Lords Sitting of 7 June 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 London.

The Earl of Essex—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his kinsman.

Trees: Planting Target
Lord Taylor of Gryfe Lord Taylor of Gryfe asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the target for new forest planting is 33,000 hectares per annum, and if so how far planting for 1988–89 falls short of that target.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Sanderson of Bowden): My Lords, I can confirm that our new planting objective is still 33,000 hectares per annum. The total area of new planting in the year to 31st March 1989 was about 29,000 hectares, made up of some 25,000 hectares of planting by the private sector, for which grants were paid during the year, and some 4,000 hectares undertaken directly by the Forestry Commission.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for confirming that the target is 33,000 hectares per annum. Is he aware that the Timber Growers Organisation, the official organisation of treeplanting and timber growing, has estimated that this year's planting programme will be 11,000 hectares? Is he also aware that some of us saw the sad sight of vast areas of nursery trees being burned and destroyed, and in the past few weeks it is estimated that between 50 and 60 million small trees have been destroyed since there is no market from the nurseries? Does this indicate any assurance to the industry that the targets will be met?
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, I have never made any secret of the fact that there will almost certainly be a drop in planting while the industry adapts to the substantial though necessary changes which we introduced last year. However, I have also heard some fairly pessimistic figures, but I shall not crystal-gaze as to what those figures might turn out to be. We are mid-season at the moment and the commission's conservators are collecting information on what the figures are likely to be. I do not share the extreme gloom of some pessimists.
Baroness Sharples: My Lords, can my noble friend tell me what proportion of the plantings are hardwood as opposed to softwood?
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, a growing number of hardwoods have been planted over the
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past few years. I would rather get the exact figures for the last year and write to my noble friend.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, do the figures which the Minister has given include anything to do with the new Community forests? Can he tell us when he expects the first applications to be made in relation to the new Community forests and whether they will start in the next planting season?
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: No, my Lords, the figures I have given refer to last year and do not contain any of the new Community forests. We would expect to see planting starting next year.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that not only has the new regime damaged, or is about to damage, the planting programme, but, worse still, when it starts to bite it will seriously damage the management of existing timber? That will tend to create forestry which is massive, unmanaged and unattractive, as opposed to the production of high forest, which is good for conservation and for the country.
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, I am very well aware of the discussions that we had when the Budget changes took place. The transitional arrangements which we brought into force as a result of the last Budget were for a fairly long period. It has to be remembered that many woodland owners will have benefited substantially from the reduction in the top rate of tax to 40 per cent. and can now look forward to tax-free sales of timber. However, we are keeping the matter under review, particularly in regard to maintenance of forests.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, in view of the fact that we have an adverse balance of payments on timber and paper products of £6·5 billion, and also bearing in mind the beneficial effect of trees in combating the greenhouse effect, does the Minister think that this is a satisfactory situation?
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, the fact that we are now seeing a sizeable increase in felling year by year is very satisfactory. I can give figures for 1987 of 5 million cubic metres having been felled as a very clear indication of the increase. That is good news, as is also the downstream activity. We need to be sure that we have a sustained programme of planting, but we also ought to remember that the size of the forest estate as it stands in the United Kingdom has risen dramatically over the past few years.
Lord Rees: My Lords, does my noble friend recognise that last year's ill-considered measures have damaged long-term confidence in forestry? Does he also recognise that the statistics with which he will no doubt be furnished in due course are based largely on application for grant, but that not all applications are translated into planting? Will he therefore, against that background, use his considerable influence with his colleagues in government and with the Forestry Commission to ensure that the planting applications are handled

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and processed properly and quickly and that they do not involve the applicant in undue time, trouble and expense?
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, as a result of what my noble friend has said and from his experience I am well aware that we are constantly wrestling with applications and the problems related to them. I shall do everything I can to speed up those applications because they have a real bearing on the tree-planting programme.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, does the Minister agree that, because large tracts of forestry land are privately owned—in some cases by individuals rather than by organisations—in the national interest there should be a check on whether the destruction of forests should be permitted and whether the planting of new trees should be encouraged? Does he agree therefore that in the national interest there should be investigation and control over all forms of forestry land?
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, it has always been accepted on all sides of the House that the forestry industry is most important to the United Kingdom. The Government, in the form of the commission, own 916,000 hectares, which is a sizeable amount. However, we must always bear in mind the balance within the United Kingdom and consider how many trees should be grown.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, surely the Government, the Ministry of Agriculture and whoever is responsible must appreciate the long-term situation in forestry. The cut was made over one year and approximately 14,000 trees were burnt. That is a result of not looking at the matter on a long-term basis. I do not know whether the Minister saw the television programme shown on Monday night about the ozone layer. The Prince of Wales made an appeal for more forestry in this country. After all, we have planted just under 10 per cent. and are the fourth lowest in the European Community. I believe that the target area of 33,000 acres is ridiculous and that it should be almost doubled. It would help if——
Noble Lords: Question!
Lord John Mackie: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the moratorium covering many areas in England is an absolute disgrace, that it should be removed straightaway and that people should be allowed to plant on those areas.
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, the noble Lord is most pessimistic. By the end of April the Forestry Commission had received applications for almost 36,000 hectares of new planting. Of that, over 20,000 hectares was for new areas not included in any previous grant schemes. That is an encouraging start. I know that it does not always lead to new planting but it is an encouraging start. It compares most favourably with what was done in 1987 and 1988.
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As regards the uplands in England, I know very well to what the noble Lord directs his question. Perhaps it should be directed at another department but I understand the position in England. However, I also believe that the vast majority of tree-planting in the uplands will take place in Wales and in Scotland.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, does the noble Lord know of any future plans for altering the nature of Epping Forest? I must confess that I have a vested interest because it runs along the bottom of my garden.
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, as far as I am aware, there are no plans to alter the forest running along the bottom of the noble Lord's garden.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, will the Minister accept that there was no question of crystal-gazing when I quoted the figure showing that over the past few weeks between 50 million and 60 million young trees have been destroyed in this country because there is no market for the nurseries? Is that not a scandal? Is it not clear evidence of the lack of acceptance that the 33,000 hectare target will be met? Is the Minister further aware that over the past decade the paper and pulp industry has invested in this country £1 billion on the assumption that trees will be available to supply the industries? Alternatively, are we again to be dependent on an adverse balance of payments and imports from Sweden or the Soviet Union?
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, I am well aware of what the noble Lord is saying. I recall that before the last Budget various representations were made by members of opposition parties that changes should be made to the taxation regime. The Government introduced those and we believe that it is a much better system. However, of course such a change brings about problems for nurserymen. I am well aware of that but believe that they can adjust to Budget changes in the same way as any other industry. I understand how difficult those changes are for the industry.
I am confident that the downstream activities will grow. At the moment the production of wood and the downstream activities are in the right kilter. We are able to supply the new industries which I am pleased to see have been developed.

Telephone Directories
2.49 p.m.
Lord St. John of Fawsley Lord St. John of Fawsley asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, in view of the failure of British Telecom to provide telephone directories which assist the public to find numbers they are looking for, they will provide them themselves.
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Lord Young of Graffham): My Lords, British Telecom supplies a free telephone directory regularly to every

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residential and business subscriber covering the local telephone area. In addition, both BT and Mercury make available free of charge a directory inquiry service to assist any of their customers or member of the public seeking information about telephone numbers. I am sure they will welcome suggestions which my noble friend or indeed any noble Lord may wish to make for improving their service.
Lord St. John of Fawsley: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, is he aware that the arbitrary division of entries into two categories, business and residential, makes it extremely difficult to find urgent numbers such as those of doctors? Is he further aware that worse is to come in that directory inquiries is apparently to be computerised into a metallic voice so that inaccuracy in name or address will mean that the inquirer will not find the number?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I assure my noble friend that I have not found that mistakes are confined to computerised voices. It is possible for humans to make mistakes. British Telecom's market research on the customer reaction to their changed format reveals that 71 per cent. of the public are satisfied with the new format of the directory and only 2 per cent. were dissatisfied, while some 19 per cent. had no preference. I do not know what we should do further on that. What has become obvious is that such has been the growth of the usage of telephones in the London area that it was necessary for BT to look at different ways of dividing up the directory.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, will my noble friend make representations to British Telecom about the weight of these new books which have been published within the London area? Some of us do not have very large or strong hands. I believe that the 2 per cent. who were dissatisfied could well have been women who do not have very strong hands and who find the weight of the books enormous.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, one of the effects of dividing the book up between residential and business subscribers means that the directories are lighter and smaller. If they were put back again into one book, by necessity they would be larger and heavier.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, can the noble Lord encourage British Telecom to see that their directories are available in public telephones? I had to go to three different telephone boxes half a mile apart the other day to obtain a number.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, the last survey on public telephone call boxes showed that no less than 96 per cent. were in working order. Over the past months we have seen a continuing increase in the number of call boxes which are in working order and I suspect that the noble Lord was rather unlucky.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, the point was not that the telephone was out of order but that there was no directory there.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, books are no longer kept in telephone boxes for a very good reason; that is, that they were consistently vandalised and set alight. Part of the policy of British Telecom, in order to ensure that telephone boxes are in working order, is to take out the telephone books and to make available a directory inquiry service. I suspect that it is better in the long run for that to happen.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the more difficult it is to find a number and to find the right book before you find the right number, the greater will be the load put on directory inquiries? Is it not true that that service has coped extremely well and has improved its service markedly in recent years? However, has consideration been given to the French system where they have done away with telephone books altogether and subscribers are supplied free of charge with a very small visual display unit and dial their own inquiry and, therefore, save on manpower? That is infinitely adaptable and can be very conveniently kept up to date. There would seem to be considerable merit in that system, which has prospered in France.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I assure my noble friend that Minitel, of whatever is the name' of the particular receiver system, may be free to the subscriber but it is expensive to the taxpayer. That system is very expensive. The fullness of time will show whether that is a good bargain for the French taxpayer. The present system is far more competitive and efficient.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I am among the 71 per cent. and that the noble Lord, Lord St. John, is among the 2 per cent., and that that is a situation which I hope will be sustained in the future over a wide area?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, as long as we confine that wide area to British Telecom, I am content.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, is my noble friend aware how unsatisfactory the computerised system is for the countryside because, where an addressee is not within a definite town—that is, he is within a country area—it is almost impossible for the computer to find the number?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I doubt whether any system could be perfect but I shall ensure—and I know that this will happen in any event—that the Chairman of British Telecom will read what your Lordships have said this afternoon and he will no doubt take that into account.
Lord Peston: My Lords, will the Minister reflect again on his answer to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing? Does he not agree that the telephone directory, as we know it, is obsolete and is

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economically harmful? Goodness knows how many forests are cut down every year in order to provide all those telephone directories. Would it not be much more sensible if we had a computerised on-line direct dial system for telephone numbers? I do not see that that should place any burden on the taxpayer. The real point is: would it not be advantageous to encourage British Telecom to provide precisely such a system?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, if it were economic to do so then I suspect that British Telecom would take that quite seriously. However, from the figures I have seen, the cost to the French Government and French Telecom in providing that system is out of all proportion to the utility.
Lord Morris: My Lords, with reference to a previous answer of my noble friend where he quoted the survey and said that 2 per cent. of the population did not like the new format, 17 per cent. had no view and 71 per cent. preferred the new format, can he tell what the balance of 10 per cent. felt?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, 19 per cent. had no preference and the balance of 8 per cent. had no opinion.

Minicab Proprietors: Licensing
2.56 p.m.
Lord Teviot Lord Teviot asked Her Majesty's Government:
Why they have not published a Green Paper on the licensing of minicab proprietors in the light of the discussion of the Maxwell Stamp Report (Cmnd. 4483), published in 1970.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I have little to add to the reply given on 11th May by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Public Transport in reply to a Question in another place. The Stamp Report was published many years ago and I think it is of doubtful value to assume that its recommendations are automatically valid today or for the future.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer, but he will not be surprised that I am not very pleased with it because it does not precisely relate to the Question. Will my noble friend please agree that I do not ask for 40,000 minicab drivers to be registered, as are taxi drivers, but that the minicab proprietors should be registered so that they can find drivers of suitable character in order that the public can be properly protected?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I am sorry that I misunderstood my noble friend's Question and I hope that he will not misunderstand my Answer. The evidence seems to suggest that private hire cars outnumber taxis and that there is no need at present for any legislation in that direction.
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: My Lords, can my noble friend enlighten your Lordships about the reasons behind the decision apparently to preserve that
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well-loved Spanish custom—the black cabs' "knowledge". Can he tell us in what way that differs in principle from the National Dock Labour Scheme?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, no I cannot.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, does the noble Viscount appreciate that, contrary to the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, we welcome the statement made by his ministerial colleague Mr. Portillo that he does not propose any changes at all in the legislation in London affecting the relative position of taxi and hire car trades and that we also welcome his praise for the service given by the London taxi service? Does that imply that there will also be no legislation affecting the 1976 Act, of which there has been some criticism? I also ask the noble Viscount, in the light of the statement by Mr. Portillo, which action is being proposed when the London Local Authorities (No. 2) Bill comes before the Select Committee, Clause 49 of which proposes an allocation of minicab licences to each of the individual boroughs in London?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I assure the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, that the statement by my honourable friend the Minister for Public Transport says that it is too early to propose new legislation, so no new legislation is proposed. As regards the London Local Authorities (No. 2) Bill, although technically neutral on private Bills, the department's Ministers have indicated that they do not welcome the proposals because the Bill would make each borough an independent licensing authority. Different approaches to licensing would cause confusion as so many journeys cross borough boundaries. I am told that the Bill is in some difficulty. As I have already indicated, although the Government are either benevolently or malevolently neutral on private Bills, on this occasion it is malevolently neutral.
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: My Lords, in relation to the adjective used by my noble friend Lord Bruce-Gardyne concerning Spanish customs, is my noble friend the Minister aware that it is not always accepted as being identical to procrastination, dishonesty and laziness?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I am of course aware of my noble friend's interest in Spanish customs, but I do not think I should go further than that.
Lord St. John of Fawsley: My Lords, may I have an assurance which many people would welcome? Can the Minister assure me that the black taxi cab service, which is the best taxi service in the world, will in fact be preserved and not deregulated? May I take this opportunity in relation to the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Bruce-Gardyne to wish him luck the next time he wishes to get a taxi?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I can give my noble friend that assurance.
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: My Lords, perhaps I may try once again. May I ask my noble friend what sort of signal he thinks it gives to other negotiators in possession of state supported monopoly positions when apparently the black cab taxi drivers are sanctioned in their longstanding restrictive practice and, furthermore, given an 11 per cent. fare increase to reward them for maintaining it?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, all I can tell my noble friend is that the evidence seems to suggest that private hire cars now outnumber taxis, and we believe they are growing at a faster rate, so there is plenty of competition.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that there are certain types of service which justify the maintenance of a restrictive practice?
A noble Lord: The legal profession!
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I am not sure whether I am expected to act as an umpire or referee on this Question. I think I shall leave it at that.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, I am not deliberately seeking to get the last word, but does my noble friend agree that the Question on the Order Paper does not in any way denigrate the London black taxis? I agree with all that has been said for them. However, will my noble friend please think again and ask his honourable friends in another place to look into possible legislation to ensure that those who drive minicabs are suitable people for looking after the public?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, perhaps I may remind the House that the Question on the Order Paper is:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government why they have not published a Green Paper on the licensing of minicab proprietors in the light of the discussion of the Maxwell Stamp Report … published in 1970".
The answer I gave is that we are not proposing any legislation and therefore there is no point in a Green Paper.

Business
3.3 p.m.
Viscount Long: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like, as usual, to say a word about the two short debates standing in the names of the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, and the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport. It is customary in short debates that the mover is allowed approximately 15 minutes and that the Minister should rise to reply not less than 20 minutes before the scheduled end of the debates. In the case of the short debate in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, this means that all other speeches should be limited to a maximum of 10 minutes and in that of the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, to eight minutes. If any noble Lord should speak at greater length, it would be at the expense of subsequent speakers in the debate.

South Yorkshire Light Rail Transit Bill [H.L.]
Read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

European Community: Increased Integration
3.4 p.m.
Viscount Chandos Viscount Chandos rose to call attention to the case for Britain's full participation in a more integrated European Community while maintaining Britain's national interest and cultural identity; and to move for Papers.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, Europe looms large in your Lordships' House. The work of the House and its Select Committee is central to Britain's monitoring and absorption of Community law and directives. There is, as a consequence, a consistent and strong European theme to your Lordships' debates. Over and above that, I am conscious of the great part that Europe has played—sometimes happy; sometimes unhappy—in the lives of so many of your Lordships with a few years seniority over me: the world wars and their aftermath; the long campaign to achieve Britain's belated membership of the Community; the dissolution of old-established political loyalties over the issue of continuing membership, and hence the very creation of my own party.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, to feel a sense of nervousness at least in introducing today's Motion, as well as concern that the recent debates on European issues such as 1992 and the single market might make further discussion of Britain's role in and relationship with the Community redundant. But it seemed that, only eight days before polling in the third direct elections to the European Parliament, it would have been an opportunity missed not to try to address some of the very fundamental differences in the European vision held in this country, not least by members of Her Majesty's Government, ironically at a time when there is perhaps greater consensus about many of the practical imperatives of the single market.
Fate has, I think, further encouraged me that this was a justifiable choice of subject for, though the intervention of Mr. Edward Heath may sometimes seem like that of a tormented Trollopian figure drawn from a mixture of The Pallisers and the Last Chronicle of Barset, the charges against the Government are serious and, I shall argue, largely well-founded.
Only yesterday Mr. Norman Tebbit kept the pot boiling merrily when, in the Goodman lecture at the Royal Society, he announced that he stood absolutely alongside the Prime Minister and that any major transfer of sovereignty to Brussels would create not just a clash of governments but a clash of parliaments and a resulting disintegration of the Community. That came not just from a member of the government which put through the Single European Act but the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in the period during the legislation's preparation, if not its final enactment.
Sovereignty is an emotive word, and although I felt it best not to include it in the wording of the Motion, it is impossible to address the core of the disagreement about Britain's role in the European Community without considering the question of sovereignty and the extent to which it can be pooled or partially transferred without either abuse of the English language or neglect of the national interest.
Let me begin by saying that the most outspoken proponents of European federalism can in their way harm the European cause, not perhaps as much as the equivalent extremists from the nationalist or little England school, but harm it nonetheless, through arousing unnecessary fears and suspicions among even the most sympathetically inclined supporters of the Community. When I talk to fervent federalists, and I see that gleam in their eyes, I am irresistably reminded of the words of one of the great past Members of your Lordships' House:
"I do not know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they terrify me".
If the provocation and counter-provocation between federalists and the militant nationalists is as destructive as the equivalent interchange between Right and Left in domestic politics, we can nonetheless reaffirm our commitment to a European Community based on something other than the lowest and meanest common denominator.
Last week the Foreign Secretary—the Foreign Secretary whom the Prime Minister is reputed to be thinking of sacking for his extreme and irritating support for the European Community—said:
"The single market is a brilliant amalgam of economic liberalism and European commitment that sums up the philosophy of the late 1980s to a T.
"It is the Visa card not the social charter, which is the instrument of the ever closer union of the peoples of Europe foreseen in the Treaty of Rome".
Your Lordships on this side of the House will probably agree that the Visa card and not the social charter sums up the philosophy of the Conservative Government throughout the 1980s. But I do not believe that it sums up the philosophy of the European Community; and nor, in truth, does the Foreign Secretary whatever his attemps to prove to his leader that he can be as narrow minded as her in his concept of Europe. Although the earliest manifestation of the European Community was predominantly in the areas of trade and agriculture, let nobody be in any doubt that its origins were far broader and more multifarious than that.
Forty-one years ago Sir Winston Churchill said:
"It is impossible to separate economics and defence from the general political structure. Mutual aid in the economic field and joint military defence must inevitably be accompanied step by step with a policy of closer political unity".
The Visa card vision of Sir Geoffrey Howe reduces the European ideal to that of a prefabricated hypermarket, while the inconsistencies and contradictions of the Prime Minister's speech in Bruges betray her fear of a great, carnivorous European monster threatening to devour the British people and their traditions, like a child's fear of the dark. That is perhaps less surprising if we examine the achievements and failures of the Prime Minister.
When confronted by an identifiable and indisputable enemy, the single minded determination of the Prime Minister has proved a national asset. But while the noble Lords, Lord Donoughue, Lord Bridges and Lord Greenhill, have in recent debates paid tribute to the occasional benefits to the Community of the Prime Minister's obdurate approach, her single mindedness, regrettably, turns to simple mindedness in trying to respond constructively to the complex and interwoven fabric of a European movement and the European Community and an imaginary enemy must be conjured up.
If, then, the Community is to be more than a glorified free trade area, what then is the resolution of Mr. Tebbit's concern about the transfer of sovereignty? Professor Kenneth Minogue of the LSE wrote recently that sovereignty can be abandoned but not pooled. But while Mr. Heath, and indeed the SDP European manifesto, refer to a pooling of sovereignty, in his speech in The Hague in 1948 Sir Winston Churchill had already gone far further in saying:
"It is said with truth that this involves some sacrifice or merger of national sovereignty, but it is also possible and not less agreeable to regard it as the gradual assumption by all the nations concerned of that larger sovereignty, which can alone protect their diverse and distinctive customs and characteristics, and their national traditions".
Yet I believe that pooling of sovereignty correctly denotes the nature of the relationship between the Community and the member country. Professor Minogue himself acknowledges that a sovereign power can choose to delegate the right to make certain decisions by way of a treaty, and that the ability to revoke that treaty represents precisely the over-ride control which preserves the country's ultimate national sovereignty. When assets or resources are pooled in other walks of life there is almost always the ability for partners to reclaim what they have pooled, sometimes easily, though sometimes with greater difficulty and disruption.
So long as every member state in the Community has the individual right to revoke the Treaty of Rome, however painful that may be, then I would argue that sovereignty can be safely, constructively and not irreversibly pooled. The United States of course saw bitter civil war to prevent states seceding from the Union, but it is the nature of the non-federal political union encapsulated by the European Community that every member country should be free to secede if it wishes.
Perhaps I may turn briefly to just a few of the specific issues which have been at centre stage in the European debate and the European election campaign. My noble friend Lord Kilmarnock will talk in greater detail about the social charter whose concept has so aroused the Government's fears of allowing socialism in through the back door. Let me just say that, in the eyes of many people who are no more socialist than noble Lords opposite, the core of what is being proposed by the Commission is fair and logical and that, with active and constructive participation by Britain with the other Community members, a wholly acceptable social dimension can and should be agreed.
The very origins of the Community lie, as I have suggested earlier, in similar post-war roots as NATO and there is much more, as my right honourable friend Dr. David Owen has argued, that can be done to enable Europe collectively to defend itself more strongly and less wastefully. As a new era of international turbulence and instability threatens, co-ordinated European diplomacy—the preventive medicine of international relations—will, as our ally the United States has made clear, so often achieve far more than the efforts of individual countries. This is all the more true in terms of overseas aid as well where Britain's budget also lamentably falls behind the example of our European partners.
I am sure that your Lordships will be aware that Britain is in breach of the Treaty of Rome through having, alone of the 12 member countries, a disproportionate electoral system for the European elections. I shall not seek your Lordships' sympathy for the effect that this has on the representation of the SDP and of the Democrats in the European Parliament, but rather draw your attention to this as both a cause and a symptom of what the director of the Centre for European Policy Studies today described as Britain's unfamiliarity with, and dislike of, the kind of coalition politics that are inevitable in a multi-party parliament. Britain's influence on the Community is thereby significantly reduced and the unnecessary sense of being a passive passenger in a coach driven and navigated by others is fostered.
The continuing prevarication of the Government over full membership of the EMS and their knee-jerk opposition even to the consideration of the progressive evolution of monetary union, are symbols of the Government's but, most of all, of the Prime Minister's muddled concept of national sovereignty. A novice student of international monetary economics can identify that, even for the locomotive economies of Japan and the United States, there is no such thing as complete economic or monetary sovereignty.
Full membership of the EMS would not be an economic panacea and neither I nor my colleagues in the SDP have ever argued that. But it would be a valuable weapon in the fight not only against inflation but for market share for our industries as well. On the day after the Spanish Government announced their definitive intention to join the exchange rate mechanism by the middle of 1990, this Government should be ashamed of the insincerity of their promises to join "when the time is ripe", after innumerable opportunities to do so over the past few years with immediate and lasting benefit to the British economy. Let none of your Lordships underestimate the additional handicap this places on British industry or the growing threat to our financial markets and the position of our financial institutions.
There are few metaphors left to describe Britain's missed opportunities in Europe that have not become cliches. I have sought to argue that even now it is not too late to claim the benefits arising from full participation and a broad vision of our role in the Community, without the unacceptable or irreversible loss of sovereignty, national interest or
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identity. If, on the other hand, the Government continue to pursue their suspicious, grudging and limited approach to membership of the Community, we will have less prosperity, less influence and no greater real independence. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.20 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: My Lords, I recently had the privilege of serving on an international jury to give the first "Catalonia" prize to the philosopher Sir Karl Popper. Sir Karl travelled to Barcelona to receive his cheque for 100,000 dollars for services to liberty, since that is what the prize is for. As I listened to this English philosopher who is of Austrian origin talking in the mediaeval palace of the Generalitat in Barcelona about Peisistratus and Homer, I had an irresistible reminder of the significance, serenity, continuity and grandeur of European civilisation.
European civilisation (of which the British culture mentioned in the Motion as part of the title of the debate of the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, is not just a contributor but an essential part) is not the same as the European Community; or is it?—since after all the European Community would not have received the motor and the energy which it has had behind it without the recollection of the civilisation of the past and indeed of the present. The Motion of the noble Viscount gives us a good opportunity to consider the character of the European Community in the future, not after 1992, or after for the British perhaps the more important year of 1993 when the Channel Tunnel opens, but in the years leading up to the year 2000.
By the year 2000 I suppose that we shall be doing far more things in common with our European neighbours than would have been conceived possible 50 years ago. After all, we already have what is by most definitions one might say European agriculture. It is not called that but that is what it is. By the year 2000, policies in relation to transport, scientific research, the environment and other matters will have also no doubt been put into effect and we shall have seen how well they work. Above all, European law, which as we know has considerable competence already in spheres of safeguards, in relation to the environment and in relation to the equal treatment of men and women in employment, will have made a very substantial impact on all our countries.
The name of this association of European countries will probably still by the year 2000 be being debated. "Federation" will not be used since it is a word that has a great many enemies in different countries for a large number of reasons. "Confederation", with its comforting Swiss connotation, perhaps will be a better word. The "United States of Europe" will probably not be a very popular expression, even though Napoleon used it, since it has naturally American connotations. The "Union" which we already have also has an American connotation and, as we have seen, is extremely vague and is open to many interpretations. I suspect that the word "Community" will still be being used. That will disappoint a number of Europeans. I heard M. Rocard, the Prime Minister

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of France, recently say that he hoped that he would be achieving a "European nation" during his time in politics.
Perhaps more important than the definition of what this association will be is the question of who will be participating and what it will be doing. As to the participants, I think we can envisage very well that, by the year 2000, several more western European states—Austria and Switzerland; perhaps Sweden and Norway—will have after all decided to associate themselves with this adventure. Even more important, and anyway more inspiring, will be the possibility that one or other of the nations of what we have come to regard as eastern Europe, but which we should surely think of as central Europe—Mitteleuropa—will also have drawn back towards us. I very much hope so.
As to the other question of what this association of European states will be doing, of course this is at the heart of the most important political issue in Europe today. It is worth recollecting in this debate that the concessions which we have already made towards European collaboration have been on such a scale that our predecesors in this House, whose pictures we see along the corridors, would certainly not think that the state we have at the moment is the same as their state. They would find it surprising, even if some would find it inspiring, to enter this country by a gate marked "European Community nationals".
The second point of which I want to remind the House is that in the 1990s there will be a considerable momentum towards European collaboration, regardless of what we ourselves think should be done, partly because of the great weight which the Government have given towards the idea of the single market of 1992. In the mid-1990s, it will be as if we are in a boat on a river trying to catch hold of a willow or a tuft of grass at the side. We may find the current extremely strong and we may not be able to stop exactly where we want. For those reasons we should think very carefully about where the river is in fact going.
Whatever happens to the current dispute between the Government and the European Commission, it seems likely that many Europeans, despite our eccentric selves, will, even if they are Europeans by culture or by impulse (or élan, as M. Rocard put it in the speech to which I referred a moment ago) will find that some of their interests and ideals may be threatened by what they see as centralisation, corporatism and a lack of adequate democratic control.
I have no doubt that we should try to draw a line between what we hope in the future will remain a national sphere of competence and a European one. This may not be very popular in the Commission. It will not seem very communautaire since of course the treaties to which we have given our name are open-ended ones. More or less any intervention can be justified if one looks at the preambles. Nor may it be very popular as an idea with Her Majesty's Government since it may seem premature. Nevertheless, something ought to be done, although it will not be easy.
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The geographical frontiers of Europe have been very difficult to define, especially in the East, and so perhaps will the functional ones be inside our borders. However, something along those lines should be done. We may otherwise very well find that the European ideal—which despite superficial pedantries is a great ideal—will be poisoned by continuing arguments about radishes or school textbooks.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, whom we should thank for initiating the debate at this particular time, seemed to complain in his speech that the EC was still seen as a trading and economic Community. However, the noble Viscount will of course remember that the idea of the EC was sold—or perhaps it was not sold—to the British electorate on that basis; it was not put to the electorate on the basis that it would be a unitary Europe or a federal Europe or, indeed, an integrated Europe of the sort which he and his party apparently believe in.
There are of course continuing doubts about the EC. The reason for such doubts is that the promises which were made to the British people—and, indeed, to others—that they would derive great economic benefits from the EC, simply have not transpired. Before considering the future of the EC, we must consider the past. I contend, as do many others, that the promise which was made of great economic benefit to this country arising from our membership of the EC has simply not been kept.
Let us look first at our balance of payments situation in relation to that of the other countries of the EC. Before we entered the EC we had a positive balance of trade of about £400 million in cash terms. In 1988 we had an adverse balance of trade with the EC of about £14 billion, representing virtually the whole of our adverse balance of trade. Therefore the economic benefit of trade has not arisen; indeed, far from being an economic benefit, our membership of the EC has been an economic liability.
Let us then look at what else has happened to our people. We were promised good, wholesome and cheap food; but, arising from our membership of the EC, every family of four in this country pays an extra £700 per annum for its food. Has our membership of the Community assisted the environment? There was a great hoo-ha, a great fuss and complimentary remarks from the faddist lobby when we had imposed upon us from the EC a directive which stated how we must label cigarette packets. As I said, there was a great cry of approbation from the health lobby. But, what those people had not realised is that, while the EC was doing that and spending a mere £7 million on advertising the adverse effects of cigarette smoking, it was spending £2 billion on subsidising tobacco growers. That is the sort of Community which we have; but it is not the sort of Community which was promised to this electorate in 1972 during the passage of the European Communities Act, nor indeed during the referendum of 1975.
Therefore the promises have not transpired. Moreover, because the promises have not been kept

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and because it is now not possible for the proponents of the EC to show the British people what benefits they have derived, we have a new philosophy: having entered a failed Community we should in fact enter it even further. In other words, because we have had detrimental effects from the EC, perhaps if we give more power to the Community we may derive some benefits. Frankly it is a mirage and the Government are absolutely right to say to the EC and to this country, "So far in relation to sovereignty and no further".
The noble Viscount criticised the Prime Minister; indeed I do often, but not on this occasion. The spectre of the loss of sovereignty to a European superstate was raised not by Mrs. Thatcher but by Jacques Delors. It was M. Delors who told this country, and the world, that by the end of the decade 80 per cent. of all the important financial and economic decisions would be taken in Europe. That was what alerted the people who believe in the future of Britain as a sovereign state. That is what made them ask, "What is happening here?" It was not anything to do with socialism; it was all to do with where and at what level decisions affecting the people of this country should be taken.
The noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, and his colleagues, who unlike the Labour Party—and unlike the Conservative Party as a matter of fact—have succeeded in maintaining a lesser part of popular support in this country, believe that we should join the ERM. Indeed I believe they also think that we should go into further economic and monetary union. But, we should understand that economic and monetary union, as proposed in the Delors package, implies the surrender by national governments of their fiscal, monetary and exchange policies. They would be surrendering them to the institutions of the EC, one of which would be a European central banking system outside the control of any single government, including the British Government, or any parliament. Therefore under these proposals the Government of Britain would reside not in Westminster, or even in Whitehall, but in a system of central banks under the control of a small junta of financiers who would be impervious to the views of the electorate. That is not the kind of community I want.
I believe in European co-operation and, like the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, I also believe that Europe has frontiers far wider than the 12 nations of Western Europe. Europe is far bigger than the EC, it is far more important and it also has a long cultural heritage. I am no little Englander, although I very much believe in the people of this country and their abilities which have contributed so much to the world. What I should like to see, and what I think most people of goodwill in this country would wish to see, is good co-operation between all the nations of Europe.
But that must be under a system of government which they understand and which is responsive. There has been no need for Japan, Korea, Taiwan or Singapore to unite into some common market to make themselves successful. They are successful on the world stage because they believe in themselves
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and they have leaders who believe in their countries. That is what I want to see for Britain That, I hope, is where our future lies.
3.40 p.m.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, for introducing this debate at this apposite moment. I agreed with the general tenor of his remarks. When talking about sovereignty, which I shall be doing later, one must say that if one is going to increase the powers of the European Community that must be combined with decentralisation within the Community and within the member states of the Community.
I listened, as usual, with the utmost interest to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon. His speech it seemed to me to be an interesting exposition of the utter confusion in which his party finds itself as regards its attitude towards the Commission. I do not know whether he represents the majority or the minority.
Lord Parry:My Lords, the noble Lord should raise the level of the debate not lower it.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, it is perfectly fair for me to comment on a speech which has just been made. If the noble Lord wishes to intervene, I shall be happy to listen to what he has to say.
Lord Parry: My Lords, I merely ask the noble Lord and the House to keep the debate at the level that it has reached and not to lower it.
Noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, I am astonished that the noble Lord is so sensitive. I am merely commenting upon certain divisions within his party which were made apparent by his noble colleague's speech. I shall continue to point to some aspects of the noble Lord's speech which I found difficult to follow; for example, he has suggested that in the campaign to persuade this country to join the European Community no reference was made to the political implications of so doing. I can only say that in the old Liberal Party, which was the first party to advocate this country's entry into the European Community—a position which has since been adopted by the Conservative Party and the Labour Party—we always made it 100 per cent. clear that a derogation of sovereignty was implicit in the Treaty of Rome.
According to my recollection, that was made clear in the referendum campaign. The noble Lord went on to say various things about the way in which the Community had worked, and ended by saying that it was not the sort of Community that he wanted. What I was not sure about was whether he was advocating that we leave the Community. If so, he is in minority. At the moment, many countries wish to join the Community. They include, neutrals such as Austria and Scandinavian countries such as Norway. In Eastern Europe a number of countries have indicated that that is what they wish to do. It is odd that people should advocate at this moment

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the view that the Community is something which has done this country what amounts to harm.
It if for those reasons that I found the noble Lord's speech an interesting, but rather unconstructive contribution. That having been said, one must go on to say that whenever one discusses this country's position vis à vis the Community, one has to start by reminding all British governments that from its earliest beginnings, the European Community was inspired by a political idea, prompted by the experience of a succession of European civil wars. That it chose to achieve that political idea by economic means did not make the Community any less political. It was the misunderstanding, whether deliberate or not, and the refusal to recognise that fact that led to us excluding ourselves from the Community, to the creation of the free trade area, and to the breakdown of the free trade area negotiations in 1958–59.
Today it seems to me that once more the same refusal to recognise the essentially political nature of the Community has led to a supposition that the Single European Act, creating a single European market, can be seen largely in economic terms, and that its implications in political terms are marginal. In fact, its political implications are of great importance and are inescapable. That is obvious from a reading of the Act.
If we are not to repeat the mistakes we made in the past, it is essential that we should not blind ourselves to that fact or pretend that those political implications do not exist. For example, M. Delors' prediction, to which the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, referred, was not a spectre or mirage. When he said that by 1995 80 per cent. of all important economic decisions would be taken at EC level rather than national level, he was saying something which seems to me more and more likely to be true, and something that we should recognise.
I ask noble Lords to look at what is already happening today. Mr. Ludlow, whose article was referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, and who is the Director of European Policy Studies, calculates that in environmental policy in 1988, 80 per cent. of all legislation adopted in Britain was of EC origin. Do not let us pretend that those political implications do not exist; or, secondly, do not let us pretend that the Delors Committee's plan for economic and monetary union is not developing a momentum or a current, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, called it. It is a current which I and, he, if I understood him rightly, doubt whether the Government can stop. If we try to exclude ourselves from those movements which are going forward and gathering momentum, we shall do so to our detriment. We may be fairly confident that the other countries will go ahead without us.
Thirdly, the Single European Act—this is on the same theme of the momentum which is developing—requires the European Community to review European political co-operation in 1992. We shall find, I predict, as the founders of the European Community foresaw, that economic integration demands political integration; that political integration requires political machinery; and that the existence of political machinery and political
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institutions legitimises and formalises political co-operation.
Each of those developments inevitably involves a derogation of sovereignty. That has always been the case. That will always be the case. It is in the Treaty of Rome. It is in the Single European Act, both of which we have signed. In addition, there now exists a European Parliament, to which this Parliament, this Government and the British press pay all too little attention. Parliaments like to accumulate power, and the European Parliament is no exception to that rule. It has in recent years accumulated power, and it will continue to do so. I would argue that it is right and proper that it should.
It is no use the Prime Minister complaining about European bureaucracy if she does not take any steps to curb it. The way to curb bureaucracy is to make that bureaucracy responsible to a democratically elected parliament and to a Council of Ministers, which acts almost as a second chamber in the European Community, and which conducts its business not in private but in public.
President Gorbachev spoke of ossified dogmas which he said had to be abandoned. It seems to me that the Prime Minister clings to some ossified dogmas about the European Community. One represents the European Community as a threat to our cultural identity. If the Prime Minister occasionally went abroad for her holidays, she would find French, German and Italian cultures unconcerned about this dreadful threat to their identities. I cannot see why she should think that the British cultural identity is so much more vulnerable than theirs. If there is a threat to our cultural identity, it comes not from the European Community but from Sky Television and the Americanisation of our television screens which this Government are so busy promoting.
Another ossified dogma is the EC's bureaucracy. The third which has been so well and thoroughly dealt with by the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, is that national sovereignty must be protected at all costs and in all circumstances. I believe that the sooner we abandon that last dogma, the better we shall be able to influence and direct the future of the European Community.
3.50 p.m.
Lord Benson: My Lords, the Motion calls for a more integrated European Community. I should like to make the plea that there is very little hope of an integrated European Community until we get the basic organisational structure of the Common Market on to a common sense basis. It comprises at present six different layers of authority, disjointed and uncoordinated. First, there is the European Council, which considers wide policy issues after meeting two or three times every year. It does not determine legislation.
The second layer is the Council of Ministers, which is the main decision-making body. It comprises Ministers from each of the member states who fight their own corners, and think of their own particular state in making their decisions. The composition of the council meetings varies depending upon the

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subject: transport, finance, agriculture. Different members meet, making their decisions in isolation and without reference to the others. The Council of Ministers does not meet in public; its proceedings are secret. Its decisions are communicated to the national governments after they have been made. Inconsistency is virtually guaranteed by changing the presidency every six months. Important decisions have to be unanimous.
The third layer is the representatives and ambassadors of the member states who sit in Brussels. A great deal of their time is spent in planning the work and the sessions of the Council of Ministers. They are not a formal Community institution, but by common consent they carry a great deal of influence in the conduct of Community affairs.
The fourth layer of authority is the European Parliament, but it has no legislative powers. It can express opinions; it can talk; it can give advice. But the ultimate decision rests with the Council of Ministers meeting in secret. Basic decisions which affect all citizens of the Community are not therefore made by the European Parliament, however elected. They are made by the Council of Ministers.
The fifth layer is the European Commission, which carries out the day-to-day work, but it has the sole power of initiative. Also, apart from the court, it has the sole power of interpreting the provisions of the Treaty of Rome. Technically, it is under the surveillance of the European Parliament, but that is wholly unrealistic because the only way in which the European Parliament can enforce its authority is by removing the whole of the Commission en bloc on the basis of a two-thirds majority of the European Parliament—a totally unrealistic proposition.
The sixth layer of authority is the 12 member states in which the bulk of the revenue arises and the expenditure is made. The degree of surveillance which is possible by the other five layers of authority over the sixth layer of authority is very small and very difficult to apply.
If we had set out to formulate an organisational structure which would be transparently inefficient, and indeed a long way removed from democracy as we understand it in this country, we could not do better than the organisation we have in post at present. Let us look at some of its achievements. The annual budget of the Community is £25 billion per annum. Of that sum, every year between £2 and £6 billion is squandered and frittered away in fraud and irregularities. That has been going on for years. Next, the gross mismanagement of the common agricultural policy has been continuing for years. The great bulk of the revenue is expended on that policy, but only nine out of every 100 workers are engaged in agriculture. The accumulation of huge stocks of unsaleable goods and the vast expenditure of money on storing them is totally inexcusable.
The financial and budgetary administration of the Community is wretchedly weak. Year after year in annual reports and special reports the Court of Auditors draws attention to bad and inefficient administration. Sometimes a little is done with those
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reports, but on the whole most of them are ignored or not treated seriously. Then there is the lack of political will, to which Select Committees have drawn attention. Again and again decisions are not made because they are politically difficult or because the necessary majority cannot be obtained.
If we really feel that an integrated Europe is necessary, I suggest that the first thing we must do is to get the organisation right. Until that is done, I cannot believe that there is any hope of a united Europe with freedom of frontiers and the free movement of people, goods, capital and services. There is further talk of a single currency, but the smallest economic principles must be observed, that we cannot have a currency unless we have a federal government who can manage the economy upon which that currency is dependent. So I think that the first task is to get the organisation right. It has been recognised for a long time that it is weak and inefficient. The real problem is that nobody has the courage to tackle it.
3.57 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, I wish to say a few words about the so-called social dimension mentioned by my noble friend, which has suddenly emerged as an elixir newly discovered by the Labour Party—though not apparently by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon—and has correspondingly become the subject of bitter denigration by the Government. I do not believe that either of these reactions is justified by proposals for a social charter, as far as we know them at present, although we have yet to see the final version of the Solemn Proclamation of Fundamental Social Rights that the Commission wants to propose to the Council.
Let us therefore look first at the motivation behind the pryoject. It is clearly designed to reassure unions and employees generally that the 1992 completion of the internal market is something more than a charter for capitalists. It is in the nature of a quid pro quo to the European labour forces for the dismantling of the last trade barriers and the opening up of the single European market to transnational companies which are naturally likely to locate where labour and social costs are least. Obviously there is some considerable merit in the aim to introduce civilised minimum standards of employment and to ensure that one member state cannot blatantly undercut another.
Our own record of industrial relations is not such that we can afford to sneer at efforts to get the people of Europe on board for the more dynamic economy at which the 1992 project is aimed. But as the social proposals spring from a tradition of social partnership and co-determination which is somewhat alien to our own, the Government immediately dismiss the package as creeping or backdoor socialism, without troubling to distinguish what is industrially useful or ethically desirable from what should be treated with a little more caution.
Let me start with one or two reservations. Personally, I attach great importance to preserving freedom of manoeuvre nationally in two vital areas—fiscal policy and the control of social security.

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I think any British government of whatever persuasion would, or should, aim at that. The fiscal side does not fall strictly within the broadly social remit that I have set myself. However, with the various kinds of interesting possibilities of fiscal innovation in the direction of tax neutrality on the agenda, I would want to keep my options open here.
The European exchange rate mechanism would, I am convinced, have been a help to Mr. Lawson in controlling domestic inflation, as my noble friend Lord Chandos said, and as he himself clearly believed when he was shadowing the deutschmark. However, central budgetary control is not a necessary element on the road to a common currency, and he would be right to resist that.
Next, the social security system is another extremely potent weapon of domestic social policy in the hands of any government. I, for one, would be extremely reluctant to surrender control of it. This is especially so because we on these Benches are opposed to the idea of a European minimum wage. I am not sure whether that will be included in the final draft of the solemn proclamation. The phrase used in the press release of 17th May was a "fair wage". That sounds unexceptionable until we remember that the concept of the just wage went out with the mediaeval guild system and its redefinition has been the subject of profound political dispute ever since. It would, therefore, be extremely difficult to establish, particularly if Community-wide figures were attached to it.
The arguments against such wage-setting are well known. It introduces rigidities into the labour market with the ultimate effect of keeping people out of work. Further, it penalises poorer countries, unless perhaps their wage bills are subsidised out of Community funds. That is not to say that there should be no norms of basic social protection. However, in our view, it is much better to go for a minimum income through an integrated tax and benefits system, which would, incidentally, remove the worst affliction of all suffered by low paid British workers, which is the punitive combined marginal rate of tax and national insurance contributions at the bottom end of the scale. This is another area in which a British government should preserve some freedom to act.
If the Commission is in danger of being somewhat over-ambitious in some aspects of the proposed social charter, when one comes nearer to the human and civil rights aspects, it is on much firmer ground. Thus, freedom of movement and association and collective bargaining must command universal, or at least very broad, assent. So, too, must equal rights and equal pay for men and women in the same jobs, and parental leave. Equality of opportunity must command broad assent in so far as it can be achieved through education and training. Therefore, I strongly support the Commission's proposal for a right to continuing vocational training, particularly if it gives a boost not only to adult retraining but also to the radical restructuring of the arrangements for the 16 to 19 age group which is so urgently required in this country. If it does anything to push us towards an educational maintenance allowance at 16 plus, I shall be happier still.
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Then there is the matter of health and safety at work and the protection of children and young people. No person in his right mind would oppose that. The same goes for the integration of disabled people which has been so remarkable a feature of recent social advance.
It might be thought that, given our long tradition of social legislation, which dates back to the mid-19th century, we might be ahead of the rest of the Community in many of these matters. But the only area in which our legislation, if not our practice, seems to be ahead of the Community is that of health and safety at work. Otherwise, the indications are that there is a general trend away from the standards outlined in the charter. The charter would, for instance, make provision for the limitation of the hours worked by young people. This would have an obviously beneficial effect on their possibilities of further education and training. However, the Government's Employment Bill, which had its Report stage in another place yesterday, goes straight in the opposite direction. It removes restrictions on the hours and wages of minors, thereby encouraging them pell-mell into the labour market at too early an age, and thus into a downward spiral of low paid, unskilled work.
As regards sex discrimination, there is more litigation in this area from Britain and Ireland than from anywhere else in the Community. This may be a tribute to the role of the Equal Opportunities Commission, but it does not say very much for our employers' practices. So, while there are some things that we are right to be chary of, there are other widely accepted social and employment standards against which we do not measure up too well. If we are afraid of creeping or back door socialism, or any other bogey conjured up by the Government, it is worth looking at what we actually put our name to, or rather what that enlightened lady, Mrs. Chalker, did on our behalf, in the Single European Act.
In subsection III on social policy in Article 118A, we read that:
"Member States shall pay particular attention to encouraging improvements, especially in the working environment, as regards the health and safety of workers, and shall set as their objective the harmonisation of conditions in this area, while maintaining improvements made".
We then learn that directives under this section may be made by qualified majority, laying down:
"minimum requirements for gradual implementation, having regard to the conditions and technical rules obtaining in each of the Member States".
This is followed by what amounts to an exemption for:
"small and medium-sized undertakings".
I can see little there which should cause Mr. Fowler too much loss of sleep or send the Prime Minister into a towering rage. Gradualism is the order of the day and they will have much less difficulty in making reasonable British points if they are prepared to listen to the points made by others. The British Monster Raving Loony Show is now frankly out of date in Europe and should be taken off the road. It should definitely not be trundled out again in Madrid. Perhaps the noble Lord, from his more balanced Foreign and Commonwealth Office

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perspective, could pass that on as one of the messages of this debate. Perhaps if that particular show were managed by his department, it might work out very much better for all of us.
The truth of the matter is that the wider the social charter seeks to range, the less it will be possible for its promoters to argue that it is a necessary precondition of the success of 1992. The Government therefore have some freedom of manoeuvre. But, rather than putting the boot into something that clearly accords with the aspirations and values of practically all our fellow members, a wise government would be in there talking coherently and persuasively about those areas, which I have mentioned, on which they have reservations, while acknowledging those in which we ourselves are less than perfect.
We do not want any more ranting about socialism, which is in any case on the decline worldwide. We do not want the negativism of Bruges. What we do want are the particular British virtues of perspicacity, pragmatism and good sense. A modicum of courtesy would also not come amiss. In that way we are more likely to influence the final shape of the proclamation, which will be made with or without us, and to diminish the number of unnecessarily intrusive directives.
Finally, the social market economy which we espouse is fundamentally predicated on securing the social acceptability of a free market system. We believe that that requires fair, as opposed to merely formal, equality of opportunity, a wide dispersal of property and a basic income guarantee. To the extent that any European proclamation or instrument meets these aims, we will support it wholeheartedly. But if, and where, it strays into excessive bureaucracy, or conformism, or centralism, or corporatism, or utopianism, our voice will be raised against such threats to our national interest and cultural identity. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, pointed towards some of those dangers as possibilities along the road. It seems to me that that position is well expressed in the terms of the Motion of my noble friend, which he moved so eloquently. I congratulate him on it. Although convention will require him to withdraw it, I commend its spirit to the House.
4.8 p.m.
Lord Gladwyn: My Lords, I propose to say a very few words regarding the possible effects of recent events on the North Atlantic Alliance and, hence, on the European Community. The prospects for both have, I believe, been improved by President Bush's very welcome initiative. It is true that agreement between the super powers on the limitation of their conventional weapons in Europe—weapons comprising aircraft, tanks and, for the first time, men—may well take longer than he suggests. But if, as we must all hope, the negotiations are at least partially successful, then talks on short-range nuclear weapons will certainly start. I agree, at least on this, with the Prime Minister,' that once they do start the day of the so-called "third zero" will not be very far off.
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Incidentally, the row on short-range weapons has probably only been postponed if, as seems quite likely, the West German Government, emerging from the coming elections, refuses to allow modernised Lance missiles to be stationed on German soil, where United States troops are nevertheless likely to remain—at least we must hope so.
This brings me to the point that, whether we like it or not, the emergence of what may broadly be termed left-wing or left-of-centre coalition governments in practically all the continental member states of the Community is something that must now be seriously contemplated. Without venturing into party politics, I might add that some such government or coalition might possibly in the next year or two even take the place of the present Gaullist régime in this country. In any case our continental colleagues are very likely to agree fairly shortly on some scheme for giving effect to the Single European Act and hence making the Community more efficient which, as the noble Lord, Lord Benson, has said, is now essential. If we stand out, all the chances are that they will go ahead without us.
The noble Lord who is to reply to this debate will correct me if I am wrong, but I just do not believe that the Americans would welcome such a development. They would surely prefer us to be part of a united Europe on the broad lines proposed by the Commission rather than a kind of aircraft and missile carrier on the edge of a Europe with which, for so long at any rate as their troops remain, they will inevitably have a "special relationship" rather than with us. All the more so if our absence results in an increase in anti-American or even neutralist tendencies, especially in Germany.
That is not to say that all the hopes now placed on 1992 will necessarily be realised, particularly if it results simply, as the Government apparently want, in the abolition of all impediments to trade and nothing else. There has recently appeared in France—and it is said to have created a great impression—a book by a brilliant young inspecteur des finances called Alain Minc entitled La grande Illusion. By this he apparently means that a purely economic solution of the problem of increasing unity is likely to be disastrous. The Darwinian conception, as he calls unrestricted free trade—a kind of survival of the fittest—would result, he thinks, in appalling and intolerable hardships for many nations and for most smaller industries unless accompanied by some control of credit including a central bank, great financial asistance for the backward countries, some social or welfare state provisions, and above all a common policy on defence.
M. Minc's book is rather irritating. I think that he is too pessimistic regarding the withdrawal of United States troops, which in the long run he regards as inevitable. He also appears to think that the Germans would willingly accept an Anglo-French nuclear umbrella if the American one was withdrawn. However, his general argument that there is now a real danger of what he calls "continental drift" towards the East, and an ensuing "Finlandisation" of Europe unless Western Germany is firmly

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embodied in some form of meaningful political union—including, if possible, the United Kingdom—is surely unanswerable. Must we really assume that Mrs. Thatcher cannot recognise this obvious danger and the obvious means of avoiding it? If so the hope must be that she will eventually be replaced by somebody who can.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, for the chance to debate this thought-provoking topic—thought-provoking because implicit in the wording is the tacit acknowledgement that the attainment of further integration of the EC without jeopardising either national interests or cultural identities (not just Britain's) would be a difficult and delicate task. Why, therefore, attempt the task, one wonders. It is not as if further political integration were a prerequisite for fostering friendship between peoples. Indeed, the opposite may be true, as I shall argue later.
Euro-fanatics are notorious for their hostility towards "Atlanticism", which one might loosely define as friendship and co-operation between English-speaking peoples. One sometimes wonders whether they also feel that we are duty bound to like the West Germans better than the Austrians, the Belgians better than the Swiss, the Danes better than the Norwegians, the Greeks better than the Turks, the Spanish better than the Poles, and the Sicilians better than the Maltese merely because the first group in each case are members of the EC and the second group are not.
By the same token the absurd notion that further integration is essential in order to prevent physical conflict between nations simply will not wash. If this were so the EC nations, individually or collectively, would long since have clashed with Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, East Germany and so on. Logically there would have been clashes between Canada and the United States and between Australia and New Zealand as well. Nor is there anything in the preposterous claim made at the time of the 1975 referendum campaign that integration would, in some suitably vague and unspecified way, give the people of the United Kingdom greater access to Beethoven, Voltaire, Breughel, Carpaccio and so on. Art, music and literature have always transcended national frontiers, thank goodness, and always will. The Common Market plays no role in this whatsoever.
The long-term viability of an integrated foreign policy must also be open to question. The much vaunted EC united front in response to the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands was more apparent than real. Had the conflict continued any longer serious cracks would have appeared in the facade of European unity, or rather EC unity. One must not make the far too common error of using "Europe" as a synonym for the EC.
So what are we left with?—the idea, I would guess, that further integration is needed to increase wealth and prosperity within the Community. Only an ivory tower elitist totally out of touch with ordinary people would deny that all people in every era welcome
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greater prosperity, both in their capacity as private consumers and in their capacity as beneficiaries of public spending, but not at any cost, which is why the vast majority of British people will, for example, welcome the Government's ban on juggernauts over 38 tonnes, which our overcrowded island simply cannot cope with whatever may be the case on the Continent, even if such a ban reduces the average family's income by a few pence per week. In other words, for the British public economic efficiency is not the be all and end all.
Furthermore, the average family's prosperity depends not only on dismantling barriers within the Community but also on dismantling barriers around the perimeter of the Community. Banning or severely restricting imports of sugar from the Caribbean not only impoverishes Caribbean sugar producers but makes EC consumers poorer than they would otherwise be. So far as concerns the internal barriers, most of those are already well on their way to being dismantled in any case. The United Kingdom has been more scrupulous than many other countries in fulfilling its obligations in this respect.
The trouble is that the majority of draft directives now emanating from Brussels—at a rate that would never be tolerated by the House of Commons or by this House—have nothing to do either with the unimpeded flow of goods and services between the different nations of the Community on the one hand or joint action against pollution, drug smuggling and terrorism on the other. In any case, the latter requires the co-operation of the entire Western world, not only of the 12 EC countries.
The issue of so-called workers' rights and the social charter apart—I make no comment on that given my mixed feelings about it—we seem to be left with an absolute spate of over-zealous legislation seeking to interfere in the purely domestic affairs of countries throughout the Community. I do not particularly care for bull fighting, but it is none of my business. It is no business of anyone else either, except the Spaniards, yet the EC is apparently trying to ban it despite the protestations of King Carlos himself. So much for the "protection of cultural identity". Efforts are doubtless now being made to ban the Frenchman's traditional Gauloises and Gitanes on the grounds that they contain too much nicotine or tar. The German autobahnen are also threatened with speed limits for the first time, against the wishes of the Germans themselves.
As for ourselves, the list of proposed impertinent interferences in our domestic affairs is too long to recite. I shall mention just four at random: the ban on the driving of minibuses within the UK by deaf drivers; the requirement for a vet to be present at a game shoot; the introduction of a close season for vermin; and a ban on the imperial system of measurement, even for unpackaged fruit and vegetables sold directly by greengrocers and farmers to British people. I am not talking about items that are exported to the Continent. The human-scale imperial system forms part of our cultural identity, as a glance at Shakespeare will demonstrate, as it formed part of the Continental cultural identity until

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the totalitarians of the French Revolution abolished it just under 200 years ago.
Even those measures that are admirable in themselves, such as the requirement for greater minimum tread depths on motor tyres announced the other day, are surely matters that lie solely within the competence of national parliaments. If that is what a more integrated European Community is all about, one wants no part of it. The noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, said that he was unhappy with the word "sovereignty". I am not very happy with it either. Let us talk rather about self-determination; that makes the whole matter clearer. Why should there be this urge to legislate, to dominate, to override the national will in so many matters, both trivial and important? The clue must lie in the alarming analogy that I have heard twice recently. It goes like this: the European Community is like a bicycle; unless one keeps pedalling it forward furiously, it will collapse. What an admission of instability and innate weakness? Can one imagine institutions such as the British monarchy, the Roman Catholic Church, the American Constitution—notwithstanding their gradual, inevitable adaptation to changing times—being described in such terms?
The logic of the bicycle analogy is that the EC should proceed at all speed to become, first, a federal state and then a fully fledged unitary state. Only when it has reached the end of the road can the bicycle be safely stored in its rack. That logic is borne out by the fact that much of the proposed legislation is more appropriate to a unitary state than to a federal state. The components of a federation have far more freedom to decide matters for themselves than the allegedly sovereign nation states of the EC appear to have at the moment.
Common Market enthusiasts—among whom I have never pretended to count myself—must put a brake on the zealots and Utopians in their midst if they want their ideal to be attained. The reality is that the ill will created by excessive harmonisation will destroy the only harmony that one needs or wants—harmony between peoples.
4.25 p.m.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, it was only on 3rd May that the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, introduced an important debate on the challenge of 1992. I think that, in spite of the relatively short lapse in time, the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, is absolutely right in introducing a similar subject for debate today. After all, as he has pointed out, this is the week before the European elections. It therefore gives noble Lords the chance to survey the whole European scene.
I think that we should begin by reminding ourselves of the very positive progress that has been made towards the achievement of the single market. In the same debate on 3rd May, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, pointed out that 50 per cent. of the measures that needed to be introduced to achieve the single market had in fact been achieved. That is slightly beyond the half-way mark, so it is a great achievement.
Furthermore, there is not the slightest doubt that at what one might describe as the working level,
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involving industrialists, trade unionists, trade organisations and bodies such as the British Standards Institution, a great deal of contact of a positive nature is being developed in Europe, at Brussels and at other meeting places. Such contact forges the sort of European Community that is being prepared for the future.
However, it is disturbing that, while that positive work is going on at that level, speeches are unfortunately being made from time to time at what one might call the political level which throw doubts on the whole endeavour. I should have thought that it would be far better to encourage the achievements at the working level by more positive speeches from now on, as we near the full achievement of the single market, than to go on raising those doubts.
The question arises whether that single market can simply be a free trading area. It cannot. If we are to remove barriers between the movement of goods, people and money, the rules under which that free movement is to be undertaken must be agreed; otherwise there is bound to be distortion. The rules that must be agreed must ensure that trading is fair and therefore that standards of health and quality should be common so far as possible. In the case of the movement of people, we must agree on which qualifications will count in the various countries of the Community, so they must be linked together in some way. So far as concerns the free movement of money and capital, we must not only consider the rules that apply in each of the member countries but must also be concerned about the rules that apply outside, particularly with regard to the banks which have been established to such a large degree in London and other Community centres but are based in the United States, Japan and elsewhere. Those rules must all be worked out.
In my opinion, it is therefore idle to suppose that one can simply say, "Let us have free trade, but leave it at that". We must go into the other matters to make sense of the situation; otherwise we shall have total distortion. I believe that that point is fully recognised at what I call the working level. I hope that in future top level political pronouncements the Government will pay regard to that and show that this indeed is an inevitable consequence of agreeing to create a free market in Western Europe.
Some doubts have been expressed by some of today's speakers, I have no doubt with very genuine motives, as to whether we are looking at this Community in too small a perspective or whether it could jeopardise our sovereignty and so on. However, the fact is that the objective of creating the single market in 1992 has put Western Europe on the map.
A few days ago I was at an international meeting in Vienna which was attended by people from the Community countries, non-Community Western European countries, one country from Eastern Europe, America and Japan. We were discussing general economic and financial trends in the world. The largest part of our discussions centred around the creation of the single market. The Americans expressed their concern about whether or not it would be a fortress Europe, but they are gradually coming round to the view that it will not be. They

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have been assured time and again—and I am glad to observe the role of the United Kingdom Government in giving those assurances—that such is not the intention. However, clearly we have to live together on a fair basis with the interchange of goods, financial services and resources. The Japanese also made very clear their concern; hence their great interest in establishing themselves in various European countries and in particular in Great Britain. So far as concerns the Eastern European country—and perhaps as it was a private meeting I should not mention it by name—those people were nonetheless very keen on finding ways in which they could be associated with this development, which they saw as of great and historic importance so far as concerns the whole of Europe.
Whatever doubts and hesitations some of us may feel about this development, let us be quite sure that in a world sense it is regarded as very important indeed. It is gratifying that Britain is among those who are at the centre of this movement, and I believe that we shall receive much added strength from these developments so long as we participate in a positive way.
Perhaps I may illustrate that by mentioning a personal experience which occurred when I was in the coal industry. We were trying to stimulate the sale of British mining equipment throughout the world, but we found that there was a move in Brussels to fix the standards for European mining equipment on the German DIN system. The Germans were perfectly justified in pressing for that move but our response was not simply to sit back and say how unfair it was. We sent a very strong team to Brussels to negotiate in favour of the British standards. I am very glad to say that the outcome was a reasonable compromise which enabled us to continue to export on a substantial scale.
The lesson which I derive from that experience is that we should not sit back and complain about events that have gone wrong and decisions against our interests that have been made by people in Brussels; we must ask ourselves whether we have made the effort to send the experts over there. We must make the effort to contact our representatives within the Commission and the other institutions and those Ministers who attend the meetings of the Council of Ministers in order to make absolutely sure that British interests are clearly identified and put forward at the right time and in a constructive manner.
I would be the last person to suggest that we should accept everything that comes out of Brussels. There are many occasions on which obviously we must express a different opinion. Indeed, that is the case with every single member of the Community. The question is how we do it. I suggest that we get in early, quickly and positively. It is still felt in Brussels that British representation at the working level is not as strong and adequate as that of some other countries. We are still not putting in quite enough effort in spite of the progress made. The right way to influence this important development is to contribute as much as we possibly can to shaping it in the right direction. If that can be one of the
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messages to come out of this important debate, I shall be delighted.
4.35 p.m.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the good common sense and practical contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Ezra. I am in the fortunate position of being sandwiched between the excellent contribution to this debate of the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, and the wisdom that we are about to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, which is based on his experience as the president of the Commission.
I have only one or two points to make. One of them is that I regret very much that there has been only one speaker from the Conservative Benches. We are on the eve of the European elections but only one speaker from the Conservative Party has participated in this debate. It may be that this debate clashes with some sporting event taking place this afternoon. On the other hand, it may be that if two speakers from the Conservative Benches were to address us, they would speak with diametrically different views because it is quite clear that the Government are in disarray. So much is obvious from the kind of lively debate that is taking place between the Prime Minister and Mr. Heath.
This afternoon I might have been tempted to correct the balance and quote from a book written by Mr. Michael Heseltine as his contribution to this debate. I commend to the Minister and the Government the wise words of Mr. Heseltine, with his view of Europe. He deplores our lack of initiative and lack of commitment to the European idea and he addresses that topic very forcibly in his book. I might even quote another Conservative leader in support of our argument and mention the great speeches of Sir Winston Churchill at the end of the Second World War when he showed us a vision of a united Europe. I must say that the speeches of the present Conservative Prime Minister fade into insignificance beside the statemanship shown by earlier Conservative leaders who addressed themselves to this subject.
It is sad that this great debate about Europe is being trivialised by arguments about the size of advertisements on cigarette packets. We are in the midst of great events in Europe. As we read the news bulletins we must all be aware that ideas are changing in Eastern and Western Europe. It is the end of communism and the end of a faith by which people in Eastern Europe have lived. In this vacuum people are seeking a new vision and new ideas to which to commit themselves because they have lived by a faith which is now discredited.
Under these circumstances I think it is right that we should look at this European idea with the breadth and vision to capture people's imagination. People are seeking an idea and an ideal. One may say that that is all right for the broad vision but let us look at the detail. In the earlier debates on this subject we spent some time on European monetary union and also on the report over which M. Delors presided. The bankers who prepared this report were not Marxists. They were not socialists. In fact I believe that Mr. Robin Leigh Pemberton sat on the

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committee, and you cannot get much more conservative than that. They agreed to these proposals for a further development of European monetary union.
Why did they do so? You may talk about keeping our country and its institutions pure and undiluted by European influences. That is not the real world any more. Last week the Bundesbank decided not to increase its interest rates. Mr. Lawson sat in No. 11 Downing Street and waited for the message because it was the Bundesbank which last week determined whether our interest charges would go up in Britain in response to their decision. That is the kind of world we live in today. We are no longer isolated from these events. We can no longer build a wall around ourselves.
I believe that this country can make a useful contribution to Europe. I listened with great interest to the noble Lords, Lord Monson and Lord Benson, and I have some sympathy for their criticism of some of the inadequacies of the Community. It is easy to criticise the frauds and all the other weaknesses that have emerged. We are building a large, new institution and it would be a miracle if difficulties such as have been mentioned had not emerged.
But what do we do? We complain about the common agricultural policy. The trouble about the common agricultural policy is that it was devised before we entered Europe, and therefore we had to accept the rules. New problems are emerging in Europe today. If we were to sit outside these events there would be no point in complaining about the inadequacies or weaknesses of the CAP when we were outside. Our job—indeed as part of our national pride and responsibility as a nation—is to play a full part in these great historical events. I hope that today's debate will encourage us to grasp the opportunity and see the vision.
4.43 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Chandos on having chosen this Motion, and also on the relevant and perceptive terms in which he phrased it and phrased his speech. I should like to make a comment in a moment or two about his choice of the words "national interest and cultural identity". Before I do that I should like to say a word or two about some of the interesting speeches that his Motion has provoked.
The first, is the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon. The noble Lord spoke with unusual dogmatic eloquence this afternoon. I do not say that in any way in criticism. I have some sympathy for it for a reason that I shall come to in a moment. He is in a rather uncomfortable position at the moment because he sees his party slipping away from him on Europe. The reason for my sympathy is that I once saw my party slipping away from me on Europe in the opposite direction. Maybe that made me a little dogmatic and possibly a little more eloquent than usual at that time too. Therefore I have some sympathy with him on that issue. I welcome the present movement in the Labour Party,
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which I regard as strong and important, but in view of the history of somersaults I take it with just a pinch of salt, and I am a little sceptical about the degree of widespread conviction or commitment that goes with it.
I listened with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Benson, who spoke, if I may say so, with great detailed knowledge for someone from outside about the Community institutions. Of course they are not perfect. They are far from perfect. Of course they are too complicated. However, they do in a sense represent an inevitable ambiguity within the Community at its present stage of development. That is the ambiguity in the feeling throughout the member states that a lot of things have to be done at a European level if they are going to be done at all, combined with a certain doubt about how much transference of sovereignty they are willing to engage in.
That is really the essence of the problem. As it is peculiarly strongly represented by a feeling in this country, it is not altogether sensible for us to criticise the Community because it does not sit down with more speed and detailed application than the Founders of the American Constitution in Philadelphia in 1766, and work out a perfect, brand new constitution for Europe in a short time. To say that Europe cannot progress until it has introduced perfection, or something near perfection, in its institutions is, if I may say so with respect to the noble Lord, a recipe for despair.
Nor do I think that the noble Lord was wholly accurate in his assertion that you cannot have some form of currency union without a full federal government. I believe that events will contradict him probably in the course of the 1990s or as we get to the year 2000, but that is speculation. However, there is also a certain amount of history. There was such a thing as the Latin currency union which prevailed for pretty well 50 years between France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland and maybe one or two other countries until 1914 unsupported by any federal government or any political superstructure. Therefore I think that the noble Lord's proposition is not entirely true.
I come back to the two phrases in my noble friend's Motion; first, the question of "maintaining Britain's … cultural identity". I do not believe that that is remotely in danger or at issue. My noble friend Lord Bonham-Carter spoke with great force about that point. If it is in danger, that danger comes from across the Atlantic and not from across the Channel. Such a fear is not felt by countries which have at least as strong a national cultural identity as we have ourselves. Indeed I know of nobody in Europe—I do not know of the most determined European—who thinks it right or feasible that we should see in anything like the near future, or perhaps ever, an exact replica of the United States of America in Europe.
That is for a very good reason. The Europeans who founded the United States had turned their backs on their countries of origin and been through a melting pot. That is not the case in Europe, will not be the case, and should not be the case. Therefore what is achieved in Europe will be something

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different from that, but not something which will in any way threaten our cultural identity.
The other point that my noble friend talked about was the importance of "maintaining Britain's national interest" while progressing towards greater European unity. I did not entirely agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, but the fact that he put this in showed that he thought that it was a very difficult enterprise. I do not think that it is difficult at all. I am rather filled with dismay at the now increasingly likely prospect that this Government, under the leadership of the Prime Minister, are going to repeat for the fourth time the mistake that we made in our relations with the Continent of Europe in 1951, 1957 and 1978, not out of Euro fanaticism but because by following this policy, by learning nothing from the past, we unnecessarily reduce British influence in Europe and serve British interests, let alone European interests, extremely badly.
There is no doubt that this recipe that we apply to ourselves is not one that the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, might wish for; his had a certain logical consistency, although I do not agree with it. It was that we go off in another direction and we find a different policy which has nothing to do with the Community. We always hesitate at the point when we are asked to participate in some new way forward, and then join belatedly, rather shamefacedly, dragging our feet at a late stage. What is absolutely inevitable is that by doing this we sacrifice our influence over the formation of the institution that we ultimately join. It guarantees that leadership in Europe remains almost exclusively Franco-German, not by the wish particularly of Paris or Bonn but by the decision of London. It does not mean Britain against the rest of Europe. It does not mean Britain on top. It means, unnecessarily, Britain third, fourth or even fifth in Europe.
I was interested in the point to which my noble friend Lord Chandos also drew attention: the decision of the Spanish Government to join the exchange rate mechanism of the EMS by mid-1990. I shall never forget that at the end of 1985, the month before Spain entered the Community, I asked Felipe Gonzalez, the Prime Minister of Spain, what he intended to do about the exchange rate mechanism. He said, "Join as soon as I possibly can. Economically it is rather difficult for Spain, but I am absolutely convinced that in order to play a part in Europe and to have influence in Europe, one has to participate at all levels of co-operation within Europe. That is why I was so determined to keep Spain in NATO and why I want Spain to be in the exchange rate mechanism as soon as possible". I was extremely struck by that and also depressed that a Spanish Prime Minister—who at that stage had not been in the Community at all—could see the truth that had eluded successive British prime ministers during the preceding 13 years in which we have been in the Community.
I have no doubt at all that this laggardly policy, this policy of always being reluctant, is extremely damaging to British interests and British influence in Europe. I have also been dismayed in the past few
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weeks and months to see the speed with which this Government, or some members of it, have slipped— surprisingly, in view of what we were saying a short time ago—into anto-European rhetoric. They are looking for bogeymen in Brussels—into building up M. Delors into some kind of Marxist foreigner who has to be mistrusted for those reasons. He is of course a foreigner. He can hardly help that. Indeed in Europe one cannot entirely avoid having certain dealings with foreigners. That is in the nature of the enterprise, but to describe M. Delors as Marxist is stretching language beyond the bounds of plausibility.
The major thing which M. Delors did before becoming President of the European Commission was to jerk the first Mitterrand government—he was the finance Minister in it—away from the dogmatic doctrinaire socialist, if you like, policy towards a much more open trading policy to remain faithful to the partnership with Germany and to the European orientation of France. That he did firmly and decisively. To believe that he is a Marxist bogeyman is the language of fantasy and, indeed, the language of anti-European fantasy, and not the language of constructive European fact. I hope that before it is too late the Government will draw back from this increasingly anti-European note which is coming into many speeches and which will render a mockery of 1992, let alone what may come after 1992.
4.53 p.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, for his Motion and for the impressive speech with which he introduced it. As other noble Lords have said, the noble Viscount could not have timed his debate better as the elections to the European Parliament are imminent and the atmosphere within the Conservative Party and the Government is, I understand, electric. The noble Viscount's Motion seems balanced and reasonable, but in her present mood the Prime Minister may not be attracted to the call in the latter part for,
"full participation in a more integrated European Community".
I shall deal with our own attitude to the Community in a moment. Our recently-published policies are forward-looking and constructive. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, for his encouraging remarks about them.
Today our concern is with the Government. The responsibility for tackling and resolving the problems which stand in the way of Community unity belongs to the Government. If there is failure and disunity the fault will be theirs. It is therefore our duty in this debate to examine the Government's response to the problems which face Britain at present. The general view—and this goes beyond the party political argument—is that the Government are in a real mess. As the Financial Times said on 23rd May:
"The split over Europe which has broken through the Conservatives' normally impenetrable gloss of unity will not go away".
In the approach to 1992—we have the Madrid summit later this month—we need a clear policy and a firm lead from the Government. In international matters it is the duty of all governments to work for a

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united view. But what do we see on the Government Benches in both Houses? We see the biggest split in the Conservative Party since Robert Peel repealed the Corn Laws. Let us look at the facts. We are Members of the European Community. Mrs. Thatcher set a final seal to that when we signed the Single European Act in 1986. We presume that she realised what she was doing. Yet, at this crucial moment in our history, the Prime Minister contrives to be at odds with virtually all European leaders and with members of her own party. We are witnessing a very strange drama.
The recent speeches of the former Conservative Prime Minister, Mr. Edward Heath, are known to us all. I do not propose, out of sympathy for noble Lords opposite, to enter into any detail; I know that his speeches are engraved on their hearts. Then there are Mr. Michael Heseltine's speeches. Those, along with his recent book, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, calling for closer British participation in Europe, reflect the views of an important segment of the party opposite. The noble Lord, Lord Plumb, leader of the Conservative Party in the European Parliament, pleads for European unity.
We are aware too that there are strains within the Government. Sir Geoffrey Howe does his best to pour oil on troubled waters. We must all feel sympathy for him. We know that the Prime Minister views the Foreign Office more or less as Mrs. Mary Whitehouse views the media—with considerable suspicion. Sir Geoffrey, as we know, is a committed European.
One of the key issues involved in integration is the Government's reaction to the Delors committee's recommendation on European monetary union. As the House knows, there are three stages. The first is that the EMS would be refined; the second, that new Community institutions would be set up; the third, the establishment of a central bank and a European currency. Can the noble Lord tell us whether the Government support these three proposals, or any of them? I am sure he will agree that they are central to the impending single market in 1992 and that they will be accepted by a majority, if not all the Community partners.
Some commentators have said that the Government will accept stage one but not the other two. But stage one means putting sterling in the European monetary system. Do the Government support that? If they cannot answer now they will have to decide in time for Madrid. This is a crucial issue. Again, on the question of integration the Government give the impression of resisting reasonable Community measures. Let me give four examples some of which have been mentioned by noble Lords. The first is the Lingua programme which is to help young people learn at least two foreign languages. That seems to me an admirable objective as we approach 1992. But the Government seem to be against it.
The second is the proposal to strengthen health warnings on cigarette packets. I turned to The Times to see what it had to say. It described the Prime Minister's attitude to the proposal as "pointless
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obduracy". The third is compliance with the EC drinking water directive, which this House has accepted. Mr. Ridley has said that the Government will see that that decision is overturned in another place. In my view that would be disgraceful and I hope that the noble Lord can be prevailed upon to bring about a change of mind. The fourth is the social charter about which the noble Lord, Lord Monson, had some doubts. It seems to Members on this side of the House a moderate and reasonable document.
I regret to say that there is a touch of hysteria about the Prime Minister's all-out condemnation of these modest proposals. I do not wish to be unfair and I find myself wondering whether the Prime Minister and some of her colleagues believe in the Community and wish to remain within it. They appear to me to reflect the spirit of the old European Free Trade Area—EFTA as we called it—rather than that of the European Community. If that is the case, then she and they should say so plainly. Mr. Edward Heath went further than that when, on the BBC on 29th May, he said:
"One can only reach one conclusion; that she would like to see the break up of the Community".
That may be going a little too far, but the Prime Minister's current attitudes could have unpredictable consequences. She has made plain ther views on sovereignty—an emotive word, as the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, said. We understand that she has told Ministers to oppose in Brussels anything that seems an arrogation by the Community of national sovereignty. I can understand that attitude, but we have already conceded important elements of sovereignty. The Prime Minister did so in 1986. As a Welshman, I recognise that Wales did so substantially several centuries ago. We conceded our sovereignty to a larger concept and I sometimes wonder whether we were wise to do so!
The noble Viscount's Motion refers to,
"maintaining Britain's national interest and cultural identity".
We fully support that, as, I believe, does the Conservative Party. As the House knows, the Welsh people are especially concerned about the preservation of their language and their cultural identity. We understand that those will be protected within the Community by the Treaty. We on this side of the House assert that we must sustain and preserve in this Parliament our rights to determine matters which are of direct national interest.
Furthermore, we believe that if we co-operate in good will with other member states we can gain considerable benefits for the people of this country. I usually find myself in agreement with my noble friend Lord Stoddart. However, I do not share his pessimism in these matters. He holds his views sincerely but I regret that he does not find himself in agreement with the present policies of our party on the issue.
On 3rd May we in this House debated "The Challenge of 1992". We stressed that the problem of fraud must be tackled decisively. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Benson, rightly referred to the allegations of fraud and to the distortions created by the

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common agricultural policy. There are other issues to be considered such as social rights, the environment and industrial regeneration. However, if crucial decisions are to be taken at a Community level we must also ensure that effective democratic accountability is established.
The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, referred to the need to "draw a line". I agree. The roles of the European Parliament and of our own Parliament must be clearly defined and understood. We must pay the warmest tribute to our own Select Committee, now under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lady Serota, which scrutinises European legislation. It has a reputation not only in this country but throughout the Community. Soon we may have to consider how that committee with its sub-committees should be extended.
We are also closely concerned with the social dimension. Again, I regret the Prime Minister's reaction to the social charter. In social terms we have a great deal to gain from co-operation on a variety of issues. It would be far better if we held ourselves ready to discuss these proposals step by step rather than condemn them without consideration. Let us masticate a little before we swallow! Incidentally, there was a good deal of common sense in the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, about social security.
Again, we must co-operate to create a cleaner and safer Europe. I believe that every noble Lord will agree that environmental pollution cannot be tackled by national governments on their own. We believe in working with our European partners to raise environmental standards.
In conclusion, I believe that at the present time we are in real difficulty because of a lack of clarity in government policies on the future place of Britain in the European Community. The Prime Minister appears to be leading us into a Hampton Court maze. She and some of her colleagues appear to have no idea how to get us out of it. As the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, said, we need a positive, clear and constructive approach which will help to shape Community policies in concert with our partners.
The forthcoming Madrid summit will give the Prime Minister an opportunity to define her attitudes to the major issues that noble Lords have dealt with in this debate. We welcome the promise of unity which emerged from the NATO conference. I hope that the Prime Minister will depart from Madrid with a similar promise of co-operation and unity in the European Community. If she fails in this it will be an unpredictable day for the United Kingdom. I do not like to contemplate the consequences which could ensue from a divided government in Britain on the threshold of historic developments.
5.6 p.m.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Glenarthur): My Lords, it is not long since we debated a Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, on the conduct of British foreign policy. The future of the European Community was one of the main subjects which
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we then addressed. As the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, reminded us, in May your Lordships had the opportunity to focus particularly on the issues connected with the completion of the internal market during a debate tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn.
Both noble Lords, made notable contributions to our debate today. However, I cannot say that I agree with every word that they have said, but both debates were worth while. I join with those noble Lords who have expressed gratitude to the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, for giving us yet another opportunity to consider our policy towards the Community.
While I listened with great care and enjoyed much of his speech, I found some of his remarks to be a little cynical. I hope in my remarks to paint a slightly more constructive picture on many aspects. While I agree with my noble friend Lord Thomas and the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, about the concept of a wider European identity, the fact is that the Community is moving forward. The Single European Act and the accession of Spain and Portugal have given it a new dynamism. As my noble friend Lord Thomas of Swynnerton pointed out, in February of last year we succeeded in putting the Community's finances on a sound footing through tight control of the common agricultural policy. The next major Community frontier is 1992.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, that the European Community has a political basis and it has been a great success. By 1992, devastated post-war economies will become the biggest trading bloc in the world. It will be a beacon of prosperity and liberal values. The diversity of the traditions contained within it is very much its strength. We want greater unity and not uniformity. "Pluralism" and "choice" are our European watchwords. It is a complex tradition, as my noble friend Lord Thomas pointed out when during his speech he painted the picture of the ceremony in Barcelona.
In the march towards 1992 and the Europe of the future, Britain is in the van. One would not believe that from some of the remarks that have been made today. However, the Government have repeatedly made clear that Britain's future lies in Europe as an active member of the Community. British prosperity depends on the prosperity of the Community as a whole. I shall not follow the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, or indeed the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, on the matter of individuals' views on Europe in any sense. The fact is that our commitments—and by that I mean the commitments of this Government—are a matter of record, most recently, for example, to make concrete progress towards European unity and to strengthen the Community's economic and social cohesion as provided by the Single European Act. We want a Community which speaks with authority on the international stage. Therefore, our aim is a more united Europe which can compete better in world markets, contribute more fully to Western security and promote European and Western values more effectively.
How do we achieve those ends? When it comes to the matter of sovereignty I do not dispute the suggestion of the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos,

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that we need a more integrated European Community. That is already our aim and is also the aim of our partners. However, the Community is a unique organisation and we need to be clear what we are talking about. The relationship between Community institutions and the structure of decision-making in the Community tells its own story. The same is true in the United States, where the division of responsibility between the national government and the 50 states on the one hand and between the three co-equal branches of federal government on the other produces a deliberate political balance.
Balancing interests is also inherent in the Community's constitution; that is, the treaties. We need strong Community institutions and Community law in order to ensure that progress is made to provide direction and consistency. For that purpose we and other member states have pooled sovereignty in the areas covered by the treaties in order to make common decisions. However, we have not lost it. Despite the institutional changes introduced by the Single European Act, including the new co-operation procedure with the European Parliament, the last word remains with the Council of Ministers and therefore with member states' governments, who are accountable to national parliaments.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Thomas of Swynnerton that there is also a natural division between those issues covered by the treaties on which there should be common action by the Community and those which should be left to member states. Issues such as public health, culture and school education are not part of the treaty and should remain matters for national governments and other institutions within member states. We must in any case observe what the Commission calls the principle of subsidiarity; that is, that the Community should not get involved, even in areas where it has competence, in things which member states can do as well or better. As far as I can tell, that is only common sense. I am glad that that was very much the theme of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon.
Having said that about the noble Lord's speech, I cannot follow him all the way. I beieve that it may be beneficial if he and his party would perhaps cease to look backwards and look further forward. I suspect that they are facing in the opposite direction from the Community in which we are trying to work. As regards trade in the European Community, it takes 50 per cent. of our exports. The export-import ratio has been doing better than that with the rest of the world. The trade deficit is due to faster growth in demand in the UK than the rest of the European Community and the falls in price and production of oil. The fact is that the deficit in services is little changed in real terms since 1973.
If the framework which I have described is observed, we have the basis for Community development in those areas where common action is required. However, we respect also the richness and diversity of our European tradition. The Community's top priority at present is the
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completion of the internal market in 1992. That was a priority of successive British Governments but for too long the scale of the task intimidated the Community. However, that is not so now. Today the philosophy underlying the single market programme is that of deregulation, liberalisation, openness and enterprise. If those sound to your Lordships like British lyrics to a British tune, you would not be wrong. We have brought down the barriers in the United Kingdom and are now doing the same with our partners in the Community. Those who claim that Britain is out of step with Europe need to be able to explain that away.
Some 90 per cent. of the proposals in the Commission's single market White Paper of 1985 have now been tabled and nearly half have already been agreed. Those include major UK objectives such as liberalisation of capital movements, liberalisation of transport, mutual recognition of professional qualifications, opening up of public works and supply contracts and other measures such as those on food law and standards. There is still some way to go, but we are on course. In fact 1992 is already all around us. It is a phrase which 60 per cent. of British people, according to a recent poll, and 90 per cent. of British business are aware of.
Despite the fears of the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock—and I think he somewhat distorted our attitude towards it, although I am sure he did so inadvertently—we also believe in the legitimacy of the social dimension to the single market and to Community policy generally. I do not believe that I can follow him into the detail of health and safety legislation and that sort of thing, but we have a proud social record in the United Kingdom on job creation, equal opportunities and the partnership between public and private sectors. Completion of the single market will create more growth and that will generate more jobs.
However, for the reasons that I have given, we believe, like the noble Lord, Lord Monson, that in this area each country should be free to develop its own policies in accordance with its own traditions. We are proud of our approach to the social areas. We too care about the human dimension. However, we also care about growth in jobs and enterprise and we need to hit all those targets in the Europe of the 1990s. We oppose European Community-wide social harmonisation for its own sake. That would risk diverting the Community from its main task; namely, completing the internal market on time. To pick up some of the individual points made by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, it is certainly true that we should avoid over-prescriptive and unnecessarily intrusive Community interventions.
Community legislation on the lines proposed in the social charter would be a throwback to a past which we in this country and many others in the Community would prefer to leave behind us. Of course we touched on the matter of economic and monetary co-operation raised by the noble Viscount when he introduced the debate and also by the noble Lords, Lord Bonham-Carter, Lord Taylor of Gryfe and Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos.
The report of the Delors Committee on economic and monetary union was published on 17th April.

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The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, referred to one particular stage. The paper proposes three stages of undefined length concluding in an economic and monetary union. The report is certainly a thorough analysis of what economic and monetary union would entail and the major transfer of sovereignty which that would imply, although it quite rightly sets no timetable for the achievement of its three stages. However, it suggests that stage one should begin in July 1990.
That stage contains a number of practical measures which the Community can take to further economic and monetary co-operation. Some of those measures have been on the agenda for many years and we believe that the Community should take them forward as soon as possible. They include the financial aspects of the completion of the single market such as capital liberalisation and improved economic and monetary co-operation.
We also support other practical measures such as the wider use of the privately traded ecu and its use where appropriate in intervention and increased holdings of EC currencies and foreign exchange reserves. We have made quite clear in discussions with our EC partners our readiness to take forward work on this substantial programme of practical measures. The Community should now concentrate on such practical steps. The United Kingdom can play a major role in such discussions, having led the way in the abolition of capital control, the issuing of Treasury bills and the holding of ecus and a variety of EC currencies in our reserves.
The noble Viscount, followed by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, referred to the European monetary system. Nothing that I say will be news to your Lordships. We support the underlying principle of the EMS which is consistent with the priority we have given to monetary stability and control of inflation in this country. That is the background against which, as your Lordships know well, we have long made clear that we have decided on the principle of membership of the EMS, which means, yes, we will join and the only question is when.
The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, referred to parliamentary scrutiny, as indirectly did the noble Lord, Lord Benson. In this regard we believe that parliamentary scrutiny is an essential part of the EC legislative process. Westminster scrutiny works well. It is certainly the best in Europe. Nonetheless, we believe that existing procedures could be improved, though no radical change is necessary. As your Lordships will be aware, the Government are currently looking at ways to bring about changes in that scrutiny.
The noble Lord, Lord Benson, referred to the common agricultural policy. He will be aware that intervention stocks are falling: butter is down 90 per cent. in the past 12 months; there is no longer a milk powder mountain; stabilisers are working; the 1989 price fixing (that is, the general price freeze) has reinforced reforms; agricultural expenditure in 1988 is estimated at 1.1 billion ecus (£750 million) lower than the guideline, with 1989 expenditure likely to be more than 2 becus below the guideline.
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The noble Lord, Lord Benson, raised an important point concerning fraud. The subject was touched upon in the debate in May. The United Kingdom has led the way in ensuring that fraud against the Community budget is treated with the seriousness that the problem certainly deserves. It was an initiative taken by the United Kingdom which ensured that the annual reports of the Court of Auditors were discussed substantively by the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers. These reports have consistently played an invaluable role in helping to highlight the nature of fraud and possible counter-measures. We have also produced many new ideas for tackling fraud, including pressing the Commission to produce new or revised proposals to improve controls in agricultural export refunds and intervention storage. These have been welcomed.
I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, that the Community should play its part in strengthening our security. The British contribution to the co-ordination of European foreign and security policy is second to none and we have consistently supported a better Western European contribution to wider Western defence; for example, through the recent awakening of the Western European Union. As regards frontiers—another point put by the noble Lord, Lord Monson—our concern is to ensure freer movement for Community nationals between member states. However, that cannot be at the expense of the continuing security needs of the United Kingdom and other member states. We need to continue to combat threats of terrorism, drug trafficking and illegal immigration both through retaining essential residual checks and by encouraging increased co-operation between member states.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, for his recognition of the practical work on the single market. The Government are involved in that every day and many of the measures which he mentioned—recognition of professional qualifications, to which I have referred, and rules for a single "passport" for foreign banks—have been British priorities for some time. We have pressed for this sort of measure to British advantage in Community councils.
The European identity does not stop at the external frontiers of the European Community. Our love of freedom based on the rule of law and constitutional government and our vision of the dignity of man and the prime role of the individual in our societies are shared across the European Continent.
For the first time since the war the countries of Eastern Europe, for so long cut off from their European legacy of freedom, are beginning to rebuild the type of society their peoples want. The Government wish this process of reform well. If it succeeds, our wider European identity will again be enriched. The Community has a part to play and our success and the challenge of 1992 are a magnet for other countries throughout the Continent.
It is the values of openness and enterprise which the Community must project to the rest of the world as well, keeping open the world trading system,

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contributing to the freeing up of relations between East and West and cementing trade and political relationships with our major western partners. That is the way forward.
Viscount Chandos: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken today for making what I think has been a most interesting and lively debate, demonstrating on the one hand the continuing diversity of views on our very membership of the Community and on the other our extensive and expert detailed knowledge about European issues.
I cannot say with any honesty that the skilful and polished speech of the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, has convinced me that the Government do not in fact have deep divisions on our proper role in Europe—divisions which are terribly damaging to British interests, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, emphasised. However, I am sure that your Lordships' House can rely on the Minister and his department of state to act as a helpful influence on their colleagues in government.
If, like my noble friend Lord Taylor of Gryfe, I was sad not to hear more contributions from the Benches opposite—even if the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, can certainly do the work of many noble Lords—it would be inconsistent with my desire to maintain our cultural identity to regret the competing attractions of one of our great national sporting events. Perhaps though in the light of our debate today I might have wished that it was Longchamps and not Epsom which cast such a bewitching spell. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Homelessness
5.28 p.m.
Lord Ross of Newport Lord Ross of Newport rose to call attention to the problems of homelessness, particularly in central London; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I seek the leave of the House to debate the Motion which appears in my name on the Order Paper; namely, the problems of homelessness particularly in central London. I recognise at once that this subject has been discussed by your Lordships on a number of occasions in the past and that proper concern has been expressed from all sides of the House about the desperate plight that can befall our fellow citizens, most often through no fault of their own.
Perhaps I should at the outset remind the House of the limited provisions of the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act which I had the honour of putting on the statute book in 1977. Put briefly, it gave statutory backing to two circulars issued in early 1974 by the then Conservative Government which asked local authorities to give priority voluntarily to finding accommodation for, first, anyone with dependent children or with whom dependent children might reasonably be expected to reside; secondly, to anyone vulnerable because of old age, mental or physical
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disability or other special reason, specifically including pregnant women; and, thirdly, anyone becoming homeless as a result of an emergency such as fire or flood.
The majority of the authorities complied but others did not. That is why in the end statutory backing had to be given. When I introduced that Bill it also extended to Scotland and switched the requirement for finding that accommodation from the social services to the housing authorities which made sense because they were the organisations with the houses. At that time the social services were having to find enormous sums of money for bed and breakfast accommodation. The whole objective was to try to keep families together and to avoid the cost and distress of placing children in care.
I regret to say that no priority was given to the single homeless which was widely criticised at the time. As a former councillor I knew that the local authorities just could not cope with that additional responsibility any more than most of them can today. But I must say to their credit that about 5 per cent. of them have taken this need on board. As regards the review that we understand has been taking place within the Department of the Environment over many months, I hope that we can at least receive an assurance from the Minister when he comes to reply that those priorities will not be weakened in any way.
Despite certain siren voices suggesting the abolition of priorities—I have heard them myself and I believe that they are being listened to in government circles—I consider that to do otherwise would be criminal folly. It can only lead to women and children sleeping on our streets. I am sure that the response must be shared by all sides of the House, but the sight of young mothers begging, particularly at the London rail termini, is distressing enough. The other day I saw three of them holding out plastic cups outside the gents at Euston. I suspect that that is more to do with the cutbacks in social security payments which came into effect in April and which perhaps should be the subject of another debate on another day.
Suffice it to say at this stage that the situation certainly has not improved the prospects of the single homeless teenagers in obtaining accommodation for themselves. I am assured that something over 40 per cent. of the single homeless teenagers in central London were previously in care up to the age of 16. I suggest to your Lordships that that is quite a staggering and worrying statistic. So much greater co-operation between the Department of the Environment and the Department of Social Security on this aspect is highly desirable, if not absolutely essential.
While the wording of this debate refers specifically to central London, I am well aware that the problem affects the whole nation. The cardboard boxes that are a so familiar and depressing sight at Charing Cross and Waterloo are now appearing at places as far apart as Canterbury and towns in West Yorkshire. In fact 43 per cent. of homelessness occurs outside London. A recent Audit Commission report found that the growth in acceptances was some 16 per cent. in metropolitan boroughs outside

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London; 14 per cent. in the non-metropolitan boroughs and 9 per cent. in London. At the end of 1988 homelessness in Britain stood at 126,825 which is double the figure of 10 years ago. In Greater London the figure was 28,950. Those are actual acceptances. The number of applications totalled 242,000, so over half were turned down for one reason or another. So much for the so-called "soft" local authorities.
What happens to these people we do not seem to know. I suggest that we should try to find out. As regards the single homeless, the London housing unit claims that there were 64,500 in central London alone, the majority being between the ages of 16 and 19. Many of us fear that this situation, which has already reached crisis proportions, can only get worse with prevailing high interest rates and many other increasing burdens such as water and electricity charges and the poll tax all on the horizon. In a Daily Telegraph article which appeared on 30th May it was reported that the School of Advanced Urban Studies at Bristol University had told the Association of District Councils that in East Anglia alone the number of families in work who cannot afford to purchase a house at current average prices has risen to 53 per cent. in Essex, 55 per cent. in Hertfordshire, 57 per cent in Suffolk, 59 per cent. in Norfolk and some 66 per cent. in Cambridgeshire. What on earth the position is in Surrey I dread to think!
While it is true that more private properties to let are now coming on to the market, a study of the columns of the Evening Standard will quickly reveal that the rents quoted are way beyond the means of the lower income groups. The other night I made a quick assessment and the average rent appeared to be about £150 a week. There was hardly anything available under £100 a week. That is the measure of the problem that will not disappear and which is already costing the nation over £100 million a year in bed and breakfast payments alone.
What is to be done? The Audit Commission which reported to the Department of the Environment last February indicated areas where local authorities could manage there affairs more efficiently. I am quite certain that the Minister will be telling us all about that when he comes to reply. The Commission was itself quite definite that there was no way in which 30 or more local authorities in the areas of greatest stress—namely, London and the south of England, where, incidentally, residential council house sales have been the greatest—can cope and avoid the massive use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation without the provision of much greater resources.
I know that he is not taking part in this debate, but there was a letter in the Independent newspaper recently from the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. He said that we are getting increased public expenditure on roads and in many other areas, but nothing on housing. How right he was! Certainly, leasing from the private sector is one temporary way forward and it is happening among London boroughs now. But what happens at the end of three years? The lease is for two years less one day of the third year, but
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where do the tenants go after that? Encouraging tenants to move out of council housing into housing association properties is another method. But are the people who have been persuaded to move then going to face market rents and less security of tenure?—because, as I understand the Housing Act 1988, that is what it means.
The London boroughs have actually co-operated to a quite remarkable degree despite differing political views, but they can only achieve so much. Moving families into other boroughs can cause stress and racial disquiet. What is to be the future role of housing associations in the provision of homes for the homeless? Only 2,600 homeless families have so far been housed by housing associations despite the provisions of Section 72 of the Housing Act 1985. New starts in both sectors are quite abysmally low though I gather that the 1987 figures for completions—namely, only 15,000 council houses and 9,000 housing association homes—are now being reversed, with housing associations actually making more completions than local authorities. But the figures are all appallingly small. It is a far cry from the forecast of the late Harold Macmillan of 300,000 houses a year. I remember a Conservative conference applauding that statement 20 or more years ago—I suppose it is 30 years now. The figures are still pathetically small.
I am assured by my local housing association, of which I was recently a member, that in the west of England the housing corporation funding has actually gone down from 12 per cent. to 8 per cent., and that is in one of the areas of stress. If the Government really intend that in future housing associations should play the major role in social housing provision, they will have to provide far greater resources and direct that that money be allocated to the areas of greatest stress. The Government will also have to make clear the housing associations' statutory responsibilities as regards homelessness. I suggest that they will also have to change their hostile attitude towards local authorities which still, at the end of the day, own by far the greatest number of properties that can be used to house those in need at affordable rents.
The housing market is currently depressed, particularly in London and the South-East. This then is surely the time to fund the councils and housing associations in the acquisition of properties on new estates for first-time buyers that are not selling at the present time. They can do bargains with those at discount prices. I believe that a bargain has just been struck at New Cross. I am sure that the Wimpeys and the Barratts of this world will be delighted to negotiate. There are also the larger properties that are suitable for conversion. I shall tell a sad tale of one that we attempted to buy in the Isle of Wight. In March we agreed terms to have four residential units in the property and there was also to be a resident caretaker. But by the time the money came through from the housing corporation in May the property had been sold. That was because of bureaucracy, which is so stupid.
As long ago as 1971 Professor John Greve published his widely-acclaimed study of homelessness in London. He said that it was a book:

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"about inadequacy and failure; about defects and shortfall in the effectiveness of policies and the allocation of resources to cope with some of the most perplexing and resistant problems of urban society".
At that time he concluded that the need was for,
"housing of a reasonable standard, at affordable rents and with security of tenure".
If that was true then, how much more is it the case today?
In recent years we have done much to provide sheltered accommodation for the elderly. It is now surely time to give much greater attention to the needs of the younger generation. Last September I spoke at the launching of a booklet published by SHAC and Shelter entitled An Act of Compromise, a term I used to describe the 1977 Act. I said that it was "an Act of compromise". The document contains 13 recommendations, which I most fully support. I should like to summarise a few of them. There should be effective management to ensure that the number of empty properties is kept to a minimum. Local authorities have made great advances in this respect. The Government have been right to pressurise them and I think it is having an effect. Bed and breakfast should be used only as a last resort. If it is to be used, it should be regularly inspected, reasonable standards should be applied and there should be a co-ordination of support services, such as health and social services, to ensure that families have the necessary support and help. When the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act went on the statute book I was bitterly disappointed that the severance between social services and housing departments became much wider. It was promised at the time that they would co-operate. In fact they did not.
All obstacle courses to permanent housing such as minimum periods of time in temporary accommodation should be removed. Direct or indirect discrimination against black and other ethnic minority households in the offers of housing should stop. There should be a recognition of the reality that homelessness is now the main route to local authority housing and the removal of policies which inhibit the speedy and effective housing of homeless households. There should be adequate funding for women's refuges and an end to policies which force women to return to violent partners. Greater emphasis should be laid on prevention. Good advice from social services, securely funded, should be provided. More than two-thirds of local authorities still do not have adequate housing advice facilities either provided directly by them or by the voluntary agencies in the area. What is cheaper: paying for good advice or putting a family in bed and breakfast for two years?
The Audit Commission drew attention to this. I listened to a speech only this morning on the same subject. The Government should let local authorities get on with the job. They have the people, the expertise and the will. It is no good talking about ending their role unless it is quite clear who will carry it on and how. I praise some authorities for trying very hard in Housing Week to get statistics from local people by advertising in the local paper.
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In Powys the Radnor borough council should be congratulated on doing just that. There are others too.
The Government should ensure through housing benefit or other subsidies that homes are affordable. Cannot the Department of the Environment and the Department of Social Security co-ordinate? There should be clear enforceable agreements with landlords taking over council stock so that local authorities can nominate homeless people to that stock. There should be minimum standards for temporary accommodation of all forms and an end to the punitive use of intentional homelessness provisions. It is being abused at the present time.
Finally, we want to see a phased programme—I realise that this is asking for a great deal—to extend the present legislation to all homeless people over a five-year period beginning with the young single homeless and those approaching retirement age. In what we still hope and claim is a Christian society we surely should look after our fellow citizens to the very best of our ability. In this Motion I am asking the Government to do just that. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
5.43 p.m.
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Ross, has raised this extremely important aspect of housing. I would call it the Achilles heel of housing policy in this; country. It is the most difficult one to resolve. Although 14 speakers have their names down to speak, I do not know whether anyone will say how it can be resolved. I only hope that someone will. I was struck by the annual report of Shelter, which said—and the figures are obviously not precise—that one-third of a million people are homeless. I do not know whether or not that is true. There certainly is a large number, but what is formidable is that the number appears to be increasing. I do not know why Is it that the family bond is becoming weaker? Is it that divorce is too widely indulged in? Is it that mothers go out to work and leave the house empty and dull? All these factors may play a part—I do not know.
We have to recognise that since the early 1920s Parliament has accepted responsibility for housing the people of this country. It has had great difficulty in doing so but it has continued with one fatal element. I refer to rent control. One needs only the most elementary knowledge of economics to realise that if one controls the price one does not get the commodity. It is as simple as that. Until control is taken away we will not have the requisite amount of housing. We have wandered away from it at the present time. In 1920 90 per cent. of housing was rented. Today the figure is 7 per cent. That is the influence of rent controls on houses in this country. We will not change the position until those figures are improved. I know that this is hot politics. I realise the difficulties of talking about the removal of rent controls. But sometimes the hottest political issue requires a difficult decision. It is worth remembering that.
There has been a step in this direction, particularly through the housing associations movement which

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is playing a large role in this respect. We should congratulate Sir Hugh Cubitt as leader of the movement on having done an important job. Some of the housing associations are dealing with what I might call special cases—people who might otherwise be homeless. The housing associations need our full support. Any noble Lord who cares to encourage his local housing association will be doing a valuable job.
I should like to make two suggestions. First, in certain cases housing benefit will need to be increased. In addition, we shall need to encourage outside groups to help with rented property. The noble Lord, Lord Ross, talked about resources. I agree with him but let us find resources from places other than government. The Government will always be hesitant in increasing grants. They have so many calls on their resources—health, roads and goodness knows what else. Resources can come from banks, building societies and so on, but such organisations must be able to meet their expenses. That can be done and will be done.
In Australia a certain section of the housing world deals with welfare cases. Perhaps we should have a section, whether under local authority control or otherwise, to deal specifically with welfare cases who cannot deal with themselves. I do not know whether this would be popular with the Government; I think probably not. In many cases—I shall not say all—I do not think that local authorities are the ideal organisations to handle housing. Housing is a specialist and difficult area. I am far from satisfied that it has been looked after as well and as thoroughly as it should have been.
I shall listen with much interest to the next 14 speakers, many of whom will tell us perhaps in simple words how this severe problem can be resolved.
5.49 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I am afraid that I do not have the answer to the noble Earl's question. However, I want to concentrate on two aspects of homelessness: the effects on young people, especially those who are leaving care, and the effects on the education of children. I shall deal first with young people.
Less than 18 months after the end of the United Nations' International Year of Shelter for the Homeless, Britain has the fastest-growing youth homelessness problem in Western Europe. It is not the result of natural disasters, but the result of social security and housing legislation passed by this Government in the past four years. Not only has the amount of money paid to the under-25s, and especially to the under-18s, been reduced, but advance payments have also been stopped and loans have replaced grants so that money has to be repaid. Without money to put down in advance, accommodation is very difficult to come by.
Shelter estimates that more than 150,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 19 become homeless each year and do not appear in the statistics of homelessness. That is because they fall outside the protection of the Housing (Homeless Persons)
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Act 1977. They are the hidden homeless. In 1987, 53 per cent. of young people who used Centrepoint had slept rough at some stage. The figure now is 78 per cent. None of us can have failed to notice the increasing number of young people on the streets of London. In one of the wealthiest cities in the world, a whole generation of young people is growing up in poverty on the streets with very little chance of finding employment or permanent accommodation. It has been said that we are back in Victorian times in that we now give more legal protection to animals than we do to young homeless people.
I should especially like to refer to those young people leaving care at the age of 16 and 17. As the noble Lord, Lord Ross, said, 40 per cent. of young homeless people have spent some time in care. Several of us here today took part in discussions on the Children Bill when it was going through this House. We made valiant efforts then to get the legislation changed, either by amending the social security Acts or by putting statutory responsibilities on the local authorities to assist the young people until they were at least 18—although I would have preferred the age of 21. We were not successful, but I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, for her efforts behind the scenes in persuading Mr. Moore to make some improvements—though not enough—to the Social Security Bill as it went through another place.
More important, the noble Baroness organised a visit by 12 or so young people who had been in care to this House so that we could hear at first hand of their difficulties. It was a moving occasion. They were very articulate. They explained their position and their problems. They were angry. It was not their fault that they had no homes to go to. They were upset by what had happened to their friends, some of whom in despair had taken to drugs and prostitution. At the end of the visit, one of them said, "Well, we've told you what's happened to us. What will you do for us now?"
We have an opportunity to do something for these young people this summer. We have in fact two opportunities. We are about to go into the Committee stage of the Social Security Bill and later we shall have the Local Government and Housing Bill. We must be quite sure that we amend those Bills to make things better and restore the position at least to what it was before the 1986 and 1988 Social Security Acts. We must also ensure that we alter the housing legislation so as to give local authorities and housing associations more powers and, above all, more money so that more hostels can be provided, houses in disrepair maintained and repaired, and more houses built.
As the Audit Commission said in its February 1989 review, a relatively modest reallocation of capital receipts from council house sales could, if the number of homeless households accepted remains at the current level, eliminate within three years the use of bed and breakfast hotels. It could also within four years return the number of households in temporary accommodation to the average levels which prevailed between 1970 and 1982.
I turn to the implications for education provision of homelessness, concentrating upon London where

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the situation is the most desperate. In September last there were 21,500 households classified as homeless living in temporary accommodation in the Greater London area, and there were 10,000 in the ILEA area. Unfortunately, and I suppose inevitably, the education of the children and its continuity must be the last and least consideration of the placing authorities. There is no proper system of notifying ILEA of the circumstances, the ages or the possible length of stay of families in temporary accommodation which could be two months or two years.
In 1986 57 per cent. of the homeless lived in Westminster and in Camden. But they could have come from 13 different boroughs. ILEA increased resources to cope with the 57 per cent. Two hundred and twenty five additional primary places were created that year, 495 in 1987 and 555 in 1988. That is equivalent to one new primary school per year over three years. One small primary school recorded 713 admissions during the year; its normal intake is 126. Of the 150 pupils at St. James and St. Michael's in Bayswater, 105 are homeless. One can imagine the difficulty for teachers in terms of curriculum planning and teaching techniques, particularly when 20 different languages might be spoken by the pupils and their parents. The teachers need to spend a good deal of time making the children feel welcome and secure.
To help cope with the problem, ILEA set up a homeless persons' unit, staffed by education social workers with the support of administrative staff and working with an adult education co-ordinator and a research worker. A small-scale survey by the unit revealed that of 730 school-age children in 88 hotels in Westminster 150 were without a school place and nursery provision was needed for 180.
The unit has been compiling a database of families and their children in order to monitor movements and to allow for speedier school placement and assessment of welfare benefits. The facility also means that placing boroughs need only contact one section of the authority to give information on families. That should be enormously helpful. I should like to ask the Minister what will happen to the unit when ILEA comes to an end in 1990. It is a most important resource and those working in it have a range of skills. The database which is being built up will be invaluable. I hope that the unit will remain as a unit for the whole of London and that one borough will be the lead borough. Westminster or Camden would seem to be the sensible choice as those boroughs house most homeless families. I hope that the Minister will give me an answer to that question.
What is distressing is the future that these children, having to endure this sort of life, can expect. Poverty means deprivation; but poverty and homelessness accentuate every problem—health, behaviour, play and jobs. I hope that the debate will stir the Government's conscience and that they will realise they have a lot to answer for as regards what has happened over the past 10 years. During that time the number of homeless householders accepted by
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local authorities increased from 53,110 to over 116,000; the figure has more than doubled.
5.58 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of London: My Lords, I too should like to express my appreciation for the opportunity to debate the issue of homelessness, especially in central London, provided by the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport. I shall not spend time emphasising the urgency and gravity of the situation because reference has already been made to that in most eloquent terms. However, I should just say that this is a problem of which I am particularly aware.
Anyone who lives in Westminster and especially anyone who has to travel about at night cannot be unaware of the situation; indeed, it presses upon one all the time. To visit day centres, especially here in the heart of London, and to go out during the night to meet those who are sleeping rough, as I have done, is to be made very conscious of the misery and distress which the problem causes.
In the severe winter of 1986–87 we opened the churches to provide shelter for the homeless. And afterwards, thanks to the support of the Lord Mayor of London, I was able to appoint a chaplain for the homeless—a very experienced man who knows about the homeless and indeed knows many of them personally. He reports to me regularly. He seeks to make the homeless aware of the resources which are available to them. But, of course, he is constantly under pressure because of the fact that accommodation is simply not available.
The leaders of the Churches have repeatedly drawn attention to the urgency of the problem and, although they have not really spoken, they have sought to ensure that their Churches initiate projects and co-operate with those initiated by others. Cardinal Hume has been most active in this respect as has the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark who has made this problem something of a speciality. He would have been here this evening had he not had a prior commitment to address a conference on homelessness.
I wish to speak of two factors which have exacerbated, and which are still exacerbating, the situation, before making one or two general points. First, there is no doubt that there has been a marked increase in the number of homeless people with personality problems who have spent time in psychiatric hospitals. The closure of some of the larger psychiatric hospitals has resulted in far more people being on the streets. They cannot fend for themselves and they often need the support of an institution. The provision of community care is limited and wholly inadequate. My evidence for saying that comes from those who care for the homeless and from the hospitals which are being closed.
As evidence of what I have just said, St. Botolph's, Aldgate, houses more than 300 people per night. The increase over the past few years, which has been marked, is attributable in large measure to the increasing number of people who have been in mental hospitals.

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The second point I want to make concerns hostels. Hostels have played, and still play, a significant part in meeting the needs of the homeless; but the numbers are declining. In 1976, for example, the Church Army had eight hostels in London—five for men and three for women. There are now four—one for men and three for women. The requirement for improved standards, which is laudable and proper, has been accompained by a reduction in grants and resources. The position of the hostels will be seriously affected by the replacement of the board and lodging allowance with a mixture of housing benefit and income support. That will have an especial effect on the under-25s who are significant users of hostels. The Church, and Church-supported organisations, have tried, and are trying, to help, but as the need increases so does the demand upon us.
What I have said so far relates largely to those who are on the streets, but, as has already been pointed out, they constitute a minority. There is an unrecognised and hidden homeless population within our country and in this city. They provide the larger element. It includes those who are sharing accommodation involuntarily; those who are squatting; and those who are living in wholly inadequate properties, such as garages. They must also be counted among the homeless. The only solution for them is the provision of low-cost housing. There is no alternative. If that is left merely to private sources, it is bound to reflect the market rent which will put it out of reach of the very people who are in such need.
I do not believe that I am abnormally stupid. I have tried to equip myself by understanding the housing legislation. I find it extraordinarily difficult. Not only do I find it difficult, but when I read the provisions I am reminded of someone tinkering with a car by giving it a new coat of paint or new wheel rims when it needs a new engine. I feel desperate about that. What is to be done, as the noble Lord asked earlier? A major shift of policy is needed. I agree with the London Boroughs Association which put forward two proposals—the relaxing of controls on the spending of capital and the targeting of capital allocations. If a real effort were made in that direction, it could significantly change the situation.
I am not sure whether this point has been made, but the homeless are not all feckless or desiring a nomadic life. That point must be pressed home strongly. Perhaps I may give an account of one man. It comes from my chaplain for the homeless. Four weeks ago he met a young man in his early thirties from the islands of Scotland who had come to London to seek work. The man was a qualified chef. He had acquired from an agency a job working in a hotel in central London but the money was so poor that he could not afford to pay in advance for suitable accommodation and feed himself at the same time. He was saving his first week's money until he was paid his second week's money so as to be able to acquire the accommodation that he needed. In the meantime, he was sleeping in a cardboard box in the Waterloo area.
In the minute that remains I wish to say one more thing. I do not believe that homelessness is merely
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the result of the policy of this or any other government. The greatest cause, mentioned in all the papers that I have read, is disputes with relatives and within the family. That presents a challenge to the Churches. While it is right for us to be concerned with housing policy, we can only involve ourselves with a clear conscience if we also seek to apply the gospel we profess to the problem of family life and personal relationships, preparation for marriage, reconciliation in the case of divorce, and guidance on the upbringing of children.
The noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, referred to the significant number of those in their late teens and early twenties who are homeless and who had been in care as children. While we continue to work with housing associations, hostels, and places such as Centrepoint and to make known the needs in the community, the Church must be concerned to foster true family life and the right relationships which must underpin it.
6.7 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I should like to devote the short time allotted to me to the homeless who sleep rough. A high proportion of the homeless in London live rough. As most of your Lordships know—if you do not I can show you—if you go to the South Bank and along the Embankment you will see that a number of the older homeless who live rough have chronic or severe alcohol problems. That is not a new development. I understand that it has always been the case. When homelessness in London became a noticeable problem it was discovered that most people who slept rough did so because they had an alcohol problem. That has changed recently, and in particular during the past five years, with the unhappy growth of the number of young people who have become homeless. The situation is reversing itself. A large proportion of the homeless who live rough are likely to become chronically alcoholic through exposure to the lifestyle of those who live rough rather than living rough because they have those problems in the first place.
There is an additional problem among young people which is extremely worrying. When they form part of this living-rough culture, more often than not they mix alcohol with drugs. It is difficult to treat someone who has mixed drink with drugs—if he or she is lucky enough to be treated before something dreadful happens—in a detoxification centre or hospital.
There is a hard core of older people who live under bridges or on the Embankment in boxes. Two reports came out in the 1980s. They told us that there was a hard core of about 10,000 people in this country living rough, who, if not chronically alcoholic, were habitual drunkenness offenders. Of course, drunkenness in itself is not a criminal offence, provided that one gets drunk in one's own home. It is not something which I recommend to your Lordships. Drunkenness becomes an offence when it takes place in a public area. I suppose that it is logical that most people who fall foul of the law should be members of the homeless community, particularly in London. It is that problem which I

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wish to address because I do not think we in this country have addressed it in quite the positive way it has been addressed in America, Canada and other English-speaking countries where similar problems prevail.
When in the 19th century the problem of habitual drunkenness had to be tackled, the state created a number of offences. I believe that in the 1870s it became illegal under statute to be drunk and incapable; it became illegal to be drunk and disorderly; and, curiously, drunk in charge of cattle. Obviously, with the passing of time the approach of the state had to be changed. With the overcrowding of prisons the state came to believe that it would be better to separate habitual drunkenness offenders and put them in what were then known as reformatories. They were a primitive type of detoxification centre and, because they were so primitive, they were not very successful and were thus abandoned.
On top of that, there was a new approach of the law, which was to hand out severe sentences. Again that was not effective. Perhaps I may concertina history in this way: we have reached the position today where such is the load of work on the police and such is the expense, as it is viewed by the Government, that any attempt to deal with habitual drunkenness offenders by treating them has largely been abandoned. There has been funding of centres by voluntary agencies and also private sources, but those centres are all too few to deal with people who are constantly in and out of trouble.
One of the most startling aspects of this is that every year there are between 20 and 30 deaths in police cells as a result of drunkenness. Nothing sinister happens in the police station, the drunk is taken in because he is a danger to himself or to others. He is taken into the police station, which is very crowded, he is hurried along to a police cell where, more often than not, if he is in a severe state he develops health problems. He is liable to choke or to have other problems which cause death in many cases.
The police are extremely embarrassed by this and would like to move the treatment of drunks away. The police have to keep them in overnight and then caution them the following day, which does not help with somebody who is an habitual offender. All that happens is that he goes out, gets drunk again, comes back and becomes a tedious, dirty, often noisy and unpleasant nuisance for the police to deal with. They do not like dealing with habitual drunks.
However, if there were some alternative place to which the police could take them to be treated, not only to be put through a course of detoxification but to receive counselling as well, I feel, as I hope your Lordships feel, that there is a good possibility that lives might be saved and some people might be sent out on to the streets with a chance of reforming their behaviour. Perhaps it is too hopeful to expect that, but that alternative is better than the present state where many hundreds, if not thousands, of people in London are constantly in trouble with the law. The law, in the shape of the police, does not know what to do with them apart from slamming them
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into a police cell if it is absolutely necessary, and cautioning them, or, unusually, getting them into one of the Salvation Army homes or into an area where they can be dealt with differently.
That is the sombre story I have to tell. I daresay all noble Lords were aware of it already. I hope that the Minister agrees that the situation is very sad and it is unnecessary for a country with our standard of living to support this kind of tragedy on our streets, particularly in London. In the early 1980s—and I do not suppose that things have changed enormously—it was assessed that lp on a pint of beer would fund hundreds of detoxification centres, should the Government be minded to deal with the problem in that way. The provision of proper medical care and counselling might encourage more people to come forward voluntarily for care and help. That would be a productive step, rather than the cautioning which I have just laboriously described to your Lordships. I do not believe that the system is productive, and in many ways it is destructive. I hope that the Minister will take that on board.
6.15 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, has won the respect of the House by his skilful and gallant defence of many awkward positions in recent years. But this time I am afraid he has something quite indefensible in front of him. The Government are very proud of their record over the past 10 years. We are told that an unexampled prosperity has now come to our country through their extraordinarily enlightened efforts. We read in the papers that some eminent man—no doubt much respected—has recently had his salary doubled. All that is a lovely picture. But here we have the homeless: their number has been doubled. This gentleman's salary has doubled but the number of homeless has doubled in the 10 years of Conservative rule; there are rather more than twice as many homeless as before. I only hope that the noble Earl will not try to defend the situation but just for once throw away his brief and say, "kaput" or something of that kind. Not that that is very likely, but it would be the most attractive course.
I shall not deal with the causes of homelessness; they were well brought out by the noble Lord, Lord Ross, and other speakers. No doubt a completely new approach to housing policy is the only solution, but I must deal with the consequences for the treatment of the homeless in the few minutes available to me. The debate in February on social matters generally was opened by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner. In it I mentioned five steps taken by the Government which have damaged the homeless and I shall now mention them very quickly and pass on: first, the board and lodging regulations in 1985; secondly, the social security upper limit for bed and breakfast; thirdly, the decision to pay supplementary benefit, now called income support, two weeks in arrears; fourthly, the benefit cuts to the under 25 year-olds; and, fifthly, the youth training scheme for the 16 to 18 year-olds which was introduced with little concern for the young people involved.

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Those matters remain on the record; they are very damaging steps. Since then, other steps have been taken. On the whole, according to those whom I trust who are closest to the scene, those steps are damaging and I am told that there may be more in the autumn which will also be damaging. I shall not dwell on details during my few minutes; I wish to ask your Lordships to consider a more fundamental approach of the present Government to these matters—not the spiritual approach mentioned by the right reverend Prelate. I shall not rise to that, but deal at any rate with the fundamental political approach.
Last Friday I was reading with the utmost interest an article by Professor Brian Griffiths who is head of Mrs. Thatcher's policy unit. So far as I can see, he is the supreme adviser. I know that she is a lady of extraordinary independence of mind and will not be dictated to by anybody. However, in so far as she has a guru, I gather that it is this gentleman, Professor Brian Griffiths. It is worth studying the man since he might throw some light on what our ruler—or perhaps I should say rulers—are thinking.
I am sure that Professor Griffiths is a devout Christian. We can all concede that to him, but his Christianity does not work out in quite the same way as mine, or possibly that of the right reverend Prelate. At any rate, he lays down seven commandments which ought to be followed in his policy, and poverty comes fourth, I need hardly say after private property. The Professor says that the community should seek to relieve poverty rather than to pursue equality. On the face of it, that is quite a sound, conventional, conservative way of putting the matter. What is troublesome is that Mrs. Thatcher—who presumably is advised by this gentleman—has now disparaged the whole idea of poverty. She treats it as something with a rather embarrassing label. An article in The Times stated:
"The Prime Minister has too much respect for ordinary people to belittle those receiving income support or to denigrate children in such families by using labels like 'poverty' ".
Coupled with the statements of Mr. Moore, the Secretary of State for Social Security, who apparently claims that poverty has, to all intents and purposes, been abolished, we realise that Professor Brian Griffiths' idea of tackling poverty is not that of other Christians. So, we are faced with a Government who view matters in this light. They put private enterprise, private property, capital accumulation and other such things first. At least Professor Brian Griffiths would give poverty some credibility in placing it in fourth position as regards issues of contemporary importance. However, it has now been conjured out of existence.
Professor Ruth Lister put it rather well in an article in the Independent on Friday, She stated:
"The effects of poverty on people and their families will continue regardless of the words we use to describe it".
So it is really a sick joke and an insult to the homeless to talk as if poverty did not exist. I shall not take up more than a few more moments of your Lordships' time. However, I have expressed my own way of looking at this problem. As I have said, perhaps too often, I started the New Horizon Youth Centre for young people. That centre now receives
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about 3,000 people a year. It is situated bang in the centre of London. Therefore, I have been close to the scene we are discussing today. However, I am now merely a patron of that centre, and I do not pretend to run that organisation.
The position of homeless people has been described by previous speakers and will be described by speakers to come. If one sees the position of these people, one should feel nothing but human sympathy and compassion. In my eyes it is atrocious that today the whole subject can be talked out by a reference to poverty as an embarrassing concept.
I am afraid that whatever the virtues of the Government over the past 10 years—it would be ridiculous to pretend there had been no virtues—on this particular issue their record is thoroughly and fundamentally wicked.
6.22 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Ross of New port, for bringing before your Lordships' House the problem of homelessness, which has increased and is increasing at a most alarming rate. I wish also to congratulate my noble friend the Minister on being so apparently bright and alive when one considers the late night that he had last night on the Electricity Bill in your Lordships' House——
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (The Earl of Caithness): The Water Bill!
Baroness Faithfull: I beg the House's pardon. If it was the Water Bill, it must have been even worse, or perhaps it amounted to the same thing.
The Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Ross, calls attention to homelessness, particularly in London. However, he also mentioned the situation countrywide. I wish to make two points in my brief speech. I wish to point out what is going on in Oxford county, which has five districts. My information comes from the Cherwell Housing Trust, which has a low political profile and which seeks to provide housing at affordable rents and low cost ownership.
The annual figure for families who are officially homeless, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ross, has increased over the past 10 years from 57,000 to 116,000 and perhaps to a quarter of a million people. The situation nationwide is reflected in Oxford county. I must point out that Oxford is a fairly wealthy county. It offers good work prospects. Therefore, it is surprising that the problem of homelessness is so extensive in that county. One must take that into account.
I agree with the right reverend Prelate that perhaps the homeless problem would be less acute if fewer family breakdowns occurred. However, as many of us know, a good family will remain a good family, but many good families are unable to remain as families because affordable accommodation does not exist for them. I agree with the right reverend Prelate, but I also believe that homelessness causes problems for families.
I wish to make a serious, if original, plea to my noble friend the Minister, who we know is a caring

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person and who is willing to listen to and to meet people. Will he allow me to gather together 15 organisations which deal with the homeless and bring them here so they can meet him and his fellow Ministers informally? I should like them to meet Mr. Scott of the Department of Social Security, Mr. Mellor of the Department of Health, the noble Lord, Lord Young, of the Department of Trade and Industry and Mrs. Rumbold of the Department of Education and Science. For good measure, I should like them to meet a representative from the Treasury. I realise that Sir Humphrey in the series "Yes, Minister" would not approve of that. I wonder whether the Minister's advisers would approve.
If the Ministers I have mentioned met these organisations together they would appreciate that overlaps and gaps occur in our social policies with regard to housing. If the Ministers were to meet the people whom the noble Lord, Lord Ross, and other Peers have met this week, they would realise that many ministries are involved in this problem and there are gaps and overspending. They would realise that one ministry is robbing Peter to pay Paul, and that a co-ordinated policy throughout the country, particularly in the realm of housing, does not exist.
I mention the example of the Department of Health. Children are now being accepted into care on a voluntary basis due to homelessness. I am not talking about those being taken into care because of delinquency or the breakdown of families. The British Medical Association in its report entitled Homeless Families and their Health indicates the problems of access to primary health care for homeless families. That problem must provide a hidden cost for the health service.
Bed and breakfast accommodation is a socially horrendous method of housing the homeless. Families are having to live in one room and to share facilities such as kitchens. That must have cost effects as regards the health of these families. Furthermore, community care cannot be developed. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, mentioned the problem of mental patients being discharged from hospitals in this connection.
For the Department of Social Security, bed and breakfast is a costly way of caring for people. Had the Government spent the money that they have spent on bed and breakfast on building low-cost accommodation, the necesary accommodation would exist and people would not be living in such appalling conditions in bed and breakfast accommodation.
As regards the Department of Employment, I dare to suggest that, but for the lack of low-cost rented accommodation, more people would be in work. As has been mentioned, information has been received from Centrepoint which suggests that the young cannot obtain a job if they have no accommodation. However, they cannot obtain accommodation if they do not have a job. It is a vicious circle. Who is to solve the problem? Therefore, the Department of Employment is losing out because of the lack of accommodation.
The Home Office is also losing out because homelessness, as has been pointed out, is causing
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many men to take to the bottle. I think I would take to the bottle in similar circumstances. Homelessness can lead to crime, drugs, AIDS and prostitution. As regards the Department of Education, the noble Baroness, Lady David, pointed out how children are losing out in the realm of education if they come from homeless families.
I suggest that, if my noble friend the Minister were willing to arrange, or to allow me to arrange, an informal meeting of the various organisations able to provide the information with all the Ministers concerned (including the Treasury), perhaps between them they could work out a co-ordinated policy and establish where money could be saved. In the first instance, Ministers would learn from those working at the grass roots who know what the problems are. Secondly, it is possible that they might be able to explain to those working in the realm of homelessness why they have adopted the policies that they have.
I know that that is a most extraordinary step to recommend. I doubt whether it has ever been done, although I must say that the Prime Minister met a group of people working with families and children. If my noble friend felt able to arrange a similar meeting, I believe that that would be appreciated and we might be able to work out a co-ordinated policy for our country.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, for this further opportunity to discuss this important subject. His homelessness Bill of 1977 was very much a trail blazer.
On this subject it is extremely easy to lay a political cane on the Government's anatomy. But this is a problem which cannot be solved simply by setting housing targets for the number of fresh starts, builds and so on, because there are variables beyond the control of any government. It is not possible to legislate against marital break up or the antagonism between relatives to which the right reverend Prelate referred.
In response to the invitation of the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, for somebody to produce an idea which might assist, I should like to put forward one which I have already floated in your Lordships' Chamber. I did so during a debate on homelessness initiated by my noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick and it was also the subject of an amendment which I moved to the Housing Bill in July 1988. This idea was reasonably well received in most quarters of the House at the time. It concerns higher education and the fact that students, most of whom come from the middle and upper classes, are paid by society to study away from home, which thus exacerbates the problem of housing in this country.
In 1985–86 in England and Wales only 6 per cent. of university students studied from their parental or marital home. The figure for polytechnics was 25 per cent. Therefore the enormous burden of accommodating those students is placed on society. The universities and polytechnics together control

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more than 190,000 bed spaces and yet they can accommodate only half their registered students. The remainder compete with the homeless and the badly housed in the private rented sector. Moreover, the students' accommodation is then left free for some 20 weeks a year during the extensive vacations.
There are two steps which could be taken by higher education to help with this problem. First, I should like to see universities and polytechnics change their admission policies to take more home-based students. I believe that the arguments which are constantly put forward against that suggestion are spurious. If one takes the example of Scotland, in Glasgow more than 50 per cent. of students live at home during their studies and in Strathclyde more than 70 per cent. Yet nobody would suggest for a moment that the quality of higher education in Scotland is in any way inferior as a result.
Although this debate is linked to the problem of homelessness in London, perhaps in view of my association with the docklands development corporation I might draw on two examples from our local Bristol evening press. On 22nd May there was a very large headline, "Homelessness—a nation's shame", over an article which dealt with the National Housing Forum report. In the same edition here was another headline:
"Student leaders fear rent rise shock".
The article describes the worries of students in the university halls of residence that they might be faced with another rent increase. It reads:
"the price of accommodation for its 2,300 students living at nine different sites".
If those nine different sites were released for the homeless and badly housed in Bristol, what a difference those 2,300 places would make.
If the universities and polytechnics are not prepared to relax their admission policies to make a contribution to solving the problem, let them at least consider throwing open the halls of residence during the vacation to give sanctuary to homeless families. Instead of trying to drum up conferences and offering holidays to academics from other universities at cut price rates, they would be making a valuable contribution to society. Families which at the moment are driven from pillar to post in bed and breakfast accommodation would at least for some time be able to live in decent, dignified surroundings where they would be able to begin to rehabilitate themselves and build up their values.
Unfortunately the people who listen to this argument and are in a position to do something about the problem—those we loosely call the opinion formers in our society—are by and large themselves successful products of the system. Therefore it is extremely difficult to get anyone to look at the question objectively. However, I believe that if action were taken along these lines those in our society who are most gifted and able would be making a very marginal sacrifice of choice in order to help the most disadvantaged.
6.37 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, we should all be deeply grateful to my noble friend Lord Ross of
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Newport for his comprehensive and masterly outline of this distressing subject. In addition, we should all be deeply ashamed for having to debate homelessness at all in so-called affluent Britain. We are constantly told that Britain now ranks among the world's leading nations—economically, politically, even industrially. So far as concerns housing in general and homelessness in particular we are not now even a second-rate nation. That is a scandal for which all of us must bear some responsibility.
As spokesman for noble Lords on these Benches on health, in my eight minutes I shall focus in the main on the consequences of homelessness. If I allow myself time I shall squeeze in a few words about our ludicrous, unjust and chaotic housing benefit system.
A home, and preferably a settled home, is crucial to health. A well housed nation is likely to be a healthy nation, but a badly housed nation is certain—not likely, but certain—to be an unhealthy nation. It is not for the first time that I have said that in your Lordships' House. I said it in my maiden speech more than 13 years ago. I am certainly not the first person to have linked bad housing with bad health. In fact it was Florence Nightingale who first went on record with that connection. Her words have since been reinforced by a wealth of scientific evidence: in particular, the report of Sir Douglas Black on inequalities in health, and more recently, the joint report referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, of the Health Visitors' Association and the General Medical Services Committee—which is the body which represents all general practitioners working in the National Health Service—on access to primary health care by homeless families. That is an admirable report and I commend it to all noble Lords and hope that Ministers will study it with very great care. I shall quote from some of its observations on the health of homeless families, many of whom are in bed-and-breakfast hotel accommodation in London.
On page 12 the report states:
"Children suffer physically, emotionally and educationally, showing a high incidence of depression, disturbed sleep, poor eating, overactivity, bedwetting and soiling, toilet training problems, temper, tantrums and aggression. Research in Bayswater found that up to 40 per cent. of children in bed and breakfast accommodation had behavioural problems. Overcrowded bedrooms and lack of play-space affect development and delay the acquisition of motor skills and the development of speech".
The report found that:
"Children find it hard to do homework".
Incidentally, many children never go to school at all.
The report went on:
"Infectious diseases are common and easily spread. Diarrhoea and vomiting are common because of poor water supply and shared sanitation. Children often have upper respiratory tract infections because of overcrowding, dampness and the need to vacate the hotels by day. Other viral infections (such as the infectious diseases of children) spread rapidly, yet the uptake of immunisation is low. Infestation with scabies, lice, fleas, bedbugs and mice is common…A survey of multi-occupied dwellings found that 38 per cent lacked a satisfactory means of escape from fire, 33 per cent needed major repairs, 28 per cent lacked proper amenities, 23 per cent had unsatisfactory management, and 16 per cent were overcrowded".

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The report shows clearly:
"The high incidence of reported accidents in bed and breakfast accommodation . . . Unprotected fires, and kettles and gas rings on the floor, cause burns and scalds. Electrical equipment is often old and worn. Unsafe and steep stairs without banister rails or stair-gates and the lack of provision of (or space for) cots, encourage falls. Many studies have shown that accidents are more frequent when the mother is under stress or depressed".
That point was clearly made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London. The report continues:
"There is also concern about the risk of non-accidental injuries resulting from family stress, and many children living in hotels on the social services 'At Risk' register".
That is not purely anecdotal information. These are not purely the kinds of situation that I might claim to have witnessed in my medical experience. These are facts gleaned by health visitors and general practitioners working at the sharp end of medicine. As the right reverend Prelate said, it is not only the physical health, but also the mental, psychological and emotional health of the homeless that is endangered.
In a recent television programme Mr. Tebbit suggested that many of the homeless would be drop-outs or layabouts in any society, whatever provisions were made. I accept that that suggestion may be true of some, but, in all seriousness, if we allow children and young people to remain homeless for years, they will all be damaged for life and they will make Mr. Tebbit's gloomy words come true.
The report is directed primarily to access to primary health care for the homeless. It shows that access is virtually non-existent for many of those people except in the case of special arrangements such as those made by Dr. Stone and his colleagues in Bayswater. Dr. Stone is the son of our colleague the late Lord Stone whom many of us remember with great affection. In general, we find that homeless families cannot get on to a general practitioner's list. Few of the children are immunised so there is a risk to us all of a diphtheria epidemic, poliomyelitis or other illnesses that are controlled by immunisation. In his reorganisation of general practice Mr. Clarke should do something to provide positive incentives to general practitioners to take on homeless families.
This is an admirable report from which I differ on only one minor point. Having mentioned that, I should say what it is. It is Recommendation 6.2 which states:
"Homeless families should ideally be temporarily rehoused within their own localities".
I am sure that that is true for most, but it is not true for one particular group with whom I am concerned as president of Gingerbread, a post that I took over from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner. Gingerbread does a great deal to care for single parent families, many of whom are homeless as a result of violence within the family. It is clear that some of those women need accommodation not within but outside their own locality. I am glad to see that the legislation that my noble friend Lord Ross of Newport was able to put on the statute book in another place clearly provides for that. It provides for the obvious need for women who seek refuge or escape from violence within the family to be
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rehoused with their children outside their own locality rather than within it.
As other noble Lords have said, the overwhelming need to deal with the problem of homelessness is for affordable, rented accommodation. However, the Government appear to be preoccupied merely with increasing the percentage of owner-occupiers. At the Institute of Housing Conference in June 1986, Mr. Nicholas Ridley said:
"If rents were set at market levels and there were a large number of landlords, both public and private with a large number of properties, then a market could emerge which could clear itself at a competitive price".
If we merely abolish rent controls and do nothing else, we are likely merely to redistribute the limited existing stock of rented accommodation to those with greater market power while other tenants end up even more poorly housed than they are today.
The need to be able to pay rent brings us to the question of benefits. I have not left myself time to go into the details of housing benefit or the failure of the transitional arrangements which came into force with the new social security system in April. I shall merely state what we would do and what we think the Government should do now. As a nation, we should adopt a housing allowance which would not be needs-related at all, but paid as of right to all householders, like child benefits or old age pensions, with the tax system amended so that the Exchequer could recover the cost where the allowance was not needed. Whatever the system of income support, no part of that cost should fall on the locality. It should be borne by the community at large through an income support subsidy from the Exchequer. That puts the issue on a parallel with health; it is just as important as health. Everyone should qualify for a housing allowance. It should then be removed by the tax system from those who do not need it. That is the system towards which we must most certainly move.
I shall conclude merely by saying that homelessness destroys the mental and physical health of our population. It contributes to crime and to the breakdown of the social fabric of our society and leaves its victims scarred for life. We should no longer tolerate a situation that condemns hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens to live in circumstances that should not be accepted in an advanced industrial society.
6.47 p.m.
Lord Blease: My Lords, when I spoke in the debate on homelessness in January 1988, I dealt specifically with the crucial issues of homelessness in Northern Ireland. Sadly, I must say this evening that none of those issues has yet eased. If anything, the problems of homelessness in Northern Ireland have increased and the issues have become even more acute. A commissioned study reported earlier this year that by 1992 over 10,000 families will be annually designated as homeless in Northern Ireland, but only 4,000 of them will qualify for accommodation under the provisions of the Northern Ireland Housing Order 1988.
By any civilised standard for housing, those Northern Ireland figures could be described as

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horrific. However, from what has been said in the debate today, the homelessness figures for the whole of the United Kingdom can be deemed appalling. The numbers and conditions of the homeless in central London are especially horrific. I do not therefore intend this evening to make a special plea for the position of Northern Ireland. As has already been said, homelessness throughout the whole of the United Kingdom is to be deplored. It is a blight upon the economic development of the nation. It is a disgrace to a nation that calls itself civilised.
The figures for housing conditions are well known to the Government, to Ministers and to the departments responsible. Although intrigued by what the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, said—I hope that she will bring those points to the attention of those who make the decisions—I believe that Ministers are well aware of the position that obtains. Face to face contact with those who are suffering homelessness and the results of homelessness may bring some action, and that is what we require. Indeed we know the ramifications of homelessness and what it means. Now we need to act.
There have been several reports issued recently by competent researchers concerning housing and homelessness in Northern Ireland. We have heard today of challenging documents that have been circulated. There is an excellent, practical document on homelessness from the National Housing and Town Planning Council. There is also the joint report by the Health Visitors' Association and the General Medical Services Committee entitled, Homeless Familes and Their Health, which has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley.
However, in case it may be thought that those interested in, and influential representative organisations concerned with, these reports may form part of some pressure group or a party political lobby, perhaps we should look at a report by the Audit Commission published in Feburary this year on housing the homeless. It is a strong indictment of the lack of will shown by the Government to deal with the issues of homelessness. The report makes recommendations about the action that should be undertaken by local authorities and that needed to be taken by central government. On page 2 it reads:
"But all these measures together will still leave a sizeable problem in a few authorities. In those authorities with the severest problems of homelessness, investment is required in homes at prices affordable by the homeless if the gap between the number of eligible applicants and the availability of lettings is to be bridged. This investment need not be channelled through local authorities but, to be effective, it must result in an increase in the number of properties available to local authority housing departments for homeless households. A relatively modest adjustment of priorities could, however, make a major impact on the most socially damaging aspects of the problem".
At page 54 of the report the Audit Commission states:
"There is a strong case for taking greater account of homelessness in the allocation of capital resources by central government to local authorities".
Those are the findings of the Audit Commission, an organisation often cited and supported by the Government when criticising local authorities and displaying their zeal for efficiency. When he replies to this debate, perhaps the noble Earl, Lord
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Caithness, will indicate the Government's response to the Audit Commission's report, in particular the recommendations for action by central government.
What we need is a massive capital investment in new public authority housing. Having said that I must admit that it will not completely remedy the problems of homelessness. In calling for that physical response to the problem we must not lose sight of the fact that homelessness has other social dimensions. Help must be more than the offer of accommodation and more even than the offer of financial assistance. It can often be seen that the incapacities which prevent homeless single people finding their own accommodation will also serve to prevent them retaining accommodation when it is found for them. That applies in particular to people who become institutionalised in hospitals as well as to psychiatric patients and young single persons who become alienated from their parents. It is not enough to offer housing to such people. They must be offered direct, personal help which will meet their special needs. Such homeless people have special needs and problems which will not go away. We must adopt a positive multi-agency approach towards helping them.
This will mean active co-operation between voluntary groups, housing associations, social services and housing departments in offering resettlement and counselling services. It will mean making "care in the community" a reality and not leaving it as a pious wish or using it as a political ploy. Indeed it should become not "care in the community" but "care by the community".
Time does not allow me to explain some of the thoughts that I have had about meeting particular issues in a practical way. But to be homeless and friendless is an awful human situation. Bricks and mortar do not make homes. As a civilised community we need to promote policies and measures for home making as well as for home-building. Health, homes and family life are much more fundamental than political issues about the economy, the balance of payments and the bank rate, although I fully accept that those are issues that cannot be ignored. There are moral aspects to government policies and the politics of civilised living.
I conclude with a quotation from the publication Homeless Families and Their Health, which I have already mentioned:
"Solving the plight of homeless families is not just about efficient access to primary health care. Each of us has a human and moral responsibility … The homeless make up a group that is poorer than the poor; all of us need to help them. We are convinced that a house is much more than a simple roof over one's head. The place where a person creates and lives out his or her life also serves to found, in some way, that person's deepest identity and his or her relations with others".
I believe that the Government need to take action. I shall listen carefully to the Minister's reply.
6.56 p.m.
Viscount Brentford: My Lords, I too should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, for introducing this debate today. It is an important subject because it reveals an increasing problem in

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our country. I should like to see the Government pay the same degree of attention to the problem of homelessness as they have done so successfully to the problem of unemployment. I should like to find the numbers of homeless people reduced proportionately to the reduction in the numbers of unemployed in this country.
As other speakers have said, we need to keep distinct the two separate issues. There are those who are in bed and breakfast accommodation and in hospitals and those who are living rough or, as noble Lords know very well, what is called "skippering". I hope that in their forthcoming report the Government will not, as the press have suggested, revise the term "homeless" and substitute the word "roofless". That would involve only the second category that I have mentioned. I believe that the problems of both categories are important and need to be always before us.
I should like to mention three causes of homelessness, although the three are not exhaustive. They have all been mentioned before. First, there are family problems, family breakdown and the debt problem in this country. I see from Social Trends 1989 that this category of reasons for homelessness covers 73 per cent., which is a very high proportion. I fully endorse what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London said about the need for the Churches to look carefully at the problem of homelessness. Therein lies a spiritual and humanitarian task into which I believe we could be putting more effort. It is something which I feel is very important.
Family breakdown is also an issue which, for economic reasons, the Government need to consider a great deal more carefully. Family breakdown causes the Government to spend a great deal more money than they otherwise would have to do. It makes economic sense for the Government to pay more attention to the help that could be given to prevent the breakdown of family life. They need to look at this question more urgently. I have asked for a typical reason why somebody is homeless and have been given the answer, "Well, mum has taken into the home the third boyfriend in the last two years. The boyfriend doesn't like me; so I've got to go, haven't I?" So that young person becomes homeless.
The second fact I should like to comment on is the closure of mental hospitals, which has already been mentioned. This is encouraging a lot of people who cannot cope with working, finding a home and paying for it, to live rough. May I ask my noble friend the Minister whether any consideration has been given to refurbishing any of these mental hospitals and turning them into bed and breakfast institutions to provide a roof for those who are without? I believe that this would be a practical step that the Government could take to help the present problem.
The third fact, which has again been mentioned, is the forthcoming community charge. Is my noble friend the Minister aware that the charities who look after the homeless are nervous at an impending increase in the number of homeless, if only because
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of the exception that, quite rightly, is given from the community charge to those who are homeless?
There are three points relating to hostels on which I should like to comment as regards this issue of homelessness. The first is the compulsion on the managers of hostels today to reduce the number of beds available for the homeless. When we hear about the doubling of the numbers of homeless, this seems to me to be one of the most illogical and stupid bureaucratic steps being taken today. I have unearthed two reasons for this reduction in hostel beds.
First, when I and my wife visited this morning a direct access hostel just south of the river, I found that the environment and health authority has told those in charge that they must reduce their beds by a third because the beds are situated too close to each other to conform with modern regulations. Do your Lordships think that an individual would find it preferable to have to sleep rough to sleeping in a bed that a bureaucrat says is three inches too close to another bed? This is bureaucratic nonsense. Will my noble friend the Minister please look at this issue and arrange for these regulations to be amended?
The other reason for this reduction in the number of hostel beds is that local authorities are refusing to authorise an economic size of unit when a hostel is being built or restored. There seem to be two reasons for this. One is that they do not actually want any hostels because without them they will not have to pay the maintenance grants. The second is because there is a social theory around that small is beautiful. That sounds great. I can subscribe to that. But when it means that hostel beds have to go, I do not subscribe to that theory. Salvation Army bed-space numbers have been reduced by a half over the past two years. I call that a crying shame. Again this is a question that needs to be looked at. There is a right balance here, and I believe that local authorities do not have the right balance today.
The second point on which I should like to comment concerns the long-stay residents in these direct access hostels. In the one I visited today one-quarter of the beds were occupied by long-stay residents. "Why?" I asked. "Because no one wants them. No one will have them." I believe that it is the job of the local authority to provide for long-stay residents and not these hostels. That again is a question that needs to be examined, because I believe that the local authorities are not fulfilling what is required of them.
My final comment concerns the new financial provisions. I do not profess to understand them. I am sure that I have not one-tenth of the intellectual ability of the right reverend Prelate, who finds them difficult, so I should like to make one or two simple statements so that all of us may understand them. I understand that today an individual is paid his maintenance weekly in arrears. If he stays for several weeks in a hostel and, say, his pay clay is Monday, and he actually leaves his hostel on the Friday, there will be no remuneration for the hostel for that Monday to Friday. This is one reason, out of a number, why hostels are to an increasing extent largely going unpaid today.

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My noble friend the Minister will no doubt have in his file the Salvation Army's response of 2nd June to the Social Services Committee of another place. From this he will see that the Salvation Army is expecting a deficit of £1.4 million in the current year on its own hostels. If it takes into account the additional space that it operates, this figure will be increased to £2.5 million. The Salvation Army cannot continue like this. If the Government do not meet the commitment that the noble Earl's right honourable friend the Minister has given that the hostels will be fully repaid, then hostel beds are going to have to close.
However, there is still worse to come. Under the new regulations which will come into effect this autumn an individual will have to go to three places instead of, as at present, one to collect his weekly money. He will have to go to the social security department in one place, to another for his housing benefit and to a third for the top-up grant. There is a great fear around in the country that this will mean even less money being collected by individuals and going to the hostels. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will pay attention to some of these problems that are particularly prevalent in London today.
7.6 p.m.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, I too should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, for initiating this debate. I should like to stress that the number of people accepted by the authorities as homeless is the highest ever. That point needs to be stressed. In addition, there has been a rapid increase in people who are not usually even counted in these figures. I talk about the visible homeless; the people we see sleeping on the street. They are not included in these figures. Furthermore, there are what I call the invisible homeless who have to live unwillingly in other people's homes instead of having their own home.
The funny thing is that there is now an opportunity for the Government to bring forward proposals to reverse this problem and to end the widespread suffering that it is causing. I say that because the Government's homelessness review has been on the way for quite some time, and many reports will be published and considered during the period of this review.
The noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, mentioned two, both of which I want to underline. He dealt with the reports from Shelter and SHAC which stressed that the most important cause of homelessness is that homeless people cannot afford the cost of rents or mortgage payments in the private market. That was endorsed by the Audit Commission. In its report the Audit Commission stressed that we need more permanent housing at prices that those who are now homeless can afford. It went on to call for sufficient investment in homes at prices affordable by the homeless to ensure an increase in the number of properties available to local authority housing departments for allocation to homeless families.
Both those reports stressed the particular point of providing houses that are affordable. It seems to
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me that the Government have an opportunity to announce—I would hope that they could do so tonight although I doubt whether they will, but I hope they will annouce it soon—that, as a result of the review, they will attack the root of this problem and allow the investment and subsidy that will provide the housing required at a genuinely affordable price, because that is the point. It is not only that we must have the houses that are required but that they must be at an affordable price, because that is where the rub is.
I think that the Government can also bring forward and support measures in the Social Security Bill—with which we are going to be dealing soon in committee—and perhaps elsewhere to reverse the cuts in benefits which have led to increases in homelessness, especially among young people. They can remedy the plight of homeless families in bed and breakfast hotels, who have now had money for food taken away from them. I dealt with that during a previous debate on the Social Security Bill. Some of those people are nearly starving.
There is also the problem of the health of people in bed and breakfast accommodation. The condition of their health gives cause for concern. I am saved from having to go into that because the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, dealt with it admirably. It is a point of the utmost importance. The report he mentioned was also mentioned by the noble Baroness, Baroness Faithfull. It was produced by the HVA and the general medical services committee of the BMA, and made several recommendations. I hope that the Government will regard the health of people in bed and breakfast accommodation as a matter of priority and set about doing something about it.
Bed and breakfast accommodation, as has already been said, is the most unsatisfactory and expensive way of dealing with homelessness. It is very much cheaper to build houses. That has been said in this House many times, but we do not seem to get anywhere with it. Again, I am hoping that the Minister will indicate that the Government are moving in that direction. The local authorities already have capital receipts with which to build houses, but what is required is permission from the Government to do it. The Government should support them because they need additional support for such building.
The Government will deny it, but they are having a battle with local authorities. This battle has been causing hardship to many people on different fronts. It is part of the cause of the problem we are discussing today, but it is also part of the Government's problem about community care. I have no doubt in my mind that the suggestion by Griffiths that local authorities should be responsible for community care is what is preventing the Government from acting on it. I want to make a plea to the Government to stop the battle with local authorities. The Government and the local authority must co-operate together in what they are doing. They must work for the benefit of the people of the country because that is the job of central government and local government in its own localities.

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I hope that the battles between central and local government on issues which seriously affect ordinary people will stop and that we shall have co-operation instead of endless battles. I hope we shall hear that the Government will be moving in this direction. I hope also that the Government will promise to amend the Act introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Ross, to extend the categories because we must now move on. I hope also that the Government will accept the suggestion that some people have made of allowing homeless people the right of appeal to the courts when the local authority has rejected them on the grounds of being intentionally homeless. I hope that any future legislation will restrict the interpretation of the phrase "intentionally homeless" because it is being misused by many authorities to overcome having to look after certain homeless people.
I hope that as a result of the debate we shall be moving forward. I hope that when the Minister replies he will tell us that he has accepted the offer made by his noble friend Lady Faithfull.
7.14 p.m.
Lord Henniker: My Lords, like everyone else, I want to thank my noble friend Lord Ross for giving us a chance to talk about this important subject. I also want to apologise that I came into the Chamber after he had started speaking, but I hope I shall be excused on the grounds that I had to attend a meeting arranged long ago to try to think of ways in which we can deal with the problem of homelessness. I do not apologise for straying off the subject of the debate in my remarks because I want to speak almost exclusively about the problems in rural areas in which I am much involved.
I do not make any apology, because many people look on areas such as my own county as a paradise where such problems do not arise. In many ways it is a paradise, but in my county of Suffolk homelessness is becoming the biggest social problem and the most urgent. It is urgent because, as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said, homelessness, like poverty, is a trap. When someone gets into it, it alters their whole way of life and it is very difficult to get out of.
It is also true to say that the problem of the rural areas is relevant to the problems of the inner cities, because homelessness in the inner cities does not happen by a process of spontaneous combustion. People who are homeless in rural areas are lured to London by the fact that they cannot find anywhere to live in the countryside, so they come to chance their arm. Those who, like me, have worked in Tower Hamlets will realise that many people who come to the end of their home-having possibilities come in from all over the country and end up there.
In my county we have been having a revolution over the past five years, with electrification of the railways, large-scale immigration and enormous rises in house prices. In many ways we have been lucky in that we almost have unemployment down to what is regarded as a normal level. People are mostly in employment, but there has been little trickle-down
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of wealth in most of the rural areas. Most wages are still tied to the agricultural wage. That means that people cannot afford a mortgage or to buy a house, the price of which has gone up in five years from £20,000 to £80,000, and even at this moment of stagnation, to £100,000.
I read the other day that Ipswich, which one would not think is in an afflicted part of the country, is the second worst urban area for homelessness. I was looking at some of the figures. They are in fact only for those who are registered. We believe that there are large numbers of unregistered people who sleep on the floor in friends' houses and who move from place to place. Possibly they are on their way eventually to London. I looked at those figures and I am told that every day there are 160 families on the list for rehousing in Ipswich. Last year only 14 families were rehoused. Bury St. Edmunds, which appears a dreaming cathedral city, has had an increase in the past two years of 25 per cent. in homelessness, and 53 per cent. of those on the register are looking for rehousing. Even in the most rural districts the increase over two years of the percentages of those who are homeless varies between 45 and 35 per cent. Everywhere there is a considerable increase, of over 10 per cent.
I want to support what the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, said. Our local authorities are imaginative, public spirited and hardworking. I believe that they feel desperate at the moment that they can do so little. There has not been enough investment in improving houses and there has been a tremendous fall nationwide in the number of completed buildings, from about 100,000 to 15,000 during the last 12 years. They are anxious to help to solve the problem but they are bewildered by demands and uncertainty as to what will be possible. Over the next 10 years we need about 42,000 houses—an underestimate considering the swing toward the East.
I am chairman of our local housing association, which was told that it would be one of the main instruments in providing affordable rented housing. It has been in existence for four years and has completed one scheme of six bungalows. Although the situation has been better over the past few months, building will take a long time. We have made a deep study of what people want and need. We know that many villages want housing, but we cannot provide it. We now have four new schemes on the starting line.
I do not know the solutions, but probably they lie in simplification. Wherever the association turns there appears to be doctrinal and bureaucratic barriers against getting a move on. The rural areas are not in the same situation as London, although they are seen as being so. I have always been in favour of the right to buy, but, however small, every house in a rural area appears to be attractive and commands a high price. The situation should be made more flexible.
Free market principles are applied, even with generous landowners—both public and private, and the Church—who are prepared to make land available cheaply. The association is often ruled out because it must calculate the cost as though it were free market. The local authorities are not involved

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and they feel uninvolved. They must be given a greater role to play.
As regards bureaucracy, the planners are uncertain often until the matter can be tested in the court. That leads to problems of delay and worry. We must be more flexible. The housing corporation does its best. However, it has timetables and cash flow problems which put new timetables on the housing associations. It is like a game of snakes and ladders; if you do not reach the right point at the right moment, you are down at the bottom of the ladder and must start again. There are ways in which the system should be simplified.
Finally, I echo the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, in saying that we must not allow the fight between local authorities and central government to interfere with the solution to this terrible problem. It is becoming a really terrible problem and we must do all that we can.
7.23 p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Ross not only for introducing the debate but also for the work that he has carried out over the years in this House and in another place in respect of housing and homelessness.
In a recent circular Shelter claims that in London bed and breakfast accommodation costs £14,400 per family per year. However, the comparable figure for building a home with repayment over the years is £8,500. Those figures show two facts: first, that putting people in bed and breakfast accommodation—even if it were satisfactory in other ways, which plainly it is not—is a ridiculously uneconomic way of dealing with the problem and should be phased out as fast as possible; and secondly, that even with economic building at a relatively cheap rate it will be impossible to build at a price which the lower income groups have a hope of paying. In this country we have never been able to build a housing market for the lower income groups and there is no reason to suppose that we are seeing our way out of the problem at the present time.
It boils down to the fact that the Government can forget about market forces as regards housing for lower income groups. They must begin to think of it as a problem to be handled on the basis of sensible economic intervention. As regards economic and social terms, if only the Government would get over its "short-termism" and look more at the consequences of what they are doing, and still more at the consequences of what they are not doing, they would realise that money spent in this way is money very well invested.
I accept the fact that in some ways many people in this country are much better off than they were 10 years ago. I do not expect to hear any applause from the Left for saying that, but it is the case. However, at the same time we have a variety of hideous and increasingly serious social problems. I believe that in one way or another they are all connected with the problem of homelessness, although that is by no manner of means the sole cause.
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To take the least important factor first, we are an increasingly dirty country. When one walks around any of our towns, not only the inner cities, one sees that parts of them are filthy. We are worried about our levels of illiteracy, especially when considering competition with other countries. We are worried about rising crime rates. I have been burgled twice during the past six months—my score is now 17—and so it goes on. The rising crime rate is of considerable concern to people.
We are also worried about family breakdowns. The right reverend Prelate referred to these as a cause of homelessness. But bad housing is also a cause of family breakdowns. It is a circular argument. On a few occasions during my life I have had to share a kitchen and bathroom with someone I did not much like. It takes one almost to the point of manslaughter. Ask any woman what it is like to share such facilities and one will realise the urgency about housing in relation to decent social behaviour. Under such circumstances decent social behaviour breaks down to a surprising degree.
For once will the Government not behave like book-keepers thinking as always about what the accounts will look like at the end of the week? Instead will they think long term about the effect of putting a decent amount of money into housing in order to check the evil consequences of homelessness? Although not exclusively, that is particularly important for 16 to 18 year-olds. If they are forced on to the streets we shall get dirt and squalor; increased unemployment and unemployability; an increasing number of people without skills; and an increasing number of AIDS cases. There will also be more family breakdowns as people who have lived in such a way refuse to take on the responsibility of having families and holding them together in what is regarded as a civilised and decent manner.
There is no way in which the Government can overcome the problem unless they are prepared to find the money. That is a long-term investment which will pay off. I have talked about the rise in criminality. The noble Earl knows very well that it costs £300 a week to keep a person in prison. If a person was saved from going to prison and the money put into housing it would be better used all round.
I beg the Government to accept the fact that the problem is of the greatest urgency. I should like to follow the noble Lords, Lord Pitt and Lord Henniker, in saying that we must cut the cackle at the centre and not carry on with absurd conflicting government departments. We must recognise that there are many able, concerned, competent local authorities which should be given the resources—which are their own but which have been locked away so they are not allowed to use them—so that they can be allowed to get on with the job. In that way we shall reduce homelessness and its hideous associated problems.
The Lord Bishop of London: Before the noble Baroness sits down——
7.30 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am sorry that I cannot give way to the right reverend Prelate but

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I am short of time now if I let the Minister rise at the appropriate time. I believe that it would be rather unfair if the person replying for the Opposition did not have his allocated time.
I should like to express my appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Ross, for initiating this debate. However, in listening to it I almost had a feeling of déjà vu—in colloquial terms, here we go again. Since I have been in your Lordships' House no facet of housing has taken up more of our time and received more support from all corners of the House than the plight of the homeless. However, we do not seem to be able to get across to the Government what has been happening or to get them to deal with the situation with the urgency that they should. I shall not go into details but I have been given figures by noble Lords who have spoken in the debate which show that over the past 10 years homelessness has doubled, and those figures do not include the people who sleep rough and who are not registered. I believe that that figure is in the thousands.
The debate on the Order Paper concerns London. Your Lordships may recall that some months ago I asked a Question on the problem of homelessness in London. Figures were produced by a non-political organisation, a Church organisation dealing with the problem, which showed that there were 10,000 people sleeping rough in London who were not registered homeless. It also predicted that if the present trend continued, by the turn of the century there would be 30,000 people and mostly young people, sleeping rough in London. In fact, it termed it as the "New York dimension".
In his excellent speech the right reverend Prelate referred briefly to a point which has not been taken on board. He talked about a particularly bad winter two or three years ago. We have been blessed this past winter with one of the mildest in living memory. But if the forthcoming one is the opposite and we suffer a severe winter what will be the consequences? People will die of hypothermia on the streets of London. Who will care for those homeless people as the cold overtakes them? In London we shall be faced with a disaster that the authorities will be unable to cope with because they are already overburdened and underfunded. I do not know what will happen in that situation.
I have copious reports which I shall not read. They are from a variety of organisations showing the concern of people over this facet of housing and homelessness. There is a report from the London Boroughs Association, the National Housing Forum, Shelter, the Housing Institute and the Association of District Councils. All those bodies have issued reports which show in varying degrees the problem of homelessness. They all finally come to the same conclusion as the Policy Institute Studies Group reached some time ago. I accept that a building programme will not totally solve the housing problem. However, it is fundamentally agreed by everybody, including Members of your Lordships' House in a debate on the most reverend Primate's report, Faith in the City, that unless there is a massive increase in a public house-building programme the situation will continue to deteriorate.
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I believe that that is undeniable. As other noble Lords have said, local authorities should be allowed access to more of their funds to deal with the situation and to put an enhanced housing programme into being. We hear about the hundreds of thousands of houses which are empty. I believe that if the authorities were allowed access to the funds, the situation would be resolved.
I now come to the Minister himself. He will recall that less than 12 months ago when we were in the final stages of debating the Housing Act he was pressed on the question of homelessness. His view was that the legislation would open up the private sector, which would mean that there would be more houses for rent. At that time rents were quoted of £150. I asked him whether, if a homeless person negotiated a private tenancy of £150 a week, the Government would help with that. Eventually I concluded that he said they would. I should now like to ask him a specific question. Is there any evidence yet that homeless people have taken advantage of, if the advantage is there, negotiating a private sector house for rent and being funded for the market rent being asked? If that has not happened, the whole exercise has been a waste of time, as I and other Members of your Lordships' House said it would be.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, among others, referred to the enormous cost of bed and breakfast accommodation. The funds spent on bed and breakfast should be released into the public sector, not only to local authorities. I believe that housing associations can also provide housing for rent, and they do that very well and get on with the job if they have the resources to do so. However, nothing of the sort is happening. We appear to be a debating Chamber which makes very good points, and everybody says the case is overwhelmingly proved, but the Government are not delivering the goods.
My noble friend Lady David surprised me when she talked about the number of school children in London living in hotel accommodation in a single room with the rest of their family. Let nobody say that that is a good start in life. It has been proved conclusively that with bad housing almost certainly goes bad education. I believe that that is a perfect example.
A previous speaker—I believe it was the noble Earl, Lord Longford—referred to the Minister as compassionate. I have used that term in the past and I congratulated him when he was made a Minister with special responsibility for housing during the final stages of the Housing Act. However, his lustre is wearing rather thin in view of what the Government are not allowing him to do. I urge him, if he wishes to retain his reputation of being a compassionate and caring man, to plead with the Government to make available resources in the public housing sector on the same dimensions as Mr. Paul Channon has announced for a road building and improvement programme. If the Government are not prepared to do that, we can only draw the conclusion that they are more interested and concerned with cars than people who may die next winter of hypothermia on the streets of London. I hope that he can persuade his colleagues this time

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to do something about this terrible and increasing problem.
7.38 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ross, for initiating this debate and to all your Lordships who have taken part. I am afraid that I shall have to gallop because we are short of time. As your Lordships will know the matter of homelessness is a particular concern of mine. It has been consistently on my desk since I took over the housing portfolio. What particularly interests me today is the emphasis laid by so many of your Lordships on the need to build houses and yet many of your Lordships who spoke in favour of that are also in favour of the very societies and organisations that have objected so consistently to any proposal for development of new housing. It only serves to confirm, if we did not know it already, that this is a complex problem and a set of problems for homelessness that lacks any simple solution. There is no magic wand to wave.
We all share a concern about the kind of issues and problems that have been discussed. Homelessness is, rightly, an issue of parliamentary and public concern. It is an issue in today's society which requires a response from all parts of our society.
Your Lordships may be aware that the Government's concern is such that we have been undertaking a thorough review of the legislation introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Ross, and on which he commented. Our review is not yet complete. I make no apologies for the time we are quite properly taking to look at these issues and to identify appropriate solutions, in the light of a series of important and useful independent reports. As my noble friend Lady Faithfull reminded us, there is more than one department involved. I have carefully noted what has been said today and I hope to be able to let your Lordships know soon the outcome of our review.
We are faced with a changing situation on homelessness. Back in 1977, the noble Lord, Lord Ross, and his supporters in all parts of Parliament did not envisage the numbers of homeless acceptances we have today and the extensive use of bed and breakfast accommodation. I feel sure he accepts that the Act he saw through in another place is under some stress and strain from the demands of today.
It may be helpful if I comment on the nature of the figures which have informed much of today's debate. As your Lordships will know, my department publishes figures quarterly which are obtained from returns given by local authorities. The information covers a broad range of matters including, for example, the numbers of applicants under the Act, and acceptances; the numbers considered not to be homeless; the categories of people accepted by local authorities, showing for example the numbers of people in the different groups of "priority need" as specified in the Act; and the numbers given help and advice rather than accommodation. This is not a complete list, but it will be clear that there is no single or simple figure to illustrate the scale or degree
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of the homelessness problem, or to indicate the success of local authorities in tackling it. Indeed, I have to tell the noble Earl, Lord Longford, that the one figure most commonly quoted today, and the one he used—that of the number of households accepted as homeless by local authorities—is not a reliable measure of the size of the problem. It is not a record of the number of people without a roof over their heads—it is a record of the numbers provided with somewhere to live.
Noble Lords are quite right to point out that we must be concerned at the increase in this number. We agree, and that is a major reason for our current review; but I do not think that the number of homeless acceptances quoted here today is in itself evidence either that the framework of legislation is inadequate or that local authorities' performance is ineffective. Indeed, the reverse may be the case.
I should say one thing more about these statistics. They do not tell the whole story in another respect—they do not encompass all those people in our society who are in need of help and shelter. The noble Lord, Lord Ross, will I know agree that the Act is now what it was intended to be; that is, a longstop mechanism, designed to deal with the most urgent of cases. The legislation therefore requires local authorities to judge whether people are in certain defined categories of priority need and the homelessness figures that we publish reflect this important feature of the Act.
This debate has a particular reference to London and we must accept that there are distinctive London features of the problem. The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, reminded us that one of them perhaps is the number of homeless people sleeping rough in the capital. Of course, there have always been such people in London and they can also be found on the streets of the other major cities of the Western world, but that is no comfort to me. The estimates of numbers vary widely, but perhaps the consensus of them suggests between 2,000 and 3,000 in this city. I look forward to the results of the recent survey mounted by the Salvation Army. I remind your Lordships that there are over 4,000 emergency beds in London provided by the DSS resettlement units and by voluntary organisations. Unfortunately many of those people who sleep rough do not use these facilities.
We must accept that, in examining these problems and issues, we are facing the consequences of a long-term decline in an effective market in rented housing. The homeless acceptances are the acute symptoms of this long-standing problem. This country has the highest proportion of its population dependent on state provision of housing of any country in the Western world. Thirty per cent. of our housing stock is in municipal ownership. We have therefore placed substantial reliance on bureaucratic decisions to get the right dwellings provided in the right places, and to get the right tenants into them.
At the same time, we have run down the private provision of housing for rent to an insignificant 8·5 per cent. of the national housing stock; so local authorities have an effective monopoly in many areas of the country. Anyone who needs a home of

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his or her own, and cannot afford to buy, is forced to rely upon the local council's system of housing allocations.
Indeed, rented housing is the only area of our everyday national life where we have still a rationing system operated by bureaucracy. Is it surprising, therefore, that we have a supply of rented housing that is neither appropriate nor adequate, and that access to it for people is difficult and usually involves queueing? As your Lordships know, it is a vital part of the Government's housing strategy to revive the private rented sector and radically increase its contribution to our housing needs. But until our new policies have their effect, the local authority sector must continue to cater for most people who need rented housing.
Since those accepted by local authorities as homeless under the Act must be those with the highest priority housing needs, it is not surprising that they are getting a rising proportion of new council lettings—from 20 per cent. to 31 per cent. in the last five years, with higher proportions in parts of London. This is an inevitable trend, and also the right one. It shows that subsidised public housing is increasingly made available to those with the greatest needs.
It is worth noting that overall we do not have a shortage of housing in this country but in certain areas, like London, we do. Due to changing social and employment patterns, reduced numbers in individual households, greater longevity and high divorce rates, the normal demands for housing are accentuated and problems created.
The noble Lord, Lord Henniker, reminded us that the problems are not confined to London. However, I was surprised that he did not mention the changes announced in the Budget by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the release of land at less than market value or the planning and housing changes announced by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, my honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Planning, and myself. We have to come to grips with these problems.
There is action that central government can take to stimulate the provision of low-cost housing. We have taken a number of important steps to stimulate new provision in the private rented sector. I know that my noble friend Lord Selkirk welcomes that. We recognise that there is a continuing need to help the provision of further, subsidised rented housing for people on low incomes. In future, the main providers will be housing associations, and the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, will be delighted to hear that the Government plan to more than double the resources for new housing for rent at affordable levels within the next three years. The new mixed funding rules will ensure that private finance is drawn in to supplement public investment. The housing corporation's programme makes clear that providing for the homeless will be a major priority for the housing association movement from now on.
In advance of the conclusions of our review, we have taken other specific steps within our overall housing policy. Cash incentive schemes have been introduced, with appropriate resources, to help free
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additional vacancies, especially in London where these imaginative schemes were pioneered. The Estate Action programme has been expanded by 36 per cent. and these further extra resources will help bring empty properties on estates back into use to help the homeless. In the current year London boroughs will benefit from an additional £32 million of Estate Action resources.
The noble Lord, Lord Blease, and others, mentioned the Audit Commission report. The noble Lord quoted selectively from it. However, central government alone cannot solve this problem and we should not lose sight of the local authorities' responsibilities. The 1985 Act gives responsibility to local authorities for assessing homeless applicants and then helping accommodate those they judge to be within the criteria of the statute. The sense of this is that councils are in the best position to assess individual cases and then to provide for them.
Some local authorities perform well within the terms of the Act and more widely—and I congratulate them—but others have the potential and the need to do more. Most important of all—the noble Lord, Lord Ross, was right to stress this—it is vital that they make optimum use of their stock. The story of housing management in London and elsewhere is, sadly, not entirely a good one.
It is vitally important to reinstate void properties wherever this can be achieved economically; to remove squatters; to relet properties more quickly and ensure that under-occupation is kept to a minimum; and to collect rent arrears, which are scandalously high in some boroughs. The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, was right to mention the importance of repairs. The English house condition survey shows an improvement over its recent five-year review, but I accept that there is more to do. These may seem very obvious steps to your Lordships, but I can assure you that they are ones that remain vital initiatives to take in some parts of London. By "vital" I mean vital to the homeless. I must also urge London boroughs to use and develop the cash incentive schemes to which I have already referred.
For local authorities, it will be important to distribute resources better in future according to need. The proposed new capital control system embodied in the Local Government and Housing Bill shortly to come before your Lordships will meet this purpose. But it is important to stress that we have already taken significant steps to redress the deficiencies of the existing system. In the past 18 months, for example, the Government made available an additional £74 million specifically to help authorities in areas of homelessness under pressure to secure more rented accommodation. And over 50 per cent. of these additional resources went to London.
I accept that it will continue to be necessary to use temporary accommodation for the homeless, particularly while they are being assessed. But bed and breakfast hotels should be a last resort. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, is right. They represent bad housing practice and bad value for money. A good deal of the evidence in recent reports shows the wide differences in the way authorities interpret

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and implement their duties under the 1985 Act, and the speed at which they do so. Why can Greenwich meet its obligations without recourse to bed and breakfast accommodation for the homeless while neighbouring Lambeth makes use of such accommodation to a wholly disproportionate extent?
I have spoken about the role of local authorities and central government in tackling homelessness. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, mentioned the article by Professor Griffiths. I cannot quote what I wanted from it because I have not got time. Professor Griffiths rightly stressed the importance of the Churches in helping to maintain the permanent values of families and schools and the whole unity that we so desperately seek. It was the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London who reminded us of the voluntary sector and of the role of the Churches that are of course on the very front line.
They can and do give vital help and support to those in housing distress in the capital. The Churches and voluntary bodies run hostels and advice services; they provide some overnight accommodation and food for needy people. These are vital functions, part of the traditional role in society and in the capital of the voluntary movement. People and society will continue to need such help, which is direct, street-level, immediate, caring. It must expand and I am sure that the Churches will wish to play an increasing role.
The Government provide grant aid through various channels. Hostels receive capital and revenue support. Under Section 73 of the Housing Act 1985 we give grant aid of £700,000 to some 20 voluntary organisations for advice and other services to the homeless. We are looking at this programme and its effectiveness as part of our current review. My noble friend Lord Brentford asked me to look at the regulations concerning hostels which he says are responsible for reducing the number of bed spaces. Of course I shall, but I know that he would be one of the first to chastise the Government if there was an unfortunate accident in a hostel due to overcrowding. As regards the community charge, I remind him that we exempted such hostels as those of the Salvation Army. That was widely welcomed, even, I think, by my noble friend.
Some noble Lords have mentioned the support given to young people in the capital. In paying my tribute to this vital, sympathetic help, let me add an important comment which the noble Lord, Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe, mentioned. Young people and their parents need to be aware of the serious implications of leaving home without somewhere to live or a job which gives them a realistic prospect of finding suitable accommodation. It is in the role of counsellor and adviser that both the Churches and the voluntary sector can and do make a real contribution highlighting the likely difficulties of securing accommodation, helping to find housing and supporting young people in the difficult and emotional task of making contact once again with their families.
With young children of my own, I so agree with the noble Baroness, Lady David, that education is
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vital. The Department of Education and Science is discussing the future of the unit that she mentioned with ILEA and the boroughs and looking for appropriate arrangements. I shall pass on to my right honourable friend how she sees its future.
The noble Lord, Lord Ross, quoted the figure of 40 per cent. of the homeless being discharged from care. The Government have recognised the difficulties faced by this group of youngsters. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Security announced on 13th March improvements in benefit for youngsters who are forced to live independently.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, raised the question of housing benefit. I repeat the commitment that I gave him before. Housing benefit will meet market rents unless the costs are unreasonably extravagant for the individual circumstances.
I began these remarks by referring to the complexity of the issues and the lack of simplicity in solutions. I believe that this debate today has underlined both points. That is why the Government undertook their review of the homeless legislation and it is also why they are treating it seriously and with care and attention to detail to bring about lasting change for the better.
This debate has mirrored some of the ebb and flow of thinking within government in recent months. I can assure your Lordships that all these contributions represent timely additions to the weight of evidence that we have gathered in the course of our review. Homelessness is an issue which confronts and concerns us all. It is placing burdens on our cities and their local authorities. Many of the remedies and resources needed are already available; and many councils are implementing and using them. It remains essential to make the fullest use of our housing stock and I must urge authorities, particularly in London, to give this the highest priority. Unnecessary delays and empty properties are an offence to the homeless people that the authorities have a duty to serve.
My noble friend Lord Selkirk said that homelessness has been the Achilles' heel of housing policy. I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, will agree with the right reverend Prelate that all we are doing is tinkering with existing policies. We have given them a new engine, and only by ridding ourselves of the old Achilles' heel is there the best hope for the homeless, and that lies in the full and effective implementation of the Government's new housing strategy. That is our goal and intention in co-operation with other agencies and authorities involved. We must all work together to relieve and reduce the problems so eloquently discussed by your Lordships in this important debate today.
Lord Ross of Newport: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very detailed response. I am sure that he will be the first to admit that he has left a number of questions unanswered, but nevertheless we understand what is going on. We hope very much that this debate will strengthen his hand in his department. As the Minister for Housing, he has an onerous responsibility, and we recognise that. It is a

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tremendous job and we believe that he has fights on his hands in the department to hold is own. We wish him well. I hope that he will listen to the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, and to some of the people whom she would like to bring along. If she cannot persuade the Treasury and others to listen to them, at least I hope that he will.
I also suggest that he might go to Glasgow, where I believe the city council has been very successful. I am assured that there is no one there in bed and breakfast accommodation. It may be that more money goes into Scotland than into England. I believe that a little more goes into Wales. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Employment Bill
Brought from the Commons, read a first time, and to be printed.
House adjourned at one minute before eight o'clock.