Lords Sitting of 11 May 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 Gloucester.
The Earl of St. Germans The Earl of St. Germans—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

Air Traffic: Runway Capacity
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they are taking in the light of the recommendation of the Civil Aviation Authority Committee under the chairmanship of the chairman of the authority that a government lead in securing the provision of additional runway capacity in the South-East is required if British civil aviation is to maintain its position.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (Lord Brabazon of Tara): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport has asked officials to collaborate with the CAA and BAA in reviewing forecast air traffic demand and the capacity required to meet it.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that that is the best Answer to this Question that has been given for five years? However, before he absorbs too much self-congratulation from that, will he bear in mind that an early decision will inevitably be required because of the enormous time-lag between the decision to build a runway and an aeroplane landing on it?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am grateful for my noble friend's remark. However, it would be wrong to start with any preconceptions as to the possible results of the study. I therefore think that we shall have to wait and see.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, the Minister is right about not having preconceptions and not taking them for granted. Is he aware that on 18th February the House was told that the initiative on capacity would now rest quite definitely with the CAA and that government would not ignore it as they did in 1984? Is he further aware that the committee recommended that this was a matter of extreme urgency?
On the reply that the Minister has just given to the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, is it likely that the review will give a little more consideration to the development of British civil aviation and a little less to the environmental lobbies?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, it is a little early to know what the review will produce. However, we shall have to take environmental considerations into
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account as well as the needs of civil aviation. The difficulty is always to match the two.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the CAA report, CAP 537, published only recently, stresses in Part 2 that increased runway capacity would lead to increased airspace use, the capacity for which is very limited? Part 3 of that report outlines a number of points which require urgent decision. There is no easy answer to providing airspace capacity. That is the important issue on which it says that the Government must take certain decisions.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the noble Lord is referring to the evidence given by the CAA to the Select Committee in another place which is currently investigating air traffic control safety. Of course airspace capacity is of great importance. There are three factors: runway capacity; airspace capacity; and terminal capacity. All three have to be taken into account.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, even the Government must be aware of the criticism emanating from all quarters—from airlines and tour operators alike—of the one runway policy at Gatwick. Perhaps I may ask the Minister a question that I consider is very serious. Are the Government convinced that it is safe to rely on the emergency runway at Gatwick as the only one in use every night while the main runway is being repaired? Am I right to wonder whether only a disaster will move the Government and the BAA to do something about the matter?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, aviation safety is a matter for the CAA. It is satisfied that the use of the emergency runway during runway repairs at night time at Gatwick is satisfactory. On the point about a second runway for Gatwick, that is ruled out until 2019 by an agreement between the BAA and the county council. That is the answer on that point.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, in the light of his last answer, is my noble friend aware that that is flatly contradicted by what has been said by successive Ministers to the effect that the agreement between the BAA and the West Sussex County Council does not bind Her Majesty's Government? Will he very urgently reconsider that answer?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, my answer was that there was an agreement between the BAA and West Sussex County Council until 2019 which ruled out a second runway for Gatwick. I am afraid that that is correct.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that successive Ministers have said that the agreement did not rule it out because it was an undertaking that did not bind the Government? Will he give further thought to this?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, obviously I shall give further thoughts to that matter, but I do not think there is a chance of a second runway at Gatwick, for the time being any way.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, is the Minister aware that on several occasions in the House we have been told that the Government do not hold themselves responsible for the agreement that was reached without their knowledge and without their consent? Will he please answer my question, which was a most serious one? Do the Government believe that it is safe at Gatwick, at an airport that size, to rely on an emergency runway in use every night while the main runway is being repaired? Do they consider that that is safe for passengers?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I believe I have already answered that point. Yes, taking the advice of the Civil Aviation Authority, which is responsible for safety matters, we believe that it is safe for Gatwick to use its emergency runway at night.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I am sorry to return again on this matter, but does the Minister agree that the important issue is not that of runway capacity, to which noble Lords have referred, but of finding a way to give additional runway space if possible, provided that there is sufficient safe airspace capacity? Does he agree that these two issues must be taken into consideration? The safety of airspace is as important as runway space.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right. As I said in an earlier answer, airspace capacity is equally important to runway capacity. I assure the House that safety must be paramount in all our considerations.
Lord Walston: My Lords, will the noble Lord elucidate for people such as myself who are ignorant of these matters on who is actually responsible for air safety? Is it with the Government that ultimate responsibility lies, or has it been delegated by the Government to the CAA? Does the ultimate responsibility lie with the CAA? If it is the former, have the Government the power and the desire to overrule the CAA if they come to the conclusion that what the CAA does is not compatible with safety?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, civil aviation safety is the statutory responsibility of the Civil Aviation Authority. We are confident that the CAA is well able to fulfil that role.

Deaf-Blind Children: Training
2.45 p.m.
Viscount Tonypandy Viscount Tonypandy asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are taking steps to improve the facilities for the training of children who are without sight and hearing.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Education and Science (Baroness Hooper): My Lords, the Government are presently preparing a policy statement on the educational needs of deaf-blind children. We hope to publish this soon.
Viscount Tonypandy: My Lords, in thanking the noble Baroness for the spirit of that reply, may I ask her whether she can confirm that there are over 1,000 of these children but that there are training places available for 100 only? Will she be kind enough to publish the replies to the questionnaire which her department sent to local authorities in 1986?
Baroness Hooper: Yes, my Lords. The questionnaire was sent to local authorities, with a deadline of February 1987, but we have only recently received some responses. Some 79 local education authorities, or 81 per cent., replied to the questionnaire and the results show that there were 696 deaf-blind children for whom those local education authorities had responsibility. That represents about one in 10,000 of the total school population in England. I have no doubt that some of the information collected in the questionnaires will be part of the statement to be published in due course.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, what steps are Her Majesty's Government taking to train young people to teach in this very delicate field of blind and deaf children?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the Government are well aware of the concern and the need for training in this area. At present there are no training courses specifically for teachers of double-handicapped deaf-blind children. I understand that the University of Birmingham, with the help of a grant from the Leverhulme Trust, is developing teacher training in this area. But generally speaking it is a post qualification in-service training course that is appropriate in such cases.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, is the Minister aware that on these Benches there is a great deal of concern and that we look forward to the publication of the policy statement, which we shall want to debate in your Lordships' House? Without underestimating the importance of the statutory role of DES and the local authorities, will she say a word about the work of the voluntary organisation SENSE, the National Deaf, Blind and Rubella Association, and especially its pioneering work at its new centre in Birmingham?
Baroness Hooper: Yes, my Lords. One of the problems in this area has been a lack of information, hence the need for the questionnaire and the gathering of information. Department officials have met representatives of SENSE on a number of occasions and most recently in the last month. They have made very helpful contributions to our consideration and we shall be keeping in close touch with them. We are most grateful for the role that they have played.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, can the Minister say whether the paper to which she referred will also deal with speech therapists as an adjunct to appropriate education provisions under statute?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the purpose of the statement will be to deal with the children who have the double handicap of being both deaf and blind. This is a complex subject and will involve to some extent the consideration of speech therapy.

Education Act 1981: Implementation
2.50 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington Lord Dormand of Easington asked Her Majesty's Government:
What are the latest measures they are introducing to implement fully the provisions of the Education Act 1981.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, all the provisions of the Education Act 1981 are in force. The Act lays upon local education authorities certain duties in respect of provision for children with special educational needs. It is for local education authorities to determine their own priorities for the level of resources to be made available for the purposes of the Act.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, what are the reasons for so little having been done practically to implement all the provisions of the Act?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I believe that the Warnock Report estimated that it would take until the end of the century for all its recommendations to be fully implemented. All local education authorities are now operating the procedures introduced by the 1981 Act. Prior to the Act, base lines for special education provision varied significantly among local eduction authorities. Some of the variation persists as some local authorities push ahead at different rates with reviews of their provisions. However, all are doing something. Some are doing more than others.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that those involved in the teaching of children with disabilities and children with special education needs are deeply concerned that the Education Reform Bill cuts across the provisions of the 1981 Act?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, we do not believe that the provisions of the new Bill diminish the effects of the 1981 Act in any way. It is intended that all children, including those with special education needs, will benefit from the provisions of the Bill. Much is already being done in this area in respect of teachers and teacher training.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, is the Minister aware that people are concerned about the alternative local financial provisions being made under the Education Reform Bill and that it will be more difficult for local authorities to find the resources necessary to carry out their duties under the 1981 Act? That will apply particularly if the ILEA is abolished.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, no; I do not agree with the conclusions of the noble Lord. The Government's plans for local authority spending on education for 1988–89, announced last November, represent a cash increase of 7·9 per cent. over the 1987–88 plans. That is in addition to the substantial increase of 18·3 per cent. for the previous year. The plans for special education in 1988–89 are 8·3 per cent. higher than the 1987–88 plans. That increase should help local education authorities to pursue their policy priorities for special education.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the concern of many parents of handicapped children about the length of time taken from the original application to the fulfilling of the statement?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, we are aware that problems have emerged in local authorities in certain areas. Of course, they are being kept under review.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, in view of the close link between this Question and the previous Question, will the Minister say whether the policy statement that she referred to in connection with Question No. 2 goes any wider than deaf-blind children? Does it deal with other disabilities? Can she give some idea as to when the statement is likely to be published?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the statement relating to the previous Question standing in the name of the noble Viscount will be issued fairly soon, though I cannot give a date. It relates specifically to double-handicapped children. However, the department will be undertaking a review of the 1981 Act later this year. That will take into account the outcome of research projects, the advice of HMI, together with the findings of last year's report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Education, Science and the Arts on children with special education needs.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, is the Minister aware that many people will be reassured if more is written into the present Education Reform Bill as regards the needs of children with special education needs?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the noble Baroness and her friends have made sure that we are fully aware of this particular area as it is affected by the Education Reform Bill. We are still in the process of considering the comments and concerns that have been expressed.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the key to the problem is an inadequate supply of trained teachers? Will she agree that, probably without doubt, this is the most skilled and rewarding branch of teaching? Will the Government initiate a campaign to encourage teachers—especially young teachers—to undertake in-service training for the teaching of the disabled, including the unfortunate children mentioned by my noble friend Lord Tonypandy?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I am well aware of the importance of teachers in this area; my mother was a teacher in a special school. Much has been done. The Government have established national priorities with funding at 70 per cent. grant level for in-service training in order to meet the special education needs of children with learning difficulties in schools. Priority areas include teachers of children with disabilities of sight or hearing, or with severe learning difficulties; designated teachers within ordinary schools; and the training of education psychologists.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, will the Minister agree that the first part of her Answer was rather odd because the Warnock Report was published before the 1981 Act? Perhaps she will look at her Answer again. Is she aware that the real reason such little progress has been made is the lack of a definite commitment on the part of the Government to the integration of handicapped children into what might be described as the normal education system? In those circumstances, will she consider as a matter of urgency convening a meeting of all interested parties to consider what immediate steps can be taken to implement the more important parts of the Act?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I understand that the 1981 Act was largely based on the Warnock Report; hence my reference to the comments in the report. The department intends to conduct a review during which consultation with a number of interested parties and organisations will take place.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that it is quite unacceptable that the Government should be rushing the Education Reform Bill through the House before the proposals relating to handicapped and other children who are suffering have been properly processed?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, we have said on many occasions that the Education Reform Bill is a framework Bill. These considerations will be taken fully into account in the implementation of the Bill.

US Nuclear Weapons in UK
2.57 p.m.
Lord Kennet Lord Kennet asked Her Majesty's Government:
In the event of an accident to a United States nuclear weapon in this country, who would be in charge of emergency arrangements outside the site.
The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, in the extremely unlikely event of a United States nuclear weapon accident in this country, the United Kingdom would retain sovereign rights over its territory and territorial waters. A formal arrangement with the United States Government exists for this purpose.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, in view of the spate of press articles a month or two ago suggesting that some members of the relevant parts of the United States' administration believed that, if an accident should occur on one of its bases in this country, their first task would be to secure control—I repeat, secure control—outside the base, can the noble Lord go a little further and describe the arrangements that exist between this country and the United States as regards such an emergency on our sovereign territory?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, as I said in my original Answer, the arrangements are perfectly straightforward. The United Kingdom will retain sovereignty over its territory and territorial waters, as the noble Lord would expect. Therefore there is no question of the United States acquiring sovereignty,
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or something similar, if that is what the noble Lord fears.
Lord Irving of Dartford: My Lords, would not the ratification of the INF treaty by the United States Senate reduce the chances of a nuclear weapons accident in this country by removing land-based weapons? On behalf of the Government will the noble Lord confirm support for the INF treaty?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I greatly admire the noble Lord's ingenuity but I do not believe that the INF treaty arises from this Question.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that yesterday there were press reports of a Russian satellite with a nuclear engine being out of control? Has consideration been given to what will be done when that falls down, as is predicted?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I fear that I must say the same to my noble friend as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Irving. That is another Question and if he tables it I shall be happy to answer it.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, I shall try to elicit an answer from the Government to my Question. The noble Lord has told us that the Government will retain national sovereignty over their territory; that is obvious. My Question referred to who would be in charge of emergency arrangements. I repeat it. Would the United States forces be in charge of emergency arrangements or would the British Government and forces be in charge of them?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the arrangements for taking charge of the emergency services in such a situation would be exactly as with any other emergency; namely, primarily the British police.

Business
3 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to say a word about the arrangements for the short debates standing in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, and my noble friend Lord Ferrier. Owing to the small number of speakers it is not necessary to propose a formal time limit for either debate, but I know that the House would appreciate it if noble Lords would confine their speeches to the limits compatible with the spirit of these short debates.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, perhaps I may thank the Chief Whip for making that statement. He will be aware that there is considerable concern in the House about possible dangers to the health of noble Lords following reports of widespread illness among your Lordships and members of the staff. Therefore, I ask him whether the Government will make a Statement on this matter at the earliest possible opportunity.
Lord Denham: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government expect to be in a position to make a Statement later this afternoon.

House of Lords Offices, Leave of Absence and Lords' Expenses, Privileges, Procedure of the House, Selection: Select Committee Membership
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move the five Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper en bloc. They all have the same purpose; namely, to make alterations to the membership of some of the Select Committees of the House to take account of the recent changes in the leadership of the Social and Liberal Democratic? Party and the Social Democratic Party in this House.
Moved, That the Lord Jenkins of Hillhead and the Lord Walston be appointed members of the Select Committee in the places of the Baroness Seear and the Lord Diamond, resigned;
That the Lord Walston be appointed a member of the Select Committee in place of the Baroness Stedman, resigned;
That the Lord Jenkins of Hillhead and the Baroness Stedman be appointed members of the Select Committee in the places of the Baroness Seear and the Lord Diamond, resigned;
That the Lord Jenkins of Hillhead and the Lord Walston be appointed members of the Select Committee in the places of the Baroness Seear and the Lord Diamond, resigned; and
That the Lord Jenkins of Hillhead and the Lord Walston be appointed members of the Select Committee in the places of the Baroness Seear and the Baroness Stedman, resigned—(Lord Aberdare.)

NHS Nursing Staff
3.2 p.m.
Lord Molloy Lord Molloy rose to call attention to the conditions of employment of nursing staff in the National Health Service; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, perhaps I may immediately express how deeply she regrets that she cannot participate in this debate as she would have liked. We all know the valuable and knowledgeable contribution which she could have made. She is not here because she is attending a nurses' event elsewhere.
Perhaps I may also explain that events have moved rather quickly since I tabled my Motion. It has been on the Order Paper for some time and the Review Body for Nursing Staff, Midwives, Health Visitors and Professions Allied to Medicine has now submitted its report. There can be little doubt that we all agree—those of us who have had time to read it—that it is a momentous review and has been received with a great deal of happiness among all the professions involved in medical science.
Therefore, I believe that it behoves us to take a glance at some of the primary points in this review. When one examines it one realises the unhappiness in the past four years in the nursing profession at the rundown of the National Health Service, or at least
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what people thought was a rundown. The profession believed that we were in the worst possible situation, spending more on a service that was becoming worse. Therefore, this review is very welcome.
Perhaps it behoves us to take a cursory glance at the history of the nursing profession in this country. The nurse demand was first created over 100 years ago. Now, as then, the family provided its own nursing service. When a child is ill with the measles or whatever, it is the mother or elder child who is the nurse. Therefore, the family provided its own nursing service. It is fundamental for us to acknowledge that all forms of illness create a dependency. The sick need not only medical treatment but personal service. We have steadily moved to that in this country. Indeed, by the middle of the 19th century a group of women was developed with skill and knowledge in the care of the sick. They had been carefully selected and trained. In short, the nurse had emerged. Before that the situation was totally haphazard.
Now, as then, demand for the nurses' services increased with demand for medical services. It would be quite impossible in this House not to mention the magnificent role in furthering the cause of nurses of Miss Florence Nightingale, OM. She made bitter attacks on the quality of recruitment of nurses. She pointed out that those people recruited as nurses were poverty stricken themselves. It was the work of Florence Nightingale that had such a marked effect. Her description of some hospital wards was significant. The nurses' quarters in the wards were nothing more than wooden cages where they lived and cooked their own food. There is not much doubt that Miss Nightingale was the most influential reformer of her time. Certain ladies in the Department of Health and Social Security like Mrs. Currie might do well to take note now and then and to read a little about Miss Florence Nightingale, OM.
The range of doctor specialisations also has a valuable role, and they recognise the valuable role of the nurse and the health visitors. They include general practitioners, doctors practising in community medicine and community health—that is, family planning and child health clinics—those who are community physicians with health authorities, clinical medical staff, those contracted with universities to teach students, doctors working in our armed forces, in our Civil Service and in our occupational health services and those working for companies. In all those instances every doctor acknowledges that the nurse is invaluable.
The creation of the National Health Service enhanced the life of our nation and also enhanced the medical profession. The growth of professional and medical trade unions like the Whitley Council have also made a remarkable contribution. We now have this vital body, the Nursing and Midwifery Staffs Negotiating Council. There is very little said about it, but throughout the past 20 years it has been negotiating all sorts of conditions and pay. By and large it has gone unsung. The only time it is brought to anyone's notice is when there is a collision, and everyone regrets that.
Perhaps I may say that the evidence submitted by the staff of the council to this pay review body could bring about profound changes in the structure of nursing and midwifery. For the nursing profession it

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is the most striking contribution since the days of Miss Nightingale herself. The Confederation of Health Service Employees, which covers all grades of nurses and auxiliaries, considers that this report will constitute a most profound change in the nursing sevice. However, it is concerned about neighbourhood schemes and the emergence of nursing practitioners. It also feels that education has to be improved. It takes pride in the fact that we have maintained a free health service.
Likewise, the confederation says that there are masses of details which it has given in evidence and that is true, as anyone will see if he reads the report. This contribution by CoHSE is a work of factual statistics allied to prevailing conditions. Indeed, it is a valuable assessment of considerable scholarship, and I believe that CoHSE is to be congratulated. There has been research from the broad membership of nurses on pay conditions, the relevance of market forces, the role of comparability—equal pay for equal value—and relativities with other groups of the NHS staff. It is quite a remarkable contribution.
The Royal College of Nursing has done a superb job in submitting evidence. It says:
"The Royal College of Nursing believes that there is a growing problem of recruiting and retaining nursing staff within the NHS. Whilst we welcome the recent pay settlement"—
and so does CoHSE—
"and agree that this will help to resolve some of the staff shortages which have been highlighted, particularly in specialist areas, many problems still remain regarding the working conditions of nurses, and it is now urgent that action should be taken to alleviate the situation".
No Carlton Club proposals are acceptable to the Royal College of Nursing or the Confederation of Health Service Employees.
What is equally and vitally important is that the great and humane role played by our health visitors should be recognised and due acceptance and acknowledgement given to the remarkable contribution which they make. They wish the health service still to be funded from taxation. Like the Royal College of Nursing and CoHSE, the Health Visitors' Association believes that the health service must be free at the point of delivery. The association also supports the Royal College and CoHSE in that there should be decent rewards reflecting justice for health visitors as well as for other forms of nursing. There is one disappointment that each association feels ought to be mentioned. There has been no increase in London weighting for nurses. I ask the Minister to say whether the Government are prepared to look again at that point.
I wish to pass very briefly to some very important statements of the review board. It states, for example, that it appreciates that it may take some time to bring about the changes which it has recommended because the data for which it has asked, particularly at a time when new data have been introduced in the National Health Service, remain unsatisfactory. I hope the Minister will note that point. It is a superb report by the review body but it believes that the submission of the data that it required was unsatisfactory.
The review body continues by saying that there are important issues in themselves but that consideration
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of them has taken place during a wide-ranging public debate on the future of the National Health Service. This was prompted in part by growing concern about the problems of recruitment and the retention of key staff. The review body states:
"As Chapter 8 indicates, our recommendations will result in a substantial increase in the paybill. This flows largely from the exceptional circumstances associated with the introduction of the new clinical grading structure, which will affect the vast majority of the nurses, midwives and health visitors covered in our review".
There is one other aspect that I feel I should bring to your Lordships' attention. It worries the review board, it is worrying everyone in medicine and I feel sure that Ministers are equally concerned. This relates to midwifery and nursing posts in special care baby units. Those units are having some harassing moments because among the highest vacancy rates are posts for specialist nurses who can deal with special care baby units. Other specialities with average vacancy rates include mental illness nursing and nursing of the mentally handicapped. There we have it; and it is worth repeating. Special care baby units, mental illness nursing and mentally handicapped nursing are all suffering from a shortage of staff. Something should be done about that, and I hope that the Government are prepared to say that something will be done.
The staff side provided a reasonable breakdown, compiled from newspapers, of wards closed and beds lost as a result of the shortage of nursing staff in the period 31st August to October 1987. The survey indicated that there are shortages in all regions and that they are not confined to London and the South-East. The staff side also referred to the independent surveys carried out by the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Midwives and the Health Visitors' Association. They found evidence of substantial shortages across the country. The Health Visitors' Association discovered that out of 105 districts where health visitors are urgently required, nearly 50 to 60 per cent. were short of health visitors' visits. Therefore, the Health Visitors' Association needs more help.
The review states:
"We are concerned that the Health Departments have been able to provide little detailed and up to date statistical evidence to support their statement that there is no general recruitment and retention problem for nurses".
All the professional organisations, every doctor, every specialist, every group of nurses say that there is a serious shortage. The only body which does not agree is the DHSS. I find this to be quite remarkable. It is a massive challenge for the DHSS to tell the Royal College of Nursing, the Confederation of Health Service Employees, the doctors, the British Medical Association and the Health Visitors' Association, "You are all wrong and we are right". My point has to be made forcibly. I wished to put it mildly but I feel very deeply about it.
The review states:
"The Health Departments said that there were no problems in the recruitment and retention of unqualified staff, and that those nursing auxiliaries and assistants who would be placed in grade A should receive no more than a relatively modest cost of living increase".
The review body states that it is folly—and I agree—for the department to make such a disgraceful statement. I hope that the Government will note that folly is often more cruel in consequence than malice

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can be in the intent. It would be awful for us to throw out the recommendations of this remarkable review.
There are many other matters which I can raise but I hope I have said enough. This review board has worked magnificently and it has provided a superb report. I hope that it will be the basis upon which the Government will see that the DHSS advances. It is on this basis that it must advance or it must reject what the board has said.
Britain's medical profession, together with the great advocacy of Aneurin Bevan, created the health service. If I may say so, they were well aided by his then PPS who is now in this House, my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington. He played a great role. At the time I was engaged on staff side work and I know what a magnificent part my noble friend played in assisting Aneurin Bevan in the creation of the National Health Service. We all know that they had to fight tooth and nail. The NHS Bill was fought clause by clause, line by line, amendment after amendment. At all phases of the parliamentary procedure it was opposed. When it was triumphant it became the envy of the world.
The point I wish your Lordships to note is that we created our NHS only a few years after the greatest war in history. For this nation of ours that in itself was a tremendous, civilised achievement. Britain's entire medical profession is a monument to civilised devotion and duty. It is an example of our capacity for practical and emotional concern for individual life, and that is the most significant quality of a civilised human being.
Perhaps I may be permitted to conclude with these words on behalf of all grades of Britain's nurses, male and female. Our nurses serve medicine and our people in the most sensitive area of human emotion—in the care of the sick and the suffering. They have a noble record and they deserve the support of this House. I hope that my short debate will give us an opportunity to pay a massive compliment to this noble profession for the assistance it gives to medicine and for the comfort it provides for the benefit and good of our nation.
My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.20 p.m.
Lord Trafford: My Lords, I am sure that we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for the opportunity of discussing this important subject. It is customary to declare one's interest when making a speech in this House, and mine in this respect is quite simple. I love nurses. I have worked with them for more than 30 years, and my admiration and respect has if anything increased. In fact, I even married one, and I can recommend that to those who are considering such a step.
My view of nurses is not just a starry-eyed one of angels floating about, for it must be remembered—and it is an important point to bear in mind—that out of uniform a nurse is the product of her generation. Those now entering nursing aged between about 18 and 20, just like other 18 year-olds today, are doing many other things as well. I make this point because it does not help nurses if, apart from a proper respect for their professional activities,
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one tries to make them something special, which of course they are not, in all respects.
For example, a nurse like any other girl will look closely to her pay, her accommodation, her terms and conditions of service, the work interest with which she is presented, the type of discipline she has to undergo and the sensitivity with which she is managed and treated. Those are the factors she will consider in evaluating her job satisfaction and her happiness, or otherwise, with her lifestyle.
There has been a significant change over the past 20 years which particularly affects young girls. Perhaps I should point out that, although we often refer to nurses as being young girls, many nurses are male. I have to be careful because yesterday in this Chamber we were picked up about three times for referring to headmasters and not to headmistresses. Today one should make the point that a large minority of nurses are male, and very good nurses they are too.
There has been a change over the past 20 years. Many more opportunities are now presented to young school-leavers, especially young females, than was the case some years ago. It is comparisons of the kind I have just made that will dictate to a large extent who is recruited to what is an arduous profession requiring considerable discipline and commitment.
I shall not say much about pay because it has been very much in the public eye recently. The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, mentioned the report and asked one or two questions. I shall add one, if only to clarify a point. I refer to whether or not the conditions of the pay increase apply to community and district nurses as well as to other nurses. My understanding is that they do, but I should like confirmation from my noble friend. There has been a certain amount of apprehension on this point though I am not absolutely clear why that should have arisen.
I should like to turn to recruitment. It is often said that 30,000 nurses a year leave the National Health Service. That is a true statement, but as a bald statement it means nothing. A large number of those nurses are retiring or are leaving the profession for excellent reasons like getting married, having children and all the things that people do. It was no problem and was not raised very much in the previous 10 or 15 years for the very simple reason that on average we were then training between 25,000 and 30,000 nurses a year. We are not training that number of nurses now. Of the 25,000 nurses taken in for training—at least 1,000 were trained but did not register or did not work in the National Health Service—some 7,000 dropped out, which represents more than one-fifth and nearly a quarter of that total. There is a shortfall, and we must therefore look carefully at the question of recruitment.
Surely the shortages which the noble Lord mentioned are related not solely to the general level of recruitment but to specific areas and to specific training facilities within the profession. For example, five or 10 years ago paediatric intensive care, which the noble Lord mentioned, was hardly very extensive in the country. The one unit that trained these nurses provided more than enough. However, a sudden expansion by the medical profession in this field, a

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sudden burgeoning of the number of paediatric intensive care units around the country, has led to a shortage. It is inevitable.
It could be argued that we should not have expanded in that way and instead should have set up the nurse training establishments, then set up the anaesthetic training establishments, then increased the number of paediatric doctors and at last opened the units. Unfortunately, as most noble Lords will know from experience in their own fields, things do not happen in that way. One could say "Thank God they don't", because the result would have been half as good as it actually has been. So despite some of the high decibel complaints, if I may so describe them, that were launched by the noble Lord, some of the complications have been due to the very success of the National Health Service rather than to its failures.
I now turn to two other points relative to recruitment. The first concerns recall schemes. It is estimated that there are about 750,000 trained nurses in this country. Some 300,000 or 400,000 are occupied in the National Health Service and a few thousand are in other fields. It is believed—and I do not think that one can go further than say it is believed—that of the remainder it is possible that 200,000 may be available for return to the profession of nursing.
How do we get them back? In some districts, but in far too few, systems of recall by direct questionnaire and direct approach and short courses and short reintroductions are being operated to attract them back. In such circumstances it is important to remember the psyche of people who have been out of nursing—and especially high-tech nursing—for 10 years. They are nervous of returning to this function. How nice it is to find that the next six people with whom you are conducting a course are equally nervous because they are equally out of touch. It is reassuring from their point of view, and therefore there is a great deal to be said for recall in groups. It appears to have been most successful in returning a number of nurses to the profession.
Another question is completely overlooked. We are short of nurses. Some are going to Australia and to America, and they are doing so for all kinds of reasons. If I were a young girl, which obviously I am not, I should very much like to have the initials SRN after my name. It would take me to New Zealand, Australia, parts of Africa, Asia and America. It is a world-wide passport. They can go anywhere and be given a job for a period of time. What a wonderful way it is to proceed. I am all in favour of that. I understand it and I should not like to stop it.
However, there is a counterflow. In the town of Londonderry, or Derry, or whatever people like to call it nowadays, they have actually cut the intake for nurse training. They have a superfluity of nurses and they cannot even offer full-time jobs to those they do train. My question is: if our nurses are going to Australia, why the devil are their nurses not coming here? They do not seem to want to go to Australia, thank goodness! Secondly, there were 2,000 applicants last year in Derry for 450 places. Where are our recruiters for the remaining 1,550—if my
1136
mathematics is correct—that were turned down? Obviously some of the applicants were unsuitable, but assuming that 1,000 were suitable, they would have made quite a considerable difference to the problem had we trained them in this country and offered them proper facilities.
My next point concerns accommodation and facilities. It is perfectly true—as we all know, and repeating it does not help the situation—that something like 70 per cent. to 80 per cent. of all buildings in the National Health Service are pre-1918. Naturally such buildings do not make the most attractive settings for young girls to live in. We must also remember that the changes in the housing market—flat prices and where you live—have made a great deal of difference as to whether nurses want to live in or out of the hospital. Just recently because of rising costs, especially in the South, nurses have once again returned to wanting to live in.
On the management side we must be adaptable and take account of that situation. We must provide nurses with the incentives and the facilities, just as one would, in my view, if one was running any other business and wished to acquire a short supply of labour: one must raise the price. Of course for national reasons we may not be able to raise the price in terms of the actual wage, but we can raise it in many other ways. For example, there is no reason why tennis courts, swimming pools, squash clubs and so on should not be dragooned—the local ones I mean—into offering nurses free access. That should not be too difficult to arrange. There are not many institutions which would refuse to give, if not free, special rates. There are many endowment funds in nearly every hospital which could pay to make access free for nurses. That concession would help considerably.
We must also take a far more businesslike approach—if I may use that expression—in our attitude to property in the National Health Service. However, I do not wish to pre-empt what I believe will be a debate on a subsequent occasion on the management of estates in the National Health Service. Nevertheless, we are desperately conservative in our approach to this matter and far too stick in the mud in its regard. There are plenty of ways of doing this and plenty of ideas in this connection. It is interesting to note—many noble Lords will no doubt have read about this—the approaches among building societies, the nursing profession and the medical profession to obtain the necessary accommodation. It is most important that this should also be done.
However, there are many other factors apart from accommodation. For example, nurses are most concerned with their working conditions—their safety and occupational health. Twenty-five years ago I used to spend a whole afternoon in the Nurses Health Service, as we called it. The fact that it was called the Nurses Health Service was not to downgrade all the ancillaries who work in the health service—that is, the porters, the scientists and the technicians. It just happened to be called the Nurses Health Service. Today there is no such thing in most places, and in some there is an inadequate or partial occupational health service. Nevertheless it is somewhere, something and some way of showing

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that one is taking a special interest in a vital part of the profession.
If tomorrow we sent all the doctors out of the hospital in which I worked it would still be useful. However, if we sent the nurses out, it may as well have to shut its doors the next morning. That is the difference. Nurses form a critically important part of the service which we expect to receive and take for granted. Therefore every conceivable effort should be made to meet their reasonable requirements as regards facilities, safety, health and accommodation.
I turn to another critical issue as regards nurses: their status and their education. At the present time Project 2000 has been put forward. It is a wide scheme which I understand from the DHSS is now under consideration. Therefore I shall not ask my noble friend to make too many comments on it because I am sure that when the time comes he will do so. It is like the curate's egg—good in parts. However, I am worried about the slight disregard, the almost looking down the nose attitude, it has towards enrolled nurses who are a most important part of the nursing profession. Nurses have many anxieties about this. There are many ways in which one can raise status. I hope that we have taken the lead in Sussex by drawing together the regional health authority of the South-East, the University of Sussex and the Brighton Polytechnic to form on a tripartite basis at the university an institute of nurses. By itself of course the project achieves nothing. However, what it can do with a little imagination and some effort is to galvanise people into research into nursing.
There has been remarkably little research into nursing—on the effect of what nurses actually do, on the services they should be providing or on the way in which they should be deployed. All other matters are ancillary to that. The project could also raise the status and level of nurses in terms of the way in which they are trained, the methods of education and the breadth of such education. In other words, it moves some way along the lines of part of Project 2000, which I fully support. However, I am dubious about one matter—because I favour the apprentice system in training—and that is the reduction from about 75 per cent. to something under 50 per cent. of the time that would be spent on training in the wards.
Finally, I turn to management. We must manage, as we do in all other spheres, but in this one especially, with sensitivity. I am afraid to say that all too often at local and sometimes national level the degree of sensitivity is deplorable. The way that the nurses are often treated by patients—and doctors, I regret to say—the abuse and the injuries they sustain, especially in accident centres, is quite unacceptable. There would be no harm in running what I would call a courtesy drive throughout our hospitals and our general practices where nurses work to improve the way in which we treat such an important group of people. That drive should start with the medical profession.
There is now a good chance on the basis of the new report, with the increased pay awards (which, as I said, I have not gone into), with the possibilities as regards education and with improved sensitivity in management, that we can build on this concept and
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continue to have a committed, admired, respected and loved profession which will look after us when we most need it.
3.40 p.m.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for raising the debate. I think that all of us from all sides of the House welcome the Government's acceptance of the review body's recommendations, especially the agreement fully to fund the increase in nurses pay. I believe that if that had not happened the NHS would have collapsed. Therefore we are most grateful to the Government for agreeing to those increases.
Nevertheless we should ask ourselves why the nurses demonstrated to such an extent prior to the publication of the review body's recommendations. I do not think that their grievances were solely about pay. Of course they are concerned about their income. They are perfectly normal human beings who want a reasonable standard of living. But I believe that they were equally concerned about their working conditions. However, above all, they were concerned because they care deeply about the National Health Service and they could see so many shortfalls within it. They felt that unless they took a stand now it would be too late.
Reference was made by the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, to the fact that 30,000 nurses leave the NHS each year and that 6,000 out of 27,000 recruits fail to complete their training. We must also ask, as has been said, why 200,000 or 300,000 qualified nurses do not work while there is a 20 per cent. shortfall in staff in inner London. We must consider those figures. Irrespective of the obvious reasons for which nurses leave, which have been referred to, such as getting married or moving out of the profession for various personal reasons, there are other reasons. We must look at that matter against the background of what is happening to the population of this country.
By 1992 there will be many fewer school leavers. It is estimated that, in order to recruit enough nurses, the NHS would have to recruit 45 per cent. of all qualified young people to staff the NHS. That means young people with five O-levels and two A-levels. It is inconceivable that we shall be able to do that. We must do everything possible to keep nurses in the service and to encourage others to return.
We should consider student nurses. There is a problem. Why do 6,000 students fail to complete their training? It is largely because they are overburdened with responsibilities before they are ready to accept them. After only eight or nine weeks of initial instruction they are asked to accept responsibility on the wards. That is all right so long as there is plenty of supervising, qualified staff on the wards. Due to the shortage of qualified staff in the big conurbations it frequently happens that a student nurse is left in charge of a ward for an hour or two. None of us with only eight or nine weeks' initial training would enjoy that responsibility. It puts an unnecessary strain on young students.
We then have to think about the way in which we look after young student nurses. People who go in for nursing are inevitably caring people. They tend to

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become involved with their patients, especially on long-stay wards. Someone will inevitably die on the ward. For the first time the young nurse comes up against death. She feels disturbed by it. At the moment, at the end of her shift she gets on the bus and goes back to wherever she lives. There is no proper counselling service for that young student nurse. If one is working in a stressful profession such as nursing, that is what is needed when one is young, and it must be improved if we are to keep our nursing students. That does not apply only to student nurses. Even adult nurses who acquire an affection for a patient might need counselling when something like that happens.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, that the only way we can solve the problem of nurses having to take on responsibility after only eight or nine weeks' training is to introduce Project 2000 as soon as possible. We know that 30,000 qualified nurses leave the NHS each year. Apart from the natural causes for leaving, in many cases they leave due to the poor conditions in health service premises, as the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, said. It is estimated that about £2 billion is needed to bring all our hospitals up to a top-class standard. Another problem is that most of the medical equipment that nurses have to use is outdated and over-age. Both those factors militate against the feeling that one can give of one's best.
Nurses lack backup such as ward clerks. Nurses and sisters spend too much of their time filling in forms and doing the paperwork. The increased throughput of patients, without an adequate increase in staff, also creates problems. Some people think that the NHS takes an enormous slice of the GNP. Lately enormous efforts have been made to make it more efficient and cost-effective. One of the ways of doing that is by competitive tendering which in 1986, I am told, saved the NHS about £86 million. We all think that that is good because that £86 million will go on patient services, but we must also look at the standards and whether they are being maintained in the hospitals.
If the domestic services are not being fulfilled, there is only one person to do the job—the nurse; but it is not her job. She should not have to do jobs such as washing, cleaning and apologising for meals that are late and because clean sheets have not arrived on the ward. Those are all additional tasks with which the nurses have to cope under present conditions.
When outside contractors are being employed in the hospitals it is necessary that the nurses on the wards are intimately involved in setting the standards for the contractors to fulfil. The nurses are the only people who know how the domestic side fits into the ward-caring side so that they do not interfere with each other. The nurses are the only ones who know the standards that are required in the wards.
Nurses come up againsts all kinds of problems. For instance, if a nurse goes on maternity leave a locum is not employed. The other nurses have to absorb all the extra work. There is a lack of childcare facilities. The working hours are inflexible and do not take account of nurses' domestic responsibilities. There is hardly any job-sharing in hospitals. In many other
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walks of life job-sharing, especially for married women, has become the thing. There is no reason why job-sharing should not be used in the health service.
The noble Lord, Lord Trafford, referred to the problems of residential accommodation. That is something with which I have been intimately involved since I have been a governor of UCH. We had two large nurses' homes in the centre of London. They began to empty because their homes were single rooms along a corridor without a carpet and with the bathroom and loo at the end of the corridor. It was not an ideal place to live. Even sisters had no better accommodation if they wanted to live in. As a result, as has been said, nurses moved out into flats. They joined together and rented a flat. Even in those days I suggested that we should turn the nurses' home into a block of flats where two or three nurses would share a unit and run it themselves exactly as if they rented a flat further away.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, perhaps the noble Baroness will allow me to intervene. This idea has been accepted by nurses. What put an end to it was that some DHSS or regional management evicted nurses to do just that—to build flats and then let them privately.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, that does not make it right. I am sorry, I want the nurses to have those flats, so we have no argument about that. It would have the additional benefit of the nurses living within walking distance of their place of work.
If I were a young, newly qualified nurse I may want to live in a flat, perhaps sharing it with a couple of friends. What I find frightening is that in order to be able to afford to live somewhere in London I should have to move such a long way out. That is all right, but we must also remember that nurses work very unsocial hours; sometimes they do not leave the hospital until 11 or 12 at night. They have to come in very early in the morning. I wonder whether noble Lords would like their daughters to travel home on the Underground with the chance of being mugged and robbed. Hospitals are not doing enough to arrange transport for the nurses whom they employ. Therefore instead of selling off the nurses' homes for profit I believe that it would be best to turn them into blocks of flats for the nurses to rent. We should then keep many more nurses in the centre of cities.
The nursing profession has become a high powered, very skilled profession. We cannot survive without it. However, despite their increased skills, nurses are still the main caring group in the NHS. Noble Lords may talk to any patients who have been in hospital and ask them what they thought about their surgeon and what was his name. The surgeon can be fantastically brilliant and of course, patients are grateful. But what they remember when they leave hospital is the nurses who looked after them. They are the most important caring group within the NHS. Without creating the conditions within which the nursing profession can find satisfaction in its work, there is no future for the NHS.
3.52 p.m.
Lord Hunter of Newington: My Lords, perhaps I may also add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for giving us the opportunity to debate this important topic. I have a vivid memory of the nursing situation 50 years ago when I was a house physician. For the visit of the consultant in charge, the patients were all in bed with the bedclothes neatly folded and the wards were inspected by sister before the consultant's arrival.
Now things have changed but, most important, the doctors and nurses have realised what a powerful and dangerous weapon bed rest is. It has to be used in small doses, the stay in bed has become minimal. All governments have made full use of the statistical results: turnover has increased, output is greater, and so on. We have listened to this many times in the House.
One of the consequences is the additional pressure, particularly on beds, and the strain on nursing staff. As has been said, instead of having the job satisfaction of seeing another human being recover, nurses have to turn their attention to the next problem. Moreover, the tempo of change is increasing. There is a need for continuing education and additional training if jobs are to be done properly. The Select Committee of the House of Lords, looking at medical research, learned something about this and research in nursing.
What are the consequences of the quick throughput? The patients spend half their time recovering at home and often require specialised nursing attention, particularly in paediatrics. Are such nurses with the specialised training available in the community? The paediatrician's view of this and the Cumberlege Report differ in this regard. Specialised services in the community need to be provided if patients are to leave hospital sooner. As we have found with the return of the mentally handicapped to the community, there may not be a dramatic reduction in costs. In other words, returning patients to the community from the hospital may incur substantial additional costs, particularly in staffing.
We may also find that the family practitioner organisation has to be changed to meet patients' needs, as it will have to be altered to meet the public health need. Perhaps we should be thinking of the development of secondary care centres, apart from hospitals, where this kind of thing could happen at a reasonable cost, if it is not available in small general practices.
Noble Lords will remember the 1970s and the Briggs Report on nursing, the disappearance of the medical officer of health, the reorganisation of local government and, most important, the introduction of consensus management, which has now been abandoned. How did the nurses fare in all this turmoil? The Briggs Report was mainly concerned with training and was very soundly based. But what were the consequences for nurses in hospitals and their job opportunities? In contrast to the situation in the past, the ward sister was no longer in charge of the ward in all its aspects; she was no longer the manager. There was considerable attraction in the new
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proposals and in being promoted out of the wards to higher echelons of administration.
To people sitting on committees looking at the health service, this may have seemed very reasonable. But what have been the consequences? In the earlier days to which I referred the sister was the most important person, consulted by staff, patients and relatives alike. Somehow that is no longer so. The discipline and co-ordinated running have somehow become flawed. Many nurses have left the service to take jobs in private medicine and to go elsewhere. One hoped that with the introduction of managers into the health service the sister would once again be recreated and become the manager of the ward. But that does not seem to have happened.
What of the future and the training programme? I feel that the most urgent matter in the whole of this debate is to try to ensure that the ward sister's job becomes more attractive. It should be the ambition of many nurses to become a ward sister, and that would be the job which the nurse looks forward to carrying out for many years. The patients need it and I think that the patients largely want it.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, has said, we must consider carefully the more stressful jobs: theatre staff attending major operations for many hours; premature baby intensive care units; the abortion services. Young people cannot stay in these stressful jobs for long. Perhaps they have been specially trained for them, but should they be given training in community nursing so that they can take their essential skill into the community but keep the larger salary? If so, they would provide an important link between the hospital and the community. That is only one suggestion in this debate.
3.59 p.m.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, I should like to join in the thanks accorded to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for initiating this debate. Although we have had in past months a number of debates on the National Health Service in both this House and in another place, the National Health Service is a matter with which Parliament must always involve itself even though, as the noble Lord admitted, this debate has been somewhat pre-empted by the publishing of the findings of the pay review body.
No doubt in due course your Lordships will be able to have a debate on that matter. At the moment the whole matter is under study because there are bound to be regional problems here, as there are obviously certain areas which the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, particularly mentioned where accommodation is very expensive if it is obtainable at all.
The pay review body will, on the figures which I have tried to digest, award an increase of approximately 44 per cent. in nurses' pay, and that is to be welcomed. But I should like to devote a moment or two to the question of accommodation because I believe that this is vital. Many noble Lords will have families working either in a therapeutic capacity in the National Health Service or in some branch of health care.
As I have mentioned to your Lordships before, our younger daughter who is now married with three

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small children, has returned to nursing. When she eventually obtained a place in a creche through the Lambeth Health Authority the prices for the creche shot up. When this kind of thing happens any increase in pay is immediately negatived to a certain extent by the increase in the cost of creche facilities. I am not necessarily saying that the price for creche facilities can never be increased. Devoted people have to look after the small children and they have to be paid. But it is nevertheless a rather frustrating disincentive for a nursing sister, or staff nurse in my daughter's case, to find that almost immediately that she obtains a place in the creche the price goes up.
I hope that my noble friend the Minister will bear that in mind because I believe that that is a positive disincentive to older women returning to nursing. It is very often the older women, and indeed men, particularly in long-stay nursing, who are so badly needed.
We can all quote from personal experience about the accommodation facilities of the nurses' homes attached to some of our hospitals. I have been round a certain number of nurses' homes. My younger daughter trained in a very well-known and much respected teaching hospital in the East End of London. I must say that when she was a student nurse about 12 years ago Charles Dickens would have condemned the accommodation that she was living in.
Nevertheless, there was a great esprit de corps. As has been said, nurses do not stay in the nurses' homes. They want to get accommodation outside the nurses' home. They want to entertain their families and friends and that is much easier if they can obtain a flat or some other such accommodation. There is much to be said for the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, with her experience in the health service, as regards the fact that these nurses' homes could in some cases be turned into flatlets. I hope that this is something which the DHSS will look into. There may be administrative problems here but it would help to make these places somewhat more habitable and somewhat more personal. After all, not all nurses working in St. Bartholomew's Hospital may live in Essex or Surrey. Some may come from Northern Ireland and some may come from Northern Australia. As my noble friend Lord Trafford said, there is an almost ongoing exchange in nursing.
When I was a patient two years ago in my local district hospital in Surrey, one of the team of nurses was an Australian girl and two or three came from the Middle East. The only difference possibly is that our own nurses go to Australia and New Zealand and very often stay there, whereas the Australian and New Zealand nurses who nurse here may go back to their own countries. From my own experience gained on a visit to Australia at the end of 1986, when I went round a new general hospital in Canberra, I know that about one in every five members of staff came from this country. They had been out there in some cases for several years. It is true to say that the pay rates and certainly the accommodation in Australia, which is a much less populated country than our own and where there is probably much more land on
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which to build nurses' homes and flats and hostels, act as a positive incentive to nurses to stay there.
One of the greatest tragedies, if I may put it that way, of the National Health Service was the ending of the hospital management committees and the house committees. I served for a number of years on a house committee of one of the long-stay mental hospitals in Surrey. At that time there was communication between the nurse, the nursing sister, the physician and the management of the hospital. I am very sceptical of the present situation. The whole thing has become too big but not very beautiful and there is a remoteness about it.
I believe that the status of the nursing sister is vital, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, stressed in his admirable speech. The sister or in former times the matron was an all-important figure. But there is the disturbing situation too of the young student nurse who is left in charge of a ward. This happened to my own younger daughter in a teaching hospital in London. She was left in charge of a ward for about an hour and an old gentleman died of a heart attack. She was very upset. The sister eventually returned and took charge. She said to my daughter, "Look, my dear, that is what it is all about. It is a great tragedy but that is what you are nursing for. Get on with it". And my daughter did. Obviously, hard as it may seem, that is the right approach.
However, student nurses are for all practical conditions not really students. An art student, a language student or any other kind of student would not have to take on those responsibilities. All right, the latter kinds of student are not paid and they pay to learn, whereas student nurses are paid. I also believe that the recommendations of the new review body will result in student nurses being paid reasonably well. But it is asking an awful lot of a girl of 18 or 19—this is particularly true in the long-stay hospitals where there are more serious staffing shortages than in the general hospitals—to take on that responsibility.
Finally, I should like to say a few words about the weighting system. The London weighting system leaves an awful lot to be desired. My noble friend the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that the average payment in London is about £968 per year. In Epsom, which is 19 miles away and where the accommodation is possibly even more expensive than in some parts of London, the figure in what I believe is the Mid-Surrey Regional Health Authority is roughly £392. The figure for Leatherhead is barely £200. We all welcome the pay review body. However, unless something is done about accommodation for nurses of all grades—staff nurses, nurses, and nursing assistants—any plan to enhance recruitment will suffer. We have reached desperation point in some areas as regards accommodation.
This has been a very useful debate. Obviously the matters I have mentioned, will be studied by the pay review body and they will be matters for future debates. However, I believe that our debate today has enabled the House to study them. Even in an ideal situation, those problems will never go away.
4.10 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I shall speak only briefly today. Over the weekend, I was out of action and I have not had time to gather my thoughts together. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for initiating our debate. It gives us a chance to say, "Thank goodness the Government saw sense at last and gave nurses a reasonable pay award".
Nurses have been leaving the National Health Service at an alarming rate. Pay is not the only aspect of life which is important to nurses. I should like to give one or two other examples of conditions of employment. First, when nurse recruitment and morale is low, patients suffer. Nurses are not all angels and we rarely hear much about what patients sometimes have to put up with. When there is a shortage of nurses, it may happen that some nurses who do not possess ability or authority are put in positions of leadership. When leadership is poor and weak, a ward can be turned into chaos. That is disturbing for patients and for junior staff. Such bad practice as nurses talking across patients about their boyfriends and totally ignoring the existence of patients may go unchecked. Good nurses may move to other wards, and again the patient suffers.
Some decisions which are taken by health authorities may seem difficult to understand. At one central London hospital, there was a good obstetrics department. Against the wishes of the obstetricians and the nurses, the department was moved to a grotty hospital further out where the nurses have to walk down a dark and dingy alley way. Nurses are attractive targets for rapists and molesters. It is that sort of unthinking decision which is likely to create low morale.
Another aspect of the problem is the lack of reasonable accommodation in many places. The encouragement to sell off nursing accommodation is very unwise. That has been one of the major problems in the recruitment of nurses at the world-famous hospital at Stoke Mandeville in Aylesbury, which the Minister visited a short time ago. Nurses come from long distances to work at that hospital, especially in the spinal unit which has an interesting post-graduate course. The available nursing accommodation badly needs upgrading. The alternative—a flat in Aylesbury—is very expensive, as Aylesbury is now a dormitory town for London and has high employment.
Over the years, living standards and expectations of nurses have risen. However, accommodation has deteriorated. Many valuable spinal beds have been closed because of a shortage of nurses, and seriously ill patients with infected pressure sores have been treated in general hospitals which do not always manage to cope with complex conditions which can cause sepsis and anaemia. Such sores can take months to heal. If the correct techniques are not used, the sores may break down after surgery. That situation is far from cost-effective to the National Health Service. It is also very demoralising for patients who may have to spend many extra months in hospital.
Many hospitals have been recruiting diligently, especially those in Ireland. It is important that nurses, once recruited, should obtain job satisfaction
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and that they should not be overfaced with so many tasks that they leave after a few weeks. When there is a serious shortage of staff on a ward and the list of duties is long, some nurses simply give up and go off sick. At one hospital, a very experienced sister who had worked for many years in the National Health Service left after she was told by an administrator that she could no longer have a kettle to make a cup of coffee. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Another sister left because the clinic where she worked was so out of date. She went to Canada, not for the extra pay but for better working conditions.
Nothing is more important than our excellent National Health Service. It serves the majority of our population. It tries to keep the hazardous viruses and infections which afflict society under control. No matter how many doctors we have, their work is rendered useless without nurses.
A very important problem which is connected with nurse recruitment is that of the falling birth rate. Our birth rate fell after 1964. In 1976–77, it reached a staggeringly low figure—the lowest since 1940. In the 18 year-old recruitment group, there will be fewer 18 year-olds during the 1990s. There will be a fall of 30 per cent. To illustrate that, I shall give the figures for the 1990s. If for 1985 one takes the number as equalling 100, in 1990 the figure will be 87; in 1991 it will be 81; in 1992 it will be 77; in 1993 it will be 72·5; in 1994 it will be 70; in 1995 it will be 68·5; in 1996 it will be 71.6; in 1997 it will be 77; in 1998 it will be 79; in 1999 it will be 76·3; and in the year 2000 the figure will be 75. The worst years for recruitment of 18 year-olds will be 1994–96.
In 1977 we had the lowest number of births which had been recorded for 50 years. What will make it even more difficult will be an increasing demand. If we are to have an increasing and thriving economy, which we all hope for, there will be more competition for jobs for the small number of 18 year-olds. We must put our house in order so that the National Health Service can recruit and keep entry to the nursing profession open in a very competitive market. With an ageing population and growing demands on the National Health Service, the nursing profession is of paramount importance.
4.20 p.m.
Lord Harvington: My Lords, by courtesy of the remaining three noble Lords who are down to speak in the debate, I should like to take the opportunity offered to address a few words of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for the way in which he opened this debate and for the speech he made.
I was particularly thrilled by what he said about the nurses who went to the Crimea with Florence Nightingale. That is because prior to 1970, when I became Chairman of Ways and Means in the Parliament then elected, I was for eight years chairman of the board of management of the hospital of Saint John and Saint Elizabeth. The nursing sisters there are the direct lineal successors to the community which went out to the Crimea with Florence Nightingale to cope with the tremendous task that was so well set out by the noble Lord opposite. Having myself been associated for so long with this hospital, I felt that your Lordships would

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not mind if, on behalf of the community at the hospital, I said a few words of heartfelt thanks for the kind way in which the noble Lord spoke of those nurses, considering the community from which they came.
I am also glad to tell your Lordships that the hospital is flourishing and rebuilding. We aim to spend a huge sum of money: how we shall get it we do not quite know, but I expect that we shall get it somehow. I thought that your Lordships would wish to know that the community which provided the nurses who went with Florence Nightingale still exists.
4.21 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, I have to thank my noble friend Lord Molloy for having chosen such a worthy Motion as the basis for this debate and for giving us this opportunity to discuss the conditions of employment of nursing staff in the NHS. As one would expect, my noble friend has spoken with deep feeling and conviction about the National Health Service.
I should like to begin by bringing together the few facts which have been mentioned in the course of the debate. I think that that is a good starting place. About 300,000 nurses and 100,000 student nurses work in the NHS. About 30,000 nurses leave the NHS each year, although I would accept that that in itself may not be significant. Nevertheless, it is a fact. About 13 per cent. of student nurses discontinue their training, which is a high discontinuance rate. About 200,000 qualified nurses are not working in nursing; according to the NHS, about 85,000 of them are thought to be available to return to nursing.
In a sense these facts tempt one to ask the question: nursing shortage—what nursing shortage? It would be a misleading question, because there is a shortage of nurses within the NHS. We have been given the figures this afternoon. It is estimated that nursing vacancies, at least prior to the last pay award, were about 9 per cent., reaching 20 per cent. here in London. The number of school leavers who are entering the profession is falling and we have been told by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, that they will continue to fall for some years to come.
I think therefore that we are entitled to ask: why should there be this nursing shortage? Is there a relationship between the conditions of work and the number of student nurses failing to complete their training, or the number of nurses leaving the NHS or failing to return to nursing? We suspect that the conditions of work provide a clue to the predicament of the nurse, as it was described by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, in a major debate on this subject which took place in your Lordhips' House on 23rd March last. At col. 209 the noble Baroness made this forecast:
"We are building problems for the future which may exceed those of today unless we can encourage and enable those who are willing to consider entering this demanding profession to do so, and if they do so to remain."
When the Minister came to reply to the debate on 23rd March he had, in fairness, to keep an eye on the
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clock and, in commenting on the contribution of the noble Baroness, he concentrated on only one of the conditions of employment; namely, nurses' salary. Of course we all agree that that is a very important condition of employment but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, reminded us, it is only one of many conditions.
Since that debate took place the pay award has been announced, and there is really only one question for clarification I should like to ask about that award. If, following the clinical regrading exercise which is part and parcel of the award, the health authorities are left with insufficient funds to meet the additional salary bill as a direct result of regrading, will the Minister confirm that the Government will ensure that new resources will be available to meet those particular additional costs?
The pay award has been well received, but we shall have to wait about 12 months before we shall know whether it has led to a significant reduction in the number of nursing vacancies. However, we think that additional measures are required if a long-term solution is to be found for the country's nursing problems. I would suggest that those measures can be brought under three main headings. First, there is the need for modernisation and flexibility within the nursing profession itself along the radical lines set out in Project 2000, which was produced by the Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting, and presented to Ministers 15 long months ago.
The health authorities submitted their comments before last September and I wonder whether the Minister is in a position to give us even a rough indication as to when we may expect to receive the Government's response to this major and radical initiative by the central council. Project 2000 has widespread support and indeed it has been referred to approvingly by a number of speakers in the debate this afternoon. We want to see it implemented at an early date and we think that the packaging of reform it contains would encourage managers and others in key positions in the NHS up and down the country to accommodate a more forward-looking approach to patient care, where there is still a need for such accommodation. The integration of nursing education with higher and further education would prevent the nursing profession from drifting into a cul-de-sac.
If and when the Government come to accept Project 2000 we would strongly urge that no attempt should be made to reduce expenditure on key areas of the project such as the student nurse contribution to hospital employee staff power.
Lord Trafford: My Lords, perhaps I may ask the noble Lord, before he moves off the subject of Project 2000—which I agree is most interesting—whether he could explain or enlarge upon one aspect of his demands to the Minister. How would he deal with the 50 per cent. reduction in ward staffing from the service point of view, which I believe is critical to the project?
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, when I pleaded with the Government not to attempt a reduction in expenditure in that key area of the project I was

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speaking with the authority of the nursing professions themselves. If the Government doubt whether that can be achieved in practice in the short term I invite them to address that question to the nursing professions.
I now come to the second heading, which I call the need for organic developments within the nursing profession. While Project 2000 requires a major political decision, nevertheless there are organic developments which the DHSS could and should encourage. I am advised by the Royal College of Nursing that it would be very beneficial if the department were to encourage two developments in particular.
It would be a small but important step forward if nurses working in the community could have the power to prescribe a limited range of drugs and appliances. That development was discussed in another place in the debate on the Health and Medicines Bill on 13th April. In that debate the Government acknowledged that they were sympathetic to the principle of nurse prescribing and announced that the professional and ethical issues involved were being referred to a joint working party.
Can the Minister tell the House when the department will be in a position to name the chairperson and the members of the working party? Can he also tell the House whether the working party will be encouraged to produce its report by a given date? Will it be given a suggested timetable for its work?
It would also be a significant step forward if the department were to go flat out in support of the concept of the nurse practitioner, or the specialist practitioner as she is named in Project 2000. I understand that it was the Americans who discovered that new and expanding role for the nurse. Although a project was set up in Birmingham about six years ago and thereafter a similar project was set up in Greenwich to test her role in a number of defined areas of work, we in this country have yet to adopt the concept.
Again in the course of the debate on 13th April in another place the Minister expressed his general sympathy with the concept. That is encouraging. It would appear from the Minister of State's speech in another place that the obstacle in the way of such a development is one of definition of the term "specialist practitioner" or "nurse practitioner". May I ask the Minister how long it will take before a draft definition will have evolved in the department? When does it envisage going out to the professions with draft wording?
It seems to me as a layman that a very strong case can be made out in support of both developments. I understand that they would be welcomed by many nurses as being worthwhile objectives enabling them to expand their skills and their role. I am told that the evidence from Birmingham and Greenwich and from certain opinion polls indicates that they would also be welcomed by patients, which is an important consideration. Those developments would greatly assist in providing improved health services in the community. The nurse practitioner in particular could provide surveillance of groups of patients in the community who are at risk—in particular the elderly,
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the mentally ill and children. Both developments would help managers to make better use of health service resources.
I hope that the department will not be held back from fully supporting both developments because it may be thought in some quarters that they will endanger the status of some other professionals within the health service.
I come finally and very briefly to the third area, in which management could make life a lot easier for many nurses. Management and doctors could show greater consideration for nursing staff in a number of small and helpful ways which have been instanced in the course of the debate this afternoon. It should be possible for managers to organise the working day so that shifts are more accommodating to working mothers. That is one suggestion. More could be done in some districts to liaise with local bus companies to work out convenient travelling times for nursing staff. We have heard how the managers could embark upon short schemes of study to attract nurses back to the NHS. So there are a number of small but significant initiatives which could be undertaken by management without involving excessive expenditure.
I want to base my closing remarks on an interesting reflection of the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, in the debate on 23rd March. He said that when he joined the National Health Service in 1948 there was a general air of optimism in the medical profession and beyond the medical profession. It is my impression that that optimism carried the NHS forward for over a quarter of a century notwithstanding a shortage of resources and a poor physical environment. There was an awareness that there was something very special about the National Health Service. That awareness led to a sense of loyalty to the team and an overriding sense of duty to the patient. For those reasons there was always a determination to get through in spite of difficulties. But if after 43 years the difficulties appear to be never-ending attitudes among the staff could begin to change.
Nurses constitute one half of the staff employed in the NHS. It is therefore important that their morale should remain high and that their loyalty to the team and their sense of duty to the patient should be sustained. Clearly the conditions of service within the NHS can help to foster or to weaken that sense of loyalty and duty. That is why this debate initiated by my noble friend Lord Molloy is important.
4.40 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Skelmersdale): My Lords, I genuinely congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, on his fortuitous timing in raising the subject of conditions of employment of nursing staff in the National Health Service today. Perhaps I may poach from my noble friend Lord Trafford and say that we all love nurses. Without them the health service as we know it would collapse. If they did not exist, we should have to invent them. My noble friend with his on the ground experience as a doctor would no doubt recognise that more readily than most.

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It could hardly be a more topical subject, for only three weeks ago the Government announced their decision to accept the recommendations contained in the fifth report of the review body on the pay of nursing staff, midwives and health visitors lock, stock and barrel. This means that the Government have undertaken to meet the full additional cost—some £566 million—of this pay award from the reserve. It averages 15·3 per cent. with the vast majority of nurses—well over 90 per cent.—getting basic pay rises of between 6·3 per cent. and 33·6 per cent.
This momentous award, as the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, called it, means that nurses will now receive the highest ever levels of real terms pay. I accept straight away the reproof of the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, that it is only part of ensuring that nurses working in the NHS have the right incentives and conditions of employment to remain in the NHS carrying out the vital work for which they have been trained.
The noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, was the first to try to set parameters for the debate. She talked about what we know of the problems in nurse recruitment and training, and why they do not come for training and disappear from training. The Government share the review body's desire to have data that are as comprehensive and up-to-date as possible. That is why a new data system is currently being introduced in the NHS implementing the recommendations of the Körner Report. As the review body acknowledged in its report, it takes time in an organisation the size of the health service to bring about the changes in the presentation that we all want to see. I know that the House does not approve of the British Rail slogan, but I believe that in this case the Government are getting there.
The numbers of female school-leavers with five O-levels and one A-level—the qualifications needed to enter nursing—will fall by 25 per cent. by 1992–93. It was of no comfort to me to be told by one official recently, "Never mind, Minister, we also have the highest number ever of women of childbearing age". This is a serious point, and I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, said. Taking account of the projected growth in demand for nurses, we need over half this group if current recruitment patterns continue. However, I think that this is an unlikely prospect. The answer must be to do more to tap the large pool of qualified nurses who are not working in the health service and to encourage them to move back to nursing.
There is little wholly reliable information on the vacancy levels in nursing, but we know that these have increased dramatically in the last four to five years. One of the ways of filling the gap is by the use of agency staff or nurse banks. I have said before in the Chamber that this is unsatisfactory, but it is not necessarily expensive. When health authorities are employing nursing agency staff, they must follow departmental guidelines that permit them to pay agencies a maximum of the mean of the appropriate pay scale for the grade plus agency commission and the employer's national insurance contributions. After allowing for directly employed staff's superannuation, annual leave, sick leave and so on
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there is little difference between the cost of employing agency nurses and directly employed staff. Directly employed staff are of course able to ensure their continuity of patient care, reduction of management and supervision difficulties and provision of clinical training for nurse learners.
Health authorities are encouraged to examine more flexible working arrangements to respond to recruitment and retention problems. The noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, mentioned the idea of job sharing, which has been widely mooted in various quarters. That is one approach. Health authorities have been asked to examine a scheme for this and other arrangements that make it easier for trained staff to remain in the health service and to return to work after a break. There remains the problem observed by many patients, especially in hospital, that too many different nurses are caring for them. Nurse management would have to overcome this.
The Government have a basic philosophy on public sector pay, whether in or outside the health service, that salaries should reflect what is needed to recruit and retain staff in an open labour market. To that extent, we agree with the comments of CoHSE and the Royal College of Nursing as reflected by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy. Your Lordships have been seeking to persuade me ever since the election that there are not enough nurses in certain specialities. Noble Lords have not however been quite as happy when in my turn I have told the House that in many cases not as many patients have been treated as might have been, not because of a shortage of money but because of a shortage of nurses. These things do not happen overnight. They take a long time to arise and to cure.
I do not recall that noble Lords opposite made much of the fact that this Government's record on nurses' pay contrasts strongly with the position before 1979. In the five years before 1979, nurses' pay fell by 21 per cent. in real terms. That was a marked deterioration in conditions of employment for nurses. I do not intend to dwell on this, but I contrast it with the Government's proud record on nurses' pay. Since 1979 it has increased by almost 44 per cent. in real terms. Their working week has been reduced from 40 to 37½ hours without loss of pay. This increase would certainly be envied by many other groups in both the private and the public sectors. It recognises the outstanding contribution to the care of patients that has been provided by skilled and dedicated nurses, midwives and health visitors—care for which many people in the country have reason to be grateful. Those qualified nurses and midwives who are working as district nurses, community nurses, psychiatric nurses and health visitors in the community stand to benefit from the awards. I can confirm to my noble friend Lord Trafford that they are not restricted to hospital nurses.
Nurses are in a special position, and rightly so. The vast majority will not take industrial action because they refuse to damage services to patients. They have just reinforced this by a recent vote. The Government recognise this and accordingly themselves established the review body in 1983. Since 1983 five reports have been received. All have been implemented in full. As

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a result, during this period nurses' pay has risen by nearly 29 per cent. in real terms.
I have said that nurses are in a special position in relation to industrial action. That is so. It is only right to reflect that a very small minority of nurses took part in industrial action earlier this year. I know that there are those who have attempted to claim that fear of further industrial action by the nurses explained the Government's decision to implement and fund in full this year's review body recommendations. That is a nonsense perpetuated by some of their own curious political ends. For their part, the Government are much more influenced by the dedication of the majority than by the willingness of a tiny minority to damage services and harm patients. Those who wish to explain this year's award in terms of industrial relations would do far better to look at the decision in March by members of the Royal College of Nursing to vote by a majority of four to one to retain its no strike policy.
Improvements in pay are important. But this Government realise that satisfactory conditions of employment entail more than just getting the levels of pay right. I should like to use this opportunity to outline some of the wider changes in conditions of employment for nurses with which this Government are very much concerned.
Over the past 40 years many changes have taken place in the work carried out by nurses, midwives and health visitors. Developments in health and medical technology and an increased emphasis on health promotion have all meant that an increasing range of skills are required. Yet the way in which nurses, midwives and health visitors have been graded has hardly changed at all. A major review of nurse grading has been undertaken by the Nursing and Midwifery Staffs Negotiating Council. Management side and staff side representatives have together agreed a new clinical grading structure comprising nine new grades for staff at ward level.
This is a major opportunity to ensure that individual nurses and midwives receive recognition for the duties and responsibilities called for in each post and the rewards to match. It means that there will be far better opportunities to progress and the incentive is for nurses to remain in clinical practice rather than having to move into management to make progress—a problem which was undoubtedly rearing its ugly head in some hospitals. To digest Project 2000 while this is going on is more than management can cope with.
This new grading structure represents a major improvement for nurses in the health service. It takes full account of the changes which have taken place. It recognises and rewards increasing levels of skill and responsibility. For example, a skilled nurse working on a specialist renal unit and a sister in charge of a ward where students are training will both receive significant pay increases. If they were on the maximum of their scales the staff nurse I have just talked about would receive basic pay of some £10,650 a year and the ward sister £13,925. The new structure will provide better career prospects for all staff who wish to stay in clinical practice. Finally, this new structure should be important in helping to recruit and retain nursing staff in areas in which there have been shortages in the past.
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In answer to one of the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, the Government believe that the estimates of the costs of regrading are reasonable and the funds consequently provided are sufficient. The Government therefore do not intend to reopen this question.
All of us here will be aware of the economic growth enjoyed by London and the South-East over recent years. The present thriving labour market does, however, create its own pressures and for some time health authorities in London have reported recruitment and retention difficulties among their nursing staff over and above those found in the rest of the country. This year the review body has accepted the Government's invitation to look at this problem and has recommended London pay supplements for nurses.
In the circumstances I do not feel that the time is right to make adjustments to London weighting beyond the current offer. Noble Lords will recall that the management side of the London weighting consortium has confirmed that on the present basis of confirming London weighting settlements it cannot contemplate a higher increase than that of the 5.5 per cent. offer. I regret that the staff side continues to reject the offer. However, I can confirm that it remains on the table.
The review body awards mean that with the increases in basic pay this year, increases for staff nurses and sisters in inner London will be in the range of £27 to £57 per week. Starting pay for a staff nurse in inner London is now £9,677 and for a sister it is £12,048. In each case this is more than the previous maximum basic pay for the grade.
NHS spending continues to increase in real terms. It has risen by 38 per cent. since 1979. However, the important factor is that this Government's commitment to funding improvements in the health service has been accompanied by an emphasis on increasing efficiency and ensuring value for money.
I note the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Robson. The facts are that more money is being spent on the health service than ever before and more patients are being cared for. This success owes a great deal to the efforts of nurses and other staff and the Government have recognised their contribution. Not only is the NHS better funded than ever before; it is also better staffed. The number of nursing and midwifery staff employed in the health service continues to increase. At 30th September last year there were some 405,200 whole-time equivalent nursing and midwifery staff employed in England. This is nearly 47,000 more than the figure we inherited.
For some time the Government have been encouraging more flexible recruitment policies. Health authorities are now seeking to attract more mature entrants and more men to what has traditionally been a female profession. This policy has been fully supported by the Royal College of Nursing. Over and above this, opportunities for part-time work and job sharing are growing. Nurses are being encouraged to return after a career break by provision of part-time training and retraining.
We intend to publish leaflets on nursing and other careers in the health service from 23rd May onwards

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following a complete revision. This is part of a campaign designed to increase the recruitment of nurses which will be focused in particular on London and the South-East.
Several noble Lords have mentioned accommodation. The suggestion was made that nurses are being made homeless due to the Government's policy of selling and reorganising National Health Service residential accommodation. I should be horrified to learn that this was borne out in practice. My right honourable friend the previous Secretary of State gave an undertaking that no one will be made homeless in such circumstances and we continue to stand by that undertaking. Of course residential accommodation for nurses is primarily a matter for individual health authorities. I have been around the country recently; I have been especially looking at the special health authorities in London.
I have discovered that hospital management includes a great chunk of housing management and accommodation for nurses. We believe that in the main it is better for health service staff to obtain their own accommodation in the normal way. However, we recognise that in certain areas such as greater London high cost can make this especially difficult. That is why we have welcomed the Nationwide Anglia Building Society scheme to provide low cost 100 per cent. mortgages to help nurses and other staff working in greater London to buy their own homes. In December of last year my right honourable friend the Secretary of State announced a comprehensive housing policy for staff. This will be especially important in areas such as London and the South-East. I believe that it will help those who wish to purchase their own homes but who, because of the high cost of housing, are unable to do so.
I take the point made to me by so many nurses that once they are into the 25 years and older age group they no longer wish to live in nursing hostels and other rented accommodation. They want their own home. I can report to the House that a number of properties are now being purchased with the aid of a partnership mortgage, and with a few, legal documentation is nearing completion. It is expected that the first purchase will be completed at the beginning of June.
Ministers welcome this as an excellent example of how collaboration with the private sector can benefit the National Health Service. In recent days we have heard of other suggested forms of co-operation between the public and private sectors for the benefit of those who work in the health service; and we welcome them all. The Government expect the scheme to continue to be successful.
But what about elsewhere? Worthing Health Authority and the Gateway Building Society have developed a preferential mortgage aimed at exactly the same thing, at recruiting and retaining staff. Under the terms of the scheme, employees may borrow up to three and a half times their income plus one and three-quarter times their partner's income. Normal interest rates apply, however.
There is another related provision. The Nationwide Anglia scheme will be assisted by a proposal put by the general Whitley Council
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management side as part of the review of the removal expenses agreement. This will give health authorities discretion to make an interest-free advance of salary to help staff wanting to move to their own accommodation, whether owner-occupied or rented, with legal and other costs, even where there is no change of employer. This facility will not be restricted to London or to any particular staff group. The advance will be repayable over 10 years, though there will be provision for employees to opt to defer repayment for up to two years from the date the advance is made.
This will help staff in London particularly, but elsewhere as well, to take advantage of the various building society schemes and make it easier for staff throughout the country to obtain homes of their own to rent or buy.
Lastly, I accept the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, on the increasing range of responsibilities that nurses carry; for example, counselling and the management of other staff groups and contractors. It is precisely because the role of nurses is changing, and their duties have in some areas expanded over the years, that the new grading structure is now being introduced. Clearly we shall have to ensure that this recognises and rewards the responsibilities that individual nurses now undertake and it must be designed to be capable of responding to developments in the future.
To sum up, nurses now enjoy record levels of real terms income—higher than the levels set by previous landmarks in nurses' pay: the Halsbury Report in 1974 and the Clegg Report in 1979. And there are more of them than ever before—nearly 47,000 more than in 1979. The Government have established the independent review body to get the levels of pay right and have agreed with the staff side the biggest restructuring in nurses' grading in the 40 years since the National Health Service began. This will ensure that there are better career prospects than ever before for nurses who want to remain in clinical practice.
But there are other moves afoot. The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, to whom I am extremely grateful for giving me warning, commented on the White Paper Promoting Better Health, in which we said that we welcomed the interest shown in the idea of nurse practitioners; but we still have a number of problems to sort out, not least the definition of a nurse practitioner. He also commented on nurse prescribing, which I am not sure fits into this debate. If I may, I shall write to him on that subject.
I believe that the record I have outlined today is one to be proud of and a demonstration of the Government's commitment not just to nurses but to the National Health Service and the patients it serves.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I thank the Minister for the measures he has announced which are designed to enhance the recruitment of nurses to the National Health Service. I also thank those who spoke with such knowledge and understanding. I also thank those who listened. The debate has been an honourable and deserved acknowledgement of the work and value of Britain's nurses within our National Health Service. I remind the House that the review explains that the next review is already urgent.

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Many Members of your Lordships' House have great knowledge of the NHS, of medicine and particular aspects, and nearly all have indicated something which needs to be done but which is not mentioned by the review board. That will make the next review even more expensive. The review board has said that we must face up to the fact that to carry on the good work the next review will need more money and the NHS will need ever more money.
In conclusion, all I hope is that we in this country will never again fall into the myopic error of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Telemessages Service
5.4 p.m.
Lord Ferrier Lord Ferrier rose to call attention to the situation whereby telemessages, which can be sent by those who have a telephone number, cannot be sent by those who are not so privileged; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, your Lordships will have seen this Motion for many moons because I first put it on the Order Paper in July last year. In case some noble Lords do not know about Telemessages, they are messages which can be sent by telephone through British Telecom where they are converted into a note or a message delivered to the addressee by the Post Office by the first post on the next working day. This is a convenient method of communication, but the cost is beyond the pocket of most ordinary people. The cost is £4 for 50 words. Is 50 words a reasonable number of words for a message of this kind?
As I have mentioned, this Motion has been on the Order Paper since July and has come up through seven ballots. I had begun to fear that I might drop off the perch before it ever came to the House. I am delighted that it has now appeared, although I am suffering from the malaise which I think the doctors describe as "There-is-a-lot-of-it-about". I am not being flippant, but I am criticial of a system whereby a Life Peer of 30 year's standing—I see I have written in the margin "an ancient and aboriginal Life Peer"—has to wait for 10 months to have a Motion debated which he believes to be important. The fact is that it is "just the luck of the draw," but it has its disadvantages and they are manifest.
However, whereas my Motion was of some importance at the beginning of last year, as time has gone past circumstances have changed and more information has come my way quite recently. I am glad to see that the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, will be following me. He has more information than I have. It is not that the issue I have in mind is no longer important, but in the interim a good deal of water has flowed under the bridge and the question proposed then, after a series of Starred Questions and Answers, has been further examined by the authorities concerned.
I must confess to the House that I have been greatly aided by Professor Carsberg, who is the
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Director General of Oftel. Only this last Sunday I received a letter from him, some of which I feel is important. He said:
"I have been in touch with British Telecom, as I said I would, to find out where it has got in its discussions with the Post Office about Telemessages".
I am amazed to note that in the Post Office's Inland Compendium, which consists of 15 pages and lists the wonderful range of services, there is no mention of Telemessages. I have always wondered whether it wished to conceal from itself and others that it is an essential element in the delivery of a Telemessage because it is delivered by the postman in the morning.
Your Lordships may remember the roar of laughter that went up in this House when I read a letter from the Post Office stating, "This is no affair of ours; write to British Telecom". When I wrote to British Telecom I received a reply stating, "This is no affair of ours; write to the Post Office". The problem has been, who pays? In that respect we are touching on a social and political problem. Who will pay for an essential service to the people? It is difficult to know how to charge but it is a social service.
During the weekend I looked through some papers. To my surprise, I found my mother's notebook written at the time of my birth. Out fell a telegram, and this is the form dated 1900. That will prove to your Lordships how aged I am. It was then sixpence for 12 words, every additional word costing a halfpenny. That has confirmed my belief about Telemessages, because in a letter I suggested that the cost should be £1 for 20 words and 10p for every additional word.
I have been asked, "Why do you worry about it? Why don't you use a telephone kiosk?". They are largely vandalised, though that situation is improving. However, the cost of £4 is probably best made up of four golden coins. The kiosks contain a slot which will take pound coins but one of the difficulties is that the golden coin is not in use in Scotland; there we have pound notes. If three or four people send a Telemessage at £4 for 50 words—which is unlikely—they will fill the telephone kiosk cashbox to overflowing.
As a result, I believe that there should be a complete reappraisal of the approach to the simple social messages, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, in an exchange in your Lordships' House. Fifty words will be difficult to find when all one wants to say is, "Auntie died today. Funeral Wednesday"; or, "Many happy returns"; or, "Congratulations". I believe that they are the social messages which Granny up the Glen wants to be able to send, but she does not have a telephone and does not know how to do so.
It has been suggested that one should use Datapost, and I have any amount of glossy literature here. There is also a service called Royal Mail Special Delivery. In that case, one must write a letter, address the envelope, stamp it with the requisite postage and add £1·50. I decided to send a letter so I went to my local post office and said, "I want to send a letter by Datapost or Royal Mail Special Delivery". I was told that they were sorry but that I would have to go to a head office; so granny would have to go five miles to the neighbouring town. Such difficulties are hard to

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appreciate when one has been used to having a telephone at one's elbow. A large number of people dearly wish to communicate with their families and friends but have been wondering how to do so.
The authorities concerned are the Post Office and British Telecom. Professor Carsberg has written to me stating:
"I have been in touch with British Telecom, as I said I would. …. It tells me that its discussions have not yet reached a conclusion though it had promised previously to let me know the outcome as soon as possible and it will certainly do that. I know that BT has entered its discussions with the Post Office in a positive spirit".
That is good news because I have always considered that, whereas British Telecom has been ready to cooperate, the Post Office simply cannot be bothered.
Professor Carsberg continues:
"I know that BT has entered its discussions with the Post Office in a positive spirit—and you may remember that similar discussions recently led to a satisfactory agreement for the inclusion of post codes in telephone directories. I am continuing to consider very carefully all the representations that are made with regard to Telemessages. However, at present, I doubt whether there is any basis for intervening to attempt to impose a formal requirement on BT to provide Telemessages through the Post Office".
I believe that this debate may be of use if my expression and that of other noble Lords makes clear the fact that there is a demand for this kind of service to the ordinary people.
Professor Carsberg states:
"I am giving further thought to the questions you have raised about the pricing of Telemessages".
The price of £4 is out of the question for short, social messages. He continues:
"I am willing to consider conducting a more formal investigation of BT's pricing of Telemessages to satisfy myself that the price is reasonable overall and that the service is not being run inefficiently".
In other words, since I put down this Motion ten months ago a great deal of water has flowed under the bridge. Some of it bubbled through only on Sunday when I received the letter from Professor Carsberg.
A solution may be in sight. I have many glossy publications from one pundit or another trying to analyse how a profitable system of Telemessages can be devised. I find it such compulsive reading that I described it to myself as a "Boffin's bean feast". There is page after page, trying to discover how the service can be arranged to justify itself in terms of money.
We come back to the social problem. What about it? Must we or must we not limit the social services rendered by the postal services? It is necessary to establish at what point the public are to be served, irrespective of whether or not the operation is profitable. For that reason, in some of my correspondence I suggested that an equivalent charge to a telegram of 1900, which I showed to your Lordships, should be made in terms of today's currency. I suggested that we should pay £1 for 20 words and 10p for each additional word. The minimum charge for a Telemessage is £4. However, it is only available to those with a telephone. There needs to be a reversal of policy. My papers show that there is a demand for the Telemessage service, which is mainly commercial, but my concern is for the ordinary man or woman in the street.
In a debate some years ago on the cost of telephones to be established at long distances I coined a phrase, "Granny up the Glen". In a curious way I found that that stuck and I now substitute the phrase, "Granny up the high rise". How can she send a social message unless she has a telephone or some means of contacting a post office? I believe that the post offices should revert to the situation in which we were when telegrams existed. One could go into the post office, put down a bob and send a telegram. That is all very well. However, I have tried to think of what is needed. What happens if somebody has missed a train? In the old days one could go to the post office and send a telegram. If one was a yachtsman who had put into port because of the weather or breakage or something, one could send a telegram to say where one was and where one expected to be by going to the local post office. I believe that one should be able to do something of that nature. There are many different instances of that kind. It is not only people missing trains and yachtsmen and the like. There are car accidents and other occasions when people who do not have access to a telephone can use the service.
It seems to me that what is needed is some sort of ombudsman who will knock the heads of the Post Office and British Telecom together. I believe that Professor Carsberg looks like the right man to do that. He is extremely efficient and I urge him and the Government generally to consider these matters.
I talked of Scotland and gold coins and the question of the Post Office in Scotland. It has come to my attention that there has been some discussion about making an additional charge applicable to letters being delivered to distant destinations. I hope that my information is wrong and that that day will never come. British postal services go all over the British Isles and I believe at present there is a surcharge only in respect of the Channel Islands.
There are many schemes for Telemessages which are very convenient. I hope that the noble Lord who is to reply can give some assurances about the postal service in Scotland, not only in regard to Telemessages but generally, because there is a good deal of dissatisfaction in Scotland with the service, though it is greatly improving. The service of sending passengers by postal vans is very welcome. I look forward to hearing any other views which may be expressed on this subject. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
5.25 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the House is grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, for moving his Motion and, indeed, for the tenacity which he has shown in pursuing this particular point over a period of two years. I am happy to speak in support of the Motion of the noble Lord. I am also happy on a personal basis because the noble Lord was a friend of my wife's father in Bombay a long time ago when my wife's father was ADC to the governor of the central provinces and the noble Lord was in Bombay. I hope that the fact that my wife's father was given the nickname of Buz has not imprinted itself on the noble Lord's mind to the point where he is obsessed by telephones and other related subjects.

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On a serious note, the noble Lord has raised a number of extremely important issues. There is the question of life and death messages in rural and deprived urban areas as well as ordinary social messages from the same sources. There is the question of the duties of the Post Office which, after all, is a government-owned institution; duties in relation to their social obligations and obligations to those who live in areas where postal facilities are sometimes difficult to come by. There is the question of the cost of telemessages to which the noble Lord referred. Finally, there is the question of the efficiency of the telemessage service in replacing the old telegram system that we used to know.
I should like to comment on those four areas and then widen the debate to consider what can be done to ensure that communications in rural areas are not left behind as technology advances, as it surely will. I believe that that follows the thrust of what the noble Lord said.
Perhaps I may turn to the issue of life and death messages in rural areas and those areas of social deprivation. If my figures are right, I believe that some 84 per cent. of the population—and I apologise to noble Lords if any of my figures are wrong because much of the information is anecdotal—are on the telephone. That implies that some 16 per cent. are not on the telephone. It is that 16 per cent. with which the noble Lord has rightly decided to deal. I speak from my own experience in mid-Wales: there are substantial problems due to the inability of people living in rural areas to reach a point where they can send life and death messages such as, to quote the noble Lord's phrase, "Auntie has died. Funeral on Wednesday". It is a problem with which I believe the new British Telecom—I say "new" in its private capacity—is not prepared to deal other than on a commercial basis. I can understand exactly why it prefers to do so only on a commercial basis—it is because that is its job.
As I have mentioned, there is the second problem of the duties of the Post Office. There has been a great deal of discussion about the closing of sub-post offices in rural areas. We have felt this very much in mid-Wales. A number of sub-post offices have been closed, which has meant that people who wish to avail themselves of what we regard as a normal facility offered by her Majesty's Government—the Royal Mail—are having great difficulty in so doing.
The third problem raised by the noble Lord is the cost of telemessages. I have no evidence concerning telegrams in the year 1900, but I certainly agree that, at least at the outset, the cost of telemessages is high. It is particularly high if, as the noble Lord said, one has to send a message from a telephone box. One has to go along with a mass of coins not knowing how much one is to be asked to pay.
The last question raised by the noble Lord related to the efficiency of the telemessage service. My informal evidence—I stress that it is informal and there may be other evidence—is that the use of telemessages is very small and that it does not measure up to the use that was made of telegrams. Because it is relatively small and probably confined to a small section of the population, the cost has gone up. Obviously British Telecom is a commercial
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venture and will charge the marginal cost for a telemessage as it will charge the marginal cost for any other service.
In looking at the four problems raised by the noble Lord in his Motion, I certainly agree that it is for the Government, and through them the Post Office, to correct the situation that he described. After all, the Government still have powers to direct the Post Office and until it is privatised and becomes a private company, or until in some way the telemessage system is made independent of government, the Secretary of State still has power to make directions to the Post Office. I believe that that should be done and that the Post Office should be directed by the Government to negotiate with British Telecom.
Having said that, I wish to take two or three minutes to widen the debate to include the general issue of communications in rural areas. Again, I base what I have to say on my experience on the Welsh Borders where I live. Those of us who live in hilly areas will know—taking a very simple and straightforward example—of the difficulty of television reception. That has caused, and is causing, a great number of technological problems and has been overcome only by a great deal of expenditure at the margin: that is to say, the BBC and the independent companies have had to spend a great deal more money servicing homes in mid-Wales than they have in servicing homes in, say, London.
Technology moves on and there will be other services which those in urban areas are going to enjoy but which those living in rural areas may well not enjoy unless special efforts are made. It is no secret that cable television is not available in rural areas. I must declare an interest here because I speak as a director of a company owning a company which is involved in cable television. I can see no real economic justification for a cable network in a rural area such as Radnorshire, where I live. After all, my nearest neighbour lives three-quarters of a mile away and it would be very difficult to have a cable which served both his house and mine on an economic basis without being charged an enormous amount for the service.
As regards hooking up to the telephone network in the future, there are still many people in rural areas—I suspect what is true for Wales is also true of Scotland—who do not enjoy the benefit of a telephone. This is anecdotal evidence and I place no particular reliance on this figure, but I am told that for a hookup to the BT main network the charge in the Welsh Borders today is £1,000 per pole. That is to say, when someone wants a telephone installed who has not been on the telephone before, British Telecom will measure the distance between the nearest pole and the house—every pole has to be a certain distance apart—and for each pole installed there will be a charge of £1,000. That figure may be an exaggeration—I know not. I simply say that I have heard that that is the charge which has been made.
The cellular network is not available in mid-Wales and I am sure that it is not available in many areas of Scotland. It may well be unavailable in many areas of the North of England. All this means that the technological advances of communication which are so important in rural areas will fail. They will become

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simple urban advances rather than servicing the people who really need to have the service.
Perhaps I may give an example. In rural areas the isolation of old people and farmers is a very serious problem. If we could construct a system whereby, for instance, an inter-active television system made sure that a farmer, isolated during bad weather, could get in touch with the various services that he required, that would be of enormous benefit to people living in rural areas. Undoubtedly it would meet the problem that we have where in bad weather it takes a very long time for rural communities to be brought back into the main stream of economic and social activity.
That problem is linked to the question of access to the health services, hospitals and education; which brings me back to the main point raised by the noble Lord—namely, the social role of utilities in the rural areas of Scotland, Wales, the South-West and some areas of the North. We used to have a tradition of neighbourly help and I believe we still do have such a tradition. Nevertheless, as developments move forward, as technology advances and we move into the satellite and cable-broadcasting systems and the cellular network, I believe that extra efforts have to be made to ensure that rural areas are not by-passed by these developments.
The noble Lord has quite rightly concentrated upon the matter of telemessages. I have tried to widen the debate to cover the question of communication within rural areas. I have mentioned a number of examples from mid-Wales from my own personal experience. However, I am sure that what happens in mid-Wales in the rural areas is, in a sense, a microcosm of what happens in rural areas throughout the country. I shall be very grateful if the Secretary of State, in replying to the noble Lord, could spend a little time concentrating upon the points that I have raised.
5.40 p.m.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships for intervening when my name is not on the list. I shall not take more than a few minutes. I cannot claim any connection with the British Raj but the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, and I have discussed this matter on many occasions since the days when I had the privilege of serving as Postmaster General in the 1960s. In those days telecommunications and the postal service were under the same organisation and they were run a great deal more efficiently than now when they are separated and one of them privatised.
Let me tell your Lordships about my experience with inland telegrams. From the day I entered St. Martin's-le-Grand, the headquarters of the Post Office, I was under constant pressure from the Post Office board to abolish inland telegrams. It hated the telegram service. It pressurised me the whole time to agree to its abolition, which I never did. The Post Office kept putting up the cost—outrageously I thought—hoping that demand would wither away because of the very high cost. However, under another government, the board succeeded. It was agreed that the inland telegram service should be replaced by telemessages.
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As the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, said, there are two problems. First, people who do not have a telephone cannot send a telemessage unless they go out and find a telephone box, which is not all that easy. That is so not only in the rural areas; everyone is affected. The second problem is the outrageous cost—a minimum of £4. Those who have to send telemessages are on the whole poor. They do not have telephones. So it is the poorest section of the community that has to pay his minimum charge of £4 for a telemessage. It seems to me that British Telecom is doing exactly as the Post Office board did to me when I was Postmaster General. It is putting up the cost all the time, hoping that the thing will go away.
I have always suspected these costs. On a number of occasions I asked for costings of the inland telegram service. I suspected the costings I was given because they included many items that were covered elsewhere. I do not believe that the inland telegram service lost nearly as much money as the Post Office said it did. Nor do I believe that telemessages are losing as much money as British Telecom says they are losing. When the Bill to separate the two services and to make two corporations instead of one was passing through the House, and when British Telecom was being privatised, we received countless assurances from the Government Front Bench that British Telecom and the Post Office would retain the public service aspect of their service. We were given that assurance over and over again.
Those utilities must recognise that although they are businesses—they are important and very large businesses—they are also rendering a public service, they are not, and never will be, like ordinary private enterprise firms. They have a much more important public service aspect to them.
The Post Office has to deliver letters to remote villages in the Borders and in the north of Scotland. A letter may have on it a 13p stamp, but it may cost 75p or £1·75 to deliver. However, the Post Office delivers it because it provides a public service. It has to recognise that it is rendering a public service as well as making a profit. There will always be life and death occasions when people, especially poor people, want to send a message from one end of the country to a relative living in a distant town. Life and death messages are with us and will always be with us. We all have to die some day. Everyone dies and everyone has to be born. These messages will always be necessary. As I have said before, it is the poorest people with no telephone who have difficulty in sending them.
I do not know what the answer is; but it is the Government's duty as the custodian of the public interest to see that there is a service by which poor people—not only people who have telephones—can send life and death messages at a cost very much lower than the present minimum of £4.
5.45 p.m.
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Lord Young of Graffham): My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Ferrier for bringing this matter before the House. I am conscious as I stand here that I have the serried ranks of Scotland behind me and of

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Wales in front of me. I have only the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, for company in defence of we Englishmen.
I should like to assure the House that on the question of services to rural areas the position is not quite as bad as it may appear. Condition 2 of the licence under which British Telecom provides telecommunications services specifically covers services to rural areas—both voice telephony and other telecommunications services. British Telecom must provide services to every person who requests the provision of these services. The only exception is where the Director-General of Telecommunications is satisfied that any reasonable demand is best met by other means.
There is a clear obligation on British Telecom to provide a telephone to those who want one. The director-general, as one of his specific duties, has to exercise his functions in a way best calculated to secure services in rural areas. There is a clear obligation on the director-general to do that and an obligation on British Telecom to provide those services unless the director-general is satisfied that there is another way of dealing with the matter. The same protection is built into licences relating to public callboxes, directory inquiry services and maritime services.
Noble Lords considered the licence, which was debated at great length at the time, to be sufficient, and I have great confidence that Professor Carsberg will continue to bear in mind the interests of rural areas. The Government have stated on many occasions their commitment to the maintenance of a post office network adequate to enable the Post Office to fulfil its statutory duty to provide services, having regard to efficiency and economy and the social needs of the United Kingdom. We bear those matters in mind, and that is why the Royal Mail is described as something different and special. I hope that it will long continue to be so.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams, said that I should issue a direction to the Post Office. The role of the Government is confined to broad matters of policy and settling the financial framework of the Post Office. It is for the Post Office board to manage the business from day to day. The relationship between the Post Office and British Telecom is very much a matter for the Post Office.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is the Secretary of State implying that he has no power to issue such a direction to the Post Office, or is it that he just does not want to?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, without looking to see whether there is a power—perhaps many powers are left over from a former age—it is the policy of this Government not to interfere. But I may not have the power. That is a matter I shall have to check. I suspect it is a residue from prehistoric times.
I should like to congratulate my noble friend on the persistence he has shown in pursuing this matter over a considerable time. Even more, I am filled with admiration. He referred to the fact that he received a letter from Professor Carsberg on a Sunday. I do not
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know whether that is peculiar to Scotland but it is certainly not possible for those of us who live in England.
As the noble Lord has indicated, telemessage is a service operated by British Telecom. It was introduced in 1981 and took over in 1982 from the inland telegram service, which was becoming increasingly loss-making and less popular. The noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, referred to the history of the matter, and I hope to come back to that in a moment. The telemessage service provides a means for people to send urgent messages and social congratulatory messages in a most convenient way by telephone.
For noble Lords who need reminding, one can contact the telemessage service from one's own telephone, from a public callbox, by telex or, in today's world, by fax. If you live in London, Birmingham or Glasgow you dial 190 and in other parts of the country you just dial 100 and ask the operator for the connection. Such calls are free, but once connected to the telemessage operator, of course, the charges commence. The message is read back by British Telecom to avoid errors and then sent electronically to one of 28 Royal Mail sorting offices nationwide where it is printed and delivered in time for the next working day.
I hate to correct the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, and indeed other noble Lords, but I fear that the minimum charge is £5, plus VAT, for 50 words and not £4 as suggested. For every further 50 words there is another charge.
The Post Office offers two types of service for those people wanting messages delivered the following day. There is of course first class mail by which 90 per cent. of all items are delivered next day. There is also the Royal Mail Special Delivery which guarantees delivery the next day or your money back. That service is available all over the country from all sub-post offices; the charge is £1.50. Datapost is available at some 3,000 post offices in the land. That service, mainly for commercial matters, costs £13 per item for guaranteed next-day delivery. I would not have thought that such a service is suitable for congratulatory messages.
Before I move on to discuss the main subject of the debate, it may be helpful if I set out the framework within which British Telecom operates. When BT was privatised, the Government made clear that they did not intend to intervene in the commercial decisions of the company. Indeed, I have already referred to the licence which is granted and how that protects the rural areas. I have also referred to the role of Professor Bryan Carsberg, the Director-General of Telecommunications. He has specific duties set out for him which include looking after the interests of the consumer and the assurance of telecommunications services to all those who reasonably demand them. For example, there are specific requirements relating to 999 services and directory enquiries which are the minimum framework. However, the introduction of other services is a matter for British Telecom's judgment.
Given that framework, it will be principally for British Telecom and the Director-General of Oftel to consider the points made by my noble friend about telemessage. Indeed, we know that he is considering

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such matters at the moment and we look forward to hearing Professor Carsberg's conclusions.
My noble friend focused especially on whether the telemessage service should be made available at post offices. As I have already said, the Post Office already offers some services which guarantee delivery the next day. Once an individual has gone to a post office, other services are generally available there and possibly at a lower price. Therefore it is not clear that the availability of telemessage at post offices would bring any substantial benefits. After all, the main selling point of telemessage is the convenience for the telephone user. And, of course, the telephone user includes users of public call boxes.
I am sure all noble Lords will join with me in congratulating the chairman and the management of British Telecom on the recent figures regarding call boxes which show that more than 90 per cent. of them are in working order. I hope that that situation will long continue.
My noble friend asked about people who do not have telephones. I must tell the House that 81 per cent. of the population had telephones in 1986—a figure that may well have increased by now—and that the penetration rate of telephones has risen year after year. In addition there are some 80,000 public call boxes nationwide. Further, I hope that we will see some good quality service figures announced later this week. One of the reasons for the decline of the inland telegram was the increase in pentetration of the telephone. I can sympathise with my noble friend; I too retain a certain nostalgia for that service. I can understand that many people regret its passing. Nevertheless, when the service was discontinued in 1982 the telegram service as a whole was losing some £50 million a year of which £20 million was on the inland side. Indeed, the demand for telegrams fell by some 30 per cent. in the three years before closure.
An interesting factor is that on average each and every member of the population sent one telegram every 16 years. That is how the figures worked out. As I stand here now I am trying to recall the last time I sent a telegram. I suspect that I exceeded that particular average. Even six years ago, when telephone penetration was 76 per cent. of households, less than 10 per cent. of telegrams were handed over the post office counter. In other words, even at that time, 90 per cent. of the telegrams sent actually started their journey by telephone. Therefore, as the percentage of households without telephones declines, there is less need for the service.
There remains the important issue of urgent life and death messages. My noble friend and indeed the noble Lords, Lord Williams of Elvel and Lord Glenamara, referred to the need for a service to send urgent messages on the same day. That requirement raises different issues from the social messages. The sending of a telemessage for next-day delivery is most suitable for a social message, but I do appreciate that there is a real need, occasionally, for life and death messages. I do not wish to be unsympathetic to that problem. Of course the simplest answer lies in the telephone itself with its instantaneous communication. That applies to over eight out of 10 households.
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Many people without a telephone do nevertheless have access to one through neighbours and friends, or at their place of work, in the event of an emergency. Indeed, many local authorities give grants to people to have telephones installed in cases of real need. Should there be a real emergency of this nature the police, certainly in the metropolitan area, will deliver a message. I believe that such measures taken together go a long way towards ensuring that urgent messages get through. However, I am glad to say that the Post Office and British Telecom are considering the problem, to see whether there is any other solution.
Finally, I turn to the cost of the service and the big question as to whether British Telecom could provide a lower minimum number of words at a cheaper price. I have no doubt that the company will carefully note what has been said today. However, it is possible that a large part of British Telecom's cost for such a service will be fixed and remain the same regardless of the length of the message. That being so, it could mean that a price reduction would be uneconomic and indeed could well jeopardise the viability of the service that my noble friend is so keen to see extended. However, that is a matter for Professor Carsberg. He will have to consider whether the price is reasonable; whether the service is being run inefficiently; and, ultimately, if or when it should be extended.
However, we must be very careful before we seek to require the provision of this service at a loss which could mean higher charges for consumers elsewhere, involving people who might not wish to have the service. Clearly it is a matter for the Director-General of Oftel; it is one which British Telecom is considering and one that the Post Office is also considering. I hope that in due course all Members of your Lordships' House will hear the result of such considerations, and I hope that everyone will be satisfied with the decision reached.
6 p.m.
Lord Ferrier: My Lords, there are only one or two words that I should like to say in conclusion. First, I wish to thank all those noble Lords who have taken part in the debate, especially the noble Lord, Lord Young. The explanation behind my receiving a letter on Sunday was that I returned from London on Friday and by Saturday I was horizontal as a result of—well, you know what! Therefore it was only when I was able to stagger to my desk on Sunday that I noticed Professor Carsberg's letter.
I could have made many more important points but there is not enough time. It must be remembered that high-rise flats have replaced the loneliness of the glen. We have not discussed the fact that if we could give the district post offices more work, that might be economical by increasing employment. The noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, mentioned the cost of £1,000 per pole. I am told that the technicians will overcome that problem by substituting some form of radio contact for a telephone line. I thank your Lordships for assisting me in this debate. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Illness in the House
6.1 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to make a Statement on the illness which many of your Lordships and the staff of your Lordships' House, primarily in the Refreshment Department, have recently experienced.
Since yesterday, when the seriousness of the situation was recognised, a team, led by the Medical Officer for Environmental Health for the City of Westminster, assisted by the Communicable Diseases Surveillance Centre, has been conducting thorough investigations.
It would seem likely that the infection has been caused by a salmonella, one of the commonest causes of food poisoning. Symptoms commonly occur within two to three days but may occur up to one week following ingestion. In the circumstances, having considered all aspects of the problem, the investigating team has recommended that, provided certain measures are taken, there is no reason why a limited service should not continue to be provided by the Refreshment Department. Perhaps I should add here that the kitchens were found to be in first-class order. The team will continue to monitor events closely.
The only precautions that are recommended are that normal hygiene measures, such as the washing of hands, be scrupulously observed and that if anyone should become ill they contact their doctor.
If further advice is required, it may be obtained from a representative of the medical team on 01–798 1232. A 24-hour service will be maintained.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, perhaps I may thank the noble Lord the Chief Whip for making that Statement so promptly this afternoon. It is good to hear that our kitchens were found to be in first-class order. I am sure that that will give a measure of assurance to Peers. There was speculation in some elements of the tabloid press that Legionnaires' disease was involved. I wonder whether the noble Lord will confirm categorically that that is not so.
Lord Denham: My Lords, yes, I can tell the House categorically that that is not the case.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord the Chief Whip for making the Statement to the House. Clearly there has been considerable distress felt by members of the staff and Members of your Lordships' House, especially among the team of people working on the Education Reform Bill. We hope that they will be able to be in their places tomorrow to carry on that marathon. This is not a joking matter of course, but as this is one of the commonest causes of food poisoning, it is an inappropriate thing to happen in your Lordships' House. It might have been more suitable at the other end of the building! I should like to ask the noble Lord one question. What is meant by a limited service in the Refreshment Department? Again, I make no comment on the previous service!
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We are grateful for the information and especially for the knowledge that people who are in distress can contact the medical team. I know that a number of noble Lords who are in hospital or fairly seriously ill at home will probably make use of that number. I also hope that members of the Refreshment Department staff are not too seriously afflicted, are shortly returned to health and are soon back in action. I thank the noble Lord for making the Statement.
Lord Denham: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff. I must apologise for preempting his question to begin with. The service is limited because of the shortage of staff. I must emphasise that the staff who are ill will not be allowed back until they have been cleared completely by the investigating team. Thorough cleansing of the kitchens will take place tonight before food is prepared tomorrow. There will be a daily review of control measures by the investigating team.
Lord Renton: My Lords, as one of your Lordships who has been one of the sufferers, may I too say how much I appreciate the Statement made by my noble friend. It is both timely and reassuring. We are grateful to him. Does it follow from his Statement that there is no cause for alarm? Does it also follow that none of the sufferers is likely to be a carrier of this unpleasant complaint?
Lord Denham: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend. I sympathise with him as one of the sufferers. That being so, perhaps I may congratulate him on the remarkably healthy appearance he shows today. There is no cause for alarm. One can be a carrier. It is rare, but I must repeat that the precautions to be taken are the normal precautions of cleanliness; that is, washing, especially before meals.
Lord Morris: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that my understanding is that there are over 200 different strains of salmonella? Has this strain been identified? If it is a new strain could it possibly be salmonella nobilissima!
Lord Denham: My Lords, I was not aware of my noble friend's knowledge of salmonella. I am afraid that I cannot give him the exact classification of the strain. Although some strains of salmonella are more dangerous than others, ours seems to be a reasonable one.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, will my noble friend set our minds at rest on one other point? Is there any connection between the most unusually short lists of speakers in the debate today and the sudden onset of this illness?
Lord Denham: My Lords, I think that that is accidental although it possibly arises from the same event. I am told that the exact strain of salmonella is now in the process of being identified.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, will the noble Lord give us an idea of how many members of staff of the Refreshment Department and how many Peers have been afflicted by this illness?
Lord Denham: My Lords, I think that it is about 40 Peers and members of staff.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, as one of the Members of your Lordships' House who is not infrequently called upon to give medical advice to noble Lords, perhaps I may take the liberty of asking the noble Lord the Chief Whip one question. Whenever there are rumours of an epidemic, it is remarkable how soon certain people begin to feel that they are suffering from the condition. It is interesting to note that last night, when the debate went on a long time, a number of noble Lords felt unwell and believed it necessary to go home. I emphasise that not many of those noble Lords have been suffering from the condition. It is clear from the Statement that we have not yet identified the point in the food chain at which this infection has been introduced. It can be at any stage. It may well be outside the House and connected with the supply of some food or liquid. I am sure that the professional people who are studying this matter will sooner or later identify the source of this infection. When we have that knowledge, it would be helpful if the noble Lord would give it to the House.
Lord Denham: My Lords, I shall certainly give that information to the House. The team monitoring what is happening will continue to do so. I think one must also make clear that people have symptoms of upset stomachs at any time in the year. If anybody has that, it may not necessarily be connected with the outbreak.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Lord two questions. The first has already been asked but not answered. What is meant by a "limited service"? Secondly, as the noble Lord will know, salmonella poisoning often arises from frozen food which has not been properly defrosted. Can the noble Lord say whether any such food is used?
Lord Ampthill: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord the Chief Whip would allow me to intervene since I may be in a better position to answer the question about the limited service. As I am responsible for the Refreshment Department, perhaps I may take the opportunity to express my very great regret that this event has occurred. The origins are by no means certain yet; it will take many days of research before the cause of the outbreak is established.
The reason for the restricted service, as the Chief Whip has told the House, is that 21 out of a total of 54 staff are away ill. Again, as the Chief Whip has told the House, they will not be allowed to return to work until all the tests upon them are positive as far as their health is concerned and negative as far as the ailment is concerned. The way in which we shall restrict the service is the simple one of introducing a smaller menu than normal. We may have to restrict the numbers of functions but I am hoping that that can be avoided. I hope that those comments answer the noble Lord's question.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for that explanation. We
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appreciate that he is doing everything he possibly can to deal with the matter. I also asked about frozen foods. Very often salmonella poisoning arises from frozen food which has been improperly defrosted. Can the noble Lord say whether frozen food is used at all in the House of Lords?
Lord Ampthill: My Lords, one of the advantages of a shortage of space is that we have very little storage room for frozen or chilled food. Most food consumed is fresh, but there is a fair amount of frozen food because we never know the numbers for which we shall have to cater.
The deepfreeze room was re-equipped last summer. The inspections which have already been taking place during the last 24 hours have indicated that the conditions in the kitchen are splendid. Those inspecting the premises are enormously impressed with the high standards of hygiene and the routines which are followed. They were astonished to realise that we use separate boards on which to chop each different food and that the boards are colour-coded to make certain that there is no mixing.
As many noble Lords may have heard, it has been my permanent dread that this event should occur in the House. We take a great many precautions. I repeat what I said at the beginning, that I very much regret that this has happened.
Lord Kilbracken: My Lords, will the noble Lord tell us whether it is perfectly safe to use the bars in the House?
Lord Denham: My Lords, I think that we may be getting a little out of order. The rules of order in the House were not designed to cope with an emergency such as this. However I am told that it is perfectly safe to use the bar and sometimes even advisable!

Consumer Arbitration Agreements Bill
6.12 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
It is inevitable that from time to time disputes arise between members of the public and those who provide services to them by way of business. This Bill concerns arbitration between consumers and traders. When there is a dispute these days most consumers can seek justice through the small claims procedure in the county court in England and Wales and, in a somewhat modified form, in Northern Ireland. In Scotland a similar scheme starts later this year.
It is because the existing small claims procedures have worked so well that there has arisen the need to protect consumers from having their right to go to the small claims court, as many people have come to call it, taken away by the small print in the contract forms. The Bill which I put before your Lordships this evening is to protect consumers from such clauses, giving them the right to go to court if they so wish.
When this Bill was introduced by my honourable friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth it

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provided that this right to go to court rather than to arbitration should be absolute for consumers, irrespective of the amount in dispute. There were some differences of opinion and eventually the Department of Trade and Industry referred the matter to the Departmental Advisory Committee on Arbitration. That committee, under Lord Justice Mustill, conducted a very swift investigation into the merits of the Bill and made a report to the department within a matter of weeks.
I think it would be right for me to pay tribute to Lord Justice Mustill and his colleagues for the work that they did, particularly on the questions put to them, and for their courtesy and helpfulness generally in listening to what was said to them in support of the principle of the Bill, notably by the Consumers' Association.
Where the dispute between a consumer and a trader involves less than £500, the Bill provides that consumers should have the absolute right to have the matter resolved through the court procedure. In England and Wales that means through the small claims procedure, which automatically applies to county court cases which are below £500. I think it would be right if I remind your Lordships of the great success of the small claims procedure. Some more versed in its activities have described it as an ornament to the legal system.
As the passage of the Bill in another place has received all-party support, it may be necessary for me to mention quite briefly the principal clauses. Clause 1 is the main operative provision in the Bill. It provides that an arbitration clause in a contract with a consumer cannot be enforced against him except in any one of three specified cases. The three cases are: first, where the consumer agrees in writing to submit to arbitration once a dispute has arisen; secondly, where the consumer has submitted to arbitration—in other words where he has gone along with it and not objected to arbitration which has been initiated; and, thirdly, where the court decides, in a case where the dispute involves a sum between £500 and £5,000, that arbitration would involve no detriment to the consumer.
Clause 2 excludes from the operation of the Bill two kinds of case where arbitration clauses involving consumers may exist. They are, first, cases which operate wholly outside the United Kingdom; and, secondly, cases arising from types of business which were excluded from the operation of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977. These include such matters as insurance contracts, contracts relating to houses and other real property and contracts relating to companies and shares. Perhaps I may add here that on the whole the scope of this Bill before your Lordships this evening has followed that of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977.
Clause 3 defines "consumer" for the purposes of this Bill and Clause 4 spells out the detail of Clause 1(1)(c) which enables a court, in cases within the band of £500 to £5,000, to order that a dispute should go to arbitration and not to court.
Clause 5 provides the machinery for amending the levels of the application of the main provisions of the Bill and Clauses 6, 7 and 8 relate particularly to Scottish matters and make provision under Scottish
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law for substantially the same purposes. Clause 9 is self-explanatory.
The Bill has Government support and I sincerely hope that it will have the support of your Lordships. I commend the Bill to the House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)
6.20 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Lymington: My Lords, it is with some very real regret that I rise to support this Bill. My regret stems from the fact that as I see it it really should have been quite unnecessary. Disputes between citizens in any complex society are quite inevitable. In some ways an index of the advanced nature of that society is the extent to which it provides adequate systems for disputes settlement. By adequate I mean efficient and cheap.
In this country we have a mixed economy and it is not inappropriate that we have therefore tackled this problem of disputes settlement by a mixed economic approach. There is the private sector, the arbitration sector, and the public sector or nationalised industry to which I belong, the courts. That public sector co-operates with the private sector. There is no competition at all between the two branches. We do provide a slightly different service—one is more appropriate to some cases and the other to others. But going back to the private sector—the arbitration sector—the commodity trades based on the City of London have for years taken the line that if one is engaged in such a trade, one owes it to the trade to act as an arbitrator and to do so virtually free of charge.
In the retail trade the same result has been achieved by and large by a somewhat different route. There the trade associations have set up arbitration schemes. The claimant pays a small fee to register his claim and then submit it to arbitration. That is usually less than the fee payable under the courts' small claims fee. If he represents himself as he should do in small claims cases and loses, all that he will lose will be the small registration fee of perhaps £15 or thereabouts. If he wins, he gets the fee back and all that the other side, the losing party, has hazarded is the requirement that he compensates the claimant in the amount which he paid by way of a registration fee.
One may ask where the balance of the cost comes from. The answer is that it comes from the trade associations. It is regarded as being a legitimate expense to be borne by the trade as a whole. The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (of which I was at one time president) runs some 40 such schemes. Most large retail companies I imagine spend considerable sums on consumer relations and consumer complaints departments. It would perhaps be idle to assume that that is entirely a philanthropic exercise; on the contrary, it is an example of enlightened self-interest.
I cannot for the life of me understand why having gone that far it should not be the universal practice to go just a little bit further and provide a system of low cost arbitration to resolve the few disputes which are not resolved by the ordinary process of investigation and negotiation between the customer and the retail trader. Of course that is very widely done and very

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successfully done. One might mention the insurance industry which does that on a large scale although part of that industry prefers the ombudsman approach.
The banking industry has someone called an ombudsman although he is probably an arbitrator. However, I shall not go into the technicalities of which function he fulfils. But at all events it is the same approach. It is the approach of investigating the customer's complaint as far as is possible; but when the crunch comes it is a matter of providing a low cost or a no cost system for a third party decision as to where the rights and wrongs lie.
I personally find it a very great pity that the furniture removal industry which seems to have been largely the cause of this Bill, and to a lesser extent the building industry, should have declined so far to follow suit. If they cannot be persuaded to do so, I would agree that this Bill is necessary in order to remove the evil of customers and consumers being priced out of justice—because that is what it amounts to. In another place figures were mentioned of a legally-qualified arbitrator being paid £200 to adjudicate in such disputes. Nobody who has a claim of under four figures or more could contemplate going to arbitration where he risked an order that he pay not only the arbitrator's fee which would be excessive in itself in relation to the claim but also possibly the legal costs of the other side. It is for that reason and in that way that people are being priced out of justice.
Of course it may be said—and I hope I am not straying too far from the Bill in this regard—that the mischief to which the Bill is directed is part of a larger problem which stems from the high cost of lawyers. I accept that the members of the legal profession are expensive, but they have had a long and costly training and many of them have high overhead expenses. They are worthy of their hire. But having said that, there is no reason in common sense why one should employ highly qualified people to do a job when it is just not cost effective to do so.
What we must do is to provide an alternative. Thinking about that, I realised that it is very odd that in this country criminal justice, or 98 per cent. of criminal justice cases, depend entirely upon the voluntary unpaid services of justices of the peace. They resolve disputes between the state and the citizen. They do not have legal training although they very quickly acquire a great deal of legal knowledge in the limited sphere in which they are operating. Without their services, the administration of justice in the criminal field would grind to an immediate halt.
Is there not a case for looking to see whether we could not have civil justices of the peace who unpaid would take on the very important duty of resolving small disputes between consumers and others and indeed between citizen and citizen? However, I stray from the Bill. I wish to raise two points about the Bill. The first concerns Clause 1(1)(b). I had thought from reading the debate in another place that the purpose of Clause 1(1)(b) was that where a consumer positively put forward his claim and said to the trade arbitral tribunal, "I have a claim, I wish to
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arbitrate it and put it forward" that in those circumstances the consumer should be bound by the arbitration clause but that is certainly not the way in which this particular clause would be interpreted.
There is a very real difference, as a matter of technicality, between submitting to arbitration and submitting a claim to arbitration. I fear greatly that with the Bill as drafted the customer who is faced with a claim by a furniture remover, for instance, for the fees or the balance of fees for removal which has been put to arbitration by the contractor, will write in, when he is told about the claim, and say, "I do not owe it because …". The moment he says that, I believe that the courts will be in a position in which they must say that he has submitted to arbitration when in fact there was probably nothing that was further from his mind. I hope that those who are in charge of the Bill will look at the wording and make certain that that is what they intend.
The other point that troubles me concerns Clause 4. Under Clause 4, it will be open to the contractor (as will probably be the case) to apply to the High Court or the county court for an order disapplying Section 1; in other words, an order that the consumer is bound by Section 1. There is nothing in the Bill about costs. The costs of the application may be considerable. It might be worthwhile for a trade association to turn up, represented by leading and junior council instructed by solicitors. The trade association would not be so concerned with that particular case as with getting a ruling that arbitration is in the interests of the contractor. What is the customer to do when he is suddenly faced with an application such as that? If I were the customer and faced with an application by a contractor, backed by his trade association, to disapply Section 1, I would run a mile rather than risk getting involved in an argument and perhaps losing it and having an almost unlimited order for costs made against me.
Those are detailed points which will be more suitably discussed on another occasion. However, I wish to put down a marker on those potential problems; and, the evil existing, I welcome the Bill as a solution.
6.33 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I should like to add a few words in support of the Bill which has been so admirably and clearly introduced by my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth. My honourable friend Mr. James Pawsey was fortunate in attaining a high place in the annual ballot for Private Members' Bills in another place. That is a happy situation. I once had similar good fortune when I was in another place. My honourable friend has therefore won time for discussion of the Bill in the other place, and it comes to us in its present form with the blessing of the Government. It is also strongly supported by the Consumers' Association.
The purpose of the Bill is not opposition to arbitration. Arbitration is relevant and helpful as a recourse in many situations. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, has just described such situations; there are few noble Lords who are more qualified to speak on that subject. The Bill ensures

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that customers will have the option of going to court when there is a dispute about damages, claims or services. With the small claims procedure operating satisfactorily and a similar scheme about to start in Scotland, it will usually be cheaper and more convenient for members of the public to choose the courts rather than arbitration. The option should be kept open for them. Access to the courts for all is a basic right in this country and it should not be lightly given up or removed.
I am fortified in that belief by the views expressed by the Director-General of the Office of Fair Trading, Sir Gordon Borrie, who wrote to Mr. Pawsey to the effect that the arbitration schemes operating under the codes of practice which he had endorsed were intended to be an available option and not a replacement for other forms of redress, including access to the courts. I hope that, with any amendments which may be necessary for clarity which may be suggested by the noble and learned Lord, the Bill will be accepted in principle by your Lordships' House.
6.38 p.m.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, perhaps I may also thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for his clear presentation of the Bill and say that I, in common with previous speakers, believe that it is a useful and helpful piece of legislation. We on these Benches may be even more pleased to welcome it than anyone else. The only slightly sour note that I might adopt would be to point out that the measure was due to come before the House 11 years ago. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, implied, the provisions of the Bill fill the gap which was left when the Unfair Contract Terms Act was introduced by a Labour Government in 1977. That Act in large measure safeguarded consumers from the mischief of small print and the result has been that, for the past 11 years, consumers cannot be unfairly deprived of the basic legal rights which Parliament intended them to have.
The only flaw in the Act was that it did not extend to compulsory arbitration clauses. When your Lordships' House sought to put that right, the government of the day, being in rather a delicate position with a very small majority, had too much on their hands to overturn the Conservative opposition in another place when the amendment proposed by your Lordships' House returned there. In my view, the Bill completes the work of those days.
The Consumers' Association has sent us examples of specific cases where a customer wished to claim compensation from a trader after he had signed a compulsory arbitration clause. Such examples make us realise how much the provisions of the Bill will help. A dissatisfied customer, who may be elderly and unused to small print (and how many of us have been caught by the small print on the back of a contract?), may discover too late that he is tied to arbitration as the only means to settling the dispute. On the other hand, he may be faced with the fact that his claim is less than the £200 a day cost of arbitration and therefore be forced to settle for whatever the trader offers him, which would probably be a smaller amount. The Bill gives the consumer the invaluable option of taking his claim through the small claims
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procedure in court, which will certainly bring him greater justice.
That leads me to a point which I should like to put to the Minister. It concerns the limit of £500 at which the small claims jurisdiction stands at present. That has stood at the same level since 1981. When it was first introduced in 1973, the level was £75. After a year or so, as the scheme took hold and became a considerable success, the level was raised to £100 and it was later raised to £200. Now that it has stood at the present level of £500 for seven years, perhaps the time is right for it to be raised again.
The Lord Chancellor's Department issued a consultation paper in September 1986 floating the idea of raising the limit to perhaps £1,000. That idea has been on the table for over a year. Perhaps it is appropriate to ask whether anything is to be done and, if so, when. Unlike other possible reforms which have emerged from the civil justice review, this reform is not controversial. No one has spoken against the proposal to raise the small claims limit. If the Government decide to do that, the level of application of the provision in the Bill would be automatically self-adjusting.
This Bill gives consumers the absolute right to go to court to defy the compulsory arbitration clause in cases where the dispute falls within the limits of the county court's small claims jurisdiction. Surely a speedy and efficient way of extending the application of the provisions of this Bill to the area which ought really to be covered would be for the Lord Chancellor to raise the limit for the small claims jurisdiction to £1,000 as soon as possible. I may say that this proposition is strongly supported by the Consumers' Association.
Secondly, may I address one other point to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas? This concerns the codes of conduct. As I am sure your Lordships will know, the Office of Fair Trading has for several years promoted the system of codes of conduct to raise trading standards and to protect consumers. These codes have been drawn up on a different basis for various trades by trade associations, but they mostly have in common a system of arbitration for the resolution of disputes between customers and traders which cannot be settled in any other way. The Office of Fair Trading would not approve a code which did not make provision for this kind of arbitration as a final stage.
If the Bill became law and extensive use were to be made of its provision to go to the courts instead of using arbitration procedures, what effect does the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, think that would have on existing codes of conduct, as well as on the establishment of new ones?
These codes contain much which at earlier stages in their procedures are helpful to consumers as well as raising trading standards generally. On balance, it will disadvantage consumers if the codes fall into disuse and eventually cease to exist. Consumers will then need to rely on general legal provisions, and while these are a useful long stop they do not easily accommodate all disputes in every trade as effectively as codes of conduct. Also, the absence of a code may mean deteriorating trading standards as traders cease to be specifically regulated by their trade

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associations. I should be very grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would give his views on that point.
Finally, perhaps I may say that this Bill certainly has a great deal of support: the support of the Institute of Trading Standards Administration, the Office of Fair Trading and the Department of Trade and Industry. As the noble Lord said, the Consumers' Association has had a great deal to do with presenting it. The only voice of dissent that I have noticed has come from the British Association of Removers. Again, I should be very grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would comment on the fact that it believes that a satisfactory self-regulatory code could be introduced for removal claims handling and that the association could sponsor a small claims arbitration service in conjunction with the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. I believe that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, was thinking rather along those lines. The British Association of Removers adds that it hopes realistic proposals will be ready by the autumn. Again, I should be grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would comment on the suggestion made by the association to clear up this problem.
In conclusion, I believe the Bill is an important advance in respect of consumer rights and completes the work begun 10 years ago with the Unfair Contract Terms Act. We on these Benches certainly give it our full support.
6.44 p.m.
Lord Beaverbrook: My Lords, may I first congratulate my noble friend Lord Lucas on the lucid way in which he has introduced the Bill. Let me say at the outset that the Government do not oppose the Bill and indeed have provided drafting assistance. Your Lordships may have noticed from the precise language of the Bill that the hands of the parliamentary draftsman and his Scottish colleague have been at work. There is of course a coherent policy underlying the Bill as it is now drafted and I should like to explain to your Lordships how it has come about.
Towards the end of last year the issues raised by the Bill were referred to the Department of Trade and Industry's Advisory Committee on Arbitration Law. This committee is chaired by Lord Justice Mustill, and includes representatives from Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Committee took oral evidence from the promoters of the Bill as well as from the Office of Fair Trading, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, the British Association of Removers and the Federation of Master Builders. A copy of the committee's report is available in the Library.
The committee concluded that the Bill did address a problem, albeit not a great one—the problem being essentially one of cost and its deterrent effect. My noble friend Lord Lucas has explained what the problem is and I do not think I need to spell it out again in detail. Suffice it to say that the Government recognise two situations where arbitration clauses can discourage consumers with a genuine grievance from pursuing their claims. The first concerns cases involving small sums of up to £500, which would
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automatically be heard under the small claims procedure in the county court. The maximum cost of preceedings under the small claims procedure is £43, while the cost of arbitration depends on the scheme specified in the contract. There are low-cost arbitration schemes, but others can cost the loser between £200 and £300. Clearly a consumer with a disputed claim for, say, £250 is going to think twice before risking the same amount again at an arbitration hearing. He is much less likely to be deterred by the cost of proceedings in the small claims court.
The second situation where an arbitration clause can work to the disadvantage of a consumer is in cases above the small claims limit, where the consumer would be eligible for legal aid in court proceedings. Legal aid, of course, is not available for arbitration. The proponents of the Bill argue that the consumer should always be entitled to pursue a dispute in court and that this right should never be taken away from him by the small print in the contract. Access to justice, they argue, should be the overriding principle.
I certainly see the force of this argument. However, there are other important principles at stake. One is that the parties to a contract, while being free to agree the terms of the contract, should be bound by those terms once they have been agreed. There must be very good grounds for allowing one of the parties unilaterally to say, "I know I signed the contract but I don't like this or that particular term, so let's ignore it."
The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1979 erodes the principle of sanctity of contract to some extent by making void or voidable the type of clause under which one of the parties seeks to exclude his liability for negligence or breach of contract. However, any further erosions of the principle must be firmly justified.
Another important aspect is the impact of this Bill on arbitration law. It is a principle of arbitration law that when parties agree to resolve future differences by arbitration that agreement should be binding. Section 4 of the Arbitration Act 1950 gives the court discretion to allow court proceedings to continue, notwithstanding an arbitration clause, but the grounds for exercising the discretion are very restrictively applied. The Government have no quarrel with arbitration as a means of resolving disputes. We regard it as an excellent alternative to the courts and it has the very great merit in our eyes that it relieves the burden on the court system.
The Department of Trade and Industry's advisory committee drew attention to these arguments and recommended that, if the Bill was to be enacted, its scope should be narrowed so that it addressed the identified problem but minimised interference with freedom of contract and with arbitration law. It suggested some ways in which this might be done. The Government subsequently discussed them with the promoters of the Bill and the result is the present draft.
I do not want to detain your Lordships with a detailed commentary on the Bill's provisions, but I should like to make just one point. The Bill refers throughout to jurisdictional limits rather than to

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specific monetary amounts. Thus, Clause 1 limits the scope of the Bill to proceedings within the jurisdiction of a county court. Clause 4 qualifies Clause 1 by enabling a court to enforce an arbitration clause in the case of disputes falling within the jurisdiction of a county court, provided that arbitration would not be detrimental to the interests of the consumer, and provided that the dispute is above the small claims limit. The latter part of the Bill applies similar but not identical provisions to Scotland.
The technique of referring to jurisdictional limits has the obvious advantage that if new limits come into force they will apply automatically to this Bill and there will be no need for secondary legislation to bring it up to date. As a precaution, however, the Bill gives the Secretary of State the power, with the concurrence of the Lord Chancellor or Lord Advocate as appropriate, to specify higher limits by order. The Government hope that it will be possible to avoid specifying particular monetary limits by order, but if in the light of experience it becomes clear that different limits would be preferable, in Scotland or elsewhere, the order-making power exists.
I turn now to two points raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, who referred to Clause 1(1)(b). It is not the intention that the consumer should be regarded as having submitted to arbitration unless he has evinced a clear intention to accept the arbitration process. However, we shall look at the point again and take it up with the sponsors of the Bill if it appears that his point is a valid one.
Turning to the noble and learned Lord's second point concerning Clause 4(1), our advice has been that the costs of an application are unlikely to be substantial. However, again we shall look at the point afresh and if necessary take up the point with the sponsors of the Bill.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, asked about the likely limits of small claims. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has recently received the report, The Civil Justice Review. The report is being printed and will be laid before Parliament as soon as possible, probably early in June. It would be improper for me to anticipate what is contained in the report. No doubt as soon as the report is published it will be brought to the notice of the noble Baroness. I hope that it will be possible to look at the point further at that stage.
In conclusion, the Government have worked closely with the promoters of the Bill and as a result it has been substantially amended in another place. The Government's attentions have not been designed to draw the teeth from the Bill. In a positive spirit the Government have sought to ensure that the Bill continues to tackle the identified problem but at the same time avoids unnecessary interference with arbitration and with contractual freedom. The result, I believe, is a sensible measure and its progress towards the statute book is not opposed by the Government.
6.52 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate tonight. Perhaps I may comment on one
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or two of the questions which have been asked in the order in which they were raised.
I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson of Lymington, for his support, reluctant though it is. Had it not been for the outstanding omission of the voluntary option from contracts, the Bill may never have been necessary. Since the option has not proved to be all-embracing we who sponsor the Bill have felt it necessary to go this route. I had intended to explain to the noble and learned Lord that I do not have legal qualifications and would have wished to take his two points away to seek further advice. However, my noble friend the Minister has said that he will be talking with the sponsors and I hope therefore that we can communicate with the noble and learned Lord very quickly about that point.
It is important, and I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord, that he should have been here tonight. We recognise the great value of his work earlier in the 1980s as president of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. It is one of the great values of your Lordships' House that we have the benefit of noble Lords' experience covering such a wide field.
My noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy gave general support. I am grateful to him for having spelt out our intentions, which are to provide an option for the disaffected to choose and not have any particular scheme forced upon them.
That point takes me to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs. She asked me to comment on the BAR scheme. The British Association of Removers has come along rather late in the day and suggested setting up a low-cost arbitration scheme as an alternative to that which we propose in the Bill. We hope that BAR adopts such a scheme, but the basis of its scheme remains—as at present written into its members' contracts—that arbitration is compulsory. That is our objection to it.
The noble Baroness also asked me to comment on the effect of the Bill on existing codes of conduct. I draw her attention to the report of the departmental Advisory Committee on Arbitration, which my noble friend the Minister has said is available in the Library. The report states that:
"It is the practice of the Director-General [of Fair Trading] not to endorse any codes of practice which include an arbitration clause which does not give the consumer the option for going to Court. In a letter to the Committee, the Director-General [Sir Gordon Borrie] stated that 'the Bill, if enacted, would go some considerable way towards assisting my policy goal'".
Therefore one can see that the passing of the Bill, if your Lordships so agree, will do nothing other than support the director-general in his efforts to encourage codes of conduct which embrace that alternative.
I turn now to the remark of my noble friend the Minister. I should like to thank him for the support which we have received from the department and, further, for offering additional support. He raised the question of legal aid not being available for arbitration cases. I see the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, sitting in his place this evening; it was of course he who raised the question quite recently in the discussions on the Legal Aid Bill in February. I do not propose to re-open that subject because the noble

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Lord, Lord Mishcon, and your Lordships received an answer then and the Minister is unlikely to go further. I thank noble Lords for their support.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Belfast: Employment Situation
6.58 p.m.
The Earl of Longford The Earl of Longford rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they propose to take to remedy unemployment in West and North Belfast.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, in my original Question I referred only to West Belfast but after a recent visit to the city I felt it was essential to add North Belfast where unemployment is equally serious. I shall be speaking mainly about Catholic areas where unemployment is more severe. However, I realise that unemployment, for example, in the staunchly Protestant area of Lower Shankill is also causing great alarm. I do not want anyone to feel that their remarks must be confined to Catholic areas.
There is no danger, I think, of the debate turning into a sectarian encounter. The Minister, of course, is a good Catholic and his chief, the Secretary of State, so far as I know, is an excellent Protestant. When I come to think of it, I have been both, but I shall not go into the question of which came first and which lasted longer. I shall approach the matter in a thoroughly non-sectarian spirit. I shall not comment on the religious affiliations of other speakers, save to say that the noble Lord, Lord Blease, always seems to me the ideal ecumenical man. If people like him were elected, there would be no problems. I am delighted that both he and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, are to take part in the debate. Noble Lords will be aware, like everyone outside, that unemployment in the North of Ireland has been distressingly high—I should say shockingly high—for many years. I say "shockingly" because Northern Ireland is officially part of the United Kingdom. There is the same responsibility on Her Majesty's Government for employment and unemployment as applies on the mainland.
Tonight I shall not concern myself with the main political issues. For 50 years at least I have believed and proclaimed that a united Ireland is the only true solution of all the problems. I shall not argue that tonight. I am accepting the present situation under which, as I said just now, Northern Ireland is as much part of the United Kingdom as Yorkshire or Sussex.
I wonder whether noble Lords are aware just how bad the unemployment situation in Northern Ireland is, more particularly in the areas I have selected for tonight's discussion. I do not intend to swamp the House with statistics. I learnt on the spot recently that in considerable parts of North and West Belfast the unemployment among young people is over 80 per cent.
As a general summary of the position, I quote from a homily given by Bishop Daly on Sunday 24th April this year. I am under the impression that the Minister has received a copy of it. Bishop Daly was pointing
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out that West Belfast has some of the highest unemployment figures anywhere in Western Europe. He said:
"Unofficial but reliable local surveys in a number of West Belfast parishes indicate unemployment rates of upwards of 60 per cent. and in one or two cases as high as 80 per cent. of the working population. These figures are to be compared with an unemployment rate of 16·9 per cent. in Greater Belfast, 17·1 per cent. in Northern Ireland as a whole, and 12·5 per cent. for the United Kingdom. Of the 13,000 to 15,000 unemployed in Catholic West Belfast, more than half have been unemployed for more than a year. West Belfast is fast becoming a great pool of deskilled labour. Unemployment is becoming self-perpetuating. The young unemployed are caught in an unemployment trap.
Lack of previous skilled work experience is itself becoming a disqualification for people when they apply for industrial jobs".
So spoke the bishop. I do not think that anyone would challenge what he said.
What would Members of the House say to a young man to whom I was talking when I was there recently? He had held down a good job in the De Lorean factory which came to grief some years ago but which was a very promising venture. Mr. De Lorean exhibited personal weaknesses which proved disastrous. We need not discuss his morals now. While the factory flourished, the employment was roughly 50/50 between Protestants and Catholics. The young man to whom I spoke looked back on it all as a golden age.
For the last six years this young man has been unemployed. To repeat my question: what would Members of the House tell him that he ought to do? I asked him whether there was any chance of a Catholic getting work in Short's. He gave a sardonic smile. Is it known that Short's has made some attempt to employ a few Catholics, but a typical young Catholic would expect to have a very bad time if he ventured there. It is suggested that this young man, his wife and three children, and thousands like them, should seek their fortunes outside Northern Ireland—that they should, to use the phrase, get on their bikes? That was the attitude of British governments 140 years ago during the Irish famine. As a result, one million emigrated and one million died of starvation directly or indirectly, but I do not suggest for one moment that the present Government would adopt that attitude today. We are bound to ask, therefore, what is the attitude of all people of goodwill towards the kind of problem that I raise.
We must acknowledge the failure of all governments in this country—I have served in two since the war—to provide the conditions in which such a young man could hope to obtain employment in West or North Belfast. There is a generation growing up who have never worked; many of their fathers have never worked; and some of their grandfathers have never worked. Do we, or do we not, in Britain accept responsibility for that situation? We cannot morally evade it. Do we look it in the face and accept that responsibility in the same way that we would accept responsibility for it on the mainland?
I must be careful here—very careful—not to seem to justify or excuse horrible things that have been done in West and North Belfast and in other parts of Northern Ireland. To be fair, however, we must pay some attention to the background. Even if there were full employment, these are areas—the same is true of

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all the Catholic areas of Northern Ireland—where British occupation is bitterly resented. The most high-minded people and the most low-minded, the most gentle and the most violent, share that attitude in the Catholic areas, just as wholeheartedly, shall I say, as the inhabitants of the West Bank.
The vast majority of the population in question would of course be opposed to violence, especially when it takes the form of killing or hurting civilians. But there is an underlying sympathy with protest. And there is an understanding of why these young men grow violent. That, in this country, is very difficult to understand. The responsible leaders of the Catholic community, understanding men like John Hume, the Catholic Church leaders and the parish priests, detest violence as much as anyone detests it here—rather more so, I should think, because they know of the corrupting effect on their community. However, if one thinks of the 80 per cent. of young unemployed men who, even if employed, would in any case be opposed to British rule, can one be surprised at what we in this country and their responsible leaders in their country rightly denounce as horrible attrocities?
I was much struck in my recent visit by an underlying confidence by responsible people—I would not say among the general public—in the Secretary of State, Mr. King. It is a long time since I have heard such kindly things said about a British Minister involved in Northern Ireland. There is a feeling—I repeat that I am talking of well-informed Catholics; the mood of the general public is certainly different—that Mr. King really means to do something effective to improve the employment situation.
Whether that is so or not—I certainly wish to believe that it is—he has set himself an ambitious target. I quote from a document signed by him and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State entitled Religious Equality of Opportunity in Employment. The document concludes in this way:
"But these problems"—
the problems of providing equality of opportunity in employment between Protestants and Catholics—
"cannot be solved in an economic vacuum. The lack of adequate job opportunities is a fundamental obstacle to achieving real equality of opportunity".
I should like to underline the next sentence in the document issued by the Minister and the Secretary of State:
"These reforms must therefore be complemented by more investment and job creation. These are essential if unacceptable employment differentials between Catholics and Protestants are to be reduced as quickly as possible. The Government hopes that all who are genuinely interested in employment equality will support the drive to promote more investment and jobs in Northern Ireland".
Perhaps I may venture to repeat that:
"The Government hopes that all who are genuinely interested in employment equality will support the drive to promote more investment and jobs in Northern Ireland",
I take it for granted that that is their own strong purpose.
There is much cynicism in Catholic Belfast about a document of this kind. It is pointed out that legislation promoting religious equality of opportunity was first passed in 1976. Yet I was told
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in Belfast by those to whom I spoke that the situation in respect of discrimination is worse in 1988 rather than better. The Minister may wish to correct that. I can only state what I was told on the spot. It is an accepted fact which I do not think the Minister will question that unemployment in Northern Ireland is two and a half times as bad among Catholics as among Protestants. I decline to be cynical. I side with those who are anxious to believe that a new and more strenuous effort is about to be made by the present Secretary of State and his colleagues than was made by any of his predecessors.
However, to return to the document issued by the Secretary of State and the Minister sitting opposite, what is the Secretary of State proposing to do that has not already been attempted with little result? Let us assume that religious discrimination is tackled with an altogether new vigour. What is to be done to implement the programme of more investment and job creation indicated in the last paragraph? The SDLP has produced an interesting programme. So have the people involved with the Belfast Centre for the Unemployed with whom I had very instructive talks.
There is no time tonight to do these proposals justice. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Blease, will deal with some of these matters more fully. I must indicate the essence of what seems to me the necessary approach. I have given due notice to the Secretary of State and the Minister seated opposite, both of whom labour strenuously, as we know, in the cause of Northern Ireland. Given the immobility of labour in Belfast, if any genuine religious equality of opportunity is to be achieved the Minister must use all his powers to secure investment where the need is greatest; that is to say, in the Catholic areas.
I shall quote again, I am afraid at some length, from Bishop Daly. He seems to be an authority who is accepted in this country and in Northern Ireland without challenge. He said:
"Huge sums of public money are paid out annually to Shorts in government grants and subsidies. Government surely has a responsibility to ensure that the benefits of such public funds are spread as equitably as possible across the two communities".
The bishop continued;
"Similar comment must be made about Harland and Wolff. I hope that the yard may succeed in winning the coveted new contract. But I hope that any new contract granted to the yard will be made conditional on the fair sharing of new employment across the community divide, and this should be subject to regular monitoring. The massive subsidies paid to industry nowadays create a compelling obligation on all employers, whether in the private sector or in the public, to achieve fair employment. They make still more urgent the need for new and effective fair employment legislation, with regular public monitoring and with effectual sanctions for non-compliance".
I must add one word here—we may hear more from others—about the international fund in which Britain, the United States and Canada participate. There is a widespread feeling that the international fund could be used more effectively than at present to encourage private sector investment in the most deprived areas to top up government funding in any West Belfast redevelopment plan. There seems to be general agreement that this new public investment in Catholic areas must be directed in the first instance to major improvements in the infrastructure without which it is impossible to build an economic future. The method of infrastructural development has

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already been attempted by the Flax Trust—about which I shall speak in a moment. It provides an encouraging model.
I should hope that by this time the Minister is aware and will agree that existing legislation on fair employment cannot deliver the fairness in employment which is required and which he himself desires. I beg the Secretary of State to embark forthwith on an alternative strategy of deliberate investment in Catholic areas. I am urging with all my strength that more state intervention is required. I cannot see that this conflicts with the policy of the present Government. When there were troubles in Toxteth, for instance, the Government bestirred themselves in no uncertain fashion. On the Labour Benches at least, we are not likely to agree that the government intervention in inner cities has been adequate. But at least the Government have shown themselves conscious of an obligation though they have not yet discharged it.
I should like to assure the House that the people of Belfast—I am here talking not only of the Catholics but also of the Protestants—are working strenously to help themselves. There are many possible examples. I take one from my own experience. I refer to the work being done by the Flax Trust in North Belfast on what is called a cross-community basis. The Minister has the details of this so perhaps I may read them rather quickly. He will be able to take them in all the better.
In the Brookfield Mill the trust has now developed a business centre, business incubation systems, workshops, a consulting service, a building company, a marketing service and a performing arts centre. The development centre now being built will incorporate a health centre, a shopping complex and workshops. In addition, a housing association has been established and a community aid project is in operation employing some 135 people. Some 10 years ago, 14 people were employed in the Brookfield Mill. Now approximately 500 people are gainfully employed. The philosophy of the trust is simple: reconciliation through economic and social development is of crucial significance.
In the end it all comes down to this. I believe wholeheartedly in the Anglo-Irish Agreement. I give Mrs. Thatcher the fullest credit for it, though it takes two to make an agreement. It was not her work alone. But the House must realise that Catholic opinion in Belfast is turning steadily against it. I need not spell out the implications and the possibilities involved. The question is asked and given a negative answer in a Catholic area: "What good has it done to us?" If we believe in the agreement, as I do, I would say that there is a remarkable if fleeting opportunity to give effect to it not only in words but in deeds.
I repeat what I said earlier. The Secretary of State is much trusted, and so is the Minister opposite, among the most discerning men and women in Catholic Belfast. I am anxious to believe that they will prove worthy of that trust.
7.20 p.m.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Longford, on his excellent sense of timing for a debate on West and North Belfast. The
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communiqué from the most recent Anglo-Irish conference spoke of improving relations between the security forces and the community—nowhere is that more needed than in West Belfast. It touched on social and economic issues (both are acute in West Belfast) and it promised a White Paper on fair employment.
If all discrimination in recruitment could be eliminated this might help some of the worst black spots in unemployment, of which West Belfast has many. The communiqué concluded:
"Work is well advanced on ways to address the serious economic and social problems of West Belfast".
What does that sentence really mean? Will there be a comprehensive social and economic plan for West Belfast in addition to the Belfast urban area plan dealing, as it does, with land use and urban planning? Will there be an ecumenical and multi-disciplinary and possibly internationally-recruited planning group bringing together Northern Ireland government departments, Belfast City, private commerce and finance? Will the group be able to call on the resources of the universities together with the churches and voluntary bodies? I suggest that nothing less is needed. A few unco-ordinated Belfast action teams within the Department of the Environment are not enough. I urge that all the relevant lessons that can be learned from the successes of the Glasgow Eastern Areas Renewal, known I believe as GEAR, should be drawn out and applied to the greatest possible extent in Belfast. Here I should mention specifically the minutes of evidence of 15th February 1983 taken by the Environment Committee of another place, pages 284–289.
Following the recent Anglo-Irish Conference, Mr. Burke, the Minister for Energy and Communications in the Irish Republic, said of West Belfast,
"these deprived communities are in a state of demoralization and it makes it easy for the IRA to operate there".
There is truth in this and one thinks, for example, of Ballymurphy or Divis flats with a side glance at the decayed and partly bull-dozed areas of inner Dublin where provisional Sinn Fein was recently campaigning against drug pushers.
The other important precursor of this debate was the address given by the Bishop of Down and Connor in Twinbrook on 24th April, as the noble Earl has already mentioned. The bishop correctly pointed out that many of the problems of West Belfast are to be found in North Belfast. He emphasised that they affect the Protestant communities just as much as the Catholic ones. Shankill, part of Ardoyne, Ballysillan, Ballygormartin, Highfields, Woodvale and Suffolk as well as Ainsworth and Glencairn are clearly Protestant and inescapably parts of West Belfast. In them, as in the Catholic areas, one may meet young unemployed people whose parents have suffered long, possibly life-long periods of unemployment—another point to which the noble Earl correctly drew our attention.
The bishop was right to emphasise that social and economic development is even more important than security policy. Very properly he underlined the necessity for courtesy and sensitivity, so much commended in the now published Royal Ulster Constabulary Code of Professional Ethics.

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These are the only methods likely to win the hearts and minds of the people. He was right to indicate the need for Ministers and civil servants to have understanding and empathy for West Belfast. This part of the city, cut off between the motorway and the mountain, is all too often avoided by travellers and potential visitors, who are deterred by its reputation for violence. However, I can bear witness to the kindness and friendliness of West Belfast people. Will the Government consider locating in West Belfast at least one major government office? To do so would be an act of social justice, given that the public sector is far and away the largest single employer and that much of its workforce is now located in such places as Bangor and Lisburn.
There is more that Her Majesty's Government can do administratively in both Catholic and Protestant areas. In the Housing Executive, for example, the process of decentralisation should be taken much further. If we look at the Shankill Road and Ballysillan, which would not consider themselves as a single community, we find that there is only one local office. What is needed are local offices with which the local community can fully identify. It is not enough to decentralise a few office functions. What is desirable is to delegate full responsibility and the accompanying budgets to local managers for those things that directly affect the quality of life of local residents. Mistakes may well then be made, but the correct lessons will be learned from them— something that does not always happen when all real power is kept within the central office.
While on the theme of housing, I come back to Divis and Unity flats, on which I have already spoken in your Lordships' House. They were the most disastrous blocks ever built in Belfast. Whatever could go wrong, did go wrong. Mercifully the decision has already been taken to demolish. The question now is over what time scale? The Housing Executive maintains that seven to 10 years is the best it can achieve. Will the Government please stand over the Housing Executive with a rod of iron to ensure that even the lower forecast is bettered? These flats are totally unfit now, so every conceivable way of decanting their tenants must be used. The alternative is to accept unnecessary deaths and disease and the anti-social behaviour and violence that these are only too likely to engender.
I have commented, probably at too great length, on the bishop's address. What I urge on Her Majesty's Government is that it would be fatal to act in West Belfast just because the Irish Government have raised the issue. They should not move just to satisfy the local Catholics. Their motives should not be the conciliation of the SDLP, important as that may be. Something far more important is involved. Unmet human needs exist in West and North Belfast affecting both types of local community. That alone must be the spur to the action.
The human needs of the people, and above all their need for meaningful work and the dignity that flows from that, are the essentials. Nevertheless, we must ask this question: supposing that new employment for 5,000 people were to materialise in West Belfast next year, could those vacancies actually be filled from within the area? The answer might easily be no,
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because of the de-skilling of the workforce and the loss of the habit of working, to which I and the noble Earl referred earlier.
What then must be done, my Lords? Institutions and organisations which will motivate people and give them hope need to be developed and initiated. The Flax Trust and Conway Mill, both in West Belfast, are examples of what is needed. ACE schemes may help in a minor way, but they are not the sole answer. It has long been recognised that a fourth adult education college is needed, located within West Belfast. When will the Government make a decision about that? It ought to be in existence now; so the matter is urgent. It needs to draw on the resources and the excellent pioneering work of Ulster People's College, of which both I and the noble Lord, Lord Blease are members. The recent offer of St. Thomas' School in Whiterock Road for adult use is generous and welcome. However, its main problem is the difficulty of access by Protestant users. Therefore the fourth college must be sited on neutral ground.
Already West Belfast contains centres of excellence, some of which are internationally well-known. They include the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Marter Hospital, Belfast City Farm, St. Louise's College, the Cornerstone Community and, smaller still, the Franciscan Community of the Church of Ireland. In their different ways those institutions could be generators of new real jobs. Will the Government please reassess them in that light? Such a reassessment would be only a small part of a much wider, integrated plan for redeveloping and regenerating West Belfast. Ten years, with continuity after that, is the absolute minimum to be considered. Will the Government ensure that the integrated plan and the social and economic planning team include a permanent listening process? It is in that kind of way that the energies and inspirations of those directly affected will be harnessed. The Government certainly have a part to play and so has the private sector. However, I suggest that neither can replace the hopes and ideals of the local people.
7.33 p.m.
Lord Blease: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, that for many reasons this is an extremely important and timely debate. Whatever may be the concern at Westminster, the Question has generated much interest in Northern Ireland. I wish to express thanks to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for giving us the opportunity to focus attention on the tragic human issue of unemployment in West and North Belfast. I very much appreciate the thorough, understanding and caring way in which in his speech he dealt with the sad social problems and the highly sensitive and difficult religious and political factors arising in both those areas of Belfast.
Increasingly West Belfast has become the subject of much official social and economic research. There has also been wide coverage by the media and by private academic-type analysis. There are many reasons for the special public interest and attention there, some helpful and some negative; but whatever they are there is no doubt that in both West and North Belfast there are many marked signs of

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economic deprivation and increasing degrees of poverty. There are also inequalities of opportunity for individual and family well-being and also for community peace and prosperity.
While I concur with the noble Earl, Lord Longford, that the object of the debate is to focus attention on the needs for West and North Belfast—and in no way do I wish to detract from that—it must be said that chronic unemployment is endemic throughout Northern Ireland. The religious, political and sectarian issues are prevalent in other regions of the Province and they have serious implications for industrial investment, employment and peaceful community development.
Together with my trade union colleagues and others in Northern Ireland, I must firmly declare that sectarianism in whatever form is unquestionably one of the main obstacles to progress in the Province. Sectarianism is a poison which destroys the essential relationship of citizen with fellow citizens and of workmate with fellow workmates. That is why the recent Irish Congress of Trade Unions' anti-sectarian campaign, with the motto "Hands off my mate", deserves every support by the Northern Ireland people. Equality of opportunity and the principles of social justice must prevail if a better life for all is to be obtained. The words "for all" mean just that, as already stated by the noble Earl, be they Catholic, Protestant, dissenter or others.
In that connection, and with relevance to the main purpose of our debate, surely we all must welcome the statements issued on Monday last by the Northern Ireland Office and the Fair Employment Agency about new active measures to deal with job discrimination. In the search for a remedy to cope with the multi-factor problems of unemployment throughout Northern Ireland there is every good reason to support and work for a new deal for West and North Belfast. Indeed, it may even be a way forward for the rest of the Province.
I have been closely acquainted and associated with North and West Belfast since the early 1940s. On two occasions I was an unsuccessful Labour candidate for the Stormont Parliamentary Division. In the 1960s part of my work as a trade union official placed me in direct contact with a series of closures of textile mills, linen factories and engineering works in West and North Belfast. That was a period when thousands of Catholic and Protestant workers joined hands in their common interest for work, and in protest marches on the Shankill and Falls Roads against the rising dole queues. During the 1970s I was aware of the number of government-sponsored and public-financed ventures in the area such as Strathern Audio and the De Lorean car factory. As the noble Earl has mentioned, when the public-funded projects failed, not because of any workplace problems, the bright hopes of many young workers were dimmed.
In the West and North Belfast areas various measures are undertaken by local voluntary groups and statutory bodies to promote and develop industrial and commercial enterprises. Those local initiatives have functioned mainly through the YTP and ACE schemes in job creation and training programmes and in job placement facilities. In
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addition, there is the West Belfast Economic Committee and the Shankill Community Council. There are also a number of enterprise agencies including the Action Resource Centre, the Brookfield Business Centre and the Glenard Youth and Community Workshop.
Many of those groups and organisations continue to provide productive operational activities on the ground under very difficult conditions. They give vital leadership and management skills and stimulate interest and hope. One of the most penetrating accounts of the current problems of North and West Belfast was the homily delivered by Bishop Capel Daly on Sunday, 24th April, already mentioned by the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. The Belfast Telegraph editorial of 25th April 1988 stated:
"Bishop Cahal Daly's lengthy homily on economic deprivation was commendable as a detailed definition of the problems facing West Belfast. The area has become identified as one of the principal theatres of IRA violence, and the deterioration of the quality of life there has been a deliberate part of the terrorists' revolutionary strategy. But the Bishop also correctly pointed out that there were no grounds for a perception that the people of West Belfast were collectively responsible for IRA violence. They are among the chief sufferers as a result of the prolonged and misguided guerilla war which has been inflicted on them as much as on the rest of the province.
There can be no doubt that social conditions resulting from high levels of unemployment make a breeding ground for revolution. Intimidation, or worse, is typical of the IRA's approach to people trying to earn a living. The Bishop has correctly identified the desperate need to break out of this futile spiral.".
The question we are considering is:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they propose to take to remedy unemployment in West and North Belfast".
In this connection, I consider it important to mention a debate in this House on 30th June 1986 when the Social Need (Northern Ireland) Order 1986 was approved. I raised matters in that debate and on 25th July the Minister wrote to me. I quote the relevant extract from his letter:
"You also enquired about the staffing and financial resources available to operate the provisions of the Order. Current resources only permit the operation of the Urban Development Grant and Environmental Improvement Schemes in Belfast and Londonderry. It is likely that resources will continue to be concentrated in these two areas in the immediate future. However, should additional resources, both staffing and financial, become available in the future, it would be the Department's intention to extend activity under the Order to certain other selected areas".
Subsequently, I had a meeting with officials of the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland, and on 2nd June 1987 I was given a departmental factsheet headed: "Inner City Initiative: Belfast Action Teams".
That factsheet stated:
"The Environment Minister, Mr. Richard Needham, announced on 17th February 1987 new initiatives to improve the quality of life in the inner city area of Belfast.
Included in the £28 million financial package was the setting up of Action Teams in two pilot areas to identify the major needs in each area and co-ordinate ways of tackling them, in co-operation with other public agencies and the local community.
The two areas selected, Lower Falls/Lower Shankill and New Lodge/Duncairn will be followed by two further areas in each of the years 1988/89 and 1989/90. The initiative in each area is designed to last three years and the existing sums of Government money spent in the areas is to be supplemented by £1.5 million additional money allocated to each Action Team.
Objectives of the Action Teams are: to bring about an improvement in the quality of life and an enhancement of the opportunities and prospects of people living in inner city areas suffering from particularly severe problems. More specifically the initiative will aim

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to improve the effectiveness with which Government expenditure in the targeted areas is used to benefit those living in these areas by: providing employment for local people; improving the employability of local people, including those about to enter the labour market; encouraging and facilitating enterprise by local people; better coordination and delivery of Government programmes in these areas; supporting initiatives which improve the environment and the provision of services and facilities; trying out new approaches to meet the needs of those areas".
I must say that I was indeed impressed by this policy statement and by the declared objectives, but I was then and am still confused about the financial arrangements: a package of £28 million and £1.5 million additional money allocated to each action team. On the ground I have not seen any steps that this money is being expended in the manner presented to me. However, perhaps we may have an explanation from the Minister as to how the finance has been allocated and when, especially in the light of his earlier letter to me.
While I am disappointed with the narrow scope of the measures, I am pleased and encouraged with the enthusiastic approaches of the two action teams. From my general observations and inquiries, the personnel of those two action teams are working with a great sense of vision, earnestness and commitment in their daily contact with neighbourhood voluntary groups.
The two action team leaders have proved to be lively and effective in their work with the Belfast Centre for the Unemployed. A week ago, on Monday, 2nd May, at the Belfast Centre for the Unemployed, over 100 representatives of statutory and voluntary organisations, together with management and trade union personnel and Belfast Action Team members, met to launch a new voluntary organisation named the Community Economic Development Initiative—CEDI. I quote from the handout leaflet:
"The four local voluntary agencies who jointly make up CEDI have been active in this field since 1983".
They consist of the Centre for Neighbourhood Development, the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action, the Belfast Centre for the Unemployed and the Northern Ireland Co-operative Development Agency. The purpose of the project is:
"To provide a framework to enable the development of community-based economic initiatives; to employ field workers to assist selected deprived communities in exploring local economic development strategies; to offer support to the field workers and the pilot communities in their attempt to realise local self-help job creation programmes; to institute bridges of communication between communities and the other agencies at work in the field".
The CEDI and all associated with it will be anxious to have the full support of the Government, and I hope that the Minister will be able to respond effectively in that connection.
Relevant to the question of the noble Earl, Lord Longford, perhaps I may ask the Minister to reply to the following questions. When will the report be available of the Northern Ireland Office Working Group which has the following terms of reference:
"On ways to address the serious economic and social problems of West Belfast and other disadvantaged areas"?
Will the report be published? What arrangements are there likely to be for suitable consultations at local and representative levels? What is the present number of personnel employed directly on the Social Need
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(Northern Ireland) 1986 legislative provisions? How many Belfast action team offices have been opened and where are they sited? What is the total number of staff directly employed in the local Belfast action team offices? Have the Government considered the feasibility of opening suitable jobcentre offices in the Lower Falls, Shankill Road and Duncairn areas? If not, why not?
Have the Government any immediate plans for the opening or sponsoring of child services for the under-fives such as playgroup facilities, pre-school centres and child-minding arrangements in West and North Belfast? The final question in a list which I have already supplied to the Minister is: have the Government any immediate plans to initiate or sponsor in West and North Belfast suitable training courses for voluntary and for part-time community development and social worker personnel?
I conclude my remarks with two short extracts from Bishop Daly's statement:
"It is time for a new deal in West Belfast. From being a problem and an embarrassment, it must be seen now as a challenge and an opportunity. A concerted redevelopment plan for West Belfast will do far more for the ending of violence than any security policy, important though this be. Government must lead the way in demonstrating that there is a peaceful way to justice and that it works.
Government can count on great public welcome and full community support for any comprehensive plans which they bring forward for the redevelopment of West Belfast".
Perhaps I may add North Belfast to that. I continue the quotation:
"The community will play its part in working to make their area a source of pride to its residents and to visitors, and to create in it an environment worthy of its great people".
Surely this vision of hope and this challenge of change for productive job creation is deserving of support and of the efforts, within the principles of parliamentary democracy, to translate this vision into a reality. I shall listen with interest to what the Minister has to say.
7.50 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, the citizens of West and North Belfast will be immensely grateful to my noble friend Lord Longford for having shone a glaring spotlight on the conditions in that area. My noble friend's Question to the Government is necessary and appropriate. My noble friend Lady Ewart-Biggs has authorised me to say how sorry she is that she is unable to stay for the debate and to join with my noble friend and others in pressing the Government for a satisfactory response.
My noble friend Lord Longford has spoken with conviction. He was clearly deeply moved during his recent visit to Belfast by the evidence of his own eyes and ears, and by the sardonic smile of the young Catholic whom he met and who had been unemployed for the past six years. Of course, all over Northern Ireland unemployment casts its long shadows. Northern Ireland as a whole is a disadvantaged part of the United Kingdom, and I believe this was touched upon by my noble friend Lord Blease.
I am advised by those who are well informed that the problems of West and North Belfast are on a par with major problems to be found in those cities of Western Europe where inner city problems are at

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their worst. International economic events, changing world trade patterns and technological changes, together with political instability and the catalogue of violence and atrocities in support of political ends, have produced severe effects for most people in the Province. It is significant that it is now being claimed that West Belfast and the adjacent areas of North Belfast are also suffering from another mischief; namely, public neglect of their problems. That is the charge that many Catholics are now levelling at the Northern Ireland Office.
I regret having to inform the House that notwithstanding the excellent co-operation of the noble Lord, Lord Lyell—I hasten to add that his help and that of his private office are always forthcoming—I was unable to obtain from the Northern Ireland Office a single fact about the inner city areas of West and North Belfast or any information to help me to prepare for this debate. In fairness to the Northern Ireland Office I hasten to add that this zero response on the part of the department is also exceptional in my experience. I am content to record that fact.
However, I received help from a certain source. I received a copy of the recently published social and economic profile of the households in the Lower Shankill prepared for one of the two Belfast action teams. I received that document from Mr. Mackin, the co-ordinator of the Belfast centre for the unemployed. My noble friend Lord Blease has referred to that. The profile sets out a depressing list of the features of the households of the area: very high unemployment, long-term unemployment, very high dependency on supplementary benefits, a low level of earnings, a decaying social environment and environmental conditions and the movement of young people away from the area.
The economic and social profile presents an objective and clinical picture. It has been left to others to spell out that distressingly high unemployment over a long period of time combined with depressing environmental and social conditions are deep and basic causes of grievance which can lead any community, let alone a minority one, to nourish the conviction that it is an aggrieved community, an inferior community—a ghetto. Many who are familiar with the facts of West Belfast will say that we can hardly be surprised if, in West Belfast, many citizens are voting for Sinn Fein candidates.
My noble friend Lord Longford, the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and my noble friend Lord Blease, warmly endorsed the powerful words of Bishop Daly of Down and Connor, delivered in a church in West Belfast on Sunday 24th April—the Good Shepherd's Sunday in the Catholic calendar. Bishop Daly is one of the most able and articulate critics of the depressing conditions in his parishes in West and North Belfast. Bishop Daly is also a courageous critic of the activities of the IRA. Therefore, his evidence should be acceptable. I have also read and reread the bishop's well-researched homily. Unless the department can seriously flaw its main findings
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therein lies the case that the Government have neglected the problems of these inner city areas of Belfast.
Bishop Daly went on to call for the urgent implementation of a development plan and for the commitment of large public funds in support. That does not detract one bit from the need for voluntary bodies and enlightened companies also to make their contributions. It will be recalled that the SDLP put a figure on the amount of funds required. It called for an investment of £50 million.
Against this sombre background, I wish to raise a few specific concerns of which I have given notice to the noble Lord, Lord Lyell. First, is it correct, as reported in Belfast to my noble friend Lord Longford, that discrimination against Catholics in terms of jobs in West Belfast is worse now than it was 12 years ago? Is that true? Do the Government or any other body in Northern Ireland keep up-to-date and reliable statistics on the extent of discrimination on religious grounds in jobs?
Even if the Minister is able to provide a reassuring reply, it is worrying that my noble friend should have been told by a responsible source in West Belfast that the gap is getting wider rather than closing. That suggests it is not apparent to those near to the urgency of the problems that the position is improving, notwithstanding all the calls and the sermons of the past 12 years.
Secondly, is the department able to produce firm evidence clearly to rebut the claim that the industrial development board has "written off West Belfast"? Will the department look carefully into this allegation? Thirdly, do the two Belfast action teams referred to in some detail by my noble friend Lord Blease have the necessary resources to enable them to produce proposals within the next two years to remedy the economic, social and environmental ills of West and North Belfast?
Is the work of the two action teams being effectively co-ordinated? Does one know what the other is doing? Is there a case for a third action team to help with the work? While we wait for the action teams to produce their reports, does the department intend to take any major initiative to make West and North Belfast a better and safer place to live in?
Fourthly, will the Minister confirm that at the inter-governmental conference the Irish Government raised with Her Majesty's Government the need to tackle the special problems of West Belfast? Can the Minister say what proposals, if any, have been on the agenda touching the conditions in North and West Belfast? Is there any truth in what we read in one newspaper that Her Majesty's Government are reluctant to submit an application to the European Community for special assistance for the rehabilitation of West Belfast? If that is true, what are the reasons for their reluctance to approach the EC? Or are these matters still confidential?
It remains for me once again to thank my noble friend Lord Longford for focusing attention on the conditions in West and North Belfast. As has been said, those conditions present grave difficulties, but they also present an opportunity and a challenge for the Government.
8.2 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Lyell): My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for asking this Unstarred Question this evening and for telling us what he learnt in his tour. It started as a tour of West Belfast and, as he so eloquently put it, ended up in North Belfast. It is clear that he met a large cross-section of the inhabitants of the city of Belfast.
At the outset the noble Earl described my right honourable friend as being a religious man. He also said that I am a good Catholic. I hope that he has the number of his eminence the cardinal. I am grateful for his kindness but I remind him, as I remind every noble Lord and indeed my right honourable friend, that in matters of religion humility is all. The noble Earl referred to the homily—as we are enjoined to call it now; one can call it a sermon—by Bishop Cahal Daly. The bishop was good enough to send me a copy of his homily. I hope that the noble Earl's good wishes will assist me in my usual close scrutiny of and attention to the homilies at Mass each Sunday as I shall have to resolve firmly to pay particularly close attention if the homilies are as good as that of Bishop Daly.
The Government are keen to see an improvement in economic activity in North and West Belfast as well as an increased number of employment opportunities. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State is currently considering what additional steps he might take to encourage and promote enterprising business in these areas of multiple deprivation. The noble Earl concentrated his attention on the needs of Catholic areas and urged us to consider a strategy of deliberate investment in them. He rightly pointed out that there are also Protestant areas of unemployment. I wish to state categorically that the Government are concerned about the acute social and economic problems of all areas of special need in Northern Ireland.
I wish to assure the noble Earl and all noble Lords who have spoken that the Government are concerned about the level of unemployment in Northern Ireland. As evidence of this concern, the noble Earl will be aware that the levels of industrial assistance available in Northern Ireland are higher than those in any region of Great Britain. I come from Scotland. Very often I have to defend these provisions in Scotland where there are many of the factors of multiple deprivation mentioned by the noble Earl and seen by him in his tour of North and West Belfast.
The level of industrial assistance available in Northern Ireland is a firm measure of the Government's commitment to the extreme problems of the Province. The Government do not forget that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. The noble Earl mentioned what had been said to him about British occupation of Northern Ireland. I accept that this would have been said to him in West Belfast, but in the climate of what the Government seek to do for everybody in North and West Belfast and in Northern Ireland as a whole this was an unfortunate word to use in the debate tonight. I am
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sure that the noble Earl and all those who mentioned this to him meant no ill.
The Government have already invested heavily, particularly in areas such as West Belfast, and will continue to do so, but success will not be achieved by the efforts of government alone, The private and the voluntary sectors have a major role to play. In the past year the public agencies—the Industrial Development Board and the Local Enterprise Development Unit—have between them promoted more than 9,300 new jobs in Northern Ireland. Given all the factors raised by noble Lords tonight, this is a major achievement of which all of us can be proud. However, more private investment is essential. Northern Ireland has continued to lag behind Great Britain in the development of the services sector and jobs in that area as well as in the general economic recovery. There are hopeful signs.
I noted that Bishop Cahal Daly mentioned the term "seasonally adjusted unemployment". It is not one that I hear in homilies when I go to Mass. Clearly this was a special homily on Good Shepherd Sunday. Seasonally adjusted unemployment has fallen consistently since last summer and now stands at 17·1 per cent. overall. There has also been a small rise in the numbers in the Province in work. As the noble Earl was generous enough to recognise, considerable government support has been made available for the major and long-established shipbuilding and aircraft industries in Northern Ireland. Such support has not been unique to Northern Ireland. Many shipyards have closed or have suffered substantial contraction. This has happened even after massive sums had been spent to support the industry during the recession. Employment at Harland and Wolff has fallen dramatically over the past 20 years. As I speak tonight there are fewer than 4,000 jobs in that yard.
Noble Lords may remember that last week, on a Starred Question by my noble friend Lord Bruce-Gardyne, the Government stated that they have not yet received any costings for the proposed liner, whatever its name is—the ultimate dream—proposed by Mr. Ravi Tikkoo. It is still far too early to speculate whether that liner will be built at Harland and Wolff. However, I wish to make one point, especially in regard to this evening's debate. Harland and Wolff, that esteemed firm of shipbuilders in Belfast, is subject to the same fair employment legislation as any other company in Northern Ireland. I shall have something more to say on that subject later on.
Historically the workforce at Harland's has been predominantly Protestant, and while the company has an affirmative action programme it is difficult for the company to create a more balanced workforce as the numbers of jobs decline and there is virtually no recruitment. However, progress can be made, particularly when a company is recruiting and especially for a new factory. Short's has now built up a small workforce at its Dunmurry facility in West Belfast which produces furnishings for its aircraft and takes on some sub-contract work. Of the people so far employed there, 57 per cent. are Catholics. That figure spells out the definite commitment of Short's in that area in West Belfast. It clearly

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demonstrates a determination to achieve progress. After all, progress is what we are looking for as regards fair employment and recruitment practices.
Last year the Government launched a Pathfinder programme aimed at identifying the strengths and weaknesses in the economy of Northern Ireland. That programme has already achieved some practical results, not least of which is the increased level of debate about the need for a greater degree of enterprise at local level.
If any one of us imagines what we feel when we mention West Belfast, we must also see the image of West Belfast as presented to the wide world and to potential investors. No amount of government support will improve the quality of life in an area which suffers from vandalism, attacks on business, lawlessness and the scourge of terrorism, be it in Belfast, anywhere else in Northern Ireland, or in Great Britain.
It is the feeling of noble Lords that the biggest single boost to the regeneration of economic activity in North and West Belfast would come from a renunciation and a reduction of violence. The image of West Belfast is tarnished by violence, which we see—and I am sure potential investors see—as a major obstacle which inhibits business confidence and blights the future of young men, such as those who spoke to the noble Earl with feeling and passion. Indeed, many people from different industries all over Northern Ireland have spoken to me in like manner. Business confidence is a fragile plant but it is blooming, thankfully, bit by bit in Northern Ireland.
The noble Earl made some kind remarks about myself, for which I am most grateful, as well as about my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. However, he referred to a feeling that had been mentioned to him in West Belfast. The suggestion was that my right honourable friend is being restrained in some small, polite and perhaps not entirely obvious way in his efforts to improve employment prospects in West Belfast by sundry officials in the Northern Ireland Office.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord?
Lord Lyell: Yes, but briefly.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, the noble Lord has misquoted me. I did not say that.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I am sorry. Perhaps I was not paying my customary close attention to the noble Earl's speech. However, I think he expressed that point. He mentioned something of that nature.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I did not.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I am sure the noble Earl will accept from me that the Government are taking, and have taken, significant measures to tackle
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unemployment. I have already mentioned the Pathfinder process. Out of that thinking an exports company has been established to help smaller Northern Ireland engineering companies to export to South-East Asia. In addition, the Government have launched a major initiative to improve the quality of goods produced by local companies.
The noble Earl also mentioned the international fund for Ireland. He referred to the comments he had received to the effect that it could be used more effectively to encourage private sector investment in the most deprived areas. I am sure he is aware that the fund is under the direction of an independent board which is fully conscious of the needs of the areas of greatest deprivation and has already supported a number of projects in North and West Belfast. For example, the recently published progress report on the fund lists support totalling £750,000 for four enterprise centres in North and West Belfast.
Worth while as all those initiatives are—we are most grateful for that expenditure—it would be unrealistic to think that the fund alone could have a major influence on the problems of West Belfast. Therefore, we return to the remarks of the noble Earl, who suggested that more state intervention is required. However, I am sure he is aware of the substantial sums of public money which are already spent to support industry and, above all, to reduce unemployment in the Province. For instance, in the last financial year we allocated over £200 million for that purpose. The figure included substantial sums for Harland and Wolff as well as supporting the promotion of jobs by the Industrial Development Board and the Local Enterprise Development Unit. In addition, further significant sums were spent on the community programme as well as on training measures.
I have detailed the sums of money that have been spent and many of the initiatives that we have undertaken. However, the Government must look to the future. We are fully committed to the elimination of discrimination on religious or political grounds in Northern Ireland and to ensuring equality of opportunity in employment for all. To that end the Government announced new proposals for fair employment legislation on 2nd March this year which will strengthen fair employment law, adminstration and practice. Within a new institutional framework employers will be required to adopt good employment practice, including monitoring of the religious composition of their workforces and affirmative action measures where necessary. This will be backed up by stronger criminal and civil enforcement powers and the use of government economic muscle.
The Government plan to publish a White Paper setting out those proposals later this month, with a view to the introduction of legislation at the earliest opportunity.
The noble Earl also referred to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, upon which he recieved many comments in West Belfast. I assure him and your Lordships that we remain wholeheartedly committed to the agreement. We believe it is a meaningful and novel attempt to tackle some of the central difficulties that afflict us in Northern Ireland, not least in West

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Belfast. Since the signing of the agreement many steps have been taken by the Government—often with the advantage of the views of the Irish Government, received under the agreement—which I believe have been most welcome to nationalist opinion generally in Northern Ireland and, I hope, in West Belfast.
The noble Earl and your Lordships will no doubt be aware that the agreement is certainly no panacea. It cannot bring economic and social advance overnight. However, I believe that our deliberations on the problems of North and West Belfast have benefited from thinking contributed by the Government of the Republic of Ireland.
The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, in one of his traditionally thoughtful speeches, asked me many questions. I hope that I shall be able to answer at least some of them to his satisfaction. However, I assure him and all noble Lords that anything I have missed will be picked up and I shall reply in writing, I hope in a concise manner.
The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, asked whether there was a comprehensive social and economic plan for West Belfast in addition to the Belfast plan. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State is currently considering what additional steps he might take to encourage enterprise in all areas of multiple deprivation such as West and North Belfast. I cannot give the noble Lord any detailed proposals this evening. He also referred to the attractive acronym GEAR, the Glasgow Eastern Areas Renewal plan. In all our considerations of possible further action in Belfast we will take careful note of all relevant and worthwhile experience in Great Britain, especially in Glasgow, and anywhere else from which we can learn lessons.
The noble Lord asked about the possibility of locating at least one major government office in West Belfast. We note his imaginative and progressive suggestion. Such enterprise will be in the minds of my right honourable friend and my honourable friends. I cannot indicate any progress to the noble Lord this evening. He returned to the problem of the Divis flats. That is a matter for the Housing Executive. We are aware of the problems of the Divis flats. One of the major problems is finding suitable sites to rehouse all the present residents of the flats. I can assure the noble Lord that his efforts and the efforts and thoughts of all noble Lords are taken to heart and that the Government are in continual contact with the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Blease, did not blanch when the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, referred to the rod of iron. I hope that the Government will not find it necessary to use that. The noble Lord, Lord Blease, might have cause to worry a little if we adopted such methods.
The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, referred to the problem of trying to satisfy all the different requests from the Government of the Republic of Ireland, the Catholics and the SDLP. The Government will listen to and take advice from everywhere. However, the Government must make their own decisions on any action they may wish to take in any deprived area.
The noble Lord asked two further questions about a fourth adult education college. I shall write to him with any news that I can elicit on that subject. I am
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afraid that I have no news tonight. He also asked me to consider the budget for the Royal Victoria Hospital and what it might do for job creation in West Belfast. Any project carried out by the Royal Victoria Hospital will be valuable. We shall be looking for assistance from the public and the private sector, including the voluntary sector. That was the philosophy I mentioned at the outset. We will examine all opportunities to raise employment in areas such as that around the Royal Victoria Hospital.
The noble Lord, Lord Blease, made a thoughtful speech. We are grateful for his expert advice and his sharp questions. I hope that I shall be able to give him some answers. If I cannot provide all the details, he knows that he will receive a concise letter from me. I shall do my best to satisfy him. He asked a double-barrelled question about ways of addressing the serious economic and social problems of West Belfast and other disadvantaged areas and whether there would be a report that would be published.
I have told your Lordships that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is already urgently considering what further measures might be taken to promote economic activity in addition to the many existing schemes. My right honourable friend's consideration follows the detailed analysis of the problems made by officials. As the noble Lord will know, the Government do not make a practice of publishing internal working documents. That has been the practice of all governments. However, if I can let him have any details I shall do so.
The noble Lord asked about serious consultation in this area with local representatives. All the agencies working in all the disadvantaged areas of Belfast are continually involved in detailed consultations with local community leaders in seeking to improve economic, social and physical conditions. They include officials from the LEDU and the Belfast action teams, about whom I shall have a little more to say to the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and naturally from the Eastern Health and Social Services Board, the Housing Executive and the Belfast Education and Library Board. The noble Lord asked a simple question about the number of people directly employed in implementing the 1986 social needs of capital legislation. I understand that 46 people are directly employed on that at the moment.
The noble Lords, Lord Blease and Lord Prys-Davies, asked about the Belfast action team offices. Your Lordships will be interested to know that there are four. There are two in Ormeau Avenue; one in Great Victoria Street; and one in York Street. They cover disadvantaged areas of the city.
The noble Lord, Lord Blease, mentioned child services including play group facilities for the under-fives. The Department of Education has approved in principle several development proposals for additional nursery places in West and North Belfast. The provision of such places is under review. If I have any news I will write to the noble Lord. He asked a further question about jobcentre offices in the Lower Falls, Shankill and the Duncairn areas. We continually review the need for further jobcentres. He will understand that we also have to consider the

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resources available. His comments have been noted and I shall draw them to the attention of my honourable friend with responsibility for that area.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, mentioned a number of points, one of which was about discrimination. It was a forthright start to his comments. The annual report of the Fair Employment Agency demonstrates that discrimination in employment continues to be experienced by both sectors of the community in Northern Ireland. Noble Lords will agree that discrimination is not easily amenable to quantification. The FEA's report provides a useful basis from which to start. In recognition of that continuing problem, the Government intend to introduce legislation designed to eliminate discrimination as far as possible and to promote greater equality of employment opportunity.
Following Bishop Daly's homily, the noble Lord wondered whether the IDB had adopted a little less than its usual generosity towards West Belfast. He went so far as to say that the area had been written off. We do not agree with that. West Belfast attracts the highest financial incentives in Northern Ireland. In my opening remarks I said that in Northern Ireland we give the highest rates of investment incentives and assistance. West Belfast has the highest rates in Northern Ireland. The IDB maintains close contact with its 20 client companies in West and North Belfast; 18 out of those 20 have had IDB-backed major investment in the past seven years.
We are making a major effort to ensure that the companies in the area make maximum use of the marketing schemes of the IDB as well as the research and development schemes. The IDB remains committed to ensuring that its client companies in West Belfast continue to secure the maximum support necessary to obtain long-term viable employment opportunities in the area.
As regards the thoughts of the noble Lord on West Belfast and the IDB, a programme for the future is currently under way to persuade those companies which have not yet undertaken marketing or research and development programmes in conjunction with the IDB to consider doing so.
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I hope those points will assure the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and all noble Lords who have spoken, that in no way is the IDB negligent in its duty towards West Belfast. The noble Lord also asked about what I have down at BATs. I think this is the Belfast action teams and their resources. There are four teams with £½ million each for three years. The work of these teams is constantly under review. The department, in its present initiative, sees the teams very much as combating all the problems of the area, not just in industry and deprivation.
The latest communiqué, the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference joint statement of 5th May this year, made it quite clear that the Government of the Republic had raised the need to tackle the social and economic problems of West Belfast with the Government. That was taken into account and I hope the noble Lord will be able to see that in the joint statement.
The noble Lord had one more query about the possible reluctance of the Government to submit an application to the European Community for special help for West Belfast. Following the agreement at the European Council meeting in February this year about the future financing of the Community, there have been detailed discussions between all the member states and the Commission about the revised structural funds. This has led to Northern Ireland being given the highest priority status. Consideration is now being given to securing the most appropriate help from the Community for Belfast as well as for Northern Ireland. All these deliberations include recent discussions with Commission officials within the past week.
I think that possibly I have detained your Lordships for too long. I hope I have not repeated too many of the points, but this has been a very rewarding debate. If I have missed any of the major matters which have been raised by noble Lords, then I shall be writing to them. We are all particularly grateful that tonight we have obtained time for a very helpful debate on the problems of North and West Belfast. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate.
House adjourned at twenty-seven minutes before nine o'clock.