Lords Sitting of 11 December 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 Worcester.

No. 2 Marsham Street
Lord Peyton of Yeovil Lord Peyton of Yeovil asked Her Majesty's Government:
When they expect to reach a decision on the future of the building at No. 2 Marsham Street, the present home of the Department of the Environment.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, we are currently evaluating a range of options for the future of No. 2 Marsham Street. The evaluation is taking into account the likely future demand for government office space in central London. A decision on the future of the building will be announced once the work is complete. I cannot give a precise date for the conclusion of deliberations.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I am slightly grateful for that reply. When the almost endless process of evaluating options is concluded, will my noble friend come forward with an assurance that large sums of money will not be spent prolonging the life of that hideous building? Such an assurance would be a great contribution to the environment of London as a whole and to the Marsham Street locality in particular.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I give my noble friend an absolute assurance that the environment of that area of London is an essential part of the considerations for determining the future of the site.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, bearing in mind that within half a mile another substantial government building—the DTI building in Victoria Street—now lies empty and forlorn, what has brought about that situation? Is it over provision and bad planning? If so, is it not (he case that the taxpayer is being called upon to meet expenditure which could have been avoided if the future had been planned properly?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the Question is specifically concerned with the future of No, 2 Marsham Street. It is a fairly universally held view that it is not the most attractive building in London. It is not unknown also that it is not a building of great quality. It seems timely to consider its future. If it remains standing, considerable sums of money must be spent on it. My noble friend made an important point which must bear on the considerations for its future.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, was not the building built during the last term of office of Mr. Heseltine as Secretary of State for the Environment?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, absolutely not. The party of the noble Lord opposite is not free from blame. The building was erected on the site of the very first public gas works. Had a listing system been in place, it is likely that I or any of my predecessors would not have allowed the demolition of the gas works. I am not sure which is worse.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, is there any reason why that huge department should be in London? Is it not a perfect example of a government department which should be moved to the provinces? If the Government are interested, I should be happy to supply them with a list of sites in the North of England.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, that will be an extremely important consideration when deciding the building's future. There is a serious question as to whether we need that many people sited in central London.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, while we all recognise that the present Marsham Street building is an absolute eyesore, perhaps I may ask this question. Can the Minister give an assurance that when the Department of Transport moves from there—and I hope that an announcement will be made very soon—care will be taken to make sure that the department does not become mixed up with housing matters and that housing does not become mixed up with public buildings and works? Those are different and separate bodies. Why, when the old Ministry of Public Buildings and Works was wiped out, were people of the new department re-housed in so shocking a place?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, who will occupy any building is tied up with the previous question. We have to think fundamentally about whether we need so many people in central London and, indeed, whether we need all those people in any event.
Lord Peston: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that several of us live in Marsham Street? Ghastly though the building is, even more ghastly is the thought that we shall have to live through yet another demolition and rebuilding of a building. Our lives have been blighted for several years by recent developments. I could stand the unaesthetic quality of the building if only I could have a little peace and quiet.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am not certain that I agree with the noble Lord. I believe that there will be some excitement if it is decided to demolish No. 2 Marsham Street. It is one of a range of options. I believe, however, that there is some support for the disappearance of the building from the London scene.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, so that the noble Baroness will be aware that there is support on all sides of the House, will she ensure that total demolition is high on the list of options?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I cannot be specific as to where it is on the list of options, but I can say that there is huge support for it.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, if someone were to suggest that the Treasury should be re-housed in the building, would that not expedite a decision?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, that is an intriguing idea which is not without its attractions.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, further to that, perhaps it would be possible for the Treasury to be re-housed there before the building were blown up.

Croatia: Policy
2.43 p.m.
Lord Wyatt of Weeford Lord Wyatt of Weeford asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their present policy towards Croatia.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, Croatia's wish for independence cannot in the end be denied. But recognition would not stop the fighting. We have to judge whether recognition of Croatia now would increase the danger of civil war in the other republics. That question is constantly being reviewed.
Lord Wyatt of Weeford: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that his Answer is quite mistaken? By an overwhelming majority the people of Croatia voted last summer for independence. If we recognised that independence we would recognise the situation for what it is internationally: aggression by Serbia on Croatia. Croatia may then have an opportunity to obtain help from the United Nations against an aggressor in the form of arms and perhaps other help. At present that is denied.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, we believe that recognition should come as part of a negotiated general settlement involving all the Yugoslav parties. That is the only way of guaranteeing the rights of minorities.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that most of us welcome the recent exchange of prisoners between the Croats and Serbs? Will the Government do their utmost to encourage that process of exchange, to assist in the tracing of displaced and missing people, and indeed to take other confidence-building measures?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, we will do anything we can to encourage confidence-building measures. The body with authority in the matter is the CSCE. It provided strong backing for EC efforts. It gave the EC its initial remit and has regularly reiterated support. In regard to human rights, a fact-finding mission in Yugoslavia is now in preparation.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, while thinking about the possible independence of Slovenia and Croatia, will the Government keep closely in touch with the Greek Government? The more Yugoslav republics attain independence, the more the future of the Macedonian republic of Yugoslavia comes into question. The more the interest of Greece is then affected.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, that is a question on which I have not sought briefing. I shall be pleased to bear it in mind.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that any settlement which even verges on being a dictated one will not work? It must be a negotiated settlement with the general level of understanding with one another agreed beforehand.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. A settlement must involve all the parties concerned.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, can the noble Lord say when the Security Council will next discuss the conflict in Yugoslavia? Can he say also what is the progress towards the imposition of an oil embargo, and advise us of the progress towards an arms embargo?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I am not aware when the Security Council will meet. An important meeting of the European Foreign Affairs Council is to take place next week. We have set out our current policy on the recognition of Croatia and Slovenia. That will be our main argument on the 16th when the conference takes place. However, as the noble Baroness will appreciate, the situation is developing rapidly. Our policy is therefore under daily review. On 8th November Ministers agreed to work for a UN Security Council resolution placing an embargo on oil. A report on peace-keeping by Mr. Vance is due later this week. That will need to be examined before further consideration can be given to United Nations action.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, will the noble Lord be good enough to say whether there is yet a representative from the embassy of Belgrade with the Croatian Government in Zagreb? Does he agree that if the Government do not recognise Croatia until there is a general settlement between all the republics of Yugoslavia, they will have to wait a long time? The state of Yugoslavia as a unitary state no longer exists.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, with matters developing at the present speed, I do not know that the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, can anticipate how long that will be. We must give the present negotiations a chance. I did not hear the first question of the noble Lord regarding whether we have a representative or where.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, I asked whether we had a representative from the embassy in Belgrade in Zagreb with the Croatian government.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, my understanding is that we do not.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the problems in Yugoslavia are a fearful example of the inevitable instability of disparate nations brought together in artificial federations?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I must agree with the noble Lord.
Lord Mowbray and Stourton: My Lords, is there not a danger that if we continue to wait for the negotiations to draw to a conclusion—as we have been waiting for weeks—there will be no Croatia or Slovenia left?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, we believe the best chance of avoiding that outcome is by keeping a joint policy with our EC partners and allowing Mr. Vance's negotiations to proceed.
Lord Wyatt of Weeford: My Lords, is the policy of the Government to wait until the whole of Croatia's ancient buildings have been destroyed, most of its citizens slaughtered and three-quarters or half of Croatia occupied by Serbia before they will do anything at all? Perhaps they will not do anything even then.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Wyatt of Weeford, recognises that a difficult situation exists. It is important that we do not do anything to worsen it. There is a real danger of doing that and plunging the whole area into a worse civil war than now exists.

Soviet and Russian Republics: Recognition
2.50 p m.
Lord Wyatt of Weeford Lord Wyatt of Weeford asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will appoint ambassadors to the Russian republic and to other republics in the former Soviet Union which now regard themselves as independent.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, the appointment of ambassadors would follow decisions on recognition which have yet to be taken.
Lord Wyatt of Weeford: My Lords, do the Government realise that, however amiable Mr. Gorbachev has been in the past, he is now completely finished? Does the noble Lord agree that the Government should not waste any further time in dealing with him, but should at once recognise the republics that have been set up so that we may negotiate with them what they intend to do with the nuclear weapons on their soil?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I believe that we recognise the situation as it moves. The noble Lord will be pleased to hear that a very senior British diplomat, Mr. Appleyard, will be travelling imminently to Moscow, Kiev, Minsk and other places to take forward discussions as regards recognition and other matters.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that developments in what was the Soviet Union have the gravest possible implications for the rest of the world, especially as republics like Kazakhstan have a nuclear capability as well as the new Slavonic association? Can the Minister say what action is being taken by Her Majesty's Government to investigate and to help the creation of stability in that
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area? Are there any plans to discuss these matters in the EC and the UN? If so, can he say what plans Her Majesty's Government are proposing?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, discussions with our European partners continue. We are trying to seek a common line. As the republics develop in independence, it must be understood that they have inherited very large issues from the old union. Such matters will be discussed by Mr. Appleyard and others, and by Her Majesty's Government. It is very important that such matters, such as START, NPTs, CFE, CSCE, debt and United Nations' representation, must be dealt with. The attitude of the republics to these matters must be understood before we can take them any further.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for that reply. In view of the reported serious imminence of widespread starvation in the area, can the Minister say what steps are being taken by Her Majesty's Government and the EC to help alleviate that?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition is quite right to bring up this very worrying question. The UK and the G7 partners have carried out detailed assessments of the Soviet Union's food needs this winter. Those assessments include Sir Ronald McIntosh's mission in September. We are clear that the position in certain large cities and industrial regions in particular could be very difficult, but we are not clear how much more difficult it will be compared to most other years. Considerable Western effort has been made. Western food credits of 11.2 billion United States dollars have been committed for 1991–92, including 2.4 billion dollars of EC food aid. There is a long list of further contributions. Our own response has been generous. We have paid a full share towards the 2.4 billion dollars; up to 500 million dollars plus 100 million dollars has been the approximate contribution towards debt referral. In addition, approximately 90 million dollars have been provided for the Know How Fund and approximately another 180 million dollars for EC technical assistance. Much is being done.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, will the noble Lord give the House an assurance that the Government will at least consider making recognition conditional on the observance by these republics of certain international obligations, notably the nuclear non-proliferation treaty of 1967, the test ban treaty of 1963, and the various conventions on chemical and biological warfare?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, in my long list I believe that I mentioned all those factors. Recognition of those matters is essential before we can fully recognise those countries.
Lord Mason of Barnsley: My Lords, of the 15 states which have so far declared independence in the so-called Russian Commonwealth, is it not likely that at least the Ukraine, Russia, Belorussia, Kazakhstan and possibly Lithuania, will want independent ambassadorial recognition? Can the Minister say

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which of these states are claiming seats at the United Nations? Will any of them be eligible to sit on the Security Council? Can the Minister further say who the present ambassador to London from the Soviet Union is really representing?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I believe that we already have posts in Lithuania which is one of the Baltic states. Ultimately there is no reason why all those countries could not be members of the United Nations. I cannot say which of them will have a seat on the Security Council.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that some people consider it somewhat ironical that, having spent the past 74 years trying to destroy the Soviet empire—and that has now been achieved—the West does not seem to know exactly where the new republics are going? Is it not a fact that whatever we do, the new republics will go their own way to independence? Does the Minister agree that we should not be trying to recreate a new form of Soviet empire, but helping the new republics to get where they want to by the route of freedom, which I hope we would all support?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I cannot disagree with the noble Lord. I do not know where he got the idea that the British Government are trying to recreate the Soviet Union. That idea certainly does not come from this Bench.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, the noble Lord must understand that remarks by our own Foreign Secretary and the US Secretary of State seem to indicate that they almost regret the passing of the Soviet Union because they had not thought of what would follow when the Soviet empire was destroyed.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I shall not try to place any interpretation on the alleged remarks made by my colleagues. On the day after Maastricht it must be in all our minds that our vision should extend to those great countries over there and that we should wish them well for the future besides giving all assistance in their future development.
Lord Wyatt of Weeford: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it would be wise for the Government to take the lead in this matter rather than tagging along behind everybody else? Does he agree that for once we might get some credit for the new republics and exports as well?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, in many senses we are taking a lead. I do not believe that empty postures are really appropriate. As far as our EC partners and others are concerned, we wish to keep a common line which will hold rather than have an unseemly dash towards artificial recognition.
Lord Zuckerman: My Lords, can the Minister inform the House exactly how and when the republics will appreciate the nuclear matters to which reference has already been made in the exchanges during these questions? Can the Minister say how we will know that the separate republics themselves understand
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what the break-up of the nuclear system of the USSR implies, not only in terms of the arsenal of 30,000 nuclear warheads, but in terms of the USSR's defences which have already been threatened by the separation of the Baltic provinces from the old USSR? Who is going to judge?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, that is a matter of supreme importance and a great deal of thought has been given to it. The noble Lord may care to note the commitments made by the presidents of Russia, the Ukraine and Belorussia, following their agreement at Minsk, to maintain joint control of their nuclear weapons. Time does not allow me to go much more fully into that. However, I can assure the noble Lord that much thought has been given to the matter.

"New Age" Travellers: Trespass Guidelines
3 p.m.
Viscount Tenby Viscount Tenby asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have any proposals for dealing with "new age" travellers who occupy green lanes and sheep droves which fall outside the protection of Section 39 of the Public Order Act 1986.
Viscount Astor: No, my Lords, the Government have no such plans. Green lanes and sheep droves are not legal terms but the land in question must be either part of a highway or not part of it. If it is, the highway law, which provides ample remedies for obstruction, applies. If it is not, Section 39 of the Public Order Act 1986 applies.
Viscount Tenby: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for his reply. However, is he aware that the police experience considerable difficulties in simultaneously enforcing the provisions of two separate pieces of legislation—namely, the Highways Act 1980 and the Public Order Act 1986—and often in a small and crowded area, as happened at Longstock in Hampshire last June. Will the Minister undertake to discuss the matter with his right honourable friend, together with the appropriate local authority and the police, so that some attempt may be made to solve this problem in order that in June 1992 the people of Longstock will not have to experience what they experienced this year?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, we recently completed a thorough public review of Section 39. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary announced his conclusions on 22nd May. He decided that no change in the law was necessary. Following the review, the Home Office issued guidance to the police on their use of Section 39 and published a leaflet entitled Trespass on Land: A Guide to the Law.
Lord Gainford: My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister give an exact definition of a "New Age" traveller?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, it is probably for the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, who asked the Question

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to make that definition. I think it is someone who might be travelling but who is not necessarily a traditional gypsy.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister of State at the Home Office for speaking to me for an hour on this problem the other day. However, may I ask the noble Viscount to ask the Home Office to look at this very difficult problem, particularly as the guidelines to which he has just referred have in fact confused the police rather than clarified the matter for them. When he has done this, and if the Home Office are capable of doing that, would the Minister be prepared to answer an Unstarred Question in an effort to tidy up this matter? Is the Minister aware of the number of people that he is now alienating to the police by the pathetic action that has been taken?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I have read the guidelines and they are quite complicated. I was not aware that the police found that it made their lives more difficult, but I shall bring his comments to the notice of my noble friend the Minister of State.
Lord Richard: My Lords, does the Minister agree that if the local authorities fulfil their statutory duties to provide sites for travellers under the Caravan Sites Act 1968 this position might be eased? Does he also agree that amending Section 39 of the Public Order Act docs not actually deal with the problem, it merely gives the police power to move the problem on somewhere else?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, is right: local authorities can enhance their powers to deal with unauthorised encampments of gypsies by becoming designated under the Caravan Sites Act 1968. This Act places a duty on local authorities to provide adequate official sites for gypsies who resort to their areas. In England and Wales there is a total of 410 district or borough councils of which I understand 140 are currently designated under the 1968 Act.
Lord Ross of Newport: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the people called "New Age" travellers do not actually go to officially appointed caravan sites provided by local authorities? Not only does this problem cause great distress in places like Hampshire but also in mid-Wales, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, to my knowledge. A great deal of trouble was caused this autumn which should not be allowed to happen again, otherwise people will take the law in to their own hands.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the noble Lord rightly points out that it is quite a serious problem in some areas. But to help landowners get relief as quickly as possible both the High Court, under Order No. 113, and the county court, under Order No. 24, have special procedures. These orders also enable possession to be regained if the landowner is unable to identify all the trespassers who are occupying his land. Also, in an emergency, where there is a real danger to
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life or limb or property, the possession procedure can be overridden by applying direct to a judge who will grant an immediate injunction.
Baroness Sharpies: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether the police at the moment have powers to prevent these people going on to the land in the first place?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, it depends on the land that the noble Baroness is referring to, whether it is part of the highway which comes under the Highways Act, or whether it is a person's private property. If it is the highway the police have powers. If it is private land it is up to the landowner to apply to the court to remove them.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that his answer really is not satisfactory? There is a great network throughout the country of green lanes called by various names—sometimes called lovers' lanes—which are now being used by these people. We are not talking about gypsies for whom provision ought to be made; we are talking about swarms and droves of hippies who move around the country. They are moving to these very pleasant country lanes and leaving behind enormous quantities of debris and squalor. It is a new problem which the Government should look at.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, as I said before, I agree that it is a problem. These people do cause a great mess and offence to people who live along green lanes. However, if green lanes are privately owned, it is up to the owner of those green lanes to apply to the courts to have the people removed.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, nobody knows who own them. That is the trouble.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, in that case, it is a problem. However, if nobody knows, I suggest to the noble Lord that it is likely that they will come under the Highways Act.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, is it not the case that a great deal of nuisance created by these people is caused by the fact that they have large numbers of ill-regulated and rather unhealthy dogs? Is not this a prime example of how a national dog registration scheme would help?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the ones that I see also have a large number of unregulated and rather dirty looking children, but I do not think that we would wish to licence them in the same way.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, is it not a fact that the children of these folk do not get educated?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the noble Baroness has put her finger on an extremely important point.
Lord Hankey: My Lords, if the Government had a proper housing policy, would not this problem partly disappear? Are the Government aware that the local authorities have lots of money for building houses, but the Treasury will not allow them to spend it?
Viscount Astor: No, my Lords, I cannot accept that that has anything to do with it. These are people who are travelling because they wish to and not for any other reason.
Viscount Tenby: My Lords, it is clear that there appears to be considerable disquiet in the House on these matters. I therefore ask the Minister again if he will please undertake to discuss this further with his right honourable friend and with the local authorities who are concerned with this matter, so at least the matter will be taken forward from its present unsatisfactory situation. If I may crave your Lordships' indulgence once more, in answer to the noble Lord opposite, "New Age" travellers were called hippies in a more gracious age.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I will certainly bring to the attention of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary everything that has been said in your Lordships' House this afternoon.

Petition: University Degrees
3.5 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I beg to present a petition on behalf of the students, staff and friends of King's College London, which prays that the quality of university degrees may be maintained within any expansion of education.
Petition Presented.

Business
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, after the short debate on the Government's legislative performance and before the short debate on the increasing number of mortgage repossessions my noble friend the Leader of the House will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on Maastricht.
It may also be of use if I say a word about this afternoon's debates standing in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, and the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport. 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, in the case of the debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, it means that all other speeches should be limited to a maximum of 10 minutes. If any noble Lord should speak at greater length, he would do so at the expense of subsequent speakers in the debate. In the case of the debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, the number of speakers is such that it is not necessary to propose a formal time limit; but I am sure that noble Lords will agree that it would conform with the spirit of the short debates if they would keep their speeches within the 15 minutes which apply to the mover of the Motion.
I am sure that many noble Lords have noted that the digital instrumentation of your Lordships' House is non-operative at this moment. Therefore I suggest to your Lordships that you will have to rely on our old
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and faithful analogue counterpart which rests above your Lordships' Chamber at the far end above the Bar and hope that that will provide an adequate, if mechanical response to the digital arrangements that are normally at your Lordships' disposal.

Government's Legislative Performance
3.9 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead Lord Jenkins of Hillhead rose to call attention to the Government's legislative performance in this Parliament; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Parliament is now certain to be the longest Parliament since 1945, with the sole exception of that of 1959, which the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, seeing no previous opportunity of avoiding a major defeat, wisely allowed to run to within four weeks of its legal limit and then lost only by a sliver. As I intend to make a fairly controversial speech by your Lordships' standards perhaps I may begin on a non-controversial note and say how much we have missed the noble Lord, Lord Home, from this place over the past year, and send him a message of affection and greetings.
The noble Lord went to the limit of time, but he did not haver and hover about an election in the somewhat undignified way that Mr. Major did in the summer and autumn of this year, although I suppose it could be argued that he was not doing much more than following a precedent which the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, had set at the same season of 1978. The noble Lord, Lord Home, made his intentions clear in the early spring of 1964, so there was no argument after that.
What, however, there is in common between his Government and that of Mr. Major is that in both cases there had been a change of Prime Minister but not of party for the last third of the Parliament. That has two effects. First, it makes the new Prime Minister quite keen to enjoy his office for a little time. It was famously said that it is a damned fine thing to be even if it lasts for only two months. But most occupants of the office coming to it afresh think it would be better if it lasted for two years or perhaps even 10 years, though it is generally a mistake to go longer than that. The second effect is that it tends, the wish here perhaps being father to the thought, to cast a miasma of forgetfulness over the first two-thirds of the Parliament when the previous Prime Minister held sway.
Part of the object of this Motion is to get behind that miasma and to look at the legislative record as a whole of this long Parliament, for such it is. We must, today of all days, recognise that Mr. Major is not Mrs. Thatcher, and give thanks for the fact that, while there is room for great doubt about his negotiating priorities, to which we shall come later in the afternoon, he has at least the benefit of some friends in Europe and of a temperament which has enabled him to avoid the petulant histrionics of last autumn in Rome.
Nonetheless when we come to look at the legislative record of this Parliament we cannot pretend that it

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began not in June 1987 but in November 1990, and we cannot forget that it was broadly the same Ministers, perhaps a little reshuffled—like the noble Lord the Leader of the House—and the same parliamentary majority which supinely tramped through the Lobbies of the other place—less reliably here, I am glad to say, in spite of the best efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Denham, and his successor—in order to put upon the statute book those triumphs of sagacious statesmanship, the Local Government Finance Act 1988—the poll tax in other words—the Broadcasting Act, the Football Spectators Act and the War Crimes Act.
It is a record of almost unbelievable folly and I cannot help noticing with regret, for I have a good deal of affection for that department over which I twice presided, that a high proportion of the foolishness emanated from, although did not, I think, originate in, the Home Office. I read that there is currently a Whips' Office joke that the worst job in the Government is always that which Mr. Kenneth Baker did last. I must say to the noble Lord the Leader of the House that he, with his innate sense of fairness, did his best to make it apply for once to the job which Mr. Baker is going to do next. But let us start with the measure which was not a Home Office responsibility—the poll tax.
I can think of no other example in British parliamentary history, post-1832 at any rate—I neither need nor wish to exaggerate my case—when the Government have repealed in the course of the same Parliament their own major legislative measure of the Parliament, the flagship measure as it was called, with perhaps appropriate echoes of the "Titanic", at an earlier stage. When we had alternating governments in the 1960s and 1970s there used to be a good deal of concern, which I shared quite strongly, about the uncertainty caused by successive governments and successive Parliaments repealing the measures of their predecessors. It happened with the nationalisation of steel. It happened with pensions schemes. It happened with various bodies given different names and new offices to deal with prices and incomes; and rather a farce it made of the theory of consistent government, within the framework of which business and individuals could get on with their own jobs with certainty. But to have complete reversal from the same party within the same Parliament introduces an entirely new dimension of turbulence.
What have been the costs of this farcical excursion? Is the figure £8 billion or £10 billion? It may even be £15 billion. If the Government do not like the bandying about of figures—those are very large figures—they have a plain duty, which is to publish a White Paper setting out a comprehensive official—official, please, not ministerial—tabulation of the total cost of the exercise. I guarantee that that will not happen, for the most obvious of reasons. What is certain however is that if anyone in local government had been able to pursue their dogmas with a tenth of the reckless determination of the former Prime Minister and her accomplices, a few of them dogmatic but most of them merely feeble, they would have been surcharged to and over the edge of personal bankruptcy.
Then we come to the Broadcasting Act. We all know that under it the system of awarding contracts has defied reason. Some companies have been penalised for bidding too high; some have been penalised for bidding too low. Some have won rich provinces to exploit for practically no money; others have paid so much as gravely to weaken their financial strength and the prospect of their providing good programmes. The results have been indefensible and even the former Prime Minister has apologised. Yet the Bill was driven through. The experience with those two Bills in particular greatly increases the scepticism of some of us when we hear arguments in a different context about the need to preserve the supreme, unfettered sovereignty of an independent British Parliament. The sovereignty is, in practice, much more that of the Government Whips Office operating under the instructions of the Executive. If the House of Commons will pass those two Bills, it will pass anything that it is told to pass.
Before I leave the broadcasting issue, there is one further point which makes it even worse. There is widespread appreciation in other countries across most of the developed world that one of the things at which Britain has been outstandingly good, and continues to be so, is producing quality television. Most of the other things for which we were previously renowned have now, alas, gone. The cleanliness or even the safety of our streets, the efficiency of the London Underground, and the integrity of business dealings in and around the City of London are just a few variegated examples. But, so far, television quality has more or less survived.
However, the Government propose—and this affects the current and not just the deposed regime of 1979 to 1990—having created chaos in the independent sector, to turn their attention soon to destabilising the BBC. Surely the era of restless, destructive dogmatism ought now to be over. There might even be a little time for allowing some of the virtues of what is worth conserving to reassert themselves.
I shall deal only briefly with the smaller monsters of the Football Spectators Act and the War Crimes Act. The former was a supreme example of legislation by rush of blood to the Executive head, accompanied by a total unwillingness to listen to any informed advice. It ended up with the Government being rescued from their own foolishness only by the tragedy of the Hillsborough disaster and the authoritative good sense of Lord Justice Taylor. Nevertheless, it leaves another monument to legislative imprudence, like an empty yet ugly building disfiguring a hillside, upon the statute book.
Much the same can be said as regards the War Crimes Act. Although a few million pounds have been wasted—but that is cheap in relation to what we have hitherto been discussing—I gather that nothing has happened. In respect of that Act your Lordships' hands are, happily, wholly clean.
I shall conclude with a comment on an extraordinary remark made by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, of whose lapidary jokes I am, in general, a considerable admirer. During Question Time last

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Thursday we were discussing proportional representation for the European Parliament on which there is obviously room for different opinions. The noble Earl was adopting a very jaunty defence of the present position. When it was pointed out that a Bill to amend had gone through all its stages in this House, not just formally but after considerable debate, he said, "So what?". He subsequently said that he was sorry if he had upset me. He had not upset me. If I were to be upset by the unwisdom of my opponents I would be in a continuous state of nervous perturbation.
However, what the noble Earl had done was to surprise me by the frivolity of his approach to the legislative procedures of this House, of which he is, after all, Deputy Leader. If that is still, on reflection, his attitude, he may find it a little more difficult to get us to take seriously his appeals for government legislation, especially when we take into account the remarkable foolishness of the measures from the Home Office and elsewhere which he has commended to us in the past.
The Government's record in proposing and that of the House of Commons in swallowing such legislation certainly suggests that greater independence on the part of this House could do nothing but good both for our own reputation and for the health of the country. The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, who is a former Chief Whip in another place, a former and recent Home Secretary and now Leader of this House has a remarkable vantage point from which to survey the legislative record of the past four-and-a-half years. When he replies, I hope that he will apply himself especially to the four jewels in the Crown to which I have drawn attention. I beg to move for Papers.
3.25 p.m.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I should like to make a brief contribution to the debate from what I believe is a unique standpoint among today's speakers. For most of the period I was outside of your Lordships' House, at the sharp end operating in the climate and situations created by the Government's legislative programme. It certainly gave me a different viewpoint from the one that I have just heard. Contrary to what we have heard, we were, and still are, going forward.
In industry we are working and working together. I remember at Austin Rover being told by the chairman that he had been glad in the 1970s that the shop stewards were running the company because no one else was. It was certainly not going anywhere. Since then, with much legislation in the industrial relations field culminating in this Parliament with the requirement for secret ballots for the election of union officials, the end of the closed shop and irresponsible secondary picketing, the Rover company has seen its first year without a single's day's stoppage. This year it is able to introduce innovative working practices which will allow the company to compete with the best in the world.
The company was not unique. In the 1970s, when the party of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, was in office, on average 13 million days were lost. In 1990 1.9
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million days were lost. That is still too many, but what a difference. In 1990 there were 558 stoppages in Britain—in the 1970s there were four times that number each year. No wonder few people could sell overseas with that risk to delivery dates. In the past years we have been able to talk product to overseas customers and not do a selling job on our industrial abilities.
I believe that we still have considerable work to do in industry itself to improve communication between management and workforce or, perhaps better put, between different members of the team. But the Government have created a climate whereby over half of the Japanese inward investment into Europe in the first quarter of this year chose—I repeat the word "chose"—to come to Britain. Industry's job has been made much easier by the ports legislation. In earlier years: you built it, you sold it; but you could not count on delivering it overseas.
Electricity privatisation has transformed opportunities for industry. The companies can now negotiate individually for supply. It has brought much discipline to the nuclear industry—a matter of which I know as a director of BNFL. There has been a change from costs plus, and pass the pain on to the customer, to negotiated fixed-price contracts and much more realistic assumptions about the costs of waste management and decommissioning.
Steel, telecommunications and water have all been put in a position to manage long-term for the future, not annually for the Treasury. How does a nationalised company find the necessary capital investment for technological change, or manage funds efficiently, if there is no cost of money? We do not even collect bad debts.
There were significant signs of overseas companies being ready to cream off these markets had we not seen the Government's privatisation programme go through. There is still work to be done to balance competition and regulation. But I wonder why it is assumed that if a piece of legislation shows a need for further adjustment it is considered a failure. Is there anyone in your Lordships' House who feels that he could commission and build a new home and not want to change something in it the minute it was finished?
In education, we are back on the right track. However happy the educationists were, it was evident as an employer that the systems were not delivering a quality product. Now, with the national curriculum, a focus on primary education and a teachers' pay review body, we can feel change. In training, the establishment of TECs has improved opportunities for employers and employees. As a member of the Health Service Policy Board, I know that major reforms in health have dealt with the foundations of the NHS, an institution much loved and admired. The indications now are that the books are balanced and more patients are being treated. Even junior doctors' hours have been tackled.
We have seen a legislative programme that has created a climate whereby the individual has rights and the opportunity to exercise them. We have

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ombudsmen; the Citizens' Charter; The Patient's Charter and the Parents' Charter. What use is legislation if it is for the benefit of the few?
I have been used to people aspiring to promotion, by fair means or foul, producing papers which detail not just what they believe is wrong, but what they would do as an alternative; what it will cost; from where the money would come; and how they would be measured. Today, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, got as far as part one, with four parts to go. Is it any wonder that I feel more comfortable with the present management?
3.30 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I must leave to my colleagues the task of replying to the interesting party points made by the noble Baroness. I hesitate to congratulate her warmly, because that is dangerous nowadays. If one says anything nice to a lady, it is called sexual harassment, although there may be an escape clause for octogenarians. She must take that as an expression of my good intention.
I am of course pleased to take part in a debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead. A number of self-appointed critics—I was among them—have selected his memoirs as the book of the year. I referred to his elegance of expression, some examples of which we have had today. What impressed me most about his memoirs was his honesty. That is not unique among people who write their memoirs, but it is rare. In his memoirs he said that his greatest triumph was when he appointed Lord Mountbatten to undertake an inquiry into the escape of George Blake. Later he admits that as a result he may have leant too far towards security. I am afraid that penal reformers regard that as being the case. Nevertheless, we cannot expect more than elegance and honesty in a public man, and we seldom get as much.
I am pleased that the Leader of the House, a respected member of that very select club, should have decided to reply to the debate. In a way, I am sorry that the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, will not be replying, because after I last spoke he wrote and said that I had made an impressive speech. I felt there was something wrong there. That has never been said to me before, and certainly not by a Minister. I have obviously been leaning over too far in the direction of the Government and I shall try to rectify that now.
Surprise, surprise! I shall say a few words about penal affairs. I recently ventured to quote a former Conservative Home Secretary, Lord Templewood, who many years ago in the House said:
"We know what we ought to do but we do not do it."
That is a fair description of the Government's performance in the penal field, as in others. The publication of the Woolf/Tumim Report has left them no excuse for not knowing what needs to be done. Ten years ago, the noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw, showed himself to be full of enlightened purpose. He then went to the Conservative Party conference. I do not know how many noble Lords attended that conference but the noble Viscount went there and got
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the "bird". After that he soon packed up his penal reforms. That was this Government's record for a number of years after 1981.
Time went on and we advanced. In 1988, the Government produced what I considered to be a forward-looking Green Paper Punishment, Custody and the Community. I applaud that Green Paper. Penal reformers did not like it because it seemed to give the probation service a rather more regressive role. That was a progressive, imaginative Green Paper. Where do we find ourselves now? The whole purpose of that Green Paper was to reduce the numbers of people in prison. Its idea was to find a more constructive way of dealing with offenders outside prison.
A little later we had the horrifying events of the Strangeways and other riots. I say "horrifying", because people were killed, many people were injured and much brutality was shown. I am not being exclusively fair to the Government this afternoon, but in this case I must be fair to them and say that they set up the Woolf/Tumim inquiry. I give the Government credit where possible. A report was then produced. It is probably the most important report ever produced on the penal service. I do not know whether the former Home Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, will agree with me on that. It left the Government with no excuse for not knowing what they should do. But what happened? Two things have happened. There has been a White Paper. As a result of it, no one now believes that there will be fewer people in prison than there were previously.
We have also had the Criminal Justice Bill. It was an enormous Bill and it was discussed at great length in the House. No one believes that there will be fewer people in prison as a result of that Bill. People may say the numbers were going down. That is true; they were going down. But in the past year, according to my figures—I may be corrected, but I do not think I am far wrong—the prison population has increased by 2,500 people. It does not seem as if the Woolf/Tumim Report, the Criminal Justice Bill or any of the tremendous developments there have been have had the right impact.
I am afraid one has to say that a tremendous opportunity has been missed. The year 1991 was the year of the Woolf/Tumim Report and the Criminal Justice Bill. The Government knew what they should do, and they did the opposite.
I was not present at the time, although I existed, but I remember when President Wilson went to Versailles and everyone treated him as a saviour. They said that he was going to put the whole world right. He said:
"What I seem to see, with all my heart I hope that I am wrong, is a tragedy of disappointment".
If I am asked to sum up this Government's recent record, I shall say that it is a tragedy of disappointment.
3.38 p.m.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, as I have my back to the Clock, I should be grateful if any noble Lord within hailing distance would alert me if I speak for as long as nine minutes so that I can bring my remarks to a close. I cannot hope that any observation

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from the Cross-Benchers will find unreserved acceptance from any partisan during the present hectic electioneering mood.
Looking at the Government's record as a whole, and not selectively, it seems to me that it is not justly to be condemned. On the other hand, your Lordships have seen in recent years a surge of bureaucratic aggrandisement which matches what we saw earlier which broke at Crichel Down.
As concerns the first matter, the general record of the Government, may I say three things? First, much of the legislation has been a continuance of earlier policies. The noble Baroness gave us a number of examples. Secondly, over decades the ship of state was borne far out on the port tack and it required great nerve, courage and resolution to turn the helm. The Government and their Ministers were vilified at the time, but—and this is the third point—much of what was then achieved is now common ground. Under those circumstances, it seems unreal to criticise in general terms the legislative policies of the Government.
I come to the second main theme, the aggrandisement of the Executive at the expense of Parliament and the courts, as well as at the expense of individual rights. Practically everything I have to say, except one point, was exemplified in the so-called Child Support Act of the last Session. However, that is only one example of the matters I shall mention.
First, we have seen a proliferation of Henry VIII clauses: the power of a Minister to amend by regulation an Act of Parliament without going through the normal parliamentary processes. Side by side with that, we have increasingly seen government by regulation in place of Act of Parliament. Again, the Child Support Act was a notorious example with over 100 regulation-making powers, of which only about a dozen are subject to affirmative resolution procedure. So that is the third point: the down-grading of parliamentary control over regulations—the use of the negative resolution procedure in place of the affirmative resolution procedure, in defiance of the recommendations of the joint Select Committee of 1972 and 1973, accepted by both Houses of Parliament over latter years.
Side by side with that aggrandisement at the expense of Parliament, there has been an aggrandisement of the Executive at the expense of the courts. Individual officials have been given the power to make decisions which were formerly made by courts of law, with appeals not to courts of law but to administrative tribunals. Side by side with both those tendencies one has seen a direct assault on individual rights.
Perhaps I ought to have mentioned, under the parliamentary heading, that Parliament has devised the hybrid Bill procedure in order to safeguard individual rights when they are affected by a Public Bill. In a Bill currently before your Lordships, that procedure is ousted in favour of executive regulations. However, we have also seen things like the right of entry into private premises, the right to interrogate one's employers and fellow employees. That is a serious invasion.
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In addition, and again on the Child Support Act, there is the whittling away of age-old safeguards against abuse of the harsh remedy of distress. It has been whittled away in favour of officials. In effect, officials have in a number of respects been placed above the ordinary law of the land.
These are very much matters for your Lordships' consideration because noble Lords are in a true sense today the watchdog of the Constitution. It is highly important that your Lordships should not find yourselves prejudiced in exercising that watchdog duty by the pressure of business, and business fixed for highly inconvenient hours.
Thus, it seems to me that the Government can be vindicated on the general case made against them today by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins. However, there are matters of grave concern which demand not vilification of officials—by no means—but constant vigilance of Parliament.
3.47 p.m.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, your Lordships have heard a formidable indictment of the Government's legislative record from my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Hillhead and from the noble Earl, Lord Longford, in respect of the possibilities of reforming our penal system which has been so shamefully neglected. I wish to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Denton, on being the only person on the Government's side who was prepared to defend their record, even if she chose the adventurous course of defending their record on manufacturing industry. It was a most courageous and—if I may say so— quixotic exercise. I thought she would continue by trying to defend their economic record: our balance of payments, inflation and a few other matters which the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, used to tell us with such enthusiasm were an unmitigated success.
I propose to concentrate on a particular measure which seems to me to exemplify the failures of the Government in the legislative field on a magnificent scale. As my noble friend said, some of the measures which he mentioned were taken in haste. Some, however, were only introduced to this House and Parliament after long and apparently careful preparation.
The Broadcasting Act about which I wish to speak falls into the latter category. It was a major piece of legislation, the culmination of a carefully planned campaign supported, with the utmost loyalty, by News International in particular, five leaders in The Times and by the advertising lobby. It was a campaign designed to reduce the authority and perhaps even the autonomy of two institutions: first, the BBC and then the IBA which represented much that Mrs. Thatcher's government found most abhorrent. They were independent, devoted to the public service and they were largely immune to government pressure. Above all—and I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Wyatt of Weeford, is not here—they were impartial. It seemed to me, as I said on 13th December 1988, when we debated the White Paper on broadcasting, to

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produce an ownership of television and broadcasting much like that of the press; that is, overwhelmingly controlled by the supporters of the Government.
In the course of the Committee stage of the Broadcasting Bill the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers—he was the Minister taking the Bill through the House—accused me of being infected,
"by the pessimistic virus prevalent on the Opposition Benches"
when I criticised the Bill. When I look through those debates and when I consider how the legislation emerged, I believe we were unduly optimistic. Far from being pessimistic, we underestimated what a thoroughly rotten bit of legislation the Broadcasting Act was. We overestimated the improvements which were conceded in the course of the Committee stage.
I ask your Lordships to examine the claims made for the Bill and what in the end emerged. On 18th December 1989 the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, said in another place:
"First, we want to establish a fairer and more objective system for awarding franchises than the present one".— [Official Report, Commons, 18/12/89; col. 41.]
We have now seen how that pious hope worked out. It left Mrs. Thatcher in tears. The new and more objective system saddled the ITC with an even more difficult job than that of the IBA. My noble friend Lord Thomson of Monifieth said as regards the latter organisation that there must be a better way of doing things.
Miraculously the Government found an even worse way. The ITC had to make three judgments. First, it had to judge the initial quality of all applicants. That is in line to some extent with what the IBA had to do. Secondly, it had to judge the quality of money as well as of programmes; that is, it had to second-guess the market. I thought this Government were devoted to the market. Thirdly, it had to judge when and how to apply the provisions covering exceptional circumstances.
Such judgments are inevitably subjective and they become even more suspect if they are made in private and behind closed doors. As my noble friend Lord Jenkins said, the results were truly bewildering. Carlton wins London Weekday with a cash bid of £43 million ousting Thames, one of the famous and most reputable of the companies. Central holds on to east, west and south Midlands—one of the largest areas—with a cash bid of £2,000. There is an example of the market working with complete fairness and clarity.
Some bids, such as that from TV South, are rejected as being too high while others, such as the bid from TV-am, are rejected as being too low. No one is saying that Mr. George Russell was not doing his best, but he was set an absolutely impossible task. Whatever decision he reached was bound to appear subjective, arbitrary and inexplicable. He did not have to explain that decision, nor could he have done so.
The epitaph on this huge bungle is, as predicted, litigation. I note in today's Financial Times that another case is being brought. It is quite possible that, as a result, the new ITV network will not be in place by the beginning of 1993. Another consequence of the whole affair —or rather another epitaph on it—is the
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statement by the person who inspired the whole business, Mrs. Thatcher. That epitaph is more eloquent than any other. She wrote to TV-am:
"When I see. how some of the other licences have been awarded I am mystified that you did not receive yours, and heartbroken. You of all people have done so much for the whole of television. There seems to be no attention paid to that. I am only too painfully aware that I was responsible for the legislation".
That is a handsome apology, even if it is the only one she has ever made.
On the matter of ownership the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, said in another place:
"If we are to enjoy high standards and diversity, there must be ownership rules… There is no chance whatsoever of British broadcasting falling into the hands of a bunch of tycoons". —[Official Report, Commons, 18/12/89; col. 42.]
So far, so good. However, that did not cover the case of Mr. Rupert Murdoch who was exempt from the 20 per cent. rule. Within 48 hours of the Bill receiving Royal Assent, Sky had de facto control of BSB. All through the parliamentary debates, the Government resolutely rejected all attempts to avoid that gross anomaly.
Let us now discuss the famous so-called lighter touch. We were promised that broadcasting would be administered with a lighter touch. How did that turn out? When the Conservatives came to power in 1979, there were two regulatory bodies and two codes, one for programmes and one for advertising. Today there are five regulatory bodies and seven codes. Liz Forgan of Channel 4 estimates that broadcasting regulation costs £21 million a year. That is £4 million more than the combined cost of regulating British Gas, British Telecom and the electricity companies. Is that really and truly a good definition of administration with a lighter touch?
There is no evidence that the Broadcasting Act will offer more choice. There is, however, a good deal of evidence that it will lower the standards of programme quality. I predict that the new system of allocating franchises will never be used again. The loophole in the provisions covering cross-media ownership remains a scandal. If that is an example of the Government's legislation, nothing that my noble friend Lord Jenkins said was an exaggeration. If anything he understated the total incompetence that has been revealed in major pieces of legislation which have been deliberately introduced by a government governed by doctrinaire dogmas.
3.57 p.m.
Lord Macaulay of Bragar: My Lords, even at the tail end of the Government's term of office, this is a debate that is well worth introducing. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, on doing so. I wish to speak from a Scottish point of view. I am sure the general observations made in the debate will be dealt with by my noble friend Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos.
So far we have heard criticism of what the Government have done. I wish to discuss what the Government have not done. It has become apparent recently that this Government in particular are

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incapable of providing a legislative forum for Scotland in which to deal with issues of particular importance to Scotland.
Scotland received one sentence in the gracious Speech in relation to a Bill which reflects a Bill for England and Wales but takes account of differences in the Scottish education system. The Government act in a contradictory way. Scotland was the guinea pig for the poll tax and a separate Bill was introduced to levy the poll tax in Scotland. As regards the new government Bill to introduce the so-called council tax, protests have been made that Scotland has been lumped into the Bill that applies to England and Wales. However, those protests have fallen on deaf ears and the guillotine has fallen upon the Bill.
The Secretary of State for Scotland seems to say one thing in one place and do something different in another. The Financial Times of 24th April 1991 stated:
"In Scotland the new council tax will operate in the same way as planned for England and Wales… However, while the discount, rebate and transitional arrangements would be the same, some details of the tax might be varied to meet Scottish circumstances".
If that is the opinion of the Secretary of State, why have the people of Scotland not been given the advantage of a separate Bill that would enable this important piece of legislation to be debated in detail? The legislation affects every family in the land. Perhaps the hypocrisy of this Government is even more evident in a speech made by Mr. Lang preaching to the converted at the Conservative Party Conference when he said:
"We must demonstrate that care and common sense. We must do more to explain our policies, to consult, to listen, to respond to people's anxieties".
If that is his view, why have proper Bills not been introduced and debates held to reflect those professed principles?
If we cannot have full debates because this Government's legislative train has run into the buffers why do the Government not constitute and man the Select Committee for Scottish Affairs which has lain inert since 1989 because the Government cannot man it?
Those issues are creating a sense of grievance in Scotland, which was used as a guinea pig for the poll tax and is lumped in with England and Wales for the purposes of the council tax, despite the recognised differences in bandings. This Government claim to be a government of union. Any more behaviour of that kind and they will become a government of disunion. Their failure to constitute the Select Committee and their approach to the poll tax and the council tax have led to feelings of resentment in Scotland and have already given rise to a demand for a form of devolution to deal with Scottish matters. We on this side of the House shall deal with that issue when we win the next election.
The Government do not rule out the prospect of some form of devolution after the next election. That is a classic case of political fudge. There are already waverers within the Government's party wanting them to do something for Scotland, but in their own intransigent and unique way the Government refuse
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to do anything. One gains the impression that the Government have effectively written off Scotland as a unit in which they have any great interest.
What of the Select Committee? Standing Order 130 for another place requires a Select Committee to be set up for 14 different areas of government. The Scottish Office is the only one which does not have a Select Committee. It is the only office of state—and the Scottish Office administers a wide range of matters in Scotland—which is not being monitored as it should be under the inquisitorial system of the Select Committee to show where the Government may be doing the right thing or where they are going wrong. The Labour Party has put no obstacles in the way of the Government in constituting and manning the Select Committee, but the Government do nothing.
Departing from the purely political area, I should like to raise two other matters. The first is the question of the implementation of Scottish Law Commission reports. I am glad to say that as a result of some pressure the Government have taken on board the possibility of constituting some form of committee or other method for dealing with English and Scottish Law Commission reports. That is very much to be welcomed. However, Scottish Law Commission reports of some antiquity have still to be dealt with.
In the case of a report entitled Civil Liability—Contribution, in a letter dated 1st October 1991 the Scottish Office said that it may have to be brought forward as a Government Bill. The Minister said:
"I would expect it to feature at some future stage as a Government Bill".
However, there was no mention of it in the gracious Speech. The report on the question of divorce disappeared with the ill-fated Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Bill. The important matter of the introduction of DNA testing in civil proceedings, which was also included in that Bill, also disappeared as a result of political chicanery in the other place. There are many other such matters waiting to be dealt with.
The final matter which I wish to raise is the implementation of the Kincraig Report on parole and related issues. That was a very important report. The committee was set up in December 1987, the Government recognising the importance of parole and related issues. The committee reported very quickly, in March 1989, and the Government issued their response in 1990 asking for further observations by September 1990. The Secretary of State indicated at a recent meeting that he intended to implement the parts of the Kincraig Report with which the Government agreed, but where are they? That did not appear in the gracious Speech. That is a crucial piece of social legislation which has no hope of discussion or implementation because of this Government's failure in the legislative process. It is no encouragement to people such as Lord Kincraig, who are asked to take on such tasks, that once they report and the Government make their views known the Government do nothing.
The only hope for having Scottish legislation dealt with properly will be to have a Scottish assembly dealing with Scottish affairs, as is proposed by this side

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of the House. We look forward to the removal of this doctrinaire Government and their replacement by one who will get on with the legislation needed to deal with the social, legal and industrial issues affecting the country which have been virtually ignored. We look forward to a government who will unite the nation rather than divide it.
4.5 p.m.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, what is the explanation for the extraordinary silence of Government Back-Benchers in the debate this afternoon? We have heard one interesting but very short speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Denton, which did not refer to the legislative programme of the Government. Apart from that there is nothing. Yet we know that opposite there are many resourceful and courageous speakers. We have heard them often, asking supplementary questions and speaking on the most delicate and difficult subjects. They are all silent. I suppose that there are some briefs at which even the most courageous advocate pales. That is the only possible explanation. Perhaps when he winds up the debate the noble Lord the Leader of the House will attempt to defend the Government's legislative record, but that is not at all certain. We await his remarks with interest. Otherwise the case has gone completely by default.
One speech after another has criticised the legislative record of the Government. The only answer put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Denton, was to defend the poll tax and its replacement using the analogy of someone who buys a new house and, having lived in it for a time, naturally wishes to make some alterations.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, perhaps I may say that I did not mention the poll tax. I mentioned the legislative record of the Government in industrial relations, health and education.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, if the noble Baroness did not intend to draw an analogy between changing the poll tax and buying a new house and subsequently altering it, then I misheard her and I withdraw my remark. Nevertheless, my basic point is an interesting one. The House will note that of speaker after speaker in the debate—excluding the Minister there are 12 speakers—only one, the noble Baroness, Lady Denton, supports the legislative programme of the Government.
My noble friend Lord Bonham-Carter picked four very bad Acts of Parliament out of a very wide field. He could have chosen more and other speakers have selected others. My noble friend picked out the Broadcasting Act, which he pulled to pieces, the poll tax and the Football Spectators Act. Which of those is the worst? Though it may not have been the most politically important, I believe that the worst Act passed by this Government was the War Crimes Act. In that regard, as my noble friend said, this House has clean hands. We refused on two occasions to pass the Second Reading. Bad as the Act looked at the time it received Royal Assent, it looks even worse now. One
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reason for that is the passage of time. The Hetherington inquiry, on which the legislation was based, said in its recommendations:
"Given the age of the suspects and witnesses we consider that any proposed legislation should be introduced and brought into force as quickly as possible".
That was two and a half years ago. When the inquiry team visited East Europe to make its investigations, it said:
"The greatest difficulty we encountered was simply the age of the suspects and of the witnesses".
That was written three and a half years ago. The pressure for the legislation began to mount and the names of suspects were leaked and published in the papers more than five years ago. The alleged offences were committed some 50 years ago.
It may well be that charges will be made soon. I do not know. I invite the Minister who is to wind up to tell us. Of course, the defence will then take time to prepare its case. It will need to visit East Europe and, with the help of translators and interpreters, it will have to search for witnesses and examine the archives and records. I am no lawyer, but that will take a great deal of time if it is to be done properly. When the trial at last takes place, all kinds of unprecedented points of procedure will arise and the trial will take months and months. By the time the verdict is reached, how old will the accused be? How many years will have passed since the alleged offences were committed? In spite of the appalling nature of the charges that are likely to be brought, the passage of time has made it not only unfair but indecent to bring charges under the War Crimes Act.
There are other reasons why the Act looks even worse today than it did at the time of Royal Assent. A major objection regarding the dangers of false identification was made at the time by noble Lords of great legal experience. Since Royal Assent there has been a spectacular demonstration of the dangers involved. In the course of 12 years of investigation, a Ukrainian born American, Mr. Demjenjuk, was identified as Ivan the Terrible, a war criminal who committed unspeakable acts of cruelty in Treblinka concentration camp. On those grounds, he was deported from the United States to stand trial in Israel. In the course of the trial, five survivors from Treblinka identified him as Ivan the Terrible. The trial was televised. It was a staged trial and, like me, noble Lords may have seen witnesses identifying the man as Ivan the Terrible. No one can doubt their sincerity or their passionate honesty, but they were wrong. Subsequent evidence has shown—it is not contested by anyone—that that man was not Ivan the Terrible, but identification persuaded the court and it must have persuaded the viewers. That shows the terrible danger of which the House and the Government were warned when the Bill was before us.
Perhaps I may deal briefly with another new development which has further undermined the Act. The Hetherington inquiry reported that virtually all the atrocities with which it was concerned were perpetrated in one of the Baltic states, the Ukraine or Belorussia. Since that time, all five countries have become independent and have made substantial progress towards the rule of law. If the Government

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persist in their foolish intention of reviving the process of retribution 43 years after it was ended with the agreement of all parties, and if they find evidence against a suspect, it would still be absurd to invoke the provisions of the War Crimes Act and to try the people in this country rather than let the suspects be tried in the countries in which the alleged crimes were committed.
In conclusion, there is little doubt that the Government, under their new Prime Minister who opposed the War Crimes Act and did not vote for its Second Reading, very much regret that they ever embarked on that legislative process. However the juggernaut is nevertheless rolling on. The £10 million a year that the Government promised is being spent. I read in the newspapers that a Scottish team of police and investigators flew to Moscow recently to investigate allegations against a Scottish suspect and that a much larger specialist team has been established by the Metropolitan Police but has not yet visited the scenes of the crimes.
Thus, the Act has so far enabled the Government to devote money and police and security personnel, which could be employed in the immediate anti-terrorist role in the United Kingdom, to investigating atrocities committed 50 years ago in remote parts of East Europe by people who were not then British. It is hard to imagine a more perverse sense of priorities than that. When we make a list of the bad Acts of Parliament passed by this House, the War Crimes Act should come top of the list.
4.16 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, the proverbial maid, in excusing her baby, said that it was a very little one. Unfortunately, that excuse is not open to the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal when he replies tonight. The Government's legislative programme is not a very little one; would that it were.
I agree profoundly with the case that was argued yesterday by the noble and learned Lords, Lord Simon of Glaisdale and Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone; namely, that the size of the statute book has increased, is increasing and should be diminished. That is fundamentally a non-party matter. All Governments have been guilty. This Government have been particularly guilty, even as regards the number of pages. They have certainly been particularly guilty regarding, as they would choose to put it, the radical quality of the legislation that they have introduced. That has involved great upheaval and they have shown and are still showing the itching urge to reform whatever is all right and to leave alone whatever is all wrong, which is the hallmark of the true Thatcherite.
Yesterday's debate showed that there was a general sense in many quarters of the House that we are reaching the point at which Parliament is unable to exercise a competent scrutiny of legislation. The constitutional implications of that are very profound because, if we cannot scrutinise legislation effectively, still less can we adequately control the Executive
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power as exercised by Ministers. Indeed, I am beginning to wonder whether we need a Dangerous Ministers Registration Bill.
I cannot gild the lily in respect of what my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Hillhead said about the poll tax, but it is not the only patently impossible measure which has been through both Houses under this Government. When the football membership Bill went through this House, it was my impression—necessarily, I cannot put it more strongly than that—that we knew that we were passing something impossible. When the Government were defeated on an amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls—need I say more to condemn the legislation than that the Government were defeated on an amendment moved by that noble Lord—I looked at the faces on the Government Front Bench. Perhaps they have particularly good poker faces, but they did not look particularly depressed. Appearances were probably not deceptive.
Not all of that great mass of legislation has been particularly well considered. Indeed, some of it has been distinctly half-baked. I remember on the Third Reading of the Education Reform Act asking a question about the abolition of academic tenure which was absolutely vital to most people in the profession.
Noble Lords will remember that tenure was to be lost on promotion. The question was whether or not a move from Scale A to Scale B for a lecturer, which happens to almost every member of the profession, constituted a promotion. The Secretary of State was asked that question from the very inception of the Bill. It made all the difference as to whether the provision applied immediately to a very few people or to almost everybody. At Third Reading in the second House, the Government did not know the answer. That is genuinely half-baked legislation.
Some Bills have been so big that they did not permit proper scrutiny. I have not forgotten the Second Reading in this House of the Water Bill and in particular the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rippon of Hexham, who lifted up the Bill before the House and explained that it was in two volumes and weighed 2.2 lb. He let it drop on the Bench beside him. It fell with a thud so loud that, I am told, the security men outside in the Peers' Lobby started to attention.
But that is not the only way to get things wrong. Shortly after that the Government introduced the Education (Student Loans) Bill which noble Lords may remember was a particularly flimsy production. My noble friend Lord Addington, speaking in the debate on the humble Address, held up the Bill to show to the House and then let it fall. The Bill did not have sufficient gravity to fall direct to the ground. That was not the right way to approach matters either. That Bill was what the Government describe as a framework Bill. In fact it involved legislating almost entirely by regulation, which made the task of scrutiny in this House very much harder.
I have not forgotten a phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, about the difficulty of amendments getting a purchase on the slippery surfaces of the Bill. So the growing use of regulation means the growing impotence of Parliament. We have indeed had some

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very big decisions brought in by regulation. So, in drawing attention to the Government's legislative programme my noble friend has been a little too abstemious.
We also need to draw attention to the Government's sub-legislative programme. To take one example, not many bigger decisions of principle have been taken by this Government than that of disentitling students to social security benefits. I said at the time that it would be a disaster. In the debate on the humble Address I said that the effects had proved a great deal more serious than I had expected. A few minutes ago I was told by representatives of your petitioners, the students of King's College, that the effects are a great deal more disastrous even than I thought. There was ample room for amendment in that legislation. It could have been done in many different ways and the approach perhaps modified. But because the changes were introduced by regulation this House could not act. I still believe that it was an abuse of the proceedings of this House.
I agree also with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, about the Government and the courts, which is particularly apparent in the field of social security. In the Social Security Bill of 1990 in different ways there were reversed no less than three court judgments. My noble kinsman, Lord Henley, explained carefully to the House that what the court had found was not Parliament's intention. But where there is the rule of law, the Government's intention is not the only matter to be considered. If the meaning of the law is not as the Government intended, it is not absolutely axiomatic that the Government must always alter the law to make it fit what they wished it to have meant.
I recall the Lambeth poll tax capping case. Noble Lords will easily believe that I do not speak with any admiration for the London Borough of Lambeth. When the borough won its case, Joan Tuelves remarked with some surprise that Lambeth was not used to winning cases in courts. When I heard that comment, I was very pleased. I thought that it might begin the process of political education, establishing that we have in this country not Tory judges but legal judges. Alas, no such thing. No sooner had the court given its decision than the Government introduced a Bill to reverse the judgment. That was a badly missed opportunity and a good example of the Government's attitude to local government.
Speaking at the Second Reading of the Further and Higher Education Bill, my noble friend Lord Grimond referred to the experience of having a local government Bill every year. He expressed the fear that we were about to have a university Bill every year. That set ringing not only the alarm bells, but the fire alarms and the air-raid warnings as well. Whenever the Government pay attention to a situation with such a degree of intensity, the matter to which they pay such attention ends up in great grief.
The Government have talked a great deal about parliamentary sovereignty. On these Benches we are aware of what Professor Austin called the external limits of sovereignty; in other words, sovereignty is affected by the fact that other countries exist. But as a
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means of controlling the Executive, whenever we can make it work we rather like it. But we do not seem to get very much co-operation from the other side of the House. My noble friend Lord Bonham-Carter quoted the former Prime Minister: "I was responsible". It was a denial that Parliament was responsible. That, I believe, is a great shame.
4.27 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I rise to my feet full of shame on behalf of my colleagues. They have been unbearably nasty to the Government. It was most unkind of them to point out all their faults when the Government contain very nice people who are doing their best. The fact that it is not enough is a great pity. But I must also congratulate the noble Baroness. She did a very brave thing and did it extraordinarily well. As has been said many times about this Conservative Government, she was the only man amongst them.
I have only a small matter of which to complain; namely, the Government's handling of the forestry situation. Forestry is extremely important to Scotland and to this country as a whole for commercial and environmental reasons. The Government were committed to making a great advance both in the quality and quantity of planting. They started that process and in 1989 they initiated new planting of 29,213 hectares. That figure was on the way to their target of 33,000 hectares. But they spoilt the effect by previously, in 1988, totally altering the conditions of taxation.
As I said, in 1989 the Government were on their way. But the 1988 Budget started to take effect. In the Budget—I shall not read out the passage, but will summarise it—they took away the income tax concessions, the allowances and so on that could be claimed by rich men who planted trees. They said that they would instead take forestry out of the tax situation altogether, and when the trees were sold there would be no tax to pay. When the ordinary person plants a tree it is a little hard for him to consider the benefits that he will receive in 60 years' time. Continuity within a family is not strong enough to make that benefit a great incentive.
There was a disastrous fall in the figures. In 1991 the total was about half the target; in other words, 18,951 hectares. To put it mildly, that is not good planning or administration. It comes ill from a Government who are supposed to understand those matters. In 1989 there was also a farm woodlands scheme which was supposed to encourage 12,000 hectares a year to be planted in farm woodlands. Although it was not a total failure, at the end of three years only 12,000 hectares—in other words, one-third of the figure—had been planted. The reason is that the incentives which replace the tax incentive are not good enough.
It is no good giving farmers half or even two-thirds of their costs for planting trees if they have little profit with which to produce from the other third. If the Government want trees planted they must use genuine incentives so that the tasks can be accomplished and some profit made for the farmer to live on.

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I am told that the Government are not taking advantage of the EC money offered in that respect. I shall be pleased if the noble Lord the Leader of the House will assure me that they are doing so.
The results in the industry have been appalling. In 1989–90 50 million young trees were destroyed by nurserymen. That was the result of government measures intended to produce a decent forestry policy. In 1991 20 million trees were destroyed. That was no improvement; more trees had not been planted the previous year because of the state of the industry.
We in Scotland have had very welcome Scandinavian investment in processing plant. Not enough trees are now being planted to service those plants when they come into operation, with the result that trees will be imported for processing. That hardly seems good planning.
The charge of doctrinaire thinking by the Government is absolutely true. In 1979 the Forestry Commission planted 16,800 hectares of new planting. There were 3,600 hectares of replacement planting. Today the commission plants 4,000 hectares, with 7,800 hectares for restocking. The restocking figure is 9 per cent. below what it should be.
I regard those as devastating figures. Admittedly, they are a small part of the economy. However, they indicate that not only in major areas but also in lesser aspects the Government have not been competent. I hope that the noble Lord the Leader of the House will be able to reassure me that in future—in the unfortunate event of this Government returning to power—their thinking will be less doctrinaire and more practical.
4.35 p.m.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, in winding up for the mover of the Motion, I find myself thinking not without sympathy about the plight of the noble Lord the Leader of the House. Noble Lords who have served in the Army will remember that from time to time the duty officer has to move between the soldiers in the canteen asking if there are any complaints. Today, rather than relegating this duty to one of his junior officers, the noble Lord has gallantly undertaken to be duty officer. Our burden for him is the complaints which have come thick and fast. I do not refer simply to the magisterial catalogue of four Bills which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, mentioned at the beginning of the debate, but seven other issues which noble Lords raised during the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, has to reply to this catalogue of complaints.
It is tempting to attribute all the shortcomings of the Government's legislative record to incompetence and misjudgment. Some of us have yielded to that temptation today. However, although tempting, it is wrong. First, as the noble Baroness, Lady Denton, said, the Government have had their successes. It would be surprising if, in the course of almost 13 years, they had not had some successes. Secondly, not everything that goes wrong is the fault of the
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Government. Some of it is the fault of the system over which the Government preside—the governmental and legislative system of this country.
Let us consider the poll tax. My noble friend Lord Jenkins called it one of the jewels in the Crown. It baulks so large in the catalogue of complaints that it is almost the Koh-i-noor of the crown of the Government's record. It must be one of the greatest legislative fiascos of the century. Let us consider a tax which is not paid by over one in four of those eligible to pay. Out of 34 million tax payers due to pay the tax 8.5 million people have had to be summonsed for non-payment. Although of course the law must be obeyed —a point that has been made repeatedly in your Lordships' House—if the Government make an ass of the law it is difficult entirely to blame the electorate for turning on a tax which seems to have been so ill-conceived. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Wyatt of Weedon, is not present. The poll tax is a measure that was described by him as the fairest scheme that could have been devised.
It is difficult fully to comprehend the size of the disaster that the poll tax represents. We are not yet distant enough from it. Financially, the cost runs into at least hundreds of millions of pounds. The financial effects will be felt in 1992–93. Those effects will make it more difficult for the Government's new council tax to be successful because it will be carrying the mortgage burden of past mistakes with it. In the civil area, the cost of the poll tax can be measured in lost confidence in the system of local government finance. Politically we all know the ending of the story which led to the loss of the Prime Minister who promoted that unhappy tax.
The poll tax represents a lesson from which, potentially, we can learn. Rather than simply treating it as a stick with which we on this side of the House can beat the Government, what lessons can be learnt from the episode of the poll tax? Are there not conclusions that we can draw now that would help the progress of future legislation? The poll tax sprang from a rash and last minute manifesto commitment to abolish the rates. It was fertilised by one of those think tanks full of zealous teenage scribblers which sprung up around this ideologically-led Government. It was adopted by a Minister anxious to ingratiate himself with his leader. It was seized upon by his leader, the Prime Minister, who forced it upon the Cabinet, which in turn imposed it upon a reluctant Conservative Party, which forced it through an even more reluctant Parliament. Noble Lords will recall—and I was not here at the time—the appearance of several well loved but unfamiliar faces in this Chamber in order to ensure a majority.
That process of forcing through legislation ended up on the doorsteps of a stunned and a completely incredulous electorate which was unable to believe that a tax so far divorced from what seemed fair and efficient should be imposed upon them.
I believe that the poll tax episode must represent the absolute apotheosis of elective dictatorship—that scourge to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, introduced us; namely, something forced through from the top, unacceptable to the people of

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this country. There was no question of analysing the structures and functions of local government before arriving at an analysis of the correct form of finance. There was no question of establishing a Royal Commission which could have deliberated because Royal Commissions were out of fashion and deliberation unacceptable. There was no question of consulting fully with local government because it might have been pointed out that the emperor had no clothes and that the tax would not work. There was not even the extremely sensible expedient of waiting to see how and whether the tax would work in Scotland, where it was first introduced. The noble Baroness spoke about business. Any business which had a new product and was able to try it out on a test market would wait to see the results of that test market before indulging in a rash judgment.
More fundamentally, I ask whether such legislation could have emerged from a Cabinet that was functioning properly. It is worth reminding ourselves that that was the issue upon which Mr. Heseltine resigned from the Cabinet; that is, that Cabinet was not functioning properly. Could such legislation have emerged from a fully representative Parliament in which public opinion in the country was fairly represented in the House of Commons? Could it have emerged from a more open system of government with full negotiation and discussion as there is on the Continent?
We are discussing this subject on the day after Maastricht. I was interested to read this morning a description in the Financial Times by Mr. David Curry who has been both an MEP and an MP, and who is a Minister in the Government. He defined the difference between the legislative system in Europe and in this country He did it very fairly. He said:
"Our system is that you define the differences and decide which option you are going to take".
That is a good description of the British system of government. How does it take place? It takes place in secret. When the difference has been defined, the Government—and this is called strong government—impose it through its Whips on an unrepresentative Parliament and in turn on the country.
Mr. Curry contrasts the British system—he does not reach a conclusion as to which is better—with the European ideal, which is, in his definition:
"Everyone is able to come aboard".
As we become part—as we clearly shall after yesterday—of a more united Europe, we must be ready to learn from our continental neighbours who, on the whole, proceed on the basis of negotiation which involves people, rather than a process of doctrinaire and hasty imposition. Doctrinaire and hasty legislation is the price we pay for our secretive adversarial process.
That is fuelled by manifesto madness—a warning to parties on this side of the House. The late Lord Rothschild defined the first few months of government intoxicated by victory as a mixture of the madness of Mardi Gras and auto-da-fé. That temptation is open to all new governments. We may have a new government. Let us hope that a new government will not indulge in the same rush to judgment which has been the characteristic of their predecessors.
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A number of issues have been raised to which I hope the noble Lord will respond. No government will have an unblemished record of success but the incidence of legislative failure on the part of the Government is not just a matter of men and measures but is also a matter of the system. We need a system which is more open, rational and deliberative, with less dangerous reactive populism and more judicious good government. That is not merely an issue of politics and partisanship, for everyone in Opposition will be critical of the Government. That is the nature of the process. However, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, and my noble friend Lord Russell have reminded us, it is a constitutional issue. When the noble Lord the Leader of the House replies, I hope he will address himself also to that issue.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, for raising this important subject and for his interesting speech. The noble Lord supported his case with powerful arguments and other noble Lords have made constructive speeches. The one speech for the defence by the noble Baroness, Lady Denton, was a gallant effort.
As we frequently remind ourselves, since 1911 this has been a revising Chamber. We justify our existence by the efficiency and thoroughness with which we examine Bills which come before us. In the post-war period the volume of Bills and their complexity has increased and this House has taken its duties seriously in that time. The words in "Iolanthe" that:
"The House of Peers,… did nothing in particular, And did it very well,"
are certainly not accurate today. The House does an immense amount of work and does it very well. The pressures on our colleagues in another place mean that there is no guarantee that legislation which comes before us is in a fit and proper state to enter the statute book. Therefore, it is the duty of this House to examine and improve legislation because the public will suffer if it is flawed.
It is against that background that we must analyse this Motion and express our anxiety at the manner in which this House has been treated during this Parliament. Excluding the present Session, the legislative programme listed in gracious Speeches is far too heavy. We have pointed that out on each occasion. I know that governments of all parties want to get their mandated Bills through quickly but, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, has shown, the present Government have gone over the top time and time again.
I believe strongly that Government should plan and allocate their legislation far more carefully over a period of time. Normally there is a four year period in which to do that, and there is no reason whatsoever why Cabinet committees should not be set up to ensure that legislation is treated and processed properly over the period available.
To come back to this House, I find that I have registered numerous complaints about the overloading of the legislative programme. In July 1990, in

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opposing the Motion to suspend Standing Order No. 44 which lays down that no two stages of a Bill be taken in one day I said:
"I have spoken on this issue at this time of the year for the past four or five years … The country realises that there is far too much legislation—more legislation than can be digested by the courts, dealt with by the draftsmen and properly explained by noble Lords opposite". [Official Report, 18/7/90; col. 864.]
Since the general election, several Bills has been rushed through and absurdly large lists of amendments have been tabled by the Government for the last stages. Examples of the latter include Bills mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins; namely, the Education Reform Act, the Companies Act, the Broadcasting Act—delicately dissected by the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter—and the Planning and Compensation Act. On those and other occasions I have complained of inadequate time for the House to scrutinise complex and controversial legislation. That is what we are here to do. Too often we are prevented from performing that duty.
I should like briefly to raise a number of points. First, the unhealthy trend of some of the legislation. A range of Bills have been used to attempt to restructure local government, placing far too much power in the hands of Ministers and gravely undermining local democracy. We deplore that trend which culminated in one of the most disgraceful and expensive Acts of Parliament of this century; that is, the so-called poll tax. I much admired the splendid epitaph to that Act composed by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins. The effect of such ill-judged legislation is far reaching. When the public suspect that the law is inadequate the Government must take responsibility.
That leads me to my second point; namely, the quality of the legislation which comes to this House. Noble Lords know that Bills have been rightly criticised because of their increasing length and poor drafting, resulting in numerous government amendments and the dangerous trend towards reliance on secondary legislation. I refer Ministers to the debate initiated by my noble and learned friend Lord Simon of Glaisdale on 31st January 1990. He summarised the problems in an excellent speech and was equally impressive in his speech today. It is in the interests of parliamentary democracy that we limit government by order and by secondary legislation.
Furthermore, we are unhappy about the Government's handling of legislation in this House and in the other place. There the guillotine has restricted debate on crucial issues. Thus far we are not scarred by that ruthless instrument but have been subjected to steamrollering tactics; for example, when the Community Charge General Reduction Bill was swept through this House in one day. It is much to the credit of this House on all sides that its revising function has withstood those tactics. Indeed, the Government have been defeated 68 times since the last election. That may embarrass the Government, but it is a good thing for democracy that time is given to pause and think on issues which this House believes deserve further consideration.
Another area of anxiety is the cost of the
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Government's mismanagement of legislation. I mentioned the poll tax Bill, which resulted in wasted time and money for Parliament and local authorities. Other Bills mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, like the Football Supporters Bill were never implemented, while the Landlord and Tenant Bill was finally withdrawn after lengthy debate and much wasted parliamentary time.
The Government must clearly take responsibility for their conduct of our legislative machinery over the past decade. However, in fairness we must look beyond that. The time may have arrived when we should examine the legislative system and see whether reforms and improvements can be made. The other place is currently considering those matters; for example, by changing the working hours or reducing the sitting days. It may be that this House should also examine its procedures. There are days when this House rises at five or six o'clock and others when we sit beyond midnight, as has happened twice this week. Noble Lords on all sides have told me that they regard that as unsatisfactory. If we ourselves do not make changes it may be that others will make them for us.
If I criticise the Government I must also pay tribute to successive Leaders of the House in my time who have made real efforts to take account of the views of the House as a whole. I hope that this debate may lead to some new thinking and ultimately to much needed reform.
4.53 p.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Waddington): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, for proposing the subject for debate today. I am not just being polite. It is useful to review the legislative work of a full Parliament and to see whether there are lessons to be learned from it. The debate also provided an opportunity, equally welcome, to revisit a number of general anxieties about our legislative processes as well as allowing the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, to have a bit of fun and polish up some rather good jokes.
I do not believe that any of us expected the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, to resist the temptation to refer to the Local Government Finance Act. He said that he was going to be controversial, perhaps rather more controversial than is usual on these occasions, and therefore he would not expect me not to refer by way of reply to the obvious defects of the Liberal Democrat proposals for financing local government. For local income tax to raise the same amount of revenue as the community charge in 1990–91 would cost each taxpayer what in effect would be an extra 7.4 pence on income tax. That would virtually cancel out all the reductions in income tax since 1979. I am bound to say that it is difficult to think of a more inane proposal.
As well as the Local Government Finance Act and the other Acts mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, in this Parliament there have been many other measures. Some were great reforming measures like the Children Act; and there has been legislation of great social significance like the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. We had the Courts

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and Legal Services Act; there have been measures like the Food Safety Act to protect the consumer. There has been legislation to give improved protection to the environment, and legislation to protect workers. There have been three Employment Acts, carrying forward what I suggest are great reforming steps in the field of trade union law. Indeed, it is difficult to find anybody in the country today who would dream of returning to the chaotic situation prior to 1979 in the field of industrial relations.
My noble friend Lady Denton talked of those matters and of the enormous improvement in industrial relations in this country since 1979. She spoke of the comparatively few days lost in strikes compared with the millions of days lost in the 1970s. My noble friend referred also to the effect that these improved industrial relations and the improved economic climate generally have had on inward investment to the immense benefit of this country.
I believe that it was the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, who thought he made a good point when he said that my noble friend Lady Denton had alone spoken from the Government Back Benches. I am bound to say that I think that was a typical example of one good speech being more than a match for a clutch of bad ones.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, talked of the nerve it took to bring about the changes in industrial relations. Indeed it did take nerve. Many people in 1979 did not believe that our proposals would work. They looked at the tentative attempts made by the Labour Government at the back end of the 1960s; they looked at our attempt to bring about reform at the beginning of the 1970s. Although they knew that what we were doing was right, they wondered whether we would achieve it because of the difficulties that previous governments had faced. But we did achieve it. It is a record of which we can be enormously proud.
There have been Acts to allow parents to play a bigger part in the management of schools; measures to enhance the rights of disabled people; there have been important Criminal Justice Acts, not all wholly opposed by the noble Earl, Lord Longford. He must have greatly welcomed the proposals in the Criminal Justice Bill 1990 designed to keep less serious offenders out of prison.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, since the noble Lord mentions my name, perhaps I can point out that in 1991 the number of prisoners has increased by 2,500. It does not look as though any measures introduced by the Government have reduced the prison population.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, that was not my point and I am sure that the noble Earl knew that it was not. My point was that he applauded that part of the legislation at the time it was going through the House. He was quite right to be cautious today in criticising that part of the Government's legislative programme All that legislation—and I have not yet mentioned the various privatisation measures, also
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spoken of by my noble friend Lady Denton—has brought about an enormous change for the better in life in Britain today.
One has to go on and look at this Session's measures. This Session's measures alone, which certainly do not bear the stamp of a Government which have run out of steam, will directly benefit millions of people. There have been measures to raise standards in our schools and remove the artificial distinction between universities and polytechnics; measures to raise standards in the public service so that members of the public get a better service; measures to set up a new way to pay for local government; to reform the structure of local government; and an Asylum Bill and a Charities Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, seems to think that they deal with legislation more satisfactorily on the Continent. I do not have any first-hand experience of that, but I am sure that the noble Lord will agree with me that many of us have been alarmed at the lack of discussion in parliaments in the other 11 countries in the run up to Maastricht. I do not know how they deal with legislation, but they certainly do not deal with issues as adequately as we do here in Britain so far as concerns general discussion before their country is about to enter into solemn international undertakings.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. It may be that the relative lack of discussion in the Continental parliaments is because there is a much greater degree of unity on the European future that they want to adopt than has been the case in the Conservative and Unionist Party.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I do not believe that to be the case at all. In the last days before the meeting at Maastricht it became increasingly obvious that members of certain parliaments had woken up rather late to the gravity of the decisions that were just about to be thrust on them by their governments. Some day somebody may have to pay the consequences for that lack of discussion and any effort to educate their own citizenry as to the nature of the obligations into which they were just about to enter.
There were some interesting speeches which touched on the War Crimes Act. I remind noble Lords, although I am sure they need no reminding, that the Bill could hardly be described as a party political measure. It was introduced following a careful inquiry by a most distinguished former Director of Public Prosecutions and his Scottish opposite number. It was on the recommendations of the Hetherington-Chalmers Report that the legislation was introduced.
The present Prime Minister certainly did not embark on legislation in the sense of introducing it for the first time, as was suggested in one speech. After that Bill had been first presented to the House of Commons and it had gone through all its stages in the other place with very large majorities, and it had then been rejected in this House, I cannot see how in those circumstances the Government could have failed to introduce it again and give this House the opportunity to think again.

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In that context I have pondered long on the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, which he advanced at the time of the Second Reading of the War Crimes Bill, that it was wrong to use the Parliament Act in that case. Quite frankly, I cannot understand a word of the argument which he advanced. I have read the passage in Hansard more than once. According to his lights, it is wrong for the elected House to get its way when in two successive Sessions it votes for a measure with a vast majority on a free vote, but it would be entirely right, according to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, for a government to force through a measure with a Commons majority of two in the dying years of a parliament, provided that the measure was in the government programme and had clearly been forced through the other place by arm-twisting Whips, if there are such things, which I very much doubt.
I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, what is going on at the present time. The Metropolitan Police are conducting a major investigation. The War Crimes Unit was established on 28th May 1991 under the direction of the Commissioner of Police for the metropolis. It consists of 11 police officers and five civilian staff. Active inquiries are progressing. They started in this country and they are continuing in a number of foreign countries. An Answer was given to a Private Notice Question by my right honourable friend the Attorney-General in another place the other day. It is not possible for me to give any further information as to when any prosecution might be brought.
The quantity of legislation was criticised by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and also by the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos. Quite clearly, a great deal of legislation does not indicate good government. But the converse is not true either. Legislation can mean less and better government. A great deal of the legislation in this Parliament has been directed to that end. To use the words of the noble Earl, I am glad that we have the itch to make changes. Privatisation—contracting out—means less government and not more. More opportunities for the citizen to play a part in the management of schools means less direction from the centre and less government.
The noble Earl may not like it, but that is his political taste. But I do not believe that it is very easy to argue philosophically that the measures that we have taken have in each case resulted in more government; in many cases they quite plainly resulted in the reverse. The National Health Service Trust hospitals mean more devolution of management and less government from the centre.
Comparisons with the past do not paint a picture of a vastly overloaded legislative programme. That may come as something of a surprise to people. Between 1968 and 1979, 917 Bills were passed; between 1980 and 1991, 722 Bills were passed; between 1974 and 1979, Parliament produced 186 Bills; between 1979 and 1983 there were 159 and between 1983 and 1987 there were 137.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, it is true that there were fewer Bills but they were very much lengthier than before.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, that may indeed have been the case, but many of them were very complicated and I suggest very important reforming measures. I refer, for example, to the Education Reform Act and the privatisation measures. I believe that any of us who had anything to do with the run up towards the privatisation of water, electricity and gas soon learned how enormously complicated those exercises were. However, I suggest that they were still very beneficial exercises.
One criticism is that there is too much legislation; another is that it is not properly considered by Parliament and that there is insufficient opportunity for this House to exercise to the full its responsibilities as a revising Chamber. But simply because we are only a revising Chamber, and it is not our job to set out to thwart the will of the elected House of Commons in major matters of legislation, I do not believe that it is reasonable to argue, as some do from time to time, that significantly more extensive parliamentary scrutiny would produce a radically different outcome so far concerns the key parts of a particular government's programme.
For example, perhaps we may consider the Act setting up the community charge. It is the principle of the flat rate charge for each user of local services, not the detail of the Act, which has led to its rejection. No amount of extra scrutiny here would have removed that principle because it was determined by the Government which had a mandate from the electorate for it. We know, because of the whipping system, that the Bill would have gone through in all its essentials however much time had been made available for scrutiny in this place.
Plenty of time is spent here scrutinising and criticising the detail of legislation. For example, the Broadcasting Bill in the 1989–91 Session led to well over 1,000 amendments being made in this House. A total of 46 hours was spent in Committee and 21½ hours on Report.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. I take his points about the principle of that Bill. But there were details which we did attempt to amend and which could have saved the Government some trouble—such as the attempt to collect the poll tax from students.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, the noble Earl may be right that if some amendments had been made the Bill might not have attracted quite as much criticism. But I think he would agree with me that the principal criticism has been the central framework of the legislation.
I could give many other examples of extensive revisions and improvements which this House has made in Government legislation in recent years. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, mentioned the number of defeats which the Government have suffered. The fact that improvements and revisions have been made in legislation

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which has been brought to this House reflects great credit on the House and on those on all sides who agree on the management of its business. We have concentrated the time available on what really matters.
Take for instance the 1990–1991 Session. With a State Opening on the 6th November and a full, indeed quite generous, quota of Recesses at Christmas, Easter and Whitsun and a shorter than usual spill-over, we have seen the enactment of 35 Bills, including some solid and quite contentious measures. I cannot remember—because it was my first year here as Leader of the House—any really late nights in the 1990–91 Session. In fact, I can remember only one and that was the Second Reading of the War Crimes Bill when a great number of noble Lords wished to speak; but there were no others. The Government did not have an easy ride, but there was extensive scrutiny of legislation without late nights. There were a number of Government defeats and a number of Government concessions. The programme was managed sensibly as the result of the co-operation of all sides of the House and as a result of the recognition by all sides of the House of the proper role of this place.
I listened with great attention to what the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, had to say. I would not wish to leave the House with the impression that I think no lessons can be learnt and that nothing can be done to improve the way we do our business. I should not like it to be thought for one moment that we are deaf to comments on the nature and scale of the legislation brought forward. In my recent evidence to the Jellicoe Committee—and we are all very grateful to my noble friend Lord Jellicoe for the work that he has done on that committee—I made clear the Government's willingness to consider with an entirely open mind any recommendations which the committee might make. With a strong base to build on and the successful arrangements we have for the consideration of European Community business and matters in the science and technology field, one possibility which was aired in evidence was that there might be new arrangements for handling measures of law reform. Law reform measures were mentioned during the course of the debate today.
As noble Lords who have been involved in the past in the preparation of legislative programmes will recall, law reform can all too often be the Cinderella and be left behind simply because the programme is packed with other measures.
I should perhaps have mentioned earlier in my remarks the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Macaulay of Bragar, but I am just reminded that he made the point that there is much delay in dealing with Law Commission reports. That of course is a problem which is shared by England, Wales and Scotland. I shall not be tempted down the path which he walked, and talk not of the legislation that has been passed or introduced, but of legislation which might have been introduced. I only say that I cannot see that there is any ground for complaint if a Bill is introduced to deal with the whole of Britain rather than two Bills—one
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for Scotland and one for England—dealing with the same subject matter. The Local Government Finance Bill of course contains a quite separate Scottish part.
I listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, had to say about forestry. Even if I was a master of the subject I could not possibly do justice to it in this short debate. I hope he will not mind too much if I promise to draw the matter to the attention of the Minister. If I glean any new information which may be of help I shall certainly write to him.
It will not have escaped the notice of the House that a Select Committee is also meeting in another place to look at procedural matters and that my right honourable friend the Leader of the House of Commons has, on a personal basis, submitted a wide range of ideas for consideration. I shall not go into the detail of those now, but some of them would, if adopted, lead to a smoother and more predictable flow of business and arguably better consideration of Bills in another place, all of which I am sure would he helpful in meeting some of the concerns which were expressed by noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos.
I must deal with the very important speech about the use of Henry VIII clauses. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, for raising this matter which he has raised before. The Government's view on the use of such clauses is that in a limited range of circumstances a power to amend primary legislation by order may be justifiable. Ministers have undertaken that such powers will not be sought without the most careful consideration and they invariably attract the special attention and scrutiny of the House. They certainly never get past the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. They attracted attention, for example, in our debate on 2nd December during the Committee stage of the Local Government Bill. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, was as always assiduous in searching out and examining such a provision, and it was removed from the Bill.
Although they occur in other types of legislation, Henry VIII clauses tend to be of particular value in local government legislation where, in consequence of a reorganisation of some aspect of local government, detailed changes need to be made in primary legislation dealing with a wide range of matters. All of these cannot realistically be settled before the primary legislation is brought forward. Henry VIII clauses have been in all major local government Acts going back to the war. There was such a clause in the Local Government Act 1963.
I have to tell the noble and learned Lord that it would be impossible to guarantee that Henry VIII clauses would never be used in future. Such clauses may be justified on the grounds of flexibility. They may arise where a new statutory framework—for example, relating to the regulation of some public body—is being put in place, and it is acknowledged by the Government that in the light of future developments that framework may no longer remain entirely appropriate and may need amendment. In these circumstances a Henry VIII clause enables the necessary amendments to be made to the relevant

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primary and subordinate legislation without requiring the Government to return to Parliament for amending primary legislation each time the scheme in question needs amendment. We all know too well how difficult it can sometimes be to get a place in the legislative programme just at the time when there are very strong reasons for requiring a place.
By re-reading the intervention which the noble and learned Lord made in our debate on 2nd December, I am prompted to correct his recollection on just one point. He stated that until quite recently—from 1932 onwards, except for one isolated example at the beginning of the 1970s—there was no attempt to introduce Henry VIII clauses. I have not made an exhaustive check but quick inquiries revealed that there have been several other occasions in that period when such clauses appeared. There was one, for example, in Section 84 of the Local Government Act 1963 and there is a somewhat modified version in the Social Security Act 1980. There are at least three examples drawn from the 1960 statute book when I think that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, was the Solicitor-General. They are to be found in the Ghana (Consequential Provisions) Act 1960, the Cyprus Act of 1960 and the Payment of Wages Act 1960.
I have spoken for rather a long time. I think I should close now, although there are many other issues which I could raise. Perhaps I should mention one other point in the context of the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. He complained about Bills ousting the hybrid procedure. I think he is referring to Clause 26(2) of the Local Government Bill. I gather that my noble friend Lady Blatch has talked to the noble and learned Lord about the matter and I hope that she may have been able to give some help.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, I am sorry to tell the noble Lord that neither has yet been able to convince the other.
Lord Waddington: I fear, my Lords, that, with the best will in the world and the best will on both sides, that often happens. The provision which appears in the Local Government Bill is well precedented. Recent examples can be found in Section 79(4) of the Airports Act 1986, Section 143 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and Section 14(3) of the Official Secrets Act 1989. Now I really have gone on for too long. Once again I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, for allowing us to have a profitable and reasonably amusing afternoon.
5.21 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, I do not in general believe that a second speech from the same speaker greatly advances the conduct of a debate, particularly when a third speech—or at any rate a third intervention from him—is pending, as it is very shortly from me on the Prime Minister's Statement on Maastricht. I shall almost confine myself to thanking those who have taken part in the debate and in particular thanking the noble Lord the Leader of the
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House for what I would describe as a courteous and spirited reply. I do not think he answered most of my points but he answered quite a few others, some of which were even relevant.
Of the four jewels in the crown that I mentioned he only really applied himself to one, the War Crimes Bill —I expect because it was closest to his heart—except in the case of the others to discuss the parliamentary handling rather than the merits of them. In regard to the War Crimes Bill I was frankly surprised that he appeared to suggest that the Government were bound —certainly almost bound—by a report from a former Director of Public Prosecutions. He certainly adduced it as a powerful argument. It is most extraordinary to take the view that such a report from a figure of quality, an upper middle grade legal official, should outweigh the vast weight of the most senior judicial opinion which was expressed in this House on that issue.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, when I was close to using terms like "almost bound" I was not referring to the first introduction of the Bill. I was saying that after the Bill had passed the House of Commons with thumping majorities and had been rejected here the Government were almost bound to ask this place to have another look at the matter.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, in that case I do not see why the noble Lord brought in the report of the former Director of Public Prosecutions. However, in order that I may end on a fairly non-controversial note and also because I believe that debate should try to advance our minds and not be merely a repetition of statement, I thought the noble Lord probably had a point about a slight contradiction in my previous speech with regard to my view that mandated government Bills, heavily whipped, about which I have been rather sharp this afternoon, had a priority over those which came without mandates and on a free vote of the House. So I allow him one point but I thought that his points of merit on the Bill and a good part of his other speech were perhaps a little less valid. But I thank him. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Maastricht: European Council
5.24 p.m.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister on the European Council in Maastricht. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a Statement on the European Council in Maastricht which I attended with my right honourable friends the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
"The European Council has reached agreement on a treaty on European union. The relevant texts

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have been deposited along with the Presidency conclusions. The House will be invited to debate the outcome next week.
"Let me set out for the House the main provisions of the agreements we reached. The treaty covers economic and monetary union and political union. It follows the structure for which the United Kingdom has consistently argued. The treaty creates a new legal framework for co-operation between member states in foreign and security policy and in the fight against international crime. That co-operation will take place on an inter governmental basis outside the Treaty of Rome. That means that the Commission will not have the sole right of initiative and the European Court will have no jurisdiction.
On defence, we have agreed a framework for co-operation in which the primacy of the Atlantic Alliance has been confirmed and the role of the Western European Union has been enhanced.
"As the House knows, there was strong pressure over many months for all aspects of co-operation to come within European Community competence. That was not acceptable to this country. Instead, an alternative route to European co-operation has been opened up. I believe that this will be seen as an increasingly significant development as the Community opens its doors to new members, and more flexible structures are required.
"I turn now to the main features of the text. The treaty provides for the possibility that member states will wish to adopt a single currency later this decade. But they can only do so if they meet strict convergence conditions—conditions for which the British Government have pressed from the outset. These cover inflation, budget deficits, exchange rate stability and long-term interest rates.
"A single currency may come into being in 1997, but only if a minimum of seven countries meet the convergence conditions, and eight out of the Twelve vote in favour. The treaty lays down that a single currency will come into being by 1999 but only if those convergence conditions are met and only for those countries which meet them. It is therefore highly uncertain when such a currency will be created and which countries it will cover.
"In the House on 20th November, I said that there must be a provision giving the United Kingdom the right to decide for ourselves whether or not to move to stage 3. That requirement has been secured. It is set out in a legally binding protocol which forms an integral part of the treaty. The protocol was drafted by the United Kingdom and fully protects the position of this House. The effect of the protocol is as follows. We have exactly the same option to join a single currency at the same time as other member states if we wish. We shall be involved in all the decisions. But, unlike other governments, we have not bound ourselves to join regardless of whether it makes economic and political sense.
"The treaty text on political union provides for enhanced intergovernmental co-operation on
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foreign and security policy, on defence policy and in the fight against terrorism, drug trafficking and other crimes.
"International crime knows no frontiers. Terrorists and other criminals must not be allowed to escape justice or to "retire" abroad with the proceeds of their crime. This text gives us a new basis for co-operation with our partners in bringing these criminals to justice.
"The text provides for joint action in foreign policy, building on what was already agreed in the Single European Act. But as I told the House on 20th November, if Britain needs to act on our own we must be free to do so. The treaty meets that requirement. Joint action can take place only if we agree. Where there is no joint action, each member state is entirely free to act on its own. If, after joint action has been agreed, a member state needs to take its own measures to meet changed circumstances, it may do so.
"There was pressure from other member states to take foreign policy decisions by majority voting. I was not prepared to agree that Britain could he out-voted on any substantive issue of foreign policy. Some of our partners also sought to draw a distinction between decisions of principle, where unanimity would apply, and implementing decisions which could be subject to majority voting. No one was able to explain how that distinction would work. I told the European Council that if such occasions did arise we should consider the case for majority voting on it merits. The treaty reflects our view. It provides that the Council may, but only by unanimity, designate certain decisions to he taken by qualified majority voting. But we cannot be forced to subject our foreign policy to the will of other member states. We have in fact preserved unanimity for all decisions where we decide that we need it.
"We are agreed that Europe must do more for its own defence. We should build up the Western European Union as the defence pillar of the European union. But the treaty embodies the view set out in the Anglo-Italian proposal two months ago, and endorsed at last month's NATO summit, that whatever we do at European level must be compatible with NATO. The Western European Union must in no way be subordinate to the European council. It is not. We have avoided the danger of setting up defence structures which would compete with NATO. We have created a framework in which Europe can develop its defence role in a way which complements the American presence in Europe and does not put it at risk.
"In these negotiations we put forward a series of proposals designed to be of direct benefit to the citizen. All of them were accepted. The Community has agreed: to increase the accountability of EC institutions; to strengthen the European Parliament's financial control over the Commission; to allow the European Parliament to investigate maladministration and to appoint an EC ombudsman accessible to all Community citizens; to build up the role of the Court of

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Auditors, which becomes an institution of the Community; and to ensure compliance with Community obligations by giving the European Court of Justice power to impose fines on governments who do not enforce them.
"We wanted—and secured—a sensible enhancement of the role of the European Parliament. We did not accept the proposal made by other member states for a power of co-decision between the Parliament and the Council. As I told the House on 20th November, the Council of Ministers must be the body that ultimately determines the Community's laws and policies. I also said then that we were prepared to consider some blocking power for the European Parliament. That has now been agreed. The treaty sets up, in a limited number of areas, a conciliation procedure where there is a disagreement between the Council and Parliament. In the last analysis the Parliament would be able to block a decision in those areas, but only if an absolute majority of its members turned out to vote the proposal down.
"The House has been rightly concerned at the creeping extension of Community competence over the past few years. The Commission has often brought forward proposals using a dubious legal base; and the Council has found it difficult to halt that practice in the European Court. We have taken significant steps to deal with that problem.
"First, the structure of the treaty puts the issues of foreign and security policy, interior and justice matters and defence policy beyond the reach of the Commission and the European Court. Secondly, the treaty itself embodies the vital principle of "subsidiarity", making it clear that the Community should only be involved in decisions which cannot more effectively be taken at national levels. Thirdly, in some areas—notably health protection, educational exchanges, vocational training and culture—we have defined Community competence clearly for the first time. Fourthly, there will be no extension of Community competence in employer-employee relations—the so-called social area.
"We have a high standard of social protection in this country. Our National Health Service, free at the point of use, is the envy of many in Europe. But we recognise the Community's social dimension. And, unlike some of our European partners, we have implemented that dimension too. Nineteen out of the 33 measures in the social action programme have been agreed. But there is no reason for the Community to get involved in employment legislation, which must be for each country to decide for itself. Over the past 12 years we have transformed labour relations. In 1979, 29 million working days were lost in strikes. Last year, the figure was less than 2 million. I was not prepared to see that record put in jeopardy. I was not prepared to risk Britain's competitive position as the European magnet for inward investment. I was not prepared to put British jobs on the line.
"Many of our partners have a wholly different tradition of employment practice which is reflected
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in the separate arrangements that they have agreed which will affect only their countries and for which only they will pay. But even among these member states there are many who fear the effect of Community measures on their jobs and their ability to compete. Our arguments are not based only on our national interest but on the risks we perceive to the competitive position of the Community as a whole.
"This week's events in the Soviet Union were a salutary reminder that reform in the Community is not an end in itself. The Community's primary task must be to extend its own advantages of democracy, stability and prosperity to eastern Europe. At British initiative, we committed ourselves at Maastricht to the further enlargement of the Community, starting with the EFTA countries. When they and, in due course, the new democracies of eastern Europe are ready to join the Community, we shall be ready to welcome them.
"With this in mind, the Commission will report on enlargement to next June's European Council in Lisbon. Thereafter, it will be for the British Presidency to carry that work forward. I look forward to doing so.
"We agreed a number of statements on foreign policy issues. I will single out two of them. On the Soviet Union, the European Council calls on the republics to respect the rights of minorities, to implement international agreements on arms control and nuclear non-proliferation, to control and secure their nuclear weapons and to honour their obligations in respect of the Soviet Union's external debt.
"The European Council has endorsed the demands which we, France and the United States have made to the Libyan government requiring them to abandon their support of terrorism and to hand over the perpetrators of the Lockerbie bombing.
"The founders of the Community knew that they could not create a viable organisation if they established goals that could never be achieved. In talking about European union, we are talking about concepts that have to be cast in the reality of national legislation and every-day life. The Single European Act started as a grandiose design and ended up as a workmanlike blueprint for a free market. These treaties have followed the same course.
"Our role has been to put forward practical suggestions—and sometimes to rein in the larger ambitions of our partners. Where we believe their ideas would not work, we have put forward our own alternatives. And these can be found throughout the treaty. As with all international negotiations, there has been give and take between all Twelve member states. But the process was one in which Britain has played a leading role. The result is one in which we can clearly see the imprint of our views.
"This is a treaty which safeguards and advances our national interests. It advances the interests of Europe as a whole. It opens up new ways of

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co-operating in Europe. It clarifies and contains the powers of the Commission. It will allow the Community to develop in depth. And it reaches out to other Europeans—the new democracies who want to share the benefits we already enjoy.
"It is a good agreement for Europe and for the United Kingdom. I commend it to the House". My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
5.40 p.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement. It seems that the Treaty of Maastricht has been signed after a considerable struggle, a struggle in the main between the United Kingdom Government and the rest. We shall need to study all the implications, and ascertain what concessions have been made on both sides to secure agreement. The House will be aware that we on this side are most concerned and disappointed that the Government fought to the last ditch, not on foreign affairs, not on defence, not on the single currency, but on the social dimension. Social policy has been set aside to suit the Government.
Although 11 countries supported the Social Charter, the Government resisted its adoption to the end. It is extraordinary that subjects of critical importance upon which this country has given the lead to Europe over the century are dismissed by the Government. They say that the cost to British industry is too high. Will the noble Lord explain why Germany and France in particular, both with more successful economies than this country—one with a Conservative Government and the other with a Socialist Government—supported the social policy from the start? Why does it present dangers to us but not to them?
I have a further question to put to the noble Lord. Are the 19 out of 33 measures referred to in the Statement embodied in the Maastricht Treaty?
We are also anxious to strengthen the European Parliament; but the Government have always tended towards the status quo. It is now to have more powers. Will the noble Lord indicate precisely what they will be? On the question of a single currency, does he agree that we have chosen the second track? Is that not likely to damage British industry far more than is support for the social policy? How will the opt-out clause affect the confidence of British finance and industry?
The Statement says that the single currency may come into being in 1997 only if seven countries meet the convergence conditions, and if eight vote in favour. What are those conditions, because they are not clear from the Statement? Furthermore, how does the noble Lord think that will affect this country's prospects of, and proper bid for, having the European bank established in London?
As I understand the Statement, foreign affairs are now divided into two categories: one subject to majority voting and the other not. Will the noble Lord give the House an example of one or two issues upon which the Government will accept majority voting? Without that information, it is difficult to make a
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judgment on the value of that part of the Statement. There are several other matters which obviously require close attention, and I warmly welcome the noble Lord's announcement that there will be a debate in the House next week.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: I also thank the noble Lord the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement upon which I shall endeavour to make a brief initial comment. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, was right in assuming that there was to be a debate in the House next week. I thought that the Statement referred to the fact that there would be a debate in the other place next week. That, if I may say so, underlines the need for an early debate in this House. The first point with which I hope the noble Lord will deal concerns when we will have a debate in the House, because the superficial comments that one can make on this occasion are no substitute for a debate.
I do not wish to be unduly critical of the right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister. I admire the temperament with which he has conducted himself at the Maastricht European Council. A European Council, with its multi-lingual deliberations (although of course with expert interpreters) on a wide range of issues; in a room with no official advisers present; proceeding in private, but with public, and often selective, briefings taking place immediately afterwards, is not an easy forum for even the most experienced heads of government who are not in a specially exposed position. The Prime Minister, of necessity, cannot at present be an experienced head of government. By his pre-summit activities he put himself into a peculiarly exposed position. In those circumstances, I pay tribute to the good temper and the nerve with which he appears to have played his part in the proceedings.
I fear that that is about as far as I can go. The outcome could, of course, have been worse. There has been no rupture, but I am struck by the defensive nature of the Prime Minister's Statement. There is no European leadership voice here for this country and no call to our European partners. He can only hope that they will not read it too closely. The posture struck by it is, frankly, a defensive one of hoping that there will not be too many attacks coming from behind him.
The note constantly struck is that of looking for the exits. If one goes to watch a play and one keeps one's eye on the exit sign rather than the stage, one is unlikely greatly to enjoy the performance. That is the position struck in regard to the single currency. Any British leader negotiating in Europe should keep in the front of his mind the words—I paraphrase them rather roughly—with which the British representative left the Messina Conference 36 years ago. He was broadly saying, "What you are talking about won't happen. If it does happen, it won't work. If by chance it does work, we shall be quite happy outside it". Every one of those words has been proved to be completely false. We have lived with the consequences of them for the past three and a half decades. We might have learnt a little from that.

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On the single currency, as I say, we are concentrating upon the exit signs—I put it more strongly than the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn—which will guarantee that we cannot be a candidate for being the seat of the European central bank, although that is in a state of flux at the moment. How could that conceivably be so when we say that we might be off at any moment? I merely have to pose the question to see how ridiculous it is.
Secondly, on the Social Charter, we have chosen to stand semi-detached again, and, if the present Government are by chance returned again, it will be interesting to see whether, as the decade of the 1990s unfolds, we, without the Social Charter, prosper uniquely in Europe, whereas the German and other economies, staggering under that intolerable burden, put up an economic performance consistently weaker and worse than ours. Let us see what happens. If that is what occurs, one will have to admit that some assumptions were wrong. Until it does, I am bound to conclude by saying that it is better than a rupture, but there is nothing here which puts Britain at the heart of Europe. On the contrary, there is everything here which continues our policy of semi-detachment, of dragging our feet and of always joining reluctantly and, therefore, uninfluentially.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I am bound to say that we have heard two comments which bear little or no relationship to what was achieved at the conference. There seems to be no realisation that at the conference the Prime Minister achieved all the Government's principal objectives. He achieved what we had set out to achieve so far as the European monetary union was concerned; he achieved what we wanted to see in the field of foreign policy, defence and interior justice. I do not believe that even the Opposition think that the Government were wrong to set out to try to keep that out of the machinery of the treaty. We succeeded in doing that. We succeeded in having the principle of subsidiarity written into the treaty, and, so far as I am aware, even the Opposition do not think that we were wrong to negotiate hard to achieve that. We have succeeded in introducing new mechanisms for more effective financial control of the Commission. As far as I am aware, the Opposition do not oppose that.
We have succeeded in seeing that the European Parliament will have new powers to investigate maladministration within the Commission. We have seen the setting up of a European Community ombudsman. We have seen more power given to the European Court so that we will see the proper implementation of Community law, and will have no more of the obscenity of people signing on the dotted line without having any intention of implementing that to which they have subscribed. We have seen the federal vocation eliminated from the text. That is not just a matter of words, because it is the key to the removal of foreign policy and interior justice matters from the treaty.
The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, talked of the social dimension. Of course we accept that there is a social dimension to the treaty; 19 of the 33
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measures in the social action programme have been adopted and all have been implemented by the United Kingdom. Our standards in many fields of worker protection are higher than those on the Continent: for example, in the field of health and safety. So it is making a mockery of the facts if one talks the whole time as if Britain is not prepared to take any measures to look after the interests of workers in this country.
However, we could not accept a text which would allow the Community to adopt measures which would drive a coach and horses through our trade union reforms of the past 12 years and which, as was mentioned by the Prime Minister, have reduced the rate of strikes in this country and restored order where previously there was chaos. Those reforms revived us from a position where we were the laughing stock of Europe. We cannot accept measures which would damage British competitiveness and cost British jobs.
It is interesting to note that others have signed the protocol but there is nothing specific in its terms, nothing about working conditions in its terms. If the others adopt measures which are worthwhile, we can act similarly. As it is, we have welfare provisions which do not exist on the Continent. We have a health service whereas there is nothing comparable on the Continent. But perhaps Mr. Delors is right, American and Japanese investment will flood into Britain as a result of this ill-considered decision by the other members of the Community. Why should I or anyone else complain about that?
The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, asked about Germany. Why cannot we take on all these measures if Germany can do so? That is a matter for Germany, but one must be careful in making these comparisons. There are plenty of examples of Britain being in the lead in the social field. I have already quoted many and I shall not bore the House with any more.
As regards the single currency, I believe that we have chosen the best of all conceivable worlds. We can decide at a later date whether or not it is to the advantage of Britain to go in. All our options are open, we do not have to accept any control of monetary policy during Stage Two and we can make the decision, if and when we wish to do so, to enter the single currency.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, was kind enough to pay tribute to the good temper and nerve of the Prime Minister, but I did not appreciate much of what he said beyond that. I point out to him that the question of the seat of the European central bank does not have to be addressed now and probably will not be addressed for many years to come.
As regards the Social Charter, I was amazed to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, had to say because his views certainly do not equate with those of Mr. Ashdown. Mr. Ashdown wrote a letter to the Guardian yesterday pointing out that he did not believe any of this nonsense of our signing on the dotted line for the social dimension. He wrote:
"My concern is that the draft Treaty Chapter fails this test [of subsidiarity]. It provides for an expansion of treaty-based Community competence into areas of wage bargaining and social security that should rightly remain with member states, or with individual firms and Citizens".

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The noble Lord's statement only shows the infinite divisibility of even a small quantity of matter.
5.54 p.m.
Lard Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, will my noble friend first clear up the question as to whether the reference in the Statement to a debate next week was to a debate in another place or whether it also included—as I hope it does—a promise of a debate in this House? At the moment that matter seems obscure to me.
I also ask him whether he appreciates—as I am sure he does—that to most of us certainly on this side of the House the outcome of this gathering is a great personal success for the Prime Minister. I very much appreciate what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, as to the strain of dealing with all these complex matters in the personal way in which they have to be dealt with at these gatherings. I am sure that most of us wish to send our warmest congratulations to the Prime Minister and an indication that this outcome causes us to have increasing confidence in his management of this country's affairs.
Could my noble friend also clarify two other points? First, he said something about a budgetary deficit affecting the financial arrangements if we entered into them. What exactly is the provision concerning a budget deficiency affecting the agreement once entered into? Secondly, can he say whether any of the new candidates for membership of the Community are likely to come forward in the next few months? He referred to the EFTA members but did not indicate whether there was any barrier to their coming forward right away, within the next few weeks, if necessary. Perhaps he could give us some indication of that.
Finally, I should like to say how delighted I am that the Social Charter has been rejected. Apart from anything else, it would have interfered entirely with our working hours and days of the week, with Sunday working. We have grounds to be proud of our arrangements for labour law and social matters which, in my view, are greatly superior to those on the Continent. There is no earthly reason why we should lower our standards in order to coincide with them.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I said nothing about a debate. I had been told that it was announced in another place that there would be a debate there. Obviously it is for discussion through the usual channels as to when there might be an opportunity for a debate here. I should in no way be reluctant to have a debate, although I do not believe that there will be much chance of having it next week. I do not think that that is any obvious disadvantage because we shall have the opportunity of looking at all the documents. I gather that it will be some time before we get full translations of many of the documents and will be able to study them to the extent that many of us wish. We have only heard the broad outlines today.
I am grateful to my noble friend for saying what an enormous achievement it has been for the Prime Minister. It is right to say that it was not all done in
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a conference lasting two days. There have been laborious negotiations, started and continued successfully under the Prime Minister's predecessor and continued successfully under his own leadership. All I said was that we would continue to be able to operate our own monetary policy during Stage Two until such time as we might decide to go into a single currency.
As regards new members, we managed to get agreement that it should be decided in 1992 whether new members should be discussed then, and that a report should be made to the Council of Ministers in Lisbon in the summer of 1992.
5.59 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I would not have signed any treaty at all, so I regret that it has been signed? Can the Leader of the House give an assurance that the signing of the new treaty on EMU does not in practice put this country to all intents and purposes on a conveyor belt to federalism? Will the Minister give that assurance? Will he also say whether staying outside the EMU treaty will in practice exclude us from Article 105—that concerns the cost of convergence—or will we nevertheless, in spite of our so-called opt-out, have to pay towards the cost of convergence? I hope the Minister will be able to answer that question.
As the Minister is aware, there is a proposal to fine member states for non-compliance with directives. How will such fines be enforced against a state? Will German troops be sent over here to enforce fines, or will we send British troops over to Italy when Italy does not meet the terms of directives, as is so often the case?
We have had no opportunity to consider the small print of the new treaty. Therefore can we be given an assurance that that small print will not allow the Commission to increase its creeping competence in areas where that is not intended or envisaged by the Government?
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I shall deal with the noble Lord's final point first. One of our principal aims was to be cautious about accepting any agreement on an extension of competence as we have found, sometimes to our cost, that the European Court has stretched the apparent meaning of articles to their limit in order to increase powers of intervention when that is unnecessary. The agreement reached on European monetary union certainly does not put this country on a conveyor belt to federalism. As I pointed out earlier, we were successful not only in obtaining the removal of the word "federal" from the treaty, but also in removing great chunks of activities from the treaty mechanism. We managed to remove activities from the machinery of the Commission and of the European Court.
As regards the cost of convergence, I understand that we have reached no agreement to pay any more than we are already pledged to pay under the contribution system which involves contributing to other countries to bring about earlier convergence. We have reached no such agreement. On the matter of fines, I do not imagine that once the European Court

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has the power to order a fine to be paid by a country, the country concerned will default. The problem at the moment is that some states do not get cracking and put into effect the changes in the law which they have undertaken to put into effect. However, I cannot believe for one moment that the problem the noble Lord mentioned is a real one.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal will note that my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Hillhead and my right honourable friend Mr. Ashdown both speak for our party, but they were not speaking about the same thing. As regards the Social Charter, my noble friend Lord Jenkins said exactly what I heard my right honourable friend Mr. Ashdown say last night. We are in favour of it. My right honourable friend wanted to express misgivings about the social chapter before the negotiators at Maastricht. He shares—as does the party—many of the Government's reservations about the employment proposals in that treaty. We too would have resisted those proposals. However we are disappointed that the Government resisted so much else as well.
I understand the argument of cost. However, there is no such thing as a free lunch. If we do not implement the directive on part-time workers, for example, does not the noble Lord agree that the costs of low wages must fall somewhere? They would most likely fall on the social security budget through housing benefit and family credit. I know my noble friend Lord Ezra has often said that more should be done to assist industry. We agree with that. I ask the Minister to consider whether a blanket, indiscriminate subsidy to wages through the social security budget is the most efficient way of doing that. Is there a possibility that such a blanket subsidy to wages might be held to infringe EC competition policy or, as suggested in The Times this morning, that it might be held by the European Court to infringe the level playing field provisions of the Single European Act? Like my noble friend I much regret the negative tone of this Statement. It sounds a little as though the permanent members of the Community should now be known as the 11½
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I am simply amazed at that contribution. I simply cannot understand how anyone, using the English language in the way it is supposed to be used, can say that the Statement is a negative one in view of the great list of changes that will take place as a result of this agreement. One only has to single out one or two of the changes. There are new provisions to obtain better control of the Commission and better monitoring of expenditure. I do not know how anyone can say those are insignificant measures. There is the addition of subsidiarity to the text. I do not understand how anyone can say that is insignificant. People may not like that provision, but they cannot claim it is insignificant.
There is the matter of removing the federal vocation from the text. Then there are all the things that will happen to achieve greater co-operation and the provisions concerning defence and foreign policy. I believe the noble Earl's leader said that we had
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adopted the correct approach on many of those issues. I believe that if the noble Earl studies the Statement later, he will find that not only did his leader join with us in opposing the social chapter, but he also agreed with many of the steps we have taken in this agreement. There is no doubt about that whatever.
The noble Earl said that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, and his leader in another place are talking about different things. I do not understand that statement as I read out precisely what Mr. Ashdown stated in the Guardian yesterday. He said absolutely plainly, in words that cannot be doubted for one moment, that he would not have signed the social chapter.
Lord Jay: My Lords, is it not right that when a former British Prime Minister at least does her best to limit damage to British interests she should be given full credit for that, even if she belongs to the wrong party? Are not the opt out procedures a sensible proposal as they will allow each country to do what it likes and what suits it best? Could they not be a valuable precedent for the future on other issues?
Lord Waddington: My Lords, everyone is aware of the expertise of the noble Lord in this matter and the great interest he has taken in it throughout. There are many things we can do perfectly well as a country. We should pause for a long time before coming to the conclusion that this whole issue is so terribly difficult that it can he carried out only under the auspices of a bureaucracy in another place.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, does not my noble friend agree that the Statement that my right honourable friend made in another place heavily underlines the objectives which he set out in his speech of 20th November? Consequently this Statement is intended mainly for the British Parliament and the British people. Nevertheless is he not warmly to be congratulated, together with the 11 heads of the other member states, on having set up two texts which lay down a foundation for future co-operation in Europe in financial and other matters? Therefore we may improve the relationship between the institutions. That was a major problem for the ongoing affairs of the Community. We will also enable the Community to be in a strong enough condition to receive other members in due course, principally through EFTA and through the emerging democracies in Eastern Europe. Surely we want a peaceful area in Western Europe that is economically and politically stable, particularly in view of what is going on in other parts of the world.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, it is significant that it is recognised that as soon as other countries in Europe can meet the conditions for entry they will be welcomed. Certainly we in Britain want to see that widening of the Community. My noble friend highlighted the fact that, as I said earlier, there is so much that is positive in the Statement. The treaty lays the foundations for closer co-operation in all sorts of fields even though many of those fields remain, wisely, outside the treaty.
Lord Murray of Epping Forest: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that millions of trade unionists in Europe are probably sighing with relief that the dead hand of the UK Government will not be involved in the shaping of social policies over the next few years? In that respect it may well be that the Prime Minister has scored an own goal. Maastricht is not the end of the world or the end of Europe, and when those social policies come to be applied in this country, perhaps as a result of pressure to establish a playing field which is more level than at present, we shall benefit from the results of discussions which will produce much better policies than would have been the case had the United Kingdom Government been involved in their development. Therefore we can look forward to the future with some confidence.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, the noble Lord seems to have a very defeatist attitude and a very poor opinion of his own party, which I suppose he hopes will come to power one day. I really do not understand why he does not feel that his own party in government would be perfectly capable of carrying out whatever legislation was necessary in the social field.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, contrary to having scored an own goal, as the noble Lord, Lord Murray, suggested, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, ably supported by my right honourable friends the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has won a famous victory and deserves our warmest congratulations?
Perhaps I may ask my noble friend two quick questions. First, has anything been achieved in the discussions to provide a better degree of democratic scrutiny of the work of the European Commission, a matter which has caused some anxiety in the past? Secondly, has anything been achieved in the discussions which have taken place in regard to defence to prevent, for example, the recent experience in which our Belgian friends most regrettably declined to supply ammunition for our troops in the Gulf?
Lord Waddington: My Lords, we have not yet reached the stage of having a European defence policy. All parties recognise the difficulties in moving that far. We have achieved what we set out to achieve. The Western European Union will remain central to the defence of Western Europe. There will be no conflict between the Western European Union and NATO, which will remain supreme. In relation to defence policy we got what we wanted.
I do not have the precise details before me but, broadly speaking, the European Parliament will be given more powers to investigate spending by the Community and will be able to investigate allegations of maladministration by the Commission. There will be new powers for the Court of Auditors.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, the noble Lord will be very pleased to learn that the Printed Paper Office, with its usual efficiency, has at its disposal a copy of the treaty and the amendments agreed yesterday. That enables me to ask my question with some degree of precision. I refer to Article 109(f) which deals with the third stage
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of economic and monetary union and sets out the criteria on which countries can be regarded as being able to move to a single currency. In his opening remarks the noble Lord referred quite rightly to the efforts which the UK Government had made to introduce the concept of convergence before countries could move to a single currency. That has been adopted and is set out clearly. Incidentally, I can let the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, know that the question which he raised on budgetary convergence is dealt with in Article 104(b).
I cannot understand why, having with great success achieved the condition of convergence before a single currency can be achieved, the Government nevertheless still apparently want, even if this country achieves convergence by 1996, to be able to opt out of the next step. That seems rather odd and I should be very glad if the noble Lord would explain the reasoning behind that position.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, we have a very strong belief in parliamentary sovereignty. Some years have to go by before it is suggested by anybody that there should be a single currency. To our mind it is quite right that the Parliament of the day should have the opportunity to decide then whether or not it is in Britain's interest to enter a single currency.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, in the absence of the clock, I regret that I must draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that the 20 minutes for discussion on the Statement have been exceeded.

Mortgage Repossessions
6.15 p.m.
Lord Ross of Newport Lord Ross of Newport rose to call attention to the increasing number of mortgage repossessions, and to the case for finding other ways of dealing with mortgage debt; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. Housing policy in Britain is in disarray. The certainties which at the beginning of the 1980s were to create the climate in which the private sector would meet housing needs no longer exist. Rather than a buoyant private sector removing the need for state intervention in housing, the problems of housing supply, access and homelessness have become so severe that the Government have begun to do things which they previously stated were unnecessary, namely, to develop support for social rented housing through housing associations and to acknowledge the need for special initiatives in relation to homelessness. Those are not my words but those of Professor Alan Murie of Heriot-Watt University, writing in the current edition of Housing Review.
As one among many who has warned in previous debates in this House that relying too much on the private sector would never work, I say at once that I greatly welcome that recent change of heart on the part of the Government. I also particularly welcome—although he has been there for more than a year now—the appointment of Sir George Young as

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Minister for housing. That he has all the necessary qualifications for his post there is no doubt, which could hardly be said of some of his predecessors.
My intention in this short debate is not to go over past history but to try to suggest further initiatives which we believe are essential if the present critical situation is to be ameliorated. The hope is that that may strengthen the resolve of the Minister when arguing his case for the additional financial resources which are so obviously needed.
That there is a serious crisis there can be no doubt. According to statistics appearing in the November edition of Housing Finance issued by the Council of Mortgage Lenders, which includes building societies and banks, at the end of 1990 the number of properties mortgaged to individuals in this country had risen to no less than 9,415,000. In 1990 43,890 of those had been taken back into possession by the lender or voluntarily surrendered, as it appears some people are doing. Presumably those properties have either been sold or are up for sale. That represents some 0.47 per cent. of the total number of houses mortgaged. It is worrying that at the end of 1990 mortgages in excess of six months in arrears totalled no less than 123,110 —a huge increase on the previous figure.
I suggest that that is not very surprising when in some cases people have entered into mortgages which call for about 44 per cent. of their net income in mortgage repayments. The overall average is 26 per cent., which is still far too high. Nevertheless, in those years some people have taken on commitments which require nearly half of their net income.
It is widely quoted that by the end of this month the number of repossessions for the year 1990–91 will have risen to between 75,000 and 100,000. On Monday of this week alone 68 properties were included in one London auction on the instructions of the Halifax Building Society.
I am a chartered surveyor—I still pay my sub, although I do not practise—and I have some knowledge of the property industry. The Estates Gazette, which comes out every week, was my bible. It is pretty horrifying to flip through the pages of the Estates Gazette today. Indeed, additional lines have been installed at some auctioneers' offices. The number of properties being sold because of bankruptcy is staggering; in fact it is horrible.
In Sunday's Observer newspaper, Mr. Peter Spencer, who is an economic analyst with the merchant bankers Lehman Brothers, suggests that the natural progression of those people who are six months in arrears probably means that repossessions might reach no less a figure than a quarter of a million next year. In the Sunday Times, Mr. Tim Melville-Ross, who is the chief executive of the Nationwide Building Society, is quoted as saying that a figure of 150,000 repossessed houses on the market next year might be a conservative estimate. We are probably therefore talking in terms of up to a quarter of a million properties.
I have had the advantage of a brief from the Eagle Star Insurance Company which, among others, is losing a great deal of money at present because it and
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others took on the extra 20 per cent. of the risk of the loans of people taking up mortgages of 95 or even 100 per cent. It says that the principal features of the present situation and the outlook for the short and medium term are that house prices have fallen on average by over 15 per cent. nationally since the peak in 1989 and by 26 per cent. in the South. There has been a dramatic rise in the number of mortgages seriously in arrears and in repossession of homes by lenders as a result of home owners' financial difficulties. Repossessed homes are likely to account for up to 17 per cent. of the reduced number of property transactions in the South in the next year.
The fall in house values, coupled with a high percentage average mortgage advance, has given rise to a negative equity position amounting to an estimated £3 billion for first-time borrowers since 1985. The fact that borrowings exceed the current valuation of the property has in many cases reduced the incentive to keep up with mortgage payments, contributing to the pool of arrears and repossessions. Losses to lenders on actual and prospective repossessions are estimated to total more than £3 billion, including realisation costs assuming that house prices fall no further. As I said earlier, the major part of that loss will fall on insurance companies under mortgage indemnity policies taken out in connection with loans, although it is believed that a significant proportion will also fall on building societies and other lenders, including banks.
Economic forecasts which predict a significant rise in house prices over the next two years lack credibility as they are based on historical relationships and do not take into account either the unprecedented state of the housing market or the downside factors, including the probability of higher repossessions. A standstill in prices would reduce prospective economic growth by a total of 1.5 per cent. over the next two years, effectively stifling recovery. If house prices continue to fall, the bulk of any repossession losses would fall on the building societies as, in most cases, prospective losses are already at or above the insured proportion of 20 or 25 per cent. If house prices fall 12 per cent. further, losses to building societies might be between £2 billion and £2.5 billion—up to one-quarter of their combined capital resources—thus threatening the stability of the sector.
According to the Department of the Environment's own figures for the third quarter of 1991, which I understand were published only yesterday, the number of people made homeless because of mortgage arrears has risen by 47 per cent. over the same period last year. Moreover, as a percentage of those accepted by councils as being homeless, the overall figure is 13 per cent. which rises to 18 per cent. in non-metropolitan districts. In other words, almost one-fifth of homeless people in non-metropolitan districts have been made homeless through repossession orders.
We therefore have not only the problem of vast numbers of homeless families, adding to the already greatly overstretched resources of the poor local authorities—in Croydon, which I believe has the greatest number of court summonses at present, there

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are some 60 cases a week of people facing eviction —but it is a threat to the whole structure of property values throughout the United Kingdom and all that that entails. That affects not only the capital resources of the borrower, but the insurance companies which underwrite mortgage indemnities and even some of the smaller building societies themselves. How long can some of them continue to bear the strain?
History nearly always repeats itself and I must remind the few Members of the House of my age who are here that a similar but not so dramatic or damaging fall in house prices occurred in 1951. I know only too well because I suffered in it. In 1949 I purchased a property for £3,600 with a small inheritance that I received when I came out of the Navy. The people from whom I bought it had lost £500 and were distraught at the time, but when I went to the Isle of Wight in 1953 and had to sell it I managed, after great difficulty, to obtain only £2,300 for it, which just paid off the mortgage. I had £100 left. I was lucky enough to buy a property without electricity on the Isle of Wight with the aid of a mortgage from the local authority on a 15-year term, fixed at 3.5 per cent. If only one could do that kind of thing today. I paid it right off.
I give that example to show that this state of affairs has existed before. As a building society valuer, I was hauled in front of the Halifax Building Society in 1954 because it wanted to know why we had valued some properties at about £3,000 in 1949 which we could not then sell. It took at least 10 years after 1951 for properties to regain their former values and then only slowly, until we started the gallop in the early 1970s. There was then a further fallback followed by another amazing push forward.
The trouble today is that the present situation does not compare with that which pertained previously because some 68 per cent. of houses in Britain are owner-occupied. We also have sky-high rents. Anyone who does not believe that such rents are demanded in the private sector need only read the columns any night in the Evening Standard. I should be surprised if you find a flat for less than £100 a week. It must be pretty dingy if it is less than that. Many of them cost much more. Seeing the Minister there, I must say that I pity the, poor building society valuer today. Where on earth does he pitch his valuations? If he is not careful, he will be had up for being over the top on some of his valuations; but, if he underdoes it, he will also be blamed. I also wonder how some of those valuers who will do the valuations for the proposed council tax will get on because there will be some difficulty in deciding the bands in which to place certain properties.
It will take years for the housing market to recover and, we hope, to regain stability. To achieve that, much must be done, not least by government. From the longer term point of view, they do not like advice. We have the recently published second report of the Duke of Edinburgh's inquiry; the report of the National Housing Forum, which I have the honour to chair, produced recently on social housing accommodation; papers by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors on planning and land values;
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many learned articles in magazines such as Roof, the official journal of Shelter which celebrated 25 years in existence only this week; and other housing publications, including a criticism of over-reliance on housing associations themselves by Mr. David Coleman which I hope will be studied in the Department of the Environment. In all those matters we should pay tribute to the Rowntree Foundation and to its director, Richard Best, because it is to that foundation that almost all those people turn to raise the necessary finance to conduct the investigations. The department is not therefore short of learned advice.
However, there is a desperate need for action now if a catastrophe—and I mean a catastrophe—is to be avoided. I hope that the Minister will not tell me that that is all the fault of Labour or even Liberal local housing authorities. I listen regularly to "Today in Parliament", and I happened to take note of a Question in the other place put by Mr. Matthew Carrington to the Prime Minister, suggesting that there were too many empty houses in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. I asked my researcher to ring up the housing department there and ask why there were so many empty houses. My researcher was told that the number of empty properties in the past 18 months has been reduced to about 450. That compares with the Tory administration in 1986 when the figure was 1,200. So there has been a great improvement since it changed hands. It was a rather silly Question to have asked. When 2.6 per cent. of council dwellings in the borough are empty, it is no worse if not better than the average for inner London. It is probably still not good enough, but certainly it is a move in the right direction and a great improvement on the past. I hope that we shall not have that as a satisfactory answer.
However, even if there were no empty council houses, if mortgagors continue to auction their repossessed home, they will destroy the very market on which other mortgages are secured and many more families will be on the streets. Moreover, selling those houses at greatly reduced prices does little or nothing to help the low wage earners, a few of whom may possibly be going to auction to seek to buy a cheaper house. As one who has attended many auctions in the past, I am prepared to wager that most of the buyers will be dealers who are looking for a bargain. Having bought the property, they will probably put it back immediately on the market with a £10,000 mark up and just await events. That is what will be going on. I am certain of it. The houses will not be sold to owner-occupiers. One firm claimed that 50 per cent. of the properties were going to owner-occupiers. I accept what the firm said, though I personally doubt the accuracy of that figure. However, it means that 50 per cent. are not so sold and it is not a helpful way to deal with the matter.
I recognise that in the past 12 months the present Government have taken some action. Money has been found to increase hostel accommodation, in particular in London, and also for privately leased accommodation in the city. Additional finance has been allowed to speed up and facilitate the repair and maintenance of existing council house stock. Also, the Housing

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Corporation has been providing more money so that starts from housing associations are set to rise up to a total of some 40,000 by 1993.
Moreover, agreement has recently been reached with mortgage lenders to let repossessed properties for between one and three years to housing associations to be managed by them. I am not sure how far that has gone because I am told that housing associations are somewhat unhappy about the situation. So are the building societies because they do not believe that they are getting enough money for those properties. However, the housing associations are worried about what will happen about dilapidations and who will pay for them if the tenant misbehaves and leaves the house in pretty poor order.
I should also like to pay tribute to those local councils and housing authorities which seek to enter into joint schemes with mortgagors, although to date the schemes are very patchy and need to be officially encouraged both verbally and financially by Government. Others are looking for alternatives to bed and breakfast which, I am told, now costs something of the order of £5,500 per annum per family outside London. Some of them are going back to purchasing prefabs. That is a point to which I shall return in a moment. I happen to believe that if the worst comes to the worst that at least is one solution. Mobile homes are another solution.
Yesterday I was told that the provision of temporary accommodation for homeless people now costs something of the order of £300 million per annum and is still rising. I do not know whether that figure will be confirmed, but it was the one reported to me yesterday. It was reported in the weekend papers and confirmed by the Secretary of State for Social Services at the beginning of this week that discussions are taking place between the DSS and mortgage lenders whereby income support for owner-occupiers who qualify for it should go direct to the lender. From these Benches we shall certainly support that action if it can be pulled off. However, it means that the mortgagor must drop his action for possession.
A policy document published for the Liberal Democrats on 27th December shows what can be done in the way of converting mortgages to tenancies —it puts the issue another way round and not how it has been spoken about before—whereby the owner-occupier has a stake in the equity of up to 15 per cent. or enters a shared ownership scheme whereby the stake might be as high as 20 per cent. In other words, the person involved would revert from being an owner-occupier to being a tenant, provided that he had a reasonable stake in the property, or to having shared ownership where it would be a question of how much equity he owned. One would have to sort out just how much money was to be put in in the first place. But he would become part owner and part rent payer, which would at least cut his overheads. In the best interests of owner-occupiers in arrears and of mortgagors, we urge that such schemes should be adopted wherever possible.
I return to the Eagle Star's brief, in the second part of which it says that an increase in resources which
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lenders devote to counselling ought to be provided too. There is a lot to be said for that and trying to get in before it is too late. The aim should be to provide a more positive approach to ensure that direct contact is made with borrowers in all cases of incipient difficulty. Coupled with measures that ensure that social security benefits for mortgage interest are received directly by the lenders, a redoubling of efforts of counselling should help to secure a much greater proportion of available resources for servicing mortgages, thus diminishing the arrears problem. I should expect the citizens advice bureaux to play a part in that but they are always short of money.
There could be a development of a short-term rental scheme, which was recently advocated by the Department of the Environment. In its present form, lenders could not justify participating in the rentals likely to be achieved, but the scheme could be viable if higher rents were available. It rather looks as though, from the insurers' point of view, that scheme, however admirable, may not get off the ground because there will not be a big enough return on their money. They also mention the joint ownership scheme, which they very much support.
They say that it is very unlikely that any of those three schemes would be viable without government participation with a measure of financial support, alongside lenders, indemnity insurers and housing associations. A co-operative effort would have the prospect of alleviating significantly the current deep malaise in the housing market by reducing downward pressure on prices. It could make a positive contribution towards dealing with the growing problems of homelessness while benefiting the growth of the economy.
The Institute of Fiscal Studies has estimated that such schemes would help over 300,000 homebuyers at a possible cost of something like £400 million. Given the means tested character of the schemes, it would by definition bring help to homebuyers likely to be facing difficulties with their mortgage. The schemes would also virtually end the employment trap which increasingly faces unemployed home buyers. A family with two children paying a £70 a week mortgage needs to secure a job paying more than £220 a week if it is to be better off than remaining on income support. By removing an unemployment trap and enabling unemployed home buyers to take up low paid work, the mortgage benefit scheme (which it would develop into) would also lead to future savings in net public expenditure.
There is a strange situation in which people who were perhaps in work and lose their job then get another job which does not pay so well but still do not receive any housing benefit. A case was quoted in last Sunday's Observer in which a family was due to be evicted despite a probable realisation to them of £30,000 from the property; in other words, they had a substantial stake in the property if only they could sell the house. The fact is that the owner lost his job, took another job at a lower rate of pay, but found that he could not meet the mortgage payments. The family is

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therefore to be evicted. However, if some sort of mortgage rescue scheme could be introduced, such people would be saved.
As I understand it, it seems totally unfair that income support is only available where the householders—both of them—are wholly unemployed; where either the husband or the wife or one of the partners to a joint mortgage retains a job, no assistance is given. So if someone goes and gets another job, he probably pays for it by losing his house, whereas if he had stayed unemployed he might well be helped by the Government to remain in possession.
No doubt many parents will want to help their children if they are in difficulties with their mortgage. But in so doing if they try to mortgage their own property, they may well put their own future in jeopardy. Some of the tales of earlier sale and leaseback schemes are correct. Some people did it to give themselves annuities and such but now they wish they had not done so.
Despite all the gloom, there is a chance in political circles to achieve across the party divide some accord on future housing policy. Mr. Clive Soley, who speaks for Labour in the other place on housing matters, has stated that he is quite willing to see a rise in private sector renting of up to 15 per cent. That should at least reassure building societies, insurance companies and private landlords that they will not immediately be clobbered should they enter into a tenancy arrangement. That is a new development. I have sat through enough meetings of Builder magazine in the other place where people like the late Mr. Eric Heffer and others would have nothing to do with that development. The Labour Party is now saying, "Private landlords are free to continue letting. We will not clobber you". If we are to build a sector with about 30 per cent. of rented accommodation—as I believe we should; we are far too dependent on owner occupation—such bodies must be encouraged to build, or buy and lease existing stock. I am all in favour of local authorities being allowed to buy existing stock. I am sure that builders who have houses standing empty would love them to do so. That was a previous solution. However, the Government have this terrible concept: they do not believe that councils have anything to do with housing. The Government give them the responsibility of dealing with homelessness but provide no bricks and mortar with which to do so. The houses are flogged off to housing associations. The Government take the money and spend it on skating rinks and so on, as has happened. An appalling situation has developed.
I wish to see private landlords back on the scene. I want to see insurance companies letting property. Building societies went into the estate agency profession. They should not have done so but they did. Some are still in it. Why should not the Halifax let houses? It has the offices. Nationwide has done so, as did the Abbey National. They do not want to fiddle about colleting rents. One of my jobs in earlier days was to collect rent. Estate agency firms of the old tradition always had two or three strings to their bow. They did not just sell houses; they managed housing.
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They collected rents. They probably had an agricultural side to their business, so that when things were bad in one sector there was some business in the other sector. Building societies came in, paid vast sums for the businesses and got rid of all those side-lines. Building societies thought that they would make money by providing mortgages, life insurance and endowment policies and so on. I suggest that private landlords get back into the act.
When I first came to the House I had a flat that was owned by Legal & General. It was well looked after. Unfortunately after three or four years they sold the block. We should encourage such bodies to get back in. It cannot all be left to housing associations which are in danger in some cases of becoming more bureaucratic than the local authorities. There are instances where it costs more in public money to build houses through housing associations than it ever did through local authorities. That is a fact. While I am a great believer of the housing association movement and a founder member of one myself, some are becoming so big that we need third and fourth parties in the rented sector.
We should also put on the back burner proposals to remove houseboat moorings. We should see whether we can improve the facilities of the people living in houseboats. We shall debate soon a Bill from the British Waterways Board which wishes to shift people from their moorings. Such moorings may be a little insanitary, but let us keep them and improve the sanitation conditions.
We shall soon have legislation regarding squatters, in particular those who take over shops without anyone's permission. There are circumstances where I believe such action is not only understandable but can be condoned. My son would never have obtained a house unless he had squatted in it first. He was given the tenancy of it by a short life housing association.
We need a national land agency rapidly to acquire, to parcel together and sell or lease land for development. The former Land Commission could do that but it has been wiped out. I did not believe in the betterment levy, but there was a great potential for a regional trader in land. We provide for such bodies in Wales and Scotland. I have the annual report of the land authority in Wales. It made a great profit and does a good job. My Conservative colleagues in the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors who condemned the Land Commission now wish to see that body retained. They realise that it has done a great job. Let us do the same in England.
We should also consider mobile homes. As I said earlier, as well managed, decently laid out estates in urban areas, they can provide cheaper alternatives to bed and breakfast accommodation for the homeless. Mobile homes would also give such people some seclusion and self respect. The Salvation Army—God bless it; I have enormous admiration for it—which looks after so many people who are down and out in this country, asked Surrey University to investigate whether it was doing the right thing in providing hostels for such people. Was there some way that it could better spend its money, because it lost money by so doing? The report from Surrey University indicated

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that people who were homeless and in bed and breakfast hostels wanted their own front door and a little stature back in their lives. They did not want to share such facilities as loos, washing up areas and so on. One can provide that stature with a mobile home.
I have been on this hobby horse for some time. If the Minister for Housing cannot squeeze the money out of the Treasury, let us put forward such schemes as providing mobile homes. We make rather good mobile homes in Humberside. I made that statement to the director of housing in Hull. He said that he would love to carry out such a scheme but he is restricted by the present controls on local government spending. We have a lot of land lying idle where we can put in essential services. The area could be properly managed, and decently set up with hard standings. We could ensure that it is well run. That is one way to handle the situation.
I believe that we are in a war time crisis situation. It is the fact—the number of noble Lords wishing to take part in the debate reflects it—that housing does not appear to be a main issue. It is not in the top 10. I do not understand why. It is a situation that affects people's children and grandchildren., However, I shall place a bet that within three to four months it will be the one enormous issue of the coming year if we continue in the way that we are now. It is therefore up to the Government to do rather more than at present. I am sure that the Minister for Housing would like to do more. I wish to encourage him to do so. I hope that the noble Baroness will tell him of this debate and perhaps he will read it. If the Government do not do more, we are heading for an absolute catastrophe. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
6.47 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, as I am sure are other noble Lords, for raising a subject which has been of great concern in recent months and a cause of personal distress in unfortunate cases. Practical suggestions must be welcome on how to alleviate the plight of home owners who have not been able to keep up their mortgage payments. I hope that the anomalies in benefit payments to which the noble Lord referred can be looked into by the Government and ironed out.
I must again declare to the House an interest as a director of one of the largest building societies and chairman of its Scottish board. We own a bank that has also been engaged in mortgage lending.
Until about four years ago, the figures and published information on arrears and possessions indicated that in the majority of cases the main reason was matrimonial or other family breakups. With the recession that has changed. Family splits are still a factor. However, the slump in the housing market has given rise to problems that cannot be solved by selling the property. Nowadays the proceeds of a sale are likely to be less than the outstanding debt.
The figures for properties taken into possession showed a considerable increase both last year and to date this year. The noble Lord, Lord Ross, gave some
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figures. There has also been an increase in the figures for cases of arrears of six months or more. I wish to say a word of caution in interpreting those figures. Building societies and no doubt other lenders have been doing everything they can to help home owners in arrears, including extending the time and reducing the instalments. That adds to the arrears figures. That may be misleading because one hopes that in most of those cases the individuals being helped will pull through and will not have to give up their dwelling.
In this context borrowers are well advised to get in touch with their lenders as soon as they find themselves in difficulties. Conditions for their payments can then be altered by agreement. Because of the fall in house prices, especially in the south of England, some borrowers have voluntarily left their houses and handed in the keys. The lender is then in possession without asking to be. That situation is made worse if those borrowers later apply for a mortgage on another property with another lender while concealing their default on the previous loan. That has been happening. Therefore, collective action has been taken by mortgage lenders to forestall such compounding of trouble by opening a register of possessions, enabling them to share the particular information needed.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders—the CML— represents most of the building societies, banks and other financial institutions engaged in domestic housing finance. In May of last year the council published a statement of current best practice on handling mortgage arrears. In August of this year a similar statement was issued on possession procedures. Of course the aim is to help borrowers and to have a standard code of good conduct in those difficult circumstances.
However, it should be remembered that the building societies have obligations. They have obligations to their members whose invested money is involved. They must also observe the prudential requirements of the Building Societies Commission which is the regulator in their case. In passing, I point out that the collapse in the United States of the whole savings and loans system is something which we should avoid. Fortunately, through our regulators we have kept well clear of anything like that.
I understand that discussions have been taking place between the mortgage lenders and the Government. One improvement being advanced by the CML concerns those social security payments—income support—directly related to mortgage aid. Those are payable in certain circumstances, such as loss of employment. At present they are paid to individuals. In many cases the money does not find its way to meeting the mortgage interest as is intended. If those payments could be paid direct to the lender, the eventual taking into possession of a house would be less likely. After all, that is the present practice as regards tenancies and rent. Where the rent is being met specifically by social security payments or a housing department, it can be paid direct to the owner due to receive it. That is certainly the case under current Scottish arrangements. I hope that the Government

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will agree to make the necessary changes to put that reform into effect for income support payments made solely to meet mortgage interest.
Lessons from the past may help us in the future. Questions should rightly be asked. Should those problems have been anticipated and avoided? Did mortgage lenders make it too easy to obtain loans? Should the possibilities of recession and a fall in house prices have been taken into account in the 1980s and earlier? With hindsight the answer to those three questions is probably, yes. However, we must recall that home ownership had become an aspiration for many families in the country, supported in recent years by all political parties. Many young married couples were working hard and saving with that as their principal goal. Building societies and other lenders wanted to help as much as they could. In the past two or three years lenders have felt obliged to alter their criteria; for example, the income ratio. Also, they have reduced the percentage of the valuation of a property to be covered by a loan.
Our special anxiety must remain with home owners who took out mortgages prior to those past two or three years, feeling confident that their prospective income would meet the monthly payments, and who have been unable to do so for reasons beyond their control. They should have been informed about the system of unpredictable changes in interest rates. That should have been explained to them at the time they arranged their mortgages. They have had to contend with unusually high rates in recent years.
If they have encountered serious illness, loss of a job or there is some other reason for a fall in their income, they may well be in a serious predicament. In this debate I submit that our attention and anxiety must be focused on people with those problems. I hope that the Government will continue to work with the Council of Mortgage Lenders to find ways of easing the personal burdens and worries of those borrowers.
I have mentioned already income support payments I shall be interested to hear from the Minister whether there are any other schemes in which the Government are involved.
Turning from people to property, I understand that there is a new scheme which was touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Ross, for dealing with property already taken into possession. I understand that that has been agreed between the Council of Mortgage Lenders and the Department of the Environment and that mortgage lenders will enter into management agreements or leasing arrangements with housing associations. The housing associations will manage a property for a period of not less than a year. The property will be returned with guaranteed vacant possession either on a fixed date or after six months' notice.
One advantage of that scheme is that it uses existing institutions and procedures—management agreements—which are already well established. Another advantage is that a new source of supply of housing for homeless families will become available which will be much cheaper than the bed and breakfast accommodation now being used.
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Also, it would mean that additional properties—that is, the houses which have been repossessed—would not be coming onto the market for sale at a time of glut which we know exists at present and which may continue for some time, as the noble Lord, Lord Ross, rather pessimistically foresaw. If that scheme goes ahead, it will help to provide more housing through housing associations.
Noble Lords who were in another place with me some 30 years ago will recall that I was one of the Ministers who put through the Housing Act 1964. Therefore, in 1963 and 1964, throughout a long Committee stage, I was involved with the Bill which created the Housing Corporation. That gave the first official boost to the housing association movement and started the spread and growth of housing associations. I heard the slight reflection which the noble Lord, Lord Ross, made about the use of housing associations now because they are doing so much. However, he took the same view as I have that they have done a very good job. I still believe that for appropriate purposes housing associations can be very useful and I hope that they will help even more in the difficulties which now face us.
The agreement which I have heard about is between the Department of the Environment and the CML. The DoE has functions in England but not in Scotland or Wales. If a scheme is in being, I ask the Minister whether similar arrangements are being made for Scotland and Wales and how the scheme is proceeding. What is the latest news?
The Motion refers to other ways of dealing with mortgage debt. I do not believe that any new method is likely to be a panacea, but I believe that all practical suggestions for improving the position will be welcome. I hope that the Government will continue to consult representatives of all the private and public bodies concerned with the object of ameliorating the present situation and as far as possible reducing the amount of debt in the future.
7 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I may surprise the House by declaring an interest. I hasten to reassure the Minister that I am not about to have my house repossessed. But I do have a house which, as the children grow up, I had expected to be likely to sell in the next few years. I live in the area of Willesden magistrates' court which has had one of the largest levels of mortgage repossession cases in the country. I quote from memory and do not have the figures to hand, but I believe that there were 620 repossessions in the first six months of this year. That shows how ramified the effects of the problem of mortgage repossession are.
One would expect the problem to be on quite a considerable scale; between 1988 and 1990 many people are likely to have had mortgage repayments increasing by something of the order of 50 per cent. I often profit from listening to my noble friends. I have never profited quite so literally as I did from listening to my noble friends Lady Seear and Lord Ezra speaking on the Finance Bill of 1988, for what I did at that time was take out a fixed rate mortgage. I dread

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to think how much money I might have had to pay had I not. In dreading to think of that, obviously I must have feeling for those who did not have the privilege of hearing my noble friends on that occasion and did not take the same precaution.
The effects of repossession are manifold and mainly hard. The hardship for those who lose their home is too self-evident for me to need to dwell upon. The cost to the Government is also considerable. My noble friend Lord Ross of Newport quoted figures for the cost of bed and breakfast. Those are the figures for outside London. The London cost is a great deal higher. Were those in bed and breakfast ever to obtain a boarder's premium for eating, the cost would be higher yet. Until we obtain that, the numerous cases of malnutrition in bed and breakfast will continue to occur.
There is also a considerable loss to the lender whose interests must be taken into account and served. Forced sales cannot be in the lender's financial interest. If the lender is out of pocket he will not be able to lend to as many people in the future. It is a handicap to the mobility of labour. Many people cannot move jobs simply because they cannot sell. That has a depressing effect on the market. Repossessions and forced sales hold down prices, and that in turn, as my own case illustrates, discourages people from putting their houses on the market and so preserves rigidity.
All that will be exacerbated from April 1992 when a change comes into effect in the definition of part-time work. From that date onwards people working up to 16 hours instead of 24 are to be classified as part-time. I hope to draw the attention of the House to the effects of that change at greater lengths on a future occasion. For our immediate purposes it means that those concerned, if they work over 16 hours, will cease to be eligible for income support. Income support is available for mortgages; family credit and housing benefit are not. Therefore the likeliest effect of those changes will be to make people either suffer further repossessions or give up their part-time jobs in order to continue to receive income support and not suffer a repossession. I cannot see how that can be in the public interest.
It is much easier to say that something is wrong than to say what should be done. It is not enough to go round saying, "This is dreadful. This is awful". One must try to come forward with constructive proposals. Those proposals must be in everybody's interest. I entirely accept what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, that considerable numbers of lenders are making great efforts to be helpful, and that is appreciated. But there is a limit to the legitimate extent to which one can ask a private profit-making company to behave in a non-commercial manner. There is a point beyond which even the most helpful of building societies should not be asked to go. They have a legitimate interest in making a profit, and if they do not the rest of us will be the worse off for it.
Therefore somebody must pay. The proposal that income support should go to the lender—the part destined for mortgage—is supported by my noble
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friend Lord Ross of Newport, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, and myself. That is a start. What is a practical way of looking at the issue? One may remember the old repayment mortgage which is now going out of fashion. One paid off a little of the debt month by month. Simply stand that on its head. The monthly repayments are reduced and then the occupier sells back to the lender a little bit of the equity each month. That seems to me to be perfectly practical.
First, it gives a breathing space during which the occupier may perhaps find employment. In the form of the equity, for those who have it, there is a financial cake which can be drawn upon for just that sort of occasion. Neither the occupier nor the lender needs to be out of pocket as a result. The advantage to the occupier is clear. He gains the right to keep his home. The advantage to the state must be clear; it saves costs in bed and breakfast which are considerable. To the lender I hope there is also a gain; he gains an equity in the house.
In the worst case, following on from that, the lender will find himself the full owner of the house and will have acquired the full equity plus a rent-paying tenant. I understand that that is not what the building society intends. But from their point of view it is a question of considering alternatives. Equally, they gain the equity of the house if they have a forced repossession using a bailiff. I should have thought that a voluntary repossession with a tenant selling the equity is slightly less uncomfortable to the lender than a forced repossession using bailiffs. At least it is worth considering whether that might be the case, though I accept that neither is what the lender is looking for.
There is also a best case in which the occupier finds work, receives a decent income and little by little starts buying back the equity from the lender. The whole course then goes into reverse. In that situation everybody benefits. For once in a blue moon everybody is happy. I know that will not solve everything; but it will solve some proportion of cases. I do not have the figures to calculate how many, but if we can solve one little part of the problem is that not a start?
7.8 p.m.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, I begin with a declaration of interest as a director over many years of a major building society. My noble friend Lord Ross performed a useful and topical service by raising the debate this evening and giving us the benefit of his immense professional experience in this field. Everybody who has spoken has agreed that the number of repossessions now taking place is serious, and indeed is growing on a scale never before known in modern housing history.
The significant figures in my mind are that in 1979 there were 2,500 forced repossessions. This year a conservative estimate is 75,000. At one level it means that with mounting arrears there is a pool of human misery in which the proud hopes of home ownership of certainly over 100,000 families and perhaps more are being drowned. At another level, as has been said

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in the debate, it puts a strain on the financial strength of the building societies which are the principal repository of personal savings in this country. At this very moment the Woolwich Building Society with which I am associated has been forced to come to the rescue of the Town & Country Building Society because of the impact on that society of its provision for repossession.
At a third and even more fundamental level, and a matter which is bound to be of great concern to Government, is the crisis in the owner-occupation market which is having a serious effect on the speed of the c3untry's emergence from the present recession. Confidence has so much to do with bringing about recovery, but the collapse of the housing market is having a disastrous effect on consumer confidence generally, as we can see from the latest retail figures. I do not believe that anyone should underestimate the difficulty that there will be in restoring confidence to the housing market in the year or two that lie ahead. It underlines the importance of a number of the practical proposals that my noble friend Lord Ross put forward for dealing with homelessness generally.
In that regard the Government have a very great deal of responsibility; any government have such a responsibility concerning housing policy. According to the Financial Times of recent date the number of homes for all social housing, including housing associations, has slumped from 126,000 in 1978 to 35,000 for the current year, 1991–92. Therefore underlying the present crisis in the mortgage market is this basic national shortage of homes and the growing problem of homelessness.
The Government's main positive housing policy, important, welcome and beneficial for the country as a whole—the spread of home ownership—has turned very seriously to ashes in the present circumstances. It is adding to the scale of homelessness. The then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, has a heavy responsibility in that regard. His 1988 Budget abolishing double taxation relief on mortgages, but giving buyers a three-months' or three-and-a half-month's standstill period, encouraged large number; of young couples either married or unmarried or even two friends in an office, to rush into mortgages that they could not really afford, at relatively low interest rates. That advantage tragically proved very temporary indeed.
On this matter—the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, also made the same point—the lenders, including the building societies, must take their share of responsibility. In the much more competitive financial market place that has been created over recent years, they were tempted to try to maintain market share with loans representing too high a percentage of the purchase price, or too high a multiple of income. There the lenders have learnt their own lesson. They have been tightening their lending criteria and monitoring the quality of business that comes from intermediaries. As the noble Lord, Lord Campbell said, they have recently established a central mortgage possessions register which helps to deal with those who have already defaulted on loans.
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It is quite clear that these measures do nothing to help people with loans which are already in arrears and still less those who have had their homes repossessed. The fact that the number of people who are six months or more in arrears is some six times the number of repossessions is, I hope, some evidence that the lenders already do what they can to help people stay in their homes. Lenders vary in their market behaviour. It is probably true that the old-fashioned building societies are less prone to resort to repossession than some of the new breed of centralised lenders.
In practice, building societies, as my noble friend Lord Russell said, do a great deal to help people to stay in their homes. They encourage people to seek advice at an early stage; they re-schedule debt and so on. A number give grants to the citizens advice bureaux and similar outside counselling bodies. It is fair to say that they do that partly because they are mutual in structure with members to serve rather than shareholders to provide with dividends. But that ethos is greatly reinforced by the very sound and more important reason that it is in their own economic interests to do so.
But what building societies and other lenders can do in their own self-interest within present structures is plainly not enough. The question is what can others and the Government do in giving a lead to mitigating what is a tragedy for so many. We welcome the fact that interest rates have come down over recent months, but the way in which that has been done by the salami tactics of half a per cent. at a time has certainly not helped to restore confidence. One of the most remarkable features of the economy in 1991 has been the failure of mortgage credit to respond to lower interest rates.
We welcome what we hope are signs that the Government are ready to take steps to ensure that the substantial sums that they give to meet the interest charges of those who are unemployed are used exactly for that purpose. For my part, I am not quite clear what stage the Government have reached in the matter. I hope that when the Minister replies she will respond to the questions that have come from all who have spoken in the debate asking for clarity of the Government's intention in that regard.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders estimates that perhaps half of what the Government provide may be used by claimants to meet other household needs. That results in an increase in the number of repossessions. That help goes only to the unemployed who are already on income support. Something more is needed to prevent those in arrears through a drop in household income for one reason or another in the present recession, becoming themselves repossession victims.
A number of suggestions have emerged from the debate concerning various mortgage rescue schemes. I know that the Council of Mortgage Lenders has drawn on its experience to produce proposals which it believes are practical. It has been discussing them with the Government. It is also fair to say that the council and others have been handicapped by the refusal so far of the Government to consider any kind of

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financial underpinning. Surely there is so much common interest among everyone concerned about this matter including the Government, the lenders, the insurance societies, the housing associations and the local authorities, that the Government should be ready to give a lead in this area to bring together the various interests and to back the initiative with some financial support.
The building societies themselves should be ready to share their part in the cost of that financial underpinning. If the repossessions increase next year—there is every sign that they are going to as my noble friend Lord Ross made starkly clear in the figures he gave—then the lenders will pay an increasingly higher price in the sterile solution of more and more repossessed houses that no one really wants to buy, with a further loss of confidence that that will bring about. From the point of view of the lenders, including the building societies, the cost of accepting a zero rate of interest on an equity share or the cost of a rental income lower than repayments, might well be worth considering against the cost of repossession and the loss that goes with it.
Therefore, I hope that the Government will take an initiative in bringing all the interested parties together and show themselves ready to take their share in financially helping to bring about a practical rescue scheme. At the very least it is certainly worth a much more sympathetic investigation by the Government than the matter has so far received.
However, I must add to what has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, in relation to building societies. It is important for us all to remember (my noble friend Lord Russell made the same point) that building societies have responsibilities to savers as well as to borrowers. It is sometimes forgotten in the excitement in the press about these very serious human problems that the savers outnumber borrowers by about six to one. Building societies are the major national savings bank. A solution to repossessions must therefore be sought without undermining the prudential requirements of the building societies and the Building Societies Commission. My view was certainly reinforced by the rather frightening figures that my noble friend Lord Ross gave of the financial impact on building society finances of this situation, and of the possible trends in the future.
The building societies commissioner, Rosalind Gilmour, has had her critics for the rigour with which she has interpreted her prudential responsibilities recently. However, I am bound to say that when one thinks—as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, mentioned—of what happened with the savings and loans in the United States, we should all be glad that in the present state of the financial world small savers should be safeguarded by having a regulator of her firmness.
In conclusion, I do hope that everyone
Lord Elton: My Lords, I apologise for intervening in a debate for which I do not have my name down and I cannot remain until the end. However, I should like one point cleared up.
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Both the noble Lords who have just spoken, even when recognising the prudential requirements of the building societies and recognising that they are made up of savers, seem to have forgotten that if there is some moral obligation met by what results in a reduction of interest rates for the savers, the savers will go away. The Building societies will cease to exist. Building societies are collections of people who have deposited money to get interest. If that interest rate falls below that of bank deposit rate, then the savers will simply go elsewhere. So how does one meet the moral obligation which the noble Lord quite sensibly points out?
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, the interest rates that the building societies offer to savers are bound to be the interest rates of the market place, and they are bound to react to whatever developments there are within the market place. I do not see how it invalidates the argument which I am seeking to put forward. But perhaps I have not properly understood.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the building societies have only the money to pay back that they get from the borrowers. Therefore, if a house is repossessed, that flow stops and the rest has to be spread more thinly. If one starts to pay money back, one has a negative flow and the interest rate becomes further reduced. I, as a depositor in a building society, can then see that I can get a higher rate elsewhere and I take my money away. Then there is nobody left to fund the remaining spirit in the housing market. The fuel for buying houses is taken away, and the capital value of the housing stock diminishes further. We get into an accelerating downward spiral. I should not take up the time of the House. I apologise, my Lords.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: Not at all. It is a very pertinent and legitimate question to ask me. It is that question that makes building societies very cautious and indeed sometimes seem rather reluctant to those who are seeking to put forward their particular forms of mortgage rescue schemes. That is why I am confining myself at this stage to saying that the Government should take the lead in investigating these matters and should try to find out where the balance of both advantage and prudence lies. I do not suggest for a moment that these matters are easy.
My Lords, I was going to conclude by saying that I hope that at the end of the day everyone concerned —government, lenders and others—will learn some important lessons from the present situation. Once we have emerged from it—and I trust that may not be too far ahead—I hope that the owner-occupation market will never be encouraged again by anybody, either government or lenders, to return to the frantic false boom of the 1980s, with yuppies climbing the housing ladder in the belief that they would make more in capital gains by going up the ladder than they were by earning in their salaries.
The terrible fact is that the lower rungs of the housing ladder have been destroyed, and as a consequence hardly anyone is climbing it. It would be a much healthier society if we were able to return to a situation where buying a house was regarded as a

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long-term investment in a stable family home rather than simply a counter in some kind of inflationary speculation.
7.25 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in expressing my appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Ross, in his somewhat lengthy but very detailed speech on this very important subject. He gave us some statistics, which I shall not repeat; but we have to go a little deeper into some other statistics to understand the enormousness of the problem.
I happened to be in the Gallery in another place three weeks ago—I think it was on a Thursday afternoon—when the Leader of the noble Lord's party asked the Prime Minister a question. I have taken a note of the figures that the Leader of the Liberal Democrat Party produced on this subject and which have been echoed by other people since. He said that in 1979 2,500 houses were repossessed; in 1989, 16,000 were repossessed; in 1991 it is calculated that it will be 110,000, although I have seen upwards of that figure since. Those figures were calculated by independent people—not by people ensconced in the research departments of political offices, but from sources such as the magazine Inside Housing, which is produced by the Institute of Housing, and by organisations like Shelter. There is therefore no question but that the situation is enormous. In fact, the noble Lord, Lord Ross, quoted a figure for 1992 of 250,000. That scared me to death. That sort of figure beggars belief. We are only two years away from that situation.
We can go into great detail on the causes; but basically one of the main causes was a false valuation system that was produced by the building societies and banks in competition which were queuing up to shovel money out, and where houses were being bought far in excess of the value. I can remember when I bought my first modest bungalow that it took me all my time to get a 90 per cent. mortgage on a new property. I had to go and squeeze the building society in order to borrow that money. They told me that they expected me to find another 5 per cent. to make it 95 per cent., which I could not.
The young people today are not faced with that situation. It is, "live for today and don't be too worried about tomorrow". They were encouraged in this by the building societies and the banks. The Government also played a large part in what happened. The noble Lord, Lord Thomson, covered that very well when he talked about the activities of Mr. Lawson when he was Chancellor.
People have asked: what can we do to get things started again? I think the greatest thing in this tragedy is the fact that these people whose houses have been repossessed will no longer be able to enter the owner-occupier market. I believe that for some of them it has gone for ever. That is an awful situation.
I quoted some figures some weeks ago. I had to assure the Minister who was on the opposite Bench at that time that I was not against the sale of council houses as such, although my personal instincts have always been that the best people to decide whether council houses should be sold is the local authority
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where they are situated. I quoted figures which I was trying to base on some equal and fair approach between the owner-occupier in all sectors of the community. I produced figures which showed that a person purchasing a council house now with a major discount can be receiving the equivalent of £100 a week if they had bought it on the market. At the same time, homes could be saved from repossession by paying much less. I have the copy of a document which has just been issued by the Department of the Environment which shows that the Government now have a new scheme. This document is dated 4th December. It states:
"Tenants of local authorities in London and the South East will be helped to buy properties in the private sector with the help of a grant averaging over £17,500 per family".
Why has the department suddenly produced this money for people to enter the housing market when it has allowed existing owner-occupiers whose houses could have been saved for a fraction of that cost to go to the wall'? The department has another scheme which allows for the purchase of some of these properties by public bodies which will then let them to people who have been dispossessed from them. The whole thing seems mad to me.
The main problem is the lack of houses to let. That started way back in 1979 when Mr. Heseltine was Secretary of State for the Environment. He inflicted cuts on the house building programme in the public sector. It is calculated by people involved in housing —not the politicians—that had the money allocated to housing not been cut, another 500,000 houses would now be available in the public sector for letting. That opportunity is gone forever, which I think is pretty sad.
The report commissioned by the Duke of Edinburgh, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Ross, and the reports commissioned by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, entitled, Faith in the City, and its successor, all say that if we want to get our housing in order, there will have to be a substantial increase in the number of properties to let at the bottom end of the market. Strictly speaking, that point is not related to the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Ross, but it is relevant. When asked why they have stopped local authorities building houses for people to rent, Ministers in another place from the Secretary of State downwards and the Minister in this House say that the Government, as a deliberate act of policy, no longer see the role of local authorities as builders of houses. The Government do not want to encourage local authorities. They believe that their place will be taken by the voluntary sector.
I have questioned the Minister on this subject on a number of occasions. The last time that I raised the issue the Minister's colleague, the noble Viscount. Lord Astor, answered at the Dispatch Box. He said that by 1992 the voluntary housing associations will have reached an annual target of providing 48,000 units of housing for letting. The Department of the Environment itself calculates that, to have any impact at all on the present situation, a minimum of' 100,000 houses a year will be needed until the turn of the century. That calculation dates back to 1990, so we are

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already behind. Even with the greatest ambition, the voluntary housing sector will never be able to keep pace with the demands that will be made upon it.
Many people have asked what has caused the increase in number of repossessions. Shelter has published an excellent document which sets out five outstanding reasons. The first is that mortgage costs have increased beyond affordable levels. That point has been well covered by previous speakers. The second factor is unemployment for one or all adult members of the household. The third factor is reduced incomes through loss of regular bonuses and overtime. A further factor is forced moves to less well paid work. At the bottom of the list—I assume that the reasons are in order of priority—is relationship breakdown. That used to be mainly at the top of the list because the other factors were not so serious. That is the situation we face at present.
I wonder what the Government have in mind when they talk about dealing with housing problems. Although they were warned by non-political and independent-minded people over a period of four or five years that they were heading in the wrong direction, they still blundered on. The noble Lord, Lord Ross, referred to the cost of bed and breakfast accommodation and gave a national average figure of £5,500 a year. Another speaker—it may have been the noble Earl, Lord Russell—referred to the London figure, which is upwards of £8,000 a year. That is an appalling state of affairs when at the same time some people are having their homes repossessed. If one can stand in the corridors of your Lordships' House and feel the onset of winter, what must it be like for the homeless?
The number of registered homeless may well in future be exceeded by the number who are not registered. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of people sleeping rough. Some time ago I drew attention in the House to an independent report which stated that if present developments continued, there would soon be 30,000 people sleeping rough in the centre of London. It was christened the New York dimension. It is becoming worse. On my way to the House I used to walk along the Strand. I saw the first signs of people living in boxes. The problem has since grown and one can now see them up to the top of Tottenham Court Road. Noble Lords may think that I am wandering from the subject of the Motion but I think that these points are related. Where do the people who voluntarily walk out of their homes go? Families being what they are, they will not always be welcomed back to them with open arms.
Another factor has compounded the problem. Your Lordships' House and another place were persuaded to put on the statute book a mandatory right for tenants to purchase their council houses. The then Secretary of State for the Environment, who is now the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, gave a guarantee that all the capital raised by those sales could be used by local authorities to build houses. At the time there was even an argument about that because it was calculated that three houses would have to be sold in order for a local authority to be able to
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build a new one. That was not a happy prospect. But it was not enough. The Government then decided—I believe it was the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day, Mr. Lawson, who decided—that if that money was pumped into society to provide houses for people, his budget would be out of balance. Therefore the undertaking was outrageously reneged on. I know the Minister will say that in some areas local authorities have not sold many houses. Nevertheless, that does not destroy the argument that where a local authority has raised substantial sums of money by the sale of council houses, that money should be made available to it. Local authorities in rural areas were initially in favour of selling their council house stock. Such authorities now face a serious problem. They are finding that they have no houses to accommodate those who have had their homes repossessed.
The Government's policies are contradictory. They are a mishmash. There is an article on page 19 of today's Daily Telegraph. With your Lordships' permission I shall quote from the article which has the heading, "If you want to hang on to your house, don't bother about a job". It reads:
"It would be hard to find any couple more proud of their home than Michael and Kathleen Kinsella. Since they bought their three-bedroom terraced house from Barnet council seven years ago they have poured their hearts into it, adding a porch with Grecian pillars, a Tudor-style front door flanked by stone lions, and a chandelier in the double-glazed lounge. `Our little gem,' Michael calls it.
Imagine their anguish, then, when two years ago Michael, at the age of 55, was made redundant from his job with a shopfitting firm and they faced the possibility of losing it all.
On the Grahame Park estate in north-west London they have seen often enough what redundancy can mean. Tenants who are unemployed or in low paid jobs are protected by housing benefits which cover the rent. But those who exercise the much-vaunted Right-to-Buy, as the Kinsellas did eight years ago, get less state protection and can quickly land in difficulties. This is the flip-side of the property-owning democracy and there is growing criticism that it is unbalanced and unfair".
I believe that I have repeated some of the figures in this House in the past regarding the enormous benefits and huge discounts offered to a person wishing to buy a council house as against what is taking place. Now, once again, it is only in the South-East that the Government propose to introduce the new scheme to which I referred whereby any one who wishes to move from their council house can receive a handout of £18,500 to use as a down payment to buy a new home. Of course, it is possible that they have some electoral worries in that area. From the information that is coming through, I would not be surprised if that was the case.
However, as a person who spent his life in the North of England, I resent the fact that, once again, there is no such scheme for the big cities in the North —for example, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and the Scottish cities—which have just the same problems as London but of a slightly smaller dimension. In order to give some idea of parity and fair play, I think that the Government should ask those local authorities whether they would like to take advantage of such a scheme. I believe that they would wish to do so. I say that because if you pass through any of the big cities

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in the evenings you can see homeless people trying to get their head down somewhere in order to get some kind of a night's sleep.
I understand that negotiations are taking place between the building societies or their umbrella organisation and the Government to try to deal with the matter. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, referred to them. In view of the way in which the situation is accelerating—and no one can see any diminution of it unless something drastic is done—I wish anyone involved in those negotiations absolute success. But, in order to achieve an improvement, the Government must completely change tack and change their outlook as regards what they are really looking for in housing. An answer to the problem will no doubt mean that more public money will be needed. All the independent reports, especially those of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh and of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, say that large sums of money will be required.
When people involved in housing analysed the Autumn Statement which was made some weeks ago in another place, they said that not only was there no increase but that there was in fact a reduction in real terms. I took the trouble to read the Official Report of the proceedings in another place last week when the Statement on Scottish finance was made by the Secretary of State for Scotland. Donald Dewar, the Labour Party's Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, made the same point. He said that every public service in Scotland—for example, health, education and rail—had received a percentage increase in real terms in order to enable in Scotland. In my opinion, that is an indication that the housing of our nation, whether it is owner-occupiers or tenanted people, is far too low in the Government's priorities. I hope that the Minister will give us some indication that they are reversing their views on the matter.
7.44 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Ross, for initiating this debate. It is an important one. The number of times that we discuss the subject in this Chamber signifies how seriously the House takes the issue. It gives me an opportunity to put on record what the Government are doing about this very important issue.
The Government understand the trauma that repossession means for a family faced with the loss of a home. I do not seek in any way to belittle that fact. However, it is also important to keep the scale of the problem in perspective. I have heard a good deal of exaggeration of cases as I have sat and listened to the debate this afternoon. Indeed, over the past day or two I have read a fair amount of what I believe to be overstating of the case.
In the Social and Liberal Democratic document entitled A Home of My Own and also in an article in the Today newspaper on the same subject, statistics are used to overstate the case. Reference was made to 850,000 people in arrears. I have to say that that figure
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includes borrowers who are only two months in arrears. Such arrears are often rectified very quickly and may perhaps have arisen as the result of a computer error. I also suspect that the figure has been arrived at by sample surveys, which I believe are much less reliable than the CML's own figures which are based on actual reports from members and were referred to by many speakers in the debate.
Another issue that I believe has been exaggerated concerns the percentage of those who are accepted as homeless as a result of mortgage default. I have to say that the official figure for that is 13 per cent. The House should not be deceived by some of the very high figures quoted from various sources. It is always possible to produce alarmingly high figures of the number of borrowers in arrears by including short-term arrears. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Ross, used the figure of 850,000. However, the vast majority of those arrears turn out to be, as I said, either errors or certainly situations where payments are made very quickly following one or two missed payments. It is equally possible to produce worryingly high figures. I see that the noble Earl wishes to intervene. I give way.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. Has she any reason to believe that the number of errors showing people to be in arrears when they are not is greater than the number of errors showing people not to be in arrears when they are?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am concerned to gain some factual information from the lenders who tell us who has missed payments—whether it be one, two or more payments. That is real information concerning real people who borrow from the lenders. Those are the figures about which we are talking.
Very often repossessions are counted on the basis of the first warning being issued. Moreover, very often they do not result in a repossession taking place. If the advice given is wisely taken, that can resolve the situation before it becomes serious enough to result in repossession.
Lord Ross of Newport: My Lords, I think that the noble Baroness will agree that I actually quoted from Housing Finance which is a publication of the Council of Mortgage Lenders. I did not quote the figures about which she is talking. I hope that she will accept that fact.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I said that reference was made throughout the debate to the CML figures. However, I was also quoting from articles I had read and referring to what I had heard during the course of the debate.
As I was saying, it is equally possible to produce worryingly high figures of repossessions by examining the number of possession orders granted to lenders by the courts. But, again, by no means do all such possession orders lead to repossession. The figures should be treated with extreme caution. I suggest that we stick to the facts reported by the mortgage lenders. Two per cent. of all mortgage borrowers have significant arrears. Sadly, 36,000 borrowers were

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repossessed in the first half of 1991. Again, perspective is important—36,000 people in difficulties out of a total of just under 10 million home owners who have a mortgage.
As I have said, just under 10 million homeowners have a mortgage. The figures published by the Council of Mortgage Lenders for the first half of this year showed that fewer than 0.4 per cent. of borrowers—about one quarter of 1 per cent. of all home-owners—were repossessed; more than 99.6 per cent. were not in difficulties and were not repossessed. At the end of June, just over 2 per cent. of borrowers were in arrears of six months or more, which means that nearly 98 per cent. were making their mortgage repayments as they agreed to, and consistent with their contracts. That figure differs from the 8.3 per cent. mentioned in the Today article. To describe the situation as similar to a wartime crisis is a considerable exaggeration.The numbers demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of mortgage borrowers are managing. As I said, 98 per cent. are managing well. A small proportion of borrowers are in difficulties, while an even smaller number face the possibility of possession action. That is not to underestimate in any way the trauma and difficulties experienced by those whose homes are repossessed.
The second point about perspective is that we need to understand why the small volume of repossessions is increasing. We shall be able to target help to where it is most needed only if we understand the causes. We find that there is no single cause. It is not the case that large numbers of people who exercised their right to buy a council home are now facing repossession. On the contrary, our statistics demonstrate that former council tenants are least likely to get into such a difficulty. That is because the discounts offered to them meant that they required relatively modest mortgages as a proportion of today's value of their properties. Nor is it the case that people on the lowest incomes are in the greatest difficulty, because help is targeted on the unemployed and those on income support. Therefore, mortgage arrears are not, as is commonly supposed, a symptom of low income people forced into home ownership against their better judgment.
We find that those most prone to repossession come from a much wider range of incomes. They comprise people of all incomes who took out large mortgages with little or no equity; people who have suffered an unexpected job loss or a business failure; some who have run into difficulties through illness, injury or marriage break-up; others who had unforeseen financial commitments, or were merely rather poor managers of money; and others who, jointly with their partner, entered easily into joint mortgage arrangements without making provision for one partner leaving.
Just to emphasise that mortgage difficulties are not a phenomenon associated exclusively with low incomes, the House may be interested in a survey conducted a few months ago by the Skipton Building Society. That revealed that of all the professions represented by that society's borrowers who had faced
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repossession the most common was accountancy. That is hardly the most underprivileged profession of which one can think, and, it is pretty inexcusable. Accountants are the people whose business it is to know about such things.
What is evident is that two new factors have swollen the figures during the past 18 months. First, recent market conditions have made it more difficult for borrowers with arrears to sell their homes and trade down to a cheaper property with a more affordable mortgage. Secondly, the figures are swollen by some people who detect that their total outstanding mortgage debt exceeds the current market value of their property and who try to walk away from their commitments by abandoning their property and sending the keys back to their lender, often without a forwarding address. Over half of the properties repossessed by lenders this year were in that voluntary repossession category.
The Government are of course worried about those in difficulty, and are not standing idly by, as has been suggested. But because the causes of the problem are varied, there is no single, simple solution to it. A number of organisations and political parties would have us believe that they have devised a mortgage rescue scheme; but when we look at their proposals we find a complete lack of understanding of personal finance, and no conception of what mortgage lenders and their insurance underwriters can and cannot do.
The problems have been addressed, but the cost of some of those schemes has not been addressed. I was grateful for the unsolicited intervention of my noble friend Lord Elton who pointed out that lenders also have an obligation to their depositors.
We have been talking to lenders and others about a number of ways of minimising repossessions, and we have been looking to see how existing arrangements can be made to work better. That is a direct response to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth. It is important to get all the interested parties together to address the problem, because we can all approach it from different angles and it is amazing how much more can be done when there is a meeting of minds on the issue. Our existing measures already cost over £500 million a year. The priority is to target that so as to avoid needless repossessions.
As has been mentioned a number of times today, the best advice that can be given to anyone who is having difficulty in maintaining mortgage payments is to contact the lender without delay and to talk the problem through. The advice of the CML is clear. If lenders are approached early, before arrears begin to mount up, most will be ready to help by rescheduling payments; allowing interest to be capitalised, where appropriate; or by accepting less than the required monthly payment for an extended period, if there is a reasonable prospect of the borrower then being able to resume full payment. That point was made by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy.
It is important to put on record how much is being done by lenders (the building societies and some banks) who share responsibility for us reaching this position by being rather too relaxed in their lending

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policies. Nevertheless, they have seriously addressed the point by offering sound advice, but, of course, the advice needs to be taken early.
One of the most effective measures we have taken to help people in difficulty has been the reduction in interest rates by 4.5 per cent. in the past 14 months. The average monthly mortgage repayment is £70 less than it was in October last year. With interest rates falling, and income for those in work rising, that source of pressure is clearly reducing.
A large amount of direct Government help is targeted on the unemployed, and we have offered help through income support to mortgage borrowers who lose their jobs. Last year we paid over £550 million in mortgage protection through income support. One problem has been that not all that money has been used by claimants for the intended purpose, as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Ross, and others. To remedy that, last month we introduced improved DSS arrangements so that the mortgage lender knows when the borrower is about to make a claim. In future, no borrower eligible for income support need lose his or her home.
We have grant-aided the National Association of Citizens' Advice Bureaux for its work on money management counselling. Anyone in difficulty with their mortgage can obtain help and advice from their local bureau. As I have said, it is important that people have access to that advice and take steps to discuss their difficulties with lenders.
Some local authorities and housing associations are also he ping borrowers to stay in their homes by arranging shared ownership schemes under which the borrower continues paying a smaller mortgage together with a subsidised rent. That was a scheme outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Ross. That is the opposite of the scheme which converts rents to mortgages. In addition, some lenders and insurance companies are developing further options of their own. All of that we encourage.
The Government also recognise that it is better, where possible, to keep people in their homes, and the measures that I have described are designed to enable them to do just that. Mortgage lenders too are moving towards hat view, and many already give considerable help. A repossession profits no one; so a great deal is being done for those who may face difficulties with their mortgages. Yet, even with those and other measures, not all borrowers can be, or want to be, helped. Over half of the properties recently taken into possession by building societies were, as I have said, voluntarily relinquished or simply abandoned. Building societies have up to 40,000 empty properties for disposal, and they can be hard to sell. With that in mind, we recently announced a new initiative with the CML to help bring some of those empty homes back into use. Rather than allow them to remain empty until new buyers can be found it makes sense to offer some immediately to homeless families. The houses can be let to housing associations for periods of between one and three years and occupied by homeless families, supported by housing benefit. Later, when the property is eventually sold, the lender
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should get a better price than through a forced sale at this time. This reduces the losses of both lenders and borrowers.
In the meantime, the property is maintained, squatting is eliminated and the costs to local authorities of tackling homelessness are reduced. The process also helps to stabilise house prices by controlling the rate at which empty property is offered in the market. This imaginative scheme works to the benefit of all. The House will be interested to learn that already 77 housing associations have told us they want to help with this initiative.
I say to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy that so far that figure applies only to England, but there is nothing to prevent similar schemes taking place in both Wales and Scotland. However, predominantly the repossession problem affects England.
I should now like to say a few words about the effect of repossessions on the homelessness figures. Most borrowers who actually lose their homes rent or move in with family or friends. Latest returns from local authorities, published yesterday, show that of all the households that were accepted by them in the third quarter as homeless, only 13 per cent. had lost their settled home as a result of mortgage arrears. Eighty-seven per cent. were due to other causes.
Although the number of homeless acceptances arising from mortgage arrears is rising slightly, the vast majority of homeless acceptances continue to result either from parents or friends no longer being willing to offer accommodation—I understand that that figure is 40 per cent.—or from marital disputes which account for 16 per cent.
But although mortgage defaulters are only a small proportion of the statutory homeless, it remains the case that the homelessness legislation ensures that no mortgage defaulter who is found to be unintentionally homeless and in priority need is ever without a roof over his or her head. As noble Lords will be aware, over the past two years the Government have made available more than £300 million, which the noble Lord, Lord Ross, asked me to confirm, to provide more permanent homes for homeless families—a programme which will have produced more than 16,000 new units of permanent accommodation.
The noble Lord, Lord Ross, was absolutely right to warn us of any policy which aims to assist people in these difficulties which causes a greater distortion elsewhere. If that happens, we must be vigilant; therefore his warning will not go unheeded by my department.
I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, ignored much of what my honourable friend in another place, the Minister for Housing, is doing for rough sleepers in London and the success of his policies.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, will the noble Baroness permit me to say that I do not at all ignore what Sir George Young is doing; he is doing very well. But although the money he is allowed has increased, through lack of money he is not able to tackle the job; he is only scratching the surface. All the figures show that the situation is still deteriorating; it is not even slowing down.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I can positively refute what the noble Lord said. The figure is not increasing; it is positively reducing. The number of rough sleepers in London is positively being reduced and there are even many places in hostels which are not taken up. A great deal of effort is being made by my honourable friend in another place and his colleagues in the department to do what they can to take people off the streets of London and encourage them to take up some of the places that have been provided as a result of his initiative. In addition, I believe that he is addressing another problem which is very important. Although the noble Lord, Lord Ross, did not raise it in this debate, he has raised it in other debates. It is the problem of second stage accommodation for rough sleepers. It is not just about taking them off the streets of London and putting them into hostel accommodation; one must then think about the second stage and wean them on to more permanent accommodation.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I suggest that the Minister visits those localities in the centre of London during the night and does not rely on figures given to her by the Civil Service.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the noble Lord does my colleagues in the department a great injustice. Not only does my honourable friend in another place, the Minister for Housing and Planning, go out physically to address the problem, but so does my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and also many officials in the department. It is not a matter of sitting behind desks addressing the problem; colleagues are out on the streets of London making sure that the policies they put in place are successful.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean, referred to what he said was the Department of the Environment's own figure of a requirement for 100,000 houses a year. That is not a Department of the Environment figure, although it is a figure frequently referred to by the noble Lord.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean, also referred to the number of houses built by housing associations. Again, for the record, during the last financial year housing associations completed 21,600 homes with corporation funding. The corporation's target for this year will be 25,000 houses and around 120,000 homes are due to be completed over the next three years.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, again queried why the Government are offering grants of up to £17,000 to landlords. I have to say that I am rather surprised by his reaction to that announcement; he says that he does not welcome it. The grant is to help landlords make flats above shops suitable for letting. I hope that bringing those flats into use is precisely what the scheme was designed to achieve.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, in this case the noble Baroness is completely wrong. The document from which I read, and which I have sent to Hansard, was placed on my desk; it came from the noble Baroness's department. It states clearly that the money is to be made available to council house tenants in the London area so that they will give up the
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tenancy of council houses which can be let to someone else who can then purchase the house. It has nothing to do with flats above shops.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, if I misquoted or misinterpreted what the noble Lord said, I apologise. I thought that he was referring to the announcement on 4th December. If that was what he was referring to, the specific grant of £17,000 was to bring flats over shops back into being.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, I should like to get this clear. The noble Lord, Lord Dean, said explicitly—and I have not read the briefing paper—that a grant of £17,500 would be given to someone in rented accommodation in order to put them on the ladder of house ownership. He also stated that it was confined to the South East of England. I should like to know whether or not that is true.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I have already said to the noble Lord, Lord Dean, that if I misinterpreted him, I shall of course put it on record, correct it and write to him. At this moment there is a misunderstanding on my part of the reference which the noble Lord made.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, I apologise, but do I take that to mean that the Minister does not know anything about the briefing paper that was issued by her department? If so, will she look at it and write to me?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, it is possible that I am not aware of it. I am certainly aware of leaflets and pamphlets from my department. If I have misinterpreted another publication from my department which I have confused with this one, we may be referring to two different documents. I apologise for not being able to respond specifically at the moment, but I shall write to the noble Lord and put the matter right.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, let me make it quite clear, from one Merseysider to another, that I am not blaming the Minister, but I think she should look at her department.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I have gone out of my way to agree that there may be a difference of opinion and to say that whatever happens I shall make sure the matter is corrected in due course.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, referred to exchanging non-performing loans for equity mortgage arrangements. Again, it is an interesting idea and it is already being examined by lenders and their insurers. The noble Earl is of course right that this option is available only to a few borrowers who are in trouble. The Government are encouraging the lending industry to look at new methods to replace repossession, which helps no one. Nevertheless, there is a cost for these schemes and it must be considered. It is important to remember that the lenders have other obligations too. Perhaps I may leave it at that.
The noble Lord, Lord Ross, referred to mobile homes. I acknowledge that that is another interesting idea. I understand that the Housing Corporation is

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already looking at it as a temporary measure. The noble Lord will probably appreciate the point if I also say that it would help if some local authorities were slightly more accommodating when considering planning applications for such schemes.
Again, the noble Lord, Lord Ross, referred to direct payment of income support to lenders. As I think the noble Lord knows, this idea is under urgent discussion between the DSS and the Council of Mortgage Lenders. I very much welcome the noble Lord's support for that measure. It is possible that direct payments have been opposed for too long by libertarians who argue that claimants should choose for themselves how to spend their income support.
My noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy asked what other schemes were in place to try to prevent repossessions. There are a number of such schemes and my list is not exhaustive. It is most important to ensure that there is a reduction in interest rates. We believe that is fundamental. Other schemes include Estate Action, Housing Action Trusts, a rural housing initiative, and a scheme that encourages flats over shops to be used as accommodation. There are schemes for converting rents into mortgages and there are right-to-buy schemes. We are encouraging local authorities, housing associations and lenders—I believe we are being successful—to enter into shared ownership or renting arrangements. The noble Lord, Lord Ross, referred to that matter.
We also welcome the Government's policy in the inner cities, as does the noble Lord, Lord Ross. I personally can testify that now there is a great deal more willingness on the part of Labour controlled authorities to consider mixed tenure schemes than in the past. In the past those authorities were resistant to mixed tenure, but they are now very positive about it. Some exciting schemes are being initiated all over the country.
Many people now own their own homes and the vast majority of them—98 per cent. —are meeting their housing costs. I have described the considerable amount of help which is available from the Government and from lenders to those who, through misfortune or mismanagement, find themselves in difficulty with their mortgages. We shall continue to work with all concerned to ensure that help is targeted to where it is needed most. We shall give every encouragement to the provision of increased information and education. That will prove an effective and preventive measure.
This has been an important debate and I shall report back all the messages from it to my honourable friend in another place, the Minister responsible for housing. As a result of the steps already announced under the new initiatives being developed in the private sector, I believe that before long we shall see a reduction in the volume of repossession cases. Let us all hope that that is the outcome of the policies that are now in place.
8.12 p.m.
Lord Ross of Newport: My Lords, I say "amen" to the final words of the noble Baroness. I hope she is proved correct, although I fear that that may not be
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the case. I thank all those who have taken part, in the debate. Not many noble Lords have taken part, but the speeches have been of a high quality. The speakers included noble Lords with an interest in building societies. My noble friend Lord Russell suggested an interesting idea of a creeping equity scheme. I hope I may describe it in those terms. It would be marvellous if we could return to a system of fixed term mortgages at fixed rates of interest. If we can keep down inflation, we might be able to return to such a system. However, that is a long way off yet.
I hope my building society friends did not feel I was too tough on building societies. I did not intend to be, as in general I have a high opinion of them. I wish they had never entered the estate agency business, but apart from that I believe they have behaved extremely sensibly. I have some money deposited in one of the smaller building societies and I am a little worried about that at the moment.
I am, however, concerned about some insurance companies that have lost a great deal of money because they took on indemnities. Perhaps the large companies can bear the loss, but it means their rates will increase substantially, and that is not good news. I referred to a figure of £3 billion that was provided by the insurance companies. I hope the Minister will accept that all the figures I quoted came from official sources, except in one or two cases. I referred to comments made by the chairman of a building society, Tim Melville-Ross. He said that a figure of 150,000 repossessions for next year was a conservative estimate. I suggest the Government may be underestimating the problem.
I have acknowledged from the very first that the Government have instigated a lot of initiatives on this matter. They have tried hard to tackle the problems of those sleeping rough in London. The magazine of Shelter, Roof, indicates that the Government's initiatives have had some effect. There are some people who will not enter accommodation that is provided for them. I try to leave London as fast as I can and I have not walked along the Strand or along any other streets in London recently to see what the position is. I recognise that the Minister responsible for housing is a former chairman of the all-party group on the homeless. I am the treasurer of that group. He has visited sites where people sleep rough and I have no doubt he continues to do so.
I believe the scheme the noble Lord, Lord Dean, referred to is one that offers grants to people living in council houses in the South East to enable them to move into the private sector. I agree with the noble Lord that it is unfair to apply that scheme just to the South East. Nevertheless, that scheme has existed for a long time and the size of its budget is certainly attractive. The other day I watched "Panorama" on television. Shopkeepers in Croydon were asked whether they would be willing to let the accommodation over their shops. The shopkeepers were resistant to that suggestion as they feared breakages and other such damage. That is not an easy idea to sell.
I admit that my speech was rather muddled. Yesterday a mortgage rescue scheme was promoted by Messrs. Webb and Wilcox. I accept that the scheme

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would be expensive to implement. My speech was rather confused as regards the different schemes available and I apologise if the Minister is confused. The mortgage rescue scheme would involve a figure of some £400 million. However, we gave that kind of money, on loan, to building societies in 1974. I am sorry to be a Jeremiah. I hope to goodness I am wrong and that the Minister is right, and that things turn out much better than anticipated. I fear the worst, however, and over the next few months I believe the Government must produce something rather more substantial than they have done up to now. I again thank everyone who has taken part in the debate and I thank the noble Baroness for her reply. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Access to Neighbouring Land Bill [H.L.]
8.16 p.m.
Lord Murton of Lindisfarne: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
The Bill has its origins in the Law Commission Report No. 151 which was presented to Parliament in December 1985. It relates to the rights of persons to gain access to neighbouring land for the purpose of carrying out work to their own land. The present law does not provide any general means whereby a person who is unable to carry out necessary work to his own land without access to that of his neighbour can lawfully enter that land without the neighbour's permission.
The word "land" has the meaning ascribed to it by Schedule 1 to the Interpretation Act 1978. It includes buildings and other structures which in law form part of the land and the airspace above the ground. A Bill intituled Rights of Access to Neighbouring Land, drafted to implement the recommendations of the Law Commission report, was brought from the Commons on 8th July this year. It had been introduced in another place on 5th July by my honourable friend the Member for Poole, Mr. John Ward, when it went through all stages on the nod. I had agreed to take his Bill through your Lordships' House and it was read a second time on 16th July shortly before the Summer Recess.
A Committee stage was arranged for 15th October. However when I studied the amendments which had been tabled by some noble Lords, and perceived that some were fundamental, it became clear to me that the Bill could not proceed, if for no other reason than that the rules of procedure in the Commons did not allow of further Private Members' time before prorogation of the 1990–91 Session. With Mr. Ward's concurrence I therefore withdrew his Bill.
I was anxious, however, that the opportunity to introduce such a useful if modest measure should not be lost. After taking the advice of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, I agreed to introduce a Bill myself, but in revised form. The Bill now before your Lordships has been redrafted after consultation with various interested parties in order to
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meet, as far as is considered practicable, the suggested improvements which have been offered. In particular it has incorporated the main points of criticism raised by noble Lords during the Second Reading debate on its predecessor.
Mr. Ward introduced his Bill principally in an attempt to resolve a painful and long-standing impasse involving a householder in his constituency. I described the situation fully in the Second Reading debate on the original Bill on 16th July. This evening I shall only summarise.
The origins of a conflict between two neighbours, Mr. X and Mr. Y, were centred on a tree on X's land alleged to be overhanging and undermining Y's garage. Ultimately to pacify Mr. Y, Mr. X cut back all the overhanging branches and in his turn asked permission to enter Mr. Y's land in order to carry out some remedial work to the flank wall of his house where defective rendering was allowing rain water to penetrate. That was refused. There followed a long history involving solicitors, surveyors and tree surgeons. The tree was removed voluntarily although the roots were found to be innoxious. Eventually permission was offered by Mr. Y to Mr. X for entry to repair the flank wall, but only on condition that X paid Y's legal fees of £250. On his solicitor's advice X declined.
So the matter rested for three years until Mr. X retired and decided to leave the district. He had agreed to sell his house to his son-in-law, Mr. Z. Before completion he again tried to come to terms with his neighbour, Mr. Y, only to be told that the licence for entry—if I may call it such—was now to be £555. Mr. X declined to pay and Mr. Z bought the house without the dispute being resolved. Two years have since passed. Letters written to Y by the new owner, Z, have remained unanswered. The leak in the flank wall grows worse and Z's wife is ill with stress. The situation is deadlocked.
By coincidence, some 27 years ago, as Mr. Ward's predecessor as Member for the same constituency, I was faced with a similar case which I found incapable of resolution. It concerned collapsed guttering on the house of Mr. A which could be repaired only by placing a ladder on Mr. B's land. That permission was constantly refused. I was appalled when I saw the extent of the damage which had ensued. It was a small house of two bedrooms, one of which was full of collapsed plaster, covered in mould and quite uninhabitable. In case your Lordships should gain the impression that such problems are peculiar to Poole, I offer the assurance that I have knowledge of other cases, for instance in rural Gloucestershire and, at the other extreme, the London Borough of Brent.
As I have already stated, the law does not provide any general right enabling a person to gain access to neighbouring land in order to carry out work to his own land. In consequence a person who enters neighbouring land without any authority does so as a trespasser and renders himself liable to civil proceedings at the suit of the occupier. It is no defence to show that the need for access was compelling or that loss arising to the plaintiff from access by the defendant was negligible.

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There are a small number of exceptions, such as the easements of various kinds, covenants, contracts or licences and estoppel rights. Peculiar to London, the London Building Acts (Amendment) Act 1939 may in certain circumstances provide an owner with a right of access to his neighbour's land. Generally speaking, however, reliance for access rests on good neighbourly relationships in which two or possibly more neighbours come to an amicable arrangement whereby A is given permission to enter upon B's land with a promise to make good any damage caused. Alternatively, B may offer to do the work himself subject to reimbursement by A.
Unfortunately, not all owners of land, in its broadest sense, are that amenable. It could be claimed by some that their boundary should remain inviolable, whatever the discomfort to their neighbours. However, many public authorities already have statutory rights of access to carry out their functions in the interests of the public at large, for example, under the Public Health Act 1936 or the Rights of Entry (Gas and Electricity Boards) Act 1954.
It has been pointed out to me in that connection that though there may have been no foreseeable complication in dealing with urban or semi-urban aspects of the problem as covered in the original Bill, considerable reservations were expressed by the Country Landowners' Association and others regarding the possibility of statutory undertakers using the measure as a means of avoiding the payment of negotiating rights for entry on to land for the maintenance or repair of their installations.
Likewise, it has been suggested, for example, that a large-scale extractor of timber might acquire sanction to cross another's land in order to avoid a more difficult route of entry or of exit. The Bill is framed to take account as far as possible of those reservations. I shall give broad details shortly.
The temporary right of access to another's land will only be at the discretion of county courts and the High Court, who shall have jurisdiction in all access proceedings. In the Bill the temporary right of access shall be specifically for basic preservation works; namely, work necessary to protect, repair or maintain the applicant's property. Such work must be reasonably necessary and, in regard to buildings and other structures, may include inspection, repair, maintenance, improvement, decoration, alteration, adjustment, renewal or demolition. Improvements and alterations contemplated for their own sake are not to count as basic preservation work and are outside the scope of the Bill. Improvements and alterations which are incidental to the basic preservation work are not so excluded so long as they could not be construed as development. The categories of work envisaged are set out in Clause 1(4) of the Bill.
Access orders would not be obtainable against the Crown.
The courts will have the normal discretion as to costs, which shall be exercisable in accordance with existing principles including those applicable for any party who is legally assisted. In that connection the court may also make provision for the reimbursement
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to the respondent of certain expenses such as professional fees reasonably incurred before any proceedings were instituted.
It is always to be hoped that neighbours finding themselves in difficulties can come to an amicable agreement before resorting to the law. To my mind it would be rare, but nonetheless unfortunate, if neighbour B were suddenly to find himself respondent to an access order sought by the applicant neighbour, A, without a prior attempt at an informal compromise. For that reason I venture to suggest to my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor that he might consider the recommendation in paragraph 3.63 of the Law Commission's report that anyone contemplating application to the court could, without having to seek professional assistance, use a suitable proforma letter to send to his neighbour as the basis of an effective "letter before action" in the hope that the two sides might then come to terms and thus avoid subsequent litigation through having to call into effect the provisions of the Bill.
Anxieties have been expressed about certain aspects of the original Bill by the Country Landowners' Association, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and also the National Trust. To a large extent those anxieties have been addressed in the present Bill. In summary, there are four main changes. The first relates to the circumstances in which the power to make an access order may be exercised. Under the original Bill the court was required to be satisfied before making an access order that either the works cannot be carried out or they would be more difficult or more expensive to carry out without entry upon the neighbour's land. In Clause 1(2) (b) of the Bill the words "or expensive" have been omitted. Thus the mere fact that the works would be substantially more expensive to carry out without entry would not be sufficient to justify an application for an access order.
The second point concerns the grounds for refusing an order. Under the original Bill the court was required not to make an access order if it was satisfied by the respondent that entry by the applicant would cause such hardship that it would be unreasonable to make the order. That test was criticised as being too stringent and not going far enough towards the protection of the respondent. Under Clause 1(3) of the Bill a wider test is provided in place of the hardship test. The court must refuse an access order where it is satisfied that the respondent or any other person would suffer interference with or disturbance of his use or enjoyment of the land arising from the entry to such a degree that it would be unreasonable to make the order. That test, which borrows its terminology from the tort of nuisance, is intended to address more clearly not only the likely effects of access on the respondent, but also the effect of access on his land.
The third point concerns terms and conditions of access orders. Under the original Bill the court was allowed to make it a condition of an access order that compensation should be paid for any loss, damage or injury the respondent might suffer, but was expressly forbidden to stipulate compensation for inconvenience or for the mere making of an access order. Under

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the Bill those express restrictions have been removed. The interpretation of loss will be a matter for the courts, but in other contexts the courts have held that the term is wide enough to encompass non-monetary loss.
Two new possible terms and conditions which the court may impose under an access order have been added to the list in Clause 2(3). The first, in paragraph (c), allows for the imposition of a term relating to the persons who may undertake the carrying out of the works on the respondent's land. The second, in the concluding words of subsection (3), allows for the imposition of a term requiring a record to be made of the condition of the respondent's land for the purpose of facilitating the determination of any question that may arise concerning damage to that land.
The Law Commission recommends that no provisions should be included for the payment of compensation based on the enhanced value of the applicant's property arising from the access. The Bill has been amended to provide, in Clause 2(4), that an access order may include provision requiring the applicant to pay the respondent a "licence fee" for the privilege of entering the respondent's land. The court is directed to have regard to all the circumstances, including the likely financial advantage of the order to the applicant and the respondent. However, no licence fee is to be payable in the case of works to residential land.
The fourth point deals with persons bound by an access order. The original Bill provided for an access order to bind no one other than a party to the access proceedings. That provision was criticised on the ground that, if the respondent disposes of his interest or dies, the applicant would have to make a further application. That would be time-consuming and unnecessary in most cases. Clause 4 now provides that, in addition to the respondent, an access order is binding on his successors in title and any person with an estate or interest in, or right over, the land which was created after the making of the order and who derives his title under the respondent. Subject to the court's direction, such a person is entitled, as respects anything remaining to be done after the order becomes binding on him, to enforce the order as if he were the respondent. There are other, mainly drafting, changes which have been made in the original Bill with a view to clarifying the intention of the legislation.
A number of other questions were considered. There are six which I shall not go into in detail, but which it was not possible to accept. They were the identity of the applicant, the identity of the respondent, the question of discretion and certain comments about costs. It may be possible to raise those points in due course if we are fortunate enough to have a further discussion on the Bill at a later stage. In the meantime, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time —[Lord Murton of Lindisfarne.]
8.34 p.m.
Lord Wilberforce: My Lords, I am sure that the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Murton of Lindisfarne, for the care with which he has explained to your Lordships both this Bill and the original Bill. I appreciate his prudence, sagacity and courage in having withdrawn the previous Bill instead of trying to force it through the House at the end of a Session. That was a wise action and it now has the pleasant consequence that the re-presented Bill will go forward as the Murton Bill rather than bearing the name of a gentleman in another place.
The House will also wish to record its gratitude to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and to his department and the draftsmen for the trouble that they have taken in amending the Bill so as to meet objections and preoccupations raised in our previous discussions. There is no doubt that a great deal of work has been put into the Bill. It is now a much better Bill and most of the difficulties have, I am sure, been met. Whether or not the Bill is further amended in our discussions here in Committee, one thing is certain; namely, that the House will be seen to have done its job as a revising chamber.
On the whole, the Bill is a desirable Bill. I have never taken any other view about it. My main comment, which I intend to give briefly, regards its complexity. The objective is simple; namely, to bring about good neighbourly conduct between owners of adjoining or adjacent premises. It erects a pretty formidable structure of legal obligations, precautions and qualifications, almost amounting to a code, with plentiful use of subjective phrases such as reasonable, fair and reasonable, substantial and so on, bringing householders into the courts and imposing on the courts a pretty complicated operation of taking into account and hearing evidence on all the matters which are so meticulously listed in the Bill; for example, whether an improvement is incidental to basic preservation work. That is quite a difficult question of fact.
For my part, so as to diminish the number of cases that would have to go to court, I confess that I should like to have seen that mitigated in one of two possible ways. It could be done by a notice procedure on the lines considered by the Law Commission. I shall not say any more about that because the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, raised a point about it in our previous discussions, and he is the best person to bring that forward again if it is a possibility. Alternatively, it could be done in the form of a letter, such as was suggested by the noble Lord in introducing the Bill. An alternative way, which might diminish the number of court cases, would be to give the court power to appoint a court surveyor who would act on behalf of the court and settle details, preferably on the spot, between the parties.
However that may be, we have on the whole a pretty good Bill. We want to complete its passage in time so that it may get through the other place during the course of this parliamentary Session and, although there are some points which may require consideration, they are not very great points. Perhaps I may

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mention two of them briefly and summarily because they have been mentioned by the noble Lord and by others in the course of discussions.
The first is the question of compensation for inconvenience which is mentioned in Clause 2(4) of the Bill. Compensation may be given in certain cases, but not as regards residential land. That appears to reflect some pressure from the country landowners' interests and one must wonder whether it is justified.
The second point that may require some further discussion is that of costs not otherwise recoverable as costs. As I understand it, the Bill leaves the costs in the discretion of the judge. I wonder whether that is good enough or whether there should be an automatic right, as some noble Lords preferred, for the respondent to receive his costs unless he is found to have acted unreasonably.
Those points can be discussed in Committee. For my part, having congratulated all those concerned on bringing forward this revised Bill, I hope that it will be given a speedy passage in time for it to be passed into law during this parliamentary Session.
8.37 p.m.
Lord Coleraine: My Lords, I agree with the noble and learned Lord that the House should be indebted to my noble friend Lord Murton of Lindisfarne for having a second attempt to introduce a Bill on this subject within six months, and to my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor and his officials and the draftsmen for producing the new Bill and some full and informative Notes on Clauses.
The result is a much better Bill and, so far as I am aware, there is general agreement that that is so among those who have been able to express their views in the time available since the Bill was introduced. I should like also to thank my noble and learned friend for the consultations that he has carried out in preparing the new Bill and for seeing me.
I understand that there is a wish to have the Committee stage of the Bill completed and everything agreed, if possible, before we rise for Christmas. Although I am not sure that that would be the best way of dealing with complicated and innovative legislation, I certainly understand why we might wish to proceed in that way. In a personal effort to ease the passage of the Bill, perhaps I may propose to raise a number of points, including those raised with me by outside interests, which might in other circumstances be better left to be dealt with by amendments in Committee.
Doing it that way would enable any amendments that might be agreed to be necessary to be properly drafted and to be moved by my noble friend in Committee. That would surely be time-saving. After all, I have already made a Second Reading speech in support of what I considered to be the principal benefit of the Bill; that is to say, the provision of relief for the owner of a house which may otherwise suffer years of neglect and eventually have to be demolished solely because the common law does not permit the owner to go on to his neighbour's land and carry out the necessary repairs to the house from that land.
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Unlike the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, I particularly welcome Clause 2(4) which provides for a wayleave payment to be made for access except in the case where and to the extent that the applicant wants to carry out works to residential land. That would correct what in my opinion was one of the two most serious flaws in the earlier Bill, which was very wide ranging and introduced in what seemed to me to be a quite unsatisfactory way the concept that the owner of land should not normally be permitted to turn his ownership to profit except in cases in which he was not inconvenienced by the way in which somebody else might wish to use his land.
Nevertheless, there are difficulties about the provision which is now in the Bill. First, Clause 2(6) provides that where a building includes a dwelling the phrase "residential land" includes:
"any external part of the building which adjoins or is adjacent to [the dwelling]".
In that way it seems to me that the flank wall of a factory might be repaired under the Act without payment for access just because it adjoined or was adjacent to a caretaker's flat. I should perhaps note that under the definition the dwelling does not need to be occupied as a dwelling.
It seems to me also that further difficulties may arise as to who is to receive the payment for access and also the compensatory payments provided for in Clause 2(3) (f). That is because of some lack of clarity in the Bill as to who is to be the respondent in an application and the quite separate possibility provided by the Bill of compensation falling to be paid to someone who is not a respondent.
An article in the Estates Gazette on 21st September commented on the earlier Bill. In that article Professor J. E. Adams noted the absence of any power to supplement details by ministerial order. I take the point a little further and make the suggestion to my noble friend that there might be a case for the insertion in the Bill of a clause allowing the Lord Chancellor limited powers to amend the Bill by statutory instrument.
As a private Member at this particular time, I find myself surprised at making the suggestion. Nevertheless, I believe that there are points on which the drafting may be unclear and lead to unnecessary litigation. I have just indicated where I think that the drafting of the Bill may produce no payment for access in a situation in which one would have expected payment to be made. It would be a pity if putting right small defects in the Act had to await the opportunity for primary legislation. A case in point to which I have drawn the attention of my noble and learned friend, as I have done on some other points, is the question of whether the Bill is apt to deal with the case where the applicant merely wants the right to cross his neighbour's land and will be carrying out all the works on and from his own land.
I turn now to the one remaining point where I feel that something serious is lacking, whether in the Bill or outside it. Without some special arrangement for the costs of the application, in my view the Act will be found to be seriously flawed and will be in danger of proving to be a considerable embarrassment. But

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before I go into the matter of costs, I should like to comment on my noble friend's reference to the provisions in the Bill which would allow the court to make an order for the payment of the respondent's expenses before the application is made.
What is envisaged under that provision of the Bill is that in the course of negotiations a respondent or a potential respondent will have to employ a solicitor, and possibly a surveyor, to examine the facts which would allow his neighbour to come on to his land and to form a judgment as to whether, under the Act, an access order would be made if applied for. It is envisaged that the solicitor or the party negotiating with his neighbour would say to his neighbour: "I shall consent to the order in these terms, provided that you agree to pay my expenses. If you do not agree to pay my expenses, I shall make what is called a Calderbank order. I shall make you an offer, without prejudice as to costs, that I shall accept your proposals for access, but only if you pay my preliminary expenses."
I think that I should have to agree that with some minor amendments to the county court rules to cover that type of Calderbank order, this clause of the Bill, about which I have in the past expressed reservations, might well be useful and get agreement on access orders without the need to resort to the courts.
But on the question of costs generally, someone who uses the Act will definitely obtain a very significant advantage, including financial advantage from his right of access over his neighbour's land. At best the neighbour will obtain no benefit at all and in many cases will be put to expense and suffer considerable uncompensated inconvenience. I suggest to my noble friend and to my noble and learned friend that the Act will be perceived as unfair and repugnant if further and better provision is not made to ensure that so far as possible the neighbour who has acted reasonably is, at the very least, not out of pocket as a result of being privileged to allow an adjoining owner to trample over his land.
One way of doing that would be to provide that the costs of the application are to be paid by the applicant except where the respondent has acted unreasonably. Reference has already been made to that point. I tabled an amendment to the earlier Bill to that effect. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, also put his name to that amendment. It did not fall to be considered and I shall listen with interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has to say on the matter today as well as to the comments of my noble and learned friend.
I should add that wide unease was expressed in response to the consultations by the Law Commission nearly 10 years ago and the response to the Bills in recent months—unease at the fact that the respondent should have to pay for the applicant's pleasures. I do not propose to continue with that particular point in this debate except to make one reference to the notes on clauses. On the question of costs, the notes comment that:
"The normal costs rules would apply: that is to say, the court has a discretion to make any award of costs it feels is appropriate in the circumstances of the case, and thus may make an award which does not follow the outcome".
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I believe that there is an element of legal-speak in the reference to the "discretion" of the court. As I understand the matter, it is not a true discretion to be exercised by any judge in any way that his discretion leads him. I understand that it is only in certain exceptional and fairly closely defined cases that the court exercises its discretion to depart from the normal rule that costs follow the event. So, where an access order is made it will be rare indeed for the respondent to have his costs paid by the applicant.
I have tried to be good, to be brief and to keep a tight rein on any impulse that I might feel to give full vent to my known interest in the more recondite corners of property law. However, before I conclude there are some less thorny points to which I wish briefly to draw attention.
First, on the question of payment for access, I believe that the drafting of the two heads of the formula in Clause 2(5) for calculating the financial advantage of an order also allows a measure of double counting which may operate unfairly against applicants. Taking as an example a case where repairs to land worth £1,000 would cost £600 without the order, and £200 with the order, the land would be worth £1,200 with the work carried out. The formula would produce financial advantage of £400 under the head of cost saving, plus £200 under the head of increasing value, making a total of £600. My instinct tells me that the financial advantage is not the sum of the two heads but the higher of them—£400.
I have heard from valuers that the phrase "just and reasonable" referred to in Clause 2(4) in relation to the payment to be made for access is not well recognised by those involved in valuations at the sharp end. "Fair and reasonable" is the measure that I would have expected. I should be grateful if my noble and learned friend would explain whether there is any significance in the use of the word "just".
I have also been advised of the worry of the Association of British Insurers that there should be early recognition of difficulties which may arise when a court, when making an access order, imposes provisions under Clause 2(3) (e), with respect to,
"the taking out of insurance cover by the applicant against any such risks as may be so specified".
The association has pointed out that appropriate cover is not at present normally available under public liability or household policies, and that that is likely to remain the case notwithstanding the passage of the Act. I ask my noble and learned friend whether it will be possible for the insurance industry to consult about the insurance implications of the Bill in the hope that that could lead to the promulgation of appropriate guidelines for the benefit of the courts and practitioners. I ask my noble and learned friend one question on insurance. If insurance cover proves impossible to obtain, will it be possible to satisfy the requirements of the subsection by the provision of a guarantee or bond to meet the potential liability?
I welcome the provisions of Clause 4, which provide that an access order shall bind the respondent's successor in title to the servient land as well as persons who derive their interest under the respondent and whose interest has been created after

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the making of the order. That follows the terms of an amendment to which my name was attached. However, I wonder now whether the provision goes far enough and whether anyone who has acquired a derivative interest from the respondent after the date of the making of the application should not also be bound. The difficulty that I envisage is that the respondent may receive the papers for the application from the court. He may then find it possible and convenient to sublet a potato patch to his son-in-law at the strategic point which would impede the eventual operation of the access order. It may be that the Bill has that effect in ways which I do not understand. However, if it does not, I should have thought that consideration should be given to a further amendment.
My final point relates to Clause 4(4). Again it is a small point. The provision prohibits contracting out of the Act. I am not completely convinced that there are not circumstances in which it would be reasonable to allow someone to contract out of the Act. However, if contracting out is planned, the ban should be effective. I ask my noble and learned friend whether it might not be clearer if the agreement which was made void was an agreement not to obtain an access order rather than an agreement not to apply for one.
The Bill deserves speedy passage through your Lordships' House. I support its Second Reading today.
8.55 p.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, if ever proof were needed that your Lordships' House was necessary as a revising Chamber, it has been given tonight when at a late hour, and in a learned if sparse House, the clauses of the Bill have been considered, and the Bill's purposes so eloquently and clearly introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Murton, who also entertained us on the last occasion with his original Bill brought from the Commons.
I well remember the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, in his speech on Second Reading, calling attention to the fact that the Bill presented in another place went through on the nod on a Friday without one single person addressing any remark to the House. That was so in spite of the fact that a situation in law, which has existed for centuries, was being altered by Parliament. Throughout the centuries such an order would be trespass. Throughout the centuries it would not be possible to go to a court and obtain an order such as is envisaged by this Act. If I remember aright, the noble and learned Lord referred to that old phrase of an Englishman's home being his castle. He wondered whether the castle had not in some way been invaded by the provisions of the Bill.
This House has taken its role very seriously. The points raised have been extremely interesting. The noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, was absolutely right: because of the peculiar circumstances of the Committee stage possibly having to be completed before Christmas, he said very properly that at Second Reading it would be sensible if notice were given of points that might be raised at Committee stage so that those in charge of the Bill would have adequate notice.
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I have some such points to make. I wish to limit them to points of some considerable weight—I would not in all modesty say that they had more than that—which have not been raised by other speakers. I begin with what I consider to be an important point and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, was courteous enough to mention my name in connection with it. If noble Lords consider Clause 1(1) (b) of the Bill which has as its purpose, I hope, the ironing out of differences which may exist between neighbours, it states that a person,
"who needs, but does not have, the consent of some other person to that entry, may make an application to the court for an order".
There is no provision that there has to be a prior application, or that there has to be some notice served such as might be set out conveniently in a schedule to the Bill. As it is worded at present, anybody can say, "I need a consent. I have not got it in my pocket. I am going to the court."
Therefore, the first point which I raise is that however selfish lawyers may be accused of being, in this House of all Houses we do not wish to push people into courts of law when that could be avoided and when they should be good neighbours. Immediately I ask whether or not there should be a provision that where consent has been applied for by a proper notice being served and that consent is not forthcoming for good or bad reason, then when a person needs that consent, he can apply to the court. It is important that the Bill should provide for the letter before action, or a notice, or a provision, which makes it quite clear that a friendly, reasonable and civilised approach should be made before either the parties are forced into a court of law or busy courts of law are forced to deal with situations which they may otherwise not need to face.
The next matter at which I looked was Clause 1(3) which states:
"The court shall not make an … order in any case where it is satisfied that, were it to make such an order, the respondent or any other person would suffer interference with, or disturbance of, his use or enjoyment of the servient land".
In connection with that I noticed that Clause 1(2) directs the court to make an order if the conditions in that subsection are satisfied. Therefore, the only exception to the mandatory effect of subsection (2) is the question raised in subsection (3) of somebody suffering interference with, or disturbance of, his use or enjoyment of servient land.
What about a person who is ill and in particular who is suffering from a nervous complaint where, indeed, the question of noise has an extremely deleterious effect on health? That has nothing to do with enjoyment or interference as regards land, but it has something to do with the condition of an individual which, I repeat, has nothing to do with his ownership or enjoyment of land.
The Bill states that the court "shall make an order". Should we not alter that "shall", knowing that courts are, by and large, very wise, to make it permissive so that the court "may" make an order. If that is done, all those points can be taken into consideration. If it is made mandatory, should we not look extremely carefully at the wording of subsection (3) which is the

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only way in which a court can say to itself, "I will not make this order in spite of the fact that it is mandatory. In my view it does not cover enough exceptions".
The noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, has already raised questions which arise under Clause 2(3) (e). I, too, studied the letter from the association dealing with insurers and saw the warning that there may be grave difficulties in regard to the courts enforcing a proper and effective insurance clause in any condition which may be put into the order. Because the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, wanted to spare us a longer speech, there were matters in that letter which he did not mention. I shall abbreviate them, but the letter points out how frequently insurance policy clauses can be breached. That gives the right to the insurance company to say that it is no longer liable. As the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, said, the court may not be as wise and experienced in those matters as it would be in matters of law. Therefore it is important that the insurers should be consulted. The Association of British Insurers should be consulted in order that appropriate guidelines can be given to the court.
I cannot understand—and this may be my fault—what is said in Clause 2(4) where there is provision for payment in respect of a financial advantage and in respect of the degree of inconvenience likely to be caused. If one mentions inconvenience, especially in subsection (4), I should have thought that a court might take it for granted that inconvenience was not included in the previous provisions which deal with loss or damage because one has sorted out what one has provided for in the Bill by inconvenience.
If that is so, one can obtain no payment for inconvenience in regard to works which the applicant desires to carry out by means of the entry where the works concern residential land. As the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, pointed out but in a different context, if one looks at the provisions in subsection (6) as regards what is meant in the Bill by "residential land", one sees that it covers anything relating to a dwelling. For the purpose of the point that I wish to make, I shall simplify that by saying that it is limited to matters affecting a dwelling.
All the examples which the noble Lord, Lord Murton, pointed out were in regard to houses. All the discussion which has taken place in your Lordships' House relates to residential property. Some residential property here is extensive, expensive and luxurious. Are we saying that there shall be no compensation for inconvenience? All the points we discussed and the examples we were given relate to residences. All the inconvenience in the world may be suffered by somebody, but presumably there will not be the liability to pay compensation. I ask myself whether that can be right. In answering myself I say, no.
One point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, in admiration—rightly so—of the revised Bill. From this side of the House I thank him again, as did the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, for the wisdom he exercised in those revisions, no doubt with the help of the worthy noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. The noble Lord, Lord Coleraine,
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pointed out how glad he was to see the extension of the order to subsequent acquirers of the property which would be the object of the order. That is all very well, but some conveyancers take the view that there is a difficulty in that regard. If the order happens to be subsisting at the time when a transfer of property takes place, what of the lot of the poor purchaser who knows nothing about it? Nothing is said in the Bill about such an order being registrable, as it obviously should be. That point was raised at a high level not only with the Law Society, but also, if my information is correct, by a member of the Law Commission.
The Bill should provide that in those circumstances the order is registrable. It perhaps can be registered as a pending land action, as a writ or as an order. But I am advised by experts in the field that there is no certainty about it. One wonders therefore whether the order should be registrable.
As has been said by all the participants in the debate on this Second Reading, it is a worthy and necessary Bill. I hope that in its final stages it will make it evident that at all events your Lordships' House does not wish to drive people into the courts, but that we want them to have all the proper notices and warnings to keep them out of court so that a civilised consent can be obtained in the circumstances we envisage. If the Bill is an alteration in the law, after centuries which have not found it necessary, then I feel that we all believe it to be a necessary principle that we are carrying out in this Second Reading debate. We on this side of the House support the Bill.
9.11 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, I should like to join those who congratulated my noble friend Lord Murton of Lindisfarne for bringing forward the previous Bill, for considering the points made about it and for the wisdom of the course he took in deferring consideration of those matters until this parliamentary Session. That gave him as well as others the opportunity to reconsider some of the issues raised.
As my noble friend said, the Bill arose from work done by the Law Commission and, as originally presented, was the Law Commission's Bill. I intimated on behalf of the Government that we accepted the policy of the Law Commission Bill. When it appeared to one of my honourable friends in another place that it would be helpful in a specific case, it was natural that he should desire to put the Bill forward as the only way of dealing with that constituency problem. The consideration given to both the previous Bill and this one improved the proposals, although in so doing we departed to some extent from the policy adopted by the Law Commission—not in essential matters but in matters of detail.
Like my noble and learned friend Lord Wilberforce, I should like to have seen a simpler Bill which achieved the same purpose but with less elaboration. The more I listened to the debate the more I concluded that that is an elusive object if one wants to achieve this simple purpose. Many of the points raised are acknowledged to be Committee points. My noble friend Lord Murton of Lindisfarne

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will wish to consider them. I am ready to offer him any help that we can give both in consideration of those matters and in the drafting of any amendments that in his view may be necessary if some of those points need to be made.
Perhaps I may make one or two comments on some of the points. I do not wish to detain your Lordships unduly by talking about them all. The first point about the order in the Bill is that made by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and supported in advance by my noble and learned friend Lord Wilberforce, that some form of notice or letter before action should be a condition. Something of that kind might be extremely reasonable. I had thought that that might be done by procedural rules which the rules of court have power to lay down. That would enable us to give some flexibility to the precise requirement.
There may be a great deal to be said for making the requirement fairly precise so that the respondent to the application may know exactly what was wanted. Simply making a provision such as the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, mentioned might lead to some difficulty. I know that one of the points behind this form of words was that it may sometimes be very difficult to know from whom consent is to be obtained. The recent opening of the land register may help solve that matter, but it would not resolve the point altogether.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord for giving way. This is rather an important point since the whole idea of the Bill is to make for civilised relationships between neighbours. If there is any difficulty in this connection in finding out from whom the consent is to be obtained, it will be equally impossible or difficult to find out who the respondent should be to the application for the order.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, that is so. There is always the possibility of altering that as one goes ahead through the procedure. If the failure to notify the right person at the beginning undercuts the whole procedure on which one has embarked, it makes it unnecessarily complicated. Let us suppose that I thought that A was the owner and I served a notice on A and then, by the time that I reached a later stage of the procedure, A had parted with the property perhaps in the manner that my noble friend Lord Coleraine suggested, of a potato patch stretched to a son-in-law, then I had not asked that person for consent. If that emerged in the course of the application, the result would be that if something of the kind that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, mentioned was at the root of the matter, I would have to start all over again. I suspect that a really ingenious person, well advised, might make it very difficult to start at all. There are dangers although I entirely appreciate the point that the noble Lord made.
As regards the general point raised about insurance, your Lordships can certainly take it that I would wish to consult with the Association of British Insurers before making a commencement order which is provided for in the Bill. The subsidiary point made
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by the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, is met by the provision in Clause 2(8) (b) which allows the court to make provision,
"for the giving of security by the applicant for any sum that might become payable to the respondent or any other person by virtue of this section or section 3 below".
In other words, some other method of providing for compensation could be that if it were necessary.
One of the points made to my noble friend and myself in the interregnum was that if this measure is being used for what I might call ordinary residential purposes, it would be reasonable enough that that should be done on the basis of compensation for loss. However, if it were a more major project, such as a forestry enterprise or something of that nature which the Bill covers, then it would be right that the person getting the entry should make some form of licence payment.
The answer to what the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, had to say about that is that the consideration for the privilege of entry in the form of a payment is something over and above compensation for loss. Compensation for loss could include inconvenience, but inconvenience could also be a factor in the licence payment. As regards that licence payment, my noble friend Lord Coleraine raised the point of double counting. The whole formula is built in such a way that these are circumstances to which the court has to have regard. I would expect the court not to be very amenable towards allowing double counting.
Clause 4 has been altered in the way that my noble friend Lord Coleraine mentioned very much as a result of the comments he made. He has elaborated these to bring forward another possibility this evening. I am grateful for the point raised about the registration of such an order. I think we had assumed that this could be registered, but I shall certainly consider the matter with my technical advisers. No doubt my noble friend Lord Murton will be interested in hearing what they have to say about whether we should have a specific provision about that. If there is a provision about that, then there should also be a provision about agreements having the same effect.
My noble friend Lord Coleraine raised a question about access to land for the purpose of getting to other land without anything else happening—a mere entry to cross the servient land. At the moment we hold the view that Clause 7(1) has that effect, but I shall certainly reconsider the matter in the light of what my noble friend has said.
My noble and learned friend Lord Wilberforce raised the question of the possibility of a court using a surveyor to go to the place and setting all the points there and then. I hope that such a procedure might be possible and I shall be glad to have an opportunity of considering whether, for example, rules could go some distance towards that. I suppose the ultimate decision, if there was a dispute, would possibly have to be made by the court, but I shall be glad to consider whether we can deal with that.
Those are the main matters of substance which have been raised. As I said, I shall be very happy to consider these further and to give any help to my noble friend in connection with them which he may feel he would like to have. I am sure we should all like to see

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these cases being dealt with. There are quite a number of cases such as my noble friend mentioned of householders who are in real difficulties. This is not a new problem but the Law Commission has now addressed it. There has been very thorough examination. We have the benefit of the Law Commission's work and we have the benefit of your Lordships' views. I hope that we should be able to move fairly speedily now to provide the people who really need it with the remedy that they require. I am happy on behalf of the Government to support this Bill.
9.22 p.m.
Lord Murton of Lindisfarne: My Lords, I should like to thank those noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It has been a very serious discussion on what I consider to be a very serious matter. The more I have listened, the more I realise that it is not only serious but it has certain complexities. On the other hand, I am hopeful that as it was a Law Commission report in the first place, we may be able to come to an agreement eventually in revising it so that eventually it could reach the statute book.
I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, for his comments. He is quite right, it is a complex issue. My noble friend Lord Coleraine has gone very deeply into this matter. He knows a great deal about things that I do not know; and we know the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, knows a lot as well on these legal matters.
I should like to thank my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor for the help which he has given personally and the encouragement which he has given to me in endeavouring to carry this Bill through, and also to his department and counsel for what they have done in redrafting the original Bill. I hope with the good will that has been shown this evening that we may succeed, and that your Lordships will agree that this Bill be now be given a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

New British Library
9.25 p.m.
Lord Annan Lord Annan rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied with the progress being made in constructing and equipping the new British Library; and whether the present managerial and financial structures are rational.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am asking the Unstarred Question in my name on the Order Paper to illuminate the unhappy vicissitudes suffered by the British Library, and I do so for two reasons. The first is that whenever a new chapter of mismanagement opens it is always the British Library that is blamed, whereas in fact, as I shall show, the Office of Arts and Libraries, the Department of the Environment and the Treasury are responsible for these delays and frustrations. Secondly, I do so for a personal reason. When I was a trustee of the British Museum I was
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chairman of the committee that supervised the departments of printed books and of manuscripts. Control of those departments passed to the British Library when it was established in 1973, but I have continued to take an interest in the library because I remember the atrocious conditions in which the staff, who served the public so well, worked in the British Museum. There are some ignoramuses who consider the new library to be a monument to the vanity of a few pampered scholars. They forget how important it is to scientists and engineers and they forget the staff working in cubby holes and in passages with antiquated equipment.
The staff have been waiting for a new library since 1951. It was to have been opposite the British Museum in Bloomsbury and the decision to go ahead was taken in 1964. In 1966 the borough of Camden suddenly objected and in October 1967, without any consideration of an alternative site, the Labour Government told the trustees that the scheme was cancelled. Their decision evoked a philippic from the chairman of the trustees, Lord Radcliffe, of a savagery that I have never heard equalled in your Lordships' House, so biting was his indignation at the contempt and double-dealing with which Whitehall had treated the British Museum.
But to continue the story, the committee, set up mercifully under the noble Lord, Lord Dainton, recommended that the best site was still in Bloomsbury but it offered alternatives. In 1977, 25 years after the original decision to build was taken, outline proposals for the St. Pancras site were approved. But so dire was the nation's financial plight that still no funds were provided or commitment made.
In 1979 the Conservative Government were even more determined to cut public expenditure so the funds for the project were reduced from £22.5 million to £9.5 million. The first stage was sub-divided and for the next 10 years the construction limped on. The first phase is now expected to be completed in 1993 and the whole project completed in 1996. But let no one suppose that the project when completed will resemble the original plan in the 1960s. The newspaper archives will still languish in Colindale; there will still be the same need for out-housing. Only 73 more seats for readers will be provided over the present 1,103. Originally it was planned to provide 3,440 reader seats.
I could not, even were I to try, emulate Lord Radcliffe tonight; nor do I wish to do so. Against the voices of many eminent men and women, recent Ministers for the Arts have stood firm and upheld the decision to erect a new library. Only the other day, so I understand, Mr. Renton gave the library an additional grant to meet the expenses of the transition from Bloomsbury to St. Pancras; not as much as the library needs of course, but still it was something. The present chairman of the board, Mr. Michael Saunders Watson, tells me that some of the managerial inefficiencies to which I shall refer are now being remedied, but there still seems to me to be an unsound management structure.
One might think that the client, the British Library, would be a party to all major decisions. In fact, for years the British Library was frozen out of the managerial structure. The client is held to be the Office of Arts and Libraries. A senior official of the OAL is called the project sponsor. That term does not suggest to me a firm managerial hand; it suggests to me a godfather, one who makes promises at the font for another which, alas, are very rarely kept when the infant grows up. He has to negotiate with the Property Services Agency (the PSA). That is a division in the Department of the Environment. Does it manage? Not at all. It delegates management in turn to Laing's which it employs to organise the day-to-day work on the site and to chase sub-contractors.
In May of this year the Public Accounts Committee drew attention to some of the managerial failings in its publication called A New Building for the British Library. For four years the OAL did not really regard itself as being really responsible for the control of the building. Weaknesses experienced in 1986 and again in 1987 were not remedied. The steering committee on which the British Library was represented was set up in 1978, met once in 1983 and did not meet again until 1986. The PSA failed to monitor the rise in London building costs which was caused by the boom in office building in the 1980s.
When the time came for the handover of the completed work to the British Library, the board of the British Library found time and again that quality had been sacrificed so that the PSA could say that the building was on time; in other words, it was on time but the quality had been cut. In fact, no adequate quality check existed. Nor could the British Library fathom what exactly was going on, so ambiguous was the terminology and so complex the descriptions of the procedures that the PSA was following.
I daresay that the worst of all failures occurred when the book stacks were handed over. The stacks were built by a Dutch firm. The lowest tender was produced by a British firm. But it was never told why its bid was rejected—presumably on the grounds of quality and of lower efficiency. The miserable Dutch firm has proved to be monumentally inefficient. The British Library, like the board, identified 20 major faults in design, manufacture and installation. The PSA never thought to load some sample book stacks with books. When that was done on handover, the stacks would not operate as planned. But by that time hundreds of stacks had been delivered. All of them had to be returned for modification.
I am not complaining that the contract went to a Dutch firm. I regret to say that at Stansted Airport contract after contract for fittings and finishes went to our Continental competitors because the architect thought that in design, price or item British firms could not match their rivals. But British firms should be treated with a modicum of courtesy. The British firm has tendered to provide seats for the auditorium. A year has passed and it has not heard a word. The firm provided a specimen chair so that the architect and the PSA could judge it. However, because it had other designs in mind, it also said that if the specimen
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was not the kind of chair required it would be very happy to present other designs. But, again, the firm has not heard a word. It is disgraceful.
I understand that since the Dutch disaster the steering committee has devised a plan to prevent similar failures in the future. I am bound to say that the history of the project puts a very heavy questionmark over the competence of the PSA. The Secretary of State for the Environment made his name in 1980 for being the most vigorous of all Cabinet Ministers in tackling overmanning and inefficiency in his department. I wonder whether the Minister could ask his right honourable friend the Secretary of State, now that he is once again at the helm, to divert his gaze from Docklands and turn it onto the PSA and either make it efficient or liquidate it.
I do not forget the difficulties under which the PSA operates. The agency can do excellent work. Indeed, those who attended the party held for Black Rod the other day heard him say what a marvellous job it had done with the extensive refurbishment in the House of Lords. It was completed within a week of the new Session opening. Then, of course, when one is working for the House of Lords, as a certain lady said, "It would, wouldn't it?" Again, the PSA redecorated the Barry Rooms in the National Gallery. It did it very well indeed, but there of course the money came from private sources, and the agency worked under the eagle eye of the noble Lord, Lord Rothschild.
Cannot the Department of the Environment learn a lesson from the construction of the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery? The paymaster for that wing was Mr. Simon Sainsbury. His counterpart at the British Library is the OAL. Mr. Sainsbury was advised by Mr. Stuart Lipton, a man who could judge the efficiency of the contractors and subcontractors employed. Does the PSA ever consult such experts in the private sector? Every day, Mr. Sainsbury was on the site, exhorting, checking, chivvying, exploding, demanding explanations for delays, controlling the architect (no light assignment), and imposing his will upon the project.
Every month, the noble Lord, Lord Rothschild, chairman of the National Gallery trustees, met Mr. Sainsbury and the contractors to see that the gallery was getting what it had asked for. Everyone there knew on what date various areas were to be handed over. The British Library still does not have a confirmed set of handover dates. The noble Viscount will say immediately that there is one essential difference between the Sainsbury Wing and the British Library: those who built the Sainsbury Wing knew how much money they could spend, planned accordingly and were accountable only to themselves.
The British Library has been bedevilled by the eternal stop-go of our nation's economy. So I ask tonight: is it not time that the Treasury devised some new safeguards to enable projects of that magnitude to be completed more efficiently? I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, is not in his place tonight. He conducts a merciless vendetta against the Treasury, but I am bound to admit that I have more sympathy for the Treasury's plight than he has.
Day after day, at Question Time in this House, the Government are belaboured by noble Lords, indignant that more public money is not being spent on this or that pet cause. One might think that the word "inflation" had never been heard. The Treasury well knows that a few, but still an appreciable number, of those pleas will succeed. What can it do but demand that Ministers cut projects that it identifies as less urgent or very costly? Yet in so doing it forces economies upon construction, and as a result contractors cut corners and lower quality. Architects are told to replan their schemes, and the expense in the end is greater than the savings expected at the moment of crisis.
Should not the Treasury designate a few great public projects to be exempt from stop-go finance? Cannot the Treasury set up a small committee containing expert financiers to advise it on that problem? I am afraid that the Treasury gives the impression of being rather contemptuous of outside advice.
I must also allude to one piece of scandalous Treasury folly: having forced the OAL to abandon the original scheme for the library, 4.5 acres of the original site will remain vacant. The Treasury has ruled that that area must be sold. Can folly go further? If the Treasury had taken that view of the Hampton site, which remained vacant for 40 years, the Sainsbury Wing would never have been built. It is inevitable that in the next century the library will need this land. It is not as though the Treasury will earn much money from the sale—commercial development on it is prohibited. In days long gone by, expenditure of museums and galleries was under the control of such enlightened Treasury knights as Sir Dennis Procter and Sir Edward Playfair, former members of King's College, Cambridge. Cannot Mr. Nicholas Monek—another King's man in the Treasury—turn his attention to this matter and stop what I call, by malignant design, farthing-pinching policy? This is a problem which we must face.
I have raised these questions because the British Library is one of the greatest treasures in our cultural life. It is not only the British Library that is at stake in these matters, so is the British Museum. The British Museum is desperate to use the space that the library will vacate. Everyone here knows the Mummy Room. Hundreds of thousands of children, year in, year out, make Joey's acquaintance—that touching naked mummy that lies in the case. They gain their first inkling of antiquity and mortality. The Mummy Room has remained unchanged since I was a child.
The Tutankhamun Exhibition gave the public an idea of how the mummies in the British Museum could be displayed. The physical separation of the British Museum and the British Library is perhaps the most important single event for the public and for scholars in this decade.
It is for these reasons that I ask tonight: does the Minister really think that the financial decisions now and in the past are rational? Is he satisfied that the management of this great project is in good hands?
9.42 p.m.
Lord Quinton: My Lords, I am sure that we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Annan, for raising the Question that we are considering tonight. I am particularly grateful because it gives me an occasion to relieve frustrations generated in a five-year period as chairman of the British Library board when it was not proper for me to speak in too vocal a manner about the way in which the project was being handled by its overlords.
Of course, the manner in which decisions are taken about the continuing process of construction is an extraordinary arrangement, with the Treasury pulling the levers in the middle distance. The Office of Arts and Libraries—not a strong element in the ministerial structure—endeavours to respond to these. In all my time, the attitude of the Office of Arts and Libraries to the library was satisfactory, agreeable, supportive and helpful. It was what was going on in the middle distance that was so disastrous.
At any rate, going from the Office of Arts and Libraries there was the Property Services Agency and beyond them Laing. Laing were not constructing the building, they were putting out contracts to other people—a matter of the most unspeakable complexity. Perhaps that is inevitable. It was frequently said—with how much truth I do not know—that this was the largest public building project in Europe since the war. It certainly was very large, almost a Pentagon-sized undertaking. It was rather unprecedented from a managerial view and it is not surprising that the existing structures, which are perfectly capable of putting an annex on to a hospital, would find it beyond their powers to cope effectively with bringing into existence such a noble and comprehensive conception. Certainly, they have been found wanting in this regard. It is a pity that something was not done much earlier to rationalise the proceedings.
I agree with the noble Lord that behind this Byzantine managerial apparatus is something more fundamental: the role of the Treasury in the whole operation. Many of the matters to which the noble Lord, Lord Annan, referred occurred before my time. In my time, the Treasury's operations were somewhat attenuated. They took the form of successive persons appointed to the rank of chief secretary lopping £10 million off the budget.
The background—the human, dramatic background—is perfectly obvious. A new chief secretary comes in and he wishes to make his mark. He gets a bloody nose at health, education and defence and so he turns on the British Library at the bottom end of government spending.
Noble Lords will be aware of the story of W.W. Jacobs concerning a Thames lighter or tug where rather aggressive human relationships obtained among members of the crew. The captain bullied the mate; the mate bullied the deck-hand; the deck-hand bullied the cook; the cook bullied the cabin boy and the cabin boy, as a last resort, took it out on the cat. The British Library is the cat of English public institutions.
The noble Lord, Lord Annan, described the manner in which the library's activities were seriously

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interfered with by these arbitrary, undiscussed and merely fiat-like withdrawals of previously offered funding.
Such actions cause more damage and incur more expense than is actually saved. They are ritual, magical acts like not stepping on the lines between the paving stones. They are comparatively small sums relative to the total cost involved in the project and on the whole they have the effect of immensely reducing function. Anyone committed to or emotionally or professionally involved with the British Library cannot but feel embarrassed at the moment that the number of seats was to have been greatly increased for readers as part of an idea of the library greatly enlarging its constituency. All that has been abandoned.
It is rather as though, confronted with a £9,000 car, one decided to cut the expense by taking out the back seats. The car will still run—the wheels are there. It is definitely a car, there is an engine and a petrol tank. It is just no longer useful as a family vehicle. That has rather been the effect of these trivial, marginal cuts.
The whole matter stands in rather curious contrast with what goes on in France. In outbursts of enormous, Napoleonic enthusiasm, President Mitterrand has committed £725 million to the production of his Bibliotheque de France. It is intended—and I have no doubt that this intention will be fulfilled—that it should be brought into operation in 1995 before the completion date of the already painfully mutilated British Library scheme.
One understands to some extent why the Government have not tried to deal with this matter in one fell swoop. Instead they have dragged it out from the first approval in 1978, or thereabouts. It will be completed in 1996. That is a period of nearly 20 years. I am not sure why it could not have been achieved in a shorter time as that delay enormously augments the total cost of the scheme.
No doubt the Treasury is committed to the idea that one must pay for things out of revenue, that the revenue must be distributed among the various claimants and that claimants must put up with rations. I believe that is a serious mistake. The budget of the claimant, although big in human terms—we are talking about a figure of about £450 million—still represents only about 2 per cent. of the national budget of the NHS or 2.5 per cent. of the budget for defence or education.
Behind the Treasury's extraordinary treatment of the library there lies a more spiritual and fundamental reasoning. The Treasury has a grudging and reluctant attitude towards the library. That contrasts with the attitude shown towards the French project which enjoys enormous governmental enthusiasm. I am not claiming that the French project is not wildly misguided in parts and neither am I claiming that it has not undergone some extraordinary mutations before arriving at its present state. The idea of leaving all books printed before 1945 in the Rue de Richelieu and of keeping all books that date from the use of the atom bomb in the new library is rather a strange one. Fashionable women, attired in ragged clothes, waited on President Mitterrand and caused him to change his
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mind about that folly. Nevertheless, the whole project animated public excitement and there is the feeling that the leaders of the community are genuinely enthusiastic about it.
French is no longer a lingua franca, despite appearances. English is the most important language in the world at the present time. In a sense the British Library is the focal heart of the English language and literature, expressed in English, is our greatest contribution to art of any description. It is our most important cultural asset and is therefore a proper topic for enthusiasm.
To take up one further point made by the noble Lord, Lord Annan, the distinction, the detachment and disengagement of the library from the museum is important. It is slightly absurd that the library should have been a department of the museum. I hope that what I say will not be understood as implying any hostility to the museum, but the plain and brutal fact is that the library is, in two respects, five times as large as the museum—in terms of the number of its employees and the size of its turnover. To make the library a department of the museum, which because of complicated accidents of inheritances from Soane, Cotton and the like, it was for a very long time, until 1973, is an absurdity. It is as if the Royal Navy was a department of the Royal Marines, to use an analogy which I hope will appeal to the present chairman of the British Library board. Excellent as the Royal Marines are, their activities are of a different nature and character from those of the Royal Navy and are carried out by a very much smaller number of people.
I think it fair to say that the British Museum is primarily for contemplation, but also, and very importantly, for study. The British Library is primarily an institution for study which has contemplative elements—the glorious royal library collection and wonderful individual objects such as Magna Carta, the Codex Sinaiticus and so on. The two point in different directions and are of very different sizes.
One might say that that is ridiculous and just fussing about names. It is not quite that. Perhaps I may refer briefly to the Shaw benefaction. A substantial part of the bequest of George Bernard Shaw was left to the British Museum. The bulk of that has been appropriated by the British Museum as currently constituted. A little of it is occasionally shuffled across the counter as a douceur to the British Library, but in terms of the interests and intentions of the late George Bernard Shaw it was obvious that that money was intended for the library and not for improving the wonderful collection of Assyrian and Egyptian objects and the like for which the British Museum is rightly renowned.
The real point is that even though the seating has not increased greatly there will be a little more seating. The transformation of the conditions of the staff, which was a priority, was very much needed and will at least take place, even in the truncated library. Under the present working arrangements the curators—highly scholarly, experienced, indispensable and irreplaceable people—look as if they are in a modest town hall late in 1939 engaged in the improvised

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distribution of gas masks, ration books and identity cards, separated from one another by cardboard partitions. It is shameful that a great cultural institution should relegate highly-skilled people doing demanding work to operate in partially insulated corridors. That is what happens.
The final point which I should like to emphasise and to which the noble Lord referred, is that it is vital to retain the northern part of the site. It is not now of any particular commercial value even though it might have been two or three years ago. It was part of the original idea that the library should be put there, and the noble Lord, Lord Annan, referred to the newspaper library. There are many other possibilities closely involved with and germane to the library which could be sited there.
Even in its decayed state the project is remarkable. People say that it is a failure because all of the books will not be there. Under the present arrangements fewer than 40 per cent. of the books—part of the research library facility—are kept in and around Bloomsbury; 60 per cent. are outhoused. In the new library the proportion which will be outhoused compared with that which will be contained in the library will be completely different.
The fact that the scheme is not perfect does not mean that it is not an enormous improvement. I hope that nothing will be done to prevent the further improvement which is still possible if a rather more rational and enthusiastic attitude is adopted towards that great institution.
9.54 p.m.
Lord Dainton: My Lords, it is beyond my powers to try to emulate in any way the oratory of the two preceding speakers. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Annan, not only for arranging this debate, but for laying out so clearly to your Lordships exactly what has been the history of the project. I hope that your Lordships will pardon me if I speak with some feeling on the issue of libraries because I have many personal debts to pay to them. Had it not been for a reference library in my native city, it would not have been possible for me to find the way to my ultimate career and to find there books which determined my decision to go to Oxford, if I possibly could, to read chemistry, and which provided me with the intellectual equipment that enabled me to gain the financial help which had made possible that visit to, and ultimate residence in, Oxford. I therefore owe libraries a great debt.
Oddly enough, though a scientist, my life has been bound up with libraries almost ever since. When I was in my late 40s, I began to see what everyone now talks about; namely, the explosion of information and the exponential growth of scientific publications. At that time I was chosen to be chairman of a body called the Advisory Council on Scientific and Technical Information. I learnt that it was possible that some amelioration of that condition—of difficulty of access, of finding material and of knowing what it was that you wanted—would be possible by means of making use of advanced computer technology.
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That served to help the scientist, but my most educative experience of all was my 15 months as chairman of the National Libraries Committee, the outcome of which, as your Lordships have heard, was the bringing into a coherent, rational relationship of a vast range of libraries and services scattered over more than 15 sites in London and one in Yorkshire. The recommendations of that National Libraries Committee were almost all accepted and incorporated in the 1972 Act and the British Library opened its doors on 1st April 1973.
During our deliberations on the National Libraries Committee, we became acutely aware of the urgent need for a new building to bring all the materials together. Although that matter did not lie within our terms of reference, we studied the matter carefully and concluded without any difficulty that the nation could not afford not to bring the collections together under one roof. We therefore exceeded our brief and urged that a purpose-built library should be designed and constructed as soon as possible.
That was almost 25 years ago. Nine years later, I was even closer to the problems as chairman of the British Library board. I became even more acutely aware of the responsibility of maintaining in a fit state for use what I think your Lordships may not realise is the richness and variety of that library. There are over 17 million volumes; the mind boggles. I have forgotten the precise figure, but there are certainly more than 24 million patents. There are millions of stamps. If you want to listen, you can listen for 18 years, if you listen for 8 hours a day, to the National Sound Archive. It is not a process out of which one could come with one's mind in a sound condition. There are maps, music, manuscripts, often of great rarity and beauty, and great collections such as the India Office Library and Records.
Moreover, as a chemist, I knew perhaps better than most that to retard the all-too-evident deterioration of that material all that stock must be brought together and kept in a pollutant-free atmosphere at constant temperature and constant relative humidity. I well remember the afternoon—I think it was 16th September 1980—when I went to discuss the matter with the then Prime Minister. She quite rightly posed certain alternative supposed solutions, including miniaturisation of the collection, which were and still are less cost and time-effective than building a new building. She at once grasped the force of the arguments resting on the inexorable laws of chemistry.
Naturally, I was gratified when the reasoned arguments were accepted and the building was authorised. A building admirably designed for the library's uses was drawn up by Colin St. John Wilson and Partners. What then followed has been described in some detail by the noble Lord, Lord Annan. It is indeed a sorry tale which I shall not relate because, as he remarked, it is fully documented in the report of the Public Accounts Committee issued a mere six months ago.
Moreover, the Government have decided that no more building shall be authorised and, as we heard, some 4.5 acres of land to the north of the site should be sold. If that were to happen the library would be

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only half the size originally intended and inevitably some collections will suffer and deteriorate. I cannot emphasise too strongly that it would lose for ever land which is certain to be needed by the end of the century. If that land is not kept, the nation will pay an opportunity cost far higher than that of keeping and using it for the British Library.
The noble Lord, Lord Annan, gave some account of what happened during construction. In my judgment there are just two factors which have contributed to the unsatisfactory situation. The first is that there have been too many people involved in the decision-making and some important persons left out of it. It is a classic case of too many cooks. It has resulted in poor information flow, hesitancy in decisions, procrastination and indeed all those components which impede wise planning and the smooth, uninterrupted and economical flow of work.
Secondly, and just as, if not more, important, is the fact that the library, which after all is the ultimate client to occupy and use the building, has had no place in the PSA's organisational diagram for managing the contracts. In that structure any changes of the client's brief are the responsibility of an official of the Office of Arts and Libraries—the sponsoring department—called the project director.
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I shall spare noble Lords further details. I merely comment in complete confidence that one day the printed account of the history of this construction project will find its rightful place on the shelves of the British Library. It will form part of Social Sciences, where one will see a business school textbook entitled Case Studies of How Not To Manage.
But we must look to the future. Noble Lords have heard all the facts and, as I said earlier, they are available in the PAC's report. Therefore I conclude with two questions to the Government and hope for affirmative answers. The first question is this: in order to avoid recurrence from now on of the difficulties which have been experienced, will the Government take a firm hand and ensure that the management and decision procedures are reformed in such a way that the customer, the British Library, has its rightful place in any new structure? Secondly, will the Government give an undertaking that the land to the north of the existing building works, whatever its use may be in any interim, will be available for the continued development of the British Library, which is not only absolutely necessary but inevitable?
10.3 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: My Lords, I too should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Annan, for introducing this important subject. I should like to congratulate him on two counts: first, on his brilliant polemic. He said that he did not think it was the moment to emulate Lord Radcliffe. I think that he did so very effectively. The second reason it is an appropriate moment for this matter to be discussed is that by a tragic accident the noble Lord introduced the matter on an occasion and at a time when the British Library has its work interrupted by the first large-scale industrial action that it has experienced.
I believe that during the course of this week matters have progressed favourably. However, the work of the library has been thwarted over the past week or so. It is appropriate that this issue should be discussed at this time. No doubt that industrial action, whatever the obvious causes, reflects a deeper malaise which must have something to do with the unhappy story which the noble Lord, Lord Annan, told us.
I intervene in the debate for three reasons. First, I have used the British Library for well over 30 years as my main resource for research. I began to use it in the days of Sir Angus Wilson's supervision of the reading room. I continue to use it. I used it last week when Mrs. Nina Evans held that position. In passing I wish to express my gratitude for all the superintendents of the reading room, library assistants and others who have made my work much easier than it would otherwise have been.
Secondly, not entirely through my own will, I became the organiser of a protest group in the 1980s which was against the construction of the new British Library. I shall not say, "I told you so," having listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Annan, because when we put our name to our letter of protest we did not envisage that such catastrophic confusion would arise. In seeking to preserve the present structure of division of labour between the British Museum and the British Library, our motive was that we prized the Round Reading Room of the British Museum. We believed the possibilities for contemplation and reflection in that room were extremely important. We did not believe that it was possible, much less desirable, to concentrate all the activities of the British Library in one building. We considered that some compromise should be achieved between the museum and the library. In some respects we were correct, as I believe even the noble Lord, Lord Dainton—who spoke of the virtues of concentration—would agree. Since then there has been no real effort to concentrate resources. I cite one example. There has been no attempt at any stage to bring in the British Library's collection of newspapers. They are sited a long distance away in Colindale. For those who have to read newspapers, such a distance is a serious impediment to scholarship.
Thirdly, I had the privilege of serving on a committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead. It was set up on the invitation of a former Minister for the Arts, Sir Richard Luce, to make suggestions on how the reading room of the British
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Museum or the British Library should be used in future. The committee included three Members of your Lordships' House, other scholars, an architect and an architectural journalist. The committee made two suggestions. The first was that great efforts should be made under the auspices of the Arts Minister to try to find another library which could fit satisfactorily into that great room. The second suggestion was that it might be possible for the British Library to continue to use the Round Reading Room instead of asking it to build a proposed new humanities reading room. We saw the confusion which that might cause and we recognised the desire of the Library and the Museum to get out, so to speak, of each other's way. However, we all thought that it was worthwhile paying that price if we could continue to have that great reading room as part of the Library.
I know that the noble Lords, Lord Dainton and Lord Annan, and others believe those views to be romantic and sentimental and, therefore, foolish. Nevertheless, they are shared by a large number of scholars and writers of this country. They are shared also by a new group which has kindly sent me its recent report—the British Library Regular Readers' Group. That group would like to see a continuing association between Bloomsbury, the Museum, and St. Pancras, the Library. After all, the years when it was thought desirable to concentrate everything in one building now seem rather unfashionable years. That seems to be an unfashionable point of view.
I have three further points which I wish to make. First, I wish to remind your Lordships of the purpose of the British Library. I only mention that because sometimes in the press we see suggestions that one of the functions of the Library should be to stage exhibitions, hold concerts or to do things other than its main purpose: to provide books for readers, to act as a library of last resort for scholars or for interested persons. That is the Library's main purpose and it is one which the British Library shares with other great libraries throughout the world; for example, the Library of Congress and the Bibliothéque Nationale and others on the European Continent.
I agree strongly with the noble Lords, Lord Dainton and Lord Annan, and my noble friend Lord Quinton when they said that it would be a grave error if the Government continued to seek to persuade the British Library to sell off the land available on the northern part of the St. Pancras site. If the Treasury continues to insist upon that, it is showing a lack of interest in the future development of the Library, making it impossible for it to contemplate expansion of holdings or readers in the future. I agree with noble Lords who have spoken on this matter that it should be looked upon as a serious test of the Government's intentions. If they do not abandon their effort to persuade the Library to sell, we must conclude that they are making an extremely philistine decision.
The third point which I want to make is much the same as the point on which my noble friend Lord Quinton concluded; namely, to remind your Lordships that the British Library—and I do not mind conceding this—wherever it is sited, is a jewel in the nation's cultural life and must continue to be able to

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shine. It seems to me that one difficulty in recent years is that so much money has been spent on the building that there has not been enough money available for the maintenance of more humdrum, regular services—and they are not so humdrum. For example, when one speaks to anyone involved with the British Library one hears complaints about the cutting of the acquisition or accession budget.
In an article in the British Library staff newsletter, Focus —which does not explain the whole problem —David Paisey says:
"the German section in Bloomsbury has not had any funds for the purchase of new German monographs across the entire range of the humanities for twelve months, nor shall we have any in the foreseeable future. Apart from times of war, the Library has never before allowed such a lapse since regular acquisitions funding began in the early nineteenth century, which is why our foreign collections are so outstanding, and so outstandingly well used".
That has been a regrettable side of recent expenditure in the British Library and cannot be allowed to go on if we are to continue to look on the British Library as the jewel we wish it to be.
My second point is that bibliographical advice services, although admirable, are small indeed in comparison with a great library such as the Library of Congress. Thirdly, the hours of opening of the British Library are pitiful in comparison with other libraries. It opens for a maximum of 60 hours a week in comparison with the Library of Congress which opens for 74. That may appear to be an unimportant matter to your Lordships, but most noble Lords, if no one else, will realise that a great deal of work is done by historians, scholars and others after the hour of 5 o'clock.
There are other weaknesses in the present funding system of the British Library which should be carefully looked at. And they must be attended to if we are to continue to think of this great institution in the way so eloquently expressed by noble Lords who have already spoken, wherever it is sited.
10.17 p.m.
Lord Birkett: My Lords, I, too, cannot rekindle the great blaze of indignation which swept through your Lordships' House in the first two speeches of the debate, but I can congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Annan, on raising the matter in the first place and join with him and every other speaker in the debate so far in saying that it is unthinkable that the four-and-a-half acre site to the north of the present library should be sold off. The library can be usefully and profitably put to so many good uses. However, I want to concentrate briefly on only one; that is, the National Sound Archive.
Everybody recognises that at its present site in Exhibition Road its premises are inadequate. It is vital that it is rehoused, and in a way commensurate with the importance of sound in this age. This is the age of sound. Young people of today rely more upon sound than upon the written word. Your Lordships may find that a cause for regret, but it is true. I do not mean only those teenagers who can be seen throughout the land stunned by the volume of what they hear over
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their headphones. I mean sound used in the most imaginative and scientific way—all the forms of sound known to us.
Sound is an evocative thing. I am sometimes reminded of that intelligent and imaginative child who, when asked whether she preferred television or the radio, said, "The radio, because the pictures are so much better". She was right. Sound has a future commensurate with that of the printed word. Who would have thought 50 years ago that there would be enormous sales of gramophone records containing the sound of steam engines—dozens of them, differentiating one from another. An exceedingly imaginative sound recordist named Peter Handford made a series of best selling records based on that. It may very well be that his sounds remain when the engines themselves have rusted away beyond repair.
Who would have thought that some time ago the complete works of Shakespeare would be put on record by Argo about which the noble Lord, Lord Annan, knows very well because he was concerned with some of it at the time. There may well be people of this generation who will have heard the complete works of Shakespeare without ever reading them. They will have read all the novels of Dickens through their ears and not through their eyes. Once again, your Lordships may consider that a regrettable state of affairs although I have to say that when novels are read by Dame Judi Dench or Sir Michael Hordern, it is not such a bad thing after all: it can be quite exciting.
There was a time when the pirates who used to go to opera houses with small contraptions and make pirated recordings were busily pursued and condemned because they were breaking every known law of contract and copyright, as indeed they were. But those very people who were hounded out of the opera houses are now being eagerly sought in order that their recordings may go into the archive because they have become historic. I am not suggesting that that is any argument for piracy, which is the bane of the recording industry.
Nevertheless, the emphasis on and the influence of sound in our lives is hugely important. I cannot believe that in an age when discography is becoming as important as bibliography that we should neglect sound. It needs premises as spacious, well-equipped and forward looking as that provided for books. Because there are thousands of years of history attached to our literature we should not think that there are not thousands of years of history about to be attached to the sounds of our civilisation. I believe that the National Sound Archive is vitally important. For that reason alone as well as many others, I echo all the previous speakers in saying that it is simply unthinkable that the site to the north should be given away.
10.23 p.m.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, I feel that I have wandered into a debate which is somewhat beyond my class, as it were. The learned speeches that we have heard from noble Lords in all parts of the House testify to an experience of the library and of all

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libraries which 1 simply cannot claim to have. My justification for speaking is that as the Secretary of State for the Environment I suppose I bear some share of the responsibility for the debacle which the noble Lord, Lord Annan, and my noble friend Lord Quinton described with such eloquence.
All I say about that is that on the couple of occasions during my brief tenure of that office when I was involved directly with decisions about the library, it was with my noble friend Lord Gowrie who was then Minister for the Arts. Looking back on that I realise precisely what was wrong: neither of us was in charge. I was supposed to be in charge of the PSA and he was the sponsoring Minister for the British Library Board. As we sat around the table with our advisers, both in my department and on one memorable occasion on the building site in the Euston Road, the truth was that neither of us had any feeling that we were in charge. So far as I was concerned, it was his budget and I was there as the Minister for the PSA helping to achieve the objectives.
I do not believe that I am misinterpreting my noble friend's view, but I believe that he saw me there as the man who was going to provide his library. The ghost at the feast was the non-present Treasury Minister. The real question was whether the money was going to continue to be forthcoming to embark on what we were then considering to be the next phase.
In fact, the phases had been split up into segments so small as to be almost meaningless in terms of the actual provision of library facilities. I have seen the analysis by the Public Accounts Committee. With the help of Commander Saunders-Watson, I looked at what the plan was and what it is now. It is better now than it has been for a number of years. The structure has improved as a result of the PAC report. However, when one comes back to it, it was a failure of ministerial control. It was not clear who was responsible for what at ministerial level; or, if it was supposed to be clear, nobody ever made it clear to me.
There were periodic visits to the Prime Minister in terms of complete desperation. It depended upon the eloquence of the delegation and the current state of the Prime Minister's digestion (though that would be unfair to my right honourable friend, because I think she is quite extraordinarily tough) and how she felt about things, whether or not permission was given to go ahead with the next phase.
One has to say that the way in which governments set out to manage these very major functions leaves an enormous amount to be desired. As one who played a part in it I can only feel something of a sense of shame. I hope that lessons will be learnt. I am told that as a result of the PAC there is now a file in the Office of Arts and Libraries called "Lessons Learnt". That is a good thing. But it now needs to be put firmly into practice if we are going to go ahead on a better basis than hitherto.
I too was going to say something about the National Sound Archives, but the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, has said it all with such enormous eloquence and fun that I do not want to add anything, except to say two things. First, it is clear that the space in
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Exhibition Road is already too small. The facilities will have to be moved and new ones provided. Secondly, with all the facilities available, how can one ever imagine people doing important research on, say, elements of music with the manuscripts in one place and the sound archives in another? Surely to goodness they must be brought together.
That brings me to the only other point that I should like to make—and every noble Lord who has spoken has mentioned it. I say to my noble friend on the Front Bench and through him to his right honourable colleagues in the departments concerned, but principally his right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that they must abandon the idea of selling the four and a half acres. I know why they want to sell them. I have been a Treasury Minister. It is not the proceeds of the sale of the land; I may have thought a couple of years ago that that may have been worth while. But as the noble Lord, Lord Annan, said, the land is actually worth much less. Camden Council has extremely stringent planning requirements. If the land is not going to be used for the library, then it may only be used for residential purposes. It will have no commercial value. That has clearly been ruled out on planning grounds and would be subject to appeal if an application were made.
But with facilities like the sound archives which have to be brought onto the site and the fact that we shall have only 73 more readers' places in the library as planned than there have been on the Bloomsbury site, surely to abandon that four and a half acres now would not, as my noble friend Lord Thomas said, be so much an act of philistinism; it would be a most catastrophic act of shortsighted financial management. The four and a half acre site was originally bought as a single site. Nine acres were wanted but the vendor said it was either all or nothing, so they bought the 12. In fact nine and a half acres were what they wanted. It is going to be cut off at eight—rather like half a liner. There is something akin to naval architecture about the architecture of the library. I am not sure. I am going to wait until it is finished before casting a view on it. It is very difficult to imagine it when it is only half finished. But if it stops where it is even after Phase 2, and they have only just started digging out the foundations, it is still going to be like three-quarters of a liner and it will not look right. It will not have the facilities and it will not be able to bring onto the site all those things which there ought to be.
I look for as firm an undertaking as my noble friend on the Front Bench can give that he will draw the attention of his right honourable friends to the unanimous view of those who have spoken in the debate that this sale must be abandoned. Of course it will be used for the moment—the contractors need it. I acknowledge fully that my right honourable friend the Minister for the Arts has asked the British Library for an analysis of what might go on the site. At the moment, however, the position is still as was stated by his predecessor, Sir Richard Luce, that as soon as the contractors are off the land will be sold. That simply must not be allowed to happen. I hope that the message will sound loud and clear in the relevant

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departments. It would be the most appalling piece of short-sighted management. Please, it must not happen.
10.30 p.m.
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster: My Lords, it is a long and sorry tale and I do not propose to go over all the ground that has been so eloquently set out by the noble; Lords, Lord Annan and Lord Quinton. The lessons are surely three: first, the great importance in any major project of this kind of the most thorough advance planning so that one can avoid constant changes in specification as the project proceeds; secondly, the need for a project manager with a clear brief, proper responsibility to act on behalf of the ultimate user, if he is not a representative of that user, and sufficient authority to exercise that responsibility effectively. The third lesson involves money; the difficulty of not knowing whether money would be available, how much money would be available and in what time-scale. The result has been a project which falls short of the hopes and ambitions of those who dreamt of it and first launched it, which has certainly taken much longer to complete than it need have done and has cost a great deal more than it should have done.
The noble Lords, Lord Annan and Lord Quinton, have had a splendid time attacking the ultimate villain of the peace, the Treasury. I feel a little sorry for the old Treasury, perhaps because I served in it for 20 years, including some time in a division which controlled one part of public expenditure. It was not the arts. I was not sufficiently sound on the subject to be let loose on the arts.
I was attracted by the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Annan, that certain major projects should be exempt from the changes and chances of public expenditure control and that the British Library should be one such project. But can one say that a project should be totally exempt from control, however it may proceed, whatever may be the overruns of costs? That is a very difficult judgment to make. If the price of that were that some other important and desirable project in another field had to be put off, I can see that noble Lords would be rising in this place to protest most vigorously. So I am not sure that that suggestion would work out, though I find it attractive. At any rate this burden of the British Library has hung like an albatross round the necks of successive Ministers for the Arts and it has swallowed up funds which could otherwise have been available for much needed major works and maintenance at national museums and galleries.
One problem to which a number of noble Lords have drawn attention is that the Property Services Agency is, as its name implies and has been in this case, an agent and not a principal. I had a vivid demonstration of that when I worked in the Cabinet Office. By the back door of the office, through which come and go the people who carry the papers around to circulate them among the departments, there was an overflow pipe in the wall. It was constantly trickling and dripping water which formed a puddle directly outside. Of course, the puddle was unsightly
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at all times and dangerous on days such as this when it would freeze over. I asked the office services people in the Cabinet Office to refer the matter to the PSA with a view to getting the matter put right. There was a long delay—a delay not of days or weeks but of months while nothing appeared to be happening.
Eventually the office services people came to me and said that the PSA very much regretted that it was unable to do anything because the source of the water that was overflowing through the pipe could not be traced. I could see that desperate action was required. Therefore, I prepared and wrote a short but strongly worded letter to the director of the PSA drawing attention to the matter and the very long time taken to deal with it. I suggested that if the agency could not find the source of the water, it should put something under the pipe to catch the drips and run the water off into a drain so that it would not collect outside the back door of the Cabinet Office. I was at some pains to ensure that this was effective so I headed the letter, "Cabinet Office Leak". That ensured that it received very wide circulation around Whitehall. Sure enough, within a week, a little cup had been put under the overflow pipe which directed the water into a drain and we had no more problems.
From direct experience of the Victoria and Albert Museum I can speak of the benefits of untying from the PSA and of having our own works department. Admittedly, when we were untied two or three years ago, we discovered large arrears of maintenance which had accumulated over the years because the PSA was not funded to do everything that needed to be done. I am sure that the agency knew that it needed to be done; but it just did not have the funds to deal with it. However, now at the V&A we can decide for ourselves what should be our priorities for expenditure on buildings and maintenance within the funds of our grant. We can manage our own works programme, as a result of which projects we undertake as a general rule come in on time or within budget.
What is past so far as concerns the British Library is past. It is most important that we should look to the future. We have one of the greatest, if not the greatest, research libraries in the world. We have one of the biggest, of not the biggest, publicly funded civil projects in the world since the war. We must not fall short of the opportunity and challenge that face us. Judging by the recent annual report of the board of the British Library, I fear that there is a great danger that financial constraints will force economies which will affect the ability of the library to maintain its pre-eminence of standing and the quality of the service which it ought to continue to enjoy and provide.
There are two further aspects in the matter, both of which were well spoken to by previous speakers; therefore, I need refer to them only briefly. First, it is clearly vitally important to preserve the four-and-a-half acres of land at the back of the St. Pancras site for the library's future use, even if it is some years before development is possible, whether for the National Sound Archive or any other British Library use. Like the noble Lords, Lord Birkett and Lord Jenkin, I have a soft spot for the National Sound Archive, having been a governor many years ago of the British

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Institute of Recorded Sound, which was what the archive was called before it was taken under the wing of the British Library. It is a marvellous institution and deserves all the support that we can give it.
I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Birkett —if he will forgive me for saying so—should be too dismissive of those who like to enjoy their great 19th century novels by listening to them rather than reading them. Charles Dickens was the greatest public reader of his works there has ever been.
The second point that I should like to emphasise is one that was emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: the Library must be sufficiently financed to enable it to maintain its pre-eminence as a library of international research and reference. Legal deposit is not enough. In a world of ever-increasing international communication, it is important that the Library should be provided with the funds necessary to acquire all the publications that it needs to enable it to maintain and develop its outstanding, and internationally renowned and valued, collections.
10.40 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I too should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Annan, for asking this timely Question. I should also like to express my admiration for the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding. It was a brave speech; it was an honest speech. Because it cleared up misunderstandings, I believe that it was a useful speech. Because it used past ministerial experience to clear up present misunderstandings, it was the type of speech that adds to the dignity of the House.
I speak as a regular reader at the British Library, and as a member-designate of the advisory board; but since I have yet to attend my first meeting, I do not believe that I can speak in that capacity. In this debate, as a change from yesterday, I speak not as a provider, but as a consumer. What is interesting is how often, as soon as one gets away from the adversarial model of industry—not that I am suggesting that that is the way it should be run—one finds that the providers and the consumers are speaking with a single voice, and that the villain of the piece is the Treasury.
I am on the whole a satisfied reader. I have received a great deal of service at the Library, and, like the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, I should like to express my gratitude for that. There are some things about the new plans which are especially welcome. On the subject of opening hours, upon which I have been saying for 30 years what the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, has just said, I had given up hope of anything ever happening. Now, I understand that we are to have much extended opening hours, not just for books but for manuscripts. Even more, we shall be able to read books and manuscripts in the same room. That will save me days. I should like to say how much that is appreciated.
There are, though, some matters of concern as well. I am worried, like other noble Lords who have spoken, about the small increase in the number of seats. The number of research scholars in other
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countries goes on increasing rapidly, even if for the moment it does not in this. It might again here. We also have a welcome change in that the age for readers is going down to 18, which means that undergraduates will be able to read at the Library. I agree with the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, that this is a library of last resort; so, were things not to be done about the ordinary university library in the University of London, one might find that the pressure on the British Library was becoming much more acute than had hitherto been envisaged.
Speaking on behalf of your petitioners, the students of King's College, I would say that a great many of them would be going to the British Library, because I should be sending them there myself for things which I would much rather be able to send them to the college library.
I shall mention also the foreign language acquisitions budget which the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, mentioned. Whenever I hear real discontent from my colleagues, that is usually the area in which it is concentrated. There is also the manuscripts acquisitions budget. The cost of manuscripts in recent years has inflated beyond imagination. If the British Library does not buy the manuscripts they will probably go to the States. People apply for grants to go and read them as they turn out to be vital. In the end, the Treasury spends a great deal more money than it would have done if it had bought the manuscripts in the first place. It is the classic false economy.
I entirely share the concern which has been expressed by every noble Lord who has spoken about the additional land to the north. 1 am concerned about outhousing. I had very much welcomed the idea that we might be able to do without outhousing for many years. That would have been a great gain and particularly vital to those who are able to go along for one day in the week when they are free from teaching. If one is told that the book will be there in three days, it is no use at all.
The same applies a fortiori to the large numbers of scholars who are able to come up one day a week, or even occasionally one day a month or one day a term, from the provinces. If the book comes in three days' time it might as well not be there at all.
There is also, I understand, concern about the need for space for a bindery. I will confirm, in my capacity as a reader, how necessary that is. A number of the 17th century pamphlets which I read regularly are not merely unbound, but in quite a fragile condition. If they are left for long like that, they will not continue to exist; they will fall apart. That would be a tragic waste of an irreplaceable resource.
Transporting goods in that condition to a bindery a long way away is not particularly good for their power of survival. Having a bindery on the spot is of immense value and it will also have an applied saving in terms of transport, which I fear will not become cheaper over the next few years.
Above all, when we say that this is a project which deserves proper finance, we should consider it in terms of investment. We should consider that it will go a

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long way towards covering its costs. However, no one ever notices the figures because they are put in a different place in the accounts. The British Library is an international centre, and I say that as a former American director of graduate studies. There were two graduate students in the department at Yale, married to each other: one a British historian, one a French historian. They always spent their summers working in London because the French collections at the British Library were a great deal better than the British collections at the French Library. The result was a large addition to Britain's balance of payments, but it showed in the accounts under tourism, which is one of our largest foreign currency earners. Scholarship accounts for a great deal of that and it never receives the credit it deserves.
It is not only a question of the balance of payments; foreign scholars in this country contribute a great deal of money to the Treasury. When I watch my seminar on a Monday evening gathering in a pub, and I watch good British beer going down American throats, I wonder how much that seminar is contributing to the Treasury, and how much it is offering towards covering its costs.
So when I say that the British Library is a national resource, I mean it in the cultural sense, the intellectual sense and in the sheer narrow cost sense as well. That sense should not be forgotten.
10.50 p m.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, I first thank the noble Lord, Lard Annan, for introducing this debate. It is a great pity that it is taking place at this time of night because that has meant many noble Lords who are interested in this subject have not been able to attend. I speak from the Labour Benches but noble Lords on all sides of the House have been in total agreement on this issue.
I first came into contact with the British Library in 1974 when I was a junior Minister at the Department of the Environment. Therefore I have a certain sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, a former Secretary of State at the department. At that time the Office of Arts and Libraries was not greatly involved in this matter. The concept for the library was and still is a magnificent one. I well remember discussing the alternative sites for the library with the architect. One possible site was Bloomsbury Square, but that raised conservation issues and would have involved demolishing some listed houses. The chosen site was in St. Pancras.
I was well aware that the longer the project was delayed, the greater the cost would be. I dealt with two Secretaries of State when I was involved in this matter. Many years later when we have still only completed part of the first phase, the cost of the project is astronomical. That is one cause of the present predicament.
The noble Lords, Lord Annan and Lord Quinton, have described the chequered history of the British Library. Inefficiency, incompetence, lack of proper management and disastrous quality control are all aspects of the project that are dealt with in the report of the Public Accounts Committee.
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I now come to the matter of selling four-and-a-half acres of land. That represents a small sum in comparison with the total cost of this project. In any case that land cannot be used for anything except housing due to planning controls. It would be false economy to sell that land. It would make an excellent site for the bindery, which should be situated close to the library. It is important for conservation staff and the curators to be close together to facilitate communication between them.
Those responsible for the Library have done what they can to keep costs down. The Enwright Report made some recommendations on the unnecessary stocking of books including reprints. If the British Library were forced to charge for more of the services it provides, that could be detrimental to other activities that are vital to the library.
The reputation of the British Library and British librarians is very high, not only in this country but also abroad. It would be tragic if that were diminished, particularly as we go deeper into Europe. Our culture is an area in which we like to feel that we excel. Therefore it was particularly shameful that recently the committee which was appointed by Sir Richard Luce, the then arts Minister, to commission works of art for the library had to dissolve itself because no money was forthcoming. As I understand it, the idea was that the Treasury would give a certain amount and sponsorship should then be found. However, you cannot find sponsorship when there is nothing to trigger it off. That is the very unhappy situation now.
I should like to ask the Minister some questions. Has the committee which was set up to commission works of art for the Library been wound up? Secondly, who is responsible for quality control? The PSA has been mentioned several times. One of my missions in life when I was at the DoE as a junior Minister many years ago was to try to provide some control over the PSA. I went to both Secretaries of State concerned. One of the problems with that department - and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, will bear this out - is that it covers so many areas (and in those days it also covered transport) that the Secretary of State does not have the time to look into everything, so those matters trundle on.
That problem did not affect only the British Library. In my time the PSA made some dreadful mistakes. It did not have the competence or the right people and probably did not receive the necessary resources. The outcome has been catastrophic. I should like to ask the Minister whether the Government are looking at the question of control and supervision. Who will supervise the supervisors? It is easy for us all to say that there is not enough quality control and this or that should be done, but unless the problem is addressed in a professional and hard-headed way nothing will improve.
I understand that although the Government have talked for a long time of selling those acres of land, no firm decision has yet been taken. I should like the Minister to tell us what is the likely outcome and whether there is a chance of keeping the four-and-a-half acres of land which are so important to the library

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and which could be used many times over, even before the natural expansion of the library, which will take place in any event, occurs.
There is one further question which I should like to ask the Minister concerning the trade union and the strike—a point which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton. Two hundred of the assistant librarians, represented by the National Union of Civil and Public Servants, are on strike. However, as I understand the matter, there is some confusion as to whether the strike is about pay or grading. A press release was issued but was then changed because it was thought the wrong reason had been given. According to a letter which I received, the union said that it was both. The assistant librarians are evidently supported by a posse of distinguished writers who have written to a number of us saying that they support the librarians, who are underpaid and whose conditions of work are poor. That is all I know about the matter. The matter should be looked into. I told the Minister that I would ask this question and, if he cannot answer it tonight, perhaps he will look into it and let me know.
Finally, I return to the question of land. I hope that the Government will take the right and only sensible decision and not sell a splendid institution short. It would be so short-sighted. As the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, said, we cannot in every instance say that a project can go on and on if the costs are mounting up. I understand that point, but the reason is as I explained earlier and as other noble Lords have said. Obviously, if the delays are so great and if, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said, there is no one in proper control, the costs will go higher and higher and the original project will then become quite gargantuan. It is time that that point was grasped and that we did not just talk around it.
Unless this short debate brings that end about and proper and hard decisions and plans are made for the future, including a sensible decision about the land, millions of people who are and will be worried about the library, and millions more young people in future, will find that they do not have a library of which they can not only be proud, but from which they can gain proper use.
11.11 p.m.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, we heard a most interesting history from the noble Lord, Lord Annan. I too must be grateful to him for giving me the opportunity to record on the Government's behalf the progress with regard to the British Library.
I should start by saying, in answer to his Question, that we are in general satisfied with the progress now being made in constructing and equipping the British Library. The project is on target and should be completed within its overall budget of £450 million established in early 1990. The project has, since April 1988, been sponsored by the Office of Arts and Libraries on behalf of the British Library and is being managed by the Property Services Agency projects division. That is consistent with new arrangements for the management of projects introduced by the
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Government in 1988. The British Library is expected to open its first reading room in 1993, as has been planned since 1985.
Perhaps I may refer briefly to the history of the library and look at some of the successes and problems. Because of the size and complexity of the project, Ministers decided that the construction should proceed in stages. During the early part of the project, funding restrictions resulted in a decision to build in sub-stages and in November 1980 the first stage was split into two sub-stages. By April 1988, only some 20 per cent. of the total budget, or £57 million, has been spent. It is essentially to this period that the recent report of the National Audit Office addressed itself and to which the Public Accounts Committee mainly directed its criticisms. We have addressed those criticisms and the weakness in management that the Committee so correctly identified.
It was in 1985, when the two halves of the first stage were brought together again, that it was agreed that the first reading room would be opened in 1993. The first stage is now 80 per cent. complete and we are still working towards that target. During this and the next financial year alone expenditure is expected to exceed £120 million.
There never was any commitment before 1988 to build any more than the first stage, and it was in November 1988 that Ministers agreed to complete the building with a single further stage. The board of the British Library confirmed at that time that the completed building met the key requirements of the British Library. Those requirements were: to vacate, so far as possible, the British Museum premises at Bloomsbury; to increase the open access facilities for the Science Reference and Information Service; and, through uniting the greater part of the British Library's collections and staff, to provide a greatly improved service to readers from one site.
The conditions for the preservation of the priceless collections were also to be enormously enhanced. The brief for the completion phase was drawn up in close consultation with the British Library, which accepted that within the constraints of money and space the balance of provision was right. Although progress on the first stage of the building is now well advanced and is essentially on schedule for occupation by the British Library in 1993, the project, as with all large projects of long duration, has not been without its problems. Those problems have been well and fully described this evening.
Perhaps I may now turn to a couple of problems which are more current. The specific problems include the movements of books on the shelves. Further testing is required but it is believed that that problem is solvable. There is also the jamming of the mechanisms for moving the shelving. An agreed solution has been fully tested and has already largely been installed. There is the problem of poor paint protection. The extent and seriousness of that problem and the means of rectifying it are still being discussed with the contractor under the current contract. The deficiencies in the book shelving are being addressed urgently and the supplier has an obligation to deliver

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to specification and to ensure fitness for purpose. However, there is no reason at this time to doubt that measures being taken by the project's management will ensure that the book shelving will fulfil its purpose.
Despite all those irritating, serious but not insuperable problems, the British Library is still confident that, provided a satisfactory solution to the shelving problems can be implemented by mid-1992, it will be able to open reading rooms in 1993 essentially on schedule and within budget.
I cannot deny that there were weaknesses in the procedures drawn up between the British Library and the Property Services Agency for the handover of the project. However, it is unusual for such a major and complex building to be handed over in stages and the full implications of staging were not fully realised in the design and planning stages. Nevertheless, staged handovers provide an opportunity for the project team and the library to learn from the experience of their mistakes - and they did make them - and to ensure that organisations, systems, terminology and procedures are modified, clarified and strengthened for the future.
Management of the project is fully in accordance with the arrangements generally applicable for the management of major projects as agreed by the Government in 1988. Costs are firmly under control and the cash limit for the first stage has remained unchanged at £300 million since it was established in November 1988. The cash limit for the completion phase has remained unchanged at £150 million since it was established in July 1990 and it is anticipated that the project will be completed within its overall budget.
Perhaps I may now turn to some of the points made this evening by noble Lords. It is my impression that every noble Lord asked about the surplus land. In 1988 Ministers agreed that the land at St. Pancras which is surplus to the British Library's requirements should be sold. In 1976 12.5 acres of land had to be bought as one lot. It has always been recognised that that exceeded needs and the unused land would be sold. But consideration is being given to what will be surplus in the future. That is the important point.
Ministers are agreed that it would make good sense for the British Library to conduct a study of its needs, starting from the current position. The British Library Board has set up a working party to study the British Library's needs, and how they might best be satisfied, after the opening of the new building in 1996. No land would be sold before 1994. That gives ample opportunity for the British Library to decide what is surplus to its needs. The future location of the National Sound Archives, the bindery and photo processing are among the proposals being considered by the British Library working party.
My noble friend Lord Thomas and other noble Lords asked about funding for the British Library, in particular long-term funding. In his recent announcement of the three-year funding programme for the arts, the Minister for the Arts indicated that he had revised allocations announced last year and had increased the British Library's grant aid for 1992–93 and 1993–9394 to £64 million and £67 million
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respectively. The grant aid for the third year 1994–9395 will be nearly £70 million. The Minister has also confirmed the previously earmarked provision of £4 million in 1992–9393 and £1.6 million in 1993–9394 for the move to St Pancras and occupation costs. In addition, the Government have earmarked a sum of £650,000 in 1992–9393 towards transitional costs which the library will incur as the new building begins to be occupied. Further funding for 1993–94 and alternative options will be considered by the Minister.
My noble friend Lord Thomas spoke of the reading room. The British Library Board is satisfied that the British Library's key requirements, including appropriate accommodation for the King's Library, will be met by the completed building at St Pancras. There are no plans for the British Library to retain any reader or storage accommodation in the British Museum when the new British Library is completed in 1996. The Round Reading Room will remain in use until 1996. It will then be refurbished by the British Museum as a reading room for its own selections. It has been agreed by the British Library Board that the possibility of a limited service in the Round Reading Room will be considered after 1996.
Various noble Lords have discussed the PSA. My noble friend Lord Annan referred to the need to examine the future of the PSA. My right honourable friend has already announced his intention of privatising the PSA at the earliest opportunity. The PSA is now operating as a commercial business. It is having to compete for its work. It is slimming down and is already achieving success in the market place. The PSA is improving all the time. It reinforces our view that we were right to take the decision to privatise the PSA. The business still has work to do to get itself into shape for privatisation. However, it is improving and we are sure that it can compete that process and become commercial.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, asked about additional reader seats. If necessary, the British Library could simply provide additional science reader desks by giving up space presently allocated to staff. We have not ascertained how many desks could be provided in that way. However, once the British Library is fully operational in 1996 the British Library Board will be able to review whether there are sufficient reader seats. If considered necessary, it will be able to increase the number of seats by the reallocation of office space adjacent to the reading rooms.
The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, spoke of criticism of the project manager, and referred to demands for excessive quality. The bookshelving apart, the quality of the building is as high as anywhere. I am sure that a visit to the building would demonstrate that. The noble Baroness also asked me about the current union dispute. There is a dispute with the unions relating to the grading of library assistants. It is very much a matter for the British Library Board to resolve. The Office of Arts and Libraries is working with the British Library to help resolve the problem. The relationship with the union is a matter for the board, as I have said.

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However, service in the British Library continues. We hope for a successful resolution and we hope that it will not affect the move to St. Pancras.
The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, asked me also about works of art. The Minister for the Arts undertook to consider providing some funding. However, having done so, he has decided that funding cannot be provided at this stage due to pressures on the arts budget. In my view, he has properly given priority to getting the British Library at St. Pancras fully operational. The new building will not be without works of art. The British Library has access to many sculptures and paintings which will embellish the building. As I said in answer to a fairly recent Question, the Minister will review the situation.
In the words of my noble friend Lord Quinton, I am the cabin boy tonight, being used as a fairly blunt instrument to beat the Treasury. It is important to make the point that we are spending money on the library. The long-term funding is in place. The British Library has done very well out of the Treasury, and we must give it credit where credit is due. That was a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong. The problem has not been the money but how it has been applied.
Every speech this evening has been distinguished. Noble Lords have been involved in various ways in the saga of the British Library. We have heard from my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding, a former Secretary of State for the Environment. We have heard from two former chairmen of the British Library Board. Their contributions have been illuminating and useful and will be a lesson in the future for any project or for any Minister daring to undertake such a large project.
I know that my right honourable friend the Minister for the Arts will read with great interest what
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has been said this evening. No doubt he will find useful much of what has been said in his negotiations with other government departments.
It is important to look to the future. When completed, the new British Library will represent a magnificent cultural asset to the nation. It is the largest public building constructed since the Second World War, and it will enable the British Library to operate at the forefront of world technology in information handling and conservation. We must look forward to the opening of the British Library.

Social Security (Consequential Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Bill [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills with amendments, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at eighteen minutes past eleven o'clock.