Lords Sitting of 24 April 1991

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

The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury
George Leonard, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury—Was (in the usual manner) introduced between the Lord Bishop of London and the Lord Bishop of Gloucester.

Cyprus
2.44 p.m.
Lord Stallard Lord Stallard asked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps they are taking to promote a negotiated settlement of the Cyprus problem.
Lord Reay: My Lords, we shall continue to give active support to the United Nations Secretary-General's efforts to promote a comprehensive, just and lasting settlement of the intercommunal dispute in Cyprus
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that reply. Does he accept that with the ceasefire. in the Gulf and the new-found enthusiasm for United Nations resolutions, attention is now turning back to finding solutions to long-standing issues such as the Cyprus problem? Will he enlarge a little further on what steps Her Majesty's Government are taking at the United Nations to resurrect the intercommunal talks between the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot leadership? Will he indicate whether Her Majesty's Government will, as a matter of urgency, raise the Cyprus issue at the next EC meeting of Foreign Ministers?
Lord Reay: My Lords, the way forward is clearly laid out in United Nations Security Council Resolution 649 of March 1990 which both sides accepted and which was unanimously adopted by the Security Council. The United Nations Secretary-General's representative is currently pursuing further discussions with the parties to the dispute. The Secretary-General proposes to report again to the Security Council in July. We shall continue our regular high level contacts with those most closely involved in order to help the United Nations find a way forward.
The European Community has made clear its support for the United Nations Secretary-General's efforts. However, we do not believe that a European Community initiative is appropriate. We believe that it would only cut across United Nations efforts.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, on the point raised by the noble Lord about the Community, is it not the case that as recently as December the European Community proposed that a conference should he convened with representatives from Greece,
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Turkey and the Community to discuss the current difficulties and to seek to make at least some start towards a solution? Has that proposal now been dropped or is it being followed up?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I do not have details of any such proposal by the European Community. However, we believe that the initiative of the United Nations Secretary-General offers the best hope of progress. We believe that it provides the necessary impartiality and authority to encourage the two communities to reach a mutually acceptable and lasting solution.
Viscount Tonypandy: My Lords, will the noble Lord ensure that the Secretary-General of the United Nations is given the information about the large numbers of Turks who are being granted Cypriot nationality by Mr. Denktas, thus changing the balance in the proportion between the two peoples in the occupied part of Cyprus?
Lord Reay: My Lords, it would not be helpful for me to express a view on the merits of the case. Our policy is to be even-handed in our dealings with both sides within the limits set by our recognition policy. We believe that that is the best way to preserve our influence with both parties.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, may I impress upon the noble Lord the urgency of the matter? It is now 17 years since the invasion. Is it not time that the United Kingdom, with its responsibility as joint chairman, injected some further urgency into the business? That is why I asked for the matter to be raised on the agenda at the next meeting of the EC Foreign Ministers.
Lord Reay: My Lords, the Secretary-General proposes to continue the recent discussions with a view to reaching an outline settlement by July on the basis of which direct negotiations between the leaders of the two communities could resume. We believe that a settlement is possible given good will on both sides. We share the Secretary-General's hope that real progress can be made by the summer.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that there has been some contact and correspondence between the Greek and Turkish authorities over the ghost town of Famagusta and that they may be coming together on that issue?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I think that my noble friend is referring to Varosha. We would warmly welcome the release of Varosha to the United Nations administration, as called for in United Nations Resolution 550. However, we believe that that issue is unlikely to be resolved except as part of a comprehensive settlement.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, am I right in thinking that in his reply to me the noble Lord said that the Community had no role to play in this matter? I think the whole House understands that from the start the Community has played a role in this unhappy situation. It has sought to take initiatives. The initiative of last December to which I referred is

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important. The Community may well be able to take a successful initiative as a preliminary to further action by the United Nations. Will the Minister try to find out whether an initiative was proposed in December and what followed?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I am happy to assure the noble Lord that I shall look into that matter. I said that we do not believe a European Community initiative is appropriate because it would cut across the United Nations efforts.

Community Care: Responsibilities
2.50 p.m.
Lord Carter Lord Carter asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether their proposals for the reform of local government structure and finance will affect in any way the implementation of plans for community care in April 1993.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Hooper): My Lords, nothing in the new proposals changes the responsibility of local authorities for managing social services, including the phased introduction of community care between 1991 and 1993. Local authorities implemented phase one on 1st April this year and are currently preparing plans as required for the implementation of phase two on 1st April next year.
Lord Carter: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Does she agree that the proposed reform of local government structure means that councils are being asked to plan community care services without knowing whether they will exist a year after the plans have been implemented? Can she confirm that no consideration is being given at ministerial or official level to the possible deferment of the transfer of community care responsibilities beyond 1993 or the removal from local authorities of their existing responsibilities for community care?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, on 12th February my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said that the Government's policy on community care remained as set out in the White Paper Caring for People, and in the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. On 28th March my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health said that responsibility for managing social services, including the phased introduction of community care, will continue to rest with local government. Paragraph 18 of the Green Paper on local government structure published yesterday records local government's increased responsibility for community and child care. It contains no proposals to alter local government involvement in those responsibilities.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, will my noble friend say when the community care Act is likely to be implemented?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I assume that my noble friend is referring to the community care
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elements of the 1990 Act. The first phase of the implementation took place on 1st April this year when local authorities introduced a complaints procedure and inspection units. That phase has already been completed. From April 1991 we have also had available the mental illness specific grant and the specific grant for drug and alcohol services. Development work is continuing on all fronts. By 1st April 1992 the community care plans will be in place. The final phasing-in of the transfer of resources will take place on 1st April 1993.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, the Minister will be aware that previously it has been the practice of some local authorities to say that they will do many things providing that the Government find the money or do not stop them from doing so because of cutbacks. Will the Minister assure the House that no such excuse can be put forward in respect of community care?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, from 1978–79 to-date there has been an increase in personal social services expenditure of up to 53 per cent. in real terms. Therefore local authorities are moving in the right direction. The Government remain committed to providing adequate resources for community care plans taking into account demographic pressure and new responsibilities within the framework of the phased-in timetable. Allowance has been made for the implementation of phase one within the context of the local authority settlement for this year. The cost of implementing phases two and three will be considered in the appropriate financial years.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the Minister aware that during the past decade a new problem has arisen in community care? It relates to old people who are left alone because their children have moved away to other parts of the country or the world. Magnificent work is being done for them by home-helps. However, I understand that the pressure now put on home-helps is becoming heavy. Old people rely on them. Therefore can the department consider what help it can give?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, we are examining in considerable detail the whole range of services required as a result of the demographic pressures to which I have referred. We remain committed to providing adequate resources.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, does the Minister accept that the decision to pay£140 to reduce the headline poll tax charge but to postpone the bulk of the community care provisions for two years for the sake of£15 per head per year shows the low priority that the Government are now giving to community care? Does the Minister appreciate that the uncertainty about the future of local government created as a result of yesterday's statement and by the two years' postponement, leads to uncertainty in local authorities, in voluntary organisations which are expected to implement the community care provisions, and in the needy people?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the Government's proposals for the phasing-in of community care show great consideration for the needs in that area and for

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the importance of them to be effectively implemented. The change in funding referred to by the noble Lord should have no effect. The fact that standard spending assessments will continue means that discussions with local authorities about the way in which resources will be transferred from the Department of Social Security will be easier as a result. I do not accept the statement that there is any uncertainty.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that if local authorities allocate their spending priorities sensibly, operate efficiently and do not waste their money on irrelevant items, they should have plenty to spare for the important items that we all wish to see?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I happily agree with my noble friend. In addition to the increased spending on personal social services, the department is issuing guidance to health authorities in the implementation of community care. It will also produce practice material on contracting and purchasing and other materials to aid and encourage them.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the answer she gave to my noble friend Lord Mellish was misleading? The figures that she quoted have nothing to do with community care, but they show the gradual inflation increases in social security department spending. The question was about the new responsibility now being placed on local authorities. Are the Government prepared to find new money for local authorities so that they can adequately carry out that function?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I have already answered the noble Lord's question by saying that the new local authority settlements allow for the phasing-in and implementation of the community care plans.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, will the Minister take more seriously the point made by my noble friend Lord Molloy? I know of a number of old people who have had visits from home-helps reduced from weekly to fortnightly. As home-helps often shop for old people, that reduction causes great hardship. Will the Minister consider that specific matter, because the situation exists everywhere in the country?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, nothing in my reply suggested that we are not considering that specific matter.

Alleged War Criminals
2.58 p.m.
Lord Mayhew Lord Mayhew asked Her Majesty's Government:
What decisions were taken by the Cabinet and by departmental Ministers in the years 1945 to 1948 inclusive relating to suspected war criminals who might be residing in the United Kingdom.
Viscount Mountgarret: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I wish to raise an objection to the Question before it is answered. The noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, knows that next Tuesday there will be an extensive
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debate on this subject. I fear that to ask such a Question at this time could lead our discussions to degenerate into a debate about what will then be discussed. I question whether there is a procedure whereby a noble Lord may put forward an objection when another noble Lord begs leave to ask a Question. I may be wrong and shall be happy to listen to advice and guidance from the Front Bench.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Waddington): My Lords, I have no reason to believe that the Question is in any way out of order. I do not believe that it would be appropriate in those circumstances to take any action which would prevent the noble Lord from asking his Question and my noble friend from replying.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, we are not aware that any consideration was given at that time to the possibility of action against alleged war criminals who might have been resident in the United Kingdom. There was no reason to believe that war criminals had come to this country, and the question therefore did not arise.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that in 1945 the Cabinet discussed how best to handle the problem of suspects discovered in this country? Is he aware that parliamentary Questions were asked and answered on that subject? Is he aware that Hansard records that on 1st December 1947 I, as a junior Minister, answered a Question about a suspect who had been arrested in this country and that that case was considered also by the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary and the Lord Chancellor? In that case, how can Ministers maintain that those responsible were unaware of the possibility of war criminals being in this country? Why do Ministers try to maintain that that unawareness was the reason that we did not legislate to try such people in this country?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I have had an opportunity to see the record of the Cabinet decision to which the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, refers. A proposal was being discussed to surrender from the British zone in Germany to the United States' authorities five German industrialists whom the Americans wished to put on trial in the United States'zone. The papers also recorded the Cabinet's view that we should:
"in general …advocate a policy of discontinuing trials for war crimes".
The discussion was about trials in continental Europe. It was not thought that any war criminals could have entered this country. Therefore, the Cabinet could not have been considering war crimes trials here. That is my information. I accept that the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, was an involved and interested party at that time. However, the decision to which the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, referred was a Cabinet decision. At that time it was not considered that any war criminals were in this country.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, while there was no evidence at that time that war criminals were in this country, will my noble friend confirm that thousands of refugees were admitted here from the Baltic States, Poland and the Soviet Union with very little

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screening? Will he also confirm that in 1948 no law existed in this country under which proceedings could have been started?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right. The immediate post-war years saw a large influx of immigrants from Europe to Britain from a wide variety of sources. There were displaced persons who were recruited to combat the chronic labour shortage in Britain, others were members of the Polish armed forces who did not wish to return to live under a Communist regime and others were former prisoners of war who were allowed to stay here. The situation in Europe at that time was fairly chaotic. There was a screening process. However, although that was considered to be effective, it has now been shown that that screening process may not have been so effective.
Viscount Tonypandy: My Lords, will the noble Earl confirm as a result of his inquiries that at the time nobody believed that there were war criminals in the United Kingdom—people guilty of war crimes? Secondly, is there any evidence at all that either the government during the war or the Labour Government of 1945–50 ever dreamt of making the United Kingdom a safe haven for Nazi war criminals?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy, is quite correct. At that time it was not thought that there were any war criminals within the United Kingdom. If there were such criminals, it was certainly not considered that the United Kingdom should be a safe haven for them.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I ask this question out of ignorance and not from any desire to catch the noble Lord out. The Minister said that he has seen the Cabinet papers relating to this issue. Are they public? It is outside the 30-year rule. Can those papers be consulted in the Public Records Office or are they hidden?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, as far as I know I am not privy to private documents of the Cabinet. Thirty years have elapsed and as far as I know the noble Lord, Lord Richard, is entitled—as I am—to look at those papers.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, is it possible to place a copy of those Cabinet papers in the Library before 30th April?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I shall look into that. I am not aware that there are any constraints. If there are, I shall write to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway. If there are not, I shall place a copy of the papers in the Library.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that I am relying not on my memory or on my opinion but on the records at the time? Is he aware that the Cabinet meeting to which he refers concerned itself with the deportation of suspected war criminals held in this country? What about the other records to which I have made reference and other records which I hope to be able to explain to the House next week?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I can only give the same answer that I gave previously. The records which the noble Lord mentioned referred to a policy of discontinuing trials for war crimes. That discussion was about trials in continental Europe. I deferred to the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, because he was there at the time and although he was not in the Cabinet, he was a distinguished Minister at the Foreign Office and may know more about it than I do. However, at that time it was not considered that war criminals were in this country. Therefore, the decision which the Cabinet reached related to war criminals in Europe.

Alleged War Criminals: Trials
3.7 p.m.
Lord Mayhew Lord Mayhew asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the British Government recommended to Commonwealth Governments in 1948 that no fresh trials of suspected war criminals should be started after 31st August of that year; and whether that recommendation was observed by all Commonwealth Governments, including the British.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the Governments of Australia, Canada, Ceylon, New Zealand, India, Pakistan and South Africa were consulted in July 1948 about a British recommendation that in general no new war crimes trials should be started in British military courts in Germany. Available records suggest that the governments concerned concurred with this proposal. An exception was made by the British Government in the case of Field Marshal von Manstein and those involved in the Stalag Luft III murders.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that the government decision to end trials and to wind up the process of retribution applied to all suspects in British and British-controlled territories? Therefore, is he aware that the War Crimes Bill is a direct reversal of the government decision in 1948?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, it identified the British belief that war crimes trials in continental Europe should come to an end. I can only give to the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, the indication which I gave as regards the last Question; namely, that at that time there was no possibility of war criminals being in this country. It was believed that there were no war criminals here. That was the decision taken then. We are talking about some 45 years ago. Even if that were proven to be wrong, there is no particular reason why, later on, a government should not take a different decision from that taken in 1948.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, far from bringing the war crimes trials to an end, did not the United Kingdom Government in 1948 hand over the process in the British zone of Germany to the new emerging West German Government who have since then from time to time brought war criminals to trial?
As regards retribution, that applied to the Nuremberg quadripartite tribunal where for three

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years the leading Nazis and accomplices of Hitler—those who had not committed suicide—were tried. By that time, the trials had come to an end.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, that may well be so. I believe there was general agreement at that time—the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, may remember it—that there had been sufficient prosecutions of those who were involved in war crimes in Germany. It was decided that that should come to an end and on that point there is no disagreement. However, the premise upon which the noble Lord asks the Question is slightly different. At that time it was not anticipated that war criminals in this country would be involved.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister confirm my own recollection, that the trials under the Nuremberg strategy were not, as my noble friend indicated, confined to the leading Nazis but went a great way down the line?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I do not wish to become involved in an argument between two of my noble friends, one of whom is noble and learned. However, I should like to investigate to ascertain who is right and, even more interestingly, who is wrong.
Viscount Tonypandy: My Lords, I too would be nervous, to cross swords with the noble and learned former Lord Chancellor. However, is the Minister aware that the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, was no more a member of the Cabinet than I was. If my memory is correct—I know that old men forget—he was a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State. That puts the matter in perspective. Is it not the case that the Commonwealth agreed with the prosecutions in Germany, but that since then the Commonwealth has had prosecutions both in Australia and Canada on this subject?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Viscount says quite rightly that old men forget. I find that sometimes young men find it difficult to remember. The noble Viscount is correct in that there were four cases investigated in Canada. In Australia, one case was begun under their legislation but the trial was suspended due to the accused's ill health.
Lord Mowbray and Stourton: My Lords, is it not the case that in regard to the case to which my noble friend referred—that of Field Marshal von Manstein—many people, including the late Lord Paget and many other peers in this House, were later not convinced that his conviction brought further justice to the world?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, that must be a matter for individual choice and conscience.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that between 1947 and 1948 I was working in the Foreign Office on European affairs and had the agreeable duty of briefing and advising the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, who was a Parliamentary Under-Secretary? Indeed, because the other place was meeting in this Chamber, I was in the box in this
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House when the noble Lord was on the Front Bench. Is the Minister aware that my memory appears to be serving me rather better than the noble Lord's?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, that is dangerous territory for a Minister to enter. Either the advice of my noble friend Lord Campbell was so bad that the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, did not take it, or his advice was so good that the consideration of the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, was not up to the advice that he was given. It is clearly not proper for me to comment any further.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will forgive me but we have an absolute time limit for Questions of 30 minutes. It is right that I now make the business statement.
With the leave of the House I should like to say a word about this afternoon's debates standing in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, and the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick. As the mover is allowed 15 minutes and the Minister should rise to reply not less than 20 minutes before the scheduled end of the debate, this means that in the case of the three-hour debate in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, all other speeches should be limited to a maximum of 10 minutes. In the two-hour debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, all other speeches should be limited to a maximum of eight minutes.

Unemployment
3.15 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden Baroness Turner of Camden rose to call attention to the continued growth in unemployment, particularly in regions which hitherto have been relatively prosperous; and to move for Papers.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I rise to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I welcome the opportunity to open the debate this afternoon on the subject of unemployment although no one can welcome the fact that the choice of subject is so timely and so apposite.
As everyone knows, the employment situation is far from good, and there are no signs of improvement. As the Minister confirmed in answer to Questions in this House last Thursday, there are now over 2 million people unemployed. In March unemployment in Britain rose by 112,900; that is the biggest monthly increase since current records began. There are prognostications that the figure will rise to 3 million over the next 12 months.
One feature of the new growth in unemployment to which the terms of the Motion refer is that it is now happening in areas which have hitherto been relatively prosperous; for example, in the South East. There is also a growth in unemployment in the North West and the Midlands. While we continue to lose jobs in manufacturing, which has been a feature of the past decade, we are now losing jobs in financial services, in banking, in the service industries generally and in public services such as local government. Today the

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Evening Standard indicates that London is being ravaged by the recession. In the South West heavy redundancies threaten the aerospace industry.
We all welcome the peace dividend, but the fact remains that unless there is diversification unemployment will threaten many thousands of highly trained people working in the defence industries. Employment in those industries, already reduced from 765,000 in 1980 to 618,000 in 1990 is expected further to reduce to around 495,000 by 1995. Where is the Government initiative to transform those industries and utilise the highly trained personnel through a diversification programme? All that is happening is that they are likely to be added to the figures of those already without employment. We are seeing real life situations such as that in Vickers in Barrow, where my own union tells me that between 3,000 and 4,000 jobs are to be lost. That is an absolute catastrophe for that town.
As we all know, unemployment is always a personal disaster. It brings in its train an immediate lowering of living standards. If it continues it results in real poverty, not only for the individual, but also for the family and dependants. It is a threat to health. It plays a role in marriage break-up. It undermines the individual's sense of self-worth and respect. In a society in which we largely define each other by what we do, not to have an occupation and to be on benefit is seen as indicative of a lack of worth. That is particularly true in the case of the long-term unemployed, many of whom are older people who may have had skills which are no longer recognised as relevant. Some industries have been particularly hard hit.
I wonder how many noble Lords saw a recent television programme about, of all places, Bournemouth. It now faces unprecedentedly high levels of unemployment. A former site manager working in construction was interviewed. He had been in three jobs in less than two years. Each time the company for which he had been working had closed down. The construction industry has been particularly badly hit. I am told by the Federation of Master Builders that the greatest reduction in employment in the industry is 10.7 per cent. in London. However, it says that a quarter of all firms are making redundancies. The federation says that to achieve any relief for the industry further reductions in interest rates are urgently needed.
Another problem which undoubtedly arises when there is widespread unemployment is that of people who cannot meet mortgage repayments. That has scarcely been addressed by the small reduction in building society rates that we have seen recently. People were encouraged by the Government to embark on house purchase. There have been few homes to rent at reasonable cost; local authority programmes have been cut back and, whether people like it or not, they have been forced on to the housing market. As the former Prime Minister said, it may very well be true that house purchase is a good, long-term investment. But that is of very little help to
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someone with a young family to support and who is now facing an immediate drop in living standards and income.
What is the Government's response to all this? I credit the Government with caring about unemployment since it would be electoral suicide to give the impression that they were indifferent to it or that it was in any way part of a deliberate policy. Indeed, I understand that Conservative constituencies now have rising levels of redundancies. However, at the beginning of the decade there was a great deal of talk, notably from the previous Prime Minister, about the need to shake out surplus labour to produce a leaner, trimmer and fitter industry more able to compete internationally.
We have had the shake out, as many unemployed, particularly the long-term unemployed, can testify. But we are apparently no more competitive than before—if anything, rather less—since we now have an enormous balance of payment deficit. Furthermore, manufacturing output is down sharply. In the three months to February it fell by 2.1 per cent. compared with the previous quarter, and it was down 4.6 per cent. against a year ago. One line of approach adopted by the Government has been to support total deregulation. We have seen a series of legislative moves in the past decade designed to remove whatever employee protection existed previously. The employment legislation has been based on the assumption that the employee needed protection from his or her union rather than from exploitive employers. So we have seen the repeal of the fair wages resolution, and sections of the employment protection legislation allowing for arbitration and providing machinery for union recognition have been expunged. The powers of wages' councils have been eroded. There was some talk of doing away with them altogether. It is now much more difficult to take cases to industrial tribunals.
The Government have consistently opposed the idea of a social dimension and continue to oppose the European social charter. One of the reasons for their opposition is that it would allegedly inhibit job creation. But we now have what must be the most deregulated and unprotected labour market in Western Europe and yet we have growing unemployment. It is surely the case that unemployment arises from general economic factors and has little to do with regulations about employee protection.
The Government have also pointed to high wages as a reason for unemployment. I am sure that the Minister will repeat that this afternoon. Plainly that cannot be so because in the United Kingdom it is acknowledged that we actually have a low wage, low productivity economy. Certain sections of the workforce—that is to say, those possessing certain important and needed skills—are sometimes in a position to make high wage demands and sometimes get them satisfied. Presumably that also applies to the senior directors who have been awarding themselves 22.7 per cent. salary increases. But a very large part of our workforce works for low wages. Indeed, the Government's social policies actually subsidise low

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wages through the provision of benefits like family credit. Almost 1 million people rely on means-tested benefits to top up low wages.
No doubt the Minister will attempt to scoff, as he has done previously, at the Labour Party's commitment to minimum wage legislation. Yet we do have a form of minimum wage here already—but instead of employers paying for it, public funds do so via the social security system—and at low levels. On the social security side, it has been government policy to encourage people to take up low-paid employment rather than to remain on benefit. Yet despite all that we still have growing unemployment.
There is a cost involved in keeping people unemployed rather than in productive employment. According to figures that I have been provided with, it costs£8,082 per year to keep one person unemployed. That includes the cost of benefits, tax revenue foregone, and so on. Thus the cost to the Exchequer, if we have 2 million people unemployed for a year, is£16 billion; and if we have the projected 3 million unemployed, the cost will be£24 billion. That is a very substantial sum indeed.
Although this is not a debate specifically about training, one can hardly discuss unemployment without referring to it. Everyone appears to agree, including the Government, that training ought to have priority. Conventional wisdom is that one of the reasons why we are now in recession is that over the years we have neglected training, yet, compared with our competitors, we are spending less on it. The Government are presiding over cuts in the training budget for 1991–92 even after the recent decision to restore£120 million to employment training. Committed people—that is to say, people who give up time to serve on TECs—are becoming increasingly frustrated about the lack, as they see it, of adequate resources.
I still believe that, as regards training, the Government's commitment to the employer-led voluntary approach is not the right one. I still regret the demise of the Engineering Industry Training Board as a statutory body although I naturally hope that the successor body will be able to accomplish the heavy task laid on it. We have to think about economic policy when considering unemployment, particularly at its present levels. I believe that the present Government's record is one of failure. We have failed over the years to give sufficient support to manufacturing industry. Our service industries ride on top of our ability to manufacture and will themselves be adversely affected once that ability is drastically impaired.
The Government have not developed a long-term policy for industry. Investment in manufacturing is no higher now than it was 11 years ago. We have lost more manufacturing output than our European neighbours. Yet all this time we have had a bonus of revenue from North Sea oil. These are revenues that should have gone to upgrading manufacturing and providing training and research capabilities.
The Motion refers to the impact of unemployment in regions formerly regarded as relatively prosperous. I have already made some reference to these—that is
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to say, to the South East and the South West, London, and the formerly prosperous areas of the Midlands, and to industries such as the service industries where employment is now threatened. That all serves to underline the fact that we are now deeper into recession. That has wider implications than the recession that occurred in the early 1980s. It is beginning to affect all areas and most occupations.
There is a need for short-term measures to deal with the present situation. Smaller firms facing the daunting prospect of possible closure urgently need help. We need temporary employment programmes to assist the unemployed, particularly the long-term unemployed. We must put more money into training. In particular, we need to accept as a society that full employment is not a hopeless, unattainable and out-of-date goal. Labour and Conservative governments after the war accepted full employment as a social objective and as a priority of social policy. Policies were developed with that in view. That generation had had enough of unemployment and recession in the 1930s and was determined that there should be no return to those days. We may be getting perilously close to a return to them.
Yet it does not have to be so. There is no reason why full employment should not once again be regarded as a legitimate social objective, remembering that it costs society heavily to maintain people in enforced idleness as well as creating a social blight and social problems of which we are all too well aware. Unemployment is an avoidable catastrophe. Given the political will it can be overcome. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.28 p.m.
Lord Jeffreys: My Lords, it falls not to me to enter into a soliloquy into the causes of employment or, should I say, the lack of it. There are many here better versed than I in this subject. Anyway, I rather suspect that this may be too contentious a subject for a maiden speaker in your Lordships' House. Unemployment has become an established feature of our society. It has been here for many years and, sadly, it may well be here for many years to come. I prefer the saying, when talking about unemployment, that perhaps,
"from all evil some good doth come".
In that regard I specifically wish to refer to the very good work being done at the moment by the employment services and, more particularly, the work being done in the job club programme and by the TECs—the Training and Enterprise Councils. Before doing so I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to the effects on the family of being out of work. Apart from the obvious loss of income and all that that entails there is the loss of self-esteem, the loss of morale and the general lack of motivation that an individual placed in that situation may feel. It is in that light that I shall discuss further the job club programme.
The job club programme was set up in 1984 after a very successful period of work in the United States. It is worth reflecting that during a recession for many people it may be the first time they have been unemployed, while for others it may be 20 years since

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they left school. It is for those people that the job club programme was set up. The programme is specifically involved in the practicalities of the situation; how to look for work and where to look for work and bettering the self-projection of the individual concerned, both in interview situations and in the writing of letters for job applications. The programme helps to teach self-discipline to the individual both in his search for employment and in the management of his personal financial responsibilities when his income has ceased. Much credit for this work must go to the staff employed in the programmes. They live in the realms of where anything is possible. Just because someone is unemployed does not necessarily mean that he is unemployable.
Perhaps I may give an illustration. Nationally, in the year 1990–91 140,000 people entered the job club programme. Of those, 65,000 were employed as a direct result of the programme and a further 21,000 were indirectly employed shortly after leaving the programme. That represents a 61 per cent. success rate and at a time when unemployment trends are rising. That is a record which we can all be very proud of. In my own area of Nottingham, and more specifically in Nottingham itself, there are are 22 job club programmes which can boast a 74 per cent. return to work. Better still, there was an 86 per cent. return to work on the one existing management job programme. I suspect that there are many reasons for that success, but I should like to illustrate just one. It is the boldness and motivation to go and seek out the 50 per cent. of jobs which are never advertised, be it in the national press or the job centres.
Perhaps I may make a small observation about being unemployed. Over the years being unemployed in this country has been almost a dirty word. People who have been unemployed have been spoken about in hushed tones. In the worst instances it has been suggested that people have been sponging off the state, that they do nothing and make no attempt to find work. There has been a stigma about drawing unemployment benefit. Perhaps more damning than all, statistically industry has been far less likely to employ someone who has been six months or more out of work than someone who has been unemployed for only a short time.
All those things could not be less true. I venture to say that unemployed men or women are likely to be far more motivated to do a good job for any company willing to employ them. The experience of being unemployed is so unpleasant that they can have no other choice than to follow this course. However, times are changing. Significantly, more funds have recently been introduced and industry is now looking to the job clubs as a source of motivated labour.
In speaking of the job clubs it is right to draw attention to the linkage that exists between them and the Training and Enterprise Councils. It has been recognised, after a long period, that there is a need within industry, and within the country as a whole, for a labour force having better qualifications and skills: more specifically, having skills that are actually required and not necessarily those skills that are
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presumed to be required just because we have always had them. In the same way that there is a linkage between unemployment and training so there should be one between government and industry. Government alone cannot be expected to pick up the tab for funding training throughout the country. It should be a joint effort between industry and government. In addition, on the government's part it is important to illustrate to industry as a whole the availability of skilled labour and unskilled labour and, from industry's point of view, to indicate the skills required from the training agencies.
Great challenges face us in the next few years; not only from Europe, where competition is fierce, but obviously from the rest of the world. I should like to believe that the illness has been diagnosed, the surgeon has operated and recovery is underway. If we can get the training right then the unemployment problem will begin to sort itself out and, who knows, perhaps even the job clubs will become redundant. Great things have been done. Let us help to keep up the momentum.
3.37 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, it falls to me on behalf of the whole House to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, on his maiden speech. He has spoken with sympathy of the effect of unemployment on the individual and with conviction about some of the practical steps that are being taken to alleviate unemployment. We hope that, having chosen this crucial subject of unemployment on which to address us for the first time, the noble Lord will speak to us again on many future occasions. I hope I may now be allowed to take another minute for my speech if that should be needed.
In preparing for this debate I have looked back to the report published in 1982 of your Lordships' Select Committee on Unemployment, of which I was privileged to be a member under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lady Seear. I have been struck by the way in which many of the long term remedies for unemployment that were then put forward still appear valid. First, the committee did not shirk the vital issue of how this country could achieve and maintain realistic pay levels if we are to regain competitiveness. It considered that the route lay in the willingness of the workforce to relate earnings to added value and the capacity of managements to maximise that value. We hoped that understanding of these facts would lead to realistic pay settlements. The committee also expressed the view that governments would find it necessary to prevent inflationary settlements by introducing what we called flexible and comprehensive incomes policies of indefinite duration. Our fear was that otherwise the impact of pay on inflation and competitiveness would result in indefinite prolongation of unemployment in the hope that those without work would, in the end, price themselves into jobs.
Today the economic background is different in a number of respects. In particular, entry into the European Exchange Rate Mechanism is bound eventually to force our rate of inflation more closely into line with the level of our competitors. But the

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transition could well be painful, involving increases in unemployment that we must strive hard to avoid. To that end there is in my view a strong case for the Government to enter into discussions with representatives of employers and trade unions aimed at obtaining wide understanding and, if possible, acceptance of the overall increase in incomes which at periodic intervals the country can afford.
In our best run companies managements profit from consulting employees and their representatives before taking decisions affecting those employees' interests. In that way they find it easier to gain agreement and commitment to the decisions which, ultimately, only management can take. I do not see why government—any government—should shrink from doing the same, particularly when decisions affecting the relationship between pay, prices, investment and employment are taken not only by government but also by employers and trade unions.
I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not advocating a return to discredited notions of corporatism and statutory incomes policies. I am suggesting that as a matter of good management—in this case of the national economy—there should as far as possible be consultation with representatives of the relevant interests before decisions are taken. In my view it is only on the basis of consent that in a democracy like ours the often disagreeable policies required to achieve and sustain economic recovery and alleviate unemployment can be made to stick.
Another proposal, much canvassed lately, is that pay bargaining should be co-ordinated in such a way that negotiations in both public and private sectors take place within a set period. I recall this idea being put forward by Sir John Methven, when he was director-general of the CBI in the days of the last Labour Government, as a means of eliminating leapfrogging claims which even then were proving so damaging to our competitiveness. I once had the good fortune to work with John Methven and always thought: he had ideas ahead of his time. No doubt that was why he failed at that time to carry with him the general body of employers, never mind trade unions. I see r o reason why this concept should not be included as one of the items on the agenda for the process of consultation that I have been advocating. But that, too, can only come to fruition with the consent of employers and trade unions; and I include government as an employer.
Incidentally—here I must disagree sharply with the noble Baroness, Lady Turner—it would in my view be madness to contemplate the introduction of a statutory minimum wage. I say that because of the inflationary consequences that would inevitably ensue from the need to preserve skills differentials.
In its 1982 report the Select Committee recommended that education or training should be the norm for 16 and 17 year-olds; that at that age young people who left school should be regarded as trainees and that for those who went straight into work on leaving school at 16 employers should be obliged to offer release far further education or on-the-job training for a minim um of 20 per cent. of their working time. I believe that those are sound principles which should
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apply today and, indeed, be extended. It is in fact the policy of my party that there should be a statutory requirement for employers to train all their 16 to 18 year-olds for an average of at least two days a week. Employers could choose whether the training should be "in house" or on a recognised course and it could be done either in blocks of several weeks at a time or on two days every week.
That would, of course, involve the Government in additional expenditure in providing for the expansion of tertiary and technical colleges to deal with the increased demand for courses resulting from such a requirement. But on these Benches we have been for years advocating that expenditure on education and trainin—and for that matter on transport and the infrastructure—should be regarded as an essential investment for the future. Indeed, I believe we are alone in having said that we are prepared if necessary to increase taxation in order to finance additional expenditure on education.
All that is for the long term. More immediately, the predicted growth in unemployment is such that there is need in my view for the Government to reintroduce special measures in the form of temporary work schemes on the lines of the old community programme to alleviate the plight particularly of young people and the long-term unemployed. In 1982 the Select Committee on Unemployment advocated that what was then called the community enterprise programme should be expanded to accommodate 100,000 places annually. We said that the aim should be to offer a place to every 18 to 24 year-old who had been unemployed for six months and that remaining places should be made available to the long-term unemployed aged 25 and over. At the time of the committee's report just over 3 million were registered as unemployed and actively seeking work. We said then that unemployment of that proportion required immediate as well as long-term policy reaction. Allowing for the changes which have occurred since that time in compiling unemployment statistics, it looks as though we shall soon find ourselves in a very similar position.
I have put this question to the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, on two or three occasions recently. His reply has been to the effect that the Government already have a large training programme for those who have been out of work for some time and for young people. He has also said that training is not always the right answer and has referred to what is being done through extra places at job clubs to deal with the problem. However, I am not talking of existing training schemes and job clubs. I understand that the Department of Employment has been for some time considering the introduction of additional measures to lessen the increasingly severe effects of unemployment. I do hope that when the noble Viscount replies to the debate he will on this occasion be able to respond positively to my question.
That brings me to the one case of a regional nature to which I wish to refer. I live in mid-Cheshire, where there is a training centre catering particularly for those with special needs; for example, to improve literacy and numeracy and for rehabilitation following a

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period in prison. To my personal knowledge that centre has, during the past five years, performed admirably for the local community in providing training and obtaining employment for both young people and adults. The manager has now been told that his employment training contract will be terminated next month and will not be renewed for the ensuing 12 months. Already there have been redundancies among the trainers. That is simply because of a government-induced cut in the centre's budget which will have the effect of limiting adult training to those best able to benefit from it in securing qualifications and jobs. This comes at a time when, as your Lordships will know, government policy is said to be to reduce the prison population by expanding community punishments. What a time at which to reduce job training in the community for ex-offenders!
That is not something peculiar to mid-Cheshire. We read that according to an internal report by G10—the group of chairmen of training and enterprise councils who act as a mouthpiece for TECs with the Government—rising unemployment is causing TEC boards generally to doubt whether they can satisfy government guarantees of training to the unemployed.
I want to end on this note, for ultimately in my view it boils down to a question of how society determines its values. I have always felt that inflation must be regarded as Public Enemy No. 1. But the work ethic is still sufficiently strong within me to make me feel that at the same time as we battle against inflation we must somehow do more to provide opportunities for training and employment to those who are at the very bottom of the pile.
3.49 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Guildford: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for introducing this debate on unemployment with particular reference to areas of relative prosperity. I should like also to add my personal congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, on his maiden speech in which he kept before us with such effect the human realities of unemployment.
I come from a part of the country which until recently has not experienced the scourge of unemployment. However, in recent months we have begun to feel its lash. It cannot be claimed that unemployment in Surrey is as serious, as persistent or as socially damaging as it is in other parts of the country. Although unemployment is growing faster in the South East than in any other region, the numbers in absolute terms are still comparatively small. Therefore, there is little cumulative effect on the local economy. Nonetheless, the individual human misery of the unemployed is heavy.
It is possible that unemployment, at any rate in the South East, may prove to be only a passing phenomenon; nonetheless, where it hits, it hits hard. People in the South East are that much more likely to have high mortgages, and unemployment very often therefore means rapid loss of a job and of a home. Some people in the repossession sections of the building societies in our region are now having to
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work on Saturday mornings in order to keep pace with the repossessions. Moreover, the loss of a home as well as a job can do lasting damage to family relationships: young people can become the innocent victims of economic forces and they can find their whole pattern of life rapidly dislocated. In our determination to master inflation—proper though that is—I wonder whether we are always sensitive to the human and social damage caused by economic policies.
One of the particular human and social problems which we experience in the leafy parts of the South East is that here, perhaps more than anywhere else in the country, the local culture is geared towards success and, in large measure, that is measured in terms of economic success. Therefore, when people fail—as it appears to them—through being declared redundant or, for that matter, through other ways, it is so alien to the whole local culture in which they are being nurtured that they often try to conceal their anxiety. They find it much more difficult to seek the help and assistance which they urgently need at that stage. There is nothing more tragic than to find someone who is apparently successful being declared redundant and trying to conceal that fact from his friends and associates, and even from his own family. That is tragedy indeed. It is the by-product not just of unemployment, but of unemployment and a culture which has been too readily encouraged to think that life is to be assessed in terms of economic success.
Young people are at risk not just because their parents' homes may be repossessed, but because there is no employment for the young within easy reach of home. To start one's working life with no work can be a spur to determination and enterprise. But equally it can be the beginning of disillusionment with society and, in particular, with the older generation who have produced such circumstances.
The Surrey Career Service reports that there has been a 60 per cent. drop this year in job vacancies. It is having to advise young people to consider other alternatives. Those alternatives—for example, youth training and further education—are good in themselves; but embarking on them for negative reasons, because there is no work alternative, is not the most promising approach.
Our hope in the South East is that unemployment will be only a passing phenomenon. For that, if it proves to be the case, we shall be grateful. But there are dangers: it could delude those of us who live in the South East in the more secure part of the country to think that, once our ills are cured, the nation as a whole is through the worst of unemployment. However, that will probably not be the case. As a whole nation, we need to be aware of the human and social damage which can be caused by continuing high unemployment across the country.
As has been said, those who are particularly vulnerable are the long-term unemployed. Moreover, despite the fact that our society has in recent years been taking far more seriously the problems of the disabled and the handicapped and indeed those of the ethnic minorities, it is precisely those people, of whose

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needs we are increasingly aware, who are likely to be among the first to suffer during any period of unemployment.
Therefore, alongside our policies of trying to overcome inflation, I hope that we shall be able to put equal energy and resources, and increasing energy and resources, into training people in computer and numeracy skills so they can take up employment as and w -ten it becomes available to them. I appreciate that a great deal is now being done in this connection, but surely equipping people for the jobs that will probably become available is every bit as important as overcoming the scourge of inflation.
Finally, in speaking of unemployment we are talking not so much about a social and economic phenomenon, but about people. We are talking about people who feel discarded by society. It is that human reality that we must keep continually before us.
3.56 p.m.
Lord Jay: My Lords, in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, on his maiden speech, I think I can say with conviction that most of us agreed with a great deal of what he said—although not quite everything.
Some people seem to have been surprised during the past week to discover that unemployment rose last month by the all-time record figure of 113,000 and that manufacturing output in the United Kingdom is now running at an annual rate of about 9 per cent. below what it was a year ago. Some of us were of course treated as alarmists when we warned the Government last autumn that if they continued with their extreme deflationary policies—that is, exceedingly high interest rates and a grossly overvalued exchange rate in the ERM—unemployment would rise by 50,000 or 70,000 a month during this year.
I am not being wise after the event. I warned the Government in the debate which took place in this Chamber on 14th November, after we joined the ERM at an overvalued rate, that on present policies unemployment may well reach 2.5 million before the end of..991. An overvalued exchange rate deflates the economy in three highly effective ways at the same time. First, it acts as a subsidy to imports, which are now increasing; secondly, it acts as a tax on exports; and, thirdly, by enforcing excessive interest rates, it deflates demand. In those circumstances, not surprisingly, output, employment and productivity (through short-time working) rapidly fall.
Our Own 45 years' post-war experience shows that the UK economy works best when the exchange rate is at an economic level. The recovery in 1987-88—which we were told was a miracle at the time—was in fact, as one can see now, clearly due to the fall in the sterling rate in 1985-86. Let us not forget that from 1945 to 1970, a period of 25 years, unemployment was held at 3 per cent. or less and real growth was achieved in almost every year. But now, according to the Government's Red Book, real GDP is forecast to fall by 2 per cent. this year and fixed investment by 9.75 per cent.
However, the most spectacular and forbidding example of the effects of an overvalued exchange rate
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has come from East Germany during the past year. A year ago, the real value of the East German mark was really about one quarter of the West German mark. But Chancellor Kohl—as if the job of swapping communism for a free market in 12 months was not bad enough—chose for political reasons to set the exchange rate at one for one. As a result, almost every enterprise in East Germany was rendered uneconomic at the stroke of a pen, and East German unemployment now stands at about 30 per cent. of the total labour force and is expected by many to reach 50 per cent. by the end of the year.
It seems to me that the conclusive objection to deflating our economy—in addition to all the human evils about which we have just heard and all know about—to the present glaring under-use of productive capacity is the appalling economic waste that it involves. It means in plain English that we pay 2 million people to do nothing instead of paying them to do something useful.
If we allow for short-time working, as well as unemployment at present, we are now leaving idle at least 10 per cent. of our real productive capacity and probably much more. As our money GDP is now running at about£600 billion a year we are needlessly throwing away about£60 billion a year of real income. That£60 billion is nearly one-third of our total budget expenditure. It is equal to the whole of our social security and defence spending put together.
The truth is that in a modern economy, if the Government are too lazy or too cowardly to organise an incomes policy—the present Government and the City between them have made one impossible by the levels of the top salaries which we now see prevailing—we have to choose between high unemployment and a gradually rising prices level. If we are forced to make that choice, it is surely better to choose a gradually rising prices level, because that means higher real output of goods and services from the economy as a whole. Surely the chief aim of economic policy—in the medium or the long term—must be the highest output of goods and services which people want to consume, and not the maintenance of some particular value of money which, in any case, has been plucked out of the air.
One secondary aim must be to moderate the rise in the prices level, but the various objectives of economic policy—there are more than one—must surely be kept in balance and not all sacrificed to the one near obsession which the Government now call fighting inflation. Money, after all, is supposed to be a means of exchange, but if one pushes one's obsession with the value of money to the point where, as now, the national real output of wealth is falling, one is guilty of the absurdity of using what is supposed to be a means of exchange to prevent exchange taking place. We should be keeping 2 million people and their families out of the process of exchange because they would be unable to sell their services. Apart from the huge economic waste involved, it is a doubly unfair policy because it forces the excluded millions to accept, in real terms, a smaller share of a smaller total. Nor is it true that a rising prices level, as we are so

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often told, hits the poorest families worst. There are extraordinarily few people nowadays living wholly on a small fixed income.
By joining the ERM at an untenable rate the Government have locked us into an economic cul-de-sac. Now admitted daily in the financial press—it is not all wrong—is what some of us predicted six months ago: the ERM prevents us from cutting interest rates. Even that instrument has been lost. We now have not so much a "one-club" Government as a "no-club" Government. Indeed, they dare not even call a general election.
The correct national policy, as I see it now—indeed almost the only practical policy left—is to bring down interest rates substantially now, and let the exchange rate find its natural economic level. If instead we persist yet again, as we did for years after 1925, when we faced a similar situation, in sacrificing everything to the fetish of fighting inflation at all costs, we shall weaken this country even further, at home and abroad, economically and politically, and end up as before by having to admit defeat.
4.5 p.m.
Lord Boardman: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Jay, will forgive me if I do not follow him in that economic debate. There are many points with which I hope I might have the opportunity to take issue with him on some future occasion. Perhaps I may join with other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Jeffreys on his most excellent maiden speech. It was sympathetic and lucid. I am sure that speeches of similar quality will be repeated on future occasions.
My noble friend referred, as have all noble Lords so far, to the problems of the unemployed and especially to the problems of the families of the unemployed. That is something about which we all feel passionately. The wife and children of an unemployed man often feel most bitter or most hurt by the impact of that unemployment upon him. It is not just a question of the financial consequences, although as I shall say in a moment they vary considerably from one type of unemployment to another; the majority of people, despite what is often said by some, want a job. They prefer to work. They do not want to live off the state.
I shall refer to the financial consequences of unemployment which fall into three categories. First, there are the low-paid who find that unemployment benefit does not fall far short of what they were earning in their jobs, and for whom the financial consequences are less severe. Secondly, there are the top executives who, by reason of service contracts and the like, sometimes seem to be well sheltered from the full impact of unemployment. Thirdly, there is the enormous band in between of the middle earners for whom the financial consequences can be acute and can lead to the loss of their homes and the selling of many things. Those are circumstances which call for considerable sympathy.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, said, some of the recent increases in unemployment have happened
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in areas which in the past have been sheltered from it, and where the impact is perhaps more severe and felt more severely. The total number of unemployed—the figure used by the noble Baroness—is always a good stick with which to beat the Government, but I am not sure that it gets us very far. We can achieve 100 per cent. employment. It was secured in East Germany, Russia and some other countries, but at what price? If we want to ensure that everyone is employed, we must accept that the standard of living will be appalling—something which I am sure none of us wishes to have. It can be secured in a command economy at the risk of virtual starvation.
I should like to try to distinguish between the present rising unemployment and that which happened in previous years—the rising unemployment which occurred when the Government took office in 1979, 1980 and so on. At that time there was some slimming down of overmanning—to which the noble Baroness has referred—and the closure of plant and mines which had continued beyond their economic life. Some of that had happened previously. It happened during the early 1970s. It happened during the Labour Administration when the noble Lord, Lord Robens, closed more mines than any other government. That caused large blocks of unemployment in some areas. The unemployment was concentrated in small areas—the Consetts and Corbys and so on. Such areas called for special treatment— dedicated aid—and for financial incentives to persuade people to invest.
It has been a remarkable success story. If we take, for example, Consett, one steelworks was closed in 1980 causing 5,000 unemployed. Today there are over 200 separate smaller businesses employing between 3,000 and 4,000 people. That shows that the transition has been made, but it is slow and painful. It needs concentration of government effort, together with private enterprise, to bring it about.
Today's unemployment is a different variety, a different brand. It is not concentrated in small areas. It does not affect large numbers of people from one firm or organisation—steel, coal or whatever it is; it affects a few people from many separate firms. It covers a wide range of experience, not just great blocks of former miners and steelworkers but, as the noble Baroness and the right reverend Prelate said, people with a mixture of skills. They come particularly from the construction industry which has been hit at the moment more severely than most, but they also include clerical workers, retail staff, engineers and similar people. They are today's casualties of the world recession. They call for quite different treatment from that given when there were concentrated blocks of unemployment due to the closure of a basic industry.
We may ask how this came about. I shall not enter into the economic argument with the noble Lord, Lord Jay. We are in good company—or perhaps it is bad company—in that the total unemployment in this country remains below the average for the Community. However, that is of no comfort to the unemployed individuals; we all know that for them it is 100 per cent. The unemployed person of today can

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receive tremendous encouragement from the schemes and opportunities available to him as regards training and help directed towards getting him back to work as soon as possible. I shall not go through the list; my noble friend will no doubt have much to say on the matter. There are a great many schemes into which money is quite rightly being directed.
Noble Lords have referred to their particular interest in one scheme and perhaps I may be permitted to do the same. It is a private scheme established by His Royal Highness, Prince Charles, and it is called the Prince's Youth Business Trust. It exists to make loans and bursaries to disadvantaged young people between the ages of 18 and 25 and the disabled up to the age of 30. In addition to providing the loans and bursaries, it does absolutely essential work in providing them with continuing advice and a shoulder on which to lean. They can obtain help from the trust which 1- as been and is a tremendous success. Private sources have provided over£40 million and the Government have matched that amount. It is carrying out great work in easing unemployment in that most important and yet most vulnerable section of our society. I am sorry to see that the noble Lord, Lord Mason, is not in his place. It is no doubt known to many noble Lords here that he has been a great help in his native Yorkshire.
Perhaps I may make one further comment. One reads of companies and businesses which have given substantial wage or salary increases and shortly afterwards the same company or business has made a number of people redundant in order to reduce its costs. These industries are not in permanent decline, they are just suffering the short-term downturn in the present world recession. Surely it would be more sensible if everyone in that business—in which include management just as much as the people on the shop floor—accepted a cut in pay during the short-term recession. In that way they would be able to remain in employment and the surplus that may be thrown up could be used in further training until the recession is over and they will once again be wanted.
Cuts in pay are becoming acceptable in some industries and I should like to see far more use made of them in a wider field. If that is not done, if wage increases are given across the board, then jobs will go. Noble Lords may have seen in yesterday'sFinancial Times figures of pay costs per unit of output amounting to an increase of 11 per cent. per annum here, whereas in Germany it is 2 per cent. per annum. If that pattern is continued, it is plain that jobs will go.
Finally, I have resisted the temptation to comment on the Labour Party's policy document Opportunity Britain. Suffice it to say that on this subject in my view it would inevitably lead to large increases in unemployment. It is not just on the point about minimum wages to which the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, referred; almost every part of it adds to the burden of unemployment. It is a sad compromise, a patchwork of slogans which would make matters much worse—not better. I shall say no more on it.
4.15 p.m.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, the recession which contributes to unemployment did not arrive from outer space. It is a direct result of economic mismanagement by this Tory Government. For the second time in a decade, the Conservative Government have thrown the economy into a deep and damaging recession.
What did we see on our television screens last night? The director-general of that bastion of Tory support, the Institute of Directors, said plainly for thousands to see that the Government were guilty of mismanagement of economic policies. That came from one of their friends. They do not need enemies when they have friends like that.
As my noble friend Lady Turner said, the previous recession was supposed to shed all our surplus fat. That was a nice way of saying to people "Well, you're no use any more because you are surplus to requirements". Now there is a repetition. We had a leaner force after the first recession, now we are going through the next exercise and are not only creating more unemployment but are closing down factories. They will never re-open. It is the same with pits, shipyards—you name it. I see that the noble Viscount smiles. He has not had much to do with unemployed people. Perhaps he does not meet them on the doorsteps or in the shopping areas. Perhaps he does not meet them in the job clubs about which the noble Lord spoke. He may not see the misery and sadness. To me, unemployment is no laughing matter.
I shall concentrate on the West Midlands. With the East Midlands, it is supposed to be the industrial manufacturing centre of the country. The West Midlands has nearly 200,000 jobless; company collapses are at record levels. Comments from the CBI, industry and chambers of commerce are that prospects for 1991 are bleak. In the West Midlands region we see that the key industries are in engineering. They are suffering from falling sales and worsening cash problems caused by high interest rates. Thus the demand for machinery, components and sales of motor vehicles is falling by the wayside.
The inactivity even spreads to the building industry. Builders blame the situation on their competitiveness in international markets being affected by the high value of sterling. At present if we take the ratio of unemployment to vacancies, in the West Midlands it is 25.4 against a figure for the rest of Great Britain of 15.8. Therefore in what is called the industrial heartland of the country there is a serious problem.
The last count held in April showed that nearly 200,000 people in the West Midlands were unemployed—that is 7.6 per cent. of the region's workforce. That represents the largest increase in 10 years and the largest percentage increase in the country. Many surveys are being conducted on unemployment. I have asked for details from chambers of commerce and other organisations which could supply me with information. I was quite surprised to learn that over the past 12 months manufacturing industry has constantly brought reports to the attention of interested organisations.

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I had no difficulty in obtaining information on this subject. The Warwick Business School, the Wolverhampton Business School and Price Waterhouse have stated that we are in a deep and serious recession. Those bodies issue a quarterly report which contains all kinds of statistics which prove conclusively that manufacturing industry in the West Midlands is in a serious decline. One wonders whether the Government have these figures and whether they are sent statistics from chambers of commerce and from the CBI. Do the Government digest this information and ask themselves what they are going to do about the situation, or do they just sit twiddling their thumbs, wondering what to do about the poll tax to get more votes at the next election?
We must make sure that manufacturing output increases. Since the 1960s it has fallen at a rate of 9 per cent. a year. In the late 1950s nearly 8 million people were employed in manufacturing industry. That figure is now fewer than 5 million. That is a frightening illustration of the speed with which economic activity has declined and is still declining. As has been said, manufacturing is a dirty word to some people. However, it is manufacturing industry and the exports it produces that keep the economy of the country on an even keel.
The Government have a long way to go if they are to prove that they care about the unemployed. It is not a matter of talking about the problem but of doing something. I sympathise with the unemployed as much as anyone else. When I was first married I suffered from unemployment because my husband worked at what was then the Austin Motor Company. At that time one only ever worked for six months out of 12 in the car industry. Therefore I know what unemployment means, and I am sincerely sympathetic towards the people who are experiencing unemployment now.
During the past 12 years there have been 12 Secretaries of State at the Department of Trade and Industry. I do not believe that that shows much consistency on the Government's part as regards industrial policy. I would point out to the Government that defeating inflation will not on its own bring an end to the depressing cycle of events which have afflicted our economy over the past decade. Britain's economy must be nursed back to health. That will mean placing emphasis on policies which increase industrial investment, strengthen manufacturing, improve education and training, promote research and development and modernise the national infrastructure.
Last week an article appeared in the press concerning a Tory MP who was asked what he thought his party's chances were of winning the next election. The remarks were not attributed to any particular MP. The article stated:
"We have ditched Mrs. Thatcher and abolished the poll tax, but we are still presiding over a deep recession after 12 years of having the run of the country. The voters will have to decide whether we deserve another chance".
I believe that the grief and the despair of those who are unemployed will convince them of the need never to vote Tory again.
4.25 p.m.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, I wish to begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, on his maiden speech. It is extraordinary that a Conservative Back-Bencher should choose to speak on unemployment of all subjects. It shows the noble Lord has courage. I hope that when the Minister comes to his usual platitudes about maiden speeches, he will remember that his party has gained a young Conservative who at least has the guts to talk about unemployment in a compassionate way. I congratulate the noble Lord.
I have great sympathy for the Minister who is to reply to the debate. He has a brief, but this is a rotten subject to speak on. I hope that he will not try to defend the figure of 2 million unemployed people as it is an impossibility. He will have to try to excuse the figure and also attempt to explain where the Government go from here in endeavouring to reduce it.
I do not speak tonight with authority; however, I have some knowledge of the construction and building industry. I have been associated with the industry in one form or another all my life. The Labour government gave me the privilege in 1964 of becoming the Minister responsible for public building and works. Therefore I became involved in the construction industry from a political point of view. When I say that I talk to reputable builders, I must make it abundantly clear that no one is more aware than I that the building industry contains many cowboys. About 50 per cent. of building firms are not worth talking about. However, the other 50 per cent of firms are reputable. They earn their living from building; they would almost die for the industry. Those people really matter. I have asked such firms how their businesses are progressing. I have been told that the present recession in the building industry is the worst that has occurred in the past 40 years. That is the view not just of individual firms but also of the highly respected president of the Building Employers' Confederation, Sir Clifford Chetwood, who cannot be accused of being a friend of this side of the House. Sir Clifford has said that the recession is the worst he has experienced in 40 years' association with the industry.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, spoke with great authority of the situation in the West Midlands. I shall not attempt to match that authority, but I know a little about the situation in London. I wish to put on record the fact that 56 per cent. of all new architectural commissions in London during 1990 were abandoned or postponed. They were abandoned because the recession hit the building industry hard and the developers concerned decided to withdraw from their commissions. I doubt very much whether any other sector of public industry has been affected so badly. The situation in London may not represent the whole story, but it is the area that I know best. Over the country as a whole estimates of the decline in workload this year vary between 4 per cent. and 8 per cent. There is no guarantee that things will pick up in 1992, and even if they do it will be far too late for many firms.

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In the first quarter of this year new orders were 21 per cent. down over the corresponding period of 1990. There is no sign of an upturn in any sector. The DTI is, I hope, an impartial body. It has reported that in the first half of 1990 insolvencies in the industry were 40 per cent. higher than in the first half of 1989. I wish to place on record, although I do not expect the Minister to reply to the point tonight, my belief that the last straw leading to the insolvencies was the decision of banks to pull in loans, thereby forcing people to pay capital they did not have. The result is that many famous names in this country have been made insolvent and the receivers have been called in. Many firms have been lost in that way.
Responsible estimates indicate that by the end of this year 100,000 jobs will have been lost. That figure could IA ell increase to 150,000—and I speak only of London. I know nothing of the problems of the Midlands or anywhere else although there must be heartache there as we have heard. The worst aspect is that many skilled and key people will be lost to the industry.
Many suggestions have been made as to what can be done Some concern fiscal and monetary measures. The recent Budget, which was awaited with great interest, did not help the industry at all. The increase in value added tax is a deterrent to carrying out repairs and improvements and the retention of stamp duty was a disaster. Therefore, the Budget to which people in the industry looked forward was a disaster from their point of view. They are not Labour people but ordinary employers in the building trade. The Government's present attitude in preventing local authorities—I am not talking about Lambeth and all that rubbish but about real local authorities—spending their own money on essential repairs is hurting the construction and building industry very badly. I beg the Government to look at the matter.
I was involved in Docklands. We have made some progress towards rebuilding what was a pretty run-dow.1 area, the worst of its kind in Europe. I remember going round the area with the chairman on the first day, 6th July 1981. I came back in tears. It was an area hat I knew very well. In 15 years the local authorities in charge had not even built a ruddy toilet. Going around Docklands I saw the dereliction. The Government gave us some inspiration, money and certain planning powers. However, I understand that Docklands has now run into the sand. It has run out of cash. I t has to be helped by the Government and by others.
In the few minutes that I have left, I should like to refer to the Government's own proposals. Government figures estimate that£23 million needs to be spent on public and private housing to bring it up to date. The Department of Health reckons that at least£1 billion has to be spent on hospital repairs and maintenance. The Department of Education says that£3 billion is required to restore schools to a certain standard. I beg the Minister to give a lead because we are talking about tomorrow.
I understand that the Government have been fighting against inflation in recent years. I understand that there is no worse enemy than inflation. However,
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does the Minister understand what the Government have done? In fighting inflation they have created a recession, and that is a disaster. I say to him now, frankly and firmly, that he has to give the lead and open the door to schools, hospitals and housing. The Government have to find the money which is required, according to their own figures. I accept that it is a vast amount of money but if that were to happen it would provide an incentive for every other part of industry to act on the basis that the Government are now prepared to have a go and do something.
Surprising though it may seem, I am trying hard to make a non-party political speech. I beg the Minister to understand that I am in the House of Lords not at the request of the Labour Party—if the Labour Party had its way, I would not be here—but as an independent. However, I believe sincerely, as a realist, that the problems that face this country have been caused mainly by the Government and have been reopened by the Government. I beg the Minister to talk of tomorrow and say what is going to be done.
4.35 p.m.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, my noble friend is to be congratulated on the timeliness of her debate. The figure of 2 million unemployed announced last week is horrific. We are being asked to live with that total for far too long. Even yesterday the Chancellor of the Exchequer said to the Institute of Directors that unemployment would have to rise even further, even as we move out of recession. Those figures are based on the new method of counting, which means that it is a conservative estimate in both senses of the word.
As we have heard, fear of unemployment is no stranger to many parts of the United Kingdom, especially to the North-East of England and, as we heard from my noble friend Lady Fisher, to the West Midlands, to Scotland and to South Wales. Now it is even stalking the leafy streets of the prosperous South-East. In all those comfortable, true-blue Tory seats voters must be asking themselves why, after faithfully ensuring that their government would go on for 12 years, their reward should be the sack.
Despite the kind words of my noble friend Lady Turner it seems to me that the Government's utterances contain no hint of understanding of the human tragedies behind the statistics. My noble friend Lady Fisher made that point and I agree with her. Unemployment is treated as just another economic indicator and a tool to manipulate and intimidate the remaining workforce.
Many speakers have referred to the point that I shall now make. In a society in which human beings are primarily identified by what they do, millions—we are told 2 million but I suspect that the figure is nearer 4 million—are now suffering the indignity not only of material loss but also of the loss of their identity within their communities. The noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, spoke very movingly about the effect on the family. I congratulate him on his maiden speech, which was brave and all the more welcome since it came almost unsupported from the other side of the House. The frustration of the provider who can no

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longer provide is equalled by the humiliation of the loss of status which comes with the loss of work and the desolation of an insecure future.
The effect on family life is devastating, even in the short term. However, when many months pass without a return to work, when household items wear out and cannot be replaced and when eventually even the home itself is threatened it is an unusual and fortunate family which can survive. Last year 45,000 homes were lost as a result of inability to maintain mortgage repayments and 250,000 more are presently at risk. I ask your Lordships to consider what that means in terms of the impact on the family and in sheer human suffering.
Unemployment is a cancer destroying our society. It gnaws at the very roots of all our lives and it endangers all those institutions which allow us to call ourselves civilised. It must be defeated before it defeats us. It should be a top priority for all of us. We have long since passed the stage of "shaking out overmanning" and making industries "leaner and more competitive". What is happening now is the result of recession and high interest rates. Many of the companies which are now going to the wall are efficient and competitive. There is nothing more they can do. They are the victims of circumstances over which they have little or no control.
The disappointment expressed yesterday at the Institute of Directors' convention revealed support for that point of view. The members obviously expect a more proactive approach from the Government. The most constructive way to tackle the majority of the 2 million admitted jobless is to offer training and retraining. That advice has come from all sides of the House today. The Government know that. Successive Ministers have paid lip service to the theory and various schemes are afoot.
Despite the continuing rise in the monthly figures and against the background of what the Chancellor said yesterday that employment will continue to rise, we see that this spring£245 million is to be cut from the training budget. Labour is determined to reverse that trend. If we are to survive, let alone prosper in Europe, we must address the task of bringing the skills of our people up to at least those of France and Germany. We in the Labour Party have published a detailed and realistic programme to achieve that. The physical, moral and economic health of the United Kingdom depends on getting our unemployed millions back to work: work which they can be proud to do and which will restore their self-respect. We are wasting our most precious asset—the skills of our people—and in so doing are undermining the basic human dignity which is essential to a healthy society. I support the Motion.
4.40 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, the Minister has already heard repetition from a number of speeches. He will hear more from me and I have no doubt that he will hear further from subsequent speakers, but I hope he will take that in the right spirit. As has been said, these are absolutely unique
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problems which the Government ought to be considering and on which they should be taking prompt action. When Members on this side of the House express concern about the number of unemployed, Ministers give the same replies which to many of us seem highly irrelevant. I wish to examine in some detail the content of some of those replies.
It has to be said at the outset that to have 2 million unemployed after 12 years of unassailable power must in itself be a complete condemnation of the Government's economic policies. It is interesting that at yesterday's meeting of the Institute of Directors the president made the same comment but in a slightly different context. The reasons or excuses which for some time the Government have been producing do not now apply, particularly over the past 12 months or so when the jobless total has significantly increased. I give some examples. For a long time the Government have been telling the country that the militancy and power of the trade unions has been the cause of the trouble. One of the great boasts of the Government has been that they have curbed that power. That being the case, the unions cannot have been responsible (if they ever were) for the problems that have given rise to 2 million unemployed. It is also interesting that the Government are now blaming the unions for irresponsible wage claims when no such claims have been made over the period when unemployment has been increasing. We have heard precious little from the Government about massive pay increases given to chairmen and chief and senior executives, particularly those of big companies, over the past 18 months. Sometimes we are told that these people have earned the increases because of their companies' increased profits. If that is the case, why do we not hear of decreases in payments when profits decline? There have been plenty of examples recently. The Government know full well the effect of such obscene increases on the shop floor worker but have chosen to turn a blind eye to the matter. Last month's survey by Hay Management Consultants, commissioned by the CBI, found that employers had been awarding themselves increases of 14 per cent. a year while at the same time they were lecturing employees about having 9.25 per cent. increases.
Another excuse used by the Government has been the effect of inflation brought about not by their own policies but by importing inflation. That was certainly true some time ago but it has not been valid for a long time. Almost all of our trading partners have a lower rate of inflation than this country—certainly that refers to European countries—so that cannot be blamed for adding to the present sorry mess. The average rate of inflation of our European partners is half that for this country.
Against those and other aspects Ministers keep referring to the position in other countries, particularly those in the European Community, the implication being that the same factors are at work in all countries and we are dealing with those problems at least as effectively as other nations. I dispute both propositions. According to figures published by the European Commission, Britain has had a 14 per cent. rise in unemployment in the year from January 1990.

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The next highest increases were 3 per cent. for Denmark and Ireland. In Spain, Italy, Portugal and Germany the totals fell. Across the EC as a whole there was a decrease of 1 per cent.
The problems here have been of our own making, caused especially by the expansion of our economy against a much reduced manufacturing base. When I refer to the expansion of the economy I am referring to those two disastrous mistakes of the Government: the error in calculating the amount of consumer spending and the incredible underestimation of the effects of financial deregulation. Those factors gave rise to high inflation, high interest rates and then high unemployment. One of the standard answers we receive from Ministers in dealing with unemployment is that we must reduce inflation. Their vital unspoken words are "at all costs". The evidence is that the Government will allow unemployment to increase to any level in order to reduce inflation. My noble friend Lord Jay made what I regard as some very pertinent remarks on that aspect of the matter.
In paying a massive price to reduce inflation and the rate of interest by a tiny fraction the Government take great pride in what they regard as a substantial achievement. Such a situation reminds me of a recent comment by a professor of applied economics who said:
"This is like jumping off a cliff and then congratulating yourself on having climbed back to the top".
That summarises the point admirably. There are 650 firms going bankrupt every week and 2,000 people joining the jobless queue every day. Employers' organisations are saying that on the evidence sent to them by their members the position will get worse.
When comparing our position favourably with that of other countries Ministers fail to admit that our rate of increase in unemployment is faster than that of any other industrial nation. I give some other figures to illustrate that disturbing fact. In April 1990 the increase was 400; in July, 13,000; in October, 34,000; in January 1991, 49,000; in February, 88,000; and in March there was a record increase of 112,000. That rate of increase appears to frighten everyone except the Government. Last month the CBI revised its forecast. Last autumn the CBI said that there would be 1.9 million unemployed in 1991 and 2.1 million in 1992. It now expects the figures to be 2.3 million this year and 2.7 million in 1992. Other independent organisations are forecasting similar figures. Those figures come from friends of the Government, not this side of the House. The rate of increase and its consistency do not compare with any other European country.
Another story we hear regularly from the Government is that there are now more people at work in this country than at any other time. That may well be true, but in view of the doubt cast upon government statistics in recent months I should like to see the evidence for it. My noble friend Lord Donoughue recently made a brilliant speech on the inaccuracy of government statistics. Even if the government are correct, is it much to boast about when after 12 years in power there are still more than 2 million people out of work? Not much has been said
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about the increase in the number of long term unemployed, which is at least as important. If the Government were to reduce unemployment to the level when the Labour Government left office in 1979—that is, 1,141,000—it would be nothing to boast about after all this time, but at least it would represent a significant difference from having over 2 million unemployed.
There is one more aspect of the present situation which has been mentioned and no doubt will be repeated. It is so significant that we include it in the terms of our Motion. The depth of the recession is so great that all parts of the country are affected. Much has been said about the South East. In the past it appears to have been immune from high unemployment but it is now one of the principal areas affected. As the noble Lord, Lord Boardman, mentioned, the effects cut across the whole range of employment—services, manufacturing and so on. This has serious implications for the Government about which I am not unduly worried. I am, however, worried that attention may be diverted from those areas which for years have suffered high unemployment when other regions have not had any job problem. I remind the Government yet again that my region—the North—continues to have the highest rate of unemployment in the country outside Northern Ireland. That has been the position for a long time. If the Government's policies are as successful as Ministers claim, one would have thought that their 12 years of continuous power would have removed the region from its unenviable position at the top of the unemployment league in mainland Britain.
We hear nothing from the Government about the cost of unemployment. Had I the time, I would go into the matter in more detail. We frequently hear from the Government about the 1979 winter of discontent. The strikes of that period are small change in economic terms compared with what is happening now and what will happen with from 2 million to 3 million people unemployed.
The tragedy of the situation, shocking though it is, is that it will get worse. We know about some effects of unemployment. A number of noble Lords from both sides of the House have spoken about poverty, ill health—physical, mental and emotional—and the strain on family life and loss of self-respect. Other problems of which we are not yet aware may well come to light.
The personal and financial problems and the economic effects do not appear to weigh too heavily with the Government. One can only hope that the near certainty of 2.5 million and the possibility of 3 million jobless will prove so traumatic that it will lead even this Government to change their policies.
4.52 p.m.
Lord Brookes: My Lords, I join other speakers in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, for having introduced this debate. It loses nothing by its repetitive appearance in this Chamber. There is no subject that should be nearer to the heart of every Member of Your Lordships' House and indeed every member of our society.

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At this stage of the debate one is bound to be repetitive about the many faceted aspects of unemployment. None of them shines like diamonds. Of the many, three of the most disastrous aspects have already been mentioned by other speakers. I do not hesitate to reaffirm and re-emphasise them.
The first aspect is economic. I believe that many board rooms in Britain have lost sight of the fact that the most vital asset on the balance sheet is human resources. There should be no credit given to companies or management for the efficiencies of redundancies. Redundancies are not efficient. Blameworthy or innocent they are a reflection of a measure of leadership failure, management failure and maybe employee failure. They are nothing of which to be proud. They are nothing to claim or mark as expressing or reflecting efficiency. Very much to the contrary. That is the worst of the economic effects; namely, the appalling and unforgiveable waste of human resources.
The second aspect which has also been mentioned by other people is the emotional one. There is the impact and the indecency of the effects of unemployment upon human dignity and on a man's pride and belief in himself. There is the gradual inner diminution of those beliefs. There is the loss of self-respect and the feeling that even the respect of his family, wife and children around his table is lost, and even if that is not in doubt, he feels that it might be so. There is the loss of respect and standing among his friends. Unemployment is not merely an economic shortcoming: it is a social crime; it is a political failure; it is a business failure. In different measure we are each and all responsible for it. We have allowed it to happen.
The third aspect is the social structure. The impact of unemployment upon family life results all too often in family break-up and further impairment of a society which is already threatened upon so many counts. We have sown dragon's teeth. We are reaping a bitter harvest.
In the 1960s and 1970s we all—unions, management, men and capital—allowed our industry to become a battleground and a free-for-all. We squandered opportunity right, left and centre. It is not a matter for blame. Each and all were to blame. In the 1980s our board rooms were preoccupied with the threat from the predator—the unknown predator standing in the wings ready to make a fast buck out of a takeover. When it happened, all too often there were thousands of redundancies. But the question mark must always be over whether there was there any real gain in efficiency. Or did the bankers and institutions (I do not criticise them since they are there to fulfil that service) find that there was a fortune to be made on the way to destruction of vital assets? Those then are the dragon's teeth that we have sown.
How will we put the situation right? I respect but suspect many of the training programmes. They have to be good enough to train for something meaningful and purposeful. There has to be something on the horizon for which to be trained. I suspect some of the employment figures because I do not regard as
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employment jobs in confetti service industries which are shortlived and not lasting. One cannot run a great nation on takeaways or the people who clean up the mess outside them. There is no alternative. We have to regenerate our industrial base. We have to stop being rude about the so-called smoke-stack industries.
A gleaming motor car is a reflection of many smoke-stacks, of mining minerals and processing metals, of plastics and glass. Consider it. That gleaming motor car is a whole hive of human endeavour expressed as it shines. I shall refer again briefly to the motor industry. But we must stop being rude about smoke-stacks. In fact, we must get more smoke going up chimneys even when it is clean.
I must rack my memory for the date, but on 5th December 1985, speaking in your Lordships' House, I made detailed reference to the motor industry. Based upon a report from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the PEDA Report (the association which researched the industry and its employment characteristics), I demonstrated, and was never challenged, that 500,000 motor cars directly and indirectly meant 500,000 jobs. That figure was not criticised. We have not done much about it. The much maligned motor industry is the whipping boy of successive governments for all kinds of tax impositions and interventions. Even more recently a doubtless well intentioned Government have imposed a further impost upon an industry whose survival is a miracle against all the prejudice, hurt and injury that has been inflicted upon it. The tax on a motor car today—I refer not to the tax that one pays to drive it away but that against the manufacturer's intended retail outlets price—has been increased on a cumulative compound basis to 27.3 per cent. Why is there a tax of 27.3 per cent. on a motor vehicle which creates jobs when other appliances escape (if one can call it that) with 17.5 per cent. I ask why.
However, when making such a speech one ought to advance some possible solutions. The thought occurs to me that if we have selectively taxed the motor industry adversely, why cannot we, and why should not we, have the brains, the intelligence, the means, and flexibility of mind selectively to plan and tax our industries and activities, in relation to their contribution to the common wealth, the common good and those factors which really matter rather than the cosmetic, confetti-type of businesses to which I referred earlier.
In short, I believe that there are enough brains in your Lordships' House, and good enough existing committees from which sub-committees can be formed, at least to put to Her Majesty's Government a coherent plan for the selective, differential taxation of industries, commerce and activities, in relation to their national worth.
It is not an original idea. I am well aware that Ministers, and those who are noting the speech outside this Chamber, will provide comments and answers. The moment that one puts forward a solution one puts up an Aunt Sally for a kindly Minister to knock down. I have set it up. I do not mind it being knocked down. But if we are anxious about GATT, and the European Community, let us have the

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ability, dexterity and panache to display the same ballerina-like characteristics in tip-toeing through the tulips and protecting one's own kith and kin as the French and the Italians so successfully and repetitively demonstrate. I thank noble Lords.
5.2 p.m.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, on his courageous maiden speech. Unemployment is perhaps the most emotive subject which concerns my noble friends on this side of the House. I do not say that noble Lords on other Benches do not care about unemployment. I am certain that all do, although only two Conservative Back-Benchers joined the maiden speaker in bothering to participate today.
Politically and collectively as parties, the different sides o1 the House have different priorities. Several of my noble friends, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, and, from the Independent Benches most impressively the noble Lord, Lord Brookes, have spoken about the human dimension of unemployment. That is ultimately the most important aspect of the problem. My earliest childhood memories as a young boy in the 1930s are of my father talking bitterly about his years of unemployment. That may explain why for the first half of my career I sought the safe havens of job security in the public sector; and I believe that that applied to many of my generation.
However, I should like to approach the problem less emotionally, and—as did my noble friend Lord Dormand in his outstanding speech—more analytically. To begin with it is necessary to state in a non-partisan way that unemployment is of course a global problem. It is not confined to the United Kingdom. In a global recession there will be unemployment in most countries. That will be true, regardless of the colour and labels of their governments. However, levels of unemployment vary and governments with different priorities, philosophies and policies can produce lower unemployment within the broad range that interdependent global economies and different domestic demand pressures dictate.
Such differences already exist in Europe. Perhaps I may say in anticipation that it is not impressive when Ministers tell us that British unemployment is slightly less than the EC average; and that it is lower in the United Kingdom than in Ireland, Italy, Belgium and so on. In fact British unemployment is rising faster than in any of those countries. As the noble Lord, Lord Boardman, generously mentioned, it is no consolation to tell the long-term unemployed in London or Sunderland that they would be even worse off in Cork or Naples.
The present Government have a clear responsibility for the present plight and the dismal future prospects of Britain's unemployed. Historically, their conduct of monetary policy was so promiscuous in the year before and after the 1987 election that the credit boom and disaster that followed was bound to happen. The length and strength of the economic squeeze over the
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past two years, with interest rates at record "highs" for record lengths of time was made inevitable by the folly of that credit explosion.
The depth of the present recession, and the scale of unemployment deemed necessary to cure that credit disaster and lance the inflation boil, is the price being paid by the most vulnerable in our society—the unemployed—for the follies of this Government's economic failures in 1986–88.
The future prospects are equally bleak. The economic forecasters of the ITEM Club, writing in the Sunday Times on 24th March forecast unemployment at 2.75 million by the end of this year and 3 million in 1992. Other prestigious City houses do not dissent from that view.
Before the noble Viscount is tempted when replying to dismiss those views as speculation, perhaps I may remind him that when last year at Question Time I quoted Goldman Sachs as forecasting 2 million unemployed by now in 1991, he dismissed it as "speculation". For Britain's unemployed the near future is not speculation. It is certain to be a harsh reality.
The latest national increase in March was the largest in a single month since 1971, the earliest year for which comparable figures are calculated. That takes me back to the delicate question of the calculation of unemployment figures. I have already had courteous exchanges on the subject twice this year with the noble Lord, Lord Hesketh and the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater. They were well and defensively briefed. The fact is that however much the Government claim in very carefully worded phrases that the present unemployment figures are statistically comparable to the figures in the 1970s, the calculations are not the same. Were one to use the same criteria and categories as in 1979, today's official unemployment figures would be much higher. The Government have introduced some 30 changes to the official measurement of unemployment since 1979. They are not all "statistically significant" claimed the noble Viscount at Question Time. But they probably all made a statistical difference.
Why make such change? Certainly the change to measuring only those claiming benefit made a big difference. It excludes many married women and former part-time workers who are now unemployed but do not have sufficient national insurance contributions to be eligible to claim benefits. The present system of calculating the monthly unemployment figures is not a reliable and realistic measure of the balance of labour supply. It is excessively sensitive to changes in the administrative rules governing benefit rather than to changes in labour supply and demand.
According to the prestigious and independent Employment Institute, the true level of unemployment today—that is, how many people are out of work, available for work and seeking work regardless of benefit eligibility—is more than 500,000 higher than the official level. In other words, there are now more than 2.5 million unemployed people and that figure will rise to above 3 million by December.

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Within that huge total is a large core of three-quarters of a million long-term unemployed people. They are not the unskilled, work-shy people often depicted in the right-wing press—although some are, as in all societies. Research carried out by Professor McCormick of Southampton University, a leading economist, shows that during the 1980s many long-term unemployed people were not "no hopers". Previously they had been successful employees and were desperately keen to acquire new skills and new jobs. During the passage of time the long-term unemployed become demoralised. They suffer from above average poverty, family problems and ill health. It should be an absolute priority of our wealthy society to provide the financial help, work training and personal counselling which the victims of failed economic policies need and deserve.
The Government's approach to unemployment is to treat it as merely an unfortunate side effect of the policies to control inflation. That is not good enough. We all appreciate the need to control inflation but it is unnecessary to rely solely on narrow, deflationary policies in respect of which the unemployed carry the whole burden. There must be another way and I believe that there is. We need a broader range of policies; credit controls as well as interest rates; and greater emphasis and expenditure on the training and education necessary to produce a more highly skilled and therefore more employable workforce. We also need a modernised physical infrastructure in this country, especially in respect of transportation, to assist the efficiency of our industry. We need greater investment in manufacturing and the involvement of all sides of industry to build a consensus on how to achieve what we must have; that is, a low inflation, low unemployment society.
It will not be easy for any government to resolve what is a difficult trade-off between inflation and unemployment. But if we do not achieve it then within the ERM, at the present exchange rate, the future will offer even lower growth and even higher unemployment. That is not a prospect that we or the unemployed should accept.
5.15 p.m.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot be analytical and that I must be emotional because that is the way I feel about this subject. I congratulate my noble friend on her splendid introduction to the debate for which she has fought so long. It has come at a time when everyone will be istening—that is everybody except Members of the Conservative Party. Noble Lords opposite promptly walked out of the Chamber when the debate started. Had we been talking about race-horses, salmon fishing, shotguns, or forestry, they would have been present. However, they could not care less about a subject such as this, and let us not kid ourselves.
Every day we hear casual announcements made on the radio; for instance, that the BBC is to lose 500 employees. It could be throwing out anything, even old bits of wood. British Rail is getting rid of people and in consequence there are far more accidents. I may
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be a Luddite, but I believe that no machine has yet been invented like the human being with two ears, two eyes, two hands and, it is to be hoped, a brain. I sometimes wonder about the latter but not in respect of the people working in the front line.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has been quite glib about the matter. On several occasions we have heard Mr. Lamont saying that in order to reduce inflation, we must have unemployment. It is all right for him; he has a good, well-paid job. If we can believe the Sunday newspapers, he also has property with strange tenants, although I do not know whether that is correct. Let us say that he is not on his beam ends! I was interested to hear my noble friend mention 12 Secretaries of State. I suppose that is one way of helping unemployment on the other side of the House—Members are changed around and they get a new job.
Certainly there is employment for some people; for instance, the people who have to feed computers. However, one must find something to put in the wretched computers. We have never had so many surveys and forms to fill in. On many recent occasions I have had to fill in a form stating who I am, my status in life, how much money I have if any, and so forth. These forms and surveys are churned out by the dozen. Most are totally useless because one contradicts another. Perhaps in common with me noble Lords receive a vast amount of junk mail through the post every morning. I am sorry to say that a great deal comes from universities which is the only way that they can earn money. Each survey contradicts another.
That is one way of obtaining money but the important base is manufacturing. Let us not delude ourselves about that. Some noble Lords will have heard me mention the articulated lorry that was stuck outside my house. The driver had come all the way from Sweden bringing tiles to a building site. What kind of situation is that? It is bad enough to have to suffer those terrible Golden Delicious apples instead of ours. They should be investigated under the Trade Descriptions Act because they are neither golden nor delicious. Constantly we import goods that we can make far better. For some curious reason we undersell ourselves in the world and I shall never understand the reason why. The manufacturing base must be restored.
What is redundancy like? I must now be personal and the person about whom I shall speak will never forgive me; that is my son. He is a Cambridge graduate and a clever and distinguished man. He is also a lovely man but I suppose that all mothers say that about their sons—but speaking impartially it is true. He had the misfortune to be employed for 23 years as a head of department in a school in Westminster. The fact that it was a Catholic school did not improve the situation and in my view made it even worse. My son saw the head teacher on Maundy Thursday. Your Lordships will understand that the story of the Passion is so typical; there are those who deny that they have ever seen you before, those who wash their hands of the affair, and those who cheer you on Sunday and crucify you on Friday. They all

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still exist. The head teacher chose Maundy Thursday to inform four heads of department that they were to be made redundant.
Why was that? What had they done? Each of them had more than 20 years' service so they could not have been so bad. However, they were employed by a borough which must keep down the poll tax. The company with which Lady Porter is connected is more generous. Its chairman earns£4,000 a day. Just imagine! That is as much as some hospital cleaners earn in a whole year—and I have checked that fact. They a -e doing a job which is a darn sight more useful than his. However, Westminster council must keep down its poll tax. It has been praised by the Government for doing so—it is marvellous! How has the council done that? It has made people redundant, that is low. What in that is there to be proud of and what solution does it offer? Professional people are suffering appallingly. Redundancy brings demoralisation. I (now people in the medical profession and in the Civil Service who see that spectre in front of them. If any one believes that he can obtain better service from people who have the threat of unemployment hanging over their heads, he cannot have employed anyone. People give of their best and are loyal when they know that they are part of a concern.
Unemployment is an obscenity. That is the only word I can use for it. I recommend a solution; that is, to elect a Labour Government. I hope that a Labour Govern rent will put this matter at the head of their priorities. This Motion does not ask for a solution but merely calls attention to the problem, in case the Conservative Party has not noticed that. We have called attention to it. The Institute of Directors, which one can hardly say is revolutionary, has called attention to the problem. Even then, it had to be snobbish and say, "We do not want a return to beer and sandwiches at No. 10 Downing Street." Therefore, that is not asking for a Labour Government.
We do not want human beings to be flung on the scrap heap with a loss of dignity and a feeling that they are unnecessary. Human beings must come before anything, else. Money is meant to be a means of exchange. It is not a commodity. It is no good appealing to this Government, but I contend that I have called attention to this problem.
5.20 p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, quite rightly said that we are a low wage, low productivity economy. We have been that for a very long time under both Labour and Conservative Governments. Therefore, I do not know whether a return to a Labour Government would necessarily achieve the improvements which we desire. However, I do not propose to join in the pre-election campaigning which seems to have been going on during the past hour or two.
As long as we remain a low productivity country, we shall continue to be a low wage country. Unless we find a solution to that, even if we spend money now, as I believe we should, in order to deal with current unemployment, that situation will return again and
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again. Our basic problem is that we are not competitive. We have not made ourselves competitive for many reasons, some of which have been referred to today and some of which I shall take up in more detail.
The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, said that wage claims have nothing to do with this. She pointed out that very high payments are being made at the highest levels of industry which certainly do not set an example. However, that is why this party has always said—and I believe that it is now more widely accepted—that it is only possible to achieve a high wage, high productivity country when there is far more collaboration at company level and when wage claims are related more closely to the success of the company. However, that is not the primary point which I wish to make this afternoon.
As many noble Lords have said, the level of unemployment in this country is intolerable. The only way to solve that problem is for the Government to be prepared to spend money in the right way and to spend it in a way which will not only help to deal with the immediate unemployment problem, which needs to be dealt with, but in a way which will make it less likely that we shall run into the same difficulties in the future. Money must be spent in order to build a high productivity country rather than a low productivity country.
There are a number of important steps which the Government could take immediately which would help considerably. For example, in the recent Budget the Chancellor could have cut back on the uniform business rate. Everybody knows that small businesses are collapsing all over the country. One reason for that is that they simply cannot carry the uniform business rate. It would not take time for the Government to do that but it would mean a loss of money. However, when the Government found that they had to do something about the poll tax, they managed to find£140 per person. And yet, they have done nothing about the uniform business rate. In terms of unemployment, which is the problem we are discussing today, the uniform business rate is more important than the poll tax. The Government could take that step on Monday if they wished to do so.
When I say that the Government should spend money, I mean that they should spend money on investment. I often believe that this Government have lost the understanding of what used to be called below the line as distinct from above the line expenditure. Money paid out for unemployment benefit is merely for current consumption which does no good. That is no help at all in building the high productivity economy which we need.
A number of investments could be made at this moment which would bring a real pay-off in the short term and also in the long term. It is the burden of my theme that we must deal with the immediate problem while also building for a future in which we shall not return to high unemployment.
I am glad to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mellish—although I do not always agree with him—when he said that we should put more money into housing. We should allow the local authorities to spend that money which they have not been allowed to

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spend on housing. We all agree that the housing situation and the cardboard society is an absolute disgrace. To have people unemployed on the one hand, and people sleeping in cardboard boxes on the other, is a combination which everybody must condemn. Therefore, money should be released to build houses and to start to revive the construction industry. Revival of the construction industry has a multiplier effect which comes from that. Once money is spent on that, one begins to see expenditure elsewhere.
Money should be spent not only on houses but on schools and on the infrastructure otherwise we shall not obtain the maximum benefit from our membership of the European Community. I could not disagree more with almost every word which the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said but in my 10 minutes I cannot deal with that. However, as we are a member we must obtain the maximum benefit from our membership. We need a good infrastructure in order to do that. Why cannot the Government put money into the infrastructure now and thus benefit from the effect of that as regards unemployment? Of course, benefit would be gained because it would not be necessary to spend as much money on unemployment benefits. I believe that the figure quoted is£8,000 per person. When there are 2 million unemployed, that would create quite a large sum which could be used for investment purposes.
There are other aspects. We can make a start now on changes in education which we need to make. We know that we should keep more 16 to 18 year-olds at school or in employment with real training. One reason that young people do not stay on at school is that there is an economic advantage if they go to work. Why do we not grasp the fact that we must pay people who stay on at school after the age of 18 an allowance which makes it worth while for them to stay on so that they are not at a disadvantage compared to those who choose not to stay on at school? The Government should encourage a great deal more training for young people aged 16 to 18 who are in employment. Some of that should be paid for by employers, but probably not all of it.
It is extraordinary at this time to cut money going into the TECs. A time of unemployment should be a time when we put money into training, to train the people that the country will need as soon as it moves out of the recession. In my over-long life I have seen again and again that in a period of unemployment a lot of money is spent on unemployment benefits, the country begins to come out of the recession and industry is then screaming out—north, south, east and west—because there are insufficient skilled people to take advantage of the reviving economy. It always starts with the construction industry. As soon as a recession departs, that industry is always short of skilled workers. Why do we not invest money now? Why do we not give back to the TECs the money taken from them so that they can get on with the necessary training?
The same applies to employers. There are many people in employment who need to be sent on training
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schemes in order to keep up to date. Instead of getting rid of people, the Government should encourage employers to send workers on training courses so that there will not be a shortage of the necessary skilled workers when they are needed.
I said that the Government should spend money. I shall be told that if they spend money, that will enhance inflation.
I am in absolute agreement with the Government when they say that we must defeat inflation. But the way in which they are doing it is not the only way. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Jay, we on these Benches feel that far from being wrong to be in the ERM, we should be in a tighter band in the ERM, because then we would not have to keep interest rates so high. They are kept high because people do not believe in the strength of our currency. If we show that we have confidence in it we could begin to reduce interest rates further. That is what industry throughout the country is crying out for.
That is one thing we could do. There are other things. When I spoke a few weeks ago I raised an issue which I know is a political hot potato; that is, the money going into mortgage interest relief. Everybody now realises that that£8 billion which is being spent on mortgage interest relief in many ways has produced an economic disaster. It has increased the price of houses; it has allowed too much consumer expenditure; it has had a great deal to do with inflation. When one talks to politicians they admit that that is true.
Only yesterday in another room in this building I was engaged in a debate with—noble Lords may be surprised to hear—the director of Shelter. She was crying out to get rid of mortgage interest relief. She said that it has done the greatest harm to housing. It has also done great harm to the economy.
I must continually remind the House that I speak for myself and not for my party. I realise that one cannot get rid of it overnight. However, surely there could be a consensus, an all-party discussion, on what to do about it. The figure is£8 billion and is increasing inflation. Until we do something about that it is humbug to say that we can do nothing about inflation except keep interest rates high.
5.32 p.m.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, we must thank my noble friend Lady Turner of Camden for initiating the debate. In all the speeches we have so far heard—the Minister is yet to speak—it is remarkable that we have had no straight bat defending the Government's policy. Perhaps I may join with other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, on his maiden speech. He showed a real understanding and sympathy for the plight of the long-term unemployed.
People on the other side of the House have spoken about the problems of unemployment and about the social and economic consequences.
They mentioned the forms of unemployment and the reasons for it. So far nobody has set out to deny the essential thrust of the Motion; that is, the

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continued growth in unemployment, particularly in regions which hitherto have been relatively prosperous.
Nobody has sought to rebut the arguments coming from the nine speakers on this side of the House who spoke in broad terms largely addressing two other questions; one, the weakness of the Government's policies for dealing with unemployment—they are significantly weaker than they were in the last recession—and the other, the fact that there are alternative policies. Many such policies have been put forward from this side of the House. I add only that some of the policies available at the moment are policies that the Government used in the early 1980s and which, for reasons I do not understand, they refuse to use now.
In regard to the first issue there can be no denial that there is a rising and threatening rate of unemployment. The question is how long and to what extent the trend will continue. I should like to ask the Government whether they see it as being worse than, the same as, or better than, it was in the early 1980s. One recalls three years of escalation, four years of stagnation, when the level of unemployment was around 10 per cent. to 11 per cent., four years of decline and another year of escalation. Is that how the Government see the position?
I ask the Government whether we are to undergo another year or so in which unemployment will escalate. If it escalates at the present rate, that means it will rise above 3.4 million within 12 months. Is it likely to be a shorter period of escalation? Much more importantly, what about the years of stagnation? It took four years to significantly reduce unemployment last time. What will it take now? Will it be one, two, three or four years?
The Government may say that it will not take so long although I am not sure that they will say how long. The Chancellor has said that the recession is bottoming out. He has said that unemployment will continue to rise for some time but that it is bottoming out. The critical figures come from those aspects of economic measurement which directly indicate what is likely to happen to unemployment over the next 12 months I say to the Government that those aspects are very bad indeed. Production is falling; overtime is falling; vacancies are at the lowest level since 1983; stocks are high; and short time is still rising. All the indexes of labour demand are going down. That suggests at least another year of what is now happening and then a couple of years of stagnation.
The Government may say that inflation is not so serious a problem as it was the last time. I accept that. The inflation problem last time was very much a worldwide problem. This time it is nowhere near that. Peter Morgan, the director general of the Institute of Directors, said yesterday that this awful recession was due to the failure of the Government's economic policy. The Government may say that that is right; that there have been a series of own goals; and that there is no need for inflation to be so high and that it will soon come down. When it comes down they may say that they will reflate the economy and we shall not have four years of stagnation.
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But the problem was indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Jay. Last time, inflation fell in the way that it did because we had a high exchange rate. We were a petrol currency. The sterling index continually rose in 1979 and 1980. That largely cured inflation. However, nobody believes that the pound will accumulate in the way that it did in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The most for which the Government can hope is to keep the exchange rate where it is. If the noble Lord, Lord Jay, is right, and the Government are wrong and are forced into a devaluation, they will not necessarily say, "Inflation allows us to reflate the economy."
Those are the good points: it may be that the situation is not quite as bad as it was last time. Let us look at some of the bad points. Last time the recession improved partly because it hit only the North and was largely confined to manufacturing. As several speakers on this side of the House have said, non-manufacturing is in some ways now being hit even worse than manufacturing. In the early 1980s the recession began to decline because in the end the Government were able to claim that 1.2 billion jobs were claimed by the services. Is that what the Government think is happening now? Do they believe that we shall have 600,000 new jobs in the service industries in the South over the next 18 months to two years? That is extremely unlikely.
Perhaps the main reason I am worried that we may be entering an even longer period of stagnation is that this time the Government are doing virtually nothing about special employment measures. The total absence of special employment measures, given the present rate of increase in unemployment, is nothing short of fantastic. In 1983 the special employment measures, which to some extent the Government inherited from their predecessors, were worth around 300,000 jobs. In overall terms by 1987 they were worth 800,000 jobs. We argued whether they were really worth 500,000 or 600,000 jobs. But it was very significant. Had it not been for those special employment measures the level of unemployment in those bad, early years of the 1980s would have been significantly higher. They would have been about a third higher than they were.
Where are those special employment measures now? They do not exist. The trouble is that as soon as the level of employment began to decline the Government scrapped the more effective and efficient of the special employment measures and went for the cheaper ET. They abandoned the community programme, which was providing very considerable relief for the long-term unemployed but at£7,000 a head, in favour of the benefit plus£10—less than half cost—ET.
The Government did not even expand ET in the way that it had been done in the previous period of rising unemployment. As has been said on this side of the House, they cut the budget to the ET as the recession became worse. They have given reasons for that and to some extent I accept the validity of those reasons. The Government say that surveys which they have carried out in Bristol and elsewhere show that they were wrong and that not all the long-term unemployed need training. We told them that. They

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say that the long-term unemployed need motivation and that they do not try to get work. The Government believe that if only they would try to get work and reduce their expectations at work, there would be more people in work and fewer unemployed.
So we have seen what is called in the trade "the deficit model" of the employment service. That exhibits four unsavoury features. One is constant counselling; another is diversion into job clubs and into restarts and restart, restart restarts. There are more restarts than in an old Ford Anglia! Worse still is the practice of placing workers—particularly the long-term unemployed who are sufficiently non-cooperative—on what is called "on notice". The effect of all that has been that three times the number of workers have been disallowed benefits since 1985. That has been partly induced because the Government have discovered another bad occurrence which has been taking place. It has been mentioned by noble Lords on this side of the House. They must have almost reached the end of what is called "creative accounting" in the area of unemployment and in the unemployment returns.
The noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, mentioned some of these matters. We all have our favourites. They include not counting the over 60s, which was a good one. Others were counting second jobs as first jobs; counting part-time as full-time; and including the self-employed, especially when one can escalate the numbers of the self-employed. But the measure which has always been my favourite is adding in the Army. That was a masterpiece. So the Government now find that they are virtually at the end of creative accounting. Therefore, the only way of levering down the level of unemployment is by massage in terms of the deficit model—that is to say, taking people off the employment register.
We say that that is not sufficient. Above all, we say that in the short term the Government need a new version of the temporary community work programme which they cut off in 1988. A model for that, which I commend to the Government and about which I hope the Minister can give us news now, was advanced by the Campaign for Work the other day. It would involve two days' work at basic rates, one day training and one day looking for work. It is quite clear that in the 1990s it will cost rather more than the community programme which cost about£7,000 a job. The Government must remember that, as has been said by speakers on this side of the House, each person on the dole is a Treasury loss of at least£8,000 a year. That comprises£4,000 a year paid in benefits and£4,000 a year in lost tax revenue.
We do not pretend, and have never pretended, that a substantial temporary work programme will solve the problem of unemployment. It would now take a long time to get it off the ground. It might take 18 months before a brand new temporary work programme took 200,000 or 250,000 people off the register.
I conclude by asking the Government this central question which I asked when I began. Given the fact that unemployment is escalating, and that if it
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escalates at last month's level it will be at 3.3 million in 12 months' time, do the Government believe that there will be another three years of stagnation? If there is at least another year of stagnation, can the Government say what is wrong with a temporary work programme?
5.45 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Employment (Viscount Ullswater): My Lords, this has been an interesting debate and I have listened carefully to the many points made by noble Lords. My noble friend Lord Jeffreys made a very well-measured and sensitive maiden speech, drawing on his experiences in Nottinghamshire. I congratulate him on a good speech and look forward to his contributions to your Lordships' debates in future.
The Motion moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, was to call attention to the continued growth in unemployment, particularly in regions which hitherto have been relatively prosperous. All rises in unemployment, regardless of region, are regrettable, but I should point out, as I have before, that even after the recent increases, the United Kingdom unemployment rate remains lower than the EC average. I hope in the course of my contribution to be able to reassure the noble Baroness that the Government are not complacent. I shall also set out how the Government are tackling this problem, both in terms of the economy as a whole and in helping people return to work. I shall also try to respond to the many points made during the debate. I shall write to noble Lords if time does not allow me to answer all the points raised.
My right honourable friend the Chancellor, in another place, has acknowledged that unemployment is likely to go on rising for a while yet, even after the economic recovery has started. Lower inflation is crucial to ensure a return to sustainable increases in output and improved employment prospects and to improve business and consumer confidence. The Government are determined that inflation is going to come down and stay down. Our decision to join the ERM last October was a clear signal of our overriding commitment to conquer inflation.
But there is no painless way to beat inflation. The good news is that we are clearly winning the battle against inflation, which has been falling now for some months. The fall in inflation is set to continue. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, that the forecast published with the Budget is for inflation to fall to 3.75 per cent. by the middle of 1992. In his Budget statement, my right honourable friend the Chancellor said that there are good reasons to expect that the economic recovery will begin around the middle of this year. In recent months we have seen a fall of three percentage points in interest rates.
The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, asked whether the recession is 1980–81 all over again. Far from it. The current recession is likely to be both shorter and shallower than in 1980–81. The Government's supply side reforms have helped to make the economy much stronger and much more competitive. The level of inflation that needs to be squeezed out of the system

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is lower and the gap between our inflation and the rest of the EC is smaller. Finally, though the world economy is weak, it has not had to face an oil price shock on the same scale as in the early 1980s. These factors should combine to ensure that the economy starts growing again quite soon and probably around the middle of 1991.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for those facts. I particularly want to know what the Government think will happen to the level of unemployment. In a previous recession, once the level stopped rising, it stopped where it was for 3½ years. Will it stop at the same point for 3½ years now?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I will deal with the point that the noble Lord makes when I deal with the help available to the unemployed. The foundations, as I say, are thus being laid for falling unemployment and a resumption in the jobs growth that was such a remarkable feature of the mid to late 1980s when the workforce grew by over 3 million in seven years to the benefit of all regions in the United Kingdom. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, suggested at least three ideas for stimulating the economy: cutting UBR; more expenditure on investment in infrastructure; and methods to deal with the homeless. However, the Government have considered all these points and believe that they are on course for the recovery, as I suggested. For instance, there are now more small businesses in this country than ever before. By the end of 1989 there was a staggering 373,000 more businesses registered for VAT than in 1979. That means a n average of over 100 extra businesses on the VAT register every day since 1979. All the evidence shows that growth continued in 1990. That is the way to future prosperity and not in a command economy to ensure full employment, as my noble friend Lord Boardman warned us.
Many noble Lords spoke about the fall in manufacturing. However, the United Kingdom has had an impressive record of output growth in the 1980s, faster than Germany, France and Italy. In the 1960s arid 1970s we were at the bottom of that league.
Job prospects will improve following a resumption of economic growth, but the extent to which new jobs are created and unemployment comes down depends crucially on the speed with which pay settlements come down. The current upward trend in unemployment will be more difficult to reverse if wage settlements continue at unrealistically high levels. There has indeed been a small fall in the year-on-year rise in average earnings. The CBI and other commentators are also reporting a clear, though modest, fall in the average level of wage deals.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, does that include directors?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, the point about directory is that they have had deals which have indicated that they would be paid where there is productivity. In that it falls in a year when the productivity comes down is a completely different matter.
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The CBI and other commentators are also reporting a clear though modest fall in the average level of wage deals, although there remains a wide spread in the level of individual settlements. Some firms have deferred pay settlements or agreed pay pauses in response to business conditions. But there is a need for much greater realism in wage bargaining generally. The sooner this is accepted, the sooner we will be able to reverse the trend in unemployment.
I must tell the noble Lord, Lord Jay, that ERM membership reinforces the need for realistic wage demands comparable to those of our EC partners. There is now no escape through devaluation as the noble Lord suggested should be allowed. If industry and employees working together are not able to contain unit wage costs by realistic pay settlements and improved efficiency, then both will have to bear the consequences of their short-sighted actions.
Lord Jay: My Lords, when the noble Viscount keeps mentioning wages, does he include salaries? If so, why does he not say so?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I am talking about pay increases. It is in that context that we must judge the proposals to introduce a national statutory minimum wage. The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, suggested that I might want to return to this point and she is right.
Last week, the Labour Party committed itself once again to introduce legislation requiring such a minimum wage—to be introduced at an initial level of half average male earnings, rising over time to a level of two thirds average male earnings.
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State pointed out earlier this week that, even if only half the previous levels of differentials were restored, such a policy would destroy three-quarters of a million jobs immediately, and one and a quarter million as the minimum wage was raised.
But we know from the firm words of Mr. Bill Jordan, leader of the AEU, on Monday that differentials would be eroded by the introduction of a minimum wage only "over his dead body". And if the unions succeeded in restoring differentials in full, then Labour's minimum wage policy would destroy one and a quarter million jobs immediately, and no fewer than two million as the level of the minimum was raised. It is not necessary to take the word of this Government for that conclusion.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, will the Minister forgive me for interrupting? Will he arrange to have the figures on which he bases these assertions placed in the Library? All we have heard is the assertion that 3.25 million jobs would go.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, perhaps I can illustrate the point more vividly by calling attention to the words of the Labour predecessor of the noble Baroness—Mrs. Barbara Castle, now the noble Baroness, Lady Castle—who published a White Paper in 1969 which ruled out a national minimum wage because:

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"there is little present evidence that higher paid workers would not take advantage for their own purposes of the attempt to help the low paid through the establishment by law of a national minimum".
She also published a report that year which pointed out that when the federal minimum wage was raised in the United States
"employment declined in nearly all industries concerned, the decline ranging from 3.2 per cent. to more than 15 per cent."
No policy could be more damaging to employment prospects than such a minimum wage. That is why successive governments of both parties have rejected it.
The Motion of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, refers to the rise in unemployment in regions which hitherto have been relatively prosperous. This suggests a wide variance in unemployment across the country. No one denies that there are regional variations in levels of unemployment. However, these differentials should not be exaggerated. The latest labour market figures show that the lowest regional rate of unemployment in March was 5.3 per cent. in East Anglia; and, leaving aside Northern Ireland, the highest was 9.6 per cent. in the northern region. While this difference is by no means insignificant, it is hardly as startling as those who see Great Britain in stark North-South terms might have us believe.
There are moreover marked unemployment variations between different localities in the same region. Those regions with unemployment above the UK average often contain prosperous areas with lower than average unemployment. For example, Aberdeen has an unemployment rate of under 3 per cent. and Harrogate in Yorkshire has an unemployment rate of 3.5 per cent., one of the lowest in the country. The converse also applies, with generally affluent regions containing pockets of deprivation and higher unemployment, such as Thanet, in the South East, which has an unemployment rate of 11.5 per cent.
Many areas of higher than average unemployment were in the past dominated by large heavy industries, such as coal, steel and shipbuilding. These industries have had to adjust to more competitive world markets, reduce staffing levels and increase their productivity. Some of the communities affected are still grappling—often with great energy and determination—with the challenge of adjusting to a more service and high-tech-orientated economy.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher of Rednal, asked whether the Government cared for the regions, and she mentioned the West Midlands. The Government recognise that some areas need additional help to benefit fully from our economic success. This help takes many forms and several government departments are involved. For example, the Department of Trade and Industry's regional enterprise grants, selective regional assistance grants and consultancy initiative which target funding and advice where they can do most good in terms of encouraging enterprise and jobs growth. The Department of the Environment's urban programme and other inner city initiatives are also highly relevant, being aimed at encouraging economic regeneration and individual
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enterprise in inner city areas in partnership with the private and voluntary sectors. We should also not overlook the assistance for rural areas channelled through the Rural Development Commission. The noble Lord, Lord Mellish, drew attention to the problems facing the construction industry. It does indeed face problems. However, I was in Docklands this week and I was very impressed both with what has been achieved in 10 years by the development corporation and with its plans for the future.
My noble friend Lord Boardman drew our attention—
Lord Mellish: My Lords, can the noble Viscount say something more? Docklands is one aspect of the matter. Can he give some hope to the construction industry for the future?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I am trying to demonstrate what the Government are doing in order to stimulate the economy and to improve the jobs position in all industries.
My noble friend Lord Boardman drew our attention to Consett and the North East, an area of high unemployment, where new service and light manufacturing industries are replacing old heavy industries such as steel-making and shipbuilding. Following the success of Nissan in Washington, considerable inward investment is being attracted to the area. Nevertheless, what I have said about relative levels of unemployment is little comfort to someone finding himself unemployed. In this respect I must agree to some extent with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Brookes. None of us under-estimates the anxiety and uncertainty of unemployed people at the present time—particularly about how long they will be unemployed and how quickly they can get back to work.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, chided me for not understanding as if only those on the other side of the Chamber can understand. The help which my department is providing is designed to ensure that everyone has the best possible chance of getting back to work. I must tell the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, that even now, at a time of rising unemployment, some 400,000 jobs are available in the economy. It is also very encouraging to note that 275,000 unemployed people leave unemployment every month and more than 50 per cent. of people unfortunate enough to lose their jobs leave unemployment within three months of becoming unemployed.
The Government are determined to ensure that those people who are unemployed have the best possible advice and support to put them on the road back to work and special help when they need it. We already have in place throughout the country a comprehensive package of counselling and job search advice geared to the specific needs of individuals. In order to help people find the assistance most suited to them we have produced a new guide Employment and Training Services for You. This informs unemployed people about the whole range of employment and training measures which is available and how they can obtain access to them.

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Last month my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment announced in another place the provision of£55 million extra resources for the employment service for 1991-92. These additional funds will ensure that its standard of customer services are maintained and, where possible, enhanced and will enable the employment service to provide more help for those who do not find work in the firs t few weeks of unemployment.
In future, for the first time, every person who has no job to start will, after 13 weeks of unemployment, have a guaranteed offer of an interview—a chance to review his back to work plan and to assess further options for returning to work. New job teams will be set up to search out jobs which are suitable for those who have marketable skills and to match individuals to jobs.
Job search seminars will be run to provide extra advice on job search for those who are not seeking work i a the most effective way.
My noble friend Lord Jeffreys complimented the employment service on the working of the job clubs. More than 520,000 people have been through the programme and more than half have gone into jobs. A further 80,000 have gone into training, full-time further education, self-employment or a place on the former community programme. More job club places will be provided for those with more intensive problems and needs who are already eligible to enter job clubs after 13 weeks of unemployment. We are also increasing the help available to those who have been unemployed for six months or more. In the course of the next financial year the employment service will be providing up to 100,000 extra opportunities mainly through job clubs and the new job interview guarantee.
My department keeps under review the whole range of its help to the unemployed, in the light of developments in the labour market. I can tell the noble Lords, Lord Rochester and Lord McCarthy, that that is the position now as it has been on previous occasions when I have answered the noble Lords' questions.
The current measures are clearly succeeding. Sixty-six per cent. of those leaving job clubs go into work or into training or further education. The job interview guarantee is quickly proving to be a very effective way of helping the long-term unemployed back into work. In the year to February 1991, more than 2,500 people were placed in jobs. In addition, up to around a quarter of a million unemployed people this year will be able to upgrade current skills or learn new ones to improve their chances of getting a job through employment training.
This represents the most comprehensive range of help and advice ever made available to unemployed people. We are providing assistance to unemployed people when they need it most. My department now offers same 650,000 opportunities to people to get back to work. These are included in a wide range of options, so that individuals can find the help which most satisfies their individual needs.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He is spending
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a good deal of time, understandably, explaining what can be done about the large number of unemployed people. Will he spend a minute or two explaining how we came to have 2 million unemployed?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I have traded with the noble Lord on many occasions the reason for jobs being lost in the economy; namely, the scourge of inflation. What is required now is to get inflation down. I have told the noble Lord that on many occasions.
The job clubs and the job interview scheme are particularly successful in helping people with searching for jobs and securing interviews. Nevertheless, I am sure we all agree that it is of particular importance at a time of economic down-turn that we do everything possible to sustain both employer and individual investment in training. Only thus can we be confident that the country has a ready supply of skilled people to fill those jobs which are available.
The foundations have already been laid for a significant improvement in the skills of the workforce. There are many positive signs that skill levels are increasing, and that employers and individuals are becoming increasingly aware of the importance—
Baroness Seear: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Viscount. If that is true, why on earth have the Government cut the money available to the TECs?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I shall go on in a minute or two to say that the money available to the TECs is broadly the same as they spent last year. The idea of cuts is exaggerated.
There are many positive signs that skill levels are increasing, and that employers and individuals are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of education and training to our future economic well being. Training has never been higher on the business agenda. We too are playing our part. In February of this year my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment announced in another place an extra£120 million for TECs to ensure that ET can continue to play its full part in helping unemployed people to enhance their skills or learn new ones and get back to work. We are actually planning to spend broadly the same amount this year as we spent last year and there is extra provision over previous plans for youth training including training credits, which has been increased by about£38 million, and other measures such as career development loans and TVEI.
My answer to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, and to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford is that all young people under 18 not in full-time education or employment are guaranteed the offer of a suitable training place. Expenditure by my department in this area is two-and-a-half times as much in real terms as was spent in 1978–79.
Training and enterprise councils, and the local enterprise companies in Scotland, are the means of developing and building on this investment in training. All 82 training and enterprise councils and 22 local enterprise companies are now in place. Over 1,200 of the country's senior business leaders have

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now committed themselves to providing the leadership required to develop the skills which industry will need in the 1990s. My noble friend Lord Jeffreys welcomed the establishment of the TECs. How right he was. That leadership has been built not by regulation and compulsion, but through voluntary commitment and willing participation.
As well as securing commitment from employers, individuals have a growing interest in taking greater responsibility for their own training needs. We welcome this trend and the Government have already taken a number of steps to increase individuals' say in their own development. For example, up to 45,000 young people have the opportunity of participating in a pilot exercise of training credits which are giving them, at the outset of their careers, real purchasing power to choose the training and development most appropriate to them. Career development loans are also giving valuable help to individuals who are paying for their own training.
I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, wishes to intervene. I am happy for her to do so.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, I am most grateful. The noble Viscount has talked only about the opportunities in training for young people. But what about the 50 year-old highly trained professionals who are being made redundant?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I tried to indicate—indeed, other people have commented on this—that such training is not necessarily what those highly-skilled professional people are looking for. The job clubs and the job interview guarantees are much more suitable for getting those people back to work.
The new training tax relief which my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer recently announced in another place will provide another important incentive for individuals to acquire national vocational qualifications—SVQs in Scotland. That latter measure removes barriers in the tax system which stood in the way of people who wished to improve their marketable skills and has been warmly welcomed by the training and enterprise councils and the business community. Non-taxpayers will benefit equally as the tax will be deducted at source from the cost of the course. That will be of particular help to women returning to work.
Those measures will allow individuals to have real control over their career training and development and provide a powerful stimulus to those who wish to train but are deterred by the cost. The Government are playing their part to create an economic climate conducive to growth and enterprise, but employers and pay negotiators must play their part in keeping wage settlements down if they are not to destroy the prospects for jobs.
I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Brookes, as regards the way he talked about jobs in the service industry. I believe that he called it the "confetti industry". In my view he is wrong. The people in that industry are proud of their jobs and they are worthy of more consideration from the noble Lord.
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The noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, asked me a question which he has put to me before. He asked about the unemployment figures and the comparison. Using comparables from the data of the Statistical Office of the European Community (SOEC), the rates for the United Kingdom indicate that the change in percentage points between 1979 and 1990—that is, using the SOEC data and the consistent claimant data which I have already explained to the noble Lord—are very similar. The former showing a rise of 1.7 percentage points and the latter a rise of 1.8 percentage points. We could continue a debate about statistics for the rest of the evening. However, I should point out to the noble Lord that I believe he is barking up the wrong tree.
Job creation would not be assisted by immediate implementation of the European Commission's social action programme which would add£3 billion to the cost of British employers. Yet that is the policy of the Labour Party. Job creation would not be assisted by the introduction of a tax on the payroll of companies so that they could lower their tax bill by sacking workers. However, that is Labour Party policy. Further, more jobs would not be created if legislation were introduced which would make strikes easier and weaken the power of the courts to punish trade unions which break the laws. Yet, that too, is part of Labour Party policy.
It is more important than ever to assess all policies in the light of their effect upon job creation. The Government will continue to give top priority to the creation of a climate in which enterprise can flourish and jobs can grow.
6.15 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate. It was indeed extremely interesting. I should especially like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, for his contribution. I am most flattered that he chose this debate in which to make his maiden speech. He made a maiden speech of great compassion and humanity on a subject which I am sure is very dear to the heart of every one in this Chamber.
I wish I could say that I was very happy with the Minister's reply. He will not be surprised to hear that I found his response extremely disappointing. Many issues were raised by speakers on this side of the House to which I believe we have received very inadequate replies, to put it mildly. The noble Viscount set out inflation as being the main cause of unemployment and the main dragon to be slain.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Alport): My Lords, the time allotted for this debate has now elapsed. In the circumstances, does the noble Baroness wish to withdraw her Motion.
Baroness Turner of Camden: Yes, my Lords; I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
6.16 p.m.

Chilidren and Young Persons (Protection from Tobacco) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Coal Mining (Subsidence) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be Printed.
Criminal Procedure (Insanity and Unfitness to Plead) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Football (Offences) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Sport and Active Recreation
6.17 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick rose to call attention to the role of the Government in promoting sport and active recreation; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, before I start the debate, I am sure that Members of the House will understand if I refer to the fact that my former city of Manchester was today successful in becoming the nominee for Great Britain in our next bid for hosting the Olympic Games. I know that all noble Lords will want to express—as they have done in the past to whoever received the nomination for this country—their full support for this nomination. I am sure that establishments like your Lordships' House will wish Mr. Bob Scott and his team every success in their attempt to clear the next hurdle.
I begin by briefly referring to the biggest spectator sport which we have in this country at present. I refer, of course, to soccer. It is no secret that there are some serious disagreements between the Football Association, which is the premier controlling body, and the Football League. My only wish is that they will come together and produce a result from their deliberations which will not be damaging to the sport. I say that because I believe that the sport, after having been severely criticised over the past few years as regards violence and so on, has done an excellent job in that it has managed to rid itself of the "violence" tag to the extent that we shall now be allowed back into Europe. I hope that any changes brought forward by foodball's legislators are decided on an agreed basis and that they will not be damaging to the sport which so many of us like to follow.
However, the debate is not only about football and those issues but about sport and physical education in general. One has to say that there has never been a time in history when sport played as important a role in society as it does today. In the United Kingdom, 22
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million people—about 40 per cent. of the population—are actively engaged in sport or recreational activities of some kind. Those figures are recorded in Hansard. In addition, millions more are avid followers of sport as spectators at live events or as listeners and viewers of broadcast sport. Sport is a major industry. It does not merely employ professional sportsmen and women; 370,000 people are employed in associated activities such as the provision of clothing and footwear, publicity, ground and club maintenance, and so forth. More people are employed than in the motor car industry. We are not just talking about sport, we are talking about the fact that it provides a reasonable standard of living for over 300,000 people.
Sport is a great channel for physical and emotional energy. It breaks down divisions of class and race. It encourages each individual, if desired, to achieve his or her potential. It is the most immediately accessible and measurable form of individual and group expression. It can be enjoyed at the lowest and highest degrees of ability. At one level it can be the simple pleasure that is derived merely from recreation. At another it can be the demanding pursuit of excellence. If any of your Lordships have not done so, I recommend that you read In Search of Adventure, an excellent report by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. It is well worth reading.
What is worrying is that there are areas in sport where instead of advancing, facilities are decreasing. We are having a debate later on a Bill relating to swimming so I shall not say a great deal about that. There will be plenty of time later to talk about swimming. However, the number of swimming pools is decreasing. The number of playing fields is decreasing because they are being sold by schools. Facilities are decreasing at an alarming rate. I asked a Question in January and the Answer showed that the number of deaths of schoolchildren through drowning had doubled in about two years. That cannot be right and cannot be dismissed on the basis that many of the swimmers die because they get into difficulties.
I am happy because I have two grandchildren—one of nine and one of seven—who are both swimmers. That is the best qualification anyone can have to start life. If they cannot swim they may get into some difficulty and be unable to sit for any other educational qualification! Swimming should be part of the national curriculum.
One of the main issues is: what do we do about funding our sport? Compared with our competitors in Europe, we do not come out very well in terms of what the Government return to sport. I have a letter from Mr. Hook of the Central Council of Physical Recreation. He asked the Customs and Excise how—I shall not call them our opponents—our friends in Europe tax sport. The reply states:
"Belgium—Services supplied by operators of institutions for sports or physical education on a non-profit making basis are exempt.
Denmark—Sports activities are exempt with the exception of motor races and arrangements in which professionals participate.
France—Entrance fees for sporting events are exempt as are the services supplied by legally constituted non-profit making sporting organisations to their members.

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Federal Republic of Germany—Sports events conducted by institutions serving charitable purposes, and if revenues are used predominantly to cover expenditure, are exempt.
Ireland—The promotion of and admission to sporting events and the provision of sporting facilities by non-profit making organisations to their members are exempt".
The letter continues.
We are the only country in Europe where the Government take their full share of tax from non-profit making sporting institutions. One of the saddest factors is the Government's uniform business rate. Now that its full effects are being felt, it may drive out of existence hundreds of sporting clubs, including tennis clubs—not golf clubs because they are different—badminton clubs and many others. They are charitable organisations and keep to a strict budget, but they are finding that last year's local government financial legislation has placed an enormous burden on them. Overnight they have had to find two, three or four times what they paid previously. They are in serious financial difficulty and going out of existence.
The 1985 figures—the last time the figures were collated centrally by the Henley Centre for Forecasting—show that£2.4 billion was collected from sport. VAT amounted to£770 million, the betting levy£540 million, income tax£950 million and corporation tax£160 million. Those were 1985 figures, and one can only assume that considerably more than£2.4 billion is now collected. Yet the Government refuse to heed the appeal that they should put more money back into sport to allow the organisations to continue the work that the people want.
The Government support the development of sport and recreation in the country at large as well as contributing to local government funding of sport. A total of£55 million is contributed to the Sports Councils of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. No one denies that the Government give assistance. If we want to stop the sale of sports fields—they will never return—action must be taken now. Only the Government can take such action.
It is a sad fact that in schools now teachers are not enthusiastic about teaching sporting activities. They were often taught in addition to their normal duties. Teachers would stay behind to look after the soccer team and the cricket team and the girls' netball team. I do not want to politicise the debate, but teachers are disenchanted. They do not want to do anything extra because of the terrible deal that they have had from the Government over the years with their refusal to consult. We are not talking about training children to be Olympic athletes, but if they can have a start in sport with a playing field attached to the school and a gymnasium adequately equipped, teachers might be encouraged to take an increased role once again.
Many schools that wish to provide sporting facilities have to raise the funds themselves. It is a pity that a so-called advanced nation has reached that state. My view, with which I do not believe many people would disagree, is that if a school has the will and desire to give its children—we are talking about the bottom of the pyramid mainly—an opportunity to start out on physical education and sport and wants to give it a high priority, the Government should
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consider funding that provision as a special need, and not merely lump it in with what we called the rate support grant or what has now taken its place. If schools have to choose between lowering their standard of education, selling equipment or the playing-fields or closing down swimming pools, they will naturally try to prevent all that at the expense of further development. I know the Minister has a review under way and I believe that he is due to report later this year. I hope that he will consider the point very earnestly because it would be well received.
There is another point. In my opening remarks I referred to the bid for the Olympic Games. That is not a public participation sport, it is not for the lads and the girls to achieve that level of excellence. Nevertheless, as a nation I believe we want boys and girls in this country to be able to compete on level terms with the same type of equipment, the same treatment and training facilities as our rivals from abroad. We give full commendation for our successes in the past but in other countries there is a high rate of success because of the money poured into their sports. What do we do over here? We tax the money raised by the fund-raisers for the British Olympics. Money is taken from them which people have given for a specific purpose. To me, that is nonsense, if we are talking about achieving the results we want.
I do not wish to say much about swimming but if£5 million extra were made available it would provide for every child to be trained to swim by the age of 11. Can anyone think of a better investment than that? We read sad reports of children drowning immediately they get out of their depth.
I have managed to find the figures for tax taken from the British Olympic appeal fund. The Government took?¾ million in tax out of the£5 million raised. Is that an incentive to firms or people to contribute to the worthwhile effort which we want to see succeed?
There is much that I wish to cover on the subject but noble Lords will understand that I must sit down, otherwise I shall take up the time allotted to other people. I know that colleagues all round the House have specific points to raise and I believe that this debate is worthwhile. I beg to move for Papers.
6.33 p.m.
Lord Addington: My Lords, when we discuss sport and recreation I find myself launching into a huge subject covering every aspect of modern life. I link it primarily with the problems of the education system that we have inherited. We find increasingly that we must be taught to get the best out of physical activities and sport. In a world where competition or even taking part in most activities depends on technical skills, a certain type of education is required. We are effectively talking about basic coaching and instruction in physical education.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dean, who opened the debate for raising such an important subject. He drew attention to such necessities as playing fields, for without the proper facilities none of these sports can take place. Any form of football—association, league or union—is impossible unless there is a grass surface

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or something close to it. The same is true of competing in athletics, particularly the running events, with the possible exception of the marathon. Unless there is a proper dirt track—not the old cinder track and certainly not a small amount of lime dragged across the grass—we can no longer perform at a competitive level on such surfaces.
I return to coaching and the initial instruction stage. We find increasingly that pupils in schools are not given the right amount of time for the necessary level o -instruction. An important point which must be stressed is that the people giving instruction are not well qualified. I made this point in a previous debate. Someone who played football for a side in the 1950s is not necessarily qualified to coach today: the boots are different, the ball is different, there have been rule changes in the game. The same is true of all the other major participation sports. There is increasing emphasis on qualified and professional coaches. When we tall: about physical training and activity I believe that the trend towards professionalism is important. As we discover more about the human body, we must spend more time studying and keeping up to date with the changes. The training methods of 20 years ago are just not good enough and in some cases have even proved to be harmful. We must keep ourselves up to date.
People say, "What about those who merely want to take part in a sport at a social level?". The Sports Council has a list of levels of sporting involvement; they are foundation skills which we hope will only be necessary for schoolchildren. I hope that everyone will be taught how to catch a ball, how to balance properly and how to run in a straight line. Then there is participation, which probably covers what many people think of as having a good time with a small team kicking a ball about on a Sunday, or what is called the coarse rugby team in which I played on my way up. I shall probably play rugby again in it on my way down. Then there are the performance people who try to enhance their position in a sport and achieve greater success. At the top of this pyramid of sporting activity there is excellence.
All these levels require a high degree of coaching. They may not necessarily be high in the pyramid on performance—the structure may be there, but teaching is not dependent on that. It is often easier to teach someone who has the foundation skills to participate at a performance level than to give him the foundation skills in the first place. People should be taught how to teach and then people can be taught the skills. This approach is often missed by many people. They think, "Why do we need coaches? Why do they have to be so highly skilled?". We must teach people how to take part before they can consider actually doing so. We must let them appreciate that there is something from which they can benefit.
Modern attitudes make people want to participate. A survey by the University of Aberdeen—it is nice, for once, to be able to mention my old university without referring to the cuts—stated that about 96 per cent. of males and 95 per cent. of females thought that sport was a good reason for keeping oneself healthy. However, that involved sport as opposed to physical
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education. I assume that the two are strongly connected, but it does not always follow. There is the person who likes to go to aerobics once a week or jogging or to lift a few weights. That fits a person to be part of physical education and people should be trained how to do that as well. The number of injuries from training probably matches the numbers involved in any participation sport.
Then there are activities like keeping mentally fit and alert. There is an attitude, which I am glad to say is declining, that only the "thicko" takes up sport. I have come to the conclusion that there are no very stupid professional sportsmen. If a person takes part in any sport, he must be able to a certain extent to understand what is going on and the structures and flows of the sport. If we work with a partner in a team we must be instructed how to relate. We must accept the instructions of the coach. The same is true of the coach who has to give instructions. A trainer may get away with shouting in a loud voice that everyone must do more work and more press-ups, and they still do that. However, there is usually a coach in the background in any sporting structure of any real use telling people when to stop some activity.
A noble Lord, who unfortunately is not present tonight, told me that racehorses are now trained in short bursts of activity and then allowed to rest. It is interesting to note that most athletes are now trained by that method as opposed to being worked flat out the whole time. As regards sporting methods, we must know what we are doing. Ultimately my comments are leading me towards a plea for more funding. However, the Minister may already have hardened his heart to such a plea. I see a slight smile on his face. That may mean we shall receive some good news, but on the other hand we may not.
We must ensure that better training is given and more funding is made available. That is a must for our schools and colleges as we must ensure that young people who participate in sport and become coaches later receive as good a grounding as possible in their early years. We must also be able to top up skills as knowledge increases. We must make sports medicine and information on dietary matters available. As someone remarked to me, if one buys a Rolls Royce, one has to run it on petrol. Those who participate in sport must obtain the right balance of proteins and vitamins from their diets if they are to take their sporting activities seriously. We must ensure that people can add to their training base. Funding must be made available to enable that to occur.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean, referred to the grave matter of the Government's policy of heavy taxation. Most sporting establishments that I have come into contact with—mainly rugby clubs—have found it difficult in the past few years to maintain their existing premises and meet the demands of banks as a result of the high interest rates that have been charged. I am the vice-president of a small rugby club in Norfolk. That club has experienced great difficulty in paying back the debt that it incurred when it set up its new grounds and facilities. A reduction in its tax bill would have been a great help.

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I have slightly overrun my time and therefore I shall finish with one simple comment. If participation in sport is considered beneficial to people's health and mental well-being, the Government would do themselves and the nation a good turn by making more funds available for sport and by ensuring that the right attitudes prevail in schools.
6.42 p.m.
Lord Birkett: My Lords, I wish to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, on introducing this subject. I apologise in advance for the fact that I shall have to leave before the end of the debate. I did not realise the debate would start so late and I have duties to perform tonight that I cannot easily avoid. I wish to echo warmly the good wishes that the noble Lord, Lord Dean, conveyed to Bob Scott and his team in Manchester. I am pleased about the good news concerning Manchester. I thought the team made a magnificent and imaginative stab at the selection process on the previous occasion and I deeply hope that this time Manchester is selected to host the Olympic Games.
I was slightly dismayed to read a leader in The Times a few days ago which suggested that only glamorous capital cities had any real chance of being selected to host the Olympic Games. I do not agree with that suggestion. It is, of course, no part of your Lordships' duties to instruct the International Olympic Committee on how it should make its decisions. I repeat that I do not believe that only glamorous capital cities should be candidates for hosting the Olympic Games. The leader I have referred to suggested that Berlin and Moscow were obvious candidates for the Olympics as they are both centres of reconciliation. Berlin certainly is a centre of reconciliation and I pray most devoutly that Moscow will become such a centre. However, I cannot believe that that should be a factor in choosing where the games should be staged.
Manchester is exactly the kind of exciting and gutsy city which should stage the Olympic Games. A decision to stage the games there would be of enormous value to Manchester as it would acquire all the facilities that accompany the staging of the games. Those facilities would remain long after the games were over. The neighbouring areas involved in the bid for the games would also gain. That is one of the big factors in an Olympic bid. I realise that it is the International Olympic Committee which assumes responsibility for these matters, but I cannot believe that the support of the Government for the bid is not more or less essential to its success. I urge the Government to support the bid to the limit of their capabilities.
It is recognised that an event such as the Olympic Games necessitates large capital sums being invested in facilities that are needed for the games. Investment is required in the infrastructure and in the sporting facilities themselves. It is not only exciting and occasional events such as the Olympic Games which require large capital sums. We have already been told today of various forms of activity which require such
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sums. The other day I read some interesting statistics on indoor tennis in Europe. The press is forever complaining that British tennis players no longer reach the finals at Wimbledon and that the Australians, the Americans, the Germans and the Swedes are the ones who manage that feat. I suspect that one of the reasons for that is that Britain has poor coaching facilities. If all our courts are situated outdoors, our players will only manage to play for about three weeks of the year due to the British weather.
France, Italy and Spain have thousands of indoor tennis courts. In England the figure is in the hundreds. I believe that I am right in saying that there are only about 250 indoor tennis courts in England. It is perfectly clear that building indoor tennis centres is an expensive game, but those statistics could be echoed for dozens of different sports. Noble Lords may ask where the money will come from to build such facilities. I have no hesitation in riding my perpetual hobby horse when I say that the capital funding for sport, as for the arts, and indeed for all kinds of environmental schemes, could very well come from a national lottery.
I read with great interest the suggestion in the Budget that if the Government and the football pools' authorities co-operated, sums of£40 million,£60 million, or even£80 million could be raised for the benefit of the arts and sport. That suggestion is to be welcomed but a national lottery comes into a different dimension. We need to look at the concept of a national lottery in a different way. All the evidence I have suggests that a national lottery run on a charitable basis for the benefit of the arts, the environment and sport, could eventually raise something in the region of£1 billion a year. That sum of money would enable the funding of major institutions to be undertaken without pain. At the moment there is no capital funding for such activities. There is no central capital funding to which the arts or sporting bodies can look.
I cannot believe that a well established and well run national lottery would not provide the answer to many of the questions that will be asked tonight. As I said, I shall not be able to stay to hear all the remaining speeches, but I am prepared to wager that if one totted up the capital sums that will be asked for, suggested, prayed for, and dreamed of tonight, they would run into many millions of pounds. I believe that my national lottery idea is the solution to this matter.
6.48 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I rise with great pleasure to support the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Dean, and the gist of his powerful speech. The noble Lord has referred to this matter before, but I was nevertheless horrified to hear that there are fewer swimming pools and playing fields now than was the case some years ago. It is almost incredible that that could have happened in our country which like other Western countries is becoming richer and richer and where, as we all know, there is tremendous interest in sport. However, I shall leave the broader aspects of this matter to the noble Lord, Lord Dean. I shall

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touch on one or two more secondary subjects, although perhaps "secondary" is not the right word to use.
I wish to make a strong plea for encouraging more womer to take up sport. In preparing for this debate I discussed sporting issues with some of the leading sporting figures in the country. There is a very strong desire to see more encouragement given to women. I see that the lights of the Chamber have gone out: I thought that that was a gesture of distaste on someone's part but that has now been corrected. I am sorry to see that my noble friend Lady Phillips who is to follow me has had to leave the Chamber. However, we have my noble friend Lady Hollis to wind up the debate. I hope that in this House in future more than one noble Baroness will take part in these debates.
In my preparations I found that Mr. Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, the famous county cricket captain, argued strongly that women should be allowed to become members of the MCC. It is extraordinary that they cannot. They can become members at the Oval, where the Prime Minister is a very welcome and frequent visitor. I understand that he has now joined the MCC and I hope that more pressure will be exerted. I spoke to Mr. Denis Compton on the subject. My noble friend Lord Dean tells me that he once saw Mr. Denis Compton, who is best known as the most brilliant batsman we have had in this country since the war, take part in a soccer international in which eight goals were scored. Since my noble friend tells me that we must accept it as true, and therefore we can regard Mr. Compton as possibly the best all-round athlete in this country since the war. When I asked him about the admission of women to Lords he said that he agreed provided a bar was reserved for the gentlemen. I am not sure what the motive was for that. Mr. Denis Compton has, like Mr. Ingleby-Mackenzie, been an honoured guest in this House but he has not been admitted to the Bishop's Bar where he would have found that women are the life and soul. Therefore, we must ignore that particular proviso and demand the inclusion of women as members of the MCC.
I want to stress one simple point, but it needs careful thought. I find among sporting leaders a demand that there should be a Minister for Sport in the Cabinet. We have had Ministers for Sport for some time. One of them, Mr. Denis Howell, did great work from outside the Cabinet. Nevertheless, there is a great deal to be said for the idea that there should be a Minister in the Cabinet with specific responsibility for sport. I do not argue that there should be a Minister in the Cabinet with responsibility solely for sport. lie could be made Minister for sport and leisure. On the other hand, the noble Lord, Lord St John of Fawsley, was a successful Minister for the Arts, when he was Leader of the House of Commons and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, was Minister for Science when he was Leader of this House. Therefore, it could be combined with some other role. However, I find a very strong demand in sporting circles that specific responsibility for sport should be placed on a member of the Cabinet.
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I should like to mention one other point before I sit down. Mr. Denis Compton urged me to draw the attention of the House to the need to maintain the competitive element in sport. That is a delicate subject which could be discussed at length. I submit, and I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, who brought us so thoroughly up to date with sporting matters will agree, that the competitive element in sport can and should go hand in hand with the team spirit. The two are not contradictory but complementary. I have been president of a village cricket team for, it seems to me, a hundred years. In a village team everyone wants to make more runs and in that sense cricket is an individual sport. However, there is also a very keen and passionate desire to beat the neighbouring village. The two elements can and should be combined.
I raised with Mr. Compton the question of those who are not much good at ball games. He agreed that in that case they should be offered facilities for, let us say, mountaineering. I do not wish to insult great mountaineers by suggesting that they are not good at ball games. I am sure that they are excellent at games. We have a world class mountaineer on the staff here, among the doorkeepers. Nevertheless, a great many people are not good at ball games and find cricket a nightmare. At Eton they were allowed to be what we called "wet bobs". That was regarded with great contempt in my house, which was dominated by cricketers and led by the great G.O. Allen who captained England and was visited repeatedly by Pelham Warner from Datchet. At any rate, there were these wet bobs. No one really knew what they did on the river but it was a way of getting exercise. There ought to be alternatives, whether it is rowing, mountaineering or something that does not involve being any good at ball games.
With those few thoughts I should like to support the demand for more funding. I am sure that other speakers will echo the strong plea made by my noble friend Lord Dean and other speakers.
6.55 p.m.
Lord St. John of Bletso: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, for giving me the opportunity to speak this evening in this most important debate. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Dean, who has been a long-time campaigner for the improvement of sport, recreation and physical education facilities, this is my first innings on this important subject.
As one who was educated in South Africa, where physical education and sport play a major part in the school curriculum, I have been astonished by the recent statistics, many of which have been mentioned today, which show how little time is dedicated to PE and sport in schools in Britain.
In my allotted eight minutes I should like to focus in the main on sport and physical education—which I shall refer to as PE—in state schools, for surely we need to concentrate at grass-root level in our endeavours to promote sport. I welcome the Government's decision ensuring that PE remains a compulsory subject in the national curriculum.

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Over the past week I have had the opportunity to interview several members of the PE profession. They made it quite clear that one needs to distinguish between the objectives of sport and PE, stressing that sport is just one aspect of PE. The objectives of physical education training appear to be to provide pupils with a physical, social, mental, emotional and creative training. To that end I warmly support the findings and the recommendations of the interim report of the national curriculum working group on the future of physical education and sport in state schools. Their objective is to draw up a balanced programme of physical education which is relevant to the abilities and needs of all pupils.
One of my main concerns is a point which was made very well by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, relating to the training of PE and sports teachers, including in-service training. I note the concern of the recent report of Her Majesty's inspectorate highlighting the lack of specialist trained teachers in primary schools. The Central Council for Physical Recreation recently reported that there has been a dramatic drop in the training of PE teachers over the past few years. The inspectors found that while three-quarters of primary school games gave sufficient emphasis to PE, they were nevertheless inferior lessons, often reflecting the lack of teacher expertise. In addition there was insufficient time and a failure to monitor pupils' progress. The report also highlighted the need to improve the conditions under which PE is taught.
In that regard I welcome the joint initiative by the national governing bodies of sport, the British Council of Physical Education and the National Coaching Foundation who are currently developing a resource pack—similar to one that I have with me from the LTA entitled Tennis for Teachers—aimed at providing primary school teachers with innovative and up-to-date teaching techniques.
There is, however, a major Achilles' heel to those initiatives in that subsequent to the new education Act, which effectively delegates school budgets to schoolteachers—a point which has already been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Dean—in many cases, as a result of the restraint on budgets, teachers have been unable to up-date their knowledge by attending in-service courses. To put that into perspective, I understand that it costs schools in the region of£70 to£90 per day to cover for each member of staff released to attend such courses. Although I note that the Sports Minister has recently granted£1 million to the Sports Council to provide extra curricula coaching for children, have the Government earmarked any additional funds to cater for those much-needed in-service courses?
As I have said, the LTA has produced a tennis handbook for teachers which is a companion to a seven-hour course aimed at updating and refreshing teachers' knowledge of the coaching of tennis. I recall the issue of Hansard which reported the last debate on this subject introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Dean. In that debate the noble Earl, Lord Longford, lamented that we no longer had the likes of Fred Perry. A point also raised by my noble friend Lord
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Birkett is that gone are the glorious days of the tennis heroes. I understand that in the English team we do not have even one member who is in the top 100. I fully support the idea of a national lottery, but I believe that we need to improve the teaching of the game at grass roots level—that is, school level. I also note that the National Cricket Association is qualifying up to 1,000 new coaches every year. A former England wicket keeper, Keith Andrews, was recently quoted as saying:
"If you gain a child's interest before 11 years of age, you will keep it".
The noble Lord, Lord Dean, touched on the subject of the sale of school playing fields. Again, I note from a recent survey that up to 1,000 acres of playing fields are being sold per month, which is a staggering figure. The Government have commissioned the Sports Council to draw up a playing fields register. Perhaps the Minister could outline what other measures are being taken to halt what some commentators have referred to as "the sale of the century". I am asking not for a blanket ban on the sale of all pitches, but for greater regulation of sales. There are several encouraging cases where school land has been swapped for other land with sufficient additional funds to erect new sporting facilities.
Several debates both in this House and the other place have drawn attention to the need for more access to be gained by local communities to expensive specialist sports facilities which are available to so many of our state schools. We have all read of the protective attitudes of many education establishments to the dual use of schools, often referred to as the "grass in the goalmouth" syndrome. I am aware that the Government encourage dual use of facilities in schools which creates closer ties with parents and the local community, but I would hope that more schools would initiate a business approach to hiring out such facilities, obviously at reasonable rates, to local clubs and community groups.
Clearly, sport is a preventive medicine. As much as I enjoy watching sport on television, I cannot help but feel that the advent of central heating, satellite television, personal computers and stereos are contributing to many people in this country becoming lounge lizards and couch potatoes. I should hope that increasingly head teachers will appreciate the need to increase and not decrease the amount of time spent on PE and sport in school curricular. I commend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science on his initiatives, but I believe we still have a long way to go.
7.5 p.m.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, I should like to add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Dean, for initiating the debate. I am sure that we are all grateful for the opportunity to give this topical subject a further hearing. Indeed, one of my last speeches in the other place in March 1987 was about the availability and preservation of sports grounds. I am glad to have a further chance to take part. I will not weary the House by parading my meagre qualifications in this

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field because they are on record in Hansard in both Houses. I do not advise any noble Lord present to look in the index to pursue it.
When the noble Lord, Lord Addington, was speaking about fitness and training I recalled some of the problems I faced in pairing Members after the opening of the gymnasium at the other end of this building, particularly those who had crocked or otherwise incapacitated themselves while allegedly trying to get fit. I hope to take a rather more constructive attitude during the remainder of my remarks. I welcome the move by the Government to shift the Sports Minister from the Department of the Environment to Education. I think it is a good move and it is in the spirit in which the whole subject of sport should be approached. I am happy to say that I know tie present Minister and have played cricket with him. I know that the job is in good hands, and his enthusiasm is extremely welcome. I do not wish to sound too sycophantic, but I am also extremely grateful that we have a Prime Minister who takes cricket so seriously. Early in his prime ministership I particularly welcomed his encouragement of the new movement, Cricket 2000, which is trying to encourage the teaching and playing of cricket in our schools, the need for an improvement in which at national level hardly needs any stressing on my part.
The Prime Minister has also spoken about a classless society. I would like to take up one point taken up by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, about women in sport. In the meagre amount of research that I (lid before the debate it was drawn to my attention that very little publicity and media coverage was given to sports played solely by women. The example given to me was that of netball. While there has been some growth in coverage by Channel 4 of events such as the World Tournament, it is still regarded very much as a minority sport. World championships are to be held in Australia in June of this year and I doubt very much whether the coverage given to them will be anything like the coverage of, say, an ashes cricket series. That is a pity. The sport of netball is played in many Commonwealth countries. Apart from the fact that men are now taking up the game, especially in the antipodes, we ought to try and get away from the substantial bias towards the coverage of sports which are played mainly by men or are men-orientated.
The next question to which I wish to draw your Lordships' attention is the provision of sports grounds Although I am no longer a Member of Parliament, I still live in the area which I had the honour to represent. From time to time I am approached by young people who are most anxious to get a borne ground where perhaps their local hockey or football club can play regularly. It is extremely difficult to do it. The area has never been overblessed with facilities, and when I was a Member I was constantly fighting undesirable developments. I give the House one example. The county council has recently received a consultants' report on the provision of gypsy sites. Lo! and behold, it is not suggested that the middle and upper-class areas of Bristol Mould have any sites at all, but in the
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working-class areas of east and south Bristol several sites are suggested for serious consideration. One site is near my old constituency on ground which at present is used for informal recreation. The other is the resurrection of a site which was rejected after a public inquiry in 1980 to which I gave evidence. It is time we had a change of emphasis. It seems to me that areas which have had the dirty end of the stick over the years are always the first targets for any development such as a gypsy site which, regardless of what the civil liberties lobby will say, most people regard as a highly undesirable development to have anywhere near their residential accommodation.
Most debates hinge on asking the Government for more funding. I shall not do that. I ask the Government to continue to urge local authorities and others to make better use of the resources which are already available. Let us have the maximum participation by the local community in the very large acreages which are locked up in our educational establishments.
I certainly support what the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, said about this matter. A lot more can still be done. We talk about local schools, but there is a very large acreage locked up in the sports grounds of higher and further education establishments. Our universities, polytechnics and colleges have access to grounds, even if they themselves do not possess them. The students enjoy substantial vacations, which we used to be told were absolutely necessary for academic study for their courses but which we are now told are absolutely essential for working in order to supplement the grants that they receive. I do not know which is the answer. The fact remains that there are substantial opportunities for those grounds to be used while the students are not there.
Certainly so far as concerns Bristol there is a very large ground at Coombe Dingle on the north side of the city. I am sure that greater use could be made of it by local people enjoying facilities which are at present used by the privileged few. In fact, if I were to be naughty, I might even suggest that a gypsy site might be tucked away into this very upper and middle class suburb of Bristol without anybody noticing it.
7.13 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Dean for suggesting and opening a debate on this subject. I speak more as a doctor than as a sportsman, although I indulge in a lot of outdoor activities and enjoy them. I should declare an interest in that I am the vice-chairman of the National Forum for Coronary Heart Disease Prevention. I shall concentrate on the role of exercise in the prevention of heart disease.
Until the 1940s coronary heart disease in the United Kingdom was comparatively rare and concentrated in better-off people who ate well and did not have to use physical labour in their work. But since the second world war, coronary heart disease has spread down the social scale, reaching a peak in the late 'sixties and early 'seventies and in fact becoming a mass disease—truly an epidemic, from the Greek words epi and demos which mean "upon the people".

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It is now a major cause of premature death. In the past decade we have seen a slight decline, but those in skilled and semi-skilled occupations and their wives now bear the brunt of heart disease. The position has been reversed. That is especially true in the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Noble Lords may ask: what has that to do with exercise and sport? There is a connection. Since the 1930s more and more manual processes involving physical labour have been replaced by electric, petrol or diesel driven motors. People walk less often and less far to work. Their homes are warmer. As a result, they burn up fewer calories. However, their consumption of calories has gone down less rapidly. The result is that for the past 30 years or so there has been a gradual increase in obesity. More people are overweight although I do not think we have yet reached the average waist size of the citizens of the United States.
With increased body weight comes a tendency to higher blood pressure and higher blood cholesterol, which are both risk factors for coronary heart disease. In the days when we needed plenty of calories we could burn up any fat in our diet. In fact fat is a highly efficient energy source. But when it is not burnt up, fat, and particularly saturated fat, causes raised blood cholesterol levels and contributes to coronary heart disease. The problem is that many fatty foods are highly palatable—for example, cheese, cream, butter, pork crackling and bacon—and, as I said, calorie intake has not decreased as rapidly as energy expenditure.
As well as encouraging sensible eating, an important task is to help people burn up more energy through physical activity. There is plenty of good evidence to show that in western (northern) societies, lack of exercise is a major risk factor for coronary heart disease. The benefits of exercise for the heart were reviewed last year by a working group convened by the British Heart Foundation, which I attended. The report of that working group has now been published. We heard that more than 40 epidemiological studies have compared the risk of coronary heart disease in physically active and inactive men. The more rigorous the study, the more clearly the risk of inactivity was demonstrated.
Inactivity has been shown to be as important as smoking, raised blood pressure or raised blood cholesterol which are all scientifically established as risk factors for coronary heart disease. I quote from the working group's report:
"As the number of physically demanding occupations diminished it was recognised that if physical activity was to make any contribution to the prevention of coronary heart disease it would increasingly have to be through exercise in leisure time".
An important point is that everybody should be physically more active. The noble Lord, Lord Dean, said that 40 per cent. of the population are engaged in some form of sport or physical activity. But the working group examined the data and found that only 20 per cent. of the population indulged in the kind of exercise that they need in order to benefit their cardiovascular system. Unfortunately, although
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women now undertake more physical activity than they used to do and the gap is closing, what is not closing is the social class gap. Semi-skilled and unskilled men and women continue to show particularly low rates of participation, which is precisely not what is wanted when one considers the epidemiological data with regard to where most coronary heart disease now occurs.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will forgive me for interrupting. Would he agree that that might be due to the fact that the working class (to use an old fashioned word) lead more strenuous physical lives on the whole—both men and women—and therefore do not need sport or feel that they need it quite so much?
Lord Rea: My Lords, I am quite sure that that used to be the case. But many jobs which were carried out manually now make use of electric tools, drills and lifting machines. Much of the labour has gone out of the more physically demanding jobs. To an extent what the noble Earl says is true—I do not want to enter into a long discussion because we are limited for time—but it is less true than it used to be.
I do not believe that spectator sport is the answer. Quite clearly, it is not. I am sure that part of the reason for the spate of football hooliganism over the last decade or so is that crowds become very excited with the adrenalin flowing and want to indulge in physical activity but the only outlet available is to get drunk or beat up the other team's supporters and anyone else who happens to get in the way.
I paraphrase now from the British Heart Foundation report. A wide range of structured activities should be made available to all individuals. Such provision must primarily come from the public domain because the voluntary sector may lack continuity and be socially selective. Commercial provision is also selective by ability to pay—a phrase which we seem to have heard recently in connection with another current political controversy. I might add that the working group was completely apolitical. In fact if anything I should have thought that its outlook was rather conservative.
Multi-purpose sports centres where lots of activities can take place are vital. Walking and cycling are widely acceptable but unfortunately cycling is becoming more dangerous. There is urgent need to improve safety through better provision for cyclists and an increasing awareness by other road users of the legitimacy of cycling.
As other noble Lords have said, schools have a vital role to play. I quote from a report by the Sports Council of three years ago. It states:
"The present physical education curriculum is narrow, overly skill oriented and for many children constitutes aversion therapy."
Exercise needs to be enjoyable if it is to become part of daily living. For many people, simple activities such as walking or cycling will be the most easily attainable. Perhaps as those methods are more used as a means of getting about, those concerned with transport at local and national level will consider more seriously the needs of pedestrians and cyclists when formulating policy.

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My own organisation, the National Forum for Coronary Heart Disease Prevention, made a submission in February to the Department of Education and Science on sports and active recreation policy. It was warmly received by the department. I hope that it is now being studied in detail. It makes specific recommendations to the DES and to other departments. In order to increase physical recreation for all people in the country, there needs to be joint activity and participation by more than one department, in particular those of health and environment, as well as education and science.
One recommendation of the report echoes the remark of the British Heart Foundation report. It states that there should be monitoring of privatisation of local sport and recreation facilities to ensure that all groups can continue to participate.
In conclusion, to be effective, there must be collaboration between several ministries. I hope that the noble Lord recognises how serious is the situation and will act upon it.
7.25 p.m.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Dean on choosing this important subject although it is obviously not a sport that attracts the mass participation of the ranks opposite. I apologise to noble Lords for speaking in both debates today and burdening the House twice. I have an excuse. I can point to a link between the two subjects. The Government's unemployment policies are certainly creating enforced leisure for a large section of the population. Perhaps the least that the Government can do is to encourage the provision of adequate leisure facilities to occupy the time of the unemployed.
I speak not only as a general lover of sport and a life long practitioner of various sports at very low levels—including playing football for the House of Commons and, barring the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Cocks, one cannot get much lower than that—but also, with the then Lord Porchester, and the noble Baroness, Lady Burton, as one of the original members of the Sports Council. That was set up by Denis Howell as Minister for Sport in 1965. I was sacked, I believe on political grounds, immediately the Conservatives took office in 1970. Therefore, I am sure that no one will accuse me of introducing politics into sport. I was also a member of the Chester Commission on Association Football.
The history of Government intervention in the nation's sporting life since 1965 has been mixed. However, on balance I believe that the experience has been positive. Government intervention as regards sport his undoubtedly been a good thing. The successes; have been considerable. Information and statistics on sports participation, which used to be very thin, have been collected and analysed. They are necessary for all decision making and for planning regional and local facilities. We need to know the demand and the supply. Interesting information emerged. For example, I had not realised that more people participated in fishing than in playing football. Without numbers one can lose a sense of proportion.
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I refer to what my noble friend Lord Rea said. Development of medical research for sport has been greatly encouraged by Government intervention. We learned about sport injuries and health. We should note that sporting fitness is not the same as good health. Coaching at all levels was expanded and improved with Government encouragement and co-ordination. There is still much more to do. The sport of tennis is obviously a major problem.
The regional dimension of sport was encouraged and strengthened by the Regional Sports Council. Perhaps most important was the focusing of local authorities on sport and recreation as a central policy responsibility, not just a side aspect of planning. Many valuable sports facilities were built by local authorities between 1965 and 1985 for use by the community. The Sports Council and relevant Whitehall departments Responsibility— moves periodically from education to environment—gave valuable advice on recommended designs for facilities, efficient construction, optimum dimensions and distribution of facilities across authorities to enable pooling.
Some progress was also made in the related important, but very difficult task, already mentioned, of persuading local education authorities to open up school sports facilities for community use. That battle was being hard fought 25 years ago. It is rather like facing the tide of the sea that is eternally coming in. My impression is that much of the momentum has been lost. Shortage of money has stifled many promising developments. Sport has been an innocent victim in the Government's battle with local authorities to cut back local expenditure because it is easier to close a swimming pool or defer the building of a multi-purpose sports centre than to cut expenditure on staff, and so on.
Instead of schools opening up their facilities to the community—for which we have been battling for a quarter of a century—they are now forced to sell those facilities. That really is selling more family silver. It will never again be possible, especially in the inner cities, to regain those facilities for the school or community.
I was at Brighton racecourse on Monday doing applied research for this debate, as noble Lords will understand! It is municipally owned and offers good scope for leisure development. The younger councillors have good ideas and ambitions, but again they lack the funds. Perhaps joint ventures with private capital is the only solution that remains for municipal racecourses. Racecourses are ideal settings for multipurpose sport and recreation use. More could be done in that respect by the racing authorities, as I know that the Minister appreciates.
However one approaches the issue it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that more resources must be devoted to sport. Above all, we must not lose sight of what I believe should be the ultimate objective and philosophy of Government policy towards sport. As the Sports Council report of 1969 stated, the objective is,
"to enable everyone to pursue his personal sporting and recreational interest to find a sense of satisfaction and challenge in his own life".

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That is a community policy. It should not be geared to or judged by success at the top of professional sport—although we shall all remember that under Denis Howell, our first Labour Sports Minister, in 1966 Britain won the World Cup. However, the main aims should be community objectives. The Government should be active and play a positive role in encouraging and enabling sports bodies and local authorities to provide new sports facilities and to open up existing facilities necessary for maximum sporting participation by the whole community. I regret that we saw too little of that in the latter part of the 1980s. It is to be hoped that the government, now and after the election, will do more to meet the challenge.
7.30 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Dean, for giving the House the opportunity to debate a subject upon which many of us have spent most of our lives. I am delighted to have the opportunity of talking about sport in your Lordships' House. I am often told by my friends and by my wife that I seldom talk about anything else. However, it is difficult to squeeze a lifetime's interest into eight minutes. It is appropriate that the noble Lord, Lord Dean, should introduce the subject on the day on which his city and mine, Manchester, has been chosen to represent Great Britain in its bid to stage the Olympic Games. I join other noble Lords in congratulating Bob Scott, Brian Redhead and others who have worked indefatigably to bring that about. If the Olympic Games take place in Manchester an advantage will be gained not only by what will then occur but by what will be left behind. I refer to the additional facilities and opportunities for the people who live in that great city.
On the other hand, it is regrettable that the debate should be held on a day when before it has finished the second leg of the semi-final of the European Cupwinners Cup will be broadcast on television live from Old Trafford. I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, may have left to watch the match. No, he gave a different reason for his absence but that suspicion entered my mind. Those of us who wish to see some of the match have a clear incentive to make short speeches.
The noble Lord's Motion falls into two parts: the Government's role in promoting sport and also active recreation. The noble Lord defined "active recreation" as being open air, informal recreational activity. I wish to deal with the subject in two parts, taking the latter first. Some years ago I had the honour to hold the post of chairman of the Countryside Commission. The commission's job was in part to promote access to the countryside for informal countryside recreations. We carried out a survey which revealed that if they had the opportunity, two-thirds of the population would out of choice spend at least one day per month in the countryside engaged in some form of informal countryside recreation. They referred to short walks, long walks, picnicking, travelling to the coast, visiting a historic house and so forth.
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We live in an age of increasing leisure time—not merely the compulsory leisure time due to unemployment but also the leisure time brought about by changing work patterns. It is vital that we should do everything that we can to provide opportunities for the constructive and fulfilling use of leisure in ways that are not consumptive of scarce resources and not destructive of a fragile environment. Countryside land is a resource which is in short supply in Great Britain. The Government have a duty to continue to safeguard national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. They must safeguard the long distance routes such as the Pennine Way, the coast-to-coast path from St. Bees Head to Robin Hood's Bay, Offa's Dyke and other walks together with the Nature Conservancy Council's sites of special scientific interest. Such places are under intense pressure and the Government must do what they can to influence the whole planning mechanism and local and planning authorities. They must make sure that those areas of land which people enjoy so much for informal, open air recreation are preserved and protected from the kind of development that will destroy them. Once lost they are lost for ever.
I take great pride in being involved in the foundation of the Groundwork movement which was set up to tackle urban fringe decay and restore the enjoyable countryside to the urban fringes of our cities. We were providing opportunities for countryside recreation close to the homes of millions of people who now seek it. The Government are giving a great deal of support to the Groundwork movement. I hope that it will continue and will increase so that we shall see more such Groundwork ventures in different parts of the country.
I turn to the other part of the Motion; that is, sport. I do not want to get into the numbers game and give figures, but the Government must assist sport because it needs public money, as do the arts. The arts should have more money, as should sport. I wish to comment on the purposes to which that money should be put. I believe that Government financial support should not be used in the fruitless pursuit of excellence. I am as sorry as anyone that we have such a rotten Test cricket team—and honestly it is a rotten team—but excellence does not matter. What matters is providing opportunities for people to play games, even to play them badly. I should like to see more public money being spent not on promoting excellence but on helping young people to play games badly. By doing so we shall solve the problem of excellence. I do not believe that you create George Bests by setting up coaching schemes; Harold Larwood was not produced by a coaching scheme. He was the finest fast bowler who I ever saw or batted against.
How did Harold Larwood emerge? He emerged because there was somewhere to play cricket at the colliery where he worked near Nottingham. During their time off miners and pit boys used to play cricket. A member for Nottinghamshire county cricket club saw Larwood bowling extremely fast with a beautiful action. He got out of his car and spoke to the boy. Within a fortnight Larwood was on the Notts. groundstaff. By the end of the season he was playing for Notts. The following season he was playing for

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England. If you provide enough opportunities for enough people to play games of all kinds, excellence will look after itself.
I am sure that we need other facilities. The noble Lord, Lord Birkett, mentioned indoor tennis courts. I am sorry to say to the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, that I have always regarded tennis as being a game for people who are no good at cricket. However, many indoor net wickets are now available for practice throughout the winter. That is an immense advantage to young people. Perhaps I may examine the countries which are successful at cricket, in particular the West Indies. It has an endless queue of excellent fast bowlers. If two are injured and three are ill there are four or five more in the queue. Why is there always someone available? It is because all strong, young boys in the West Indies play cricket. Not only do they have good weather but they have the opportunity to play on the beaches and on the fields.
When I travel in city areas such as London, Merseyside, Manchester, Leeds or Bradford I see scores of fit young men, some black and some white, many of whom would make wonderful fast bowlers. However, I suspect that many have never set eyes on a cricket ball, let alone tried to bowl one. It is a pity that they do not have an opportunity to play. In our cities all we see are notices stating "Keep off the grass". I should rather see people playing cricket there—that is what it is for. The Government must provide more places for people to have a go. Some will make it, but many will not.
I have been a Member of your Lordships' House and the other place for long enough to have become used to the fact that my advice is not always followed. However, I have never ceased to regret the fact that my advice was not followed on a particular sporting occasion. Many years ago I saw a young fast bowler who was 15 and still at school. At the time I had connections with Old Trafford. I rang up the then coach, Stan Worthington, who played for Derbyshire and later for England and said, "Look, Stan, this fellow is a splendid fast bowler. Let me bring him along". Stan agreed and when I took the boy along he watched him bowl. He bowled at Geoff Edrich, Alan Wharton and others. The coach then took me on one side and said, "I am sorry but he is not strong enough to be a fast bowler". The boy's name was Frank Tyson. Two years later the Australians found that he was more than strong enough to be a fast bowler. I wish that my advice had been followed on that occasion because Lancashire would have had Brian Statham and Frank Tyson opening for it and the team would not have been as low down in the championship as it was during some of those years.
I conclude by saying that there should be more and more help but it should not be used in the fruitless pursuit of excellence. It should be used to provide more and more opportunities for more and more people to play whatever game they want to play. If the Government do that, excellence will look after itself.
7.40 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, this debate has called attention to the Government's role in promoting sport and active recreation. In a significant contribution my noble friend Lord Donoughue recorded governments' interventions over past years.
Government priorities, as stated by themselves, are: first, to improve the nation's health, and on that we heard the important remarks of my noble friend Lord Rea; secondly, to alleviate social deprivation; and, thirdly, to promote excellence, although the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, challenged the foundation of that concept.
It is clear from this very interesting debate that two further themes should have Government priority. The first theme is cash. My noble friend Lord Dean and the noble Lords, Lord Birkett and Lord Addington, referred to issues raised by the increase in VAT, corporation tax carried by sporting organisations, the need for a national lottery and pressures on local government finance. The second theme is access. The noble Lord, Lord St. John, referred to the problems of children and playing fields. I hope the Minister will comment on the startling statistic that 1,000 acres per month of school playing fields are being lost permanently as green and open spaces. Perhaps I may add some figures of my own. Labour Party research has suggested that under pressure from the national curriculum 30 per cent. of all schools have cut their PE provision and another 30 per cent. expect to do so. I hope the Minister will comment on that.
As well as access for children, my noble friends Lord Longford and Lord Cocks referred to access to sport by women and the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, referred to access to the countryside. Your Lordships will forgive me if I also seek to explore the themes of cash and access. As the Sports Council has continually noted, certain groups are consistently under-represented in sport—school leavers, rural communities, the elderly, certain ethnic minorities, the disabled and women. I shall focus on the disabled and women.
As regards the disabled, your Lordships may know that whereas 30 per cent. of Europeans practice sport only 3 per cent. of disabled people do so. Few local authorities have positive policies towards sport for the disabled; though I pay tribute to my own city—Norwich—which has been cited by the Sports Council as a model in that sphere.
The disabled are as much entitled to the pleasures of sport—the sociability, the challenge and physical sense of well being—as are any of us. Almost any sport, including skiing, rock climbing or gliding, can be undertaken by the disabled and in some spheres such as archery, their standards are at least as high as those of the able-bodied. Yet they are handicapped a second time, beyond their disabilities, by low income. For example, a sports wheelchair will cost 10 times that of an ordinary wheelchair. The disabled face additional costs for transport, equipment and facilities. There are also the disadvantages of building design but if a sports facility is built suitable for wheelchairs it will also be suitable for parents with prams. If noise vibration is reduced for the hard of

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hearing, or lighting improved for lip reading, that is splendid news for spectators. If colour-contrasted surfaces and better signing are provided for the visually impaired, that too benefits all users. In other words, sport, almost more than any other sphere, can permit the integration of the disabled into wider society to the benefit and education of all parties.
The other group which is consistently underrepresented in the world of sport, as other noble Lords have mentioned, is that of women. Baron Pierre de Coubertin—the founder of modern Olympics—fought all his life to exclude women from sport. I understand that Mrs. Pankhurst threatened to disrupt the 1908 London Olympics in the same inimitable and intimidating fashion in which she was interrupting the political meetings of Lloyd George and Churchill in order to get women admitted to the sports of tennis, archery and skating in those Olympics. By 1988 in Seoul one-third of the competitors were women but they are still excluded from the triple jump, judo, the pentathlon and the pole vault; yet women have climbed Mount Everest and regularly beat men in marathon races.
Sport, and especially English sport, remains one of the most distinctively male of all social institutions, as many other of your Lordships have mentioned. It is played more by men, watched more by men and controlled almost entirely by men. Fifty-seven per cent. of men but only 37 per cent. of women participate in sport. I am sorry to say that that gap is much wider in the North than in the South. In the areas of participation, sponsorship, access to facilities, prestige, and media coverage, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Cocks, sport is perceived as a male activity.
However, women perform as well as or better than men in some endurance events such as long-distance sea swimming, cycling or riding. In events where there is a premium on speed and strength, women are narrowing the gap. In swimming, the women gold medal winners of 1979 in freestyle and butterfly would have taken the men's gold medals just 10 years before. In track athletics, too, women are improving at a very fast rate. In 1948 there was about a 30 second difference between the times of men and women in the 800 metres. That is now barely 11 seconds.
What is the reason for that? As Doctor Liz Ferris, herself an Olympic medallist and specialist in sports medicine, has shown, when trained, women's stamina and aerobic capacity can surpass that of untrained men with no harmful physical effect. As the Sports Council regularly reminds us, there is a greater performance difference within the sexes than between them.
Therefore, if women's participation and performance are not really a matter of biology I suggest to your Lordships that it is a matter of sociology. Women rule themselves out of what they perceive as an essentially male activity. They face practical problems; that is, problems of child care, transport, fears of going out after dark and lack of money because for two-thirds of women interviewed the cost of sport was a problem. However, women also face
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problems of cultural perception. Many women share the view that leisure is a reward for paid work to which only male partners are really entitled. That is a view often taken by women who are not in paid work. They feel guilty about spending money on leisure. It is also a lack of physical self-confidence. The growth in health and fitness to which your Lordships have referred is to be welcomed but that is available privately only for the relatively affluent.
That brings me to the subject of cash. As the Audit Commission noted last year, and as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said, sports provision is supply-led particularly for children, the disabled and women. All those groups are dependent on the local authority as an enabler and provider of sport because they have few physical or financial resources of their own. They are dependent for facilities, subsidised prices and for activity promoters.
However, sports facilities are financially risky. Their future use is hard to predict. They are also expensive. According to the Audit Commission, indoor facilities recover less than half their costs. Apart from private golf courses, outdoor facilities recover less than 25 per cent. of their costs. They need and receive subsidies. Because of compulsory, competitive tendering local authorities are severely restricted in their ability to provide new facilities or to refurbish old ones such as swimming pools; otherwise they make themselves non-competitive.
One must add to that the local management of schools. Many schools are being encouraged to sell their playing fields. Schools are encouraged to cut back on maintenance and safety equipment or on out-of-grounds activities such as swimming. Schools are also encouraged to introduce charging, which again will limit access for pupils. All that is taking place now. Added to that are capital controls on local authority spending and charge capping. We can predict that local authorities will increasingly withdraw from non-statutory activities such as sport which, so far, is one of their most substantial enterprises.
One further and final indignity is that under the Local Government and Housing Act 1990 it appears that even where there is private investment in dual-use facilities such as school fields, the Government sets it against the local authority capital allocation. I hope that the Minister will comment on that.
If what I have been suggesting to your Lordships is correct, the record of this Government has been not only that of failing properly to fund sport at national level—for example, cutting in real terms the grants to the Sports Council—not only increasingly crippling the ability of local authorities to provide sports' facilities, particularly for the disadvantaged, the disabled, children and women, but it appears also to be undermining the very enabling partnership role that they are urging local authorities to adopt.
If the Government and your Lordships mean sport is for all, I suggest that the Government must allow local authorities to enable sport to be available for all.
7.50 p m.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, first I join other noble Lords in congratulating Manchester on being selected in the bid for the forthcoming Olympics, and add my best wishes. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this constructive debate. I hope that I can do justice in my reply to the widespread wisdom and interest that has been shown.
I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, for this opportunity to demonstrate how much [his Government have done and are doing to promote sport and active recreation. It will be helpful if I explain what is being achieved through the three main channels of public expenditure in this area—the Sports Council, local authorities and schools.
Direct government financial support for sport is channelled through the Sports Council. The increase in real terms of 30 per cent. in the value of this funding since 1979–80 demonstrates admirably this Government's commitment to increasing participation and performance levels in sport. The council's grant in 1991–92 will be£46.7 million compared to a figure of£15.6 million in 1979–80. During the same period it has increased its income from receipts from£2.7 million to just under£10 million, and that figure is expected to increase to£11.5 million by 1993–94.
In addition, an increasing amount of private sector finance is attracted through the council's incentive funding programme operated in the regions. In 1989-90 about£5.4 million of private sector investment in sport was generated in that way.
The Sports Council has used a significant part of that finance in recent years to concentrate on four main priorities at the national level. First, to assist the wide range of organisations that contribute to British sports to do so as effectively as possible; the Sports Council provides that assistance through, for example, financial support and guidance on improved planning and management skills. Secondly, to increase participation among specific target groups. Thirdly, to provide support services for sport at competitive level and, finally, to improve access to facilities for sports at every level of performance.
Through the Sports Council's regional structure much has also been achieved at that level. The main tools have been the provision of advice and grant assistance and, above all perhaps, through the stimulation of better co-ordination between the agencies involved at the local level and in the drive for increased participation and opportunity through, for example, the grant-aiding of sports development officers.
That activity by the Sports Council together with greater awareness of healthy lifestyles—so much a feature of the debate—has contributed in no small measure to the large increase in participation levels during the eighties. Between 1977 and 1986—the period for which we have most comprehensive statistics—the number of adults regularly taking part in sport rose by over 3 million in England to 17 million and by 1 million to 21 million in Great Britain as a whole. Noble Lords will be interested to hear that participation by women rose by 8 per cent. while participation by men increased by 5.8 per cent. That
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makes a combined increase of just under 7 per cent. of the adult population regularly taking part in sport and active recreation.
Before turning to the role of local authorities as basic providers and enablers of sport and recreation, I should also mention that one of the pools promoters has recently come forward with a proposal to establish a foundation for sport and the arts. That should increase the total level of resources available for sport. The Government have given their support to the proposal in the announcement in another place by my right honourable friend the Chancellor, that there will be a cut in pool betting duty from 40 per cent. to 37.5 per cent. for a period of four years. That is provided the revenue foregone—some£20 million a year—is given by the pools promoters to the foundation.
The proposal is that the pools promoters would make a sum of£40 million a year available to set up the foundation. Together with the revenue foregone from the reduction in pool betting duty that will amount to an additional£60 million a year for sport and the arts. The only exclusions would be league football and racing which benefit from other schemes. Discussions are in hand to decide how these proposals might best be taken forward.
I turn now to the role of local authorities, since they have traditionally been the major providers of sports facilities open to the general public. They spend around£600 million a year on sport. Authorities can fund such expenditure in a number of ways; from borrowing; from capital receipts; from revenue contributions—subject to the discipline of the community charge—and via contributions from third parties such as the Sports Council and charitable organisations. There is no restriction on the use of third party contributions and they confer 100 per cent. additional spending power.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, perhaps the Minister would give way. Is the Minister aware, when he speaks of the way that local authorities can raise funds, that there is distinct evidence that in some of the more deprived areas swimming pools have had to close? Local authorities have had to increase their charges above what the local mums and dads can afford to pay for their children to learn to swim. That is one of the key areas the Government should review.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I cannot comment too deeply on anecdotal evidence. I respect entirely what the noble Lord, Lord Dean, says. If he will supply me with evidence, I shall be pleased to look into it.
As a result of that expenditure by local authorities—with some grant-aid from the Sports Council—over the past 10 years there has been a significant growth in the number and range of sport and recreation facilities provided. For example, the number of sports halls and leisure centres rose from 770 in 1981 to some 1,130 by 1990; the number of ice rinks doubled from 23 in 1981 to 46 in 1990, and the number of public swimming pools has risen—which may surprise some noble Lords—from just over 1,000 in the early 1980s to nearly 1,200 now. There has also been a major growth in facilities such as artificial pitches and synthetic

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running tracks which were new innovations in the early 'eighties. Along with all this there has been a continuing programme of replacement and refurbishment of older facilities.
While acknowledging that local authorities perform an invaluable task in sports provision it should also be noted that a recent Audit Commission report said that local authorities have not always been clear about who they were aiming to attract to their facilities or the service that they were hoping to provide. That is one of the reasons the Government introduced competitive tendering for the management of local authority facilities. Competition will encourage managers to think more carefully about what their customers require. They will need to think again about such basic things as their hours of opening and the range and standard of the facilities they provide, which is perhaps what the noble Lord, Lord Cocks, was referring to in part.
It is encouraging that the public sector also is increasingly recognising its role in enabling provision by working in partnership with the private sector to provide modern multi-purpose sports facilities and in some areas the private sector is already going it alone. The private sector already owns and manages more than 500 major facilities such as golf courses and swimming pools and countless smaller facilities in the form of gyms and fitness clubs. As people find that they have more time to devote to recreation, the private sector will respond by providing an ever wider range of facilities. The Government welcome these developments and we shall continue to encourage such partnerships in the future.
I come now to the very important role of schools in sports provision. Sport is schools is without doubt the foundation for continued sporting activity by millions of young people in adult life. It is also the basis of excellence in sporting achievement. The vast majority of those who excel at particular sports have begun to develop their skills and enthusiasms while at school. We cannot underestimate therefore the importance of providing young people with as many sporting opportunities as possible during their time at school. It is the linchpin on which depends the development of healthy lifestyles by the population as a whole, and which determines in large part the success or failure of our international sportsmen and women.
As I said during the debate on physical education and sports in schools on 28th January, the move of the Minister for Sport to the Department of Education and Science demonstrated very clearly the importance the Government attach to sport in schools. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe, for acknowledging that. But transfer of responsibilities alone is meaningless without the policies and actions to back this up. I believe that we already have in hand a raft of initiatives and policies designed to encourage and develop sport in general and school sport in particular. Perhaps the most important limb of our policy on school sport is the inclusion of physical education in the national curriculum. PE is now a compulsory subject for all pupils in maintained schools between the ages of 5 and 16. This is the first
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time that it has been a statutory requirement. The Government have resisted pressures to make the subject optional, particularly at Key Stage 4 of the national curriculum.
It might also be opportune at this moment to remind noble Lords of the distinction to be made between what we mean by physical education in the curriculum, and the overall place of sport in schools. There is no doubt that physical education should include a significant amount of sport, including competitive team games as has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords. I was therefore very glad to see the recognition of this in the interim report of the PE working group which stated that,
"We regard competitive games, both individual and team, as an essential part of physical education"
I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, mentioned that matter. I accept that team competition is now very broadly accepted over all political areas. We look forward to receiving the final recommendations of the working group in due course. They are to be submitted to the Secretary of State by the end of June. The interim report has been issued for consultation and has generated comments from a wide range of interests. I am sure that the eventual outcome will be to raise significantly the standard of physical education, including sport, provided in our schools. While provision in some schools is already of a high standard, there is no doubt that the quantity and quality overall is not at the level that we would wish. The introduction of the national curriculum is all about raising standards in all schools to those of the best, and I am sure that this will be achieved for physical education in the same way as for other subjects.
I now turn to a few specific points raised by noble Lords in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, spoke about the sale of playing fields, as did the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso. Local education authorities are under a duty to provide playing fields at maintained schools in accordance with standards laid down in the Education (School Premises) Regulations 1981. Where they find that they have surplus land available, LEAs are free to decide to dispose of it in order to raise capital that can be put to good use in meeting other priority needs. I am not clear about the acreage which has been mentioned. It sounded rather alarming. If the acreage is genuinely surplus to needs, then that is something we encourage. There is no evidence to suggest that there has been an overall net decline in the number of school playing fields as a result of LEAs selling land that is surplus to requirements. However, on 16th October the Government issued a draft planning policy guidance note which asked local authorities to review the long-term educational and community needs for such facilities before deciding on their disposal. The Government are currently considering the responses to that consultation exercise.
A number of noble Lords brought up the subject of tax and exemption for sporting bodies. Ministers consider that many other non-sporting bodies would have a stronger case for exemption. It would not be possible to cover all such bodies. Certain sporting

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bodies which have charitable status such as the British Sports Association for the Disabled and the British Paralympic Association, are exempt from corporation tax. In his Budget speech my right honourable friend the Chancellor announced changes in the structure of corporation tax which will benefit the BOA and other sporting organisations. These were a reduction in the rate at which tax is levied and an increase in the level of profits liable to taxation. It could result in significant savings to the BOA but the precise figures are not available at the moment.
In principle sports clubs are liable to corporation tax on any profits and capital gains they make in the same way as any other mutual association or company. In practice, even large professional clubs may pay little or no tax. For example, only a handful of league football clubs paid any tax in 1988–89. Many sports clubs are set up as members' clubs. In principle, such clubs are still subject to corporation tax. If a members' club restricts its activities to its membership and does not operate on a commercial basis, it is not regarded as carrying on a trade for corporation tax. Therefore none of its income which arises internally, such as subscriptions and fund-raising among its members, is taxable. The members' clubs may still pay tax on any income from investment and on profits made from non-members.
Lord Addington: My Lords, does the noble Lord realise t lat in effect he is saying that we should restrict membership for all sports to certain groups? Would not that be counter to the general spirit that sports should be open and available to all?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, the Government have pursued a policy of trying to simplify tax. When we make exceptions, we run into difficulties. I am pointing out that there are ways of minimising tax. Some organisations are not always aware of that. Sometimes sports bodies set up separate charitable trusts which have the same special tax privileges as other charities. Most of their income gains are free of tax provided that they are used for charitable purposes. They can receive tax-relieved donations under the various charitable giving schemes such as covenants, pay-roll giving, gift aid and the rest. To achieve charitable status the trusts have to be set up only for purposes which are charitable; for example, to provide physical education for young people or to work with the physically handicapped.
Mention was also made of the uniform business rate. For the first time authorities are able to offset the cost of discretionary rate relief against their payments to a non-domestic pool. The Government considered mandatory rate relief for non-profit making bodies such as sports clubs. They decided that local authorities are best placed to assess the benefit that local communities derive from sports clubs. The department has published guidelines to help authorities in considering that.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, spoke very forcefully' about coaching. I welcome the publication of Coaching Matters. The review group has been asked to consider a wide range of issues in relation to coaching and coaching education. Coaches have an
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important role to play in the provision of extra-curricular sporting activities for young people. We shall be considering very carefully the report' conclusions. The noble Lord, Lord Birkett, is not in his place. I have taken note of his suggestion of a lottery although I believe that the suggestions that I made earlier are of greater interest immediately.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, asked for a Minister of sport and leisure to be in the Cabinet. I shall pass on that view to my right honourable friend. The noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, asked whether the Government had earmarked money for in-service training. The answer is no. It is not for the Government to do that. I point out to the noble Lord that£76 million has been allocated to teacher training in the current year. It is up to the LEAs to decide their priorities. I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe, that better use should be made of existing facilities. I believe that competitive tendering will lead to greater efficiency and better use of facilities. The noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, also asked about other aspects of teacher training. I can tell him that the Government's criteria for the approval for initial training courses provide that all primary courses should prepare students so that with suitable support and guidance from more experienced colleagues they can plan individual lessons within general schemes of work in physical education, teach to the level required by the national curriculum and assess the achievement of pupils in all foundation subjects.
The reduction of PE teachers was mentioned. I can say that the reduction in funded places in 1990 for secondary initial teacher training courses having PE as a main subject for specialism was based on the department's projections of teacher demand and supply. This forecasts a continuing surplus of secondary trained PE teachers well into the 1990s. The department's projections are updated in the light of new data as it becomes available. This is taking into account setting allocations for funded places in future years. The House is grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rea, for alerting us to the benefits of exercise and to the dangers of not taking it. May I tell him that the Government are keenly aware of this and the issue is being addressed in the current review of sports policy.
I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, for acknowledging the Government's attitude to sport. I take note of his criticisms of shortage of cash. The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, spoke of access to and preservation of the countryside. I congratulate him on his work with the Groundwork Trust for which I have the most enormous admiration. He made the point that if it is worth doing something it is worth doing it badly! I see that if everyone has the opportunity that excellence will follow of its own accord. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham, highlighted a number of categories. She spoke of the wrong attitude towards women in sport. I regret that I do not have any information on that. I suggest it is a question of attitudes. Changing attitudes does not rest with the legislators. I deplore it when women do not get a fair share of influence in any sphere of life. I was not aware of the problem and I shall certainly be

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interested to follow it up. The noble Baroness was interested in other categories, including sport for people with disabilities. The Sports Council is in the lead on the implementation of building on ability. The Sports Council has given national grants of£75,000 to the British Paralympic Association,£111,000 to the British Sports Association for the Disabled, and£65,000 to the United Kingdom Sports Association for people with mental handicap. Of this new money,£100,000 is on top of the grants being given to sports for the disabled by the Sports Council's regional offices. The Council has also prepared draft guidelines for governing bodies and how they might increase their involvement in this area and is now preparing an overall position statement as a basis for a Sports Council document and action plan.
The noble Baroness also mentioned the unemployed and the ethnic minorities. Publication of the departmental review, Sport and Active Recreation Provision in the Inner Cities, December 1989, on funding for inner city projects, states that the Sports Council expects to have spent about£4.7 million in 1990–1991 on grants by their regions to inner-city projects. In addition, the council's grants to organisations such as governing bodies on sport are directed towards target groups such as the young, the unemployed and ethnic minorities.
On the matter of new initiatives, in addition to the proposed foundation I should like to end by referring to the announcement made by my honourable friend the Minister for Sport last month for an extra?1 million grant-in-aid to the Sports Council. Of this, some£700,000 will be used to provide extra curricular coaching for young people in about 10 sports. The remaining£300,000 is to be spent on assisting in the improvement of extra curricular sporting opportunities for disabled children and the integration in sport for able-bodied and disabled people. We are determined both to reverse the recent decline in extra curricular sport and to widen the opportunity to participate in sport for all young people, including those with disabilities. As my honourable friend made clear these initiatives are only a beginning. The£700,000 for coaching will be used to fund a series of regional pilot schemes which we hope will provide models for good practice for wider applications. What better way in this year of sport to demonstrate the Government's commitment to sport.
8.15 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, in the short time that is left I must express my gratitude to those who have taken part in this interesting debate for their wide-ranging contributions. I was glad to hear from the Minister that the report he called for will be in his hands by June. Perhaps that will give us an opportunity, through the usual channels, to debate this sport once again when more time will be available.
The Minister spoke about local authorities. Perhaps he will be aware that the AMA has written to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Sport offering to assist in any way it can in expanding sport.
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We cannot close without referring to what has happened at the top of the scale. It is pleasing to see at last how golf can now compete on an international scale and how we are beating the Americans at their own game. Golf has become an expanding sport and is reaching out to many people. That is most acceptable. I understand that one of the agricultural colleges—Merrist Wood Agricultural College in Surrey—now runs special courses training youngsters in golf course management. That must be good. Having said those few words I once again thank all those who have taken part and also the Minister for his very detailed answer. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Education (Swimming and Water Safety) Bill [H.L.]
8.17 p.m.
Lord Norrie: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It is high time the old adage, "Good swimmers are those most often drowned" was itself firmly sunk. The truth is that most accidents in water occur when someone has found him or herself there unexpectedly and many such accidents could be prevented if more people knew how to swim.
It is a sobering fact that in the past three years almost 200 children under the age of 15 have died by drowning. More dreadful still is the fact that over 80 per cent. of those children could not swim. I am sure that some of the tragedies could not have been averted in any way but, self-evident as it may seem, it must be stressed that the ability to swim is a critical factor in reducing the risk of drowning.
Research undertaken by the Royal Life Saving Society UK and the Amateur Swimming Association has shown that throughout all age groups the risk of drowning is more significant for non-swimmers, and in the 10-24 age group non-swimmers are three and a half times more at risk than swimmers.
Every parent wants his or her child to be able to swim. Swimming is a superb recreational activity—it is Britain's most popular active participation sport—and one which can be accessible and attractive to every child, including the unathletic and the disabled. And of course swimming is a lifesaver. Not surprisingly, children who cannot swim are more at risk of drowning than adults in the same position. It makes sense to teach life saving skills to the young in exactly the same way as they are taught road safety. Research has shown that children who do not receive the opportunity to learn to swim at primary school become the non-swimming adults of the future.
With the growth in water-related sports such as canoeing, sailing and wind surfing, it is more important than ever not just that every child learns to swim to a minimum standard but also that every child has an understanding of water safety.
The Royal Life Saving Society UK defines a knowledge of water safety as being aware of the hazards, knowing the swimming pool users' safety code, which includes, for instance, advice against

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swimming after meals, and knowing about safer swimming in open water. It is because of the undoubted link between safety and swimming ability that there is a growing belief that swimming should be accepted as an educational activity. Yet many schools and educational authorities have no requirement at all for their schools to provide swimming lessons—and the level of provision is declining.
The three national governing bodies of swimming—the Royal Life Saving Society UK, the Amateur Swimming Association and the English Schools Swimming Association—became so alarmed about the trend that they formed the Swim for Life Campaign with the aim of securing the teaching of swimming by all schools. In 1988 the campaign surveyed local authorities and schools and found to its dismay i hat more than half had no clear policy for the teaching of swimming while more than 80 per cent. of local authorities in the UK could not meet the basic standards for the provision of swimming lessons.
A more recent survey by the Secondary Heads Association confirms the trend and shows a further reduction in the provision of swimming lessons, with fewer than half of 11 to 15 year-olds having any curricular swimming. Quite apart from the safety implications of the decline, it is clear that the disparity of provision is unfairly placing millions of school children and their parents at a disadvantage by forcing them to make their own provision.
The inequality of swimming provision cannot simply be ascribed to resources or indeed to the political complexion of the local authorities. High and low spending councils have been cutting back on swimming lessons. I am sorry that my own county of Berkshire has just cut out entirely the£82,000 budget which each year enabled 48,000 school children in the county to have swimming lessons. This has produced a public outcry—a petition with 4,700 signatures was delivered to the council—and a saving to the poll tax payer of paltry 40p. I was particularly struck by the comments of Newbury swimming teacher Mrs. Hilary Gough, who is now to be made redundant as a consequence. She said:
"I am just amazed that they could do this. It is a sad day for the schools in Berkshire and for the children. The children get so much from it. It is to save lives. That is why we do the job".
The Government have recognised the importance of physical education in schools and have, quite rightly, placed it on the national curriculum as a foundation subject. So we have the means to ensure that every child receives proper tuition in swimming and water safety and not just those who have more enlightened local authorities. The Government have set up a working group to advise on the form which PE should take on the national curriculum. I am delighted that, in its interim report, the group recommended that all young children should learn to swim by the age of 11. The chairman of the group, Mr. Ian Beer, who is headmaster of Harrow School, explicitly recognised the resource implications of the recommendations, but told the Secretary of State that,
"after very careful consideration we concluded that these …elements of physical education were too important to leave to chance and they should be an entitlement for all young people under the National Curriculum".
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However, the Government are concerned about resources and have firmly told the working group to make recommendations which can be,
"realistically related to the general level of funding which can reasonably be expected to be available".
I am glad that the Minister for Sport, Mr. Robert Atkins, took the trouble last week at a conference organised by the Swim for Life Campaign to clarify the Government's position. He said that the Government needed,
"no persuading of the value of swimming tuition",
which is extremely welcome, but went on to say that,
"we simply cannot impose a duty on schools which they are unable to deliver".
That seems fair to me. We need to look more closely at the implication of a fixed educational requirement that every child must be taught to swim. The Swim for Life Campaign addressed this very issue at its conference. A facilities consultant of the Amateur Swimming Association presented an assessment of the cost of teaching every 10 year-old to swim. He placed the cost at£4.8 million.
This approach is particularly sensible as it recognises that resources must be allocated more evenly if there is to be a minimum swimming requirement. It is clearly wrong that some children receive extensive swimming tuition and recreational swimming while others receive nothing at all. The sum of£4.8 million seems a small price to pay when measured against the cost of hundreds of children's lives. It is a tiny part of the multi-billion pound national education budget.
The ASA assessment went on to highlight the cost of not teaching children to swim. We know from surveys that every child who learns to swim then visits public pools, which gain revenue from the visits. Conversely, pools will lose revenue if swimming lessons continue to decline. If every 10 year-old were taught to swim, the trend would indicate a potential revenue gain of something in the region of£138.5 million—far in excess of the cost of the lessons.
My purpose in introducing a Bill to require all school children to be taught swimming and water safety is to promote the implementation of the working group's interim recommendation and to ensure that the Government's concern about resources can be met. The Bill requires the Secretary of State to set programmes of study and attainment targets for swimming and water safety for all pupils in maintained schools as part of the foundation subject of PE on the national curriculum. That goes beyond the existing requirements of the Education Reform Act, which leaves it to the Secretary of State's discretion as to whether swimming and water safety should be specified as part of PE on the curriculum.
More importantly, my Bill would require the Secretary of State to conduct a survey of the swimming facilities available to schools and would give him the power—for a transition period of five years—to exempt a school or local education authority from the swimming tuition requirement if satisfied, on the evidence of the survey, that lack of swimming facilities would place an "unreasonable burden" on them. So if there are rural schools whose children cannot easily reach pools, they may be

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exempted. But the Bill specifically states that every child must still be taught the principles of water safety, and such schools may only be exempted for the transition period of five years.
The Bill would therefore ensure that the teaching of swimming generally would not be stalled because of the resource problems of a minority of schools and would also ensure that the Government must address those problems by making facilities available after five years. That seems to me a reasonable period in which to provide any necessary increase in resources for swimming tuition, so fulfilling the plea of the Secretary of State for Education for realistic proposals.
The life saving features of swimming make it essential that children should be taught to swim to minimum standards. It would be for the Secretary of State to prescribe targets. The Swim for Life Campaign has welcomed the working group's recommendation that pupils should be able to swim a minimum distance of 25 metres, possess water safety skills and have a sound knowledge of water safety by the age of 11. Those are the modest requirements we seek to implement. The campaign is also concerned that up to a third of swimming teachers employed by local authorities are insufficiently qualified. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools should review the necessary qualifications and set minimum criteria.
This is a small Bill with a big aim. I believe that it will be enormously popular up and down the country. In fact I and the Swim for Life Campaign have received tremendous support from parents and teachers and I have had a great number of letters from Members of your Lordships' House. This is a Bill which will save children's lives and bring pleasure to millions more who are denied the swimming tuition which only the lucky receive. It may require some modest increase in resources but allows its provisions to be phased in so that the burden can be met.
The Government's endorsement of the principle of swimming tuition for all children is most welcome. The Bill will give them the opportunity to translate words into action. I ask the House to agree with the working group on PE that the provision of swimming lessons for our children is too important to leave to chance. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Norrie.)
8.30 p.m.
Lord Addington: My Lords, the aim of this Bill is very simple and very laudable. I believe that everyone should be taught to swim for the simple reason that everyone has the capacity to drown. It is as simple as that. In this country where we are surrounded by quite a lot of water—indeed, there is hardly a city that does not have at least some free flowing water going through it or a large lake into which people could fall—we should all have the capacity to be able to scramble to the edge of the waterside if we happen to fall in.
Swimming is also a part of our physical education. Although it is something of an overspill from the last
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debate, it is worth pointing out that many leisure activities relating to any form of water sport are virtually impossible to undertake unless one can swim. Indeed, it would certainly be most unwise to take part in any form of boating or sailing activity if one could not swim. On those grounds, I suggest that not only is the Bill very reasonable, but also that it is rather sad that we should have to introduce such legislation.
The Sports Council estimates that 56 per cent. of pupils are being taught how to swim at the age of 11; in other words, 44 per cent. are not. It also estimates that only 41 per cent. of pupils are being given swimming tuition at the age of 14, and 46 per cent. at the age of 15. If we consider that something like half of the pupils across that age group are not being taught to swim, or given any swimming instruction, I suggest that those pupils could become the subject of accident statistics in the near future.
The idea of ensuring that everyone can swim a minimum distance of 25 metres is a very basic requirement. Some people say that that is far too short a distance and that there are certain situations where that level of swimming expertise will not be sufficient to get one out of trouble. However, I believe that we should have that minimum requirement.
The noble Lord, Lord Norrie, spoke thoroughly on the Bill. Therefore, I shall curtail my remarks and emphasise once again the fact that if people are beside water and everyone has the capacity to drown, then everyone should at least have the opportunity to learn to swim. It could save lives.
8.32 p.m.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): My Lords, I fully support the Bill. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, on his clear and comprehensive explanation of the legislation and why it is necessary. I shall shortly home in, not surprisingly, on its importance for children with special educational needs. However, I should like first to endorse the fact that swimming is very important for all of us. It is a life saver and a life enhancer and, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, it is the key to all water-related sports. Swimming is an activity in which you can participate on your own; there is no need to find a partner, an opponent or a team. It is also something that you can do throughout your life. Indeed, local authorities run regular swimming classes for senior citizens.
I should like to quote from the comments made by Terry Barnett to the Southern Region Sports Council on the national curriculum PE working group's interim report. He is chairman of the Southern Sports Federation and vice-chairman of the southern region of the British Sports Association for the Disabled. However, his comments relate to all children. He said:
"Like learning to read, learning to swim should be seen as a life skill since it opens up so many other opportunities, and for education to deny children the chance to become `aquatically literate' verges on the criminal".
Those are strong words. But, on reflection, Mr. Barnett has a good point. I say that because failure to teach a child a basic means of survival must be wrong. "Aquatic literacy" is critical for all children. But for children with a disability or a learning difficulty it is especially important. They need to develop any skills

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to the maximum in order to compete on an equal footing with their able-bodied peers through all stages of life.
Swimming has always been a valuable and popular sport for disabled people. It is a great confidence booster because it is something that you can do completely without aids; in other words, you leave your crutches or your wheelchair behind you. That increases self-esteem. Water is also the great leveller. The disabled child gets on to a more equal basis with his able-bodied contemporaries and therefore he rises in their esteem.
From the integration aspect, swimming is a sport in which you can participate with able-bodied friends. Members of a disabled family can swim together, or indeed with other families. We should remember what Alf Morris said over 20 years ago: when one member of a family becomes disabled the whole family in effect become disabled and somewhat cut off.
From the beginning swimming has been a very important sport for the disabled sports movement. Pupils from some special schools have achieved tremendously high standards at national and international level. While the move towards the integration of children with special educational needs into mainstream schools is very welcome, teaching PE can present problems. Swimming is probably one of the least difficult sports in which to include children with special educational needs. There is a great need to make young teachers aware of the problems involved.
I should like now to mention the British Sports Association for the Disabled. It has prepared a teaching pack which advises teachers in mainstream education on how to adapt PE activities. It teaches disability awareness. The association has found that lack of communication is really the biggest problem. The pack is at present in the consultation stages and is being considered by the Department of Education and Science. If the Bill is enacted the inclusion of swimming in the national curriculum will not present a problem in relation to teaching children with special educational needs, as for many years there has been an ASA recognised certificate for teachers of swimmers with disabilities.
I very much hope that the Bill will become law. I hope that Clause 1(4) is a sufficient safeguard to ensure that this will become a reality. It is vital to ensure that all children become aquatically literate and also to enable children with special educational needs to become confident, competent and integrated people who can compete on a more equal basis with their able-bodied peers and, ultimately, in the able-bodied adult world. I wish the Bill a safe and speedy passage.
8.37 p.m.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I am aware that among those noble Lords who are taking part in the debate this evening there are some who are expert swimmers. I must admit that I am of a lesser species; I am an aqua funk. I do not relish total immersion unless the water is piping hot and laced with bath oils.
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However, despite my own inadequacy, I strongly support the Bill. I thank my noble friend Lord Norrie for introducing it.
Ever since my youngest son had a close encounter with a duck pond, I have held the belief that all children should be taught to swim. I was delighted that the school to which my three sons went at the age of eight guaranteed that every child would be able to swim by the first half of the summer term, and that was in an unheated pool. I believe that the aim which is embodied in the Bill—that every child should be able to swim unassisted by the age of 11—is not an impossibility.
One of my children has never enjoyed being in the water. However, I know that if he found himself in a potentially dangerous situation, his ability to swim would improve his chance of survival—unlike the 80 per cent. of the 200 children who have drowned in the past three years, a figure referred to by my noble friend Lord Norrie. That was an appalling loss of life. Moreover, what a terrible toll of grief, suffering, misery and anguish it must have been to those families involved.
I know that there is a belief abroad that swimmers are actually more at risk of drowning and that a person who has had inadequate swimming instruction develops a false sense of confidence and could be in greater danger than someone who cannot swim. That is why some people, like me, avoid the water completely. However, there is evidence which points to the contrary. The ability to swim is a critical factor in reducing the risk of drowning.
A market research survey which was commissioned by the Royal Life Saving Society and the Amateur Swimming Association showed that non-swimmers in the 10–14 and 15–24 year-old age groups are over three-and-a-half times more at risk than swimmers. It also showed that only in the over-35 age group could the drowning risk be broadly comparable. But even then the risk was still more significant for non-swimmers.
Of course, learning to swim is not a cast iron guarantee and, as we all know, swimmers have drowned. Sometimes they drown very close to the edge of the water. Therefore, water safety skills need to be taught at the same time as, or even before, traditional swimming skills. That is why I welcome the fact that the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, and the report of the PE working group to which he referred include a requirement to teach all children an understanding of water safety alongside swimming tuition. My noble friend said, and I agree, that water safety, like road safety, is something that all children should be taught. It does not require any increase in the number of swimming pools or teachers.
I also welcome the Bill's stipulation that there should be national standards of swimming, appropriate to the child's age. At the moment we do not have a common method of assessment, or a uniform definition of the ability to swim—a fact recognised by the working group—and I support that group's determination to reach a common definition. It is important to know at what we are aiming.

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A combination of water safety tuition and the provision of minimum standards will curb the phenomenon of the over-confident, weak swimmer being caught out of his or her depth. Other countries do better. A 14 year-old English schoolchild going to school in Australia for the first time was assessed as having a reasonable standard of education but in need of remedial swimming. They clearly take swimming seriously. Nearer to home, the French have not only a programme of building hundreds of 25 metre pools, they have also introduced comprehensive swimming instruction which is already showing dividends in improved standards. In West Germany, every child leaving school can swim. In the Netherlands swimming lessons are given to children aged 7 and over, and there are standard tests to determine their ability. It is reasonable to aim for all British children to achieve at least minimal swimming standards by the time that they leave primary school.
On the issue of resources, I know that finding the resources is a real problem. It is often made worse by the fact that there is so little information as to existing facilities. We do not know the size of the problem. We do not know how many schools have pools or how many pools there are within a reasonable distance of schools. The Bill proposes a survey to find that out. That is a good start. If the Amateur Swimming Association's figures, to which my noble friend Lord Norrie referred, are correct, and, targeted properly, the cost is about£4.8 million, then I believe that that is a price worth paying. In terms of the DES budget of£17 billion, it is the loose change. However, if a national survey reveals that the cost is much greater—there is a reasonable assumption that that may be so—the Bill's provisions designed to phase introduction over a fixed period are reasonable and would receive acceptance from parents, teachers, schools, pressure groups and, I hope, the Government.
I know that the Government are compassionate and believe in the cause. Addressing the Swimming in Schools conference, my noble friend the Minister said that there was no doubt that the ability to swim saved lives, and that the provision of swimming tuition at school could be justified on that ground alone. I hope that the Government follow up such statements by accepting the recommendations of the PE working group. I warmly support the Bill. I hope that the support it receives from all sides of the House will help to convince the Government of the need to provide for swimming in the national curriculum.
8.43 p.m.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, I fear that I caused unnecessary anguish to the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish of Furness, until he spoke to me yesterday and I assured him that I was not appearing in the debate to take some esoteric legal maxim which would torpedo the Government below the water line. The noble Lord, Lord Norrie, wishing to inject a little light relief into the debate, considered that it would be appropriate if a member, albeit a past member, of your Lordships' swimming relay team, which competes annually on a charitable occasion against
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another place (when I was a member, I am happy to say that we won) should put in an appearance. I do so with a sense of deep relief because I look upon this as a happy, relaxing occasion. In fact, I did my nocturnal 20 lengths before arriving here this evening.
It is comforting to find that I shall not be subject to the usual relentless attacks of the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, nor shall I receive the double-edged compliments from the noble Earl, Lord Longford, or even submit to the equivocal concurrences of the noble Lord, Lord Richard.
As one of four brothers, I learnt to swim at a very early age. Had I not done so, I doubt whether I should have the privilege of appearing before your Lordships this evening. I remained out of my depth in the shallow end of the RAC pool for a long time, probably a very good training for other subjects in which I remain out of my depth even today.
If any authority is required for the proposition that the ability to swim is a basic, fundamental qualification—what is known nowadays as a foundation subject—one need look no further than Alice in Wonderland. If one goes to the first verse, which was used as such powerful evidence against the Knave of Hearts, one will recall that this is what was said:
"She told me you had been to her,
And mentioned me to him:
She gave me a good character,
But said I could not swim".
That totally discredited the Knave of Hearts in the eyes of the King, as it properly
should.
The noble Lord, Lord Norrie, referred to 160 children who drowned by reason of being unable to swim. There is probably another figure hidden in those figures—the number of parents, relatives or passers by who could not stop those drownings because they themselves could not swim. Those of us parents who can swim, cannot properly imagine the sense of inadequacy which an adult who has not been taught to swim feels in relation to his children who are about to learn to swim but have not yet learnt. To learn to swim as an adult, when one inevitably weighs a great deal more than as a child, is a difficult undertaking, and that in itself justifies the early teaching.
Leaving aside, as has been said, the sporting advantages of swimming, swimming has an unrivalled therapeutic quality. Like sleeping it
"Knits up the ravell'd sleeve of time".
It washes away stress. It relieves tension.
Your Lordships probably know that the advice to a newly-appointed judge is to have on his desk in large letters the sentence:
"Do not interrupt. I am paid to be irritated".
I amended mine to read:
not interrupt. Swim another 10 lengths".
It is more effective.
Your Lordships are probably aware that the country is divided into six circuits for the purpose of the administration of justice. On each circuit there are two High Court judges, called presiding judges, who for a period of four years preside on that circuit. They are ultimately responsible to the Lord Chief Justice for the proper administration of the circuit. That was an invention by Lord Beeching to prevent the Executive

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totally taking over the administration of justice. I believe that the contribution I most made to the Western Circuit, of which I was presiding judge for four years, was, through the good offices of schools and universities on that circuit, to ensure that there were swimming facilities at convenient times of the day for all the judges who went out on circuit. I have little doubt that it resulted in more measured and more reliable judgments and if statistics could have been taken, would have shown that it kept down appeals as compared with other circuits.
I only wish to add with diffidence—because of the expert selection in your Lordships' House a reference to Swinburne's poem A Swimmer's Dream which is probably known to all noble Lords. I quote from Part V, stanza 2:
A purer passion, a lordlier leisure,
A peace more happy than lives on land,
Fulfils with pulse of diviner pleasure
The dreaming head and the steering hand.
I lean my cheek to the cold grey pillow,
The deep soft swell of the full broad billow,
And close mine eyes for delight past measure,
And wish the wheel of the world would stand.".
I strongly support the Bill which should bring an end to the degree of deprivation which has been referred to. There has also been a reference to resources involving little more than£4 million. Next Tuesday there will be debated in your Lordships' House once more the War Crimes Bill. That Bill discloses that for its maintenance annually it requires the sum of£12 million a year. When one comes to consider resources that may put the matter in its true perspective.
2 p.m.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: My Lords, first I wish to congratulate my noble friend Lord Norrie on the masterly way in which he introduced the Bill. I was also going to speak on safety but unfortunately I have to cut my remarks short.
What I find worrying and not as it ought to be is that as a country with a population of over 60 million, surrounded completely by water, we have not come up trumps with teaching children to swim. Some of our partners on the Continent, at least in the EC—I cannot completely regard them all as partners—are streets ahead of us. I understand that in Germany all children over a certain age—eight, I believe—are taught to swim. They all leave school able to swim. We do not nearly approach that, but I am sure that by means of the Bill which my noble friend has introduced we shall catch up.
It seems appalling that we are a rich country, yet apparently we cannot afford to educate our children sufficiently for them to be able to save themselves from drowning. I was fortunate enough to be taught to swim before I went to my prep school. Many children do not have that advantage in life. I hope that enactment of the Bill will not be too long delayed, but one has disappointments in these matters. It is bad enough when adults drown, but when young children drown it is disastrous.
I was once beneath the water and the only sensation I had was a roaring as though I was walking through
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a field of grass. I am told that if one gets near drowning one hears church bells. Either I was not near enough to drowning or I did not deserve the church bells! However, it is not the worst way of dying. I shall not waste any more time. I hope that the Bill will become law soon, not after several years, and that it will be passed with all possible speed.
8.55 p.m.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to support my noble friend Lord Norrie and the Bill. His description of it was first class; he covered everything.
I was taught to swim when quite young, so I have been fortunate. As chairman for a great many years of the education committee of my local council and of the social work committee, I discovered that one or two small towns had swimming baths but several did not. With great effort, I persuaded the county council to inaugurate three baths in different areas. Since then they have been enormously popular and children have been taught to swim. The initiative was a great success and it did not cost a great deal of money. If all local authorities provided accommodation for both teaching and enjoyable swimming after people have learnt to swim, that would be very valuable.
It seems to me that the Bill is exactly right. I hope, like the noble Viscount, that its passage through the House will not take too long. I am sure that the Government will accept it because it is obviously right. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Norrie and give my strong support to the Bill.
8.58 p.m.
Lord Moran: My Lords, in the relatively limited time during which I have been in your Lordships' House I have come to recognise the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, as one of our rocks of good sense. He is nearly always right. I give my full support to the Bill. The noble Lord made a cogent and overwhelming case. I am glad that the Bill is receiving such strong and general support from all sides of the House.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, I am not a mighty swimmer. I am not usually eager to plunge in unless steam is rising from the water, but I am glad to be able to keep afloat. Some years ago, when I was on a beach in northern Cyprus, I saw people out in the sea who seemed to be in difficulty. I swam out to see whether I could give them a hand. I discovered that the bathers were four or five British soldiers who could not swim back against the current. I rapidly found myself in the same position. We could not make any ground against the strong offshore current.
My wife was watching from the beach. She asked a Cypriot fisherman whether he would rescue us in his boat. He laughed and declined to do so. She had to ask for assistance from the army who used an amphibious vehicle to rescue us. We remained in the water for about an hour. I was glad that all of us had been taught to swim at some stage and were able to keep afloat. If that had not been the case, I would not be addressing your Lordships this evening.

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We are, after all, a maritime nation. From every point of view it is highly desirable that everyone in Britain should learn to swim. As the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, said, there has been an enormous increase in water sports of all kinds. It is desirable that fishermen should learn to swim as they often lose their footing when wading and can drown in quite shallow water. Swimming is an admirable form of exercise, perhaps the very best. However, the most important factor is that the ability to swim should be acquired by all our children and not just by those who are fortunate enough to attend schools where swimming is taught. All our children should learn to swim. In that way we can cut down the tragic number of drowning incidents that occur each year. I warmly support the Bill.
9.2 p.m.
Lord Saint Levan: My Lords, I wish strongly to support the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, in introducing the Bill. I live in Cornwall where over 60,000 children attend schools that are situated not more than 15 miles from the sea. However, recently the primary school's inspector discovered that out of 163 schools, at least 55 per cent. have had to cut down on the swimming instruction that they offer. This is a new and urgent problem. Schools have cut down on their swimming instruction because they now have to pay the cost of hiring pools and lifeguards instead of sending the bill to the local education authority.
For at least 12 years I have been a governor of a large secondary school. I have been a governor for such a long time because I have always had two private ambitions. One of those ambitions which does not concern this debate is that at least some children should learn to play the piano. If the piano is not taught to Grade 5 standard, in 20 years' time very few people will be able to play the organ in our churches and chapels.
The other ambition is that swimming should be taught in schools. But the problem is that if school governors can choose between building a swimming pool or a sports hall, they will immediately opt to build a sports hall because at the moment indoor football, basketball and keep fit classes are in fashion. It is therefore important that some statutory authority should be established to encourage swimming in schools as part of physical education. I am satisfied that enough physical education is offered in our primary and secondary schools. I think that two periods for PE and two for games are probably sufficient. I am satisfied with the provision of physical education in Cornwall. After all, a Cornish jockey rode the horse that won the Grand National. Last Saturday at least 30,000 Cornish men and women travelled to London to watch Cornwall win the finals of the county rugger match. They were known as Trelawney's army as in 1688 the Cornish threatened to march to London if their bishop, Joshua Trelawney, was not released from the Tower of London.
I live on an island off the west coast of Cornwall. The island was visited by 190,000 people last year. Every year my family entertains disadvantaged children from the inner cities. They come mostly from
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Birmingham and Lancashire. Their reaction to the short boat trip to the island—that is often the first boat trip they have taken—in a slightly choppy sea varies from sheer delight to nervousness and almost terror. If they could swim or had been told something about water safety, the boatman's job would be much easier.
I wish that more children were warned about the seventh wave, that is the sudden breaking of an especially large wave out of a comparatively calm sea. Tragic incidents of drowning have occurred as a result of that wave. It is an even greater tragedy when a young man who can swim is drowned trying to save a friend who cannot. A number of such incidents have occurred in my area.
In recent years there has been an enormous increase in gig racing, dinghy sailing and windsurfing sports. A young man without much money to spend must decide whether to buy a motorcycle or a sailing boat. A young man can buy secondhand windsurfing equipment for as little as£90. Three years ago in Mount's Bay in Cornwall the World Windsurfing Championships were held. A most unfortunate thing happened which even the oldest inhabitants could never recall happening before. For three or four days there was not a single breath of wind. There is no requirement for competitors in sailing races to be able to swim. They are warned that safety is their responsibility and parents are warned that they are responsible for their children.
There is no requirement for fishermen to be able to swim, and many of them cannot. There is no requirement either for lifeboat crews to be able to swim. They wear life jackets and trust their boats. Sailing racing and windsurfing are more dangerous sports than many people realise because they take place in shallow waters, often off a lee shore. Professional seamen would avoid that situation at all costs.
There is of course a wide diversity in the country as regards the quality of swimming pools available to schools. Over a period of time I used to drive a young nephew who was obsessed with swimming from London to Edinburgh. I believe I got to know every municipal swimming pool situated within reasonable distance of the motorway. I was surprised to discover that the poorer areas often had better swimming-pools and better swimming facilities than the richer areas. I suggest that one problem may be that county councils tend to think that the provision of leisure facilities is the prerogative of district councils. A district council has a major problem in deciding whether to build a straightforward swimming pool which is self-financing or a swimming pool combined with a leisure centre in the hope that the leisure centre will finance the cost of the swimming pool.
Swimming should be taught in all primary schools. One solution might be to provide learner pools for young children only, at much lower cost. We know that it is the practice for leisure centres to provide swimming facilities for very young children.
I live in a tourist area and my heart bleeds for young families on holiday in chalets and caravans in wet weather with nothing whatever to do. Indoor

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swimming in a heated swimming pool would be the perfect answer to keep children happy all day if only they had been taught to swim at primary school.
The inability of primary schools to maintain their swimming programme in Cornwall where the dangers to children who cannot swim are all too obvious leads me to support the Bill to ensure that swimming is taught in the rest of the community.
Finally, in relation to the cost of swimming lessons, transport costs should be within the discretionary powers of the education authority. Until more teachers are trained to teach swimming, parent teacher associations should be encouraged by this Bill to raise money for swimming lessons rather than buying more sophisticated computers as they usually like to do. Sponsored swimming is a very good way to raise money for school funds.
It is not only the risk of drowning for non-swimmers which is the cause of great anxiety. From time to time I have found young mothers in tears because their children are temporarily lost. If they are not traced to the family car or nearest ice-cream kiosk after half an hour's search there remains, only the dreadful possibility that a sea-rescue search 'mill be necessary. Very young families would have much less to worry about when on holiday if this Bill became law.
9.9 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I begin by apologising to the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, for having to leave the Chamber before he had finished his speech. I have discussed the Bill with him on a number of occasions.
Perhaps I may explain to the House that the fact that I a m here on my own this evening does not indicate a lack of interest or support for the Bill on the part of my colleagues. The Bill was programmed to have been debated on the day on which the Government introduced their legislation on the?140 poll tax rebate scheme. Some of my colleagues—my noble friends Lady David, Lady Blackstone and Lord Peston—would have spoken on that occasion. However, they are not available today. One is abroad on a parliamentary visit and the other two have made other arrangements. Their absence does not indicate that I am the sole supporter of the Bill. They are strongly in favour of it.
I was here long enough to hear the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, give pretty chilling evidence of what is taking place. I find myself somewhat at odds with some of the Minister's statistical answers in the previous debate regarding the increase in the number of swimming pools, though he said that those included a number of private pools. The noble Lord, Lord Norrie, made the point that swimming lessons ought to be available to children not as an optional extra but as part of the curriculum so that every child is taught to swim. As I mentioned in the earlier debate, I have been told that for an additional£5 million every child in the country could be taught to swim at 11 years of age.
I have been able to swim from a very early age, though I would not claim to be a Johnny Weismuller
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by any stretch of the imagination. However, when I have been on holiday with people who are excellent soccer or rugby players and super cricketers I have been surprised to find that they are terrified of water. There is a lot of truth in the suggestion that the earlier children become used to water the sooner they will learn to swim. All the members of my family swim. My two grandsons of nine and seven are both reasonable swimmers.
There are ways in which the programme can be extended if funds can be found. When I was a youngster at school once one reached the stage when one could swim 25 lengths of the local baths one was given a free pass. It was amazing how that kept youngsters off the street during the school holidays. They would have a daily swim; it was somewhere to go.
The availability of the facilities produces the goods. For example, in the 1930s there was a council school in one of the most deprived areas of Manchester which was small and very dilapidated. It has now passed into history. The school was called Osborne Street and it was lucky in its geographical location because next door to it was a swimming bath which was rather longer than the standard length of 33⅓yards. It was no coincidence that year after year, at a time when boys left school at 14 and 15, that school won the squadron schoolboy swimming championship of Great Britain and very often produced the schoolboy individual champion. I knew some of them personally.
I believe that children will readily conquer their fear of water if swimming is made available to them at an early age. I do not go for the idea of throwing youngsters in before they can walk. I do not think that that is very helpful. However, swimming is one of the healthiest means of exercise. It opens the door to people who cannot normally exercise. People who are disabled, sometimes severely, can feel the benefits of motivating themselves and using water. Swimming offers tremendous benefits which ought to be made available to everybody.
I should like to indicate both my own and my party's support for the noble Lord's Bill and the marvellous principle enunciated in it. I do not know what will become of it, but as it appears that we do not have too crowded a parliamentary programme I hope that it will find approval in this Session. We give it our full support.
9.14 p.m.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, first I should like to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Norrie for the positive, clear and constructive way in which he presented his Bill tonight. I understand very well why the Bill has attracted such support in your Lordships' House. Perhaps I may make one thing absolutely clear. The Government fully recognise the importance of children learning to swim. My honourable friend the Minister for Sport explained this to the noble Lord when he was good enough to come to see him to discuss the idea of introducing a Bill. He has also said it publicly at the recent conference organised by the

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Swim for your Life Campaign. But he also explained why we thought a Bill of this sort would be premature and indeed might turn out to be unnecessary.
Reference has been made tonight to the recommendation in the interim report of the national curriculum working group that primary school children should have swimming lessons, and that if they are unable to swim by the time they reach the age of 11 they should continue to have lessons until they can.
I make it plain that the Government have not rejected that recommendation. My right honourable friend has pointed out that the recommendation carries considerable resource implications and he has asked the working group to take those into account in its final report. We hope that those commenting on the interim report will let the working group have their views on the practicality of the recommendation and so assist the group in its future work.
I do not want to dwell at length on the question of resources but want your Lordships to have some idea of the scale of the problem. While I know that in some urban areas the provision of swimming lessons has been reduced or cut altogether, at least in general the facilities could be available. That is not always the case in rural areas. It should be remembered that the working group's recommendation is targeted at primary school pupils. There are roughly 20,000 primary schools in England, many of them in quite remote rural areas. Unless these schools have their own pools and can afford to maintain them sometimes pupils would have to travel quite long distances to reach a swimming pool at no little cost in terms both of the transport required and the disruption to the rest of their education. I acknowledge that the noble Lord's Bill recognises these problems by providing for exemptions. I hope that in return he would acknowledge that this particular provision of his Bill is not without its own resource implication, certainly in terms of the people required to carry it out. More specifically, I would argue that as we have asked the working group to consider the practical problems perhaps it would be better to wait for their advice before we embark on this course of legislation. As I said, I do not want to dwell on this question. It is one that the working group will be considering, and the Government encourage all those with an interest in this area, especially those with some practical experience, to write to the working group with their views.
As I said earlier, the Government's main objection to the Bill is that it is premature. As your Lordships will have gathered, the PE working group is very much in business. Its final report is to be submitted to my right honourable friends the Secretaries of State by the end of June. That report will include recommendations for attainment targets and programmes of study. My right honourable friends will consider those recommendations and will, as a result of that consideration, publish their own proposals for attainment targets and programmes of study. These proposals could, if my right honourable friends so decide, say as part of an attainment target that all 11 year-olds should be able to swim and that the related
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programme of study should therefore include swimming instruction. Your Lordships will know that at the moment I cannot even hazard a guess at what my right honourable friends will decide. But I make the point simply to show that we already have the power to make swimming lessons compulsory and do not, strictly speaking, need the noble Lord's Bill for this purpose.
I should add that my right honourable friends' proposals are by no means the end of the story. These proposals are published for consultation. The consultation exercise is conducted in England by the National Curriculum Council which is required to report to my right honourable friend on the response to the consultation and on any other matters remitted to it. In Wales, my right honourable friend conducts his own consultations. So there is a further opportunity for interested parties to comment on what is or is not said about swimming in the Secretaries of State's proposals.
Yet another opportunity for comment comes at the next stage in the process when the Secretary of State publishes for further consultation a draft of the statutory order with the draft attainment targets and programmes of study. At the end of the day the order is subject to negative resolution and your Lordships have the opportunity to pray against it and debate it.
I appreciate that I have spent some time on the statutory process that we have to follow in order to establish the detailed requirements of any subject in the national curriculum. I have done so to show the very generous opportunities built in for consultation and comment and to demonstrate how it is impossible for the Government to ignore any point on which those consulted have strong feelings.
I have also said a considerable amount about the national curriculum working group on PE. But they are not the only body active in the field—or should I say the pool? Another working group, the Water Sports Safety Working Group, has been asked to consider in relation to water sports whether the present levels of safety advice, education and enforcement are adequate and effective, to identify areas where improvement is necessary and to suggest what those improvements should be.
The membership of the group reflects a spread of activities and expertise. We expect its report to be published this summer. While it is too early to say for certain what the conclusions of the report will be it is more than likely that it will have something to say about the role of swimming lessons in schools and about the need for education concerning water safety. That report will be further useful advice to my right honourable friends when they are considering the place of swimming in the PE curriculum.
I hope that what I have said will have persuaded your Lordships that the Government are by no means indifferent in the matter of young people and water safety. We are completely in sympathy with the aim of the noble Lord's Bill but given the work that is already in hand, we feel that it may be a little premature.
9.20 p.m.
Lord Norrie: My Lords, I shall not detain the House very much longer. I am grateful for the support that I have received for my Bill this evening, particularly from the opposition Front Bench with the very positive speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Dean, who drew attention to the decline in swimming pool provision, and Lord Addington, who emphasised the importance of setting national standards to assess swimming ability. Their commitment to the principles of my Bill indicates a strong cross-party endorsement for an educational requirement to teach all children to swim. It is an alliance which I hope the Government will have noted.
I am also grateful for the other speeches made in support of the Bill. I thank my noble friends Lady Cumberlege and Lord Massereene and Ferrard. They rightly drew attention to the state of swimming provision for schools in other comparable countries and she wed how it highlights the inadequacy of our own provision. The very fine contribution from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, was clearly inspired by his 20 lengths of swimming this evening. It is quite clear that he must be the fittest of the Law Lords. We heard from my noble friend Lady Elliot, and the noble Lord, Lord Moran, who both drew on their own experience and knowledge. My noble friend Lady Elliot spoke about the success of the swimming pools that were provided when she was chairman of the education committee of her local council and we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Moran, about his experience in Cyprus.
I should like in particular to thank my noble friend
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Lord Saint Levan. I know that he has taken tremendous trouble to come here this evening. He has come all the way from Cornwall. He is president of the West Cornwall Sea Scouts and Sea Cadets and the YMCA. I know that he is personally very involved in this issue. Finally, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), for her very enthusiastic support for the disabled side. It may not be widely known but in fact she received a gold medal for swimming in the Paraplegic Olympics in 1968 in Israel.
I very much welcome the positive line which the Government have shown tonight. The Swim for Life campaign has had a number of meetings with Ministers and the response has been helpful. It was helpful in a way tonight. It seems that the Government's main concern is about resources. We tried to address that issue tonight. I hope that my noble friend Lord Cavendish will take away with him an impression of the strong political and public support for my Bill evinced tonight. There may be some cost in teaching every child to swim but the cost of failing to take action is surely greater. I commend the Bill to your Lordships.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Shard Bridge Bill
Returned from the Commons with the amendments agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past nine o'clock.