Lords Sitting of 20 June 1990

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR 011 the Woolsack.
Prayers —Read by the Lord Bishop of Peterborough.

Drinking and Driving
Lord Dormand of Easington Lord Dormand of Easington asked Her Majesty's Government:
What further action they propose to deal with drink-driving.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, we have just launched the summer phase of our year-round publicity campaign against drinking and driving. The involvement of brewers and other private bodies is a continuing feature of the campaign. Earlier this month we extended the high risk offenders scheme for drivers whose alcohol dependency presents a road safety risk. More offenders will now need to prove that they are medically fit to drive before their licences are returned. We also aim to introduce at the earliest opportunity the law reforms outlined in our White Paper The Road User and the Law.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, I appreciate what the Government are doing about this serious problem. However, is the noble Viscount aware that there will only be a significant reduction in the number of deaths and injuries caused by drink-driving with the introduction of random breath testing at specially authorised and sign-posted checkpoints? Such a form of random testing should not trouble the sensibilities of those people who think that civil liberties are threatened. Is he further aware that if 1,000 people were killed in air crashes every year, as there are with drink-driving, there would be uproar and that very soon solutions would be found?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I fully appreciate the feelings of the noble Lord. He has raised this matter before over the past year. It is estimated that the number of people killed in drink related accidents last year was below 900 compared with over 1,100 two years ago. Considered in the light of the increase in traffic, that shows the success of the continuing campaign against driving and drinking. As to random testing, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary recently announced the Government's view that present police powers are wide enough and strike the right balance between effective enforcement of the law and freedom of the individual.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, will the noble Viscount confirm that at the moment those who re-offend during a 10-year period after being convicted of driving while two and a half times over the limit have to present themselves to a doctor before they can reapply for a licence? If that is the
918
case, is he satisfied —I mean no disrespect to doctors in your Lordships' House—that doctors are the right people to see the offender rather than a specialised alcohol centre? Does he not think it desirable that people should be assessed after one offence of being two and a half times over the limit?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I do not think I can give an opinion as to whether doctors are the right people to carry out an assessment. I shall certainly draw that point to the attention of my right honourable friend. As from 1st June this year, on the recommendation of the Blennerhassett Committee, regulations came into force so that those drivers who are disqualified once for driving while two and a half times or more over the legal limit are included in the categories of those disqualified twice within a 10-year period for any drink-driving offences and those disqualified for failing without reasonable cause to supply a specimen for analysis. Those drivers will have to pay the full cost of renewing a licence as well as the cost of the medical examination. The regulations came into force on 1st June.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, does the noble Viscount agree that prevention is better than cure? On that basis have the Government considered taking steps to see that advertisements in relation to drink should not be so attractive as they are, particularly to the young?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, the Government are spending £2 million in the current year on advertising the dangers of drinking and driving. Paid advertising is not the only way to capture attention. The same audience can be reached by other publicity. The media have a key role to play in getting messages across, for example, through feature articles and programmes. That is taking place at the moment.
The Earl of Kimberley: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that many people are very pleased that his right honourable friend has announced that there will not be random breath tests? Does he agree that there is enough trouble regarding public relations between the police and public without exacerbating the issue?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend, but I must point out that it is lawful for the police to stop vehicles at random for the purpose of investigating whether or not a driver has alcohol in his body. The police are making full use of their powers. Over half a million tests were conducted in 1989.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, there is also the argument that if the police conducted random breath tests at controlled centres, the public would probably appreciate the job that they were doing. I congratulate the Government on the work that they are doing; it is a continuous and difficult job. Will the Government give serious consideration to the European limit? In most other countries in Europe it is below our limit. I believe that the Commission wishes us to set a limit below the 35 millimetre level.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, the European Commission tabled a proposal to harmonise maximum blood alcohol levels of 0·5 milligrams per millilitre. However, the proposal was shelved at the Council meeting in December 1989 since there was no majority support for the Community's competence to legislate in the area.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware that it appears to be becoming easier for pubs to obtain planning permission to extend car parks and for new pubs to build bigger car parks? Is that in the best interests of the country?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I do not believe that that will have the opposite effect to what the brewers are trying to achieve. The Government are delighted that the Brewers' Society is relaunching its Wheelwatch scheme. We know that it will do its best to encourage landlords to take responsibility for their clientele.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, will the Minister accept that I knew the figures he gave me about the reduction and I welcomed them? Unusually for me I said that I appreciated what the Government were doing. However, I say in all seriousness that the fact that 950 people were killed on the roads through drink-driving last year is an utter disgrace. Does the Minister agree that we have to achieve a balance between deterrence and detection? The random testing that I have described —which was different from that described by his noble friend; there seems a misunderstanding on that —is being carried out successfully in other countries. Why do the Government not try it on an experimental basis?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I shall certainly draw the attention of my right honourable friend to what the noble Lord says. I can go no further than that. However, I agree, as I am sure all noble Lords agree, that one death caused by driving and drinking is one too many.

MMC Reference, 1986
2.45 p.m.
Lord Molloy Lord Molloy asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, and if so in what circumstances, in 1986 representations were made to Cabinet Ministers to influence a decision on a reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, a very considerable number of representations were made to Ministers in 1986. However, under the Fair Trading Act 1973, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry reaches his own decision on whether or not to make a reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission after considering the advice put to him by the Director General of Fair Trading.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for that reply. Is he aware that since I put the
920
Question down on the Order Paper—although not because of it —there has been a considerable increase of interest from the media regarding the matter? Since it is not inconceivable that it may become sub judice, I do not believe that I should pursue the matter with further quesions.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I note what the noble Lord says.

EC Funds: Fraud
2.46 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington Lord Bruce of Donington asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, in the light of the contents of the report of the European Court of Auditors (0J-C133, 31st May) and the joint statement thereon made by the Treasury and the Minister of Agriculture of 30th May, they will now publish as a White Paper their own detailed proposals for dealing with fraud against Community funds.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Employment (Lord Strathclyde): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are not convinced that a White Paper is needed.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the audit report to which I refer contains particulars of some very grave frauds and irregularities within the European Community, and that there has been a report from the National Audit Office with regard to the United Kingdom? Over the past few months Her Majesty's Government have indicated that they take the matter very seriously indeed and that they have proposals under consideration. Why should the Government hide their light under a bushel? Why do they not publish their findings in order, among other things, to shame those of our fellow members of the Community who are doing very little about it into considering that they ought now to start to follow the United Kingdom's example.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I join the noble Lord in commending the united government stand on this matter. The Commission has adopted an action programme for tackling fraud. At the instigation of the United Kingdom it now has procedures for considering special reports by the European Court of Auditors such as the recent report on export refunds. In January this year the Commission published its first annual report on fraud, which was debated in another place on 27th February. For its part, the UK takes every opportunity to ensure that the momentum of the fight against fraud is maintained. It is for those reasons that we do not feel that we are hiding our light under a bushel. After all, over the past few months we have had several Questions in the House on precisely this subject.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we are frequently criticised as being non-communautaire by those very states in the

921
European Community that are not following the United Kingdom's initiative in the matter? Does he not believe that if the Government make public the proposals that we have in mind it will help to stimulate our European colleagues?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, we continue to try to stimulate our European colleagues on this matter. I must emphaise that we have taken the lead in insisting that the Community should tackle seriously the problem of fraud and of inadequate management, which is at the root of the problem.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that whether or not a White Paper is necessary, public opinion in this country will be very interested in a ministerial Statement as soon as there is anything to report? Will he urge on his right honourable friend the necessity of making such a Statement in order to appease those members of the British public who are worried about the matter?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I shall certainly urge that suggestion on my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, is the Minister aware that a Motion for Papers has recently been put down by the noble Lord, Lord Benson, in the no day named list to call attention to the volume of the fraud and to the need for specific programmes for reform? Does he consider it appropriate that through the usual channels arrangements be made for that most important matter to be considered by the House reasonably soon?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am sure that the usual channels have heard my noble friend's suggestion. Concrete progress has been made in the area on export refund monitoring; on proof of arrival of export for claiming refunds; on a new code of conduct for reporting all significant frauds and irregularities in relation to structural fund receipts; and on tougher regulations relating to the payment of our own resources. We are not complacent. We believe that there is still a great deal to be done and we are in the vanguard of the fight against fraud.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, apart from the White Paper, are we to infer from the Minister's previous reply that the Government have considered or are considering further proposals which are not yet known to this House; or are they content to continue to make representations, as the Minister stated?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, we continue to fight fraud with our Community partners and with the Commission. In the United Kingdom we have already increased resources devoted to the undertaking of physical checks. We have provided extra training for Customs staff; we have insisted on better facilities for CAP export examinations; and we have concentrated special investigator-led drives in high risk areas. As I said, we are not complacent. We believe that there is still more work to be done.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I agree with noble Lords who have called for further and fuller information by way of ministerial statements or a government White Paper. Does the Minister agree that fraud in the Community is on a vast scale? Is he aware that the report of the recent commission on the fight against fraud stated that a large percentage of fraud takes place in agriculture? While I do not believe for one moment that British agriculture is involved in such fraud, can the Minister indicate what percentage of total fraud is committed in that area?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, it is difficult to answer the noble Lord's questions. No one knows what is the total amount of fraud against the Community budget. Various estimates have been made but I should not give more credence to one than to another by mentioning a figure. Therefore, it is not possible to give the noble Lord the percentage of the fraud which may have been committed by British agricultural producers.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, while the Minister may be unable to give a specific figure, does he agree that fraud within the Community is on a vast scale? Without going into detail, will he say that fraud in agriculture represents a substantial part?
Lord Strathclyde: Yes, my Lords.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House whether the number of people in Customs and Excise who devote their time to exports has been increased during the past year; and if so by how much? Can he say whether that section has now been computerised?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I may not be able to answer the noble Baroness's question fully. However, approximately 4,000 officers have been given extra training in order better to direct attention to higher risk areas.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, apart from White Papers and so forth, would it not be useful to the Government to know the views of noble Lords expressed in an objective debate? The subject has come before the House on no fewer than eight occasions in the past three years but always at Question Time?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am sure that a debate can be organised through the usual channels.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, I appreciate that the House is spending a long time on the Question. However, can the Minister put the history of the subject in proportion? Does he remember that about three years ago the European Commission put forward a proposal to the Council of Ministers to deal with fraud in Community levies and trading but it was blocked by the British Government in the Council? Is it correct that the Prime Minister's attention was drawn to the fact that this is a large and important area of fraud and that now the Government are pulling out all the stops to try to prevent it?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am not sure that the historical perspective has anything to do with the Question.

Self-Employment: Growth since 1979
2.55 p.m.
The Viscount Oxfuird The Viscount Oxfuird asked Her Majesty's Government:
What has been the growth in the number of self-employed since 1979.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, since 1979 the number of people self-employed has risen by more than 70 per cent. to 3.3 million in December 1989.
The Viscount of Oxfuird: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for an expected but nonetheless welcome Answer. Can he indicate whether the growth was spread equally between women and men?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, during the same period the number of self-employed women more than doubled.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, in view of the high failure rate among small businesses, can the Minister tell the House what action the Government have taken or are taking in order to advise people who become self-employed?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, we have a range of schemes designed to help small businesses; for example, the enterprise allowance scheme, the loan guarantee scheme, the enterprise initiative and a variety of other government-backed schemes. They are designed to help and advise small businesses on how to become more successful.
Lord Renton: My Lords, of those various government initiatives which have been so helpful in enabling small businesses to start up, can the Minister say which has been the most effective in creating fresh activity among small businesses?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I cannot point to one scheme in particular and say that it has been the most successful. However, the Government have been most successful in helping small businesses by creating a stable business environment, lowering taxation and having less government red tape.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, among the helpful measures introduced by the Government, does the Minister include the uniform business rate?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the uniform aspect of the business rate will be extremely helpful to small businesses in enabling them to budget for future rate increases.
Lord Oram: My Lords, do the figures which the Minister has given include those workers who are collectively self-employed in workers' co-operative societies? Is he aware that, having been thrown out
924
of work as a result of the Government's economic policy, many thousands of workers decided to get together in groups to form their own co-operative societies? That success was largely inspired by the Co-operative Development Agency. Is it not therefore regrettable that the Government are winding up that agency?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am glad that people have had the initiative to set themselves up in businesses of their own.
Lord Renton: My Lords, can my noble friend say to what extent that welcome development has taken place in rural areas compared with urban areas?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, there has been a good regional spread of self-employment growth of approximately 100 per cent. in the South-West to just under 50 per cent. in the northern region.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, the Minister gave a figure for the increase during the past decade. Can he indicate how many of those people were involved in manufacturing industries? How does he relate what he says to the fact that during the past 12 months an additional 40,000 jobs were lost in manufacturing industries? How many of those people were self-employed?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, people who are self-employed cover the full range of business activities.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in addition to the number of people now described as self-employed, for a variety of reasons—some of which are not very good —there has also been a notable increase in the number of part-time employees? Warnings have been given by both the CBI and the TUC that that is not a healthy situation and they ask that it should have no deleterious effect on research and all forms of scientific investigation which are necessary for British industry.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the noble Lord is not quite correct in what he says because less than one in six of self-employed people work part-time. In recent years the growth has been strongest among full-time self-employed people.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I am not talking about part-time self-employed people; I am talking about people who at one time were working full-time and who now, because they cannot find such work, have to be satisfied with a part-time job.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the Question deals with self-employed people. In any case, part-time work sometimes suits people very well.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, is it not the case that the number of self-employed who have become bankrupt has risen steadily since the early 1980s? Can the Minister tell us whether those people go back onto the unemployment register or are they a helpful statistic for the Government?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, we do not separate self-employed business failures from other kinds of business failures. However, I can tell the noble Baroness that on VAT statistics generally, in 1989 early indications showed that there was an increase of 1,500 VAT registrations per week.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, can the noble Lord say what has been the reduction in self-employed people in the agricultural industry?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, no.

Business
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I say a brief word about the length of speeches in today's debate standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Caldecote, to which your Lordships have agreed to apply a five-hour time limit. The number of speakers is such that it is not necessary to apply a formal time limit, but I am sure that noble Lords would agree that it would conform with the spirit of these debates if they would keep their speeches within the 15 minutes maximum time limit as recommended in the Companion.

Industrial Relations
3.1 p.m.
Viscount Caldecote Viscount Caldecote rose to call attention to Her Majesty's Government's policies on industrial relations, and the reduced incidence of strike action in commerce and industry; and to move for Papers.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity of introducing this debate on an issue of prime importance to the prosperity of the country and the well-being of its people. There will be no dispute about that in any part of the House. However, I realise that much ground relevant to this debate was covered last Friday on the Second Reading of the Employment Bill. I hope that this debate will give an opportunity for a wider review of Government policies and their record in the industrial relations field. I look forward too, as I am sure will other noble Lords, to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Wade of Chorlton.
Industrial relations is a shorthand term for personal relationships between those working together in any occupation. Because people are always both the most valuable resource and the most sensitive one to manage, the significance of those relationships on the success of commerce and industry cannot be over-emphasised. In an ideal world it would seem sensible for all those in any comp my to work together for the common good, not least in providing value for money to the customer on which the success of any enterprise primarily depends.
Of course, in many companies that spirit prevails, particularly in smaller ones where personal relationships are easier. But mainly for historical reasons, that is not how the situation has developed
926
in the larger companies which are so significant to our economic strength. There, a more adversarial spirit prevails which, if not well handled, can lead to unconstructive, damaging conflict.
For similar historical reasons, the term "industrial relations" has become almost synonymous with relations between management and trade unions whereas it is something which permeates throughout any organisation from top to bottom; for example, constructive relations depend equally on the examples set by trade union leaders as well as by directors and managers. In that connection, it is as damaging for chairmen and directors to be awarded excessive pay rises, which have rightly been deplored by the Prime Minister, as it is for trade union leaders to encourage their members to press for pay increases unrelated to productivity.
Three groups are involved in the industrial relations field: employees whose work at all levels must be organised and planned; management, which carries out that function; and government, who make the rules and create the legal framework within which companies operate. In that respect, there is no shadow of doubt that over the past decade this Government have an outstandingly successful record.
Those of us who have worked in industry for the past 40 years will have vivid memories of the varying climate of industrial relations and the legal framework within which we have worked and the significant effect which that has had. We remember the absurdities of demarcation disputes between different trades, of limitations on piecework earnings, of go-slows and closed shop disputes all imposed or encouraged by short-sighted trade union leaders or sometimes by those "Red Robos" and Scargills who misuse their powers for political reasons to the detriment of their members' interests and the strength of British industry.
All those damaging practices prevailed within an outmoded legal framework and unfavourable climate endorsed by the Labour Party but progressively reformed by Conservative governments.
To come closer to the present day, we all remember with sadness the winter of discontent when 3 million working days were lost through industrial disputes in one month in January 1979. Over the past 10 years all that has changed. In 1989 there was the lowest number of stoppages of work in a year for over 50 years. There were 701 stoppages in 1989 compared to an average of over 2,600 per year in the 1970s.
In the year ending March 1990 some 5 million working days were lost compared to an average of nearly 13 million a year in the 1970s. Today the number of working days lost per 1,000 employees is about one quarter of the level in the early 1980s when we were still suffering from the effects of the policies of noble Lords opposite, egged on by obtuse trade unions excessively influenced by Left-wing extremists and those intent on destroying our democratic way of life.
Those are solid achievements in no way minimised by specious comparisons with other countries, as

927
was attempted in Friday's debate in the Second Reading of the Employment Bill.
Such a transformation of the industrial relations scene has had widespread beneficial effects. Productivity and overall efficiency in manufacturing industry has greatly improved along with its competitiveness. Perhaps even more important, British industry has regained a good reputation for prompt, reliable delivery of high quality products to our customers overseas even though not yet in sufficient quantities.
At the same time, Britain is now highly regarded as a place for inward investment except in those rare cases of absurdly short-sighted and damaging behaviour by trade unions such as occurred in Dundee in March 1988. An inter-union dispute there led by the Transport and General Workers' Union made Ford decide not to invest some £40 million in new plant but to go to Spain instead, with a loss of some 1,000 jobs. Mr. Bill Jordan, a very responsible president of AEU —the Amalgamated Engineering Union —was sickened by the TGWU's behaviour which was, he said, the unacceptable face of trade unionism. I agree.
That incident now stands out clearly as a hangover from the bad old days and serves to show, by its relative rarity, how much has been achieved and by its crass stupidity, how more needs to be done to prevent such damaging nonsense in future. The determination of this Government to do just that is not in doubt and, indeed, their record is first-class in creating a more favourable climate for better industrial relations.
In the bad old days the closed shop did much damage. It has been steadily reformed with the clearly expressed approval of the great majority of the electorate, including many trade union members. It would be wearisome to record in detail all the steps taken, but I must mention a few even though some were mentioned in the Second Reading debate.
The Employment Act 1980 provided compensation for people unreasonably excluded or expelled from a union closed shop and ensured that new closed shops must be approved by 80 per cent. of those at the workplace so as to protect the interests of people sacked for refusing to join the union.
The 1982 Act provided further protection against the abuse of closed shops and for compensation to those who had suffered between 1974 and 1980 under Labour Government legislation. The 1988 Act removed immunity from industrial action taken to establish or maintain any kind of closed shop practice. It made all dismissals for non-union membership unfair.
The current Employment Bill tackles the problem of the pre-entry closed shop, which still affects over 1·25 million jobs. On other issues Government policy has been similarly effective. The 1980 Act removed trade union immunity for most forms of secondary action. The present Bill will go further along the same road, removing immunity from all secondary action except for lawful picketing at the place of work.
The Trade Union Act 1984 stipulated that unions must hold a ballot before going on strike. Since then
928
there have been several examples of a union calling a strike which has subsequently been rejected in a ballot; for example, the NUR in 1986; the TGWU dockers in 1986 and 1988; the NUM and NALGO in 1988, and the TGWU members at Ford in 1990. Those sensible decisions democratically taken by those involved show clearly the benefits stemming from the improved legal framework for industrial relations created by this Government.
The list of successful industrial relations legislative measures is long. Noble Lords opposite and their friends have often claimed that the law has no part to play in improving industrial relations. What rubbish! Of course it has, albeit indirectly. It can create the right framework for constructive relations and so enable people who work in industry to carry through their responsibilities for its efficient operation.
I do not want in any way to give the impression that I believe that all trade union leaders or all trade unions are bad and disruptive.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Viscount Caldecote: My Lords, no. I myself belong to a trade union. I belong to a trade union through my long-standing membership of the United Kingdom Association of Professional Engineers. It is now a responsible and active section of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunication and Plumbing Union, to which the noble Lord, Lord Chappell, has given long, distinguished and constructive service.
I shall always remember with gratitude the constructive co-operation of a local trade union leader when, owing to continuing losses, the company of which I was chairman had to close a factory. That is never a pleasant job. I offered to open all the accounts of the company to the union leader to demonstrate the serious financial situation that existed. His reaction was that there was no need; he accepted what I said and suggested that we get on with working out how best to carry through the closure with minimum disruption and hardship. Legislation is not needed to deal with people like that, but to protect us against destructive leaders with outmoded and dangerous policies.
What is the Labour Party's reaction to the Government's proven record of success in industrial relations? Only a year ago the TUC described the Government's proposals on the closed shop as unhelpful and misguided. Already there has had to be a U-turn because the Labour Party accepts the EC social charter, in which Article 11 provides that,
"Every employer and every worker shall have the freedom to join or not to join such organisations" —
which include trade unions —
"without any personal or occupational damage being thereby suffered by him".
Clearly it is a reluctant U-turn, for in principle the party would still like to see 100 per cent. trade union membership at the workplace as stated in the Labour Party's publication Looking to the Future.
One of the Labour Party's most damaging proposals is to allow secondary picketing, as they say, "within limits". What limits? As The Times pointed out those limits would include secondary

929
action to force the breaking of contracts by customers and suppliers. Picketing is an emotive issue. In principle, though it may be unwise, there is nothing objectionable in those supporting a strike against a specific employer, putting their case at the workplace to those who oppose it. However the latter have an absolute right to reject or ignore the arguments put to them.
Trouble starts when violence and intimidation are used against other employees, particularly when it involves other companies not party to that dispute. It is clear therefore that picketing must be legally confined to its simple purpose of peaceful persuasion at the relevant place of work. Any woolly "within undefined limits" policy such as advocated by the Labour Party is a recipe for unrest and conflict.
On pre-strike ballots there has been another U-turn. In 1983 the Labour Party opposed them; spokesmen described the Bill which introduced them and ballots for union elections as "irrelevant effrontery"; "a shabby partisan stratagem", and "a scandalous and undemocratic measure". Looking to the Future does not mention ballots for union elections, but in the U-turn it is accepted that,
"to qualify for legal protection, industrial action requires the support of a properly conducted ballot".
What a U-turn!
The list of U-turns is long; all are being made because, in the words of The Times on 26th May,
"The Labour leaders have told the unions that the party would be unelectable if it did not promise to retain most of the Conservative laws".
It is clear that one law they would not retain is that which allows sequestration of union assets. Without that, the penalties against trade unions for breaking the law are virtually unenforceable. Therefore all the U-turns are at best window-dressing and could all too easily become circular turns to the pre-1979 position if by any mischance or bad luck the Labour Party hoodwinked the electorate into putting it once again in the driving seat.
That would indeed be a disaster in the field of industrial relations, for, although leopards cannot change their spots, wolves can put on sheep's clothing to catch the real sheep unawares. That is what the Labour Party is doing today as it seeks to emerge from the dark wood of 10 years in opposition into the open fields of industrial relations. If by any mischance it captured them, off would come the sheep's disguise and it would destroy all that has been painstakingly built up over the past 10 years and all that has led to today's vastly improved industrial relations situation.
Much remains to be done, but let us go forward from the sound base and proven track record of this Government and not back to the bad old days of confusion in the rules and conflict in the industrial relations field. I beg to move for Papers.
3.19 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I feel rather as though I have been savaged by a mad sheep! It was with some surprise that I learnt that the
930
Government intended to use a debate day for a five-hour debate on industrial relations, particularly since we have recently had the Second Reading of the latest Employment Bill. On that occasion only two Members of the Government side of the House apart from the Minister decided to participate. Perhaps they were saving it all up for today.
In introducing the debate the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, made the expected claims for government policy. We heard them in the debate on the Employment Bill. Again we have been told that the continuous stream of anti-union legislation —for that is what it has been; it is not employment legislation at all —has had the effect of reducing the number of strikes and increasing productivity.
We on these Benches are not alone in challenging that view. A report published in February 1990 by the National Institute Economic Review entitled The Economic Effects of Industrial Relations Legislation Since 1979 argues that the legislation has had only a limited effect on Britain's economic performance. As for the alleged decline in the number of strikes, that is only in line with international trends and it is unclear, the report said, as to how much is due to the legislation. Britain, says the report, is still slightly more strike-prone than average.
It is our view on this side of the House that the decline in union membership that has taken place has been due largely to the effects of unemployment and the decline in manufacturing industry where unions have traditionally been strong. What the Government have done quite deliberately, by means of its step-by-step approach, is to tilt the balance substantially in favour of employers and against employees, particularly if the employees seek to become organised and to exercise collective rights through their unions. The Government claim to have increased employees rights but in fact have done so only in relation to union members within their own unions, despite the fact that there is little evidence of widespread malpractice in UK unions, which, broadly speaking, are honestly administered and without the corruption that has disfigured the labour movement in many other countries, including the United States.
Against that, employee rights in relation to their employment —the reason why most people join unions—have been seriously diminished by this Government. I give a few examples. In 1979 employees who thought that they had been dismissed unfairly had the right to complain to an industrial tribunal after six months' employment. Now the qualifying period is two years and an individual may have to pay £150 before the tribunal will hear the case.
Industrial tribunal procedures on the burden of proof have been changed, making it more difficult to win a case. Those in small firms now have no right to know what the disciplinary procedures are. New complex conditions have been placed on women's rights to maternity pay and to return to work after having a baby. In the social insurance field earnings-related unemployment pay was abolished some time ago. The industrial injuries scheme has gradually been eroded despite the high incidence of accidents at work. Entitlement conditions for

931
unemployment pay have increasingly been tightened. There is now no right to a fair wage. The Fair Wages Resolution in place since 1945 and maintained by successive governments ever since, including Conservative Governments, as part of an International Labour Office commitment has been abolished. Wages councils have had their powers eroded and may now not set minimum pay rates for young people. In regard to trade union rights, the Government have done everything they can to undermine union organisations and collective bargaining. The statutory union recognition procedures that existed under the Employment Protection Act has been scrapped.
The Government do not believe in arbitration and have gradually written off the Central Arbitration Committee —a body which did a great deal to sort out difficult industrial problems and to find acceptable solutions. It has been gradually written out of legislation and now has hardly any functions left. Of course, as we saw in the ambulance dispute, the Government do not believe in arbitration.
It is not surprising that a government with that sort of record oppose the social charter. We have debated the charter on previous occasions in this House. I and others have pointed out that it is a very modest document, with only very basic principles, which it should be possible for any advanced and reasonably civilised society to endorse. This Government will not do so. In taking the stance they have, the Government have put themselves at odds with the rest of Europe.
The British Government have blocked European Community directives in a number of important areas. They have done so on employee participation, information and consultation, on rights for part-time workers and temporary workers and on parental leave and leave for family reasons. These directives establish important new rights for working people. But this Government are not interested in rights for working people; they are interested solely in giving public money to establish an office —the Commissioner for the Rights of Trade Union Members —not to enable such members to pursue rights in employment (which are few enough anyway with this Government) but to enable dissenting individuals to sue the unions of which they themselves are voluntary members and in situations where they have voluntarily accepted the union's rules.
The CROTUM has had very little work to do with the £1.5 million of public money she has. The Government have therefore cast around in their latest Bill to find her something else. She will be able to join her name to any proceedings instituted by individuals whom she is assisting —a right not possessed either by the Commission for Racial Equality or by the Equal Opportunities Commission. The money devoted to that office could be put to a more worthy cause such as the EOC, of which I was a member for some eight years and which has important work to do.
In addition, the new Bill prohibits all forms of union membership agreements. Sympathy action is outlawed altogether. Unions are to be made liable
932
for unofficial industrial action and employers will be able to sack any individual participating in unofficial action, and that individual will not be able to have recourse to an industrial tribunal. It is quite outrageous that the right of appeal should be taken away.
I do not know why the Government should get so worked up about the closed shop. We have had more of that this afternoon from the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote. In any event, successive pieces of legislation have made it virtually unenforceable. The TUC believes that its incidence is far lower than that claimed by the Government. My party supports the social charter, with its right to belong or not to belong to a union. However, although that principle is set out in the new Employment Bill, it is quite clear that the Government are much more keen to support the right not to belong to a union than the positive right to belong to one. It is apparently not understood by the Government that employers can be exceedingly unscrupulous —but perhaps they like employers to be that way. It is by no means unusual for an employer deliberately to provoke a strike in order to get rid of people, particularly if redundancy is in the offing.
Moreover, the Government have done nothing about blacklisting, which everyone knows is a common practice. I note that representatives of the Economic League when giving evidence to the Select Committee on Employment in the other place admitted that they kept indexes based on people's presumed political proclivities and that this information is supplied to employers. Why do the Government do nothing about such a practice, which, incidentally, is contrary to ILO Conventions?
As for the International Labour Office, in May 1989 the ILO Committee of Experts condemned the British Government's legislation on no less than nine counts as having been in breach of ILO Convention 87; that is, the convention concerning the freedom of association and protection of the right to organise. The condemnations were in respect of some of the following: ordering the sacking of GCHQ employees for refusing to give up union membership; prohibiting the disciplining of members who broke union rules; prohibiting unions from paying the fines of officials; prohibiting sympathy action (the ILO said that this should be permitted as long as the primary dispute was lawful); prohibiting strikes aimed at the real employer by restricting lawful strikes to disputes with the nominal employer (this deals with the situation in which the employer creates separate companies in order to circumvent lawful industrial action); limiting strikes solely to industrial matters and prohibiting strikes with mixed industrial, social and political objectives; removing the right of dismissed strikers to challenge the fairness of their dismissals; failing to give legal protection to job applicants blacklisted on grounds of union membership or activity; abolishing by law the right of teachers to bargain collectively. That is this Government's record in the field of industrial relations.
No one, least of all the union membership, wants to see strikes. Strikes cause hardship to members, cost the union money and create an enormous amount

933
of stress for those responsible for leading them and those who are seeking to achieve a settlement. I have to say that I speak from personal experience in that respect. The right to withdraw one's labour is a fundamental right acknowledged as such throughout the democratic world. It is now acknowledged in Eastern Europe and I note that the Government appear to applaud that development.
However, the Government's legalistic approach to industrial relations can actually make things worse. The new propositions attempting to get unions to repudiate unofficial strikers by writing to every individual to that effect will make disputes harder and not easier to settle. They ignore the underlying causes of the disputes. There is no attempt by this Government to strengthen the role of the agencies concerned with conciliation and arbitration. I have already said that the Central Arbitration Committee now has practically no role.
In contrast, the propositions of my own party include the establishment of a new industrial court. We also believe that there should be a legal right to recognition which unions, when they are sufficiently representative—I emphasise "when they are sufficiently representative" —will be able to enforce through the industrial court. We shall restore the right of sympathy action in line with common practice in other EC countries. I stress the European dimension there. It is something that this Government will not be able to ignore for ever.
Where legislation has failed to prevent industrial action the Government have simply introduced further new measures. One popular myth was that trade unionists were forced by trade union leaders to take industrial action against their will. We heard echoes of that in the opening of the debate by the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, this afternoon. As a result of government legislation ballots were imposed to stop that. But unions were frequently able to use a ballot result in favour of dispute action to bring further pressure on employers.
These provisions did not have the effect that the Government intended. That is not to say that we disapprove of ballots; on the contrary, we have always used them —in my union anyway —long before there was any statutory requirement to do so. But the Government's code of practice on balloting is designed to make it as difficult as possible for a union to call dispute action and still retain immunity.
One has to ask why the Government have proceeded so far down this path when even some of their own supporters, particularly those with an interest in and a knowledge of trade union and industrial relations, believe that they have gone too far. They cannot surely believe their own propaganda about over-mighty, over-powerful unions. That was never true, not even in the 1970s. In certain industries and in certain parts of the economy it is true that unions were stronger than they are now. But union strength has always been defensive rather than offensive.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, after all, it is the management and leadership of large companies that make the decisions. They decide whether to close down a factory and move it elsewhere or what to do about a takeover bid. The workers are not consulted. All they are able to do is to react, just as they react if there are price increases and rises in mortgage rates and they see the leaders of industry awarding themselves bloated salary increases.
Again, the attitude of the trade unions is a defensive one. That was true even in the NUM dispute referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote. Miners were reacting against pit closures and the destruction, as they saw it, of their communities. There might have been a number of different views as to the way in which that strike was conducted, but few people doubted that, basically, the miners had a case. What the Government's legislation and their general attitude to industrial relations indicate is that they think that workers never have a case. They do not provide the mechanism for sorting things out peacefully and they attempt to take away from unions and their members the ability to respond collectively in the only other way left to them.
Moreover, the new Bill with its attempt to outlaw and to make unions liable for unofficial strikes entirely fails to come to terms with the fact that such instances are often quick and spontaneous; for example, a reaction to something that occurs on a work site. Last year there were 697 fatal accidents at work, 147 of them in construction. Yet, as the Bill stands, there is nothing to protect individuals who walk off a site where the working is dangerous. That does happen.
So we have this step-by-step approach so lauded by the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote. But the real reason for it has not been to give the unions back to their members, as has frequently been said; it has been to weaken collective response from employees. In other words, it is to try to keep wages down. The Government's White Paper entitled Employment for the 1990s makes it clear that they believe that pay is too high despite the fact that the pay of the low paid has had to be bolstered in this country by the use of family credit. That has an undoubted wage substitution effect and simply means that the public subsidises low-paying employers.
In fact, despite the assaults on the trade union movement and the out-of-date attempt by the Government to marginalise it and to pretend that unions do not exist, people still belong to unions and recruitment proceeds. There are still over 10·5 million people in unions. The Government have no cause to be so self-congratulatory. This is not primarily a debate about the economy. The indications are that there is trouble ahead and the Government will not be able to blame that on the unions.
No: this policy is not a cause for self-congratulation. It is a disgrace to a country that regards itself as advanced and civilised. It is my belief that we shall not have to endure all this for much longer. When we have a new government with a new philopsophy we shall see a much more

935
even-handed and fair system and a fair framework of law for both employers and employees.
3.36 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I am glad that the Motion tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, is so framed that it enables us to debate the merits of the Government's policies on industrial relations over the past 10 years and, where we differ from them, to make our own suggestions for the future. One of the advantages of general debates of this kind is that we can approach matters in a more constructive frame of mind than when we are confronted with specific Bills of a controversial kind. That is my aim today. I am only sorry that the noble Viscount did not choose to do likewise.
At the start of the 1980s there was no doubt on these Benches that in the last few years of the Labour Government the pendulum had been allowed to swing much too far in the direction of the perceived interests of trade unions at the expense, not only of employers, but of union members and the country at large. That period culminated, as the noble Viscount said, in the so-called winter of discontent and the deserved downfall of the Government whose policies had brought it about.
Therefore, initially we were glad on these Benches to give broad support to the policies of successive Conservative Governments in the step-by-step approach initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Prior. Indeed, on at least two matters —the need for a secret postal ballot in the election of members of the principal executive committees of trade unions and the desirability of eliminating the pre-entry closed shop —we were ahead of the Government.
I am also happy to acknowedge, in the words of the Motion before us,
"the reduced incidence of strike action"
over the period. How far that is due to Conservative Government policies on industrial relations or to harsher economic and employment conditions is less easy to determine. Latterly, speaking on behalf of my noble friends, I have felt obliged to say that if legislation in this field is to be effective it must strike a fair balance between the interests of employers and employees. In my view the last two Employment Acts and the current Employment Bill have all failed that test.
The present Secretary of State started by leading us to believe that this year's Bill would be the last. But it is now rumoured that in the next Session of Parliament there may be yet another, this time to deal with the system under which union subscriptions are deducted from wages at source by employers. Moreover, it is said that the Department of Employment is reviewing other means of curbing trade union power still further. In my view it is high time that the Government began to think less in terms of further punitive union legislation and more of positive measures to improve this country's industrial relations' problem. I should like to put forward three ways in which this might be done. First, I call in aid the view of the Institute of Personnel Management. It believes that, instead of there being more legislation, efforts should be
936
devoted to seeking alternative ways of resolving industrial disputes. In its comments on the Green Paper which preceded the current Employment Bill, the institute stated:
"A Government lead should be given to revising and rationalising procedures for the quicker resolution of disputes. ACAS should be asked to prepare a Code of Practice which should include the recommendation that procedures should be prepared with the active involvement of employees and their trade union representatives at their work place to ensure the essential element of personal commitment to them; many procedures at present are too remote and long-winded".
That recommendation reminded me that it is now more than nine years ago that I asked the Government to consider the possibility of introducing a code of practice that would deal with negotiating procedures. Among other things such a code could draw attention to the distinction in Western Europe between disputes of right, involving the terms and interpretation of agreements already entered into, and disputes of interest.
In disputes of right, there is an obligation not to resort to industrial action before referral of the issue to a court of law or to arbitration; and almost invariably the parties to the dispute abide by that independent arbitration. Disputes of interest, on the other hand, arise out of bargaining situations; and, typically, when an existing agreement affecting pay expires and a new one must be negotiated, both parties retain their freedom until a new agreement is reached. If the parties cannot agree on the terms of a new agreement, a dispute of interest arises and both agree to use industrial action if they wish —the union side to call a strike and the employer equally to operate a lock-out.
The code of practice I have in mind would be based on the proposition that conditions should be established throughout British industry that would enable negotiating procedures to be introduced in which both management and employees would have sufficient confidence to see that they were observed. Under those procedures the aim would be to work towards a situation in which in all disputes concerning the terms or interpretation of agreements already entered into —not others —and where they affected individuals or groups, there should in the last resort be recourse to arbitration by which both management and employees would abide. Depending on the progress made towards that objective, the provisions of such a code might get a sufficient degree of consent eventually to become admissible in evidence and be taken into account in proceedings before a court or an industrial tribunal.
No doubt a good many political, legal, and, for all I know, other problems would have to be surmounted before that could be achieved. But at least the matter could be examined. I should be grateful if, when the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, replies to the debate, he would say whether he sees what I am driving at and whether the Government have sympathy at least with the underlying principle. Apart from anything else, a development on these lines might be helpful in reducing the incidence of strikes in essential services, a matter on which the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, whom I am glad to see in his place, understandably expressed concern on Second Reading of the Employment Bill last Friday.

937
Next, I believe that further progress needs to be made by management in providing employees with information on matters of concern to them and in consulting with employees or their representatives over decisions that are likely to affect employees' interests. That is essential if we are to maximise our international competitiveness. Many of our leading companies give high priority to employee involvement, as is well demonstrated by the examples set out in the Department of Employment's document People and Companies. I fear that many medium-sized companies still have to follow that lead. From what the noble Viscount said, I fancy that he may share that fear.
I am a firm believer in two principles. First, if employee involvement is to flourish it must grow organically from the bottom upwards and not be implanted from the top downwards. Secondly, in seeking to extend the concept throughout industry and commerce, and for that matter the public services, we should build on best practice. How can this be facilitated? Before answering that question I should remind the House that it has a European dimension.
The Commission is anxious to harmonise arrangements in this area in the approach to 1992. The subject features prominently in both the social charter action programme and the draft directive on worker participation. That directive is at present being considered by a sub-committee of your Lordships' European Communities Committee of which I have the honour to be a member. I cannot anticipate the findings of the committee, but as in the case of the social charter the Government will soon have to take a basic decision: whether to adhere strictly to their current view that arrangements for employee involvement should be left entirely to voluntary agreement between employers and employees or whether this country should make a more positive response to both the social charter and the draft directive by seeking through negotiation to adapt them to industrial conditions in the United Kingdom. In my view the latter course should be taken.
I believe, in company with some eminent members of the Institute of Personnel Management, that in order to speed the progress of involvement and participation it may be necessary for some minimum statutory regulation or code of practice to be enacted on the subject. One lies ready to hand in the voluntary code and accompanying action guide which has just been brought up to date by the IPM and the Involvement and Participation Association, with support from the Department of Employment, the TUC, the CBI and ACAS. The code has the great advantage that it is concerned only with general principles and standards of practice and does not seek to lay down particular methods to which all must adhere. It states, for example:
"Participation is best developed in each organisation by agreement between management and employees and/or their representatives in ways they jointly find most suitable for their particular circumstances, and are jointly willing to support".
In our debate last Friday on the social charter I asked the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, whether
938
the Government would consider giving the code statutory backing. He wrote to me afterwards to say that a statutory code would be inconsistent with the concept of voluntary agreement and that in the Government's view it was unnecessary and could be counterproductive. I shall not again ask him the same question because I do not want to put him in the position of telling me that the Government's position is unaltered. I hope nevertheless that the Government will keep this possibility in mind. I too believe in the voluntary principle, but if voluntarism is to work there must be volunteers. In the end the Government themselves may well come to feel that some further action is required in this field as one of the positive ways in which this country's industrial relations might be improved.
My last suggestion concerns training, particularly in the management of people. I should like to revert to the theme of a debate I was privileged to introduce in your Lordships' House last year. The Government have now set up a new structure by establishing training and enterprise councils throughout the country. But a structure is not the same as a strategy. The Government have abdicated responsibility for training by saying specifically in the White Paper Employment for the 1990s, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, referred:
"Developing training through life is not primarily a government responsibility".
In my view it certainly is. By acting in that way the Government have given up any idea of seeking a consensus that will stand the test of time and a possible change of government. Other countries know that dialogue is essential if there is to be continuity of policy, but the Government have abandoned altogether discussions on the subject with trade unions as representatives of employees.
Under the auspices of training and enterprise councils, training is now to be delivered locally: it is to be employer-led. There are already complaints of inadequate funding. Aside from that, how should an employer be defined? The Government's view appears to be that the only people in need of training are those in industry and commerce. That view ignores the fact that the wealth-spending public services can and should contribute just as much as the business sector to our prosperity by becoming more effective. We are all part of a complex interdependent society in which the public services, including national and local government, should promote a training culture like everyone else. Yet the Government's White Paper, to which I have referred, contains hardly a mention of what still needs to be done in those services.
I note that the Motion before the House is similarly concerned with policies on industrial relations, not in the public services, but only in commerce and industry. Yet many of the most damaging strikes in recent years have occcurred in essential services like health and education, for whose employees the Government are directly or indirectly responsible.
I suggest that the Government should give a lead in promoting training in those services, especially in the management of change. If I am asked to say what kind of training that would involve, I can respond only by drawing on my own experience. It should

939
include training that allows for analysis of the qualities which are required for leadership. It means enabling those who have to manage change to identify, confront and overcome obstacles based on habit and fear which stand in the way of what they are aiming to achieve. It involves training in joint problem-solving and much else—matters on which I do not have time on this occasion to dwell.
It is high time that the Government turned their attention to positive ways in which relations between management and employees can be improved. I hope that what I have said may contribute a little to that end. In conclusion, I should like to say that I and my noble friends are very much looking forward to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wade of Chorlton, who will be the next speaker in the debate.
3.52 p.m.
Lord Wade of Chorlton: My Lords, as a very new Member of your Lordships' House, I beg noble Lords' indulgence in this debate, which was so ably proposed by my noble friend Lord Caldecote. I want first to say that I feel enormously privileged to be among such very distinguished people. I have already realised the great intellect, experience and caring concern which is represented here in this House. I should explain that I am but a humble farmer from Cheshire, although I have been involved in various industrial activities connected with the food and cheese industry. Cheshire is a county which is known for the quality of its dairy products, the determination of its people and the beauty of its countryside.
As this is my maiden speech, it is my duty to be non-controversial. I must say I find that an easy task—though possibly the only easy part there is of this task —as it is my nature to prefer to identify ideas which unite rather than ideas which divide. However, industrial relations have been a very divisive matter. For a great part of our industrial history, the employer and the employee regarded each other as enemies. It seemed to have been accepted in the past that what was in the best interests of one side had to be against the interests of the other.
Legislation, prior to the industrial legislation of this Government, did much to widen that divide by entrenching each side's position. The truth is that the best interests of both employer and employee are really one. All those involved in any organisation, whether private or public, as owners, directors, managers, operators, foremen or apprentices, can succeed only if the organisation succeeds. The demand for labour is infinite and work is infinite; it is the supply of labour which is constrained by numbers, age, skills, cultures and the rewards and conditions demanded by the worker. Ultimately, the imposition of such constraints can become counter productive.
In my view, the greatest single benefit flowing from this Government's industrial relations policy has been the changed attitudes that it has brought about on both sides. That has been true as regards the trades unions. They have become more efficient within their own organisations and more positive
940
in their attitudes towards the organisations which employ their members.
The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, referred to a report by the National Institute Economic Review published in February of this year. I, too, intend to read your Lordships a part of that report; but, needless to say, it will not be the same part. The report states that, as a result of the Government's legislation,
"unions have been obliged to develop computerised membership records, to keep better accounts, to run more orderly elections, to exert greater influence over their shop stewards and communicate better with their members".
The report also refers to studies of trade union activities in the 1970s. It states that,
"studies of union decision-making suggest that successful leasers tend to have a more long-term and less volatile view of events".
I suggest that that probably applies to all good leaders.
The successful unions today seem to appreciate better and better that to obtain the best deal for their members —after all, it is their job to do so —the first requirement is for the employing company or organisation to be successful. I was pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, make the same point only last week. In doing so, he also referred to the fact that when people like us employ other people we should be aware of the fact that they have families. I can only tell noble Lords that in my personal experience I have always been deeply conscious when employing people that one also becomes responsible for their families, for their future and for the houses in which they live. I think that all good employers should do so. To be successful the company must produce high quality products, invest in the lastest technology and ensure high levels of productivity. There is no future for anyone in a company where the workers at all levels do not support its profitable growth.
My home is near Chester, in the North West and close to Merseyside. Contrary to the belief of many people in the South, we are actually a very prosperous area. We have high investment and great opportunities. Anyone who watches television will know that a much more agreeable lifestyle exists for those living in Coronation Street than appears to be the case for those East Enders living in Albert Square.
The growing success in the North West in recent years has been due, among many things, to the growth of small firms and the inward investment that we have received from Japan, Germany, the USA and elsewhere. That success has come from good industrial relations. In the small firm, owners, managers and operators work closely together, understanding each other's problems and working for the success of the company. A prime factor in the decision of the many international companies which have invested in the North West has been the good relationship that they have been able to establish with the unions and the employees. I really believe that all this has been made possible by the Government's industrial legislation policy.
With your Lordships' permission I should like to give two examples of this growing success. Ten years ago the Mersey Dock and Harbour Company was a problem company. It represented what was seen by

941
many as the decline of Liverpool, the Liverpool itself was considered to be a problem city. However, nothing could now be further from the truth. As a result of the changing attitudes of the unions, and the furl support of all the employees, the Port of Liverpool has a recent record of industrial relations as a good as, and in many instances better than, any other port in Europe.
I shall give the House a second example of this change. In the early eighties I started a company to export cheese to the United States —or, at least, the United States was our first customer —and it was the first company to export cheese by refer container from the Port of Liverpool through the Panama Canal to the West Coast of America. As I was concerned about the perishability of the cheese, I went to see the dockers at the Port of Liverpool to ensure that my product was not going to be held up unnecessarily and cause me a great deal of expense. They were delighted to see me. I was the first exporter to help them fill the refrigerators myself, and they promised me there and then that on no occasion would I have a delay, and I never did.
The Mersey Docks and Harbour Company is now one of the success stories of the North-West. It is an interesting fact that following the abolition of the dock labour scheme, the company is now the largest employer of port operatives in the United Kingdom. From 1980 to 1990 the total tonnage handled has grown from 9 million tonnes to 20·3 million tonnes. There is now a new spirit in Liverpool. Success breeds success, and the company and all its employees are now working together, confident of continuing success into the 1990s. What a comparison that is with the situation in the 1970s.
Another example of a place which has benefited from all aspects of the Government's industrial policy is the Port of Boston in Lincolnshire. At the beginning of 1989 the docks were in decline. They were losing money and had no funds for investment. The company was then bought by A.F. Budge Ltd. of Retford, Nottingham. The number of workers was reduced by 42 per cent. after its purchase —from 171 to 129 —without any reduction in the tonnage handled. There is now, within 12 months, a training programme for new employees; investment to increase the capacity from 1·5 million tonnes to 2 million tonnes; and the River Witham, upon which the port stands, is to be dredged to allow the port to handle 5,000-tonne ships. Investment is now planned which will bring employment levels back to what they were 12 months ago, but in what is now a prosperous, growing company with an assured future What is most important, the whole area benefits from that success, with more work in the area than ever before and more prosperity for everyone.
Things do work better when everyone works together for a common goal, when the prime aim is what unites and not what divides. The Government's actions have changed attitudes at all levels to bring that goal about. The proof is in this country's increasing industrial success.
4.2 p.m.
Lord Walston: My Lords, it would in any case be a great pleasure for one humble farmer to welcome another humble farmer to your Lordships' House; but it is more particularly a pleasure after having listened to the admirable speech of the noble Lord which shows the depth of his knowledge on a wide range of subjects, and the humanity and consciousness of individuals with which he approaches industrial problems. It is an approach which it is —unfortunately I might almost say —refreshing to meet among successful industrialists. I have used those conventional words, although not in a conventional way, and we all look forward to hearing frequently from the noble Lord on this and other subjects.
Basically there are three methods of avoiding industrial unrest. One of them is the fear of unemployment. If workers are afraid of the sack and of being unable to find work anywhere else, they are less likely to take industrial action, especially of a disruptive kind.
The second method is through money. If it appears that a worker, or a group of workers, is going to leave, the chances are that by pouring out more money an employer may be able to retain the services of those people. The third method, which is not mentioned or thought of so frequently, is through personal involvement. If an employer, responsible for an industry large or small, can ensure that the workers in that industry are involved in the same way as the owner or operator of that industry is involved, then one's chances of industrial unrest are minimised and might even disappear.
In the previous century, the greatest reason for the lack of industrial unrest was undoubtedly the fear of unemployment. Tensions had to grow to unmanageable proportions before people would risk being thrown out of work or suffering other penalties. It so happens that last weekend my wife and I were driving through the peaceful Dorset countryside. We came across the village of Tolpuddle. Your Lordships will know the name well and will be aware of what led to the Tolpuddle Martyrs. It was a valuable little glimpse into the past. One realised how, in that lovely Doreset countryside, tensions grew so violently and bitterly that they led to what took place there and to the eventual deportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs.
After that of course organised labour grew at a considerable speed. Sadly, confrontation grew between workers and employers. The "we" and "they" increased out of all proportion in a way that was never known in the earlier part of the previous century or before.
Apart from in small industries, especially agriculture, that confrontation (the division between the bosses and the workers) grew and grew, particularly as firms became larger and more impersonal, with the result that industrial unrest over the years increased greatly, culminating in the general strike shortly after the First World War. That strike was followed by high unemployment. There again, the first fear that I mentioned (the fear of unemployment) brought an element of unhappy stability onto the labour scene.

943
The war came, and I shall not go into all the happenings then. After the war, there was a period of Labour government when efforts were made to move away from that confrontation. We had nationalisation, and, "It belongs to us all now. We are all involved it it", but that did not work. The policy published in the White Paper In Place of Strife did not work. The good intentions of those Labour Governments had no happy results. That culminated in the "winter of discontent", and so we come to the last decade and what happened then.
From listening to the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, it appears as though we entered into a golden age of industrial relations in which there was a diminishing number of strikes, and increased happiness and contentment among the workforce and the employers.
I grant the noble Viscount that strikes had been diminishing over that period, but I would not say that it was a golden age of labour relations by any means. It was achieved to some extent by legislation brought in by the Conservative Government —legislation which, in large measure, I personally support. Some of it I am not so happy about but I shall not go into details. The present situation has been brought about largely by pinning the colours to the profit motive. I do not wish to embark on a long discourse, but frankly I believe that "profit" is a dirty word. Unfortunately, it is essential: we cannot operate without profit. However let us not think that the profit motive is the be-all and end-all of existence. How much better it would be if we, individually, and other people were able to work, not with the idea simply to gain more and more wealth, but because it was a service to the community. However that is idealistic and we must live with the world as we find it.
In the past 10 years the profit motive has been exalted higher and higher. One only has to look at the salaries that middle, higher and top management receive. There may have been undue publicity, but people read about them and cannot wonder at the lower paid workers using the only means in their power —the ability to work and the right to withdraw their labour—in order to achieve higher salaries and wages. All they are doing is to put into practice the theories that are preached by the present Government of exalting the profit motive, using one's own initiative, one's own abilities, to achieve a higher standard of living for oneself and more for the Government.
Therefore a large part of the industrial peace that we have enjoyed during the past decade has been won at the expense of inflation. Ever higher prices with more paid to those who are producing the same amount as before must inevitably lead to inflation. It must inevitably lead to our tendency to price ourselves out of the international market and to a further deterioration in our balance of payments.
The accusation —and it is an accusation —falls as much against the private sector as the public sector. The latter comprises very large employers and it involves having to give way to the demands for higher and ever higher wages. Perhaps in years to come fear of unemployment will rescue the
944
Government from this vicious spiral in which they find themselves, but that would be a sad solution.
Therefore we are left with another method of avoiding industrial action: involvement of all those concerned. It is relatively easy for small businesses, including agriculture, to involve all workers. The boss comes into daily contact with the workers and can explain matters to them. With the bigger businesses it is much harder. Some have been able to achieve it and great credit is due to them. However many have not achieved it and there is still this distinction not just between "us" and "them" but unfortunately between what are called "white-collar" and "blue-collar" workers. Until we can abolish all such distinctions and simply say, "Here is a group of people working in one industry, one company, for the common benefit", we shall never achieve true industrial harmony. We must abolish the executive car park, different canteens, different dining rooms depending on one's grade in the business. We will not divide people depending on what colour shirt they wear, or whether or not they wear overalls. They must all be part of the same group, the same team. The Japanese are pioneers in this; we are learning from them, but not fast enough.
A further matter which I draw to your Lordships' attention is the role of the personnel manager in business today. I fully accept that large businesses must have a group of people who, with their computers, keep records of the tens of thousands of people employed by the company. There must be a record of their families, salaries, wages, sickness and so on. However that is the limit to which personnel management should go. Everyone should be a personnel manager other than those engaged in manual or skilled work on the shop floor.
The ideal concern, large or small, should be one where every worker has direct access to someone with the authority and responsibility for dealing with all but the biggest complaints received. Workers can come to this person and say, "Hey, I don't like what is happening, I have a grievance". On the spot, that man has the authority to put matters right. Otherwise, if the problem is too big for him he can go upstairs to the person one grade higher, put it to him and within 24 hours at the most the answer is given. It may not be the answer that the complainant wants, but at least there is not time for his disagreements, his feeling of injustice to fester and grow out of all proportion.
Too many of our large businesses now have to refer everything through the personnel management up to the various levels of boards. It takes weeks or months before even modest complaints can be resolved. We cannot have good industrial relations if that form of stratification, bureaucracy and delay isolates the man or woman doing the job, producing the goods, from the policy makers and people who put their car in the other car park, eat better meals in more attractive surroundings and make the decisions that affect the lives of everyone in the concern.
If we are to have peaceful industrial relations which are not based on fear of unemployment or solely on higher wages or higher salaries, but are based on complete involvement in the success of the concern —be it large or small —if we are to have

945
that peaceful harmony in industry, we must pay ever-increasing and rapid attention to the best methods of involving all levels of the workforce in the running of the business.
4.19 p.m.
The Viscount of Oxfuird: My Lords, I wish to add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Wade on his maiden speech. Your Lordships' House will, I am sure, be determined to hear from him again, I hope after not too long a period of time. I rise with a little diffidence but I wanted to make a personal contribution to this debate as I have worked within the engineering sector of British manufacturing industry for the past 30 years or so. During that time I have been very much on the receiving end of the changes in industrial relations policy and the legislation which are the subjects of the debate today.
Your Lordships' debate spans a wide canvas and covers a plethora of relevant areas. A range of the industrial relations legislation spanning the past two decades has been covered. Some of it has increased and some of it has reduced the powers of the trade union movement. I know that legislation is vital in setting the backdrop to our industrial relations scene but it is only part of a much broader picture.
I shall focus on what happens in the workplace and on the shop floor where additional factors are also at play. For a company to succeed it must have a Properly motivated workforce. Here British management has a role in fostering collaboration and consultation as an endemic part of the day-to-day management process. We have already heard about the British disease of the 1970s, but looking back to our industrial roots in the 19th century —here I hope I shall have the support of noble Lords on all sides of the House —it is clear that the divisive class system, the creation of them and us within a company, was also a significant contributor to the British disease.
One of my aims and ambitions during my working life within British industry has been to foster the belief in a proper dignity for all levels within an industrial organisation. An ideal company is a place where everyone is encouraged to feel like a working member of the same team. We can see some examples of successful and world beating companies here in the United Kingdom where just this objective has beer achieved. I think of JCB, the earth-moving equipment company, or AWD Bedford, the truck manufacturing company, where years of consultation and attention to detail in the field of industrial relations have sown the seeds of corporate success.
From what I have said already, I should like noble Lords to remember but one word. That word is "dignity". Dignity at the workplace for all levels within a company, is I believe, a most important factor in the setting of a united and harmonious industrial environment. Over the past two or three years I have devoted much of my energy to fostering the concept of total quality management. I have been delighted to see that the Department of Trade and Industry has taken up a similar theme. Total quality management is not just about product quality; it is
946
about the quality of relationships between different departments, different individuals and different levels within an organisation. When one gets it right —I am pleased to say that more and more British companies are getting it right —a proper sense of dignity for all parties is established.
Legislation has its role in helping to establish the right environment. However, even with the finest legislative framework one will achieve very little unless harmony and mutual respect are established between senior management, middle management, first line supervision and organised labour. That is where Her Majesty's Government can claim credit over the past 11 years. There are few who would disagree with the logic of much of our recent industrial relations legislation. However, some noble Lords on the Benches opposite have tried to portray it as unfeeling and uncaring in the way that it has been presented and implemented. I do not agree with that position, but that is as may be. What it has done is to free managers to manage. In this new environment good, dedicated, hardworking managers who are prepared to explain and take their workforce along with them have prospered. Those who have not done so have largely failed.
I feel that perhaps we still have something to learn from the great Quaker traditions of the 19th century. In the 1960s and 1970s many of our manufacturing industries —I think particularly of the one with which I was associated at the time, the motor industry —were operating on the very limit of their capacity. Many plant managers succeeded and were promoted because it became the tradition to cave in to almost any demand, no matter how unreasonable. Certainly output was maintained, but what a terrible price we had to pay later in terms of rampant inflation, overpriced goods and overmanned and unproductive factories.
We have learnt that managers must be free to manage, but that is only the first step. It is then down to them to create a harmonious environment within which their enterprise can prosper. Management freedom is not without its penalties. I confess to a twinge of concern when I read last week of the settlement by Iveco-Ford at Langley of 10.5 to 11.5 per cent. Whatever the merits of that settlement, it is always worrying to see a wage settlement leaping ahead of inflation at a time when inflation is widely acknowledged to be our single greatest enemy.
But is it not far better to give our industrial managers the freedom to decide their own destiny and to live or die on that basis? When one reads the small print of that settlement and learns that the 39-hour week at that plant remains intact and that other significant grading concessions have been negotiated, one realises that sometimes it is better to leave that kind of decision to the people on both sides of the negotiating table who really understand in great detail the industry in which they are working.
What else have we learnt? I believe we have also learnt that in almost any environment it is wise to study and to respect the strength of the other chap's point of view. I hope that as we move into the fourth term of Her Majesty's present Government we shall be able to move forward in the industrial relations

947
field in a way that preserves the face of all parties on whatever side of the negotiating table they may be.
I shall move on to comment a little on one of the most recent pieces of the Government's industrial relations legislation; the abolition of the dock labour scheme. That has already been referred to by my noble friend Lord Wade. What has been achieved in less than a year is truly remarkable. We must remind ourselves that abolition has created a new and exciting world for our British ports in a much changed environment. Our British ports are experiencing high improvements in productivity, in quality of performance, in commitment, in flexibility, in realism and confidence. The former two nation labour structure has disappeared boosting the morale of our port workers as a whole and redirecting their efforts where it matters, to improving the service offered to their customers.
It is relevant to note that under the former dock labour scheme nowhere did one find any reference to efficiency, viability, quality, customers or indeed to any of the normal business disciplines. I am glad to say that all that has now changed. Our port managers now have the ability to manage, to invest free of inhibition and to build for the future with confidence for the first time in their professional lives. Who will be the ultimate beneficiary? It will be United Kingdom Limited.
I have one final point to make. There was a fear that abolition of the scheme would see a return to the kind of management malpractices that gave birth to the original dock labour legislation. That has not happened. A firm commitment was given by the port managers not to return to the casual labour system. That has been honoured. In addition, trade unions have not been derecognised and men are free to choose who they wish to represent them. If they opt for union representation they are free to be represented in that way. In short, the dignity of all parties working in our ports industry has been preserved.
Perhaps your Lordships will permit me one final word on one other industrial relations event in the recent past, the ambulance drivers' dispute. Here I know that many noble Lords on all sides of the House were deeply torn by a very real concern not just for the major issues involved but for the victims of that terrible set of circumstances. Despite the anguish that we all felt, I believe that we must offer a word of congratulation to the Government. When I saw last week's inflation figures approaching 10 per cent. I shuddered to think what awesome consequences would have arisen if the floodgates of public sector pay demands had been blasted open. Painful as it was, I believe that the right balance was struck.
Most of my time over the past 30 years has been spent travelling abroad promoting the export sales of British manufactured goods. I think back to my experiences of the 1960s and 1970s in smoke-filled rooms in Bombay, Prague, Gothenburg or Kuala Lumpur when I experienced a deep sense of shame as I tried to explain away late deliveries, broken promises and shoddy workmanship. Our nation was
948
perceived to be governed by Red Robbo and his associates. Our industrial relations record made us the laughing-stock of the world.
How different it is today. Today, with our international competitiveness largely restored, with our industry represented by a new generation of professional, hard-working, dedicated and caring business team members, we can go abroad and hold our heads up high. That is a practical manifestation of what has been achieved by the industrial relations policies of Her Majesty's Government over the past 11 years. I, for one, am proud of it.
4.32 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, your Lordships have heard three speeches from noble Lords on this side of the House who have great industrial experience and have given us the benefit of it. We are grateful to my noble friend Lord Caldecote for having chosen this subject and for the way in which he opened the debate.
I am sure that all of your Lordships would wish me, too, to express our gratitude as well as our congratulations to my noble friend Lord Wade of Chorlton on his maiden speech. It was a splendid speech. Its content, moderation and clarity could not have been excelled. We look forward to hearing many more speeches from him, and before long.
I am the first of three lawyers to speak in this debate. As the debate has been so much about legislation I hope that I may be forgiven if I not only refer to some extent to the legislation but also amplify some of the evidence already given of its results. In doing so I am afraid that the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, will be rather surprised to find that what she told the House is not altogether capable of being established.
I have to take your Lordships back some way, if only to remind noble Lords on the Benches opposite who belong to the Labour Party of events in the late 1960s. The then Labour Government were so desperately worried about the excessive power exercised by a minority, I grant, of trade union officials, which had already done a great deal of harm to the economy and threatened to do more harm, that they produced a White Paper entitled In Place of Strife. The White Paper was found to be acceptable to moderate opinion throughout the country. What happened to it? It was intended to be followed by legislation. I understand that a Bill was drafted. However the trade unions objected strongly. All trade union leaders, not merely a minority but both those who were responsible and those who were not responsible objected strongly. The Labour Party had to give in because such a high proportion of its funds came from the trade unions. The funds which came from the trade unions were paid by trade union members, whether or not they wanted to pay, because that was the system at the time.
Then we come to the late 1970s, to which reference has already been made. Again we had a Labour Government which were desperately worried. We had not only the winter of discontent, because I must amplify what my noble friend Lord Caldecote said about "Red Robbo". In a few months he cost the nationalised part of the motor industry —British

949
Leyland —no less than £100 million in unofficial strikes. When in 1979 we had a general election in which we undertook in our manifesto to change the law, the voters of this country —such a high proportion of whom, as the noble Baroness pointed out, being members of trade unions —returned the first of the Governments led by the present Prime Minister.
We then embarked on the step-by-step approach. We had the Acts of 1980 and 1982, which led to our more than doubling our majority in 1983. Then we came to the very important Act of 1984. I remember especially a midnight Division here in which some of us voted against our own party. There were other supporters of an amendment, which had quite an effect, requiring unions to hold secret postal ballots before a strike could become lawful. I am glad to say that our amendment was accepted, as such amendments so often are, in another place.
I must draw the attention of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, to the fact that since the 1984 Act came into effect there have been 1,100 ballots notified to ACAS. Fewer than 15 per cent. of those ballots have resulted in a call for strike action. In the following cases the union leaders called for a strike but the workforce rejected it in a ballot: the Civil and Public Services Association in 1985; the National Union of Railwaymen in 1986; the Transport and General Workers' Union dockers in 1986 and 1988; the National Union of Mineworkers in 1983 (strange as that may seem to noble Lords opposite); NALGO in 1988 and the Ford workers this year. If ballots had not been held and the workers had not been given the opportunity of rejecting the call for a strike, those damaging and important strikes affecting the public service and the national economy could have taken place, because the union leaders wanted them.
We now have the present Employment Bill, which is also very important. There is no point in discussing it at any length, but I think that I should point out, because it is so relevant to this discussion, that it is important for three main reasons. It removes all remaining legal protection of the closed shop. I shall say a bit more about that in a moment. It removes statutory immunity from all forms of secondary action. As has been mentioned, it resolves the problem of unofficial strikes by requiring union officials either to repudiate them or to support them by making them official and legal by holding ballots. I should have thought that it is true union democracy to give the members the chance of the last word. That is what our legislation does, and it would be a tragedy for trade union members if the Labour Party were to repudiate it.
We have already been told of the remarkably beneficial results of our legislation: fewer strikes, increase of production, better understanding between workers and management, and the living standards of the workers have undoubtedly improved. Although, as the noble Baroness said, and I do not challenge it, there are still 10·5 million trade union members in this country, there used to be many more. Many left the unions and many left the Labour Party. We cannot win general elections
950
without the support of several million trade union members. That was why we won the general elections of 1983 and 1987.
I quite agree that at present we have some teething troubles over the community charge, and we have the current most unfortunate problem of inflation. But let us not lose sight of the fact that, if people judge the Government's performance merely on those two issues and let the Labour Party do what they think they should do on industrial relations legislation, there will indeed be a return of the frustration and sense of grievance that the people felt before we came to power.
Let us just see what the Labour Party intends to do. We have not been told very specifically, but in general terms. On the closed shop, I must say that feel that its policy is somewhat inconsistent. It quite rightly recognises the right of people not to join a trade union, but the Labour party says that it fully supports and advocates a 100 per cent. trade union membership at the workplace. Those two propositions cannot live together. It would mean that people who do not join a trade union will often not be able to get the job for which they are qualified and which they would like to have.
Another important part of the legislation that we have passed concerns secondary action. We have made secondary action largely illegal, and the Bill before us takes that a stage further. As regards secondary action Mr. Blair, the Labour Party spokesman, has made it clear that if the party opposite is elected and has power it would again legalise secondary strikes. The consequences would be disastrous for the economy.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, would the noble Lord give way? Just to make Labour Party policy absolutely clear, Labour will also restore the right to take sympathy action in line with common practice in other EC countries. In other words, as I said in my opening speech, what we propose is simply to move into line with Europe. This Government may have to do so, if they retain office, sooner or later as a result of directives from Europe.
Lord Renton: My Lords, the noble Baroness has made a very general statement about the laws of all the other European countries. Quite frankly it is a mistake to generalise in that way because they vary considerably. In any event, we know that the fact that Parliament made it unlawful for much secondary action to take place, (especially in major strikes affecting the output of the economy, as well as some strikes affecting the public service) has been of great effect in helping the economy.
I say that it has been of great effect in improving industrial relations as well, because often men were taken out on strike against their will and had little chance of resisting the secondary action unless they were prepared to be accused of disloyalty to the rest of the union. It might only have been a minority of members of the union, and indeed not all the union officials, who wanted the secondary action. Sometimes the secondary action was embarked on for purely party political reasons.
Baroness Turner of Camden: No. When?
Lord Renton: My Lords, just as serious in the proposals of the Party opposite—and I must confess that I am now attempting in a brief way to deal with the legal implications of its policy —are its proposals which would prevent or weaken law enforcement, I mention only two points. It says that it will forbid ex parte injunctions; applications to the court, as soon as the risk of a strike has appeared, asking the court to make a brief interim order before the case can be heard. By preventing that procedure we would be delaying court orders until strikes are well under way and have already caused great damage. In this way trade unions would be given a status in law and indeed above the law that nobody else has. I do not think that would make them popular.
The second way in which I think we should worry a bit about what the Party opposite proposes to do is this: it intends by preventing the sequestration of union funds, also to give them a privileged position that nobody else enjoys. It says that all that is needed are fines, and that fines are a more savage penalty than sequestration. But if Fines are not paid, their payment must be enforced either by sequestration or, if it is individuals who are responsible, by imprisonment. If there is no sequestration there is no way other than imprisonment of ensuring that the law is observed. Quite frankly, it would seem as though the Party opposite wants to make a nonsense of the law. I have exceeded my time. I hope that I have said enough —perhaps more than enough —and so I shall sit down.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him a question? I think he said that the Government's proposed legislation on unofficial action would have the effect of solving disputes in which such action occurred. Does the noble Lord accept that it remains to be seen whether the legislation will have that effect?
Lord Renton: My Lords, there first remains to be seen exactly the terms in which the legislation emerges in the present Bill. Nobody can predict precisely what the effect will be. All that we can do when legislating in Parliament is to use our judgment to the best of our ability and experience.
4.49 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I should first like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Wade. Unfortunately I could not listen to all his maiden speech but I was present for the last few minutes of it and heard enough to realise that a very powerful speaker with wide knowledge of his subject has joined us. Naturally we hope to hear further from him in the future. However, he will understand when I say that I found his closing remarks to be a little contentious.
The noble Lord talked about the success story that could be if everybody decided to pull together. Those may not have been his actual words but that clearly was implied. I go along with that view 100 per cent. But the speech made by the mover of the Motion did not contain any notion of such a concept —not one iota. If one speaks of impartiality and objectivity, then the opening speaker was about as
952
impartial as Mike Tyson on Sunday night when he nearly killed a fellow in one round. That just about reflects the impartiality of the noble Lord's speech.
There is no question at all but that this Government are bent on smashing the trade unions. They talk about giving trade unions back to their members. That is nonsense. It is absolute rubbish. And well the Government know it. In fact every time one sees on television the present Secretary of State for Employment, Mr. Howard, it comes across quite clearly that he hates trade unionism in any form. He does not miss an opportunity to express that feeling, although he may have a smile on his face.
I find it rather significant that the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, spoke of demarcation disputes. The biggest demarcation dispute that I have seen in the past 10 years occurred in your Lordships' Chamber on the issue between the barristers and solicitors. They showed us demarcation lines that would have made any in the manual industries look foolish indeed. What behaviour! I recall that a lttle time ago your Lordships set aside for discussion a special day —a Friday —because certain people thought that the citadels of the law in which they practised were being threatened. It got to the point where the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice in his speech made an appalling attack on the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for daring to say that changes might be required in that area of activity. I do not think that people who come across with that sort of argument should start to lecture trade unions on impartiality. There was no impartiality shown in your Lordships' House on that day. I remind your Lordships that it was necessary on that occasion for an apology to be issued to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for some of the words that were uttered about him by leading members of his own profession. I give way to the noble Lord —
Lord Renton: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to remind him that the barrister and judicial Members of your Lordships' House made no objection to solicitors being given rights of audience in the High Court and indeed other people as well and no objection was made to their being appointed High Court judges.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, that if he reads the record in Hansard of that Friday, he will see that there was about as much togetherness between the two professions as may be found between two antagonists in the final stages of a divorce case. The noble Lord must come off it. If he reads Hansard again I do not think that he will dispute my remarks. I believe that some Members on his own Benches tacitly approve of what I say. It was a disgraceful episode. If that is an example of the impartiality of the most prestigious professions in this country, then bring me back some basic trade unionism, brother!
The noble Viscount referred to the fact that legislation was necessary. I recall that some years ago, when a previous Conservative Government brought in the Industrial Relations Act, they made judge of that particular court the noble and learned

953
Lord who is now our present Master of the Rolls; namely, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson. It was mentioned in another place and in this Chamber that during some of the proceedings of that court the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, was heard to remark that the balance of fairness had moved away from the trade union movement and was becoming more and more loaded on the side of the employer.
But such remarks were not sufficient. Bill after Bill has been brought forward. It may well be —I do not dispute it —that some of the legislation may have been objective, forward-looking and necessary. I have said before in your Lordships' House that all my life I have been a member of a union which balloted on every issue. I have never believed that there was any other way of coming to a conclusion which would have the full support of the members. I speak of the AEU, of which union I have now been a member for 53 years. In fact I was a wildcat when I was 15 years old and went on strike in 1937. It was my first strike —unofficial, by the way.
But we are talking about industry and getting together. I do not want to lambaste the managerial side but it has been clearly stated by those concerned —even on occasion by the BIM and the CBI —that poor management in this country has played a major part in our industrial decline. The mover of the Motion did not pay any regard to that. Oh no. It seems that management cannot do anything wrong; management will never provoke a strike; it has never been because of bad management that men have had to come out.
As one who has been nearly 40 years in industry, I have had recourse to strike action three times: once when I was 15, once when I was 18 and once as an adult at the call of my union because of what was happening in the industry. I do not believe that the strike weapon is very effective. It is rare that when people have been on strike they return to work having won what they went on strike for. I have never believed that it is good trade unionism to start discussions with management by first bringing the men out of work. That is nonsense; it never works. It is sad that people such as the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, have painted that scene as the general principle of trade unionism. It was not and never has been the case. If one looks at the strike record in this country, it is clear that where there was a high strike profile it was in the very highly paid sectors where powerful muscle was used. It was in areas such as the newspaper industry. The unions always won because bad managers gave them what they wanted until a lot of the members priced themselves out of jobs. However, one cannot say that about engineers in this country nor about the textile workers. Those people —those of them who are left —are still earning considerably less than their counterparts in Europe. They work just as hard but very often use equipment that is not quite so good. So there are swings and roundabouts in the question of who is to blame.
The noble Viscount welcomed our better industrial performance. I have always believed that one of the criteria for earning a good pay packet is the
954
capacity to produce the goods that one is employed to produce. As an individual, I always believed in piecework because I could always earn good money. When that type of activity is fairly rewarded, it is better than all forms of discipline and anti-trade unions laws.
The noble Viscount referred to the example that ought to be set to the nation. I hope that noble Lords will bear with me for having digressed for the past few minutes and will note some of the examples set by members of the noble Viscount's own party, some of whom up until recently were in positions of power in your Lordships' House and were responsible for bringing before this Chamber measures to privatise huge publicly owned utilities. Some of us can recall the scandal when about 300 Peers were drummed in to force through the poll tax Bill even though some of the Government's own Members were opposed to it. It is not a good example of democracy to drum such a measure through the House by about 300 Peers who are not elected members, and some of whom have never faced an election. Fortunately some Peers who voted for the Government on that Bill have recanted and have realised that they made a mess of things. However, I refer to standards of conduct in public.
Viscount Caldecote: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? Can the noble Lord tell us what this has to do with industrial relations?
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, the noble Viscount made such an outrageously partisan speech that a reply is needed. When he refers to behaviour, the noble Viscount appears satisfied that employers should be the people with the thumbscrews and the rack so that they can literally dictate to the trade unions. Such behaviour results not in negotiation but in imposition. The noble Viscount may not like what I say. However, I shall recount some other examples.
Measures have been passed in this House and in another place by Ministers who within the shortest possible time have left public office and have become highly remunerated chairman of the bodies that they have privatised. If that had happened in local government, the councillors responsible would have been facing the courts because under local government statutes they would have been acting outside the law. I have referred to the policies that one noble Lord supported and who, quite by accident, was offered and accepted an appointment on Wednesday last at a salary of £½ million. What society supports such action? The people who support it lecture those who are, at most, a month away from dismissal. When I was in industry the period for notice of dismissal used to be a week but employees now have a month's grace. However, under the existing law the cards are in the hands of the employers; they are not in the hands of the employees.
The noble Viscount referred to a situation in Dundee. He said that jobs were lost in Scotland because of an inter-union dispute. I agree that if that were so it would be deplorable. But I have heard from very responsible sources that the position was

955
not so simple and that Fords did not wish to go to Scotland anyway.
Viscount Caldecote: Oh!
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, the noble Viscount says, "Oh!". He quoted the president of my union, who naturally wanted that job situation for my trade union but he did not achieve it. It is very strange that a person who does not win the issue is deemed to have behaved badly.
The noble Viscount has referred to a much superior industrial performance, but it has started to peter out. If the phoenix is rising from the ashes, by any standards it is a very small phoenix indeed. I quoted some figures which indicate that in the past 12 months 45,000 more jobs have been lost in the manufacturing industry. It may be said that we shall need a smaller force which produces more. But 45,000 is a large number. It does not indicate to me that industry is doing as well as the Government say or as well as I should like it to do.
We are not at present debating the Employment Bill, but there will be time to do so on the Floor of the House. However, that measure is unnecessary and is another indication that the Government have no time for trade unionism and trade union members. They would love to see them disappear from the face of the earth. I do not accept the point that the Government under the present Prime Minister are giving trade unions back to the members. Nothing could be further from the truth. I hope that the noble Viscount who opened the debate will be frank and tell us what he really means.
5.5 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Caldecote for introducing this very important debate at this time, enhanced by the magnificent maiden speech that my noble friend Lord Wade made.
Since I follow the noble Lord, Lord Dean, I should like to do justice to his analysis and to meet the points of his argument. I was not able to follow exactly what relevance his arguments or his process of presentation had to the subject matter of the debate. However, I shall read Hansard with care. I hope that he will acquit me of any conscious discourtesy if I do not seek to reply in any detail. I should like to tell him this straight. I for one am not a person who has no time for trade unions. I am not a person who would love to see the trade union movement disappear; and the whole House knows that, as does the noble Lord.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I referred to certain members of the party opposite who are well known for such opposition. I cast no personal slur on the noble Lord. I know his views too well. I never for one moment thought that he would understand that I was accusing him of such beliefs.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, that may well be true, but the noble Lord stated that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State had no time for trade
956
unions. That is simply not true. What is true is that he has no time for trade union abuses.
Lord Dean of Beswick: The Minister will know that it is out of order to intervene on an intervention.
Lord Strathclyde: I apologise.
Lord Dean of Beswick: I stand by what I said about the Secretary of State. I do not withdraw one word of it.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I hope that it is in order for me to intervene in my own intervention. Perhaps we may continue with the job in hand.
I am the second lawyer in to bat on this side. I defer to the patient, objective and authoritative analysis of my noble friend Lord Renton. He took us back to In Place of Strife. He knew what was going on; he was in the other place. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Dean, remembers what went on. He may well have been in the other place at that time. But it was interesting to set the perspective which some of us saw only from reading the papers. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, took us forward, and rightly so, to the next election, because that is what the subject is all about.
There are three facets to the problem. As I see it —your Lordships may see it quite differently —and having listened to the most interesting speeches, it seems to me to divide into three categories. The first is the perspective in which we ought to consider these government policies. The second is the change in attitude that the government policies are claimed to have brought about. The third is the probable effect of the proposed labour policies.
It is an intensely political debate; and it is very good that it should be. One simply has to look forward, and, with the courtesies of this House, to examine the policies proposed by the Labour Party and to discuss the probable effect. As a result of their policies on industrial relations, this Administration have during the past decade brought order out of turmoil and chaos. That is the true perspective in which to look at the achievement. The view was so well put by my noble friend Lord Caldecote that no more need be said. Noble Lords may well believe that he put the view not only forcefully but fairly. The noble Lord laughs and he is entitled to do SO—
Lord Dean of Beswick: I was not laughing at the noble Lord.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I do not mind —by all means laugh at me. However, it is no laughing matter when one comes to the objective analysis which the Labour Party and the electorate must face but not the party to which I adhere. It is that the forces of turmoil and chaos are not dead; they still exist, as do their methods and aspirations to govern. That is not a problem for the party to which I adhere; it is a problem for noble Lords on the opposite side of the House.

957
No government, Conservative, Labour or whatever, should ever drop their guard. But the policies of the Labour Party would achieve precisely that. It would occur because of the package of trade union immunities to be introduced as part of the Labour Party's policies. The process which brought the trade unions within the rule of law and which has afforded relative peace would come to an end. By the rule of another law we should move again towards industrial anarchy, with secondary action and secondary picketing. There it either is or in all probability would be, and why? As my noble friend Lord Renton made totally plain in his analysis—and with respect he is correct —the courts would be inhibited from dealing with unlawful acts and granting ex parte injunctions. Their powers of enforcement would be emasculated by the removal of the sanction of sequestration for contempt of court.
On the other hand, if the Government's policies as proposed in the Employment Bill are pursued, the unions will remain within the law without such immunities and subject to the law. One has only to look at Clause 4 of the Bill. It proscribes secondary action and the so-called "sympathetic" industrial action. Clause 6 clarifies and establishes the responsibility of trade unions for the acts of their officials, groups and members. What on earth is wrong with that? Clause 8 proposes the removal of an outrageous anomaly under extant law by enabling an employer to dismiss any employee taking unofficial industrial action in breach of his contract of employment. That is the law of the land.
I now defer to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, because so often we agree across this Chamber. I should like to see a mandatory code of practice and conciliation procedure built in to Clause 8. However, such an amendment could be made in Committee. I may not be popular for saying that there was something in what the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, said and I should be interested to see an amendment tabled along those lines.
The proposed extension of government policies along those lines—and they have worked well —affords a fair, progressive regime relevant to today and to the future. However, the proposed Labour Party policies are retrogressive. The conflict of approach is fundamental. It is far too fundamental to afford any resolution in this debate. Clearly, one day the electorate must decide.
I wish to comment briefly on the closed shop provisions which to some extent reflect the principle of Section 5 of the Industrial Relations Act 1971. I had a quiet word with the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, who made a speech on Friday about the closed shop. I told him of what I intended to say about his interesting contribution. He is fully content that I should make my comments in his absence. I told him that Frank Cousins and Ray Gunter opposed the closed shop. They were responsible trade unionists and therefore there were two views on the matter. Frankly, the noble Lord went a little over the hill on Friday in describing in a certain way those people who did not join unions. I pointed out that Article 20(2) of the Declaration of Human
958
Rights condemned the closed shop and that it has been condemned judicially by the Court of Justice. The fact that it happens to suit a number of employers makes the matter only worse because there is an infringement of a basic right of freedom of the individual worker. The noble Lord, Lord Mellish, is not in his place but that is the substance of what I told him I would say about the contribution that he made on Friday.
I shall conclude by referring to the most interesting and important contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby. He spoke with a wealth of experience and considerable moderation, restraint and foresight. Although he did not use the exact words, he was saying, in effect, "For heaven's sake let us give up a stylistic Balinese dance with ritual gestures and postures. Let us try to achieve a new partnership and a new spirit". In that spirit he said that we should be prepared to look at some of the proposals in the Bill from a dispassionate point of view. We should not approach the Bill with any fundamental bias. We should look at what is proposed, why it is proposed and the justification.
There is no Bill that your Lordships cannot improve in your revisal role. Assuredly, the Employment Bill is no exception. I intend to follow the example set by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, and approach the duty in that way and in that spirit. In that spirit I should welcome amendments tabled from noble Lords opposite with the backing of the TUC.
The first proposal relates to an interest of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden. The basic problem of the Ford fiasco at Dundee was the absence of effective recognition machinery —and the noble Baroness accepts that. Also, the Bridlington agreement had broken down and was dead as a dodo. In the interests of the country and the trade union movement, I should like to see an amendment tabled with the support of the TUC in order to devise a machinery to deal with recognition disputes. The Government and this House would then have an opportunity to consider that. That would lie within the ambit of this Bill.
My time is up. I should welcome the tabling of one or two amendments for the consideration of this House, one of them on the matter referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester. That is the basic spirit in which I propose to approach that task.
5.20 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway will forgive me if I do not follow him along the path which he has taken. I am quite sure too that the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, will forgive me if I do not follow him in his very robust speech which I enjoyed. I did not take quite the same view of it as perhaps did other noble Lords. His speech was rather more fierce than that of my noble friend Lord Caldecote, though, in introducing the debate this afternoon, my noble friend was justifiably robust. He put on record what had happened over the past few years and events have proved his point. That was underlined by my noble friend Lord Oxfuird in his own contribution from his personal experience of management, both in

959
this country and abroad, in the engineering industry. Again, that proves a point.
I rather liked the more gentle approach of my noble friend Lord Wade of Chorlton. At least, it was gentle this afternoon. Time will tell. He made a singularly sympathetic maiden speech. We shall see whether he continues to be as sympathetic and non-controversial as time goes on. However, I am quite sure that we shall enjoy his contributions.
My noble friend drew my attention to some remarks made by Sir Hector Laing, who retired recently from the chairmanship of United Biscuits. In a booklet entitled A Parting Shot he writes:
"In a free market system, the nation functions through the interaction of interdependent, yet distinctly separate institutions. Society prospers if each sector, be it government, industry, finance, labour …performs its function reasonably well and with understanding of and tolerance for the roles required of the other sectors. Each is one vital part of society".
I believe that, in the exchanges which have taken place this afternoon, that has been put aside. Sir Hector continues:
"In the 20's and 30's, managements had substantial economic power over working people, and sometimes abused it".
There is no denying that:
"In the 50's and 60's, organised labour gained increasing power so that by 1979 trade unions leaders had very considerable power …and similarly sometimes abused it".
There is no denying that. Sir Hector concludes that paragraph by stating:
"The balance between organised labour and industrial management has now been restored, partly by statutory curbs on trade union power and partly by the changed economic climate".
I do not believe that one can deny that.
I do not believe that there is much point in looking back at what this or that government have or have not done or what party did this or that, or even in talking about strikes of a few years ago. We must look forward. I was singularly disappointed on the Second Reading of the Employment Bill that in more than 50 minutes of contributions by the noble Lords, Lord Wedderburn and McCarthy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, we heard nothing of what her party, were it ever to get into government, would do in this sphere.
Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, spent some time in talking about tilting the balances and about the accident rate. She is right about that. The accident rate has increased in our factories, which is very depressing. I note that we shall shortly be having a debate on the work of the Health and Safety Executive and perhaps its role and what can be done to improve that situation may be explored. The noble Baroness talked about the abandonment of wages councils. She did not mention that Marks and Spencer, W.H. Smith and Sainsbury's have increased wages for young peoply by —I believe I am right —something over 20 per cent. to bring them into balance. Does the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, wish to make a comment?
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, we were with the noble Lord, however, we were discussing the opposition of other low paid workers who were protected by wage council orders and are no longer effectively protected.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I was selecting certain points, which is my entitlement.
The noble Baroness ended by saying that when her party came to power, there would be a new philosophy. It is no good philosophising. We want some action. When my noble friend Lord Renton challenged her, she was not able to say very much more. That is rather disappointing. Conversely, the present Government's programme on labour and industrial relations is clearly set out and has been demonstrated.
I do not often relate anecdotal experiences. However, in his opening remarks my noble friend Lord Caldecote spoke of the importance of inward investment and how the United Kingdon had attracted so so much inward movement. At about the time at which the change came around, I was doing a similar job to my noble friend Lord Strathclyde in the Department of Trade and Industry. I was travelling abroad frequently selling "UK Ltd." as a good place in which to invest. I was surprised that the question most raised related not to what incentives were being given in a particular region or area by government or the regional authority. It was, can we rely upon the stability of labour? In the late 1970s all one had read about in the newspapers was strikes and disturbances. I was able to state, truthfully, that one could now rely upon stability. That is still largely true today. However, the Dundee experience set back by years all the work which had been done. Whether the understanding is right or wrong, the perception is important, not the detail of the argument. Therefore, I believe that, whatever laws are made, the important thing is the perception of the people and the perception which employers have of employees and vice versa.
My noble friend Lord Oxfuird spent some time speaking about dignity. He is absolutely right. I should like to see a firming up of the relationship between employer and employee —I do not like that term but that is how it is recognised —to our greater economic and social well-being. I should like to see a number of factors changed and advanced. I should like to see wider employee participation in their business, though I confess not on the lines we considered when I sat on a committee with the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, examining the fifth directive on European company law and employee participation. I prefer the way we do it in the United Kingdom. It can be done in a variety of ways. Employee share participation is very important. Everybody belongs to the same family; everybody has an interest in its furtherance. That is a good thing and should be encouraged.
I should like employers to give more information to employees, whether through a works paper or works council, on where the company is heading, its objectives and how it hopes to achieve them. If closure is to come it will come; business will demand it, but the company should explain it and explain it properly.
Like noble friends on either side of me, I like responsible trade unions; I like to know with whom I am dealing and that when a deal is struck it is struck and stuck.

961
My noble friend Lord Wade spoke of employer's social and family responsibility. I recall as a young manager firing an employee. My managing director said to me, "You realise that this afternoon you brought about the social and economic collapse of four people: the family". An employer who takes on the awesome responsibility of employing others should not take that responsibility lightly. It should be undertaken with understanding and, as my noble friend Lord Oxfuird said, with dignity and respect for the other person.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, let me first thank the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, for raising this important and notable debate. It is especially notable by the number of noble Lords who chose to speak today rather than to speak in support of the Bill last week. At points I was not sure which debate this was.
Let me immediately join in the congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Wade of Chorlton, for his contribution in a notable maiden speech. We look forward to more good news from Cheshire. The noble Lord said that everything works better when everyone works together, and no one on these Benches would disagree with that.
There is an initial problem in responding to the debate from these Benches. It has ranged far and wide. I wish I could follow the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, into the area of interlocutory injunctions of which he apparently so firmly approves, or the noble Lord, Lord Renton, in his somewhat idiosyncratic account of the history of the 1960s and 1970s. However, his speech was important in another way. At the beginning he addressed —as I should like to do —the noble Viscount's important Motion, and he said that he would show us how the Government's legislation had caused the effects which are claimed for it.
I find that an interesting problem. There are clearly two contrasting policies put before the country in regard to industrial relations. We now have experience of the Government's policy in action through their legislation. They plainly believe that industrial relations are best based upon individual relationships between employers and employees. They often say so. Workers and trade unions therefore do not need more than a low level of rights and liberties in terms of legislation; employment protection rights tend to be a burden on business, and as the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, reminded us last Friday, (at col. 574 of Hansard)) inhibit competitiveness.
As my noble friend Lady Turner said, the Government therefore —logically from their point of view —deregulated protection rights to the lowest point in Community member states. One only has to look at the legislation on the statute books concerning unfair dismissal, young workers' night shifts and a variety of areas on women's rights to see that the picture is fairly clear. They have cut the area of trade union rights which workers expect to find if they join together in a democratic country
962
whereby they can give collective expression to their views.
We on this side believe that employees are a valuable resource, if one wants to put it in the words of the noble Viscount. We believe that they are entitled individually to a guarantee of higher protection and opportunity. How rarely training and skill have been mentioned in the debate! One may have thought that the Government would take great pride in hearing Members opposite speak of the training record. We have not heard much in that regard.
We believe employees are entitled collectively to rights for trade unions through which representatives may protect employees' interests, jointly participate in constructive industrial relations and exercise the civil liberties of freedom of association. Those are three areas in which I join with other noble Lords. There is a clear difference in understanding of what the statute book should look like in that regard. I should be happy to debate the Labour Party's programmes, but I am not prepared to do so in footnotes on somebody else's Motion on another subject. The noble Lord indicates that he will give us time, and we would welcome a debate for the Labour Party programme to be discussed. No doubt that will be noted in the usual channels.
The Minister who is to reply from the Government Bench has difficulty, looking at his previous speeches —along with his colleagues, because he is not alone on this point; it is a collective difficulty —with what is a central methodological issue in the debate. Perhaps I may depart from what I intended to say and put it another way. Suppose we said that the worrying inflation position —the Government must be worried —the awful training position —they know it is awful —and the balance of payments situation which is worse than it has ever been, was brought about because of the Government's industrial relations legislation. I am sure that the Minister would not accept that statement. He would ask us to show some cause and effect. I shall read Hansard with great care, but I hazard a guess that so far there has been only a miniscule relationship between the speeches on the other side of the House and the issue of how the effects which are claimed have been caused by the legislation.
That is the reason I say that it is an interesting problem. In one sense it does not matter to us whether or not that cause is there. Our first objective is to the standard of civil liberties on the statute book. When I hear the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, claim the rule of law and basic freedoms as his base, I know that he is sincere, but perhaps he will look with me at all the ways touched on by my noble friend in which the British law at the moment falls below the level of what is internationally acceptable.
Let us be quite clear on this issue. The insular approach to this matter of most people in this country is extraordinary. Anyone who goes abroad and discusses industrial relations legislation knows that everybody regards the position of this country as having fallen below the floor of minimum standards. I shall run through the different ways in

963
which the ILO bodies—the Committee of Experts and Freedom of Association Committee —condemned the Government over the span of 1980 to 1988. There was the dismissal of strikers, which they now intend to make worse; the violation of trade union rights at GCHQ; the abolition of collective bargaining rights for teachers. That is a scandalous and flagrant breach of the convention of freedom of association. They have invaded trade union freedom by prohibiting discipline of strike breakers among members. They failed to protect workers from the blacklists of which we have heard, especially those circulated by the Economic League. Of course, we now also have the banning of all sympathy action, but even when the ban was not 100 per cent. it was condemned by the ILO. There are other items, but those are the main ones.
Let us be clear about this. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, carries on a curious relationship with that particular debate. Last Friday he summed up the matter particularly well, and I am happy to accept his summary. First, he pleaded not guilty. That one would expect, in a general way. Secondly, he said that the Government had responded to the Committee of Experts' points at the ILO but that, as usual, those comments were offered in confidence. Therefore, we do not know what the Government said. We are not told what their reasoning is; we are told just that they said something. Thirdly, he alleges that in any case there were breaches by other countries and he named Germany, Greece and the Netherlands; though I believe the third is not wholly well put.
The Government's posture is rather like that of a burglar caught red-handed who pleads not guilty, refuses to disclose what he has whispered in confidence to the judge, and in mitigation pleads that there have been other less extensive larcenies committed by his competitors. That is not a very honourable attitude to take without revealing more and without stating very clearly and precisely which parts of the convention the Government do and do not accept.
The Government's real defence in this matter does not rest on human rights. They are in a bad shape if it does. The Government's real defence is, as the Secretary of State said on Second Reading of the Bill in another place (Col. 39 of Hansard for 29th January) that,
"improvement in our productivity" —
in manufacturing, of course; there is no claim of anything parallel in the tertiary sector —
"elimination of inefficient …working practices"
and the transformation in the economy has been caused, in the main (the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, put it "in the main") by this legislation.
The first point to make is that on productivity all the research suggests that there is at least no proven cause and effect of that kind. Reference has been made to the article by Professor Brown and Dr. Wadhwani in the National Institute Economic Review which makes that suggestion. My noble friend Lord McCarthy gave figures last Friday to which the Minister did not reply except to say that surrounding the debate on research:
964
"there is a great deal of uncertainty and confusion". —[Official Report, 15/6/90; col. 580.]
There is not a great deal of confusion. Mr. John McInnes has recently summarised the work of very different researchers —Professor Metcalf, Dr. Nicholls, Dr. Wadhwani and Mr. Daniel—and all of them agree that there is no evidence that,
"Thatcherism has changed productivity trends in the long term by changing industrial relations".
That case could be better made by reading more and in greater detail, but that is the dominant axis of all the conclusions of that research in this area.
It is, of course, the strike record which is given pride of place. The noble Viscount said that to quote comparative figures is specious. I have to tell the noble Viscount, in all frankness, that he reminds me of academic colleagues who always begin with that word when they are faced with figures that they find highly inconvenient. It is not specious unless it can be shown to be methodologically inaccurate to look elsewhere as well as at Britain. If one takes the five years 1983 to 1987 and the five years prior to those, 1978 to 1982 —which is a fair break because the Government's legislation effectively begins to bite later on in 1982 —we find that in the first period Britain ranked seventh among the 19 major nations in the statistics. In the second period 1983 to 1987 it once again ranked seventh in number of days lost.
If one looks at countries where trade union rights were relatively unchanged in this period between 1978 and 1987, one finds that working days lost per 1,000 workers also fell, but by much more. In Sweden they fell by 80 per cent., in Ireland by 50 per cent., in Italy by 56 per cent. Where trade union rights were significantly increased —in the private sector to which the statistics alone refer, and I am taking the Government's statistics —in France the decrease was 48 per cent. and in Spain it was 50 per cent.
It is not surprising that most research in this area also concludes that the British decline in working days lost through strikes is, as it obviously is, rather less than in very comparable societies, but very comparable societies with very different industrial relations systems. Of course, if we were comparing only with, say, Germany and Sweden's organic bargaining systems one might say it was because of that, but if one looks at the range of societies with only a few of them reducing their strike rates less than ours it begins to be a little odd. Indeed, the dispassionate conclusion might well be that if the Government's legislation has helped to reduce the strike index then the other factors must have increased it if the international economic circumstances are relatively similar.
I hope the Minister does not say that all the other countries in the list have different international circumstances. He claims that the legislation has reduced the strike rate in Britain. Whether or not that is so, it is apparent that the labour market factors, which all the research suggests is the basis of this movement, have brought it down far more in a wide variety of other countries. I am afraid the lawyers have to accept that sometimes the law is not the most important thing around; and with the Government's legislation, thank heaven for that!

965
However, there are a few other features that I will mention briefly. One feature is that stoppages have increased in length during the 1970s and 1980s. The number of stoppages has declined but the number of long stoppages has increased. That partly reflects, but only partly, not so much the legislation as the failure of the Government to promote conciliation and their preference for confrontation. That has been partly in order to enforce their incomes policy in the public sector, scrapping the valuable arbitration machinery for the Civil Service that dated from 1925; turning industrial disputes into battles with enemies within, with the ambulance workers and the miners; crushing by legislation the collective bargaining rights of school teachers as a punishment for daring to fight for decent conditions in the state sector of education; doing away with the fair wages resolution and with unilateral arbitration. It is in the public sector that the Government have kept tile length of stoppages rising.
To conclude, therefore, the Government have failed to give a lead in those areas of industrial relations, such as participation of work people and employee involvement, which we see as having a place in legislation as well as in the voluntary mechanism. The idealogy is extraordinary which says that the law should have no place in that area when the Government are so fond of restrictive laws elsewhere. There must be a positive impact in employees participation, and a positive role for trade unions and employees based upon a secure and fair base of employment rights. We do not share the Government's view that industrial rights are a luxury suitable in Gdansk but not in Grimsby. There is, in fact, a place in this country for a decent and proper employment and industrial relations policy. There is an alternative to present government policies and the time for that alternative is about to come.
5.48 p.m.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I say right at the outset how much I have enjoyed this afternoon's debate. I commend particularly the words of my noble friend Lord Caldecote and underline how much I share his views on trade unions. There is no question of any kind of ideological attack on trade unionism; only opposition to the irresponsible abuse of trade union power. That is why I did not fully understand the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, but since he is not in the Chamber perhaps we shall return to that issue later.
I listened with great interest and pleasure to the excellent maiden speech given by my noble friend Lord Wade of Chorlton. It was a remarkable speech and I was pleased to listen to it. That did not come as any great surprise because he lists among his recreations shooting, food and travel. Surely we have in our midst a man after my own heart.
Today we are debating industrial relations and strike action. Surely, that goes very much to the heart of what the Labour Party is all about, yet I am surprised to see that it has managed to produce only two Front Bench spokesmen and one Back-Bencher, the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, who we all
966
know is not a Back-Bencher; he is a most effective Front Bench speaker. Where is the Labour Party this afternoon?
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, it is at Ascot.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter suggests that it is indulging in a pastime somewhere in the Royal County of Berkshire. He may well be correct.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. There might have been more Members of the Labour Party here if the Prime Minister had been a little more generous in her allocation of peerages.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the noble Lord should take that up with the leader of his own party rather than with my right honourable friend the Prime Minister.
I now turn to the point of this debate. Let us look first at the undisputed facts. The evidence provided by the strike statistics is impressive. The annual average number of days lost each year to industrial action in the 1970s was 12·9 million. In the 1980s it fell by almost a half to an average 7–2 million; and over the five years to March 1990 it has halved again, averaging 3·3 million.
I know that during the course of today's debate noble lords have mentioned some of the statistics. However, they are so impressive that they are worth repeating. I shall come to the direct criticisms which the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, made about international comparisons. Notwithstanding Opposition claims that last year we experienced a summer of discontent, the number of stoppages in 1989 was in fact the lowest since 1935. During the Labour Government's winter of discontent, 3 million days were lost in the single month of January 1979, which compares with just 4·1 million days in the whole of 1989.
In the 1980s the number of days lost per thousand employees fell by 75 per cent. —proportionately more than with almost any of our major competitors. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, that it is very difficult to make comparisons between different countries because different definitions are used. Some countries will always come out ahead of the United Kingdom in any international league table. I know that the noble Lord knows that in France, for example, the figures exclude strikes in the public sector. Noble Lords can imagine how our figures would appear if we were to do that.
The number of stoppages fell by 9·5 per cent. over the life of the present government compared with just 1 per cent. per annum over the life of the previous Labour Government. When this Government came into office strikes were one of the major barriers to improving Britain's economic performance. Days lost through industrial disputes had risen to new high levels during the late 1970s. A series of major strikes and continual minor disputes posed great difficulties for all types of commerce and industry. Poor industrial relations affected both

967
productivity and profitability, which in turn led to a reduction in employment.
It is surely no coincidence that the improved industrial record of the 1980s has been achieved at the same time as the Government's reform of industrial relations and trade union law. These reforms have, by enhancing democratic practices in the conduct of union affairs and by protecting members against abuses of union power, helped to correct the imbalances of power between trade unions and employers and between trade unions and their members.
We have also brought in a number of measures to deregulate and promote greater flexibility in the labour market. The abolition of the dock labour scheme was one of the more prominent of these deregulatory measures. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Wade mentioned that in his maiden speech. His account of improvements at Merseyside and at the docks in Lincolnshire is confirmed on a far wider scale. We shall see that as we come up to the first anniversary of the abolition of the scheme. It has led to the release of new energy and enterprise in the former scheme ports. Surplus labour has been shed and efficient working practices have been introduced. Productivity has increased markedly; the ending of restrictive labour practices has reduced significantly the time taken to unload ships. A high priority has been given to training and there has been increased investment both in and around ports. All this has been achieved with no relaxation in health and safety standards.
All these steps have helped to change the 1970s' atmosphere of industrial conflict to one of negotiation and industrial co-operation. British employers and employees now waste less energy on disputes and devote more to producing quality goods and services on time and at the right price.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, if I understood him correctly, that it is not industrial relations policy alone that has been the sole reason for that change. There have been powerful economic pressures which have undoubtedly had an effect on the attitudes and behaviour of both unions and employees. I take up the words of my noble friends Lord Oxfuird and Lord Lucas of Chilworth. Today companies have adjusted to these pressures. They are leaner and fitter, having slimmed away surplus labour and introduced significant changes to working practices. Management initiatives, often with employees' co-operation, have swept away many inefficient restrictive labour practices and replaced them with new flexibilities such as multi-skilling, teamworking and so forth, often associated with the introduction of new technology.
The effects of government industrial relations policy cannot easily be separated from the impact of our policies more generally in helping to bring about these desirable and essential changes. For example, in other areas we have given tax incentives to encourage investment in industry, in particular in order to encourage employees to demonstrate their commitment to the welfare of their company by investing in it. Eleven out of the past 12 budgets have included tax incentives in this area.
968
We have done much to stimulate enterprise and the creation of small firms through the small firms service, the loan guarantee scheme, the business expansion scheme and various other programmes and initiatives. The number of self-employed has risen from 1·9 million to 3·2 million, which is an increase of 70 per cent. since the Government came to office 11 years ago. During the past year new small firms have been registered at the rate of 1,500 a week. The importance of these achievements in economic regeneration and growth has been fully recognised by the ILO. It is clear evidence of the rebirth of enterprise within the United Kingdom.
We are totally committed to improving the quality of our workforce by improving vocational training from schooldays onwards. I have no fears about coming to this House and standing by our excellent record on training. It is the Labour Party which has something to fear when it comes to training. Its record was appalling. Now it suggests a tax on jobs to pay for training.
In March of this year there were nearly 360,000 YTS trainees. Eighty-two per cent. of YTS leavers now go into jobs, further training or education. There are 210,000 people on employment training. Our new training and enterprise councils will have the flexibility to make ET even more responsive to the needs of individuals and local labour markets.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He referred to training. A few moments ago the Minister claimed that the Government had a marvellous record for training and denigrated the last Labour Government's record on that subject. The Minister must be aware that engineering is the biggest manufacturing sector of this country. Is he aware that, under this Government's proposals, we are training only 30 per cent. of the number of engineers that we trained under the previous Labour Government? Does he not agree that it is peculiar to call that a success when there is a reduction to two-thirds in the number of engineers being trained?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, that is precisely why we are reforming the training system. We are involved in a host of education initiatives such as TVEI, Compacts, high technology national training, work-related further education, open learning and career development loans. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, will approve of many of these initiatives.
The National Council for Vocational Qualifications is spearheading a fundamental reform of vocational qualifications, and by the end of 1992 we aim to have a United Kingdom-wide system of qualifications relevant to the needs of the modern workplace and individuals in all industries, for all occupations at all levels. The Training Standards Advisory Service was established in 1986 to provide an independent assessment of the quality of training in training agency programmes, and its findings helped to improve the quality of government-sponsored training programmes.
All these measures have helped to produce the well informed, committed and motivated workforce

969
that we have in Britain today. But legislative reform has contributed significantly to the important changes of attitude which have made this improvement possible.
In 1979 Britain was widely seen as a strike-ridden society and a graveyard for investment from overseas. Ten years later our reputation has been transformed at home and abroad. An independent survey of foreign-owned firms in 1989 showed that 96 pet cent. believed British industrial relations have improved significantly and 70 per cent. planned to increase their investment here. Employers have paid tribute to the Government's achievement in terms of helping them to modernise and increase profitability in industries such as vehicle manufacture, printing and newspapers.
These improvements have strongly influenced overseas investors, and the United Kingdom's inward investment record in the 1980s is impressive by any standard. In that respect I agree with my noble friends Lord Wade of Chorlton and Lord Oxfuird and with my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth, who as a Minister at the Department of Trade and Industry had such personal experience of trying to sell Britain.
A survey by the Japan External Trade Organisation shows a large increase in the number of Japanese companies manufacturing in Britain. Available evidence suggests that the United Kingdom share of Japanese investment in the Community —at 38 per cent. already far ahead of the share of Japanese investment in any other Community country —is growing. Our share of United States investment in the Community stands at more than 40 per cent. —way ahead of the share of any of our other EC partners. The importance of good industrial relations is something that Japanese, American and other investors rate highly, along with the flexibility of the British labour force which has been praised by so many commentators, including Dr. Atenstaedt of the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce. I should perhaps add here, since we hear a good deal in debates such as this about international bodies and their views, that a very recent OECD report entitled Progress in Structural Reforms: Labour Markets has endorsed deregulatory labour market policies, and welcomed:
"more flexibility in employment contracts and lower costs of dismissal protection in order to reduce disincentives for expanding the workforce".
The very same report also endorsed legal and institutional frameworks for wage negotiations to help wages adjust to structural changes of demand and supply in industries, regions and skills. That is very much in line with government policy in these areas.
What has been the Government's strategy? Learning from the experience of noble Lords opposite in the 1970s, we did not attempt to change too much too quickly. We have proceeded by a measured, step-by-step approach, never too far ahead of public opinion, always aimed at clearly identified problems, which is why we have had the support of trade union members themselves. Also learning from the 1970s, we have scrupulously
970
avoided any interventionist role in the conduct of industrial or employee relations. The proper role of government is to set the overall legislative framework but leave it to the parties directly involved to decide whether, and how, to use the new freedoms and protections created. That principle also applies to pay. We have not sought to impose any set pay policy; pay levels should be determined by the pressures of the labour market and internal business needs. Pay rates must be free to respond to labour market conditions and must be free from unnecessary institutional restraints.
An equally important element in our approach has been our commitment to keep industrial relations and trade union law under review, and a readiness to come forward with proposals to modernise that law whenever and wherever necessary. There is no question of closing the book on the step-by-step process of reforming the law to take account of developments and future needs. Our approach has proved itself the right prescription for a healthy and efficient labour market. Unemployment has fallen dramatically from a peak of more than 3 million in 1986 to the present 1·6 million. Jobs have increased substantially, with more than 27 million people in work, the highest ever. The United Kingdom rate of employment growth between 1983 and 1987 was more than three times as great as the European Community average.
As concerns the detail of our industrial relations and trade union law, I shall merely remind noble Lords of some of the more significant legislative changes that the Government have introduced during the past 10 years. They include the requirement for a secret ballot to be held before a union calls for industrial action; the removal of immunity from indiscriminate secondary action, industrial action to enforce closed shop practices, and from picketing away from the picket's own place of work. At the same time complementary legislative steps have been taken to increase union democracy, to help make unions more responsive to their members and to protect members and non-members from union coercion.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, was the Minister not surprised to find that when the Government enforced legislation which demanded that unions balloted on political funds, every single union that balloted actually balloted for a political fund?
Lord Strathclyde: Not really, my Lords, it was entirely up to the unions and their members to do so through the secret ballot. What is perhaps surprising is that when those measures came before the House the party of the noble Baroness voted against them.
Baroness Turner of Camden: They were a waste of time.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, we have taken many other steps to introduce greater democracy within unions.

971
What then has been the Opposition's response? We have seen some of it this afternoon although not as much as perhaps we should have liked. They have of course fought all of our legislative reforms tooth and nail. My noble friend Lord Renton said precisely the same thing in his excellent speech. My noble friend Lord Caldecote mentioned John Smith, who said in another place (at col. 164 of the Official Report of 8th November 1983) that the Trade Union Act of 1984 was "an irrelevant effrontery".
Last year the Labour Party Policy Review said that:
"The present industrial relation laws are clearly now in many respects partisan, unfair and unbalanced. The Tories in five separate Acts since 1979, have gone to unprecedented extremes in altering the balance in industrial relations law …Our legislative priority will be to remove such measures".
No member of the Shadow Cabinet has contradicted John Prescott's remarks at the end of last year which committed the next Labour Government to repeal all of the Government's trade union reforms. He said:
"It's going to repeal all of it, there's no little bits you can keep of it. There's nothing you can keep of this legislation. [Mr. Kinnock] hasn't denied that it is going to be done …It has to go".
That is the reality of the Labour Party's stance today.
And what of their latest proposals? Can we believe Mr. Blair's reassurances that some of the existing legislation will be kept and some only modified? To which of the multitude of Opposition spokesmen should we listen? Even Mr. Blair's more moderate line contains proposals that would be highly damaging. Much of the document is muddled and vague, perhaps intentionally, but it is clear enough that the Labour Party is still dedicated to giving trade unions special rights and special privileges. It would allow strikers to hold their employer to ransom and force him to concede the most outrageous demands by preventing the employer from being able to dismiss them. It would licence once again the flying picket and calls for secondary strikes; and it would prevent the courts from imposing the normal penalties that apply if anyone flouts a court order to stop acting unlawfully.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, the Minister will cover many points in his long speech. Perhaps I may pick one before he continues. He notices in particular the demand that we have made —it is true —that those who are dismissed by reason only of taking legitimate industrial action shall not be open to dismissal. Is he aware that that basic rule applies—with varieties of legal culture of course —in almost all of the major industrial democracies not just in Europe but in the world? Does he feel comfortable being a Minister in the country which most blatantly breaks that ILO standard?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I do not understand the noble Lord's stand on this matter. I do not understand how he can pick and choose which laws from other countries he wishes to welcome. Indeed, there are plenty of others which he would not choose.
The Labour Party's policy document entitled Looking to the Future is, through the Opposition's
972
eyes, to look into the murky depths of a fortune teller's crystal ball and its predictions are likely to be about as accurate. The Government's strategy is a tried and tested formula, its success borne out by the remarkable transformation of our industrial relations in the 1980s. The Opposition's nostrums would rapidly undermine all that has been achieved and return us to the industrial relations chaos of the 1970s.
The noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, said that the Labour Party has totally accepted the social charter. We have not done so. We have three main concerns. First, there is the effect that the Commission's proposals would have on jobs. The practical effect of the charter would undoubtedly have been to increase employers' costs, reduce competitiveness and damage employment prospects. Secondly, there is the question of subsidiarity and the sovereign role of the United Kingdom Parliament. Thirdly, there is the respect for national traditions and practice. Harmonisation in the social and labour market field should only be pursued where there is a clear need for European standards; for example, in health and safety. The Labour Party has consistently ignored each of those aspects.
As regards the ILO and the remarks made by the noble lord, Lord Wedderburn, and the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, in 1989 the ILO Committee of Experts—an advisory committee—made a number of comments about United Kingdom law in connection with the ILO Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise. There was nothing unusual in that process, and I do not understand why the noble Lord is so surprised. As I said on Friday, the committee in part of the same report made a number of similar comments about the law in other Community countries. The Government responded to the points made by the ILO committee. As usual, they were made in confidence. However, what noble Lords opposite conspicuously fail to mention is the fact that the TUC consequently withdrew the complaint it had made about aspects of UK employment law and, accordingly, there was no need for the matter to be considered further by the ILO.
I turn now to deal with GCHQ—
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, before the Minister continues to deal with GCHQ, I think that I should intervene at this point because his speech has really become quite a saga. Indeed, he has made a personal point against my noble friend and myself. Of course, it is true that for procedural reasons this case went no further. Therefore, it was obviously taken from the recond. I put the following to him. I quote from the Committee of Experts' report of April 1989 which reads:
"The Committee asks the Government to introduce amendments to the law".
This concerns the protection of workers under the various headings which were then set out, which included sympathy action but, more particularly, dismissal. I press the dismissal point. That request to the Government to introduce amendments to the law has not been withdrawn. Will the Government therefore respond to it?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, this has nothing to do with procedural actions. The United Kingdom has not been condemned by the ILO. As I said, the TUC withdrew the complaint that it had made. Clearly the TUC had no confidence that the ILO would uphold its views.
I turn again to deal with GCHQ. The ILO Conference Committee expressed concern about the Government's position but rejected calls for a special paragraph of censure. The Government's view is that Convention 87 cannot be considered in isolation from Convention 151. The latter convention enables a government to exclude public servants in highly confidential positions from the right of association which is guaranteed under Convention 87.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I really must protest. That proposition has been rejected by the Freedom of Association Committee. That committee is by no means the Committee of Experts and it was not involved in the case which was withdrawn. That is the proposition upon which the Government pleaded their case and lost. That surely cannot be the answer.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I reaffirm what I have already said: the United Kingdom has not been condemned by the ILO. Therefore, let us leave this subject at least for the time being. I fear that we must simply beg to differ on this particular view of the ILO. I repeat: we have not been condemned by the ILO.
Several noble Lords commented upon the research showing that post-1979 legislation has not reduced strikes and therefore it has obviously failed. Our reforms are not simply aimed at producing industrial peace; they also promote individual liberty and democratic practice in union affairs. There is no known research work which denies those effects of our post-1979 reforms.
The noble Lords, Lord Rochester and Lord Walston, spoke about employee involvement. I am sorry that I missed a few words of the latter noble Lord's speech. However, I promise to look at the report of the debate in Hansard in due course. The Government are firmly committed to employees being involved in the organisations in which they work. Employee involvement contributes to the prosperity of the firm and to the quality of the working life of employees. I agree with my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth who said that that element was so very important. My noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway made a variety of points, some of which were pertinent to the Employment Bill and I look forward to dealing with them when we reach the Committee stage.
In conclusion, perhaps I may say that the statistics of our position are eloquent, they include: a rapid fall in unemployment since 1986; a sustained growth in employment since 1983; the lowest number of industrial stoppages for 50 years in 1989; and, the days lost to industrial action in 1989 were less than a third of the annual average for the 1970s.
If there are new problems to be faced in the 1990s, our policies will deal with them as they have dealt with those of the past. They will be met with the
974
same measured step-by-step approach which we use to tackle identified problems, the same avoidance of government intervention in the conduct of industrial and employee relations and the same objectives of deregulation and flexibility to ensure that our legal framework reflects the developing needs of our economy and our society.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down I have two points to make. I appreciate that he may not be able to deal with them today and, if that is the case, perhaps he will write to me. However, I asked, first, whether the Government would consider the introduction of a code of practice relating to negotiating procedure agreements. Secondly, I made the point that the Government needed to do more to fulfil their responsibility for training, especially in the management of people in the public services which would include national and local government.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I shall of course write to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, on these matters if it proves to be necessary. However, perhaps I may briefly say that the Government commend the IPM and the IPA for their excellent voluntary code of practice on employee involvement. We believe that it will contribute significantly to voluntary developments in this important area. As I said, I shall write to the noble Lord if there is a point that I have missed.
6.18 p.m.
Viscount Caldecote: My Lords, we have had a most interesting debate and I shall not detain the House for more than a few moments. I should like to add my congratulations to those already expressed to the noble Lord, Lord Wade, for his excellent maiden speech. I particularly liked his emphasis on the principle "unite for success", and his belief that the Government's legislation has helped in that direction. I think that it was my noble friend Lord Oxfuird who mentioned that this was all a question of balance. I agree with that view. I also agree with the CBI's view that we have just about got the right balance, or that we will have done so by the time the present Employment Bill is enacted. I also support my noble friend's emphasis on dignity which I think is enormously important in industrial relations.
Noble Lords opposite showed the weakness of their case by the number of red herrings which they drew across the trail, especially the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, who drifted into the subject of privatisation Bills, the poll tax, small phoenixes and even peerages which really seemed to go rather far from the subject under debate. However, I am very sorry that I made him so cross.
The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, clearly wanted to avoid challenging the Government's excellent industrial relations record. She diverted attention to a great deal of what seemed to me to be largely irrelevant detail. I should like to emphasise that no one, least of all me, wants to see the demise of responsible trade unions; they have a very constructive part to play in the industrial relations

975
scene. However, what we want to do is to eliminate the power of the destructive elements within them.
The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, and my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway, both supported the concept of looking carefully at the question of a code of practice. As I said, much remains to be done and that may be one of the matters at which we should look most carefully. The noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, questioned whether the improved industrial relations record was caused by the Government's legislation. I submit that all the evidence points to the fact that it has influenced it. On overseas comparisons, perhaps we have not yet achieved enough improvement in comparison with our competitors; but it cannot be denied that there has been a major improvement which has occurred since the Government came to power. I cannot believe that that is pure coincidence.
I repeat that we have made good progress in the industrial relations field. Let us build on that progress, and not go back. Let us go forward and make greater improvements. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I thank especially my noble friend the Minister for his full reply. It has been a useful and important debate on this vital subject. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Horses (Protective Headgear for Young Riders) Bill
6.20 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee. —(Baroness Masham of Ilton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD CULLEN OF ASHBOURNE in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Causing or permitting child under 14 to ride on road without protective headgear.]
Lord Stoddart of Swindon Lord Stoddart of Swindon moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 7, after ("horse") insert ("of more than nine hands").
The noble Lord said: I listened to the Second Reading debate with great interest although I did not take part in it. I understand the reasons why the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, is promoting the Bill. I sympathise with her. She has had an unfortunate experience, and she knows a great deal about the subject. It is not for me to quarrel with her and her motives. I believe, as does the noble Lord, Lord Monson, that we in this country are going overboard on regulations. I wonder whether we have our priorities right in terms of parliamentary time. I read the Second Reading speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brougham and Vaux, in which he said:
"There are on average five fatalities per year from horse riding accidents."—[Official Report, 11/6/90; col. 81]
That is undoubtedly too many accidents. Even one is one too many; but I noted that in his speech supporting the Bill the noble Viscount, Lord Davidson, said that in 1989 378 children were killed on our roads. In the light of that figure, our priorities should lie elsewhere. However, the Bill has been given a Second Reading in the House and we should now be trying to improve it, which is the objective of this amendment.
In support of the amendment, perhaps I may quote the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, who said:
"One is in a potentially dangerous situation if one is on a large animal capable of travelling at considerable speed. One could easily fall off and thus it would seem sensible to have protection".—[Official Report, 11/6/90: col. 91.]
I accept that to fall from a large horse could cause serious injury. Having in my early teens ridden various kinds of horses, including carthorses, I know how far away the ground can seem from the saddle or from the back of a horse. That is not the case when one is riding, let us say, a Shetland pony, when one is almost on the ground. A large lad, or even a big girl, riding a Shetland pony, a donkey, a young colt or filly would have their legs trailing on the ground. Slipping off the back of a Shetland pony or a donkey is probably far less dangerous for a child than falling from a high chair on to a tiled kitchen floor or for a youngster falling from his bicycle on a public highway.
I chose nine hands as the appropriate height to make it clear that I was not seeking to wreck the Bill but merely to make it more realistic and acceptable. I hope that under those circumstances, and in that spirit, the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, will see fit to accept the amendment.
Lord Monson: I am pleased to support the amendment which, like all the amendments, is practical and is by no means a wrecking amendment. It merely brings more sense into the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, has said, the amendment would exclude Shetland ponies and most donkeys. There are few donkeys which are higher than nine hands.
After all, nine hands is effectively 36 inches which is the height of an average kitchen worktop. Young people are often wont to sprawl on kitchen worktops unless there is an adult to shoo them away. The noble Lord mentioned highchairs and bicycles. Nine hands is less than half the average height of a child's climbing frame. Such frames, to my certain knowledge, are not by any means always sited on grass, because grass is a rare commodity in cities. They are frequently sited on garden paving slabs which are every bit as hard as a road surface.
Children will rarely ride donkeys or Shetland ponies on busy roads or even on less busy roads. However, there are circumstances, for example, seaside promenades, which are pedestrianised, or from which traffic is excluded at certain times of the day, which remain technically highways over which donkeys may occasionally have to cross. The amendment is designed to cope with those rather special circumstances.
Lord Addington: The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, mentioned my speech. I was assuming that all things are relative. I assume that a comparatively small child would be on a comparatively small horse. If that child falls off, its delicate skull will strike the hard pavement. One would be travelling at greater velocity than one does on foot. I agree that there are some bad examples of children's playgrounds which have been placed on concrete, but all the new playgrounds are based on woodchip or some other soft material. Anyone who wishes to check that fact should go to a recently constructed park.
The Earl of Swinton: I support what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said. I hope that my noble kinswoman will not accept the amendment. Some of the naughtiest of ponies are the smallest of ponies. They are extremely wilful little brutes and they can be extremely dangerous. Although they are not far off the ground, they can give one a bloody great kick, and a child can be thrown a considerable way before he falls head first on to the road.
Viscount Mountgarret: I should like to draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, to an artist by the name of Thelwell. I have never in my life seen more violent brutes than those little ponies which can be far more fearsome than a large, well-trained and lovely hunter.
6.30 p.m.
The Earl of Balfour: My Lords, I feel that it would be a great pity if the amendment were accepted. First, let us not forget the definition of a horse. A horse is an animal of more than 14 hands, if my memory serves me right. I admit that to me most horses or ponies tend to be somewhat uncomfortable in the middle and highly dangerous at both ends. I usually find that with dogs and horses the smaller the animal the harder it is to control. A tiny pony is much harder for a child to ride. I have the feeling that if we alter the wording to "nine hands" we shall do a great deal of harm to those children who wish to learn to ride.
It is my experience that if one puts a child onto a horse —I think I am right in saying this —for instance, a Welsh pony as opposed to a Shetland pony the child is much more likely to learn to ride properly. I cannot support the amendment in any way.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, perhaps I may clarify one point that has just been made. It was suggested that a horse under 14 hands is not a horse, it is a pony. If that is right, then the wording does not apply anyway. It would be useful to have some clarification.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, perhaps I should make it clear that I speak for myself since this is a Private Member's Bill, but I know that many of my colleagues support what I shall say. I oppose the amendment and hope that the noble Baroness will not accept it. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and others have made clear, a small child can be injured by falling from a pony. Shetland ponies are notoriously unreliable.
978
A further, more important point is that a small child who learns to ride wearing protective headgear is more likely to continue to use that headgear later without problems. I hope that noble Lords will reject the amendment if the need arises.
Lord Airedale: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, told us how few children had been killed. He did not say how many had been injured. Helmets will protect children from injuries as well as death.
Lord Monson: My Lords, perhaps I may take the opportunity to correct the assumption of the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, that "horse" does not include ponies. If the noble Lord will look at Clause 3, he will see that for the purposes of the Bill "horse" includes, "pony".
Baroness Masham of Ilion: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have supported me in speaking against the amendment. To answer the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, the interpretation for the purposes of this Bill is that,
" 'horse' includes any mare, gelding, pony, foal, colt, filly or stallion and also any ass, mule or hinny".
We want them to be included because there might be the odd case where it is necessary.
If accepted, this amendment would unnecessarily restrict the scope of the Bill. More important, it would exclude some of the most vulnerable riders, the very young on small horses, from the protection that hard hats give. As was said, most Shetland ponies are between 10 and 10½ hands, but there are some miniature ponies and the odd one might be under nine hands. The younger the child, the softer the skull, and that is an important point. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I have listened to the debate with great interest. I still find it quite amazing that we should talk about a horse as a donkey. That is what every speaker so far appears to rest his case on.
I agree that a horse of, for example, 14 or 14½ hands —I believe that the definition of a colt is up to 14½hands—may very well be dangerous for a child up to the age of 14. However we are not talking about toddlers but about children up to the age of 14, who can be quite large human beings. I believe that enforcing or trying to enforce the wearing of perhaps expensive helmets by children riding this type of animal is, if I may make a pun, making an ass of the law.
Although I shall not press the amendment at this stage, I hope that noble Lords and particularly the noble Baroness will consider the matter between now and Report stage to see whether they can come some way towards me in making the Bill realistic rather than imposing a regulation simply for the sake of doing so. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Viscount Mountgarret Viscount Mountgarret moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 7, leave out ("on a road").
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, the amendment is self-explanatory. It seeks to cut down the area of doubt as to where a child might be required to wear protective headgear. Your Lordships' House has already agreed, as has another place, to the principle that it is desirable for a child under the age of 14 to wear protective headgear. For the life of me, I cannot understand why the provision should be restriced to use only on a road.
The Bill would never have been necessary in the first place if parents or people in charge of young children had applied common sense. It must be common sense for young children to have sensible and rational protection to vulnerable parts of their body, principally the head, when they are allowed on horses or ponies. Unfortunately, many people, including parents, do not do that. Therefore there is the need for this Bill. Anyone with common sense would surely agree that the use of protective headgear is not merely to protect against accidents on the road, about which we all know the difficulties, but off the road. Many accidents happen when children are jumping fences or whatever it is. A fall from a pony or a horse, whether involving a young child or an adult, can be as dangerous and lethal then as a fall when they are on the road. That is one reason why I think the amendment has merit.
The second reason is that we all know that over many years the law—namely, judges, barristers and the like —have often complained that if only we had passed better legislation in the first instance their time would be reduced and the costs and other problems to the clients would be reduced likewise. If the words concerned are left in the Bill, it opens up all kinds of difficulties. So much so, that I know that my noble friend —if I may refer to her as such, though not in the parliamentary sense —will have to move an amendment later to try to define what a road is. If we delete the words "on a road" she would not have to go to the trouble of making that amendment to avoid creating areas of doubt in the eyes of the law if anyone transgressed the provisions of the Bill.
Thirdly, I know that the noble Lord, Lord Monson, is bound to disagree with me because he is not entirely in favour of the principle of the Bill anyway. However, he and I joined forces genuinely on the whole principle of the compulsory wearing of seat belts. We felt —and I thought at the time quite rightly —that the principle of compulsion was an intrusion upon personal and private liberty. There is an argument for that. However, I have to say that, having seen car seat belts in operation over a number of years and having recognised that it is common sense to wear a seat belt in a car, it appears common sense for a child rider to wear protective headgear. If we accept the principle of a degree of compulsion where common sense should prevail in the case of car seat belts, why cannot we accept it in this instance?
It is not a question of wondering whether the local bobby will hide under a hedge to find out whether one's little darling is wearing a crash hat. That is not
980
the point. The point is that if people know that it is a requirement of the law to comply with a measure, generally speaking they will observe it. Furthermore if an accident occurs and it is discovered that they are not complying with the law, the penalties are not only a fine in a court of law but also insurance claims, third party liability and other such liabilities. Therefore to require children to wear protective headgear when riding in the countryside as well as on the roads would present no more problems as regards enforcement than the position as it currently stands.
Finally, let us take the scenario of guest children staying in one's house. The darlings may go out for a ride, supposedly round the little cross-country course that has been laid out in one's park or on one's private land. Thelwell's pony takes off at a gallop and goes, lickety-split, through the gate which has been left open by mistake and out on to the road. The point is that the guest children started off purely by exercising in the park but they may find themselves on the road. When the rider regains control or the horse runs out of breath, the child will have to ride that horse back home without protective headgear as he only intended to ride in the park. However, the child is riding on the road and an accident may occur. If it does, the rider or the parent or adult responsible for the young rider has broken the law. I believe it is unnecessary to restrict this Bill to road riding. I believe that children under the age of 14 should be required to wear protective headgear at all times when they ride out on their horses or ponies. I beg to move.
Lord Brougham and Vaux: While I have some sympathy with the amendment of my noble friend, I believe it would be totally unenforceable. As regards children riding horses on private land, the police have no powers to enter private land to enforce the provisions of the amendment. I therefore believe the amendment is unenforceable.
Lord Monson: As the noble Viscount rightly guessed, I totally oppose the amendment for a number of reasons. In the first place it is incompatible with existing personal safety legislation, or nanny state legislation, depending on one's point of view. At the moment it is perfectly legal to drive a post-1965 car on a private road without wearing a seat belt. Pre-1965 cars can be driven anywhere without the driver having to wear a seat belt of course.
It is perfectly legal, whatever one's age, to ride a motorcycle on a private road without wearing a crash helmet. There is nothing to prevent 10, 11 or 12 year-old children from driving cars or riding motorcycles on private property if their parents permit them to do so. However, the most unacceptable aspect of the proposed amendment is that —the noble Lord, Lord Brougham and Vaux, pointed this out —it would give the police power to enter private property for the purposes of seeking out unhelmeted riders. That is a most obnoxious idea.

981
The whole rationale for this Bill, as I understand it, is that our roads are much more crowded than they used to be 10 or 20 years ago and a growing minority of motorists show riders no consideration whatsoever, thereby endangering both the lives of the riders and their mounts. However, none of those dangers applies to riding off the road. Human beings have been happily riding horses off the road on grass, sand or on the bare earth for at least 2,500 years, if not longer, without headgear. Long may they continue to do so.
Lord Cobbold: I cannot support the amendment either. As has already been stated, there is a considerable difference between riding on a road and rding off road. It is not only a matter of the road surface but also of the other traffic that uses the road and the possibility that the traffic may cause an accident. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, made that point. There is also the matter of enforcing the measure. The prospect of police entering private land is something that the Committee should resist.
6.45 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: It was decided to limit the offence to causing or permitting a child to ride on a road without protective headgear because of the great difficulties of enforcing a requirement to wear protective headgear on private land unless the police were given power of entry to private land. However, that was considered unacceptable.
It is also more important that a child wears protective headgear on the road because accidents in such places tend to be more serious than those which occur in a field due to the road's harder surface. The main purpose of the Bill is to compromise by the limitation that children will have to have appropriate hats available. The hope is that children will wear their hats everywhere.
The noble Viscount, Lord Mountgarret, gave the example of a pony bolting out on to a road. In that case any incident that occurred would be an accident. Therefore the parent or adult responsible for that child would not be liable. However, that is an example of how important it is for all children and all horse riders to wear hats if they possibly can. I hope the noble Viscount will withdraw his amendment.
Viscount Mountgarret: With such a charming plea how can I possibly do otherwise? However, I am not convinced by the arguments that have been proposed against my amendment. I do not believe my noble friend Lord Brougham listened when I said that it was not a case of police constables hiding under bushes to see whether children were wearing hard hats while they were riding. I cannot accept what my noble friend said. The prospect of intrusion by the police on to private land is quite wrong. Police do not intrude into private motor vehicles to see whether seat belts are worn. It is only when drivers transgress the law or something goes wrong that that factor comes into play. I am merely suggesting that if an accident occurred on private land and the riders
982
involved were found not to have worn protective headgear they should be liable.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I am trying to imagine the circumstances of such an incident. The noble Viscount said that the measure would only be enforced if an accident occurred. However, a bit of bad neighbourliness may occur which could lead to a report to the police. The police would then go to a magistrate and obtain a warrant to enter the private land concerned. Has the noble Viscount considered that possibility and what it would mean to people in the countryside? I hope that he will not proceed with his amendment.
Viscount Mountgarret: I take that point. I also accept what the noble Baroness said that if children go out riding even off road, they are likely to wear protective headgear in any case. I just thought it would be more sensible to ensure that they did wear such headgear. However, not many Members of the Committee have spoken in favour of my amendment. The noble Baroness made a charming and impassioned plea for me to withdraw my amendment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Monson Lord Monson moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 1, line 9, after ("regulations") insert ("and (in the case of a child under 12 years)").
The noble Lord said: I was glad to hear my noble friend Lady Masham use the word "compromise" when replying to the previous amendment because this is a compromise amendment. In other words we have tried to meet my noble friend and her supporters halfway. My original intention was to propose an upper age limit of 12 rather than 14, not because I believe that it is safe or desirable for 12 and 13 year-olds to ride on busy roads without a helmet —I made that quite plain on Second Reading —but because the proposed law seemed quite unenforceable as regards 12 and 13 year-olds.
On further consideration I concluded that there should not be too much of a problem about enforcing the wearing of helmets. Even if 12 and 13 year-olds ride out on their own, which they normally do if they are experienced riders, there is usually somebody in charge at the stables or paddock to ensure that at least they are wearing hats when they set out. As hats are expensive items of equipment, the 12 and 13 year-olds are hardly likely to leave them stuck on top of a gatepost where they are likely to be stolen once they are out of their parents' sight.
Enforcing the correct wearing of hats is a totally different matter, particularly as all teenagers are, and always have been, notoriously rebellious. Teenagers seem to become rebellious younger and younger every decade. Only two days after our Second Reading debate it was revealed in the Daily Telegraph that an extraordinarily high proportion of young people, including 12 year-olds and even younger children, drink not only beer and cider but also wine and spirits, sometimes with their parents' knowledge but presumably much more often without their knowledge, particularly where spirits are

983
concerned. There is not yet a law in force which makes it a criminal offence for parents to leave their drinks cabinets unlocked when their children are alone in the house, but no doubt some Back Bencher is working hard on it at this very moment.
Far more startling is the fact that the previous day —the day immediately following the Second Reading debate, 12th June —it was revealed, again by the Daily Telegraph and I suspect by other serious newspapers, that an amazing 46 per cent. of girls now lose their virginity before the age of 16. What an extraordinary world we live in now! Interestingly, the factor of illegality —with which this Bill is concerned —also arises in that case. Strictly speaking it attaches to the men and boys concerned and not to the girls. Nevertheless, it happens on an enormous scale, with the police only taking action in a tiny proportion of cases.
We must be blunt about this. If almost half of the parents in this country, according to the serious press, are incapable of preventing their 15 year-old, and sometimes 14 year-old, children from undoing their clothing immediately they are out of their parents' sight, how on earth can they be expected to prevent 12 and 13 year-old children from undoing the straps on their helmets once they are out of their parents' sight because they are too hot or want to eat a bar of chocolate or a bag of crisps or to swallow a soft drink? As I said, most children of that age, if they are experienced riders, ride out alone and not with their parents or with older people in charge of them.
It simply will not do to say that authorities will never prosecute in such cases. Once the law is on the statute book, however misconceived parts of it may be, there is no guaranteee that it will not be enforced by the police. That is impossible. It is most undesirable that a law should be brought into disrepute in this way, apart from being extremely unfair on the parent or guardian who may very well have done his or her best to ensure that the strap is fastened but has no means of controlling the child once the child is out of the parents' sight. I beg to move.
Lord Manton: I put my name to the amendment after much careful thought. I have, unfortunately, had experience of small children and of ponies. Small children are quite easy to avoid; ponies must definitely be avoided at all costs. Of course I am in favour of small children not landing on their heads too often and therefore in favour of them wearing hats. However, when I have been involved, much against my will, with my many small nieces and their even smaller and horrible ponies, I have noticed that at the slightest opportunity the children undo the straps of their helmets. If any Members of the Committee have watched racing recently they will have noticed that the first thing that a jockey does at the end of a race is to undo the chin strap.
I believe that it is very important that we do not support unworkable or untidy legislation. If this very important matter goes onto the statute book it should do so in a workable manner. I do not know whether it is possible to legislate that a small child has to have its chin strap done up. I have spent a great deal
984
of time over the years making sure that their girths are done up. That comes quite high up the list of priorities. I have often noticed children falling off horses and taking the bridle with them because they have not done that up. To have to go round to the other side of the pony to make sure that the child's cheek strap is done up as well is almost impossible. That is a point which concerns me. It is a detail, but it is detail which makes for good or bad legislation.
Another point which I consider important relates to the owner of the pony. If you are lucky enough to acquire a good children's pony neither love nor money will make you part with it. I know what happens in the world of ponies from experience within my own family. My sisters, who live in various parts of the country, produce children with monotonous regularity but do not have quite so many ponies. Therefore they lend ponies to each other. If one parent lives in Yorkshire and another lives in Somerset the Somerset parent may ring up the parent in Yorkshire and say "Can I borrow the pony? Your child has outgrown it and mine wants to ride it". The pony is then sent several hundred miles south. That happens again and again. The owner cannot be responsible for what happens when somebody else's child is riding that pony in a different part of the country.
If one goes anywhere where a large number of children are riding, for example at Pony Club camps where there may be up to 100 children riding ponies, one will hear someone ask "Where did you get that pony?" The answer is "I was lent it by my friend, or my cousin." When that child has outgrown it the pony goes back to the original owner. That is intended to encourage children to enjoy the countryside and riding and to enable them to learn to ride. That is why it is important that they should ride good ponies. If the owner of a pony is liable for the safety of the child on that pony when the child and the pony are no longer in the owner's care, he or she will not lend the pony. As a result good children's ponies will be restricted to their original owners and other children will not have the chance to ride them. As a pony has a longer life-expectancy in the sense that it is likely to be ridden for much longer than a child will remain of a size to ride it, that would be a waste of ponies. That would be sad. If I were the owner of a pony I would not send it elsewhere if I could be liable for any accident that might happen.
Those are the only points that I wish to make, but I believe they are important. If the Bill goes on to the statute book in an unworkable form it will be very detrimental to the pony-riding world.
Baroness Nicol: I hope that the noble Baroness will not accept the amendment because it would weaken the Bill.
I should like to answer the main point made by the noble Lord, Lord Monson. A child between the ages of 12 and 14 is still a child and still vulnerable. The fact that that child is more difficult for the parent to handle is no reason for leaving it outside the provisions of the Bill. It seems to me even more important that as the child reaches the age where it tries to be independent parents should have the force

985
of the law behind them. They would be able to say to their children that it is the law that they should wear headgear. I hope that the amendment will not succeed.
Lord Addington: Any child should be told that it is breaking the law, up to a certain age. Children are difficult at all ages. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, sounded rather like the reviewer of a 1950s James Dean film: the term "juvenile delinquent" was writ large. Children misbehave and experiment with drink and drugs in their early teens. However, they are usually small experiments. We could find cases of children doing so even at the age of five, where they find a drinks cabinet open, for example. I hope that that argument will not carry any weight.
7 p.m.
The Earl of Swinton: I would disagree with my noble friend Lord Mancroft on this. On the second point, he is probably on the wrong amendment about the ownership of ponies, so I shall not say anything about that. I could not follow his argument that children were less likely to do up their caps between the 4es of 12 and 14. I have a rather strange principle, which is probably totally wrong, that on the whole the more children grow up, the more sensible they are. This may be a complete and utter fallacy, but it seems to me that they are more likely to do up their hats between the ages of 12 and 14 than they are under 12, and I cannot see the reason for changing the age range.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: What I have found is that children, once they get past the age of 12, become very wilful indeed. The first thing they want to do is to rebel against anything that parents say to them. I would say to my noble friend Lady Nicol that in some cases to tell teenagers that it may very well be that their parents will get into trouble from the police if they do something or if they do not do something would be an extra incentive to them to do it or not to do it.
Of course my noble friend has had children and it may well be that her experience of teenagers is different from mine, but there is no doubt that teenagers as a whole like rebellion. If they can somehow in some cases at some point get at their parents, they love to do it. It has been happening from time immemorial. I therefore think that the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, is a sensible one, and if he presses it I shall certainly support it.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: As one who has had three children and brought them up, I have to say that I would say to my children, "If you break the law and if, because you have broken the law, I am prosecuted and have to pay a fine, that fine will be stopped out of your pocket money". That is how you cope. It is quite simple.
Viscount Ullswater: I would just like to correct one thing that my noble friend Lord Mancroft said, because I am sure that he did not seek to mislead
986
the Committee. It is an offence under the rules of racing for a jockey to undo his chin strap until he has dismounted.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: May I answer the argument of my noble friend Lord Monson that if a parent makes it a condition that a 13 year-old can ride if their helmet is done up and the child breaks that condition, how can the parent be held responsible. They have not permitted the child to ride in this way, and therefore they would not be penalised. This amendment would make the regulations on how the headgear should be worn applicable only to the under-12s. This means that although the 12 to 14 year-olds would have to have a correct hat with them, they could wear it on their elbow or anywhere else if they so wished. This amendment, therefore, essentially reduces the age limit to 12.
As I said at Second Reading on llth June, 14 was chosen to bring this Bill into line with other similar legislation such as rear seat belts in cars. I hope that Members of the Committee agree that this essential piece of safety legislation should not be withheld from the 12 to 14 year-old riders. This is the age when there are many accidents. It was found in the neurosurgical unit in Nottingham that it was girls between the ages of, I think, 11 and 15 who had most head injuries. I urge my noble friend Lord Monson to withdraw this amendment.
Lord Monson: We have had an interesting debate and I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, for his support. This was particularly valuable because of his extremely thorough knowledge of all matters equestrian and his great experience. He also stressed the need for having legislation on the statute book that was enforceable so as not to bring the law into disrepute.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, did not explain how the Bill could be enforced once the child in question is out of sight of its parents. That really is the answer to the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, too. Children of 13 or 14, if they are at all experienced, do not normally ride out with their parents or their guardians. They go out on their own. Younger children tend to to be accompanied by an adult of some sort and therefore it is easy to enforce. I know that this is an arbitrary division, but one has to set an age somewhere, and that is basically the explanation of why I exclude the ages 12 and 13. I fully take the point made by my noble friend Lady Masham that many accidents happen, and I am not suggesting that hats are not a good idea. I am suggesting that because it makes the law look silly it is a bad policy in general to have unenforceable law on the statute book.
My noble friend Lady Saltoun said that if parents had to go to court and be fined they could take it out of their children's pocket money. Indeed, yes, but it is still not at all pleasant for parents to have to go to court. I would say to her that the assumption that if the child disobeyed its parents' instructions the parent would never be prosecuted is a dangerous assumption to make. I should like to think that that was the case, but in practice, as I shall explain when

987
we come to the next pair of amendments, I do not think that it is something that could be relied on. Not at all.
I am somewhat in two minds as to what to do. I think I shall not press this amendment. I shall take it away and either decide to reintroduce it or to introduce a defence amendment. That is to say, that it shall be a defence for somebody accused under this section to prove that they had done everything in their power to persuade the child in question to have their chin strap buckled, or something of that nature. It is difficult to draft and it is rather unsatisfactory, but I would hope that it might meet many of the points made by my noble friend, who of course has studied this in great depth. Perhaps she might be more inclined to accept this. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Monson Lord Monson moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 1, leave out line 17.
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 4 and 5 go together. With the leave of the Committee I shall speak to them both. The purpose of these amendments is self-evident. It is to exclude the owner of the horse or pony from criminal liability when he or she is quite possibly hundred of miles away at the time the horse is ridden by somebody under 14 without a helmet or without the helmet being properly buckled, but to make the owner liable when he or she is in possession or custody of the horse immediately before the child rides it.
Some owners have their horses stabled without charge on the understanding that they can be ridden by properly qualified strangers. Other people may lend their houses together with any horses there may be in the paddock —possibly their cars too, not that that is relevant —to friends whom they know to be expert horsemen while they themselves are away on holiday or on business; or there may be a holiday exchange, as takes place quite often with the United States. The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, has also mentioned pony clubs where people often lend their ponies to strange children and obviously have no control whatsoever over what the children do.
I am afraid that it simply will not do, as my noble friend imagined, to claim that in such circumstances the police will not prosecute, because once the law is on the statute book there is no guarantee of this whatsoever. One of my noble friends, who unfortunately cannot be here today as he is attending another well known equestrian event but who strongly supports this amendment, has drawn my attention to a case in 1967 in which a school teacher who was tenant of a farmhouse let out rooms in that house to students. The students were subsequently caught smoking cannabis.
The unhappy school teacher was prosecuted and fined £25 plus £12.80 costs, which is equivalent in today's money to over £200 in all, for,
"being concerned in management of premises used for the purpose of smoking cannabis",
even though she did not live on the premises and could not possible have known about the cannabis
988
smoking. It is true that she subsequently won her appeal, but not without being subjected to a great deal of expense and, above all, worry. One does not want to see that kind of thing happening again.
If this pair of amendments is accepted, subsection (2) will still remain tight enough to catch anybody who deserves to be caught. There will be no loopholes. I beg to move.
Lord Boardman: I feel that there is a misunderstanding on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, and my noble friend Lord Mancroft when he spoke to the previous amendment. The offence is causing or permitting a child under 14 to ride without headgear. That obtains whether that person is the owner of the horse or has control or custody of it.
I do not think that it will make any difference whether or not the intended provision is in the Bill because the owner will be caught if he causes or permits the child to ride without headgear, just as any other person who has custody of the horse will be caught if he permits or causes the child to ride without headgear. I feel therefore that there is a misunderstanding of this point on the part of the mover of the amendment.
The Earl of Cork and Orrery: I feel that my noble friend Lord Mancroft disposed of the argument about the owner in one word. I do not understand why the owner should be responsible for something that is done with the horse when he himself may perhaps be in India or on holiday in the Isle of Wight or wherever and divorced from all possibility of any interest in what is done with his horse or pony in his absence.
It is also curious that if one makes the owner of the horse responsible and it is a child who is the owner of the horse, it will defeat the object of the Bill, which is to put the responsibilty for the child riding without a hat on the person who is responsible for allowing the child to do it and not on the child.
Viscount Ullswater: In the relevant circumstances both the owner and the person who has given permission could be prosecuted. In the case in which the owner has given permission for his horse to be ridden in his absence, he must have made it clear that the law must be abided by or must have had a reasonable expectation that the person to whom he gave permission would abide by the law. I hope that that helps in the discussion.
Viscount Mountgarret: I must say that I have a degree of sympathy with my noble friend. Provided that both these amendments—I am afraid that we have not discussed the second one—are taken together, one would end up with:
"any person who has custody or possession of the horse".
That embodies the word "owner" as well. In a way therefore this provision is somewhat surplus to requirements, provided that the next amendment (which we are not speaking to now) comes into play. The Bill is probably best left as drafted but my noble friend has a point.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: On the advice of parliamentary counsel it was decided in another place that it would be desirable to have "owner" on the face of the Bill in order to avoid any misunderstandings. An owner who has caused or permitted a child to ride without the correct headgear will be liable to prosecution whether or not this amendment is accepted. For the sake of clarity therefore I urge noble Lords to withdraw the amendment.
I am an owner. I run a trekking centre. I make it known that I want people to wear a riding hat. If this Bill becomes an Act, I shall put up a sign stating that all people will wear riding hats. As it is, they are not allowed to ride unless they have a hat.
The point was made about a person lending a horse when he was absent in India. I lend ponies to people. I take great care to ensure that they go to responsible people. If this Bill becomes an Act I shall have to write a letter to them pointing out that if they ride this pony they must not forget to wear a hat, at least if they are under 14, but in that case I think that everybody would wear a hat. I do not think that that will be very difficult. I do not think that, if he has done his best, the owner should be liable.
7.15 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: If I may say so, that is not good enough. We need the assurance that the owner will not be liable —not that the noble Baroness might think that he is not liable. That is the problem with this legislation. When legislation of this kind passes through the House, legislation under which people are liable to be prosecuted on a criminal charge, it has to be absolutely clear.
In speaking to the previous amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, showed exactly how an owner could be caught out by this legislation. That is simply not good enough. In my view the two amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, deal with the subject and make it clear that the person liable is the person who allowed the child to go out on a road and who had possession of the horse or pony immediately before the child mounted it. That liability should be there and nowhere else. It should not be allowed to be shifted somewhere else. That is in support of the Act itself. Once there is divided liability, there might be difficulty in obtaining a conviction.
I do not know what the noble Lord will do about these amendments but I hope that the noble Baroness will not just brush them aside. They are important amendments. Indeed, her speech showed that the matter needed some clarification. We must not pass legislation, through this House in particular, when that legislation is not clarifying and clear to the prosecuting authorities.
Lord Airedale: If the owner were to be in India, as has been suggested, he would be outside the jurisdiction and would be quite safe.
Lord Boardman: It is made quite clear that none of the people mentioned in subsection (2) is responsible
990
unless he or she causes or permits a child to ride without protective headgear. I should have thought that it was quite unnecessary for this amendment to go any further.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: That was the advice of counsel. This Bill has the full backing of the Ministry of Transport and the Government.
Lord Monson: I am not sure how much today's Ministry of Transport knows about horses. I shall let that pass. The noble Lord, Lord Boardman, stressed the word "permit". The trouble is that the unfortunate owner has to prove that he did not permit it. It is all very well for my noble friend Lady Masham to say that she sticks up a notice saying that people must wear hats. That is possible in some cases but not in others.
Lord Boardman: The principle remains as it always has in criminal law with regard to the burden of proof. Someone has to prove that the owner failed to permit, withdrew permission, or allowed a child to ride without a hat.
Lord Monson: I do not think it is possible to prove either way unless there is something in writing about it. If everyone has to produce a legal document to prove that he has urged riders of his horses to wear hats, it will make the country more bureaucratic than it is already.
I am most grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Cork, as well as to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, and the noble Viscount, Lord Mountgarret, whose support is unusual in so far as concerns this Bill, although it is welcome. If I may say so they have hit the nail on the head. If these two amendments are agreed to —they must both be agreed to; it is no use approving just one of them —whoever is in charge of the horse immediately before the child rides (whether or not it is the owner does not matter) is responsible. As I see it there are no loopholes nor is one giving too many hostages to fortune.
We bear in mind the case of the unfortunate lady who was prosecuted for allowing her house to be used for smoking cannabis although she was many miles away. With that in mind, from the civil liberties point of view I think it essential to test the opinion of the Committee on this amendment.
Viscount Mountgarret: Before the noble Lord sits down, is it in order for me to ask for clarification? He said that I appear to support the amendment. I wish to correct him. Is this amendment contingent upon Amendment No. 5, which we have not yet addressed? On its own the amendment is unacceptable to me. However, in conjunction with Amendment No. 5 it could be acceptable.
Lord Monson: I said at the outset that I was speaking to both amendments together. I would not dream of pressing the first but not the second. I hope that the noble Viscount does not think that I would do such an underhand thing. If that were the case it would be up to other Members of the Committee to press the amendment themselves. Of course the

991
amendments go together. Since one amendment must appear before the other—there is no way round that —I have to press this amendment first. I hope that the other will then automatically follow.
On Question, amendment negatived.
[Amendment No. 5 not moved.]
Lord Airedale Lord Airedale moved Amendment No. 6: Page 1, line 22, at end insert:
(" ( ) It shall be a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that the child under the age of 14 years had apparently attained that age, and that he did not believe otherwise.").
The noble Lord said: The amendment draws its inspiration from the Licensing Act. One of the problems that is likely to beset the manager of a riding establishment will be similar to that which already besets the manager of a public house. Let us suppose that a well developed teenage boy presents himself at the door of a public house. The manager has never seen him before. The boy lies about his age but from his physical appearance may well be speaking the truth about his age. The manager has no other evidence about the boy's age, accepts in good faith that he is speaking the truth and lets him into the public house. In those circumstances, the manager has a statutory defence under the Licensing Act.
I believe that we may have a parallel situation. A boy may present himself at a riding establishment. The proprietor has never seen him before. He is a very well developed boy.
Lord Kilbracken: Or girl.
Lord Airedale: Boys include girls under the Interpretation Act. The boy lies about his age. The proprietor of the riding establishment has no other evidence about the boy's age and accepts what he says. From his appearance it may well be true. He allows the boy to ride without protective headgear.
I submit that that is a good parallel with the example of the public house manager. If a statutory defence under the Licensing Act is permitted in the first case, a similar statutory defence should be available under the Bill for the proprietor of the riding establishment who acts in good faith. That is the purpose of the amendment. I beg to move.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: As in similar legislation on the wearing of seat belts, we have to be very clear about setting an age limit. The amendment would effectively limit the Bill to any child who appeared to be 14. It would be quite wrong to remove the protection provided by the Bill from any child simply because he or she appeared to be older than their years. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Airedale: I thought that I had drawn a successful parallel, and that if a statutory defence is allowed in one case it would be fair to allow it in another. However, I do not wish to take the matter to a Division. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Regulations]:
Baroness Masham of Ilton Baroness Masham of Ilton moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 2, line 11, at end insert:
("(1A) Before making any regulations under this section the Secretary of State shall consult such representative organisations as he thinks fit.").
The noble Baroness said: The Department of Transport has already undertaken to consult widely before making the regulations to enforce the wearing of hard hats. However, on its advice it has been decided to enshrine this commitment in the Bill. That is what the amendment provides. I beg to move.
Lord Monson: I am slightly puzzled by my noble friend's explanation of the amendment. It seems to be at variance with the words of the amendment which imply that before drafting the regulations the Secretary of State will take advice from the organisations concerned.
I have no objection to that in principle. It may produce some sensible and worthwhile suggestions. However, we must remember that not every businessman wishes to join the CBI, the Institute of Directors or a small business group, not every farmer wishes to join the NFU, CLA or a small farmers' organisation, not every motorist has an interest in joining the AA or RAC and by no means all riders wish to belong to "representative organisations". We must always remember the individuals who wish to be treated as individuals and not as part of a group. At all costs we must avoid anything that smacks of the corporate state.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: The requirement on the Secretary of State to consult before making the regulations is chiefly to discover whether there should be any exemptions upon religious grounds or in particular circumstances. It is also to receive advice on what the required standard or standards of headgear should be —for example, whether cycle helmets should be included.
Lord Monson: Can the noble Baroness say whether it is proposed that Sikh children should be exempted from wearing helmets?
Baroness Masham of Ilton: That is a consideration.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Monson Lord Monson moved Amendment No. 8: Page 2, line 12, leave out subsection (2) and insert:
("(2) A draft of any regulations to be made under this section shall be laid before each House of Parliament and those regulations shall not be made unless the draft has been approved by a resolution of each House.").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of the amendment is self-evident. The same applies to Amendments Nos. 12 and 13. They merely extend the principle of affirmative procedure rather than negative procedure to Northern Ireland to bring it into line with the remainder of the United Kingdom, on the assumption that Amendment No. 8 is accepted.
If the Bill is passed we are taking quite a major step. I do not need to remind the Committee that no other country in the world has a similar law. The argument that somebody has to be the first is not an adequate answer. Moreover, when the legislation governing seat belts for children in the rear seats of cars was brought in, the affirmative resolution procedure was agreed to, in recognition of its importance with regard to civil liberties. Exactly the same principle applies to this Bill. It may not in practice make much difference in this Chamber. We know that the advantages are more apparent than real. However, the affirmative resolution procedure regulation provides for greater scrutiny in another place I beg to move.
7.30 p.m.
Lord Boardman: A number of resolutions that come before the Committee should be positive. However, the provision does not fall within that category. The regulations are straightforward. The Committee has passed an amendment relating to the consultations which must take place before they are made. I believe that we should leave the provision in the form of a negative resolution.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I imagine that before the Bil1's Second Reading the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, had thought that it would be straightforward. I am sure that she had no idea that I should take part in the debate. However, it has proved not to be perfectly straightforward. A number of amendments have been tabled and there has been a great deal of discussion. Therefore, we cannot assume that the regulations will be perfectly straightforward.
The amendment is perfectly reasonable and is one which in other circumstances the noble Baroness may have supported. It is important that Parliament should be able to discuss regulations and orders and to reject them. It would be wise for one reason in particular, as has been mentioned, to have an affirmative procedure in this case. In her speech on Second Reading the noble Baroness referred to exemptions on religious grounds. Some of us strongly believe that no exemptions should be made on religious grounds in this or any other Bill. I spoke against the exemption of Sikhs, for example, from wearing protective helmets on building sites. I believed that it set a bad example to others. If such a provision is extended to the riding of horses two issues will arise; first, it will set a bad example and, secondly, it will appear that the state is less concerned about accidents and deaths to Sikhs than to other people. They are two good reasons for providing that the regulations should be made by means of affirmative procedure. Indeed, if the exemption relating to Sikhs was contained in such a regulation I might well have wished to create a precedent in the Chamber and vote against the regulations perhaps with effect.
I support the amendment. The rights of Parliament are being overriden from all sides. The Acts that it passes can be overruled even by the
994
European Community. I hope that Members of the Committee in particular will be careful about their rights and privileges and support the amendment.
Lord Airedale: The principles which decide whether an order shall be affirmative or negative appear to be most odd. Recently we dealt with an affirmative order about mushroom growing. That was quickly followed by the student loans regulations which were highly controversial and which were dealt with under the negative procedure. Is there a principle which decides such issues?
Baroness Masham of Iltion: Nothing surprises me about this Chamber. I have been a Member since 1970 and I never take anything for granted.
The amendment seeks to change the regulation-making process from negative to affirmative resolution. As Members of the Committee know, the affirmative resolution procedure is the exception rather than the rule. In the parliamentary Session 1987–88 there were 113 general Statutory Instruments from the Department of Transport under the negative resolution procedure and only 11 under the affirmative resolution procedure; that is a proportion of nearly 1 to 11. The affirmative resolution procedure is quite rightly used where the regulations are potentially controversial. That was the case with rear seat belts for children. Members will recall the debate about school journeys, for example, and how they would be accommodated in the rules.
The Bill is far more straightforward. It is more akin to motorcycle helmets where the regulations are made under the negative resolution procedure. The regulations to be made for this Bill will cover the type of hat, how it is to be worn, who might be exempted on religious or medical grounds and in what circumstances they might be exempted. None of that is controversial and the only effect of changing to affirmative resolution might be to delay the implementation of the great safety benefits that the measure will bring to young riders. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Monson, will withdraw the amendment.
Lord Monson: I am afraid that I cannot withdraw my amendment. If both Houses of Parliament thought it right that the affirmative procedure should apply to regulations governing the wearing of seat belts by children, logically we cannot deny applying the same procedure to this Bill. It represents a more major change in the law because the front seat belt legislation was already in place when the rear seat belt legislation was passed. Therefore, it was not such an innovation.
As the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, said, many controversial issues may arise from these regulations. The provision would not delay the effective introduction of the Bill as opposed to its legal introduction, given that the publicity attached to the Bill may induce many more people to buy helmets for their children on a voluntary basis. It is an important issue and once again I must test the opinion of the Committee.
On Question, amendment negatived.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Interpretation]:
Lord Stoddart of Swindon Lord Stoddart of Swindon moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 2, line 16, leave out ("foal").
The noble Lord said: I do not wish to delay the Committee and therefore I shall speak also to Amendment No. 10. The major debate on the amendments took place during our discussions on Amendment No. 1. Nevertheless, several comments remain to be made. I do not agree with what was said and still hold the view that we are making a fool out of the Bill by including the animals referred to in the amendments.
For example, I suggest that on page 16 we leave out the word "foal". I understand a foal to be a young horse still with a dam. Is it seriously suggested that people ride foals? I do not believe that they do. When in my young days I lived at Chazey Court if I had been seen on the back of a foal I should have been knocked off. I would have been told that it would cause damage to the animal at a critical stage of its life. Therefore, why are foals included in the Bill?
Furthermore, why on earth are asses, mules and hinnies included in the Bill? I suspect that the reason for the inclusion of the definition is that it is contained in other Bills. The word "horse" is defined in the Protection of Animals Act 1911 as follows:
"'Horse' includes any mare, gelding, pony, foal, colt, filly or stallion."
Again the definition in the Docking and Nicking of Horses Act 1949 is:
"'Horse' includes stallion, gelding, colt, mare, filly, pony, mule and hinny".
One can understand that asses, mules and hinnies might be included in the Docking and Nicking of Horses Act, but that does not mean that they should be included in this Bill.
The Slaughterhouses Act 1974 states:
"'Horse' includes ass and mule".
However, that was an Act to regulate the slaughter of those animals. In the Farriers (Registration) Act 1975, which again has nothing to do with protective headgear but I understand has to do with the shoeing of horses, the definition states:
"'Horse' includes pony, mule, donkey or other equine animal".
Therefore, it seems to me that the definition of "horse" has been filched from other legislation, and because it is thought convenient, it has been included in this Bill.
I still contend that is is wrong to insist that young riders up to the age of 14 —and they may be six foot tall at that age —should be forced to wear protective headgear complete with tight chinstrap when they are riding a horse or a mule. I do not believe it is necessary, and that is the object of these amendments. I reject all previous arguments. The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, said that asses and mules have a hell of a kick. However, they usually kick behind them and do not kick a person on the head. I hope that that sort of argument will not be used again against my amendment.
We have had the main argument, and I do not wish to repeat that. I have put forward my theory as to how those words are included in this Bill, and I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, will even at this stage consider the amendment and accept it. I beg to move.
Baroness Nicol: I do not quite know how to confess this, but as a child I rode an ass and an animal called a jennet which does not seem to be mentioned. That is a cross between an ass and a pony, but the other way round to a mule. Such animals can be very unpredictable. They are accessible to children growing up in the sort of family with which I was brought up which owned miscellaneous animals. I should like to feel that the provisions of this Bill extend also to those animals. I cannot agree with my noble friend, and I hope that this amendment will be rejected.
Lord Monson: As regards Amendment No. 10, my support for it was based upon the use of the Queen's English. I do not believe that one can include in the definition of a "horse" an ass or a mule any more than one includes in the definition of a "motor car" a bus, lorry, or motor cycle. With that proviso, I am inclined to accept the argument of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, on Amendment No. 10.
Amendment No. 9 is a totally different matter. It is ridiculous to suppose that anybody, even a baby, will ride a foal. In any event, a baby will not have a crash helmet. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, will not press Amendment No. 10. However, I hope that he will press Amendment No. 9 if it is not accepted, because it will be interesting to see how many Members of the Committee go through the Division Lobby in support of the proposition that foals can be ridden.
The Earl of Swinton: My admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, knows no bounds. I asked myself how he would be able to bring in his aversion to Europe on this discussion, and he managed to do that on the last amendment. Donkeys and other animals can not only kick back, but can buck and kick in the air with enough power to dislodge a small child and throw it on to its head.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I should correct the noble Earl. My aversion is not to Europe but to the EC.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Addington: Leaving the EC aside, as regards these amendments, we come back to the point that this amendment is making an exception. A foal can be a potentially large animal. I am sure that those more knowledgeable on equestrian terminology will be able to find some very interesting definitions of the word "foal", and can find examples of enormous specimens. A child can be hurt at an early age by falling from a considerable height from such an animal. I suggest that we should make our definitions as wide as possible when dealing with safety regulations so that they can be applied as widely as possible.
Lord Monson: Before the noble Lord sits down, has he ever heard of a case of anybody ever riding a foal?
Lord Addington: No, but what happens when we do?
The Earl of Cork and Orrery: I can suggest a possible answer to that because no matter what the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, may say, it is possible to ride a foal. Like other animals, foals vary in size from the small to the large as do people. When the noble Lord was of an age to be told that it was improper or unwise to ride a foal, he was large enough and old enough to understand. Had he been told that when he was a baby, he might not have been quite so ready to understand. His mother might have said to him, "Look at this dear little animal! Do have a ride!". She might have then put him on the back of the foal. Foals can take off with remarkable alacrity. He might have landed upside down on hs head on the cobblestones. Unquestionably, he might have received a very nasty injury which could have proves fatal. His mother would have been responsible for that. That is a possible scenario.
As regards the other animals which the noble Lord wishes to omit from the definition, I am not certain that I have ridden them all, but it is quite likely. I can swear to the fact that a mule is a dangerous animal. It may be slightly less dangerous when you are sitting on its back than when you are on the ground beside it. Such an animal is rideable. Many mules are taller than children of the age referred to in the Bill. This definition should be retained in the Bill.
Lord Monson: Before the noble Earl sits down, perhaps I may ask him this question. Is he suggesting seriously that the mother of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, would have put him on the back of a foal on the public highway? After all, that is what this Bill is concerned with. Secondly, the size of the foal is not important. The important fact is that its bones are not yet formed and therefore it is dangerous to put anything heavy on its back.
Lord Burton: It is like trying to make a baby carry a large weight. Therefore the person responsible for the child should be prosecuted whether or not the child is wearing a hard hat.
Lord Mancroft: I have no intention of ever trying to ride or fall off a foal. However, can any Member of the Committee tell me what is a hinny?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: A hinny is the product of the mating between an ass and a stallion. Is that not correct?
Lord Airdale: It is the other way round from a mule, is it not?
Baroness Masham of Ilton: I should like to put on record that nobody should ride a foal, but some people do remarkably stupid things.
998
By narrowing the definition of "horse" it would make enforcement very difficult for the police, who would need some expertise in distinguishing the size and type of horse. It is not always possible to tell a foal just by looking at it. According to the Oxford English Dictionary a foal is,
"The young of the equine genus of quadrupeds".
I hope the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, will appreciate that problem and withdraw the amendment. Also, if the purpose of excluding donkeys is to protect donkey rides on the beach, perhaps I can advise him that they are already excluded as we are concerned only with roads. If the amendment is to exclude a specific donkey derby, I should be grateful to know which so that the Secretary of State could take that into account when he makes the regulations.
I have ridden donkeys and they are exceedingly difficult to ride because they have very little in front of them. I believe I have fallen from a donkey more times than I have fallen from a horse.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: As I said earlier, we had the main debate on Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 when discussing Amendment No. 1. Other noble Lords may have had different experiences from myself. I confess that I have always ridden docile donkeys. I have never been thrown or kicked by one; perhaps I have good control over them. However, I have never yet seen anyone else being thrown by a donkey, and certainly not on a public highway. I therefore believe that my original amendment was reasonable and that Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 are also reasonable.
I believe that by allowing to remain in the Bill the possibility that foals can be ridden is a bit beyond the pale. As the noble Lord, Lord Monson, explained, foals are young animals not properly developed. We are speaking of riding foals on a public highway. I cannot conceive of circumstances where foals will be ridden on public highways by anybody —not by children of 12 and 14 or by adults. Presumably adults will also do stupid things, but I cannot conceive of such a situation. In those circumstances I shall press the amendment.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: Before the noble Lord does so, perhaps I could say that the reason "foal" appears is that nobody wants anyone to ride a foal. That is obvious. But the definition of "foal" is very vague and nobody knows when a foal is not a foal. That is the problem. When does a foal become a young horse? "Foal" appears because the definition is vague.
Lord Monson: Perhaps I may intervene. In answer to my noble friend last night I telephoned a friend who has enormous experience in the riding world and herself trains horses. She said that under no circumstances can a foal be older than six months.
Baroness Nicol: Perhaps I may ask my noble friend, before he puts the amendment to the Committee, why he must press the amendment if he feels that foals are never likely to be ridden.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: To make it a better Bill. There is no point in including words in a Bill which are unnecessary. I understand that the definition of a foal is a young horse running with its dam. That is a very young horse indeed. Therefore I feel that it is right that I put the amendment to a vote.
Viscount Allenby of Megiddo: It might possibly help the Committee if we go a little further on the definition of "foal"; does it cease to be a foal when it has been weaned from its mother? Having said that, young horses run with their mothers for quite a long time. In my experience, small children are often put on what could be called foals. The fact that they may not be on the road is probably irrelevant. It is possible for young people, for enjoyment, to be put on to little horses or foals and it is therefore important that the Bill remains as it stands. Otherwise we shall confuse the issue.
On Question, amendment negatived.
[Amendment No. 10 not moved.]
Baroness Masham of Ilton Baroness Masham of Ilton moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 2, leave out lines 19 to 27 and insert:
(" "road" does not include a footpath or bridleway but, subject to that, has —

(a) in England and Wales the meaning given by section 192(1) of the Road Traffic Act 1988; and

(b) in Scotland the meaning given by section 151(1) of the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984.

(2) For the purposes of the definition of "road" in subsection (1) above—

(a) "footpath" means a way —

(i) over which the public have a right of way or. in Scotland, of passage on foot only; and

(ii) which is not associated with a carriageway; and

(b) "bridleway" means a way over which the public have the following, but no other, rights of way: a right of way on foot and a right of way on horseback or leading a horse, with or without a right to drive animals of any description along the way,").

The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 11 is intended to restrict the scope of the Bill to roads where there is a risk of collision between vehicles and horse riders. That is the reason bridleways and footpaths are excluded. However, it will be illegal for children to ride their horses on a footpath alongside a road without protective headgear. Under Section 72 of the Highways Act 1835 it is an offence to ride upon any footpath or causeway by the side of the road set aside for pedestrians. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 4 [Corresponding provision for Northern Ireland]:
[Amendments Nos. 12 and 13 not moved.]
Clause 4 agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.

Rights of Way Bill
7.55 p.m.
Lord Kimball: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee. —(Lord Kimball.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD HAYTER in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Amendment of Part IX of Highways Act 1980]:
The Earl of Radnor The Earl of Radnor moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 26, leave out ("make good") and insert ("treat").
The noble Earl said: Amendment No. 1 is simple. It may appear to be only a matter of drafting but there is a little more to it. It relates to the reinstatement of a right of way after it has been either ploughed or disturbed. The wording in the Bill as it stands is,
"so make good the surface of the path".
At Second Reading I said that the words "make good" —particularly "good" —were extremely imprecise and woolly, aware though I was that they had come forward from the 1980 Bill. Some people feel that the devil you know is better than the devil you do not know.
I take the contrary view that there is nothing that cannot be improved. The phrase "make good" to me tends to suggest that something is put back as it was before. In a colloquial sense I believe that is what the phrase would be taken to mean. It is obvious that with all the will in the world when these rights of way are ploughed or disturbed they will never be precisely as they were before. The object of the Bill, as I see it, is to make these paths, byways, bridle paths, and so on, reasonable for people to use them as they should be used. I therefore felt the word "treat" to be better. The later part of paragraph (a),
"as to make it reasonably convenient for the exercise of the right of way",
is the description of how the treatment should take place. It is not a matter of the greatest importance, but I think that "treat" is a little better than "make good". I beg to move.
8 p.m.
Baroness Nicol: The term "make good" has been used in legislation since 1949 so it is familiar to farmers and to local authorities. It is understood to imply a reasonable restoration of the walking surface with an understanding on all sides that there is a degree of flexibility in that standard. Sometimes the path may be improved by making good, and sometimes it may have deteriorated; but that flexibility has been accepted.
To "treat", as proposed by the noble Lord, implies a more sophisticated exercise and is open to several interpretations. Such a requirement might cause the Bill to lose the support of farmers whose good will is essential to its operation. The term "make good'

1001
is perfectly acceptable to the Ramblers' Association and like-minded bodies. I hope that the noble Earl will feel able to withdraw his amendment because we do not wish at this stage to lose the good will of the many farmers who have agreed to these measures.
Lord Kimball: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Radnor for all the work and attention he has given to the detail of this Bill. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, for accurately summarising the problem we face in accepting the amendment; much as I should like to do because I now that my noble friend genuinely prefers the word "treat".
The snag is that there are now various modern techniques, including something called "solidry" which local authorities practice and which only local authorities can afford, which would come under the description of "treat". Therefore, we are putting an additional burden on the farming community if we accept the amendment. In view of what the noble Baroness said, I hope that he will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
The Earl of Radnor: I can assure the Committee that the last thing in the world I wish to do is upset the farming community or the ramblers. I take the points that have been made. It is obvious that the devil you know is better than the devil you do not know. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Earl of Radnor The Earl of Radnor moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 30, leave out ("so").
The noble Earl said: I speak also to Amendment No. 3. These two amendments have to be taken together. Again, it is a matter of semantics, but I feel that it is perhaps a little more important than that. For one thing, I do not feel that surplus words, even a few, are to be desired in legislation. Therefore, I feel that it would be advantageous to delete the word "so" from the beginning of paragraph (b) and take out the words at the end of the paragraph so that it reads:
"indicate the line of the path or way on the ground to not less than its minimum width".
That means exactly the same as the paragraph now reads. To me it seems, in a sense, rather stronger but perfectly reasonable wording. It does not seem necessary that the paragraph should contain the words.
"that it is apparent to members of the public wishing to use it".
Those words are embodied in the word "indicate". Therefore, why have this additional description at the end of the paragraph and the word "so" at the beginning? There is no difference to the thrust of the Bill by this alteration, and at the same time it is a small attack on verbosity. I beg to move.
Lord, Kimball: I find it difficult to disagree with my noble friend; but I regret to say that his amendments, taken together, change the structure of the Bill. That is the problem. This paragraph in the Bill has been
1002
carefully drafted to link with the surface restoration requirements which precede it so that taken together the path is adequate for the exercise of the right of way. That is, the surface shall be made as good so as to be convenient for the exercise of the right of way and the line so indicated as to be apparent to members of the public wishing to use it.
The advice we have had from drafting counsel is that the courts will similarly hold that the requirement to indicate is a minimum one. It requires no more than that someone, once at the start of a path on a field boundary, will be reasonably certain of the line they should take to walk or ride across the field. The amendment effectively breaks the link between the two tests. Taking out the reference to the path being apparent to members of the public could lead the courts to conclude that something more is required and that the path should be indicated by a higher standard than that which was originally intended by the working party which looked at this problem.
As with the first of my noble friend's amendments, these two amendments introduce an inconsistency into the Bill. In view of that explanation, I hope that my noble friend will feel able withdraw this amendment and I shall have much pleasure in accepting his later amendment.
The Earl of Radnor: I certainly have no intention of pressing this amendment. I take the points that have been made. Perhaps I looked at the matter in a rather simplistic manner. Again, the last thing in the world that I wish to do is to cause farmers any more trouble than they have already. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 3 not moved.]
Lord Gisborough Lord Gisborough moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 5, line 10, at beginning insert ("Subject to subsection (2A) below,").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment, I speak also to Amendment No. 5 which should be taken with it. I first declare an interest as a farmer although I do not think I have any footpaths going through my land of the sort we are discussing. I also declare an interest as a walker. I am a keen Sunday afternoon walker. I know some of the problems of using footpaths which are not good and therefore I speak very much from the walkers' interests and point of view.
The problem is that where a farmer plants corn he has to plant it a certain distance apart. There is no excuse for planting it closer, and we now know the distance that he must leave. Even if he plants the corn at, I believe, 1.8 metres apart it could fall over—oilseed rape could be the biggest problem —and without the farmer knowing he could end up with a gap of less than one metre.
The proposed subsection (1)(b) states:
"to prevent the crop from so encroaching on any relevant highway, whether passing over that or adjoining land, as to render it inconvenient for the exercise of the public right of way".
I have no quarrel with that because as a walker I do not want to be inconvenienced. I do not mind

1003
having to push things away because that is part of the joy of walking in the country —climbing stiles, and so on —otherwise one might just as well go to the park. The proposed subsection (2) of that clause states:
"For the purposes of subsection (1) above, a crop shall be treated as encroaching on a highway if, and only if, any part of the crop grows on, or otherwise onto or over".
That means that if the top of the crop extends over the one metre minimum then the farmer is committing an offence. We are not talking about blocking the path or making it inconvenient. I am not talking about planting too close to the path. If there is wind at home and the oilseed rape comes over and the next day I receive a complaint, then I may be liable.
The great majority of walkers are people of goodwill who want nothing more than to go for a good walk and enjoy themselves. However, we all know that there are some keen walkers who like nothing more than exercising their rights. I quote the example of people who always insist on following a footpath through someone's house because they have the right to do so whereas a reasonable person would go round the outside.
We also have a great many very keen local authority officials. I had a case recently concerning a fault found in an hotel kitchen. I was involved with the hotel. We did our best to put the fault right. I met an official outside and I said, "I am glad to see you. Is there any advice you can give us to make sure that we have got it right?" She said, "I am not here to give you advice, I'm here to close you down if you get it wrong". There are numbers of these young officials about who are straight out of school and that is their attitude. They will be carrying one metre measuring sticks around with them and if they can find a place where the corn is less than a metre apart, bang goes the farmer. That is nothing less than harassment and it will happen.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, talked about goodwill. There will be no goodwill at all. The farmer will be fined £400 on Scale 3 because the wind had blown a tip of corn on to the path. He would be fined as if he had obstructed a police officer or had a dog worrying livestock or as if he had evaded his TV licence fee. That is the penalty. Furthermore, because of that wind he will have a criminal record. That could happen to any noble Lord.
It really is absurd. If I am incorrect and if the relevant words are "to render it inconvenient" that is fair enough and there is no problem. It is a matter of judgment. However, if the relevant words are,
"if any part of the crop …grows over",
that will be totally unacceptable. It would bring the law into disrepute and if a case was ever brought it would make the law an ass. Whether my amendment is correct I cannot say. An amendment to make this provision reasonable and not just a question of a measuring stick is absolutely essential.
8.15 p.m.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I put my name to this amendment because I was confused by what was
1004
meant by "apparent width". Why not just put "width"? Since then I have taken legal advice. The interpretation that I was given by the lawyers, who never cease to amaze me, is as follows. If the crop overhangs the right of way but is not rendering the path inconvenient as stated in subsection (5)(1)(b) on page 5, lines 6 to 9, of the Bill and not growing in the right of way, which I fully accept, then the authority would be acting unreasonably if the farmer was accused of committing an offence. That is the legal advice I have been given. I hope I can bow to the judgment that that is correct. If my noble friend can confirm that it is correct, then I shall be perfectly happy.
Baroness Nicol: The noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, is very persuasive. Nevertheless, I am advised that this amendment would introduce a degree of ambiguity to the Bill which would undermine the agreement which has been reached by the Rights of Way Committee working party. As we have just heard, growing crops has been the main source of complaint and difficulty over the years. The Bill as presented gives a fair and acceptable way out of the difficulty.
It makes the provision that there must be inconvenience to the public before the Bill applies, as the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, has discovered. The introduction of the phrase "reasonably passable" in Amendment No. 5 is an invitation to long legal wrangles of the kind which can happen under present legislation and which are damaging to all concerned except, possibly, the lawyers.
Minimum widths have been set to make the least possible impact on crops and still meet the needs of walkers. Any reopening of the discussion to accommodate these amendments could upset the balance which has been achieved and set the whole process back, perhaps for years. This Bill has benefits for farmers and for walkers. I hope that it can proceed without delay and that the amendment will not be pressed.
Lord Kimball: Perhaps I may just say to my noble friend Lord Gisborough that he is quite correct in what he said. However, I hope that I can convince him and my noble friend Lord Stanley that what they fear is not the case. The requirement on the occupier, as set out in the Bill as drafted, is not an absolute one. It is to prevent a crop from encroaching on to or over a relevant highway so as to render it inconvenient for the exercise of the right of way. An authority taking action must first assess the inconvenience being caused to path users. Therefore, there is a consistency of drafting with the same concept being applied here as elsewhere in the Bill; namely, in Clause 1 on page 2, line 14, and on page 3, line 25. In each case there has to be some demonstrable inconvenience to the public before the provision can be applied.
Under my noble friend's amendment, this section only is replaced by the test of being "reasonably passable". It may or may not amount to the same thing. However, the phrase is undefined, as the noble Baroness said, and it is not in keeping with the other terms used in the Bill or in existing legislation. As

1005
she has said, it will unfortunately lead to even greater confusion. That is what we are trying to avoid in the passing of this Bill. The provisions in the Bill have been carefuly framed to complement the existing provisions in Section 137 of the 1980 Act concerning the wilful obstruction of the public's free passage along a highway and Section 154, which requires an occupier to trim back any overhanging vegetation.
However, the amendment is in conflict with both these sections. A farmer who lets a crop overhang may, using the provisions of the amendment, find that he can still be prosecuted for an offence under the existing Section 137 or he can be required to cut back the overhang under Section 154. For authorities and 1ocal magistrates there is uncertainty about when Section 137 applies to a particular crop. This the new Section 137A has sought to resolve. With that explanation of what is a very complicated legal situation, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw this amendment. I share his concern and I hope that many people will take note of what he said. There is a slightly belligerent element among some of the rambling community which makes things very difficult for landowners and farmers. While I accept that, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Gisborough: I thank my noble friend for that explanation. I should like to read what he said because I am not sure that he covered my point about any part of the crop growing over. I shall read carefully what he has said and perhaps come back to it on Report after taking advice. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 5 not moved.]
The Earl of Radnor The Earl of Radnor moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 5, line 20, at end insert ("but the crop shall not be treated as grass if it is a cereal crop").
The noble Earl said: This amendment relates to interference with rights of way by crops. To understand it properly one must read Clause 1(5) at the bottom of page 4 which states:
"Where a crop other than grass has been sown or planted on any agricultural land the occupier of the land shall from time to time take such steps as may be necessary".
It goes on to describe what the steps are. Grass is a permissible crop over which one can walk and in respect of which one does not need a measuring stick. Therefore it follows that the definition of grass is extremely important. Halfway down page 5 of the Bill, subsection (3) describes it very fully indeed. It states:
"the clop shall be treated as grass if, and only if, it is of a variety or mixture commonly used for pasture, silage or haymaking".
There is a difficulty here. The Bill intends all the excepted crops, including cereals, to stand outside this description of grass. But all the cereals are in point of fact grasses. If that is the importance of this part of the Bill, which I believe it to be, it would suit both farmers and walkers if the matter were put right either one way or the other. There must be the exclusion which is described in the amendment.
Oats can be used for silage. In the past they were frequently used and there is no reason why they should not be used again. If the Committee will forgive me I shall read from the editorial column of this week's Farmers Weekly. It states:
"Tight corn profits mean that you need close to six tonnes per hectare just to cover the costs of a high input growing system. It is little wonder in the circumstances that mixed farmers are showing interest once again in whole crop conservation for stock feed".
One should be certain here that a crop of oats, even if it goes right through to combining, does not get away in a magistrates' court with being grass which could be commonly used for hay or silage. It is quite a fine point but it is worth while to make certain of it. I beg to move.
Lord Kimball: I have much pleasure in accepting the amendment. In doing so I thank the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, for his diligence and experience. It has enabled him to spot a point which had hitherto been missed. Despite all the careful scrutiny that the Bill had had by the working party, the lawyers, the officials of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Department of Transport —in fact three government departments—and the preliminary draftsmen and so on, this point did not surface. I am most grateful to my noble friend for having spotted it. I have much pleasure in accepting the amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Amendment of s.329(1) of Highways Act 1980]:
Lord Gisborough Lord Gisborough moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 5, line 43, after ("follows") insert ("closely").
The noble Lord said: This is a small amendment. It refers to the fact that some footpaths follow roughly round the outside of a field, cutting corners and so on, or are perhaps five yards in for some reason or other. These could be covered by the Bill in as much as they follow round the field. The amendment intends that a footpath, meaning a field-edge path, should be a field-edge path only if it goes closely round the edge of the field —in other words, effectively round the fence —and not if it roughly goes round it within five or six yards or whatever. It is not a very important point but there may well be cases where it will be useful to differentiate between one that goes roughly round the outside and one that is genuinely next to the fence. I beg to move.
Baroness Nicol: I should have said at the beginning of this exercise that as this is a Private Member's Bill I speak from this Dispatch Box on my own behalf and not on behalf of my colleagues.
I cannot support the amendment. The use of the word "closely" does not help to clarify the Bill and by causing uncertainty in the farmer's mind it could limit activities in which he could otherwise legitimately engage, such as disturbing a path which approximates to but is not on the field edge. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, has not quite seen that point. I am sure that he does not intend to limit the activities of the farmer but that would be the effect of the amendment.
Lord Kimball: I hope that my noble friend will reconsider and not press the amendment. We all understand the point quite clearly but the definition we propose in the Bill has existed in legislation since 1968 and has not given rise to any difficulties in the court cases that have been brought.
The word "closely" does not clarify the definition in any way; rather it serves to confuse and could work against the farmer's interest. It might, for example, be interpreted as preventing a farmer from exercising his right to disturb paths which are close to rather than on the field edge, or it might lead to a farmer being prosecuted for such a disturbance. If on the other hand it is meant to imply that the path should exactly follow the field edge, it is unnecessary since this is already the interpretation placed by the courts on the existing term "follows". With that explanation, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Gisborough: I am grateful to my noble friend for that explanation. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with an amendment.

Entertainments (Increased Penalties) Bill
8.30 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Perhaps I may start in an unorthodox but appropriate way by saying what the Bill does not set out to do. It does not set out either to create new offences or new powers or to prevent anyone's legitimate enjoyment; it sets out simply to raise the penalties for certain existing offences from the levels which were appropriate when they were enacted to a level which is appropriate today. The increase required to do this is very large indeed because the amounts of money which can be made by breaking the law have become very large indeed. Indeed, I would not be proposing the Bill to your Lordships if I did not believe that the need was both pressing and real.
The need has been occasioned by the recent development of a form of exploitation of the young which puts them in considerable danger. The organisers of this exploitation arrange events which have been featured a good deal in the news lately and which your Lordships may have noticed mentioned frequently in the media. The ostensible purpose of these events is to bring young people together in very large numbers to listen, and perhaps to dance, to a particular kind of music. The music is known as acid-house music and because of this the events have become known as acid-house parties. The name highlights the motivation of the young people attending these events. However, they have been given another name and that is pay parties, which highlights the motivation of the organisers who bring the young people to such events.
1008
The young people pay to go to these parties and they pay with a vengeance, even if nothing goes wrong. They pay up to £30 for a ticket. Moreover, as there may be up to 10,000 people present at a single event, your Lordships can perhaps see why an increase beyond the present limit of £2,000 as the maximum fine for the relevant offence is called for.
Organising a large musical event is not an offence, nor should we wish to make it so. This is not a killjoy Bill, and it has not been drafted with killjoy intentions. However, your Lordships may be interested to know something more about these particular events. Perhaps we should start with the music. Let us take, for example, its volume. In one case of which I received details it was not just clearly but offensively audible at a distance of five miles downwind. In that instance the police received 980 telephone complaints in the space of one-and-a-quarter hours. On another such occasion, the sound was produced by 72 speakers, each of them 4 feet tall, arranged in two banks of 36. On a third such occasion, 50 speakers were operating in an enclosed barn.
I do not underestimate the health hazard to those young people attending such events which the details reveal. Nonetheless, they are not the principal danger which is involved and which makes it necessary to increase the penalties applicable to those who promote and run these events. The effects on the surrounding population are also worth considering. They are exceedingly unpleasant and those in the immediate area suffer most —naturally, because of the noise and, unnaturally, because of the organisers' habit of employing large numbers of heavyweight security staff, sometimes equipped with sticks and staves and often accompanied by Rottweiler dogs. Their job is not to protect the customers; it is to prevent any interruption of the proceedings. On occasion, the steps taken to prevent interruption are more elaborate and constitute in themselves a hazard to those attending the event.
In a third instance which was quoted to me, the organisers of an event which was held in an abandoned warehouse locked all but half of one entrance and filled the approach road with parked vehicles so that it was impassable —not only to police vehicles, which may have been the intention, but to any vehicle, including fire engines and ambulances. That compares with an example quoted in another place about an event held in a warehouse in Accrington where no fewer than 5,000 young people had to enter and leave through a single door. On that occasion the approach roads were blocked off at a distance of half a mile from the venue.
During the three years that I was the Minister responsible at the Home Office for the fire service, I became acutely aware of the need for a means of rapid evacuation of buildings in an emergency. The alternative is very often the death of large numbers of people under horrific circumstances. In cases such as those I have cited, the danger of fire is very real. An eye witness account from Essex tells of a meeting of 3,000 people in that county at which the generator was faulty and where the power cables on the floor produced sparks throughout the performance. There

1009
is every prospect that some such unlicensed event will one day produce a dreadful toll of casualties.
The very great annoyance caused to the general public by the sudden, unexpected descent of anything from 2,000 to 10,000 young people at night on a single place, with no planned arrangements for traffic or parking, is in itself a matter of interest. However, when the purpose of the descent is to hear levels of noise more appropriate to psychological warfare than to innocent entertainment, I suggest that it becomes a nuisance sufficient to cause your Lordships active concern. To that concern should be added the concern that young people naive enough to be attracted to the events are often subject to exploitation at every stage. Suffice to say that at one such event held in a large empty building there was no water supply and no provision of toilet facilities and that those present were charged £1 for the use of an ordinary bucket on every occasion.
Noble Lords will also realise that such assemblies are fertile ground for drug pushers. I do not say that they are staged in order to promote the pushing of illegal drugs; indeed, I understand that some such meetings are drug free. But at others if the police arrive, those in possession of drugs drop them on the floor at once, as is their normal practice, and the cocktail which can be swept up from the floor could be enough to wipe out a battalion.
I think that your Lordships will agree that that is a danger to which young people should not be unnecessarily exposed. I also hope that noble Lords will agree that they should not be exposed to being roasted or suffocated to death in the event of a fire. In fact, it may be felt that there ought to be legislation to prevent such incidents occurring and to secure that massive entertainments such as these are held only with notice and approval given and under proper supervision. Why, one may wonder, have we not legislated for this already, given that these parties have been in the public notice since at least last summer? Of course the legislation already exists; the appropriate requirements are already there. However, at present the promoters and the organisers can snap their fingers at them because, though the powers suffice, the penalties when compared with the rewards are derisory. I say that existing powers suffice because I understand that Her Majesty's Government have kept in touch with the police on the subject and that they do not at present seek to acquire any further powers.
I turn now to deal with the Bill itself. It will perhaps help your Lordships if I put the proposals in the legislation into the context of the existing framework of entertainment licensing law. As is often the case, the simple objective is rendered difficult by the circumstances under which it is undertaken. The situation differs slightly as between different parts of the United Kingdom and I shall start with England and Wales.
Under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982, or, in Greater London, the London Government Act 1963, responsibility for the licensing of premises which are used for public dancing, music and similar public entertainments is vested in the local authority, the district or London
1010
borough council, in which the premises are situated. The public entertainment licensing law applies automatically to events held indoors throughout England and Wales and also to those held out of doors in Greater London. Outside Greater London it applies only to outdoor musical events which are held on private land, and then only if the local authority concerned has taken the necessary steps to adopt the relevant provisions in the 1982 Act. Licences are required for the provision of either live or recorded music.
Whether an event is a public one or not is ultimately a matter for the courts to decide in the light of the particular circumstances of each individual case. Broadly speaking, however, the question turns on whether any member of the public, on paying for admission, if that is required, could attend the entertainment. Although the organisers of acid-house parties have vigorously argued to the contrary, it seems fairly clear that many such events for which there is what amounts to an admission charge, which large numbers of people attend and at which there is music for them to dance to would require to be licensed under the public entertainment licensing law.
In general, the law in England and Wales does not seek to control private music and dancing entertainments in the same way as it does public ones. There is, however, an exception. The Private Places of Entertainment (Licensing) Act 1967 enables all local authorities to take powers to require the licensing of private events involving music or dancing which are promoted for private gain on a basis which is broadly comparable to the licensing of public entertainments. Thus, if it were to be held in a particular case that a particular acid-house party was private and not public entertainment, then because of the high profits the organisers freely admit to making from such events it could still be required to be licensed under the 1967 Act, provided of course that the local authority concerned had already adopted its provisions. I understand that authorities are inclined to do that.
In Scotland there is no equivalent to the 1967 Act, but public music and dancing entertainments there are licensed on generally the same basis as those in England and Wales, under the provisions of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. The general purpose of that licensing system is to ensure that places which are used for music and dancing entertainments have adequate standards of safety and hygiene and that any possible nuisance to the local community is kept to a minimum. Therefore, when considering applications for the grant of an entertainment licence, the licensing authority has regard to the views of the police and the fire authorities to whom advance notice of the application must be given.
The licensing authority has a wide discretion over whether to grant entertainment licences and may when granting such a licence attach to it a wide range of terms, conditions and restrictions. The law makes due provision for applicants aggrieved by a local authority's decision to refuse to grant a licence or by any particular terms and conditions that have been inserted into the licence to appeal to the local

1011
magistrates and subsequently to the Crown Court. It is an offence under the 1982 Act to provide and in certain circumstances to allow premises to be used for music and dancing as a public entertainment unless a licence has first been obtained from the relevant licensing authority. If the local authority has adopted the 1967 Act, however, making those provisions for private entertainment for private gain is also an offence.
The penalties for those offences against the entertainment licensing laws vary in detail according to each Act. That brings us to the meat of our business. The offences of holding an unlicensed entertainment or breaching the terms or conditions of a licence under the 1982 Act, for example, are punishable on summary conviction with a fine of up to £2,000. I remind your Lordships in that context that the tickets cost £30 each and the numbers involved can be as high as 10,000. The same maximum fines apply to similar offences comitted in Greater London, but under the London Government Act 1963 offenders may also be sent to prison for up to three months instead of or in addition to the fine. The maximum penalty for breaches of the 1967 Act is a fine of up to £1,000 or up to three months' imprisonment, or both. The maximum penalty for holding an unlicensed public entertainment in Scotland is a fine of £1,000, but breaching the conditions of an entertainment licence attracts a fine of up to £400 only.
All those maximum penalties are now so relatively light in comparison to the huge profits that certain unscrupulous people have recently begun to make that they no longer provide an effective deterrent to breaking the law. The organisers of illegal acid-house parties and those who assist them can easily afford to ignore the law. It has therefore become necessary, as a matter of urgency, to bring those events under effective licensing control and to ensure that people tempted to organise them in the expectation of realising huge profits are deterred from continuing to operate outside the law.
The Bill will enable the summary courts in England and Wales and in Scotland to impose fines of up to £20,000 or sentences of up to six months' imprisonment on people convicted of holding unlicensed music and dancing entertainments or using a place for which an entertainment licence is in force in contravention of any term or condition which limits the number of people who may be present at the entertainment. The penalties for other offences under the Acts which the Bill seeks to amend remain unchanged.
Clause 1 amends the provisions in three Acts (the London Government Act 1963, the Private Places of Entertainment (Licensing) Act 1967 and the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982) which have effect in England and Wales or may be adopted by local authorities there for the licensing of music and dancing entertainments. Clause 1 prescribes a new maximum penalty on summary conviction of a fine of £20,000 or six months' imprisonment, or both, for offences under any of the provisions which concern the use of a place for such an entertainment in respect of which no licence
1012
is in force. The new maximum penalty will apply also to offences under those Acts concerning the use of a licensed place for such an entertainment in contravention of any term, condition or restriction of the licence which limits the number of people who may be present at the entertainment. The penalties for other offences in the 1963, 1967 and 1982 Acts remain, as I said, unchanged.
There is only one other clause in the Bill. Its description is shorter. It amends the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982, which enables local authorities to impose a licensing requirement on inter alia any person proposing to provide public entertainment. At present, the 1982 Act provides relatively modest penalties for engaging in such activities without a licence or for a breach of licence conditions. That clause seeks to modify the existing penalties in Section 7(1) and (2) of the 1982 Act by applying the new higher penalties in respect of public entertainment licences granted under Section 41 of the 1982 Act.
It was originally the sponsors' intention that the increased penalties provided for in the Bill should extend to all breaches of the terms and conditions of an entertainment licence. However, following concern expressed in another place that to do so might lay the organisers of legitimate licensed events open to penalties which were much too severe, including the threat of imprisonment, for what might be relatively trivial breaches of the licence conditions, the compromise arrangement now evident in the Bill was agreed. I believe that some of your Lordships are aware of those proceedings. It will still enable the enhanced penalties provided for to be imposed when more people are allowed to attend an event than is stipulated on the licence. I revert to my illustration of large numbers of people in constrained spaces and the danger that that constitutes. That is the greatest temptation of course to the organisers when possible breaches of licensing conditions are contemplated, as it is the one that offers the organiser the best chance of making more money.
Breach of a condition relating to noise will not now render a licence holder liable to the increased penalties in the Bill. That may seem a pity but noise nuisance can already be dealt with under the Control of Pollution Act 1974. Any of your Lordships who may be concerned about that omission should be aware that the Department of the Environment is at present undertaking a thorough review of that and other legislation relating to noise nuisance. I have no intention of extending those provisions in the Bill.
I should perhaps conclude by saying that the Home Secretary has announced that he intends to make an order using powers given to him in the Criminal Justice Act 1988 to give magistrates in England and Wales the power to order the confiscation of profits, where they exceed £10,000, of those convicted of the offences that I have listed. Together with that order, the provisions of the Bill will, I am sure, go a long way towards protecting young people from unacceptable risks and peaceful citizens from unacceptable disturbance caused by unlicensed events.

1013
The Bill does not seek to ban all large public musical events as such or to prevent any legitimate entertainment; it does not create any new powers or offences; it merely brings the penalties up to date. I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time. —(Lord Elton.)
8.48 p.m.
Lord Cobbold: My Lords, before turning to the substance of the Bill I should perhaps declare what is, I suppose, an interest in its outcome, in that I am the holder of an annual music and dancing licence for 15,000 people in respect of Knebworth Park, which own, and I am also the holder of a special variation to that licence for a maximum of 120,000 people to cover an open-air charity rock concert due to take place at Knebworth Park at the end of next week which will probably be the largest musical event to take place in Europe this summer.
The objective of the Bill, as has been clearly stated by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, is to deter the holding of so-called pay parties, acid-house parties or raves, as they are commonly known, without a licence. It also covers, as the noble Lord has told us, certain other musical events and entertainments of a public nature. It is not about drug abuse, as he said, and it is not about noise pollution, both of which are covered by other Acts of Parliament.
It is the pay parties or acid-house parties which have been very much in the news that have given rise to the legislation. These parties have increasingly attracted the cowboy and criminal element who cut costs by ignoring the basic principles of safety and organisation, elbowing aside legitimate promoters who take the trouble to obtain a licence. Bona fide promoters have a professional interest in providing proper facilities for the safety and welfare of those attending and in minimising the inconvenience caused to those living in the vicinity of an event. They will wish to obtain another licence in the future.
When first proposed in another place, the Bill caused great concern to legitimate concert promoters and licence-holders because it sought to apply the same increased penalties to those who obtained a licence as well as to the cowboy operators who did not. Happily, the sponsors of the Bill took note of these concerns and therefore I am able to support the amended Bill now before your Lordships. The Bill has I understand, also now received the support of the Concert Promoters' Association. The proposed increased penalties now apply, with one exception, only to the use of a place for entertainment in respect of which no licence is in force. For those who take the trouble to obtain a licence, the proposed new increased penalties apply only in respect of an infringement of a condition which imposes a limit on the number of persons who may be present at the entertainment.
The purposes of this, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has explained, is to deter an unscrupulous promoter from obtaining a licence for, say, 5,000 people and then selling 10,000 tickets or more which
1014
would generate more than enough cash to pay the fine subsequently imposed. This is a condition which legitimate promoters can accept and which can in normal circumstances be controlled.
There is, however, one technical point that I should like to raise. The wording of subsection (3A)(b) in Clause 1 relating to the infringement of a limit on maximum numbers under an existing licence is prima facie somewhat ambiguous in that it might be interpreted to mean that in the event of an infringement of a condition imposing a limit on the number of persons attending being broken, any infringement of any other condition of the licence would also attract the proposed increased penalties.
I understand that discussions have taken place on this point between representatives of the Concert Promoters' Association and officials at the Home Office and that the Home Office is of the opinion that no such ambiguity exists and that the new proposed penalties would apply exclusively to the question of maximum numbers. However, I would welcome the Minister's assurance on this point.
I close by making a few general points. In passing legislation of this kind we must be careful to avoid creating a Catch-22 situation: "I can't hold a party without a licence, but they won't give me a licence". The licensing procedure is lengthy and tortuous. My licence in respect of the Knebworth event next week runs to six pages and 60 conditions. The licence is not easy to obtain. In the case of pay parties in particular, local authorities and police forces, although required to be fair, often entertain negative prejudices and can easily find reasons to object.
The costs involved in meeting the conditions imposed by a licence are considerable. The police naturally set the level of police presence which they believe to be necessary for the event in question. The promotor has to pay the bill and there are no real procedures in this sense for arbitration in the event of disagreement. In the case of the Knebworth concert next week—admittedly a very large event —your Lordships may be interested to know that the police bill is £64,000.
Rock concerts were considered to be a bit way out when we started them in the early 1970s. Now they are sedate affairs, with corporate hospitality tents like Wimbledon. Fashions change. I am sure that many of your Lordships can remember the fun of all-night parties, breakfast perhaps in Grantchester or watching the sun rise over the Serpentine. We owe it to the young not to make it impossible for them to enjoy themselves, even if at times it involves a bit of cat-and-mouse activity with the authorities and some disturbance to neighbours.
The demand for pay parties is obviously great and is unlikely to go away as a result of this legislation. If therefore local authorities refuse to grant licences, it will only encourage the cowboy and criminal element to fill the demand. In supporting the Bill, I urge the Minister to encourage local authorities and police forces to identify sites in their areas which are suitable for properly licensed functions and where young people can enjoy themselves as they wish in safety and with minimum disturbance to local inhabitants.
8.55 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has introduced the Bill with his usual clarity and fluency. I do not imagine that he expects me to welcome it with open arms —if so, his assumptions are correct —even though I freely acknowledge that the Bill does not create a new offence, which is certainly a refreshing change, and even though I acknowledge that many of the problems which he has outlined are real. However I believe that they can be dealt with by other methods.
The Bill is essentially aimed at protecting both young people and those members of the public upon whom those young people may suddenly descend. Both are admirable aims. However, we must remember two points about young people. First, they tend to go in for transient enthusiasms and crazes. Secondly, they enjoy and always have enjoyed shocking the older generation.
In the ordinary way, the so-called acid-house craze might have died the same natural death as hula-hoops did a generation or so ago. However, because the tabloid press hyped the whole business to such an extent —to use jargon appropriate to the problem —the older generation has overreacted. By this, I do not mean those members of the older generation directly affected by these parties, who have every right to object. I mean the older generation who merely read about it in their papers. The spectacle of people holding up their hands in horror, with their eyes bulging and their hair standing on end like characters out of a Bateman cartoon, is an irresistible incentive for younger people to maintain their enthusiasm for these parties, which in the normal way might have waned.
What are the problems that we face? Drugs? As we have heard, these are only a factor in a small number of such parties. We already have tough laws to cope with drugs. Drink? No, because alcohol is always banned at such parties. Litter? Yes, certainly, but existing litter laws are strong enough if only magistrates would make use of them instead of imposing the derisory fines they normally do. Noise? Yes. Here perhaps the law is deficient: I should be happy to support any law tightening up the penalties for creating the noise that causes great nuisance and distress to other people. Cars parked dangerously on the verges? Yes, again that may be so in some cases, but we also have laws to deal with them. Fire? Yes, if the parties are held indoors. Here again, I imagine that existing laws are adequate if they are properly applied.
With the sole exception of noise, where existing legislation may well be deficient, all the nuisances and dangers arising from these parties seem to be remediable by existing legislation and existing penalties. However, as someone is bound to point out, what about entertainment licences? Yes, indeed, entertainment licences. These licences have always seemed to me a peculiarly British concept, Victorian in origin, no doubt, but with Cromwellian undertones, based on the supposition that public entertainment is something basically rather immoral which ought to be regarded with the greatest suspicion and should be severely rationed. Where permitted, it should be closely supervised by the powers that be.
1016
The noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, has just given us an example of the tremendous problems he faces in obtaining a licence for his extremely well-run functions. Many people both here and outside the House object to the enormous profits being made by the promoters of these parties. However, one only obtains enormous profits where the law of supply and demand is interfered with by governmental or other outside agencies. This assumes that the supply is elastic, and in the case of entertainment it most certainly is. If the supply were allowed to come into balance with the demand, the massive profits would shrink very rapidly.
As I said at the outset, where parties are held indoors a fire risk is undoubtedly always present. It is only right that indoor entertainments should be supervised for that reason. However, such a consideration does not apply to parties or gatherings held out of doors. If acid-house parties, pop festivals and other such gatherings are to be so controlled, why should political gatherings not be similarly controlled? After all, at the latter gatherings the threat of violence is far more ever-present.
It was extraordinary to hear a police chief criticising the organisers of such a party for holding it near a river or a canal on the grounds that someone might have fallen in. One might just as well try to ban Henley for the same reason, particularly as Henley, unlike the so-called acid-house parties, is far from being a teetotal occasion. I cannot greet the Bill with enormous enthusiasm but I am realistic enough to acknowledge that in the present paternalistic and somewhat puritanical climate in which we live my reservations are unlikely to count for very much.
9.3 p.m.
Lord Elliott of Morpeth: My Lords, I support this Bill wholeheartedly. I congratulate my noble friend on introducing it. I also commend all he has said in doing so. He spoke a great deal about the dangers for young people of modern so-called acid-house parties and similar gatherings. He also spoke a good deal about public entertainment licensing and the legal framework which exists under that heading.
I speak in my capacity as chairman of the National Noise Council. I wish to speak particularly about the noise that is caused by such gatherings as those known as acid-house parties, pop concerts and the like. I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, talked about licensed parties being essential and desirable. I agree with that. He suggested that parties which make an enormous amount of noise —the legal parties make an enormous amount of noise too —are all right provided they are held in the right place. I hope there are such places for such parties. As my noble friend said in moving his Bill, the average acid-house party can be heard five miles away.
The noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, said that the younger generation had always made a lot of noise and the older generation had always had to tolerate the younger generation to some degree. However, in my young days I do not remember any party taking place which could be heard five miles away. I am a great lover of Henley. I agree that there is a lot of alcoholic entertainment at that event each year, part

1017
of which I enjoy myself. However, I believe it is unlikely that any noise from Royal Henley, in my considerable experience of it, could be heard over half a mile away. I consider that these modern parties represent an enormous noise problem.
As regards the general problem of noise, as my noble friend quite rightly said, the noise review working party of the Department of the Environment is presently sitting. The findings and recommendations of that committee will feature in the Government's environmental White Paper which is to be published in the autumn. Noise has always been a problem. We all accept that. However, it is in my submission as chairman of the National Noise Council more of a problem today. We have amplified music and that is the worst problem of all. Singing is performed at a louder tone that I can ever remember in my youth. It appears that there are those in society who have to make a noise to emphasise somehow or other their failure to succeed in life. They inflict their loud noise on those who are more successful.
There are many aspects of the noise problem. I wholly support the provisions of the Bill in that the control of such gatherings as acid-house parties through increased penalties —I wholly agree with that —and increased powers for environmental health officers would be very much in the public interest. As regards the control of these parties and similar gatherings, I suggest, with my noble friend, that control is urgently needed. This is a public problem of considerable magnitude. I and the council over which I preside believe that the creation of a serious noise nuisance should become a criminal offence. I also agree that current penalties for noise conviction are inadequate. They should be increased in line with those suggested in the Bill. Local government control of such gatherings and of the noise that they emit should be greatly strengthened.
In moving this Bill my noble friend talked of the present powers for the control of noise. He mentioned the Control of Pollution Act under which such control as we have over noise is exercised at this time. I should remind noble Lords that under the previsions of that Act a local authority must be satisfied that a nuisance is to occur before serving a notice or seeking an injunction to prevent it. Before any action can be taken by a local authority, there must be identification of the persons who are to be involved in the creation of the nuisance. We have been told tonight that there are cowboy organisers of acid-house parties and similar gatherings. What easy hurdles those two requirements are for the cowboys to jump. These and other substantial restrictions heavily limit at this time control of the enormous public nuisance which large gatherings involving loud music present.
The provisions in the Bill are highly commendable and the National Noise Council welcomes them. I shall end on the broader principle of the issue of noise and public responsibility with regard to noise control. I speak from a sense of great suffering at this time. I have two homes, one in the peace and quiet of the countryside of Northumberland and one in Westminster. My flat in Westminster was until very recently as peaceful as my home in
1018
Northumberland. Unfortunately, a local authority block of flats has been opened and from about five o'clock in the evening until eleven o'clock each night and all weekend a certain number of children make an amazing amount of noise. It occurs to me that acid-house parties and pop concerts have a time limit placed on them but the children in the courtyard below the flat where I live provide a continuous performance.
The current problems of noise in this country are considerable. I welcome the Bill and wholly support it in that it approaches substantially a very real problem.
9.8 p.m.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, we are all very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, not only for bringing forward the Bill but also for his very clear explanation of what it means. I was glad that he gave the reasons for the need for this legislation, making it clear that his wish was not to prevent entertainment but to meet the concern which I am sure that we all share.
That concern is very clear: the promoters of acid-house parties permit dangerous and unsafe conditions while they themselves make vast sums of money. Although none of the speakers this evening has first-hand knowledge of such parties, I have been given detailed descriptions by young people who have had first-hand experience of them. From those descriptions it is clear how very clever those non-professional promoters are. They recognised that there would be great demand from young people for such entertainment. One reason, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, is that it is very difficult to obtain a licence, and licences impose restrictions relating to the termination of the party and so on. Therefore, such an idea would be very attractive to young people.
Such parties are also attractive to young people because of the glamour associated with them; they are secret events. Young people must regard acid-house parties as the place to go, and see them in a favourable light because they appear to be anti-establishment. I cannot think of any more enticing reason for young people to attend a party.
The organisers clearly have a very clever system of operation. The membership is given a telephone number which they must ring in the evening, as late as 10 o'clock, to find out the venue. Entrance tickets are sold in advance so that there is no exchange of money at the event itself. For their tickets, which as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, can cost as much as £30, members will get music, soft drinks and the venue itself. There will be no sale of alcohol and no money will change hands. Only members will attend. That is the justification for not requiring licences.
The noble Lords, Lord Elton and Lord Monson, gave reasons for concern about acid-house parties. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, was less concerned about those defects in that he felt that other legislation could cover everything except perhaps the fire risks within the buildings concerned.
Lord Monson: Fire and noise.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: Often the organisers and their responsibilities are unknown to anybody. As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, very dangerous and unsuitable buildings are used. Large profits are made but they are not used for security, providing toilet facilities or for the general safety of the audience. There seems little doubt that there is a drug culture at the centre of such acid-house parties and a considerable amount of peddling of drugs takes place. As the noble Lord also said, there has been violence at the events which has often been caused by the security guards hired to protect the promoters.
I also find it worrying that the police, in their attempts to prevent the gatherings taking place at all, have been placed in the position of acting in an irregular manner. For example, they have set up road blocks to prevent people getting to the event and I understand that there have been occasions when they have sealed off motorway service stations. That is a very unsatisfactory situation, but it has been the only way in which the police have been able to deal with the problem.
The noble Lord, Lord Elliott, focused most of his remarks on the subject of noise, and I do not think that there is anybody in this House who would not agree with him. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, this Bill is not going to be able to relate to that particular problem. From my knowledge, the noble Lord's Bill has attracted a great deal of support not only in the other place but also from the Institution of Environmental Health Officers and the Association of District Councils, which have spoken out srongly in favour of these measures. It is also a fact that the Bill —and the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has said so, as has the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold —was much improved from its original form during its passage through the other place.
The was a serious concern about the original proposal by the sponsor, Mr. Graham Bright, that there was a real risk that the provision of the Bill might well penalise many innocent licence holders who were conducting their affairs in a perfectly legal way. However, at Report stage the sponsor of the Bill and my honourable friend in another place, Mr. Stuart Randall, came to an agreement to amend the Bill. The result of this amendment is, as the noble Lord said, that licence holders would only be charged increased penalties for any breach of the attendance limit imposed as a condition of the licence. This of course is the best way of trying to prevent the satisfaction of greed by allowing far too many people to come to these parties.
Although I was relieved and reassured by the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, who said that he had no more anxieties at all, I still felt from my not so experienced understanding of this Bill a slight concern about organisers such as, say, those of the Glastonbury Festival who find out that the limit of 75,000 people for whom they have a licence is in fact exceeded. Perhaps it is a beautiful day and more than 75,000 people come to the festival, but the organisers could not have anticipated in any way that this would happen. I should be grateful for an assurance from the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that the organisers would not be liable for the increased fine for exceeding the
1020
limit mentioned in their licence when they themselves could not possibly have foreseen it. I also look forward to an answer to the more specific question that the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, asked.
Perhaps I may end by saying that we on these Benches certainly support these measures. We feel that they will go some way—perhaps a long way —towards curbing what are clearly insecure, dangerous and in many ways unsavoury events. I was not at all sure that I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Monson, when he said that he felt that they might be transient, because knowing the amount of money that is being made at these acid-house parties it seems unlikely that the promoters will give them up and that young people will suddenly no longer want to go to them. I feel that certain measures are necessary, I am happy to welcome them, and I hope that the noble Lord will be able to answer my one concern.
9.18 p.m.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, the House may find it helpful if I intervene at this stage to explain that the Government fully support this Bill. Before doing so, however, I must first thank my noble friend Lord Elton for the informative and helpful explanation he has given of exactly what this Bill seeks to do, and why it is so necessary that it should get on to the statute book as a matter of urgency.
Illegal acid-house parties, a phenomenon that has developed over the last 18 months to two years, pose considerable dangers to the safety of the young people who attend them. I think that that is the concern of all of us. They also cause enormous problems in terms of noise, traffic congestion and other general disturbance for the residents of the areas selected by the organisers for their events, and for those living further afield who may be kept awake by the very loud noise emanating from these parties. And they place considerable burdens on the police and local authorities who are responsible for dealing with the many breaches of the criminal law, the entertainment licensing law and the law on noise pollution which inevitably seem to occur on such occasions.
My noble friend Lord Elliott of Morpeth is, as he informed us, the Chairman of the National Noise Council, and he drew our attention to this in some detail. I can tell my noble friend that on 5th October 1989 my honourable friend Mrs. Bottomley announced an urgent Department of the Environment review of existing best practices by local authorities in tackling noise nuisances at acid-house parties, with particular emphasis being placed on whether local authorities view the present powers under the Act as adequate. There is, moreover, evidence of the growing involvement of serious criminal elements in the organisation of such events, attracted by the opportunity they afford both for making lots of money and for peddling drugs.
It has fallen, in the main, to the police and the local authorities to take what action they can under the existing law, and there are a number of different provisions that they have been able to employ in this context against illegal acid-house parties. The police themselves already have adequate powers to

1021
deal with any criminal offences which might occur, be they concerned with, say, the misuse of drugs or threats to public order. They also have very wide powers under the common law to prevent breaches of the peace and public nuisance. The Government very much welcome the vigorous action taken by police forces in different parts of the country to tackle the problems caused by these events. We consulted the police in the usual way before reaching any conclusions on what further action needed to be taken to bring these parties under control, and we have kept in touch with them since, as this Bill has made progress through another place. They did not, at the outset, consider that they needed any additional powers to deal with these parties, and I can tell your Lordships that that remains their view. The Government accept that. Should the police come to take a different view, in the light of developments in the future or decisions in cases that have yet to come to court, we shall give the fullest consideration to any arguments for change that they put forward.
The police and local authorities have had some success in preventing a number of illegal acid-house parties from getting started. Where this has not proved possible, the police have done what they can to ensure the safety of those attending the event and to minimise the nuisance caused in the immediate neighbourhood and beyond. However, as my noble friend pointed out, those are essentially the objectives of the existing entertainment laws. The problem is that the penalties for offences against those laws are now so comparatively light when compared with the huge profits that can be made by promoting illegal, unlicensed parties that they no longer provide an effective deterrent against breaking the law. The organisers of these events, and their assistants and associates, can happily afford to ignore the entertainment licensing laws totally when setting them up. It is necessary, as a matter of urgency, that the penalties for the relevant offences against those laws should be increased substantially, as my noble friend's Bill proposes, so that these events are brought under proper licensing control and the organisers and others involved with them are deterred from continuing to operate outside the law.
My noble friend's Bill forms an important element in a package of measures to be taken to secure that objective. As he said, he has the support of the police and the local authorities in his endeavours, as well as that of the Government. The anxieties expressed in another place that the provisions in the Bill might hit bona fide organisers of legitimate, licensed events in a harsh and unjustified manner have, we believe, been met by the amendments that were made to it there.
I can give the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, an assurance that the contravention of some term, condition or restriction of a licence which does not impose a limit on the number of people at an entertainment does not attract the increased penalties provided by the Bill. It is only under the legislation in force in London (Schedule 12 to the London Government Act 1963, which is amended
1022
in Clause 1(1) of the Bill) that the contravention of each term, condition or restriction of a licence is a separate offence. In that case the Bill provides for the increased penalty to apply only to a term which imposes a limit on numbers.
Under the other enactments amended by Clause 1 of the Bill the offence consists of a contravention of the terms, conditions or restrictions generally. Here, the increased penalties apply only where the terms, conditions or restrictions are contravened, including the limit on numbers.
I should perhaps close by saying something about the other measures that are to be taken, in addition to this Bill, to tackle the problems arising from illegal acid-house parties. The Home Secretary has already announced that he intends, once the Bill becomes law, to use the powers given to him under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 to make an order giving magistrates in England and Wales the power to order the confiscation of the profits, where those exceed£10,000—which is the lower limit laid down in that Act —from those convicted of the offences to which it applies. Your Lordships will be aware that this Bill extends to Scotland. The Secretary of State for Scotland has considered whether to make provision for a similar confiscation power to apply there. However, he has concluded that it would be premature to do so before he receives the report from the Scottish Law Commission on the question of a general power to order the confiscation of the proceeds of crime he expects later this year.
Taken together, the measures in this Bill and the introduction of a power to confiscate the profits of those convicted of the offences against the entertainment licensing laws should go a long way towards reducing the risk to the safety of young people and the unacceptable degree of disturbance to whole communities caused by the recent proliferation of illegal acid-house parties. It is not sought to ban all such events outright. But they need, as a matter of urgency, to be brought within the framework of existing controls. The way to do that is, in our view, effectively to deter the organisers from continuing to operate outside the law by threatening to hit their pockets very hard, and perhaps by sending them to prison. My noble friend's Bill therefore has the full support of the Government.
9.26 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I most grateful to the Minister for that forthright support, and for the emphasis that he gave to my principal concern on moving the Second Reading: the safety of the young people concerned. I recognise the very geat inconvenience and sometimes suffering endured by those in the locality. However, I sought to make it clear that the principal intention of the Bill is to limit the danger and that the matter of inconvenience —which is very largely one of noise—is the subject of a separate initiative by the Government in which I do not doubt that my noble friend Lord Elliott will have a very close and effective interest, and receive much sympathy from myself and others.

1023
The noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, gave his support in principle for the Bill, which I warmly welcome. It comes from one who has revealed an expertise on a grand scale. I expect to see his name in the Guinness Book of Records any day now if his event is the success that we all hope it will be. I hope that it will not attract hostility from the neighbours for any good reason.
Because of the fear that it might attract some local hostility, some noble Lords may not be too dismayed by his revelation that it is not very easy to obtain a licence to give entertainments for many thousands of people, generating a good deal of noise and traffic.
I am grateful to my noble friend for answering in terms the specific question of the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold. I do not need to repeat the reply.
The noble Lord, Lord Monson, referred to the media hype which accompanies every new phenomenon: in particular, that affecting the young. I certainly accept that that happens. However, I hasten to assure the noble Lord that not a single example was taken from the media. My evidence came from eye witnesses and the police, except for one example that was given by a Member of another place.
I shall read the remainder of his speech with great care. If I may paraphrase, the central theme seems to have been that there are sufficient powers already, and that the Bill is therefore superfluous. I remind the noble Lord that there is not a single new power in the Bill. I began by referring to the existing powers and said that there was no intention to add to them. Nor is it intended to add new offences. That might also offend the noble Lord, who might feel that I was part of nanny state. Having sat on the Front Bench for some years, I am notably not that. However, I am a member of society who believes that when the young and naive are tempted by the excitement of attending a large illicit and secret event, they should not be exposed to the danger of being roasted or suffocated to death. Secondly, they should not be subject to the other dangers attendant on such large congregations in unsupervised cicumstances, or with supervision by those not interested in the welfare of the "punters", as they are called. Thirdly, inconvenience and obstruction should not be caused to emergency service vehicles.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Monson, will regard the Bill merely as doing what it is intended to do. That is, to raise penalties in order to keep them in step with changing circumstances. He may then feel a little less hostile towards it than he appeared to be when he spoke. His resignation towards being ineffectual in amending the Bill may change to satisfaction when allowing it to go forward
Lord Monson: My Lords, when the noble Lord reads my speech in Hansard, he will see that it was not as hostile to the Bill as he imagined. Nor do I dissent from some of the remarks that he has now made. I acknowledged the fact that the Bill does not create any new offences and I praised it for that reason.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. When I am fathering a Bill, I find myself if not like a tiger with her cubs, at least like a hen with her chickens. Therefore, I am unusually defensive and fierce when perhaps that is unnecessary.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Elliott for his support. I recognise that he would gladly go a great deal further than the Bill provides. He will understand that we wish quickly to put legislation on the statute book. The earlier intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, suggested that the best way of achieving that is to be content with what we now have in hand. I look forward to receiving his support in that respect.
I welcome the contribution made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs. In particular, I welcome her recognition of the intense difficulties faced by the police, who nevertheless propose no new powers at present. She mentioned the support of the Association of District Councils. That is most welcome because the councils will principally be concerned with the provisions.
The noble Baroness asked what would happen if the legitimate organiser of a proper event found that, because it was a lovely day, many more people attended than were expected or for which the event was licensed, and that there was no means of keeping the people out. I cannot answer for the courts in such a case. It would depend on the circumstances. First, the local authority must consider whether there should be a prosecution for a breach. If it were minded to be unreasonable, it would need to recall that it is a defence for someone charged with such a breach of condition to say that he took all due diligence to avoid committing the offence. If the breach is involuntary, a licence holder may escape prosecution or the severest penalties. I cannot speak for the courts, but I can say that there is a good defence of reasonableness. One would expect the licensing authority to be reasonable, and the applicant for the licence to have an estimate of what the most jubilantly successful event might produce. I thank noble Lords for their attention, patience and diligence.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Channel Tunnel Workforce: Health and Safety
9.34 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that the present powers of the Health and Safety Executive are adequate to safeguard those working on the Channel Tunnel.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, noble Lords who have any idea of what is taking place on this huge construction site, possibly the largest in Europe, will understand that my probing questions may range a little wide of the specific Question on the Order Paper.
I ask this Question because during my public life I was an engineer in the sense that I worked in an engineering factory. I have always had a deep interest in the building industry against a background, in my local government days, of dealing with housing in the general sense. I became quite anxious —as I know did noble Lords from all parties —about the repeated reports in the press and the media of the deaths which have occurred at the Channel Tunnel. Because of my privileged position in your Lordships' House, I wish to take this opportunity of publicly discussing this matter on a factual basis without the media hype in the newspapers and, sadly, on television.
In order to obtain first hand knowledge, along with a colleague from another place, Mr. Stanley Orme, the chairman of the PLP, I spent five or six hours at the site. We did not go down to the tunnel because that would have needed more time than we had available. We were mainly concerned to see the type of safety procedures and regulations on site. We have arranged to go to the site again at a later date for the specific purpose of seeing inside the tunnel.
One knows that national trade union leaders sometimes make statements which do not always reflect the views of the people involved at the sharp end; that is, the shop stewards. I know that from my experience as a shop floor trade unionist.
Quite rightly, much anxiety has been expressed because there have been six deaths on what one can call the British side of the site. The company admits to some liability regarding two of those deaths. No doubt they will be called to account legally, and regarding compensation payments to the relatives of those unfortunate people. Having said that, no amount of compensation can compensate for the loss of a husband, son or friend in that situation.
A few weeks ago I attended the UCATT national conference. That trade union represents over 50 per cent. of the workers who are on the site. The question of safety was discussed at that conference. Last year the number of deaths recorded nationally increased by 30. The total amounted to over 150. The conference delegates stood in silence to pay tribute to their colleagues in the building industry who had died. That was very moving.
Therefore, we must begin by remembering that the building industry is our most dangerous industry, and that this site is the most dangerous site within it.
What did we find on that visit? On applying for the job, candidates are screened as to their suitability. If they are considered suitable, they then have to undergo a very strict medical test. That includes a rigorous eye and audiology test. If there is any suspicion of any physical defect which may put them at risk on the site, they are not employed. They are rejected whether they are ex-miners or tunnellers, and so on. That basic standard must be achieved in terms of sight and hearing in order to work on the site because it is very dangerous.
When candidates are accepted, whether they are miners or people familiar with tunnelling in a different context, they spend three days on an induction course on site where they are intensively
1026
taught the rigours of that specific site. There is no question of people being bussed or lorried on to a site and walking into an area of great personal danger without first being forewarned and educated in what to do and what not to do.
One point that was made in another place and in your Lordships' House is that the figures for accidents in the Channel Tunnel are very bad compared with the national average. That depends how one deploys the figures. The information that Mr. Orme and I were given was that on that site they report 100 per cent. of the accidents that take place. In industry generally only 40 per cent. of accidents are reported.
The site consists of three separate projects, each of which has its own safety committee, with representatives chosen by the men on the job. The major union on the site, with over half of the 8,000 employees as members, is UCATT, which is the major building trade union. Questions were asked of us and we bounced questions back at the people involved. We were quite clearly told by the representatives that full facilities and places are afforded to them on each of the committees. There is no restriction on their raising any issue whatever.
Those representatives can ensure that any proposals agreed upon on the three different projects are followed through. They can call for immediate action if the agreed proposal is not progessing at the speed or with the thoroughness that they expect. All those nominated to the committee receive full training and are instructed in safety measures. In addition there are seven full-time safety officers employed on the site.
One needs to get some conception of the size of the project. That can be achieved only by seeing it. There is a small police station permanently on site and a medical centre —which we visited —which is really a mini-hospital and is manned 24 hours a day. All those provisions are in excess of the Housing and Safety Executive standards.
We met the shop stewards on the job and I put a specific question to them. The question has been raised on television, in another place and in this Chamber; whether workers have been victimised if they have protested about inadequate safety measures. I should advise the House that the stewards to whom we spoke were angry at that suggestion. They said quite clearly, "Somebody is saying that we are not doing our job. That is nonsense". They said that there might be a foreman who had passed a remark about getting rid of somebody if he continued beefing, but they added, "Nobody, as far as we are aware, has left the site because of such action". Those shop stewards were not from a single union; they belonged to UCATT, GMB, my own union, the AEU, and the ETU. All those people subscribed to that view.
In addition to those provisions, 500 operatives on site are fully trained in first aid techniques, with 40 trained to an advanced level. The training continues and they hope to do better as time goes on.
One of the sad aspects of this matter is the way in which some of the media have dealt with the situation. I have a copy of a letter sent by Mr. Albert

1027
Williams, the secretary of UCATT, to the editor of "Around Westminster", BBC 2, Television Centre, Wood Lane, London. It is dated 22nd May. The letter refers to the programme "Around Westminster" and its Channel Tunnel feature broadcast on Sunday 20th May. The letter reads:
"At considerable inconvenience to myself, I was interviewed for approximately 1 hour for the above programme at my office on Wednesday 16th May, and I was more than surprised that not one mention of the views I projected was contained in your programme.
Now, I accept that editing etc. eliminates certain interviews, but the non-inclusion of my interview meant the total exclusion of any point of view of the 4,000 plus workers employed at the Tunnel"—
that is, half those employed on the site—
"which made the programme, to say the least, imbalanced.
I suspect that the reason my contribution was omitted is because I refused to sensationalise and project an 'anti-tunnel' point of view.
I am sending a copy of this letter to various interested parties concerned with the construction of the tunnel".
That letter was written by a trade union leader who has over 50 per cent. of the people employed on the site as members of his union.
I did not see the programme but obviously I can understand that excluding the view of the most important section of the workers —or rather not the most important, because every section is important, but the largest section —was, in fact, rigging the programme, which was therefore not as factual as it should have been. That example should be put on record.
I have referred to the six people who died. It should be made clear that not all six died in the tunnel. Some died some distance away from the tunnel. It might be asked, "What is the difference to the dead?", but the implication could otherwise be that there is some carelessness in the tunnel. I would not condone that for one moment. The Health and Safety Executive has to be tough in this situation. My understanding is that it has a continuous presence on the site. Every accident is reported to the executive so that it can be dealt with and categorised correctly.
The main contract is held by five companies: Balfour Beatty, Costain, Tarmac, Taylor Woodrow and Wimpey. UCATT have given me some notes on the position. These state:
"The work is organised around the clock on the basis of three consecutive eight-hour shifts. The workers get 6 days on and 2 days off followed by 6 days on and 3 days off. The wages for an 8 to 9-hour shift are around £100 a day basic with around £70 bonus a day".
I asked what was the annual out-take for workers on the site. I was told that people working in the tunnel can gross an annual salary of £50,000 and those working above ground can gross a salary of about £20,000.
Much has been said about the speeding up of work on the tunnel and the management putting pressure on workers through the bonus system so that they work harder. That is denied in the notes I have been sent, which state:
"This is not borne out by the way the pay system works at Trans Manche Link …with a basic of £100 per day, workers are guaranteed a decent rate regardless of their performance".
We met the project manager, who made it quite clear to us that there is no question of pressure of time. Though the project was behind time because some unexpectedly wet strata were met at the beginning, it is now on target and could be deemed to be slightly ahead of target. He said that the drilling machines are not being driven or forced through to anything like their capacity. That is inhibited by the fact that as the work proceeds the precast concrete sections that line the tunnel are put in place. It is a very technical matter. We hope to go down to see the work.
The brief states:
"At the end of June 1989 employment in tunnelling stood at around 4,200 and on the project as a whole at around 6,300. By the end of February" —
which of course is the end of February of this year —
"the total number employed has risen to 7,500. Total employment is now beginning to approach twice that predicted during the planned stages of the project, and is expected to continue to rise (though probably more slowly) during 1990 as the mechanical and electrical fitting-out phase builds up.
Of workers on the site over half are represented by UCATT"
and other unions are involved.
"This means that the majority of the workers are highly organised and already familiar with the system of safety representatives operating at the tunnel. Health and Safety is policed by the Health and Safety Executive —plus a good presence of TML safety officers permanently assigned to the site".
We asked what they thought was the most important component for the future for maintaining safety in relative terms to other contracts. We asked what was the most important commodity that they would like to see extended. They said that it was education of the people involved so that they were aware of the dangers they are getting into and of the importance of maintaining standards of awareness.
I am only repeating the figures given to me, but we were told that 85 per cent. of the accidents on site were not due to neglect on the part of anybody but to human error. People may say that that is a very high figure. When some people read what I have said tonight they may want to challenge it. But those were the figures that we were given and that is the situation we are in.
Various things can be done. I believe that the fines are not large enough. If death is caused on a building site because of neglect by the contractor, in my opinion that is far too important a case to be dealt with at the magistrates' court. We have some judges who give rather odd sentences when people are found guilty. The magistrates are very limited in what they can do. The death of a workman on site caused by neglect is a major personal disaster and it should be dealt with as such.
I have a recollection when I was a young boy of someone coming to my home for my father to go back to work because his workmate had been trapped between a lift and a floor. He had been almost disembowelled. Though it is over 60 years ago I can see the girl even today. It had a devastating effect on the family. A death in any industry, particularly in these circumstances, has a devastating effect whether on the wife, the children or brothers and sisters. It is an appalling situation. At the moment the maximum fine available to magistrates is £2,000. That is not good enough. The Health and

1029
Safety Executive was able to get a fine of £50,000 levied against the five major contractors through the Crown Court, but £50,000 divided by five is not a very large sum.
The trade unions say that there should be a constant review of management procedures and a greater enforcement of procedures, particularly with reference to safety groups and safety representatives. They say that most of the fatal accidents were caused by people being in the wrong place. It seems that signposting is not sufficient to prevent accidents to people wandering where they really ought not to be. The unions further suggest that all the most up-to-date health and safety equipment should be made available. They refer to human sensors which if placed on the moving machinery might have prevented at least three of the fatal accidents. We learn by our mistakes and I hope that those suggestions are taken on board.
In conclusion, the unions say that the Channel Tunnel project is a civil engineering achievement that lacks any realistic comparison. No endeavour can equal the project in terms of its size and
1030
ambition. It is therefore hard to compare its health and safety record with that of any other contract in the United Kingdom. I am sorry that I have spoken at length but this is an important subject which needs to be put on the record. What is the position on the French side of the Channel? I am told that the French side of the contract is much easier to work. The French are tunnelling almost on a lateral basis whereas workers on the British side have to go down before they even enter the tunnel. It is a much harder exercise.
I have asked this Question because I believe that a close watch must be kept on what is going on. However, we should bear in mind that the workforce and the management are engaged on probably the largest ever civil engineering contract in this country. I hope that noble Lords will recognise that achievement. However, we must also consider what steps should be taken to reduce the number of accidents on the site. That can be done with good will. If the trade unions on the site are given enough facilities they will participate to the full. I hope that the project will be an outstanding success and that we can look back with pride when it is finished.
9.58 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, at this time of night I shall be brief. In this Question the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, has asked whether the Government are satisfied that the present powers of the Health and Safety Executive are adequate to safeguard those working on the Channel Tunnel. Accordingly, I have tried to get a closer idea of the nature of the conditions which need to be safeguarded. That they are dangerous is clear from the fact that up to last month, as the noble Lord, Lord Dean, said, there have been six deaths on the British side of the Channel compared with two on the French side.
I understand that altogether 327 accidents were investigated by the executive between March 1987 and December 1989 in the United Kingdom and that there are no known figures on the French side.
Are the powers of the HSE adequate to deal with the situation? I have examined the relevant sections of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 to find out whether they are. I have examined particularly Sections 2 and 3, which deal with the duties of the employer, and Sections 19 and 20, which concern the appointment and powers of inspectors. As the enforcing authority, the executive has power to appoint inspectors and it has exercised that power by appointing a permanent team of three inspectors who are based at Ashford in Kent.
It is plain from Section 20 of the Act that these inspectors have wide powers, including one in particular which appears to enable them to do practically anything to ensure that the duties of employers to their employees are carried out. Those powers have been used to considerable effect. In February of this year the contractors were warned that they must improve their safety procedures. The five companies forming Transmanche Link have been prosecuted three times for failing to take reasonable steps to ensure the safety of those working in the tunnel. Those prosecutions culminated, as the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, said, in the imposition last March of fines totalling £50,000.
After the death of the sixth British worker, the HSE halted work in the tunnel altogether on 9th May last and banned all drilling until safety orders were complied with. I understand that two safety audits have been set in motion. One is an internal investigation which has particular reference to the maintenance of boring machines, and its findings will have to be sent to the HSE. The other is an HSE audit, and the Secretary of State has said that TML must comply with its recommendations.
That is a brief summary of the position as I understand it. To judge from that record, the powers of the Health and Safety Executive appear to be adequate in concept, and, to a large extent, in execution. However, there is one aspect of the matter to which I should like to draw your Lordships' attention. It concerns the standard of training on the British side of the tunnel, compared with that which exists in France. I do so because in a recent article the editor of a specialist magazine entitled Tunnels and Tunnelling wrote:
1032
"The French have spent a great deal of money training every Tunnel worker to a standard that makes each a technician. We" —
that is, the British—
"are basically sending labourers to the front".
I understand that French workers are regularly sent on refresher safety courses. Training in safety is also provided for British workers; but it is said to amount to little more than the induction course to which the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, referred. Therefore, I ask whether enough is being done on that front in the United Kingdom.
In the 1974 Act I could find only one reference to training. In Section 2 it states that the employer's duty extends to,
"the provision of such …training and supervision as is necessary to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety at work of his employees".
Among the powers accorded to the inspectors under Section 20, there is none that I can see which deals with safety. I know that it is the Government's policy that training in general should be employer-led. Nevertheless, I must ask the Minister whether they are satisfied that in this particular respect the powers of the Health and Safety Executive are adequate. I look forward to hearing the noble Lord's reply to that question and indeed to other questions which have been and which may be raised during the course of this timely debate.
10.5 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick for giving us the opportunity tonight, even at this late hour, to debate this important and highly topical subject and in particular for giving us the benefit of his experience of a visit to the site. As my noble friend said, at the end of June 1989 employment in tunnelling stood at about 4,200 and on the project as a whole at about 6,300. By the end of February, tunnel employment had risen to 4,700 and the total employed to 7,500. We expect the figures to rise further and so we are talking about a substantial workforce.
Questions have already been asked in your Lordships' House about accident experience, and it is of course accepted —it was accepted at that time —that by its very nature tunnelling is a somewhat hazardous operation. Nevertheless recent experience does not seem to have been happy —that, despite the fact that health and safety is policed by the HSE and, from what my noble friend has said, is done effectively in consultation and co-operation with the unions. I understand that a principal inspecting officer and a team of health and safety inspectors are on site. That is a rather heavier HSE presence than on construction sites normally.
Safety committees exist and recognised trade union safety representatives operate on the site. Despite all that, there have been six fatal accidents since the tunnel began just over 18 months ago. There have been 502 reported accidents. Some of the fatal accidents have been horrendous and it

1033
would appear that some at least could have been avoided.
Let us take, for example, a case reported in the New Statesman and Society this week —the case of one Gary Woodward. He was crushed inside the tunnel boring machine in October 1989 when a cable was nipped, causing a machine to move and crush him. if the machine had been earthed, as required by British standard regulations, it could not have happened, but it was not. The risk of injury was "obvious and serious", as was said at the inquest in February, but there were no management witnesses from TML (the consortium of construction companies building the tunnel) and not one witness from the company that built the machine. The verdict was accidental death.
There was then the death of Keith Lynch, a grouter working on the tunnel. In January 1990 he was run over by a slow moving train operating within the tunnel. Evidence at the inquest last month indicated that it had happened because there was no proper system of banksmen, who are supposed to guide the trains. The deputy construction manager in charge of land tunnels who had overall responsibility for safety within the tunnel was not called. That was despite the fact that a year previously there had been another death of one David Simes in similar circumstances. Again the verdict at the inquest was accidental death.
There were two further fatal accidents on 21st April and 7th May. The first was of a fitter who died when a section of pipe fell, crushing him. He died later of his injuries. The second was of another grouter who was crushed by a crane when a section of tunnel lining was being moved into place.
It should be noted that while systems for reporting accidents are different on the French and United Kingdom sides and direct comparisons are therefore difficult, there has, as I understand it, been only one fatality on the French side during the same period. That fact was referred to by the two previous speakers.
The HSE has taken TML to court three times, as has been referred to by previous speakers. As a result of the HSE investigation into the second fatal accident which occurred on 6th February 1989 when a worker was hit by heavy lifting gear, the five companies that make up TML were each fined £10,000 —the £50,000 referred to by my noble friend. I agree with him that that seems to be a small amount when lives are in question. TML has recognised that its accident rate can and must be reduced although it continues to maintain that its performance, approach and standards are generally better and more developed than in civil engineering generally. That is probably true, judging by what my noble friend said this evening. It is clear, however, that TML's approach to accident investigation is not searching enough when looking at the causes and future prevention of accidents. This is surely demonstrated by the fact that two similar fatal accidents occurred within a year of each other.
1034
I was talking quite recently to a construction engineer who knows the site well. He told me that there was a culture among employees which was not sufficiently accident and hazard conscious. He said that in his view there was a masculine, macho culture where taking the necessary precautions was not regarded as sufficiently tough. It is a very tough industry. Therefore I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, said, that training is of paramount importance if we are to make sure that these accidents are not repeated.
I am informed, and indeed the Minister informed the House in response to a Starred Question last Thursday, 14th June, that the Secretary of State for Employment has recently invited representatives of Translink to a meeting to discuss health and safety management on the project. It is understood that the HSE accident prevention advisory unit has been asked to carry out a major review of the maintenance work.
It is the view of the Trades Union Congress which briefed me on the matter that a review of management procedures by the HSE must give attention to consultation and joint workforce involvement in health and safety through the operation of safety representatives and safety committees. The review should also look at the case for fast track procedures to deal with serious imminent risks. In view of the special nature of the project, there may be a case for a special high level health and safety committee under joint HSE/Translink joint venture chairmanship.
It is understood that this is a difficult and dangerous project. I agree with everything that my noble friend said about the importance of the project, how exciting it is and how unprecedented for this country. That being so, it behoves us to take all the steps that can be taken to ensure that it is not built on the blood of construction workers. We have, I should have thought, progressed from the days when it was taken for granted that massive public works involved the deaths and injury of workers who were regarded as expendable. That is not the Government's attitude since they are, I know, concerned about injuries and deaths on the project.
As for the comment about the alleged intimidation of workers, I noted what my noble friend Lord Dean had to say. When I made the point on a Question last week I had been briefed to that effect by the Trades Union Congress. I should not have made that kind of allegation out of the blue. In view of what the noble Lord had to say on the issue, I shall take the matter up.
As to the whole question of penalties, where serious injuries and accidents are involved, I welcome the fact that a major review is to be carried out. I hope that some positive results will arise from it. I am not generally in favour of sending people to prison, but I believe that it would bring home the need for safety to board members if they knew that they could be held personally responsible where fatalities arise because of negligent operations.
Again I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dean, for bringing the matter to our attention tonight. It is of

1035
enormous importance and we must make absolutely certain that this major project is carried out with the least possible injury and fatalities to the workers involved.
10.14 p.m.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity that the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, has given to discuss worker health and safety on the Channel Tunnel project. I do so particularly since he has had a certain amount of experience from visiting the site yesterday. That experience helps us in our deliberations.
The Government, like the noble Lord, Lord Dean, are committed to seeing that all workplaces enjoy the highest standards of health and safety that are reasonably practicable. This applies equally to the construction industry as any other industry. It is for this reason that we have been most active in promoting construction safety. The Channel Tunnel development is unique in its conception and scale. It is the most challenging civil engineering project in Europe today and is a complex project to manage and operate. Adding to this complexity is its international character.
The Question of the noble Lord, Lord Dean, concerns the adequacy of powers available to the Health and Safety Executive to safeguard health and safety in the work environment. The Channel Tunnel Act applies UK law to the tunnel, even to an extension dug into French territory, until "effective connection" under the Treaty of Canterbury is declared. I should like therefore to outline briefly the factual position on legislation under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and other relevant legislation for the information of this House.
Health and safety is an area where a degree of common ground should and I believe does exist between all parties. The 1974 Health and Safety at Work Etc. Act is an outstanding example of that common ground. The legislation was drawn up by a Conservative Government and put on the statute book by a Labour Government.
The UK health and safety legislation is acknowledged as one of the best in Europe and is often used as a model for European Community directives. The Health and Safety at Work Etc. Act provides a model framework for the development and enforcement of safety standards by the Health and Safety Commission and Executive which it established.
The commission regularly considers developments on the Channel Tunnel project and is concerned with long-term safety issues such as action planned to develop and maintain higher standards, and the executive is responsible for the day-to-day enforcement of health and safety legislation on the site.
The Health and Safety at Work Etc. Act is clear on the duties it places on employers, employees and others in such matters. The Act requires employers to take every step that is reasonably practicable to ensure the health, safety and welfare of their
1036
employees. An employer must take full account of safety in the carrying out of his business.
The Act requires employees to take reasonable care for the health and safety of themselves and of other persons who may be affected by their acts or omissions at work. In addition employees are required to co-operate with their employers to allow them to meet their health and safety responsibilities. The Health and Safety at Work Etc. Act gives to inspectors a wide range of powers including the powers of investigation and prosecution for failure to comply with any relevant health and safety legislation. Inspectors visit the Channel Tunnel project regularly for a variety of reasons and have not failed to use their enforcement powers whenever they considered it to be appropriate. Both improvement and prohibition notices have been served on the Channel Tunnel contractors requiring them to take specified remedial action. In addition the contractors, to date, have been prosecuted on three occasions —twice in the Crown Court. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Dean, will be glad to hear that.
As all noble Lords have recognised, the unions have played an active role in monitoring safety on the project. Almost all of the TML workforce is unionised. The unions have always been very supportive of TML's intention to take a firm line on safety-related disciplinary offences. I am grateful for the assurances of the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick. I understood him to say that no workers have left the site either through intimidation or because of lack of safety on the site.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I should say that was the information that was given to us. I accept that as factual information; but only the people involved would know whether it was factual information.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord is quite right. I believe that I am right in saying that the HSE has received no allegations from the workforce about safety on the site. Those allegations can be received in confidence.
I have mentioned that this is a complex and challenging project, involving activities with a high inherent risk, and demanding careful management and attention to safety matters. It has been disappointing to note the accident record of the project, especially the number of fatal accidents. All noble Lords on all sides of the House would agree that we are dealing with people who have died, and that is regrettable and unfortunate. The accident rate of the Channel Tunnel project is apparently higher than that for the construction industry generally, and that is a matter for great concern which has been expressed both in this House and in another place, and which is shared by Ministers and the HSE. However, caution is required in interpreting the statistics. There is a high level of under-reporting in the construction industry generally, compared with the almost complete reporting by TML, and the industry statistics cover a wide range of work

1037
activities. That said, Ministers have made it clear that regard accident rates in the construction industry as too high.
Both the HSE and TML have recently carried out detailed studies of safety management on the site. The HSE's Accident Protection Advisory Unit has looked at procedures for the maintenance of the tunnel boring machines and has presented its initial findings to TML. TML has also recently completed a full internal audit of safety practices and procedures and is discussing the outcome with the five members of the UK consortium.
The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, mentioned mandatory prison sentences. The Health and Safety at Work Act already allows for prosecution of individual managers and directors of companies and imprisonment in certain circumstances.
The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, asked about training. That is a very important issue. He quite rightly alluded to the fact that the Government believe that it should be the responsibility of employers. TML has attempted as far as possible to recruit experienced underground workers for the Channel Tunnel, going right across the world to do so. All employees, nevertheless, go through a three-day induction training course which includes a substantial safety element. Continuous training of operatives is also organised through a structured series of field safety talks in the workplace. TML attaches a great deal of importance to its training programme as it sees its success as being fundamental to changing attitudes to unsafe practice among the workforce. It also organises supervisory and management training courses and carries out a great deal of first-aid training.
I also know that the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, wanted to play a part in the debate today but unfortunately had another engagement. He visited the tunnel a few months ago. When I spoke to him earlier today the main point that he wanted to make was that he was deeply impressed by the immense care being taken by the contractors to ensure that the operations were as safe as rules and practices can make them.
In conclusion, I should like to stress that Ministers and the HSE firmly believe that the great majority of accidents are preventable by positive management action. I am confident that the legal framework is adequate and that the HSE and its inspectors have sufficient powers to enforce health and safety laws and regulations. Inspectors have not hesitated to use those powers to enforce the law and will not hesitate to do so in the future.
It must not be forgotten that it is the responsibility of the employer, TML, to safeguard those working in the tunnel. The Secretary of State for Employment met senior management of TML shortly after the last fatal accident to remind them vigorously of that fact. They have acknowledged their responsibility and publicly committed themselves to giving safety the highest priority. In the end the only way in which safety can be improved is by full commitment of TML and its workforce to safe working practices.

Greenwich Hospital Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty-two minutes past ten o'clock.