomacy more money be devoted particularly to the arts. I understand completely—and indeed sympathise with—the Government's reply that decisions on the allocation of resources have to be taken within the framework of the Government's overall policy; that public expenditure should not rise as a proportion of GNP; and that private enterprise should play a greater part in the promotion of the arts both at home and abroad.
I must confess, however, that I am far from happy about the Government's observations in paragraph 15 of their reply about arts expenditure, which they argue,
"has not done as badly as is sometimes supposed".
Then, by way of explanation, they state:
"The Council's success over the past dozen years in making English language teaching pay for itself has considerably relieved the strain on the 'mixed money' budget on which arts promotion essentially depends."
With respect to my noble friend the Minister, I do not think that that is a fair observation. Whoever drafted that part must have known that money earned from English language teaching can only be spent in the country in which it is earned, and that countries in which such teaching is profitable are generally not those in which the council perceives a particular need for expenditure on arts promotion. In particular those countries are not eastern European or in the Soviet Union.
The council's concern about the effect of the decline in its "mixed money" resources is genuine and valid. Its claim for an increase in this component of its budget is modest and I sincerely hope it can be favourably considered.
3.44 p.m.
The Earl of Stockton: My Lords, I should like to join in the words of congratulation to my noble friend Lord St. John of Fawsley for a notable maiden speech. In a Session that has allowed your Lordships to hear some memorable debuts, his was remarkable both for its perception of the place of cultural diplomacy in our affairs and also for its elegance and eloquence. But it is nothing more than we should expect from a man who has sat on a sofa with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool and the Archbishop of that city being interrogated by Mr. Terry Wogan—and bested all three of them.

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Much has already been said of the work of the British Council which is the principal arm of the nation's cultural diplomacy. I should like both to endorse and support its work and also pay tribute to its staff, especially overseas. In this, as the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, has suggested, I have an interest to declare for, as a publisher principally in the English language, my company has benefited greatly from the support given by the council to British books. Indeed I would go so far as to say that the success or failure of British book exports depends in no small measure on the success or failure of the council and other organisations inside and outside government, such as the English Speaking Union and the external services of the BBC.
As the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, has pointed out, book exports are now worth more across the balance of payments than other industries, such as the motor-car industry or the pharmaceutical industry. It is the English language that is our most priceless cultural asset. However, the very success of the language brings us problems encountered by no other country in the world, for English is not only the "world language" in the spread of its comprehension and the number of people who can speak it, but it is also the language of our principal cultural and commercial competitor, the United States. And while, as one who is one-eighth regular Hoosier, in that my great-grandmother was born and raised in Indiana, I defer to no one in my support and admiration for our American cousins and allies, it has to be said that the world-wide impact of American culture in its broadest sense is a problem.
The efforts put by the American Government into cultural diplomacy, considerable though they are, amounting to some 850 million dollars per year, are as little compared to the effect of Hollywood, American television and the other outward manifestations of American culture, whether soft drinks or jazz, hamburgers or rock, baseball or even game shows.
Your Lordships may not consider that such things are part of cultural diplomacy, but even on more strictly defined lines the American effort is only bettered by two countries—both of them partners in the Community. In 1983, the last year for which I have directly comparable figures, spending by the United States on purely cultural activities, excluding such things as broadcasting, technical co-operation and overseas schools, was £173·7 million. France and Germany were more lavish with £258 million and £253 million respectively. In the same year Britain spent £71 million.
Another area where Britain seems to be falling behind is in the number of overseas students coming to this country. This has already been alluded to by a number of noble Lords. In 1986, the United States welcomed 340,000 students, compared to 60,000 who came here. Your Lordships may ask: To what end? Surely the lessons of the Rhodes scholars do not have to be taught to us again. It is, I think, not without significance that among those who have benefited from student programmes in the United States are the heads of state or government of three Middle
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Eastern countries, six South American countries, seven African countries, 10 in Asia and the Pacific and eight European countries, including in 1963 my right honourable friend the Prime Minister!
The representation by the council overseas has always had gratifying results for the publishing industry. No one company can possibly afford representation in 80 countries—my own has to make do with a presence in a mere 24—and the promotion of English language training inevitably leads to better use of the English language and thus, for example, to the better sales of English engineering books and, we believe, perhaps a little simplistically, to the better sales of British bridges, aircraft, etc.
The British Council needs more resources. Of course it does—so do hundreds if not thousands of other agencies. But if the council had more firepower then we in the British book business could profit from that in an immediate way. It is not as though we are not happy to do our bit. Macmillan has been foremost among British publishers in reforming British Book News, the principal organ by which the world is told about the British industry. It is a cliché that trade follows the word, but it is nonetheless a truism.
It is no coincidence that the third largest spender on English language training is now the Soviet Union. I know of schools in India where almost all the English language instruction is done from Soviet textbooks—instruction into English, but into what else besides?
There is a higher degree of urgency about cultural diplomacy in Washington, Moscow, Paris or Bonn than in London. For example, I was appalled to learn that among the trade representatives on the Publishers' Advisory Council of the British Council no one knew that my honourable friend the Member for Enfield, North in another place speaks for cultural diplomacy in the Foreign Office. I am certain that our opposite numbers in Paris and Bonn, with their total budget of £739 million and £568 million, compared, as noble Lords have pointed out, to our expenditure of £216 million, are far more aware.
Other noble Lords have spoken of the report of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee of another place upon this topic. I refer your Lordships to the wise words of my noble friend Lord Limerick in a letter to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. He said:
"It is, in the view of the British Invisible Exports Council, the work which the [British] Council undertakes in creating conditions which favour the sale of British goods and services abroad that gives rise to the main financial benefit.
It is our belief that the Government contribution through various channels, including the British Council, comes back many times over, and in the purely financial sense amply justifies the investment which is currently being made and would support the case for an extension of our cultural diplomacy on a broader front."
Speaking from the sharp end of the publishing salient on that front, may I, like Tiny Tim, say to my noble friend Lord Glenarthur, "and so say all of us!"
3.51 p.m.
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, for introducing the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, deserves the thanks of all of us who feel that cultural diplomacy in Britain has suffered at the hands of

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successive governments—intellectually by semantic confusion and materially by benign neglect.
The projection of Britain's culture, her arts, civic ethics and lifestyle can of course be correlated with all kinds of practical objectives of our diplomatic effort, our economic endeavours, exports and tourism. But essentially the continuing and systematic presentation of our cultural life can, and must be, a free-standing operation, detached from short-term policies of the government of the day.
For instance, in France the cult of French civilisation, French language, literature and their worldwide dissemination is universally endorsed, backed by a large budget and dignified by senior representation in the Cabinet. After all, Andre Malraux sat at the right of General de Gaulle as First Minister of State, and under President Mitterrand both Socialist and Conservative Cabinets paid equal heed to the role of culture in the nation's life and image abroad.
In our more pragmatic country, much depends on the personality of the incumbent Minister of the Arts. It is a real pleasure to welcome today's maiden speaker, the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Fawsley, who has without doubt been one of the most inspiring and enterprising holders of the cultural portfolio.
The External Services of the BBC are the unique voice of Britain to the world. With a regular audience of 120 million people, broadcasting over 734 hours per week in 37 languages, they can point to an awe-inspiring achievement. As the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, pointed out, the Government have acknowledged that fact by making annual additions of 3 per cent. to 4 per cent. to their budget for three years.
However, when one delves more deeply into the substance of those figures, they are ungenerous. The increase is largely taken up by the establishment and maintenance of badly needed new transmitters. Therefore, the money available for staff and programmes shows a reduction of 2 per cent., and possibly more. That is a reduction at a time when there is an overwhelming case for widening our operations. Why? I speak candidly from this side of the House because, travelling around, one notes that Britain is seen to be in the ascendant. Her economic recovery, credibility, posture and stability of government have created an ambiance of admiration mingled with curiosity about the present message and future of Britain.
The greatest asset of the BBC World Service is of course its recognition factor. The voice of Britain is known to be distinct from the "Voice of America" in the world-encircling transmissions of our English lingua franca, and yet in recent years we have cut vital services while others have added to their transmissions. As the House heard today, we discontinued our Spanish service on the very day that the task force set sail for the Falkland Islands. We have toned down, or wholly muted, our voice in Western Europe.
I say, in all humility, that I disagree strongly with the noble Baroness who would like to curtail, if not abandon, our broadcasting services to Western
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Europe. Why should we do that? They are our greatest friends and our closest allies. At first hand, I can say that both opinion-formers and the man in the street in Germany, in France and in the Low Countries eagerly seek the opinion and the voice of Britain. We should today, more than ever, concentrate on our services to Western Europe. The same also applies to our vernacular services.
In the Pacific basin, an area of staggering growth, we do not use our opportunities and are niggling and cheeseparing in the face of great challenges. The Government are still pondering the BBC's request for a mere £200,000 to pay for a daily half-hour transmission in Korean. A Korean service would not only reach South Korea but also be intelligible in the North and in parts of China. This is an important moment for South Korea, where the advocates of greater democracy need encouragement and guidance from abroad.
Are we, who claim to be intent on helping the peace process in the Middle East, doing enough broadcasting in that area? I do not wish to reopen old wounds, but I mention the Hebrew service, which was discontinued long ago on political grounds which I think are no longer valid.
Looking ahead, by far the most interesting and useful issue that is currently being debated, is the BBC's External Services project for satellite television. I agree with the noble Baroness: if the British people have invested so many millions of pounds over this half century in making London and the initials "BBC" code words for objectivity, integrity and skill in news broadcasting, current affairs and cultural programmes, we should take advantage of the audio-visual revolution which has meant that there are more than 700 million television sets in the world.
Of course a case can be made that the private sector has an imporant role to play, but the BBC ensures a fully international news service. The ITN bulletin is being carried by one satellite channel in Europe and distributed to cable networks only in 15 countries. It does not appear anywhere in Europe on national broadcasting stations. On the other hand, the BBC has firm contractual offers from 10 national networks around the world and there are 20 more willing to sign. The BBC's estimate for a full service is about £7.8 million a year, plus £1.4 million for the initial capital cost. A basic one-programme-a-day service could in fact be started at a cost of £3 million a year only.
I strongly urge Her Majesty's Government to accede to that request and allow the BBC's External Services to enter this important arena, not only alongside the United States and the Soviet Union but especially alongside our European neighbours. In France RFI is negotiating with the French Government for an international news programme by satellite at a cost of more than £10 million a year, and those transmissions will be in English as well as French. The Germans are also exploring the idea and can be counted upon to come up with an ambitious plan.
If the BBC's External Services are one of the pillars of our cultural policy, it is because of their integrity

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and continuity of standards; their skilled staff, who are less well paid, and their imaginative programmes, which are less generously funded than those of any of our Western rivals.
Of course, there is, as there always should be, scope for improvement. I think that, in broadcasting to Europe, apart from conveying an image of ourselves which is both truthful and admirable, we should seek more opportunities for cultural exchange and interpenetration. By that, I mean we should not only convey what we are about but also how we perceive them, our neighbours. The foreign audiences like to see themselves reflected in the mirror of the outside world's judgment. For instance, German public broadcasting and television have excellent programmes in which the German public see themselves regularly through the eyes of others. European audiences have become far less mono- and more multi-cultural in both taste and interest.
Since we seem to be approaching, or at least cautiously groping towards, a new era of relaxation of international tension, not only between the superpowers but also between the two halves of Europe, a determined cultural policy, a skilful cultural diplomacy, is an excellent conduit for reconciliation and peace. It heals wounds and builds bridges. Indeed, it must be our ardent hope that in the last decade of this century we shall feel ourselves agreeing more and more with that fine recent entry in the Penguin Dictionary of Quotations, "If I hear the word 'gun', I reach for my culture".
4.2 p.m.
The Earl of Bessborough: My Lords, it is indeed difficult to remain within the time limit of seven minutes, since we all have so much to say. However I should like to express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter for having given us the opportunity to discuss cultural relations. I am also grateful to him for giving us the opportunity to pay tribute to the work of the British Council and especially to their chairman, Sir David Orr, and their past and present directors-general, Sir John Burgh and Dick Francis. As a trustee for the rebuilding of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, I should also like to say what an effective chairman of that trust Sir David is.
I have been associated with the British Council in various ways. I was in close, almost daily, touch with them in Paris after the Second World War when I was in our Embassy there for over five years. On my return to this country I also sat on the council's drama advisory committee. Later, going round the world lecturing on British science and industry, I used to find their representatives in many different capitals most helpful in arranging appropriate meetings at universities and in our embassies.
It is difficult to estimate the cost-effectiveness of the promotion of British culture, but in my mind it builds a positive image for Britain. Its marketing can often bring financial rewards, especially with regard to television and film sales and of course, as we have heard, books, as my noble friend Lord Stockton has said.
Whether the council's funding of the arts is for the
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New Shakespeare Company's tour of France and Germany or to pay the air fares for members of arts organisations such as the British Theatre Association, in which I declare an interest as president, the British Council must continue to be funded realistically so that it can invest—and I emphasise the word "invest"—in Britain's culture abroad. This kind of investment, which should include funding for visits to other countries to discuss new initiatives and thus earn money through activity, creates considerable goodwill. This must certainly be reflected in our general overall international dealings.
However, I have to accept that, if the Government and the Treasury are determined not to increase the funding of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—and today's White Paper maintains, I see, tight controls on public spending—it would be hard to make out a case for spending less in other Foreign and Commonwealth Office sectors such as protecting British subjects abroad, or for spending less on promoting British exports or on defending commercial, political and strategic interests. I have to accept the logic of that argument, although not very happily.
In the main, however, setting aside the problems of funding—and of course every department of government has a struggle with the Treasury to get increased funds—I think that we in Britain, with perhaps limited resources in comparison with some other countries, manage our cultural affairs most effectively and that the efforts of our Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the British Council, with its unique expertise, compare very favourably with, for example, those of the Quai d'Orsay and the Alliance Francaise throughout the world.
There are also our other instruments such as the BBC's External Services, which have been praised so much by my noble friend Lord St. John in his admirable maiden speech, as well as by the noble Lord, Lord Weidenfeld, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone. I believe that these external services and the Central Office of Information also do an excellent job and compare more than favourably with the United States Information Service and the Voice of America.
I read with great interest the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place. It recommended that the Government should make more money available for a cultural diplomacy budget. As we know, the principal government grant amounts to £78 million, the Overseas Development Administration aid programmes to £134 million; and earnings—that is to say, largely teaching fees, etc.—to about £64 million. If I have added that up correctly, it comes to some £276 million.
I am glad that the ODA makes the contribution it does. But I must admit that I was recently somewhat distressed by the delay in the ODA agreeing to a relatively modest funding of a very important project in the People's Republic of China, although in the end it did agree to contribute. So far as China is concerned, I have been following Sino-British relations closely in recent years and I should also like to pay tribute to the work of the Great Britain-China Centre. I am gratified to learn that the centre's grant-in-aid has been raised to £120,000 and that this

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ensures that the centre does not face imminent closure. Since China has by far the largest population of any country with which we have cultural relations, I hope we give that country high priority as regards funding.
I know it can be argued that the British Council's overall budget has not been severely affected by cuts because of forced withdrawals from, for example, Iran and Argentina and because of increases in earnings and in schemes which it administers on behalf of the Government. However, I understand that the size of the overall budget disguises a reduction in the independent cultural work for which the British Council is responsible.
All the same, I do not think that we should be too critical of overall government funding. As I have said, I believe that our cultural policy worldwide is quite as effective as, if not more effective than, that of any other leading industrial nation.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, it appears that the noble Lord, Lord Seebohm, is not in his place, so I shall move along quickly—
4.9 p.m.
Lord Seebohm: My Lords, I apologise for not rising quite as quickly as I should have done. My excuse for speaking at all in this debate, which is overcrowded, is that not so long ago I was invited by Sir Charles Troughton, who was then chairman of the British Council, to enquire over a period of about 18 months into the administration and affairs of the British Council, with a view to increasing its efficiency, decreasing the cost of administration and generally perhaps to get more value for money. In those 18 months I was able to get a very close insight into the working of the British Council. I say straight away that I came away thoroughly convinced of the value of what it was doing not only for Britain but for many other countries overseas as well. That is a point that we should be proud of. We should not look askance at the money we spend on the well-being of other countries.
The diplomatic service is naturally concerned with our material interests, and it is a pity, as I believe the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Fawsley, said, that the words "cultural diplomacy" are used all the time, as opposed to "cultural relations". They are quite different. It is cultural relations that we are concerned with, and the exchange of ideas and intellectual pursuits that enhance the quality of life.
The British Council makes quite clear what its objectives are. It has five main objectives: the interchange of people, which I believe to be extremely important; the establishment of overseas libraries where books, newspapers and general information are available; promotion of the English language, which has already been referred to and at which it is supremely efficient; the promotion of the arts, which again is very important; and the implementation of various educational projects. All those things have to come out of the mixed money. That is where I emphasise the importance placed by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gwydir, in his speech on the fact that it is the mixed money that is being cut. Therefore
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the money which the British Council needs in order to exercise the five main objectives which it has set down is getting cut and cut.
I wish to keep my speech brief, but it is worth referring once more to the response of the Foreign Office to the House of Commons Select Committee's inquiry. It is worth quoting the start of that response, which is very short. It says:
"It is right that we should share a culture which enriches the human spirit, enhances international understanding, and expands the horizons of men and women throughout the world … It promotes values, particularly dear to us and well defined in our culture, of which wide acceptance would make the international community an easier place to live in".
That is absolutely splendid. If the response had stoppped there, the British Council would have marched down Whitehall to the Treasury, confident that it would get more funds.
Unfortunately, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office ruined the whole thing by not stopping there. The response continues:
"We do not however accept that there is any fundamental difference between the objective of cultural diplomacy and those of the rest of our diplomacy."
That seems to be a complete non sequitur to what has just been said. What a pity that the whole effect was spoilt by that final sentence.
As I have said, the principal government grant is now being reduced. I find that most disappointing in view of the great importance of increasing the representation of the British Council and its activities in China and the Soviet Union in particular. The opportunity of increasing our influence there seems to me to be extremely important. I just cannot understand the logic of making absolutely minimal increases in the money available for those two countries.
Very recently there was a debate in this House on overseas students. I shall not repeat what we said on that occasion but there is no doubt that the selection of students is important in order to ensure that the right people come here. The British Council, again, performs a valuable function in this field. There is no doubt whatever, to my mind, that more resources for our cultural relations or, if one prefers, diplomacy, could make all the advantages that I have talked about even clearer. I strongly support the Motion.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I immediately apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Seebohm, but I think he will accept from me that time is so often against us however we use it. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, is not in her place because it was the report to which she referred many years ago and which your Lordships debated that first drew me into looking at and discussing overseas representation.
I, like the noble Baroness, have also modified my views as to the worthwhileness or otherwise of that report. This afternoon I wish to refer to two narrow points. I should like to thank my noble friend the Minister of State for the support that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office gave to the British Council through our ambassador in Prague, Mr. Steven Barrett, and the cultural attache, Mr. Jim Potts, to

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enable the Prague Chamber Ballet under the direction of Mr. Pavel Smok to bring three dancers and four musicians to the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet only last week. The sum that was made available was only £5,000, but it was not to be begrudged.
That event was very much appreciated by the director of the Sadler's Wells Ballet, by some 1,500 people in the audience and by His Excellency the Czech Ambassador and Mrs. Fidler who attended the evening, which was sponsored by Sainsbury's. That was a small amount of money but it demonstrates the immense value that can be placed on amounts of this kind in this area dedicated to the furtherance of our relationships. Your Lordships will probably recall that I had some dealings in another sphere in Eastern Europe in matters of trade, which brings me to my second point.
The British Council is an agent for the Foreign Office and ODA funding. For every pound it receives, it generates probably three times that amount. Of the 80-odd places in which it is represented across the world, I had the pleasure of visiting some 24 over three years quite recently. I know from first hand the immense value of the work that the British Council does in furthering relationships through the cultural aspects of the work—if I may put it that way—which are not duplicated by sporting activities which tend to have, by the very nature of the activity, something of a more competitive and adversarial spirit. It is those two things which so frequently have to be balanced.
I know that when I was travelling to support our trade activities the cultural activity that the British Council engaged in, whether it was the teaching of the English language either by means of a library or through the interchange of students, orchestras, ballet companies and whatever, had an immense effect on the ability with which business people could reach their opposite numbers.
All I have to say in conclusion is that I accept the pleas that have been made by noble Lords who spoke earlier with regard to the funding. I appreciate the constraints under which my noble friend has to work, but I hope that his heart may have been turned, his head infused but his hands made freer to make a more generous contribution to the work of the British Council.
4.19 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, one aspect of British culture which we have not been very good at exporting is the tradition of ordered debate. It is practised in this country in four notable chambers: the Cambridge Union, the Oxford Union, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Our maiden speaker this afternoon has distinguished himself unusually by attaining high office in all of the first three of those. No doubt this afternoon is the prelude to another successful debating career among your Lordships.
He will find, I fear, that on many issues we tend inevitably to go round arguments with which we have become familiar. That is true, with all due respect to the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, and others who have spoken, of the subject on which we are concentrating this afternoon.
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The subject is now called—rather unfortunately, I believe—cultural diplomacy. It used to be called, when I was involved in those matters many years ago, the projection of Britain abroad, which I think is a much more accurate account of what we try to do. The subject, in its various ways—its impact on our relations with other countries and its impact on our economy in one way or another—comes before us again and again. Again and again we find that it is not so much the actual amounts which the Government are prepared to spend which are from this or that point of view insufficient or meagre, but that it is almost impossible to enter into the frame of mind which is brought to those financial decisions.
I said in a debate a little while ago in your Lordships' House on our support for the natural sciences that I thought that the people who ran the Treasury were puffed-up bank clerks pretending to be mandarins. I believe that that caused a little offence and I propose this afternoon to make an apology—I mean of course an apology to the bank clerks, who do a perfectly useful and necessary job and who do not expect to be on the Honours List.
Whatever may be said by the Minister, we know that his hands and the hands of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office are tied by the Treasury. The splendid report for which we thank my noble friend Lord Thomas and his colleagues in another place, makes it clear that they too were aware of the question of the Treasury. They begin, as noble Lords may remember, with a quotation in which the Treasury expressed on the occasion of the creation of the Foreign Office news department—not an enormous cultural instrument—the view that there may be "a general desire to spread British culture throughout the world", and on that desire it looks with great distrust and apprehension. That was in 1919, and they have not altered since.
We may ask why. The conventional argument—I think that my noble friend Lord Bessborough may have been in sympathy with it—which we hear in other respects, is that the first duty of the government of this country is to encourage the economy in order that the prosperity which it generates will enable us to do things which we would otherwise be unable to do. I have no objection to the priority which the Treasury gives to the improvement, enlargement and growth of our economy. That seems to me to be very much its business. What worries me is that it seems to have no idea as to how that is to be promoted in some important respects.
The noble Lord, Lord Seebohm, referred—we have spoken on the matter several times in your Lordships' House in the past few years—to the question of overseas students. Quite apart from the advantage to our relations with other countries, it is clear that, as the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, pointed out yet again this afternoon (and anyone who has had relations with universities which have large numbers of foreign students will know) it is at that determining age that there is decided the language those students will use, the books they will read, the country to which they will turn for purchases, whether of capital goods or for holiday expenditure, and so on. A massive goodwill comes to

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us. In addition—we have had some of the figures from the noble Earl, Lord Stockton, concerning books—that brings us not merely massive goodwill but also tangible economic benefits. That thought seems to be too much for the minds in the Treasury to comprehend. It is perfectly obvious to the ordinary citizen. I hope that it is obvious to the Minister who is going to speak for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Until we get a greater appreciation of the way in which modern economies and peoples react upon each other and the role which the projection of Britain abroad has in bending those movements to our advantage—intellectual as well as material—we shall not get very far by merely trying to play around with relatively small elements in what is, by national standards, a very small budget.
It seems extraordinary that, as the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, pointed out, there should be some idea that there are special reasons why all the other countries make such commitments which do not apply to us. I concede those reasons in the case in Germany, which wishes to make its cultural life obliterate the memories of a recent and painful past. I also concede them in the case of Japan, which is finding its way into a different relationship with the external world. However, when we consider the French figures and realise that we have been competing with France not only materially but also intellectually and scientifically for—as I think that report points out—three centuries, I ask the Minister to at least explain why what seems profitable and worth doing in France seems to the Treasury to be an expenditure of public money which must be constrained.
Lord Thurlow: My Lords, perhaps the valuable report of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs of another place represents a watershed in the movement of public opinion in this country generally towards appreciating the importance of the work for the promotion of Britain abroad. For about 50 years there was a strong undertow of prejudice against support from the public purse for anything as intangible as that sort of work. At times that undertow assumed proportions of such violence that it was even a threat to the established and very important work which had been going on.
The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, has reminded us—as have other noble Lords—of the discredited report of the think tank of some years ago which animated such a strong reaction in your Lordships' House. That in turn helped to ensure that the report, instead of being a dagger in the guts of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the British Council, was perhaps instrumental in the demise of the think tank itself. I gather that the noble Baroness is to some extent a reformed character. However, I am not sure that she is entirely reformed.
As regards the question of resources, that is a well-worn subject which has come up again and again. However, the recommendations of the Select Committee are very forthright. It is a pity that the intervention of the general election—if that was the
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reason—has made it difficult for the other place to debate the report in the way it deserves to be debated. There is, I think, no difference of view on all sides of your Lordships' House in supporting the Select Committee's recommendation that there should be an increase in resources for diplomatic cultural work. However, I should like to endorse my noble friend Lord Greenhill's caveat that we are interested in a larger cake, not the same cake divided up into a larger sum for the British Council and a smaller sum for orthodox diplomatic work.
One can pick and choose at fancy any number of different aspects of the British Council's work that deserve admiration and support. I should like to mention, in particular, as have other noble Lords, the area of assisted visits to and from this country by persons of high calibre. A notable example which may give special pleasure to your Lordships was the visit of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to India a year or so ago—I believe under the sponsorship of the British Council—when he was invited to sit on the Bench in the Supreme Court of India beside the Chief Justice.
Among others, the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill, and in particular the noble Lord, Lord Seebohm, have referred to the importance of overseas students in this country. It is a pretty well-worn subject. I accept that the general policy of selective, targeted assistance for bringing students here is the right one but I remain very uneasy about the effect of the present level of university fees for overseas students. I do not believe that we have the right mix between the policy of targeting and the reasonable demands of the universities for their overseas students, and I hope that this point will receive reconsideration.
There is a certain paradox in the steady increase in the amount of resources devoted to advertising by industry and commerce in the private sector and the reduction of resources in real terms devoted to the work of promoting Britain abroad. It was once said in the United States:
"The man who on his trade relies
Must either bust or advertise".
There is no easy parallel between the advertisement of commodities and diplomatic cultural work. The main point is that now that we are richer, surely we should devote more to gaining friends and influencing people abroad.
4.34 p.m.
Lord Reay: My Lords, I think the time has come when the Government should consider whether it is still appropriate to continue to squeeze relentlessly the British Council's direct aid budget. Undoubtedly the British Council has managed to develop very successfully in recent years its self-financing activities—principally English language teaching, the importance of which the noble Lord. Lord Bonham-Carter, correctly emphasised. Also, it has developed the involvement of private sponsors to such an extent that the council can claim to have had a hand in 600 tours and exhibitions at a cost of only £4 million. Nevertheless, such services as the welfare of overseas students in this country and the provision of a layer, albeit a thin layer, of British cultural facilities and

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representation throughout the world are admirable and worthwhile services and they cannot properly be carried out if the budget is to fall year by year.
Moreover, the British Council cannot avoid reflecting an image of Britain, and it is surely somewhat incongruous if the image of a reviving Britain has to be projected by a British Council still suffering under a regime of financial retrenchment.
There is of course no limit to the amount that could be spent on flooding the world with British cultural representation. Indeed, wherever one looks there are compelling reasons for developing links of understanding with the new generations. There is the need to hold together our alliance with the United States, which is itself subject to the trauma of declining economic power and to the uncertainty of major demographic changes; the need to understand oriental Japan as it takes over the United States economic primacy; the need to forge ahead urgently with the task of creating a more united Europe against forces of great suspicion and ignorance; and there is the opportunity even to take advantage, for so long as it may last, of the era of glasnost and the return of the unjammed broadcast to the Soviet Union.
In the development of all these and other relations, culture has a vital long-term role to play. Indeed, in affluent countries culture in any case has become more important following in the wake of increased leisure. That is an additional reason for us not to cut hack our cultural activities in Western Europe.
Nothing could be more in this country's long-term interest than playing the part of a considerate host to those overseas students who will be tomorrow's national decision-takers. Nor do we have to pay dearly for the privilege. Against current government expenditure of almost £80 million on awards and scholarships, overseas students are estimated to spend upwards of £1 billion a year on tuition fees and goods and services. The Foreign Office makes the point that overseas student numbers are rising again and that overseas students at British universities now represent almost 12 per cent. Nevertheless, there must at the very least be a case for boosting the scholarship and award schemes as well as for amalgamating some of them as the British Council has proposed.
The Eastern Europe correspondent of the New York Times, Malcolm Browne, is quoted in the evidence to the House of Commons committee as saying:
"The BBC is for the free mind what Oxfam is for the hungry".
The BBC External Service is a contribution which Britain can be proud of making in the service of Western civilisation and the propagation of its values. It has been quite remarkably successful in combining the need to broadcast in the national interest, as it is required to do by statute, with the ability to maintain respect for its editorial independence. It is a much-admired product of the British body politic. It is also an announcement that we wish to continue to play a part in international affairs, and that we are still ourselves an outward-looking country.
The Government have provided the funds to deal
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with the main funding problem, audibility improvement, where the £100 million programme is two-thirds completed. However, I think that there is a good case for it to receive additional funds to add to the hours broadcast in the vernacular languages, which are listened to far more densely than are those in English; to make some addition to those language broadcasts; in some cases to restore languages that have been cut; and also, as the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, made plain is so necessary, in order to prevent the erosion of the remainder of the budget in real terms.
Let me conclude by saying that I think that in no other field are there such important tasks which can be accomplished with so little additional money. We expect the Government to continue to be financially prudent, but I hope that they will give favourable consideration to the various pleas which have been made or repeated here this afternoon.
4.40 p.m.
Lord Moore of Wolvercote: My Lords, I also
congratulate the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Fawsley, on a notable maiden speech. If I may say with respect, it was a splendid example of the use of the English language at its best.
I believe that a great deal of the difficulty in persuading a British Government to spend more money on cultural diplomacy stems from the fact that this is not a phrase with which we as a people live happily. Matthew Arnold defined culture as:
"acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world and thus with the history of the human spirit".
According to the Oxford Dictionary, diplomacy is:
"skill in managing, international relations".
The British should not, surely, have any difficulty in marrying the two. The problem however is that in the days of Empire we had worldwide power and we took British influence for granted. During the devolution of Empire it has been difficult to adjust to a new situation where we have to sell ourselves if we are to survive as a great trading nation. I think that the Government by and large have become more conscious of the part that cultural diplomacy has to play in this, although some of us who have served Britain abroad may feel that they have been somewhat slow in accepting the obvious.
We have a wonderful ready-made base in the English language, which we have no need to promote. Everyone wants to learn English, not only in the Commonwealth covering a quarter of the world's population, but throughout the world. From that base we have various weapons with which to press our cultural offensive, for example, overseas aid, the British Council and the BBC Overseas Service. All of these are now recognised by the Government as being important, but I doubt very much whether that is a view accepted generally by the British people. For a country which has benefited so much from world trade, we remain remarkably insular.
Perhaps, therefore, I might suggest that the Government have a part to play in changing attitudes towards the importance of cultural diplomacy for Britain. More money is all important and overdue, but the Government might find it easier to provide

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more funds in this field if they went out of their way to engender more public support for the policy itself.
In spite of our recent debate on the subject and the comments made by other noble Lords, I should like to finish with a special plea for more help in bringing overseas students to Britain. I have been enormously impressed in many travels throughout the Commonwealth by the basic respect and friendship for Britain of those in responsible positions who enjoyed undergraduate or post-graduate education in this country. This was partly a concomitant of Empire and partly the result of enlightened policies. But the process is no longer inevitable. If we fail to continue to attract the leaders of the future, Britain will have lost an immense advantage in international politics.
I give one example from my personal experience. After the war I played in an Oxford rugby side consisting of seven members from the United Kingdom and eight from the Commonwealth. The Daily Sketch (a paper which your Lordships will remember) dubbed us rather unkindly, "The Home and Colonial"—where my mother used to do her shopping. But the point is that those eight from the Commonwealth went back to become, among other things, a business tycoon, the top mining engineer in his country, a vice-chancellor, a headmaster and a Member of Parliament. They have all been friends of Britain for life.
I shall not go into the detail of what is required. The Overseas Students Trust produced an admirable report on this a year ago. I hope that the Government will heed its recommendations. We have something very special to offer in this field—that is, the best system of higher education in the world. It is most important that the Government should not only fund more scholarships, but should also fund effective schemes for finding high quality students from overseas to take up those scholarships. If we can continue to attract able young men and women from all over the world, the long-term advantage to this country will be incalculable.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Fanshawe of Richmond: My Lords, like other noble Lords I join in welcoming the debate and have particular pleasure in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter. The last time I had the pleasure of congratulating him in public was 30 years ago next month when he defeated me soundly in a parliamentary by-election in the West Country. I also should like to say how much I appreciated the elegant maiden speech made by my noble friend Lord St. John. He put more elegantly than any of us his definition of cultural diplomacy or cultural relations. I use the shorthand of, first, winning friends; secondly, influencing people; and, thirdly, boosting this country's interests. This evening I should like to take one small part of our cultural operations and talk about it for a few moments.
As a Foreign Office Minister, doing a similar job to my noble friend on the Front Bench this evening, between 1970 and 1974 under my noble friends Lord Home and Lord Rippon, who is sitting behind me, I
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was responsible for the cultural programme of the Foreign Office, particularly for the various organisations which operated across the world scene. Those organisations included the Great Britain/USSR Association, the Great Britain/East European Association, the British Atlantic Committee and many other such bodies—all of which have done and are doing a marvellous job. I set up the Great Britain China Centre which was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Bessborough. That followed a visit I paid to Peking in 1972 negotiating the exchange of ambassadors and which was followed by a major cultural exchange, which many noble Lords might remember, the magnificent exhibition of Chinese artefacts in the Royal Academy in 1973. Although that was an exhibition of Chinese art, it was initiated by Britain and had a fundamental effect on the improvement in relations between this country and China over subsequent years which culminated in the so far happy agreement over the future of Hong Kong.
The bodies that I have mentioned—including the Franco-British Council, a body of which I am vice president, and which was also set up by my noble friend Lord Rippon and myself when we were in the Office—are all well supported at present and have been in the past by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In passing, I might say that the Franco-British Council could do with a little more money, but that is not a matter into which I shall go in any depth this evening.
We have heard today of a wide range of other important work in the cultural field: the British Council, the BBC external services, the COI and the news department, which is so often forgotten and which does such a fine job on behalf of our cultural image.
But why do we not improve in one field which I shall mention now? I should like to appeal for more "leaning out" by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and building up more co-operation with the many self-financing charitable bodies which operate at present. Their dynamism, expertise and administration are greatly admired not only here but abroad, and they cost the Treasury nothing. For example, the Thomson Foundation has an income of £200,000 per year. It helps to train the media throughout the third world. Only recently it was asked, by the Chinese to double the training programme of news agency men. Then there is English International, run from an elegant house in Piccadilly. It employs 700 Britons, earns £6 million a year, has no endowment, is non-profit making, has 65 affiliated schools teaching English throughout the world and is training teachers. It is of outstanding value to this country, and that should be well known and understood.
There is no better way than keeping friendships in good repair, in reinforcing success at minimum cost, and in using the gifts provided by our history and language, as expressed so well by my noble friend Lord St. John of Fawsley and by the noble Lord, Lord Moore. Finally, and this is an important point, it creates jobs. I should like to appeal to my noble friend on the Front Bench to try to obtain a modest provision in reinforcing success on those outside

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bodies. Great results could be achieved for minimal cost.
4.50 p.m.
Lord Morris: My Lords, as your Lordships are aware, I am not alone in being extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, for tabling this somewhat clumsily-worded Motion, if I may say that without offence. As clumsiness seems to be the flavour of the month in Alliance circles, I suppose that we should not be too surprised.
Many noble Lords have drawn attention to the critical importance of the value of the English language. I am of the opinion that, without doubt, it is our most important export. There is a dramatic historical illustration of that fact. When the United States of America—to use Foreign Office language—severed diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom at the end of the 18th century, it had extremely important constitutional decisions to take. Not the least of those was the decision as to which language should be the official language of the United States of America. As we know, it decided upon the English language. However, as an interesting footnote to history, it was decided by only one vote. The competing language was German. That illustrates clearly, using little imagination, the kind of impact that that decision would have had on the future of the world had the vote been lost and America had decided to speak German instead of English.
The accolade of greatest single contributor to the expansion of knowledge of the English language undoubtedly goes to the external services of the BBC, not least for the radio programme, "English by Radio" and the important television programme, "Follow Me". The impact of the television programme, as I have discovered during visits to China, is considerable. It is broadcast nationally at prime time—6.30 to 7 p.m. in Peking—and there is not a hotel porter, waiter or cook who does not try to gather round a television set to watch. The following that programme has in China is quite astonishing.
I have spoken about this subject to ministers of the People's Republic of China. They are more than aware of the impact that English has had as the second language in the sub-continent of India and of the subsequent influence on the unification of India. Noble Lords will be aware that the history of China is nothing other than a history of attempts to unify the country. With an impossible ideographic form of written language, and many different languages, ministers are busily encouraging the learning of English.
In November 1983, I had the effrontery to suggest to an old friend who was a retired American diplomatist that the following Sunday would be a critically important day in Anglo-American relations. When he asked why, I told him that on the following Sunday, and on every Sunday for the rest of the season from 6 p.m. to 7.15 p.m., British television would be broadcasting highlights from the National Football League of America for the first time. He rather pooh-poohed the suggestion; but when one considers the encouragement of affection for and knowledge of things American, and the
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massive following of the game in this country, I think your Lordships will take my point. If today one looks at copies of The Times and the Telegraph one will see comprehensive articles on American football. I think that noble Lords may need to look for a long time before seeing similar articles about cricket in a Chicago newspaper. The influence of sport should never be underestimated.
It brings me to an important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Weidenfeld, in relation to the natural extension of the BBC external services into television programme making. I believe that that is extremely important and deserves the encouragement of Her Majesty's Government. I understand that the final proposal on the subject was put to the Government last August. I should like to use this opportunity to ask my noble friend whether there has been any response to the proposal placed by the BBC upon the desk of the FCO. If my noble friend cannot tell me now, I should be grateful if he will let me know in the future.
I should now like to deal with the point about the financing of the external services of the BBC and other information services. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill of Harrow, and the Foreign Office's response to the excellent Select Committee report in the House of Commons, made perfectly clear the fact that there is, without question, a conflict of interest in making the financing of the external services part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Vote. There are many reasons for that. However, one of the major reasons—which is understandable but, in my view, unforgivable—is that the diplomatist has an interest in working quietly, carefully and silently, while the broadcasters' interest is directly different; they want to shout everything from the mountain tops. That is the way they work. The fact is that the endeavour of the BBC and the British Council is not of their making but of a separate institution's making. When it comes to cutting down, the Foreign Office will look to them first rather than to its own establishment.
Although I do not expect an answer from my noble friend tonight, I should like to suggest that the information services' part of the Foreign Office's Vote should be handled separately by the Cabinet Office in negotiations with the Treasury, but administered by the Foreign Office because close relations with the Foreign Office and the external services is of undoubted value.
4.48 p.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, for choosing this interesting subject for our first debate today and for his impressive opening speech. The noble Lord explained why he believes in cultural diplomacy and why he thinks the Government should show more support for it. There are other modified views on the subject. One of those was ably deployed by my noble friend, Lady Blackstone. We must take account of her comments because we know that she has made a close study of this aspect of diplomatic affairs.
I was particularly pleased to hear the thoughtful

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speech of the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Fawsley. We know of his interest in these matters and hope to hear a good deal from him in the future. The noble Lord said that cultural diplomacy had "a forbidding ring". There are indeed people who look slightly puzzled when it is mentioned. They ask "What is it? Is it important and what does it cost?" The taxpayer has a right to ask and he is entitled to a reply. The noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter and other noble Lords have sought to give a reply in this debate and we hope that the Minister will give an authoritative view when he winds up the debate.
The British Council has naturally been near the centre of this discussion and in their evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place, also referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gwydir (who was a member of the Committee) and others, they defined it as:
"The specific use of cultural relations for national including political and commercial benefit".
There is, however, a great deal more to it than that because a better understanding between nations of their respective cultures, traditions and way of life creates better relations, and better relations make for peace. It allays suspicion, one of the root causes of international dissension.
The arguments for effective cultural diplomacy have been fully and ably advanced by the noble Lord, and others, and I do not propose to rehearse them now in view of the few minutes at my disposal. However, if people understand our background and values they are more likely to trust us right across the board. Our profound respect for Soviet literature and art, for example, is an important bridge, and their reciprocation is equally significant. That is true of our relationship with all countries but the Russian scene is particularly important at the present time. Mr. Gorbachev's glasnost policy justifies a far greater initiative and a much better response by way of increased funding.
Again, like most noble Lords, I think the British Council deserves great credit for the work that it does. Its network of services throughout the world with representatives in 81 countries is the product of years of dedicated organisation and hard work. Given the range of activity, I do not believe its workforce of 4,230 is a large one; and if we look at this figure in relation to numbers employed in other organisations, then no one can argue that it is unreasonable. However, a reduction of grant by the Government of nearly a quarter—23 per cent. in eight years—is really indefensible if, that is, you believe that the British Council is really necessary. Either it should be supported with adequate funds or done away with entirely. If the Government are deliberately winding down the British Council, as indeed seems to be the case from an examination of the figures, then the Government should come out and say so plainly so that everyone knows where he stands.
What is not acceptable is that the Government should treat a British institution with a worldwide reputation for integrity and honesty of presentation in so niggardly a fashion. Furthermore, it is time the Government made a clear and unambiguous
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declaration on the status of cultural relations within British foreign policy. If that were done, everyone concerned would have a better concept of where they stood.
As most noble Lords have said in this debate, other countries take a very different view and operate more enlightened policies. As we have heard, the figures submitted to the Foreign Affairs Committee show a very marked disparity with expenditure in Britain standing at £216 million per annum and in France and Germany at £739 million and £568 million respectively. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office's response—and as one who had the privilege of being a Minister there some years ago I dislike saying this—to this disparity was quite inadequate. The British Council's warning in paragraph 19 of their third paper to the Foreign Affairs Committee must be heeded if Britain is to continue to operate significantly in this sphere. It said:
"The sums involved are tiny; the benefit to Britain would be out of all proportion to the cost."
If that is true—and that is the central theme of this debate—then the Government must face up to it and tell Parliament and the British Council what their future policies are to be. The Government's treatment of the British Council, and indeed of the BBC's External Service—the best and most objective radio service in the world—has left us with a sense of decline, decay and depression. The Foreign Office response to the Foreign Affairs Committee report seems to have been composed on a hot, lazy afternoon between Westland and Spycatcher. It is not good enough.
I should like to conclude with the question of money. The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, in his speech was quite right to discuss the principle of priorities. Of course, every government must decide its priorities. At the end of the day it will be judged by its priorities. We are told that the Chancellor is fortunate to have large sums of money at his disposal; £10 billion and £11 billion are predicted and we shall know very shortly what the precise sum is.
We know too that there are other demands upon the Government which are of the first importance. However, I think this debate has shown that this House believes that a modest investment in cultural relations and diplomacy will pay high dividends in sustaining the good name of Britain throughout the world. I have seldom heard a debate in this House where there was such a unanimity of opinion. Noble Lords with great experience on all sides have made a sincere appeal to the Government for a relatively small increase in funds. The British Council and the BBC's External Service are asking for comparatively small sums of money for which they have made a very good case. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, will be able to give us a constructive reaction when he replies to this debate.
5.6 p.m.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Glenarthur): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, has raised a most important issue, and today's debate and your Lordships' contributions, often based on wide experience of the subject, have been very valuable indeed. We have all

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enjoyed the excellent maiden speech of my noble friend Lord St. John of Fawsley, whose interest in and experience of his subject is widely acclaimed. I too hope we shall hear more from him in due course.
I must say that, tempered by the limits of what is possible—I underline that word—I agree with a great deal of what has been said this afternoon. Our commitment to cultural diplomacy in all its aspects was made clear in the Government's reply to the report on that subject by the FAC of another place, where it stressed that:
"The promotion of British interests overseas is an integrated effort and the role of cultural diplomacy, including the arts, is no less important than any other in it".
The noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, and I are therefore at one in accepting the remarks with which he began his speech this afternoon. I must say that I find nothing arid in the declaration which our response included.
I think that leaves no room for doubt about the importance that we attach to the issue. We do not hold cultural diplomacy to be somehow different from the rest of diplomacy, or to be aimed at some other objective. All our diplomacy is aimed at the vigorous promotion of British interests: and cultural diplomacy is very much a part of that. I am sure your Lordships will find nothing eccentric about my stating our diplomatic objectives in terms of the national interest, nor indeed about declaring cultural diplomacy to be a part of that integrated effort. Certainly the French to whom the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, referred, who some acclaim to be masters of cultural diplomacy, would find it a very curious notion that one might proclaim otherwise.
The noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, and my noble friends Lord Beloff and Lord Stockton asked what reasons the French, the Germans and the Japanese have for spending money on cultural diplomacy that we do not find ourselves able to provide. It is always easy to oversimplify in comparisons with other countries on spending on a range of issues. In the case of the French, for example, one potent reason, I believe, is their great concern to protect their language from the encroachment of English, which as my noble friend Lord St. John said today is so much the language of diplomacy and has become so in recent years.
Nor do we believe that a valid distinction can be made between cultural diplomacy and other forms of diplomacy in terms of long-term and short-term objectives or activities. Each is a mixture of both. Just as our diplomatic missions' long-term cultivation of contacts in particular countries is vital to our future relationships, so can a particular cultural event or a British Council visitorship have an immediate impact in its own as well as in a wider area. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Lucas referred to a visit from the opera in Prague.
If cultural diplomacy's activities often have long-term objectives so do those of all diplomacy and all are inter-active. Cultural diplomacy has cultural goals, too; the exchange of academic and cultural experience with other nations enriches us. As the reply of the Government to the Select Committee
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states:
"It is right that we should share a culture which enriches the human spirit, enhances international understanding and expands the horizons of men and women throughout the world".
At the same time it is important that British excellence in the arts, so regularly attested to by awards in international competition, should be more widely known. All our cultural achievements serve to enhance Britain's standing in a world whose recognition and respect we cannot take for granted.
Above all, our cultural diplomacy helps others to understand us and by making ourselves better understood we create much surer ground for attaining our objectives generally. Others are more likely to comprehend and even share our point of view, or be disposed to turn to us or choose what we have to offer if they know our language, our literature, our artistic heritage and have come to admire them.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, might have suggested before her apparent recent conversion, it is not a question of which particular contract in Japan or which particular amendment to a European Community regulation, or something like that, which has been secured by exercises of our cultural diplomacy. Cultural diplomacy is deeper and more wide-ranging than that. For example, it has to do with countering the prejudice against us of those who misunderstand us—among other things, for our alleged insularity.
I cannot but help recall General De Gaulle's justification for vetoing Britain's application to join the EC. He said:
"How can a country with two religions and 300 cheeses possibly agree on fundamentals with one that has 300 religious denominations and only two kinds of cheese?".
That is why one of the principal activities of our cultural diplomacy lies in bringing people to this country—students, teachers, administrators, journalists, opinion-formers—as well as those whose opinions are being formed. All in all, the interchange of people to and from Britain accounts for almost two-thirds of total British Council expenditure, including the major programmes that it administers for the ODA and the FCO. In addition, it encompasses one-fifth of FCO expenditure through the Central Office of Information.
As the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill of Harrow, the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Wolvercote, and my noble friend Lord Stockton indicated, a very important part of this effort is devoted to overseas students, though perhaps none of those noble Lords, or perhaps others, think the effort has been sufficient.
There are now over 60,000 students from overseas in higher education in Britain. About one-fifth of them enjoy some form of Government help under a variety of schemes, including joint funding with the private sector. If we include the ODA's non-university training programmes. some £90 million a year of public funds are involved.
In the Foreign and Commonwealth Office we have our own scholarship schemes worldwide and we contribute to other schemes for countries that do not fit in to the aid programme. We support, for example, the Commonwealth scholarships and fellowships

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plan for the developed countries of the Commonwealth, and the Marshall scholarships, which bring top-quality students to Britain from the United States. We have recently embarked on a series of jointly-funded schemes in tripartite partnership with major industrial and commercial firms and the receiving educational institutions, and also with the churches. These began in 1985 with Tate & Lyle and at present total 10, with companies like ICI and GEC, the newly privatised British Gas and British Telecom, and leading city firms such as Bowring and Clifford Chance.
As your Lordships know, in 1979 the Government decided that an indiscriminate fee subsidy for all overseas students, costing more than £100 million, was not a legitimate burden to continue to impose on the British taxpayer. But that decision notwithstanding, and despite the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, that the present financial mix is wrong, the number of overseas students in our universities today is actually higher than it was in 1979, thanks to the scholarship programmes which I have mentioned and also to the promotional and marketing work that has been undertaken overseas by the British Council in partnership with the universities. This work has recently been extended with Foreign Office encouragement and participation, into the non-university post-school field, where there is still room to bring overseas registrations up to higher levels.
One of our prime concerns is that overseas students should return to their home countries with the best possible memories of their time in Britain. We have been particularly conscious of the students's welfare needs, and have recently set up, with the British Council and the Victoria League, a new charitable company called Hosting for Overseas Students (or simply HOST). Its achievements in placing students with British families at Christmas, has been most remarkable. I think your Lordships might agree that priorities for cultural diplomacy can be pithily summarised in the slogan "Get them here, and if you can't get them here, teach them English"—very much the theme of the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter.
As with scholarship programmes and the interchange of people generally, the British Council's activities in English language teaching, to which my noble friend Lord Stockton referred, have seen considerable expansion over the past eight or nine years. About 10 per cent. or 11 per cent. of the British Council's expenditure goes on language teaching. Numbers have shown a steady increase over recent years. There are some 56,000 students learning English at council centres all round the world at this moment. There is a growing demand for teaching for more specialised uses of English. British Council teachers have taught on site for Singapore International Airlines, for the Qatar Petroleum Company and for the Institute of Health Sciences in Oman. Computer-assisted language learning is now used in 36 of the council's centres. I am glad to say that to an increasing degree over recent years, the council's direct English language teaching overseas has been paying for itself.
My noble friends Lord Stockton and Lord Beloff
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referred to books. Book exports are worth at least £500 million a year and I hope that my noble friend Lord Stockton will acknowledge the British Council's role in stimulating sales overseas. Between them they organised Britain's contribution to about 25 international book fairs. The British Council itself runs 120 libraries and information centres around the world with 400,000 mostly fee-paying members. These make 7 million loans of British books, periodicals and audio-visual materials annually.
While the British Council is one of the principal instruments of our cultural diplomacy, others are, of course, the BBC external services and the COI. The external services of the BBC, to which many of your Lordships devoted time this afternoon, are very active in English language teaching programmes through their English by radio and television programmes. In terms of the number of pupils, they might be described as having the largest English language teaching class in the world. A glance at the programme schedule of the BBC external services is enough to show that their role in the promotion of British culture abroad goes much wider than English language teaching. Funding of the external services for broadcasting has increased despite what has been said, by over 50 per cent. in real terms since 1979–80. It was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, that the increased funding since 1979 has been largely swallowed up in the capital expenditure programme to improve audibility. Whatever claims the noble Lord makes, in fact output has increased from 711 hours a week in 1979 to over 750 hours a week today, the highest level of output since the early 1950's. As the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said, there is no point broadcasting if you cannot be heard. I consider it absolutely essential and an important priority to continue to invest in audibility programmes.
The noble Lord, Lord Weidenfeld, referred to Korea and there are BBC proposals for those new services. I am afraid that the Foreign Office did not agree with what was proposed. Of course, for programmes such as that, suggestions will be carefully reviewed in the light of priorities and finite resources, and the resources are always finite. Nevertheless, the FCO have agreed to new world service alternatives for the Caribbean and southern Africa.
Distance learning potential of external broadcasting has long been recognised, and improving understanding and spreading English overseas by the external services is an important objective. To that the BBC are indeed turning their hand. My noble friend Lord Morris mentioned the world television news service. We are aware of the potential opportunities offered by satellite television broadcasting and British enterprises are already actively involved. They involve complex assessments of complex issues, and the BBC proposals raise them. The examination is not yet complete but it is being given considerable attention and priority.
As for the audibility programme, I have to say that we embarked on that programme in 1981. So far we have spent over £80 million on it. The programme is on schedule. There are many discernible

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improvements such as the Hong Kong relay station referred to earlier this afternoon. We have committed over £30 million to further improvements, some of which are intended to help to improve audibility in the Soviet Union. I too am glad that the jamming about which we have heard so much has now been lifted.
As for Europe, I have to say that the BBC's 648 service—to which the noble Lord, Lord Weidenfeld, did not refer—combining French, German and world services, is intended to tone up the effectiveness of our external services in Western Europe.
I turn now—and I am galloping through a lot of material—to COI films and publications because they of course are an important element as well. The role of the British private sector in teaching English to foreign students in schools both here and overseas is important too, and there has been a tremendous increase. We believe that the private sector is an important part of our English language training resource, and that it and the council should work closely together.
It is important to emphasise again that in all these areas of the interchange of people—and notably through student scholarships and English language training—the British Council's activity has increased substantially in recent years. I too pay tribute not only to its work but also to its staff.
Accounts that have been given of the council's funding suggesting that it has lost out badly in the recent past, as said by my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gwydir, seem to have ignored these two major areas of its work. I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, that in fact the council's overall programme spend (its turnover as it were) has increased by some 26 per cent. in real terms since 1979. Its own earnings have increased in that period through English language teaching, through its paid educational services, and through agency work undertaken on behalf of other organisations.
The council's receipts from aid administration nowadays cover a greater proportion of the associated overhead costs. At the same time its direct grant from government has declined, it is true. That is because it has been required, like all government departments, to find efficiency savings as well. Whether or not he is right to claim that the time is now ripe for a change, I must say to my noble friend Lord Reay that no aspect of cultural diplomacy has been exempt from the overall effort to deploy resources more effectively. But greater earnings as well as increased operational efficiency prompted by financial stringency and, less happily, a number of closures have considerably relieved the strain on the rest of their budget.
My noble friend Lord Fanshawe made a number of important remarks about the work of the Thomson Foundation. I very much agree with all that he said, and indeed with the various associations to which he also drew attention. It is not hard to think of ways of spending more money on cultural diplomacy. As my noble friend Lord Bessborough said, the question is: at the expense of what? There are those who will say that extra money should be found from within the
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existing diplomatic effort, but I am not sure that we should necessarily agree that that would be right if we were to spend less on protecting British subjects overseas, less on promoting exports, and that kind of thing.
I have to cut my remarks short, but let me say that cultural diplomacy is an important part of our effort in pursuit of British interests overseas, but it is an integrated effort. We must bear in mind that the medium can only promote or conceal the substance of the message to a limited extent. Even the most persuasive spokesmen must in the end have a product that justifies its marketing. Britain's standing in the world has improved considerably in recent years. Any traveller abroad will tell you that.
Our cultural diplomacy, both governmental and non-governmental, has played an important part in bringing about this change, but at its root is the fact that the Government have succeeded in transforming our economic base into the healthy state we enjoy today. Only a few years ago people talked of the "British disease". They now quote Britain as a model and inspiration for the resolution of economic ills. So the message really is a good one, and this Government are committed to getting it across in the widest and most effective possible way. Hence the importance that the Government as well as your Lordships attach to cultural diplomacy.
5.26 p.m.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, I shall not keep your Lordships long, but I should like to thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate, and I should like to join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Fawsley, on his maiden speech, which was as enjoyable and eloquent as I had foreseen. I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, for the part he played in this debate and for the authority that he brought to it.
I must also thank the Minister for his response. I am delighted that we are at one in agreeing on the importance of cultural diplomacy. I am delighted that we are in agreement on the importance of the English language. I am delighted that we are agreed on the importance of external services. I am only disappointed that the appetite for all these services cannot be better satisfied.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Wells-Pestell): My Lords, I regret having to interrupt the noble Lord but I am bound by the regulations. The allotted time given to this debate has now elapsed. I have to ask the noble Lord whether he wishes to withdraw the Motion.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Homelessness
5.27 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick rose to call attention to the number of homeless people; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I should like to commence by expressing pleasure and gratitude at being lucky in our ballot. It gives me the opportunity to debate in your Lordships' Chamber an issue that deals with probably the most underprivileged section of our community. I am also delighted at the response to the Motion. It has attracted a number of distinguished Peers and Peeresses who have put down their names to speak to show their concern at this human problem.
It is of course a fact of life that within our communities there are powerful sectors and there are weak sectors. Obviously the powerful sectors are articulate and speak very well on their own behalf. I am of course talking in the main about people such as the City of London and the financial institutions, the CBI, and to a lesser extent these days organised labour as represented by the trade union movement. But this debate is about that section of the people who have no public platform within the legislative procedure. I think it is of great benefit to them if we can show them that your Lordships' House cares on this type of issue and is prepared to debate the problem in order to try to do something for them.
Over the past two or three years in your Lordships' House there have been extensive and quite numerous debates on the problem of housing in general. I think it commenced about two years ago when the noble Lord, Lord Seebohm—who I am delighted to see present and down to speak—moved a debate, on behalf of the Cross-Benches, on the Duke of Edinburgh's report on housing.
The last major debate on the subject related to Faith in the City, the report of the commission of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury. Some noble Lords who spoke in those debates are down to speak again today. It is a sad fact of life that some of the the things that will be said today were said in both those debates and have also been said previously at Question Time by noble Lords on all sides of the House. Therefore we have to backtrack a little and recall what has been said. However, I do not want to blind your Lordships with a battery of statistics. I have no doubt that noble Lords who follow me will produce their own when presenting their cases.
Only a few days ago the Prime Minister was congratulated on being the longest serving Prime Minister this century. It would be churlish to say that that was not a tremendous achievement. There is no doubt that during her period of office some sections of the community have done very well. In the extension of home ownership through the right to buy, some people have benefited considerably. Howeyer, whatever criterion is used to assess the plight' of the homeless in this country, their position has become worse during that time. When something is tragically wrong, the leader of the legislative body in this country, the Prime Minister, who wears the laurel wreath for achievement, must also accept the
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crown of thorns in relation to a problem which should have been tackled on a forceful and urgent basis.
Let us look at some of the figures. In 1979, 56,750 households were registered as homeless. For 1987 this figure is between 110,000 and 120,000. That is a tremendous increase by any standard. It is feared that the percentage increase which has occurred each year, almost regularly, will further increase unless something drastic is done. There are a variety of reasons for what has happened. Some of the reasons given are disputes between families and the breakdown of relationships. One of the most significant factors is the persistent increase in the number of people registered as homeless who have defaulted on mortgage repayments. In an effort to house themselves and their families they have taken a gamble and have overstretched their limited resources. Some have become victims of unemployment for which nobody can be blamed. The end result is that they lapse on their mortgage repayments. They are then evicted and have to seek other accommodation.
More than 100 authorities in England make use of bed and breakfast hotels to house homeless families. This occurs because insufficient new lettings are available to allow local authorities to house all the families for whom they are statutorily obliged to provide accommodation. In a period of rising demand from homeless families the number of new lettings available has fallen by 10 per cent. since 1979. This is mainly due to the effect of the right to buy provisions and cuts in the housing investment programme.
Your Lordships will recall that two weeks ago I questioned a Minister about homelessness. He gave figures of the increased amounts which he deemed were being made available to deal with the problem. At the same time as that announcement was being made, the housing investment programme was once again being cut. That has occurred even with the type of problem that I am highlighting today. The effect of the policy has been to reduce the chances of families on the waiting list being rehoused. Lettings from waiting lists in London have fallen by 54 per cent. since 1979, and 25 per cent of all new lettings by local authorities in England now go to homeless families.
In some parts of London, bed and breakfast hotels and other forms of temporary accommodation are used for those on the waiting lists. Some authorities are unable to predict when or if households in temporary accommodation will move into permanent housing. One, Camden, estimated that a family in bed and breakfast accommodation who require a four bedroomed home would have to wait four years. The use of bed and breakfast accommodation is escalating alarmingly. In 1984 there were 3,270 families in bed and breakfast accommodation in England. By the end of September 1987 there were 11,240, 8,600 of them being in London.
The standards of bed and breakfast hotels range from reasonable to the appalling. There are numerous examples of overcrowding and families living in one room. A recent report by the Thomas

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Coram Foundation for Children found that children in bed and breakfast accommodation were often not receiving adequate health care or education. It is estimated by one London borough that the average cost of bed and breakfast accommodation is £13,500 per annum per family. The cost of the exercise is astronomical.
When this issue is raised with the Prime Minister in another place and with Ministers in this House, they always fall back on one or two standard reasons. They refer to empty properties, and local authorities always bear the brunt of this criticism. I am not putting this forward as an excuse but only 2·3 per cent. of local authority total stock is empty. Housing associations have 3·8 per cent. of their stock empty. The private sector has 4·2 per cent. of its stock empty. The Government, who would do well to put their own house in order, have as much as 6·9 per cent. empty. It is a little naughty when the burglar starts castigating the policeman as the wrongdoer. The Government would do well to set the example and put their own house in order.
Over the years I have pursued a campaign on homelessness. In the 1970s I sponsored a Bill in another place about houses in multiple occupation. It is eight years since I introduced that Bill. Since then other Members in another place have followed that through and have tried to put some rationale into a policy of protection for people who have by force of circumstances to live in hostels. There has been little progress in that direction. Those involved on the social side say that the risk of death and of maiming through fire in smaller hostels in multiple occupation in this country is as high as it ever was—as bad as at the time of the appalling fire in Kilburn when 11 ladies lost their lives.
We have a situation where the financial pundits in the press and in the media are saying what a tremendous job the Chancellor has done and commenting on the funds that he now has available. Every one of the debates that I mentioned which have taken place in your Lordships' House arrived at the same conclusion; that there was a need for an extensive and massive injection of government money into the housing programmes in this country in order to deal with the situation. Unless that happens, the figures that I have quoted and the deterioration that I have highlighted will continue to be with us.
I was going to refer to this situation regarding homeless families as a scab on our society. But it is not a scab, because a healing takes place under a scab. When the scab falls off, very often healthy tissue is left. I class this as a running sore or an ulcer that is getting worse.
We spend less per capita of our population on housing from central government than any other government in Europe. I think it is time the Government listened to people who from a nonpolitical point of view are deeply concerned with this problem and who keep trying to better the situation for these homeless people.
I hope that your Lordships' debate today will impress upon the Government the need for urgency felt by people of all political persuasions who are
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grappling with the housing problem. I think it is not too much to ask for a bigger housing investment programme with money targeted towards a crash programme to relieve the stress areas of homelessness. I hope the Minister in his reply will be able to give some encouragement to what I believe is a reasonable request. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
5.42 p.m.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, for introducing this debate on such a currently worrying subject. It is very good to follow a fellow Yorkshireman in any case, although our views on everything are not always exactly the same.
There is no doubt about the genuine effort made by numbers of voluntary bodies and by some professional practitioners to help people arrange their lives. Yet the United Kingdom is suffering notably from the effect of broken homes, and this is instantly reflected in the total of those who are homeless. With the United Kingdom divorce rate. the second highest in Europe, it is no surprise to find more illegitimate children . and separate establishments. More young people want to leave home at an earlier age, wanting to set up their own establishments away from the family. Quite often they have rather fancy ideas about the accommodation to which they should be entitled.
My own view is that television and advertising programmes do a lot to raise hopes and little to achieve them. Young viewers may realise that while "Dynasty" accommodation is way beyond them, "Coronation Street" shows some fairly tempting pads. This is no criticism but it points to an attendant risk. Our state of greater mobility means that many more people are ready to leave home to follow their job. In a new district they sometimes go to live with friends, but that arrangement very quickly is apt to wear thin, break down, and they then become homeless.
Much the most difficult clients to house among the homeless are families, as we know, with dependent children, pregnant girls and women, and older people, especially if they are mentally handicapped. I recognise these exactly from billeting in the government evacuation scheme.
London has the highest number of those accepted as homeless. Once someone has been recognised as homeless, legislation provides a basic safety net. About one-third of those accepted for housing are found permanent housing straight away in a council house or through a housing association or in a private sector dwelling. Of the rest, some are sent to temporary accommodation and, as the noble Lord mentioned, others to bed and breakfast accommodation in hotels.
Despite my great sympathy for the situation I was very encouraged the other day when I visited the Bayswater centre for mothers and young children from these families. They were coping remarkably well despite their circumstances. I admired the organisers and the way the mothers managed to turn out their children well, notwithstanding their

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cramped quarters. It was awfully good to see how cheerfully the offspring made use of excellent toys and play equipment, much of which had been given by wellwishers.
I had a very pleasant reason for visiting the centre as the bearer of a cheque given by Thames Television Help Trust. I made a similar visit for the same reason to the Thomas Coram Foundation, where they are hurriedly establishing much more capacious day centres which they hope will include cooking for some ethnic minorities.
It may sound naive, but much is being done to try to prevent homelessness, partly by influencing underlying causes. The Department of the Environment pays for advice for young people about leaving home in an attempt to get them to think realistically. The Government also help to fund the Citizens' Advice Bureaux as they also give advice about mortgage arrears. The Housing Corporation has some very clever plans both in attracting private money into the scheme with grants and in creating more rented accommodation. New forms of home ownership include shared ownership, part buying and part renting, to allow people with low incomes a better chance of ownership. Some families already accepted as homeless have found this to be an attractive option. The Housing Corporation is taking great trouble to chase up empty dwellings on council estates.
With our shortage in precious land supply, many planning schemes are opposed by the conservancy people and others, so surely the quickest and most realistic way to help the homeless must be through existing housing stock. Those of us who long to see a chance for everyone who needs a home have to see that homelessness in the big cities is unlikely to end. This affects not only the young and the broken homes but also the dossers and the tramps. Those are the next generation of those we saw in the 'twenties and 'thirties. It is surprising that the psychologists have not succeeded in doing more to help this inadequacy.
I must end by saying that it is a problem that deserves our combined effort in every practical way, and in this I so much agree with the noble Lord.
5.50 p.m.
Lord Ross of Newport: My Lords, perhaps I may start by very briefly thanking everyone for all the kindnesses shown to me on taking my seat in this noble House. I can only say that I shall do my best to live up to the honour bestowed upon me. May I also congratulate the noble Baroness? I totally agreed with a lot of her speech, especially when she finished up with her compliments to the Housing Corporation.
It was nearly 11 years ago, on 11th February 1977 precisely, when I proposed in the other place that the Housing (Homeless Persons) Bill be read a second time. Despite the support of the Government of the day and senior civil servants, and, in particular, the former honourable Member for Fulham, Mr. Nick Raynsford (to whom I should like to pay tribute) I cannot claim to have enjoyed the experience of promoting private legislation very much.
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One minute I was being accused of giving too much ground by the various charitable bodies involved with housing (of which there are many) and the next I was being called various rude names by the chairman and officers of local government housing committees up and down the country. I was often accused of introducing "a charter for scroungers". But it surely was right to give statutory protection to young mothers and the vulnerable elderly, and to move the responsibility for housing them away from the social services, who had no property, to the housing authorities who did.
Despite no fewer than 60 amendments—and I expect that some of your Lordships will remember the occasion—introduced into this House on the very last day of the summer Session, and piloted through the House by my old friend the noble Lord, Lord Wade, the Bill finally made it to the statute book and has survived despite several reviews. It has now been consolidated as Part III of the Housing Act 1985.
I was well aware that local authorities were desperately short of housing stock, particularly in the South, and it had been my intention when promoting the Bill to include four clauses dealing with the removal of certain lettings from the protection of permanent security of tenure. But this proved to be too controversial and had to be dropped. I therefore offer my support to that particular part of the new Housing Bill which was recently introduced into the other place.
It was however one of the reasons why I knew that we could not extend the Bill to cover the single homeless, despite its obvious desirability. The local authorities would have revolted and I would have lost the Bill. But what I never imagined was that 10; years later we would have seen the number of the homeless practically double. What a blot on our social record!
Today in my former constituency, the Isle of Wight, the two borough councils have a total of 24 families in bed and breakfast and no fewer than 104 in temporary accommodation, principally wartime prefabs. We still have those. I am told that some in bed and breakfast could be there as long as a year and those in the prefabs much longer. I think that one gentleman has been there 15 years and does not want to move. What is even more worrying is that the trend of acceptances of people being homeless is still upwards. It is not only a human tragedy, but is a terrible waste of public money. The growth industry of today is the one bedroom doss house, the proprietors of which are making good fortunes out of the DHSS. When in force, the Housing Bill may bring more properties on the market to let; but what rents will be demanded? Many people in the housing field are already predicting rises of over 50 per cent. or even worse.
In the current financial year, my two authorities may complete a maximum of 31 housing units and there is no provision whatsoever for any new build in 1988–89. Starts in the public sector in Great Britain are now down to 31,900. I think I am right in saying that this is the lowest since just after the first World War, and that includes Scotland. Homeless acceptances continue to rise. We had 73,600 in 1982 and 104,960 in 1986, and the noble Lord mentioned

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that the figure has gone up since then. In fact, in the third quarter of 1987 there were 28,700 acceptances. Where are we to look for some relief?—certainly not, it seems, at present to the forthcoming Housing Bill unless there is an unexpected conversion.
I am a founder member of our local housing association which I helped to form in 1973. We now have something like 350 properties. I did that with others at a time when house prices were going through the roof. Many people at that time and since have given literally hundreds of hours to the movement without financial remuneration because they wanted to help their local communities, young and old alike, the disabled and the small offenders from broken family backgrounds. There is even one which has my name on it in Bedford and I am very proud of it. Now it seems that it is to these same housing associations that the Government are likely to look to take over from the local authorities, who in turn, it seems, are to be left with nothing to offer those made homeless priority cases, but houses on run-down estates.
I am asking the Government: please listen to the housing associations and act now before it is too late. Give to them the special type of tenancy agreement which meets their particular needs, and please, too, be more generous with your HAG funding to those housing associations. If not, we shall have a disaster on the rent front.
The urgent need at this time is to identify the areas of greatest stress, and many of these, I have to say, are in the South and West of England. Let us then provide the funds and build the houses and cure this curse once and for all. At the moment, a whole generation are losing an opportunity of being able to acquire a home of their own. My own son aged 31, earning £8,500 a year, bicycles every day to work in Sloane Square and has two children. He has not a hope in blazes of ever buying a house, not even in my own constituency. He has been priced right out of the market and there are many more like him. Frankly, the property pages of Country Life must really seem obscene to them. If they too are not to join the ranks of the homeless, there needs to be some radical rethinking so far as concerns the Government's housing policy. If that cannot be achieved in the other place, I hope and pray that noble Lords will not shrink from the task when it comes to our turn.
5.56 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, this is the first occasion on which I have followed a maiden speech and it gives me great pleasure to express the appreciation which I know will be felt by all your Lordships for the careful and informed speech which we have just heard. The noble Lord, Lord Ross, is an experienced politician who, as he told us, represented the Isle of Wight, where I think he still lives. It is a part of the country which is seldom mentioned in this House and I hope that it will be mentioned again, because personal experience often enlivens these debates. I hope—and I am sure that I speak for all of us—
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, will the right reverend Prelate allow me to intervene? Would he mind sitting down? May I tell him that if he was here more often, he would hear me sounding off about the Isle of Wight on many occasions.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, I am very sorry. It was a point worth trying to make. But what I want to say—and I am sure that I speak for all of us—is that we look forward very much to the further speeches and contributions that the noble Lord will be making in this House in due course.
It is easy to describe the growing number of homeless families, especially in London and the South—and they are the officially recognised ones—and beyond them, the much larger number of single homeless who are not yet officially recognised. The statistics are there for all of us who care to read and we were given some of them by the noble Lord, Lord Dean, in his opening speech.
It is quite easy to indicate some of the complex and varied reasons for the growth in the number of homeless, such as the breakdown of more marriages, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox; the concentration of jobs in the South; the collapse of the private rented sector; the increased emphasis on community care; the baby boom from 1957 to 1964; the reduction of capital for housebuilding over the past few years and so on. Councils are not allowed to spend quite a lot of the money which they already have.
It is far less easy to understand how a prosperous and highly developed society such as ours can have got into such a miserable tangle of misjudgment, argument and inefficiency, so that numerous families, children and single people are subjected to enormous discomfort and hardship while the rest of us prosper. This, I submit, has now become a crisis—and I use the word advisedly; it is not any longer just a problem, certainly not in London—and indeed something of a moral scandal, which all of us must want to address and address quickly, before the toll of expensive and unnecessary suffering mounts any higher. I believe that I say that for those of all political beliefs and for those who have none.
In a speech which is limited to seven minutes I can make only two main points.
Noble Lords: Six!
The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, it has gone down to six minutes. Well, I had first to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport. The immediate crisis of homelessness for families and children is centred on the South and London and is symbolised by the growing number in bed and breakfast accommodation. What is needed here is an immediate injection of funds sufficient to bring back into use property which is in disrepair, short-life housing and flats over shops. Local authorities and housing associations know how to do that, given the right financial help and perhaps some technical and administrative support. Schemes could be submitted and a special section of the DoE set up to give them

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rapid clearance. I should like to see the first line of the job description for all who work there being, "Get moving".
Just over a year ago I wrote to the Minister of Housing, Mr. John Patten, about this problem. I eventually had a courteous reply, much of which concentrated on the need to decontrol rents and promote more mixed funding for rented accommodation. I do not quarrel with either aim as such. After all, we said as much in the Edinburgh housing inquiry. Those are long-term changes which will have only a gradual effect. They will not provide much, if any, low-cost rented housing even then. Without other measures, they will do nothing to relieve the crisis in London caused by the high cost of land. Everyone is agreed on that.
My first and main point is that we must distinguish between the immediate and crying need for which short-term decisive action is now needed and the longer-term changes needed to increase the total stock of rented accommodation but, more especially, low-cost rented housing, for all those who need it.
My second point is that we must recognise how huge the demand already is, not only among homeless families but among the homeless of all ages. Yesterday, my wife and I had the privilege of seeing some of the work done by one of the interval projects of the Rainer Foundation in South London. The foundation offers financial and emotional support to young people who are setting up home for the first time. I wish there was time to tell your Lordships something about the sensitive caring which is being offered. The one thing that stands out in my mind about that visit is that most of those young people could not go back home even if they wanted to do so. Nowadays, there is seldom an extended family. However, it is government policy still further to reduce grants to young people in the near future. The funding of workers in voluntary groups such as this is under constant threat because of other cuts. Do we want more people on the streets, more crime, more people in prison, more people using drugs, more demands on the health service, more prostitution and all the rest?
Money spent on overcoming homelessness and providing adequate accommodation at a rent which people can afford will save money in other ways. Why do we find that so hard to understand? Why do we still make it so difficult for those who are trying to help in an area of such pressing need?
6.3 p.m.
Lord Murray of Epping Forest: My Lords, the
causes of homelessness are legion. Anyone who visits places where the homeless, especially the single homeless, to whom the right reverend Prelate has referred, gather, realises that all human life is there. One important factor has been the alarming increase over the past three or four years in the amount of homelessness caused by the closure of our large mental hospitals. The closure of such places as Claybury and Friern and the acceptance of patients into the community is obviously welcome and desirable. But caring will only work if there are
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enough carers and support services. Far too often, people are being discharged from mental hospitals into emergency accommodation with little or no support.
I shall relate one instance of many given to me by the housing adviser to the West London Methodist Mission, which was presided over and directed with such dignity and compassion for so many years by my noble friend Lord Soper. The adviser said:
"A man of 52, known to us for two years, a patient in a Hertfordshire psychiatric hospital for 21 years and diagnosed as a chronic paranoid schizophrenic, was discharged in August 1983 to a large hostel in Central London. During the last 18 months he has drifted from one DHSS reception centre to another. His poor mental state and past history of living in institutions do not equip him for independent living or to cope with the procedures of claiming supplementary benefit. Thus he is reduced to living on hand-outs and begging. This man requires a far more supportive sheltered environment in order for him to find any level of stability".
He continues:
"There is a dramatic increase in the number of people we see who have a history of mental illness".
The classic pattern for both men and women seems to be that although some may be discharged to organisations such as Carr Gomm or the Richmond Fellowship, many are discharged on medication to hostels or reception centres. Many of the hostels are well meaning, but they are large and impersonal. Few have staff who are trained to deal with social and medical problems. Many of the ex-patients are required to look after their own medication when previously that was the hospital's reponsibility. For one reason or another, they cease to take their medication; they lose their accommodation; and they find themselves on the streets. These are not isolated cases.
Dr. Malcolm Weller, who is the consultant psychiatrist at the Friern Hospital, published in The Lancet the results of research he carried out in 1985 and 1986 into "Open Christmas" provided by Crisis at Christmas with which the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, from whom we shall hear, is closely connected, and to whom, with her late husband, society owes a great debt for its initiation. Dr. Weller found that in a sample of the people he studied in the Christmas provision for the single homeless, 34 per cent. were actively psychotic, 36 per cent. had had previous in-patient psychiatric treatment, while about a quarter of those he interviewed were probably schizophrenic. That compares with one in 3,000 in the population generally. The findings tally with research by other groups such as the No-Fixed Address research group in East London and with the experience of' people in mental hospitals and in the voluntary organisations such as the Whitechapel Mission and the West London Mission who are trying to cope with the situation.
However fine, in theory, the closure of the big, old mental hospitals may be, it has degenerated into doing the right thing for the wrong reason: to save money. We can see the practical consequences of that in Whitechapel and the Commercial Road any night of the week. What has already been said, notably by the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, in an admirable maiden speech, and by others, has set out the methods that are needed in the housing field if we

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are to start to cope with the core of the problem. I shall make three brief points about that class of person.
First, we need a major health promotion campaign directed at the homeless, designed to improve their health and to make them aware of their rights to health care as well as to social benefits and to housing provision.
Secondly, as will be said time and time again, I am sure, during the debate, local authorities and health authorities urgently need more resources. They need resources to train medical and social staff, notably community psychiatric nurses, a very rare commodity. We need many more. The authorities need money to provide direct access hostels for those who are squatting and living rough. Something like one-third of the single homeless are living in squats and "skippering".
Finally, we need to slow down the process of closing wards and discharging patients from mental hospitals until there has been a thorough appraisal of what has happened to patients who have been discharged, that is to say, putting flesh on the bones of the reports produced by the Audit Commission.
6.10 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, on two counts I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport: first, for his maiden speech; secondly, I was director of the social services when he worked towards the moving of housing of the homeless from the social services to housing. For that I was deeply grateful. Inevitably, we shall all cover some of the same points.
I should like first of all, as many other noble Lords have done, to take up the really appalling situation with regard to bed-and-breakfast hotels. We are all responsible for this, whatever political party we come from. The problem was there in 1968. I remember holding a public meeting about bed-and-breakfast way back in 1968. It is sad that both at the local level and at government level we have allowed this to escalate year by year so that it is now like Pandora's box, almost out of control and extraordinarily difficult to deal with.
Those in hotels of this kind have been very fully dealt with in a report to which the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, has already referred, by the Thomas Coram Foundation. That foundation has done a very good report, it states that the families in bed-and-breakfast hotels are without ownership. They own very little themselves and are largely disowned by the support organisations other than the few which have been mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, and the right reverend Prelate. On the whole, they are unseen by central government, unwanted by the host boroughs and neglected by the home services.
That leads me to take up a point of management. I shall now only refer to London because the Thomas Coram report was about London. Local authorities in London seek a bed-and-breakfast vacancy in a borough which is not the borough where the family originally lived. They find a place in another borough and therefore the family move from the host
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borough. It is in this way that the family is lost, it is lost by its own local authority which is responsible for housing it, it is lost by the voluntary organisations which it knew in its own host borough. One must put in a plea to the London boroughs to have a management structure between themselves. I have to say that managerially the London boroughs are not working together. They are not formulating an overall policy for London. I think this is one of the great tragedies.
I am bound to mention the position of children in bed-and-breakfast hotels. The children are showing signs of disturbance, signs of ill-health. Many of them are not attending school and they are not pursued by the schools because the schools do not always have the names of the children who live in that borough since they are not in their own borough. Managerially this is a very serious situation. We are bringing up a number of children in our city who will themselves be homeless and unable to manage their affairs when they grow up.
Perhaps I may take up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Murray, on mental patients which was very clearly brought out in the Audit Commission's report. Many of the bed and breakfast hotels where there are single women and children have a number of mental patients from hospitals. I have no time to say (nor if I had the time would I tell you, my Lords) what goes on in some of those bed-and-breakfast hotels. None of us knows. If it went on in other places there would be a number of court cases; but the people in bed-and-breakfast hotels will not complain because they are frightened of losing their rooms. This is a really serious situation.
I should like to refer to the number of empty properties in London. That has already been referred to. That amounts to 94,000 empty houses in the private sector and 28,000 in the public sector. Perhaps noble Lords will correct me later if I am wrong; but could we not do as we did during the war and requisition those properties, pay a rent to the people from whom they are requisitioned and give them back at a time when those people need them? It is a scandal that there are so many empty properties which are not in use and which we could use. We did it during the war, and I say that there is a war on with regard to homeless families and that this should be considered.
I then go on, as other noble Lords have done, to costs. The cost of a flat for a homeless husband, wife and two children is £7,601; bed and breakfast costs between £14,000 and £17,000 a year. What are we doing throwing this money away? I come back to the war, during the war we had mobile homes. I would much rather live in a mobile home than in a flat or one room in one of these terrible bed-and-breakfast hotels.
There are many other points to which I could refer, but I shall just touch on a last one and the right reverend Prelate will know I am going to touch on it. That is the sense of responsibility. I have not had the time nor or would I think it wise to give the amount of money which is owing in London boroughs. If everybody paid their rent, if managerially the housing departments saw to it that people paid their

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rents, there would be much more money to build houses instead of calling for further government resources. We need better management in the housing sector.
6.20 p.m.
Lord Blease: My Lords, from the speeches of all the noble Lords who have already taken part in this short debate, there is little doubt that in the United Kingdom there is much unnecessary human suffering and misery arising out of the growing number of homeless people. Perhaps I may in this respect compliment the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, on his maiden speech, a very telling and moving speech on this occasion and one which I shall remember. I hope he will feel very much at home in this place and a part of the proceedings.
I wish to speak about homelessness in Northern Ireland. At the outset I should declare that I place housing as one of the three crucial issues confronting the Government, the politicians and the citizens of Northern Ireland. The first issue and the greatest need is community peace and the freedom from terrorism and fear. The second is the chronic unemployment and absence for many of the hope of regular paid work. Those two essential human requirements for civilised living are inextricably linked with the need for adequate housing accommodation for all.
The problem of homelessness among the young and the old is essentially the problem of an inadequate housing stock. In this respect Northern Ireland has a greater problem than any other region of the United Kingdom. The population of Northern Ireland represents 2.8 per cent. of the total United Kingdom population, yet the Province contains only 2 per cent. of the total housing stock. Some 27 per cent. of that housing stock is in need of remedial action, as compared with 20 per cent. of England's stock.
The Northern Ireland Housing Executive, as the public body responsible for housing, has made much headway over recent years in improving the Province's housing stock through its new build, its redevelopment, its improvement and its repair programmes. However there are still 24,000 people currently on the housing executive's waiting list. Of these 6,842 are living under shared, crowded accommodation conditions and have a priority rating on the waiting list. While the precise number of homeless people in Northern Ireland is difficult to assess, some 5,500 present themselves annually as registered homeless.
In Northern Ireland there is no specific legislation to deal with homelessness but the Government have announced their intention to enact legislation in regard to this homelessness within the next year. The legislative provisions are those already enacted in Great Britain in the Housing Act 1985 and the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977. We have already heard that those two Acts have indeed done little or nothing to lessen the acute homelessness problem throughout Great Britain. Yet we are proposing to enact the very same legislation in Northern Ireland to deal with this terrible problem.
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The legislation is anticipated to place additional responsibilities on the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, yet I understand that there will be no additional resources made available to that housing executive. Indeed recently the Government announced cuts of at least £118 million in the executive's housing programme over the next three years.
I have already mentioned that the legislation is to be similar to that enacted in Great Britain so I do not wish to go into the details of what this means and how people's rights will be affected under the legislation. But it will certainly mean that single people who are homeless will receive limited assistance. Indeed the changes in the board and lodging regulations and in single payments will adversely affect single people. Studies which have already taken place in Northern Ireland show that single people represent the majority of homeless people. Somewhere in the region of 60 per cent. or more of homeless people are single.
The introduction of legislation coincides with the implementation of the community care programme by the Northern Ireland Department of Health and Social Services. The statutory and voluntary agencies involved in housing have already identified growing numbers of ex-psychiatric patients being returned to the community. In addition, there are those with personality and social problems who are in need of the care and attention that has already been mentioned in this debate. We should be aware that the legislation has already been in existence here for a number of years and yet we are imposing it on the situation in Northern Ireland.
There is much that I could deal with in this debate but I see that time is running out. The burden of what I wish to say is that Northern Ireland has a crucial housing problem. There is a growing number of homeless persons in both the urban and the rural areas in the Province. The proposed legislation will neither resolve nor remove the social problems and the human misery of homelessness. What is required is co-ordinated, effective human and financial resources. We have already heard that special projects are necessary. The Government have proposed the ends; they should will the necessary resources to take care of this particular problem.
Let me conclude by requesting the Minister who is to reply to the debate to use his good offices to draw my few remarks about Northern Ireland to the attention of the Northern Ireland Office. I hope that that office will rise to the occasion and remedy the situation that I see in Northern Ireland.
6.24 p.m.
Lord Soper: My Lords, the House will be particularly grateful for the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, on two counts and perhaps on many more. Those two counts are the historic setting in which he put the case to which we are directing our attention now and the sense of crisis which infused what he had to say. I shall begin with the latter point. I regard the situation as unnecessarily deplorable and as one that demands a radical approach if any permanent solution is to be attained.

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I think it is necessary to remind ourselves at the outset that there is a difference between (shall we say?) houselessness and homelessness. Homelessness is the personal result of houselessness but it has a much deeper significance than can be answered by the provision of housing stock. I suggest that it is necessary in a very short speech to say something about the underlying principle upon which a successful approach to this problem should be made. After all, bed and breakfast accommodation is a form of homelessness and a very terrible form of it. The large numbers of single unemployed or single homeless which are not quantified are in my estimation, from the experience which comes my way, increasing hand over fist.
What is even more significant is that there is a higher rate of delinquency among the single homeless, as I have every reason to know from the hostels in which I have been engaged where we have tried to do something for youngsters who have nowhere to put their heads down at night. The problem, as I see it, is one of principle. I happen to believe that the question of food, clothing and shelter is imperative. It springs from the concept I have of the Christian faith and in some measure is already represented in some aspects, particularly food. No one would tolerate in a so-called enlightened community a starvation process which would be terminal unless succour were offered. No one would suggest that the concern for clothing is a matter which can be left to market forces. In that case why should we not agree that the third of this trilogy is as imperative for those who are concerned with the wellbeing of the community as it is natural to the wellbeing of those who may suffer from these deficiencies. As I say, that deficiency has a terminal effect but not nearly so quickly as the denial of food or clothing.
I tried out this theory a few hours ago on Tower Hill. We had a fairly damp time but I was gratified to discover that a crowd which does not always agree with me by any means was almost unanimous in recognising the obligation to provide the opportunity at least of shelter just as much as the obligation to provide food and clothing. That is the beginning of the answer: we have an obligation at least to offer to everybody, whether or not they can pay for it, the opportunity of having somewhere to lay their head and a roof over them when they go to bed. In my judgment it is not a matter of choosing, as the present Government do, between those who are entitled to be housed if they are in families and those who are not entitled to be housed if they happen to be single.
I wish to make one or two suggestions very quickly which I think are necessary in the light of this overall sense of compulsion. The first, with which I heartily agree, is that we are in a crisis in which requisition if it is necessary is perfectly justified. Indeed it may be the only way in which we can reclaim for occupation the kind of premises which have been lying rotting for so long and which must be an insult to those who pass them by and know that they must sleep out or, if they can sleep at all, in doorways.
Secondly, I am quite sure that there is a paramount need for the provision of rented accommodation. That is the only possible way that many of the
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youngsters today can meet the demands that would be required. They certainly cannot pay rents that will increase. They certainly are in no position to acquire properties and become property owners.
I put forward those two propositions which, in my judgment, demand immediate concern and for which I suggest there is an altogether antecedent problem which has already been faced in the questions and issues of war. This is warfare. Even in my old age I feel militant about it. I know, from the experience of being a social worker for so long, that houselessness and homelessness are perhaps the most terrible inflictions that can be imposed on people. Their effects are increasingly disastrous.
We have the money and the Chancellor of the Exchequer intends to dispose of it. I suppose that the answer will be to give power to the people. I want power for the people who do not have any power. The power to live somewhere is absolutely their right. If there are those who say that we cannot afford it, then I conclude by saying, not with any trepidation, that I am in favour of finding that money by a wholesale reduction in the money spent on the killing processes of war. That is part of our bounden duty and service, not only as Christians—as I try to be—but above all as members of the kind of society that calls itself caring. I want to care for those who cannot care for themselves.
6.30 p.m.
Viscount Buckmaster: My Lords, I emphasise at the outset that the problem which we have been discussing is not confined to the United Kingdom. We know that there are large numbers of single homeless people in France, where emergency provision was made for them during the cold winter last year. We read that the Pope recently gave a dinner in Rome for the homeless. In the United States I understand that in New York and other large cities the problem is perhaps even as grave as it is in Britain. I mention that because I recommend that the Government study the situation in those countries, as well as such remedies as may have been found.
It was John Masefield who said:
"He who gives a child a home builds palaces in Kingdom come".
What a lovely thought that is! Perhaps for the word "child" we may substitute the word "person".
As I see it, the real tragedy as regards the single homeless is that most of them, as the noble Lord, Lord Ross, has mentioned, have no right to housing under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977. The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, spoke with her usual wide knowledge of conditions in bed-and-breakfast hotels. However, it is not only bed and breakfast hotels which are used to accommodate the homeless. There are also night shelters and hostels. In most of those, as in the bed-and-breakfast hotels, we find lack of privacy, cramped and sometimes unsanitary conditions and lack of proper decoration, although conditions may vary.
I am sure that all those who have had more experience than I in this field will agree that the community spirit in those institutions is tremendously strong. I remember, Christmas before last, walking along under the arches in Charing

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Cross. I saw the usual distressing collection of people sleeping in cardboard boxes. Not a single one of those people complained to me about conditions. They all said, "Happy Christmas" with a cheerful smile. That is a wonderful thing.
Perhaps I may share one or two personal experiences with your Lordships to bring the problem rather closer than might otherwise be possible. I remember walking past Westminster Underground station a year or so ago. I saw a homeless woman in black rags. She was dishevelled and distressed. Her body, so far as one could see, was covered in dirt. One was immediately reminded of someone out of a Dickens novel. A bit further on near the same station I met a man who was unable to talk. He was sitting in a corner shivering.
Perhaps the most revealing experience was near my own Underground station of Gloucester Road. I saw a man lying on the forecourt of the station, coughing his lungs out. No one stopped. As in the parable of the Good Samaritan, everyone passed by on the other side. The point is that the man was taken to a hospital and treated. Four or five days later, I saw the same man back on the streets again. I am sure that that situation is paralleled in many cases.
I shall not detain your Lordships' House for very long. However, I wish to refer to what I believe is a marvellous organisation which has not been mentioned by any noble Lord so far. The organisation is called CHAR. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, nodding her head. CHAR is the campaign for the homeless and roofless. It has made four recommendations for emergency accommodation. The first recommendation is that accommodation should be provided with single rooms rather than dormitories. There should be a maximum of 30 bed spaces in each hostel.
The hostels should be open to residents at all times. What is more distressing than seeing those people turned out from their accommodation in the middle of the day to fend for themselves in cold and unpleasant conditions? The next recommendation is that there should be adequate staffing with good working conditions for staff in order to maintain morale. That is hard to achieve in those situations. There should also be links with a range of other accommodation and services. Finally, there should be no limit to the length of stay. I hope that the Minister will be able to give me some assurance that those recommendations will be studied.
6.37 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I should like to draw out what I think is an implication contained in the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, which has been either implied or stated by earlier speakers. However, I mention it at the beginning of my speech because I may find myself being cut short later on. If there is one single step which can make a difference, it will be to introduce legislation to place a statutory obligation on local authorities to provide housing for the single homeless. There are also other important reforms which have been touched on in this debate.
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There are various views concerning the Government. Some people say that they are successful and others that they are unsucccessful. However, I do not believe that there can be any doubt that they are the most self-satisfied government within living memory. I do not apply that phrase to any of the members of the Government who are surviving on the Front Bench today. The noble Lord, Lord Hesketh, is not a self-satisfied man at all and I think he will find it even more difficult, therefore, to cope with the arguments rather than simply say, "We have done wonders". However, he will make his own speech when he gets to it.
I cannot keep altogether silent in a debate on homelessness which has been started so well by my noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick. The noble Baroness, Lady Faithful], has been called by me on other occasions a humanitarian mole. I think that that phrase is more apposite than ever today. She took us back to 1968. In 1968, I left the government of the day for educational reasons. At that time I was obsessed with the helplessness of young people. I took the initiative in starting New Horizon for young people, which continues to prosper. I am no longer running that organisation but for many years I was the chairman. I believe that it now looks after about 3,000 people.
A great change has come about in the composition of young people since we began that organisation 20 years ago. Those were the days of full employment. That went on for some little while and gradually we came to the opposite situation, which has obtained now for a number of years. However, this is not a debate on unemployment. If one is talking about homelessness one cannot divorce oneself from the fact that this Government have presided over enormous unemployment, and that is the background to this whole discussion.
At any rate, in those days there was full employment and the people who came to us were people with problems—what we would call personality problems. We did not get a great many people who were what would be called normal. Now, however, ordinary young people are in a position in which they have to go there or to similar places because otherwise there is ho hope left for them in life. I am glad to think that we see a lot more women than we used to, and more black people—women and black people whom I hope can be called normal. Our clientele are thoroughly normal today and come as a result of unemployment and the total absence of adequate accommodation.
I am assured from my conversations with them that the vast majority of those young people are totally insecure in their accommodation. I am informed that they have probably bedded down in at least 12 different places during the past year. That is their life. That is what we are doing for them. The noble Lord, Lord Soper, sees the full moral implications, as do other speakers. We shall be lucky if those young people do not turn into hooligans or criminals.
What about the conditions that produce hooliganism and crime? We ought as a community to be thoroughly ashamed. One ought to be careful

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about imputing blame to anyone where the guilt is fairly widespread. The present Government have been in power for eight years and claim a phenomenal degree of success. So noble Lords heard earlier today when we were told that this country is now the wonder of the world. The theory of the Government is that if they make the rich richer the benefits spill over to the poor. Well, they are not spilling over to the homeless, and I think it is a terrible story that the Minister has to defend tonight.
6.42 p.m.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, anyone who has been a public representative at council or parliamentary level or in some other capacity will know that the problems of housing and homelessness are the most intractable and the most frequent that have to be dealt with.
I shall not rehearse the details so ably presented by my noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick and others during the debate. There is widespread agreement that we are faced with a mounting toll of human misery. At the same time a proportion of people in our society is paid to move out of satisfactory accommodation and to occupy desperately needed accommodation in other parts of the country. These are the students in higher education.
The students come mainly from middle and upper class backgrounds. I am sure your Lordships will be aware of the anxiety of the universities that so few students from working-class backgrounds attend higher education. While there are over 100,000 families who are homeless, society is actually encouraging the luxury of paying higher education students to move out of satisfactory accommodation. I do not find that a very easy argument to present, because most of the people to whom I address it are successful products of this system. But the fact remains that this is one of the worst causes of our housing problems.
Universities and polytechnics, even though they control 190,000 bed spaces themselves, cannot provide accommodation for more than half of their registered students. The 1985–86 figures for England and Wales show that only 6 per cent. of university students and 25 per cent. of polytechnic students studied from the parental or marital home. That leaves approximately half a million extra people unnecessarily competing with the homeless in the decreasing private sector of rented housing. Having taken up this housing the students then leave it vacant for perhaps 20 weeks of the year.
Students are not only competing, but, in some areas, have an unfair advantage because their institutions frequently own property in the town or have made special leasing arrangements with local landlords. Very often, I am afraid, students will accept substandard accommodation which ought to be repaired and is unfit for families. So there is very real pressure from this source.
It is a fact that hundreds of thousands of units of accommodation would be released if students were not automatically given the option of studying away from home. This would ease the housing crisis immediately without any large-scale building works.
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Temporary accommodation would be available on campuses for homeless people who, very often for the first time in their lives, would be able to experience the enrichment of living in decent surroundings. Such surroundings, as my noble friend Lord Murray pointed out, have important mental and physical effects on health. It would make much more efficient use of our resources if we were to look at this situation very seriously. It would also solve the problems of many students who say that a great deal of their time is taken up with housing, as is a great deal of the institutions' time.
It is now nearly 30 years since the Anderson Report on student grants appeared. The report did not envisage the growth that has occurred in student numbers and the problems of housing and homelessness. Our new priorities should be to expand educational facilities and to provide homes for people. We should not be concentrating on providing students with second homes. We must loosen the tradition of going away to study. There is no objective evidence to show that academic results are better if students move away from home rather than stay at home. The arguments always put forward are that it is a maturing process, growing up, and so on. But students who put this point to me always rebut any suggestion about the benefits of the possible reintroduction of National Service. It is time that we asked students to think seriously about helping us with this housing problem.
To take my own city of Bristol, only 2 per cent. of Bristol University students and 15 per cent. of first year Bristol polytechnic students live in the marital or parental home. In Bristol, there are some 700 people officially homeless, and the 1986 council survey showed that there were 6,400 homeless single people living in unsatisfactory and unfit acommodation. If Glasgow, with over 50 per cent. of students living at home, and Strathclyde (over 70 per cent.) can do it, why cannot we in England? Nobody has ever said to me that the Scottish higher education system is in any way inferior to ours. Who are we asking to make this purely subjective sacrifice? We are asking the young people in society, the ablest and most gifted who are getting a free public education to prepare them for a qualification which will earn them a living for life. If the students and the authorities were asked to reassess the situation, we would solve the problem of homelessness in three years and release thousands of millions of pounds' worth of resources for other purposes.
6.49 p.m.
Lord Seebohm: My Lords, time is very short so I shall omit the courtesies and not repeat any of the figures that have been given today. They are well known. They are horrific. They have been known for so long that I am surprised that such a debate is necessary. The Government should have taken crisis action quite a long time ago. I also believe that in addition to the horrific figures that we have been given, there are a great number of people for whom the Government do not acknowledge that they have any responsibility—the people one finds sleeping in cardboard boxes when one goes home on the Underground, those sleeping in the backs of cars, and

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those sleeping near the brickworks, where at least it is warm.
I have been interested and involved in housing all my active life and know the problems of the homeless. I know, and the Government must know, that ever since the beginning of this century, and probably for a long time before—I guess it will continue at least until the end of the century—at least a fifth of the population could not afford to pay even fair rents. We experienced that in the trust that I was concerned with for some 35 years. We tried to build houses so that people on lower incomes could pay a rent. It was absolutely impossible and never worked. This has to be faced and we have to realise that subsidised housing must be provided probably for ever.
I am one of those who believe that the responsibility must be on the shoulders of local government, but it must be given the resources to do it. It has quite a lot of money of its own which it is not allowed to use to repair those houses that are standing empty and are dilapidated. If this is not acceptable to the Government, I suggest that special grants should be made available to housing associations so that they may do the work. What is more, more money for the housing associations should be made available for the private sector where houses are in an even worse condition in many cases than in the public sector.
Money must be made available, if it is not already, for the voluntary bodies to run day centres to help the bed-and-breakfast people who have nothing to do and nowhere to go during the daytime. That is a very important provision. There is no doubt whatever that the first and immediate thought must be given to housing for rent.
I have a proposition which, rather like that proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Cocks, I ask your Lordships to consider. We are told that bed-and-breakfast accommodation is costing many young people £65 a week. That is nearly £3,400 per annum. I believe that university-type hostels with self-contained units for two people could be built for approximately £20,000, perhaps less. Even if it costs more, my argument does not fall to the ground. If the cost were £20,000, at 10 per cent. £2,000 per year could be funded from the private sector, from institutions, and so on. That would save £4,800 per unit. This is something that must be looked at and a start made on providing this sort of accommodation. It would not just be accommodation, but real homes for a great many people.
I believe that the money could be raised from institutional sources and that a national housing loan would be well taken by people. It would have no effect on the PSBR. If money is raised by the Government through the banks, that becomes inflationary and affects the PSBR. There is no reason whatsoever why the money should not be raised from the public in the ordinary way, just as vast sums were raised for the privatisation programme.
I say again that we are in a crisis situation. Quite frankly, only crisis steps can put this right and not only help the thousands of people who have no houses but stop the continuing misery.
6.53 p.m.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank my noble friend Lord Dean for giving us this further opportunity to discuss the problem of homelessness. I congratulate him on his opening remarks. I join in the tribute paid by the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, and others, to CHAR and the voluntary organisations Shelter and SHAC which have waged a ceaseless campaign for 15 years or so, trying to improve the conditions of homeless households and single people.
It is a depressing thought that in spite of all the campaigning and the publicity on press and television, the problems of the homeless are worse than they were when we first started. In fact a recent Shelter report commenting on the statistics for the first half of last year, 1987, stated that homelessness is now at the highest level ever recorded. The use of emergency accommodation is now higher than ever before; bed and breakfast accommodation is being used more and more as emergency accommodation. Indeed, the most rapid increase in the use of bed and breakfast has taken place not in inner London where one might expect and where everybody thinks it has taken place, but in the Home Counties; in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and Sussex. The problem is spreading nationwide and is not now just confined to the inner cities about which we know so much.
The increase in the Home Counties in 1986–87 was double the increase in inner London. That is nothing to be proud of, but it is fact. All the statistics that we can mention—we have mentioned many in this debate and others—are only the tip of the iceberg, as has already been said. The statistics only take account of those people who satisfy the criteria of the Homeless Persons Act 1978. Many hundreds of thousands are homeless. The noble Lord, Lord Soper, mentioned them and we could go into much greater detail. Many thousands are not registered, but they are just as homeless and are living in probably more squalid conditions, if possible, than some of the others. We ought to hear that in mind.
There are many facets. For example, the statistics do not take account of the official waiting list. The official waiting list of local authorities now stands at nearly 1½ million people. Many of those are living in conditions that, if the definition of homelessness were more definite, we would include in the homeless category. We know that about 11,000 people are accommodated at present in bed and breakfast, 5,000 in hostels—and hostel accommodation is rapidly dwindling—and another 7,000 in short-life accommodation. Between 1,000 and 3,000 at any one time are living in cardboard boxes, as has already been mentioned. We know that roughly 12,500 people are squatting in London.
The problems are immense. It has been said that we ought not to have another debate, but that the Government should have listened and done something about it. Governments of all descriptions have done very little about the problem since 1970. Children in bed and breakfast accommodation were mentioned. We know that in London at present 15,000 children are so accommodated. Most of those

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children will spend most of their pre-school life in bed and breakfast accommodation in places such as Camden and other inner London areas. As the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, said, this is causing great concern to health authorities and social services departments in those areas where the problem exists.
Some of the causes of homelessness have been mentioned. I do not want to go over those, except to say something about what the Government are allegedly doing about the problem. The Government believe that their Housing Bill, now before Parliament, will create a resurgence in private renting. But once again virtually all commentators have pointed out that the proposed decontrol of rent and removal of security of tenure are unlikely to lead to an increase in the supply of privately rented dwellings. The fact is that two-thirds of new lettings are already outside rent control and have been for a number of years, yet the privately rented sector continues to decline by about 70,000 a year.
Further, landlords have had the option of creating assured tenancies or shorthold tenancies since 1980 on a market rent basis and only 700 assured tenancies have been created since then.
The Association of Municipal Authorities, and many other organisations such as the House Builders' Federation, have pointed out that the economics of private market rent do not add up. Market rents in London would be between £150 and £300 per week and at least £75 outside London. The average family cannot afford such rents. The only people who can afford them are those who can also afford to buy. That is what is happening.
Housing benefit is not available to bridge the gap for those on low incomes. In fact 100 per cent. housing benefit is guaranteed only to those people who are on supplementary benefits. Housing benefit is being withdrawn from people in work at the rate of 85p in the pound. In other words, for every £1 earned over the housing benefit, 85p will be taken from the wage packet. Probably nobody in work could afford market rents, certainly not in London or its environs. Tenants' choice will do very little, as I could explain if there were more time.
In spite of all that has been said, the existing government proposals will do little, if anything; in fact, they will worsen the situation of homelessness. I suggest that we bend our minds towards trying to introduce as many changes in the housing legislation before us as a first constructive attempt to do something about the problems of homelessness.
7 p.m.
Lord Jay: My Lords, I also wish to support strongly but briefly the quest of my noble friend Lord Dean for real action to achieve a result in the present homeless situation. Over the past two years the volume of homelessness in the Home Counties has increased by over 80 per cent. It is now far worse than in 1968 and it is continually worsening.
For many years I represented a London constituency in another place, as did my noble friend Lord Stallard. Judging by the letters that I received,
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and from approaches made to me during constituency surgery, throughout that time I learnt that housing was far the most important hardship suffered by people, particularly in the London area. Out of all the subjects affecting people at that time, four out of five people appealed to me about housing. Whatever one may think about the causes, it is not the fault of the young children living a miserable bed and breakfast existence that they have been reduced to that level.
I believe that the remedy for the present housing and homeless situation in this country is perfectly plain. It is greatly to increase the number of homes to let at reasonable rents. Of course it is sensible to encourage housing associations and other collective landlords of low-rented houses, provided that we also vigorously expand the stock of council houses and flats. It is the reduction in that stock which has produced the present situation. Of course it is sensible for actual council tenants to buy their homes if they wish; but it should have been on the condition that when they were sold they were sold back to the council. The reasonable wish of people to live in their own homes, without reducing the stock of council houses, could then have been met. The present Government's failure to make such conditions strengthens the suspicion of some people that their housing policy is really an electioneering policy and not a housing policy at all.
Certainly home ownership should be encouraged; but the homes that are to be owned should come mainly from the private sector and new private building and not necessarily from the council stock. It is not necessary that houses should be taken from council stock in order that people should own their own houses; we need both sectors. The present Government's attack on council housing, which appears to me to spring almost solely from the Prime Minister's feud with local government in all forms and particularly with council housing, is the main factor which has led to the present situation of homelessness. As that statement is the truth, I think that noble Lords should say so bluntly in this House.
Present housing policies are not saving money, as many noble Lords have pointed out today. The most ludicrous feature of the situation is that the cost of the dreadful bed-and-breakfast homes has risen to a level at which the Prime Minister is not able to satisfy her other heartfelt passion for saving public money. I believe that at a time when we are told almost daily to expect a huge budget surplus with large presents of money going to those with already the largest incomes, the present state of homelessness in this country, particularly in the South-East of England, is not only a national disaster but is becoming a national scandal.
7.4 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, I agree with all noble Lords that this is a grave matter. All noble Lords have taken on board the fact that we in this House are deeply concerned about the present state of homelessness and the housing shortage. It brings tragedy to so many people. But why are people homeless? It is fundamentally a social problem. We

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must realise that one in four married couples divorce, therefore two homes are needed instead of one; that one in five births are to unmarried mothers and they need a home. We know that unemployed people come South to try to find homes, but there is none to rent. We know also that young people are taking it upon themselves to leave their homes for whatever reason—perhaps unhappiness—and to come South, and that they need a home too. In addition, as the noble Lord, Lord Murray, said, people discharged from mental hospitals form a large proportion of those who have no homes not through any fault of their own but because there are no homes available. I have mentioned those few categories (not in any specific order) because they all contribute to the lack of housing and to the homeless.
On 1st April last year there were 102,000 council dwellings standing empty. I should like to support my noble friend Lady Faithfull. I believe that if the local authorities are not using those dwellings, there should be a form of requisitioning. A quarter of those dwellings were empty for more than a year. In London 27,000 properties were vacant, 9,800 of which were vacant for more than a year. That is bad management and bad control; and it is not using the resources which they should have. Those people who have homes should be paying rents to the authorities throughout the country. Throughout the country £212 million is owed in rent. One thinks what could be done if one had that amount of money to spend on those who need houses and homes.
It has become clear to all noble Lords tonight that more must be done. I have been advised by those to whom I have been talking that it is the housing corporations which should be better funded by government, and through them the housing associations mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport. They help people of all kinds and in all situations, both in renting and buying accommodation.
I hope that I am not taking up time in the wrong way; but I should like to pay a deserved tribute to those who, in a voluntary capacity, help not only the single homeless but the homeless throughout the country. There are large numbers of agencies and associations not only in London but throughout the country which help such people completely voluntarily. They occasionally receive a local authority grant, but they are nearly always staffed by volunteers. I should like to pay tribute to those people who give up their time in order to help others less fortunate than themselves.
I should like to use the minute that I have left to tell noble Lords what it is that we do at Crisis at Christmas. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Murray, who is now our chairman. I was chairman for a long time and I think I have now been demoted to president. Crisis at Christmas epitomises all that we want to do for those who are without a home, without roots, without housing and very often without roofs.
This happens at Christmas time for seven days and seven nights. I should like to pay my personal tribute to Members of your Lordships' House who sing on
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the station platforms and who come and wash up for us at the open Christmas. One or two have even walked from Canterbury to London in aid of, and raising money for, Crisis at Christmas. We have an open Christmas for upwards of 500 people for seven days and seven nights at Christmas time, very often in a disused warehouse. The noble Lord, Lord Murray, also visits us.
At this point I should like to mention Mr. Terry Waite, who last year helped us every day by washing up and by being kind to people. I can see that the Opposition Chief Whip is having a good look at his watch, so I should just like to thank everybody for all the help that they have given to Crisis at Christmas.
7.10 p.m.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, as has been said earlier, homelessness is increasing tremendously, quite rapidly. We ought to do something to reduce it and abolish it, but we do not seem to be doing anything. Homelessness has doubled in the past eight years. Worse than that, we are aware of the increasing homelessness and yet it has increased by 14 per cent. over the past two years. Therefore, the condemnation of us for allowing this to happen is considerable.
Moreover, as has been said before, the figures that we have for homelessness relate to people who have been accepted by the local authorities. There are nearly as many who have applied—which means that they consider themselves to be homeless and have not been accepted. Therefore, we have to keep that figure at the back of our minds because the local authorities only cater for the priority areas—those who by law they have to look after; for example, people with children, those who are over pensionable age or who are judged to be vulnerable. That is what the Act tells them they must do. The rest are not looked after at all.
As the noble Lord, Lord Soper, said, one of the biggest problems is the increase in single homelessness. Nobody seems to be taking that on board because, as the noble Lord, Lord Soper, said, it is attendant with many problems; namely, crime, drugs and other aspects which are attendant on these single people who are homeless. Therefore, it probably costs society a lot more than people seem to realise.
Even the people who are accepted as homeless are put in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, as has been mentioned. That is very unsatisfactory, particularly for children. It is also associated with a great deal of ill-health. What is worse, they have difficulty in receiving primary care because they are not registered with doctors. There are plans to pay doctors directly to look after those people rather than have them registered. I believe that will help to deal with the problem. However, it is a serious problem.
In the next few minutes I should like to talk about government proposals. They will probably make the position worse rather than better. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stallard. The Government have set as their goal stopping the decline in private rental housing. I am not saying that is a bad objective, but even if they succeed it will not help the problem of homelessness because success can only be achieved by

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providing houses at market rents; and market rents are not within the capacity of people on a low or average income. Therefore, they also need to be provided with some accommodation other than that.
There are proposals on housing associations; but they are really proposals to privatise them, reduce their subsidy and make them increase their rent. That too will make the situation more difficult. Therefore, the proposals coming before us, far from reducing homelessness, may well increase it. I merely ask noble Lords to remember that mortgage arrears and subsequent repossession is one of the largest causes of homelessness. I ask noble Lords to try to remember that fact.
There are many people who are suffering quite unnecessarily because, as the noble Lord, Lord Seebohm, pointed out, the cost of keeping people in bed and breakfast can provide good homes. In fact, it has been estimated that the cost of keeping two people in bed-and-breakfast accommodation would amortise provisions for building three houses. In any case, as we all know, the local authorities have £8,000 million in capital receipts which they wish to use but which they are not allowed to use.
Again, as I said on a previous occasion, I do not defend the fact that there are houses which are not let when they should be in occupation, but many are not let because they need to be repaired. If there is this restriction on funds and on capital expenditure the councils cannot even repair the houses. Therefore, I really and truly say to the Minister that, whatever may have been his brief today, I want him to take back to his right honourable friend that we can and should tackle homelessness urgently. There have been several proposals made here earlier this evening which could be carried out now; for example, requisitioning empty properties. In any case, there is need for a very large housebuilding programme and the money is available to do it.
7.20 p.m.
Lord Stewart of Fulham: My Lords, some 30 years ago there was in circulation a bitter jest which, I believe, was of American origin and ran as follows: "Do not believe all this you hear about a housing shortage; it is just a rumour put about by people who have nowhere to live". That rumour has become louder and more insistent. It is fearful that the problem of homelessness is twice as great as it was only a few years ago. One of the results of that is the putting of people into bed-and-breakfast accommodation which, by common consent, is wildly expensive, often squalid, damaging to family life, to the upbringing of children and the opportunity for children to benefit from the education which a benevolent government may provide for them.
What is the remedy for this? The suggestion is that there are too many divorces. However, we cannot solve the housing problem by prohibiting people from getting divorced. We have to deal with the problem as it is, regrettable as that may be. The real reason is that there is not enough accommodation available at reasonable rents. The noble Lord, Lord
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Seebohm, made it clear that if one wants to provide housing, for most people it has to be subsidised. Of course people who buy their houses have had subsidised housing via income tax for a long time and this must be generally accepted.
I believe that we ought to have in the Department of the Environment, as a result of special legislation, somebody who has the power to encourage and to help local authorities to get on with building, to allow them to use the money which they have for housing, to co-ordinate the work of local authorities with the work of housing associations and, adding to that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull suggested, if need be, the power of requisition. I remember what a headache requisitioning was to the authorities at the time. It is a measure of how far we have gone back that we are having to consider using that rather desperate remedy. I certainly would not say no if it were necessary in order to deal with the problem.
I believe that is how the Government need to look at the problem. As everyone has said, there is a crisis; there is almost a war situation requiring special legislation and special powers. These remedies can perfectly well be implemented. It is quite true that they will cost money. We are always told that a problem cannot be solved by throwing money at it. It is also painfully true that a problem that needs money cannot be solved without spending money on it. The Government really must understand that.
I believe that if the Government gave themselves the legislative power to bring together the work of the local authorities and the housing associations, introduced requisitioning and provided or made possible the use of the necessary funds, we could solve this problem. It is horrifying but it is not as great a problem as some of the problems with which we have had to deal in the past. It is a problem that we could deal with if we had the mind and the will.
7.21 p.m.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, we all seem to agree that homelessness is the most evil thing for all members of our society. The very thought of my not having a roof over my head strikes fear in my heart and I have the security of knowing that the possibility is remote. To 120,000 households, the possibility is a reality. We have heard very clearly tonight of the problems they face and many noble Lords have offered helpful solutions.
As might be expected, I propose to confine myself to the effect that homelessness has on health. Homeless families who do not fit into the priority needs categories laid down by local authorities or for whom local authorities cannot provide suitable accommodation have the alternatives of accepting bed and breakfast in designated hotels, overnight accommodation in hostels, or living rough. Whatever happens they are going to be severely deprived of primary health care and as a result will need to depend upon already overstretched hospital services.
The Victorians recognised that one of the greatest evils in society was poor housing. They recognised also the effect it had upon health. The social reformers of more than 100 years ago did a great deal

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to eliminate the evil. Today we condemn a small but growing number of members of our society to living in circumstances which not one of us would wish for ourselves. Overcrowded, dilapidated and infested accommodation is not conducive to good health. Those who have to live in these conditions are exposed to stress; and people subjected to stress for long periods are predisposed to suffer physical and mental illness to a much greater extent than other citizens.
A family which has to live, eat, keep clean and sleep in one room must face insurmountable problems. Domestic accidents occur at a much higher rate than is the norm. Children deprived of proper nutrition, because of rudimentary cooking facilities, and sleep, because they cannot settle down at night before their elders, do not grow or achieve like their more advantaged peers. As the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, said, their emotional development can be severely impaired. Whole families are vulnerable to skin, digestive and respiratory infections. They, of all people, need the services of those who provide primary care. They who need it most have the most difficulty in finding it.
The medical profession as a whole—the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, made this clear—recognises the problems of the homeless. But, as in all walks of life, there are general practitioners who do not care and who will not do anything to help. Others care but cannot help. Thankfully, there are some who are willing to make tremendous sacrifices in order to gain the confidence of, and provide an element of continuity and support to, families and individuals.
The DHSS seems to be remarkably reluctant to encourage and finance general practitioners who are willing to provide primary medical services to the homeless. Most of the schemes I have come across have been funded by private charities or by other government agencies. In the medical press last week there was the case of a Leeds GP who, since 1984, has been treating many of the 1,500 homeless in that city in makeshift surgeries. The doctor was originally funded for his own salary and that of a nurse through an urban development grant. Last year there were insufficient funds for the nurse. This year there will he no provision on a regular basis for the homeless in Leeds unless the DHSS is prepared to provide the funds.
The family practitioner committee is anxious that the scheme should continue but, despite numerous letters, has received no assurance that funding is forthcoming. We who have should not stand by and allow this to happen. I have asked in the past why there seems to be so little co-ordination between government departments. The Black Report, published in 1980, made a number of recommendations which seem to have been ignored. The report acknowledged,
"the multicausal nature of health inequalities within which inequalities in the material conditions of living loom large".
It added:
"Our recommendations reflect the fact that the reduction in health inequalities depends upon contributions from within many policy areas, and necessarily involves a number of Government departments".
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I ask the noble Lord the Minister whether his department attempts to deal with this dreadful problem in isolation? Or do he and his honourable and right honourable friends in another place from the Departments of Health and Social Security, Employment, Trade and Industry, Education and the Environment, meet and look at the cause and effect of their policies one upon the other? I feel sure that this would not be a crisis if they had done so.
7.26 p.m.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, in February 1984 I instigated a debate in the House calling attention to the steady increase in the number of homeless people in this country. I have read the debate again and, being the nineteenth person to speak this evening, I have been able to compare what was said then, nearly four years ago, with what has been said this evening. There is a tragic similarity in all the concern expressed then and now; indeed one finds complete agreement between all the speakers in that debate and those who have spoken today.
I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. Replying to the debate four years ago, the Minister concluded his summing-up by saying:
"I hope I have said enough to make clear the Government's approach to solving the problem of homelessness. … I will do all I can to case this shameful problem which is one of great concern to all of us. … Our job as Government is to ensure that [the local authorities] have the best practical framework within which to operate, and this we will continue to do".—[Official Report, 8/2/84; col. 1186.]
That concern, as we know, has expressed itself in a rise of the registered homeless from 73,600 in 1984 to the 1987 level which has been given today and which is thought to be up to 120,000.
It is therefore clear that the government concern did not translate itself into the correct action to get rid of what the noble Lord, Lord Ross, in his very good maiden speech, said was a social blot and that the Government's housing policies are still geared towards giving a wider choice to the well-off and so removing any choice from the less well-off. As numerous speakers have said, there is no secret why there is an increase in the number of homeless people. It is because there is not enough low-rent housing made available to the number of people who want it.
It is for that reason that mothers and children are suffering, described by the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, and by the noble Countess, Lady Mar, in bed and breakfast accommodation—the children suffering from a physical point of view and the mothers so often from a mental point of view. The mothers are not even availing themselves of services such as toy libraries for children.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark said it was impossible to understand how, with a prosperous nation such as ours—the Government remind us continually of the success of their economic policy—people who have a right to expect a home are not getting one and how this can continue with the Government expressing the concern I have described.
For one minute I should like to tell your Lordship about the efforts of the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless of which I was a council member.

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Here another worry arises. We have arrived at the end of a year when the whole concern was to focus attention on the needs of the homeless, to raise the awareness of the public, and to fund innovative schemes to help the homeless. From the point of view of awakening public concern the year has been successful. People no longer think of the homeless as a few drunks at Christmas time. They know that it is a national shame. Everybody seems to be aware of this apart from government members who are responsible for doing something about it.
Important schemes such as a day centre for the young homeless in the West End have also been funded. There is no point in hoping that these young people will stop coming into London. They will continue to do so. What we must do is to try to save them from suffering from the related dangers of London. This is a centre which has been funded by the international year which gives advice, counselling, cheap food, a telephone and advice as to how to move on to permanent accommodation. In this way these young people will be saved from the further dangers that they experience when coming to London. In the absence of the GLC, many statutory bodies disclaim responsibility for a day centre of this kind; and the danger in the future is that it will fall between all the different stools.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, as president of the Council for the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless, has said:
"Unless something is done in the next few years, by the year 2000 we could be facing a new generation of slums with all the human misery and degradation that implies.".
I very much hope that the Minister replying today will tell us something which will alleviate the great anxiety that he, and all of us, have.
7.32 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, as time is constrained, I want to put two direct points to the Minister. First of all, in view of the numerous comments made—by I think almost every noble Lord who has spoken—about the record figures that have now been reached (I will not say achieved) for homelessness, the numbers in temporary accommodation, and the numbers in bed and breakfast, what are the Government going to do? They have made no reference at all to this in their White Paper on housing problems. Hardly a noble Lord who has spoken believes that the Government's Housing Bill will do anything to rectify the problem.
Secondly, in view of the need for investment in housing projects, why will not the Government listen—and we have heard this this afternoon—to the repeated requests for the local authorities to be able to use at least some of the £8 billion which they have in capital receipts? It seems to be nonsense to the ordinary person.
I am going to discard everything else I had planned to say because I just cannot reply to the various points. I shall simply read part of a statement that I received today from the Bayswater Families' Campaign Group, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, referred. It is from families in Bayswater
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bed-and-breakfast hotels. It deals with all the problems that we want the Minister to deal with and to answer. After explaining who they are, and why they are in this situation, they say:
"Our problem is that we can't find anywhere to live that we can afford. House prices are too high; there aren't enough council fiats; landlords won't accept children even if we could afford the rent …
"All parents worry about their children but imagine how much worse it is living, eating and sleeping all in one small room with the constant worry of illness, accident and fire. Our hotels arc overcrowded, unsafe and overpriced. Isn't it silly that the same money could be invested in permanent homes which everyday families could afford? If we had a secure home we could start to live our lives."
They conclude:
"We though that in International Year of Shelter for the Homeless someone would listen and something would he done. All we need is a home. Is this too much to ask?"
This matter should not be a political issue. But unfortunately it has to be because unless there is political action nothing is going to be done. Really the only people who can institute political action are the Government. I hope that when the Housing Bill comes before us noble Lords will keep this debate in mind, and keep in mind the problems of the homeless even though they concern a minority. The terrible fact is that they are a minority problem, and therefore the great mass of the people do not realise that the problem exists. When that Bill comes before us, let us see how we can relate the problems that noble Lords have mentioned today to amending that Bill so that it does something concrete for the homeless in our society.
7.35 p.m.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity which the noble Lord, Lord Dean, has given us to discuss this issue. It is some time since we last debated homelessness in this House, and things have moved on since then—both in the increase in the numbers of homeless people and in the Government's measures for improving the housing situation.
Before I say anything else, I feel that it is a great pleasure to be able to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, on a truly excellent maiden speech, particularly as we are all well aware of his involvement with the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977. I feel that it is an honour to be in the same Chamber with a man so intimately acquainted with the subject that we are discussing today.
I am sure that all of us share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Dean, about homelessness. It is not a new phenomenon—34,000 households were accepted as homeless by local authorities in 1976 and 53,000 in 1978, the first year of the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act which gave authorities the specific duties they now have towards the homeless. The legislation is now consolidated in Part III of the Housing Act 1985 and, as the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, pointed out, we have passed the 100,000 mark; that is to say that 100,000 households have benefited from the Act by being found accommodation and are therefore no longer homeless.
Local authorities' main duty under the Act is to secure accommodation—not necessarily in council property—for unintentionally homeless households

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in the priority need categories set out in the Act (families with dependent children, pregnant women, the elderly, the disabled, other vulnerable people, and those made homeless by fire or other emergency). Comparable duties relate to those threatened with homelessness. Those outside the priority need categories (broadly, healthy single people of working age and childless couples) receive advice and assistance only. Authorities have a duty to accommodate temporarily in some cases, while intentionally homeless people are trying to find a place for themselves and while they are inquiring into people's circumstances. In carrying out their statutory duty, the homeless authorities are required to have regard to the department's Code of Guidance and in selecting their tenants to give a reasonable preference to homeless people.
Even so, authorities are left with a wide range of discretion. They have to decide whether someone is homeless, falls into a priority need category and is unintentionally homeless, as well as considering the local connection angle. Authorities can vary in the consideration they give to housing conditions and mental stress in assessing homelessness. They can vary in whom they count as vulnerable. They can vary in how they view intentionality.
Some degree of variation is of course to be expected, reflecting local attitudes and local circumstances. But we do wonder whether some authorities go too far, becoming a "soft touch" in areas of housing pressure and thus increasing their own problems; also, incidentally increasing their share of housing resources since the number of homeless acceptances is one factor in our allocations. In areas of housing pressure this also has repercussions on those on the waiting list—increasing their waiting time and in turn encouraging them to seek a council tenancy through the homelessness route. Some unscrambling of this vicious circle would be of benefit to all concerned, not just to reverse the trend of homelessness figures but to give more people more confidence in their future prospects.
The other important area for authorities' decision is how to accommodate homeless households. As your Lordships know, the use of bed and breakfast has increased rapidly in recent years. The figure for England at the end of September was 11,240 households, 8,510 of them in London; both figures are more than three times what they were three years ago.
That is rightly an issue of major public concern. We advise authorities in our code of guidance to use bed and breakfast only as a very last resort. It is certainly unsuitable for families for any length of time. It is also very expensive, as many noble Lords have pointed out; and authorities' expenditure on bed and breakfast facilities falls on the general rate fund with no assistance from subsidy. Why then do some authorities, like Camden, Lambeth and Tower Hamlets, use bed and breakfast accommodation so extensively, when others like Greenwich in apparently similar circumstances manage to avoid it? We hope that our current research will shed some light on that point. But certainly efficiency and the ability of authorities to organise themselves properly
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and to consider alternatives in a sufficiently imaginative way plays a very big part.
As I have said, it is for authorities to decide how to accommodate homeless households and there are plenty of alternatives to bed and breakfast as a short-term measure. Those suggested in our code of guidance include hostels, taking short-term leases of empty private sector property, and short-term use of empty council dwellings awaiting major repairs.
Where they nevertheless use bed and breakfast, it is for authorities also to see that conditions are satisfactory, as the noble Countess, Lady Mar, pointed out. They have wide powers to do so. They can require the provision of standard amenities, improvements in the building's physical condition and management, and a reduction in overcrowding. Use of these powers has, however, been patchy, and we are therefore considering what advice on best practice we could usefully give to authorities.
Some of the problems of people in bed and breakfast arise from being placed in establishments outside their local authority area of origin, as the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, pointed out. We would normally expect an authority so far as possible to accommodate its homeless within its own boundaries in order to avoid undue disruption of education, employment and other ties. But we accept that this may not always be possible. However, where homeless families have to be placed in another authority's area, it is important that the education, health and social services authorities should be notified. Homeless families have the same right to these services as anyone else and failure to notify can jeopardise this.
The Government's concern at the increased use of bed and breakfast is reflected in the fact that we have made additional resources available specifically to reduce recourse to it. Through Estate Action we have since August 1986 made some £5½ million available to bring 1,200 empty council dwellings on estates back into use; we have launched our mixed funding (public and private sector) initiative to provide through housing associations a better standard of interim accommodation for homeless families (a total of £30 million in all this year including £15 million grant provision); and the ink is barely yet dry on the £25 million extra we have allocated to authorities—more than half of this in London—targeted on reducing bed and breakfast through bringing other empty council dwellings back into use, acquiring empty properties as hostels for the homeless, and assisting housing association projects with the same object. The authorities' benefiting from the £25 million estimate that this will provide nearly 2,800 extra units of accommodation. This is practical evidence of our concern.
More generally, we have increased the provision for capital spending by local authorities on housing in 1988–89. Homelessness continues to be a factor in allocations and authorities are asked to give priority to the homeless and others in special need. Provision for the Housing Corporation has also been increased. The detailed breakdown of the corporation's programme has yet to be agreed, but provision for the mixed funding programme for homeless families will

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continue as will our support for the corporation's programme of hostels and shared housing for single homeless people among others. Though we have increased the gross public sector capital provision for the past three years, the Government's initiative in bringing in private sector investment to make every pound of public expenditure go further is, as I see it, one of the most important developments in the housing field.
But dealing with homelessness is not just a matter of money. A large part of the problem arises from social factors, as my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark and my noble friend Lady Macleod all pointed out, as did other noble Lords. Our divorce rate is one of the highest in Europe with 150,000 divorces in 1986. By 1981 only 37 per cent. of single parents were living with their parents or relatives compared with 56 per cent. in 1973; and young people are generally tending to leave home earlier often with unrealistic expectations about the housing options open to them.
One can reasonably ask how far those trends towards smaller households are going to go and how far society at large can be expected to provide accordingly. We cannot ignore those wider questions.
In any strategy for dealing with homelessness, prevention is an important element. The scope for influencing marital breakdown may be relatively limited but we can and do grant-aid marriage guidance, and see that the housing consequences of any breakdown are minimised. We can ensure that young people have proper information about housing prospects before they decide to leave home; as we have done through our funding of the IYSH Trust's leaflet Moving Out. We can seek to improve arrangements for debt counselling to reduce evictions for mortgage arrears, as we have done, for example. through grant-aiding the housing debt line of the Birmingham Settlement Money Advice Centre. That problem was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, and by my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox. Those are all useful initiatives that we have taken, and I am sure that there is scope for some local authorities at least to devote more attention to counselling in order to prevent homelessness.
The other factor in dealing with homelessness is the supply of accommodation. It is not true to say that overall there is a severe housing shortage. There is in fact an aggregate housing surplus. But we recognise that there are problems in some areas, particularly London and the South-East, as the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, pointed out. In such areas we want to see the best possible use made of existing accommodation. So far as local authorities are concerned we are constantly urging them to bring empty dwellings back into use, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, said. There are some 112,000 local authority properties empty at the present time, a quarter of which (28,000) have been empty for more than a year.
The fact of the matter is that the number of empty properties far exceeds the number of households in bed and breakfast. The main answer to the
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homelessness problem and the use of bed and breakfast by some authorities must surely be that local authorities—particularly—in problem areas-should do more to get empty properties renovated and back into use.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord for one moment. I find it difficult to follow this line of argument when the local authorities in question have great difficulty in bringing those properties back into use because they need money to repair them in many cases. Will he deal with that point?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, if the right reverend Prelate will wait just a moment or two, I am about to come on to that very point.
Local authorities should be spending more of their receipts from selling council houses on bringing empty properties back into use. It is also a scandal that local authority rent arrears are now running at approximately £200 million, as my noble friend Lady Macleod pointed out. This is lost money that could be used to improve their housing and is another example of poor management. Often councils that plead poverty would have far more resources to play with if they had been better managers of their housing stock.
The noble Lords, Lord Pitt and Lord Underhill, brought up the matter of accumulated receipts. Local authorities can spend, as I am sure both noble Lords are aware, some 20 per cent. of their receipts on those projects which are prescribed; but this restriction does not exist at all when it comes to the matter of capitalised repairs expenditure. So there is additional scope within the current system for authorities to make inroads into any backlog of repairs and thus provide more accommodation.
We do not generally favour compulsion but we cannot entirely rule out legislation. The time may be coming when further measures are necessary and we are faced with using sticks instead of carrots. That is why there are elements of the proposed Empty Property Bill, supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, which warrant examination. The suggested approach of requiring local authorities to bring their own properties back into use may indeed be what is needed. Obviously, however, any compulsion forcing private owners to make their empty property available for the homeless would not be acceptable, though it might be to the noble Lord, Lord Soper. Rather we prefer the approach that an increasing number of authorities have adopted taking short term leases of private sector properties that would otherwise have remained vacant.
The noble Lord, Lord Murray, and the noble Lord, Lord Blease, brought to your Lordships' attention the closure of mental hospitals. We in the DHSS have encouraged housing and health and social services authorities to work together to provide the co-ordinated packages of care tailored to individual needs. We have urged housing authorities to concentrate their own resources on people with

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special needs and to make maximum use of the voluntary and private agencies. Those include the Housing Association movement through which we target grant towards housing for mentally ill and handicapped people, elderly people and those with physical disabilities. The noble Lords, Lord Soper, Lord Seebohm, Lord Stallard and the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, brought to our attention the plight of the single and the young homeless. We have taken various measures to help single homeless people. Specific allocations have been made to the housing corporation for hostels and other shared accommodation. Some 14,700 places have been approved since April 1981. The facilitating of sub-letting and taking of lodgers by council tenants and the encouragement of owner occupiers and landlords in the private sector to do so by recent booklets should help. We have increased grant aid to voluntary bodies for advising and assisting the homeless to over £600,000 in 1977–88, which includes grants both to CHAR and the IYSH.
By informing young people of housing options before they decide to leave home, single and young people will also stand to benefit directly or indirectly from our proposals in the Housing Bill, like others. The noble Lord, Lord Blease, brought to your Lordships' House the problems of Northern Ireland and I shall draw his remarks to the attention of my colleagues at the Northern Ireland Office. The noble Lord, Lord Cocks, suggested radical proposals involving higher education. I have done a great deal of briefing over the past few days, but I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Cocks, that this radical proposal was not one that I had spotted. However, I shall bring it to the attention of the appropriate authorities.
My Lords, the Government pride themselves on their achievements in increasing owner occupation. This has increased by over 2½ million since 1979 and now accounts for 66 per cent. of all dwellings. We are now aiming at a similar record of achievement in increasing the availability of rented accommodation, which I believe the noble Lord, Lord Jay, also wishes to see.
Your Lordships will be aware of our White Paper and of the Housing Bill which will be coming before this House in due course. Although our White Paper does not mention homelessness by name, it is quite wrong to suggest that our current Housing Bill is not concerned with homelessness. All its proposals will benefit the homeless and those in poor quality housing. The Bill will revitalise the private rented sector so as to provide more housing at all income levels, will establish Housing Action Trusts to deal with the worst local authority housing, and will give tenants a wider choice of landlord.
Noble Lords opposite keep urging the need for more resources for local authorities. As I have said, we have already made additional resources available in various ways to help with the problem of bed and breakfast, and the overall provision is to be increased again next year. In the areas of housing pressure authorities need to concentrate their resources on the homeless and others in special need and particularly on renovating their existing empty properties—with
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the aid of their capital receipts—in order to bring them back into use. We want to get away from the situation in which local authorities carry the whole burden of providing homes for people who cannot afford or do not want to buy. We need instead to encourage the greater involvement of other agencies, for example the Nationwide-Anglia Building Society which, through its Quality Street initiative, is making £600 million available over the next five years to provide a wide range of private rented accommodation. Authorities will have an important contribution to make in terms of housing expertise (they are in the best position to know what the local housing needs are) but the strategy will involve tenants, private landlords, housing associations and developers to help meet those needs. The private rented sector has declined by ½ million dwellings in the past 10 years, as the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, pointed out. This represents 10 times the increase in homeless acceptances over this period. Revitalising that sector, together with our other proposals, should make a great contribution to reversing the trend in homelessness that is the subject of the noble Lord's Motion.
7.54 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, it remains for me to express my appreciation to the Minister for his very courteous reply to the debate. However, I have to say that if the Minister's reply is the Government's answer to the size of the homeless problem we are facing in this country, it is a complete and utter nonsense. It will cause nothing but despair among the people who have to deal with it. I can give the Minister an undertaking that we shall come back on this matter to make him aware of the deteriorating position that will continue if that is all that the Government are to do.
I should like to thank the noble Lords and the noble Baronesses who have taken part in this debate with a special mention for Lord Ross of Newport. I of course knew him in the other place when we used to debate this type of issue. His speech was of the standard that we would expect and I look forward to hearing him in the near future. Once again I should like to thank all the Members of your Lordships' House who have taken part. It has been a very important debate but I am saddened by the lack of content in the Minister's reply dealing with the subject. My Lords, on that basis I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Salmon Conservation
7.56 p.m.
Lord Moran Lord Moran rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made in implementing the provisions of the Salmon Act 1986, whether they are satisfied that the various threats to salmon stocks in the United Kingdom are being contained and whether they consider that the United Kingdom is playing its proper part in international efforts to conserve Atlantic salmon.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I am sorry that Lord Trenchard, who took a notable part in our debates on the Salmon Bill, is no longer with us. We greatly miss him. But I am grateful to the noble Lady and the noble Lords who are taking part in this debate, and I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson of Bowden, is to reply. Since his arrival at the Scottish Office it is clear that we have a Minister who is prepared to do something for salmon conservation. Many of us welcomed his decision to extend by 18 hours the weekly close time for salmon nets in Scotland. That was a necessary decision, for the net owners were taking too much of the runs, especially the summer grilse.
A recent Canadian study concluded that recreational fisheries are the key to the economic future of their Atlantic salmon resource. It showed that anglers account for 93 per cent. of economic activity but take only 29 per cent. of the catch, and that estimated angler expenditures create 2094 person/years of employment compared with 163 by the commercial fisheries. The latest Scottish figures—those for 1986—show that the rods took only 21 per cent. of the total catch compared with 28 per cent. in 1985. Now that salmon farming has increased so dramatically— it already produces six times the world catch of wild salmon and 89 per cent. of the salmon we eat in this country—the taking of nearly 80 per cent. of our wild fish by nets no longer makes sense. The recreational fisheries are more important both in terms of economics and jobs.
As I told a salmon symposium in the United States last October, we in this country catch between a fifth and a quarter of all the Atlantic salmon taken each year in home waters. We have our problems but we also have our successes—the recovery of fisheries in rivers that have been cleaned up; the admirable work of the Anglers' Co-operative Association; greater public awareness of the need to conserve wild salmon; the buy-up of Scottish netting stations by the Atlantic Salmon Conservation Trust; and the Government's rather more enlightened attitude. The declaration by Mr. Gummer in June 1986 that he did "not see salmon as a food resource in the wild," marked a welcome sea change in the attitude of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. And we have the Salmon Act 1986.
That Act, on which we spent some 29 hours in 1986, received the Royal Assent on 6th November that year, 14 months and two weeks ago. I hope that the Minister will tell us in detail what progress has been made since then throughout Great Britain. I have given him notice of the specific questions I am asking.
First then, illegal fishing, recognised at the outset by the Government as a major problem. It is still a scourge—at sea, along the coasts, in the estuaries and in the rivers. If anything, it is getting worse. Some of it is beyond our control—for example, the illegal fishing off the Irish coast reported in the Dublin press, which is taking enormous numbers of salmon seeking to return to Scotland and Wales. But there is, unhappily, a vast amount in our own waters: 1,569
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illegal nets were taken out of the Tweed last year. In Wales, the problem is particularly serious on the Wye, the lower Dee and the sea approaches to the Usk. It is notorious and blatant on the Forth—vividly described by Mr. James Mackie in the January number of Trout and Salmon. It is often highly organised and accompanied by violence. Three Welsh Water bailiffs were shot at last year. One gang on the Conway was arrested with over a quarter of a ton of salmon, 13 per cent. of the annual declared rod catch for that river.
The water authorities and a number of us suggested a tagging scheme which I have seen working successfully in Canada. I still think it should be tried here, but the Government thought otherwise and would not even agree to a pilot scheme in Wales. They put their faith in dealer licensing, in the new possession and handling clauses and in increased penalties.
Dealer licensing has been repeatedly recommended for over 50 years. It was in the Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Bill 1938, aborted by the war; was proposed by the Maconochie Committee in 1950, by the Scottish Departmental Committee in 1965 and in England by the Bledisloe Committee in 1961–27 years ago. It has been a long, long road to the statute book but it finally got there in 1986.
When the Act was passed, I assumed that there would be early discussions with all those concerned and that schemes would be introduced around the middle of last year. For more than 12 months nothing seemed to be happening and I wondered why it was all taking so long. But at long last we had two consultation papers issued yesterday, which was timely but welcome. I only saw them at half-past three today, but on a first quick reading they look good to me. Those who have had copies are given two months to comment. Can the Minister tell us when the schemes will actually come into force? And is he confident that they will be really effective?
How are the possession and handling clauses working out? How many convictions have there been? The only one I know of is that which resulted in the owner of the Broughton Crags Hotel at Cockermouth being fined £1,000 and his chef £200. How many prosecutions are pending; and how far have the increased penalties been applied?
The Government's "Don't drink and drive" campaign over the Christmas holiday was, I think effective because people were frightened of having their driving licences withdrawn for 12 months. Can the Government arrange that hotels which are convicted of knowingly receiving illegally caught salmon lose their liquor licences? The fear of doing so might be a powerful deterrent.
Can the Government also encourage the courts to deal more firmly with the poaching gangs, taking account of today's values for wild salmon? The noble Lord, Lord Mason, whom we are glad to have with us tonight, spoke in another place in March 1986 of "disgraceful leniency by magistrates". The courts must recognise that they are often dealing with organised, well-equipped criminals, not just the old romanticised country poacher. The then Lord

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Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, spoke to magistrates last year about unrealistic penalties and small fines being no real penalty. He said:
"The taking of salmon and trout by illegal methods is another lucrative and profit-related crime. It should be punished accordingly".
Some magistrates need reminding of that.
Perhaps I may quote a case history given to me by Welsh Water involving four persons, whom I will call A, B, C and D: 12th July 1986—A, B and C caught by bailiffs and police near the river with nets and dinghy; 2nd September 1986—A and D caught by bailiffs with salmon, nets and dinghy; 12th February 1987—case of A and D heard at Leominster Magistrate's Court; both fined £325 to be paid at the rate of £3 and £4 a week; 16th April 1987—B and C caught by bailiffs with nets and dinghy; 1st May 1987—first case of A, B and C heard at Leominster Magistrates' Court; all three bound over for two years in the sum of £1,000; appeal lodged; 3rd June 1987—B and C caught by police with nets and dinghy; case pending; 15th August 1987—B and A caught by police with salmon, net and dinghy; case pending; 17th August 1987—appeal from A, B and C at Hereford Crown Court; Sums against A and C reduced to £750 and £350 respectively.
This shows that for the regular poacher court appearances and modest fines are no deterrent. The bailiffs and the police put in long hours of hard work in apprehending illegal fishermen. The courts ought surely to impose penalties that deter, and confiscate boats, nets, vans, gaffs and other equipment. At present, all too often it has to be returned to the malefactors.
Does the Minister think that the police, who are generally very helpful, could do more to help tackle illegal fishing in country areas, especially by gangs who may resort to violence and intimidation? And would the Government be prepared to consider the prohibition of the sale of rod-caught salmon, as in Canada and the United States?
Clause 37 of the Act was designed to prevent illegal fishing for salmon and sea trout in estuaries under the guise of fishing for sea fish. Has it stopped it? If not, what is happening and why is it taking so long? Can the Minister assure us that there will be no deals between sea fishery committees and water authorities to return fixed nets to places where they may intercept salmon and sea trout?
What progress has there been on Section 8 of the Act providing for baits and lures regulations, particularly on the Tweed, and on Section 3(2), especially on smolt screens for fish farms and the definition of netting methods? Once again, why is it all taking so long?
During our debates on the Bill, many noble Lords called for the phasing out of drift netting off the North-East coast. The Government responded by announcing a review to cover all East coast netting from Spurn Head to Rattray Head. May I ask the Minister for an assurance that this review is being vigorously pursued, and express the hope that it will produce substantial changes, for we really ought to come into line with the majority of other NASCO
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countries—and indeed Scotland—that have banned or are banning drift netting for salmon, and greatly restrict and eventually phase out the frequently excessive coastal and estuarial netting, which may be less difficult now as much of it appears to have become uneconomic. May I ask, too, how effective the limited restrictions on the North-East drift net fishery introduced last year have been? How many salmon did this fishery take last year and how many were caught there in fixed nets?
I had assumed in my innocence that, as drift netting was curtailed more salmon and sea trout would be allowed to escape to run up the rivers. Not so, for the Northumbrian Water Authority, supported it seems by the MAFF, are apparently licensing an increased number of fixed T-nets and giving netsmen the choice of using a drift net or a T-net. Some boast on television that they use a drift net by day and a T-net by night. Not only that, but the authority wants to allow five T-nets inside a conservation box at the mouth of the river Wear and are rumoured to plan to do so next at the mouths of the Tyne and Tees.
T-nets along the coast are interceptory nets catching mixed stocks of salmon and as such are, I think, condemned by all reputable scientific opinion from North America to the Soviet Union. To establish new interceptory fixed nets off northeastern England will surely invite general condemnation in NASCO. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, told the recent inquiry:
"To resort in the latter part of the 1980s to commercial exploitation of wild salmon and sea trout by using fixed engines in coastal waters is completely unsound and could not be justified by any proper principle of conservation and management."
T-nets in the mouths of rivers are not subject to the same objection of principle, but as we have managed at enormous expense to clean up the Wear, Tees and Tyne and to get some salmon running up them again, it seems folly to endanger this fragile recovery of the fisheries by allowing fixed nets in the mouths of these rivers. May I ask how all this accords with the Government's migratory fish conservation policy, and on what grounds the Government made the order allowing these T-nets to be used instead of drift nets?
I welcomed the setting up of the advisory committee under Professor Dunnet. But why was it thought necessary to go to such extraordinary lengths to shroud its proceedings in secrecy? That was a pity, as it undermined public confidence in the committee, and surely unnecessary, as there is nothing inherently secret in salmon conservation. No doubt it makes sense to keep meetings confidential so that everyone can speak freely, but could not a press release be made after each meeting? And could not the chairman sometimes tell the media how things are going? I should like to ask the Minister now how the committee is getting on after a year's deliberations. Has it reported on any of the matters referred to it? If so, what has it recommended? If not, when may we expect some results?
My Question also asked about the containment of the many threats to salmon. Barrages are in fashion and around 30 are being talked about. What is the

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Government's general attitude to the building of barrages blocking the mouths of rivers containing runs of migratory fish, and, in particular, what do they think about the threat posed by the projected Severn barrage to the important salmon runs in the Severn, Wye and Usk? Do they accept that no expense should be spared in research and in the design and operation of any barrage to minimise losses of migratory fish, and will they make financial provision to make good any losses so that the fisheries do not suffer damage?
If we could manage to build and operate a barrage without damaging the runs of migratory fish, that would be a triumph for British engineering and conservation and would help us to export our barrage technology. For other countries are concerned about salmon conservation. The United States Congress, with the support of every New England congressman, recently vetoed a proposal for a hydro-electric dam on the Merrymack because it might have affected a salmon run which is at present only 100 or 200 fish. Those running up the Bristol Channel are perhaps 150 to 200 times that number.
Acidification is a new but worrying threat. I welcome the steps that the Government have taken to reduce SO2 emissions and their substantial contribution to research. What do the Government think can be done to prevent the further loss of spawning streams in the uplands? Should not the planting of conifers on poor soils in the uplands be severely restricted?
There is an increasing conflict of interest between angling and canoeing, despite the judgment in 1972 of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, in Rawson v. Peters that canoeing disturbs the fish and interferes with the right of fishing. Will the Government give the National Rivers Authority powers to control all forms of recreation on the rivers, so as to reconcile conflicting interests in a sensible way? In this context I was glad to see that the Government's latest paper on the NRA issued last month says that its responsibilities will:
"involve controls over all who use rivers and other natural waters".
May I also ask the Government what they think should be done about the danger of genetic damage to wild salmon stocks from farmed salmon escapes? The Minister will be relieved that I am not asking about the decline in river quality, as a number of us raised this issue in last week's debate on environmental pollution.
Finally, there are the international aspects of salmon conservation. Can the Government coordinate policy more closely with bodies like the Atlantic Salmon Trust, which has widespread international contacts? Canada, the United States and France all have a much closer relationship between officials and non-officials interested in salmon. Can we not have that too?
Then there is the marked falling-off of our spring runs of multi-sea-winter salmon in the past 20 years. Do the Government think that this is mainly, or partly, due to the interceptory fisheries operated by Greenland and the Faroes, two countries with tiny
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populations—some 50,000 each—taking between them over a quarter of a million large salmon every year, some 22 per cent. of the total world catch in home waters. If so, what can be done about it? NASCO has achieved some limitation of these fisheries through quotas, but that does not seem nearly enough. There is little sign that spring runs are recovering. And can the Government encourage everyone to give salmon statistics in numbers and not tonnes?
I think we should tackle all these problems more vigorously, seek to restore the good salmon runs of the recent past and reverse the decline of the past 20 years. We should work towards a real national policy for salmon conservation. The Salmon Act was a small but useful first step in that direction. That is why I am concerned about the slow progress in fully implementing the Act and why I have put down my Question.
8.13 p.m.
Lord Home of the Hirsel: My Lords, I only wish to amplify one of the points so admirably covered by my noble friend Lord Moran. Your Lordships will remember that those who were interested in measures to conserve the stocks of Atlantic salmon had to wait for many years to persuade governments to legislate. The Act, when it came, was modest but useful, provided that its provisions were actively applied. It is to that point that I should like to address my remarks.
Most of us can welcome the Secretary of State's action in extending the close time for netting. However, other action, especially in the context of penalties for illegal fishing, seems to have been desperately slow. I hope that the Minister will be able to explain why the pace of measures has not been quickened. Perhaps my noble friend will assure us that any obstacles to action have now been removed. I shall be especially interested if he can answer the questions asked by my noble friend Lord Moran about the diminution of the spring run although I doubt whether he knows any more than the rest of us do. However, I should like to hear his conclusions on the possibility of diminishing the use of the drift nets.
I hope that my noble friend can reassure all of us that faster progress can be made towards what my noble friend Lord Moran has properly described as a national policy on conservation for the salmon industry.
8.15 p.m.
Lord Mason of Barnsley: My Lords, on the international aspect of the Question before the House, your Lordships will remember that the North Atlantic Salmon Organisation was established in Edinburgh about three years ago. I thought that NASCO would now have taken sufficient steps to establish a reputation that it is keenly bent on the conservation of salmon stocks and would have been making strong representations to the Government to take more positive action against the many poaching methods that are killing the salmon and causing a

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noticeable decline in salmon gaining access to their own spawning rivers.
It was upsetting to read that just over a year ago at a major international conference held in France the United Kingdom was chastised over the lack of longterm planning for the preservation of salmon stocks. It was cited at the conference that in America the Atlantic salmon were taken only by rod and line. In Canada, drift netting was banned and inshore netting was banned in some areas. The Soviet Union, also a member of NASCO, does not permit fishing for salmon in the ocean and permits only rod and line taking in the rivers.
The United Kingdom was castigated for taking no major steps forward on salmon conservation. I should like to know what steps NASCO has taken to impress upon Her Majesty's Government the urgency of salmon conservation. Of course the salmon is not a protected species and cannot be, but if greater steps are not taken to lessen or stop the legal and illegal netting of the Atlantic salmon moving up the North-East coast, and the netters operating in the estuaries, salmon stocks will be constantly jeopardised. What is more, the greatest tourist and sports attraction to Scotland will be reduced. Therefore I ask what the Government—as distinct from the private bodies which are becoming involved in salmon conservation and intervening to preserve stocks—are doing about it. The real advances being made are by trusts, charities and private organisations which are making Her Majesty's Government and NASCO look limp and lifeless by comparison.
There is no doubt that the depletion of salmon returning to Scottish rivers is affected by the netting off the North-East, Yorkshire and the Northumbrian coastline. Up to 80,000 salmon per year are taken by nets and if the Government were taking conservation seriously that should cease. Of course I am aware of the livelihood of the legal netters, but I suggest these should be phased out with proper compensation for those who fish and those who are involved with the shore-based operations. That has been successfully achieved in other industries and with a little understanding from the Government it could be accomplished without any hardship.
I am also much against the continuing use of the nylon mono-filament gill net. It is a deadly and cruel piece of equipment. Those nets cause considerable damage to escaping fish which drown as a result of gill injuries, or become diseased and may pollute the rivers. The broken nylon mono-filament gill nets become ghost nets, hanging in the seas and river estuaries, killing fish slowly as they hang by the gills. Those nets do not rot like hemp; they go on killing and injuring fish, seals and seabirds. Gannets and other diving seabirds have no chance of seeing them because they are invisible under water. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the world wildlife organisation are opposed to these nets, as are the Salmon and Trout Association and the Atlantic Salmon Trust. They all agree that they should be banned. So I ask the Government: why not ban the nets? Are these views under serious consideration?
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Like the noble Lord, Lord Moran, since the Salmon Act was passed I have waited in vain for the Government to act against the salmon poachers. I argued for the salmon tagging scheme, the anti-poaching system which was introduced some years ago in New Brunswick in Canada, quite successfully. But the Government, afraid of the scheme's complexity, considered the dealer licensing scheme instead. Well, where is it? Why has this one serious proposal in the Salmon Act which was designed to deter the poacher not yet been introduced? You see, my Lords, as a rod and line angler, a fly fisher, I want to go to Scotland to fish for salmon. I am not encouraged to do so when poaching is rife and the Government are lifeless in their attitude to it.
No doubt many fly fishers feel as I do: curbing the activities of the mass poacher and the illegal netter would certainly help the sport, increase the catch and give some encouragement to fishermen to sally forth into the far north. But it is an expensive trip: petrol, fuel or train fares, hotels, tackle, gillies. Then it is always possible that you cannot fish. There may be a deluge of rain, fast, high, dirty water or even a drought or no fish on the move. For many reasons, inclement weather can affect the sport and the catch and we can do nothing about that. It is beyond our control. But if poaching were vigorously tackled, and poachers heavily fined, bailiffs given more police support, at least the rod and line and fly fisher would feel somewhat supported. Therefore, he would not feel as bitter with a nil return from his high investment.
As is so often said, as the salmon catch falls in Scotland, so do the visits of the sportsmen. Much then is threatened: the wages of bailiffs and gillies, the jobs in hotels, tackle shops, boatbuilders and hirers, the smoking business, food processing and fishing holiday tours. It is worth many millions of pounds every year, and in particular this trade and money are usually going into the most impoverished parts of Scotland.
All this is at risk, and if it be so, why the vacillation on the dealer licensing scheme? It is a scheme which requires the buyers of salmon to be licensed and to maintain records of purchasers. The offence would be the handling of salmon in circumstances where it would be reasonable to suspect it had been taken illegally. It would undoubtedly restrict the poaching racket by blocking off their outlets. So why is it that the Government have not yet started serious consultations with the interested parties in this scheme? I should therefore like to know what is the timescale they have in mind before this is introduced.
Another serious concern affecting salmon stocks is the unhindered growth in the grey seal population. It is growing at the rate of about 5 per cent. per year, and it is estimated by the net fishing organisations that these grey seals are eating around 4,000 tonnes of salmon per year. That is far more than the annual catch by the netsmen. Grey seals are now a major threat to salmon stocks. Here is another uncontrolled and growing menace. So culling will have to be considered; the balance has become dangerously one-sided. I recognise of course that around the salmon farms some secret culling may be going on, but the

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situation now deserves fresh examination by the Government with a view to cutting back the growth of this predator.
On the question of giving the salmon a chance, we recognise that one advance has been made in recent months; that is, extending the weekend close netting times and taking the nets off for longer periods at weekends. This will undoubtedly reap some benefits. The Salmon and Trout Association has welcomed this move and hopes that as the benefits accrue a greater extension of close weekend hours will be agreed.
At this stage I should like personally to praise Mr. James Mackie, who has established the River Forth Fishery Conservation Trust. Along with friends he has raised money, bought boats and taken on the poachers. He has shaken the police, the civil servants and the Forth District Salmon Fishery Board out of their apathetic approach. This is a fine example of what conservation stalwarts can do.
I think one must also praise the splendid efforts of the Atlantic Salmon Conservation Trust, a highly respected organisation with a great reputation. It has been involved in some secret negotiations over many months to buy out commercial netting interests, thereby fulfilling one of its main aims in its campaign for the conservation of salmon; that is, the preservation and enhancement of the species.
I note that it has spent up to £2 million over the past two years, buying up the netting rights on 15 Scottish salmon rivers. This will obviously benefit the owners of fishing rights and also the fly fishers' chances of catching more. So more anglers will be interested. However, I hope that charges will not rise accordingly: £1,000 per week for salmon fishing is prohibitive for most fly fishers; indeed, for the majority of those who come from south of the Border. It is no use beating the netters and winning on conservation if the few salmon which the fly fishers will take will be available only for the privileged and the rich, for only those who can afford it, especially in the better salmon pools with large profits accruing to the owners. I hope that does not happen because it will certainly stifle the sport and tourism.
Finally, the factor which may well bedevil the poachers and the illegal netters is the growth of the salmon fish farms. In 1979, these farms produced 300 tonnes; in 1987, 15,000 tonnes. This year the estimate is 25,000 tonnes. There are over 1,000 full-time and part-time employees, so it is certainly a growth industry. It is likely (and as a rod and line angler I hope it happens) that as these fish farms grow in number and the inland farmed salmon multiply, the price of salmon on the market will fall. Sea netting may not then be worth while. More salmon will then get back up the river, the Atlantic wild salmon will be saved and the fly fisher will also benefit.
So with all these multifarious activities, buying out the netters, the growth of salmon farms and more jobs as a result, the increase in the sport of salmon fishing, such is the lure if it is made possible to catch the salmon, and with the inevitable tourist expansion for Scotland, the fly fisher may well come back into
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his own. Then, to the embarrassment of the Government, it will have been the zest and endeavour of the private organisations that made all this possible.
8.28 p.m.
Viscount Thurso: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Moran, for asking this Question and for opening the subject so wide. However, I do not intend to follow him in all the ramifications into which he took us. First, I do not intend to cross the Border from Scotland into England but will concentrate largely upon the latest government action, which is the extension of the weekly closed time.
It is contentious as to whether there is any very real threat to salmon stocks. I know it is a shibboleth to say that the Atlantic salmon is a threatened species, and so on; but the scientific evidence is not there to support the assertion. There are large runs of smolts coming down out of all Scotland's rivers. Certainly on many rivers in Scotland where I know careful records have been kept over the years there are more fish being caught by rods now than were caught ever before. There are many rivers where there is a very adequate stock of returning salmon.
What are the threats to the Atlantic salmon in Scotland? There are three: the Northumberland drift nets, river pollution and poaching. I do not think that the legitimate netsmen round the coast of Scotland threaten or have threatened the stocks of salmon returning to Scottish rivers. They have coexisted with the rods for 100 or more years. They have fished at more or less the same intensity and they have shared the ups and the downs of the returning salmon stocks with the rodsmen. I do not think that they have ever threatened the existence of the species.
Though threats do not exist universally or with the same intensity in every river, pollution and poaching are probably found to some extent everywhere. One cannot, for instance, claim that the Northumberland drift net fishery affects the west coast of Scotland. Faced with these visible threats what do the Government go and do? They listen to those who have no particular training in fishery management. They do not, I submit, listen to the advice of their own scientists; but they rehearse an old argument which has been put forward over the past quarter of a century to show the wider importance of angling to the economy and they panic into lengthening the weekly close time.
We are told that there is a shortage of spring salmon; but the Government's own official records will show that the spring runs have remained remarkably steady over the years and that in fact the main predator on the spring runs is the rod fisherman. In 1986, a year which the noble Lord, Lord Moran, quoted, the spring catch by the rods in Scotland was 9,485 fish, the spring catch by the estuary nets was 4,453 fish and the spring catch by the fixed engines was 2,795 fish.
If the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson of Bowden, wanted to improve the run of spring salmon what he should have done was to stop the anglers fishing, then

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there would have been more salmon running up the rivers. Of course the noble Lord is perfectly well aware that in many rivers there is no shortage of stock. There is no shortage of fish running into those rivers. If there were a shortage why would so many rivers be selling their ova? Why would the Tay, the Spey, the Conon, the Dee and other such rivers all be going into the market to sell their salmon ova to the fish farmers? If they were desperately short of stock one would think that they would keep those ova and return them to their rivers so as to get some stock coming back.
Has it occurred to the Government that by restricting the netting to the point at which it will put some honest netsmen out of business they are putting more fish in the way of the poachers because the poacher abhors a vacuum especially if it has a salmon in it? The effect of cutting down the legal netsmen will be to leave more fish available to the illegal ones.
I am not pretending for a moment that there are not problems in the conservation and the management of salmon. I am not pretending that there are not certain rivers which are very badly affected by drift nets, particularly the Tweed affected as it is by the Northumberland drift net fishery. That is an obvious example, but there are many rivers where there is no such threat and where the attack on the innocent legal netsman who has been plying his trade for over a century is quite unwarranted and unjustified.
Therefore I wish to ask the noble Lord in reaching his conclusion that there are "general salmon conservation grounds" precisely what scientific advice he received that made that apparent to him, as I noticed that in another place a similar Question was asked. In another place the right honourable friend of the noble Lord ducked the issue by saying that the scientific evidence was not conclusive and was only one of a number of considerations taken into account by Ministers.
However, I do not believe that there is scientific evidence which shows that general conservation grounds demand the blanket use of lengthening of the legal sea net close time all over Scotland. It is doubly unfortunate that this measure should have been taken on general conservation grounds without any intention to monitor its effects. One may ask how I know that there is no intention to monitor the effects. The answer is that I have a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, dated 23rd December saying that this is so. The noble Lord wrote to me saying:
"My department have no plans to monitor specifically the effect of the new close time although it is expected that the review of east coast salmon netting, provided for in section 39 of the Salmon Act 1986, will take the new arrangements into account."
But how on earth will that show what the effect has been on the west coast, within the Moray Firth, on the north rivers and on the Solway? The Solway will provide the most ghastly mix up because one half of it is English and one half is Scottish and the nets will be subjected to the extra close time on the Scottish side while on the English side they will not. That is a recipe for war. There will be open conflict between the two sides of the Solway.
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There are also technical difficulties there which will make the monitoring of the enforcement of the close time very difficult because of the very long tide there and the fact that in order to comply with the Act the poor netsmen on the Scottish side of the Solway, not the English side, will have to close down their operations long before those on the other side. They will lose more than 20 per cent. of their fishing time.
Another thing that confuses the whole issue, which is really a scientific mess, is the fact that the Atlantic Salmon Conservation Trust has bought up some 25 per cent. of the netting power around the coasts. Therefore the netting around the coasts this year will be reduced by 25 per cent. due to the fact that certain nets will no longer be fished. The remainder will be reduced by 20 per cent. and the effect of the 20 per cent. reduction will probably be to put a whole lot of netsmen out of business. That will cause further reductions, yet there is no intention to monitor those effects. It seems to me to be crazy that there is no intention to monitor those effects and no effort has been made to find out what they will be. I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, that one of the results of the closing down of all those nets is that the nets that have been closed will no longer pay assessments. The district boards in those areas will no longer get a contribution from legal netsmen on the sea and therefore the money that used to be contributed will have to come out of the angler's pocket, which will make it more expensive for the noble Lord, Lord Mason of Barnsley, to go fishing in Scotland. He will pay quite a lot extra because it will cost twice as much to operate the bailiff service for him and keep poachers down. If we were doing something about the poachers, I should applaud that. However, we are not. We are doing something about people who have contributed sums of money to the joint policing of rivers over a period of 100 years. We are speaking of people who have never been shown to have harmed the salmon industry as a whole. We are handing the extra fishing on a plate to the illegal fishermen.
It is obviously going to be very difficult for the Minister to go back on the massive decision which he has made, foolish though it is and wise though it would be to go back on it and extend the weekly legal close time. I suggest that he should use the provision in the Salmon Act and allow different things to happen within different district board areas. Perhaps if he monitors those matters, he will find out a thing or two. I do not see why, in a river system where good contributions come in from the netsmen and where the netsmen and the rod fishermen get on well together, fishing time should not be restored to the netsmen.
By all means let us monitor the effect of that and see whether it depresses the number of anglers in those areas and whether the number in other areas increases. I think that there is little evidence that angling success and the numbers of fish running up the river are exactly one and the same thing. In fact there is a good deal of evidence, in two scientific papers that I know of, to show that there is no correlation between the total run on a river and the catch by rod. I ask the Minister to consider the

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possibility of offering to district boards the option, where there is a consensus, of returning to the old legal close times.
There are many things that need to be done to improve the run of salmon and improve matters for anglers. However, we shall not improve the spring run by curtailing the weekly close time. We shall only do that by increasing the number of salmon reared in the upper waters of the river. Spring fish are not genetically spring fish. They are fish which are reared over a long period in the upper waters of the river. They have been fed slowly when they were young, they have matured slowly and stayed at sea adopting that habit of growth and they have returned as spring salmon. I suspect that the real danger in many rivers where spring runs show a fall comes from agriculture and forestry activities and not from the activities of netsmen or even poachers.
I ask the Minister to reconsider at least partially the terrible attack which he has made on those honest men who have been contributing to the salmon industry—the netsmen of the traditional netting stations round Scotland's coasts. I ask him to look at the considerable problems that will exist in the Solway. I should like to know how he proposes to deal with the split situation in the Solway. I also ask him to look at the possibility of allowing district hoards, where there is a consensus between rod and net interests, to return to the old close time and to allow the net fishermen in the area to continue in business and continue to contribute to the welfare of the river as a whole. After all, that is the goose that lays the golden egg for angler and netsmen alike.
8.45 p.m.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Moran for giving us this opportunity to discuss the working of the one year-old Salmon Act. Before I say anything else, unlike the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, I wish to join with other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson of Bowden, on the extension of the weekly close time for nets in Scotland to 60 hours. That brave decision is indeed a step in the right direction and gives the hope that possibly, little by little, the close time may be increased further. I understand that in Norway the nets are restricted to three days a week and this year may be prohibited altogether at certain seasons of the year.
The netsmen are of course not at all happy. They cannot accept that theirs is a dying industry, although it is. The writing is on the wall. As the noble Lord, Lord Mason of Barnsley, has said, fish farming in Scotland now produces about 15 times the catch of wild salmon. It has an annual output of over £40 million a year. It employs well over 1,000 people directly, and the ancillary industries—such as the supplying of feed, ice, cages, nets, boats, drugs and transport—has created a large number of jobs, possibly as many as 2,500. Many of those are in remote districts.
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As output has increased, the value of salmon has decreased and will continue to do so. Therefore, the netsmen face ever-diminishing returns. The Atlantic Salmon Conservation Trust has bought out the netting interests in north-east Scotland, on the Spey, the Don and the Dee principally, and would willingly do so on other rivers. That gives the netsmen a chance, before the value of fish falls too much further, to divert into other lines of business. Some, seeing the writing on the wall, have already converted to fish farming.
Perhaps I may add in that context that while the employees of the netting firms are poor people trying to earn a living, the owners—in Scotland, at any rate—are in some cases very rich men. One can only hope that those that have not yet done so will take the opportunity offered by the Atlantic Salmon Conservation Trust to get out while the going is good and that the Government will give them every possible encouragement to do so.
Where netting rights have been bought out, as they have on the Dee, more salmon were seen last year than for many years. That is what matters to an angler. He will accept going home with fewer fish or even no fish if he knows that he has been fishing over salmon. However, if he does not see a salmon from Monday to Saturday, he is pretty disgruntled and may not come back next year.
For this coming year there has been a great increase in the demand for fishing on the Dee, which had fallen off very greatly in recent years. The tourist board estimates that every angler visitor spends £250 per week in the local community, and that does not take account of the rent that he pays for his fishing. Many anglers are accompanied by their wives and families, who also spend money.
It is also of vital importance for Scottish salmon stocks that the British Government obtain a reduction in the catch quota of the high seas interceptory netting catch, but they are totally unable to do so while allowing interceptory netting to continue round our own shores. The Greenlanders and Faroese quite reasonably say that, unless the Government put the British house in order by reducing or even banning netting outside estuaries, they cannot hope to reduce the quota of high seas interceptory netsmen which has brought Scottish salmon angling so close to disaster.
I should like to ask the Minister three questions. First, will he bear in mind the enormous depredations on salmon by the grey seal, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Mason of Barnsley? Secondly, bearing in mind the depredations of the poacher, when is it proposed to introduce the dealer licensing scheme? Like the noble Lord, Lord Moran, I have just glanced at the consultation paper published yesterday. It is now quite clear that it will not be introduced in April this year, as we originally hoped.
So far as I can see from a quick glance, which is all that I have had time for, I think that the proposals are broadly on the right lines. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Moran, agrees. I shall leave it to

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those who are more knowledgeable than I to comment on them, apart from saying that in the present state of the prison service I would hesitate to create more offences carrying a prison sentence. I should prefer to impose stiffer fines and hit malefactors in their pockets, but hard enough really to hurt.
My third question has already been asked by the noble Lord, Lord Moran, and relates to the secrecy surrounding the Salmon Advisory Committee's discussions. I heartily endorse what the noble Lord has said on that subject.
Netsmen keep saying that rod and line catches in the spring are many times the net catches, and try to make much of this. That is not difficult for them to do because they start fishing later by law and do not bother to fish their nets at all unless they are going to catch enough fish to make money. There are a number of references in the latest report from the freshwater fisheries laboratory at Pitlochry to the decline in the spring runs.
Finally, there is such a thing as factual evidence as well as scientific evidence.
8.54 p.m.
Earl Haig: My Lords, I add my thanks to my noble friend Lord Moran for enabling us to discuss the results of the Salmon Act. First of all, I should declare an interest. Salmon fishing has helped my family's finances through the centuries. It is as a riparian owner and a Tweed commissioner that I should like to make a few points this evening.
The matters to which I shall refer do not, I think, correspond with many of the points raised by the noble Viscount Lord Thurso, who spoke very largely about the north of Scotland. For us, the results so far have not been great. Our spring and summer runs continue to be abysmal. The autumn runs are good, but during much of the spring and summer months the rod fishing comes virtually to a halt.
The poaching problem continues and, as my noble friend has said, the forfeiture of illegal nets found in the river is very common. We shall be greatly helped by the introduction of the dealer licensing system, which will prevent poachers from finding a market. The smaller the chance of poached salmon finding a market the less work there will be for the water bailiffs, who are fully stretched in the autumn months.
There can be no excuse for the violent behaviour of some poachers towards water bailiffs, although we should perhaps try to understand the reasons. In some cases we are dealing with young unemployed and disadvantaged people who have built up resentment towards the owners of property. In their eyes the Salmon Act was designed to protect the property of the landowners rather than to protect the salmon or the jobs connected with salmon. The noble Lord, Lord Mason, made a plea for salmon fishing to
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be made available to. people with lower incomes. Speaking personally, I know that my tenants come from all backgrounds. Some are professional men with quite small incomes, and they come from both sides of the border. In fact, some of my tenants are tackle-makers and sellers in Newcastle. Perhaps they are using some of their ill-gotten gains, selling their tackle to noble Lords to take my fish!
The higher purpose of the Act, which is the conservation element, is disregarded by poachers. If they had their way they would plunder the salmon out of existence. Rod fishermen are playing their part in the conservation programme. Riparian owners on the Tweed are bearing the cost of the proposed purchase of nets by the Atlantic Salmon Conservation Trust on their behalf. They have agreed to ban the use of prawns during the summer months. We believe that conservation is a matter of international concern, but if we expect other people to clean up their rivers then we ourselves should give maximum protection to the salmon in our own waters.
Drift netting is banned in Scotland, but fish entering the Tweed along the Northumbrian coast are at grave risk. They run the gauntlet of licensed drift nets and of countless unlicensed nets which are used by people of all ages for material gain.
The department of my noble friend the Minister has been most active over the introduction of shorter working periods for the nets. In view of government promises to monitor the effects of the north-east drift netting, perhaps I may ask him whether he believes that the return of catches by the drift netting licensees will be sufficiently accurate for an assessment on north-east drift netting to be made. If not, will the Government take soundings from people on the ground who are in touch with what is happening?
Should evidence of the need to phase out netting become available, how long will it take to introduce new legislation? Should this step be taken, conservationists as a whole would feel happier at the removal of a form of netting which inflicts great cruelty on birds and seals as well as fish, as the noble Lord, Lord Mason, said. River fishermen in the east coast rivers would feel happier at the removal of nets which kill fish on the way to spawn and which rightfully belong to the rivers.
The banning of drift netting would be good news to everyone except the drift netters, who understandably have lobbied sympathy and support on the grounds of threatened job losses in an area of heavy unemployment. But how many men are employed in that industry? How far do they depend on those jobs for a livelihood, and how much are they part of the black economy? How far is unemployment being used as an excuse to prevent the abolition of drift netting? If these nets were phased out, as the noble Lord, Lord Mason, has suggested, it would be a major breakthrough in conservation. I believe it would result in a gradual improvement to our spring runs. It would also lead to a new dilemma, to which the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, referred.

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It would provide more scope for river poachers, who would find pools full of fish at times of low summer levels. I suspect that some of them would continue to operate—even though opportunities to sell were not so available—simply to spite the landowners. My fear is that the battles will be long-lasting.
There are other threats on which I shall not enlarge, but I should like to mention one, the goosander, which does tremendous damage to our smolt population. All concerned with the protection of the salmon—NASCO and other international organisations, the Government, river authorities, and riparian owners—must work together against these various threats so that salmon, looked upon as the king of fish by conservationists and fishermen alike, are free to run up our rivers.
9.2 p.m.
Lord Burton: My Lords, I should also like to add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Moran. I have to declare an interest as I am chairman of the Ness District Fishery Board. Though I could take issue on some point or other with a number of your Lordships who have spoken, I shall keep to four main points: first, fish farming; secondly, poaching; thirdly, water extraction and fourthly, seals. The first point is by far and away the most important. Although I do not have second sight, I can readily predict that within a comparatively short time we shall have a major disaster concerning our fish stocks. We are at the edge of a precipice. I hope that the fish farmers and the Highland Development Board in particular will not rush over the edge of this precipice like lemmings.
Fish farming is a new industry. It has been extensively encouraged by the Highland Development Board and so far has undoubtedly been a major success, bringing employment to the remoter areas where little has previously existed. What is as important is the money which it has brought to these areas. However, there is a major fly in the ointment, for though there are many conscientious developers there are undoubtedly cowboys jumping on to the bandwagon. Even with the bigger concerns there is a substantial risk.
As it is a new industry, there are many matters about which there is little experience and we are playing with nature in a major way. We could be doing serious damage to our stocks of wild fish, but what is most serious of all is that it is only a matter of time before we have a major outbreak of disease which will affect the wild stocks every bit as much, perhaps more so, than the fish farms. We all know that UDN broke out in the South of Ireland, almost certainly from a rainbow trout farm. It had a devastating effect on our migratory fish around Britain. More recently there have been the troubles off the Norwegian coast. I am no scientist but I understand that a number of diseases are endemic in our salmon stocks. It is almost certain that it would only require something quite minor to trigger off a catastrophic disease, possibly resulting from stress or irritation caused to the gills through pollution.
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I understand that one of the fish farms on the River Nairn was closed down for about three years by the Ministry of Agriculture through an outbreak of some sort of disease, possibly caused by a landslide further upstream or through the work being carried out on the A9 when it was under construction, causing contamination of the water which may have irritated the gills of the fish. However we are not told about these things, so we do not know what to look for and we do not know the cause.
This summer I heard that a village in the Ness Fishery Board area was complaining bitterly about an obnoxious smell. The environmental health officer was called in and he found that a fish farm had been burying fish in a pit dug for it by a JCB. As the last pit was full, the JCB had been called back in to build a new pit and had cut into the old one so that the whole village was being polluted by the smell of rotting fish.
As chairman of the fishery board I felt that investigation was required and was informed by the company concerned that no fish were being buried. That was clearly untrue but immediately aroused one's suspicions. On further inquiries to the company I received an apology and was told that the person to whom I had spoken did not know that fish were being buried. As this is a large company it was, to say the least, alarming that there should be such lack of control or knowledge of what was happening. I understand that a lot of fish were buried on another fish farm on the west coast. I still do not know what caused the death of the fish, or what kind of numbers died, but I think this is an example of how a major company was hiding losses. If they were to do so, what happens with the small farmer who wants to keep inspectors off his back?
This leads to the question that I should like to put to my noble friend. How much inspection is done by the Ministry of Agriculture? How many inspectors are there? Is a proper check kept on the farms as regards health and general management? I appreciate that the department may say "We are too short staffed to do it". Perhaps that is not right, but if we are to have an industry such as this, why should not companies pay a licence to ensure that adequate inspection takes place? It is every bit as much in their interests as in anyone else's. We shall be told that the fish farming industry has a code of practice. But it does not have the force of law behind it. It is frequently broken and it is vital that we have new legislation for the industry.
Agriculture as a whole has many rules and regulations enforced by law. For example, the sudden death of an animal has to be reported in case it has anthrax. If a number of fish die on a fish farm for some inexplicable reason, there should be a law to say that this must be reported at once. More important still, there should be inspections of the farms to ensure that as far as possible no outbreaks of disease occur. We can understand fish farmers resisting interference, let alone expense, but it must be for their benefit in the long run.
Apart from disease there is the substantial worry about the effects on our wild stock of the genetic

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changes which are occurring. We do not have time to go into the matter tonight; it is a subject on its own. However, I recommend to the House a little booklet published by the Atlantic Salmon Trust, written by N. P. Wilkins, called Salmon Stocks: A Genetic Perspective. It begins by quoting Andrew Young, a pioneer of modern salmon cultivation, who, in 1854, wrote about each river having its own peculiar race of fish. He knew that the salmon had a kind of apartheid. What will happen now that we are mixing up the races? There are grave fears that we may well have mammoth problems. I am pleased to hear that the NCC is doing something useful and researching this subject, and that a paper will shortly be published.
One of the important steps taken in the Salmon Act was to sharpen up the laws on poaching with particular regard to modern methods. Several noble Lords have already mentioned that, but I feel that I must draw attention to the fact that the intentions of Parliament are being thwarted by some members of the judiciary. Only yesterday the superintendent of our fishery board reported to us his frustration and disgust at the outcome of a case where two tenants of a sweep net station were using hang nets instead of sweep nets. They had pleaded guilty—they did not have much option—and were fined a mere £35 each. They also had their nets confiscated; but that raises another problem. I wonder what has happened to those nets. I raise the matter, as, so often in the past, poachers have bought back their equipment from courts.
I should like to make a final point with which I sincerely hope my noble friend can assist. There is a little river which runs out of Loch Oich to connect with Loch Ness called the River Oich. That river is an important connecting link in the Ness board area. The river flows were set at a time when the hydroelectric dams were being constructed on the Invernesshire Galley. Parallel with the river runs a section of the Caledonian Canal, also connecting the two lochs. In recent years the locks at the lower end of this part of the canal have markedly deteriorated and water pours through the canal. That is in addition to the substantial extra traffic making use of the canal and also letting through extra water.
As a result, in drought conditions the river becomes very dry and salmon become stranded in small pools. That condition was produced entirely by the British Waterways Board because the minimum flows were agreed by the hydro board. That would be bad enough in itself, but our fishery board discovered that the British Waterways Board was selling water from the canal to water a golf course. That was necessary only in drought conditions and could only exacerbate the position of the salmon. We objected and we were supported by the purification board. I have now heard that the Department of the Environment, based in London, has overruled those local bodies and has encroached upon the Minister's preserves. The department has sanctioned that quite unnecessary sale of water. It is an extraordinary state of affairs for a body which is supposed to look after our environment and which controls the NCC.
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Part of the Question before us is whether the threats to salmon stocks are being contained. As for many years I have been on the Ness District Fishery Board, I should like to contradict my noble friend Lord Thurso because, even if there is an annual fluctuation of our fish stocks, we are most concerned that there has been a steady decline in our fish. That may not be attributable to the Ness system; it may be untreated pollution from the town or it may be due to hydro schemes. However, we have been suffering a steady decline and whatever we do to try to repair the damage has no effect.
One immediate action which the Government could take and could authorise in order to help is a substantial seal cull. It is estimated that seals are taking four times the catch taken by rod and net put together.
9.12 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I also should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Moran, for enabling the House to have a timely look at the situation which has arisen since the Salmon Act was passed. I declare an interest in that I own fishings in Northern Scotland as a riparian owner on a minor salmon river, although I have not fished since I was wounded and partially disabled 43 years ago. I should like to ask the Minister two questions about which I was able to give him notice yesterday. Although I am the last but one speaker in the debate, I hope that the notice will have helped him to respond. First, what is the latest position as regards drift netting off the coast of North-East England, which has already been spoken of during the debate? Secondly, what is the Government's view of the purpose and actions of the new Atlantic Salmon Conservation Trust, Scotland?
I shall put those questions in their context. I have been involved in some of the events and decisions over the past 30 years. Drift netting for salmon became an urgent issue in the early 1960s, when I was a junior member of the government of the day, and in another place, because this drift netting was suddenly taken up by seine net boats, herring boats and small trawlers in Scotland. The main reason for this was the use of new, very strong, man-made fibres of the nylon type. They were more effective in large mesh in catching salmon than the previous materials. It was also possible for skippers to work out the routes taken by fish on returning to the rivers. Swimming near the surface, as they do at that stage, they were an easy prey to these hanging nets which could be extended for long distances round the mouths of rivers.
It was some of the sea fishing boats from Scotland, especially on the north-east coast, which quickly equipped themselves for this new fishery. At the time the Hunter Committee was in existence considering the whole subject of salmon and trout. Therefore, that committee was asked for an urgent interim report. As a result, a total ban in Scotland on drift netting salmon was imposed. It was carried out by order and reviewed every few years until the 1986 Act.

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The paradox which remained was that licensed drift netting off the coast of North-East England continued as it had for, I understand, at least 100 years. One paradoxical effect on the Tweed was that salmon coming in from the north were luckier than those coming in from the south. For the Scottish fishermen, particularly those who had already invested in new nets and gear for drift netting, this was an inexplicable anomaly.
When the 1986 Act was about to be introduced as a Bill, some of us hoped that it would propose a phasing out of that fishery, but it was not to be. Shortly before the Bill appeared at the end of the previous Session of Parliament, I received a long written reply to a Question; that was on 7th November 1985. Besides dealing with other matters such as tagging and dealer licensing, it announced three changes to be made to drift netting off the North-East coast of England. The first was that the licensee would have to be present in the boat unless he was ill. The second was that there was to be a shorter fishing time during the week. The third was to change the balance so that there would be fewer drift nets and more fixed nets.
When the Bill was passing through its stages a deputation of about six licensees from the Northumbrian fishery came to Westminster and I, with a few parliamentary colleagues, met them. The picture they painted was of a traditional occupation extending back into the last century, that it was carefully controlled, only very small boats were involved and the permitted areas were closely restricted and delineated. Indeed, it was a very different picture from the free-for-all which could have developed in Scotland. I liked those Northumbrian fishermen, and I understood the importance of the livelihood which had been part of their community's way of life for so long.
Nonetheless, the catch figures (when one could identify them) seemed to show a huge increase in catches of that fishery. Since that announcement, and further restrictions in November 1985, I should like to ask the Minister what the effect has been there. I must state that personally I still think that the fishery should be gradually phased out.
Turning to the second question, I remind your Lordships that the Hunter Committee's final report was published in 1965. One of its principal recommendations was that there should be a calculated take from each river, so determining the number running up to spawn and available for anglers. Coastal, estuarial and river mouth netting would come to an end. There would be one station on the river where good management would enable the optimum number of fish to be taken each year.
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This part of the report, naturally, met opposition from the netting interests and it was estimated that some 3,000 to 4,000 people might lose their jobs in Scotland, though most of them were part-time. It was not surprising that that part of the report has not been pursued. Other parts of the report have been the basis of subsequent legislation, particularly on trout fisheries. I was concerned with the process of consultations on the main report between 1970 and 1974 when I was the Secretary of State.
Two years ago this new conservation trust in Scotland came into being and its aim is to buy out the netting interests. The founders informed me before it was established at the end of 1985 and I advised them that there could be problems and objections arising from loss of jobs, though I believe the situation is different from that of 1965. That trust to which the noble Lord, Lord Mason, referred, has achieved much in two years. It has bought a large number of netting points in the Moray Firth and the north-east of Scotland and it has now bought quite a number on the Tweed. Lord Hunter is the patron of the trust and I should like to record in the words of the trust what it has done:
"The Trust has taken up the challenge proposed in the Hunter Report. By the end of 1986 it had purchased or arranged to purchase—on a willing-seller, willing-buyer basis—and will permanently close 283 interceptory, coastal and estuarial netting points around the North-East of Scotland, thereby freeing annually another 40,000 wild salmon to return to their ancestral rivers to spawn. This represents up to 25 per cent. of the 'indiscriminate' catch in Scottish waters".
Those were willing sales but I do not know whether any significant unemployment is being caused. I hope not, but the Minister may be able to tell us about that. In my view, in other respects the trust can only be doing good. Angling is the method of catching which best helps the economy of Scotland and other areas where there are salmon rivers. The tourist industry, especially hotels, benefits; and in some areas the hotels are completely dependent upon the fishing.
In Scotland fishing pays local government rates; it contributes financially to the local services and the scale is related to the numbers of fish caught. If few fish are available in rivers, that discourages the holiday angler as well as reducing the rates of contributions. The more fish in the rivers (as only a proportion can be caught by anglers) the more salmon are likely to be reproduced because they have to run up the rivers to spawn. Despite the success of salmon farming, wild salmon are still a vital part of the economy in parts of our country and I should be grateful to hear the views of the Government on the new initiative of this trust.
9.23 p.m.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, I am very conscious of the fact that speaking on salmon in your Lordships' House means meeting and listening to very erudite and experienced people. I took part in the debates on the 1986 Act and I have done some re-reading of it. I have not gone through the entire Act or the proceedings in the House, but I have paid a fair amount of attention to it. It is interesting to note the way in which the arguments are arising again in this debate.
I think we should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Moran, who is one of the experts in scientific matters and on a par, I believe, with the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, in his study of salmon, the habits of salmon and the whole background of the North Atlantic salmon. When I read the subject he had chosen I felt that perhaps it was a little early to be discussing the effects of the 1986 Act but, having listened today, obviously we could have a debate on salmon fairly regularly and we would be continually turning up new material.
I am sure it will not be too difficult to discern that I am not an expert on the North Atlantic salmon or even on angling, but I have been approached by netsmen on the subject. I am sure the Minister will know many of the arguments that netsmen have put forward. No one else approached me which would make one believe that others, particularly those who have rod fishing beats, are fairly happy with what the Government have done. Therefore I make no apologies for putting quite strongly the arguments put by the Scottish Salmon Net Fishing Association.
A number of questions have been asked of the Minister and I shall put some myself. It would make the debate very long if the Minister were to answer them all, but I hope that he will find a way, if not tonight, to get the information to those noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. He will realise from listening to the debate that Ministers' replies are treasured and brought up again to see what progress has been made since the statements were originally made.
The traditional Scottish salmon net fishermen are concerned about the weekly closing time which was put forward as the principal way— particularly at the beginning of the debate—of preserving salmon stocks in Scottish rivers. Other arguments were put forward later. The noble Lord, Lord Burton, used other arguments, rather than netting, for preserving the salmon stock. The netsmen of course, as one would expect, would agree with this, but they believe that the Government's announcement to extend the weekly closing time by 18 hours will in fact reduce the netsmen's earnings by at least 18 per cent. They believe that this is a factual figure arrived at by examining marketing records from the industry going back over many years. I think it is true that there are few businesses which could stand a cut of that magnitude in their turnover, and salmon fishing is no exception.
The netsmen believe that there is no justifiable reason for this measure other than the political
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pressure that has been applied to both Houses from angling interests. These are not confined to the one party, as we heard from my noble friend Lord Mason of Barnsley, who I know is a keen fisherman, and he spoke very much in favour of the weekly closing time.
The facts as I have been given them are that salmon stocks are governed by the capacity of any river to support the young salmon stock for at least the first three years of their life before the smolts go to sea. Over decades the ecology of all our rivers has changed markedly due to a number of factors. Again the noble Lord, Lord Burton, mentioned some of them. Those factors are hill drainage and forestry leading to erosion and flash floods; increased acidification from the rapid run off of acid rain; lower water levels in drought; hydro dams; increased water extraction for domestic, industrial and agricultural use; industrial, agricultural and domestic pollution.
Those factors have all had an adverse effect on the quality of our rivers, and their capacity to produce and nurture young salmon has undoubtedly been greatly reduced. However, the salmon scientists of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food say that virtually all Scottish salmon rivers are producing as many smolts as their ecology can provide for. A 20-year research programme has shown that increased numbers of mature spawning salmon do not reflect directly in an increased smolt production.
Another research project by departmental scientists has shown that the Deveron—and I think that the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, made reference to this in his speech— which has not been netted since 1901 was compared with the Spey which has been intensively netted continuously. There was no detectable difference in the state of the stocks. The departmental salmon scientists have also shown that up to 40 per cent. of our salmon stocks return to our rivers after the close of the netting of salmon in August. Changing the weekly closing time would make no difference to this particular stock.
The only section of salmon stock that is in undoubted decline is the stock of spring salmon. The Government's own catch statistics show in the figures published in December 1986 that commercial netting caught only 5.5 per cent. up until 1st May annually, with the angling sector catching 94.5 per cent. There is a large discrepancy in the figures and perhaps the Minister will have something to say about that. I wonder whether it is realistic to suggest that netting is responsible for any appreciable decline in the stock.
The salmon scientists of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food say that allowing more summer grilse and salmon into our rivers may in fact help to hasten the decline of the stock. If, as the Government stated, this measure was in part a conservation measure, why—and this point was referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso—were millions of eggs from our rivers sold to the fish farming industry and for export? The reason is frequently given as over-stocking in the spawning grounds; but the revenue from these sales goes to support the running costs of the fishery boards and

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therefore subsidises the riparian sporting owners who support the order. That situation hardly supports any conservation argument.
A great deal was made of the effect of the grey seal. It was even suggested by one noble Lord— despite the fact that there was a good deal of complaint about the law not being enforced properly in terms of poachers and certain illegal netters— that there was nothing wrong with a wee hit of illegal culling of seals if that were possible. I am not suggesting that. I am sure that the Minister caught the point as it was made.
In Scotland, a salmon fishing, whether commercial or sporting, either in the rivers or in the sea, is owned by the same heritable title, just as a house, farm or factory. The order proposed by the Government will undoubtedly erode the value of the netsmen's title; and where the loss in earnings makes a fishery no longer commercially viable, the value of the title will be totally lost with no compensation to the owner.
Most salmon fishing is carried out as family businesses, frequently in the more remote and disadvantaged areas. Like family farmers, all their capital is tied up in their business assets. These assets specific to salmon fishing have no real alternative use or value. In this respect, I am in the hands of the Minister who may know more about the alternative use. I shall be only too pleased to hear that there is a use for the assets if no net fishing is possible. I believe that the order could ruin financially many of the families for generations and could result in the loss of about 1,000 jobs provided annually by salmon fishing in those remote areas.
I hope that the points that I have made will allow the Minister to deal specifically with the area on which he has been hailed as breaking new ground by increasing the closed time for netting. He will be aware that it has caused a great deal of anxiety to a section of the salmon fishing community perhaps less well off than the one we were concentrating on this evening.
9.35 p.m.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Sanderson of Bowden): My Lords, I am sure that the House is grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Moran, for giving us the opportunity to discuss the implementation of the Salmon Act, which came into force just over a year ago, and various related matters. The questions that have been asked in this debate are fairly lengthy but I should like to go through as many of them as possible so that we can deal with them this evening, if that meets with your Lordships' wishes. All the matters that have been raised are integrated and are important as far as the salmon species is concerned.
I am particularly grateful for the advance notice given to me by the noble Lord, Lord Moran, the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, of the matters which they would be raising today. The 1986 Act was of course introduced in your Lordships' House and deals with issues which are of great interest to many noble Lords.
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The noble Lord, Lord Moran, asked about the introduction of the salmon dealer licensing schemes. As the noble Lord said in his speech, we have just issued our consultation documents to interested organisations in Scotland and England and Wales and await their comments. I do not think that it would be appropriate to go into the details of the proposed schemes this evening but it may be helpful if I make some general remarks. I am grateful for the generally welcoming remarks from noble Lords who have spoken about this particular part of the Salmon Act.
The noble Lord referred to an article in the Daily Telegraph about whether records would be kept of sales as well as purchases. The extent to which records of sales will be required is raised in both consultation papers. No decisions have been taken on this: it is a matter for detailed consideration after the consultation.
It may be felt that it has taken a rather long time to get from the coming into force of the Act to the consultation stage. I can appreciate such views but in fact this is a complicated subject not least because of the different legislative background north and south of the Border and the need to produce proposals which are likely to he effective but not too burdensome on the lawful trade. The Scottish scheme, which will have district and island councils as the licensing authorities, will be, so to speak, tacked on to the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982.
On the other hand the licensing authorities in England and Wales are not subject to the 1982 Act and the scheme will be administered by the water authorities who have responsibility for salmon conservation. It has, therefore, been necessary to ensure, given the different administrative and legislative background, that the proposed schemes are as compatible as possible. The proposed schemes have been discussed in Scotland with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland and in England and Wales with the water authorities.
A fair amount of work has already been done and I hope that there will be general agreement in this House that, given the significance of the measure, it is more important to produce good schemes than to unduly rush consideration. I can nevertheless assure noble Lords that we will continue to make as much speed as we can in moving through the consultation stage to production of the schemes themselves. The orders containing the schemes are of course subject to affirmative resolution and this will give the House the opportunity to discuss the matter in detail at a later stage.
I regret that I cannot give an accurate forecast as to when the schemes will be brought into effect. We have asked for comments within two months and have offered meetings. This will take time and I hope the House will understand if I say that I hope implementation will be later this year.
As to whether the schemes will be tough and effective depends to some extent on the result of the consultation. Certainly, we believe that our proposals

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are both. There will, for example, be provision for disqualification from holding a licence for up to five years at the discretion of the court. It would, however, be unreasonable to make disqualification mandatory, however minor or technical the offence.
The noble Lord asked if an hotelier convicted of receiving illegally-taken salmon could lose his liquor licence or be liable to lose it. I have to say that automatic loss of a liquor licence would be draconian in my view and that, in Scotland, the enabling provisions we have for salmon dealer licensing do not allow for it. However, in considering applications for liquor licences, licensing boards do have regard to the character of the applicant and any offences under the salmon legislation could be taken into account. When in force the dealer licensing schemes will supplement the handling and, as we in Scotland prefer to call it, the unlawful possession offences provided for in Section 22, the Scottish section, and Section 31, the English and Welsh section. of the Salmon Act.
I understand that there have been five convictions in England and Wales, with fines of up to £1,000 plus costs being imposed. The cases have involved a variety of circumstances: persons seen removing fish from vehicles; carrying fish from a foreshore; offering fish for sale at a place of work and a well-publicised case involving a large quantity of salmon in an hotel freezer. A further 13 prosecutions are pending. Unfortunately, I cannot give your Lordships parallel figures for Scotland but there have certainly been cases, one of which involved the handling of 27 salmon in Perth, a fine of £250 and forfeiture of a car and the fish.
My information is that local enforcement authorities are generally pleased with the provision and look forward to making continued use of it. All this indicates a very encouraging start and reinforces our view that the new offence, especially when coupled with dealer licensing, can be expected to make significant inroads into the trade in illegally caught fish.
The Government's recognition of the seriousness of salmon poaching and the tendency for poachers to operate in gangs can be seen by the penalties contained in the Salmon Act. If there is one theme that ran through this debate this evening, it was the seriousness attached in the House to the whole question of poaching. For fishing with an illegal instrument or unlicensed net in England and Wales, poachers can on indictment be imprisoned for up to two years and receive an unlimited fine. Magistrates can impose up to three months' imprisonment and a £2,000 fine. In addition, boats, vehicles and nets are liable to be forfeited. Sentences of similar severity apply to the new offence of handling salmon in suspicious circumstances.
The Government's concern is also reflected in the removal by Section 35 of the Salmon Act of the differential penalties which depended on whether an offender acted on his own or with another person. The courts can now impose the higher penalties without the need to establish that persons acted together.
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I have noted what the noble Lord, Lord Burton, said about sentences imposed by the courts. We have of course no powers to influence the sentences imposed by the courts in particular cases. The judiciary's independence must be maintained. It is for the prosecuting authorities to demonstrate to the courts the gravity of any particular case and for the courts to decide whether exemplary punishments should be imposed.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, has, however, drawn attention to the remarks made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, to Buckinghamshire magistrates in April 1987. Those remarks were made in the capacity of president of the Magistrates' Association and not as Lord Chancellor. The remarks were published in the Magistrates' Association's journal and I have no doubt that magistrates will be able to take full account of them. Those who are interested in this point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Moran, ought to read what is said there, for what is said is very true.
In England and Wales, the basic responsibility for enforcing salmon and freshwater fisheries law rests with the water authorities. However, I understand that there is often very close liaison between the police and the water authorities, with joint operations being quite common. I am glad to be able to add that the position in Scotland is generally regarded as good so far as concerns co-operation between the police, district salmon fishery boards and my department. Chief constables have of course other priorities but I have no reason to doubt that they apply whatever resources they can to combating poaching.
The particular case of the River Forth has been mentioned and I have to agree that the position there has been less than satisfactory. It is important to bear in mind, however, that questions of divisions of responsibility arise. My department can and does protect the fisheries in the sea. The district board and the police are responsible for law enforcement in the river and my department has rendered assistance. I am glad to be able to say that the situation seems to have improved in recent months, due in no short measure to the activities of the Forth Fisheries Conservation Trust, to which some of your Lordships referred. My department will continue to do what it can to help. We recognise the difficulties, particularly in that river.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, also asked whether the Government would be prepared to consider prohibiting the sale of rod-caught fish. This is not a subject on which, so far as I am aware, there is any consensus, and it is also one which could be regarded as draconian as well if, for example, the suggestion is that we went beyond the proposal in the salmon dealer licensing schemes that it would be an offence for an unlicensed person to sell a salmon to anyone other than a licensed dealer.
I again express the Government's recognition of the service performed by the noble Lord, Lord Moran, in raising, during the passage of the Bill, the problem of illegal netting of salmon in the guise of fishing for sea fish. I understand that some water

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authorities and sea fisheries committees have been discussing measures to prevent this practice, but no firm by-law proposals have been submitted as yet.
The noble Lord expressed concern about the relationship between by-laws for the protection of salmon and those authorising the use of fixed engines. As the noble Lord will know, the very strong formulation of Section 6 of the 1975 Act (as amended by the 1986 Act) was designed to avoid doubts about the interpretation of that section following the judgment in the case of Champion v. Maughan and Groves.
It was, however, not intended to prohibit the use of all fixed gear in sea fishing. Such gear has been used, quite legitimately, in many areas to catch sea fish and eels. The intention was to provide for these activities through by-laws authorising fixed engines at such places and times where they do not threaten runs of migratory salmonids. The by-laws will be subject to water authority consent so there is provision to safeguard the interests of migratory salmonids. Since the passage of the Salmon Act, water authorities and sea fisheries committes have been considering what by-laws will be necessary. Many are in an advanced stage of drafting and several have already been made.
There is no question of fixed engine by-laws and by-laws controlling sea fishing for the protection of salmon being used as bargaining counters in any derogatory sense. Water authorities and sea fisheries committees are, I am assured, working together to improve fisheries management in their areas.
I am grateful for the kind words of support from some quarters of the House for the decision to extend the weekly close time for salmon net fishing. I am also aware of what the noble Lord, Lord Mason, has said about tourism and the effects of the rod fishing industry on tourism. It was not an easy decision to take, and I am therefore not surprised by the adverse comments made by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, and the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael.
To those who are disappointed by the decision I have to make the point, however, that there are many more who are happy with it, including those who wish that I had gone much further. There is no suggestion that all the fish which the netsmen would take but for the increase will be taken by anglers. Those that are not will be available to increase the spawning escapement and salmon stocks. I accept that not all rivers need that increase, and the noble Viscount has made that clear.
He will, however, remember a meeting that he attended on 21st August last year—after meetings of netsmen and rodsmen which I had attended earlier in the day—when the proposal to increase the weekly close time was discussed. Far from everyone present agreed with him that no action was needed in the interests of salmon conservation. At 60 hours the weekly close time will be the same as applies to similar netting operations in the areas of the Northumbrian and Yorkshire water authorities, which are on the same coast as the major salmon net fisheries in Scotland.
The noble Lord expressed concern that the effects of the increase in the weekly close time will not be
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monitored specifically. The review of the east coast net fisheries, for which Section 39 of the Salmon Act 1986 provides, will take account of the increase in the weekly close time. It is, however, a short time between May 1988, when I intend that the increase will be brought into effect, and the preparation of the report on the review—as soon as practicable after November 1989—and it would perhaps be unreasonable to expect anything very definite to emerge specifically on that count. Monitoring such as the noble Lord appears to have in mind would in fact be likely to be very difficult given other considerations, such as the fact that salmon catches vary from year to year due to climatic and other factors. While there would not be any separate specific monitoring of the close time change, my department will of course take this into account in its job of keeping the state of Scottish salmon fisheries under general review.
Other matters which were raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, when he was speaking on the close time were first in connection with the Solway. The noble Viscount referred to the anomaly which exists on the Solway because of the different close time north and south of the Border. I am advised that the North-West Water Authority are mindful of the desirability of maintaining the same close time on both sides of the Solway and are currently considering their response to the recent charge on the Scottish side.
The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, also questioned the scientific evidence. As regards that evidence, the answer given in another place and quoted by the noble Viscount was, I think, a fair one. The scientific evidence is not conclusive and a number of other considerations had to be taken into account.
Finally, another matter raised by the noble Viscount when talking about the close time was that he asked whether the local board could do their own thing—that is, restore the old close time in districts where further restrictions may not be necessary. I have to say that the Salmon Act does not allow for that and I looked at that very closely.
Viscount Thurso: My Lords, that is not what I asked. I asked whether the noble Lord himself would use what is allowed to him in the Salmon Act, to make his order different for those boards which wanted it done that way. I would appreciate it if the noble Lord would answer my question in the way in which I put it.
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, I shall certainly look very carefully at what the noble Viscount said. But my understanding of the Salmon Act 1986 is that there is no power in that Act for me to act differently with one river from another. However, I shall look very closely at what the noble Viscount said, and if my interpretation is different from his then of course I shall write to him. What is available is that the annual close time can be varied on a district by district basis, as he will no doubt be well aware.
With regard to the north-east of England drift net fishery, all the measures to restrict the fishery still further were in place for the start of the 1987 season. The measures to encourage a shift from drift netting

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towards fixed netting will all he in place for the start of the 1988 season. I am sure the noble Viscount will accept that it is impossible to assess the effects of all these measures so quickly. The Salmon Act requires Ministers to review all salmon netting in north-east England and the east coast of Scotland in November 1989 and to place their report before both Houses of Parliament. That is a much more appropriate timescale. We have made it clear that we shall approach the review with an open mind and there is, I suggest, little if anything to be gained by speculating tonight on the outcome.
I would say however to the noble Earl, Lord Haig, that the catch returns of licensed netsmen will be one of the parameters studied in the review. These returns are required by the water authority by-laws and must be to the water authority's specification as to the details.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, referred to the purchase of Scottish netting rights by the Atlantic Salmon Conservation Trust (Scotland) Limited as indeed did the noble Lord, Lord Mason. I think the noble Lord, Lord Mason, did the Government a disservice. I thought this Government were particularly interested in private enterprise and the private enterprise shown by this trust is quite remarkable.
This is, as he rightly said, a significant development and one that we are watching with interest. It is of course a complex matter and it has to be recognised that the removal of netting stations will not in itself necessarily improve the management of river systems. It should of course make more fish available to be caught by rod and line and by other nets. It should also lead to an increase in the spawning escapement particularly in those districts where only rod and line fishing would remain. I must point out, however, that the purchase of private rights in Scotland by a private organisation—albeit one dedicated to salmon conservation—is a different matter from the extinction of the public right to fish in coastal waters in England and Wales. Netting rights purchased by the trust are not of course automatically extinguished, although it allows their use to be suspended. Still on the subject of the northeast of England, the noble Lord, Lord Moran, asked me about the proposals regarding the use of T-nets off the Northumbrian coast. I should like to try to explain some of the background to this.
In November 1985, my right honourable friend the Minister of State at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food announced measures for the future management of the English north-east Fishery. These measures were designed to do two things. The first objective was to reduce the fishing effort in the fishery as a whole by banning drift netting for eight hours each night, by standardising the weekend close time for all nets at 60 hours—thereby cutting out Saturday working—and by preventing "endorsees" using nets independently of the licence holder.
The second objective was to seek to change the balance of fishing effort from drift nets to fixed nets. Underlying this was the concern expressed by your Lordships again this evening about the interceptory
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nature of the drift nets. T-nets do not intercept salmon in the same way as drift nets. They tend to take more local stocks and a higher proportion of sea trout than do drift nets.
Among the measures to change this balance of fishing effort was my right honourable friend's acceptance of the Northumbrian Water Authority's request for an order to permit the use of fixed nets in its southern area. Fixed nets were already allowed in the Northumbrian Water Authority's northern area and in the Yorkshire Water Authority's area and this measure would—on a strictly controlled basis—bring the southern Northumbrian area into line. The order to allow T-nets in the southern Northumbrian area was made last year and takes practical effect in March with the start of the 1988 season. The Northumbrian Water Authority has made two by-laws which will restrict the use of T-nets near the mouths of the rivers Wear and Tees. Without these by-laws the use of licensed T-nets would be totally unrestricted in the southern Northumbrian area.
The by-law regarding the River Wear would allow up to five T-nets inside the so-called Wear box, an area in which drift netting is prohibited. That proposal aroused considerable opposition and my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food decided that a public inquiry should be held into the by-law. The inspector's report is awaited and I understand my right honourable friend will take his decision on whether to confirm the by-law in the light of that report.
It has been suggested that the introduction of T-nets in the southern Northumbrian area will result in an increase in fishing effort. This is not so. First of all, that area has seen its weekend close time increased by 18 hours for all nets and drift netting has been prohibited for eight hours each night. Secondly, no additional licences are being issued. Netsmen will be able to take out a licence which authorises the use of either T-nets or drift nets but they will not be able to use both types of net simultaneously. They will alternatively be able to take out a licence for T-nets only at a lower cost. The use of T-nets in the southern Northumbrian area will therefore lead to a direct reduction of the amount of drift netting in the area.
The noble Lord asked about the numbers of salmon and grilse caught in the Northumbrian nets in 1987. I think this was also asked by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy. The returns are still being analysed by the water authority and the final data will not be available for some time. However, on the basis of the returns analysed so far, it looks as though the number of salmon and grilse caught by the Northumbrian nets in 1987 will be fewer than the 54,000 caught in 1986. The rod catch returns for the Northumbrian area are also being analysed but early indications are that these show a significant increase.
As for the Tees, the proposed by-law will, if confirmed, introduce restrictions on both drift netting and T-netting around the mouth of the River Tees. No restrictions are currently in place on either fishing method near the mouth of the river. This bylaw has also attracted opposition from anglers who feel that it does not go far enough. The

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Northumbrian Water Authority is, I believe, in touch with the objectors and they have yet to apply for confirmation of the by-law.
The Salmon Act provides for the making of subordinate legislation for Scotland. I have already referred to the weekly close time and the salmon dealer licensing schemes. Other matters can be regulated under Section 3 of the Act; for example the construction and alteration of dams, the meshes, materials and dimensions of nets and the construction, alteration and use of screens for the control of the passage of salmon. I have to say that although no regulations on these subjects have yet to be made under the Act, regulations relating to many of those matters made under earlier legislation remain in force.
In Section 21 there are powers to define methods of net fishing. Here again, no regulations have been made. I have to say, however, that the methods which may be defined; that is, net and coble, bag net, fly net and other stake nets are generally well understood in Scottish salmon circles. Noble Lords may however be interested to know that my department will be consulting shortly about dams and screens and the question of defining the lawful netting methods. On more local matters I have decided, on request, that a designation order will be made amalgamating the salmon fishery districts of the rivers Bervie and the North and South Esk. I have also decided, at the request of the Tweed commissioners, that a baits and lures order will be made under Sections 8 and 10 of the Salmon Act. That order will make it unlawful to fish on the River Tweed by rod and line with shrimp or prawn between 1st June and 14th September in any year.
I hope that those comments will confirm that we do not see the Act as a dead letter but rather as a means of bringing about improvement in salmon administration in Scotland and in England and Wales, and that we are making positive efforts towards implementing it in a number of cases. However, action requires initiative at a local level and we are beginning to see that.
Turning now to the Salmon Advisory Committee, the committee under the chairmanship of Professor Dunnet has now met four times. We have asked the committee to first of all examine and report on the availability of information on the status of salmon stocks and the influences on the level of those stocks, including the effects of predators and of fishing at low water levels. That is a large subject and no easy task, particularly as there are differing views on the status of stocks and the underlying influences. It is therefore with considerable interest that my colleagues and I await the committee's first report. I can confirm that the committee intend to report as and when it completes particular stages of its work rather than on, say, an annual basis.
My colleagues and I will have to decide the extent to which the committee's reports should be published in the light of the circumstances of each case. I cannot give a categoric assurance about publishing reports. It is not possible to forecast sensibly the sensitivity of issues which the committee might be asked to report
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on in future. Moreover, reports may contain information given to the committee on the understanding that it would remain confidential. Nevertheless, I can assure the House that we do not intend to withhold information unnecessarily.
The committee decided unanimously to treat its discussions and papers as confidential. That allows members to speak their own minds freely and frankly without fear of being quoted outside. It will mean that they will be able to express their own views, based on their own knowledge, free from external pressures. That is a matter for the committee and not for ministers, but their decision strikes me as very sensible. I understand that the chairman wrote to all the nominating bodies to explain the point and none of them raised any objections. Nevertheless I shall draw the chairman's attention to the comments of your Lordships on that matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, suggested that the committee might issue a press release after each meeting and the chairman might speak to the media. I shall also draw that matter to the attention of the chairman. However, such issues can be difficult to relate to the press immediately after a discussion. I also have doubts about press releases in every case. Further discussions of those matters will take place with the committee.
With regard to acidification, I think that it is important to bear in mind that that is due not only to atmospheric input, to which noble Lords have referred, but also to local geology and land use. Controlling the planting of conifers in areas where soils are thin and poorly buffered is also of importance. I know that the Forestry Commission will be issuing guidelines for forest management and water and has been consulting those concerned with fisheries, and others, in preparing those guidelines.
It has been asked if the falling-off of runs and spring fish is mainly or partly due to the Greenland and Faroes Fisheries. Those fisheries are selective for multi-sea winter fish and undoubtedly some potential spring fish will be taken. It should, however, be noted that the decline in spring runs pre-dated those fisheries and showed no recovery when catches were reduced sharply under quotas. The primary cause for the current shortage of springers may well be environmental. However, exploitation by home-water fishing may be delaying recovery. District boards could consider, as was raised in meetings in Edinburgh, whether an extension of the annual close time in their particular district might be a useful measure.
The possibility of genetic changes arising from escapes of farmed salmon is, I believe, well recognised although there is little or no hard evidence of any damage being caused in this country. Research programmes are currently under way in departmental fisheries research laboratories. I am aware of a report called Genetic Impact of Farmed Atlantic Salmon on Wild Populations commissioned by the Nature Conservancy Council. The NCC has circulated the report to my department and a number of other organisations for comment.
The noble Lord, Lord Burton, raised the question of outbreaks of disease in fish farms. This is an

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important issue and one which the Government, and also the fish farming industry, take very seriously. This is quite understandable when one considers that the turnover from farm salmon in Shetland alone this year is £12 million. Farming only started in 1983 so noble Lords will see the speed of the increase in the business. However, there are dangers, to which the noble Lord, Lord Burton, referred.
Disease at fish farms does occur but is not a frequent event. Fish farmers have a statutory requirement to notify my department if disease is present or suspected, and under the legislation my department has powers to apply restrictions on the movement of fish in and out of a site until we are satisfied that the outbreak has been dealt with. We adopt a safety-first policy and enjoy very good cooperation from the fish farming industry. I hope that the noble Lord can be assured that, although we are certainly not complacent, there is an effective mechanism for dealing with disease at fish farms. However, I noted what the noble Lord said, and I shall certainly look at it in conjunction with my colleagues.
On the subject of other river users it is perhaps inevitable that from time to time there will be conflicts of interest between canoeists and anglers—and indeed between other recreational activities—over access to and use of our waterways. Where such conflicts arise it is the Government's view that they are best tackled by local negotiations. In England and Wales the water authorities are currently well placed to handle these matters and I can confirm that the new National Rivers Authority, which will inherit the relevant responsibilities, will have an important role to play here. The NRA will have statutory duties relating to recreation and fisheries and a regional management structure which will place it in a strong position to play an active role in ensuring as far as possible the practical coexistence of the different groups of water users.
So far as concerns the subject of tidal barrages, it is the Government's policy to encourage the development of renewable energy sources where these are economically attractive and environmentally acceptable. The generation of electricity at tidal barrages is one possibility, but the environmental implications must clearly be fully explored before any decisions are taken. Currently the possibility of a barrage on the Severn is being studied under a programme funded by the Department of Energy, the CEGB and the Severn Tidal Power Group.
I recognise the noble Lord's concern about the possible effects of such a barrage on salmon. This concern is shared by the water authorities and the barrage's promoters, and I understand that the implications for fisheries are being carefully considered. Adverse effects could include interruption to upstream and downstream migration of fish—caused both by the physical presence of the barrage and the operation of its turbines—and the effects of any changes in the water environment. Clearly this all needs to be looked at very carefully indeed before any decisions are taken.
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Noble Lords were right to point to a marginal decline in river quality in England and Wales from 1980 to 1985 and that, on evidence so far available, there appears to have been a further net decline in 1986. This must be kept in perspective. The fact remains that the UK is well up the league table in terms of river quality in Europe.
In relation to agricultural pollution, much has recently been done. The code of good agricultural practice has been published, extensive advice is made available on pollution avoidance, and grants are made available for waste management facilities. Nevertheless, the Government are very much aware of concern on this question and are considering very carefully what further measures may be necessary in the light of last year's report by the House of Commons' Environment Committee.
The noble Lord, Lord Burton. mentioned the abstraction of water from Loch Oich. I understand that this relates to a recent application by the British Waterways Board for permission to sell some water from the Caledonian Canal to the Fort Augustus Golf Club. I appreciate the noble Lord's concern that flow in the River Oich be maintained, but I gather that in this case, because of differences in the design of the locks at each end of this part of the canal, no additional water will in fact have to be diverted into the canal from Loch Oich. The water being sold to the golf club is surplus to the operation of the lower lock. However, I should like to look at the papers on this case before agreeing entirely with what I am reading to your Lordships. The situation is quite complex and is one in which I should like to study the background papers before giving assurances on what I read here.
With regard to co-ordination of UK policy on salmon matters, the Government are always concerned to consult salmon organisations about their policies, both national and international, towards the conservation and management of salmon stocks. We are grateful for the advice and acknowledge the usefulness of representations made to us by bodies such as the Atlantic Salmon Trust.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, commented on coordination of policies with other salmon producing members of the Community and the Community's representation of UK interests. I can assure the noble Lord that there is close co-ordination amongst the salmon producing states and between the commission and the member states, both in preparation for the NASCO meetings and during them, and of course as required at other times also.
It is, however, the officials of the Commission who negotiate on behalf of the Community and speak at the formal meetings of the NASCO Council and Commissions. Membership of the delegation consists of Commission staff and representatives of member state governments. We are glad that the Atlantic Salmon Trust and other UK non-Governmental organisations attend NASCO as observers and we are grateful for their contribution to our deliberations at home, but I am afraid it is not possible to include their representatives in the Community's delegation.

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Mention was made, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, of seals. It has been argued that the increase in the seal population is having a damaging effect on salmon fisheries. There remains no evidence to argue against the fact that seals are predators which consume large quantities of fish, including many of the commercially valuable kinds. Losses due to reduction of fish stocks caused by ordinary feeding predation by seals cannot easily be quantified and much research still requires to be done to produce evidence which might prove beyond doubt the lasting effect of seals on fish stocks generally.
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland decided in May 1985 that there will be no culling of seals until further notice because the evidence available to him did not justify culling to reduce or contain grey seal numbers. He indicated at that time that a further research programme of investigation into seal diet and distribution would be put in hand with a view to obtaining a better estimate of quantified damage to fish stocks. This research programme is now being undertaken, and until the results are to hand and assessed it is unlikely, as things stand, that there will be any change in policy.
However, we recognise that seals pose localised problems for salmon fishery as well as fish farming interests. For this reason, my department will continue to consider applications for licences for the control of seals to prevent damage to fisheries. Outside the annual close season there is no statutory protection for seals. There are also exemptions from the statutory liability to prosecution outside the licensing arrangements if seals are killed to prevent damage to fishing nets or tackle.
There was a strong attack by the noble Lord, Lord Mason, on monofilament gill nets. The carriage of these nets has been banned in Scotland for almost two years, and in Wales its use for salmon fishing is also banned. As regards England, where it is still legal to use these nets, my right honourable friend responsible for English fisheries is not convinced that there is a case for prohibiting their use; but the effect of these nets is kept under review.
Finally, the salmon catch data for England and Wales, which I think was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Moran, is published on a river by river basis and is expressed in terms of both numbers and weights. In Scotland we publish both numbers and weights by region and district. Both departments aim to publish the data in the year following that to which it relates and as early as possible in that year. However, to some extent we are in the hands of those who supply us with data. The Scottish Statistical Bulletin for 1986 is in the Library. Statistics for England and Wales will be published next month.
I am extremely conscious of the time taken to reply to this Question. However, I feel it is important to cover as many of the points raised in the debate as fully as possible. It is a subject which is very emotive and is one that we have to treat with great seriousness. I crave the indulgence of your Lordships for having spoken for so long.
House adjourned at fifteen minutes past ten o'clock.