Lords Sitting of 13 July 1990

Preamble
The House met at eleven of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Exeter.

Royal Assent
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Entertainments (Increased Penalties) Act,

Licensing (Low Alcohol Drinks) Act,

Terra and Quarter Days (Scotland) Act,

Access to Health Records Act,

Rights of Way Act,

Horses (Protective Headgear for Young Riders) Act,

Gaming (Amendment) Act,

Social Security Act.

Hospices: Government Support
The Earl of Longford The Earl of Longford asked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps they are taking to ensure that the health authorities give effect to the government commitment to pound for pound funding for hospices, and when this will be achieved.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the Government have the highest regard for the achievements of the hospice movement. We are firmly committed to improving the public funding of voluntary hospices and we are making additional resources available to the health service in 1990/91 for that purpose. The timetable and detailed funding arrangements will vary from country to country.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I appreciate the concern of the Minister and the Government. What sums of money are being earmarked to hospices in the current year? What are the plans for earmarking subsequent payments?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, this year's allocations are £8 million for England, £2.5 million for Scotland and £:530,000 for Northern Ireland. They are additiolal to the money that is already being paid to hospices by health authorities. The health authorities and boards in England and Northern Ireland have been asked to work towards a position in which their contribution to the revenue costs of agreed services matches that from voluntary giving. No timetable has been specified but we shall continue to review the position in the light of progress reports from authorities. Since 1st April 1990 hospices in Scotland have been eligible for public funding of 50 per cent. of
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their running costs. Funding arrangements for Wales are under detailed consideration and an announcement is expected shortly.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, it is good to hear the Minister say that the Government have special regard for hospices. Is she aware that recently I had occasion to visit a hospice run by nuns? They are looking after people who are dying and have no hope in this world. The hospitals had to refuse them care and if it were not for the people who run hospices I do not know what would happen to them. Can the Minister confirm her high regard and recommend that the Government are as generous as possible to such people, who deserve every penny they get?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the whole House will welcome the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Mellish. I cannot state too often that one has the highest regard for hospices. They specialise in caring for people at the difficult time when they are in the last stages of dying. The Government are committed to the hospices and to increasing their resources. However, it must be said that many hospices pride themselves on their autonomy. Although they want Government funding they also wish to have policy and admissions control for their institutions. That is also most important to them.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, while expressing a moderate degree of satisfaction with the Minister's Answer, is she happy to know that I shall return to the subject in greater detail in the autumn?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I should expect nothing else from the noble Earl. We shall join in the debate, which will be positive.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I wish to support the comments which the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, made so well. Admirable work is carried out by the volunteers who have built up the hospice movement, including members of your Lordships' House and their wives. I hope that the Minister will consider that support for the hospices should be given high priority in the social service allocation.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am pleased to give the guarantee that it will always be regarded as a high priority area. However, we must never lose the voluntary aspect of the hospice movement because that is its strength.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I too wish to be associated with the remarks made about the hospice movement. Is it not deeply disturbing that some hospices in the country have not yet received any NHS funding? Can the Minister say how many are in that category? Can she also say what effect the changes in income support will have on the funding of the hospice movement?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I cannot be specific about particular hospices. However, the funding for hospices from health authorities varies from as much as 80 per cent. to nothing, if the noble Lord is right. I do not know whether particular hospices have applied for money and been refused or whether they wish to have complete financial and operational

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autonomy. Information is to be gathered about the loss of residential and income support and the whole subject will be kept under review.
Lord St. John of Fawsley: My Lords, will my noble friend accept the gratitude of everyone who is interested in the hospice movement for her encouraging words? In view of some of the comments that have been made, can she make it clear that the hospice movement exists not only for people who are doomed to die but for people who are seriously ill but will recover and leave the hospice? Therefore, there is hope in the hospice.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. The hospice movement concentrates on living rather than on dying. Its work began by making life as comfortable as possible for people who were in the final stages of dying. However, more recently the work is being moved out from the institutions into the community with a tremendous range of support services which allow people to remain longer in their homes. When the time comes at which they need total support, then there is room for them in the hospice.

London: Office Development
11.13 a.m.
Viscount Hanworth Viscount Hanworth asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, because of the ever increasing difficulties of bringing people to their place of work, they will prohibit further office development in at least the central London area.
Lord Reay: My Lords, London needs to compete effectively with its international financial and commercial rivals, if it is to continue making a substantial contribution to national prosperity. Accordingly, it is not our policy to prevent office development in London.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, but does he not agree that most people believe that the situation will deteriorate and that it is only a matter of time before very drastic and unpleasant measures have to be taken? A prohibition on further office development in the centre would be comparatively harmless and should be put into practice until transport is improved. Should we not encourage the development of further office accommodation in the Docklands?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I cannot agree with the noble Viscount. Efficient business requires modern offices. If office development is artificially constrained, the modernisation which normally takes place does not take place. Also, it would increase rents. Both those effects would damage London's position as a pre-eminent financial centre and the Government do not intend to give any encouragement to the prohibition suggested by the noble Viscount.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, while not necessarily denying that, is it not also true that a modern capital city demands a modern transport system? Is it not an
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undeniable fact that London does not have a modern transport system, as has been shown in the past week by the fact that half of District Line trains have had to be taken out of service for modification and safety purposes? What are the Government doing to try to improve the transport infrastructure of London?
Lord Reay: My Lords, we are doing a great deal to improve London's transport system in response to the upsurge in its economic fortunes which we have seen in the past decade. The Government have backed a massive investment programme in London's transport system and, in particular, in its public transport. For example, British Rail is planning to invest £1.2 billion in Network SouthEast over the next three years which is a 30 per cent. increase in real terms over the previous three years. London Transport also plans to invest £2.2 billion over the next three years which, in real terms, is nearly twice the investment over the past three years. Therefore, it is very much the Government's policy to encourage the development of public transport.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, my noble friend has referred to the Underground system, but will the noble Lord also comment on the obstructive nature of unregulated coach travel? I am finding it extremely difficult to approach your Lordships' House from the south because of all the coaches collected there. In areas like Victoria they are an even worse obstruction.
Lord Reay: My Lords, the noble Lord raises a question which strikes a chord around the House but it does not come under the terms of the Question on the Order Paper.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, the Minister said that London must compete effectively and we all agree with that. The difficulty arises when one tries to compare profit-making with efficiency. It is very difficult to believe that London is an efficient city. It could be much more efficient if transport was improved and there was some re-allocation of business. That is already taking place in the Docklands which is taking away some traffic from central London. Has the Minister considered the possibility, as is the case in certain other capitals, of a transport tax on businesses which have large numbers of employees coming into the centre of London?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord is raising the question of road pricing. There are formidable difficulties on that. We do not rule it out indefinitely but we shall see how it develops abroad.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, I am not talking about road pricing. To help public transport, Paris and certain other cities impose a tax on people who have businesses in the centre of the city.
Lord Reay: My Lords, it is very much our policy to make commuting by public transport more attractive than by road. Therefore, we have ruled out major new road developments within London and we have spent a great deal on making public transport more attractive.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, that is simply living in a fantasy world. Is the Minister aware that the latest report from London Transport shows that more

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people are using their cars and that bus services are declining because the roads are so congested? When will the Government wake up to the facts of life on transport matters relating to London?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord is quoting from figures recently published by London Transport. Those are not government figures and I cannot comment in detail upon them. However, I can say that it is our policy to spend a great deal of money on making public transport into London more attractive and to encourage its use by the public.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, turning to the original Question, in view of the very high demand for office space in London, surely it must be evident that the services cannot be that inefficient, otherwise the demand would not exist?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I believe that my noble friend makes a very good point.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, if the Minister does not accept the figures published by London Transport, from what other sources does the Ministry obtain its information?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I did not say that I did not accept the figures. The figures are recently published and I cannot comment in detail upon them. I re-emphasise that we do not wish to make it easier for commuters to drive into central London, and to that purpose London Transport and British Rail are pending substantial sums of money on investment in public transport.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, can the Minister name any major city in the world comparable in population with London where the railway system, both overground and underground, receives less capital help from the public taxpayer?
Lord Reay: My Lords, as I said earlier, London Transport plans to invest £2.2 billion over the next three years. That is twice the rate invested over the past three years. The £400 million investment in London Underground which is to take place in 1990–1991 will be two and a half times higher than the figure for 1984–85, which was the last year attributable to the GLC.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, in all his replies the Minister has said what is planned to be done. Can he say what has been done? What have the Government done over the past 11 years towards easing transport problems, which have grown enormously during that period for Londoners and other people using the transport systems in London?
Lord Reay: My Lords, during the 1980s there has been an upsurge in the economic life of the capital and in the numbers of people wishing to live and work in London. It is in response to that development that the investment of which I spoke is taking place.

Share Ownership by Individuals
11.21 a.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many individual shareholders there were in the United Kingdom (a) in 1979 and (b) on the most recent convenient date.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, it is estimated that there were under 3 million individual shareholders in 1979, whereas there were nearly 11 million individuals owning shares at the time of the latest survey in February 1990.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for those extremely interesting and encouraging figures. Is he aware that they constitute a vivid illustration of the change for the better in the economic and social structure of our society which has taken effect during the past 10 years?
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for those remarks. Share ownership is at its highest ever level; there are nearly 11 million individual shareholders. There has been an unprecedented growth in the number of shareholders from 7 per cent. to 24 per cent. in six years.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, in order to get the whole question of shareholding into perspective, will the noble Earl confirm that of the total number of shares issued, only 20 per cent. are held by individuals? Most of the shares are owned by unit trusts, finance houses, banks and other corporations. Will the Minister also confirm that within that 20 per cent., 80 per cent. of the shares are held by the top richest 2 per cent. of the population in the country, which represents 840,000? That leaves very little for the small individual shareholders. The dividends they receive are possibly barely enough to pay their increased poll tax.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, I shall answer the noble Lord's second point first. Over two-thirds of shareholders are outside social classes A and B. In no age group is share ownership less than 10 per cent., and in no region of Great Britain is it below 16 per cent., compared with the 7 per cent. national average in 1979. There are now more shareholders than there are trade union members.
In answer to the noble Lord's first point regarding institutions, the surge of individual share ownership has slowed the trend of institutions controlling more corporate equity. Institutions should not be considered as villains; they represent collective investments by individuals for pensions and so forth.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that if we want a community in which wealth is better shared, it is better that we should follow the Conservative principle, as we have done, of levelling upwards rather than the socialist principle of trying to level downwards?
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, again I am grateful to my noble friend for those remarks. Perhaps I could give him an example of the

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privatisation which has begun in Hungary. In June the first company, a travel agency called Ibusz, floated successfully on the Budapest and Vienna stock exchanges. British lawyers and brokers were advising the state privatisation agency. That is a splendid example of the United Kingdom exporting our successful policies.
Lord Mulley: My Lords, may I dissent from the views of the noble Lord, Lord Renton? It would be interesting to know how many new shareholders are the result of privatisation schemes where the Treasury has benefited by selling capital assets to which over the years it has made no contribution; for example, gas, water and electricity to come. All the capital has been ploughed back from moneys received, in some cases initially from local authorities, but for the most part from the consumers of those industries who receive no part of the benefit from the sale of the assets.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, 29 major businesses have been privatised since 1979. Public flotations have given individuals a chance to own shares. Over ½ million employees have become shareholders on privatisation; most have kept their shares.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, as Ministers are often char—no doubt rightly—of allowing a question to be widened in supplementaries, may we take it from the Minister's last supplementary answer but one, which gave the interesting news about shareholding in Hungary, that the Government will now be more tolerant of supplementary questions going wide of the main Question?
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: No, my Lords. I was merely trying to give an interesting example to the House.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, since the question has already been widened by the noble Lord, Lord Renton, who referred to there being a growing together of the community in terms of wealth, will the Minister confirm that none of the shares to which he referred is held by the 15 million people in this country living at or below the poverty level?
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, I answered the noble Lord's point in an earlier supplementary when I gave the social classes. Let it not be forgotten that there are 11 million shareholders altogether.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is not the ineffective if vigorous attempt of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, to rubbish the extremely encouraging answer given by the Minister significant as to the hostility of the Labour Party to the ever-increasing number of private shareholdings? Will the Minister ensure that the public become fully aware of this?
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, again I can only thank my noble friend.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, does the Minister not agree that one of the sad things that happened while shares were increasing in numbers from 1980 was that unemployment rose to an all-time high in this
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country? That was the beginning of the most evil thing this nation suffered; namely, the great divide between those who have and those who do not have much.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, frankly the noble Lord is not correct in everything that he says. I rose to this Dispatch Box today and gave good news to the House.

CFC Substitutes
11.28 a.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will encourage research into substitutes for chlorofluorocarbons and the production of suitable replacement substances.
The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Trefgarne): Yes, my Lords.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I am grateful for that reply. While the phasing out of CFCs is highly desirable, are they not still essential for refrigeration? For example, they are required for bulk perishable cargoes at sea in order to prevent other forms of pollution and food poisoning.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I understand that the vast majority of refrigerated cargo ships already use the new refrigerant HCFC22 which is only one-twentieth as damaging as the earlier CFC refrigerant. I hope that my noble friend will think that that is a useful development. It is important that ship owners and others using refrigerating equipment take special care to ensure that the refrigerant is contained within the equipment and does not leak into the atmosphere.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the British Thoracic Society will be told today by a professor from the University of Columbia who specialises in air pollution that, internationally, asthma attacks and chest infections have almost doubled in the past decade because of the use of fossilised fuels by power stations and emissions from car exhausts? Will the Government bear that in mind in any future energy policy?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, with respect to the noble Lord, the Question is about refrigerants. However, the noble Lord raises an important point which is, of course, taken into account.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, with regard to refrigeration equipment, are the Government planning to do anything to assist third world countries in the disposal of equipment containing chlorofluorocarbons? The greatest emissions arise when air conditioning plants and refrigerators are destroyed. Third world countries using this equipment need assistance in disposing of it.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, yes, this was one of the conclusions of the recent London ozone conference of which the noble Lord may be aware. The United Kingdom is certainly pledged to contribute up to 15 million dollars to the initial three-year fund. I understand that some of that money will be used in

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respect of a study into the matter which is being conducted in India and to which the noble Lord referred.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, can the Government tell the House whether the present powers, of local government are adequate to require those who replace old refrigerators with new ones to deliver the old refrigerators to properly equipped decommissioning centres from which the CFCs can be returned to the manufacturers for recycling?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I understand that some thought is being given to that matter. Perhaps I may make further inquiries and write to the noble Lord.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that, while everything must be done to encourage the manufacture of substances which are satisfactory, there are difficulties in relation to HCFCs and HFCs which, in fact, cause some damage to the ozone layer and contribute to global warming respectively? Therefore, is there not a case for attempting to set international limits on those substitutes?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I think that that is right, but I also think that we must be sure that there are proper substitutes coming along if we are to ban specific substances from important uses. However, I am pleased to report that ICI, for example, is well advanced with the development of a product called HFC143A which does not suffer from the objections of the other products. A plant to produce this new substance is likely to come on stream early next year.
The Earl of Balfour: My Lords, in their research for suitable substitutes for chlorofluorocarbons will Her Majesty's Government take care that any approved substitutes are not flammable; in other words, will they ensure that they cannot ignite?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, it depends on the application of the substance concerned as to what characteristics it should have. The applications for these substances go wider than refrigeration plants but the point made by my noble friend is nonetheless a good one. It is also important to point out that the great majority of research into this matter, while in some cases supported by Her Majesty's Government, is generally carried out from a commercial point of view. The fact is that the market is now increasingly demanding that products are environmentally friendly—as jargon has it—and customers are clearly prepared to pay a premium for such products.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the answer he has just given raises another danger? Is he aware that ICI and Dupont in particular have been working on these alternative gases but, as my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis pointed out, they are no totally safe for the ozone layer and add to global warming? In encouraging this research, will the Minister ensure that the Government do not allow themselves to be persuaded by the strong commercial lobbies which have already produced misleading advertisements about such products being environmentally friendly? Will the Government also ensure that the investment which companies have made in
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these alternative gases is not allowed to obscure the fact that no gas yet produced as a substitute for CFCs is either safe for the ozone or for global warming?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I have to agree that no perfect substitute has yet been found. However, I would regard a product that represented only 5 per cent. of the difficulties of the earlier products to be a substantial improvement. I understand that ICI, for example, has invested about £100 million in developing the new product, and that is very much to be applauded.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, while accepting that the private sector may be best placed to carry out this research, is it not unwise to leave the whole matter to the functioning of the market? Should not the Government be taking an active line? If they are to take a more active line, can the noble Lord say how much money is being spent now by the Government in encouraging research? How much money would he expect to be reasonable?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am very much in favour of letting the experts in industry conduct their research free of interference from government. However, the Government do have programmes, as the noble Lord will be aware, for supporting collaborative research into these and related matters. I do not have a figure in front of me but if I can find one I will write to the noble Lord.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, while destruction and disposal of CFCs must be carried out under strictly controlled conditions, will my noble friend confirm that CFCs, used correctly in refrigeration, are not harmful while in use, provided that there are no leaks?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, my noble friend is, of course, correct. Provided that the chemicals do not escape and eventually reach the ozone layer there is no obvious danger. The difficulty is that at various stages of the life of the equipment it has to be overhauled and repaired and there is always a slight risk that on those occasions leaks will take place. Therefore, I hope my noble friend agrees that in the fullness of time it is right for these substitutes to be replaced with less damaging products. As I said earlier, I understand that most refrigerated ships use some of the newer products so, in any event, there is less risk.

European Schools and Language Learning: ECC Report
11.38 a.m.
Baroness Lockwood: rose To move, That this House takes note of the report of the European Communities Committee on European Schools and Language Learning in United Kingdom schools [13th Report, HL Paper 48].
The noble Baroness said: I first thank members of Sub-committee C for their help and diligence during the course of the inquiry. I also thank noble Lords who intend to speak in the debate this morning; in

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particular, I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Brigstocke. Her experience in the field of education will add greatly to the debate.
The report is based on a communication from the European Commission on European schools in the context of inter-cultural and European education. The Commission's document proposed a three-year project during which some of the existing European schools could be invited by the education authorities of interested member states to participate in an experimental scheme to test the feasibility of enabling existing schools to add a European component to the content of teaching courses and related examinations. The document also suggested that some existing secondary schools might offer the European baccalaureate.
The inquiry covered two themes: European schools and the lessons they might offer to other schools, and language teaching and learning in the United Kingdom. The term "European schools" is a technical one, designating the nine schools set up to provide education for the children of employees of the European Community. They are jointly financed by member states and the European Community and cater for pupils from the age of three to 18. All the schools follow a common curriculum and are organised into language sections for teaching purposes. From their first year of formal education at the age of six all children spend part of each day learning a second language.
In the secondary section, pupils receive most lessons in their mother tongue and the remainder in another working language, that is English, French and German. The only formal qualification offered is the European baccalaureate which is based on examinations taken at the end of the seventh year of secondary education. It is offered exclusively by the European schools. The standards of the schools, particularly in modern language teaching, are high, though provision for less able pupils is limited.
As well as receiving evidence on the schools the sub-committee had the pleasure of visiting the one European school in the United Kingdom based at Culham, Oxfordshire, which they found most impressive. Certainly, there is much to learn from its methods of language teaching. Nevertheless, the sub-committee found no case for increasing the number of such schools in the United Kingdom. The schools are extremely expensive to run. Although they are non-residential, the committee was informed by the Department of Education and Science that the cost of the Culham school in 1987–88 was four times more than the cost of a state school with a similar number of children. Witnesses pointed out that there are more pressing priorities on the education budget.
The sub-committee also considered the Commission's suggestion that some existing secondary schools might offer the European baccalaureate. It concluded that this too is not practical at the present time. It noted some problems about the administration of the examination. Moreover, such an extension of the European baccalaureate would entail both
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teaching and examining some subjects of the curriculum in a language other than English. Valuable though that would be, adequate resources are not currently available in the United Kingdom. Instead, the report suggests that, since the international baccalaureate is a widely-recognised qualification, it may be a more appropriate model for expansion than the European baccalaureate.
The majority of the evidence received by the committee related to language teaching in the United Kingdom. That evidence led the committee to conclude that the two main problems affecting modern foreign language learning in the United Kingdom are the current crisis in teacher supply and the widespread lack of motivation and interest in foreign languages.
Current provision for language learning in many United Kingdom schools compares unfavourably with that in other member states. Pupils in United Kingdom schools tend to study fewer modern languages, start doing so later, and give up earlier, than their Community counterparts. Despite that—the committee would like to emphasise this point—modern foreign language teaching has improved greatly during the past decade. The committee recommends wide publicity for the changes that have taken place.
At present most pupils at maintained schools in the United Kingdom start learning a modern foreign language at the age of 11. About half give up at the age of 14. The implementation of the national curriculum in 1992 will increase dramatically the number of fourth and fifth year secondary pupils who continue to study a modern foreign language to the age of 16, doubling the numbers of pupils learning languages after the age of 14. Modern foreign language teachers in United Kingdom schools thus currently face two extra burdens—the radical and rapid changes in teaching methods and an imminent doubling of the numbers of pupils. The committee believes that it is imperative that adequate in-service training facilities should be provided. Teacher exchanges with other member states should be further developed. The committee welcomes the recent Community decisions on the Lingua programme and considers that that can be extended. Educational visits and exchanges can promote language fluency and foster cultural understanding.
Widespread concern was expressed in evidence about the Government's new policy on charging for such visits. The committee believes that this policy should be changed without further delay if, on the basis of current surveys, it is found that it has discouraged visits. The committee recommends that the skills of pupils who speak a Community language other than English at home should be encouraged wherever possible. It agrees with the vast majority of witnesses who urge that foreign language teaching should be offered in primary schools. Planning for that should start now. Teacher training colleges should include foreign languages as an essential component of B.Ed. courses.

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The United Kingdom is currently facing a severe crisis in the supply of teachers of modern foreign languages. Many more language teachers are needed to meet the provisions of the national curriculum. According to the Department of Education and Science, the shortfall in the number of teachers required is over 1,700 or 11 per cent. Other witnesses gave an even higher figure. Therefore, urgent action is needed to redress complaints from teachers about status, conditions and pay.
The committee also proposes a nationwide keeping-in-touch-with-teaching scheme to encourage already qualified teachers to return to work. Training facilities, child care arrangements and flexible working patterns should be provided for existing teachers in order to retain them in the service and to encourage others, mainly women, who left for family reasons.
The employment of qualified teachers from other member states and of more language assistants, besides the use of peripatetic teachers, particularly in those languages which are infrequently taught, can all help to ease the crisis. The committee strongly believes that all state maintained secondary schools should provide for the teaching of at least one European Community language. The vast majority of pupils should continue to learn a first modern foreign language for at least five years. Pupils should be encouraged to learn a second foreign language. Diversification in modern foreign language teaching should not be restricted to the most able pupils. We feel that the less able pupils would also cope.
The committee recognises that many of its recommendations entail additional expenditure, but consider that the recruitment and retention of well-trained and motivated teachers is crucial. However, its final conclusion forms one of the principal recommendations in the report and would cost nothing to implement. It is that the attitude of British society towards foreign language learning must change. Teachers and pupils, parents and politicians, employees and employers, must all be made aware of the vital importance of modern foreign language learning as a means of communication and cross-cultural understanding and as an aid to business and overseas trade.
The report reveals a deep-seated cultural problem. For too long we have relied on our island status and for too, long we have expected others to learn our language. That can be no longer tolerated. As a full member of the European Community, we must change our approach accordingly. Languages and communications are the key. The Government recognise the depth of the problem. On behalf of the sub-committee I welcome the very detailed and careful response to the report which has been circulated to all those taking part in the debate. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for responding in that way. The committee has not yet had an opportunity to consider the response but I am sure that it will welcome the already extensive action which the Government are taking.
At this point, I shall make just two comments. First, although the several witnesses from the teaching
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profession appearing before the sub-committee were most enthusiastic in their approach to language teaching and the development of a European culture, the committee was left in no doubt that improving the overall morale of the profession is critical if the problem of teacher shortages is to be resolved. Despite the recent change in teachers' pay and salaries, which is recorded in the response, I wonder whether the Government quite perceive the intensity and the urgency of the problem. I hope they do.
Secondly, I was dismayed to read in the response that the Secretary of State does not think that it would be,
"reasonable to plan for the introduction of a modern foreign language into the primary school curriculum until at least the end of the first decade of the next century".
A whole generation of children will have passed through the education system by then. We must act with much greater speed and urgency.
The committee recognises, as its report indicates, all the difficulties involved in extending the teaching of modern foreign languages. Its recommendations are intended to help alleviate the problem. We were told in evidence—we recognised the realism of the statement—that it would take 10 years to plan and mount a programme for language teaching in the primary school. That is why we recommended that planning should start now, and that one feature of the planning should be the inclusion of a foreign language as an essential component of the B.Ed course for primary teachers. At least we should be—
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, perhaps the noble Baroness will give way for a moment. I was a member of the committee and I shall be speaking later. She is at the moment speaking about the response of the Secretary of State for Education and Science relating to England and Wales. Foreign languages have already been introduced as an experiment in primary schools in Scotland, a subject about which I shall be speaking.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. I must inform the House that he was very diligent in pointing out to the committee from time to time that the system in Scotland is quite different from that in England and Wales.
Scotland is mounting a number of pilot projects which are very welcome. I am talking about planning for the introduction of language teaching in primary schools across the whole of the United Kingdom. The noble Lord will agree that the committee felt it essential that we should start to plan now and that foreign language teaching should be a component in the B.Ed for primary teachers. We should start to tackle the problem before the beginning of the next century.
We cannot let a whole generation go by before doing anything. In any case, if the publicity and awareness programme, which the committee hopes the Government will mount, is successful, it could be that parents themselves will refuse to accept such a delay. I have found it encouraging to receive letters resulting from the publicity given to the publication of the

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report. Two letters came from parents so anxious that their young children should learn a foreign language that they were seeking to set up an informal language teaching group for primary age children in their own community.
Pressure from, and the involvement of, parents succeeded in extending the teaching of Welsh to children in Wales. It would be good to see similar pressure and involvement from both parents and industry for the teaching of European languages in the whole of the United Kingdom on a much wider scale. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the report of the European Communities Committee on European Schools and Language Learning in United Kingdom Schools [13th Report, HL Paper 48].—(Baroness Lockwood.)
11.56 a.m.
Baroness Brigstocke: My Lords, as I rise to address the House for the first time I should like to express my thanks for the kindness, the courtesy and the patience shown to me over the past few weeks. I ask for that tolerance to be extended for a few minutes more. I know, having been a headmistress for 25 years, that I should not feel daunted, but I have to say that taking an assembly for 650 adolescent girls is not half as worrying as speaking to a score or so of noble Lords in this august and historic Chamber. Secondly, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, on the report produced by the Select Committee which she chairs. I thank her also for the kind words she said earlier about me.
I think I agree with practically everything that the noble Baroness said. I was particularly glad that she made the point that there are indeed very many first-class teachers of modern languages in our schools. As we look at and appraise language learning and teaching in the country, I hope that we will not forget that.
The report of the Select Committee is so good, so well researched and so comprehensive that there is hardly anything left to say. Well, of course there is. It would appear from last week's Economist and indeed from today's newspapers that we cannot take for granted agreement on the importance of learning a language other than one's own or even of encouraging European awareness, or, to use the educational jargon, empathy. Moreover, newspaper advertisements for top career appointments in international companies do not, curiously, always list fluency in a foreign language as an essential qualification together with the technical expertise and interpersonal skills which are always demanded. The Select Committee is right to emphasise that British attitudes to language learning and teaching must change.
The study of a modern foreign language is an exciting and stimulating activity at any age. I am glad to see the number of language classes available to Members of this House. It is especially stimulating for the young:
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"There is no such thing as a national inability to learn languages".
Those are the words contained in the interim report of the Modern Foreign Languages Working Group, of which I am a member. Its statements, injunctions and hopes are real, but they are by no means new. In the early 60s, successive reports spoke of the urgent need for practical proficiency in languages. As the working group has met several times at the University of Essex, it is perhaps fitting for me to quote the words of a former vice-chancellor, who is himself a Hispanist. He said:
"We should like to encourage students from every part of the university to learn a language—and we should like to provide the facilities for really practical instruction to allow a student to understand a language and speak it fluently".
So much, then, for the 1960s. However, the urgent question in 1990 is how are we to ensure that our students both at school and beyond learn the languages? How can we interest and motivate them? We can do so through the courses, the resources and the teachers. The courses are changing dramatically. The GCSE—the General Certificate of Secondary Education—encourages a stronger motivation in the students. The emphasis is on being able to understand spoken language of various kinds and being able to respond appropriately. Then there is the ability to express oneself effectively in speech and in conversation; the ability to read and understand; and the ability to record and convey meaning in the written language. Those are the specific attainment targets up to the age of 16 years.
Even in the two A-level years there are interesting developments in courses; for example, the Oxford Board has just decided to eliminate all testing in English for its A-level examination in modern foreign languages. Moreover, for children with special needs, language teachers are beginning to work out how to teach across the full ability range and how to teach pupils of widely varying motivation and home backgrounds. Some diversification in the actual languages taught is beginning to take place.
I am proud of the fact that at St. Paul's Girls School we began 10 years ago to offer 11 year-old pupils a choice of what should be their first foreign language. Even today, I am still proud that we offered them the choice of German as their first foreign language, together with the French language. The pupils whose first foreign language is German, easily add French as their second foreign language within two years. Whatever the first foreign language may be, if it is well taught it will serve as the apprentice language, as Professor Eric Hawkins would say, for all future language learning. I hope that the Government will bear that fact in mind and that they will allow provision for a second foreign modern language in the national curriculum, so that Spanish, Russian and Italian are available as well as German and French. Of course, I should like to see Japanese and Chinese eventually included in that list, too.
But, however innovative the course is and however diverse the languages taught, teachers need proper resources. That includes not only books and magazines, but also tapes, videos and electronic mail

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with, of course, the machines to operate them. These are not extravagances; they are necessary enablers. The support of foreign language assistants and of native speakers is also necessary, as is the biggest boost to teachers' morale; namely, secretarial help in the staff room.
However, what our schools need—and I stress the word "need"—is teachers. We are chronically short of trained modern language teachers in the United Kingdom, as the noble Baroness has already said. The latest figures for graduate employment for 1988 show only 8.3 per cent. of modern language graduates entering teacher training. One of my colleagues on the Modern Foreign Languages Working Group, who is a university lecturer in education, Russian and French, has this year for the first time in his 17 years' experience lost two of his most gifted linguists. They have decided not to go into the teaching profession although they have passed their postgraduate certificate of education course very successfully.
As we have heard, teacher morale is low. Therefore, what can be done? The teachers we already have in our schools need help and we need to recruit more of them. It is important to define what the school authorities and the parents, let alone the pupils, expect from teachers. At present the multifarious demands on teachers' time and attention are overwhelming as they grapple with the new requirements of the GCSE and the national curriculum. Language teachers have their own particular worry about their fluency and linguistic and cultural competence. I hope for them that exchange visits to the appropriate country, linked with other schools, can be arranged and that there will always be advisers ready to help.
Thirty-five years ago, when I was a young married woman with three small children, I was teaching on a part-time basis at the Godolphin and Latymer School in Hammersmith. The then headmistress, Dame Joyce Bishop, who is still alive today at the age of 90, asked me to help her in a national campaign to recruit married women to return to, or indeed to enter, the teaching profession. It has taken me rather a long time to respond to her initiative, but I now urge the Government, the Department of Education and Science and the individual schools to bring into teaching, women, especially those with family responsibilities, who can teach languages, even if it is on a part-time basis. However, they will need help, reassurance and practice. Moreover, they will certainly need to overcome their fear of those two terrible unknowns —the GCSE and the national curriculum.
Finally, I reiterate my congratulations to the noble Baroness and the members of the Select Committee. I hope that their report, coupled with the practical help and advice of the Modern Foreign Languages Working Group, will make 1990 the year when the British finally take advantage of learning languages and understanding other people's cultures. For this we must nurture our teacher-linguists. Perhaps the 1990s should become the decade of the teacher. But then I would say that, wouldn't I?
12.9 p.m.
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, I am delighted to be the first speaker to have the opportunity to congratulate the noble Baroness on her maiden speech. If I may say so, she may have felt more trepidation in addressing this House than she ever did when addressing a St. Paul's assembly, but I would feel more trepidation if I had only to address the sixth form of St. Paul's Girls School. I am especially delighted on this occasion because the girls' school was obviously derived originally from the boys' school. The boys' school of course is almost the twin of my school in Manchester, about which I intend to say a word or two.
I was interested in what the noble Baroness had to say about modern language teaching. I should like to know much more about it. I should like to know what vocabulary is being taught because at the age of 15 at that illustrious school, although I knew all the names of the plants, flowers and animals (male and female), I had almost no vocabulary of practical everyday matters.
All I can offer today are a few random reflections on that important subject. I have never been within the language teaching world, but I have been on the edge of it for most of my life. We have language teachers in the family. My daughter, who is bi-lingual in French, was that rare being, a primary teacher of French. She was at the French Lycée between the ages of six and 19. She was marvellously happy. When I consider European schools, I think of the results on her and her English friends from not attending a wholly English school. More than 50 nationalities were represented at the Lycée. The pupils became not merely Europeans but citizens of the world. As she was an only child, and we always had a fellow pupil living with us, she was able to make close friendships with people of other countries. One year it was one of those numerous Vietnamese girls who can call themselves princesses.
There are important gains from such an education, but there are equally important losses. My daughter had never heard of King Alfred burning the cakes, Grace Darling's heroism, or even the verses of "The Wreck of the Hesperus". I am making a serious point. As a result in later life she was cut of from part of the frame of reference of her English contemporaries. She was cut off from the sub-literature which everyone reads, and she was cut off from what Dr. Brewer describes as, "phrase and fable". As it was a lay school, she was cut off from knowledge of stories such as the "Coat of Many Colours" or "Daniel in the Lions' Den". That was not part of the culture in which she was participating. Although she picked up a lot from television, there were nevertheless terrible omissions for an English girl.
The compensation, of course, was to know by heart some of the exquisite short poems of Verlaine—with due attention to the mute "e"—and a few stories about Charlemagne. I am still not sure about what type of school I should like a grandchild of mine to attend but, because of the way in which the Community is going and recognising all the shortcomings, I would probably choose the Lycée or a European school.

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I welcome and commend the report with its regrets and its hopes. The lack of desire to speak a foreign language is not an English failing, it is a strange English characteristic. It may be the result of us having been for a time a master race with a native language spoken by so many foreigners. What is remarkable is that as the BBC takes its microphone deep into the heartland of the Eastern Soviet empire it can find natives who speak good English and are capable of intellectual formulation in the language. Those are people who can never have visited an English-speaking country or met an English person. The motivation, I suspect, may have been a protest against the language of communism. It is, in any case, an example of what modern language learning can attain with the help of modern linguistic insights, radio, records and tape recorders.
Six years ago I went to China and met the second-year students at Xian University. It was a great treat for them to meet British parliamentarians because they had never met an English-speaking person previously. Each of them had a tête-à-tête with a member of the delegation. Mine spoke slowly without errors and no trace at all of the old Chinese intonations and effusions such as one hears from Chinese waiters in London and sometimes from Chinese diplomats.
Over 100 years ago, the prevailing establishment in Manchester said that it was ridiculous that the grammar school, which six of the present life Peers attended, should be teaching nothing but classics in that commercial world trading city. The reform that it secured was that the school should teach the sciences as intensively as it taught the classics and that it should teach modern languages. The school was greatly increased in size. It was divided into classics, sciences and modern languages. The latter merely exchanged French and German for Latin and Greek, but they were taught with the same rigour and intention as were the classical subjects. The intention was to examine the nature of language, to learn precision in its use and to use the opportunities it gave to explore its literature and philosophies.
Those who took an honours French degree at Manchester University—they included several of my contemporaries—continued doing that. They then spent a year in Paris attending lectures at the Sorbonne, where they learned how to chat up the girls of 25 nationalities in French; how to distinguish red wine from white wine and how to smoke a Gauloise cigarette without being sick. It was an education for a scholar and a gentleman. After four years, they knew a great deal about the literature and philosophy of France, and they spoke the language well; they knew nothing of anything else with any precision—their knowledge was general—not forgetting the supplementary subject of German in which they were not all that adept.
That admirable system must be preserved in the world of today but only for the minority of people who will need to speak a foreign language well. If I am talking all the time about French, it is because it is still
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the main European language. German may become so, but not yet. All those who need to speak a foreign language well are not necessarily those who will have a love of Rousseau, Baudelaire or Proust. There are now combined courses in which a more practical skill is taught instead of literature.
A friend of mine who is one of the most eminent French literature scholars told me this week that he had examined the French of those students at Bradford University who were studying it alongside business studies. He found the French excellent. He had nothing but commendation for such a course, and yet he was one who was brought up in the most rigorous of the old traditions.
Thirty years ago I was deputy director of the Nuffield Foundation. As I was leaving, I had a hand in the introduction of what was called Nuffield French. The idea was that we should take the children who had passed their 11-plus in February until the holidays began in July and give them a rigorous French course through a French system that was adapted to records and taken from the system used at SHAPE. Shortly afterwards the 11-plus was virtually abolished and I do not think that the Nuffield French was successful. Teachers did not like it. At that time there was a strong influence in the primary schools against learning anything at all by heart. It still exists. At a school close to me, the teachers refuse to allow the children to learn poems. As for learning tables, that is regarded as impossible.
With Nuffield French, the idea was that the teachers could listen and keep a lesson or two ahead of the children. That was possible, but the idea of questions and answers—which was what the course was about—did not strike them as being very good. They were also upset because there was no written work for them to mark. So the idea faded away and now broken and dusty apparatus lies in cupboards at a number of primary schools.
There are primary schools where French is taught; my daughter has worked in them. However there is a temptation for headmasters sometimes to regard French as a frivolity. The moment a teacher is ill, the specialist in French is taken away to teach the other class. It is a subject that is easily sacrificed.
I believe that French should be taught in primary schools, beginning earlier than the age of 10. However, a great deal of preparation has to be made, many teachers have to be trained and although that will not take as long as the Minister suggested, we should press for it to begin now.
12.21 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to be the first speaker on this side of the House to welcome the accession to our ranks of the noble Baroness, Lady Brigstocke. It gives me enormous pride to think that only a few years ago I was one of her governors. I feel now that she is launched on her own. We have listened to a contribution on the practical aspects of the problem that we are discussing which has been invaluable.

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I am afraid, however, that, having offered the noble Baroness congratulations, I shall set her a bad example. I shall follow this week's fashion of saying the unsayable. Although I welcome the report and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, both on it and on her speech today, I am not enamoured of it. I propose—I hope somewhat gently—to explain my criticisms.
The first arises from the fact which was inevitable, given the initial impetus for the inquiry, that European schools, their functioning and role took up such an inordinate part of the total hearing of witnesses and of the report. Given what one might have guessed originally, the conclusions were bound to be negative. One did not have to know a great deal about the schools and their intake to realise that it was improbable that much in them was directly relevant to what the committee rightly recognise as the real problem: our failure in this country by and large to make a competent showing—competent by international comparison—at teaching foreign languages.
However, out of this initial need to deal with the Europe an schools arose what I regard as a partly unfortunate choice of witnesses or limitation of the witnesses heard. Because of the European schools, no doubt, a great deal of the committee's time was devoted to hearing the representations of the various trade unions and professional bodies in the education world. It did not seem to me that they said anything original, unexpected or new.
On the other hand, it is extraordinary that if the committee were seriously concerned about the national failure it should not have done more to look at alternative forms of meeting our needs which exist outside the formal education system. For instance, it is well known that a number of multinational companies which need to circulate their senior staff to European countries take measures to see that they start with an initial knowledge, at any rate for business and living purposes, of the languages of the countries to which the staff are to be posted. To the best of my knowledge, this is normally done by sending the aspirants to these posts to private institutions in foreign capitals for total immersion in the language concerned for a number of weeks or for two to three months. My observation would be that it appears to be a more practical method than the characteristic, alas, of all our schooling in languages: the limitation to periods, so that for two or three periods of study a week the pupil is confronted with another language and has all the rest of the week in which to forget it.
We the abandonment some decades ago by the Foreign Office of the demand for languages as a condition of entry into the Diplomatic Service. Since civil servants spend more of their time abroad than at home—so, alas, do Ministers—the Foreign Office and other parts of government no doubt today make efforts see that they acquire the languages after they have been admitted to the service. I was surprised that no attempt was made to question either the Civil Service Department or the Foreign and
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Commonwealth Office as to what measures they took and what they had found to be satisfactory forms of language teaching at that level.
It seems to me that there was perhaps a little too much concentration on taking the schooling system, the national curriculum and all that for granted and asking whether we could do better for languages within it. Furthermore, little attention seemed to be paid to the way in which languages are learnt. A fairly common observation now because people take quite young children abroad is that the simplest way of acquiring the rudiments of a foreign language is the way in which one acquires the rudiments of one's own language. A three, four or five year-old plunged into a situation where only another language is spoken will acquire a vocabulary and ability to express himself or herself in a way that a pupil in a secondary school may fight for quite a long time to achieve.
Not only do I support strongly the last point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, about the extraordinary idea of postponing consideration of language teaching in primary schools for a couple of decades, but we have probably got it altogether wrong. It would be much better to teach languages in primary schools than in secondary schools. We should get more and better results that way, because secondary schools could then make use of the original primary knowledge to extend knowledge in the other areas which the noble Baroness, Lady Brigstocke, mentioned, such as European literature, culture and other such matters.
I have another criticism to make which I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, will not take amiss. I appreciate the work that went into the report but I feel that it lacks historical perspective. As I am afraid do so many of our discussions, the report seems to consider only what has been happening in the past 10, 20 or at the most 30 years. That is considered to be sufficient as a frame of reference. I should like to remind the House that what is rightly seen as a national indifference to, or in some quarters contempt for foreign languages is a relatively recent development.
I speak from a fading memory, but in about the year 1860 a young politician on the make, having some leisure from his parliamentary duties, wrote a rather impressive review in a weekly journal on a book in German about the French Revolution. I find it difficult to imagine that any politician today who had similar leisure on his hands would wish to or indeed be able to follow that example. The point I wish to make is that the individual I am talking about then became, as the Marquess of Salisbury, one of the longest-serving and most successful Prime Ministers of this country in the past century. In view of what I have said, it is curious that the term "splendid isolation" is often connected with that person. In the 19th century the term "splendid isolation" certainly did not mean cultural isolation from the rest of Europe. In the 19th century anyone who claimed to have an education—a much smaller proportion of the population as a whole had an education, but that may have set the tone—was expected to have some familiarity with

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other languages. If one looks at 19th century novels, one finds that to be the case not merely with French and German but also quite often with Italian.
I do not think it was during the period when Britannia ruled the waves that we became contemptuous of foreign culture. I think it is in this century that we have reached this curious position where, perhaps because we have lost the control of the waves, we tend to look increasingly inwardly upon ourselves. Unless that historical downward progression is observed, we cannot come to proper conclusions on how we should remedy it. The situation has become worse over the past 50 years or so. I am more familiar with universities than with schools. I know that universities have successively diminished their requirements in languages for would-be students. I have observed that happening on the ground in Oxford, but it has been the case also elsewhere.
However, I shall give an even more telling example of the position today. As most people know, Oxford has a university and a large polytechnic. It is often regarded as a centre of learning. Some 30 years ago the city contained two bookshops where modern books in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian and many other modern languages were freely on display. If one wanted to know what people were purchasing in Paris or Rome, one could go into one or other of those bookshops and look at the books on display.
However, those facilities for looking at foreign books and purchasing them have disappeared. If one wants to buy a foreign book now, one has to find out about it and order it. That is to say the demand for contemporary foreign literature—I am not talking about literature in the narrow sense, but also of the historical and social sciences —even in an alleged centre of learning, has obviously declined. Whatever one may think about market economics, bookshops exist to sell books and do not stock books which are unlikely to be sold.
Reference has been made to the indifference of sections of industry and commerce to foreign languages. That point was referred to particularly by the noble Baroness, Lady Brigstocke. Again I have had experience of this matter at first hand. When we were founding what became the University of Buckingham, I went to the CBI and said that one of our principal purposes was to reintroduce or to introduce the study of modern languages as part of the curriculum of all students, irrespective of their specialisations. I asked the CBI whether that would improve their job prospects. The CBI replied that that would not be viewed as an important feature as regards remuneration, promotion prospects and other such matters. That occurred over 15 years ago. However, like the noble Baroness, I too read last week's edition of The Economist, and it appears to me that that attitude has not vanished.
I join with the members of the committee in agreeing that motivation is rightly considered to be one of the keys to this matter. It is a question of motivation and resources. I feel that resources would be provided if the motivation was there, whether
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through parental pressure or in other ways. However, that motivation will come about only if there is a change in the prospects for young people who have linguistic accomplishments. They must see early on that such accomplishments are important. Motivation will come only if those who claim the intellectual leadership of our society assume in all they say and do, like their 19th century forebears, that there is something to be said for Europe.
12.37 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Lockwood on her comprehensive speech and her chairing of our committee. I shall leave her to deal with the typically individual and vigorous speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff. The first part of the report which deals with the European schools is of lesser importance to us than the second part which deals with language learning in UK schools. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, agrees.
The European schools are undoubtedly excellent. Those of us who went to Culham were very impressed, not only by the ability of the children to talk fluently in several languages but also by the general standard and spirit. The music we heard in the primary school was superb. I felt envious and wished that I had had those opportunities. However, these schools are not for everyone. The academic standard is high. I am not sure whether we made that point clear. There seems to be neither the need nor the demand for another such school in the UK. Perhaps we can learn something from the methods of that establishment and the way it promotes cultural understanding among pupils.
There is, however, a need in this area for children who go abroad with their parents when their parents take a job in the Community. Most parents do not wish to be separated from their children. Paragraph 18 mentions that mobility has increased steadily and is likely to become greater among professional people and also spread to other classes after 1992. Satisfactory educational facilities are only available for a small minority of migrant children.
Here I should like to mention the British schools. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, has asked me to say how sorry she is not to be able to take part in the debate today. A long-standing engagement outside London prevented her doing so. However, she has read the report with great interest and supports its recommendations, particularly the importance of language teaching in schools and its dependence on the supply of suitably qualified teachers. She has made the point that parents of children not suited to the very academic regime in European schools will find adjusting to a late entry at the age of 12 or 13 a difficult transition to make; for example, there should be some alternative to learning maths in French. The British schools to be found in Belgium, France, West Germany, Greece, the Netherlands and Italy within the Community, and in Sweden and Switzerland outside the Community, could provide an alternative.
The schools are independent. They are inspected by HMI. Fees have to be paid. Unlike other European countries Britain gives no help to parents or the

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schools whereas France spends £120 million annually and Germany some £80 million on schools for the children of their nationals working abroad. The problem affects not only those people working in EC institutions who are entitled to send their children to European schools but, equally importantly, to those businessmen and women working for medium-sized and small firms or who are self-employed and whose firms cannot afford the fees. Large firms usually can and do. That puts British businessmen and women at a disadvantage vis-à-vis their European competitors just at s time when we face increased competition in 1992.
On 29th June 1988, at 8.12 a.m., the noble Baroness, Lady Young, moved an amendment to the Education Reform Bill which would have required the provision of financial help. That amendment was carried. It had support from all the parties, but the Government turned it down in another place. When that was reported the noble Baroness said that she would return to the matter and that she did not intend to allow the Government off the hook. I supported her amendment in 1988 and I support her now. On that occasion, the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, said that the Government would be giving the complex questions involved the attention they deserved, since when we have heard nothing. I hope, having warned the Minister, that we shall hear something today.
I should like now to turn to language teaching and the attitude of the British to learning foreign languages. We are, as a nation, very bad at speaking foreign languages and insular in our approach. Attitudes must be changed so that motivation is greater We all seem to agree on that. The real problem is the shortage of teachers and the length of time it will take to acquire and train the necessary numbers to fulfil the obligations of the national curriculum. Three thousand seems to be the figure accepted by everyone, except the DES which still appear to stick to 1,750. If, as all the evidence made clear, it would be much more satisfactory to start teaching languages in primary schools, a 10-year plan for England and Wales would need to be put into action low. We see no sign of that happening. I was glad Mat in their response to the report the Government agreed that foreign language teaching should be offered in the primary schools, but horrified that they do not think that it would be reasonable to bring it in until the year 2010.
Other Community countries provide much better language teaching in their schools than we do. They start learning a foreign language earlier, more pupils study more than one language and more study up to the age of 18. Here most children are offered French and many opt out at 14. More boys drop out than girls. I should have thought that Spanish and German are as important as French. The Association for Language Learning was concerned about the position of a second foreign language in the national curriculum, whereby it would be studied by a small minority of pupils and would not be started before the
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fourth form. Mr. Saville, in his final words to the Committee at the end of the DES evidence, said (in paragraph 73):
"One point … I would like to add is to mention the importance that the Government specifically attaches to trying to diversify the range of modern languages that are taught".
I would add, what about Latin?
One very encouraging thing that we heard from the Association for Language Learning was that the nature of language teaching has changed greatly over the past decade. The association referred to it as a revolution. I hope that that revolution will spread to all schools, which I am sure it has not yet. The emphasis now is on communication, and writing does not play such a strong role as before. The improvement in results at GCSE bears witness to the success of the modern methods.
I go back to the lack of teachers and to the schools. At A-level, far more students take French than any other language because that is what can be taught. I believe that we have to go in for more crash courses. During the war people were put into the equivalent of intensive care to learn Russian in six months. The immersion learning which the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, recommends for people in industry is in line with that suggestion. My grandson, who is at Newcastle Polytechnic, is studying French, Russian and politics/economics and had to start Russian from scratch last year. It is a very good course and next year he will spend four or five months in Russia. So there are ways other than the traditional ways to train people.
The polytechnics are doing a very good job in providing modern courses. The trouble is that, having trained those people, they may go into business or industry or something other than teaching. Teaching must be made more attractive, teachers' morale boosted and their pay improved. I am glad that at last bursaries are being given to encourage people to train as language teachers.
What we have is the unattractively named PIT—the pool of inactive teachers. I understand that there are some 3,000 of them. If all came back to teaching that would solve part of the problem. They need support and encouragement. In West Sussex a scheme—"Keeping In Touch With Teaching"—is in operation. It can be read about in paragraph 102 of the report and we recommend other LEAs to set up similar schemes.
There are people willing to come from abroad, where there is a surplus. We should encourage them. I wish to make two points on that aspect. We heard that there is administrative delay in the recognition of their qualifications (up to six months) despite the general directive on the mutual recognition of qualifications in the Community. The National Association of Head Teachers has received complaints about those delays and pointed out that foreign graduates are paid at a lower rate until they receive official recognition. Paragraph 78 refers. Do I

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understand correctly from the Government's response that there are now no delays? Can the Minister please tell us what the position is?
The second point is that when teachers come from abroad they should have some initial training in the ways of British schools before they are launched into action. The Language Teaching Unit at York University can and does provide the necessary courses. I should like to hear whether sending foreigners there for induction is DES policy. I hope that the Minister can confirm that that always happens.
Perhaps here it is appropriate to say how unfortunate—shocking might be a better word—it is that so many people are teaching foreign languages who have minimum qualifications—O-level for instance. HMI found that 30 per cent. had no qualification in the language they were teaching. That is manifestly unfair to the pupils. The recent HMI report, A Survey of the Teaching and Learning of Foreign Languages in a Sample of Inner City and Urban Schools, makes that abundantly clear. It is a very interesting report and it is encouraging to know that there is some good practice. However, nearly half the lessons were less than satisfactory and showed some or many shortcomings in important areas. The unsatisfactory lessons were those in which the teachers used English as a means of communication.
What can be done to improve matters? There is the Lingua programme, which will support periods of integrated study in another member state. Are the Government now totally committed to the Lingua programme? Paragraph 120 of the Government's response would appear to accept the Committee's recommendations on Lingua. I should like reassurance on that point.
I should also like to emphasise the importance of the availability of distance learning, with the help of videos and cassettes, as a means of retraining and updating. We could make more use of the Central Bureau for Educational Visits and Exchanges. Then there are the assistants, who have a very useful influence on the speaking and conversational fluency of pupils. During the period 1972 to 1976 an average of 4,394 were employed each year. Now the number is only 2,867. Both the NAHT and the SHA called for central funding of those assistants and suggested an expansion of the Lingua programme for Community funding for them.
Taking children abroad to give them a taste of foreign travel and to increase their awareness of a different country has been made much more difficult because of the Government's policy on charging, as my noble friend said. I am very glad to read the Government's response to paragraph 121 of our report:
"The Government should not delay in changing their policy as regards charging for such visits if their new regulations are found to have discouraged visits".
My final words concern attitudes, about which we have heard a good deal. Paragraph 113 of the report states:
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"The attitude of British society towards language learning is crucial … The Committee call on the Government to launch a campaign bringing together all the strands of current European awareness advertising in the context of the completion of the internal market and uttering the death knell of the monoglot tradition of English society".
I hope that our report will do something to help shove opinion in the right direction.
12.50 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I most warmly congratulate my noble friend Lady Brigstocke on her brilliant maiden speech. She was head of a school whose outstanding academic reputation she helped to build, the success of which is reflected in the contented comments of parents. For eight years she has been a most distinguished governor of a school where I was educated. I quickly add that my education there took place many years earlier. We all look forward to hearing from my noble friend Lady Brigstocke often in the future.
I was a member of the sub-committee which carried out the inquiry and reported. The European schools, intended for the children of parents who are EC nationals, where they are concentrated in places such as Brussels or Culham, raised little controversy. That matter was dealt with most effectively by the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, who conscientiously and capably chaired the committee, in her helpful opening speech.
I should like to concentrate on the question of teaching modern foreign languages and its importance for this country. The Government's first response of 9th July (only four days ago) to the Select Committee's report agrees with that importance and confirms two principal reasons for the present unsatisfactory situation: first, widespread lack of motivation and interest among the British public; and, secondly, shortage of teachers.
There is a definite disincentive which must be recognised immediately. Our native tongue, English, is the language of a very large part of the world. It may be spoken in strange and peculiar ways in some areas but communication is not difficult. That can lead to the unfortunate idea that one need not learn a foreign language. It is a misconception that we must try to dispel, together with the attitude: "If they don't speak English, they ought to".
The Government's response confirms that pupils in British schools receive less teaching of foreign languages than do their counterparts in the EC. In order that the British people can have a better understanding of their neighbours in Europe and appreciate and relish their visits and travel in other countries, in a world that is becoming smaller every day knowledge of the principal languages should be increased. That is agreed by the Select Committee, the Government, and virtually everyone who has examined the subject.
How then can we best make progress? I should like to refer to two recommendations of the committee: first, that foreign language teaching should be offered at primary school level; and, secondly, that pupils should be encouraged to learn a second foreign

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language at secondary school. With regard to the primary school, a start is being made in Scotland. But, in their response, the Government indicate that it is unlikely that anything can be done in England before the year 2010. That is 20 years ahead. I was most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, for giving way to me towards the end of her speech on this issue. I wanted to point out at that stage that such was not the position in Scotland.
I remind noble Lords that education in Scottish schools is the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Scottish Office—the Scottish Education Department. That has been so for many years. There is a separate system north of the Border with separate teachers' unions and organisations. What is called the "national curriculum" does not apply in Scotland.
Noble Lords will have heard me make the point before and I hope will not mind hearing me say again that in my opinion the word "national" should not have been used. It has misled many of the public as well as the media, in Scotland too, into thinking that the Education Reform Act applies to Scotland. It does not. In my opinion the curriculum which it promotes should have been named the "curriculum for England and Wales". I am sure that the House will understand my reason for expressing that opinion when it is recalled that I was the Secretary of State for Scotland under whom the work started on the Scottish curriculum nearly 20 years ago. Schools in Scotland come under the supervision of the Scottish Office and not the Department of Education and Science.
I welcome the experiment that is now taking place in Scotland in teaching foreign languages in primary schools. A number of Scottish education authorities have entered upon schemes in their areas. This has been possible because the shortage of teachers is not so acute north of the Border. In the Government's response it is stated that there may not be enough teacher; in England and Wales to make a realistic start for some 20 years. I hope that the Scottish example will be successful. I wish it well and hope that it may help to bring forward for England and Wales that date of 2010.
A new school of thought, which may seem revolutionary, is that modern languages should be taught at as early an age as possible. I believe that the idea has much merit and should be given an opportunity to prove itself. My noble friend Lord Beloff mentioned it. At primary stage or earlier a child absorb, another language as part of his or her first means of vocal communication. Young children usually retain that language in later life, speaking with ease and fluency. The language remains familiar to them as a spoken language. Other school subjects can suitably be taught at a later stage.
The primary school experiments in Scotland have a special significance. They, may show the way to new and more successful teaching of foreign languages with children starting to learn them at an early age. Until recently that was not an option even being considered. It is still thought to be a radical departure.
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The other recommendation of the Select Committee—that pupils should be encouraged to embark on a second language—is presumed to refer to the secondary stage of education. There was not much in the Government's immediate response to that point. I ask my noble friend Lady Blatch whether she can give more information today. French has become the most widely learnt first language in the United Kingdom. Other languages should be more easily available provided this does not make for more difficulty in the supply of teachers and in continuity for the pupils. We recognise that those factors have to be borne in mind. When two languages are learnt at the secondary stage I suggest that German be considered as the second language after French. German is becoming more widely used now in industry and commerce.
From the sub-committee's work I concluded that foreign teachers from EC countries can help considerably to reduce the shortage in the United Kingdom. I am glad to note that there has been a recent improvement in accepting them and their qualifications. At a time when the EC as a whole is trying to make professional qualifications of all kinds increasingly interchangeable, one hopes that the time taken in considering those qualifications will be reduced as much as possible.
The relationship between teacher and pupil as individuals should not be lost sight of. It can provide incentive and inspiration, and not just in the case of the able or the brilliant pupil.
I should also like to say a word about exchanges. A great deal depends on the initiatives and the co-operation of parents, but many children are not able for one reason or another to benefit in that way. We should encourage well prepared exchanges arranged through schools. Even two or three weeks in a foreign country will open the eyes of a willing pupil to the reason for learning the language and will usually generate enthusiasm for attaining an ability which can be seen to be useful in later life, not as a boring schoolroom exercise. The universities already have good exchange arrangements and many students are given about a year to study in the country of the language on which they are concentrating.
I turn now to careers. Where a career after education requires the use of foreign languages—this applies increasingly in business and is not confined to working abroad in the public service or with international organisations—the principal talent being sought is an ability to learn a language. That is usually the result of foreign languages being well taught in school days. As noble Lords know, I spent 12 years as a diplomatist after the war. It was my experience based on what we in the Foreign Office were looking for in new recruits, the ability to learn a language was a vital talent.
I hope that the Government will continue to consider carefully the recommendations of the Select Committee and in particular will do more to try out teaching at earlier ages, observing the experiments

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now taking place in Scotland. A chance is being offered of taking a great step forward if those experiments prove to be successful.
1.2 p.m.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, we are grateful to my noble friend Lady Lockwood for initiating the debate and for the report of the Select Committee which she chaired. It has been an interesting debate and I should like to add my congratulations to those of other noble Lords on the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Brigstocke, to which we all listened with the greatest interest. Only last night I was talking to an old friend of mine, a French lady who used to be head of the foreign language section at the St. Paul's School for Girls. I told her about today's debate and she told me what great encouragement the noble Baroness had always given when she was head of that distinguished school which is one of the best schools for girls in the country.
As has been said, the report shows a most unsatisfactory state of affairs. It is clear that modern language teaching in this country compares most unfavourably with that in other EC countries. One must ask why that should be so. The report is very frank—my noble friend Lady Lockwood was probably too polite to quote from the it, but I intend to do so because its trenchant words are well deserved —when it states:
"The committee can see no reason why English children should be considered uniquely incompetent at foreign language learning".
A good deal of the trouble results from our social attitude to foreign languages, as has been said today. As the committee says:
"all sectors of society must be convinced of the relevance of foreign language learning as a communication tool".
The result of that attitude is that we are lagging behind the rest of Europe in the take-up of languages among pupils in secondary schools. The National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers told the committee that it is becoming increasingly difficult in our schools to sustain the study even of French and German. The numbers in the 16 to 19 age group attempting A level French fell from over 20,000 10 years ago to only 18,000 in 1986–87.
For some years I have been a member of the British section of the Franco-British Council. We are concerned at the decline in our schools of French teaching, as that can only have an adverse effect on our mutual understanding with France which is our nearest neighbour. An attempt is being made by the Government to improve matters through the national curriculum, although there will clearly be problems arising from the shortage of trained teachers and the difficulty of fitting a modern language adequately into the timetable.
Our pupils also suffer a further disadvantage. In this country a foreign language is not started at the primary level in the public sector. In the EC and in our own private sector, children start at a much younger age. At the European School at Culham, to which
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reference has been made, they start a second language, which could be English, French or German, at the age of six. At many British preparatory schools in the private sector, French teaching starts at the age of seven or eight.
I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, said about the proficiency in modern languages in the last century. That is absolutely true. One of the causes of that was the governesses. The leading families often had governesses who taught the children French, German or Italian. Nationals of countries therefore spoke other languages very fluently—a fluency which remained with them for the rest of their lives. You still meet elderly French people, for example, who had the benefit of that privileged education and who can still speak English perfectly. Some English people still speak very good French or even German.
I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, about bookshops. I can take him to a university bookshop in London which maintains an excellent stock. It claims to have a much better stock than any of the bookshops in Oxford. What he said was probably justified, but it is not so everywhere.
The shortage of modern foreign language teachers has reached crisis level, and the report says that that is likely to worsen. I understand that 3,000 additional teachers are needed to start the national curriculum's requirements and that the figure would be considerably more if foreign language teaching were to be extended in the primary sector, as it should be, and even beyond the age of 16.
What is to be done? One action that the Government could take is to encourage qualified teachers to return to teaching. The other is to increase the employment of qualified language teachers from other member states, including foreign language assistants. The numbers of foreign language teachers from abroad have declined in recent years. I understand that many are discouraged by the long bureaucratic delays of the DES in processing their qualifications before they are recognised. Until those qualifications are recognised, they are paid at a lower rate. I must ask the noble Baroness who is to reply whether the Government will adopt a policy of central funding of foreign language assistants. That policy is adopted by all other countries with which the United Kingdom has exchange arrangements and there seems no reason why it cannot be adopted here. As usual, we are lagging behind everyone else.
It is a great advantage to be taught a foreign language by a national of that country and by the direct method when the lesson is conducted in the language itself. I had the good fortune to attend a school which used the direct method 60 years ago. It was one of the pioneers and I am surprised that the method has not become universal.
In its recent report of its survey into 25 urban schools in England, HMS Inspectorate's report stated that teachers used English most of the time because their pupils could not understand more than farewells and greetings. It also stated that pupils seemed

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ignorant of basic vocabulary and made wild guesses in English about the meaning of French words. The inspectors concluded that schools were ill prepared to meet fie demands of the 1992 Single European Act and the national curriculum.
Visits and exchanges are important in fostering European awareness and cultural understanding and in promoting language learning. I understand from the report that many school visits have been put in jeopardy by the new government charging regulations. The regulations, which fall under the 1988 Act, are so complex and subject a planned visit to so many conditions and hazards that many schools have decided to give up trying to arrange any further visits. The new regulations discriminate against Scotland in particular. The additional cost of the journey from the north Of Scotland to the south of England puts the cost of a trip abroad beyond the reach of many Scottish pupils. As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, it is wrong that they should be treated in that way when they are in the vanguard of the teaching of foreign languages. I hope that the Government will take that matter on board.
A working knowledge of a foreign language is a useful and essential aid to business discussions and social relations. But surely it is much more than that; it is important as a means of cross-cultural understanding. Translations of a country's literature have a part to play, as the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, mentioned. However, a good deal of the original meaning is often lost, particularly in the case of poetry. The noble Lord mentioned Baudelaire who is completely transformed and lessened in English translations. There are some who rightly say that Racine is untranslatable. Recently a Racine play was performed in English in London. A French friend of mine said, "It may be a good performance but it isn't Racine". How right the committee is to call on the Government to launch a campaign to put an end to this sorry state of affairs.
1.13 p.m.
Lord Rodney: My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lady Brigstocke on her maiden speech. I expected an informed speech and I was not disappointed. My own relationship with St. Paul's School—I hasten to add that it was the boys' section—was playing cricket against it many years ago. I cannot remember who won the match.
I was not a member of the sub-committee but I have read its report. I wish to express appreciation to the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, for her chairmanship and to its members for their work. It has given your Lordships the opportunity to discuss this important subject. The ability—or rather the inability—of British people to speak foreign languages has always been of deep concern to me. All my working life I was concerned with trading overseas. The ability to speak foreign languages was high on the list of priorities that I looked for among my staff. I was marketing director of a company which sold 75 per cent. of its products overseas. In order to preserve its
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viability it had to maintain that percentage of exports. I found the ability to speak foreign languages to be essential.
I do not know whether the teaching of foreign languages has improved in our schools. However, not long ago one could pass an A-level examination in a foreign language yet be incapable of carrying on the most basic conversation. I hope that the situation no longer exists. I have read the evidence given to the committee and it appears that efforts are being made to improve the situation. I remember learning Latin, French and German many years ago. The teaching was virtually identical for all three languages; they were all taught as a dead language. The degree of interest instilled into one was equally deadly.
The first priority in teaching children a foreign language should be to arouse their interest and to convince them of the usefulness of being able to speak a foreign language. Emphasis should be put on being able to speak the language reasonably fluently. A knowledge of grammar is a necessity but I give reading, writing and literature a low priority. They can come later once the necessary interest and expertise has been achieved and when the young person is eager to learn more. In days gone by we were taught grammar and so forth but at the end of the day we could not speak a word of the language.
Sadly, conceit is still rampant in this country. It is said, "We don't need to learn a foreign language because we are above all that. Let the silly foreigners learn English". Many people do but many others do not. That concept permeates down from the highest levels and influences people in all walks of life. Like me, I am sure that many noble Lords heard a Member of this House who held one of the highest posts in Europe joke about his inability to speak French. He appeared to be rather proud of the fact. Some of the resistance may come from a fear of making fools of ourselves but that must be overcome.
It may be a slight exaggeration but. I believe that speaking a foreign language—or better still, speaking foreign languages—is today almost as important as being able to drive a car; in particular being able to drive it on the right-hand side of the road. With our increasing involvement in European affairs—more than 40 per cent. of our trade is now within the European Community—if we wish to be on equal terms with our European partners, we must, as businessmen at every level, be able to speak at least one of their languages and preferably two or three. It is true that one will meet many Europeans who speak English. But I can assure your Lordships that psychologically one is at a great advantage if one can speak and understand the language of the person with whom one is negotiating. Inevitably, one will meet people who do not speak English, in particular at the lower levels. It is often crucial to be able to speak to those people in order to grasp the essentials of the situation.
Of equal importance are the social, political and diplomatic circles. I do not believe that it is possible to understand a country and its people unless you can speak their language. It is like being outside a house

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and looking in through a window. You can see what is happening but you cannot speak to those inside and find out what they are thinking and feeling. The various initiatives that are now being taken—in particular the new curriculum—give grounds for hope that in years to come British people may be able to converse with their friends in Europe in their own languages. But I still have a feeling that we may only be scratching the surface of the problem. We may be paying lip service to what we think we should do but it may be something which many people do not see as very important.
Perhaps I may touch briefly on one or two points brought out in the evidence of the committee. I promise the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, that I shall not be as critical as my noble friend because I do not have his knowledge.
One requirement which seemed to be mentioned on a number of occasions was the importance of students taking a second foreign language. That is certainly very laudable but is it not rather like urging people to run before they can walk? With the shortage of qualified teachers and the inability of the vast majority of young people in this country to speak even one foreign language, I should have thought that the emphasis should be put on mastering one language fluently before embarking on a second. It is a fact that people who can speak one language will find the next one much easier and are much more inclined to take it on.
Another point which is brought out forcefully in the evidence and which has been mentioned by many noble Lords, with which I thoroughly agree, is the shortage of qualified teachers. By that, I mean teachers who are fluent in the language which they are teaching. Ideally not a word of English should be spoken in a foreign language class. That may sound rather excessive but that is the way to teach a foreign language.
Mention is also made of assistants which I understand are primarily foreign students who come to England to perfect their English and spend part of their time in schools teaching English children their language. My daughter spent her third year at university as an assistante at a French school teaching English to French children. That is a very useful way of supplementing the supply of teachers and ensures that children are taught the correct pronunciation, which regrettably some British teachers are not very good at.
As many noble Lords have said, the most effective way to learn a foreign language is to spend a period of time in the country in question. I understand that at university level in this country that is normal practice. However, at school level that is obviously impractical. Encouragement should be given—and I understand to a certain extent is being given—to visits abroad by school parties and exchange arrangements between families. I was horrified to hear that it was proposed to take away the financial support from that. If anything, it should be increased.
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Finally, I read in the report of evidence that there have been delays in checking foreign teachers' qualifications—the usual bureaucracy. With the evidence that British teachers are teaching a foreign language with only O-level or A-Level qualifications, I should have thought that any foreign teacher who can speak his own language would be very welcome.
Finally—and this has been touched on by many noble Lords —one of the most positive actions which the Government could take would be to promote the speaking of foreign languages. We still have this resistance born of the idea that everybody speaks English and we need not bother to learn a foreign language. There should be a positive promotional operation to sell foreign language speaking to the British public.
1.25 p.m.
Lord Ritchie of Dundee: My Lords, from these Benches I should like to add my appreciation to that of other noble Lords to the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, for the committee's excellent report. It is good that we are discussing it, that the Government have read it and have responded to it. Also from these Benches I should like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Brigstocke, on her splendid maiden speech. She has had vast experience and speaks with authority.
Having made those two cheering remarks, I must say that my feelings are rather comparable to those of the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, in declaring our situation to be somewhat desperate. There is the problem of the teacher shortage which is referred to in the report. I shall not try to guess the magnitude of that shortage but it is large. The outlook is bleak. A letter to the Daily Telegraph last March from Dr. Ann Stevens, who is Dean of the School of European Studies at the University of Sussex, stated:
"Last week I saw nearly 130 of our students who will be graduating in the summer. All of them have studied a modern language and have spent a year in the country of their language as part of their degree course, some of them gaining teaching experience during that time as language assistants in schools abroad. About one third of them will have degrees in one or two modern languages. The others have studied a language alongside another discipline. Only one is planning to take a post-graduate teaching qualification and 'I do not suppose', she said to me, 'that I shall teach it in this country, not with conditions for teachers as they are'. Two others told me that they would really like to teach but could not contemplate doing so until pay and conditions for our teachers improve".
That is only one example. It is anecdotal but it seems to typify the situation which we must face. Generally our teachers have suffered terrible blows during the past few years and until their status, pay and teaching conditions are improved, we shall not get the teachers we need.
The committee made several useful suggestions as to how we can use part-time teachers and recall to teaching those who have retired from it. However, the problem is deeper and wider than that. With regard to the lack of motivation and interest generally, which has been spoken of by many noble Lords, it is clear that public attitudes must change. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Brigstocke, said that there is no

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such thing as a national inability to speak languages any more than there is such a thing as a growler among children who are put into a singing class. It is a conditioned attitude. I do not know whether it is the John Bull attitude arising from our insularity. Perhaps we consider that it is rather infra dig to attempt to speak any damned foreigner's lingo. I think that there is something of that in it.
As the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, said, curiously that has not always been the case. For example, there was a time when educated people in this country were perfectly prepared to accept Latin as a European lingua franca. The other day, I was amused to see that a history book which was written in the last century contained numerous Latin quotations which were not translated for the reader. Nowadays, they would be. The reader would not be expected to be conversant with the language.
I believe that that is rather comparable to the fact that between the time of Purcell and Elgar this country produced no music. I wonder whether both are connected with the Empire: the fact that we took a superior view about other human beings who spoke other languages during the time of the Empire; and also, that we did not have time for writing music. I do not know why that was the case but it is possibly connected.
This position—and I must say this although I usually spend my time fighting for teachers—is perpetuated to an extent by some poor teaching as witnessed by the HMI report published recently. That was a report of a survey of the teaching of foreign languages in 25 schools fed by inner cities areas. It is rather depressing reading. It said that in nearly half of those 25 schools the teaching of languages was less than satisfactory. It speaks of low expectations on the part of teachers; failure to establish a proper working atmosphere; and too little of the foreign language being heard.
In defence of teachers I should say that the teaching of foreign languages is a difficult art. It is not merely a matter of knowing your subject and keeping the children quiet. There is more to it than the teaching of maths, science, history or geography. In essence it is communication; it is social intercourse. It is a convivial activity more akin to teaching dance or drama than a dry as dust classroom subject. It is therefore crucially dependent on the personality of the teacher.
Teachers who can conduct a successful language class are not born every day. The target language—to use the jargon of the inspectorate—must be taught all the time; the naming of articles, reciting poems, songs, counting, and conjugating must all be done aloud. Therefore the teacher must be completely fluent in the language.
I have sat in on some pretty dull language teaching in schools where the children were filling in gaps in work books. I felt that they were bored and learning very little. I remember one class where the teacher was much more lively and the children were all enjoying
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the lesson, but, unfortunately, what she was teaching was wrong. It was as much as I could do to keep quiet and not say, "Look, that is not quite right".
Regarding the widespread lack of motivation and interest, is it perhaps the case that there is a certain distaste among children for French in particular? I shall say more in that regard presently. What about the question of diversification, of teaching more languages in schools? French is spoken by 70 million people; German by 100 million people; Russian by 150 million, and Spanish by 250 million people.
The Oxford University department of educational studies is conducting a project in certain schools concerning the diversification of first foreign languages. It goes by the unlovely acronym of OXPROD. It is a study of six schools which teach German and Spanish as well as French from the age of 11. The children were subjected to a questionnaire. In the first year a great majority preferred German and Spanish to French. In the second year the low ability children went off German—it becomes rather difficult when one reaches those dreadful inflections, word orders and portmanteau words—but they still preferred Spanish to French. Some of the high ability children continued to prefer German and Spanish: in all cases, French came third. To me French is the most cultivated language, and to be without it entirely would be appallingly philistine. I put that project forward as an idea. Incidentally, in Barnsley—a mining town—Russian is very popular. That probably dates from the miners' strike a few years ago.
We must aim as soon as possible to teach languages at the primary age. It has been most depressing to hear accounts of the Government's pessimism regarding when that can take place. Teaching young children languages has been known about in the Steiner schools for years. Children are taught languages from the age of seven, which is the age at which they start in those schools. We could start teaching them at the age of five. That is the time when a child's imitative facility is at its highest. Children will imitate anything that is said to them. They cannot help it. That is the time to start teaching languages.
I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, said regarding teaching young children languages in Scotland. I should like to advise him that certain pilot projects are taking place in England also. There is a primary school in Basingstoke in which the 400 pupils are all learning French, German and Spanish. It is one of six feeder schools to Basingstoke comprehensive and part of a language awareness project founded by an accountancy firm. That illustrates that our commercial firms are interested in the matter, sometimes perhaps more so than the Government. And they have more awareness of it. The children love it. They go home and teach their parents how to count from one to 10 in four different languages. That cannot be said to be a useless exercise.
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, is the noble Lord suggesting that the children are learning all four languages at the same time? If so, God help them!
Lord Ritchie of Dundee: My Lords, one school is experimenting by teaching one language one term, another the next and a third language in the third term. What happens after that I do not know. It is very much a pilot project. I presume they will test the reaction of the children.
I was speaking of imitation. The imitation by these children is apparently so exact that, having been taught by an assistant who comes from south-west France, they now speak with a south-west French accent, which one can never learn when one grows older.
I was depressed to hear the statistics given by the noble Baroness, Lady David, regarding the declining numbers of these assistants. Teachers must be accorded status, conditions and the pay they deserve generally. The learning of languages must—pray heavens earlier than the year 2010—be brought down to the primary age. It is important for children to come into contact with people who talk the language naturally that the children are attempting to learn.
I shall not bore the House with a lot of family anecdotes. But when I took my daughter to France for the first time she said, "It is most extraordinary. They look like ordinary people but they are talking French". One can have worthwhile experience even from a short visit. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, spoke of a visit of a few weeks. Even on a 24-hour visit one can have a valid experience. My son was taken for one day to Dieppe. The minibus was parked in a very unsuitable place in the main street. The driver was not actually charged by the police but a long letter from a French bus driver was attached to the vehicle which in terms of the most excellent French irony began, "I congratulate you on your parking". The letter was then translated by the class and so they learned from real life what learning a foreign language is all about.
The importation of foreign teachers and exchange visits are very important. Could we not use all adults with language skills of any age in our schools to speak French to the children? I feel very strongly about this matter. I am sorry if I have taken a long time and if at times my speech has been somewhat confused. The vital point is to increase the numbers of teachers generally; to increase the contact of children with people who genuinely speak the language concerned; and gradually to live down this extraordinary John Bull attitude that we do not have to speak other people's languages.
1.39 p.m.
Lord Peston: My Lords, this is an important report which raises a host of fascinating subjects. I will confine my remarks to only a few of the topics under consideration. I start on the question of method and, in connection with that and in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Brigstocke, on her maiden speech, I reiterate what she said. There are many first-class language teachers in our schools but that, of course, is why we want such teachers for all our pupils. We must not be content with second best or unqualified teachers, especially in the maintained schools in our country. The noble Baroness said that
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she felt somewhat daunted. In saying how much I enjoyed her speech perhaps I may add, that given the quality of her speech I look forward eagerly to her speeches when she is undaunted.
In regard to method, most of us were taught in the old-fashioned way with the concentration on reading. The long-term productivity of that approach is negligible. A large number of people with the old general School Certificate, which I had, O-level or GCSE, in French, German or Spanish, just a few years later possessed no capacity in the language. That is nothing short of a scandal. My noble friend Lord Rodney and others emphasised that point. They are certainly right.
Your Lordships' committee reports, in paragraph 47, on the current shift of emphasis in modern language teaching away from writing and memory work towards speaking. The report also states that the nature of language teaching has changed greatly over the past decade. The emphasis today in language teaching is on communication. I welcome that, but how far has it gone? Is the overwhelming majority of language lessons conducted in the language concerned? Are the children made to speak it? I doubt that very much, though I should like to know. How many fluent French, German or Spanish speakers are we producing? I fear that we have a long way to go.
I now say a few words on teacher shortages. It is apparent that we have too few teachers of modern languages. Many of those entrusted with the task of language tuition are, again to quote the report, inadequately qualified. The committee states that the shortage,
"has already reached crisis level and is likely to worsen".
There are longish lead times for adjusting teacher supply and that is why, as many noble Lords emphasised, action is urgently needed. I am bound to say that, while money is not everything, the market mechanism must surely be expected to work and there is now an overwhelming case for an increase in teachers' pay. I also believe that increasing the number and size of grants and bursaries for training and retraining —I emphasise retraining—beyond what we are already doing will turn out to be a worthwhile investment.
On the subject of language teaching in primary schools, again I can only echo the remarks of other noble Lords. I emphasise the perfectly obvious point of starting language teaching as early as possible. That seems to be so overwhelmingly the right thing to do, as the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, and others have said, that one is amazed that it is taken for granted. To use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, I will not bore the House with a total family history but I recall that at least two of my children learnt French in primary school but the moment they reached secondary school were told to forget all about it because the other children did not do it and therefore it was assumed they would start again from scratch. Nothing more absurd than that occurred in my children's education. That really must stop.

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I will not follow the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, in his criticism of the committee but I was interested in his remark s on the need for an historical perspective. I though that was important, especially his remarks on an historical perspective as applied to politicians. While listening to the noble Lord I asked myself the question, which I am unable to answer: is it more acceptable for Ministers to insult foreigners in their language or in our own language?
I now advert to the topic of school visits abroad. In the Education Reform Act 1988 the Government were right to seek to specify what is meant by schooling being free. I supported the Government then and I do not criticise them now. However, clearly matters have not turned out as expected. The rules on charging, according to all the evidence I have been able to garner, have led to a reduction of visits of all kind. As opposed to my noble friend Lord Strabolgi, I think the rules on visiting are clear. There can be no obligatory charge for a visit which is part of the curriculum. However, a voluntary contribution might be insufficient to cover the whole cost of the visiting party and there may be no other funds available, especially in times of financial stringency.
The problem might be solved by making additional funds available to individual schools, but, given the local management of schools, there is no guarantee that the funds would be used for the purpose that we have in mind. Perhaps the solution would be to designate the funds for that purpose, but I am not sure. Certainly we must think about a new way into this problem. What I do believe—here again I echo what others have said—is that this is a matter of urgency. I understand that the Government are waiting for more factual information. It is always right to make policy on the basis of a solid empirical foundation but it is a pity that we have to wait at least another year for that information and then it may take the Government even more time to make up their mind to amend the relevant Act. I do not believe that our children's education should be made to suffer for that length of time.
It is sometimes said—I have even heard one Minister in this House say it—that there is no need for most o f our children to obtain a working knowledge of one or more foreign languages. Here, I am again following my noble friend Lord Rodney. It is said that English is becoming a world language which most foreigners will master; therefore, why should we bother to learn another language? Would cultural imperialism, based on English, not be to our advantage? The example always cited to me is that the best pop music is in our language. I refrain from considering its literacy! However, I have to ask whether that is good enough. Apart from the philistinism of such a position, in my judgment it is erroneous on practical grounds. Without doubting the importance of English, it is difficult to see it emerging as the universal language of Europe. I say nothing on the question of whether the cultural imperialism to which I have referred would turn out to be UK-based or, as is much more likely, US-based.
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However, even if many, and in due course most, French, German and Italian people speak English, as my noble friend Lord Rodney again pointed out there will be a substantial number who do not possess that ability. Therefore, mobile UK managers and workers will surely need to be fluent in the language of the country in which they propose to work. A simple example, but one which is quite compelling in my view and which makes the case, is whether you can read a menu. That also emphasises the point that although translations are of interest they are always imperfect. They are never exactly right.
Sometimes that is advantageous. Those of us who became Proustians through the Scott Moncrieff translation of the A la Recherche du Temps Perdu are indebted, of course, to that great man and, later, to Terence Kilmartin for those translations. When we tried manfully to work our way through the original we realised that we were actually discussing two quite separate works of literature.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, some highbrow French people read Proust in English because they think it is more interesting.
Lord Peston: My Lords, I am indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter. I was tempted to make that remark but I did not have the courage. The noble Lord is clearly more courageous than I am.
More generally, radio, television, newspapers and periodicals in the country to which one goes are in the language of that country. One also has to remember that most books are not translated. Those are all relevant matters as to why a facility in foreign languages is so important. Even if one is abroad as a migrant worker and someone is kind enough to speak English when necessary, most of what is going on around one is completely incomprehensible. On a practical matter, who would remember to utter cries of warning always in English as well as the local language? Are all notices to be translated into English throughout Europe?
The list is endless and the conclusion is obvious: whether we are discussing mobile pharmacists, teachers or lorry drivers, foreign language skills are vital. What holds for such people applies even more to their children, assuming, as we must, that post-1992 whole families will move. That is why the remarks of my noble friend, Lady David, who in turn referred to what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, would have said about schooling for our children in Europe, are so important.
I emphasise that, from my point of view as an economist, though most of the initial impact of 1992 will be to do with the free movement of goods and capital, eventually there must be a significant movement of labour too. Ultimately the aim must be to have at least as much labour mobility in Europe as there is in the United States. It would be a pity if the language barrier were the last restraint on economic freedom, especially if that barrier applied chiefly to British people.
For that reason, while I understand the need of the Department of Education and Science to be practical

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in its evidence to the committee, I did regard its evidence as most unsatisfactory. Its approach was negative and lacked vision. The same impression is conveyed by the Secretary of State's response to your Lordships' Committee which we have seen. Perhaps it is more a matter for politicians than civil servants. I look forward to hearing the reply of the noble Baroness. I hope that she will be able to offer us something much more positive at this stage of the debate.
The subject we are discussing is partly a matter of teacher shortage. It is also partly a matter of using the best techniques, in particular in making the pupils use the language. It is also partly a matter of our schools having the other resources that are necessary such as equipment and books. I repeat that, above all, it is a question of leadership and vision.
I speak as an addict of the reports prepared by your Lordships' Committees. They are invariably informative, intellectually stimulating and good guides to policy. This report is no exception. Quite the contrary, it is an outstanding contribution to an important topic. Her Majesty's Government should welcome the guidance that has been given them by this report and they should act on it. The chairman and the committee are to be congratulated.
1.53 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, as I am sure the House is, for the opportunity to debate the Select Committee's report. We congratulate her and her committee on this excellent report. We thank her in particular for the way in which she opened the debate. The depth, knowledge and insight which have characterised the report, not to mention the force of the views which have been expressed and which will be brought to the Government's attention, have been impressive.
At this point I wish to join with all noble Lords in offering congratulations to my noble friend Lady Brigstocke on her exceptional maiden speech. As we all know, she has made an outstanding contribution in the field of education. As we listened to her speech today we gained insight into her professionalism and wide experience of working with young people. That was greatly complemented by great sensitivity and a charming wit. She has also made a valuable contribution, as has already been mentioned in the course of the debate, to the national curriculum working group on modern foreign languages. We thank her for her commitment to that important work.
I shall be referring to more detailed comments later. I wish to take up one point mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Peston and Lord Ritchie, and that is paying tribute to the linguists already in the system. Like the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, and my noble friend Lady Brigstocke, we all know that there is much more to do. I refer noble Lords to Chapter 7 of the interim report. In that chapter there will be found very fine examples of some of the work that is going on in
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our schools. We shall all look forward with enthusiasm to the involvement of my noble friend in the work of this House.
The Government particularly welcome the opportunity to debate the subject of language learning in United Kingdom schools. We share the Select Committee's concern that the importance of modern foreign languages should be given as high a profile as possible. The Select Committee's report will have contributed to raising that profile. For their part, the Government are doing all they can to stress the importance of languages. Indeed, I believe that we can rightly claim to have done more than any other Government to have raised the profile of modern languages. They now have a central place in the national curriculum.
There is evidence that the message is getting home. Over the past few years there has been a steady increase in the proportion of pupils studying a modern foreign language in their last two years of compulsory secondary education. When the national curriculum is fully implemented, this figure will of course rise to 100 per cent. We also have some welcome indication that in very recent years there has been an increase in the number of entrants to A-level courses.
The Select Committee drew a comparison between language learning in this country and in schools in the other member states of the European Community. That comparison was unfavourable to the United Kingdom. We have to admit that language learning is more advanced in our fellow member states but we are making every effort to catch up. It cannot be done overnight. The first major step is the introduction of the national curriculum whereby a modern foreign language will be compulsory throughout secondary education for every pupil in a maintained school in England and Wales. I would not wish to underestimate the significance of such a step. We have to allow time for the change to be fully implemented and to have effect.
The introduction of GCSE has, we believe, had a beneficial effect on the motivation of pupils. That was a point made by my noble friend Lady Brigstocke.
The exam places greater emphasis on the importance of communication skills and in particular oral skills. This change in emphasis has also been reflected in the earlier years of secondary education where motivation has also been much improved. I take note of the point made by my noble friend Lord Rodney that it may be impossible for some people to study French to A-level. I have a friend who studied French to degree level but who cannot communicate in the language. That must change and there is every indication that the situation is changing.
We recognise of course the problems caused by the present shortage of teachers of modern foreign languages. There are no instant solutions but we are taking a number of steps to improve the position and we shall continue to monitor it closely. We have listed the steps in our response to the Select Committee's report and we very much hope that they will bear fruit. They include measures in the area of teacher

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recruitment, including the recruitment of EC teachers; opening new routes to qualified teacher status; bringing inactive qualified teachers back into the profession; provision for in-service training, including support from the EC Lingua programme; and enhancing the pay, conditions and status of the teaching profession.
The recent successful advertising campaign, which some of your Lordships may have noticed, included a TV advertisement conducted entirely in French. It has already been successful in attracting nearly 20,000 responses. However, as I say, we will keep the position continually under review.
Another important step forward will be the introduction of a modern foreign language as a core competence for students in England aged 16 to 19. That has not been emphasised in the debate. Your Lordships will no doubt be aware that the Government have accepted in principle a recommendation to that effect from the National Curriculum Council. I have read some newspaper reports which suggest that this may not be an entirely welcome change. It is sometimes surprising to witness the degree of insularity not only of our young people and of those who advise them but, I fear, of employers too. That must change. One can quite understand that students wish to specialise and to concentrate at that age or what interests them, but it is tempting sometimes to pull the blinkers from their eyes and to show them that there is a wider world awaiting them if only they are prepared to make the effort to speak perhaps just one of its languages.
A step which the Select Committee would like to see us take, and take quickly, is the introduction of language learning in primary schools. I take all the points which have been made on this issue. It is almost unarguable that it is a good thing for children to learn languages at the earliest possible stage. But we have to start from where we are. I believe that there is a misunderstanding about the planning for introduction by the end of the first decade of the next century. What I believe was meant by the department—if I am wrong I shall correct in writing what I have saidis that because it will be something like 1997–1998 before 100 per cent. of our children leave school competent in speaking another language and because it will be another three or four years before they come out of training colleges, which takes us up to about 2003 to 2004, it will be quite a long time into that first decade before a whole cohort of young people is competent in speaking the language. That is the only argument I can offer all noble Lords, in particular my noble friend Lord Beloff, against having a language as a compulsory subject in primary schools.
What we need are teachers competent in the subject in order to teach the language. If we can have 100 per cent. of children leaving school by the end of the century competent in a language, then by the end of the first decade we shall be able to introduce—not plan to introduce—the teaching of a language in our primary schools. There was a misunderstanding in
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that perhaps noble Lords felt that we would start planning at the end of the first decade rather than plan to introduce it then.
I make it plain that while the national curriculum does not require a modern foreign language to be taught before the age of 11, it certainly does not forbid it.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, I am most interested by the Minister's explanation of why we have to wait well into the next century before primary school teaching of languages can begin. As I understand her argument, only by then will we have recruited 23 year-olds who are competent to teach it. The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, quite rightly in my view, criticised the committee of which I was a member for not looking at the way other people are teaching languages. Is it impossible for the Government to introduce crash courses for teacher training in foreign languages so that this dreadful time lag of 20 years, by which time all of us here will be dead, can be reduced and teaching can start at primary level?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I take the noble Lord's point. We are talking here about government legislating for the compulsory teaching of a language in primary schools. Given all the changes that are taking place in our schools now, I believe that that is too early. I can give the noble Lord the partial assurance that by not legislating we have not in any way precluded experimentation, crash courses or the introduction of teaching a language in primary schools. That is not against the Government's policy.
Where a primary school wishes to teach a language to its pupils—method is a matter for the school itself—it is free to do so. However, I have to say that the Government could not at present contemplate making a modern foreign language a compulsory part of the curriculum for primary school-age children. We have no difficulty at all with the proposition that children of a comparatively young age would benefit from an opportunity to learn foreign languages, but we must be aware of the circumstances as they are at present, allow time for them to change, and in particular allow time for changes at the higher levels to feed through the system.
I was happy to see that the Select Committee shares the Government's view that all maintained schools should provide for the teaching of at least one European Community language and that pupils should be encouraged to continue to learn a modern language for at least five years. Reference has already been made to the working group which the Government established to advise them on modern foreign languages in the national curriculum. That working group published its initial advice in March this year and it is due at the end of this month to submit its final report to my right honourable friends, the Secretaries of State for Education and Science and for Wales. I note that the Select Committee made helpful comments on some matters in the initial advice and I have no doubt that the working group will have taken note of its comments. The initial advice of the

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working group had in general a favourable reception. I am quite sure that its final report will be just as stimulating.
A number of specific points have been raised. If I do not cover them all, given that it is Friday and late in the day, I hope that I shall be forgiven and will be allowed to deal with them in writing. The noble Baroness, Lady David, referred to the speedy processing of teachers from the Community. Since the new arrangements came into force at the beginning of September, nearly 900 teachers from other Community countries have been granted qualified teacher status, mostly, I am told, within five to 10 days of applying. There has been some speeding up of the process and we shall continue to review its operation.
The noble Baroness also referred to the Lingua programme. There was never any doubt of our commitment to Lingua in principle. The difficulty was over the question of Community competence in the field of education. Our commitment to secure the full implementation of and maximum benefit from the Lingua programme has been shown by the fact that we have been the first Community country to open its Lingua bureau for the administration of our participation in the programme. The bureau is being run jointly by the Central Bureau for Educational Visits and Exchanges and the Centre for Information on Language Teaching. The Lingua programme has been established by the European Community for five years. It is already wide-ranging but its scope could not be extended, for example, to include the funding of language assistants without the agreement of all of the Twelve. But the programme will of course be kept under review in the light of experience.
Almost all noble Lords, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady David, referred to foreign language assistants in our schools. I entirely agree about the importance of language assistants. One of the main functions of the central bureau is to organise with the governments of the other countries concerned arrangements for the recruitment of assistants. But it must be for local education authorities and the individual schools to consider the employment of such assistants within the resources which are available for this provision. We have no plans for assistants to be centrally funded.
Reference was also made to induction courses. Induction courses for Community teachers, referred to in the response to the report, are intended to help teachers from France and the Federal Republic of Germany to prepare for teaching in this country, especially teachers who may not be trained in the teaching of their own language, to those who are native speakers, which calls for different skills. But these courses are not compulsory. They are intended to be a help and not a barrier to entering teaching in this country.
A vexed issue which goes well beyond the confines of this Chamber concerns visits and exchanges in schools. Calls have been made for a revision of our policy. Noble Lords will be aware that in the response to the Select Committee's report the Government have
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said that there should be no delay in changing the policy as regards charging for such visits if the new regulations are found to have discouraged visits. The Government have been concerned to gather evidence about the practical effects of the charging provision in the Education Reform Act. I know that those responses are coming in to the department. Local education authorities in England and Wales have already begun to inform the central bureau of the impact which the legislation is having locally. The NFER has been commissioned to survey schools this term and a number of other bodies have also offered to add to that evidence. Much is being done, and I shall certainly take back to the department the sense of urgency that has been established during the debate.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, and I believe my noble friend Lady Young, who is unable to attend today and apologises for her absence, are concerned about British independent schools. I take the point about European schools not being appropriate for all ability children. The Department of Education and Science has for some time been aware of the excellent work undertaken by those schools in Europe under the aegis of COBISEC in providing a British type of education for the children of parents working in Europe. Indeed, that was formally recognised by the Government when they introduced an amendment—albeit one which was not to the liking not only of the noble Baroness but also of myself, as I believe I went through the Division Lobby with her—to the Education Reform Act which provides for certain inspection and information services to be made available to COBISEC schools.
I am also aware of my noble friend's continued interest in the work of the COBISEC schools and her conviction, and that of my noble friend Lady Young, that further help should be given in the form of government funding. Proposals have been put to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science and I understand that they are receiving consideration.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, and my noble friend Lord Montgomery, who has spoken to me about the subject, and others are concerned about the importance of the Spanish language. We certainly accept that Spanish and, indeed, German are important languages. One only has to bear in mind the number of people who speak Spanish in both North and South America. I believe that, other than Chinese, Spanish is the widest spoken language after English. I understand that 10 per cent. of the people in the United States speak Spanish as their first language. The position of German as something of a lingua franca in Eastern Europe and the number of people who speak Spanish in both North and South America gives prominence to those languages being given equal consideration in our schools.
I also acknowledge the force of an argument put forward to me recently by my noble friend Lord Montgomery about the quick progress which pupils can make in Spanish. However, I should point out that others carry the torch for other languages and I

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am simply not brave enough to take on the argument for the importance of one language over another. All I can say is that this is a very heated issue.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, my noble friend Lord Beloff, and others mentioned Latin. Again, I must point out that it is not a modern foreign language; it is not part of the national curriculum and the Government did not consider it appropriate to requires all pupils to study Latin. There are some who would disagree with that decision. However, the Government hope that schools that wish to offer Latin to some of their pupils will continue to do so if it is thought appropriate.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, my noble friend Lady Brigstocke and others mentioned teacher morale. I am very much aware of all the hard work that teachers are putting in to introduce our education reforms. We recognise that the demands we make must be realistic, reasonable and supportive of effective teaching. We have taken positive steps to minimise the burdens wherever possible and to allow teachers more time to adjust to the pace of change.
I know that the Secretary of State has been listening to some of the pleas from teachers. Recent examples of the way in which he responded in a practical way are the announcement of standard assessment tasks for seven year-old children and our proposals for simplifying the annual curriculum returns.
I should like to point out at this stage that I believe that there is generally too much talking down of the profession. I hope that this kind of debate will have the opposite effect on morale. The changes we are bringing about to the education system certainly pose a challenge for our teachers. However, in many ways the rewards are greater than they have ever been. I am sure that teachers will find that their job satisfaction as the national curriculum and education reforms settle down will increase and that the educational benefits will start to make themselves felt and will thus make the work more rewarding.
I trust that my noble friend Lord Beloff will forgive me for having just a fleeting moment of apprehension when he said that he was going to speak about the unspeakable. Many of the points he raised—for example, the teaching of languages at an early age, using a variety of approaches, encouraging European and wider world awareness, the importance of motivation, the role for universities, languages as a condition of entry for jobs both in the public and private sector and the importance of the historical perspectivegave much food for thought and provide very positive encouragement for the purpose of this debate.
My noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy referred to the Scottish experiment. I can assure him that we shall be watching it very closely. I emphasise again that it is still possible for individual schools in England and Wales if they so wish to try out the teaching of languages in their schools. Of course resources will be one issue and the availability of expertise another.
However, there is a point which will arise out of the Scottish experiment. It is one which also comes to
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mind when we talk about the teaching of languages in primary schools in England and Wales. Indeed, I think that this point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Peston. I can testify to its existence because it happened to one of my children. Nothing is more designed to switch off the mind of a young person than the situation where he or she has had to start to learn one language not once, not twice but, as in the case of one of my children, three times; they become unmotivated as regards to learning languages. Continuity between primary and secondary education will have to be looked at.
The final point to which I wish to refer relates to a second foreign language. A second foreign language is not part of the national curriculum. However, schools are free to offer a second language outside the national curriculum if they so wish. In particular, the Government hope that those pupils able and willing to benefit from studying a second language will be able to do so, especially in the final two years of secondary education.
It has been an important debate. I am grateful to all noble Lords who took part. From time to time someone comes up with a notion that we should not waste time learning to speak a foreign language as the rest of the world speaks English. That is a point that has been made many times. Perhaps I may emphatically assure your Lordships that that is not the Government's view. We believe in the importance of learning languages. I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, and her Committee that we shall continue to stress that point at every opportunity.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, it has been an interesting debate. I am grateful to all noble Lords for the many issues that they have raised, some arising from the report and some from their wide experience. There has been a great deal of unanimity on both sides of the House about the importance and urgency of the subject. I am glad that that agreement has been accepted by the Government. I am grateful to the Minister for what she said in her response to the debate. I ask that she looks carefully again at what has been said today, especially in relation to the early introduction of teaching a modern foreign language in primary schools.
There is no time to pick up the many points that have been made, but I should like to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, whose robust contributions I enjoyed enormously. As I listened to him, I began to wish he had been a member of the sub-committee, because had he been we might have come up with a much more radical report. Whether it would have made a greater contribution towards solving the immediate problem is a matter for speculation. I thought that he might have been setting the agenda for a Royal Commission rather than a sub-committee of your Lordships' House.
The report is a response to the European Commission's communication concerned with improving the popular use of foreign languages right across the Community and of creating greater awareness of European culture as a whole, as opposed to any one culture of any individual member of the

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Community. It is clear that the United Kingdom has an enormous contribution to make in response to that communication. Our debate has been, I hope, part of a continuing debate which will increase the awareness of the problem and which I hope will prompt the Government into even greater and speedier action than that to which they are already committed.
Finally, I should like to place on record the sub-committee's gratitude to its clerk Dr. Philippa Tudor for the great amount of work that she put into the inquiry and the report.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Northern Ireland Act 1974 (Interim Period Extension) Order 1990
2.18 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Skelmersdale): rose to move, that the draft order laid before the House on 20th June be approved [21st Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the draft order renews the temporary provisions in the Northern Ireland Act 1974 under which government by direct rule continues in Northern Ireland. This is the 16th year that your Lordships have been asked to renew that form of government, imperfect as it is. It has gone on for too long and the Government continue to work towards the goal of replacing it with better and more accountable local arrangements. Although most people in Northern Ireland are content with direct rule as a second best, it is plain that the cause of democracy would be better served by returning to political representatives there a degree of responsibility over their own affairs. Noble Lords will not be unaware of our efforts on that front over the past six months, about which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State spoke in another place last week. I should like to return to that issue later.
First, however, I owe the House an account of the Government's stewardship in Northern Ireland over the past year. Our overriding aim, as my predecessor remarked on this occasion last year, is to provide good government to the best of our ability. Good government is both firm, in pursuing policies which the Government believe are in the best interests of all the people of Northern Ireland; and fair, in ensuring that they take full account of the special needs of all sides of the community there. The Government are pursuing a range of policies designed to bring peace, stability, and prosperity. It will come as no surprise to the House if I, first, take the opportunity to give a brief report on the security situation in Northern Ireland and on what the Government and security forces are doing to bring terrorism there to an end.
Terrorism and the threat which it presents to our democracy, is utterly abominable, from whichever quarter it comes. Principally, that threat comes from the Provisional IRA, whose ultimate aim is to secure a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland. How,
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after 20 years of unnecessary, futile and fruitless violence and murder they can possibly believe they have moved even half a step towards this goal is beyond my comprehension. They will never succeed in their campaign of slaughter.
I visited Ballymena in the wake of the massive van bomb which exploded there in the early hours of 25th March. I was struck not just by the resilience of the people—many of them of the minority community—whose houses had been devastated by the Provisional IRA; but also by their determination that, come what may, the terrorists must not be allowed to win.
I am sure that the same can be said of the inhabitants of Castlederg where a similar van bomb, the same day, damaged 150 houses as well as the local Catholic Church. If the terrorists thought that, by such acts of mass destruction, they could win, let them think again. Let us not dignify such people with the name of terrorists. People across the length and breadth of Northern Ireland agree with me that there is only one word for them: trash.
It is time, that the unshakeable resolve on the part of the Government and of the people of each and every part of the United Kingdom penetrated the closed minds of these people. Until it does, we will continue to spare no effort to prevent these trash from killing and maiming people whether in Northern Ireland, Great Britain or on the Continent. The most conspicuous and important role in the fight against them falls to the security forces to whose courage, determination and professionalism, in the face of continual risk to their lives, I would like to pay tribute. Through their dedication and alertness, each and every day of the year, they strive to prevent atrocities of the kind we have seen all too clearly and too often in the past 20 years. I appeal now to all the people of Northern Ireland, wherever they may live, whatever their political views, to give their full support to these brave men and women.
For our part, the Government will do all in our power to assist the security forces in their fight against terrorism, whether in legal, moral or physical terms. We are at the moment closely studying the review of my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross on anti-terrorist legislation in Northern Ireland as a precursor to bringing forward proposals for legislation which will replace the existing Emergency Provisions Acts. I know that, when he does bring forward his proposal my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will not hesitate to ask Parliament to approve any powers which he feels are warranted and justified.
The Government's desire to build on the progress which has been achieved with the Irish Government on security co-operation is no less strong. We have achieved much since 1985. But more needs to be done if we are to prevent similar atrocities to that which was carried out at the Derryard permanent vehicle checkpoint last December. Such murderous attacks only serve to strengthen the resolve of both Governments to take whatever action possible to try to ensure that they are never repeated. We both are

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committed to ensuring that where action can be taken to improve security in the border areas, it will be taken.
Two things on which people in Northern Ireland are generally agreed are the importance of strengthening the economy and of improving social conditions. Even those who set themselves up as apologists for terrorism lecture us on the importance of more jobs and in proving the day-to-day environment of the people of Northern Ireland; at the same time the terrorists they support do their level best to drive out the first and ruin the second.
My ministerial colleagues have put great effort into the economic and social field in the past year. When we discussed raising money for the operations of the Northern Ireland departments of government in the appropriation debate a fortnight ago, the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, accused me—I am paraphrasing slightly—of being rather bullish. The fact remains that there is, happily, a growing proliferation of evidence that the Northern Ireland economy is capable of rising to the challenge. In the year to March 1990, 5,131 new jobs were promoted with the involvement of the industrial development board. The local enterprise development unit was involved in the promotion of even more—5,944 during the same period. Largely, these came from domestic industry. The chemical, paper and printing, clothing and electrical engineering sectors were particularly buoyant. I had the pleasure recently of opening new premises for Software Ireland, Northern Ireland's largest software company. The success of the company, which has substantially increased its workforce over the past few years, and now has 60 per cent. of its sales overseas, is proof that Northern Ireland is a competitive location from which to serve the demanding and varied needs of the international markets of the information technology age.
There is particular hope in the increasing recognition among foreign investors that Northern Ireland is an ideal place to set up business. Almost 40 per cent. of the new jobs and investment attracted by the industrial development board in the last financial year came from outside Northern Ireland. They came from Great Britain, certainly, but also from Europe, from North America and from the Far East. They came in recognition of Northern Ireland's economic advantages, for example, the abundance of well-educated workers, the excellent industrial relations record, the ready supply of low-cost accommodation and much more.
The consequence of these developments is a level of unemployment which is down by 27,500 from its peak in October 1986. That is a real achievement. It is not, of course, satisfactory that seasonally-adjusted unemployment remains at 14 per cent. and all our efforts must be bent to reducing that figure much further. Unemployment has, as is well known, played its malign part in creating areas of multiple deprivation in Northern Ireland, notably in Belfast and Londonderry.
During the year, we have committed additional resources to the Making Belfast Work initiative, so as
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to encourage employment, promote training, develop community workshops, and in the broadest sense improve the quality of life of the people of the deprived areas of north and west Belfast. At Springvale we have announced a major initiative for the redevelopment of the site to be vacated by Mackies Engineering. In Belfast city centre the Castle Court complex opened in April, offering greatly extended shopping facilities and office accommodation. The Laganside corporation, meanwhile, has identified riverside development land in Belfast with the potential for £700 million of private sector investment.
In Londonderry we have committed £10 million over a three-year period to an inner-city initiative. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State was delighted to announce in recent days a grant of £9·5 million from the European Regional Development Fund towards the cost of developing a new port facility for the city, downstream of the present facilities, at Lisahally. It is right that we acknowledge the contribution the European Community has made to Northern Ireland this year and in previous years. The Londonderry area stands to benefit greatly, too, from a new display of confidence on the part of United States companies. The O'Connell Corporation of Massachusetts will undertake a large commercial and shopping development in the city centre, while on the outskirts of the city the textile company Fruit of the Loom will set up a cotton spinning operation.
Great credit attaches to all those who have been involved in attracting these projects. The Government are determined to continue to play their part in bringing about increased economic growth, but it goes without saying, or ought to, that they cannot ultimately force people to be more competitive or more entrepreneurial. The drive must come from the business community. I accept that that is a stark message, but it is what the Dutch would call nodig which roughly translates as "necessary".
I accept that very much still remains to be done in respect of relations between the different parts of the community in Northern Ireland, and in the face of those whose only contribution is to spread division, diversion and hatred it is uphill work. My colleagues have been making energetic efforts on community relations. Spending stands at very much higher levels than before in these fields.
There is new machinery within government for the handling of community relations implications of policy. There is a new community relations council. There is a cultural traditions programme aimed at encouraging greater understanding about the richness and variety of traditions in Northern Ireland (which ought be a strength and not a weakness), and we are working very closely with district councils to develop community relations programmes which have support from all constitutional parties. In schools the curriculum will in future include the themes of education for mutual understanding and cultural heritage. In short, much is going on that is positive and promising throughout the economic and social area. We shall do all we can to see it continue.

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We continue, too, to place great emphasis on equality of opportunity. The Second Report by the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights (SACHR), on Religious and Political Discrimination and Equality of Opportunity in Northern Ireland, was published on 26th June. The report is the final part of the SACHR's review of this subject, which has enjoyed the Government's full moral and financial support. The report reviews the adequacy and effectiveness of existing laws and institutions in securing freedom from discrimination and furthering equality of opportunity in Northern Ireland. It recommends legislative changes designed to improve the position here.
We welcome the report, which is a careful, thorough and valuable study of a matter of major importance. The Government are grateful to the commission for the considerable effort which has gone into its preparation. The importance of the subject and the detailed nature of the commission's recommendations are such that the report deserves, and is being given, careful consideration. That consideration will take account of any comments made on the report's recommendations, and it is open to anyone to submit comments. I have no doubt that the Government's deliberations will benefit from that process. In the meantime, I merely wish to underline to your Lordships, though I am sure this House needs no reminding, that the Government are fully committed to the eradication of discrimination and to equality of opportunity for everyone in Northern Ireland, regardless of their religious background. We have already shown, through the introduction of stronger legislation, which came into force on 1st January this year, our determination to ensure fair employment.
I believe that the Government can take justified credit for the work they are doing in all these fields to tackle Northern Ireland's needs. However, despite our achievements, we are conscious that a vital piece of the jigsaw is missing. Insufficient scope exists for elected constitutional representatives of both communities to play a full role in the affairs of Northern Ireland. As my predecessor said on this occasion last year, their fuller involvement would make a major contribution to the process of peace and reconciliation. The prerequisite for any such involvement must be dialogue—a willingness to sit down and work out how the political stalemate in Northern Ireland might be resolved. As a result of dialogue, differing views can be accommodated and appropriate structures devised. Only dialogue will produce the consensus necessary to destroy once and for all the scourge of terrorism.
For the first time in many years, we see a new air of realism in political thinking in Northern Ireland, an acceptance that dialogue is the best way forward, and that envisaging dialogue does not imply abandoning essential principles or sacrificing important interests. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has sought, in his discussions with the constitutional Northern Ireland political parties and with the Irish Government in the period since January, to give
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substance to this new thinking, and to move towards formal political dialogue. I am sure that your Lordships will wish to pay tribute to the progress he has made, and on which he reported last week in another place. However, I mean no disrespect when I say that all would agree that he has merely been the honest broker in a process which has its roots in the political vision and resolution of those with whom he has been having discussions. Without their constructive attitude and their willingness to be flexible, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to make progress towards a goal that we all share: new structures of government in Northern Ireland to which all its people can give their support and commitment.
Until that point approaches, the Anglo-Irish Agreement provides a useful adjunct to the system of direct rule. It does not infringe United Kingdom sovereignty. As my right honourable friend said last week, the constitutional position of Northern Ireland is clear. Article I states that:
"any change in the status of Northern Ireland would only come about with the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland",
and also notes that:
"the present wish of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland is for no change in the status of Northern Ireland".
But it recognises that the two governments aproach the situation in Northern Ireland from different perspectives. It does not seek to reconcile those, but rather attempts to put them on one side by accepting the principle of consent and self determination as the central issue relating to the status of Northern Ireland. The agreement does not itself provide a solution to all the problems of Northern Ireland, but it does provide the two governments with a valuable framework through which issues can be constructively addressed without prejudice to the different viewpoints and aspirations of both sides of the community. But there is no reason why the present agreement should be the last word. While neither government are seeking a new agreement, if one which commanded widespread support within both sides of the community in Northern Ireland were to emerge from a process of political dialogue, both governments would, I am sure, consider that an advance.
We have no prejudged ideas as to what form the outcome of any talks should take. That is a matter on which local politicians themselves are best qualified to decide. But our broad criteria for endorsing any particular system are that it should command widespread support and should be workable, stable and durable.
My right honourable friend is meeting today with the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Collins, to take this matter forward, and no doubt he will make another statement on progress in due course. I trust that your Lordships will understand if I refrain from going into further details here; at times it is best to say too little rather than too much.
If this process results in formal dialogue, it will be a major achievement which will reflect credit on all concerned. It is only right to express the prospects in

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cautious terms—in the last resort no one can be dragged to the conference table; they themselves must decide whether the conditions for carrying matters forward exist. But, if all sides are determined to seek a way forward, the chances are that the Government would not have to approach your Lordships for a seventeenth time next year to approve the renewal of provisions to continue direct rule in Northern Ireland.
My Lords, I commend the order to your Lordships, and I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 20th June be approved [21st Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Skelmersdale.)
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his comprehensive review of government policies in Northern Ireland during the past 12 months. I welcome his encouraging words.
A week yesterday, with other Members of your Lordships' House, I sat in the Gallery in another place and listened to the very important speech of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when he introduced this order. Although his speech was a striking advance on the speeches that are usually made on the renewal of direct rule, I confess that it was a disappointment that he was then unable to announce that at last he had been able to establish a firm framework for formal negotiations to begin with the constitutional parties in Northern Ireland.
It appeared at first sight that the substance of the preconditions for talks, for which the unionist parties had been pressing, had been met. Thus there would be a break in the meetings of the Anglo-Irish Conference; the civil servants at Maryfield could not be engaged in servicing a conference which was not in session; and it was acknowledged by the two governments that an alternative to the Anglo-Irish Conference was possible. Those were the preconditions laid down by the unionist parties and it seemed to me that they have been met.
Moreover, it appears that there is agreement between the constitutional parties in Northern Ireland that the three sets of relationships—the relationship between the political parties in the North, between London and Dublin and between any new Northern Ireland structure and Dublin—would have to be addressed if and when talks got under way.
It is therefore difficult to see what possible issues of real substance now remain to be resolved. If there is no outstanding issue of substance, I wonder whether it is right flat a procedural point should be allowed to delay the commencement of talks. We accept that, once talks are under way, there are many profound and complicated issues to be addressed and resolved. That point is obvious.
While encouragement can be drawn from a number of passages in some of the speeches made in another place last week, other speeches made in the debate reflected with some eloquence the strength of historical positions. We must therefore not underestimate for one minute the difficulties of seeking to reconcile main elements which do not appear to be reconcilable, at least in an obvious sense. On the other
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hand, I do not want to underestimate what has been achieved to date by the Secretary of State since he took up the seals of office a year ago. From these Benches I want to take the opportunity of paying tribute to his skilful and patient zig-zagging in a complicated area during the past six months.
It is also fair and meet that I should today, rather belatedly, pay tribute to the brave efforts of the late Lord O'Neill of the Maine—
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Prys-Davies:—to move towards peace and reconciliation in the 1960s, almost a quarter of a century ago. I am sorry that I did not pay that tribute three weeks ago when we last discussed Northern Ireland business in the House.
The late Lord O'Neill saw clearly and at an early stage that there were at least two sets of relationships to be addressed; that between the two communities in Northern Ireland and that between Belfast and Dublin. Surely in retrospect we can all see that he was proceeding at too fast a pace and that the ground had not been adequately prepared for his great initiative. Nevertheless, he was a man of vision.
I have touched upon dramatic political initiatives of great historical significance. Nevertheless, we do well to remind ourselves that there are small improvements which can be made and which can be seen as small instalments on the long journey towards reconciliation. I am glad that the Minister has referred to the second report of the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights in Northern Ireland. That report, which we received a couple of weeks ago, puts up a large number of signposts which cannot be ignored. The Minister has acknowledged that it is an important review of the laws and institutions dealing with religious and political discrimination and equality of opportunity in Northern Ireland.
After reading the report, I am certainly persuaded that many issues in that area require attention. There are far more issues that require attention than I had appreciated. The report contains 84 specific recommendations. We are aware that the Secretary of State has invited the general public and those with a special interest in the subject to comment on the recommendations. Can the Minister tell the House this afternoon when the Government envisage being in a position to announce their response? Is it likely to be forthcoming within the next 12 months?
I wish to refer also to the important review of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Acts 1978 and 1987 recently completed by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. I collected my copy of the report last night. The Minister has referred to the report and clearly it raises important issues. We are indebted to the noble Viscount for the care that he took in examining the detailed operation of the legislation and in taking the evidence. Having collected my copy only last night, it would be inappropriate now to pick out any of his recommendations, let alone his novel recommendations. I am

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sure that at a later stage we shall hear a great deal more about the advice which the noble Viscount has tendered to the Secretary of State.
I join the Minister in paying tribute to the work, courage and achievements of the men and women of the security forces in Northern Ireland. I saw some of the men at work when I visited Northern Ireland at Easter. Clearly they are making a signal contribution towards the maintenance of law and order in the Province.
The Minister referred to some of the economic and social problems of the Province and to the initiatives taken by the Government during the past 12 months. We discussed the subject three weeks ago today and I see little point in repeating the comments that I then made. However, I see no reason for withdrawing or modifying any of the comments which I levelled at the policies of the Government. My criticism was not levelled so much at their present social and economic policies—indeed, I welcomed their conversion to the present policies—but my regret was aimed at their failure to embark on such policies 10 years ago.
This morning we heard on the radio that the Secretary of State and the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs are meeting in London today to consider the position and how best to move forward. Indeed, the Minister has confirmed that. I wish to end my comments by expressing the hope that the meeting will be successful and that the Secretary of State will soon be in a position to announce that the gap between the two Governments has been closed. I am also hopeful that he will announce the date for the commencement of serious talks between the two parties. I am sure that I express the wishes of Members of the House when I say that we shall all be glad to hear such words.
Lord Fitt: My Lords, upon the re-enactment of the order each year one is ever hopeful that it will be the last and that after 12 months have elapsed it will be unnecessary to continue with direct rule in Northern Ireland. Never was that feeling more strong than last Thursday when, as my noble friend said, some Members of your Lordships' House sat in the public gallery in another place. We waited to hear what had been hyped up to be a dramatic announcement by the Secretary of State; that after 20 years of murder and mayhem in Northern Ireland at last we were beginning to take the first tentative steps in inching our way towards an agreement.
Rumours had been circulating before the Secretary of State rose to his feet. The journalists had been talking. We were bitterly disappointed that no announcement could be made. One asked what the reason was for the Secretary of State being unable to make the announcement for which we had been waiting so long. It would appear that the Irish Government, a party to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, had lodged last minute objections and had told the Secretary of State that they would not be in agreement with certain parts of the speech which he intended to make.
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That was a great disappointment to me. And it caused great disappointment in Northern Ireland. Over the past six months the possibility of talks has been treated with a tremendous hype. Everyone has been told to express optimism, to run away from pessimism and not to say anything which could possibly throw the proposed talks into jeopardy. I know of some journalists, realists in the affairs of Northern Ireland, who sent in copy in which they honestly believed only to be told by their editors, "Do not say that. It is too pessimistic. You must express optimism in relation to these talks". That line can only be pursued so far because there is a reality in Northern Ireland—the reality of the tremendous and terrible divisions which have existed over centuries and which we saw illustrated yesterday on the 300th anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne. Newspapers, journalists and well-intentioned politicians cannot wish away those divisions. There are tremendous obstacles before any solution can be even thought of in relation to Northern Ireland.
What has happened over the past six months? I immediately associate myself with the honour that has been given to the present Secretary of State in trying to find some way to have talks about talks. It is not a question of talks to settle the future of Ireland: the issue is talks about talks. My noble friend said that he was able to detect progressive remarks in the course of the debate in another place last Thursday. Some of the remarks made then contrast significantly with what was said by the very same speakers on Orange platforms throughout Northern Ireland yesterday. What they said in the House of Commons and what they said at those Orange venues throughout Northern Ireland are in great contrast.
The Secretary of State has been trying to get talks off the ground. The reality is that all the parties want to engage in them on their terms. We have been told that the Secretary of State is trying to do away with the preconditions. That is not a reality. Every party to the talks has preconditions. The unionist parties in Northern Ireland say that they would be prepared to enter into talks on an internal basis in Northern Ireland. They say that before they can talk to the Irish Government, the Irish Government would have to consider deleting Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution which claims jurisdiction over the area of Northern Ireland.
I listened to a Fianna Fail spokesman on radio recently. He said, "In no circumstances would we ever consider the deletion of Articles 2 and 3. Those articles of the Irish constitution which claim responsibility for Northern Ireland are very dear to the heart and soul of Fianna Fail". That may be so; if they are very dear to the heart and soul of Fianna Fail, they are absolutely repugnant to the majority of the population of Northern Ireland.
How can that position be reconciled? The Anglo-Irish Agreement gives what is a virtual veto to the Irish Government in relation to any talks that may take place. The unionist parties in Northern Ireland say that they would be prepared to talk to the constitutional nationalist parties and after they have

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found some mode of agreement they would involve the Government of the Republic. The Government of the Republic say that they have Articles 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the Anglo-Irish Agreement which gives them the right to be included in talks on the ground floor. They say, "We must be in on these talks from the moment of their inception in Northern Ireland".
The unionists say, "We will not speak to you because of Articles 2 and 3; because of your failure to deliver on extradition; because of a whole series of decisions which have been given by the Irish courts wherein it was stated by the Supreme Court that it was a constitutional imperative of the Irish constitution to claim the land which is at present Northern Ireland". In other words the unionist parties are saying, "How can we engage in meaningful discussions with a government that claims a right to the territory in which we live". That is a tremendous obstacle.
One must remember the attitude of the Fianna Fail opposition, as it was then, on the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. The then Leader of the Opposition, Charles Haughey—now the Taoiseach of the Republic—on the publication of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, said that he rejected it out of hand. He would have nothing to do with it because he regarded Northern Ireland as a failed entity. He is now the Taoiseach of the Republic and allegedly working with the British Government in harmony with the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
Charles Haughey said that the Irish Government must be included at the beginning of any talks that take place in Northern Ireland. The unionists say, "Let conduct three or four weeks of talks with the constitutional parties and then we shall invite you in". They say that that would be acceptable to them. But the facts of life are that the whole matter is about symbolism. The Irish Government are saying, "We have the Anglo-Irish Agreement. You cannot exclude us from any part of these talks". In fact the Irish Government would know very well what was happening at the beginning of those talks. The SDLP operates in close alliance with the Republic. Does anyone really doubt that John Hume, Seamus Mallon or soine other spokesman for the SDLP would not get into a car or on to a train and keep the Dublin Government well informed of the discussions taking place between the constitutional parties in the North?
The objections of the Dublin Government are therefore not valid. They would be made aware of all the talks. It is purely symbolic. They are saying to the electorate, "We have the Anglo-Irish Agreement and are sticking by that letter". That is an obstacle that cannot be overcome by leader writers in either national or local newspapers in Ireland expressing great optimism.
The Secretary of State is totally honest and has shown himself a man of great integrity in his attempts to get the talks off the ground. I cannot say the same for the other elements concerned. I wonder whether the SDLP—the party I formerly led, now called the constitutional nationalist party—is really concerned with bringing about devolved government in Northern Ireland. Perhaps it is concerned only with
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projecting an image of how moderate it is and how immoderate its opponents are; of how reasonable it is and how intransigent its opponents are.
As I see it, there is nothing in it for the constitutional nationalist party in Northern Ireland, the SDLP, to bring about devolved government. It is one thing to stand on public platforms and say, "We will talk to anyone at any time about anything"—the Martini-man approach. It is another thing then to say that you will not talk unless the Government of Ireland are involved and unless pre-conditions are met. That will effectively make certain there will be no talks.
I wonder whether the unionists are really concerned with bringing about devolved government. Some of their spokesmen speak with an integrationist voice. They say that they would like to see a committee of the House of Commons, on the lines of a Northern Ireland Grand Committee, where Northern Ireland issues can be discussed. If that were agreed by the Government, it would meet with ferocious opposition from the Government of the Irish Republic. They would say, "If you set up a committee at Westminster that is a step down the integrationist road. It is taking away some of the authority which we have under the Anglo-Irish agreement".
There are, therefore, no great grounds for optimism in any of those aspects.
I associate myself with the remarks made by my noble friend about Terence O'Neill. I attended Terence O'Neill's funeral. I met his family and I know how much they were involved in a visionary way in the steps that Terence O'Neill attempted to take in Northern Ireland in the mid-1960s. I know how bitterly disappointed he was at the slow progress made in Northern Ireland. That disappointment stayed with him until the day he died.
Two or three things have been happening here in relation to events in Northern Ireland. I refer to the war against terrorism. I realise that there is a sub judice element but I believe that the decision taken by the Sir John May inquiry in relation to the Annie Maguire case and the decision on the release of the Guildford Four will do an awful lot to ease tensions in Northern Ireland among the nationalist community. The community will see that after a lapse of far too many years justice can be seen to be done. I am happy to have been associated with the Maguire case and to read the report of the Sir John May inquiry. I know that much will be said when the report is debated in this House. The devastating criticism of the Master of the Rolls made in the report will be reinforced by many noble Lords in this House when we have the opportunity.
We could prolong this debate. We could debate the economic advances, the economic problems, issues of unemployment, housing, and the many other economic factors that exist in Northern Ireland because this is the one debate that encompasses every facet of life in Northern Ireland. I believe it is right to restrict our comments to the possibility that a political

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solution may be found in which economics, unemployment and housing can all be debated in another forum at Stormont in Northern Ireland.
The decision on whether that forum will ever be resurrected rests with the Northern Ireland political parties. I say, with a great deal of despair, that I am not convinced that the Northern Ireland political parties are prepared to give up some of the principles which they regard as important in order to make the transition from direct rule to a devolved government in Stormont as soon as possible. This Government can do no more than try to force those parties to the conference table. At the moment there are only talks about talks; they have not touched upon the real problems that will arise.
I understand that this afternoon the Secretary of State and the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Irish Republic are meeting in London. I believe that they are trying to resolve a great difficulty that has been created not by the British Government or any of the constitutional parties in the North. The blame must be put exactly where it lies. The problem has been created by the Government of the Irish Republic which says that talks cannot be allowed to proceed without their involvement at the initial stages. If they persist in that attitude then the talks will never get off the ground.
Having expressed my views, with my knowledge of Northern Ireland, in such pessimistic terms, I conclude by associating myself with the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, in wishing the discussions well. It is my fervent hope that some agreement can be reached this afternoon; if not then, next week; but certainly before the summer Recess, and that this will allow the political parties to engage in discussions. I believe that the Secretary of State will have fulfilled his function. The responsibility for progress in Northern Ireland will then rest fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the elected representatives of Northern Ireland.
3 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, this is an important debate. I am sure that the House will forgive me if I speak with considerable brevity, given that for a Friday the hour is late and I do not wish to hold up some of the other debates. I must declare a personal interest in the last of those debates. I agree largely with everything that has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale. We shall certainly welcome the day when the people of Northern Ireland are able to take a greater degree of responsibility for their own affairs. I welcome, as others have, the initiative taken by the Secretary of State. He has handled the talks with a combination of considerable skill and great good sense. We all wish him well in the continuing talks that are taking place with the Government of the Irish Republic.
The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, referred to the position of the security forces. In a debate of this kind it is right to recognise the immense debt that we owe to the men and women of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. They are targets for terrorists when
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they are on duty; they are terrorist targets when they are off duty; and they are terrorist targets after they have retired from public service. We have now reached a situation where, on some occasions, their families have also become targets. On an occasion of this kind it is right to pay tribute to them. You have to be a brave man or woman to be a member of the RUC. I very much hope that, following this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, will indicate that firm view of Members in all parts of the House about the work of the RUC to the Chief Constable. We support the order. I very much hope that we shall receive some message of hope arising from the talks in which the Secretary of State is now involved.
Lord Skelmersdale: I am grateful to the three noble Lords for their comments on this debate. Over the past 16 years contributions to this kind of debate by your Lordships have always been most helpful and encouraging and none less so than today. I am particularly glad for the support offered by noble Lords for the political process on which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is engaged. Until dialogue among political parties in Northern Ireland results in institutions of government there which can command support on all sides of the community, orders such as that now before your Lordships are the only realistic way of continuing the Government of Northern Ireland.
Tributes have been made today to the late Lord O'Neill of the Maine, and quite rightly so. I believe that he would have been the first to admit the words of the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, that he went a little too far and a little too fast and that is why, politically, he came to grief.
I welcome the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, on my right honourable friend's finesse in this matter. He is a patient man. He listens to and communicates with all sides and he will carry on doing so. Every now and again there is a hiccup. The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, described it earlier as a disappointment. However, with a complicated triangular series of talks it is inevitable that the road to those talks will not go particularly smoothly at each and every moment.
One strand of this tripartite arrangement would involve the Government and the main constitutional parties in Northern Ireland and would cover new structures of government in Northern Ireland and the relationship between those two structures and Westminster. The Irish Government would not be directly represented in the talks but would be free to put forward views and proposals. The other two strands would cover relationships between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.
Those three strands could not be resolved in isolation. No agreement on any one aspect could be reached until all parties were finally satisfied with the outcome as a whole. Clearly, such an outcome would also have profound implications for the Anglo-Irish Agreement, and both ourselves and the Irish Government have recognised that.

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I take issue just slightly with the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, which by the look on his face does not greatly surprise him. He attributed various motives to various people on the political scene in Northern Ireland. I remind him of the headline in the Irish Times yesterday—yesterday, of course, being July 12th, the day of the annual marches of the Orangemen. That headline stated:
"Irishmen rally to Brooke".
Under the headline there is a report that all the major speakers at the 18 rallies in the North expressed confidence in the progress of my right honourable friend's initiative. I see that as very significant indeed. I hope and trust that that confidence will be maintained.
The other major point to come out of this afternoon's debate concerned the second report of SACHR. In my opening speech I welcomed the report which is a careful, thorough and valuable study of a matter of major importance. I also said that the Government were grateful to the commission for the considerable effort which has been devoted to the report's preparation. The importance of the subject and e detailed nature of the commission's recommendations are such that the report deserves very careful consideration. No conclusions can be reached until that consideration is complete. The consideration will need to take account of any comments made on its recommendations and it will be open for anyone—literally anyone—to submit such comments.
When therefore will we respond to that report? As the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, said, it makes 84 recommendations. I can tell him that a number of the issues raised were already under consideration by the time till; report was printed. Some obviously have implications for legislation in Britain and others have constitutional implications which require careful study before firm conclusions can be reached. My right honourable friend will meet the commission later in the year, but it is too early to say now when it will be possible to respond to all the commission's recommendations. I certainly doubt that it will be by that time.
Last but by no means least, I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Harris. I most certainly accede to his wish in conveying to the chief constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary the grateful thanks and the best wishes of the whole House to all members of the RUC in this terribly difficult role to which, alas, they are assigned. They carry it out with bravery and dignity and, generally speaking, the respect of all Northern Ireland. It is now appropriate for me to ask the House to approve the order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Slaughter of Animals (Humane Conditions) Regulations 1990 Slaughter of Animals (Humane Conditions) (Scotland) Regulations 1990 Slaughter of Poultry (Humane Conditions) (Amendment) Regulations 1990
3.15 pm
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations [S.I. 1990 No. 1242], laid before the House on 14th June, an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations [S.I. 1990 No. 1240], laid before the House on 14th June; and an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations [S.I. 1990 No. 1243], laid before the House on 14th June, be annulled.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the three Prayers standing in my name on the Order Paper.
I shall have to curtail my remarks very considerably for the convenience of all concerned, disappointed though I am that we are considering these three statutory instruments, which are complex, distressing and important, after having waited so long for their introduction. However, the best news on animals this week is not that there is any great progress to report but that the Church of England Synod decided last weekend to readdress itself to the question of the relations between human mankind and the animal kingdom. I think that that is overdue in all Churches. I believe that public opinion will be very insistent as time goes on that we should be clearer about our relations with the animal kingdom.
However, I shall not trespass this afternoon on the time of the House to deal with any questions of principle, or moral, political or constitutional questions, relating to animal welfare. Nevertheless, we are bound to refer to what is called "religious slaughter" because the statutory instruments deal with improvements in animal welfare in respect of the practices of Jews and Moslems in their slaughter of animals.
I cannot say that I am particularly inspired by the fact that we have had a week which started with religious broadcasting and ended with religious slaughter. Sometimes I think that we are becoming too preoccupied with religion in this House.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I trust that the noble Lord realises that there is another point of view in that respect.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: Oh dear! I have only just started. Please may I continue? In fact, I am so dispirited that I feel I could even pack up and get out.

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I should like to say a few words about the course of these statutory instruments and how they come to be presented to the House this afternoon. These instruments have been 10 years on the way. They began in 1979 when some of us went to see the now noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw, when he was chairman of the Conservative Party. We persuaded him to put animal welfare in the Conservative Party manifesto for the 1979 election.
One of the changes which we secured at that time was the upgrading of an advisory committee on animal welfare to the Ministry of Agriculture which then existed. It was upgraded to what it now is; namely, the Farm Animal Welfare Council, with a status that it never had before, but still without the authority of a fully-fledged advisory body for such an important matter. That was before 1986 when we established a new kind of statutory committee in connection with the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. That committee is not a hireling of the Minister. It has a status of its own. The FAWC should be uprated to the same status as the Animal Procedures Committee under the 1986 Act or it will be difficult to continue to persuade members of the professions and other interests to serve on a body which is so shabbily treated. I said earlier this week that advisory committees are shabbily treated because they are all expedients. Many of them are just charades. The reality of their advice is never impressed upon Ministers under our existing system.
The statutory instruments before us contain nothing like the full recommendations of the FAWC. There is no suitable forum where this matter can be gone over in detail with the attention that is needed. It is disappointing for some members of the FAWC to spend so much time and to go through such disagreeable experiences in the interests of what they consider to be their public duty towards animals.
A woman member of the FAWC, Mrs. Ruth Harrison, was a member of a group that dealt with two subjects included in the statutory instruments—red meat slaughter and religious slaughter. Any woman who trails around slaughter-houses, as she had to, to see what goes on so as to provide a report on both subjects, for the first time, as completely impartial and independent as it was in connection with these matters, shows a devotion that should be rewarded far more adequately than eventually has been the case.
As I said, I shall not say anything about principles except that one day sooner or later—I believe sooner rather than later—we shall have to decide, as a matter of constitutional principle, whether our laws relating to cruelty to animals shall apply universally throughout the land to all people who deal with animals, no matter what their religion, creed, nationality or activities. The standards applied by law to safeguard animals from unnecessary cruelty should not be open to variation to suit religious practices or beliefs but should leave the animals free under the law to enjoy its full protection. I leave the subject there.
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I come to the FAWC report. I am afraid that I must start with the recommendations that we are asked to accept in connection with slaughter by religious methods. The change for which the regulations provide—the phasing out of what is generally called the revolving casting pen under the Jewish method of slaughter and its replacement by an upright pen—is a marked improvement. There has been much public concern about the way in which, under the Jewish procedure, the animal is revolved and turned upside down and its throat is cut while it is on its back, no doubt struggling and in great distress. Now, after 1992, we are to have a pen which allows the animal to stand upright. It will be slaughtered from that position.
I am glad that this change is fully approved by a study that has been undertaken and published quite recently by the Veterinary Record. On 26th May this year, that journal deals with stress reactions of cattle undergoing ritual slaughter using two methods of restraint. Having read it carefully, I feel that it justifies the change and will be a marked improvement for the animals. It does not interfere with the main conditions for Jewish slaughter. Within the principles of the scheme, the animals will be somewhat better treated than they were.
Another point in connection with the Jewish methods of slaughter which seems to be open to some doubt or difficulty is what kind of process the slaughter is to be. The Farm Animal Welfare Council stated in paragraph 71 of its report:
"We observe that the 'single transverse cut' (often described as one clean cut) demanded by the Jews … means in practice a backwards and forwards stroke. On one occasion we observed a Jewish slaughterman make as many as seven backwards and forwards strokes with the knife, using a sawing action which was clearly in contravention of the Shochet's training. Indeed with both Jewish and Muslim slaughter the requirement for a single incision is open to different interpretation. Our observations suggest that the current procedure is in practice a single uninterrupted backwards and forwards motion".
The regulations refer to forwards and backwards movements as if they were to proceed for a little while, in which case they would be more in the nature of a sawing than a cutting motion. That point needs to be cleared up. Will the new regulations modify in any way the requirement that there should be this swift and precise cut in the final act of slaughter of the animal?
The regulations contain numerous references to time limits. Presumably some kind of enforcement will be undertaken as regards those time limits. That brings me to the matter of enforcement officers. I believe that in some cases an animal should not be removed and hoisted up for 20 seconds after it has had its throat cut. In other cases 30 seconds must elapse before an animal is hoisted up. Similar conditions apply in the slaughter of poultry and turkeys. The regulations state:
"9. No person shall suspend, or cause or permit to be suspended, any turkey kept in captivity or any other bird so kept for more than 6 minutes in the case of a turkey, or for more than 3 minutes in the case of any other bird".

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Who will enforce those time limits? Who will be present to ensure that they are adhered to? Everything depends on the time limits.
I have received a report from a wise and experienced enforcement officer in which he states:
"The new Regulation 25(2) seeks to protect animals which have had their throats cut from being shackled and hoisted for 20/30 seconds. This is well-intentioned but quite unenforceable. As slaughtermen are generally paid on headage or bonus it is to their financial advantage to rush animals through the slaughterpen. Anyone who has worked in an abattoir will know that while an inspector stands in the slaughterpen the throughput slows down, and that when he is elsewhere it resumes its usual frenetic pace. Slaughtermen simply will not leave a sheep to bleed undisturbed for 20 seconds unless they are forced to do so by an inspector at their elbow or by some mechanical device. It is not proper to pretend that one has solved a problem by producing regulations which everyone knows are valueless".
That is a serious indictment of the time-keeping system. Unless there is constant supervision, it appears that slackness and slovenliness may creep in. Whether it is a matter of birds or animals, time-keeping is essential. In some cases it appears that 90 seconds must be allowed to elapse before a bird is taken to the scalding tank. In such circumstances enforcement is the clue to the success of these new regulations.
The Minister should be able to assure us that there will be enforcement. If that is not carried out, the same old habits may creep into practice. I finish by saying that probably the greatest amount of cruelty occurs in the slaughter of poultry and turkeys. We have certainly not found the answer to that yet. Turkeys are heavy birds and therefore have special problems. When they are kept in close confinement, their cannibalism is a great problem.
All in all, the draft regulations are improvements, but I am not sure whether they have been worth waiting 10 years for. They cannot represent the end of what we seek to attain in terms of better treatment of our animals. While we have been waiting for these draft regulations to be finally approved, 80 million lambs have been slaughtered in British slaughter houses under the former methods. While we have been waiting for turkeys to be given a squarer deal at the end of their lives millions of Christmas turkeys have gone on the dinner tables of the British people. I hope that the regulations, modest as they are, will be applied strictly and give greater comfort to those of us who are concerned about the production of meat and foodstuffs for our people. I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations [S.I. 1990 No. 1242], laid before the House on 14th June; an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations [S.I. 1990 No. 1240], laid before the House on 14th June; and an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations [S.I. 1990 No. 1243], laid before the House on 14th June, be annulled.—(Lord Houghton of Sowerby.]
Lord Jakobovits: My Lords, as the religious head of the community that has been singled out for the special attention of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, in the Prayer that he has put before us, I
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shall presumably be expected by your Lordships to say a few words to explain that we shall under no circumstances ever accept the charge that our method of slaughter is in any way inferior in terms of animal welfare to any other yet devised or in practice anywhere.
I am gratified to hear that the noble Lord is satisfied with some of the improvements effected by the new regulations. I am also able to assure him that any cut made in a sawing fashion, as he described it, is invalid in Jewish law. Therefore, we would disqualify a religious slaughterer who resorted to that method. The noble Lord need not suspect that it is our intention to inflict any such discomfort on the animal being slaughtered.
Since the declared object of his Prayer, as the noble Lord has stated in a newspaper interview, is the eventual abolition of the Jewish religious method of slaughter, or for that matter the Moslem method of slaughter, and not merely the contents of the regulations placed before Parliament by the Minister, perhaps I may be permitted a few words of explanation. Perhaps I may also say a few words in rebuttal of the implied charge that we are guilty, through our long tradition, of applying a method in the preparation of animal food that inflicts unnecessary suffering upon brute creation. My remarks will therefore deal not so much with the new regulations, which we have broadly accepted—we certainly accept them as they stand now—as with the principle of allowing Jews and Moslems their religious freedom to prepare meat foods according to our millenial tradition.
The matter was last raised in this House in a debate on the Slaughter of Animals Bill, a Private Member's Bill presented by the noble Lord, Lord Somers, in December 1962. That Bill was later withdrawn. In the debate the late Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, one of the most eminent physicians ever to grace this House, eloquently and with rare erudition refuted the charge that the Jewish method was cruel. After quoting and examining leading scientific opinion, in addition to his own expert judgment, he stated that:
"the available scientific evidence supports [the] conclusion, which is the most recent of those who have gone into the matter with great care, that the method is humane and will almost immediately render the animal unconscious". —[Official Report, 3/12/62; col. 46.]
As have numerous other leading veterinary and medical authorities since then, Lord Cohen asserted quite categorically:
"Shechita"—
which is the technical name for the Jewish method of slaughter—
"is as humane a method as any".
I need not weary your Lordships with all the technical evidence for that view. Two further quotations from Lord Cohen's speech at the time will suffice.
"What are the scientific data? When you cut the throat of an animal … the blood pressure falls off very rapidly. Within four seconds the blood pressure drops in the femoral artery to half what it was before the cut, and that rate of fall means unconsciousness must have occurred earlier".—[Official Report, 3/12/62; col. 43.]

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He declared further, on the cut itself:
"The cut, as made by the shochet"—
that is the highly trained religious slaughterer—is somewhat similar to the experience of having been
"cut by a razor blade and know of it only when the blood flows; [this] is almost certainly painless".
Then he added:
"I would say that it is certainly painless".—[Official Report, 3/12/62; col. 44.]
Jews need hardly be lectured on the prevention of cruelty to animals. They introduced the whole concept long before any other civilisation or any other faith cared about animal welfare. To inflict any suffering on animals is a religious offence in the Mosaic legislation enshrined in such laws as the obligation to assist an overloaded animal or not to remove chicks or eggs from a nest in the presence of the mother bird, and —better known still—to include domestic animals ("your ox and your ass") among the beneficiaries of the duty to rest from work on the Sabbath, as expressly declared in the Ten Commandments. No wonder that the pioneer of the first Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was a Jew, by the name of Lewis Gompertz, in 1824 in London.
However, there is something strangely inconsistent in the agitation against the Jewish method of slaughter and the allegation of cruelty. We have never deemed animal welfare more important than human welfare. The Hebrew prophet Hosea denounced the perversity of placing the loving care of animals above the care for humans in the immortal words, "They who slaughter men kiss the calves".
Let us look at a brief history of this sordid inconsistency. At the dawn of man's history there were the first two brothers: Cain and Abel. Abel was a herdsman and brought of the firstlings of his flock as an offering to the Lord. Cain was a vegetarian. He would not touch an animal. He offered of his fruits instead. Yet that same Cain who cared so much for animals did not shrink from killing his own brother in cold blood in history's first recorded murder. Later, at the end of the Book of Genesis, there are the ancient Egyptians who worshipped animals and forced Jacob and his sons to live in the land of Goshen away from the rest of the population because, as is stated:
"all shepherds of flocks are an abomination of Egypt".
Yet, those same Egyptians had no compunction in brutally drowning Hebrew babies at birth and building huge pyramids with slave labour tortured without pity.
In modern times, one of the first pieces of legislation introduced by the Nazis in Germany after assuming power in early 1933 was to prohibit the Jewish method of slaughter, for they cared deeply about animals. However, that did not prevent them from gassing and incinerating human beings by the million in history's supreme orgy of inhumanity.
Lately, that perversity has begun to blemish society in our own country when supporters of animal liberation, as they call themselves, out of concern for animal welfare, laid bombs to kill human researchers
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seeking to bring healing to suffering humans by carefully controlled experiments on anaesthetised animals.
I seem to recall that, in our recent debates on embryo experimentation and abortion the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, expressed little concern for embryonic or fetal human life in relation to the expression of concern by many others. I detected a similar indifference to human victims of mass murder and mass torture when the noble Lord referred to the perpetrators of those unspeakable crimes as:
"a few miserable old men over the age of 70 who are probably hard of hearing, have failing sight and are ill".
Shall we have a new ethic in which the care of mice and guinea pigs counts for more than the life and health of humans and in which the pity for arch-criminals is greater than the pity for their victims? We as Jews care profoundly to prevent causing pain to animals, but not to the point of absurdity in which human welfare is ignored or violated. A society which still tolerates the cruelty of battery farming or blood sports, with the agony of the chase and the often slow, writhing death of misfired shots should have more important concerns than the few seconds' interval between a painless cut and the cessation of all consciousness from the brain in the Jewish religious method of slaughter.
We did not seek the regulations, but we understand their intent. As of two days ago, all leading Rabbis supervising Jewish religious slaughter operations in this country unanimously agreed to accept the new regulations as compatible with our religious requirements. On behalf of the entire Jewish community, I must express appreciation to three successive Ministers of Agriculture and their officials for the understanding that they have shown for our religious requirements throughout the prolonged period of negotiations leading to the issuance of the new regulations. The regulations will combine every reasonable care for animal welfare with the freedom to practise our ancestral faith as a heritage which has preserved our people and has helped to bring inspiration to other peoples the world over.
Lord Gallacher: My Lords, we are grateful to my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby for his Prayers against the orders because it gives us an opportunity to discuss them—an opportunity which I shall take briefly in view of the lateness of the hour and of the succeeding business.
We on this side of the House acknowledge that the Farm Animal Welfare Council's reputation has been rising almost every year since it was established in 1979. In view of that, we are concerned that the council's recommendations about slaughtering have not been accepted in their entirety by the Government.
My first question is: what reasons are there for not accepting 33 out of the 51 recommendations which the Farm Animal Welfare Council made for red meat? Was their rejection due to the fact that in general our slaughterhouses are not capable of implementing all 51 recommendations? If not, what if any are the deficiencies in the facilities which now exist in slaughterhouses?

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We are aware that there was an excess capacity in slaughterhouse facilities in England and Wales even before the present decline in beef sales. Do we now have a position in which Her Majesty's Government are obliged to hold back on certain slaughtering measures because in certain cases the present facilities are not equal to modern requirements?
Can the Minister say what consultations on the council's proposals took place with employers and trade unions represented on the joint industrial council for slaughtering workers? We regard that to be most important in view of the recommendations of the Farm Animal Welfare Council on welfare training in general and the headage basis of remuneration which is at the heart of the JIC's proposals for this category of workers.
How will proposals in SIs 1240 and 1242 meet with the Ministry's current remit to the Tyrrell Committee on slaughtering practice under the BSE investigation procedures? As regards religious slaughtering methods, were there good reasons for not accepting labelling requirements? The consumers' right to know in the description of food is now regarded as paramount. The most recent example concerns tuna fish in our supermarkets. Labelling now shows the fishing method by which the fish were caught; that is to say not by nets which are capable of catching dolphins and similar species. It may be that Her Majesty's Government's answer on labelling is that they must await the Community directive; one contrasts that position with that of food irradiation. In that case the Ministry were not prepared to wait for Brussels and offered a steady resistance on that important aspect throughout the passage of the Food Safety Bill. I accept that stunning before slaughter on religious grounds is not acceptable to persons of the Jewish faith. In our opinion that makes it essential that the Shechita technique achieves what its advocates claim. Is there independent monitoring of that by veterinary surgeons?
We believe that a guidance circular should accompany the regulations. Their complexity requires nothing less. As we are now amending legislation dating from the 1950s, we believe that the Government should find time for new legislation to update and consolidate. Do the Government accept that there is now a need for new legislation on this important question? We accept all three orders but in our opinion too much concerning slaughtering and slaughterhousing remains unresolved.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, the regulations before us today are the fruits of many years' work by the Farm Animal Welfare Council, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the many organisations which have contributed to the development of policy on animal welfare. The welfare of animals is a subject which raises an emotional response in all of us. I am sure that there is no Member of your Lordships' House who is not in favour of improving the welfare of farm animals. The regulations before us will greatly improve the welfare of farm animals at slaughter. I am equally sure that, although there may be points in the regulations which
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remain controversial, there is no noble Lord here today who would like to see them annulled in their entirety and thus lose the benefits of the work done for a further period.
The regulations replace the Slaughter of Animals (Prevention of Cruelty) Regulations 1958 and the equivalent Scottish regulations, and amend the Slaughter of Poultry (Humane Conditions) Regulations 1984. They implement 28 recommendations from the independent Farm Animal Welfare Council made in two separate reports—the report on the Welfare of Livestock (Red Meat Animals) at the time of Slaughter and the Welfare of Livestock when Slaughtered by Religious Methods.
The regulations form an integral part of the Government's initiative to improve the welfare of farm animals both here and in Europe of which your Lordships will be aware. At home, we intend to press on with the implementation of those FAWC recommendations, already accepted by the Government which can be implemented in secondary legislation or codes of practice. We have issued for consultation draft regulations on the licensing of poultry slaughtermen and a draft code of practice on the humane treatment of poultry awaiting and during slaughter. And when parliamentary time permits we intend to introduce the primary legislation needed to enable implementation of the other accepted FAWC recommendations.
Some say that these regulations are too little too late—a familiar complaint to any government anywhere. Others say that the regulations go too far, particularly in regulating religious slaughter. Yet everyone who complains will say that he or she is in favour of improvements in animal welfare. It is because of these differing but all sincere strongly-held views that the regulations have been so long in gestation.
Let me put the regulations in perspective. The Slaughter of Animals (Humane Conditions) Regulations safeguard the welfare of livestock from the time they enter a lairage, slaughterhouse or knacker's yard until they are slaughtered. They lay down conditions on how the animals are to be treated while awaiting slaughter, conditions concerning the stunning of animals and the slaughter itself. Important changes include the phasing in of head restraints for cattle to improve the accuracy of stunning, the prohibition of hitting, prodding or handling of animals in a manner likely to cause unnecessary pain or distress (which would include abuse by plastic piping or sticks), the phasing in of devices to prevent stunning equipment delivering insufficient current and the prohibition of stunning most animals in the poll position. They require the phasing out of the casting pen for the slaughter of cattle by the Jewish or Moslem methods and the introduction of upright pens to be individually approved by Ministers. They specify requirements for the cut used to slaughter animals. A full list of the main changes is in the explantory note to the regulations.

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The Slaughter of Poultry (Humane Conditions) (Amendment) Regulations introduce a general requirement, previously missing, prohibiting handling of birds awaiting slaughter in a manner which causes pain or distress. They extend certain safeguards, previously covering only domestic fowl and turkeys, to other types of poultry. They lay down conditions for housing birds offered for sale before being slaughtered in the premises and specify requirements for the cut used to slaughter birds by religious methods.
Most of the regulations are welcomed on all sides. However, it is distressing that those concerning specifically Jewish and Moslem methods of slaughter have given rise to such disagreement. The Farm Animal Welfare Council recommended that we repeal the legislation which allows the slaughter without stunning of livestock by Jews and Moslems. After much consultation and heart searching, the Government decided not to accept FAWC's recommendation. The issue involves a fundamental matter of religious belief to many and we have accepted the importance they attach to the issue. The Government believe that people must be allowed the freedom to practise this aspect of their religion. We are not alone in this and in particular most European countries permit religious slaughter without previous stunning. The European Convention for the Protection of Animals for Slaughter also recognises the rights of religious communities not to stun livestock.
Although we are not requiring animals to be stunned before religious slaughter, we have introduced provisions for improving procedures for such slaughter. The provision which at the end of two years prohibits the casting of cattle and makes the use of upright pens for the slaughter of cattle mandatory is a very important welfare advance.
I mentioned earlier the extensive consultations which have gone into the making of these regulations. I should like to thank all concerned for their contributions. In particular I should like to thank those members of the Jewish community, including the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits, who made a powerful and moving speech. I should also like to thank the Moslem communities who have participated so constructively and who have accepted changes in the legislation relating to their slaughter practices.
Perhaps I could move on to various points raised by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, raised the matter of religious slaughter causing the animal pain. There is no conclusive proof on that issue. There are different views regarding the likelihood of pain being caused. Veterinary advisers are not convinced that slaughter is painful if properly carried out. The FAWC also accept that there is uncertainty in this regard. However, there is common ground that there is a risk of pain if the cut is badly made. The new measures now in force are designed to prevent that occurring.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, referred to the single reciprocal cut. The religious authorities have made it clear that while the single reciprocal cut is
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what the slaughterman should always try to achieve, it is not possible in every case—for example, because of the tough skins of large animals—and a legislative requirement to that effect would not only impede the methods of slaughter but could also be detrimental to the welfare of the animals. We are confident that the additional measures introduced will provide adequate safeguards against any malpractices.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, mentioned the piece rate payment system which he suggested encouraged bad welfare. It is the responsibility of all involved to ensure that the requirements of welfare legislation are observed irrespective of the method of payment in abattoirs.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, also mentioned hoisting time limits. Local authorities are responsible for enforcing legislation. When parliamentary time permits primary legislation will be introduced to require them to designate officials who will be responsible. We are confident that enforcement authorities will take their responsibilities seriously, and MAFF veterinary staff will visit slaughterhouses.
The noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, referred to the implementation of the FAWC red meat and religious slaughter reports. The noble Lord makes the point that the Government have implemented few of the 51 recommendations suitable for implementation by legislation made by the Farm Animal Welfare Council in its report on red meat animals. In response to that report the Government gave an undertaking to implement 31 of the recommendations by legislation; of those, 18 have now been implemented and primary legislation is required before the remainder can be implemented. Guidance already issued to local authorities on the new regulations implements a further 12 recommendations, and work on research recommended by the council has been under way for a number of years. We intend to implement most of the remaining recommendations in the code of practice, with which we are pressing ahead, and will issue pending primary powers to give the code statutory backing.
Regarding the council's religious slaughter report, all the recommendations accepted by the Government, except for three, are implemented by the new regulations. Two of the remaining ones are dependent on primary legislation, and one will be implemented in the proposed new regulations on the licensing of poultry slaughtermen which the Government plan to lay before Parliament shortly.
The noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, raised the point that the Government should accept the FAWC recommendation that meat from animals slaughtered by religious methods should be clearly labelled. The recommendation of the FAWC to require the labelling of meat from animals slaughtered by religious methods raises difficult issues for administration and enforcement. The Food Advisory Committee is currently undertaking a general review of food labelling and is considering the question of additional labelling to indicate farming practices and method of slaughter. Religious slaughter is one of the matters that the committee will address. The European

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Commission is also working on proposals for the protection of animals for slaughter which include a requirement to label meat from animals slaughtered by religious methods. The Commission's formal proposal has yet to be put to the Council of Ministers.
There regulations, which came into force on 5th July, will provide substantial additional safeguards for livestock at the time of slaughter. This subject is a matter of increasing public awareness and concern. The Government believe that the measures introduced go a long way towards meeting public expectations in this area. I trust that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, will not press this matter to a vote.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I am very much obliged to the Chief Rabbi in particular for attending our debate this afternoon and so comprehensively and forthrightly stating the case of the Jewish community and its methods of slaughter. Much of what he said went far beyond the terms of reference that I set for myself on what I regard as the constitutional question of the edict of the law covering all citizens, and so on; but that is not a matter I wish to pursue this afternoon.
I am sorry if the Chief Rabbi obtained any impression that I was, so to speak, concentrating on the Jews in this respect. As a matter of fact, a far bigger worry is the Moslem method of slaughter because it is now so much more widespread. However, that is not covered in the regulations in the same way as the detail of the Jewish method, and that is why I had to concentrate on that. All the statutory instruments in regard to religious slaughter are pretty well concentrated on the changes being made in the Jewish methods.
Other opportunities will no doubt occur for pursuing these matters but animals have such a low profile in the affairs of Parliament—unless you happen to be a dog!—that probably we shall not be coming back to this subject for some time to come. However, I am grateful to all concerned and I beg leave to withdraw my Prayer on these Motions.
Motion for annulment, by leave, withdrawn.

Birmingham Prison
4.7 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action they propose to take following the report by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons on HM Prison, Birmingham.
The noble Lord said: In asking this Question, I express my gratitude to the noble Earl for attending the House to reply to the debate. He has had a pretty tough week; he will have a pretty tough week next week and indeed the week after. I acknowledge that all the more so because I can remember from my own experience what one feels like at this time in the parliamentary Session.
I have indicated on previous occasions, most recently during a debate on a report on Wandsworth prison our sense of gratitude to the chief inspector for the excellent work done by the inspectorate in its
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regular reports on conditions in prisons. Judge Tumim's report on Birmingham prison is an admirable document. It is clear, lucid and frank. It congratulates those concerned on the great deal of excellent work that is being carried out at the prison. I take one example. It is most encouraging to read of the prison's good record on race relations. After the criticisms in Judge Tumim's report on Wandsworth, it is right to acknowledge our satisfaction when we read in paragraph 3.47 of the report:
"We concluded that race relations were good with frank and open discussion of all outstanding issues".
There is a great deal of praise elsewhere in the report for the work of the governor and his staff. Nothing would be worse than for us only to discuss the areas of criticism in these reports and to ignore the dedicated work that is performed by so many members of the prison service, working as they do in prisons such as Birmingham, with its squalid conditions.
Squalor. That single word summarises what Judge Tumim had to say about Winson Green. Over half the inmate population was living three to a cell, and 177 of those were remand prisoners—people not convicted of a criminal offence yet living in intolerable conditions. The majority of prisoners spent more than 20 hours in their cells and some had no exercise at all. Yet despite these conditions the majority had only one shower a week even when more could have been permitted. The prison was brought into commission fairly soon after the accession to the throne of Queen Victoria. It has been infested, as we read in the report, with cockroaches, rats, feral cats and pigeons. In addition, there is the obscene practice of slopping out.
The noble Earl told us on 29th June of the programme of improvements which is in hand and which is now being carried out at the prison. No doubt we shall hear more about that this afternoon. I wish to ask him a number of additional questions about the chief inspector's report and I have given him notice of these questions. First, what is to be done about the bath house adjacent to A wing? As the noble Earl will recall, there is infestation here by rats and cockroaches. We understand that it is to be refurbished and that work will begin next month. It is due to be finished in March of next year. I ask the noble Earl this question. Given the deplorable conditions described in the report concerning the bath house, can we really tolerate the continuance of that situation until March of next year? If that is accepted, what temporary measures are proposed to deal with the criticisms contained in the report?
Secondly, what is to be done about association? The chief inspector found that in B wing of Birmingham Prison convicted inmates could have two hours of association on four evenings in the week. Yet their number was limited to 20 at any one time and, therefore, a rota system was in operation. With up to 100 inmates on each landing, the opportunity for association comes round once in every four to five weeks. What is going to be done about that? What about the other wings in the prison? In particular I refer to paragraph 3.31 of the report. Sometimes there

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is no association at all. In these wings there is only the opportunity to see a video film in the chapel at weekends. The chief inspector recommends that association should be provided for remand inmates and the convicted unemployed and that evening and weekend association should be available on all wings. I shall be grateful if the noble Earl can tell us whether these recommendations are accepted and, if so, when they are to be implemented.
Thirdly, there is the question of adjudications. Regional offices will come to an end later this year and they no longer check adjudications. No separate check has been substituted at the prison. The name of the substituting adjudicator was missing in several sets of papers and on two occasions improper punishment awards had been recorded. In other instances, witnesses had not been dealt with properly. Defendants were not asked as a matter of course and as they should have been whether they wanted to put questions to the charging officer or to other witnesses. As the noble Earl will recognise, these are important questions. I shall be grateful to know what action is going to be taken to deal with these criticisms.
Fourthly, there is the question of parole. As the noble Earl will recall, the Parole Board itself has indicated its concern on this matter. In paragraph 3.53 of the chief inspector's report he says that a small cross-section of parole cases were examined. Two Section 60 men—offenders who are serving periods of imprisonment of two years or more —were recommended for release on 23rd March last year, with their parole eligibility dates being in late May. Yet no reply had been received from the noble Earl's department by the first week of September, more than three months after the men's parole eligibility dates. It is extraordinary after all the complaints about delays in the parole system and at a time when we are complaining on all sides of the House about the number of people in custody that delays of this kind are still being experienced. I should be grateful if the noble Earl could give us some explanation of why this happened and what has been done to deal with the situation.
A number of other important issues are dealt with in the report. There are the criticisms of the hospital, the need for far higher priority to be given to the provision of a new kitchen and the discontinuance of the research functions of the psychology unit—at a time when we are worried about the substantial number of people with mental problems who are being held in prison. There is also the question of the sad inadequacies of the education department. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to tell us what action the department is proposing to take to deal with these criticisms.
I propose to conclude, as I began, by dealing with the squalid conditions in which both inmates and staff are having to live at Birmingham Prison. It may be said that there is nothing new in these criticisms and that we have had them in report after report from the chief inspector. That, unhappily, is entirely true. In his report last year on Standford Hill Prison he said:
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"The kitchen and dining hall are infested with vermin, cockroaches and birds … If the kitchen and dining hall were serving an institution other than a prison, we would expect immediate closure for rebuilding or refurbishing".
The chief inspector added:
"In our opinion only the protection of the Crown immunity prevents this kitchen from being closed".
Similar severe criticisms have been set out in his reports on other prisons—on Maidstone, on Pucklechurch, on Albany, on Hollesley Bay, on Dartmoor, on Medomsley, on Stocken and on Blundeston. Each had conditions which would not have been tolerated if they had existed in the private sector. Parts of each of those establishments would have been closed and there would probably—almost inevitably—have been prosecutions.
When I suggested to the noble Earl on 29th June that as long as Crown immunity continued so would degrading conditions in some of our prisons, he told me that I had come to,
"an astonishingly incorrect view".
Later he said:
"The noble Lord knows perfectly well that Crown immunity does not mean that the Crown does not try to keep up correct standards".—[Official Report, 29/6/90; col. 1818.]
All I would say to that is that if the Government are doing their best to keep up correct standards they do not appear to be spectacularly successful. Until 1984, when 19 patients died in a food poisoning outbreak at Stanley Royd Hospital in Wakefield, the DHSS strongly resisted the removal of Crown immunity from hospitals. As a result of that tragedy, immunity was lifted in 1986. I do not doubt for a moment that hospital administrators did all they could to maintain decent standards before 1986, just as members of the prison service are attempting to do at present so far as concerns the prison department establishments.
However, the blunt reality is that if the Government were to announce that as from a particular date—be it 1992, 1993 or even 1994—Crown immunity in prisons would be abandoned, I believe that it would lead to a dramatic improvement in the standards of our prisons. I say that for one very obvious reason. Ministers of this and, indeed, any other government would take considerable care to ensure that they did not find themselves being prosecuted. That is the relevance as regards the Crown immunity issue.
I am of course aware that a great deal is being done in regard to improvements. I am aware of the scale of the improvement programmes and the noble Earl does not have to convince us of that fact. I am also aware of the substantial size of the prison building programme. All those improvements are to be welcomed, as is Section 54 of the Food Safety Act 1990 as a result of which after April 1992 environmental health officers will be given some authority in connection with prison kitchens. However, Crown immunity will still remain after 1992. I believe that it should go. It must go in regard to prison kitchens. Additionally, there must be legal sanctions for breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act in prisons.

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I believe that the withdrawal of Crown immunity would lead to a substantial switch of resources from new building to a greatly enhanced refurbishment programme for existing prisons. It is clear that this should now be our first priority. We just cannot tolerate men and women being kept in conditions of the kind that I have described year after year, and these matters being drawn to our attention by successive reports of the Chief Inspector of Prisons.
In conclusion perhaps I may remind the noble Earl of what the chief inspector said in his annual report of 1988 about one aspect of Crown immunity. He said:
"The Government continues to maintain its view that Crown immunity should remain in force in respect of prison kitchens… The thoroughness and high standards of the inspections of prison kitchens that do take place is not in doubt. But they are useless without sanctions to enforce action on the recommended improvements. The unpalatable truth is that in many establishments food is prepared in disgraceful conditions better suited to another century, and inmates and staff are liable, not only to the ordinary hazards of kitchen working—hot fat, sharp knives and other heavy equipment—but also to the risks of slippery floors, pervading dirt, pest infestation, poorly maintained machinery and, often, totally inadequate washing facilities".
That deals with only one aspect of Crown immunity. I have mentioned the others. The inspector's report on Birmingham Prison does indeed touch upon some of those other matters which are covered by the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. I hope that as a result of this debate and the chief inspector's report on Birmingham Prison, and his annual reports, that we shall receive some message of hope from the noble Earl today.
4.25 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I, and the rest of your Lordships are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for providing us with an opportunity to touch upon a number of major issues concerning the prison service which go beyond Birmingham. Having followed the noble Lord, at a distance, to the Home Office, I am well aware of the difficulties that the prison service faces and the way that those difficulties have been heightened by the recent outbreak of violence at Strangeways. I should perhaps add that the prison at Birmingham was one of those I visited during my three years of responsibility, and that I visited it at a time when there was considerable overcrowding and in weather at least as hot as that today, which had lasted, if I remember correctly, for some weeks.
It was the overcrowding that concerned me then. It is the overcrowding that concerns me now. Your Lordships are sufficiently familiar, I am sure, with its consequences in terms of regime, morale and conditions generally. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, illustrated that point well. I intend therefore to make only one comment on its internal aspects before turning to a possible external cure.
When I made my visit about six years ago, I wanted to see how the younger inmates in particular—many of them on remand—were coping with hot and congested conditions. I therefore asked many of them whether, if modern, uncrowded prison accommodation with a reasonable regime and time out of the cell
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became available to them at a distance—say 20 to 40 miles—they would wish to move there. To my considerable surprise, and with one exception only, they all said, "No". They wanted to stay in town where they could have their visits. I hope that the Minister and the department will bear in mind that reaction and perhaps test it when considering the location of future local prison accommodation.
That reaction does not diminish my concern, or the concern that we all properly feel, on reading the report. I am in no doubt about the commitment of the Government and the department to cracking the overcrowding problem. Policies developed since 1979 have resulted in truly massive programmes of building and refurbishment and even in some reduction in rates of custodial sentencing, notably among young offenders, which we must all welcome. I remain concerned at the phenomenon of what I call unnecessary imprisonment.
I had not served long in the Home Office when I recognised, first, that the imprisonment of some people is a necessity; and, secondly, that where it is not a necessity it should at all costs be avoided. Imprisonment promotes reoffending; it is, almost without exception, the most expensive response to crime known to the human race; and its consequences focus on places such as Birmingham.
It was for that reason that I determined that when I was free to do so I should try to do something to divert people from offending and to provide alternative, more constructive treatment for those who did offend and who were then convicted of custodial offences. That leads me to declare my second interest in today's debate as chairman of the Intermediate Treatment Fund and a member of the council of the Rainer Foundation.
It seems appropriate to spend just a moment of our consideration of conditions in the Birmingham prison on questions of what can be done outside Birmingham to diminish the demand for places in it, and thus to improve the regime and other conditions. The same of course applies to all local and Category B prisons. The work of the two bodies to which I have referred has that object as a principle and, in the case of the Intermediate Treatment Fund, as an overriding priority.
My chief concern remains for the young, merely because in the majority of cases the first step into criminality leads almost inevitably to a second, a third and a long journey. That is not altogether surprising: children and young adults spend a great deal of their time trying to discover who they are; by what sort of signs they should be recognised by others; what trademarks they need to secure to earn the recognition and respect of their peers. As parents we have seen that in our children and have given them our closest attention as they try to establish their own identities at school.
The unformed adolescent has no simple statement to make about who he is. He is just someone else's classmate and someone else's child. If he is noticed, it is probably without interest, and certainly without

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respect, except from a favoured few; but let him be convicted of a crime and he is halfway to an identity. Let him do time and he knows damned well who he is. He can read it in the eyes of most of the people he talks to. He is a hard man, someone to be reckoned with, not to be taken lightly. He has achieved a status and a role and in 60 per cent. of cases at least he will act it out and maintain it until he reaches early middle age, the age of "criminal burn out", as I have heard it called.
That self-stereotyping lays waste to the soul, ruins careers, destroys relationships and must be avoided wherever possible. There are ways in which it can be avoided and I wish to welcome the efforts which Her Majesty's Government are putting into them. They are having an effect. Figures published in the Home Office statistical bulletin this week show a drop of no less than 32 per cent. in imprisoned young offenders under 17 between 1988 and 1989 nationally. That is part of a steady and creditable fall since 1981 when 7,700 young offenders were sent to custodial institutions compared with 2,200 last year.
The issue remains a major one and exceedingly relevant to Birmingham. I wish to commend the work of the chief inspector on this. In paragraph 3.30 of his report, he records a throughput of no less than 849 young offenders, more widely defined than in the bulletin, at that prison between January and September 1989. That gives an annual rate of over 1,100 young offenders in that prison alone.
I repeat that there are a number of means of avoiding unnecessary imprisonment. My purpose in speaking is simply to ask my noble friend and his right honourable and honourable friends to pursue a particular group vigorously. By so doing they can save the taxpayer large amounts of money and preserve countless families from sorrow and distress.
The reasons for the progress already made with young offenders are well documented. They include the expansion of cautioning, the development of a wide range of crime prevention projects based in the local community and the provision of intensive, focused alternative to custody programmes for the more serious young offenders. My own organisation has made its not insignificant contribution to this success. Over the past 12 years the Intermediate Treatment Fund has made over 1,250 awards to voluntary organisations working with young people at risk of involvement in crime in their community. It has channelled £3½ million of government money to this area in relatively small amounts. In addition, the fund has attracted a broadly similar sum from other charitable trusts for these or similar projects. The Minister of State, Mr. John Patten, recently visited one such project in Durham where he expressed his approval. The project has involved the probation service, the police, the county council and national and local voluntary bodies in providing programmes that have contributed to a striking 85 per cent. fall in prison sentences and care orders for young offenders since 1986. That is a notable achievement. Promotion of co-operative efforts of this kind between statutory
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and voluntary bodies is a highly effective way of increasing the impact of our attack on levels of offending.
The 1,250 projects supported by the fund included almost half of all the projects started under the Department of Health and Social Security, as it then was, IT initiative in 1983. These and similar projects have achieved the first and essential preliminary to reducing the prison population. They have successfully gained the confidence of magistrates that they can provide effective controlling programmes for the more serious young offender. They recognise that such programmes confront the young person—much more effectively than can prison—with the consequences of his or her criminality and that they can successfully address the wider issues which have led to crime. We cannot reduce the prison population unless we convince the sentencers that there exists something more constructive to which the offender can be sentenced. That is the object of the exercise.
To give just three examples set up by the Rainer Foundation, the Well Hall Project in Greenwich should be of interest to the noble Lord, Lord Harris. That project successfully reduced custodial sentencing of young offenders by two-thirds from 36 a year to 12 a year between 1983 and 1986 by providing social skills training programmes that focused on the offence committed. The Rainer project in Southend achieved similar results and the Woodlands project in Basingstoke helped to set up the notion of a "custody free zone" for young offenders.
The response of the Rainer Foundation to the Home Office White Paper Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public, pays particular attention to the disproportionate sentencing of black young people to custody, and the need for support to be given to black voluntary organisations to develop services in the community for black offenders. We welcome the Home Office funding of voluntary organisations working with young adult offenders. The foundation has established two projects in Wolverhampton and Dudley to cater specifically for black offenders.
There is evidence to show that in each of the projects I have mentioned the young people sentenced to programmes had similar offence patterns and similar histories to those sentenced to custody, yet they produced either similar or lower re-offending rates and the re-offending itself was less serious and less frequent than before involvement in the project. The cost both to society and to the Exchequer was significantly less. Therefore whether it is the Exchequer or the community that my right honourable friend wishes to assist, the message is equally clear.
This kind of treatment of offenders which addresses the whole range of young adult and adult offending is surely a more humanitarian, a more cost-effective and a more effective means of coping with crime than sending prisoners of any age to endure the conditions described in the report that is now before us. Admittedly one cannot solve problems by throwing money at them, but the charm of what I am talking about is that it involves throwing less money at the

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problem. In any case there is more to this matter than just giving grants to the voluntary sector. The Intermediate Treatment Fund for instance is not simply a grant-giving body as over half of its time is spent stimulating, developing and advising the voluntary sector and, more importantly perhaps in some respects, in bringing statutory services and voluntary groups together.
Last year the fund paid particular attention to the North West of England. It organised a consultation between the voluntary and statutory services which has led to the development of a wide range of initiatives intended to provide magistrates with credible new sentencing options in that community. The fund is about to undertake a similar exercise in Cleveland. The Rainer Foundation has also taken an active role in supporting the Government's efforts to involve the voluntary sector in work with this age group. That is recognised in paragraph 2.17 of the Home Office discussion paper on partnership. This paper recognised the contributions made by the voluntary sector to reductions in crime. It states:
"Voluntary organisations are already heavily involved in the delivery of programmes for juveniles by their existing involvement in intermediate treatment schemes, the purpose of which is to reduce the use of custody for young people. Such involvement is funded by the Department of Health or local authority social services. The Government would want to maintain that involvement".
At a time when the future of some government sources of funding is in doubt, that is an important commitment and one which I and my colleagues welcome and will wish to discuss with the colleagues of my noble friend in due course.
That discussion paper has come to be referred to as the peppermint paper because of the narrow range of colours now available for discussion papers. It is of critical interest to many of us in the voluntary field. I warmly welcome the Government's determination to make consideration of it a formal and effective process in what. I think is a new and imaginative way. The voluntary sector has responded with a steering group drawn from the Central Council of Probation Committees, the Association of Chief Officers of Probation, NACRO and the Rainer Foundation. The group is planning four regional conferences and these are to be funded by the Government. They will address the issues raised in the paper. I have just been asked to chair the first conference to be held in London on 10th October. I look forward with great interest and pleasure to doing so. Those who are interested in this matter and who read the columns of Hansard may wish to note the dates of the other conferences. They will be held in Leeds on 9th November, in Birmingham on 6th December and in London on 16th January.
I do not wish to anticipate the conclusions of those conferences, but they will certainly be looking at the involvement of the voluntary sector, in partnership with the probation and social services, in dealing with offenders in the community instead of in prison—and instead of in Birmingham Prison. That is an alternative to custody and is to be desired for all the reasons I have given. I hope that my noble friend and
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his honourable and right honourable friends will read the conclusions with care. As they do so, will they please keep constantly at the back of their minds the grim picture of Birmingham Prison drawn by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons in the report? For many thousands of young people that will be the alternative.
4.40 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Harris, not for the first time, and to endorse his general line of argument. He has given much more thought than I have to the abolition of Crown immunity, but I am sure that he is absolutely right. I shall take more trouble over that subject in future. I am also very glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and to welcome him back to our discussions of penal matters in which he played so distinguished a part when he was a Minister.
I shall not speak for long because the main points have already been made very clearly by the two previous speakers and it is late in the day. However, I should like to make one point that has not been mentioned and which may not be known to everybody. I understand that Judge Tumim, whom we must all wish to praise, is to be closely associated with the recommendations of the Woolf Report. I understand that he is to be jointly responsible for them. I cannot imagine any more helpful development.
I had the pleasure of interviewing him not long ago in connection with a book that I am writing. He has a very incisive appreciation of the situation and very clear views. He tells me that he would like to see remand prisoners dealt with in secure hostels. For the rest, except in extreme cases of terrorism for example, he would like training to be paramount. Training is his signature tune. We all know how far we are from that position. We must all be glad that he will be closely involved.
I shall not go over the ground that has been covered so well, though briefly, by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. However, I believe that there is one point that he did not mention which is raised in the preface to the Tumim Report, namely:
"The overall result is vastly depressing at this date in an important institution set in a great city".
That is what we are discussing this afternoon—a report which is vastly depressing. He goes on to say:
"This state of affairs should be acceptable to no-one".
I do not believe that there is any other feature of British life today which presents such a disgraceful picture. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, suggested that if those who were responsible could be prosecuted they would be prosecuted. That may be true. It is a shocking picture, and it is worth asking ourselves why that should be. Why, in 1990, with all our good intentions, these earnest debates and a high-minded Minister—I would not say that all of the Government are high-minded, but this Minister is and other Ministers, such as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, have been—is there this terrible state of affairs?

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It is possible to say that it is all due to the increase in crime. Certainly over the last half century there has been a remorseless increase in crime. When I first visited prisons in Oxford 50 or more years ago there were 10,000 people in prison. Now we have touched 50,000, although it is a little less now, and according to a Home Office estimate—a forecast which has not yet been repudiated—there may well be more than 60,000 people in prison before the end of the 'nineties. That is the situation that we face. It is true that it could not happen if there was not a great deal of crime, but compared with other countries where crime is neither better nor worse, on the whole we send more people to prison. We have more people in prison because the judges send them to prison.
If I may say so, I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, in his very constructive approach to the voluntary side—I have been associated with youth work in various forms all my life—still did not tackle the matter of the judges. I do not know whether it is fair to say that he shrank from tackling them. The Minister may shrink from criticising the judges today. I opened a debate on sentencing a short time ago and one observation that the representative of the Minister did not offer was any criticism of the judges. Everyone criticises them behind their backs and some of us do it to their faces, but understandably the Government do not wish to say anything to affront them.
Lord Elton: My Lords, if the noble Earl will give way, I wish only to say that I am just beginning, so give me a chance. The noble Earl said that I should perhaps be tackling the judges as well as the magistrates, but I am only just beginning my task and cannot vouch for what may happen later.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I shall not repeat the speech that I made not long ago when opening the debate on sentencing. I shall just say once again that we have too many people in prison because the judges send them there. That is a problem for the Government. They have to handle the situation tactfully; but I hope they will do so firmly. Until something is done to induce the judges to send fewer people to prison these problems will continue.
I do not want to spend the last minute or so simply repeating what I have said before. I should like to offer the House another thought, of which I have given notice to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, who handles these matters with so much desire to be helpful. The other day I was shown figures for overcrowding in British prisons. According to the figures, which appear to come from official sources, in February the system overall was only 5.3 per cent. overcrowded. As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, there has been a welcome reduction in the number of young people sent to prison. So some of those prisons can be far from overcrowded; indeed, very much the opposite. We are told that there is only 5.3 per cent. overcrowding generally. But in February overcrowding in Leeds Prison was 95 per cent., in Bedford Prison 88 per cent., in Birmingham Prison 75 per cent. and in Leicester Prison 72 per cent: At the end of March, Strangeways Prison was 65 per cent. overcrowded.
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I have given notice of my question to the noble Earl. Leaving aside the judges, let us assume that a large number of people are sent to prison. Why is there such terrible maldistribution of the prison population? I must repeat the question: what steps does the Minister propose to take to improve the distribution of the prison population?
4.47 p.m.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, once again we are debating a report by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons. This time it is Birmingham Prison. We are very fortunate that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has brought this subject before the House. Clearly, the report is of very great significance.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, put to the Minister some very specific questions and attached to those questions some very specific points that he drew from the report. I look forward to hearing the answers to those questions and to the question put by the noble Lord about Crown immunity. It is true that it would be quite intolerable to see conditions of this kind in any other public institution, be it a hospital, school or whatever. Yet these conditions in prisons are brought before us time and again and there seems to be no way of changing them.
I was very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, spoke about the whole area of work done by intermediate treatment. I myself have been involved in such work. There is absolutely no doubt but that it is both a humane and practical way of dealing with young people, all of whom, as he rightly said, go through a particular stage in their youth when they are against all kinds of authority. We have certainly seen that in our own children. If we can get them through that stage, we can keep them out of the tunnel of crime and prisons.
I should simply like to make a few specific points about the report and then put a couple of general points to the Minister by way of proposing action that he might take to improve the intolerable situation in so many of Britain's prisons. The first point that I should like to stress is that made by Judge Stephen Tumim in his conclusions when he says that,
"Birmingham's sights have been set too low".
That is a polite way of saying that Birmingham Prison is not fulfilling its duty, which is clearly inscribed in every prison as one enters it; namely:
"to look after prisoners with humanity and to help them lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody and after release".
The fact that sights are too low means that that is a failure.
The next point that Judge Tumim makes, which is of great significance to every prisoner who suffers in this respect, is that:
"Cells had no integral sanitation and prisoners dined in their cells. Most men were therefore spending more than 20 hours per day in multiple occupation".
The implications of those facts are too horrifying to contemplate. It is all very well for us in this House to

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speak about the grand principles of penal reform, but what matters to inmates of prisons is what happens to them every minute of the day. One reads that:
"Daily exercise was irregular and one shower a week was the norm".
A prisoner is not therefore able to carry the burden of a long imprisonment, given those intolerable circumstances. The lack of regular exercise shows that we do not comply with European conventions. It goes against the standards that are laid down.
The other point that Judge Tumim makes in his conclusions is that:
"Good order was maintained without oppressions but was low on justice and humanity".
If prison officers were with the prisoners for only four hours a day, there would only be scope for a functional relationship between them. There would not be any scope for justice and humanity. There simply would not be time. Given such a short period of contact, it is clear that the prison officers would find it impossible to do more with the prisoners.
At the end of his recommendations, Judge Tumim says:
"Our recommendations stress the immediate importance of some factors, eg. the provision of a new kitchen and better hospital practice and the urgent need for a full regime. Birmingham prison has been constrained and become content with its low level of functioning. That state of affairs should be acceptable to no one".
He ends by saying:
"We repeat the points referred to in the Preface".
The words in the preface are ominous. They were quoted by my noble friend Lord Longford. The chief inspector said:
"The overall result is vastly depressing at this date in an important institution set in a great city … At Birmingham, we found most of the factors we have so often deplored in our reports, particularly in relation to locals and remand centres".
Apart from the inhumanity and the wrongfulness of the situation, there is also the threatening aspect. That is exactly what the inspector said about Strangeways. It is exactly what he prophesied would happen in Strangeways, and we now know exactly what happened there. I can see no reason why the same fearful results should not come out of a prison such as Birmingham which has been described in that way.
The general points that I wish to make are, first, that the NACRO report includes a code of standards based upon UN and European rules. They call for the active employment of prisoners and ample opportunities for education, recreation and time out of the cell. They call also for single-cell accommodation and clean and decent sanitary facilities.
The report before us stresses once again the critical need for the Government to draw up a code of minimum standards for conditions and regimes. They must also announce a phased timetable for bringing all prisons in line with the code. I should be grateful if the Minister would give his view on the recommendations that NACRO has made. They are reasonable
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and understandable proposals and I should like to know why the Minister does not wish to follow its advice.
I also draw his attention to a Prison Reform Trust report published on 25th January. It puts forward a charter for prisoners on remand. It stresses the fact that the care and custody of remand prisoners is different from that of sentenced prisoners. Noble Lords will know that remand prisoners constitute about one quarter of the total prison population. The numbers have doubled during the past decade. We know that four out of every 10 remand prisoners are not subsequently received as convicted prisoners. The Prison Reform Trust report is important and I should be grateful if the Minister would give his views.
I wish to comment on a prison system which I admire enormously, as do many people; it is that as used in the Netherlands. I have visited some Dutch prisons and read an interesting report made last year by the two winners of the Butler Trust Travel Scholarship. They were a governor and a principal officer who visited various European prisons and reported on them. Anyone who has gone from a British prison to a Dutch prison feels that he is stepping on to a different planet. The Dutch prison service has achieved humane containment. If the Dutch can do so, why cannot we? Their prison ratio and crime figures are about the same as ours.
The Dutch authorities have succeeded for a variety of reasons. First, they have the principle of one prisoner per cell. They contain prisoners within small groups. Mentally unstable offenders are treated in special clinics and, therefore, prison officers have a great deal more time to work with normal prisoners. Most important, their philosophy is that it is not sufficient that imprisonment does no harm: it must do good. To that end, and besides maintaining decent living conditions, the Dutch system stresses the contact that prisoners must keep with their families and the outside world. There are more generous visiting facilities, sometimes unsupervised. The authorities stress the importance of telephone calls and provide television, radio, newspapers and journals. Those are ways of trying to keep a contact between the prisoners and the outside world. Clearly, that is of help not only during the sentence, because it keeps down tension, but also because it assists the prisoners to resume a normal life when they are released. Much is also done to retain a prisoner's individuality and sense of dignity. For example, the prisoner wears his own clothes and he knows what are his rights. The report before us shows an ignorance among the prisoners as to what are their rights and what the prison is about. Of course, prisoners in the Netherlands have the privacy of a private cell.
The winners of the Butler Trust award came to very much the same conclusions when they said in the report that the Netherlands prison system has a very well deserved reputation for a positive approach to imprisonment and that imprisonment can be a point of growth. The system is well resourced and staff morale seems entirely different. That is very clear

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when one enters a Dutch prison. The report concludes by saying that we in Britain might usefully learn from the example of the Netherlands.
The first advice is that we should not lock up people in toilets and that integral but not intrusive sanitation should always be available. I do not know how many times that point has been made in this House. The report also believes in the greatly expanded home leave scheme. That is funded by the inmates' earnings which are very much higher there. Everything should be done to minimise the harm which imprisonment can do to families. The report also states that training rather than production should be encouraged. Higher rates should be paid for training.
Any of us who have visited prisons in those countries which are trying to move forward and which have a better prison service are enormously depressed when we read a report such as this in spite of all the good work, which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, was quite right to point out, that is done by the prison staff. Nevertheless, the final condemnation is numbing. I know that the Minister will do his very best to answer the questions which have been put to him.
5.2 p.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for tabling this Question today because it is an important matter. I am grateful to him for what he said about being here at the end of a hard week with yet another one to follow. Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord with great courtesy, the noble Lord's intervention has made the week that much harder but that is what we are all here for.
Before turning to the detail of the report, perhaps I may refer to one or two of the matters mentioned by the noble Baroness in her very interesting speech, particularly when she commented on the Dutch system. She referred to the report of the Prison Reform Trust. That is a very well presented and detailed report which officials will wish to study. However, I believe that more is being achieved than the trust's research at six establishments might suggest. All sorts of different rules are recommended as is a charter for remand prisoners. That will be studied with great care.
The noble Baroness referred also to the Dutch system. I was interested in that. She asked whether a code of minimum standards would lead to an improvement in prison conditions. The mere existence of a new code would not necessarily improve matters. There is no fundamental disagreement as to what those pressing for the code of minimum standards and ourselves wish to achieve. Our clear priorities are to reduce overcrowding, to increase the proportion of cells with integral sanitation and to extend the regime of opportunities by increasing the number of hours in which prisoners are occupied in work, education or recreation. There is nothing between us as to that. It is merely how it should be achieved which is important. However, I shall see that the anxieties of
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the noble Baroness are considered and taken into account, along with the features of the Dutch system which she mentioned.
Perhaps I can turn to the detail of the report. The report by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, his honour Judge Tumim, on his inspection of Birmingham Prison in September 1989, has been noted with considerable care. The Chief Inspector begins the preface to his report with a brief reference to the remarkable and useful work being done at Birmingham Prison by members of the prison service at all levels and others who help and support them.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for his generous comments to the staff and people who work there. They are not always acknowledged, and when one reads a report such as this it is too easy to find it wholly condemnatory. Contrary to the impression given by some noble Lords to the general flavour of the debate, the report is not wholly critical. The Chief Inspector commended the achievements of Birmingham in bringing about improved activity hours for inmates, achieving production targets, and preparing the way for more education.
There is also favourable comment on the efficiency of the prison's court work and the observation, classification and allocation of new prisoners; on the very good reception facilities; on race relations; on the good clinical service provided by the medical officers, and on the low proportion of inmates who are placed on disciplinary report. All that is good.
I was interested in what was an intellectually penetrating speech by my noble friend Lord Elton, and in his analysis of why young people strive to become a personality. He said that they do it successfully when they have been "inside". I find that a rather alarming prospect though I have no doubt that he is correct.
Her Majesty's Government agree that it is better to do service within the community where that is possible, especially for the lower levels of crime. That is one of the shifts which we are trying to encourage. As the noble Earl, Lord Longford, said, prisons must accept what the courts send to them. That is what they are there for. I am also interested in the conferences on offenders in the community referred to by my noble friend. This is a shift which we must bring about.
Birmingham has operated as a local prison since it opened in the mid-19th century. It accommodates adult unsentenced males and produces them at court as required. It also holds sentenced male adults and young offenders in order to assess their security category and their appropriate subsequent allocation to other prisons. An extensive programme of building work to provide the prison with facilities in keeping with modern standards and to relieve overcrowding has been under way for the past 10 years, though one might not have thought that from some of the comments made. That work will continue well into the 1990s. We fully recognise that more needs to be done to improve conditions in existing prisons. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has already

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made arrangements for funds to be switched from the new prison building programme to allow more improvements to be made.
Because Birmingham is a large and busy local prison there are severe constraints on undertaking major building work. That inevitably affects the pace at which work can proceed. The Chief Inspector acknowledged in his report that the long timescale for effecting improvements is unavoidable. The total cost of the redevelopment programme is around £16 million. Major items which have already been completed include a new entry complex with new facilities for prison visits and for the reception and discharge of inmates. Work at present being undertaken includes a new accommodation block for 172 inmates, which is due for completion in July 1991.
The Chief Inspector made a number of recommendations regarding the physical conditions at the establishment, and action is in hand on them. The refurbishment of the main bath house will start next month with completion due in March 1991. To answer a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, I can assure him that during the refurbishment work additional showering facilities will be available in a temporary building.
Work is also planned to start in the autumn of this year on resiting and re-equipping the laundry. The construction of a new kitchen is due to begin in early 1992, once the related building work has been completed. In that connection we are spending £11 million a year on improving kitchens at 28 prisons and a further £28 million over the next two years in another 22 prisons. A great deal is therefore being done on prison kitchens. Work is also in hand on repairing structural defects and the early installation of integral sanitation and better pest control.
Understandably, the chief inspector was critical of the overcrowding in the prison. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, spoke of the overcrowding at certain local prisons and called for urgent action. The trouble is that the prison service does not have an unfettered hand in transferring prisoners. It is true that there are vacancies in other parts of the system, but it is not always feasible to put any prisoner in any vacancy. Different types of prisoner need different types of prisons.
On top of that, the numbers of unsentenced prisoners who need to be near the courts and the importance of prisoners being able to maintain links with their families are among the factors which constrain the freedom to manoeuvre. However, there has been a review of the use of the whole prison estate, which was reappraised in the light of the pressures which were caused by the April disturbances. This will enable us to announce decisions very shortly on the use of accommodation.
It is a Prisons Board priority for 1990–91 to maintain full occupancy of adult closed training prisons and to ensure that, wherever possible, no inmates who are suitable for open conditions are retained in closed establishments.
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The noble Lord, Lord Harris, referred to overcrowding. Of course, overcrowding has been exacerbated by the disturbance at Strangeways and the consequent pressure on the remainder of the prison service. There are, though, a number of ways in which it is intended that overcrowding will be reduced over the next 18 months or so which were not referred to in detail in the report.
The first is the opening of the new wing at Birmingham, to which I referred earlier and which will have integral sanitation. Secondly, a new establishment for young offenders will open at the beginning of 1991 at Brinsford, which is not far from Birmingham. This will help to ease the pressure at Birmingham. The third is that the opening of the new local prison at Blakenhurst early in 1992, and other accommodation which is being built in the Midlands, will also ease the overcrowding at Birmingham. The fourth is that the general effect of the Government's overall strategy of reducing the number of convicted people who are committed to custody—a desire expressed by my noble friend Lord Elton—will of itself increase the number of prison places which are available to those who have to have custodial sentences. This policy is already having an effect. The total prison population is at present about 3,300 down from what it was last year.
The Governor and senior management continue to give high priority to the development of the regime for inmates. The inspectors commented favourably in the report on the achievements of the local regime committee. Significant improvements have been made there since the introduction of Fresh Start working. Despite being one of the most overcrowded prisons, in 1989–90 Birmingham provided its inmates with an average of over 14 hours of structured activity for each inmate per week—for example, on work and education. This is slightly above the average for a local prison.
The daily contract hours, to which the noble Earl, Lord Longford, referred, were for structured activities only in 1988–89. They do not represent the full picture of time which is spent out of cell; including exercise, visits, association or time spent in the canteen on meals. The average time out of cell at Birmingham is in all, about 31 or 32 hours per week.
Local management is considering further improvements all the time and is working, in particular, on the expansion of activities during the day, the evening and at weekends, as the inspectors have recommended. The governor is, for example, developing plans and assessing the resources in terms of building costs and staffing needs for providing additional areas for association on four landings in A, B and C wings and also considering provision for G wing.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, referred to education. We have not yet achieved the recommendation of education on four nights a week, but Birmingham is now resourced for the provision of 48 weeks a year of full-time day classes and action is being taken to recruit new teachers to bring it up to that standard. That is an improvement on the 42 weeks a year available at the time of the inspection.

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Evening association takes place once every 10 days for B Wing prisoners, who are unemployed adult prisoners. Young offenders have association every evening. All prisoners are allowed out of their cells once a week to see video films. The chief inspector commented that inmates were given little information about the prison. Action has been taken on this and a revised edition of the local information booklet will be available shortly.
New procedures for dealing with inmates' requests and complaints are to be introduced through the prison service in the autumn of this year and new guidance for both staff and inmates is being produced. Action is also being taken on all the recommendations on medical matters. The inspectors raised the question of the closing of the psychology unit at Birmingham Prison and the future of the research work that was being undertaken by the psychology unit there.
The position is that the psychology unit was closed because of a requirement to increase the psychological assessment and treatment of young men at other establishments in the Midlands; namely, young men serving life sentences and particularly those under the age of 21. That was seen as a priority task for the limited psychological resources which were available. Psychologists' posts were, therefore, redeployed in order to open a psychology unit at Swinfen Hall and to increase work with lifers at Featherstone and Sudbury.
Arrangements have been made with Reaside Clinic—the regional secure unit which is located at Rubery Hill Hospital, Birmingham—to assist when required with individual prisoners in Birmingham. In the past, the main research contribution of the psychology unit at Birmingham had been the treatment of sex offenders. The psychologist who played the major part in this research has left the prison service, but the results of his work are being used in other prison establishments.
The inspectors concluded that the general condition of the kitchen was reasonable. The food which they sampled was, they said, very good, and they considered that the menu was satisfactorily varied. There are, however, shortcomings in the kitchen arrangements, many of them caused by the inadequacies and poor fabric of the building. Much has been and will continue to be done to raise standards there before the new kitchen is brought into use in 1993. Close attention is being given to maintenance and the cleanliness of the catering arrangements. We have already improved the toilet and other facilities for inmates who are working in the kitchen.
Although the Crown is exempt from the requirements of the Food Hygiene (General) Regulations 1970, it has always been government policy that hygiene standards which are set in legislation should be met in prison establishments. I know that this was one of the matters that concerned both the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and the noble Earl, Lord Long ford. Both were also concerned about Crown immunity. The noble Lord,
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Lord Harris, said that if Crown immunity were removed standards would rise. Crown immunity will be formally abandoned under the provisions of the Food Safety Act, but the precise date is yet to be fixed with the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food. It will probably be in April 1992.
It has always been government policy that the hygiene standards set in legislation should be met in all establishments. Hygiene inspections of prison catering facilities are regularly carried out by the regional catering managers of the prison service and members of the Home Office health and safety section. On top of that, random, unannounced validation inspections are undertaken by environmental health officers from the Department of Health. All that is done in order to ensure that each establishment's catering facilities are formally inspected at least once a year.
Over the past two years the prison service has been pursuing a number of initiatives in order to raise the general standard. In July 1989, and more recently in May of this year, advice and guidance were issued to all prison establishments in order to bring together the legal requirements and the best hygiene practice. These cover all aspects of prison activity and particularly that relating to the food processing chain.
Good hygiene practice can do much to compensate for poor building fabric particularly in those prisons which are of Victorian origin. However, the bad fabric does not make good hygiene easy. Another relevant development relates to the provisions of the Food Safety Act and their effect on Crown immunity in the prisons. The provisions of the Act will allow local authority environmental health officers the right of entry to prison establishments in order to carry out inspections of the catering facilities and to make recommendations by way of Crown notices.
Work was put in hand on many other matters which the report brought to the attention of the director general, the regional director and the governor. The present governor of Birmingham, who took up the appointment only two months before the inspection was carried out, has already provided two reports on progress locally in implementing the chief inspector's recommendations. Indeed, he had introduced before the inspection was received a system of checks on adjudication procedures. I cannot reply on the specific cases to which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, referred, but in general delays in the parole process, whether at the prison or at headquarters, have been largely eliminated. The system is now managed so that the review process almost inevitably begins on time and is effectively supervised. Even when it began late in two out of 60 cases dealt with in the last three months, the prisoners were released on the date they became eligible for release.
As your Lordships will be aware, the prison department has a thorough procedure for following up on inspection reports. This report will be followed up by the deputy director general of the prison service, and he will visit Birmingham in order to do that. Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons will be informed of the progress on his recommendations.

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As I think noble Lords will appreciate, much work and effort —and considerable financial resources—have been put into improving the conditions and the quality of life for inmates and into improving staff morale at Birmingham as well as elsewhere. A great deal has been done, more is already under way and yet more is planned for the future. This all adds up to a great deal more than is apparent from a reading of the text or the chief inspector's report.
The regional director for the Midland region has kept a close eye on the prison and has noted with encouragement the gradual and sustained improvement in the overall regime there during the time both of the present governor and the previous governor. There has been much hard work by staff of all grades and all disciplines at Birmingham. That is not always easy in old buildings, in a sensitive area of life and in a high profile occupation. But they have done it, and they have done it well. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for having recognised that.
They have worked hard to maintain and to improve the prisoner opportunities at Birmingham within what can only be described as a calm and relatively happy
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atmosphere in the prison. The staff/prisoner relationships are particularly good and are part of the main strength of the establishment. We all recognise that there is much still to be tackled and completed and are concerned to see this achieved. I feel confident that the staff and management at Birmingham will see it through successfully.
I apologise for the length of my speech—particularly on a Friday afternoon. I realise that it is a most anti-social time to make a fairly extended speech. But the noble Lord, Lord Harris, put down this Question. It was fairly critical and the report was fairly critical. I felt that I owed it to the House and to those involved at Birmingham Prison to give a full account of what is happening there and of the Government's reaction to the report.

Avon Light Rail Transit (Bristol City Centre) Bill [H.L.]
Presented and read a first time.
House adjourned at twenty-three minutes past five o'clock.