Lords Sitting of 18 January 1989

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

Lord Macaulay of Bragar
Donald Macaulay, Esquire, QC, having been created Baron Macaulay of Bragar, of Bragar in the County of Ross and Cromarty, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede and the Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove.

Scotch Whisky: Tax Treatment
2.45 p.m.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour Baroness Carnegy of Lour asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, in view of their stated commitment to encouraging enterprise and wealth creation in Scotland, they consider the United Kingdom tax treatment of Scotch whisky is as yet fair to that industry.
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Lord Young of Graffham): My Lords, the Government attach great importance to the well-being of the Scotch whisky industry in view of its contribution to exports and to the Scottish economy generally. They have taken positive steps to assist the industry in the area of taxation by maintaining a standstill in the rate of excise duty on spirits since March 1985. Indeed, overall, the differential between the levels of duty on spirits and on other alcoholic drinks has narrowed since 1979. As for future duty levels, this is a matter for the Chancellor's Budget judgment and I cannot say more now.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. I accept of course that the Government have taken a number of steps in the right direction in recent Budgets and that they have done well by the Scotch whisky industry in their negotiations with the European Community and Japan. But, in view of the fact that 40 per cent. more wine is now drunk in the United Kingdom than 10 years ago, and rather more than 18 per cent. less whisky, is it not unfair to the people who work in the industry to continue the uniquely discriminatory corporation tax arrangements, or any differential at all, between the excise duty on whisky and wine? Is that what the Chancellor calls fiscal neutrality?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, it is only fair to point out that the duty on whisky has fallen in real terms by almost 30 per cent. since 1979. In all these matters we have to achieve a balance at a time when alcoholism may be a matter of concern in some areas. We should be careful how we adjust the rates and levels of taxation.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, is the Minister aware that, while the level of taxation may have fallen relatively, the differential is still enormous? Is there any possible social reason for continuing the differential between beer and wine and whisky? Is there any differential left between the taxation of whisky and brandy in France?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, these matters arc all more properly for my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The relief from corporation tax was on stock. It was introduced 15 years ago and removed in 1984. Since then, the Government have reduced corporation tax to the lowest rate in Europe and almost the lowest rate in the Western world. The other matters are for my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am sure that he will take them into account at the appropriate time.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the Secretary of State aware that uniquely among spirituous liquors those distinguished distillations from north of the border have received medical approval when consumed in moderation? Is he aware that specialists prescribe them after certain serious heart operations? Will he see that the matter is drawn to the attention of his right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer with a view to encouraging medicinal use, in moderation, of this unique product of Scotland?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I wish to assure the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, that I find Scotch whisky to he quite suitable at times when I am fairly healthy. I am sure that, while not wishing to put words into the mouth of my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he would say that his taxation policy on Scotch whisky has been conducted in moderation. Tax duties have fallen by almost 30 per cent. in real terms over the last 10 years.
Lord Stodart of Leaston: My Lords, will my noble friend fund it possible to confirm that the energy for which he is renowned is perhaps stimulated by the occasional wee dram of 10 year-old malt whisky before he retires at night? Is he aware that the maturing of that miraculous beverage is responsible for it carrying the highest rate of corporation tax of any industry?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I suspect that if I were to indulge in the habits which my noble friend has suggested I should find my boxes going through much more easily. However, I am not sure that the quality of my judgment would be exactly improved.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, would it not be fairer to the Scottish whisky industry if all alcoholic drinks were taxed at the same rate per centilitre of alcohol contained in them?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, again Scotch whisky is taxed. The current duty rate is some £15·77

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per litre of pure alcohol. That is about £4·73 a standard bottle. But all these matters are the responsibility of my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I shall draw his attention to them.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, now that the two companies are amalgamated, may we look forward to advertisements saying, "Guinness and whisky are good for you"? Will the noble Lord, who has shown some sympathy with the point that the whisky trade is discriminated against, impress upon his right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer that there is no reason for this discrimination? Indeed, there is no defence put up for it except some historical accident.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, the sympathy I might exhibit today is that of a consumer. For the rest of my time I must accept that the points I shall put to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and which no doubt he will take into account are that a wide range of economic and social factors all come into play when looking at this quite difficult area.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, it would help the whisky trade more than anything else if it were made illegal to serve anything less than a quarter of a gill. The business of wetting the bottom of the glass in this part of the world is quite ridiculous.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, there is one further question which is very much a matter for my noble friend. As 1992 approaches and the European Community begins to think more about tax harmonisation, will it not weaken very much the Government's negotiating position if we go into those negotiations still ourselves discriminating against Scotch whisky?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am grateful for the point which my noble friend makes. Of course we have to take into account a wide range of matters. We have said time and time again that we do not see any real need for tax harmonisation in order to go through the 1992 process. We see ways in which the market will deal with this in its own fashion. Certainly we wish to take the social consequences of taxation in the form of duties, excise duties or corporation taxes on alcohol very much into account before making any policy decisions.

Fish Stocks: Protection
2.54 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy asked Her Majesty's Government:
What are the prospects for revival of haddock and other fish stocks in the seas of North West Europe.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Sanderson of Bowden): My Lords, it is impossible to predict with any certainty future levels of fish stocks since these depend on many factors, such as the
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recruitment of young fish from year to year. I believe, however, that the decisions taken at the December Council of Fisheries Ministers on reduced total allowable catches for North Sea cod and haddock in line with scientific advice—together with the increased mesh sizes which came into force on January 1st this year—show that we are taking seriously the need for action to protect these important stocks.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his reply. While advice and warnings on over-fishing from the scientists concerned must clearly be heeded, could it not he made possible for action to he taken earlier and therefore less harshly? This would he in order to avoid the recent large and sudden reductions on the quotas.
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, I should first point out that the recent large reduction in quota applied particularly to haddock in the North Sea and not other species. As noble Lords will know, there are many other species which arc fished for. I say to my noble friend that definitive scientific advice for 1989 was not available until November 1988. The reason is that the fishery is directed at very young fish and assessments of stock levels can therefore only be made late in the day.
My understanding is that we could not forecast well in advance that the abundance of the stock would drop so dramatically. I might add that 1987, the worst year for North Sea haddock, was the worst recruitment year for 20 years
Lord Gallacher: My Lords, is the noble Lord in agreement with the proposition that conservation is also concerned with observing the existing rules under the common fisheries policy? Is he satisfied that the Community's fisheries inspectorate at its present level, and given the increase in the size of the Community, is adequate to ensure the continuing observance of the rules associated with the common fisheries policy? This is particularly having regard to the suggestion that certain member states—not, I hasten to add, Great Britain—are prone to observe the rules perhaps more in the breach than in the observance.
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, the question of fishery protection is very important. As concerns my own responsibility for the Scottish waters, I am absolutely convinced that the measure of protection afforded is the correct one. However, I have to say to the noble Lord that it is not an easy task to quantify and the matter is always kept under review.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, can the noble Lord explain what he meant in his original reply by "the recruitment of young fish"? Perhaps I misheard.
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, it is a term used in connection with fish stocks by the scientists when they assess what the recruitment is in numbers of new fish born into the fisheries in any one year.
Lord Kilbracken: My Lords, is not the recruitment of young fishers of almost equal importance?
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very serious point in relation to the fishing industry. It is particularly important to many towns up and down the coast of the United Kingdom. I have to say, however, that the significance attached to conservation and conservation measures is all important. If the industry, or if governments, do not pay any attention to conservation, there will be no fish left to catch, as happened with herring in the 1970s.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the fishermen's representatives are fully in favour of conservation? With reference to his reply concerning the availability of other stocks, is he aware that it is very difficult and expensive to change equipment and methods at very short notice and switch from fishing for fish which are caught near the bottom to fishing for those that are caught near the surface—from demersal to pelagic—in different geographical areas? What is now being suggested by the quotas is a move from haddock to mackerel.
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords. I think I should clarify my remarks in relation to the pelagic as opposed to the white fish species. The pelagic species are also under great pressure. Existing pelagic capacity is more than able to take the pelagic quotas which in the case of mackerel have gone down this year. I should remind my noble friend that the total white fish opportunities—that is cod, whiting, saithe and haddock—in 1989 for the North Sea and the West of Scotland will be about 90 per cent. of the estimated catches of 1988. So the need for diversion of effort should be limited. I do not deny that the problem regarding North Sea haddock stocks is very serious, but it should be borne in mind that the other species form a very large part of the income of fishermen.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, to what extent is the shortage of stocks due to fishing with too small mesh nets?
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, the difficulty we have with mesh size is a very great one and a very complex one. From 1st January, as I have already said, we increased the minimum mesh size to 90 millimetres from a lower size. The difficulty we have, particularly in regard to the Scottish fleet, is that it is a mixed fishery. That means that it is very difficult to move up without some considerable loss of one of the species, particularly whiting, in the fishermen's catches. If the catches consisted all of cod there would be no problem and we could move up quite dramatically. However, we are discussing this matter at the present time with other member states. The matter is for the United Kingdom of very great importance.
Lord Stodart of Leaston: My Lords, does my noble friend find it difficult to agree with the proposition that he and his right honourable friend did a most remarkable job in raising, in time of scarcity, the British quota from 78 per cent. to 87 per cent.?
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, I am grateful for my noble friend's observation. I believe it was the most difficult negotiation we have undertaken since the common fisheries policy was instituted in 1983 for the United Kingdom. I am grateful that my noble friend has observed that the increase from 78 per cent. to 87 per cent. of the North Sea haddock quota meant that we were able to invoke the Hague preference and obtain a larger share than we would otherwise have achieved.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, since the quotas were announced, has there been a rise in the price of haddock and other fish?
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, I am very happy to tell the noble Lord that the answer is yes. I believe that to be the case. I hope that fish prices will attain a good level so that the fishermen who are facing reductions in quotas will be able to obtain better prices for their fish, provided of course that those fish are not too small to be of any value. Fishermen will have to remember that the stocks are there, but they have to be preserved. I hope that fish prices will continue to stay at a good level.

Vietnamese Refugees
3.12 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington Lord Dormand of Easington: asked Her Majesty's Government:
What proposals they have to increase the acceptance of Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong into the United Kingdom.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs announced on 22nd December in another place that we are prepared in principle to admit a further 1,000 Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong over two to three years, provided that other countries are prepared to contribute commensurately.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, perhaps I may ask this question. Accepting that the solution to the Vietnamese problem lies outside Hong Kong, and that the recent decision which the Minister has just announced to admit another 1,000 refugees and to allocate another £1 million to the problem is important, does not the fact that this country is the sovereign state mean that we have a strong moral obligation to do more than we are doing? As Canada and the United States have admitted five times the number of refugees that we have, and as Australia has admitted twice as many, should not that be the least that we are doing?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, we admit a very great number of people into this country. There is a limit to how many people can be admitted in a country of this size. I remind the noble Lord that of some 45,000 immigrants to the United Kingdom per annum we have taken some 20,000—not per annum—from Vietnam.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, are not comparisons with Canada and Australia somewhat absurd in the light of the enormous difference in the size of those countries and this one?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for pointing that out. Whether the comparison is absurd is a matter of judgment; but it is a distortion.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, while recognising the complexity and the difficulty of this problem, may I ask whether the Minister agrees that there is a serious anomaly? Is it not the case that the authorities in Macau, which is 40 miles from Hong Kong, have decided to grant EC passports to their Portuguese citizens? Is the Minister further aware that that means that 100,000 residents of Macau will in future have the right to settle in Britain? That is a right denied to British citizens resident in Hong Kong. Does not the Minister agree that that is a very serious anomaly?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, that is a somewhat different point. Those who live in Macau retain Portuguese citizenship, while those who live in Hong Kong are Hong Kongese. That is not the same thing.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, the Minister has not dealt with my question. There is a serious anomaly and a very large number of people in Macau will derive advantages which are refused to British citizens in Hong Kong. What are the Government going to do about that?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I apologise if I misunderstood the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition. I thought that he was referring to the Vietnamese boat people; he is of course referring to a totally different subject which is British citizenship in Hong Kong. That, with the greatest of respect, is a different question.
Lord Wyatt of Weeford: My Lords, is the Minister aware that not even Hong Kong Chinese officials of longstanding loyalty are being allowed to come into this country? Their applications are being turned down by the score. If the Portuguese are not frightened of upsetting the Chinese Government by letting their people from Macau come to Europe, why on earth are we so frightened of the Chinese Government that we do not allow large numbers of Hong Kong Chinese British nationals to come to this country? They would certainly improve our standard of industry, perhaps raising it to the level of the industry of Hong Kong or even of Taiwan.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I say to the noble Lord with the greatest of modesty that he falls into the same trap as the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition. The noble Lord, Lord Wyatt, asked me a question about immigration from Hong Kong and from China. The Question on the Order Paper is about Vietnamese boat people. Those are different matters.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, returning to the original Question, it was announced some 18 months ago that on compassionate grounds some 450 Vietnamese people would be admitted into this country for family reunions. Can the Minister say how irar we have got in admitting those 450 people, and whether steps can be taken to speed up the reception of the balance of them?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I cannot give the noble Lord the answer to that question. However. I shall find out the answer and let him know what it is.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, as the Government's offer was made several weeks ago and is subject to some extent to others who can help by making a similar contribution, has the Minister any indication yet as to whether our lead is likely to produce any results from other countries?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, it is generally encouraging at the moment that there is a considerable amount of diplomatic activity taking place to see whether those countries of first asylum will be prepared to co-operate and try to take some of these people. It is quite clear that we cannot be responsible for all of them, but we are prepared to play our part, and take our share, provided that others do the same.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords. iii view of the very real problem in Hong Kong of maintaining the camps for Vietnamese refugees, which I have seen myself, I should like to ask this question. Can the Minister say what progress there is in negotiations with the Vietnamese Government with a view to repatriating the Vietnamese refugees who arrived in Hong Kong after June 1988?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, a considerable amount of discussion is going on with the Vietnamese Government at the moment. There have to be satisfactory assurances of humane treatment of all those who are returned to Vietnam. The Vietnamese Government have assured us and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees that those who are returned will be well treated and will not face punishment. I should point out to the noble Baroness that at the moment there are some 15,000 Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong. There are 11,000 others who have either not passed the test or have not been passed. New tests have been applied to those people since 1988. Only 10 per cent. of those tested have passed as refugees.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, I recognise the compassionate intentions of those who have put down this Question, but does the Minister agree that it is illogical and indeed inhuman to accept refugees if houses and jobs are not provided for them?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right. We have to ensure that those who come here can settle within the community. There have been problems with language and with employment and we must ensure that there are not also housing problems. That is why, as with all forms of immigration, there is bound to be a certain amount of control and a certain amount of difficulty.
Lord Annan: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that the case for the Vietnamese refugees can he argued not on compassionate grounds but on grounds of the self-interest of this country? These people are extremely hard working and they are also extremely intelligent. Is the Minister aware that the children of refugees who went to the United States and Canada in the 1960s now hold top places in universities and have been enormously influential in the growth of the computer industry and related industries in California and Canada?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord makes a valid point. I am sure that what he said applies in a great many cases. However, I think that the motivation of the boat people has changed from being, as it was orginally, of a political nature to being rather more of an economic nature. Many people are leaving Vietnam because they think, and they find, that the opportunities for economic prosperity are greater elsewhere. That is why it is important to discern whether those who ask to he granted refugee status are in fact refugees under the terms of the United Nations convention.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, will the Minister make clear, because I do not think that he did so in answer to my first supplementary question, that having Hong Kong as a Crown Colony this country has a strong moral obligation? If so, is he saying that that moral obligation amounts to some 300 refugees each year for the next three years, which I think is what he said?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, of course one has an obligation towards Hong Kong. That is the reason why we are trying to help solve the problem. But we do not have an obligation to Hong Kong or to any other country to take a surplus of people who others cannot place. What we have decided to do under the circumstances is to offer to take a thousand people more provided that other countries will do the same.
The noble Lord makes gesticulations which in other circumstances might have been of a less agreeable nature! I see the point that he makes. He can do mathematics as well as I can. Of course we are concerned to have an obligation towards Hong Kong. We do not have an obligation to accept all those who claim to be refugees who happen to land up in Hong Kong and who, by the United Nations test, may not be refugees.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, has the Minister fully appreciated the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Annan, that those people have got on their bikes in a really big way and are exactly the kind of people the Conservative Party wants to encourage?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords. I do not know whether the noble Lord is trying to make a crafty party political point. I am sure that he is not but it did sound a little bit like it. We are talking not about people getting on their bikes but about those who are refugees or claim to be refugees and who have gone by boat to another country which is not England.

Unemployed 16 to 19 year-olds
3.14 p.m.
The Countess of Mar The Countess of Mar asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are satisfied that financial provision for unemployed 16 to 19 year-olds who do not live in the parental home for valid reasons is adequate.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Skelmersdale): My Lords. in addition to our own as yet incomplete monitoring, the Government have recently received a number of reports on the effects of the current level of support for young people who have valid reasons for living independently.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that when the benefit changes take place next April many of the young people in this age group will he up to £10 a week short of the amount needed to pay for their basic needs, without having any personal income whatsoever? Is he also aware that many of them are now slipping into drug addiction, drug pushing and prostitution in order to make ends meet? Does he recognise that the charities are doing as much as they possibly can to save those young people but that a great many are slipping through the net? Does he agree that it is very important that we protect them at that stage in their lives so that they do not go astray?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords, I am well aware of the concerns which the noble Countess has mentioned. That is why we are in consultation with the charities and are conducting our own monitoring of the situation. The House will remember that we said that we would monitor all the social security reforms. We are putting that particular monitoring on a fast track. Further, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has agreed to meet my noble friend Lady Faithful and representatives of a number of voluntary organisations, including Barnardo's and the National Children's Home, very shortly.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, we appreciate that the Government are showing some concern about the problem. However, can the Minister say what is happening to those young people while those talks are taking place? What instructions is he giving to social security offices about the level of help they can give to 16 to 18 year-olds while they arc unemployed? What is the advice on the average amount, and would he like to live on it?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, there is no advice as to the amount. But I am sure that the noble Baroness knows that the amount of income support for such young people would be £19·40 plus full housing benefit. The Government have given a guarantee to all young people that a YTS place will be available on demand, and that guarantee is being met in all areas of the country.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, does my noble friend not believe that everything should be done to discourage 16 year-olds from going off to live by themselves? Where there are valid reasons for them to do so does he agree that the Government should not fear to use coercion to make certain that the young people go into training rather than depend on unemployment benefit?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, in substance I agree with my noble friend. The Government believe that most parents not only should but want to provide for their children within the family unit and our policy should not discourage that.
Baroness David: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware—and he certainly would have been had he attended the Committee stage of the Children Bill yesterday—that a great many young people have no home to go to? The noble Lord who spoke last from his Benches did not seem to be aware of that fact. Children leaving care at the ages of 16, 17 or 18 are left in the most intolerable position, and YTS is not always the most suitable solution. I am quite sure that the Minister's noble and learned friend will expound on that subject to him later if he does not know enough about it already.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, of course I am aware that children with no homes to go to or who have been thrown out of the parental home present a particular challenge to the social security system. That is why we are monitoring the position and why we are engaged in consultation. We are seized of that fact.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in areas of high unemployment such as the city of Glasgow there are many more young unemployed people in this age group than there are places available for them on YTS? As a result they suffer from a loss of financial support. Should the Government not make it abundantly clear that no one should suffer if there are no places available for them on YTS?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, yes. We should make it clear. I believe that we have made it clear. Overall—I repeat my advice from the Department of Employment—there are plenty of YTS places available for all 16 and 17 year—olds who are able and willing to take them up. As regards young people in isolated areas—and I should not regard the city of Glasgow, which I visited earlier this week, as an isolated area, I am surprised to hear that places do not exist in Glasgow. They should go to the employment centre—in this case in Glasgow—where a place will be made available.
Earl Russell: My Lords, has the noble Lord's attention been drawn to the rapid increase in the number of young beggars in central London during the past six months? How does he explain that increase? Does he think that begging is a more efficient instrument than taxation for transferring money from my pocket to the pockets of those who need it most?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I think that we are wandering some way from the original Question. However, I can advise the House that social security offices in London have not reported an increase in applications for income support from homeless young people.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the extremely urgent problems surrounding the changeover from board and lodging payments to income support and housing benefit for those youngsters aged 16 to 19 who are living in special needs hostels? Many of those special needs hostels are urgently awaiting from his department a reply to their representations about the future financing of that scheme and an immediate assurance that there will be no worsening of the financial conditions until the department has deliberated on the representations.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, of course I am aware of the situation. I am also aware that my honourable friend the Minister of State has announced a postponement of the arrangements which were canvassed in the consultation paper. However, I can say that the Government will be making up their mind on this matter with all speed.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to say a word about the two short debates standing in the names of the noble Earl, Lord Perth, and the noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg. As is customary in short debates, the mover is allowed approximately 15 minutes, and the Minister should rise to reply not less than 20 minutes before the scheduled end of the debate. In the case of the debate in the name of the noble Earl all other speakers' speeches should be limited to a maximum of six minutes and, in the debate of the noble Lord, to 10 minutes. If any noble Lord were to speak at greater length, it would be at the expense of subsequent speakers in that debate.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, perhaps through the noble Lord, the Government Chief Whip, I may put a question to the noble Lord the Leader of the House. This afternoon in another place a Private Notice Question has been tabled concerning the invasion of a church in Manchester this morning by the police and the arrest of a Sri Lankan citizen, in order, I believe, to effect his deportation. Is this not a matter of the utmost urgency? Does it not concern not only the relations between the Church and the state but also the whole issue of human rights? Would it not be proper for the noble Lord to make a Statement to this House immediately after the Private Notice Question has been asked in another place?
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Belstead): My Lords, it is a fact that a Private Notice Question on this subject will be asked in another place this afternoon. It was offered in the usual way through the usual channels to be repeated as a Statement in your Lordships'

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House this afternoon and it was decided not to take that course.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I accept that it was offered but is it not the responsibility of the Government in these circumstances to make a Statement on a matter of such very grave urgency to Members of Parliament who sit in this House?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I think that what arises from the noble Lord's question to me this afternoon is a query as to whether the arrangements and the procedures in your Lordships' House for dealing with a Private Notice Question in another place and informing the House are working properly. I believe that they are. As I have said, as is customary in this House, it was offered through the usual channels to be repeated as a Statement and the decision was made that it was not wished for.

Scottish Devolution
3.24 p.m.
The Earl of Perth: My Lords, in moving the Motion standing in my name today, perhaps I may start by explaining a little about its origins. On the third day of the debate on the gracious Speech, which centred on home affairs, the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, and I spoke passionately, not to say fervently, about the almost universal demand in Scotland at the present time for Scots to have more say in their own affairs. Incidentally, I am confident that that is a demand which will not go away.
The noble Lord and I made what we felt were constructive and varied suggestions about how to deal with the situation. The Government's reply was cursory and negative. What then was the next step to take? I recalled Robert the Bruce and decided to try again. I put down my name for the opportunity of a short debate and I was lucky.
I welcome the fact that there are no fewer than 19 speakers who are taking part in this debate, although the time is far too short and each of them can speak only for six minutes. Never mind; this debate is a start and it is hoped that in the summer the Government will consider the position further and allow a full day to debate this subject. I must also say that, together with other noble Lords, I welcome the fact that we are to hear a maiden speech from the noble Viscount, Lord Dunrossil.
This debate sets out to consider the ever-growing clamour of the Scots to take a more direct part in the governance of Scotland. That is what I mean by the term "devolution". What is happening in Scotland? Govan is history but, as a sequel, it will be found that all parties in Scotland, with the exception of the Conservative Party (and I shall come to that later), and indeed the media, led by the Scotsman, are clamouring for ways in which the Scots may be able to take a greater part in running their own affairs.
I shall not touch on the Labour, Liberal or Democratic proposals, as there are others who intend to speak in that regard. I shall just mention what the
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SNP is proposing because I do not think that there is any Member representing the SNP in your Lordships' House. The SNP has an ingenious suggestion; namely, that in some way Scotland should come under the European Community. I shall only comment that I think it is very unlikely that that move will succeed, because the United Kingdom Government would have to approve the proposal and support it with their partners in the Community, which would mean the break-up of the Union. Certainly I, and I think most noble Lords in this House, do not want that to happen.
The call that I think will come out of this all-party debate is for a convention or an assembly in the summer to try to work out concrete proposals to put to the Government. They will be supported by all parties, other than the Conservatives, who are taking no part. The fact is that we in Scotland do not like the degree to which we are ruled from Whitehall. It is unwise for the Government to ignore that fact. I suppose they believe that if things go well economically and privatisation succeeds, the people of Scotland will be satisfied and the demand will go away. That is to misjudge the Scottish people, who are not interested in their own well-being alone. They want a happier Scotland and, if that means slightly less for any one individual, they are perhaps ready to face that situation so long as it is decided by themselves. They must make the choice. Money is not the be-all and end-all.
I welcome the fact that we shall hear from several speakers from the Conservative Benches, and above all from the noble Lord, Lord Home; but in the meantime I should point out that even the Conservative Party recognises that the state of affairs in Scotland is not entirely happy. In particular, the two-tier system of local government—that is to say, the system of regions and districts—is not working well. It was forced through by the Government a few years ago despite much opposition. The Conservatives have set up a working party under the chairmanship of Mr. Ancram to see what can be proposed. I very much hope—like, I feel sure, many other noble Lords—that the sequel will be a one-tier system of districts, rather than the two-tier system of today. But, even if that is the outcome, it is not enough. This is not what the Scottish demand is about.
What proposals do I suggest to solve this problem? I shall be happy to put forward certain ideas. Some are not original. They are certainly not complete. There are others which may well be better. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, and I earlier asked the Government to bring the Kilbrandon and Wheatley reports up to date, to set up a working party to study the position, and to make recommendations on how to satisfy the Scottish people's demand for more say in running their own affairs. I again beg the Government to consider appointing some form of body. I do not know whether it will be three wise men, three wise women, or a mixture of the two. But I am convinced that it is essential that this should be done.
Before I touch on my proposals, let us pause for a moment to see how the Scottish Office works. It is over 103 years old. During that time it has steadily

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increased its powers so that it now runs Scotland, except for industry and part of agriculture, within the limits of government policy. I say that it runs Scotland. That is true, after it has agreed with the Treasury on the size of the block grant for Scotland for the year.
What does that mean? It means that the Scottish Office alone decides on how the grant shall be spent and how the cake shall be cut. It decides how much shall be spent on health, education, transport, law and order, housing, other environmental services, and indeed all other aspects of Scottish life. The Scottish Office consults with others on the best way to spend the grant and it welcomes people who put forward suggestions. But it is the Scottish Office alone which takes the final decisions. I am not attacking the Scottish Office—far from it. Many Scottish Secretaries of State have done a splendid job; I think that the same is true of the present Government.
However, my point is this. The Scottish people themselves have no direct say in how the cake shall be cut. Believe me, my Lords, it can be cut in many ways. One can have more for education and health and less for roads and housing, and so on and vice versa. But the people of Scotland are not able directly to influence this. Nor can the Scottish Office explain to any particular body what it is doing and why. There is a gap, a vacuum. It is that vacuum which I believe above all we must seek ways to fill.
An obvious way is to create a body, sitting in Edinburgh, which can hammer out with the Scottish Office how best to cut the cake and establish priorities. What would be its powers, and how would it work? Should it have taxation powers? Not yet, I think. Should it have legislative powers? Again I think not yet, but it would have real power to influence a change in legislation if it is working unfairly for Scotland. Let me instance the case of the rateable values laid down for industry, shops, and so forth. We in Scotland are obliged by statute—and I underline the word "statute"—to have a revaluation every so many years. It is not so in England or Wales. The result is that Princes Street rates are higher than those in Oxford Street. Industry suffers the same disadvantage. That is an example where the suggested body could surely ensure a change in the legislation.
Then such questions arise as how often should it sit? Should it sit once or twice a year? Should it have its own employees? I would think so, more especially if the result of the reform of regional government is to have only one tier of local government. Who should choose the agenda for the body when it meets? What should happen if there were a hostile vote? I ask all these questions not because I know the answers to them all but because I wish to show that there is a very real need for a working party of wise men and women to be set up to decide on the answers to these questions.
What should be the composition of the body in Edinburgh? It should not be elected, but representative. Obviously it would include the 72, or perhaps a lesser number, of Scottish Members of Parliament, and even 16 Scottish representative Peers. It should
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certainly contain representatives nominated by local government and, for example, by schools and universities, the Church, the unions, and captains of industry. There are obviously others to be mentioned.
The point that I am trying to make is this. I repeat it again. There is a vacuum, a gap, and we have to find ways of filling it. I have mentioned one solution. There are many others. A matter that the parties are working on at the present time is a convention in the coming summer to put forward a cohesive plan to the Government. Meantime I appeal again to the Government to set up a working party to study how to fill the gap. It would be a very popular thing for them to do, and would gain them new support and a change in their electoral fortunes, though that is not why I am proposing it.
If the Government give a flat "no" to any change. I fear for the future. There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune. I am convinced that this is the flood time. I beg the Government to take it. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.38 p.m.
Lord Home of the Hirsel: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Earl for presenting this Motion with his usual courtesy and clarity. There is one point to which I should like to respond immediately and with satisfaction. The noble Earl stated his premise that the United Kingdom parliamentary system, and therefore the realm, should be preserved intact. That, to my mind, is the heart of the matter. We must keep it in our minds while debating this subject. I imagine that the large majority of this House would endorse that principle.
Nevertheless, we must note that the principle is challenged because the Scottish National Party has changed its ground. It was for a long time in favour of devolution. It is now advocating separation: separation of parliaments and of the nation. It is impossible in a short debate to deal with fundamental constitutional issues, but it is timely to make one or two points.
Devolution could be consistent with unity. Separation is divisive and is intended to be so. It is timely for the thoughtful people who are Scottish to whom the noble Earl has appealed to begin to weigh the penalties which would inevitably follow separation. The first that occurs to me is that inside the Westminster Parliament the English Members would be bound to curtail the influence of the Scots on United Kingdom affairs. They would succeed. Statistically we are over-represented in the United Kingdom Parliament. Secondly, on the international stage, the Scots in my opinion have had much influence. In such matters power talks. The reality of the matter is that the real power would he with the English Parliament.
If there is one subject on which the nation ought to be united it is security. I would hate to see the separation of the parliaments involving that issue. Clearly the noble Earl was conscious of such pitfalls because he re-posed a question debated many times. It is whether there might not be some additional plans

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of devolution which could improve on the present and whether some body might be appointed—the noble Earl used the term "wise men"—which could, as he put it, interpret the views of the Scottish people to the Scottish Office in Edinburgh and to Whitehall. It is interesting that he should link this to St. Andrew's House in Edinburgh. St. Andrew's House was set up so that it could be closer to the people and interpret their wishes better.
It is curious that some years ago I presided over a committee of very wise Scottish men and women with terms of reference almost matching those which the noble Earl recommends. It was a very difficult assignment. The debate circled then as it will circle now on two kinds of possible conventions to sit in Edinburgh. The first would have the power to debate the kinds of issues which the noble Earl has suggested—the allocation of block grant and so on. That was turned down on the ground that it would be a talking shop and would simply add to the number of people debating the issues.
The other convention, because law is the essence of parliamentary government, would be given some legislative power. In the case of Scotland, authority might be given to start the parliamentary legislative process on Bills designated by Mr. Speaker as purely Scottish Bills. Such a convention might take the Green Paper stage, the White Paper stage and Second Reading of such Bills and then those Bills would be transferred back to Westminster to complete the legal process. Because legislators must be elected and not appointed—I am speaking of legislation now—if such a convention were set up, it would be most appropriately done and manned by the existing elected Scottish Members of Parliament.
That is the nearest in my mind to any scheme which might have been practical in terms of devolution to Scotland. Would the noble Earl's proposals for a committee or small body of wise men and women come to any different conclusion? I doubt it. However, I do not see why the experiment should not be tried to seek to identify whether anything could be improved.
I believe that I am coming to the conclusion myself that unless at some future date federalism was to be adopted, in which the English have shown no interest whatsoever, no additional plan for devolution could pass the test of efficiency now. And that must be the test if we are to make constitutional change.
Sometimes, when I see the list of grievances, catalogued by the Scottish National Party, from which we are supposed to suffer, I think we are being talked into some kind of inferiority complex in Scotland. That would be historically absurd. The funny thing about the jibe about the heads of all the departments being Scots was that it was true. In the Empire days it was the Scots who excelled.
Scotland is a partner in the United Kingdom Government. The United Kingdom Government is a partner in Europe and I see nothing in that situation which does not offer the fullest possible scope for all the Scottish talents. I rather hope that we shall not continue too long to discuss this in future years. We
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have to get down to the job and assert our superiority.
3.46 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, the record of my party in this has been consistent since before the First World War; and when we talk about devolution to Scotland we mean a Scottish Parliament with people elected to run the affairs of Scotland within the framework of the United Kingdom. One can call it a federal system or anything else, but that is what we mean when we talk about devolution. We mean a Scottish Parliament.
We started in 1913 when there was a Bill on the stocks. We have been advocating it and we have been refining our ideas ever since. It has now come to a point where I do not believe that the Government can ignore the demands in Scotland for a decent form of workable devolution. Scotland is neither heaven nor hell. The Government no doubt will say that it is heaven with manna rained down by various archangels named Sanderson and others on the lucky citizens of Scotland. Other people say that it is pure hell. Neither is true, but much is wrong with Scotland today.
I have been looking back to the debates on this subject, of which there have been many, including one a year ago, and the ministerial pronouncement, before he was cut off by the end of time, was that he believed that the main issues were jobs, health, housing and education. There was an interesting statement from the noble Lord, Lord Goold, that what the Scottish industrialists wanted was not devolution but lower interest rates, lower taxation, a stable exchange rate and business rating reform. We have lower taxation, but higher interest rates and the exchange rate is too high.
We have figures for unemployment in Scotland. In 1979 it was 5·7 per cent. of the workforce and in 1988 with a greatly altered basis it was 10·8 per cent. The figures for people in employment in 1979 was 2,102,000 and in June 1988 it was 1,888,000. We all know that the condition of agriculture and many other of the Scottish problems are causing great worry.
An interesting article appeared in the Scotsman asking where the graduates have gone. Since 1983, 14,000 graduates have deserted Scotland. Such people really matter in the creation of wealth and happiness in a country and when such a loss occurs it is time to look at an alternative to the present situation. There was always a great drag of clever young Scottish people to the Empire—when we had an Empire—and since the last war, to London. They come to London in large numbers because it is the centre of power. People are always pulled towards a town or city which is the centre of power.
I speak with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Home, in saying that arguments put forward about the importance of the Secretary of State in the British system and his importance to Scotland are an admission that the real power lies in London. Of course the Scottish Office argues with the Treasury. However, it does not argue for a block grant but it argues about the detail. It has influence but it does

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not say exactly what will be done with the money. It cannot tell me that the Treasury does not examine with care what it does.
That is the essence of the argument: the power lies in London. When that occurs the people at home are not so responsible. Apart from its appalling neglect of the minority, technically speaking the Stormont Parliament worked extremely well. It is interesting to note that more of the good and able people in Northern Ireland wanted to be members of Stormont than wanted to play a subsidiary role in Westminster. The essence of the argument for a Scottish parliament for Scottish affairs is that if one gives real power to the Scottish people one also gives real responsibility. It is there from which the health and happiness of the nation can come.
3.53 p.m.
Viscount Dunrossil: In this short debate it would not be appropriate for me to dwell at length on the hope that I may receive the indulgence and tolerant understanding which is by custom accorded to those who speak for the first time in your Lordships' House. I say simply that the hope is a very real one.
Nor, strictly speaking, should I detain your Lordships unduly by setting out at any length my reasons for speaking in the debate. But in view of my long years of absence abroad in the service of the Crown, which may indeed have produced something of a Rip MacWinkle effect, I should like to offer one or two personal credentials to explain this rather hesitant intervention in the debate. We are all grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Perth, for bringing it about. It may also explain why I should like to follow with interest any future developments in Scottish affairs. However, many noble Lords are more expert and authoritative on the subject than I am ever likely to be.
First, like many noble Lords, I am of Scottish descent and parentage. I was at school in Edinburgh and therefore can claim to be at least partially educated. As a family we own and maintain a small house of the Isle of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides from where we originate on my father's side. As W. S. Morrison, he began life by speaking Gaelic at his mother's knee. However, quite soon afterwards he achieved a tolerable command of the English language. Some of your Lordships may recall that it was good enough to enable him to become Speaker in another place for a decade in the fifties. Circumstances did not permit him to attend this House very often, but had he been allowed to do so I am sure that he would have enjoyed it.
After their Army service in World War I, and after attending Edinburgh University, both my parents were called to the English Bar. My father contested the Western Isles parliamentary seat in 1924. With his local kinship and speeches in Gaelic he did remarkably well, but not well enough to be elected. They say that possibly his being a Conservative had something to do with it.
My father's involvement in the law and later politics meant that my brothers and I grew up mainly
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in England, although also partly in Scotland. In England we were very conscious of being a Scots family, but when we went to Scotland our cousins teased us mercilessly for our English accents. I suppose that with such a mixed upbringing there may have been a temptation to resolve the dichotomy by plumping for one nationality or the other. After all, we became very conscious of the differences between the Scots and the English. As it happened the reverse occurred, and as we grew up we acquired a profound respect for and a deep loyalty towards the United Kingdom. We realised that one did not necessarily have to live full-time in Scotland—and millions of Scots do not—to be well aware of one's Scots identity and heritage. It was also borne in on us that whatever may be the disadvantages of the United Kingdom relationship it was a wider field of opportunity and culture which, if properly and sensitively managed, could bring many advantages and blessings to the English and the Scots alike.
When we come to look at the call for devolution, separation and some form of Scottish Assembly I would be very cautious, and indeed wary, if the integrity and viability of the United Kingdom were in any way threatened as a consequence. There may be some advantages which will flow from devolution. However, to use a Scots legal phrase, I suggest that in the very nature of things they cannot at this stage be other than "not proven".
After all that wary caution I should like to end on a positive note. We hear a great deal nowadays about the coming impact of 1992 and the impending submergence of the United Kingdom national economy and its political and social identity under the swelling tide of our involvement in Europe. Perhaps one day that process may be carried to its logical conclusion and we shall end up simply as Europeans. But we are not there yet any more than are in reality most of our European partners.
Meanwhile, the Secretary of State for Scotland has made the very best of the world in which we live by recently securing £73 million of ERDF funds to help the Highlands and Islands with the infrastructure for their continuing future development. No doubt some would have liked even more money, but having served in Brussels for a few years I know only too well how difficult it is to achieve a clear-cut and advantageous result in such a complex capital.
To bring about that success it appears that Scottish political leaders of all persuasions did a great job in raising the consciousness of the Europeans in regard to Scotland, and especially to its beautiful, though disadvantaged, Highlands and Islands region. I hope that credit will be given to the officials who presented a magnificent case together with the Scottish regional councils and the Highlands and Islands Development Board. Not only did they achieve that result but they effected on the Commission a major reversal of its initial position. It was an in-depth exercise in very considerable persuasion. I believe that that is possibly one of the better ways forward for Scotland to engage in the real world. I hope that the Government will make sure that those funds having been secured from Europe, their own countervailing contributions are made readily and amply available.
4 p.m.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, it falls to me to speak on behalf of the whole House when I congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Dunrossil, on a notable, witty and very wise speech. His recent experience of dealing with small countries which have achieved self-government and independence will, I am sure, be useful in considering the subject we are addressing. Time constraints prevent my paying adequate compliment to the noble Viscount on his speech; and I hope that he will understand that.
The greatest danger to a democratic society is excessive concentration of power at the centre. In our society today individuals feel impotent in the face of large organisations which control much of their lives. That is a real dilemma in a democratic society. But the Government have shown little awareness of those tensions and have disregarded the particular problems of dissatisfaction which arise in the relationship between Westminister and the people of Scotland.
Perhaps I may give three examples: first, the imposition of the poll tax ahead of England—a very unpopular tax imposed by Westminster on a reluctant Scottish population; secondly, the inadequacies and discrimination against Scotland involved in the rating system, particularly for commercial properties; and thirdly, the departure from traditional regional policy—which is now operated from the centre by the Department of Enterprise—which had served Scotland so well. Those conditions create a resentment which has contributed to a growth of Scottish nationalism. Therefore, I charge the Government with some responsibility for those developments. They may delight in the fact that in some areas the Scot Nats may replace the Labour Party. I do not know whether that is part of their strategy but at least they have contributed to the dissatisfaction which exists.
The Social Democrat Party, on whose behalf I am speaking, welcomes the discussions taking place on the setting up of a Scottish assembly. Perhaps I may say that my only regret is that we are not invited to contribute. I hope that any discussions which take place on the future of a Scottish assembly will also include an invitation to the Conservative Party to play a part in those talks and that they will respond.
I must state that we are totally opposed to any break-up of the Union. We feel that that would be completely disastrous from every point of view. It may satisfy the Scottish nationalist ego but it will make no contribution whatever to the social wellbeing of our country. Therefore I hope that our position is clear in that regard.
However, the so-called assembly which is being set up will be required to deal with one or two important points. First, the West Lothian question has not been answered. If you give more power to the Scottish parliament you must diminish the power of the Scots MPs to participate in the UK Parliament. Secondly, as I am sure our friends in the Labour Party realise, the importance of the Scottish vote in Westminster affairs should be made clear. There can be no prospect of a future Labour Government if you diminish Scottish representation in the Westminster
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Parliament. You must also take on board the diminution of the authority of the Secretary of State for Scotland who is a member of the UK Cabinet and who exercises considerable influence in national as well as Scottish affairs. Those matters must be weighed in the balance.
Finally, as the noble Earl, Lord Perth, pointed out, if you are going to have a Scottish parliament in Edinburgh you must surely abolish one tier of local government. It would be a nonsense to have Strathclyde running half the area of Scotland and another parliament sitting in Edinburgh. Those questions must be faced by the people discussing the future setting up of an assembly. I hope that the issues will be discussed on a consensus basis with the aim of seeking the best solution.
One other point will concern your Lordships. Very few people, with the notable exception of Mr. Hattersley in another place, have addressed themselves to the question of where the House of Lords fits into this jigsaw. At least Mr. Hattersley has had the courage to say that he would abolish the House of Lords and set up regional government—a new House of Lords. You must then address the question: what would that do to the authority of the House of Commons and the future structure of Westminster government? Those matters must be discussed. Let us discuss them reasonably and try to seek solutions that achieve a reasonable balance for Scotland in handling its own affairs without the dissolving of the structure of the United Kingdom.
4.7 p.m.
Lord Ferrier: My Lords, I notice from the Motion tabled by the noble Earl that he uses the words:
"with special reference to the case for increased devolution".
In other words, he admits that devolution is in progress now. We are no longer all allowed to congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Dunrossil, on his maiden speech but I do so because I remember calling on his father in Australia.
The first thing I did when the noble Earl's Motion came out of the hat was to read through the debate on the Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Morton of Shuna, to which the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, has already referred. I find myself in complete agreement with the several noble Lords who complained that these short debates do not provide adequate opportunity for the discussion of so major a subject. The noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, took an opportunity in the debate on the gracious Speech to say a few words on Scottish devolution. By this manoeuvre the noble Earl has gained himself 11 minutes plus today's 15 minutes when other noble Lords only have six minutes. There are many of us here today who urge the powers-that-be to arrange for a full-dress debate on Scotland as soon as may be. I believe that we should have one and I trust that my noble friend Lord Sanderson will keep an eye on that matter.
The fact remains that since the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Morton, only a year ago, the Govan by-election has had an important effect on affairs and it is clear that we must accept that in Scotland—and I emphasise "in Scotland"—there is an urge to

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promote the idea of a parliament in Edinburgh and, as my noble friend Lord Home said, even a separation from the Union. I appeal to the Government to recognise that something must be done firmly to establish the fact that this whole proposal is out of the question.
In my view the proposal does not make sense. First, there is some reliance on the referendum, which I analyse as follows. The population of Scotland is 5,300,000; the voters' roll was 3,747,000; those who voted in favour of a Scottish Parliament totalled 1,231,000; those who voted against totalled 1,153,500; 1,262,612 did not vote. Therefore, the "no" votes plus those who abstained produced a total of 2,516,152 who did not vote "yes" in the referendum.
What about the Scots who live and work elsewhere, in England and abroad? The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said in his very thoughtful speech that the centre of power is in London. But what of the people who are working outwith Scotland? Are they not to be consulted? Are they to take part in this—I was about to say "assembly" but "convention" is much the better word from the Scotsman's point of view—miraculous convention?
Your Lordships may know that I lived and worked abroad for over 30 years. There must be few such people who would like to be governed by those who live in Scotland itself—the Scots in Canada and in New Zealand, who are lively Scottish supporters, who want to be British and who are entitled to express a view to that effect. Are they not to be consulted?
The captive Scottish press, in leading articles and published correspondence, continues to bind, bind and hind like the noble Earl, who has been at it for years. To some extent the BBC is blameworthy. It has constantly referred to the community charge as a poll tax. I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, also referred to it as a poll tax, which it is not. I thought it a good thing that we in this House were used as guinea pigs to give a good threshing to the proposals, which we did with great success. Again the BBC in its report about the identity card proposals only last night, made no reference to the fact that the Bill applies only to England and Wales, not Scotland.
I have taken the trouble to take some soundings and a selection of the replies can well be summarised as follows: from a serving officer in the Army, who said it was, "A lot of hot air", and from a skilled working man, who said, "Och, if they have a Parliament in Scotland, I leave for England". Is it possible that the SNP and others are using this hot air to whistle in the dark?
The noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, in his winding up speech last year made telling point after telling point, but nobody paid any attention. I criticised the Scottish press then as I do today. The Scotsman and the Glasgow Herald—if one wants to be guided by their contentions—said that a Scottish Parliament was in the offing. This must be wrong. It is quite wrong to complain that there are road tolls in Scotland and none in England. There may not be a toll bridge across the Thames but there is a toll for the tunnel under it.
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The fact is that Scottish influence is increasingly establishing itself in the United Kingdom. What about drinking hours? What about the ordination of women in the Church? What about Sunday opening? What about sundry other decisions favouring our Scottish traditions? I am a robust Scot. My mother was English and my late beloved wife was English. What can England do to help solidify the Union? It must respect the depth of Scottish feeling over, for example, the Ravenscraig problems. What can England do to press the case for an international airport at Prestwick?
Is there any need to sneer unkindly at the Prime Minister who is the elected head of Her Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom? Let us not associate ourselves with the offensive ballyhoo which has arisen from the Govan by-election. Let us instead bend our undoubted energies to develop the friendly and successful association with England that the Almighty has vouchsafed so far. Remember, it was the English fleet that kept the French from supporting Marie de Guise some 400 years ago.
4.15 p.m.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, in the political atmosphere in Scotland at present it is all too easy to put the cart before the horse and to get excited about solutions to the problem without properly identifying what the problem really is.
What is the problem? What do people feel that they are not getting which they should get from the present system? There is, I believe, a great paradox in this. There is in fact widespread acceptance in Scotland that the issues which the present Government are addressing in the main are crucial to Scotland—the economy, jobs, schools, housing and the environment. Scots are well aware that these things cannot be achieved without change. Scotland must not be left behind in that change.
Here the problem begins. When the elected Government of the day put forward radical proposals designed precisely to meet the changing needs of Scotland, we Scots do not find ourselves reacting—at least not these days—like the enterprising, innovative people it is natural for us to be. The discussion on television and in the press seldom looks at a government proposal on its merits. It is seldom positive, constructive or showing vision. It is strongly orientated towards the status quo. Most of the talk is narking criticism. If nothing else can be found to complain about, the idea is condemned as too English. It is only later when the policies come into action that people begin to admit privately to one another that perhaps the ideas are not so bad after all.
That might not matter too much; after all, we Scots enjoy being awkward. It would not matter if it were not for two serious side effects. First, the time and energy taken up by so much negative talk makes us feel that we are not getting on and, indeed, slows progress. Secondly, increasing numbers of people south of the Border, especially younger more thoughtful people, are beginning to lose patience. "If you want to stick with the old ways", they say, "and if you want to continue with high public expenditure,

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a large bureaucracy and a dependency culture, that is your choice; but do not expect the rest of us to wait for you or to pay for it. If you want to separate, perhaps that is for the better. At least the rest of us are less likely to move back to the old ways again". Scots at home hear that more and more from young relations who work in the South. I am sure that noble Lords do too.
That is where the problem really lies. There is too much negative thinking and negative argument at the expense of moving forward. We are beginning to isolate ourselves from the rest of the United Kingdom. Both aspects have alarming implications for our standard of living and for our children's future. They could well lead, willy-nilly, to an increasingly separate Scotland, a tiny country on the geographical edge of the EC with the most enterprising people moving out to find greater scope elsewhere.
What is the solution? We certainly need, in a sense, more devolution—more devolution from the Government to the people; more say on the ground in the way we run our lives; more decisions made by us and fewer decisions made by the UK government, Scottish government or local government. At the same time I believe that we need less rather than more devolution at the top. We need to have a stronger, not a weaker, partnership within the rest of the United Kingdom. We need to look out and not always be looking inwards.
We have so much to share—the insights of our Scottish institutions, our law, our education system, our Church. We could bring a far greater contribution than we do to, for example, the United Kingdom health service and the running of the whole economy. We need as many Scottish Members of Parliament as we can justify. We need as many Scots as possible in the Cabinet, in UK government departments and in the big UK job opportunities. That is the way to influence events and to increase United Kingdom and European sensitivities to Scotland. We see it happening now through having a Scots Lord Chancellor, a Scots Secretary of State for Defence and a top-rank Secretary of State for Scotland.
I believe that the Scottish Office needs to be more and not less closely linked to the rest of the United Kingdom. As 1992 approaches we need very strong departmental links within the United Kingdom that will mean stronger links between Scotland and Europe. So please, my Lords, we need not more devolution but less devolution: more devolution by the government to the people on the ground but a stronger partnership between us all in the United Kingdom and a stronger bridge between Scotland and Europe than we would ever have if England were a separate country. I hope that your Lordships will continue to take a very balanced view on this subject.
4.20 p.m.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, as the first speaker from these Benches since he made his maiden speech, I offer our congratulations to the noble Viscount, Lord Dunrossil, on his most excellent speech. Let us get
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one thing clear. It is not devolution that is divisive but the lack of it. Ireland was divided from the rest of Great Britain by the hard-line Unionists. Had anyone listened to the arguments for Home Rule, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland would have been Great Britain with Ireland in it today.
Like other noble Lords, I am deeply grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Perth, for raising this matter and I am delighted to be with him on it. I have suggested before that we should reconstitute Kilbrandon and bring it up to date, particularly as regards such matters as oil revenues and the subject of Europe. I go along with him in saying that it may be a good thing now to have a working party. The crucial question is whether Scotland is a nation. If she is, she is surely perfectly entitled to say that she wishes to change her method of government. She has made it absolutely crystal clear that she wants to do so. Even if she is not a nation, people must be worried that one cannot obtain them appointment of a Scottish committee in the House of Commons when clearly the government in Scotland is breaking down and is totally undemocratic.
Since I last spoke on this subject there have been other developments. Another Scottish company, namely William Collins, has been taken over. Scottish business and life are still being steadily diminished. I wish to go further than a working party and the bringing up to date of Kilbrandon. I believe (and I introduced a Bill to this effect) that Scotland should be responsible for its own internal affairs. The right way to set about this is to draft a Bill that states what powers are to be reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament. In my view those matters should be foreign affairs, defence and major economic planning. Other matters are for the Scottish Parliament.
The reason why the last Bill failed was that it was an appalling mess. It was abominably drafted and ill-thought-out. if one looks back at the first Bills produced for Ireland, they are beautifully drafted and extremely simple and in my view that achievement can be repeated for Scotland. Before one sets about any further effective democratic devolution one must be clear about certain matters—namely, what one considers are the matters that require the United Kingdom Parliament. Also one must be clear that Scotland must raise its own taxation for its own internal affairs. In addition, it cannot expect to have its present representation at Westminster. It is nonsense to talk about further devolution and then to say that Scotland must still depend on the United Kingdom Exchequer for large grants or that it is to have as many people sitting at Westminster.
I understand that lately there have been two suggestions for carrying this matter a little further. The first is that Scotland should become an independent country and also a member of the European set-up—whatever it may be called—when it comes about. I do not understand how that is to cure the present troubles in Scotland. Scotland needs to run its own internal affairs. Furthermore if Scotland transfers power to Brussels or Strasbourg, it will be up against the same difficulty as it now faces with London. Its best people will go there. The main

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complaint at the moment is that all power, influence and the top people and all that goes with them are drained off to London. It is not much use them being drained off to Brussels instead. However, I agree that we should contribute to Europe because I am a convinced European.
I understand also that it has been explained by the Labour Party, and no doubt we shall hear more about it, that somehow or other the second Chamber is to be brought into this matter. It is an interesting suggestion. I do not suggest as regards such an idea anything more than I do about the European Assembly—that it may not have a part to play. I do not understand how the setting up of a second Chamber with Scottish representation is going to deal with the fundamental demand of Scotland to run its own internal affairs.
We must bear in mind that the Scottish background to government is different from the English. If one sets up a Scottish Parliament it cannot be a mere repetition of the English Parliament. It has to take into account the social organisation of Scotland. We should always remember that what have kept the Scottish tradition and culture alive are not its politicians but its law, education and Church. These are in quite a different category in Scotland than in England.
4.26 p.m.
Lord Elliott of Morpeth: My Lords, I find myself as an Englishman taking part once again in a debate about the possibility of some form of devolved government for Scotland. I find that on four previous occasions in your Lordships' House a year ago and on three previous occasions in another place, I have taken part in such a debate as this. I have done so for a very distinct reason. I live just 50 miles south of the Scottish border. For quite a long time I represented a constituency in another place in the area known as the North East of England. Over a very long period of time I was consequently rightly involved in the enormous problems which the North East of England knew and to some degree still knows.
I listened with considerable admiration to the contribution made this afternoon by my noble friend Lady Carnegy. At the beginning of her well-reasoned speech—with which I found myself almost wholly in agreement—she outlined the problems facing Scotland. My statement to the House today, as on previous occasions, is that in the main the problems that face Scotland are the same problems that we have known over a considerable period of time in the North East of England. Constant essential interest in development area policy has meant having constant knowledge of other areas with similar needs and challenges.
Scotland and the North East share largely common problems. Development areas have been, and continue to be, in competition in the sphere of attracting essential new industry to replace the old. There is nothing wrong with competition. With others on these Benches I have stood for competition in the broadest sense for a long time. There is nothing wrong with competition provided that it is reasonably fair. It is very desirable. At no time more
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than the present, the North East of England, through some recently-appointed bodies and with considerable government support, is doing a great deal to help itself and to meet the competition given by other areas with similar problems.
In 1976 in another place I opposed a Bill which, if it had been passed, would have created a Scottish Parliament and in doing so would have greatly, as I saw it then and see it still today, disadvantaged the development areas in England. I said then, and I say it again, that so far as concerns the North East of England, a full parliamentary assembly in Edinburgh, with a full civil service behind it and with a full press lobby, would represent, just over the border from us, a very heavy form of unfair competition in the attraction of new industry.
In no way would I seek on this occasion or any other to underestimate the problems that Scotland knows and has known; but I ask that Scotland should recognise problems elsewhere of a similar nature. If we are to have some form of constitutional change, let it be for the United Kingdom as a whole.
A five-minute speech is much too short to include statistics, which I have given on other occasions. It is nevertheless sufficient to say that Scotland on a per capita basis over the years has not done badly at all. I noted that my noble friend Lord Home talked of Scotland getting into some state of an inferiority complex. It was never noticeable in another place judging by the Scottish Members of Parliament there. In addition Scotland, through various promotional campaigns—some of which I have greatly admired, and I think particularly of the "locate in Scotlandcampaign—has done a great deal to help itself.
Finally, the case for a separate assembly has always been mainly on the grounds of the so-called North-South divide. The North East of England and Scotland have known the mutual problems of location—the long haul to the densely-populated areas of the country, and the long haul to Europe. But I would strongly suggest that full note should be taken on this occasion, as on all others, that the North-South divide is something that is shrinking rapidly. Unemployment in the North East of England has fallen very rapidly—and I shall again avoid giving statistics—in the last year alone. I therefore strongly advocate the continuation of present policies, which are overcoming the modern problems of the whole of the northern half of our island, and which will continue to do so.
I say with some knowledge of business in the North East of England that if a company is asked today what it wants most—and I am sure that a company's thinking in the North East of England would be much the same as a company's thinking in Scotland—it would start with lower interest rates, because most businesses certainly want that. It would then go on to lower taxation, because they all want that too. It might suggest that stable exchange rates would be helpful. Perhaps I might add that businessmen, particularly in development areas, welcome very much indeed the reform of the rating of business premises. We are getting all these things with the present Government. Let us continue with present policies (which are working well) rather than plunge into something very new.
4.33p.m.
Lord Wilson of Langside:My Lords, the most interesting speech of the noble Lord, Lord Elliott of Morpeth, has added force to the conviction that has been growing on me over these last months, particularly since the Govan by-election, that we, the Scottish people, must make more of an effort to get into perspective the issues involved in this question of devolution. I imagine that few would quarrel with the proposition that so far as administrative and executive devolution is concerned we must have as much of it as is consistent with efficiency within the context of the United Kingdom.
Much has been said in the debate about the clamour from Scotland for its own parliament and for an assembly. I must confess that I am not aware of such a clamour among the ordinary people of Scotland. There is a clamour—of course a great clamour—from the political parties, the politicians and their acolytes for legislative devolution. I do not quarrel with the concept of administrative and executive devolution, but the question of legislative devolution raises problems of the utmost complexity with which governments to date, and particularly the last Labour Government, have never come to terms. They have never really given profound thought to them.
The difficulty with the Bill which the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, so graphically and accurately described to us and which was presented to Parliament by the last Labour Government was that it had not been drafted with an understanding that a simple difficulty emerges right away because we, the British, do not have a written constitution. The difficulties that emerge from that have been touched on already by my noble friend Lord Taylor.
If someone could show me a blueprint which would satisfy me that a separate legislative chamber in Scotland would strengthen the partnership between Scotland and England, I would be in favour of it. but the point is that the English and the Scots are a partnership. I prefer to see it as a symbiotic relationship. Anything that weakens that relationship I would be inclined to be against. I would be inclined to test any proposals in that way. By all means let us go on talking about the problem.
I said in opening that the Scottish people must get it into perspective. It is a perennial problem. It has been going since 1707 when the partnership was entered into. You cannot run a successful partnership if you are continually bickering about the terms of the partnership agreement. I cannot help feeling that we, the Scots, indulge in too much of that.
What happened when the Labour Government presented it to the people of Scotland? When they were faced with the reality, the clamour that there had been after the Hamilton by-election in 1966 had apparently evaporated. Faced with the reality of the proposal of the Government, 67 per cent. of the people of Scotland either voted no or did not bother to vote at all. That was the real test of the enthusiasm of the Scottish people for a legislative assembly in Edinburgh.
I remain sceptical about the benefits that would flow from such an assembly. If someone can draw up
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a blueprint which would satisfy the reservations and doubts of so many people, well and good if the Scottish people want it. But I am astonished at the clamour that suggests that we should submit to government by opinion polls, particularly from the Nationalist Party. It is essential that if ever we are faced with a government who present us with such a measure again there will be a referendum. The whole matter has to be considered in the United Kingdom rather than in the Scottish context.
4.40 p.m.
Lord Stodart of Leaston: My Lords, in a trailer of this debate in one of the Scottish newspapers it was portrayed as being held as a result of the shockwaves spreading out from the Govan result, still reverberating through Scotland. But of course we have been here before. In November 1967 the result of a by-election at Hamilton showed the Labour Party majority of 17,000 being overturned. Alarm bells rang furiously and devolution came onto everyone's lips. At least two committees were set up; one very distinguished, headed by my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel. Then what was described as the "Declaration of Perth" was uttered. So I think it is quite undeniable that the subject of devolution will not go away.
However, I think we have to face the fact that no solution or suggestion has so far been made which is both workable and acceptable. As regards the status quo, my noble friend Lord Pym, when he was in another place some years ago, said, "Status quo, not an option". Very recently Mr. Ancram said there was very little support for it. At the other end of the scale there is independence, which I think is totally unacceptable.
So is there anything in between which is both workable and acceptable? It has been suggested—I think again by Mr. Ancram, who is looking into the matter—that one helpful step would be to increase the direct Scottish representation in departments—for example, in the Department of Trade and Industry—where policy is formulated for the whole of the United Kingdom. I am sure that that would help. For several years in succession there was a Scottish Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture and the arrangement worked extremely well, although I recall on one occasion a permanent secretary coming to me and saying, "Minister, when you are referring to the Scots will you please stop referring to them as 'us' and talk about them as 'them'".
An assembly or a convention is a quite obvious candidate for the in-between ground. I would not go along with those who knock it down on the grounds of over-government. I would certainly do away with the present regions and have an assembly, if it were going to work, and the districts. Of one thing I am quite certain and nothing will shake me on this—I speak as one of two Scots on this side of the House this evening who have both served in the Scottish Office in another place—it would be of the greatest benefit to legislative efficiency. I think ruefully of a night in June 1964 when at 10 o'clock one evening we started on the Report stage of the Hire Purchase Bill, to which there were 80 amendments of a Scottish

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nature. That was because the then Board of Trade had not appreciated that the law of Scotland did not fit in with that of England and Wales.
I recall the Police Act of 1964 in which, as the Bill was originally drafted, Clause 1 dealt with police activity in England. Clause 2 dealt with the same activity in Scotland; and after Clause 2 the then Home Secretary, Mr. Henry Brooke, said that he was not prepared to have repetitions of such a kind and that there should be a separate Scottish Bill because of the separate legislature existing in Scotland. That is the only ground on which I would favour the setting up of an assembly; but apparently it is not acceptable to the commercial world and that is something we would be crazy to ignore.
Secondly, I doubt very much whether it would be workable, because we come back to the inescapable fact that if a reduced number of Scottish Members, even if they were to be reduced from 72 to 58, came down to London and threw their weight against the Government in London it would create a situation which I think would be intolerable, considering that the reverse activity could not take place. That is why I think we run up into a dead end on this subject.
4.47 p.m.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: My Lords, I have taken part in quite a few debates regarding devolution for Scotland. I remember one in 1977, I think, which was a very topsy-turvy debate. The Bill at that time foundered, as it was bound to do. But there is always a danger when you start on devolution, although the danger is of course not great provided that the driving force behind independence remains the Scottish Nationalist Party, because the Scots are very intelligent and well-educated people and they will not allow it to happen. Perhaps I should say that I am partly Scottish myself, and anything like the present Scottish Nationalist Party certainly will not bring about an independent Scotland.
Of course if you had an independent Scotland it would be disastrous. Scotland at the moment has quite a lot of devolution. She has her own laws, her own Church and her own local government. She also has her own Queen, although this does not quite come into the question of devolution.
I should really like to speak for a moment about tourism because I have spoken a lot about devolution in the past. So I should like to speak about tourism and about the particular part of Scotland where I have an estate. I am by blood more than half Scottish, with a bit of Irish and bit of English. I know the Western Highlands particulary well and I know the East Coast too. But I should like to be rather selfish, if that is the right word, and speak for the moment about my own particular part of Scotland. Last summer, MacBraynes, presumably upon the advice of the tourist board, were encouraged to build a new car ferry. This new car ferry takes 1,000 people per voyage, and for a few months during the summer there were six voyages backwards and forwards between Oban and the Isle of Mull every day. Certain problems followed.
To start with it is said that the computers went wrong when they were building the vessel. But, of
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course, computers cannot go wrong; they can break down, but they cannot go wrong. What happened was that when the vessel was built her hull was too short for her height, so that she was perhaps rather unsafe in a bad sea. So she then had to go to British Shipbuilders, who had built her, where she was cut in half. She came back into service a short time ago and appears to be quite stable now.
What I am trying to say is that I believe that the Scottish Tourist Board have overplayed their hand in the matter because the first time the vessel came out she was full to capacity. If she is going to make an average—which she does—of six voyages per day throughout the summer and if she is going to carry 1,000 people on every voyage, life will be quite impossible on Mull because accommodation for the four, five or six thousand people who come over every day does not exist. Further, there is no room on the roads, and the bridges will have to be rebuilt. Indeed, the whole exercise will be disastrous.
The other point I wish to make is that the island will be ruined. It is a point which the tourist industry in Scotland does not seem to understand. I am all in favour of people seeing beautiful country and interesting geological features but, if they come in too great numbers, and such numbers are not controlled, then of course they will spoil what they have come to see. Indeed, that is now happening in the Isle of Mull with the flora and fauna and the whole surroundings.
I did not speak about devolution because I have always been very much against that. On the other hand, I am all for an arrangement which will lead to Scotland having more say in its affairs, where that is possible. However, Scotland does have a great say in its affairs anyway. I have never heard among the crofters, or the people with whom I mix a lot, any clamour for Scottish independence. It may exist among some would-be politicians who would like to have the power that they might achieve through it, but I have never heard local people ask for it.
As I say, Scottish people appear on the whole more intelligent than English. For example, I have had shepherds whose children have become doctors and one is even a lawyer, whereas that is surely a rare occurrence in England. I have spoken for too long and shall sit down. I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Perth, will forgive me for not having spoken on devolution but I did particularly want to make the point about tourism.
4.54 p.m.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, only a year ago I spoke in this House about devolution and my opinions have not altered much since, except that I said then that I believed that any form of devolved government for Scotland would ultimately lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom. I would go further now and say that I cannot see how it would be possible to have a Scottish assembly or parliament with legislative and fiscal powers when the political complexion of that assembly is likely to be the direct opposite of that of the Government of the, United Kingdom.
That was a problem which was not addressed in 1978 when the Scotland Bill was debated. It was

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raised, as was the question of Scottish representation at Westminster, but I do not think solutions were found to either problem. At that time the situation was different. Now it has changed, and I can see no satisfactory answer. Either you have one British Parliament, as we have now, or you have an altogether separate government as the Nationalists want, which, as I said last year, would be bad for England and catastrophic for Scotland.
Here I must point out to the Opposition, who complain that Scotland, which has returned a large majority of Labour Members, is being governed by a Conservative Government, that there was a time within living memory when England, which had returned a majority of Conservative Members, was being governed by a Labour Government because of the Scottish vote. Give and take is necessary in a union.
I return now to the idea of an assembly with legislative and fiscal powers. Scotland at present gets far more out of the kitty than it puts in. Of course the Nationalists talk about Scotland's oil, but it is not by any means all Scotland's oil. A lot of it is Shetland's oil and the Shetlanders do not want to be governed by the Scots, thank you very much. They might well join Norway, taking their oil with them: they might even join England, although I think that that is unlikely.
So what happens? Taxation has to increase and by quite a lot too. What happens then? People and businesses go elsewhere. That is very helpful, just when the growth of new businesses and industries is beginning to reduce unemployment. People and businesses leave. Is Hadrian's Wall to be rebuilt to keep them in, or a financial Hadrian's Wall? But long before that uncertainty as to Scotland's political future would have undermined business confidence and cost us a great deal.
The noble Earl, Lord Perth, says—I hope I quote him correctly—that people do not mind being poorer if they are happy. Well, I do not think that the Scots are very unhappy and I think that people always hate being poorer. We are told that after 1992 most of the legislation enacted in Britain will be European. Is it worth setting up a separate assembly to pass in the main the same laws as Westminster? I do not think so and I do not think that it will work. What the Scots really want is prosperity and I think that that is far more likely under the present arrangements.
Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, I do not hear a clamour for a separate parliament, except from the media and from politicians who will wield power and draw fat salaries. What might be worth doing is to re-examine the possibility of devolving more of the administrative responsibilities of the Scottish Office to the regional authorities or, if they were abolished, to the district authorities. I do not know how much might be possible—possibly nothing—but it is a thought. Another thought is the possibility of a consultative or advisory committee consisting possibly of nominated members of regional councils which would meet regularly in Edinburgh to advise the Secretary of State.
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But I go back in the end to repeating what I said last year; namely, that a little more tact, understanding and even common sense would help. There are all sorts of things which could have been better done. For instance, it might have been wiser to have had the Scottish Select Committee even with an anti-Government bias. There is the date of the commencement of poll tax being a year ahead of England. There is the funding of Scottish universities. There is the question of the closing of coastguard stations in the North-East. There is the question of business rates, and there is the question of cold weather payments in upland areas where the temperature is much lower than at the weather station.
There is also the vexed question of the Scottish Development Agency. Why change its name? Why is there this passion for changing names? It is doing a splendid job and is known all over the world as the Scottish Development Agency. Leave it alone. Moreover, it does not help when the Secretary of State accuses the Scots of whingeing or whining.
I often think that I detect a feeling among Ministers that they do their best and whatever they do they cannot win. That may be so, but I urge them to try just a little harder. When I defended myself as a child by saying that I had done my best, I was told that I would have to do better than my best. That is what I am telling them now.
5 p.m.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, I thank my noble kinsman and clan chief for initiating this debate. Scotland is in some ways like our Drummond clan badge, the holly, prickly on the outside and yet bearing a berry as red as any blood—our heart's blood— and a blossom as sweet as any flower, which is the flower of our love for her.
I wish to support one particular point in the speech of my noble kinsman—that the new regions imposed on Scotland are by no means universally popular. I asked 100 people at random what they thought, and 92 of them were against the regions. The reasons that they gave were varied. Many felt that they would have to pay more when the rate for the new community charge was fixed by a large region than if they had remained in their own county units. They also felt that the standard of local services had dropped and that the problems of someone living in Dundee, for instance, were very different from those of people living in Pitroddie or Auchmithie, yet they both come under the region of Tayside. The chief objection was the loss of local identity--a feeling that they were losing part of their national identity by being included in a new region instead of an old county.
Looking back a little at Scottish history we find, as your Lordships will know, that in Roman times there were 21 Celtic tribes inhabiting 21 different areas of Scotland, as marked on Ptolemy's map. Scotland at that time stretched down to include most of Cumberland and Northumberland, which were occupied by the Ottadini and the Gadeni. Those living in Central Perthshire were called the Caledonii, which is why Dunkeld is so called. It derives from the

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dun, or fort, of the Caledonians, from which comes the romantic name of Caledonia.
By the time of Kenneth McAlpine in the mid-ninth century there were four distinct kingdoms: Dalriada, the kingdom of the Scots, which included Argyllshire and the Isles (although Orkney and Shetland remained Norse until the 15th century, when they came as a bride gift to Margaret of Denmark when she married James III); Caledonia, the whole of the east of Scotland to the north of the Firth of Forth; Strathclyde, reaching south from the Clyde into Cumberland, which was also a Celtic kingdom; and the Lothians, running from the south of the Firth of Forth down into Northumberland, which was inhabited by Anglo-Saxons.
Those kingdoms all became one Celtic kingdom by the time of the great-great-grandson— I have missed out a great—of Kenneth McAlpine, Duncan, who was famous for being murdered by his first cousin Macbeth. They were both sons of the daughters of Malcolm II. After reigning for nearly 40 years, Macbeth was overthrown by Duncan's son Malcolm Canmore, whose youngest brother Melmaer was the direct ancestor of the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi.
Malcolm had lived in England since the age of nine. He brought many English ways and customs with him when he came to Scotland in 1057. He married the Saxon Princess Margaret (St. Margaret of Scotland) in 1066. She introduced English as the court language and reorganised the Church on an English rather than a Scottish pattern with its ancient culdees.
Queen Margaret met King Malcolm when she was conveniently shipwrecked on the Firth of Forth while fleeing from William the Conqueror on her way back to Hungary. Her mother was a Hungarian, and so was the captain of the ship, Maurice, a Hungarian of royal ancestry from whom descended all the Drummonds, including my noble kinsman and clan chief, myself, my noble friend Lord Caithness and my noble friend Lord Denham. Through her sons, English administrative systems gradually came in as counties and burghs. They remained in the same form for over 800 years until they were turned into regions as a result of the finding of the Royal Commission chaired by Lord Wheatley between 1966 and 1969.
The heart of the matter exists in paragraphs 113 and 114 of the report of Lord Wheatley. What is local government for? It is to provide local services and local, as distinct from central, government? "Local" (the place, the area) is not defined. Like the GLC, which the Royal Commission consulted, the ultimate conclusions reached were that big is not only beautiful but best.
We then had seven large regions sub-divided into districts. We therefore had two tiers of local government under central government. We suffered from three tiers of government. Fife was to be cut in half, but in that instance David defeated Goliath, or at least Sir David Erskine, the convenor of Fife County Council did. Fife is now one county.
Giants can disappear. The GLC has gone and much nationalisation has been dismantled. Might it not yet be possible to dismantle the regions and return to the 33 old historic counties of Scotland,
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incorporating the burghs in those areas, and keeping separate the four big cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee?
My noble kinsman, my father, was, at 21, the youngest county councillor for Perthshire. He would be saddened today, as I am, at the abandonment and disappearance of the old boundaries. Might it not be a case for retreating in order to advance better?
Lord Ferrier: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, I believe I am right in saying that Queen Margaret taught the king to read and write.
5.6 p.m.
Lord Reay: My Lords, Scottish nationalism at its most dangerous is I believe composed of two elements——a grievance and a temptation to dream. In the 1970s, the grievance was the failure of the Government to make the economy work properly—not just the Scottish economy but the British economy as a whole. The temptation was North Sea oil, which gave spurious credibility to the notion of an economically viable independence.
Today, within the past few months even, the dream of Scotland's oil has been replaced by the dream of a Scotland which is independent in Europe. That idea of independence in Europe has been freshly adopted by the Scottish Nationalists to make the idea of independence less frightening. A Scotland which was independent in Europe would supposedly not be friendless and isolated in the world and cut off from England.
Scotland would be an equal partner in the Community; even, it would seem, a superior partner, for (according to Jim Sillars in his pamphlet No Turning Back):
"Scottish internationalism is blocked by England's narrow mentality".
The achievement of independence would be a purely internal, domestic matter concerning only England and Scotland. Both countries would still be in the Community. Scotland, with its ancient ties to the Continent, would be warmly welcomed by the others as a new member. Within no time, she would find herself with a seat at the Council of Ministers and all the other perquisites of membership, beavering away on the Continent at making the world a better place, freed at last from the debilitating shackles of its union with the irredeemably parochial England.
With that intoxicating flattery the Nationalists have decided to try to seduce the people of Scotland. The question is: will the lady succumb? In fact, things are not remotely as simple as they are made to appear.
Scotland is only in the Community as part of the United Kingdom. Separated from each other, both countries, not just Scotland, would have to negotiate their terms for being there. Until that was done, neither of them could claim to be in the Community. For example, would England inherit the status and voting rights possessed now by the United Kingdom which rank it on a par with France, Germany and Italy? Quite possibly not.

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For the other member states, the prospect of entering into negotiations to create two new member states would be horrifying. Only a desperate crisis would force them to consider it. It is difficult enough to get the Community to function with as many member states as it has to have, without creating others.
More importantly, the break up of the United Kingdom would not simply be an immense set-back for the Community. It would threaten by its example the integrity of countries like France and Spain themselves, whose own separatist problems would be inflamed. Moreover, interests which are vested against extending a helping hand to nationalist aspirations range far beyond the Community. All over the world we have seen governments struggling to prevent the forces of nationalism from tearing apart existing political structures: in central Europe, in the Soviet Union, in Canada, in the Middle East and Africa, in the Indian sub-continent.
On the Indian sub-continent indeed, there was one notable failur—Pakistan. But East and West Pakistan were more than 1,000 miles apart and had only been put together, created, less than 25 years earlier. Even then, a civil war was necessary before Bangladesh became independent.
To suggest that a union which has lasted as long, which has been as thoroughgoing, which has brought as many benefits and which bears such a positive image in the eyes of the world as that between England and Scotland. to suppose that such a union can he lightly and swiftly negotiated away in a world which is wholly unsympathetic to developments of that kind, is simply frivolous. So I think that the Government are right to refuse to consider any steps which might lead in that direction and to rely rather on the steady transformation of the Scottish economy to forestall the accumulation of grievance without which no popular demand for independence will be able to sustain itself. But there will I believe be choppy waters ahead.
5.11 p.m.
Lord Raglan: My Lords, I am glad to be following on that contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Reay. Since nationalism is strong in Scotland at the moment, I want to say something about it because little attention seems to have been paid in this country to what it is about. Most people take a nonintellectual and pragmatic view of politics; but nationalism is a cuckoo in that nest, a theory of political organisation which does not fit into the tradition of government as it has evolved here.
On the Continent they have suffered badly from it and are trying to get unstuck from it. Hence the huge effort to create the European Community. However British governments have been assiduous in treating it with indulgence, even reverence. The measures they have thought to meet it with have strengthened it because appeasing nationalism encourages it. It seems to have started as a solution advanced by certain philosophers who had not, I think, had experience of practical politics. Having abolished the sovereign as a symbol of arbitrary rule and vested
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ownership of his territory in the people instead, their problem was how to define which people were theoretically to own which territory.
The idea was to draw lines on a map and declare all people within each area to be of the same breed, each breed of human, like breeds of animal, having its own call and habits, which they called culture. So nationalism is based on a theory of racialism in which one's race is determined by where one happens to live. Within a defined area, all the people are deemed to speak the same, look the same, dress the same, behave the same and think the same. It is essentially conformist.
The thing is dangerously misconceived for many reasons. For one. racialism leads to hatred, all the worse when it is officially approved racialism. Another theory gone wrong is that instead of the territory belonging to the people, the people belong to the territory. So Scottish nationalists are recognisable by their fondness for declaring that the people of Scotland want this or think that—an amazing claim to make, though not in the nationalist's imagination. He does not think of the people as individuals but as a collective identity with one mind which belongs to Scotland.
So nationalism, as dreamed up, was intended to be democratic; but in practice is quite the opposite, and nasty with it. For democracy recognises that people are not of one mind, whereas the nationalist requires them to be so and knows that nothing unites them better than an external threat. Therefore nationalism needs enemies. If a threat does not exist, the nationalist manufactures it, lacing his accusations with alleged historic wrongs. To the Scottish sort, the threat is the English. Thus Mr. Gordon Wilson speaks about "the Dark Ages of English rule". If he is right and Scotland is ruled by England and its supposedly single-minded, pure bred, historically-wronged inhabitants would be better governed separately, then he is on a logical course. As an abstract concept he wants Scotland to achieve status as an independent nation, though to what other purpose is, in the nature of things, unclear.
His approach is rather different from that of the devolutionists who are another kind of nationalist, but seeing Scotland somewhat as an administrative dependency in which, as in Wales, the biggest industry seems to be in obtaining more money per capita than the English get from the English, even though "the English" are only people just like them, possibly their relations, and doing no more harm than living on the other side of an imaginary line. In paying up, the Government make the game the better worth the playing, encouraging more nationalism in the process.
In this way, the ratchet has moved up, notch by notch, prompting increasing demands that Scotland requires an assembly. It is not certain what its powers should be; but with respect to the noble Earl, Lord Perth, that is not really its main purpose, which is as a further symbol of nationhood. To my mind there is in any case a lack of proper pride in the notion that Scotland is a nation, but a kind of second-class one, looking for compensatory subsidies and status symbols. It inevitably, and unforgivably, encourages

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the inhabitants to look upon themselves as inferior and deprived, and to blame that on invented enemies.
Successive governments have not sought to understand nationalism. Instead they have backed away from its aggressiveness, taking refuge in viewing it as peripheral, a distant problem which they hope will go away with a bit more money and another official institution. It will only go away when they see its real nature and face up to it for its false and injurious doctrines. If they go on as before, they will go on pushing Scotland towards independence. That would please a few zealots but do most people no good at all.
5.18 p.m.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: My Lords, I am the last speaker in this long list and I shall be very short. I should like to say one or two words from my long experience of working and living in Scotland. First, perhaps I may congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Dunrossil, on his excellent speech. It was delightful to hear him. I knew his father very well. I am delighted that he is here and I hope that he will join us on many occasions. The speeches of the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, and the noble Lord, Lord Elliott of Morpeth, were both excellent and I agree with every word they said.
This debate has come at an important time for Scotland. If I may postpone for a moment what I want to say about Scottish nationalism it is because I do not think that anybody has mentioned that the Scottish economy is advancing very satisfactorily. Unemployment has fallen by almost 74,000 since January 1987. It is now at its lowest level since 1981. Manufacturing productivity in Scotland increased by 5·6 per cent. between 1979 and 1987, which compares favourably with that of the United Kingdom which was only 4 per cent. We are exporting more manufactured goods per employee than either West Germany or Japan. The number of companies registered in Scotland increased by nearly 25,000 between December 1976 and December 1987. The output of the Scottish electronics industry—a comparatively new industry—is three times higher than it was in 1979. All these figures show that industry and employment in Scotland are rising and will, I am sure, continue to rise. On that basis I must congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, who will speak after me, on what the Scottish Office has done.
The only other matter I want to discuss, as we have all done, is that of the devolution of Scotland. My view is quite simple. We are part of the United Kingdom and we contribute in every way to the contribution that the United Kingdom makes to the European Community. We have a wide Commonwealth interest and Scottish people have helped to build up the many different countries that compose the Commonwealth. We are a vital part of the United Kingdom. In my life alone we have provided the UK with five Scottish Prime Ministers: Arthur Balfour, Campbell-Bannerman, Ramsay MacDonald, Harold Macmillan and Alec Home. I would almost add, although he was a Yorkshireman, Henry Asquith who represented two Scottish
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constituencies the whole of his life as an MP for East Fife and Paisley. That is a contribution of which I think we can he proud.
A number of Scotsmen have been Cabinet Ministers, my husband being one. To separate Scotland from England and Wales would not encourage Scots men and women to stand for Parliament, unless it remained a UK Parliament. In my opinion England and Wales would be the losers. Let us keep together, work together, play together and be ready to take an active and important part in the whole United Kingdom.
5.22. p.m.
Lord Hughes: My Lords, my name is not on the list of speakers, but that is purely through inadvertence because I came prepared to speak. However, it would not be fair, nor would it be other than a dangerous precedent in a time controlled debate to take advantage of the gap. Therefore I hope to say what I had intended to say on another occasion.
5.23 p.m.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Hughes. The mistake was perhaps compounded by me in that his name was not included in the list. I am pleased with the gracious way he has dealt with the matter and I look forward to hearing him speak with his great experience on this subject at a later date.
We should all be very grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Perth, for raising this topic today. The very fact that so many Scots took part in the debate is an indication of just how much interest there is in the subject of Scotland. The numbers taking part were almost a contradiction of the general tenor of the speeches which suggested that this subject did not matter and was not going to matter. But we can perhaps deal with that later.
I also have great pleasure in congratulating the noble Viscount, Lord Dunrossil, on his maiden speech in this House. I did not know his father, but he was one of the notable, if not legendary speakers, of the other House. The speech we heard today from the noble Viscount was welcome, informed and frequently very witty. I am sure that with his wide experience of diplomacy he will be a great asset to the House. I hope we shall hear from him frequently in the future.
On the subject of the debate today, one of the papers put out by the Scottish Labour Party started by stating that:
"The 1978 Scotland Act was repealed by the Labour Government in 1979 even although in a referendum a majority voted for it".
I shall deal with the question of the majority later, however small it may have been. Figures were given from the other side by the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, and I am grateful to him for that information. The paper continued:
"Not surprisingly the case for devolution has not gone away and today is even more compelling. Since 1979 there has been a growing centralisation of power and Scotland has been less able to control its own affairs. Central Government which is represented by a minority party in Scotland has imposed on it policies which its people would not have wished and which arc against their democratically expressed views''.

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I should really say something about the referendum because several references have been made to it. The Conservative Party in Scotland decided to oppose the referendum not because of the principle of devolution but because it thought the Bill was bad. I have said before in this House that the noble Lord, Lord Home, made it very clear on television and in another place that the Bill was appalling and that his party would produce a better Bill in order to establish some kind of devolved Scottish Assembly. I do not think I am misrepresenting him in that. His view carried a great deal of weight. I believe a great number of the abstentions were caused by that view. At the time the present Secretary of State was of the same opinion because he was then working very hard for a devolved Scottish Assembly.
Today we have heard from a large number of speakers, many of whom believe that little needs to be done to improve the government of Scotland. Many of the speakers have long backgrounds in, experience of and knowledge of government. But I think the important thing is that most of them speak from the other side and are associated with the party in Scotland which at the last and previous elections quite specifically stated that there was no need for basic change in the Scottish system of government. The Scottish people decisively do not agree with that view.
Of the 72 Scottish parliamentary seats the party opposite holds only 10, and some of those are held by only a whisker. There is even talk in very sober circles in Scotland that at the next election there could be a total whitewash of the party opposite. 1 have even heard members of the party opposite at least counting quietly on their fingers the kind of majorities some Conservative Members have. That is the one party that has always been totally opposed to any kind of devolved government.
Of course there is no unanimity among the other parties which wish to have devolved powers. They disagree on so many things, but the one thing on which they agree is that there must be greater control of Scottish affairs by some kind of government based in Scotland which should reflect the wishes of the people of Scotland. That is the important thing about the meeting that will be held a week on Friday, on the 27th of this month. That preliminary meeting will contain a representative number of people from the various parties and organisations in Scotland and it will pave the way for an assembly.
The meeting is designed to prepare for a constitutional convention. It will be cross-party. 1 am sure that all the participants will go to the meeting with opinions and ideas most likely to enhance the standing of their political claims. But the people of Scotland will not forgive them if there is any backsliding on the basic widespread desire for constitutional devolution.
No one doubts that there will be many problems. No one believes it will be plain sailing. It would not be Scottish politics if there were not serious and genuine difficulties which generated a fair amount of heat and despondency—I hope that that is only
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temporary—but I am sure there will also be periods of sombre national elation that something has brought so many strands of Scottish politics together to look seriously for a better form of government for the people of Scotland. I hope that people will not go into that situation with their minds too firmly made up.
A number of things that were said in the debate had great importance. The noble Lord, Lord Grimond, said that the biggest threat to unity in the United Kingdom is the possibility that there may not be some kind of devolved government. I firmly believe that is the case.
Another point which I think we should refute—and those of us who are fairly close to the grass roots in Scotland are well aware of it—is that we are no longer talking about a devolved Scotland because of economic necessity. There is another urgency in Scotland, quite apart from the economic factor: there is a feeling that the Government are drifting away from the Scottish people—perhaps even from the people of the United Kingdom—and too much towards the centre.
Scotland is feeling quite self-confident at the moment, and that confidence is shared by many. It is not an accident that the Scottish press is beginning to speak with confidence. It is not an accident that there is a rather good new Sunday newspaper in Scotland or that the quality Sunday newspapers of the South—the Sunday Times and the Observer—have started to print special Scottish editions. There is a liveliness and a resurgence in Scotland.
It is sad that the party opposite is the one party in Scotland that is not willing to take part in the convention which will be taking place during the summer, and perhaps longer. We shall have our differences and our fights, but within a Scottish context. All the questions that have been raised about the proportion of Scottish MPs in Westminster, funding, and what will be devolved will all be argued at that convention. I believe that if devolution does not become a possibility the relationship between the United Kingdom and Scotland will sadly—and I mean very sadly—be even more estranged than it has been for some time.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, I very much welcome the opportunity for this debate on Scottish affairs and I congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Perth, on his success in securing it.
Perhaps I may also congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Dunrossil, on a particularly good maiden speech. It is very good to have heard such a telling maiden speech. I should like to respond to him and say how pleased I am that he is here and is following in the footsteps of such a distinguished father, who stood as a Conservative candidate in the Western Isles. The late Ian Macleod did exactly the same. It is not a bad place to start one's political life, I am certain of that.
To answer his questions about the£73 million for the Highlands and Islands, for which I have responsibility, of course the Government will play their part by matching the resources which have been

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offered from Brussels. That will include expenditure on qualifying projects by central government, local authorities and public utilities. That will allow development work to go ahead further and far faster than would otherwise have been the case. Like the noble Viscount I am very glad that we have been able to secure such a satisfactory outcome.
I understand the exigencies of time and I was particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for what I think must have been the briefest speech ever made in such a debate on Scottish affairs. However, I also noted that my noble friend Lord Ferrier said that I made some telling points a year ago. I hope that I shall be able to satisfy him that I make some telling points today.
1 think that all who have spoken are agreed on one thing, and that is that we all seek the best form of government for Scotland. I believe, as I have said before, that we have today a democractically elected Government facing up to, and dealing effectively with, the substantive issues which face the whole of the United Kingdom—economic development, housing, National Health Service, education and all such matters.
Perhaps I may start with a personal reminiscence. The late Lord Ross of Marnock, on seeing me at this Dispatch Box for the first time, to précis his words, said "Well laddie, where's your mandate", following the disappointing results for the Government in Scotland at the last election. A similar point was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, and the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun. I am sure that as a good Unionist the late Lord Ross understood when I pointed out to him that in 1964 he sat for the first time as a Cabinet Minister in a Labour government when English Conservative colleagues of mine had a substantial majority over his party in England. I wonder whether those English Members of Parliament enjoyed knuckling down to Labour's policies for that period.
While we are talking about losing seats I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, has overlooked the fact that the Govan by-election was not exactly a success for his party.
And so we come to the suggestions made by the noble Earl, Lord Perth, that a forum be established to put forward views for the Secretary of State for Scotland to take into account in deciding his policies and spending priorities. I entirely agree that it is essential that the Secretary of State for Scotland and those of us who are his fellow Ministers should be fully aware of the views of interested parties when we come to take decisions. That is something which I believe we already achieve. I do not say that in a partisan manner, for Scotland is a relatively small country in population terms and there is the opportunity in any given sphere of interest for those in government, both ministers and civil servants, to develop good working relationships with all those involved but being answerable to Parliament. I believe that I read in the press that the noble Earl, Lord Perth, said that anything that detracts from the power of the House of Commons is not a starter in his book.
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Morever, there is already a forum in which much Scottish business can be debated. The Scottish Grand Committee, which consists of all Scottish elected Members of Parliament, is active in three key areas—the Second Reading of Scottish Bills, Scottish Estimates debates and Matter Day debates on topics of current interest. The subject which the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, mentioned, of the unified business rate could well be a topic that could be discussed in one of those Matter Day debates. In 1982 the committee began to hold some of its meetings in Edinburgh and has met there ever since on many occasions. The Grand Committee has dealt with such issues as public expenditure, the Scottish economy, industry, the National Health Service, and so on and so forth. Listening to some people who criticise the present situation, I do not think that it is recognised that those debates have taken place.
At times when one listens to all the arguments it seems that it is all trouble and strife and that no progress is being made whatever. My noble friend Lord Home made a very important point when he spoke about an inferiority complex generated by imagined grievances laid at the door of the government of the day, particularly by the SNP. It is exceptionally dangerous to devalue a nation's successes. I shall instance one or two of those successes.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, will not mind my quoting from his own speech here when we succeeded in passing the Scottish Housing Bill. Do you know what he said then? He said that the Bill could be a very good one. I applauded him for what he said at that time and I am sure that he is absolutely right. That is one success and perhaps the noble Lord may give a little credit to the Government for bringing the Bill forward.
As my noble friend Lady Elliot has said, manufacturing productivity in Scotland increased by 5·5 per cent. between 1979 and 1987. There are many success stories in Scotland over the years of our Conservative Government.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, perhaps the Minister will allow me to intervene simply to say that I said that the Bill could be a very good one.
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, I know very well that he said that it could, and we in tend to try to make it so.
There is one point that I should like to make on the economic front because it is important in the Scottish context. The average weekly earnings for men in Scotland, at £233.30 in April 1988, are higher than in any other part of the United Kingdom except the South East. Female earnings are exceeded only in the South East and North West.
Those measures that we are trying to put into practice for the good government of Scotland do not just happen. But at times I feel that the "ah but" mentality—sales prevention officers and all that—can take over and destroy confidence. None of us would wish that to happen in Scotland. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, for saying that there is a return of confidence in some

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sections in Scotland and I am sure that he is quite right.
I know that it has been suggested in this debate that some recent legislation flies in the face of what the Scots want, particularly in relation to local authorities. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, was eloquent in that regard. But our legislation clearly illustrates that we wish to see a wider range of choice, more power to the individual—devolution, if your like, to the individual—Value for money and the best possible delivery of services; and to improve local authorities' accountability to the electorate. Incidentally, in this connection my line has been very consistent. As I remember only too well discussing when we passed the community charge Bill for Scotland in this House, I firmly believe that representation without taxation is a very bad principle.
I go on to say to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, that of course I have not forgotten his view on the unified business rate. Indeed, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has given assurances of a level playing field for Scotland in that regard.
There has also been a suggestion that reform of local government might be contemplated. That point was mentioned by my noble friend Lady Strange. At present the Government have no proposals for any restructuring of Scottish local authorities, though noble Lords will be aware that the Scottish Conservative Party passed a resolution at its conference in May last year in favour of restructuring and the party has now appointed a committee to draw up specific proposals for local government reform. Of course we shall give careful consideration to any proposals for reform that emerge, but it will be important to ensure that they are not only viable but that they offer clear advantages over the existing system.
In a very interesting speech my noble friend Lord Stodart of Leaston said that at the end of the day he remained unconvinced about the suggestions for devolution. I have to say that I agree with him. Last year I referred to the need to safeguard the role of the Secretary of State for Scotland, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, said exactly the same in his speech. That remains the case. Last year I also referred to the anomaly which has come to be known as the West Lothian question. Scottish MPs could continue to influence policy on issues furth of Scotland when there are no equivalent opportunities in Scottish affairs for non-Scottish members. I have to say that that is a recipe for disaster.
I think that most devolution protagonists now consider that an assembly would require to have tax-raising powers. As I said earlier, representation without taxation is a very poor principle. I point to those who live just over the border, such as my noble friend Lord Elliott of Morpeth. It was very interesting to hear his views on this subject when he said that on economic and other planes, in present parlance a level playing field in taxation matters was essential within the United Kingdom. I beg those who seek dramatic change to bear that point in mind.
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I often think that some of those who argue for an increased measure of devolution do not quite appreciate the extent to which, in an administrative sense, devolution already exists. As one of the two Ministers of State at the Scottish Office, I am well placed to appreciate the range of issues which are devolved and the distinct Scottish consideration that is given to them. I shall not go further than that.
1 should like to say something about dispersal because we in the Scottish Office are able to speak about dispersal from very strong ground. The Scottish Office maintains a small presence in London but most of its staff, over 99 per cent., work in Scotland. We are therefore in a very good position to advocate the practicality as well as the desirability of decentralisation of the government administration. That is why I welcome so much the announcement this week of 430 jobs being dispersed to Glasgow from London. Surely these moves offer a better quality of life for civil servants, set an example to the private sector and in addition, and most important of all, help cement the political unity of the United Kingdom. This is particularly important in a unitary state such as our own. The decentralisation of government departments creates a visible presence of senior civil servants and decision-makers, north and south, east and west—and I am sure that my noble friend Lord Elliott of Morpeth will be looking to see whether any of those dispersals will go to Newcastle as well. I believe that that is what national government should be about. It is entirely in line with the aim of government that value for money should be a major consideration, not only in the private sector but also in the public sector.
Politics is a dynamic field and, inevitably, since the debate last year some issues have moved out of focus while others have come to the fore. I refer to the excellent speech of my noble friend Lord Reay who talked about the nationalists and their move for independence within Europe. Let there be no doubt about it: Scotland's interests in the European Community are best served as part of one of the major members of that Community. I do believe, like my noble friend, that one cannot build a united Europe by destroying a United Kingdom. This Government will take no lessons on the European Community and all that it stands for from a party that campaigned vigorously on a "no" ticket at the time of the Referendum. Yes, indeed, there may be choppy water ahead but, having myself a little experience of the Council of Ministers in Brussels, I realise how much utter tripe is talked by some members of the Scottish National Party in that regard.
I turn now to the development which has taken place since this issue was debated last year; namely, the position referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, about the so-called "Claim of Right for Scotland" by the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly. That document has a good title and the phraseology employed is flowery and high-sounding. But we have to ask: what is the reality? The constitutional convention which Opposition parties and others plan to establish is a result of a document produced by a pressure group. It is designed to discuss how to carry forward the conclusion already reached by the

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organisers that there should be significant constitutional change. Those who believe in the merit and robustness of the present constitutional arrangements would do well, as we have in Government, to take due note.
I should perhaps issue a word of warning to those unionists of whatever party who intend to participate in the convention or who support participation. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland pointed out, the "Claim of Right" document states that:
"the United Kingdom has been an anomaly from its inception and is a glaring anomaly now".
I can appreciate why nationalists intend to be associated with the convention; but unionists should be very careful that they are not led down a road which would be inimical to their own beliefs and to Scotland's future. The road of unilateral devolution is a dangerous one; it is twisty and slippery. Those participating in the convention would be well advised to remember that and to remember that the rest of the United Kingdom, as has been portrayed by speeches from my noble friend Lord Elliott of Morpeth and the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, will be watching developments most closely.
In answer to one or two points raised in the debate, I should like to say, first, to the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, when he recalls the Referendum, that he knows probably better than I that the "yes" vote in Orkney for some constitutional change was so very much lower than the "no" vote. That point is worth mentioning.
While dealing with the problems mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, I wonder how he squares wanting the United Kingdom to continue to deal with major economic planning matters with the tax-raising powers that a Scottish Parliament would have. That matter needs to be thoroughly examined.
As I have already said, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, sought assurances on the unified business rate. I hope that I have satisfied him on that point. The noble Lord, Lord Grimond, mentioned the establishment of a Scottish Affairs Committee and I note very carefully what he had to say. However, on 15 occasions members of the Scottish Office in various forms have had to answer to Select Committees of Parliament.
I have heard nothing in this debate that would convince me that an Assembly with tax-raising powers would cause anything other than constant strife between it and the Westminster Parliament. The arrangements for the government of Scotland have evolved over many years. I note very carefully what the noble Earl, Lord Perth, has said. Like my noble friend Lord Home, I shall look very carefully at what he has said about wise men. My noble friend Lord Home is a very wise man. In the past he has attempted to deal with this problem. However, he has said himself what a difficult path it is to tread. Obviously I shall look very closely at the suggestion that the noble Earl made.
The present arrangements enable Scots to play a full part in the government and life of the United Kingdom as well as enjoying a strong measure of decentralisation. I can do no better than restate the
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views expressed by my noble friend Lord Home just before the last debate a year ago. He said:
"With Scotland in unity with England. the United Kingdom in unity with Europe and Europe in unity with the Atlantic Community., there can be no threat to our increasing wealth".
Like the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun. I take the view that economic success is very important to the lifeblood of Scotland. Perhaps I may say in conclusion to the noble Lady that I will try to do better than my best.
The Earl of Perth: My Lords, it falls to me to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate, and in particular the last speaker for his courteous regard to what everybody said. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion standing in my name.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Interpretation of Acts
5.51 p.m.
Lord Irvine of Lairg Lord Irvine of Lairg rose to call attention to the circumstances under which parliamentary debates during the passage of a Bill or statutory instrument might be taken into consideration by the courts in their interpretation of the resulting statute; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I am particularly pleased to see that among the noble and learned Lords who are to take part in this short debate the noble Lord, Lord Goff of Chieveley, is making his maiden speech. If this Motion achieves no more, it will have given the noble and learned Lord an opportunity to make what will inevitably be a notable contribution in this House.
Perhaps I may illustrate the subject of this short debate by referring to two recent decisions of your Lordships' House in its judicial capacity. In both, I appeared as counsel. The first was Hadmor v Hamilton in 1982. It was an industrial relations case. My client succeeded, three-nothing, in the Court of Appeal but lost five-nothing in your Lordships' House.
The second case was Mandla v. Dowell Lee the very next year, 1983. The question was whether a Sikh boy was discriminated against on ethnic grounds when his headmaster ruled that he could not wear his turban at school. I represented the Sikh boy. He lost three-nothing in the Court of Appeal but he succeeded five-nothing in your Lordships' House. Such results are the way of the world in the appellate courts. The point of citing these two cases, however, is as follows. The first case of Hadmor concerned difficult questions of interpretation of the trade union legislation. In the Court of Appeal the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, to support the argument in favour of the interpretation that he had adopted in his judgment, cited a speech of my noble friend Lord Wedderburn of Charlton when your Lordships' House was in Committee on the Bill that became the Employment Act 1980. However, before

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he did so, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, said this:
"In most of the cases in the court, it is undesirable for the Bar to cite Hansard or for the judges to read it. But in cases of extreme difficulty, I have often dared to do my own research. 1 have read Hansard just as if I had been present in the House during a debate on the Bill. And I am not the only one to do so".
When the House of Lords were discussing the Bill by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, on the Interpretation of Legislation on 26th March 1981, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, the Lord Chancellor, made this confession:
"It really is very difficult to understand what [the parliamentary draftsmen] mean sometimes. I always look at Hansard. I always look at the Blue Books, I always look at everything I can in order to see what is meant and as I was a Member of the House of Commons for a long time of course I never let on for an instant that I had read the stuff. I produced it as an argument of my own, as if I had thought of it myself. I only took the trouble because I could not do the work in any other way.
"As a matter of fact, I should like to let your Lordships into a secret. If you were to go upstairs and you were a fly on the wall in one of those judicial committees that we have up there, where distinguished members of the Bar…come to address us, you would be quite surprised how much we read…The idea that we do not read these things is quite rubbish…If you think that they did not discuss what was really meant, you are living in a fool's paradise".—[Official Report,26/3/81; col. 134]
When Hadmor went up on appeal, the rule excluding any resort to Hansard by the courts was vigorously restated by Lord Diplock. He said this:
"The rule that recourse to Hansard is not permitted as an aid to the construction of an Act of Parliament is one which it is the duty of counsel to observe in the conduct of their clients' cases before any English court of justice. Counsel do observe that duty. They did so in the instant case; none of them made any attempt to refer to Hansard, nor were they given any intimation at the hearing of Lord Denning's intention to do so himself and, in view of the recent decision of this House in Davis v. Johnson, they were entitled to assume that he would not do so.
"Under our adversary system of procedure, for a judge to disregard the rule by which counsel are bound has the effect of depriving the parties to the action of the benefit of one of the most fundamental rules of natural justice: the right of each to be informed of any point adverse to him that is going to be relied upon by the judge and to be given an opportunity of stating what his answer to it is".
I understand that statement to reflect the prevailing practice of the court.
I mentioned the Sikh turban case the very next year for this reason. In it there was of course no citation of Hansard, but I refer to it because if—and 1 emphasis "if"—there is a case for the citation of Hansard to the courts, your Lordships may think that the Sikh turban case exemplifies it. The Court of Appeal, presided over by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, found against the Sikh boy. The Sikhs were not a group capable of classification by reference to their ethnic origins. "Ethnic origins" meant a group distinguished by birth as having by common descent characteristics peculiar to race. The Sikhs were essentially no more than a religious group and not protected.
The argument therefore that the Sikhs were a classic example of an ethnic group because of their long shared history and distinctive cultural traditions failed. The decision provoked outrage in some Jewish quarters because it was feared that Jews too might not be protected under the Race Relations Act. The
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argument that failed three-nothing in the Court of Appeal succeeded five-nothing in this House in its judicial capacity. But I say this. The judgments of the Court of Appeal were closely reasoned by a strong court. The other members were Lord Justice Oliver as he then was, and Lord Justice Kerr. It is by no means inconceivable that the Court of Appeal would have been upheld. It would be an impertinence to suggest that the Court of Appeal was incapable of being correct. If we did not have a two-tier system of appeal but stopped with the Court of Appeal, then its decision would have been final unless the statute had been amended.
Yet resort to Hansard would have made it plain beyond all argument to the Court of Appeal that Parliament's intention was the reverse of its interpretation of the statute. In the other place the Opposition spokesman had sought to introduce "religion" for the express purpose of protecting the Sikhs. In the other place the amendment was withdrawn on the unequivocal assurance of the Minister that the Sikhs were protected. The late Mr. Brynmor John stated, in Standing Committee A on 29th April 1976:
"Where any requirements laid down by an employer are notionally equal but, in fact, discriminatory against the Sikhs because of their religion, they would be caught, where it is unjustifiable. by indirect discrimination".
Mr. Fred Willey then withdrew his support for the amendment saying:
"I accept…that the minorities on whose behalf we are expressing disquiet will have all the protection within the present definition that they would probably obtain even from an extended definition."
In your Lordships' House a similar amendment was withdrawn upon identical Government assurances. This House also debated an amendment to delete the term "ethnic origins" from the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination. The Government however explained that the term was essential to ensure protection for a group such as the Sikhs which was not definable by race, colour, nationality or national origin. It was explained that the term "ethnic origin" went away from the idea of physical characteristics which inform the words "colour" and "race" and introduced the idea of groups defined by reference to cultural characteristics, social organisation and the like. On this explanation the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, withdrew his proposed amendment.
I venture to suggest that any ordinary person, considering the judgment of the Court of Appeal in that case, would have been unimpressed by the rule excluding Hansard, once informed of these very precise assurances in Parliament. I would add this. I assume that neither the judges of the Court of Appeal nor in this House in its judicial capacity resorted to Hansard in private. Had the Court of Appeal done so, it would have known that the judgment it was handing down was beyond all argument, contrary to the intention of Parliament. Had your Lordships' House in its judicial capacity informed itself of what this House intended in its legislative capacity, that would have been contrary to the rules of natural justice as declared in the Hadmor decision, for the headmaster of the private school concerned, Mr. Dowell Lee, would have had no opportunity to

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address arguments upon the effect of what was said in Parliament.
Yet I recognise that I have given from my own experience a very special example; an example where Hansard would unequivocally have shown that the mischief that Parliament was seeking to remedy included the protection from discrimination of ethnic groups such as the Sikhs. The question I pose is whether Hansard should be admissible in the courts for such a limited purpose only; not as an aid to any and every point of detailed construction; not where anything or nothing can be culled out of debate in either House; but only where Hansard will unequivocally show the ambit of a provision—the mischief at which it is aimed.
I raise for consideration whether the blanket prohibition laid down in Hadmor may not go too far. Is there not, in the words of Lord Reid in 1968 in his judicial capacity:
"room for an exception where examining the proceedings in Parliament would almost certainly settle the matter immediately one way or the other".
I recognise that in the overwhelming majority of cases resort to Hansard could be of no assistance whatever. Statutes must be interpreted by the judges. I understand that unless there were to be legislation on this subject, it will remain for the courts to determine whether Hansard should be referred to in any circumstances, even in the very limited circumstances that I have canvassed.
Two basic reasons are given for the blanket exclusion: one constitutional, the other based on convenience. The constitutional reason is based on a nice but clear distinction. The courts are seeking not what Parliament meant but the true meaning of what Parliament said; for it is by Parliament's enactments, not its intentions, that we are governed. The rule of law requires the citizen to act in accordance with a reasonable interpretation of what Parliament said. What all or any of the Members of this House or another place thought that Parliament meant is neither here nor there.
Concerning convenience, complex statutes have to he interpreted daily, not just in the Court of Appeal or in this House in its judicial capacity, but in every court in the land from the lowest to the highest. Free citation from Hansard would hugely lengthen proceedings and almost always to no useful purpose. But that is not to say that there may not be limited circumstances of the kind that I have attempted to define where reference to Hansard could be recognised as sensible and legitimate.
6.6 p.m.
Lord Goff of Chieveley: My Lords, lawyers in this country are brought up in the belief which they absorb with their mother's milk that it is not right to stray outside what are mysteriously called the four corners of a statute when they are trying to find out what that statute means. They are taught particularly that it is quite wrong to read parliamentary debates for that purpose.
My noble friend Lord Irvine of Lairg has given two of the reasons which are usually given for that conclusion. In addition it is often said that
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parliamentary debates are an unreliable guide to what the statute means. It is also said. that Hansard is not readily available to lawyers who are advising their clients or to courts of first instance which are scattered all over the country. These are without doubt formidable reasons. But sometimes in the quietness of the night, when my thoughts stray to forbidden things, I ask myself "Can this be right?" My doubts grow when I contemplate the no doubt numerous situations when a Minister, or indeed a private Member, introducing a Bill, makes perfectly plain what he regards as the legislative purpose and those who support him are in agreement with him.
It is strange that a court, even the appellate committee of your Lordships' House, should deliberately blindfold itself and as a result interpret a statute in a manner which is clean contradictory to the way in which Parliament heard the Bill introduced. Let us make no mistake: this happens. In one case, which I shall not identify, an appellate tribunal, which again I shall not identify, felt itself driven to overrule a previous decision because it had read in a textbook quotation from Hansard which made it very plain that the earlier decision had in this sense been wrongly decided; that it had been decided on a basis inconsistent with what had been said in the relevant parliamentary debates.
When I contemplate such a thing I wonder to myself whether some of us feel quite simply in those circumstances that something must he wrong. Certainly for my part I do not think it is very persuasive to have regard to the two reasons that I have given. Let us take unreliability. It is true that to some extent it can be said that it is difficult to find one's way round Hansard. On the other hand lawyers have many virtues, some of them, I regret to say, unrecognised even by their friends. But one undoubted virtue that they do possess is finding difficulties. This is a classic example where lawyers are ready to find difficulties. I respectfully suggest to your Lordships that if a matter is right in principle one should do it and face up to difficulties as and when they arise on a purely pragmatic basis.
As to availability I have no doubt that it is known to your Lordships that practically the whole of the law of England is now hospitably housed in a memory bank in Houston in Texas. At the press of a button anywhere in this country anyone who subscribes to an expensive system called Lexis can find out from that system what he or she wants to know. I cannot help feeling that our friends in Texas who undertake the provision of Lexis will be happy to add to their collection a few miles of Hansard.
In those circumstances perhaps the time has come to think again about the rule. But, if we abandon our rule of not looking in favour of a practice of sensible looking, the question arises: what help will it be? I must confess that on occasions I, like my noble and learned friend Lord Denning, have taken an illegitimate peep at Hansard. Does it help? The answer must be: not very often. Usually one draws a total blank. The Minister has completely forgotten to say anything about Section 24(1)(c) which one is struggling to interpret. Perhaps its very obscurity stifled debate. Only rarely does one find a clue and seldom does one find a crock of gold. However, one

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sometimes finds that a glance at Hansard may provide a useful way of knocking on the head some bright but mistaken idea. From a look at Hansard one can discover that whatever Parliament meant it cannot have meant that.
Above all, I believe that if we decide to look we must do so with circumspection. My noble friend Lord Irvine of Lairg suggested some ways in which the looks might be restricted. I respectfully suggest that we must avoid a state of affairs derided by an American critic based upon their unhappy experience of looking, which has led to the conclusion that only if the legislative history is obscure should one turn to the words of the statute itself. However, I cannot help feeling that if we combine Scottish prudence with English common sense we can escape that quagmire.
6.12 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, it is a real pleasure as well as an honour to congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goff of Chieveley, on his maiden speech. Law Lords do not always feel free to speak in our debates as often as we should like to hear them. However, in congratulating the noble and learned Lord on this occasion, I am sure that all noble Lords will join with me in saying that we hope there will be many chances to hear him in the future.
He has chosen a debate on a controversial issue in which to make a non-controversial maiden speech. He had to come down on one side of the fence or the other, and he happens to have chosen the different side of the fence from myself. I should like to comment on one point that he made in order to challenge it in the light of my fairly lengthy experience. He said that the Minister makes plain the legislative purpose. I wish that that were generally so. I shall say more about the subject in a moment; but I have tried to persuade Ministers to agree that Parliament should make plain the legislative purpose by its being stated in the statute.
A further point that I should like to make which arises from the noble and learned Lord's speech is that it is not merely a question of judges having a look at Hansard. If justice is to be done, the judges should hear what counsel say on behalf of each of the parties in a case, whether it be an appeal in your Lordships' Judicial Committee or anywhere else. For judges to take surreptitious looks at Hansard in their own time—even perhaps reading it in their bath—is not a good way of doing justice, in my humble opinion.
The noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, deserves our thanks for raising the matter. I do not know whether he hoped that in doing so the issue would be resolved once and for all and quite soon. However, it is most important that he should have raised it and we are grateful to him for the way in which he has done so.
I should like to make clear the fact that I am strongly opposed to the use of speeches in debate in either House as an aid for interpretation of statutes by the courts. I am opposed for a number of reasons but my principal reason is that it appears to be a counsel of despair. If statutes made clear the intention of Parliament, were clearly worded and were certain in their legal effect there would be no
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need for reference to preparatory works—White Papers, Law Commission reports or Hansard—in order to discover what the statute meant and what Parliament intended it to mean. Alas, too often that remains a dark secret. We should have more purpose clauses expressing Parliament's intentions. We should strive more and more for greater clarity of meaning and certainty of legal effect.
However, I have other reasons for opposing the suggestion that Hansard should be used in court. The Committee on the Preparation of Legislation, of which I had the honour to be chairman, considered the whole question, not only of reading Hansard but of aids to interpetation of statutes in the widest sense. In doing so it was greatly helped by the report of the Law Commission when chaired by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman. Our committee came to the firm and unanimous conclusion, as did the Law Commission, that Hansard should not be used as an aid for interpretation.
The practical disadvantages of using Hansard in court, to which the noble Lord made only a brief reference, are forbidding. Necessarily the length and expense of legal proceedings would be increased. It would mean that every court must have sets of Hansard readily available. In the Court of Appeal and in the Judicial Committee of your Lordships' House enough sets must be available for three Lords Justice and five Law Lords. That is a huge logistic undertaking. How many years must Hansard go back? Would it be 100 years or more to the early days? To go back even to 1960 would require enormous book shelf space and the cost of obtaining sufficient back copies would be formidable. It is unthinkable that barristers in their chambers should also have to incur the vast expense and find the space,
If it is suggested that the change of rule should apply only in the future, what should we find? We should find not only Ministerial and Opposition Front Bench speeches, but speeches from any part of either House being made in such a way as to focus on persuading the courts of what particular politicians wanted the statute to mean. It would be much better if the statute itself declared what Parliament intended it to mean.
If the justification for referring to Hansard is to discover "the mischief', which I believe the noble Lord, Lord Irvine, mentioned that a noble and learned Lord had attempted to do in an earlier case, and which Sir Edward Coke in Heydon's case said should be discovered as an aid to interpretation, surely the mischief would be made perfectly plain if we used adequate purpose clauses as recommended by our committee in 1975 and by the Law Commission.
Ministers are responsible for the contents of their statutes subject to voting in Parliament. It is not the draftsman who is responsible. However, Ministers have been very timid about using purpose clauses. I do not include my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor in this because he was good enough to introduce a very useful and effective purpose clause in the Legal Aid Act.
In conclusion, perhaps I may say that using Hansard would be contrary to constitutional

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propriety; contrary to the true administration of justice; and would lead to the increased cost of it. I hope that we shall stick to our present rules and invite the judges to apply them very strictly and not to take surreptitious looks at Hansard themselves.
6.22 p.m.
Lord Airedale: My Lords, I am conscious of being less well qualified not only than those who have already spoken but also than most of those who are about to speak in this debate. However, I promise not to detain your Lordships for very long.
The noble Lord, Lord Irvine, quoted from the speech of Lord Reid in the case of Warner v. Metropolitan Police Commissioner. I should like to quote the words which preceded his. This case is in the 1968 All England Law Reports, Vol. 2. Lord Reid said:
"the layman may well wonder why we do not consult the Parliamentary debates for we are much more likely to find the intention of Parliament there than anywhere else. The rule is firmly established that we may not look at Hansard and in general I agree with it".
He cited various objections to which the noble Lord, Lord Renton, referred this evening. Lord Reid went on—and these are the words quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Irvine⅀
"but I am bound to say that this case seems to show that there is room for an exception where examining the proceedings in Parliament would almost certainly settle the matter immediately one way or the other".
I wonder whether Lord Reid was thinking of the use by the parliamentary draftsman of ambiguous words and phrases.
Let us take the word "calculated". Calculated sometimes means "likely" and sometimes, "intended". In Committee the Minister can be driven into saying what he means and whether he means "likely" or "intended". That short excerpt from Hansard would be of the greatest assistance to the court in interpreting the statute. Let us take the ambiguous phrase, "the owner of gold bullion in New Zealand". At first sight it is not clear who or what has to be in New Zealand for the section to apply. Is it the owner, the gold bullion, or both? A mere glance at the Minister's speech introducing the Bill would probably make that abundantly clear.
However, there is another side to the coin and that is the side on which we find the noble Lord, Lord Renton. Perhaps I may give an example which will please him. Let us suppose that an intending litigant believes that some pearl of wisdom is to be found in the parliamentary proceedings on last year's Housing Bill. That Bill was in Standing Committee in the Commons for three months; it occupied 1,600 columns of Hansard but at least they are all gathered together in one place although they occupy two volumes. The Bill then came to your Lordships' House. It was six days in Committee, four days on Report and of course those proceedings are not gathered together in one place. One has to search among the daily parts of Hansard where the proceedings are mixed up with other business. That is no fault of Hansard, of the usual channels or of anybody else. All one can say is that the searcher after his pearl of wisdom in that case was in for a very long search.
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Surely the difficulty is that one has to formulate a rule. The noble Lord, Lord Irvine, said that he had attempted to define the circumstances where Hansard could be consulted. However, I believe that we shall be in great difficulty unless we formulate a very firm rule. I do not believe that anybody yet has managed to formulate the rule. If by the end of this debate we have come somewhere near to formulating the rule to admit Hansard where it is beneficial to do so and exclude reference to Hansard where it would clearly be disadvantageous, our labours will not have been in vain.
In conclusion, perhaps I should mention one matter which I believe has spontaneously presented itself independently to my noble friend Lord Hooson and myself. It is this. The courts must. if they are to do their job properly and efficiently, know precisely what is the mischief at which the legislation is aimed. Why do we not in appropriate cases revive the practice which used to be observed of having a preamble to the Bill in which the mischief aimed at is firmly and clearly laid down? The noble Lord, Lord Renton, prefers the purpose clause. Perhaps it does not matter which we have. Surely that is what is wanted, because then the judge does note have to look at Hansard. He has his purpose clause or preamble right there, as the Americans would say, on page one of the Act.
Finally, in passing, I suppose the preamble most familiar to your Lordships is that to the Parliament Act 1911:
"whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it presently exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis".
6.29 p.m.
Lord Griffiths: My Lords, as the first of the judicial brethren to speak after the maiden speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Goff, perhaps I may extend to him my sincere congratulations on his contribution and tell your Lordships how profoundly relieved I am to find that I am speaking on the same side of the debate.
I have long thought that our courts have placed an unreasonable fetter on themselves by refusing to look at the parliamentary history of an Act. We profess to attempt to give effect to the intention of Parliament when we are construing a statute and yet we refuse to check whether Parliament said what its intention was, what it intended to cover or what a particular word was perhaps intended to mean.
In this attitude we are out of step with all the other great common law countries. Your Lordships will have already heard that in the United States they have resort to the legislative history of enactments. Perhaps they are overenthusiastic about it. They have resort to it in Canada, in New Zealand and in Australia. Since coming to your Lordships' House I have become even more sure that the time has come to change our practice.
I was surprised to discover how much of our judicial work is concerned purely with statutory construction. I find that in the past two years a little over one-third of the appeals we have heard concerned the construction of a statute or

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subordinate legislation. They are invariably difficult and almost always involve two different constructions having been adopted in the courts below. Sometimes the judges below are split one against three and not infrequently two on each side. Therefore, the words are truly ambiguous and we are trying to pick the meaning that Parliament intended them to have. Why should we not look to see whether, say, the Minister in introducing the Bill explained what a section was intended to cover and what it was aimed at? If his explanation is accepted without challenge, surely that is a pointer to the meaning that we should give to the section.
I stress of course that this should be an aid for construction and used only in a case of true ambiguity. If the words can only sensibly be given one meaning, it is that meaning they must bear, no matter what the intention that lay behind them.
One matter puzzles me. I refer to a passage in a speech by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, in a case in this House called Beswick v. Beswick decided in 1968. He said:
"Secondly, counsel are not permitted to refer to Hansard in argument. So long as this rule is maintained by Parliament (it is not the creation of the judges), it must be wrong for the judge to make any judicial use of proceedings in Parliament for the purposes of interpreting statutes".
Well, if newspapers are entitled to look at Hansard and to quote it, why should not the judges he entitled to do so?
I have not been able to find this parliamentary rule stated elsewhere. Frankly, I do not understand it and I should welcome any enlightenment that your Lordships can throw upon this matter. I should have thought that it is up to the judges, in the form of the Law Lords, to reconsider their past practice and to decide whether they should depart from it. Therefore, I welcome this debate and I will profit greatly from listening to the views expressed by your Lordships, particularly those of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, who expressed a contrary opinion to my own. However, I wonder whether it is right that there is any parliamentary rule which fetters our decisions.
I do not believe that the task of researching Hansard is nearly as formidable as has been supposed. That is the principal reason given for denying access to Hansard. I have had the matter tested. I do so in this way. I go to those delightful ladies who assist us in the Library. At half-past 10 I say to them, "We want to look very carefully at the meaning of (say) Section 25" in such-and-such an Act. "Could you give me from our own debates and the debates in the other place anything that may have been said about that section?" At lunchtime the books are out and have been flagged. By the time we go back at two o'clock I know whether or not there is anything that is of assistance.
Of course at the moment I am not allowed to use it at all and naturally I put it out of my mind, but usually there is nothing that is of assistance for the simple reason that at the time nobody thought that the words were ambiguous and the ambiguity has only later emerged. Nobody put their mind to it at all at the time. However, sometimes there is gold at the
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bottom of the mine and your Lordships have already been given a number of examples. I am bound to say that it is folly to deny ourselves access to such material.
It is not right that we would need volumes of Hansard in multiples available for all appellate judges, trial judges and so on. We carry out litigation in this country by relying on the Bar. The Bar does a formidable amount of research for us. If we could not rely on the Bar we could not carry on. All judges need research assistance, as they do in most other countries. It is not a formidable task for the Bar to research a section in Hansard if it is minded to do so. One can rely on the Bar to bring something to the attention of the court only if it really assists. If it does not, the Bar will not bother with it. Such assistance would be a fraction of the research that the Bar normally carries out. As I said, it will be only rarely that it will throw real light, but to deny such material to ourselves as a tool seems to me to be quite wrong.
6.37 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Lymington: My Lords, it is a real and personal delight to be present in the House this evening on the occasion of the maiden speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Goff of Chievely, The excellence of that speech will take no judge by surprise and, indeed, will take no member of the Bar by surprise. I join in the congratulations which have already been tendered to him.
There are two primary objections to referring to Hansard in the context of litigation. They have already been mentioned. First is the constitutional objection to which I attach enormous importance. If we go down the line indicated by my noble and learned friend Lord Griffiths there is a real risk that we shall be asked to give effect not to the will of Parliament but to the will of the Executive. I would regard that as wholly disastrous.
There is a further objection. The ordinary citizen who is called upon to govern his day-to-day life in accordance with the statutes of this country should be able to ascertain what those statutes mean. Whatever may be the possibilities of putting it on Lexis in Houston, I find difficulty with the idea of the ordinary citizen consulting Hansard by Lexis.
The second is a practical objection. I fully appreciate that when your Lordships' House is sitting in its judicial capacity it has a great deal more time at its disposal than those of us who work down the Strand. The prospect of our having sufficient staff in the Strand to invite someone to consult Lexis on behalf of eight divisions of the Court of Appeal, sitting simultaneously and dealing with a vast variety of problems, many of them involving statutory construction, I find quite appalling. Furthermore, we are engaged there in a continuous operation, which will reach something of a crescendo in the next two or three months, of trying to cut down the cost to the parties of proceedings in court and to reduce delays on hearings. Any licence to research Hansard I fear would increase the costs vastly, whether it took the form of costs incurred on behalf of the judiciary or costs incurred on behalf of the Bar or solicitors. I am sure that it would increase both the costs and the

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delays. The rule has stood for a century and hitherto I have never heard it seriously challenged.
The noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, does not challenge it as a general rule. He says "Let us make a small exception. Let, Hansard be admissible as an aid to construction when, but only when, it will be decisive". How shall we as the judges, in deciding what is admissible and what is not, know that a particular reference to Hansard is permissible whereas another is not without first looking at the whole of Hansard dealing with the topic? It really is unworkable. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, will think that I am being singularly reactionary and obstructive. For one moment pehaps I may be constructive.
There are undoubtedly occasions when judges do need to know what was the mischief at which the Act was directed. To put it into more homely language, they need to know what was the legislative object of the exercise. It arises in two cases; one is where the wording is obscure. Of course it should not be obscure but even the best of parliamentary draftsmen are sometimes overworked and may make a slip, and obscurities of wording occasionally arise. The second situation in which obscurity arises is where the Act comes to be applied in circumstances which may not have been contemplated by Parliament. Then we need to know.
How are we to know? There is a precedent that is provided for in Section 3(3) of the civil Jurisdiction andJudgments Act 1982 which is giving effect to an international convention, and to that extent it may be slightly different. It provides that,
"Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1), the following reports (which are reproduced in the Official Journal of the Communities), namely—

(a) the reports by Mr. P. Jenard on the 1968 Convention and the 1971 Protocol;

(b) the report by Professor Peter Schlosser on the Accession Convention,

may be considered in ascertaining the meaning or effect of any provision of the Conventions and shall be given such weight as is appropriate in the circumstances.".
So in relation to that Act Parliament has said to us, the judges, "You may look at those reports as an aid to construction."
That has put the thought into my mind why cannot we have reports upon all Acts of Parliament? I emphasise that they should not be provided by the Executive but by an officer of Parliament who will be independent of the Executive, such as Speaker's Counsel. There may be other people who would be equally suitable. Once the Act has been passed I should like to see such an officer prepare a report on the Act. He will have known all that has gone on and he will know what there were in the way of travaux préparatoires. He will know what has taken place in the debate and the report will contain all such material and information as in his view could assist the courts hereafter in interpreting the Act of Parliament.
I appreciate that if one stops there it will be open to this officer in effect to amend the will of Parliament. But that can be dealt with very easily. If the report is published as a statutory instrument it is capable of being annulled by the vote of either House
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of Parliament but it can never be amended. In that way we shall not have the Executive coming forward and amending the report on the Act. By all means let the House use its majority to annul it if it considers it appropriate to do so but, if it does not, then the report will stand as the authoritative and possibly the only source to which the court should refer in trying to ascertain the will not of Ministers or shadow Ministers but of Parliament itself.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Templeman: My Lords, the task of the courts in construing Acts of Parliament was explained by Lord Reid in 1967. He said in the case of Beswick v. Beswick:
"In construing any Act of Parliament we are seeking the intention of Parliament, and it is quite true that we must deduce that intention from the words of the Act. If the words of the Act are only capable of one meaning we must give them that meaning no matter how they got there. If, however, they are capable of having more than one meaning, we are, in my view, well entitled to see how they got there. For purely practical reasons we do not permit debates in either House to be cited".
Your Lordships will observe that Lord Reid did not attempt to frighten the life out of a poor little Lord of Appeal in Ordinary by telling him that there was some great constitutional objection or anything involving the Executive. He said that there were "purely practical reasons".
I will consider presently what those purely practical reasons amount to. Lord Reid certainly recognised that it is permissible to transfer and to travel outside the four corners of the Act if the language of the Act is ambiguous. In a later case in 1975 the Appellate Committee, which included Lord Reid, considered the report of a committee appointed by the Lord Chancellor. That committee had produced proposals for an Act and a draft Bill. All five members of the Appellate Committee read the whole of the report. They all looked at it to find out what the mischief was and then they all said "But we will ignore it in construing the Act".
My mind is not sufficiently elastic to read a report, to consider it for one purpose and then to ignore it for another. I do not follow the logic of reading the report in order to determine the mischief sought to be remedied but ignoring it for the purpose of construing the Act. if a report of the committee appointed by the Lord Chancellor can be considered, I wonder why Hansard may not be consulted. Once it is admitted that it is sensible and proper for a court to travel outside the words of an Act in cases of ambiguity, the only question must be how far and in what circumstances that course may be adopted.
Everyone uses the expression "the intention of Parliament" and I use it. In the old days when it was impossible to tell whether Pitt was coming in or Fox was coming out, when Palmerston could change the mind of the House of Commons in three-and-a-half hours or Gladstone could overwhelm the House of Commons with lofty platitudes in a speech lasting five-and-a-half hours, from time to time it was indeed difficult to discern the intention of Parliament. But Parliament is not a separate person; it is not an animal that has its own existence. It cannot have an intention that is separate from its Members. In these

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days, though all speeches in Parliament are equal, some are more equal than others.
The intention of Parliament enshrined in an Act of Parliament these days is the intention of the Minister who introduced the Bill and of the Minister who accepts or puts forward amendments in the course of the passage of the Bill to the statute book. The Minister is not a dictator. In the first place he must obtain the approval of the Cabinet. In the second he must obtain the approval of both Houses of Parliament. That is why we have the lengthy procedure of Second Reading, Committee and the Report stages and Third Reading. Any Bill that becomes an Act reflects the intention of the Minister responsible for the Bill. It seems sensible that in the case of an ambiguity of language the intention of Parliament may be sought in an authoritative explanation by the Minister himself. For my part, I do not see any constitutional objection to going back to the parent in order to find out the meaning of the lusty child.
The purely practical reasons to which Lord Reid alluded in justifying the practice of not consulting Hansard are two in number. First, it is said that research into Hansard can take a long time. It may increase the burden on lawyers and even increase the length of lawyers' arguments. No one would be anxious to produce these effects. Secondly, it is said that research into Hansard may not assist the court in construing the statute, either because Parliament never envisaged the problem which perplexes the court or because the speeches of the Minister and other speeches are vague and contradictory or silent on the point at issue.
In many cases these reasons are valid and compelling, but there are other cases. There are cases in which Hansard will immediately clear up an ambiguity of statutory language. So far as delay and costs are concerned I found that Hansard is well-indexed and sometimes, though rarely, furnishes a speedy and blinding illumination of the problem that perplexes the court. If the result of litigation depends on the construction of an Act of Parliament, which in turn depends on the intention of Parliament, then the time and trouble taken to consider Hansard set against the other costs of litigation are negligible.
This proved to be the case in the recent decision of this House in Pickstone v. Freemans, reported in 1988 and decided on 30th June. In that case there were two possible constructions of a regulation approved by both Houses of Parliament. On one construction a woman was debarred from claiming equal pay for work of equal value; on another construction she was not. The narrow construction fitted the language of the Act, which was so expressed that in the courts below they felt compelled to give effect to it, but it produced a rather disturbing result.
The other construction involved reading an implication into the words of the Act but produced a more rational result. A short examination of Hansard, when the Appellate Committee were plainly perplexed, revealed that the construction that produced a more rational result corresponded to the intention of the Minister in introducing the
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regulation, and that intention was clearly set out in his speech.
I plead guilty, without blushing, to the charge of having consulted Hansard and having reported the results to my colleagues. My noble and learned friend Lord Keith of Kinkel said in his speech in that case:
"The draft regulations were not subject to the parliamentary process of consideration and amendment in committee, as the Bill would have been. In these circumstances and in the context of section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972, I consider it to be entirely legitimate for the purpose of ascertaining the intention of Parliament to take into account the terms in which the draft was presented by the responsible Minister and which formed the basis of its acceptance".
I would suggest that any rule that manacles the courts in endeavouring to ascertain and enforce the intention of Parliament ought to be tempered by a little common sense on the part of counsel and judges. In most cases it will be apparent to counsel that Hansard would be of no assistance because, for example, a novel problem has arisen. In other cases counsel may look, or ask his newest pupil or his solicitors to look, at Hansard, which, as I have said, is well indexed. There is no question of everybody having to have reams and reams of Hansards. Each of the four Innes and the Law Society will have Hansard. There is a Hansard here, and that, I should have thought, would be perfectly sufficient. If anybody is in the provinces, there is always the telephone in chambers, and people can be reached. In practice these things are not decided in one day. Lawyers take time to prepare their cases.
In many cases Hansard will he unhelpful either because it does not deal with the point or because the speeches themselves are not helpful. Counsel will know that it is no good referring the court to a statement in Hansard unless that statement is clear and authoritative. If counsel considers that in an exceptional case Hansard is relevant and important, the judge can be furnished in advance with photocopies of the only extracts that counsel on both sides wish to pray in aid.
A judge who reads this material is entitled to declare at once that he derives no assistance from the passages in Hansard and to decline to hear any oral argument based on Hansard. But he is also entitled, in my view, to invite counsel to consider whether a particular statement in Parliament that has been drawn to his attention supports or reinforces the resolution of a real or alleged ambiguity in the words of the Act under consideration. If, as in Pickstone's case, Hansard supplies the answer. I would not for my part spurn the answer because of its source.
I have time to make only three further points. First, there is a suggestion in one of the authorities that it is improper for a judge to consult Hansard. As a Member of this House, I am reluctant to be manacled or handcuffed. Unless and until the Library of this House terminates its subscription to Hansard I warn that there will be exceptional occasions on which I shall be seen to slink into the Library with my coat collar turned up in order to seek enlightenment from the true and fascinating record of the source of all legislation.
Secondly, it has been suggested that although it may be good enough for the House of Lords to read Hansard, judges in the lower courts cannot be

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allowed to do so. Judges in the lower courts deal splendidly with many difficult problems of statutory construction. It is only a minute proportion that reaches this House. In an exceptional case I for my part think that judges of the lower courts, as judges in this House, need all the help they can get, and if Hansard assists, they should be allowed to be helped.
Thirdly, I shall at some future date respectfully and almost inaudibly whisper in the ear of my noble and learned friend the Master of the Rolls—whom we all admire for his administration of the Court of Appeal, and we are all glad to see him come to this House to assist us in our debates—that if in any very exceptional case one of his 22 Lords Justices opens the appropriate volume of Hansard, it is possible—I put it no higher than this—that the small proportion of cases in which the decisions of the Court of Appeal do not find favour on appeal to this House will be even further reduced.
6.57 p.m.
Lord Lloyd of Hampstead: My Lords, this is not a subject that is calculated to arouse great passion, but nevertheless it is one, as we have witnessed this evening, that is capable of producing acute differences of opinion among some of the most acute of our legal intellects. I am sure that your Lordships have been greatly stimulated by the differing views that have been expressed on what might seem on the face of it to be a fairly straightforward matter.
This has been a subject of controversy for a long time. The actual rule itself appears to go back at least to a case decided in 1769, in days when of course Parliament was a very different sort of organisation from what it is today. But the rule, as I understand it, has two aspects. If I were to quarrel to any degree with the formulation of this particular Motion, it would be that in some respects it emphasises the less important aspect.
The two aspects of this rule are first the one that has been fully discussed this evening; namely, the question of whether judges can refer to Hansard in interpreting statutes. The other is whether they can refer to reports such as Royal Commission reports, or reports of the Law Reform Committee or the Law Commissions in interpreting statutes. On the face of it, it may seem strange that there should be any doubt about that second aspect, because what could be a more obvious source of information in deciding the meaning of a statute than a report that is deliberately aimed at explaining the need for the statute, and indeed probably producing a draft?
The fact remains that even at the present day there are recognised to be considerable limitations on referring to such reports. Various stratagems, if I may use the word, are deployed, such as saying that reference should be made to the mischief or possibly to the surrounding circumstances in which the statute was passed. One might have thought that the time had come for change, particularly having regard to the fact that both the English and Scottish Law Commissions, in an. excellent joint report in 1969, recommended that such reports should be freely available for reference in interpreting a relevant statute. So I would venture to suggest that that aspect
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of the rules certainly ought to be excluded at the present day.
The question of reference to Hansard is of course more controversial, as we have seen; but there seems to be no reason in principle why a court should not have at its disposal any relevant material which will assist it in reaching a conclusion as to the proper meaning of words before it. I would respectfully agree with those who say that the real objection, if there is one, is a practical or logistical one. Is it going to put the court in a difficult situation if it has to refer to Hansard and do a lot of research to discover whether there is an appropriate passage? That is one aspect.
The other aspect is the logistical problem of how, if one is going to alter the law by statute, one could draft the amendment so as to concentrate on those cases where some definite clarification is to be obtained, as against those which would simply clutter up the court, with a lot of unnecessary work and time being involved. My noble and learned friend Lord Simon of Glaisdale, in a debate which we had some time ago relating to this matter, quoted in his characteristically pungent style what Aneurin Bevan had said:
"Why gaze in the crystal ball when you can read the book?".
Indeed, the logic of that appears unanswerable. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, suggested that where a Minister gives a specific answer in relation to the meaning of a word or a provision in a statute the answer should be incorporated in the statute. I confess that I am not altogether clear as to what the noble and learned Lord intended when he made that suggestion—whether he intended that some kind of note should be added or whether perhaps the wording should be reconsidered and rephrased to take into account his observations as to what the specific meaning should be. Clearly there is a mechanical problem, which may not be insuperable, as to how such a suggestion might be embodied in a statute.
However, the fact of the matter is that these difficulties are almost certainly not insuperable and it should be possible to give our thoughts freedom to refer even to Hansard, although one would imagine they would do this only very rarely. One has to take into account the fact that at the present time we are very much more in contact with civil law systems, having regard to our membership of the Common Market, and English lawyers are becoming increasingly aware that continental courts adopt a much freer attitude towards interpretation.
That applies also to the use of what is called legislative material in order to elucidate the meaning of statutes. Even so, continental courts are not at all happy to refer to parliamentary debates. My understanding is that they do this very infrequently, and on the whole when they talk of using legislative material what they really mean is having regard to reports such as those prepared by parliaments or extra parliamentary bodies in connection with the production of draft legislation. Indeed I have heard it said, for instance in relation to Sweden, that very few judges will take the trouble to look at parliamentary proceedings. Nevertheless there are these exceptional

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cases and it seems strange at the present day to adopt the phrase which I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Griffiths, used, that the judges should, so to speak, manacle themselves and deprive themselves of what might in very exceptional cases be a useful pointer to the appropriate meaning of a statute.
Perhaps one important point that is overlooked when constitutional arguments are relied upon in this context is that we are not talking about provisions which would compel a court to adopt a meaning which is attributed to a Minister in a particular part of Hansard. What we are concerned about is having a pointer or guide for the court which the court can either accept or dismiss in accordance with its own good judgment. Once one accepts that, it seems that the only difficulty with which one is faced—and it appears to be the only one about which Lord Reid, that very eminent and learned judge, was troubled—is the practical problem. And even he accepted that in exceptional cases that practical problem should be overlooked.
So to sum up the argument, I would venture to submit that the time has now come squarely to face this question. We have been arguing about it for a very long time without any clear result and one would hope that the time has now come when the law should be clearly recognised. The judges are quite entitled, if they think it appropriate, to look at Hansard, possibly with the aid of Lexis, which our higher courts will have at their disposal. Of course county courts and magistrates' courts around the country do not have all the facilities possessed by the higher courts. One does not expect that and they will do the best they can without them. But when it comes to cases which are sufficiently important to come before our higher courts, I would submit that it is appropriate that the courts should be given this facility. Of course it may be a question of whether they should be given it by legislation. One could possibly hope that the House of Lords, in its judicial wisdom, might come to the conclusion that this is an appropriate moment for it to introduce a new rule.
7.9 p.m.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, I venture to rise, as a humble practitioner, to try to inject an element of practicality and reality into this rarefied atmosphere. I venture to think that some of your learned Lordships have forgotten what it is like to be in real practice. Of course I accept that there are rare cases in the highest courts where reference to Hansard will assist in getting the right result.
Of course I accept that if you have the facilities of the House of Lords Library, it is not unduly difficult to find the references to the relevant passage, if there are any, in Hansard. Though I was not entirely clear quite why the noble and learned Lord, Lord Griffiths, puts the lady to the trouble of finding such things if he is then going to put them wholly out of his mind.
I accept that in the context of a case in your Lordships' House the amount of extra work, and therefore the amount of extra cost, involved in counsel also looking at Hansard is minimal. However, I venture to remind your Lordships that
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the great majority of cases are not heard in this House, nor indeed even in the Court of Appeal, but in magistrates' courts, in county courts, in criminal courts and in other courts spread around the land.
If in every case where there is any question of the construction of a statute it is permissible to refer to Hansard, the cost of preparing those cases will greatly increase. Moreover, I very much venture to doubt that the benefit incurred in a rare case justifies the expenditure, time and effort involved in that research.
Naturally I accept that in the great majority of those cases Hansard will not in fact be of much use. However, that does not mean that the practitioner who will argue the point will not, if he is doing his job properly, still have to look. Indeed, very often one has to look for authorities and cannot find them. But if we are going to do our job properly, we must all look at Hansard to see whether there is any help available. Then, inevitably, the cost of preparing the cases will greatly increase.
Perfection of justice at enormous expense is by no means necessarily desirable. It may be better to have somewhat less than perfect justice occasionally and keep—or seek to keep—costs down, rather than to allow the perfect to drive out the good.
It is no answer to this point for the noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, to suggest that one can only refer to Hansard if it unequivocally helps. Before one can know whether it unequivocally helps, one must look to find out. Therefore it does not exclude the research. Further, when one finds whether it helps at all, one will still cite it—even though, perhaps, pretending that it is unequivocal—if it is going to be of any assistance. Justice was only meant to look at the negotiations leading up to a contract if they plainly resolve the ambiguity. But, inevitably, if one thinks they help at all, one tries to get them in saying that they will do that. Therefore, in no way can one reduce the amount of research one will have to do by some test such as that suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg.
Nor can one have, I do not think, a rule by which one can only refer to Hansard in the higher tribunals. In a way it is an attractive thought, but if one had that rule it would mean that a statute meant one thing in the court of first instance and another thing in the higher court. Surely that cannot be right.
Therefore, however great the logic is, if one is trying to find the intention of Parliament, one should not deny oneself any course. Moreover, however practical it is to do so in your Lordships' House, I venture to say that one should have real regard to the burden that it would put not just upon the Bar, but also upon solicitors and practitioners in the country—as well as those in London—if one was constantly rushing off to look at Hansard to see whether there was any help, even if one was going to he most frequently disappointed.
So I venture to suggest to your Lordships that really the rule as it stands at present is the way that it should be. If perhaps in cases heard in this House a little tacit cheating goes on, well then that may be a good compromise.
7.15 p.m.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, my essential purpose in attending this debate was to try and absorb the words of wisdom of the distinguished and learned speakers who have spoken and those who are about to speak. It was also to savour, once again, the Swiss-watch precision of my old colleague and friend the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goff, to whose judgments I so enjoyed listening in the Court of Appeal in those far off relaxed days when we were allowed to read our judgments rather than to hand them down. I warmly congratulate him on his maiden speech and greatly look forward to many such future occasions.
I fear that I must confess that I am nothing like as venturesome as some of my noble and learned friends. I, no doubt through my own inadequacies, find the risk of being confused by the rhetoric of counsel quite sufficient without going off secretly to some library to see whether I can add to that confusion by reading what has happened in one or other of the Houses of Parliament.
I am happy to see that I am in good company in that approach, not only because of those who have already spoken but also because I refer to three of the most outstanding of the Law Lords in this century whose views are conveniently to be found in a relatively recent case in 1975, not 1966; namely, Black-Clawson International Ltd. As your Lordships might have expected, when referring to those three outstanding Law Lords, I refer to Lord Reid, Lord Wilberforce and Lord Diplock. Perhaps I may quickly refer to what they said in that cited case which concerned the statutory interpretation of Section 8 of the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933. Lord Reid said:
"We often say that we are looking for the intention of Parliament, but that is not quite accurate. We are seeking the meaning of the words which Parliament used. We are seeking not what Parliament meant but the true meaning of what they said. In the comparatively few cases where the words of a statutory provision are only capable of having one meaning, that is an end of the matter and no further inquiry is permissible…One must first read the words in the context of the Act read as a whole, but one is entitled to go beyond that. The general rule in construing any document is that one should put oneself 'in the shoes' of the maker or makers and take into account the relevant facts known to them when the document was made. The same must apply to Acts of Parliament".
He then adds this qualification:
"Construction of the provisions of an Act is for the court and for no one else. This may seem technical but it is good sense. Occasionally we can find clear evidence for what was intended; more often any such evidence, if there is any, is vague and uncertain. If we are to take into account evidence of Parliament's intention the first thing we must do is to reverse our present practice with regard to consulting Hansard. I have more than once drawn attention to the practical difficulties that would involve, but the difficulty goes deeper. The questions which give rise to debate are rarely those which later have to be decided by the courts. One might take the views of the promoters of the Bill as an indication of the intention of Parliament but any view the promoters may have had about questions which later come before the court will often not appear in Hansard and often those questions have never occurred to the promoters. At best we might get material from which a more or less dubious inference might be drawn as to what the promoters intended or would have intended if they had thought about the matter, and it would, I think, generally be dangerous to attach weight to what some other members of either House may have said. The difficulties in assessing any references there might have been in Parliament to the question before the court are such that, in my view, our best course is to adhere to present practice".
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The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, dealt with the constitutional aspect which has already been referred to. He said:
"In my opinion it is not proper or desirable to make use of…anything reported as said in Parliament, or any official notes or clauses…The second reason is one of constitutional principle. Legislation in England is passed by Parliament, and put in the form of written words. This legislation is given legal effect upon subjects by virtue of judicial decision, and it is the function of the courts to say what the application of the words used to particular cases or individuals is to be. This power which has been devolved upon the judges from the earliest times is an essential part of the constitutional process by which subjects are brought under the rule of law—as distinct from the rule of the King or the rule of Parliament; and it would be a degradation of that process if the courts were to be merely a reflecting mirror of what some other interpretation agency might say. The saying that it is the function of the courts to ascertain the will or intention of Parliament is often enough repeated, so often indeed as to have become an incantation. If too often or unreflectingly stated, it leads to neglect of the important element of judicial construction; an element not confined to a mechanical analysis of today's words, but, if this task if to be properly done, related to such matters as intelligibility to the citizen, constitutional propriety, considerations of history, comity of nations, reasonable and non-retroactive effect and, no doubt, in some contexts, to social needs. It is sound enough to ascertain, if that can be done, the objectives of any particular measure, and the background of the enactment; but to take the opinion, whether of a Minister or an official or a committee, as to the intended meaning in particular applications of a clause or a phrase, would he a stunting of the law and not a healthy development".
Lord Diplock also dealt with the constitutional aspect of the matter and I shall read a short passage from him. He said:
"The acceptance of the rule of law as a constitutional principle requires that the citizen, before committing himself to any course of action, should be able to know in advance what are the legal consequences that will flow from it. Where those consequences are regulated by a statute the source of that knowledge is what the statute says. In construing it the court must give effect to what the words of the statute would be reasonably understood to mean by those whose conduct it regulates. That any or all of the individual members of the two Houses of the Parliament that passed it may have thought the words bore a different meaning cannot affect the matter. Parliament, under our constitution, is Sovereign only in respect of what it expresses by the words used in the legislation that it has passed".
Finally, from the same report perhaps I may make a brief reference to the speech of Lord Dilhorne whose knowledge of parliamentary procedure was perhaps unrivalled in the judicial sphere. He said:
"In the course of the passage of a Bill through both Houses there may be many statements by Ministers, and what is said by a Minister in introducing a Bill in one House is no sure guide as to the intention of the enactment, for changes of intention may occur during its passage".
I shall make only the following short points: first, there is the suggestion of limited application. It has been suggested that the use should be limited to a case of clear equivocality. The ingenuity of counsel will stretch the word "equivocality" as far as it can be stretched. We all know that it can go a long way. Secondly, if the proposal is permitted, it will encourage sloppiness in drafting, because draftsmen can say, "We need not worry too much about this. The Minister has made the point clear in Hansard. They will find it eventually even though the case is in the county court or the magistrates' court".
Finally, I adopt what the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, said. So much of our legislation now (the Housing Acts, the Rent Acts, the matrimonial Acts and new Acts in that field) has its beginnings in the county court. How on earth will the county court judge cope with one counsel referring to one small portion of Hansard? The present rule is sound in

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practice, is sound constitutionally and should be adhered to.
7.26 p.m.
Lord Hooson: My Lords, I am bound to admit that when I first read this Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, I thought that he had put it down with his tongue in his cheek. At that time I thought that he could hardly have expected to have the support of no fewer than three noble and learned Law Lords in the debate.
Having listened to the fascinating debate, I have reached what many of your Lordships might describe as a typical Liberal conclusion. I agree with one side of the argument in theory and the other side in practice. Perhaps I may take the point of the theory. It is absolute nonsense to believe that our courts would interpret a section of an Act of Parliament directly contrary to the intention of Parliament itself. There should be some means whereby the general intention of Parliament can be ascertained simply.
My learned friend and I, as he adverted to in his speech, when discussing the matter, thought that there was a good deal to be said for the revival of the old preamble, or some other such provision, which should be carefully drafted by Parliament so that the courts could readily see the general intention and purpose of Parliament spelt out. I would go along with that proposal.
We want to look at the procedure of Parliament itself in the light of the setting up of the Law Commission and the way that it now drafts Bills dealing with lawyers' law. There is a good deal to be said for allowing an interrogatory system with a joint committee of both Houses, calling civil servants and others before it. The framing of our legislation could be usefully revised, but that is a matter for a different debate.
Let me turn to the other side. I entirely agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, who spoke from his experience at the Bar, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson. The practicalities have been grossly underestimated by those who have advocated the reference to parliamentary debates. One cannot confine the matter to the House of Lords. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Griffiths, spoke of his experience of asking a charming young lady in the Library to look up various references for him.
Of course that can be done in your Lordships' House, but in practice once one allows reference to parliamentary debates in the interpretation of statutes, solicitors and young barristers, who by and large are people of infinite resource, will go before the magistrates' court and the employment tribunals and drag with them Hansard, and selected pieces of Hansard, a reference in an obscure committee or on Second Reading, when the section has been changed during debate. All those matters will be investigated by courts at every level. With the greatest respect to the noble and learned Lords who supported the idea, I do not think that they have considered the practical implications of what they advocate. It seems to me that the very process is difficult.
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Perhaps I may dwell for a little on my experience in another place. If one has the interpretation, say, of a Section 24, one goes to the Second Reading in another place. One then finds that it was Clause 19 and the Minister explains what the intention of Clause 19 was. It is amended in a committee in another place, but by that time it is Clause 21 and it has changed somewhat. The interpretation and the intention are changed and even the Government who are presenting the Bill have changed. It comes to your Lordships' House and there a more substantial amendment is moved. By the time the clause goes back, it is Clause 24. A substantial amendment was moved here. Where do we find the intention? Was it the intention as expressed originally by the Minister? Was it the intention as expressed in Committee in the Commons? Was it the intention expressed by the mover of the amendment that was carried in your Lordships' House? Which was the intention of Parliament? I think we should be embarking on a very dangerous course.
I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Irvine: one comes across situations where there is an interpretation of a section of an Act of Parliament which causes people to cringe and is undoubtedly directly contrary to the intention of Parliament. I have experience of appearing for local authorities, for example, which were concerned with the Welsh language. They were found guilty of racial discrimination under the Race Relations Act when that Act was certainly never intended to deal with such a matter as the use or non-use of the Welsh language as a qualification for jobs. So we all suffer from time to time from the kind of unusual interpretation that is given.
I think we need a very much wider debate on the idea that we ought perhaps to change the way in which we legislate in certain respects, particularly in the light of what has happened now we have the Law Commission so very well established. There ought to be a means for Parliament itself to consider what its purpose was, both at the commencement of the parliamentary journey of the Bill and at its conclusion. Something like a preamble or a clause of this kind should be considered very carefully by Parliament.
In the meantime I can only reflect in the comfort that neither this House nor the other place can control what the noble and learned Lords read at bedtime, in their baths or even in the Library. There is no doubt that they might be tempted from time to time to have light reading when they are considering the interpretation of an important section of an Act and to look at the debates in Parliament to see whether they derive inspiration. However, I think we should leave it at that.
7.33 p.m.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate. In the first instance I should like to compliment my noble friend Lord Irvine of Lairg on his initiative and ingenuity in introducing this matter before us. He produced what for me at any rate has been something of a judicial headache after listening to the controversial views which have been expressed.

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The weight of opinion that has been expressed here, if one counts heads, has been in support of the change. I have little doubt that the parliamentarians who are here who have not the elevated status of Lords of Appeal will feel somewhat flattered at the thought that, if what is proposed is carried out, parliamentary debates will hereafter have a new and very special significance.
Lord Renton: My Lords, will the noble and learned Lord allow me to intervene? There have been 10 speeches, five in favour of the change and 10 against—I am sorry five in favour and five against.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Renton, for that clarification, if I may so describe it. I was applying my mind to my own prejudice, to some extent, in counting the heads of Lords of Appeal who have, numerically at any rate, taken one view of the matter. As I way saying, though attractive to a mere parliamentarian, I suppose in this concept that parliamentary debates will not only have significance in achieving what is in the Bill and ultimately the Act, but that what is said in the House may he referable thereafter in the highest tribunal in the realm.
I was not absolutely clear in the course of the argument whether this facility will be available to the lower courts—if that is the right way of describing them. The noble Baroness sitting behind me was asking me whether that was to apply to magistrates' courts as well. It could very well arise in the county courts if what is proposed is carried out. We are therefore contemplating a very considerable addition to the burdens placed upon the courts. However, that is not an answer in itself for not taking that road if justice would seem to require it.
It is as well to face up to this matter of history and practice. It has been generally accepted for well over a century now that parliamentary debates are not admissible as an aid to interpreting the statutes. I am bound to say that I myself, in listening to the debate, found quite overwhelming the citations made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, from the speeches of Lord Reid, Lords Wilberforce and Diplock, a powerful trinity indeed.
However the rule was expressed that parliamentary debates are not admissible as an aid to interpreting statutes. It was expressed by Lord Reid in Beswick v. Beswick in these terms:
"For purely practical reasons we do not permit debates in either House to be cited. It would add greatly to the time and expense involved in preparing cases involving the construction of a statute if counsel were expected to read all the debates in Hansard, and it would often be impracticable for counsel to get access to at least the older reports of debates in Select Committees of the House of Commons; moreover, in a very large proportion of cases such a search, even if practicable, would throw no light on the question before the court".
This is one of the matters that has been troubling me—namely, the hope that the nugget of gold, or whatever the term of art is, would somehow be found and would change the whole complexion and approach of a case.
The citation of Lord Reid in Beswick v. Beswick was approved unanimously by your Lordships' House in Davis v. Johnson and in Hadmore
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Productions Ltd. v. Hamilton and, as I have cited, in Beswick v. Beswick itself. It would have been fascinating to have heard the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning who, alas, is not with us tonight, adumbrating on this theme. In all those three cases the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, as Master of the Rolls, had referred to extracts from Hansard to justify a particular interpretation of the statutes in question. His approach was declared illegitimate in all three of those cases. That position was supported by the Law Commission in its report on the matter. That is a point of considerable significance. They said in their conclusion, following their study of the question:
"At present, reports of parliamentary proceedings should not be used by the courts for the interpretation of statutes".
Of course it may now be said, "Oh well, all these difficulties have been adumbrated. It is not so difficult now that we have got Lexis, God help us! All you have to do is to press buttons and the answer will come via Lexis". That, I suspect, is not going to be as helpful as it may seem at first sight.
However, coming back to the basic principle, the Law Commission has opposed the view that is adumbrated by my noble friend. The Renton Committee's voice has been declared with customary vigour by the noble Lord, Lord Renton, today when he mentioned the committee's reports. A large majority of those who spoke in the debates on the interpretation of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, of legislation Bills in 1980 and 1981 were not in favour of using the proceedings in Parliament for the purposes of resolving a problem of construction.
The limitation that my noble friend and others have sought to put upon the use of this principle does not seem to me very easy to apply. The language of my noble friend Lord Irvine suggested that only in exceptional circumstances would use be made of what is proposed. But he identifies the area of user for whom resort to Hansard may in some cases lead to an unequivocal resolving of what Parliament meant and intended.
The aspect that troubles me is who is to decide at what moment of time and in what circumstances the reference to Hansard should be made in the hope of finding the nugget of gold? Will there be any obligation on the part of counsel involved to give due notice of this intention beforehand? What will be the practicalities of using this machinery? Is it something that might just spring up in the course of argument and debate? As has been said, the impact upon proceedings could be remarkable. The principal argument that has been used is that the vast majority of magistrates, judges and ordinary citizens should be able to understand the law as it applies to their circumstances.
Ascertaining the answer to this matter by this search through individual cases is a chancy matter. I did not identify a clear principle upon which the departure from the well established principle should be applied. Perhaps when my noble friend comes to speak he may be able to elaborate on that.
The practical difficulties in the way of what has been spelt out are, in my view, very considerable. I

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take note that, on the face of it, it seems strange that Parliament should be shut out. Incidentally, I have no objection to a discreet peep at it. But to project the matter through the courts seems to me to present practical difficulties of a very considerable character. As I see it, this consideration would arise during the course of proceedings. Would advance notice be required of an intention to raise the matter? What would the procedure be? In some ways it is very unfortunate that there is no body within our constitution to which this difficult issue could be referred. It must be dealt with by your Lordships' House in its judicial capacity. That is the only recourse. The matter, should, of course, not be dismissed by me so lightly. But when such differences exist among noble Lords as have already been adumbrated, I am not sure that we have found the answer in regard to this matter.
I am impressed by the argument that has been used by noble Lords that this practice will encourage sloppiness in drafting. What is essential is that the best endeavours should be made to ensure that the quality of what comes before Parliament, when its proceedings have been completed, is such that it is safe to rely upon the words of a statute itself as an indication of what Parliament intended and meant. Departing from the principle that has been established for over a century that parliamentary debates as such are not admissible seems to me to be a perilous step.
One of the difficulties I see is this. Our legislative procedures are not especially well adapted for the use of parliamentary material as an aid to interpretation. We do not have committee reports of the kind which, as an authoritative summary of the purpose and scope of a legislative proposal, are available to the courts in countries which make use of legislative history. We have no equivalent to that in our parliamentary procedures.
As Lord Reid and the noble Lords who cited him stressed, for practical reasons I do not think the use of reports in either House can be effectively applied. Costs, time and difficulties in practice seem to me to place overwhelming difficulties in the way. That adds to the importance of our own parliamentary machinery in ensuring that, when Bills leave Parliament before receiving Royal Assent, all the necessary devices and means have been used to achieve the best possible conclusion in the matter of understanding and certainty.
There is also an unease in my mind—this was expressed by one noble Lord as perhaps extending excessively the power and role of the Executive—that time and again we were told that we must look to what the Minister said, what his intention was and how it was declared. I am not sure that I find that a wholly admirable solution to the problem although at the end of the day that is the crucial response. Very often these matters arise from amendments that are tabled in the course of debate.
The conclusion that I have attempted to come to, while indicating a willingness to look again at this difficult problem, is that, as yet at any rate, the case
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for this radical change in a general sense has not been made out.
7.49 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, I wish to begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, for raising this matter and for doing so in a very thought-provoking way. It also gives me particular pleasure to take part in this debate, having regard to the fact that my noble and learned friend Lord Goff of Chieveley decided to make his maiden speech on this occasion. In the hope that it would solve the problem, my noble friend referred to the proper mixture of Scottish prudence and English common sense. I feel certain that that mixture in my noble and learned friend's ancestry produces the wisdom what we have heard. I hasten to add, however, that wise as his speech was, I do not feel constrained to agree with him.
I think that there is no doubt that the rule has been established for a very long time, and has been evidenced by authorities which have already been quoted (and to which I shall not again refer) that it is not permissible in a court to seek to resolve ambiguity in legislation by reference to debates in Parliament. There is an element of value in certainty in the law; and to disturb a settled rule, unless one does so within very clearly defined circumstances, is apt to be productive of considerable question and debate.
I think that the rule has its origins in decisions of the court. The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, referred to a decision of 1869. There is also the impact of that rule on Article 9 of the Bill of Rights. That may be the point to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, referred. That provision requires that parliamentary proceedings may not he impeached or questioned outside Parliament.
If some totally unambiguous phrase is found and no contradictory report is found in a report in Parliament, that might be acceptable. However, one can well understand the argument being raised as to whether what the Minister said is correctly reflected in the Act of Parliament. To question whether what the Minister or an Opposition spokesman said is a proper explanation of what is ultimately included in the Bill is to some extent to question proceedings in Parliament. I suspect that that is what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, had in mind. It is certainly a provision which is sometimes referred to, although that very experienced parliamentarian Lord Reid referred to the rule as being based on practical considerations.
I feel that all noble Lords who have spoken are agreed that there would be no need for reference to debates in Parliament unless there were some ambiguity in the statute or the statutory instrument under discussion. Accordingly, surely the fundamental matter that comes out of the debate, on which we are agreed, is that those of us who take part in the process of legislation should do what we can to make sure that the language we use is clear and unambiguous. If devices such as a purpose clause or a preamble, or any other drafting device, in particular cases can make that clear, then such devices should be considered.

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The question arises as to whether if, notwithstanding the best efforts of Parliament, an ambiguity is discovered in what Parliament has produced it is right to refer to the debates in Parliament which preceded the enactment.
My noble and learned friend Lord Goff of Chieveley referred to the yards of statutes and the miles of Hansard which might be put on a database in Houston. It seems odd that if one is seeking to resolve ambiguities in a particular piece of legislation one opens up the possibility of ambiguities in even more extensive literature. I venture to suggest that the number of ambiguities that one might find in debates both in this House and the other place exceeds even the number of ambiguities one might find in the Acts of Parliament themselves.
I believe that the practical considerations which have been referred to by a number of your Lordships, and in particular by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson of Lymington, the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, the noble and learned Lords, Lord Elwyn-Jones and Lord Ackner, and the noble Lord, Lord Renton, are all very important considerations. It is also important that the two Law Commissions and the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, having heard a great deal of evidence on the matter, concluded that the rule should remain.
I read somewhere of a judge in the 13th century (I think it was) who heard counsel glossing a particular piece of the statute. He told him not to do that because:
"We understand it better than you do for we made it".
That is a solution which is perhaps available to the Law Lords but not to any other court.
I believe that it is important for the law to be respected and that the methods by which it is construed should be the same at all levels in the court as well as in the practical affairs of life. I think that the ordinary person having recourse to an Act of Parliament would be surprised to be told that in order to be sure that he had the full and correct meaning of the Act he should not only look at the Act of Parliament itself, which might be formidable enough, but also at all the proceedings that had taken place in Parliament. There might not be any ambiguity but the chance of ambiguity is sufficiently high to make that a possibility.
It is said that when one construes something one must construe it in the context of the document as a whole. Therefore the rule would seem to imply that if one is to have recourse to Hansard at all one must have recourse to all the debates on the progress of the Bill. We all know that Bills may change and amendments may be made which would affect statements which were made about the meaning of the Bill at an earlier stage.
I understood the noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, in introducing the matter, to make reference to exceptional circumstances. I think that the exceptional circumstances to which he referred were the cases in which a short passage in Hansard nailed the point and clarified it. I believe that the difficulty there is the one that has been referred to more than once; namely, that one needs to know in advance whether it will be worth referring to Hansard.
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Therefore if there is to be an exception I believe that it has to be exception by reference to some circumstance which is determined before one begins to look at Hansard.
One of the possible examples—and I refer to this point because it was decided by this House in its judicial capacity—is the case of Pickstone, to which my noble and learned friend Lord Templeman referred, and to which decision he was party. He also referred to a passage in the speech in that case of my noble and learned friend Lord Keith of Kinkel. That case concerned a situation in which a statutory instrument had been laid before Parliament and explained in a single debate. It was not an instrument that could be amended. Therefore there was not the difficulty which would apply in the ordinary case of possible amendments affecting even an authoritative statement of meaning given at an earlier stage in the passage of a Bill.
It may be that there are such circumstances, determined outside the examination of Hansard by the nature of the legislation in question, that would constitute good grounds for an exception. However, I believe that if exceptions are to be made to the rule there is a very considerable risk of upsetting what is a certain rule and creating uncertainty.
My noble and learned friend Lord Donaldson of Lymington referred to the example in the judgments Acts of reference to reports in relation to the European Convention on Jurisdiction and Enforcement of Judgments. That is an indication of Parliament itself making available clearly-defined material as an aid to construction because the European Court of Justice also does that If we were to have consistency in these matters that would be necessary.
My conclusion is that the practical reasons to which Lord Reid referred are still good reasons for the general rule. I do not say that it is impossible to have any exception to that general rule and certainly I should not like to say that that was the present state of the law having regard to the decision of this House in its judicial capacity. However, I believe that the rule having been stated, and stated with great generality, any exceptions to be made to it would need to be very clearly justified and very clearly specified and defined.
The rule has stood for a long time. We have not had a debate about this matter for some while and I believe that it is extremely valuable for us to have had one this evening. For my part I should like to thank all those who have taken part in this debate for the very interesting discussion that we have had on this topic.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, before the noble and learned Lord sits down, perhaps I may be permitted to join with him in the compliments that he has paid to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goff, on his maiden speech. I intended to make the reference myself. I make it belatedly but, I hope, not too much out of order.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, in view of that remark, it might perhaps be worth mentioning that reference has been made more than once this evening

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to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning. I believe I am right in saying that, all being well, he celebrates his 90th birthday on Monday next. It might be appropriate in a debate of this kind that that event should be noted.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
8.1 p.m.
Lord Irvine of Lairg: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords and noble and learned Lords who have taken part in this debate. It has certainly shown that the subject extends beyond mere lawyers' law and is of general importance and interest. I am sure that the debate will be widely read elsewhere.
I was happy to hear the noble and learned Lords, Lord Goff of Chieveley, Lord Griffiths and Lord Templeman, give what appeared to me to be a fair wind to my limited suggestion and 1 think it blew even a little stronger and perhaps in a somewhat ampler direction than I was bold enough to travel myself.
The principal criticism of the limited suggestion that was made was that it would be impossible for a judge to tell in advance whether Hansard would be determinative until there was full argument about it in every case, and therefore the limitation that was suggested would be no limitation in practice. In the course of his speech the noble and learned Lord, Lord Templeman, gave the answer to that point. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson of Lymington, associated himself with that criticism but of course he himself is the author of expeditious written procedures which have proved most beneficial in practice.
A procedure could easily be devised—and perhaps the noble and learned Lord himself is best suited to devise it—for submitting in advance a written summary of why it is said that Hansard is determinative of a particular point of ambiguity. The relevant pages of Hansard could be attached and the judge could easily rule in advance whether Hansard was so clear as to be capable of being determinative on the point. Then and only then could there be full argument. With regard to the contribution of the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, I have to say that it is not my experience that judges are as supine in the face of inadmissible argument as he appears to have found.
The last word allows me, I think, to declare a majority for change among noble and learned Lords and a majority among all contributors to the debate—that is, if I am to disqualify from the count my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones, who is a former Lord Chancellor, and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor himself because of the constitutional ambiguity inherent in that office. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Money Management Education
8.4 p.m.
Lord Carr of Hadley Lord Carr of Hadley rose to ask Her Majesty's Government, particularly in the light of the annual report of the Director General of Fair Trading for 1987, what steps they are taking to improve money management education in schools and elsewhere.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, my interest in the subject of money management education stems from my experience as a director and chairman of the Prudential, which in turn led me into being one of the patrons of the Money Management Council. It also comes from having been for several years the president of the Birmingham Settlement. It was from the experience of social conditions in that part of Birmingham that the settlement became so acutely aware of the problems and evils of debt and pioneered a debt counselling service. Its work as a settlement in setting up a money advice centre, which was a development that was only made possible by public money to top up its own charitable funding, led to the wider development of money advice centres throughout the country.
At this stage—and I shall come back to the point briefly at the end—I want to suggest the importance of this aspect of partnership between a voluntary body and the public which has brought about the advance in debt counselling. Based on that interest my action in tabling this Unstarred Question for short debate was triggered by having my attention drawn to the opening section of the 1987 Annual Report of the Director General of Fair Trading. Sir Gordon Borrie. Perhaps I may quote brief extracts from his remarks in the introductory section:
"Without any doubt, the twin subjects of consumer credit and debt loomed large on my working horizon last year".
Somewhat later on he says in a slightly longer passage:
"Many individuals and many families have increasingly found themselves in a financially catastrophic situation. Young people with dependent children, single parents and the unemployed seem, not surprisingly, to feature heavily within this population … Recent research showed that nearly two-thirds of all adults in the United Kingdom had credit commitments of one kind or another—apart from mortgages. A sample survey carried out for my Office … suggests that over two million adults felt they were over-committed in their borrowing, while over three million adults admitted that they had experienced difficulties in keeping up debt repayments during the past five years. The results of debt crises are often clear enough—marital and family breakdowns, social and health problems, withdrawal, inertia, despair".
He then goes on to say:
"Since the vast majority of consumers use credit wisely and derive considerable benefit from it, the right policy is not to restrict their freedom of access by administrative and legal measures but to help the minority who innocently get into trouble to manage their financial affairs more successfully … The basic principle of social policy must … be to reduce the number of defaulting debtors … This is in everybody's interest".
Further on he makes the statement that:
"It is clear that an educational task of formidable proportions faces us all … Massive efforts have gone into the selling of credit facilities of all types. But there has been precious little attention to giving basic education to the general public on the art of wise borrowing … What appears to be needed is a massive general effort to bring home to potential borrowers a better understanding of the best ways to choose and use credit whilst remaining alert to its dangers".
I believe that Sir Gordon Borrie's report brings out very clearly that there is an urgent social and economic problem here. That national overview by Sir Gordon Borrie is fully borne out by the experience of the Birmingham Settlement over the years in its local area of Birmingham.
What has been done for the casualties? There are money advice centres in which the settlement had a pioneering role, and of course Citizens' Advice Bureaux. There are indeed large numbers of other advice-giving agencies, a number of which have written to me in the last few days telling me of their work. They are in the front line dealing with the casualties. They are giving an excellent and increasing amount of help to large numbers of people. I strongly echo and support the plea made by Sir Gordon Borrie to the major providers of credit that they should give much greater material assistance to these voluntary agencies.
However, they are dealing with casualties. The real need is to reduce the number of casualties. What we want is much more prevention so that there is less need for cure. I hope that that is the thrust of our debate tonight. It illustrates the need for a massive increase in money management education. Complete money education is not confined only to the handling of credit, although that is no doubt the most vital part of it. Education in schools and colleges of further education for all ages in a modern society is an essential requirement of citizenship and of preparation for life.
Of course it can and will be said that action has already been taken—and so it has—on a valuable but still limited scale. Teaching materials for secondary schools are being produced by the banking and insurance industries and by the building societies. The subject is included in local education authorities' social and development guidelines. For upper age groups the practice is growing of pre-retirement courses in which I am glad to say that the insurance industry has played a substantial part in giving a lead.
Then there is the Money Management Council of which I have the honour to be a patron in England and Wales. There is a Scottish Money Management Association to which the noble Earl, Lord Elgin, has given such strong leadership and about which he wrote to me yesterday. Among other things he said how sorry he was that it was impossible for him to be here tonight to take part in this debate.
All this is excellent, but the scale is much too small. Existing standards as well as the scale of education are too low, as is evidenced by the large numbers of people who get into financial difficulties or become victims of fraud, as in the Barlow Clowes affair recently. Moreover, we are aiming at a moving target because the gap between the actual and the desirable is widening, not closing, as financial services become accessible to a larger proportion of the population while simultaneously proliferating in their complexity and competitiveness. I hope therefore that your Lordships' House and the Government will strongly support Sir Gordon Borrie's plea when he says that he is looking for a dramatic increase in the commitment of the finance industry to all these
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activities. Although the industry is doing quite a lot, it must do a great deal more.
This brings me finally to the role of the Government. I agree with Sir Gordon Borrie when he says in his report that this massive education task is not one which should or could be left to government. This is why I support so strongly his appeal for a dramatic increase in support from the finance industry. However, I also feel strongly that the Government have a vital supporting role to play and that if they do not play it the effort of the voluntary sector, however well supported, will not succeed on its own.
What must government do? I suggest that first they must show that they are aware of the problem and of the urgent need to solve it. They must consider how to build money education into the general teaching curriculum and into teacher training. I am not talking about highly specialised teaching of the subject, but of the A-B-C aspect. It is not great academic material. The Government must also review with local education authorities what teaching materials are already available and what are the priority needs for further materials. Finally they must provide some funds to match, not necessarily by any means in equal terms, the contributions of industry and charitable trusts.
Perhaps I may recall what I said at the beginning. The Birmingham Settlement pioneering of money advice centres would not have been successfully carried through with voluntary funds alone. It was made fruitful by the topping up of those voluntary funds with some annual grants from government—if 1 remember correctly, from the DHSS, if that is what it was called at the time. This partnership between public and charitable funding is an essential ingredient. Many private sources, including industrial sources, will certainly give more if they know that the Government are also giving.
I do not expect my noble friend Lord Davidson to give specific answers to these points tonight. However, I strongly hope that he will be able to give an assurance that the Government do take and will continue to take a positive attitude and show a positive acceptance of some responsibility in this field. I believe that any government should do this. I wish to suggest to my noble friend that above all this Government should do so. It has been a mission of this Government to increase self-sufficiency, for example, by encouraging home ownership, by encouraging wider share ownership, by switching from state to personal portable pensions, by reducing income tax and leaving more money in individual pockets and by introducing both social fund loans and student loans. Those are controversial matters. I support them all in principle. It is a mission that I strongly support. However, to allow people to go out into this kind of society without being taught how to handle money is as cruel and sucidal as letting them jump into the deep end of the pool without having taught them to swim. If we must have education for road safety, so must we have education for money safety. I beg the Government to take this very big social and economic problem extremely seriously.
8.18 p.m.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, this is one of those occasions when, if I were in a committee, I should simply say, "I second that," and sit down. However, the conventions of your Lordships' House forbid that.
Many years ago when I was the general secretary of a woman's organisation I discovered that one of the various problems with which young wives had to contend was shopping. I am speaking of the period when suddenly we had all these marvellous help-yourself opportunities. As a young wife, I grew up at a time when one shopped at a corner Co-op shop and the person behind the counter was not only knowledgeable about the products but would help and advise one on the various items to buy. These young wives were completely at the mercy of a market which they did not understand.
It became apparent to me that we had to find some way in which we could give them what one can widely call "education" on how to be a good consumer. This was popular with the young ladies whom we were trying to help. It was not very popular with the government of the day because, in my judgment as a teacher, education has always been taken in a very narrow sense. I remember on one occasion when I was teaching infants a mother complained that her child had learned a swear word—a rather mild one by today's standards. I said, "You have to agree that he has learned something. It may not be the kind of education you wished but it is education". In other words, education must be interpreted very much more widely than it is.
I learned a great deal from working in the consumer field. One of the things that I learned was that if people are armed with knowledge they are not so likely to make a bad buy. They are not so likely to get into difficulty. That is better for both parties to the contract. One may say that we are not talking about that scene, but I believe that it is an exact parallel with the situation that we have now with consumers. In this instance they may be called investors. But whatever they are called, it still comes back to them being customers in a two-sided relationship.
The report speaks very sharply about people, particularly young people, and consumer debt. In the Mail yesterday, in rather dramatic terms, one reads:
"Youngsters are falling blindly into debt, hoplessly hooked on Britain's credit card boom".
But the rather disturbing thing is that:
"many people believe nowadays that it is socially acceptable to be overdrawn and living in debt".
The article goes on to elaborate the kind of debts that these young people have taken on and it blames the situation on intense advertisements, on the fact that there is every opportunity for credit, that it is too easy, and so on. I would not dispute that in any way. I do not believe that anybody would dispute it. However, it is always unfortunate to take a purely negative point of view.
I remember saying about shopping that one could say to people "Do not buy anything and then you will not be cheated". How much more sensible it would be to learn something about it and then people could be
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sure to get value for money. That is not always the cheapest way.
That is equally true, if not more true, of the handling of money. The system under which we are now living will be with us for quite a long time. I noticed that in an earlier debate somebody asked: why should we not make the best of the world in which we live? I believe that that was said in the Scottish debate; I am not sure of the context in which it was used, but I am using it in that context now. How best can we prevent people getting into these kinds of situations? To be in debt is very frightening. It suddenly comes home to people.
I am always puzzled by the attitude of people who have taken credit or borrowed money from a bank, thus creating an overdraft. They seem amazed that they have to pay for the privilege. Speaking as a Londoner, I believe that the words of Lionel Bart are very true—"You don't get nothing for nothing, mates". If we were to have real money management education, it would have to be started very early in life. I know that people will ask "Is this the job of schools?" It is certainly the job of someone and it could very easily be worked into certain subjects which are now being pressed. But we have to convince the Government.
I was involved when the Money Management Council was first set up. I remember it being set up; money was obtained from trusts, the credit industry, banks and so on. It was reckoned to be very laudable because the council was attempting to help people who were engaging in its industry. That always makes sense if one thinks about it. The government of the day—I believe it was three or four years ago—did not evince a great deal of interest in it. But I am hoping that now they have seen the great value of the Money Management Council, which is struggling to get into the schools. It has been accepted in very many places. It is struggling to carry out what has been valuable adult education work and it is struggling to raise money. That is always one of the hazards. If one has a good idea and starts it off by funding it, one is continually often left to fund it no matter how great the stress.
I should like to emphasise what the noble Lord, Lord Carr, has just said. As the Government recognise that education is extremely important in all fields—Mr. Kenneth Baker has shown clearly that he is interested in changing the curriculum and the structure of the syllabus—can we hope that they will regard this as being one of the very important aspects of education which should be included? If only they could learn to match the contributions. When I was involved in getting grants from the Department of Education I would hear the cry, "Provided that you can produce a certain amount, you can rely on the department to match it". The Acts of Parliament which have been introduced to protect the investor are not actually known by the investor so there must be a way in which we can widen the whole sphere of knowledge.
That is my plea tonight. Here we are discussing a mundane subject but a very vital one. If we are to show that people can get real value out of the system, they will need to have far more help in this field.
8.25 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Carr of Hadley, for introducing an interesting, important and rather far-reaching topic. I should also like to thank him for inducing me to read the report of the Director General of Fair Trading which I have found a little classic. One of the items that will stick in my memory from that report is the moneylender who was charging an APR of 18 billion per cent. That kind of thing has happened before; it has been a problem before. The scale of the problem has become a great deal more severe in recent times. Speaking from these Benches, I should like to join the all-party unanimity in saying here that we have something which needs a great deal of serious thought.
Information about credit is coming over in an advertising form all the time. That information is designed to portray credit in the most attractive light. It always seems to carry the innuendo that if you go along with these people, you just might somehow get something for nothing. That is a very old illusion, but it does not become any less tempting with the passage of years. It does not seem to be entirely clear that people are weighing up this information with quite as much care as they might. Sir Gordon Borrie remarked that the interest rates on credit cards, which are extremely high, do not seem to bother people very much until they end up in difficulties.
I speak about all this with some sympathy because I must admit that I have a great deal of trouble in working out exactly how an APR comes to be what it is. All the detailed problems of the compounding and the dates and so on sometimes puts me out of my depth. I should have been glad had it been otherwise. Here we have something that needs serious attention for the benefit of individual citizens. We have also a question of national interest. I am reminded of remarks made in the debate on the Finance Bill by my noble friends Lord Ezra and Lady Seear. The increase in the weight of private debt should be causing us some concern. According to Sir Gordon Borrie, it increased by 18 per cent. during 1987. It seems that we now have a mortgage debt of £200 billion and a consumer credit debt of £36-4 billion. That must be having inflationary effects of one kind or another. It seems to be reaching the point where it is becoming necessary to issue warnings that the private purse is not inexhaustible.
It is vital to the progress of the national economy that people should approach the jungle of credit with a certain amount of informed scepticism. I have wondered also, although this is a slightly different issue, whether education in money management should also take in economics. That is something which involves practically anybody who casts a vote. If we consider most of the issues that were argued at the last election, or are likely to be argued at the next, they tend to involve matters such as the judgment of what should be the proper level of public spending. Not all of us have the theoretical framework to tackle that.
A few years back when I was teaching undergraduates suffering from the perennial illusion that everyone who lived through the Reformation
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knew whether he was a Protestant or a Catholic, I used to ask for a show of hands from those people present who knew whether they were a Keynesian or Friedmanite. Very few hands were raised. Possibly the matter is worth further thought in the same context.
Having joined in the universal sympathy, and having done so quite strongly, I should like to express one hesitation in the most sympathetic way possible. As anyone who listened to the speeches from these Benches during the passage of the Education Bill may have anticipated, it concerns the problem of the inflexibility of the national curriculum. It is the problem of what can be put into it. Proverbially, the Devil may quote scripture; and therefore I hope that I may quote Sir Rhodes Boyson. He once said:
"For everything that goes into the curriculum something has to come out".
I should like to raise the question of what will come out. We have a set of fixed subjects laid down by statute. We have an entirely unofficial estimate that it will take 70 per cent. of schoolchildren's time. I shall not go into the doubts that have been expressed about that estimate. Essentially, they concern the question of testing and for understandable reasons, the propensity of schools to spend their time on the subjects which will be tested. We have considerable fear that many subjects, not only money management education but also classics, for example, may find themselves being squeezed out.
The first question that we should ask is: how far can the noble Lord's request be fitted into the framework and the testing of the national curriculum in mathematics? I am quite certain that some of it can, and I should view attempts to do so with a great deal of sympathy. I hope that the question is one to which Mr. Baker will give fairly immediate thought because it is now on the agenda.
I hope that when the question is pursued—as I hope we shall within this House and outside—we shall allow to be raised the wider question of whether the national curriculum necessarily leaves enough room for subjects which it has not officially prescribed. With that one reservation, I should like to join in the support that has been expressed, and I hope that something comes of it.
8.32 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I rise briefly to add a few words to what has been said by my noble friend Lord Carr, the noble Baroness and the noble Earl. As chairman of one of the five self-regulating organisations set up under the Financial Services Act 1986 I have a fairly good view of what is happening in the world of private investment. I share my noble friend's concern that people should learn more about money than they now learn before they become investors. If they do not, many who might otherwise have done so will not become investors.
The availability of credit is now as great or greater than it has ever been. The blandishments of those offering it are as sweet or sweeter and as loud and frequent as they have ever been. The whole of one's daily experience bears out what was said in the

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passages of Sir Gordon Borrie's report from which my friend quoted.
Credit is a good servant but used too much it changes its name to "debt" and becomes a terrible master. Commercial pressures on impressionable people to take up credit are enormous. At every delivery the postman is bowed down with invitations to some advantageous form of borrowing.
The first element in financial education—and some would rightly argue that it is the most important in its effect on people's happiness and security—must be the management of credit. People need to know how much it is sensible to borrow, what it costs and what the consequences are of borrowing. Very often they do not have such knowledge when entering into contracts. I have no specialist knowledge in that field. I merely observe that obtaining too much credit brings with it sorrow and anxiety to the borrower as well as frequent disappointment to the lender; that they are social evils and they should be tackled. I also observe that those who learn to save rather than borrow become investors. The Government wish to create a share-owning democracy and therefore they have both a social and a political reason for intervening in some way.
As soon as the saver becomes an investor he comes under the protection of the Financial Services Act in a different way. The Act was drafted to protect the investor but it has not made investor education unnecessary. Even if it were perfect it would not have done that. I should briefly remind your Lordships that the Act laid upon the Secretary of State the duty and the power to regulate the whole of the financial services industry. It gave him the authority to delegate most of those powers and duties, which he has done, to a designated body: the Securities and Investments Board. The board had first to construct a rulebook for the whole industry. It had to reflect precisely the provisions of the Act. It was empowered to delegate its powers and duties, which it has done, to a variety of bodies, principally the five SROs.
Their rulebooks must also precisely reflect that part of SIB's large rulebook which is relevant to their particular section. The requirement for precise reflection at each stage means that self-regulation is not quite the independent exercise of virtue which the name implies. It is the responsible delivery of a protective regime devised by the Government. The new system is one of self-regulation backed by statute. In my view that combines the best of both worlds and self-regulation is flexible enough to respond to changing circumstances, of which we have seen more than enough during the past year. The statutory framework provides sanctions against offenders and ensures that the self-regulatory bodies do not become the captives of their own members and desires.
The requirement of reflection also means that the rulebooks look like statute and are beyond the grasp of the average unsophisticated new investor, as well as that of some practitioners. We are trying to remedy that; but however successful we are the investor will be unable to be guided by the rulebooks or by the
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statute. It would be useful if they were given the general idea of their purpose and provisions.
It is at a more serious level that I wish the Government to be persuaded of what my noble friend asks of them. I can best do that by reminding your Lordships of an obvious fact which is sometimes forgotten. Passing the Financial Services Act and inventing the Securities and Investments Board can no more abolish negligence and fraud in the financial world than passing many Criminal Justice Acts and inventing the Metropolitan Police can put an end to criminal negligence and crime in Greater London. Protection has been increased by the Act. The system has been in operation for a little more than eight months, a fact which is sometimes forgotten. During that time a number of firms have been closed down or refused authorisation to conduct business.
Sadly but inevitably investors have lost money. That has occurred not because the Act is unreasonably tough and not because self-regulation has failed. It is because the firms in which, or through which, they invested were fraudulent or incompetent. The new regime revealed their shortcomings and gave the regulators the power to act against those firms.
I have spelt out the new regime in some detail in order to demonstrate that my organisation, FI M BRA, perhaps more than other regulators is directly in touch with the general public. In the past eight months it has received many thousands of letters and innumerable telephone calls from the public inquiring about our members and the standards which they must observe. Therefore we are in a good position to assess the level of understanding of investment and money matters among the general public. The news is not good. More and more we see that the more modest people's circumstances are and therefore the more they need a safe home for their savings, the more likely they are to lack even the rudimentary knowledge which would enable them to judge, for instance, the scale of risk arising from a deposit in a bank or a building society through the purchase of unit trusts or unit-linked life assurance and going on to participation in a business expansion scheme. Indeed, ignorance is so widespread that it engenders what I can only call investment fear. Sufferers are so lacking in confidence in dealing with money that they are vulnerable to the first authoritative adviser who comes along. That is all well and good so long as he is honest and competent, but all too often in the past he was not.
This Government are rightly proud of all the reforms they have carried out which give freedom and responsibility back to the individual. However, financial freedom and responsibility can only be exercised by people who have a working knowledge of the system. From the correspondence we receive at FIM BRA I draw the conclusion that most people do not have that knowledge. Many people do not even have the rudimentary knowledge which discourages them from putting all their eggs in one basket.
Using the Financial Services Act the regulators can do, and already have done, a great deal to prevent the worst rip-offs in the investment business. We have outlawed cold calling of most investments and laid down detailed rules for canvassing where it is

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permitted. Our rulebooks insist that an adviser must know his client's circumstances and recommend suitable investments. There are no more open-ended commodity investments for Aunt Agatha or long-term life policies sold to a student who is saving for a car in three years' time.
Many investment advisers have since last year chosen never to handle the clients' money, thus reducing both the risk of fraud and of loss as a result of incompetence. In exchange for this restriction those firms are subject to a lower level of financial regulation. Those who handle clients' money are subject to new and very detailed rules. However, the value of regulation is undermined if the investor is totally unaware that it exists. Therefore, FIMBRA, like the SIB with its "Self Defence for Investors", has produced guides and has embarked on an information programme targeted on consumer groups and advisory services such as the Citizens' Advice Bureaux.
I can never imagine a situation in which we could or should abandon either prudential regulation of investment business or the setting and enforcement of standards of conduct and competence. However, I firmly believe that an informed investor is his own best protection. To paraphrase Professor Jim Gower's report which shaped the new framework for investor protection: no one can prevent a fool and his money being parted but education and regulation can, between them, prevent people being made fools of.
Therefore, I hope that Her Majesty's Government will encourage financial education in its widest sense. They will not wish to undertake it themselves but there arc voluntary agencies mentioned by my noble friend, such as the Money Management Council, which are well equipped for the effort needed, and I support the calls for support of those organisations of which we have heard this evening.
I end as I began by saying that I believe that the most urgent priority, if there must be a priority, is to teach young people the very simplest elements of financial management so that they do not fall into the trap of unmanageable levels of debt, which can lead to ruin.
8.42 p.m.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carr, not only for raising the Question this evening but also for directing our attention to the director general's report. Like the noble Earl, Lord Russell, I do not believe that I would have read it had I not been directed to it by the stimulation of this Question.
I believe that at the time of the raising of the school leaving age from 15 to 16 we missed a glorious opportunity for tackling this problem. A report was published at that time called Half our Future which encouraged schools to use the new opportunity of this additional year at school to teach children what certain aspects of life were about. To some extent in education we failed to do that. We failed to use that opportunity to get certain aspects over to the children of our country which they really need to know about at this time.
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One thing which I wanted—and I did quite a lot of propaganda work in schools with teachers and teachers' organisations at that time—was to forget about the high flyers and the children who would be going on to college and university and to try to teach certain fundamental principles to those children who really needed training. I wanted and still want to keep it simple; for example, what a bank book is really about; how to use a cheque book; what is a credit card. In those days credit cards were not as popular as they are today. Indeed, I wish that they were not so popular today. I wanted to teach them about what was a mortgage and about mortgage repayments. 1 wanted to teach them about insurance. To many of us those matters are common sense but to many youngsters they are matters about which they know very little. However, it is important that those matters should be kept simple.
I do not believe that we should bother too much about the national curriculum and finding time to fit in these matters. Even with all the subjects which we now have in the national curriculum and those which are left out of the national curriculum, 1 believe that many of these basic matters can be fitted into the curriculum. I say that because I was one of those people who left school at the age of 14 and I had a first-class art master who taught me more about the basic facts of life than any master in that school. He was also a very good art teacher. He managed to do that because he was a good teacher. Good teachers can teach their pupils what things really mean. If we can communicate those simple matters, many of the problems to which the director general draws attention in this report and many of the matters to which the noble Lord, Lord Carr, has referred in his Question will be answered. We do not need to train people for a Bachelor degree. It is the simple awareness of what really happens which matters; for example, how to buy goods and to live within one's income.
I am a great believer that the best place for that teaching is at home; but when I read some reports in our newspapers I wonder whether home really is the best place for that. With due respect to our colleagues in the teaching profession, I wonder whether teachers can always get across those basic matters. However, there are many experts prepared to come into schools—managers of building societies, bank managers and trade unionists—who will teach them about what it is to be members of a provident club and matters of that sort. Those are important aspects.
I do not wish to enter into all the high arguments. I believe in keeping matters simple. If the sample basic facts are taught to our children in schools, many of the problems will disappear. I support all that the noble Lord, Lord Carr, has said. When the Minister replies I hope that he will not fob us off. I am sure that he has listened and I am sure that his right honourable friend will read what we have said; namely, keep it simple but get the message across.
8.48 p.m.
Lord Peston: My Lords, I also echo the remarks of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Carr of Hadley, for introducing this debate. I certainly agree with the

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noble Earl, Lord Russell, who has referred to the director general's essay as a little classic because it is an extraordinarily interesting essay, not least in view of its title. To have an essay produced by the Office of Fair Trading which is entitled Credit, Debt and Morality is of enormous interest to me as an economist.
If we look through the language of the essay, we see such words as "responsible" and "blame". "Moral" appears in more than one place. There is reference to the "highest standards", "moral and social responsibility", "feelings of honour remain strong in our country" and then on to the word "education". As someone who practises the dry as dust subject of economics, I am most heartened to think that the director general has approached the matter in that way. Indeed, viewing this as an educational task, that itself, as it were, is intrinsically interesting—the combination of the theoretical side, the practical side of borrowing and lending and also, if I may say so, the side of morality. That is an aspect I most appreciate because it also makes clear that this is a matter for our schools as well as other bodies.
I was particularly pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Carr, mentioned not merely the young in discussing education in terms of preparation for life but, in what was nearly a throw away line, he referred to pre-retirement and pre-retirement courses. It is true that our society becomes richer and richer. For the very first time people have a capital sum when they retire. It is important not to forget how unusual that is. In the past the overwhelming majority of people had nothing on retirement but now they have a capital sum. Therefore, in considering education in money, credit and finance 1 am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Carr, mentioned the elderly.
I occasionally speak on pre-retirement courses. Just as I am struck, as we often are, by the ignorance of the young in this respect, I am equally struck by the ignorance of the elderly. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, referred to getting something for nothing. Certainly I worry that the old believe that it is easy to speculate and to make money. I suppose that I am pathological in my aversion to risk-taking and when I lecture to them I probably go to the other extreme; but I point out that it is not easy to make money and that acting with prudence and care is sensible. Therefore, it is right that we have mentioned the old as well as the young.
The report is right. I am struck by its balance in referring to both lender and borrower. I can be critical of the banks and financial institutions, as noble Lords know, but I entirely agree that responsibility does not lie just on their side. There is a responsibility on the part of the borrower. If we want to go into the praise and blame business the borrower must occasionally be blamed. Whether or not we accept the philosophy of this Government—I do not intend to introduce that note into the debate—it is true that people must stand on their own feet in such matters, especially if they are properly informed and guided. Therefore, I am glad that Sir Gordon has not taken an entirely one-sided view of the credit problem.
I am also glad that noble Lords have not made the mistake of either arguing that money and credit are
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unimportant or that somehow they are immoral. In saying that we worry about excess borrowing or excess credit, we have not made the mistake of saying that we are opposed to borrowing. That would be an absurd position to take. Nor has anyone said that we are opposed to people wishing to bring forward their expenditure.
What unifies us is our concern in respect of profligacy. People who borrow occasionally forget that what they borrow they have to repay. We worry about decisions which may be irrational because the costs are not properly calculated. If I may once more echo the noble Earl, Lord Russell, it is important to calculate the APR, and that is a difficult calculation. I do not think that I have ever succeeded in doing it longhand. Happily, calculators enable us to do this and some even have built-in programmes to make the calculation. However, it is a difficult calculation and in my view that makes it even more important to introduce it into courses in our schools. It is a good intellectual test for the young, given a set of figures, to work out the APR. Therefore, I am certainly not among those who say that that is not a proper role for our schools. Clearly it is. As my noble friend Lord Taylor pointed out, it has a practical side as well as a perfectly reasonable educative aspect.
I am probably less optimistic than is the noble Lord about the national curriculum. I remain concerned, as I was in our debates, that there will be insufficient room in the curriculum for such subjects. However, we can deal with that because if influential people, not least Ministers, say that they think there ought to be room—which I take to be much of the thrust of the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Carr—and it is indicated that that is what should happen, then to some extent it will. Therefore, although I worry about whether we can find the space, I still believe that if we are determined to find it we shall do so.
I recall our debates in the past on these matters. Ministers were saying that the national curriculum could be met, so to speak, in an inter-disciplinary way and that one could cover the relevant matters jointly. In this case we are discussing some economics, some mathematics and some philosophy and morality. Therefore, although I am pessimistic, there is no necessity for the subject to be crowded out, provided we are determined to do something about it.
Many topics have been raised in the debate and I should like to pursue them if we had more time. I hope noble Lords will accept my apologies if I do not deal with them all simply because there comes a time when we must think of going home. However, I should like to say a few words about funding. This is where, as the noble Lord rightly said, there is an area of jointness. Clearly one would be delighted if the financial institutions could produce the appropriate funds. That is in the national interest but it is in their interests too—which is essentially what Sir Gordon Borrie is saying. It is much better to have enlightened borrowers than to have people who make stupid mistakes. Therefore, I should like to see funds from the financial institutions made available. Equally, it is true that if the Government were to join in to some extent, if only as a gesture, it would illustrate their seriousness in supporting such education.

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In referring to the Government I do not mean only central government. I believe that the local authorities have a role to play. I do not know whether the local authority in Birmingham joined in but it seems to me an entirely appropriate way to use local authority funds. As I said earlier, I do not want to introduce a political aspect but people like myself who believe in the mixed economy and in, so to speak, jointness by the public and the private sectors, can think of no better example than this to illustrate the advisability of a mixed economy and how we ought to arrange our lives. However, 1 draw back from that because I do not want to start another philosophical argument this evening. Nevertheless, that is my view.
This is an important debate. It is useful for us to signal to people in education at all levels, from the Secretary of State down to the ordinary working teachers who my noble friend Lord Taylor of Blackburn reminds us will be doing the job, our interest and warm support in these matters. 1 look forward very much to what I hope and am confident will be an encouraging reply from the noble Viscount, Lord Davidson, from the standpoint of the department.
8.59 p.m.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, this has been a short but fascinating debate and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Peston, that it has been an important one. I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Carr of Hadley for tabling this Unstarred Question. He and I both had the privilege of attending the same public school—one of the oldest scholastic foundations in the country. So far as I, and no doubt my noble friend, was concerned, the management of money was not, as a subject, included in the curriculum. On the other hand, we learnt the parable of the talents, we learnt how to add and subtract and how to multiply and divide. There was certainly no question of spending more at the tuckshop than the money we happened to have in our pockets at the time.
However, those were the days before borrowing became part of our way of life. They were the days when one was brought up to earn before spending and to save for the rainy day. Now all that has changed. To quote from the annual report to which this Question refers, at the end of 1987, we the British public collectively owed £36 billion under various consumer credit agreements with banks, building societies, finance companies, credit cards, etc. These figures ignore the much larger sums involved in house purchase. Consumer credit has become a significant element in the national economy. This debate is therefore most timely and I am grateful for being given the opportunity of setting out the Government's views on the subject at this time.
My noble friend referred to the particular difficulties which can arise from consumer credit, as indeed does the report from the Director General of Fair Trading. The Government believe that the ready availability of credit is a good thing provided that there are the kinds of safeguards we have in this country.
Nevertheless, despite these considerable safeguards, it is inevitable that some people will get
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into difficulties. More often than not, this is caused by events which happen after the consumer has taken out a loan, used the credit or mortgaged the house. Events like divorce, redundancy, separation, injury, serious illness and death can seldom be planned for, but they can have a devastating effect on the income of a family or an individual.
I want to say something about the help and advice available to those in debt in a moment. But I will deal first with the educational aspects of the question. As my noble friend said, prevention is always better than cure and I agree entirely with his comment that that has rightly been the theme of this debate. I am pleased to be able to assure my noble friend that there is a good deal of such education already taking place in our schools and colleges. The preparation of young people for adult life is one of the functions of the education system. There are many courses which have that in mind which include aspects of money management. They often appear under the general heading of life skills providing young people with useful knowledge, help and advice about a variety of situations in everyday life.
Pupils taking courses in home economics or business studies will also cover topics which benefit their understanding of the need to manage their resources and the implications of credit. The GCSE criteria for home economics—a subject taken by almost a third of pupils—include the requirement that courses should,
"develop the knowledge and skills required for the effective organisation and management of family resources in relation to the needs and life-styles of family members".
Knowledge and skills taught in other subjects also contribute. For example, an understanding of the basic principles of interest can be developed through practical work on percentages in mathematics. Such work is indeed included in one of the attainment targets in mathematics under the draft order on the national curriculum for that subject.
I can also tell the noble Earl, Lord Russell—and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Blackburn, will be pleased to hear this—that the whole question of personal and social education within the national curriculum is a matter on which my right honourable friend has asked the National Curriculum Council to offer advice. In addition there is already in place a national project on economic awareness for school pupils which was established by the former School Curriculum Development Committee at the Government's instigation.
Your Lordships will be aware of the importance which this Government attach to encouraging links between industry and schools. In the case of this aspect of the curriculum there are good examples of such links. For many years the Association of British Insurers in particular has been producing teaching material and offering advice to teachers. More recently the Building Societies Association has also started to produce materials for schools. The Bankers in Schools Service involves practising bankers visiting schools and colleges to talk about a variety of financial topics. There are other initiatives that I could mention. We very much welcome them and hope that other institutions will follow. We also very much appreciate the efforts of the Money Management Council to encourage such a response

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and to act as a channel through which money can be translated into concrete help and advice on financial matters.
The Money Management Council is concerned to help adults as well as children. There are others actively seeking ways of educating those who have left school or college. The Economics Association has established a working party to develop activities which will improve the economic understanding of adults and the Department of Education and Science has held discussions with them about this. The Office of Fair Trading has published a number of booklets and posters about credit.
The Government consider it important that those people who get into serious difficulties with personal debt through no fault of their own should be able to get good independent advice and help with their problems. It is in everyone's interest that someone with multiple debt problems should be helped to rehabilitate himself and the debt counselling services provided by the Citizens' Advice Bureaux are extremely valuable in that respect. The Government not only value very highly the advice and help provided by the bureaux but we support the service in a very real way by financing the costs of the National Association of Citizens' Advice Bureaux and its sister organisation, Citizens' Advice Scotland.
But that is by no means the full story, particularly where money advice is concerned. The National Association of Citizens' Advice Bureaux has had some notable successes in persuading the private sector to contribute towards the costs of money advice services. To date, four money advice support units have been set up or are in the process of coming on stream. They provide expert back-up services to the local bureaux and other advice agencies in the areas they serve. The various contributors, including Mercantile Credit, Barclaycard, Citibank, TSB and the Finance Houses Association, have committed over £300,000 per year for the next three years to their funding. More recently, the Finance Houses Association has announced that it will be doubling its contribution next year to £50,000 and there are signs of an increasing willingness on the part of the lending institutions to fund the provision of independent advice and help for people with personal debt problems. I think that these trends are very encouraging and are a cause for optimism and not for the wringing of hands.
Before I finish it would be remiss of me not to mention the steps which are being taken by the credit industry itself to deal with some of the concerns which have been expressed by your Lordships today. Of course lenders have a responsibility to adopt sensible lending policies. It cannot be in a lender's interest to lend to borrowers whose ability to repay is doubtful. Lenders are adapting their methods and introducing further safeguards to avoid overlending. For example, Barclaycard rejected some 36 per cent. of applicants in 1987, compared with 29 per cent. in the previous year, as a result of applying stricter criteria. Most lenders now inquire about borrowers before offering credit, using credit-scoring techniques or by consulting credit reference agencies. There are moves currently to broaden the scope of the information held by these agencies to include details
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of individuals' current commitments. This will enable lenders to identify cases of multiple debt and should enable better informed lending decisions to be made.
Lenders are also taking a number of steps to improve their own procedures. The Visa credit card issuers have adopted a code of practice to govern their lending, and a number of major retailers have combined to form the Retail Credit Group to promote higher standards in retail credit. Also, the main trade associations of lenders have adopted codes of practice, endorsed by the Director General of Fair Trading, which commit their members to observe the highest standards in their lending.
The Government recognise that it is necessary to have an aware and informed public who can manage their affairs properly, that problems can arise and that help and advice are needed for those in difficulty. At the end of the day it is the individual who must take personal decisions. The initiatives which the Government are supporting and encouraging will help to ensure that they have had access to the right information and, when difficulties do arise, access to appropriate advice.
I hope that what I have said will reassure your Lordships that the Government are fully aware of the problems and are taking the necessary action to resolve them.

Birmingham City Council (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill [H.L.] Buckinghamshire County Council Bill [H.L.] Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill [H.L.] Greater Manchester (Light Rapid Transit System) Bill [H.L.] Great Yarmouth Port and Haven Bill [H.L.] Happisburgh Lighthouse Bill [H.L.] Hayle Harbour Bill [H.L.] Heathrow Express Railway Bill [H.L.] Kingston upon Hull City Council Bill [H.L.] London Local Authorities (No. 2) Bill [H.L.] Medway Tunnel Bill [H.L.] Nottingham Park Estate Bill [H.L.] Queen Mary and Westfield College Bill [H.L.] River Tees Barrage and Crossing Bill [H.L.] Southampton Rapid Transit Bill [H.L.] South Yorkshire Light Rail Transit Bill [H.L.] Tees (Newport) Bridge Bill [H.L.] United Medical and Dental Schools Bill [H.L.] Vale of Glamorgan (Barry Harbour) Bill [H.L.]
Presented and read a first time.
House adjourned at eight minutes past nine o'clock.