Lords Sitting of 26 February 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 Chester.

Lord Runcie
The Right Reverend and Right Honourable Robert Alexander Kennedy Runcie, MC, lately Archbishop of Canterbury, having been created Baron Runcie, of Cuddesdon in the County of Oxfordshire, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Belstead and the Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos.
Baroness Seccombe
Dame Joan Anna Dalziel Seccombe, DBE, having been created Baroness Seccombe, of Kineton in the Country of Warwickshire, for life—Was, in her robes, introduced between the Baroness Young and the Lord Lane of Horsell.

Geothermal Energy: Research
3 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are pursuing research, either on a national or a Community basis, into harnessing energy from geothermal sources in subterranean rocks.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, yes. When the current phase of research on hot dry rock technology is completed in September 1991 the next phase of work will concentrate on collaboration with a European programme now under way involving France, Germany and the European Commission.
This work is expected to be carried out by the Camborne School of Mines and associates, and RTZ Consultants Limited, and government funding of £3.3 million will be provided over the period 1st October 1991 to 31st March 1994.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that informative Answer. As it is a clean source of energy and kind to the environment, will the Government ensure that the expertise gained from the pilot project in Cornwall is not discarded or lost?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, we are ensuring that there will be technology transfer even though to date the findings are not giving ground for encouragement.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, will my noble friend say what sites in Britain have been explored for this purpose?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, only one site is currently being explored. It is in Cornwall.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, I am sorry that I missed part of the question from the noble Earl. Is it known how many sites in Great Britain are suitable for this technology?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, apart from Cornwall it is thought that there could be one area in the North-East.
Lord Peston: My Lords, we are glad that the work is at least continuing. Will the noble Lord enlighten us a little further? How well is the work going? Are there any signs yet that energy from this source is likely to be an economic prospect in the foreseeable future?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, the review carried out by the Department of Energy in 1990 concluded that very substantial uncertainties remain about the practicability of extracting useful energy from hot dry rocks in the UK.
Perhaps I may give an example. The study carried out by the department concluded that an early commercial hot dry rock station could cost 19p per kilowatt hour. That compares with the cost of a combined cycle gas turbine of between 2.3p and 2.8p per kilowatt hour, assuming a discount rate of 10 per cent.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, in his reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, the noble Lord referred to the North-East. Does he mean somewhere near East Anglia or Wick? To the north-east of where is he referring?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I refer to North-East England.
Lord Peston: My Lords, will the noble Lord clarify his answer to me? I believe he stated that for the moment the source is not economic but that it is the Government's view that we must continue with research in the hope that one day this will prove to be an efficient source of energy. Am I right in saying that that is the Government's position?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, yes. There are no prospects of it being economic in the short term. We are continuing with research until we can collaborate with Europe on a wider scale.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, will my noble friend bear in mind that geothermal sources, known as hot rocks, may well be needed at some time in the future as costs change and as objections and difficulties with other sources increase?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, my noble friend makes a valuable point. That is borne in mind by the department in its approach to the research.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, has experience in New Zealand and Iceland been studied in that regard?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I am told that so far this technology has not worked anywhere in the world.

The Gulf War: Cease-fire Proposal
3.4 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney Lord Jenkins of Putney asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, having regard to the heavy loss of civilian life in Iraq, they will now respond to the Pope's call for an immediate cease-fire in the Gulf.
Lord Reay: My Lords, the Pope has called for an end to hostilities rather than for a cease-fire. His Holiness has also said:
"we are not pacifists and we do not want peace at any price; peace and justice is our aim".
It is in the pursuit of peace and justice that Her Majesty's Government joined the coalition forces to implement the Security Council resolutions aimed at the liberation of Kuwait, the restoration of its legitimate Government and the establishment of international peace and security.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, the Question has been overtaken by events. However, is it not the case that in the present situation it is even more right and proper that there should be a cease-fire now? Have the Government considered that matter and, if so, what is their answer?
Lord Reay: My Lords, no. We now need a public and authoritative statement by Saddam Hussein setting out his commitment to comply fully with all the Security Council resolutions.
Lord St. John of Fawsley: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that there is nothing in the Catholic theology of a just war that requires an immediate cease-fire in the Gulf? Is he also aware that, while the opinion of his Holiness should always be treated with the greatest respect so should the opinion of other Catholics? The opinion of this Catholic is that the evil man Saddam Hussein and his henchmen should be pursued resolutely by the allies until he is defeated.
Lord Reay: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his support.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the vast majority of the British public, including those who live in Putney, are convinced that there should be the following three conditions for a cease-fire: first, Saddam Hussein and his cohorts must get rid of all their weapons of destruction; secondly, some of them must return to Kuwait and repair the appalling damage caused by their murder and rape of that country; thirdly, Saddam Hussein and all that he stands for must be taken before a tribunal and asked to account for his crimes?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. The subject of war crimes must be addressed in the context of the United Nations Security Council resolutions as part of the post-hostilities settlement.
Lord Elton: My Lords, in conveying their views to the coalition on when a cease-fire should take place, will Her Majesty's Government bear in mind the importance of winning the peace as well as winning the war?
Lord Reay: My Lords, my noble friend has raised a good point and, of course, we must try to achieve that. We are in close touch with our coalition partners and with our allies.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, may I return to the point raised by my noble friend Lord Mellish about the appalling treatment of Kuwait and its people? Can the Minister say how many Kuwaitis have been taken to Iraq as hostages? Will Her Majesty's Government ensure that when the war is over action will be taken against those responsible so that they are dealt with in accordance with the Geneva Convention and are not allowed to get away with it?
Lord Reay: My Lords, we take most seriously the point made by the noble Lord. At present I do not have figures showing how many Kuwaitis have been rounded up and taken back to Iraq.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, following the question asked by the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, will Her Majesty's Government ensure that, as a pre-condition to a cease-fire, prisoners of war and hostages are returned?
Lord Reay: My Lords, we seek the return of our prisoners of war as soon as possible. We shall honour our obligations under the Geneva Convention and hope that other countries will do likewise.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, am I right in believing that the subject will be covered by a Government Statement to be made later today? If so, is it not true that anything said now will be overtaken by events long before the Statement is made?
Lord Reay: My Lords, the situation is fast-moving and it is continually evolving. Events occurring at one moment are overtaken by events occurring the next. The noble Lord is right in saying that a Statement will be made later today and I am sure that it will address some of the issues that have been raised.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, does the Minister care to say whether the Question on the Order Paper is helpful or unhelpful to those citizens of our country at present on active service in the Gulf?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I am not sure that it is for Members on the Front Bench to comment on the helpfulness or otherwise of Questions on the Order Paper. However, I am sure that all noble Lords wish our troops in the Gulf well and congratulate them on their magnificent performance.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, in view of the comments made in answer to my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney, will the Minister say specifically whether Her Majesty's Government still stand totally and completely by the United Nations resolutions as regards this war? In view of the fact that the Secretary-General of the United Nations has described it as a US war and not a UN war, will the Government state categorically that their war aims are only those covered by United Nations resolutions?
Lord Reay: My Lords, the forces of the coalition are in the Gulf in order to carry out the United Nations resolutions. Our aims are those set out in the resolutions; namely, to get Iraq out of Kuwait, to

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restore the legitimate government, to re-establish peace and security in the area and to uphold the authority of the United Nations.
Lout Tordoff: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord the Leader of the House will bring this Question to an end. It seems to me an abuse of the House when a Statement is to be made on the subject this afternoon.

Motorcyclists: Off-Street Training
3.11 p.m.
Lord Nugent of Guildford Lord Nugent of Guildford asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are yet able to assess the benefits of the use of off-street training for young motorcyclists before the granting of driving licences.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, compulsory basic training for those who receive new provisional motorcycle and moped entitlement was introduced on 1st December 1990. It is too early to assess the benefits. The Transport and Road Research Laboratory will be assessing the impact of the compulsory training including the effect on motorcycle casualty rates.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that not very helpful Answer. Is my noble friend aware that the accident injury rate for young motorcyclists of 17 and 18 years of age is five times higher than that for older motorcyclists? Therefore, there is an urgent need for young people to have off-street training before obtaining a licence. Has off-street training capacity now reached a level at which all applicants for new motorcycle licences can be required compulsorily to acquire a certificate from an off-street training centre before they qualify for a licence?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I am aware of the horrifying figures quoted by my noble friend. For various reasons, however, the number of casualties and deaths is decreasing. We are satisfied that the provisions under the new arrangements are sufficient.
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, I greatly admire the courage of young motorcyclists. Will the noble Lord nevertheless suggest to them that they exercise greater care when riding through the streets?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I believe that that is the thrust of the training they receive.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, will the noble Lord indicate to the House how many off-street training centres there are, how many instructors are currently employed and how many inspectors are available in order to deal with the point so cogently put by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent? Can he indicate also whether the Government believe that it may be prudent to deny insurance to all learner drivers carrying out dispatch work while holding only a provisional licence?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, the Driving Standards Agency has approved approximately 200 training bodies operating from 850 training sites throughout Great Britain. The figures are still expanding. Nearly 2,500 instructor certificates have been issued, and that figure too is expanding. All training bodies are monitored and the DSA has undertaken to visit all training sites at least twice a year. I believe that the final part of the noble Lord's question is wide of the Question on the Order Paper.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether it is possible to force an applicant for a motorcycle driving licence to obtain a certificate from an off-street centre before he obtains his licence?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, my noble friend has raised a new dimension. I shall look into the matter and write to him.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, is it not the case that many motorcycles now on the market are capable of top speeds well over double that of the legal speed limit? The rate of acceleration makes even a Porsche or a Ferrari look comparatively staid. Does any part of the off-street training for young motorcyclists —even if it is only a lecture—prepare them for handling larger motorcycles which have different characteristics?
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, my understanding is that there is such training.

Parliament: Supply of Information
3.15 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby Lord Hatch of Lusby asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their policy on the provision of information to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Hesketh): My Lords, it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government that all information required by Parliament should be provided in the form laid down by Parliament.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I did not hear that Answer distinctly. Has the noble Lord read last week's report of the Select Committee of another place? Paragraph 111 refers to attempts made to conceal certain important aspects of a sale agreement from the House of Commons. Paragraph 109 states that the Secretary of State should have told the full story to the commission at the time and another paragraph concludes that the House of Commons was seriously misled.
In view of those facts, would it not be correct for the Secretary of State involved to make an apology to Parliament for misleading the House or withholding information? Secondly, paragraph 74 refers to the withholding of correspondence between the DTI and the Inland Revenue. Does not the withholding of vital documents from its Select Committee diminish the authority of Parliament?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am slightly surprised that the noble Lord did not table his supplementary question as the Question on the Order Paper. The noble Lord is well aware that the period of response by the Department of Trade and Industry is 60 days from publication. I am surprised that he expects me to abandon the principle of comity between the two Houses on the basis of that 60-day period, if nothing else.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the other place has instituted certain procedures to determine whether or not information was withheld. Perhaps I may ask the Leader of the House what procedures he has in mind to discover whether or not this House was misled or whether information was withheld and what remedies he proposes?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, that is well wide of the Question on the Order Paper.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that it could be demeaning to the elected Chamber to have questioned in this House the way in which it handles its reports?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. He repeats a point which I made earlier in response to the supplementary question of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is it not the case that my noble friend is not questioning the procedure of the other Chamber but is seeking to find out the possible outcome and the noble Lord's opinion of that? Will he not give us the benefit of that opinion?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, it is always with the greatest respect that I come to the Dispatch Box, particularly with regard to the relationship between this House and another place. That was the purpose of my reply to the supplementary question of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, does not the noble Lord recognise that the original Question relates to information given to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry? In the case to which I refer, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry was a Member of this House. That is why I am concentrating on the procedures of this House rather than those of another place.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I fully appreciate the feelings of the noble Lord, Lord Williams, on this point. However, I draw his attention to the Question on the Order Paper, which in no way refers to the matter he mentions.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, will the Minister accept that I am seeking a reply to the Question on the Order Paper, which asks what is the Government's policy on the provision of information? The difficulty is that, when the Secretary of State happens to be a Member of your Lordships' House and is not asked to make a personal statement or apology in any shape or form
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and cannot do so in the other place, a gap appears in the information which can be made available in response to Questions in Parliament.
The Joint Committee that was set up said,
"we deplore the fact that attempts were made to conceal certain important aspects of the sale".
Surely a policy exists in regard to how we can obtain information about those aspects that were concealed.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, perhaps I may refer the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, to my original Answer and to the point that I made earlier. The relationship is that between the committee of another place and the department. The department must reply to the committee within 60 days of publication of the original report. After that point it will be entirely proper.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, will the Minister make it clear to the House on behalf of Her Majesty's Government that they do not take the view that the end always justifies the means? Will they make it quite clear that, in achieving the aims desired by government, they will not tolerate anybody—whether Minister or otherwise—falling below the standard of public life that is normally expected in the United Kingdom?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I refer the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, back to my original reply that it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government that all information required by Parliament shall be provided in a form laid down by Parliament.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, the Minister is being somewhat disingenuous. He knows perfectly well that I have asked this or a similar Question on numerous occasions arising from the fact that the noble Lord who was then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry gave certain answers in this House and I accused him of misleading Parliament. Is the Minister aware that my statement has now been substantiated in a report from another place? That does not alter my original Question. I still ask what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government in regard to information from the DTI. It is now established that certain information from the DTI has not been supplied to Parliament and in certain cases Parliament has been misled. That is the issue which originated in this House, is still in this House and about which I am asking in this House.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I humbly suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, that, if he wishes to ask that question, which is not the Question on the Order Paper, he should formally table it.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. this afternoon my noble friend Lord Arran will, with the leave of the House, repeat in the form of a Statement an answer to a Private Notice Question in another place on the latest situation in the Gulf.

Folkestone Harbour Bill [H.L.]
3.24 p.m.
Read a second time, and referred to the Examiners.

Greater Manchester (Light Rapid Transit System) Bill [H.L.]
Read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.

Ministerial and other Pensions and Salaries Bill
3.25 p.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Waddington): My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
In 1987 the Lord President invited the Top Salaries Review Body to undertake a review of the parliamentary pension scheme, the pensions of the Prime Minister, Speaker and Lord Chancellor and ministerial severance pay. When the TSRB reported in May 1988, we made clear that we accepted the recommendations. This Bill implements those TSRB recommendations and also provides for a new night subsistence allowance for Ministers in the Lords.
The House will know that statutory ex officio pensions are paid without any qualifying period to the Prime Minister, the Speaker and Lord Chancellor, the justification for these special arrangements being the high dignity of the three offices. At present under the Parliamentary and other Pensions Act 1972, the Prime Minister's pension is fixed at fifteen-fortieths of salary, the Speaker's at twenty-fortieths and the Lord Chancellor at seventeen-fortieths of salary. The TSRB in its 1988 report recommended that instead of these different pension ratios, current and future office holders should be entitled to pensions of one half of their final salary; and Clause 1 of the Bill has that effect.
I should draw the attention of the House to Clause 1(5). Currently there is a restriction on the pensions increase that may be paid to former office holders. The TSRB recommended that this should be lifted and we shall be laying regulations under the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971 to give effect to that recommendation.
We feel however, that, despite this uncapping, as the pensions ratio is changing so substantially, too large a gap will open up between the pension entitlement of the current Prime Minister and the pensions in payment to former Prime Ministers. We have therefore taken the opportunity afforded by this Bill to set the pension level of all former Prime Ministers at the same figure which the current Prime Minister will be entitled to after enactment; that is £25,362.
Clause 2 of the Bill amends the Parliamentary and other Pensions Act 1987 so that regulations may be made to permit the Prime Minister and Speaker to participate in the parliamentary contributory pension fund.
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Clause 3 relates the salary of the Lord Chancellor to that of the Lord Chief Justice. Noble Lords may recall that the 1983 TSRB report recommended that the Lord Chancellor should receive a slight salary lead of £2,000 over the Lord Chief Justice in recognition of his role as head of the judiciary. Up to now each increase to the Lord Chancellor's salary in implementation of this proposal has required an order subject to affirmative resolution of both Houses. Now the salary lead is to be contained in legislation.
I turn to Clause 4 which deals with severance payments and, in line with the TSRB recommendation, extends the severance payment scheme currently available to Lords' Ministers to Ministers and paid office holders who are Members of the House of Commons or who are outside Parliament.
The TSRB recommended that on losing office for whatever reason Members of the Commons should receive a severance payment based on three months' net loss of income, and Members not in either House should receive three months' loss of ministerial salary. It also recommended that the two-year qualifying period for Lords' Ministers should be dropped; that the Prime Minister and Speaker should be excluded from those arrangements; and that the Lord Chancellor should cease to be eligible because of preferential pension arrangements.
The justification for this is well understood. Ministers are required to relinquish outside appointments when they are appointed. This can often mean a substantial loss of income as well as a far busier working schedule. On leaving office a Minister has to make a rapid adjustment to cope with the financial consequences. It often takes time to pick up the threads of a previous career or to establish a new one. We believe that modest severance payments are entirely reasonable to bridge the gap.
I now turn to Clause 5 which introduces a new allowance for Lords' Ministers and paid office holders in the Lords. On appointment a Minister or paid office holder in this House loses the overnight subsistence allowance which he or she could claim as a Back-Bencher. But certainly most Ministers find it necessary to set up a London base—if they do not already have one—in order to meet the heavy demands of their jobs, and it seems only right that they should have some help towards the cost of running a second home in London. This help will now be forthcoming as a result of the introduction of a night subsistence allowance based on the Back-Benchers' overnight allowance.
But Ministers do not work only when the House is sitting and we therefore propose that this new allowance should be paid not on the basis of the number of days the House sits but at a flat rate of 220 times the overnight allowance; 220 representing the number of working days in a year, though most Ministers in my experience work a good deal longer than that. The allowance will go up at the same time as, and in line with, the Back-Benchers' allowance. At present it would be £14,960; producing, after account has been taken of tax deductions and withdrawal of the London supplement, a net benefit of around £7,700.

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Clause 6 will enable the Lord President to make regulations in the other place to fix the Exchequer contribution to the parliamentary contributory pension fund. I do not propose to say a great deal about this clause save that it contains a permissive power whose use will depend on the outcome of a TSRB review of the future financing of the parliamentary pension scheme.
Clause 7 makes some changes to the Members' fund, which is a statutory fund administered by trustees who are able to offer grants to former Members of the other place or their dependants who experience financial difficulties. The clause brings up to date the wording of the 1948 Act and gives the trustees a wider discretion. The financial implications of the Bill are small and are contained in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum. I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Waddington.)
3.32 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I begin, as others will, by declaring my interest. I will benefit from the provisions contained in the Bill. Unlike other occasions, when the speech of the introducer of a Bill is repeated almost word for word, I believe that the House is indebted to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for the care that he has taken not only in explaining the facts—that is to say, the words on the face of the Bill —but also their implications. We on this side of the House give the Bill a very warm and general welcome.
It is a Bill which has received all-party support in another place and I expect that it will enjoy the same fate in your Lordships' House. I took particular note of the fact that in another place the Leader of the House, Mr. John MacGregor, spent 49 minutes introducing the Bill; though he was interrupted 17 times. That means that not only were there many Members on both sides of the House with a deep interest in the matter but that the Leader of the House in another place was well prepared and concerned to ensure that the points raised were dealt with. I certainly appreciate very much not only the care that he has taken but the fact that a succession of Leaders of the House over many years have ensured that this legislation has been brought to a satisfactory conclusion.
I know that my colleagues in another place take a deep and continuing interest in the matter. They have expressed to me their satisfaction at the present position. What we are concerned with here today and what the Minister has spoken about, is a series of small matters in themselves but which together make up a significant difference in the pay, arrangements and conditions of a great many people. First, we are talking about an improved level of pensions for the Prime Minister, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker. The noble Lord the Leader of this House indicated that that was entirely fitting and proper to the dignity of the office holders. We say "Amen" to that.
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The noble Lord also referred to the creation of severance payments to Ministers who cease to hold office, for whatever reason, before reaching the age of 65. I believe that in another place, and certainly in this House, we support the general premise on which this new arrangement has been made. The noble Lord the Leader of the House referred to a night allowance to noble Lords, Ministers and other office holders in this House. That is the area in which I declared my own direct interest. In particular, the noble Lord dwelt somewhat on the basis and ratio of contributions to the parliamentary contributory pension fund. When the noble Lord replies can he say something more about the reference to the Top Salaries Review Body? Has he any news to give this House of the current state of those references?
I am sure that the House is grateful for the easement and the operation of the House of Commons Members' fund. My honourable friend in the other place, Mr. Alf Morris, has toiled for many years on behalf of Members of the other place with trustees who represent all sides of the House. He has spent many hours in working out the best arrangements. I am sure that the noble Lord the Leader of the House and many others are aware of the painful circumstances in which the widows of many former colleagues have found themselves. It is eminently fitting that the current rules and regulations are being eased so that the trustees can be a little more generous.
In my view, all these matters are modest but entirely fitting and proper in 1990–91 to give to our parliamentarians a better deal than they have hitherto enjoyed. We on this side of the House are very grateful indeed, not only to the noble Lord the Leader of the House but to his colleagues in another place who have worked to ensure that these better arrangements are brought in.
3.36 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I feel somewhat diffident about speaking on this Bill since much of it affects the interests of Members of another place. At least I have no interest to declare in the matter. Noble Lords like the noble Lords, Lord Graham of Edmonton and Lord Boyd-Carpenter, are able to speak with more authority than I in drawing on their experience on a number of matters with which the Bill deals. However, I have some industrial experience of the administration of pension schemes and pay determination. Therefore, I may be in a good position to bring dispassionate judgment to bear briefly on those points which featured most prominently in recent debates on the Bill in another place.
I warmly welcome the introduction under Clause 5 of the new allowance for Ministers in your Lordships' House. I believe that I speak for all my noble friends, particularly those of us who stay in London during the week, in saying that the proposal that Ministers here should in future be eligible for the same overnight subsistence allowance payable on the basis of 220 days is wholly justified.
It is no reflection on noble Lords who now serve us so conscientiously as Ministers to say that we would all benefit if the noble Lord the Leader of the House

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and the Chief Whip were able to draw on more of their supporters as potential recruits to the Government Front Bench. That applies whatever the political complexion of the Government.
One of the issues concerning this Bill that most troubled Members of another place was that of the relative contributions to the parliamentary contributory pension fund made by the Exchequer and Members of the fund. I was surprised to learn that at present, in contrast to the situation in so many pension schemes in the private sector, Members of the parliamentary fund contribute 9 per cent. of their salary and the Exchequer less than half that amount; namely, 4.4 per cent.
The trustees of the parliamentary fund consider that in future there should be a fixed relationship between the contributions from the Exchequer and of Members, with the Exchequer bearing the greater share. However, that would have the disadvantage that Members' contributions would fluctuate and would thus lose the stability and predictability that they now have. In those circumstances, I am sure that the Government are right to refer the matter to the Top Salaries Review Body, particularly since the people who fund the employers' contributions are the general body of taxpayers.
The purpose of Clause 6, as the Leader of the House has told us, is to avoid the need to introduce primary legislation to make any changes in the balance of contributions that may eventually be agreed. Hence the provision for these changes to be effected by regulations. It seems to me reasonable to ensure in this way that the changes operate without undue delay.
Another matter which has obviously caused Members of another place considerable anxiety, though it arises only indirectly from the Bill, is the position in relation to the resettlement grant payable to MPs under their early retirement scheme. There appear to be two causes of concern. First, people ceasing to be MPs after the age of 65 are at present ineligible to receive the grant. Secondly, years of service as a Member of the European Parliament do not count as qualifying service under the scheme. I am glad that at Third Reading of the Bill in another place the Leader of the House said that the Government now accept that service as an MEP should count for this purpose so that all former MEPs who are now Members of the House of Commons would benefit from that change. A majority of Members of another place, of all parties, have indicated, as signatories to an Early Day Motion, that the whole question of the resettlement grant needs to be re-examined, so I am glad that the TSRB is to be invited to look at it again. The essential point is that on both those matters Members of Parliament are themselves potential beneficiaries. They should be determined, therefore, by an independent arbiter in the shape of the TSRB.
Finally, I come to the first three clauses of the Bill. If I may respectfully say so, throughout the 35 years in which I have been a Member of your Lordships' House we have been exceedingly well served by the noble and learned Lords who sit on the Woolsack. Their office is an onerous one, extending far beyond
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their duties here, and it appears altogether appropriate that they should in future enjoy this salary lead over the Lord Chief Justice and the other benefits for which the Bill provides. I do not propose to comment on the remaining provisions of the Bill except to say that they are entirely acceptable to us on these Benches.
3.43 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, as the noble Lord said, I have been involved in the question of ministerial salaries for a considerable time, going back to 1963 when the late Earl of Stockton instructed me, as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, to go into the whole matter of ministerial salaries. Your Lordships may, after this lapse of time, be amused to hear that in 1963 the rate of salary for a full member of the Cabinet was £5,000 a year—a rate which had been originally fixed in the year of grace 1841. In 1841 £5,000 a year was a magnificent remuneration. In 1963—I can give evidence, if necessary—it was very far from magnificent, being subject fully to tax and to the rise in prices. I am therefore particularly interested to see that this Bill has now been brought forward.
The Leader of the House in another place, John MacGregor, said that the Government had shown no indecent haste in bringing it forward. Indeed, that is so, because the committee which made these recommendations reported in 1988. Therefore, far from any indecent haste there might have been what could be regarded as a certain measure of stately delay in bringing it forward. Having said that, I particularly welcome Clause 5. As noble Lords may know, some of us have been deeply concerned for a long time at the wholly inadequate remuneration, particularly of junior Ministers and Lords in Waiting in this House. Given the age at which they are normally recruited—when acceptance of office involves interrupting a professional or other career and when there are very likely to be children beginning education—a very severe financial sacrifice has been demanded of noble Lords who have accepted, in particular, junior office.
If I may be allowed to say so, the House has been particularly fortunate in the high calibre and devotion to duty of those noble Lords who have in these circumstances accepted office. But it simply could not go on like that. One cannot create a situation in which really severe difficulty and hardship is caused to people and expect them nonetheless to be recruited into the jobs where that hardship will be found. I hope and believe that the substantial improvement—I use the words deliberately—which is involved for noble Lords, particularly for noble Lords in junior positions in this House, brought about by Clause 5 will provide a very large measure of relief. I warmly congratulate the Government on having now decided to bring it forward. It will help them to resolve what has been in the circumstances, as my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal admitted, the difficult problem of recruiting for junior posts.
I have one question to ask my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal as to the detail. As I understand it, the allowance that will be paid will be the same rate of allowance as the night subsistence allowance payable to noble Lords but will be based on the assumption of

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220 nights. I take it that, in order to earn this, there is no obligation on the Minister concerned to be 220 nights in London. In certain departments the Minister may be required to travel all over the world to carry out his public duties. It would be ridiculous if he should be mulcted in this way because of that.
I express a doubt as to whether, if this is to work properly, 220 nights is enough. It is certainly not my experience of ministerial office that a Minister in a department in London worked only 220 days a year. If that had been so I think there are many noble Lords in this House who would agree that life would have been considerably easier. I doubt, for example, whether either the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal or my noble friend the Chief Whip would really be able to say that they had only worked 220 days in the year. Therefore, I wonder whether the figure of 220 might be looked at again. I am sure that it is intended as a calculation, excluding weekends—that is, 104 days out of 365—but that still leaves quite a margin of days which are not covered; and most Ministers in most governments work for a great deal longer than that. Therefore, while my enthusiasm for the proposal is not diminished in any way, I hope that the figure of 220 may be looked at with a view to increasing it.
Having said that, I am very glad indeed, as I believe all your Lordships are, that the Government have decided to move in this matter. Among other things, it will make for the more efficient operation of the House by removing what has been quite a difficulty in recruiting and remunerating those who play so essential a part in its proceedings. In this day and age junior Ministers almost always have to be junior in age, and that is just the period of life when one is most vulnerable to financial pressures. Therefore, I congratulate the Government on their courage in going forward. I hope, subject to the point about the 220 nights, that the Government will carry this through. I believe that it will do an enormous amount of good.
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether the Bill deals with the situation of widows of senior Ministers?
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, perhaps when he replies the noble Lord can clarify a point which has always worried me. I understand that the Lord Chancellor receives an enormously greater salary than the Prime Minister. Can he say whether that is so because the Lord Chancellor is worth more, because he works harder or because lawyers in this country are grossly overpaid?
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I should stress that I am not speaking in any way in opposition to the Bill because I fully accept it. However, in introducing and outlining the Bill, the Minister talked about fair treatment for Ministers and former Ministers to ensure that they did not lose out in total. Do I take it, therefore, that the legislation in no way covers Members of that place who have never been Ministers but who have been assiduous Members of that place without the benefit of a ministerial salary and who, in some cases, worked just as hard as Ministers, some of
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whom are now quite incapacitated and no longer able to attend your Lordships' House? Were those people considered in any way? If they were not, does that not indicate once again the provision of rather preferential treatment for a certain group of people?
I recall that about two or three years ago when the noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw, was Leader of the House our remuneration—if that is the correct term—was under review. We were given an almost copper bottom guarantee that something would be done of a sympathetic nature in respect of former Members. Evidence was called for and given in extenso. However, the character of your Lordships' House had changed quite considerably from that which existed when the original pattern was set and, unfortunately, nothing has been done in the matter. Therefore, while I fully agree with what is proposed, I think it is rather regrettable that the people about whom I am talking—that is, some former Members of another place—are now living on very small pensions. It should be borne in mind that the pensions fund is well in excess. I cannot understand why the situation of those people was not given some consideration. I am sure that such consideration would have been sympathetically received by everyone concerned.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, in answer to the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, and speaking as a member of the panel of the Chairman of Committees and in the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, I should point out that the Lord Chancellor receives an additional payment because he is well worth it.
I ask the noble Lord who introduced the Bill to confirm that adequate time will be given to discuss the Bill both in Committee and on Report. There are many important questions involved in the matter. When I was Chief Whip in another place I had to deal with Members of my party who had lost their parliamentary seats. To serve in Parliament for perhaps five, 10 or 15 years and then suddenly to be truncated is difficult. It was not an easy transition to go from overalls on a shop floor in a factory to being a Member of Parliament. I ask your Lordships to consider the fact that the transition from being a Member of Parliament to being nothing was even more difficult. Therefore, I had much difficulty in trying to resettle Members who had lost their seats.
I think that substantial time should be allowed to deal with this aspect of the matter both in Committee and on Report. The Bill must not be rushed through on the nod. The issues involved are extremely important to individuals. If we do not consider ourselves as individuals at this level of the legislative process, then there is not much hope for those people—who number perhaps millions—who are unemployed. Let us, therefore, be considerate in the matter. I merely ask the noble Lord to confirm in his reply that there will be adequate time for discussion during the later stages of the Bill's proceedings.
3.57 p.m.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I know that noble Lords are anxious to hear the Statement. I shall not, therefore, detain the House for very long. I believe that some noble Lords may have been concerned because on the original Order Paper my name did not appear as being the mover of the Second Reading of the Bill. However, I believe that that was corrected on a later Order Paper.
In my opening speech I was guilty of making a serious omission in that I did not thank my noble friend Lord Belstead for all the work that he has carried out in the matter. Indeed, he worked extremely hard to obtain what he believed was justice for Ministers in this House. We are all most grateful to him for the efforts he made.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, welcomed the Bill on behalf of the Opposition Benches. I can assure him about something which he already knows; namely, that the Bill followed very protracted discussions with honourable Members in another place and also with noble Lords. We ultimately achieved a solution which now rightly receives a good welcome from this Chamber.
I was asked about the position regarding the reference to the TSRB of matters concerning the parliamentary contributory pension fund. The reference was made last week and a reply is expected by May. The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, welcomed the new overnight allowance. It is obviously not right that anyone should be dissuaded from serving in this place as a Minister as a result of not being adequately compensated for the fact that he has to have a second home. It was, of course, right to refer the various matter; mentioned by the noble Lord regarding the parliamentary contributory pension fund to the TSRB. The latter will also be looking at the question of severance pay for Members in another place.
I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter for his remarks. I echo his comments on the remuneration of junior Ministers. There will be no obligation on a Minister to be actually resident in London for 220 nights. It was really a question of obtaining a formula which, on the one hand, was related to the allowance paid to Back-Benchers in this House and which, on the other hand, would yield a result not entirely dissimilar to the allowance which is granted to Back-Benchers and Ministers in another place— that is, the so-called "additional cost allowance" which is payable to Members in the other place.
My noble friend Lord Selkirk asked about the situation of widows of senior Ministers. That issue is not dealt with in the Bill. However, it has already been dealt with by way of reference to the TSRB. I do not know whether I should now embark upon a long explanation as to why the Lord Chancellor is paid more than the Prime Minister. I shall leave that issue for another day. Suffice it to say that I am sure that the noble Lord agrees with me that it was rather absurd for the Lord Chancellor to receive a pension
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computed on a different basis from the way in which the pension of the Prime Minister is computed, or indeed that of the Speaker.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, asked about the situation of those who have left another place, who have come here but who are not as yet eligible for their pension—
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I was not referring only to Members of this Chamber. There are some elderly former Members of another place who have not come here and who are in a situation of distress.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, the House heard what the noble Lord said. Obviously, we did not set out to deal with everything by way of this Bill. However, I shall certainly bear in mind the points he made and try to catch up with the history of the matter. Further, I can promise the noble Lord, Lord Cocks, that there will be ample time for discussion of the matters about which he is concerned. With those few words, I commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

The Gulf War
3.59 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (The Earl of Arran): My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the answer to a Private Notice Question which has been asked in another place on the latest situation in the Gulf.
"Mr. Speaker, in the absence of my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, on pressing Foreign Office business, I have been asked to reply.
"Last night there was a report on Baghdad radio that Iraqi forces had been ordered to withdraw from Kuwait. In a broadcast this morning, Saddam Hussein appeared to confirm this. At the same time as this order was apparently given, however, two further Scud attacks were launched, one of which caused a large number of casualties among US forces in Dhahran. At this time, we have no reliable evidence of a general Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. In many areas in southern Iraq and Kuwait, Iraqi forces are retreating, but as a result of allied military action. British and allied troops are still in contact with Iraqi forces.
"As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said a few minutes ago, what we require now is that Saddam Hussein publicly and explicitly accepts all the Security Council resolutions. To ensure the safety and security of our forces we require all Iraqi forces in the theatre of operations, both those occupying Kuwait and those supporting the occupation, to abandon their equipment and withdraw. Otherwise they will continue to be treated as hostile."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the House is grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement made in answer to a Private Notice Question in another place. We support all the points that the Minister made. I have only one question for him: in the event of all Iraqi troops abandoning their equipment, as we rightly propose, and moving out of Kuwait northwards, do they have any assurance that they will not be attacked as belligerents?
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, we thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. He has had the enviable experience of making two Statements of great encouragement and importance on successive days. It is hard to comment upon the Statement when the position is so fast-moving—when one has just read on the tape that there are no Iraqi troops left in Kuwait City, and that the withdrawal was organised. It is especially difficult to comment upon the Statement, when, in accordance with custom relating to Private Notice Questions, one has had no preview of the Statement. Nevertheless, I am sure that my noble friends would wish me to associate ourselves with the views expressed by the Minister.
There can be no question of allowing the withdrawal back home of fully armed troops with their tanks and artillery. That would be going far too far. What is more, in this difficult situation, which is neither peace nor war, there is a special danger to the coalition forces, and their security must be paramount. Nevertheless, I hope that there is no question of coalition forces firing upon troops who are withdrawing from the battle. I am sure that that cannot be the intention of the coalition. Will the Government assure us that the coalition is doing nothing to jeopardise its post-war objectives; for example, the maintenance of the United States/Soviet collaboration which is so important for the future; the strengthening of the authority of the Security Council; and the widening of support for the coalition in the Moslem world? All those post-war objectives are of enormous importance. I hope that the Minister can assure us that they are in no way being jeopardised by the present conduct and policies of the coalition.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their remarks. I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Williams, that there is no intention of attacking unarmed troops who are withdrawing, but obviously formed combat units retreating with their arms must be regarded as hostile. I want to make that point clear. Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, made the point about the security of the coalition forces which is of extreme and paramount importance. He also talked about post-war objectives. I can confirm that those post-war objectives remain as they were.
3.2 p.m.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the Minister aware that certain organisations, individuals, newspapers and periodicals are rightly concerned about the fate of the people in Iraq and the withdrawing Iraqi army. Should it not be made clear to them that Saddam Hussein and his murderous army which invaded Kuwait are withdrawing only because of the presence of the coalition in the Gulf? If there is any sadness to
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be felt, it should be felt first for casualties in the coalition forces which have probably saved Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and many other Arab states. The Arab people and the great Islamic republics must understand that they have probably been saved from massive slaughter by the coalition forces which have done a magnificent job on behalf of all humanity.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I do not believe that there are many in your Lordships' House who would disagree with the thoughts and sentiments expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy.
Lord Monson: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is essential that retreating Iraqi columns be thoroughly screened by the coalition forces to ensure that they do not include Kuwaiti civilians who have evidently recently been kidnapped in large numbers to be held as hostages in Iraq?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I am certain that every effort will be made to detect those circumstances if and when they arise.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, has this situation been reported to the Security Council? Is the Security Council meeting to discuss it, and, if so, when will it do so and what powers will it have to deal with the situation that the Minister has outlined this afternoon?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, my understanding is that the Security Council is aware of the situation at the moment; but as to what action it will take at what time is as yet unclear.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, would the Minister like to put on record the unusual events taking place in your Lordships' House?—neither the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, nor the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, have cared to blame all the problems of the Middle East on the state of Israel.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I take that point.

Disability Living Allowance and Disability Working Allowance Bill
4.7 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Henley): My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
The House will recall that a little over a year ago, we published our White Paper The Way Ahead which outlined our programme for the reform of benefits for disabled people. The Bill represents the final stage of that programme.
We set out in that paper a whole series of proposals for changes and a timetable for their introduction. We have stuck to that programme and met every one of the commitments we then made. Indeed, we have gone further: my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Security outlined some welcome additional improvements in his uprating Statement last autumn. I do not want to weary the House with the full catalogue of changes. I have on several occasions been able to give account of our spending

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record over the past 11 or 12 years. Spending on the long-term sick and the disabled has doubled in real terms to over £10 billion per annum. I shall give some idea of what we have done in the past year.
We have increased the disability premiums within the income-related benefits by more than twice the rate of inflation. That benefited 400,000 disabled people. We more than doubled the disabled child's premium from £6·50 to £15·40—giving substantial help to 20,000 of the least well-off families. We extended mobility allowance to people who are both deaf and blind. We have also announced that from April we shall be removing any doubt that people who have had both legs amputated will be entitled to mobility allowance. We have introduced a premium within the income-related benefits for carers and in the past two years increased by 150 per cent. the amount that carers can earn before it affects the amount of invalid care allowance we pay them. Most recently, in December, we gave age-related additions of up to £20 a week to people on severe disablement allowance—the group who have not had the chance to build up a contribution record. And, as your Lordships will recall, we have introduced widely-welcomed improvements to attendance allowance by abolishing the rule preventing its payment to babies under two and by giving top rate attendance allowance automatically without a qualifying period to people suffering from a terminal illness.
These are all significant moves forward, and they demonstrate the Government's commitment to making the benefit system responsive to disabled people's needs.
Perhaps I may briefly remind the House of the backcloth against which those measures should be viewed. There has been a huge expansion in the numbers receiving all the main disability or incapacity benefits. To take as an example the extra costs benefits, the numbers receiving attendance allowance have risen threefold from 265,000 in 1979 to 890,000 today. Mobility allowance now reaches 630,000 people, rather than the 95,000 who received it 12 years ago.
I am aware of the argument that runs that this is not new money but simply an effect of improved take-up, but it is new money for the people who are receiving benefit on account of their disability who were not getting anything before. And it is of course new money that the taxpayer must find.
The Bill introduces the final two elements of The Way Ahead package. It brings in two new benefits and—again going beyond what we promised last year—introduces a radical new assessment regime.
The first benefit—disability living allowance (DLA) —tackles a central problem with the existing extra costs benefits which is that disabled people who narrowly fail to meet the qualifying conditions at present get nothing from the benefit system in recognition of their disabilities.
The second benefit—disability working allowance (DWA)—addresses for the first time the needs of people who are able to work to some degree but whose
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earning capacity is limited by their disability. At present, such people can find themselves in a trap. They may be better off if they remain on their incapacity benefit than they would be if they took up work. Disability working allowance is designed to tackle that disincentive.
Those two initiatives—greater coverage of help with extra costs, and new help for disabled people who can and wish to work—were two main strands of the strategy that we outlined in the The Way Ahead.
Clauses 1 to 5 of the Bill introduce the disability living allowance. It will build on the strengths of the existing benefits. I say "strengths" because the OPCS evidence showed clearly that attendance allowance and mobility allowance were well targeted on the most commonly occurring of the disabilities that entail extra costs. For that reason we have left unchanged the qualifying criteria for the existing rates of benefit. Recipients of those rates will be transferred automatically across to DLA.
But on both the mobility and care sides of the new benefit there will be new lower rates for disabled people under the age of 65. Instead of the present cliff edge, we shall have a benefit that better recognises that there are degrees of disability. There will be two routes by which people can qualify for the new rate of the care component. The first will be if they require attention for a significant portion of the day, in one or more aggregated periods. We envisage "significant portion" being interpreted as an hour or thereabouts. For example, this route will help people who need help getting in and out of bed or a bath, or people who require assistance in administering courses of injections or medicines. The second route will be a test of whether someone could, if he wished to, prepare a main cooked meal for himself. I should stress that this will be an entirely abstract test. We are not, as my right honourable Friend the Secretary of State said in another place, in the business of reinventing a household duties test, but we did want to include people whose care needs went broader than a test related purely to bodily functions.
The mobility component will be paid to people who, though physically able to walk, are so severely physically handicapped or mentally disabled that they require the guidance or supervision of another person when walking outdoors. That is a condition which we anticipate will bring 150,000 people on to benefit, primarily people with mental handicap, those suffering severe visual impairments and those with severe behaviour problems.
For both the care and the mobility components, the Bill introduces a common qualifying period of three months and a test of whether the disability is likely to continue, the time limit for that being six months.
For the less well-off among the disabled population, both of the new lower rates will give them access to the disability premium within income-related benefits. Someone on income support qualifying afresh for one or other of those rates will thus see a rise of rather more than £25 a week in their income.

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Although DLA is aimed at people who became disabled before the age of 65, we are extending across the board the provision in mobility allowance whereby a claim can be entered up to the 66th birthday. And, unlike mobility allowance, there will be no upper age limit for receipt of any of the rates of DLA.
Clauses 6 to 9 introduce the disability working allowance. I am sure everyone will share our belief that society should look increasingly at what people with disabilities can do, rather than at what they cannot do, and then should look at what the rest of society, including the benefit system, can do to assist them. That was why we came forward with DWA. The Bill aims to offer disabled people the chance to try working—even if they are not sure they can cope with a full-time job—and be sure they will be better off as a result. Up to now, someone in that situation might well have had either to risk taking a job which he thought might be beyond his capacities or to accept a drop in his income because a job which he judged he could cope with paid him less than he was getting on benefit. People who can only work as few as 16 hours a week will be able to qualify for DWA.
The group whom we intend to benefit will be identified by a qualifying benefit test: they will either have been receiving a long-term incapacity benefit or be getting an extra costs benefit. Beyond that, for his initial claim, the claimant will simply have to state that he has a disability or illness that, in the Bill's words, puts him "at a disadvantage in getting a job". Current receipt of DLA or recent receipt of an incapacity benefit will be taken to confirm this. On a renewal claim, again he will declare that he has a disability.
In the majority of cases receipt of one of the higher rates of DLA (equivalent to present attendance allowance and mobility allowance) or previous receipt of severe disablement allowances (SDA) will be taken as confirmation. In a minority of cases—perhaps 40 per cent. of repeat claims—the claimant will be asked to fill in a self-assessment form covering a whole range of functional disabilities. If the adjudication officer's decision is that he has one of those disabilities, he will qualify because that disability will be enough to put him at a disadvantage. I should make clear that the disadvantage will not be something that is open to the adjudication officer who decides the claim to question. If the objective criteria are satisfied the disability test will be satisfied.
The test of income will be along similar lines to the one we have in family credit but because we are adding an amount equivalent to a single person's disability premium in income support DWA represents a better deal than family credit for those who have the option of claiming family credit.
I will mention one further feature of DWA, the linking rule. We all know that this kind of benefit will work as we wish only if people are confident that they will not lose if their attempt at work fails and they prove incapable of work. At the moment someone coming off severe disablement allowance or invalidity benefit has to judge within eight weeks whether his venture into work is going to be a success. If he leaves
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it longer, and later discovers that he cannot cope, he is obliged to spend 28 weeks requalifying for the benefit he used to get.
We do not want DWA claimants to have to weigh up their position because we believe it would put some people off trying out a job in the first instance. The Bill therefore introduces a much more generous two year linking rule. That should provide important reassurance for those wanting to take up work. As a final point, I should perhaps reiterate that DWA is only for those people who choose to take work; there is no question of forcing people to give up their incapacity benefits.
I turn now to assessment and adjudication, the third theme to the Bill which is hidden largely in Schedule 1. The radical innovation we are preparing in this field will be common to both new benefits. We have listened carefully to what individual disabled people, their carers and their representative organisations have had to tell us about how claimants perceive the whole business of claiming disability benefits.
We have brought forward a radical shift towards self-assessment, backed of course by the comments of those people in the best position to know most about the effect that the claimant's disability has on his everyday existence. We want to give claimants an opportunity to give a fuller version themselves; to marshal whatever evidence from whatever professional or informal source they choose. We believe that will help us in striving, as we are already doing, to improve our decision making. It will help to make the process more open and personal to claimants.
The Bill provides that decision making on DLA, DWA and attendance allowance will be vested in adjudication officers rather than doctors. There will of course still be many difficult decisions on the margins of entitlement and it would be foolish to promise that adjudication officers will always get it right. But the Bill provides for adjudication officers to be able to receive adequate support in the form of advice on medical issues from departmental doctors. It also creates for DLA and attendance allowance a purely advisory board replacing the existing attendance allowance board. Its role will be limited to providing expert advice, informed by the latest medical developments, on specifically medical matters.
The new adjudication procedures have been widely welcomed in principle. In particular, we have received an excellent response to our proposals on new rights of appeal to independent disability appeal tribunals. In order to ensure that the focus is truly placed on the effects of a condition, we have stipulated that ideally one of the members of the tribunals should either be a disabled person—or should have practical experience of the needs of disabled people.
The Government understand the feelings of those who would have us move forward even more rapidly in this area. But the Bill is a substantial step forward in improving provision for people with disabilities. It will give significant new help to well over 300,000 people at a gross cost of £325 million. By 1993–94, we expect 1.9 million people to be receiving a benefit in

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recognition of their extra costs—a more than fivefold increase since 1979. The Bill's spending is on top of the more than £10 billion we are now spending on benefits for people who are either disabled or long-term sick. The Bill, together with our many other recent improvements, builds substantially on that record. I commend it to the House.
I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Henley.)
4.24 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, the House will be extremely grateful to the Minister for his clear explanation of the Bill. The clarity is particularly to be admired because I believe that this week he and his wife are in the process of increasing their entitlement to child benefit! As he said, we are dealing with a Bill that concerns two benefits. I propose to concentrate on the disability living allowance, while my noble friend Lady Turner, with her great expertise in employment matters, will deal with the disability working allowance. Before turning to the Bill, perhaps I may say how good it is to see the noble Lord, Lord Banks, in his place, helping us to deal with the Bill on his return to the House after his recent illness.
As the Minister said, the DLA—I believe that we may use the acronyms—is a new name for a combination of the existing mobility allowance and attendance allowance with the new rates built in. I should be interested to know how long this merger of the two allowances has been planned by the department. It is less than two years since the All-Party Disablement Group, of which I am a member, met the Minister, Mr. Nicholas Scott. I asked him whether there was any intention to merge the two allowances; at that time he gave a categorical denial. The Minister is an honourable man and I am sure that he knew of no such intention, but I do wonder when the planning began at official level.
The new allowance consists of five benefits: the three care benefits (the higher rate attendance allowance, the standard rate attendance allowance and the new lower rate of £10 a week) and the two mobility benefits—the present rate and the £10 lower rate. Of course, we welcome the expansion of the lower rates and the expansion in coverage. I believe that it is correct that there will now be no fewer than 11 possible combinations of benefit under the DLA.
I cannot help but remember previous discussions on social security Bills when we have argued strongly from all round the House for a more flexible mix of benefits. That was always rejected on the ground that such flexibility would only add to the administrative complications. I see the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, in his place and he will remember, as will other noble Lords who take an interest in such matters, the constant reiteration of the swings and roundabouts argument: some will gain while others will lose. I am not sure that it has ever been conclusively proved statistically that the swings actually do equal the roundabouts, but the proposal that no fewer than 11 combinations of allowances be
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included in the one overall benefit represents a positive merry-go-round of benefits. However, we welcome the Government's attempt to widen the scope of both the attendance and the mobility allowances.
The biggest weakness of the disability living allowance is that it is certainly not a living allowance. We are all aware of the substantial extra costs of disability: heating, laundry, diet, communication, clothing, extra help with household tasks and similar costs. To some extent these costs used to be met by the old special payments scheme which was abolished in April 1988.
Research by the Disablement Income Group indicates extra costs of between £42 and £65 a week for the more severely disabled. Similar research by a number of disability organisations indicates that the extra costs of disability are considerable and much in excess of the figures which were produced by the OPCS. We feel that the OPCS figures considerably understate the extra costs of disability and we shall put down amendments to the Bill to deal with the point.
Another area where, frankly, it is hard to follow the Government's reasoning is the lower age limit of five years for claiming the mobility component of the DLA. It seems that the Government equate the need for the mobility component with the age for starting state education: five. That ignores the fact that many children under five attend a playgroup or have nursery education. Above all it ignores the fact that disabled children are entitled to special education from the age of two. We shall also wish to put down amendments to correct this anomaly.
Another area in which we shall bring forward an amendment which I am sure will command your Lordships' support is the extension of the higher rate mobility component to people with learning difficulties and challenging behaviour. This is familiar ground for your Lordships. In 1989 I moved an amendment with the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, and others to secure the mobility allowance for the deaf-blind and the severely mentally handicapped. The amendment was accepted by this House; it was rejected by the Government when they brought it back on grounds that were not even mentioned when the House originally debated the issue—namely, the numbers involved. We welcome the fact that, as the Minister mentioned, since then the Government have extended the mobility allowance to the deaf-blind.
Returning to the problems of the severely mentally handicapped, your Lordships will remember that there was an extraordinary statistical argument by the Government based rather mysteriously on the OPCS data tapes. The figures that the Government claimed for the number of people who would benefit from the changes they wish to introduce were said to range from 50,000 to 150,000 people and back again. MENCAP, the Spastics Society and the Mobility Allowance Campaign have never moved from their original estimate that 8,000 to 9,000 people would benefit from this extension.

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I am delighted that the Government now seem to accept that figure. At Report stage in another place the Minister, Mr. Nicholas Scott, stated:
"The hon. Gentleman is right to say that, in essence, what we are concerned about here is an assessment of numbers and whether it is possible to devise a way of ring-fencing the 8,000 to 9,000 people of whom Mencap spoke. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made that commitment".
He further stated:
"I acknowledge that that undertaking was given, and I am on record as giving an undertaking to do my best to find a way of defining those 8,000 to 9,000 people".—[Official Report, Commons, 7/2/91; col. 474.]
We are now concerned with a problem of definition and not one of numbers. We shall seek to deal with that problem when we consider the Bill in detail. I should like to ask the Minister whether between us we can try to find a suitable way to define that group of people so that they can receive the higher rate of the mobility component.
We shall put down amendments to secure the future of the independent living fund. The cost to the Government will be nothing beyond the £62 million that is already allocated to the fund, which currently helps in excess of 7,000 severely disabled people and pays an average of £72 per week. In January of last year a severely disabled couple aged 59 stated that since they have had access to the independent living fund they have had the happiest and most worry-free time for just over five years.
Considerable concern has been expressed in regard to the Government's intention to hand over responsibility for severely disabled people who are now helped by the fund to local authorities in 1993 with the advent of the community care plans. The independent living fund is an excellent example of ring-fenced community care. We hope to persuade your Lordships to protect that position by writing it into the Bill.
A considerable anomaly, not to say injustice, is the proposal by the Government to limit the invalid care allowance (ICA) to those who care for those receiving only the higher or middle rate of the care components and to exclude those who are caring for those on the lower rate. It is difficult to understand why someone who is caring for a disabled person for 35 hours a week or more and is thereby prevented from working should not receive the invalid care allowance. If the person being cared for is receiving the higher and middle rate of the care component, then the carer will receive ICA, but not if the disabled person is receiving the lower rate. We shall seek to redress that situation.
We shall examine other provisions in the Bill at a later stage and seek to put right any omissions. Two important matters are, firstly, how to deal with the backdating of claims where there is a good case for the claimant not being able to claim on time and, secondly, the exclusion of people aged over 65 from the mobility component.
My noble friend Lady Turner will deal in detail with the disability working allowance provisions. I was impressed by a letter from the National Consumer
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Council which stated that the disability living allowance was worthy of support but needed amendment. However, I fear that it dismissed the DWA by stating that it did not merit support. Concern has been expressed that people with long-term disabilities will not be able to claim DWA and that those who do claim will have considerable problems because of the way in which the benefit is to be calculated and administered.
As the Minister implied, the Bill represents more or less the final response to both the OPCS surveys and the White Paper The Way Ahead. This is not the time to go into what we regard as the piecemeal and in many cases inadequate nature of that response. The Minister listed the improvements in social security benefits, which we welcome. He referred to the expansion in the numbers of those who claim benefits, which accounts for a large part of the increase in expenditure. However, a substantial number of social security benefits have been frozen in real terms, after adjustment for inflation, since 1979, compared with the 20 per cent. increase in real income of the working population in the same period.
Despite the efforts of the Government we are no nearer to obtaining the comprehensive disability cost allowance and the disability income benefit which, if taken together, would ensure that people with disabilities are not at a permanent disadvantage in society. A situation exists whereby people with exactly the same degree of disability receive widely varying levels of benefit, depending upon the way in which the disability was caused and not on the disability itself, with its attendant costs and its effect on earning power.
That situation and the many other anomalies and injustices in the benefit system for people with disabilities can be put right only by a comprehensive and coherent combination of allowances and benefits that are designed to deal with the extra costs of disability and the need for a proper disability income. That is something that cannot be achieved overnight; it can be done only if the Government have the will to do it. I can assure your Lordships that the next Labour Government will certainly have that will.
4.38 p.m.
Lord Banks: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for his kind reference to me. I join him in thanking the Minister for the clarity of his original explanation.
The Bill is reasonably acceptable but it does not go far enough. The disability living allowance is described as a new benefit but it is a combination of two existing benefits: attendance allowance and mobility allowance. As the Minister explained, it introduces a third lowest rate of attendance allowance of £10 per week for people who require help with their bodily functions for a significant portion of the day from another person, or who cannot prepare a cooked main meal for themselves if they have the ingredients. It is estimated that 140,000 people will be covered by that situation. It also extends the mobility allowance by the introduction of a second and lower rate of £10

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per week for 150,000 people who are able to walk but who a re so severely disabled, physically or mentally, that out of doors they require guidance and supervision from another person for most of the time.
We are grateful for the extended benefits, but there is one very severe objection to the Bill to which the noble Lord, Lord Carter, referred. It makes no provision for dealing with the additional costs which disabled people may be expected to incur; for example, a special diet, extra heating, communication, greater laundry costs, and so on. I hope that the Bill will be amended to cover those items.
As noble Lords will know, there was a tied vote in another place in Committee which was only determined by the chairman's casting vote. It should be borne in mind that those who suffer from industrial injury are in receipt of £76.60 per week. During research into costs people were asked how much they spent on those items, but many people put a low figure because they did not have the money to pay for more. Applicants should be shown a list of possible costs and asked to say whether they have incurred any of them, and, if not, whether they would have done so if they could have afforded them. In connection with the matter of costs, there is a problem in relation to those who become incapacitated after the age of 65. They do not qualify for mobility allowance. I should be grateful if the Minister could say something about the position of those people.
With regard to the mobility allowance, the provision for children begins at the age of five. There would seem to be a strong case for it commencing from the age of two when the local authority has responsibility for education. That is another point that the noble Lord, Lord Carter, raised.
The disability living allowance is not a simplification, as represented by the Government. People may well be in doubt as to whether any part of the two benefits—attendance allowance or mobility allowance —are payable after the age of 65. Also, as we have heard, the range of options is confusing.
During the discussion in another place, to which I referred earlier, the Minister acknowledged that disabled people incur additional costs on account of their disablement but he rejected an amendment on the ground that it reverted to the complexity of the old system of social security. All the major disability organisations reject the Minister's suggestion that administrative complexity should prevent the design of a system to meet the additional costs of disablement.
The disability working allowance introduced in the second part of the Bill provides a means-tested benefit of up to £37.20 for single people and £51.75 for lone parents and married couples. It would apply to some 50,000 people on low pay using low thresholds of £34.60 for single people and £57.60 for lone parents and married couples.
The requirement to work 16 hours a week in order to qualify may be too restrictive. Some people may
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prefer to build up more slowly to that figure. Then there is the exclusion of all those who are not in receipt of another benefit.
In conclusion, like the noble Lord, Lord Carter, I refer to the independent living fund which at present helps about 4,000 people. As he pointed out, it is scheduled to come to an end in 1993 when it is hoped that local authorities will be able to take on its work. In my view, that fund should be put on a permanent statutory basis and I hope that the Bill will be amended to bring that about.
4.42 p.m.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, it is a pleasure to be able to take part in this debate in the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale. It gives me a feeling of nostalgia. It also gives me hope that now that he is no longer hobbled by his brief he will be able to take part in the Committee stages and join the rest of us in pressing amendments on the Government.
I am also extremely honoured to speak immediately after the noble Lord, Lord Banks, who we all recognise has a greater knowledge of social security matters than anyone else in this House. His speech is immensely welcome. That is not to say that I do not wish to thank the Minister for the great clarity with which he opened the debate.
Speaking immediately after the noble Lord, Lord Banks, I need a disability speaking allowance because there is very little left to say. Therefore I shall be very brief. On the subject of the disability living allowance I shall say merely that I regard it at this stage as a misnomer because it will be all but impossible for severely disabled people to live on it without suffering. It is therefore not meaningful in the sense of what one would ordinarily expect of a disability living allowance.
On a related matter, and following up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Banks, it is far too early to scrap the independent living fund. Its life should be prolonged until such time as the needs of severely disabled people, for example, who number only some 7,000 or so, have been met on a statutory basis. At that point the disability living allowance can be phased out.
It is not right that the burden on the fund should be transferred to the local authorities after 1993. Ordinarily I would consider that a very good suggestion provided that the fund was ring-fenced, but now is the worst possible time for that added burden to be placed on local authorities, which are being forced to cut their welfare services drastically. It is most inappropriate and I support the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, that we should try to remedy that in Committee.
Having said that, I am one of those who applaud the Government's implementation of The Way Ahead by amalgamating the present attendance allowance with the mobility allowance. I consider it to be very much a step in the right direction towards what we all hope by the end of the century will be a comprehensive

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disability income scheme. The amalgamation of the two allowances will make it much easier for us to press amendments on the Government to that end.
I welcome the disability working allowance. It is a pioneer step, a first attempt at recognising the needs of those disabled people who have a partial capacity to work and helping them within the social security system. Their potential could not be realised without the help of the social security system and so I regard that as an admirable initiative. I also regard the imaginative introduction of self-assessment within the assessment procedure as immensely welcome. Therefore, I find the second part of the Bill admirable.
I do not in any way wish to diminish that accolade by saying that the second part of the Bill is capable of improvement in detail, which it is. That is essential in order to bring within its scope the 50,000 people who could be helped by it. Unless the second part of the Bill is amended those people will be literally helpless. I hope that means testing, for example, will be thoroughly explored in Committee, and, ideally, abolished. If it is not abolished the thresholds should be substantially raised. I should like to see a lower earnings threshold. I should also like the maximum benefit rates to be raised. While we are about it, I cannot see why we should not seek to exempt people in that category from National Health Service charges. I do not believe that any of those aims could not be achieved in this House. Without them the benefits of the second part of the Bill will not reach those who are intended to be the beneficiaries.
I look forward to the unhobbled and active help of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, in a lively Committee stage which I hope will be free of party political dissension.
4.48 p.m.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I shall be as brief as possible because I know that my noble friend the Minister has urgent business outside this House and I do not want to delay him.
I welcome the part of the Bill relating to the disability living allowance and the disability working allowance. However, my noble friend will not be surprised when I tell him that, together with others, I shall endeavour to improve it at later stages as the Bill goes through your Lordships' House in order to benefit more disabled people and to improve the benefits that they receive.
In particular I draw your Lordships' attention to the first paragraph of page 2 of the Bill—namely, Clause 1(2) new Section 37ZA(6)—which reads:
"A person shall not be entitled to a disability living allowance unless he satisfies prescribed conditions as to residence and presence in Great Britain".
I am sure that the Minister and many other noble Lords are aware of the situation. Similar conditions are prescribed with respect to the severe disablement allowance. It allows people to receive the allowance only if they have been in the United Kingdom for more than 10 out of the last 20 years. That precludes a small but very important number of people. I hope that we shall not allow the same condition to affect the
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disability living allowance and that noble Lords will assist me to remove the anomaly for severe disablement allowance as this Bill goes through this House.
The provision affects the families of Crown servants. As I understand it, it does not affect Crown servants themselves. When the country sends a Crown servant abroad to serve the nation in whatever capacity, it is quite reasonable to expect that the family should be with that Crown servant. In fact it would be intolerable if that family had to stay behind for any length of time. A number of Crown Servants remain out of the country for more than 10 of the 20 years. I suspect that that will happen to a number of civil servants who work for the EC. I know that it happens to members of the armed forces, not so much the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines, but the Army and in particular a small part of the Army.
Because of the need for wide and open training spaces, members of the armoured regiments spend much time in Germany, for example. So far as the forces are concerned that counts as a home posting but so far as social security is concerned it counts as being abroad. Such people can easily have two postings to Germany followed by an overseas posting and then go back to Germany, each posting lasting for approximately three years. They could even have two postings back to Germany before going abroad again, so spending 12 years abroad out of the 20 years.
It must not be forgotten that at the moment this affects the families whose fathers and husbands are serving in the Gulf. They are not there purely out of patriotism but in some ways are serving a higher end —altruism—because they are not fighting for the United Kingdom but for the United Nations. We should not let them down.
I understand that the necessary alteration will not cost the Government a great deal of money. The numbers of individuals involved is between 5 and 10. I have been worrying the Government for over a year now and so far have got nowhere. It is important that we should deal with this matter in respect of the disability living allowance and the severe disablement allowance. I trust that your Lordships will assist me in improving that aspect of the Bill as it goes through this House.
4.55 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, other noble Lords have referred to the implications of the Bill across a wide variety of groups and cases which make up the spectrum of disability. I propose to concentrate my few remarks on people with HIV and AIDS. The question of additional costs not covered by the Bill —a point mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Carter and Lord Banks—is of most concern to that group. The special requirements went by the board with the replacement of the old supplementary benefit system.
As the noble Lord, Lord Banks, said, in Standing Committee in another place the Minister, Mr. Scott, referred scornfully to that system. He said that it would not be wise to return to the amazing complexities of the old supplementary benefit

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additional requirements. He accused the Opposition of reinvention of all the complexities of the additional requirements system.
Let us admit that there were some complexities. But let us also acknowledge that the old system had the capacity to meet some very pressing needs which the present Bill does not recognise. With regard to complexities, it appears from the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum that a further 1,100 staff will be required to administer the scheme, so it looks as though some complexities are expected also under the new regime. In a field so sensitive and diverse that is bound to be the case.
Under the previous system for people living with AIDS the additional requirements could add up to an extra £40 or £50 a week. In a number of cases AIDS sufferers received over £30 a week for diet alone. Such patients require the intake of additional protein and calories over and above the norm merely to maintain body weight and combat symptoms such as anorexia, fatigue, dysphagia, diarrhoea, malabsorption and the side effects of drugs such as nausea and vomiting which are secondary to chemotherapy.
In 1991 a joint initiative by the Terrence Higgins Trust and the Bloomsbury Health Authority found that the mean weekly cost of a standardised high protein high calorie diet in London came to £42. That is very much in line with costings of dietary plans produced by other organisations for people with symptomatic HIV infection. The Department of Dietetics of the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle-upon-Tyne recommended for a person with AIDS living alone a diet which cost £32.75 at 1988 prices. In the same year the counselling clinic of the Clinical Department of Infectious Diseases of the Greater Glasgow Health Board costed its dietary plan at £30.44. Again, in 1988 the organisation Frontliners, which is a self-help group for people with advanced HIV infection, proposed a diet costing £34.20.
At this point I wish to take the Government to task for their misleading use of research done by MacDonald and Forsythe in the Children's Hospital in 1986, which came up with much lower dietary figures. Anita MacDonald, the senior researcher, has since repudiated the use made by the Government of her research, which was directed at low income families and children in particular and was costed at the very minimum for the subsistence of people with no ailments. She writes with regard to patients with HIV infection or AIDS—in fact I have here her letter to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, Miss Anne Widdicombe—that that paper is not applicable. She goes on to say that such people may well require expensive nutritional drinks such as Complan and that their diet may well cost over 50 per cent. more than a normal healthy diet would cost. She writes:
"I therefore consider that the information in my paper has been inappropriately used by the DSS against the case made for additional dietary support for food for people with Aids and HIV infection".
A boosted diet is not the only special requirement for those people. As has already been mentioned,
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heating is another item. Charities such as the Terrence Higgins Trust, Frontliners, Crusaid, ACET, Body Positive and the Monument Trust which operate hardship funds for people with symptomatic HIV frequently report that most grants are awarded for the payment of household bills which cannot otherwise be afforded. Predictably, unpaid heating bills crop up time and again.
If doctors are correct in advising people with HIV to maintain an adequate body temperature in order to maximise resistance to opportunistic infections, then the situation gives rise to considerable concern. Until April 1988, a weekly heating allowance worth up to £5.55 could be paid to people who could prove that they were housebound, or that they had a serious physical illness and required extra heat as a result, and/or that they were in accommodation which was extremely difficult to heat. However, since that date such help is not available.
Other problems such as drenching night sweats and incontinence obviously lead to extra bathing and laundering requirements. I shall not go into detail until Committee stage. But suffice it to say that people who are HIV symptomatic are often too weak to carry bed clothes to the launderette and find launderettes too expensive. Again, until April 1988, additional laundry costs incurred through ill health were met virtually in full, but now not at all.
I can give plenty of instances of case histories to support these assertions. However, I believe that it is more appropriate to reserve them for amendments at Committee stage. At Second Reading it is more useful to put what I have said in a broader context.
New AIDS cases are not only on the increase; people with AIDS, due to improved drug therapies, are living longer. Life expectation has increased from 10 to 20 months across the board. We are thus facing increasing numbers of people alive with AIDS at any one time and it is essential that they have the wherewithal to stay relatively well as long as possible outside hospital.
At the outset of the epidemic, people with AIDS spent much of their time in hospital. There has since been an encouraging movement towards longer spells in the community and shorter periods of hospitalisation—I have checked this fact with a number of doctors—due to improved medical treatment and techniques and a new emphasis on care at home rather than in an institution. It would be a thousand pities if this trend were to be reversed both in terms of quality of life for AIDS sufferers and NHS costs.
If the trend is reversed, it simply means that the Government will have to raise the earmarked funds for AIDS for the NHS faster than would otherwise be the case and more beds will be required, putting pressure on other hospital specialties. The present costs of AIDS in-patients per year is estimated by the Department of Health at £20,000. But those estimates are difficult to assess; I have had higher estimates of up to £30,000. The Department of Health estimate for

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out-patients is only £2,000 NHS costs, plus £1,500 for local authority social services. The figures speak for themselves.
However, if people are to live a viable life in the community, they will undoubtedly need the support that they could receive under the previous system. Otherwise they will become ill and will be in-patients with the resource implications that that entails.
I am not one of those who is in favour of an endless proliferation of welfare benefits. These matters have to be considered carefully. However, it is an area in which it will be found that denying people the additional help that they need in special circumstances is not only inhumane but a false economy. I shall therefore support amendments at Committee stage —referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Carter—designed to extend the scope of the Bill beyond attendance and mobility to cover additional costs.
I have one other concern of a slightly different nature. Clause 3 establishes a Disability Living Allowance Advisory Board. Clause 4 activates Schedules 1 and 2. Schedule 1 introduces new adjudication arrangements for both disability living allowance and attendance allowance. Clause 5 appears to contemplate (although it is only permissive) the dissolution of the Attendance Allowance Board.
The Attendance Allowance Board has been working extremely well in one respect. That is in relation to the award of attendance allowance to the terminally ill without a six-month qualifying period —an initiative incorporated in the last Social Security Act which originated in your Lordships' House. I understand that applications have been processed in 10 to 14 days. That is highly satisfactory since speed is necessarily of the essence in such circumstances.
However, what will be the situation in the future? Is it the intention to scramble the two boards together? From the extremely lucid opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Henley—I may have been a little remiss in not following him fully—I gathered that a purely advisory board will replace the present executive Attendance Allowance Board. Is that so? If so, are we not in danger of more sluggish procedures from the new bureaucracy of 1,100 civil servants, to whom reference is made in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, while they assess a large number of self-assessments? I agree that self-assessment is a great step forward. But it will introduce considerable complications.
The noble Lord, Lord Henley, referred to difficult decisions at the margins of entitlement. I believe that those were his words. I refer to them only to suggest that a great deal of work will pass through the new board. I do not wish the present smooth working of the Attendance Allowance Board in particular in relation to the terminally ill to be lost. I hope that he will be able to give me some assurances on that when he winds up the debate.
5.6 p.m.
Baroness Flather: My Lords, disability can strike anyone at any time. It is random, unforeseen and shattering. My husband was diagnosed as suffering from multiple sclerosis in 1983. By 1985 the disease had progressed sufficiently to stop his busy practice at the Bar. Five years ago we found ourselves facing a bleak future indeed. We had a modest mortgage in relation to our income and a modest overdraft. Those were debts which suddenly assumed monumental proportions. But we have been lucky; many are not. My husband now has a different career, mainly as a tribunal chairman. We have taken the decision to do as much as we can and as he becomes worse we find a way to keep him active and working.
The Disability Living Allowance and the Disability Working Allowance Bill is very much a step in the right direction. One of the perversities of becoming disabled is that at the very time when one's financial needs increase, one's ability to earn either reduces or disappears altogether. Not only does the disabled person have to bear the physical problems; his self-esteem and self worth take a huge knock. We live in a society which judges and measures the worth of a person by the amount of money that they can earn. To keep a disabled person working is probably the most important single factor in maintaining the quality of life for him and his family. It is dreadful to have to make a choice between working and not working if by working one has to take a drop in income.
I am sure that everyone will welcome the introduction of the disability working allowance. It will help many people who are currently receiving incapacity benefits to make a transition to work and many others who have had to give up full-time employment but may still manage some hours per week.
We ourselves had to go through many hoops to qualify for mobility and attendance allowances. There are two quite lengthy assessments by a doctor who is not known to the disabled person or his family. Disability is a very complex matter. Its effects cannot be judged by seeing someone once. There are good and bad days. There are even good and bad weeks. Even the weather has a serious effect. It is so much more logical that professionals caring for the disabled person should be the ones supporting a self-assessment by the disabled person himself.
I was a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee for three years. I cannot say that during that time I mastered the technicalities of social security. In fact I must confess that with each passing year I felt less able to understand the intricacies of the system. The only way in which I could make any judgment was by working out whether the effect on the claimant was good or bad. Applying the same yardstick to the Bill, I believe that the effect is wholly good.
In a letter to the Secretary of State the chairman of the advisory committee stated:
"the committee welcomes the improvements which you propose to make".

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He went on to say that they were in line with the committee's report entitled Benefits for Disabled People, A Strategy for Change.
I am saddened by the fact that the Disability Alliance has disociated itself from the Bill because it believes that the provisions do not go far enough. There will always be more to be done in this field. We should treat the Bill as a step in the right direction and not as the end of the line. We need to maintain constant pressure and try to make improvements as and when it is possible.
My husband has been well served by the state. We have received a great deal of help and support from our doctor, the social services, occupational therapists and the district nurse. We could not have managed without that help. We have been grateful for the mobility and attendance allowances. Any improvement and simplification in them can only be welcomed.
5.11 p.m.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I wish to speak in particular about the disability working allowance which I find to be the most interesting concept. I am pleased to welcome the Bill; it is marvellous that the provision is included in it. Clause 6 contains the qualifying conditions. Clauses 6, 7 and 9 are clear and easy to follow. The best aspect is that the provision will top up people's earnings.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, in saying that the time should come when means testing is abolished. That would be preferable because where someone is well off there could be a claw-back provision in the tax system for collecting surplus money. The effect would be the same and a great deal of time need not be spent on means testing.
I also welcome self-assessment but have a few words of caution. Statutory sick pay is based on self-assessment certificates. My experience of industrial tribunals shows that some are legitimate while others are not. People accept that fact because no payment is attached to such an assessment. In this instance most cases of self-assessment will be accurate and correct. However, there must always be a means of carrying out a spot check as is the case with medical prescriptions and dental treatment. One case out of many others is chosen for examination; in particular the prescribing patterns. If a doctor or dentist is giving support to a greater number of patients the case should be examined. It is to the benefit of the genuinely disabled that people are truthful when completing forms.
I draw a parallel with the orange badge scheme which was being dealt with when I first became a Member of this House. Almost one-third of the population were then driving with orange badges on their cars. Some people who really needed help from such a scheme were unable to obtain it because the benefit had been made too easily available to others. I thoroughly support the self-assessment provision but offer that word of caution.
I was also pleased to read that when introducing the Bill in the other place the Secretary of State said that claimants will still have the right to have a medical
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examination if they prefer. That is important because although self-assessment is simple for many people someone used to the previous system may find the change difficult to accept. It is good that the option exists for people who wish to continue to see a doctor. I was less cheered by the Minister's comment that there will be a longer claim form. I had thought that the aim was to simplify the forms and to shorten them. In other debates in this House I have spoken of what is almost a book that one must complete in respect of dental service.
Another important provision is that under the scheme one will become qualified if one is able to claim a disadvantage in obtaining employment. That is excellent but there are visible and invisible handicaps. Some people suffer badly; for instance, those in the early stages of multiple sclerosis, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Flather. Some of those people are abused when they take a seat on a bus because others think that they look young and fit. Such people can look well but suffer from a severe disability. The real Cinderella of handicaps is a disability in hearing. A person with hearing difficulties is greatly disadvantaged in his or her employment. More should be done to provide aids and to help people to obtain jobs. I support all those who say that it is marvellous for a person with any degree of handicap to have the satisfaction of doing a job and usually of doing it well. I have been most impressed by the people who I have seen and the work that they have done.
I wish to bring forward an amendment in respect of the two years' linking provision. It is marvellous that within two years one can claim one's previous right to assistance. However, in the case of an episodic type of condition, such as multiple sclerosis, people may be able to work for six months but then go through a bad episode and must return to claiming benefit. For people who have a genuinely defined case I should like to see that period become a rolling two years. Instead of the period being fixed from the original date of the claim it should run for two years from the previous remission or from when benefit was last claimed. I had the opportunity to ask the Minister in the other place about that matter. He said that he was not sure but believed that after two years one must claim again. I shall examine that issue and perhaps bring forward an amendment.
The advisory board is an excellent provision and I am pleased to note that it will contain members who have practical experience of the needs of disabled people, or someone who is himself disabled. I take that also to mean "herself" disabled. I am also pleased that there will be a right of appeal. Perhaps the Minister can say whether the board will cover the disability living allowance and the disability working allowance. Although I hope and presume that it will, that is not clear. I support the Bill.
5.18 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Carter said in opening the debate from these Benches, it is my intention to deal with the second part of the Bill, that is, the disability working allowance, he having dealt with the living allowance.

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As the Minister said, the intention of the DWA is to provide an incentive for partially disabled people who are disadvantaged in the labour market to take employment. I believe that it is described as bridging the gap to employment. I am sure that all noble Lords agree that that is a laudable objective and one that we should welcome. However, the problem is that the Bill as drafted does not do what it claims to do.
All the organisations representing the disabled have been most critical of this section of the Bill. They point out that the qualifying rules are likely to exclude many potential claimants. The rules are complicated and, as we know, complications mean that people who may be able to claim benefit fail to make a claim. I am informed that the exclusions are such that the department's own projections do not foresee many people using the allowance. I believe that we have more than 3.1 million disabled people capable of working. That is the estimate made by some of the organisations representing disabled people. Yet the disability working allowance is at best projected to reach a maximum of 50,000 people. That is no answer to under-employment or non-employment of disabled people.
We shall table amendments in Committee to try to deal with some of the exclusions. First, as we have been told, claimants will have to be working for a minimum of 16 working hours per week. There is no rationale for that. It means excluding people with fluctuating conditions and those able to work perhaps only two days a week. We hope to be able to deal with that exclusion in Committee.
As a number of noble Lords have said, the benefit is means tested. Again, that is a recipe for ensuring that fewer people than might otherwise have benefited apply. The means test will take into account a partner's income and capital. Claimants with a working partner will be unlikely to qualify for the DWA. That will tend to exclude in particular married women claiming severe disablement allowance. Disabled people need to be treated as individuals rather than as appendages to partners.
The qualifying benefit routes—that is, receipt of invalidity benefit, SDA, or disability premia—will exclude disabled people who are not claiming those benefits or who simply prefer to sign on as available for work. For example, people who have impaired hearing or sight but who are not registered may be only partially capable of work but, as I understand it, will not qualify for the new DWA.
People who claim the disadvantage test must establish that they are disadvantaged in the pursuit of employment. Most of the organisations representing the disabled have expressed anxiety about that. The Spastics Society believes that there should not be a capacity test at all and that the disability alone should be sufficient to qualify. According to surveys it has carried out, employers are one-and-a-half times more likely to offer an interview to an able bodied applicant than to a disabled person. The society cites instances of disabled people who become very dispirited after
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continually trying, without result, to secure employment. Again, we should like to explore that further in Committee.
The exclusions could create another poverty trap. As the Disability Alliance puts it:
"The low threshold levels and benefit levels combined with the steep 70 per cent. taper produce little real incentive to claim the DWA with a severe poverty trap for those who do. The 70 per cent. taper means that a claimant will only see 30p out of every pound earned over the threshold level".
The alliance believes that higher threshold levels and benefit levels relating to current average earnings and uprated in line with annual changes in earnings are essential if the DWA is sincerely intended to improve the earning capacity and financial position of disabled people. A lower taper rate is essential to prevent the emergence of a poverty trap.
As a number of noble Lords have said, there are other aspects with which the proposed new scheme does not deal adequately. The able bodied often fail to appreciate the extra costs incurred by the disabled. The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, referred to that in her moving speech. Jobs around the home which the able bodied can cope with are impossible for disabled people, who have to pay to have them done. Essential equipment—such as house adaptations—can be very expensive. The additional costs were referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Banks, whom I am very happy to see back with us. I value his expertise.
Disabled people should not be penalised for having a little capital, particularly when that capital may be their partner's. In some cases the capital may arise from lump sums awarded following industrial injury compensation claims and forthcoming only because the injuries were the result of the negligence of an employer or some other person. In our view it is wrong that those amounts should be taken into account. All the organisations caring for the disabled seem to indicate that the capital limit of £8,000 set by the Government is too low. To take the income and capital of a partner into account will reduce the amount of the DWA and, perhaps in a majority of cases, extinguish entitlement altogether.
It seems to us that the clauses of the Bill relating to the DWA need amending in order to meet the needs of disabled people who nevertheless wish to work and are capable of some work. We propose to address ourselves to those amendments when the Bill is in Committee.
Finally, the financial implications of the DWA are alleged to be neutral. The gross cost will be offset by reduction of other benefits. Therefore, this is not something extra; it is something for which other benefits will pay. We believe that there is a case for a genuine DWA and in Committee we shall work to ensure that we achieve that.
There is reference in the Bill to extra costs of £10 million which are being offset by tax gains of £20 million. If that is the case, it looks as though a profit of £10 million is being made. I am sure that that is not the Government's intention.
As other noble Lords have said, aspects of the Bill which we sincerely welcome are the provisions in regard to assessment and the appeals mechanism. We

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believe that that has been sorted out in a reasonable and good way. The provisions have been widely welcomed.
5.27 p.m.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I join with other noble Lords in welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Banks, to the social security spotlight on the Liberal Benches. It has been my privilege in discussing previous social security legislation to cross swords with my noble kinsman Lord Russell. It makes a welcome change on this occasion not to see him in his place.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, I look forward to a very lively Committee stage. I am grateful for the notice which many noble Lords have given as to the various amendments which we can expect to see tabled.
I do not believe that it would be right and proper for me to answer every point that has been raised today. Those points should be dealt with in Committee. Therefore, I hope that noble Lords will bear with me if a great many points which have been raised in the debate are not answered. However, I shall try to deal with one or two of the matters raised.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, complained about the complexity of the DLA and said that there were 11 rates. I believe that he said that it was a merry-go-round. I remind the noble Lord that the procedures are a simplification. There is merely one claim pack for both mobility and care components as compared to the two separate forms which there are for attendance allowance and mobility allowance. There is only one medical examination, one notice of award, one order book, one application on renewal and merely one request for a view on deterioration to cover increased entitlement to both the care and mobility components.
A subject which has greatly exercised noble Lords is the argument that there is no help provided for extra costs other than the help for care and mobility. It is simply not true to say that the current benefits and the new disability living allowance cover only two out of the 13 different types of disability identified by the OPCS. Many more people under 65 receiving attendance allowance have needs relating to disabilities such as incontinence, intellectual functioning, consciousness, communication and behaviour rather than personal care. In the same way many of those under the age of 65 receiving mobility allowance have needs relating to disabilities connected with reaching and stretching, dexterity and personal care rather than merely locomotion.
The existing benefits are well targeted on people suffering from the greatest degree of disability and in most need of help. A large proportion of those in the high severity categories were shown to be in receipt of attendance allowance, and a similarly high percentage of those in the same categories under pension age were in receipt of mobility allowance. Care and mobility needs represent the common denominator between the most frequently occurring and the most expensive of the disability related costs which people incur; the more expensive disabilities were the least common.
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The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, referred to the special needs of people with AIDS. On this occasion I am sorry to appear repetitive. I must confirm what my right honourable friend the Minister said. We have a choice between a complex system which attempts to cater for every individual case with the result that no one quite knows to what he or she is entitled and opting for a simpler system with one claim form for one benefit giving help with the extra costs. The old system may have offered extra types of help; but it actually delivered that help to a smaller proportion of disabled people with extra costs. Our choice is the simpler system which has proved so successful since both attendance and mobility allowances were introduced.
I turn to the question of the severely mentally handicapped, a matter with which my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale—who no longer appears to be present—will be familiar. We had long arguments regarding numbers during the enactment of the Social Security Act 1989. I am sure that many noble Lords will remember them.
I accept that it is a difficult and complex issue. I stress that there is no lack of will on our part to resolve it. We have always said, and my right honourable friend the Minister for Disabled People reiterated this in another place, that if we can isolate the 8,000 or 9,000 people in the group whom MENCAP is convinced are markedly more disabled than the others who will, as I mentioned in opening the debate, come into the lower rate, then we will happily do so. However, our differences over the figures are genuine. We accept in some measure that we have been talking at cross purposes. As my right honourable friend said in a detailed letter to all the Members of the Standing Committee in another place—which I shall make available to Members of this House if required to do so—we used the OPCS evidence to identify all those whose behaviour problems were so severe as to generate a need for guidance, supervision or control when walking. The figure is 150,000. We readily accept that it includes many with mental illness. There are also sizeable numbers with mental handicap.
We have not been convinced that previous amendments which sought to pinpoint in legislation the group identified by MENCAP succeeded in so doing. I make no criticism of those amendments; it is an extremely difficult task. It is an issue which we have many times attempted to resolve without producing a solution. However, my right honourable friend the Minister gave an assurance that we would take another look at the matter. We need to find a test capable of adjudication. I have to say that tests for benefit which rely on, for example, IQ tests, will not work. They move us in the opposite direction from the self-assessment system that we are very keen to promote.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt, but I wish to see the position absolutely clearly. Is the Minister saying that the Government now accept the figure of 8,000 or 9,000, and that the only problem is one of words in finding a formula that defines that group clearly enough?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I cited the figure of 8,000 or 9,000 given by MENCAP. The problem of words raised by the noble Lord is a very real one. If one does not have the right words one will not have merely 8,000 or 9,000; one will have a much greater figure. That is what I am attempting to say. If we could isolate the group identified by MENCAP—I stress that we must find a way of doing that—then we would be happy to do so. As I say, we shall come back to this point in Committee.
Lord Carter: My Lords, while we are on the point perhaps I can say that the Minister mentioned that if we were to find a scheme it would move away from self-assessment. However, severely disabled or mentally handicapped people will not be able to assess themselves for benefit.
Lord Henley: My Lords, as the noble Lord is aware, self-assessment procedure is designed not only for the individual concerned, but also for the carer who will fill in the forms. We shall return to the matter in Committee. I see little point in toing and froing at this moment. However, I do not wish to delude the House into believing that we shall be able to come forward with a solution other than to say that our minds are open. If there is a way of moving forward we shall be prepared to look again at the matter.
Perhaps I can make a brief comment on the question of the lower age limit for the mobility component being pitched at the age of five. I recognise that there will always be difficult decisions in social security systems regarding where we draw the line. I believe the original decision made by the Labour Government to draw the line at the age of five for mobility allowance makes sense. It is school age and the age at which children normally become less dependent upon their parents. Prior to that stage it is normal for children to be unable to go without their parents' help. Paying the mobility component to under-fives is an important matter and especially so when one is under pressure to raise the age limit to the over-65s, which is not the main claim on the existing or extra resources.
I turn to the remarks of my noble friend Lord Swinfen regarding SDA and the residents and presence test. As my noble friend said, he has drawn my attention and the attention of others to his anxieties regarding the test on various occasions. He will be aware that it is an issue which goes strictly beyond the ambit of the Bill. However, I understand his desire to raise the issue again. Today I am not able to give him a reply. However it is a matter to which we shall return at later stages in the Bill.
I turn to the question of the dissolution of the Attendance Allowance Board raised by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock. I confirm that the Attendance Allowance Board will be dissolved and all future decisions will be taken by adjudication officers. That proposal has been widely welcomed in response to the DLA consultation document which makes clear that the emphasis is not on the medical condition but on the effects of the condition.
I confirm also that we are committed to maintaining the clearance times of claims in relation to
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the terminally ill. I welcome very much the words of the noble Lord in praising the Government for the speed with which we have been able to act. My noble friend Lady Gardner asked whether the replacement of the Attendance Allowance Board would cover also the disability working allowance. The simple answer is no. The board will be providing advice regarding the medical aspects associated with DLA and attendance allowance. It is unlikely that an adjudication officer will need similar advice on the disability working allowance.
I welcome the remarks, experience and expertise of my noble friend Lady Flather in speaking about the disability working allowance and giving her personal account of the problems that the disabled can face and the advantages that this allowance will bring. My noble friend said that she felt that after three years on the Social Security Advisory Committee she knew less possibly about the system than she did at the beginning. That can happen at times to all of us who are involved in the social security field. However, I am sure that my noble friend was being falsely modest.
The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, complained about the low caseload for the disability working allowance. We have never argued that the DWA will provide the answer to all the problems of disabled people. We feel that it is an important step forward in removing the obstacle which has prevented many disabled people from opting to work. The 50,000 whom we expect to be getting the disability working allowance at any one time will find the new benefit provides them with a stepping-stone back into the labour market.
We made it clear in The Way Ahead that the disability working allowance is intended particularly to help people on incapacity benefits make the difficult transition back into work when they are ready to do so. In designing the benefit we have paid particular attention to meeting the needs of people who are just starting a job; for example, the payment of their disability working allowance very quickly if they are so entitled. The rules are intended to be as straightforward as possible so that people can work out for themselves whether they qualify. They are also designed to make the best use we can of the information we already have to avoid asking claimants for more. In effect, the qualifying benefit test is part of the test of disability for the disability working allowance.
We believe that this test provides strong enough evidence to avoid the need for claimants to undergo a medical examination as part of their disability working allowance claim. Such examinations can be an ordeal for the claimant and almost inevitably hold up the benefit claim. Removing the requirement to get one of the qualifying benefits—something which the noble Lord, Lord Banks, was proposing—would widen the scope of the disability working allowance so much that it would change entirely in character. The change would bring a very large number of people into the benefit and the cost might well be of the order of £200 million net of any other benefit changes.

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My noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes and others argued that the disability working allowance should not be means-tested and that we should use the tax system. I sympathise with my noble friend's sentiments. Obviously, in paying money to people who are in work we have to make a judgment about priorities. The disability working allowance will make a valuable contribution to removing an obstacle which prevented many disabled people from choosing to work.
I wish to make one brief comment about the longer claim form which my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes complained about. As with everything in social security, we have to choose the lesser of two evils. If we make the claim form easy to read and simple to follow we cannot keep it short. I know that the House will be aware, as I have mentioned before, that the Department of Social Security, which I have the honour to represent, has on various occasions won awards from the Plain English Campaign for the clarity of its claim forms. In the case of new benefits we have already started testing the claim forms we propose with disabled people to make sure that they are, as termed, "user friendly".
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked why we should not hive a comprehensive disability income. The noble Lord promised that a future Labour government—should there ever be one —will bring that in. We know what that means. A vast amount of help already exists within the network of disability benefits which is well targeted on the groups whose needs it is designed to meet. The extra cost benefits announced in this Bill will by 1993–94 be going to five times as many people as were receiving them in 1978–79. We believe that it is far better to build on the success of the existing system than to create some byzantine new benefit in which claimants would have very little idea what they were applying for or how much they might get. That course, in respect of supplementary benefits, simply led to people not understanding what they could claim and not knowing whether they were getting all that they should. It is all very well giving people rights; it is far better to make sure that they have rights that they know how to exercise.
We are now building further on the enormous success of current benefits and targeting those people who do not at the moment get into benefit but whose incomes are likely to be lower as a result of their disabilities. That will put us into what 12 years ago would have been an unimaginable situation with more than five times as many people getting an extra cost benefit as there were then. We do not pretend that this Bill will be the last word on the provision for disabled people. We claim that it is a significant step forward and that along with the rest of The Way Ahead package it delivers substantial new help to many hundreds of thousands of disabled people. I commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Part-time and Temporary Employment: ECC Report
5.46 p.m.
Baroness Lockwood Baroness Lockwood rose to move, That this House takes note of the Report of the European Communities Committee on Part-time and Temporary Employment [2nd Report, 1990–91, HL paper 7].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I should like to thank the Members of Sub-Committee C for their help and co-operation in conducting this inquiry. In particular, I thank the clerk to the committee, Dr. Phillipa Tudor, for her invaluable assistance both in the drafting of the report and in guiding the committee through the complications of the three directives involved. I also thank the Government for their help during the course of the inquiry and for their considerable response. The noble Viscount has had the response to my Written Question placed in the Library for the information of your Lordships. I hope that it has been of assistance to those intending to take part in this debate today.
Before dealing with the substance of the report, I first refer to the difficulty encountered by the committee relating to the Commission's timetable which is given on page 22, paragraph 94 of the report. It is also referred to in the Government's response. Following the Commission's adoption of the social charter and the publishing of the action programme, Sub-Committee C had been anticipating the arrival of the draft directives as it was expected that they would appear on the agenda of the Council of Ministers before the end of 1990.
The three draft directives were adopted by the Commission on 29th June 1990, which was somewhat later than expected, but the official English text was not published until 28th August. The draft directives, together with the Government's explanatory memorandum, were not available until 25th September when the House was still in recess, giving the sub-committee very little time in which to inquire into a subject of such importance.
The committee is of the opinion that if there is to be proper parliamentary scrutiny of European legislation then adequate time must be built into the Commission's programme. If the committee was unfair to the Department of Employment in expressing its concern at the delay I apologise to the Minister and, through him, to the department. The three draft directives are on non-standard or atypical work. These were among the first of the social action proposals to be published by the Commission.
The first draft directive contains a large number of proposals governing the working conditions of part-time and temporary workers in the European Community. Its provisions exclude those who work on average fewer than eight hours a week, but cover other part-time workers, temporary staff, including people working via employment agencies, those on fixed-term contracts and unseasonal workers. Part-time and temporary workers employed for eight hours

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or more a week would be entitled to vocational training and social services, including benefits in cash and kind, on a pro rata basis.
The second draft directive requires member states to ensure that part-time employees have the same entitlements to social security, annual holidays, dismissal allowances and seniority allowances as full-time employees in proportion to the total hours worked. It also places restrictions on temporary employment contracts.
The third draft directive aims to ensure that temporary workers enjoy the same general level of health and safety protection as other workers in the place where the temporary workers work. Temporary workers should be banned from work requiring special medical supervision over a long period, except for exceptional cases.
These draft directives should be seen in the light of changing employment patterns and of demographic factors within the countries of the Community. This is outlined in Part 2 of the report on pages 9 to 11. The tables on page 9 are taken from an EC labour force sample survey quoted in Commission Document 8072/90. Table 1 indicates that in 1988 part-time employees accounted for 22.8 per cent. of all employees in the UK, though Mr. Forth, the Minister appearing before the committee, put the figure at 19 per cent. This would appear to be confirmed in the memorandum from the Department of Employment which indicated that there are some 5.5 million part-time and temporary workers in the United Kingdom, representing 25 per cent. of the total number of employees. Of the part-time employees, 89 per cent. are women and of the temporary employees 63 per cent. are women. So these directives are very much about women.
The United Kingdom has for some years had one of the highest percentages of part-time employees in Europe, a position it now shares with the Netherlands and Denmark. Other European countries have not had these same high percentages. But as table 2 indicates, the growth rate of part-time employment between 1983 and 1988 has been higher in the majority of member countries than in the UK itself. On the other hand, the UK has the third lowest percentage of temporary employees, whereas Spain, Portugal and Greece have very high percentages. Because of this substantial proportion of part-time and temporary employees in most member states—a proportion set to increase under demographic pressures—the committee was not enamoured of the terms "atypical" and "non-standard" used by the Commission. Your Lordships will note that the report stresses that "non-standard" employees are not "sub-standard" employees but are a large and vitally important sector of the workforce.
Of the three draft directives, the third, aiming to ensure that temporary workers receive the same health and safety protection as full-time employees, is the least controversial. In the UK this provision already exists but the committee had evidence that in some other countries there is a higher incidence of failure to protect temporary workers than full-time employees.
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With the exception of one or two minor points, the Government appear to have little difficulty with this directive and the committee agrees with the Government's reservations. Subject to that, we recommend the adoption of this directive.
The other two directives are much more controversial, as the evidence indicates. The Government take the view shared by most employer organisations that the cost of implementing the directives would deter employers from taking on part-time and temporary workers and would therefore work against the interests of those whom the directives are intended to help most; namely, married women and the disabled. The Equal Opportunities Commission and other organisations do not share that view. Nor is the committee convinced that the directives would have a significant effect on employment opportunities. The committee considers that general economic conditions are likely to have a far greater effect than the current draft directives on the employment of part-time and temporary workers.
The committee agrees with much of the evidence about the vagueness of the Commission's definition and is strongly of the view that the draft directives fail to distinguish clearly between the different categories of non-standard workers. The committee believes that a clear distinction should be made between the employment protection needs of part-time workers, who are employed on a regular basis, and temporary workers. While it is desirable in the view of the committee that relevant social benefits should, so far as is possible, be provided to all workers on a pro rata basis, the committee accepts that this may not be possible in all cases. The ultimate aim must be to provide fair employment conditions for all workers throughout the Community. Therefore, the committee supports the Commission's proposals to extend employment protection to part-time workers. Part-time workers should enjoy access to state and occupational pension schemes and should have pro rata entitlements to annual holidays, redundancy pay and seniority allowances.
On training, the committee agrees that both part-time and temporary workers should have access to vocational training, with the caveat, which the Commission itself recognised, that the duration of the work and the nature of the tasks involved would need to be taken into account. Many of the other provisions which, in the view of the committee, come under the heading of good practice could not be objected to in principle.
I regret that the Government's response makes it clear that they still do not share the committee's view. The committee recognises that some increase in cost will be involved and that there might be difficulty for some small and medium size businesses. But the committee did not find convincing some of the estimates supplied by government and by some companies. In a supplementary memorandum on pages 33 to 45, the Government provide a breakdown of their costings. It is a very comprehensive breakdown. Incidentally, the memorandum covers five directives, two of which, although they were

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referred to in the evidence to the committee, are not covered by this report; that is, the directives on working time and on the protection of pregnant women.
The committee is not challenging the Government's figures on the basis of their assumptions, though these are strongly contested by the TUC evidence in the supplementary memorandum on page 53. The committee is instead suggesting that other considerations which were put to it in evidence should also be taken into account. Those considerations include the following. First, it should be possible to restructure the national insurance scheme in such a way that both hours of work and earnings would be covered. Such a combination would ensure the continued contributions from high earners based on only a few hours of work. As regards the low earners, contributions could either be credited or the sliding scale adjusted to start at the very low threshold. Those views were put not only by supporters of the directives but also by some opponents.
Secondly, if part-timers were treated in the same way as full-time workers they could become a more stable element in the labour force, leading to compensating economies in staff turnover. We are all aware of the high cost of recruitment and training of new employees which employers have to face. It would also help women to build part-time work into their life career structure.
Thirdly, part-timers can often be more productive than full-time workers. At paragraph 2.7 on page 2 of the evidence the EOC gives interesting information on that aspect. Fourthly, an increasing number of companies are providing pro rata benefits for part-time workers, apparently without reducing their competitiveness.
Fifthly, domestic law is continually being challenged—often successfully—under European equality legislation. At paragraph 93 on page 22 of the report the committee expressed the view that,
"progress through the uncertain development of case law can never be as satisfactory as comprehensive legislation".
The committee agrees with the legal bases chosen by the Commission for the first and third directives. However, it considers that the second directive relates to the rights and interests of employed persons and cannot therefore properly be based on Article 100A. The committee considered that the legal basis should be Article 100. Unlike the Government, the committee believes that the Council not only has the competence but that it also has the duty to legislate in that area.
The Commission originally requested the Council of Ministers to take a decision on the first proposal and to adopt its common position on the second and third proposals before the end of the year—that is, 1990—but in the event that did not happen. The Council of Ministers held a preliminary discussion on the proposals on 26th November when objections were raised by a number of member states. Several member states disagreed with the treaty base chosen by the Commission for the second directive, which allows qualified majority voting. The Commission has subsequently published minor amendments to its proposals, but these have not yet been adopted.
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Therefore, the subject covered by the three draft directives is still open to debate and consultation. I hope that today's debate on the report will make a constructive contribution to that process. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the Report of the European Communities Committee on Part-time and Temporary Employment [2nd Report, 1990–91, HL paper 7].—(Baroness Lockwood.)
6.5 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I am sure that the House will be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, for the clear way in which she introduced the report. I was not a member of Sub-Committee C at the time it conducted the inquiry but from these Benches I am happy generally to support its findings. Until I read the background information given in Part 2 of the report, I had not fully appreciated the extent to which part-time and temporary employees now form so large a part—about one quarter—of the employed workforce; nor, for that matter, had I realised that in the case of those employed on a part-time basis as many as 90 per cent. are women.
As the report indicates, the incidence of part-time working is likely to grow further in the 1990s as a result of demographic changes which will bring a decline in the number of school-leavers. Therefore, employers will be increasingly obliged to retain, or attract back to work, people who have retired, or parents—again, mostly women —who will wish to work on a part-time basis.
There is also evidence to suggest that there will continue to be an increase in the number of employees who have more than one job. That will apply especially to people who have skills that are in short supply. I understand that there are already about 1 million people who have two or more jobs. The basic question posed by the draft directives is how far part-time and temporary workers should receive pro rata equality of treatment with other workers. Except in a few instances—for example, in the case of promotion opportunities—I believe that part-time workers should be so treated.
Supervision is a special case. It demands a degree of commitment that most part-timers are not in a position to offer. On the other hand, increasing use of part-time employees will mean that in some cases the pool of full-time staff from which promotions can be made may reduce to the point where making supervisory posts part-time will have to be considered, perhaps by the system of job sharing. I understand that there is already an example of this in London. It appears that two women are joint general managers of a community health unit controlling a budget of £15 million. It is possible that such examples will increase to the extent that, even in the case of supervisory posts, basic equality of treatment between full-timers and part-timers will prove to be realistic.
Justification for the view that part-timers should, in general, receive the same rewards and benefits on a pro rata basis as full-time employees was perhaps best summed up by the Institute of Personnel Management

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in its written evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on Employment nearly two years ago. The institute stated:
"Good personnel practice is, in our view, indivisible. If it is felt that employees need a level of legal rights and protections, then it does not appear logical to argue that these rights and protections should be restricted only to those who work above an arbitrary number of hours per week. The complexities of working arrangements nowadays do not allow for such simplistic rules".
For at least the past 10 years, my noble friend Lady Seear and I have constantly argued that case, especially when debating the Government's approach to legislation affecting employment protection.
It is true that many of the more obvious discriminations against part-timers have been removed as a result of case law deriving from the Sex Discrimination Act; but that is not an altogether satisfactory way in which to achieve equality of treatment between full and part-timers as it has clearly not been planned or structured for that purpose. What are the arguments against taking further steps in that direction? The noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, has already referred to them in general terms and to the committee's response, but perhaps I may be allowed to add to what she has said.
In their evidence to Sub-committee C the Government expressed concern about the additional cost to employers of implementing the draft directives in the employment sectors most involved. The committee recognised the fact that some increase in cost could occur but was not convinced of the accuracy of the sum on the evidence supplied to it. The Government's estimates were based upon the assumption that there would be no change in the system of national insurance contributions, but the committee took the view that that system had been changed in the past and could, if necessary, be changed again.
The CBI said that the additional costs involved in providing pro rata terms and conditions would make part-time workers less attractive to some employers. The Government also believed that implementation of the directives would reduce total employment opportunities. However, the CBI acknowledged that many companies already applied pro rata terms to part-timers. I share the view expressed by the committee that general economic conditions are likely to have a greater effect than the directives upon the employment of part-time workers.
In evidence to the committee much was made of a survey of women currently outside the labour market because of their family responsibilities. Of those who said that they would like to return to work at some time within the next five years, up to 80 per cent. are said to have expressed a preference for some form of part-time work. It is therefore claimed that there is no need for legislation to improve their conditions. I take the contrary view: demographic trends and the need for organisational flexibility suggest that the overall effect of implementing the directives would not
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significantly change recruitment policy for part-time and temporary staff, the use of whom should be encouraged as a response to labour shortages.
There is one important proviso I should like to make about the advisability of introducing European Community legislation to regulate the employment of part-time and, to some extent, temporary employees. I sought to stress that point in our recent debate on health and safety at work. In my view, it applies equally to the draft directives: it is that existing legislation should concentrate on setting broad objectives rather than presenting detailed regulations, thus avoiding the creation of unnecessary obstacles to the development of those forms of employment.
I should now like to deal with a specific matter arising out of the report: vocational training, a subject your Lordships debated only recently. Like the committee, I agree with the proposals that part-time and temporary employees should have access to vocational training on the same basis as full-time employees, account being taken of the duration of the work and the nature of the tasks to be carried out. From these Benches, we have long argued that expenditure on training should be regarded as an essential long-term investment on which the so-called skills revolution vitally depends. Here is a glorious opportunity to expand the field in which training can be given, and we cannot afford to ignore it.
The means of achieving that aim are already available in the shape of TECs. There must be a strong case for earmarking a certain proportion of the funds available to them for training part-time staff. Such an approach might evoke more interest in the training of part-timers, especially for the large numbers of companies not making sufficient provision to enable part-timers to function as effectively as they could. The report puts the point well when it says:
"In the case of part-time employees vocational training is an essential investment as it may provide a means of low-paid employees in low-grade jobs reaching their full potential".
In that connection, I was much struck by an article in last year's annual review of St. George's House, Windsor, a place for which I have great respect, written by Mr. Peter Ashby, its employment studies fellow. He wrote:
"Training, just like education, is concerned with the growth and development of the individual, and the capacity of the individual to contribute more to society, and to gain more in return through a fuller sense of contribution. Self-betterment, enhanced capacity to give and to grow—these are what training is about".
On the draft directive concerning the safety and health at work of temporary employees, I have little to add to what I said a few weeks ago in the debate initiated by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner. The committee agreed with the principle that temporary employees should have the same health and safety protection as full-time employees. As the report says:
"It should be unthinkable for any employer not to exercise due care over the health and safety of any employee, whether they are employed for a single day or 40 years".
Further legislation in that field may well be unnecessary in the United Kingdom, but evidence of inadequate provision in other member states surely justifies the draft directive. It is gratifying to know that our Secretary of State has now joined his opposite

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numbers in the Community in reaching a common position upon it. I hope that European employment Ministers will in due course reach a similar consensus on other proposals coming forward under the Social Charter Action Programme.
6.18 p.m.
Lord Hunter of Newington: My Lords, our chairman, the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, has clearly outlined the case in her report to us. She did that with the same skill as that with which she controlled a large and individually minded committee. At first sight, the medical aspects of the issue appear straightforward. There is clear agreement that all part-time and temporary workers should have the same health and safety protection as full-time employees. There is a temptation which we deplore, acceded to in some member states, to provide inadequate health and safety provision for temporary employees.
We also agree that full information should be made available to all employees, and that temporary workers should not be employed on work requiring special medical supervision. However the evidence we received as to what is damaging to health varied substantially. Some of those giving evidence were worried that occupational stress syndrome was a health hazard, not fully covered by the normal responsibilities of the Health and Safety Executive under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. They also suggested that health could be damaged by the sick building syndrome.
Mr. Donald McIntosh, the head of a leading firm of insurance lawyers, recently predicted a rapid growth of claims through work-related injuries in the next five years. The key to this is the importance of employers giving all employees full information of known risks arising from their work.
A suppressed warning to British Rail about the danger of deafness made it easy for thousands who brought claims against the company when that matter emerged through litigation. The hearing loss could have been avoided by providing protection costing one shilling and threepence per person in 1951 when that warning was suppressed.
Company doctors have an important role. It is urged that there should be a change in the law to encourage the disclosure of health and safety information and to protect company doctors against dismissal and damages if they make a disclosure in the public interest.
How does one spread this real life situation? How does one spread this message through the Community? Much of it is concerned simply with good practice. And how can this be applied to part-time or temporary workers?
We have made the important distinction that temporary workers should not be used in certain types of work. What should the training opportunities be? My view is that the case has become clearer as our investigations have proceeded. There may be occasions when every facility, including training,
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should be available to temporary workers, and I have no doubt that those capable and willing to do part-time work should have priority.
Much has been said in the report and by speakers in this and in an earlier debate about the future of part-time employees. Of prime importance is the orientation courses for people such as married women wishing to return to work. One must spell out to them the opportunities before training so that they have some idea of what is offered and of the skilled part-time jobs which are suitable and which can be fitted in with other responsibilities. A proper use of women returning to part-time work could fill a substantial shortage in some posts in the future.
There is a further point which has nothing to do with today's debate and is not suitable for discussion today. But I wonder whether during a recession skilled staff could be used on a part-time basis to train others, thereby increasing skilled full-time staff for when the recession is over. That might be a matter for consideration in the future.
6.24 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend Lady Lockwood for her comprehensive description of the report that we are discussing tonight. This subject is a difficult and complicated one to put over, and she did it extremely well. I should also like to thank her for her chairing of the committee.
I wish to concentrate on one aspect, but to my mind it is a very important one—that is, the question of equal opportunities. That means equal opportunities for men, women and the disabled, but I shall focus on women.
Of the total workforce in the United Kingdom of over 27 million, 19 per cent. work part-time, and 89 per cent. of those working part-time are women. Eight per cent. of part-timers are disabled, and of those, 6.9 per cent. are women. Half a million women work for less than eight hours a week, 1½ million for between eight and 15 hours, and 81 million for over 16 hours. Those figures justify paying particular attention to the position of women. It is expected that any increase in the labour force in the 1990s will be largely accounted for by more women in the 25 to 40 year-old age group. By the year 2000 it is estimated that women will represent 47 per cent. of the workforce. I hope that that sets the scene.
There was considerable discussion in the course of our inquiry about whether increasing the rights of part-time workers as proposed in the directives would prevent or discourage employers from using part-timers. The Equal Opportunities Commission and the Low Pay Unit were firm in discounting that suggestion, saying that similar arguments had been used when other Acts—for instance, the Equal Pay Act—had been implemented, and had been proved to be without foundation. As I have just said, the increase predicted in the numbers of women in the workforce by the year 2000 would also seem to disprove that possibility. Women are needed, and they want to work.

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In its evidence to us, the TUC referred to a study commissioned for the Department of Employment in 1988 in which fewer than 1 per cent. of employers gave as a reason for employing part-timers the fact that they had fewer rights. In general, employers liked the flexibility that part-time staff gave them.
The TUC believed that there was no correlation between levels of employment protection for part-time workers and levels of unemployment among women workers. In Germany, Portugal, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom female unemployment is at a low level compared with other member states. As each of those four states has different levels of employment protection, it is difficult to sustain the argument that employment protection is directly linked to female unemployment, though I realise that the Government cite France as an exception here. The popularity of part-time work for women was confirmed by a Gallup survey for the CBI in 1988, when 400 women not working were interviewed. Of those who wanted to return to work some time in the next five years, over 80 per cent. wanted part-time work.
The EOC accepted that, while many women preferred to stay at home to look after their young children, there were many who did not. The Women at Work survey showed that a quarter of mothers at home with young children cited lack of available child care as the main reason for their not returning to work. A lack of child care for the under-fives, but more particularly for the five to 13 year-olds out of school hours, forces millions of women to work part-time when they return to work.
In answer to a question from the noble Lord, Lord Brain, who asked where we stood in the European league as regards child care facilities—were we bottom, below standard or average?—Mrs. Byrne White of the EOC said, "A quick answer is that we are at the bottom of the league, along with Ireland". That is nothing to be particularly proud of.
About 50 per cent. of women in employment in the United Kingdom who have become pregnant are not eligible for maternity leave as of right; nor do they have the right to return to their jobs after pregnancy. The result is that many women drop out of employment for some time and are forced to work part-time on their return even if they would have preferred to work full-time.
Another problem is the need to look after elderly relatives. This usually means reducing from full-time to part-time work. The EOC had had complaints from men who wished to do so but whose requests had been refused by employers. Increased status, pay and protection for part-timers is likely to have the effect that adults of both sexes may choose to work part-time at different stages of the family cycle.
The committee recognises that there are examples of good practice among employers, but these are not general. It is unlikely that good practice will increase or improve while terms and conditions remain a matter of negotiation between employer and employee. Legislation is necessary.
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The EOC believes that improvement in the pay, employment entitlements and status of part-time work can have a powerful impact on equality of opportunity in the 1990s and beyond, and that failure to provide it will exacerbate future problems of female dependency and poverty in old age.
I hope that the case is made that women are a necessary part of the workforce and that to give them greater rights of protection in employment will neither lessen their opportunities nor discourage employers from recruiting them, as the Government and the CBI seem to fear. The Government made a good deal of this in their response to our report, and today I received correspondence from the Institute of Directors and the British Chamber of Commerce, which are clearly worried and are pressing their point of view. I suggest that economic conditions are likely to have a far greater effect than the directive we are discussing.
I have not yet mentioned vocational training, but others have dealt with it. The right of access to this training should be available to part-time workers, as it is or should be for permanent employees. In our previous report on vocational training, we emphasised the need for a much more skilled workforce. There is no reason why there should not be part-time training opportunities for those preparing for or returning to work, as distinct from those actually in work. The noble Lord, Lord Hunter, made that point.
I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us in his reply that the TECs can take on this new responsibility, making opportunities much more available and better than at the moment. The Department of Employment research showed that 6 million women of working age are not in employment. Two million are in full-time education, but that still leaves 4 million not in work; 1 million of them have A-levels or a degree level qualification. What an opportunity is being lost if we do not make use of these able people, who could easily be trained if the right training were made available.
In paragraph 93 of the section on the opinion of the committee, we make the point that, although European Court decisions have began to influence the elimination of discrimination,
"they can act only where there is an element of sex discrimination in the adverse treatment of part-time or temporary workers and progress through the uncertain development of case law can never be as satisfactory as comprehensive legislation".
I hope that the Government will be willing to bring forward the necessary legislation. It seems to me to be rather humiliating so often to be found at fault by the European Court, as has happened.
The evidence we produced is overwhelming. As part-time workers employed for less than 16 hours a week receive no job protection for the first five years during which they are employed, they are effectively of the same status as temporary employees. They, and their colleagues who work more than 16 hours, are considered peripheral to the workforce. The EOC believes that their contribution is in most, if not all, cases integral to the work performed by full-time workers and should be protected on the same basis. It

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is only fair to say that some companies, especially in banking, finance, and retail industries, offer all benefits on a pro rata basis.
I wish to touch on one other aspect: promotion for those working part-time. There is plenty of evidence that differences in treatment between part-time and full-time workers create artificial rigidities in employment, discouraging the development of part-time work opportunities in the higher status and better paid jobs. It is generally accepted that there are far too few women obtaining top jobs in the professions, in the academic world, in law, in business, in the Civil Service, in Parliament.
The Hansard Society commissioned an investigation into the barriers women face in public life called Women at the Top. It was published in January last year. The commission was chaired by Lady Howe and had a distinguished membership. It made a number of excellent recommendations. The report makes the point that 80 per cent. of new workers in the next five years will be women, most of whom will have family responsibilities. This, it says, may mean that the best man for the job in the 1990s may well be a woman. However, the Hansard Society states that unless existing barriers are dismantled, women will continue to be denied access to positions of influence and authority. To achieve promotion to senior jobs, women too often have to be better than the men. Work, especially at senior levels, is often organised on the unquestioned assumption that it can only be done full time. This disqualifies many women. For some jobs, full-time work is necessary, but many jobs at senior level could perfectly well be shared or part-time, given sufficient imagination and flexibility on the part of management. The Hansard Society's report points out that men in senior positions are often part-time workers when they combine their main job with another activity such as serving on boards, commissions and tribunals.
I hope that the Government have taken note of the Hansard Society's report and that its findings will encourage them to legislate so that we comply with the directives we discuss in our report. There can be no doubt that better conditions of work for part-timers, together with far better child care facilities, could markedly increase and encourage the availability of women and, with the training they should receive, make them an even more useful addition to the workforce than they are now, as well as opening far greater opportunities to them.
I hope that the built-in prejudices preventing women from reaching the top will, with time and education, evaporate. The Government could, of course, improve matters quickly here in the House of Lords, where there are only 75 women in the total of 1,115 Peers.
6.35 p.m.
Lady Kinloss: My Lords, I wish to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, for her skill and kindness as chairman of the sub-committee and for the clarity with which she explained the report. I also wish to thank her for her kindness in answering my many questions outside the committee. Of course I agree with the substance of the report and its findings on
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part-time and temporary employment, especially the commission's proposals to extend the employment protection afforded to part-time workers.
I should like to take up one point which should be brought to your Lordships' special attention. On page 75 of the written evidence, the Institute of Directors brought up the fact that increasingly employees are requesting to work on a part-time and temporary basis because it suits their abilities and circumstances. This is not only for the personal circumstances of women but for the disabled of both sexes. When we mention the disabled, we speak of persons who have a basket of disabilities and abilities and who can benefit the community as well as themselves. However, for one reason or another they are not able to engage in full employment. Some in this group may need additional support in the workplace. They should be allowed to contribute their skills and abilities and receive an appropriate wage for the work.
It seems to me that clear distinctions should be drawn between the two following categories of women who need part-time employment: women with older children, especially during the school holidays, and those who have elderly or disabled persons to look after. For these categories, part-time or temporary employment can be very necessary. It is interesting to note that the Commission is conscious of the needs of disabled people, as shown by its report of 15th December 1988: Report on the Employment of Disabled People in the Community. It gives percentages and I quote some. In Germany 6 per cent. are employed where there is a minimum of 15 employees; in Greece, it is 3 per cent.; in France 6 per cent. in 1991 where there are 20 employees or more; in the United Kingdom it is 3 per cent. where there are 20 or more employees. This is in both the private and the public sectors.
RADAR and other organisations for disabled people would like to see the principle of the levy system as used in Germany introduced into this country. It would be a more effective method of enforcing our quota system. The levy system is an automatic fine where employers fail to fulfil their quota obligations. However, that is where individuals are available to fill the quota.
I have spoken of the disabled and we cannot afford to deny ourselves the contribution they can make as part-timers, nor can we deny to them the opportunities for work which they desire.
6.40 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I speak as a member of your Lordships' Select Committee and therefore from the Back-Benches in accordance with what I believe to be the traditions of the House. I also wish to thank our chairman, the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, for the clarity with which she introduced the report and for the kindness and consideration she showed in chairing our often quite difficult sessions. I commend our report to your Lordships. As will be seen, we did not have an easy remit. We did not think that we had been allowed sufficient time to do justice to the subject because of the programme that was

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imposed upon us. The noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, has referred to that fact. Nevertheless, I do not believe that had we been able to see more witnesses and spend more time looking at evidence our conclusions would have been very much different.
To begin with we experienced a problem in relation to the terms of the three directives which seek to apply the same conditions to both temporary and part-time employees. The draft directive excludes those who work less than an average of eight hours a week but includes all other part-time and temporary staff, including seasonal workers and those on short-term contracts. That situation presented us with a difficulty.
Whereas it seemed to us quite sensible to apply pro rata the same conditions for part-time staff, who are employed on a continuous basis, as for full-time staff, we felt that problems would arise in the case of seasonal workers; for instance, people undertaking work in the holidays or in the absence of full-time staff or students doing fill-in jobs. They are in an entirely different category. The same situation applies to people on short-term contracts, although it must be said that the committee recognised that there was a need to ensure that such people are not exploited. It seems wrong, for example, that people can be employed on short-term contracts which exclude them from normal employee protection, particularly since such contracts when renewed over a period of time can result in people working continuously for the same employer over a period of years. The committee felt that it was not reasonable or helpful to lump all such types of employment together, as the directives do. For example, it would be difficult to include some temporary workers, seasonal workers or students doing fill-in work, in occupational pension schemes. That would be a result of the unamended provisions of the draft directives.
We have made it clear that those categories of employees should be separately dealt with, except in regard to health and safety where we say that the employer has a duty to ensure adequate protection for all employees, however employed. I think that the Government probably agree with that.
In relation to part-time employees we came to conclusions that are broadly in support of the directive. It has been stated that we have a higher proportion of part-time employees in the UK than in many other member states of the Community. It has been held, particularly by the Government, that that indicates that women often prefer to work part-time and would not take full-time work even if it were available. That may be true in some cases. But it cannot be overlooked that in the United Kingdom there is a much lower level of child care provision than in many other countries. The Equal Opportunities Commission believes that if better child care arrangements were available, more women might wish to work full time. As it is, the only employment available is often part-time work which all too frequently is of low status and low paid.
At the same time the flexibility offered by part-time employment is of value to many employers. In a number of industries, notably retailing, there has been
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a large expansion of part-time employment. I spoke recently to the chief executive of a large retailing consortium. He told me that a substantial part of his workforce now consists of part-timers and that they are almost all women. Incidentally, he had no problem in arranging for his part-timers to have pro rata employee benefits.
During the examination of witnesses I asked the CBI why part-time employment was popular with many employers. Was it, I asked, because such workers were cheaper? The answer was that they could be said to be cheaper in some regard. The main reason, however, was the flexibility that such employment provided for employers.
As will be seen from our report, the Government, according to the evidence that we heard, are not in favour of the directives even if they are limited to regular part-time employees. The reason given for that view was the one advanced during discussion of the social charter: more regulation in the field of employment will result in fewer jobs, and the Government's priority is job creation. That argument did not find a great deal of favour with the committee. Some of us were prompted to ask whether the kind of job mattered. Did we wish to condone the creation of sweat shops? Should there be minimum standards to protect the exploitation of the poor and the vulnerable? We did not think that the Government had proved their case since other countries, Sweden in particular, have not found that regulations to protect employees inhibit job creation.
I remind your Lordships that the Government have no qualms about imposing burdens upon employers when it suits their purposes. The Statutory Sick Pay Bill, recently before your Lordships, which was opposed on all sides, is evidence of that fact. However, when it comes to some minimal protection for employees, it is apparently a different story.
The draft directive does not entail a great deal; it simply states that employee benefits should be provided on a pro rata basis to part-time employees. That would entail access to occupational pension schemes. However, that is virtually a requirement in any event, particularly in the light of recent European court decisions. As the Trades Union Congress stated to us in its evidence, it may be necessary for there to be some adjustment with regard to national insurance provisions and contributions. However, the regulations are not written in stone and have been amended in the past. In our view they could be amended again.
The proposals concerning training opportunities should be supported. Many women return to the workforce after a break for child caring and do so on a part-time basis. They would welcome the opportunity to train for more skilled work, thus enabling them to be appointed to skilled full-time work when circumstances permit. Many good employers are already doing what the draft directive proposes for part-time employees.
In recent years the unions have developed policies that are designed to recruit and look after members who work part time. My own union has a system of reduced contribution rates and actively pursues

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interests on behalf of part-time members. However, there are many industries and services where there is little trade union organisation and where there are bad employers who will not take such steps unless compelled to do so by legislative requirements. There is an obligation to ensure that employees in such circumstances have minimal protection against exploitation.
For those reasons I believe that the report that we have produced is worthy of support. I hope that on reflection the Government will accept it and proceed accordingly.
6.50 p.m.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I apologise to the House and to the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, that I was not present to hear her opening speech because your Lordships appear to have galloped through the earlier business of the day.
I was proud to be a member of the committee and to be responsible for the report, although I do not entirely agree with its findings. I disagree even more with some of the views that have been expressed by noble Lords.
It appears to me that the Commission's proposals are curiously angled to ignore the specific situations that exist in this country. As I have the privilege of sitting on sub-committees, it seems to me more and more that the UK interest is not adequately represented at officer level in the Commission. Perhaps the Government can consider providing more or higher grade officers who can be seconded to the Commission so that the point of view which is relevant to the economy and to the problems of this country can be better digested and discussed before proposals come into print and into public review.
The most important criticism of the proposals that I should like to put forward relates to the fact that it is essential to treat part-time and temporary employment as quite different subjects. The attitude which prevails in the report is that in some curious way full-time employment is normal, good, virtuous and moral and that part-time and temporary employment are irregular, wrong and bad. I reject that proposition. I believe that the flexibility that is given by part-time and temporary employment is essential in our labour economy today. For example, flexi-time has become more and more popular in industrial production. In paragraph A6 of its evidence the Department of Employment stated that:
"A recent survey showed that the great majority of part-time workers preferred part-time work to full-time work; and that only 7 per cent worked part-time because they could not find full-time jobs".
I should like to give a practical example. I am privileged to be a director of a company which provides short-break holidays in holiday villages. Our guests arrive on Mondays and Fridays. Therefore, on those days we have a requirement for a substantial number of cleaners. These people dress in smart tracksuits and clean the villas to a very high standard. One of the villages concerned is located in an area of very high employment and I do not believe that our
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staff could not find full-time employment if they wanted it. Provided they are well looked after—and in this case they are—it suits people to work part-time.
I suggest that we should cast out the rather outmoded perceptions that full-time employment is somehow good and part-time employment is somehow bad. As the report emphasised, we should not equate non-standard working conditions with substandard working conditions.
I should like to suggest one or two examples of the wide variety of situations which exist in part-time work and in temporary work. I share the Government's view that these matters will become fossilised if they become the subject of legislation. In the case of part-time workers there are regular part-time workers—people like the ladies and gentlemen I described, who work every Monday and Friday but only on those days. I call those regular part-time workers. There are also casual part-time workers. This afternoon I met a bricklayer who will turn out when the weather is nice but, because he is a pensioner, will not work when it is frosty. There are other people who do not have to work if little Jimmy has measles or they want to do the shopping. They do not have to work on a particular day or in a particular week. That is casual part-time work. I mentioned a pensioner, but there are also children who do part-time work—for example, those who have newspaper rounds. They are not regular part-time workers.
In the case of temporary workers, they may be students, doctors, consultants or visiting professors. As a previous speaker mentioned, there are workers who cover for those who are on maternity or sick leave. Those are all specific situations. Any legislation which must deal with such an enormous variety of situations will have to be unduly complex and in practice will almost certainly lead to injustice.
I agree that there is a need for a minimum level of protection to ensure that people are not exploited. I agree entirely that there is a need for legislation covering matters connected with health and safety. Beyond that, I cannot help wondering whether such matters could not be better dealt with by codes of practice, guidance notes, good advice and the setting of standards which could be cited by employees who felt that they were not being properly treated. We must not fossilise the pattern of our employment when variety is what is wanted, not only by employers but also by employees.
6.55 p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Rochester has already said, we on these Benches support the directive in general and the modifications to the directive which have been suggested in the report.
We have long advocated the case for better pro rata conditions for part-time workers. I go along with the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, about the distinction that has to be drawn between temporary workers and part-time workers. They are different categories and have different needs. They should not be lumped together as if they could be dealt

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with in one way which is appropriate for all. However, this evening I do not want to elaborate on the case that has already been made very effectively for improved protection for part-time workers and for treating them on a pro rata basis.
In this country we have developed a tradition of part-time work over a longer period of time and to a much greater extent than most other European countries, the vast majority of it being done by women workers. In the past the attitude towards part-time work—which has been shared by employers and to a considerable extent by employees—has been that it is unskilled work, that they are ghetto jobs and that they are only taken by people who do not have the opportunity to get full-time work. That is one reason why it is overwhelmingly women who are part-time workers.
It is that attitude that I want to challenge this evening, elaborating on the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. We have got it into our heads—and there are good historical reasons why that is so—that proper work is full-time work. That is defined, or used to be in my youth, as 48 hours a week. It then came down to 40 hours a week and I see that some people are now assuming that it is 35 hours. Good luck to them if they can get away with it!That is regarded as proper work and anything else is regarded as marginal work which does not count for very much. That is part-time work. The labour market of the future is not going to be like that; indeed, it is not like that now. The sooner we wake up to the fact the better.
Professor Handy of the London Business School has repeatedly made the point—one does not have to agree with him but he has made a strong case—that the labour market of the future will consist of a relatively small core of people in any given enterprise who are permanent members of the staff. In addition, because of totally changing labour market conditions, and irrespective of the case for justice for the part-time worker, there will be a very large number of people who will work part-time. They will be peripatetic and, as has been said by previous speakers, they may do more than one job or even more than two jobs using the special skills in which they have been trained. Those will be skills which are in very great demand and which they will be able to market with great success to the highest bidder because they are in very great demand.
That will be the economic labour market of the future. We need a large number of well-trained part-time workers who will be as flexible as possible and in a position to command very good pay and conditions because they will be very much in demand in the market.
Leaving aside for one moment the needs and rights of the part-time workers, in our own economic interest we want to develop that kind of labour force. Therefore, I put very special emphasis on the importance of providing good training opportunities for people who do not work standard hours. We ought to be going out of our way to encourage that. It ought
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to be given high priority among the TECs to encourage such people. Not all of them will be women. If Professor Handy is right, it is bound to be the case that a great many people who work on that basis will be men. They will be men with very high levels of skills.
We need to get rid of the ridiculous idea that part-time jobs are inferior jobs and part-time workers are inferior people who are not worth training and investing in; that they will come and go and, in some cases, the sooner they go the better.
We need to have a policy for the development of highly skilled, highly supported part-time workers. If the result of our debate is that we can get rid of the extremely out-of-date ideas concerning part-time workers and what part-time work is all about, it will have done a great deal of good. In the process we accept what is required, in terms of protection, by the directive with the modifications that the committee put forward. However, by far the most important issue to get clear in the future is that the separation of full-time from part-time work is an anachronism and that we ought to be training to meet that kind of labour market in the future.
7.1 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, first let me say that we welcome the report of the Select Committee on the EC draft directive on non-standard employment. In particular we support the way in which the committee addressed its remit. It has done an excellent job. With other noble Lords who have spoken, I join in paying tribute to the way in which the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, as chairperson, introduced the debate and explained the report so lucidly. I am sure that I have the support of other noble Lords when I offer her our congratulations on that exercise.
The committee concluded that in United Kingdom conditions it is appropriate to deal with part-time and temporary employment as separate categories. What seems equitable and right for people employed continually in part-time employment may not be appropriate for employees on temporary or short-time contracts. The committee clearly believes that all such employees should have protection against exploitation and various noble Lords who have spoken indicated their support for protection on a pro rata basis.
In the United Kingdom a high number of people are employed in part-time work, more than in many other member countries of the EC. As stated by previous speakers, many part-time employees are women. It was maintained by some of the committee's witnesses that that shows that women prefer part-time employment. My noble friend Lady Turner referred to that fact. However, the Equal Opportunities Commission in its evidence averred that that could well be because the United Kingdom does not have a very high standard of childcare.
According to a recent survey, only 2 per cent. of children under the age of two and less than half of all three and four year-olds have publicly funded pre-school provision. Only Luxembourg and Ireland

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have worse provision for the under-twos and only Portugal rates worse for the younger than three and four year-olds. In those circumstances, it is hardly surprising that in the United Kingdom women look to part-time employment. It is quite possible that if arrangments for childcare and support services were generally improved, more women would seek full-time employment.
The Select Committee supports the directive that is proposed to extend employment protection to part-time workers. The committee believes that such employees should have access to pension schemes and pro rata entitlement to other employee benefits such as allowances, redundancy pay and so on. More than one speaker has referred to that matter tonight.
There seems to be no reason at all why employees who for whatever reason need to work part-time should be in a position in which they may be exploited and given less good conditions than if they worked the standard hours required. The committee rightly makes the point that non-standard workers are not substandard workers and should not be treated in a substandard way. It is noteworthy that a number of good employers already act in line with the proposals for part-time workers and some unions have succeeded in negotiating access to pension schemes and pro rata conditions in a number of companies. That is a continuing tendency.
However, the Government oppose the directive on the grounds that more regulation will inhibit employment opportunities. That is a strange conclusion to draw, bearing in mind that this Government have introduced more legislation to deal with employment conditions than probably any other government in history. They have done so on the basis that it helps to keep people in work and by reducing the power of the unions will make more jobs available. It seems strange that that has happened, and yet despite those measures once again we appear to be heading for record unemployment. There is little evidence to support their claim.
As I said, we now face increasing unemployment. That cannot possibly be attributed to too much regulation and employment protection. I do not believe that argument for one moment. There is now less statutory protection for employees than ever. Successive employment Acts that have passed through this House have eroded the protection that existed. However we still have increasing unemployment. Indeed, the committee makes the point that Sweden and France have already extended employment protection legislation to part-time employees with no apparent effect whatsoever on employment.
Both the CBI and the Government believe that the additional cost involved in affording pro rata terms and conditions will make part-timers less attractive to some employers. I do not believe that that possibility warrants any great measure of support at all. It is noted from the evidence that representatives of the employers allege that the main reason for the growth in part-time work is that many employers like the flexibility of employing such staff. It suits them and in many cases the employees also. Therefore costs appear
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to be a subsidiary factor. On the other hand, the TUC feels that with the exception of people earning less than £46 a week and working more than eight hours the cost implications seem relatively slight.
The committee recognised that some increasing cost would be involved but was sceptical about the estimates supplied by the Government and companies. It recognised that in order to give effect to the proposals some changes in the system of national insurance contributions might be required. But the system has been changed before, and there seems no reason why it could not be changed again to suit the different situation. In any event, surely it is desirable that the large numbers of employees who for whatever reason work part-time or undertake temporary work should be protected from exploitation. As I said, some good employers already do that. However, we maintain that regulations are required to raise the number and make the provisions obligatory on those whom one would deem to be bad employers.
There is reference in the report to the need for vocational training to be provided for part-time workers on the same basis as for full-time employees. That is particularly important in the case of women who may be rejoining the workforce after a break for maternity leave. It will assist them to secure equal opportunities with male colleagues who have not had such a career break. In any event there is agreement on all sides on the need to develop a training culture in this country. Therefore it makes sense to ensure that training opportunities are made available to employees who work part-time and who may wish to take advantage of vacancies on the full-time staff but can do so only if they are appropriately trained to fill those jobs. It goes without saying that all employees should have the same health and safety protection and training. We know from our discussions in this House on the social charter that the Commission believes that the benefit of the single market should be spread among all its citizens. Hence we have a series of directives designed to ensure that minimum standards are observed throughout the Community.
I believe that the Select Committee has performed a useful and important task in analysing the latest draft directives and in presenting a report that is reasonable and sensible. I hope that the Government will accept the recommendations that the Select Committee has made.
I should like to take on board the point made by the noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, about the disabled. With the number of unemployed people escalating, it is usually disabled people whose opportunities diminish. The noble Lady made a strong case on behalf of the disabled.
My noble friend and colleague Lady Turner referred to sweatshops. I recall discussion in this Chamber two or three years ago on trade union legislation. We spoke of the conditions under which people worked in those sweatshops. I quoted an example within living memory when seven young women were burnt to death in a factory in the centre of Manchester because of the conditions in which they

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worked. That is one facet that we must keep under observation to ensure that such an event becomes a relic of the past.
We support the report placed before us by the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, on behalf of the committee. I hope that the Government will accept the report on the EC draft directives.
7.12 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Employment (Viscount Ullswater): My Lords, the Motion invites us to take note of the report of the European Communities Committee on part-time and temporary work. The report gives the view of the Select Committee on three draft directives which the European Commission published last year as part of its action programme to implement the social charter.
I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, for introducing the report to us today. As she told us, the Government replied formally to the Select Committee on 14th January of this year. As I announced in a Written Reply to the noble Baroness on 23rd January, I have arranged with her agreement for a copy of the Government's response to the committee's report to be placed in the Library for the information of Members of the House.
At the outset, perhaps I may thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, for withdrawing her criticism of the department in the report for the delay in submitting the explanatory memorandum. I am happy to accept the apology in the words that she used. Of course I shall pass her remarks on to my department.
The three draft directives which were the subject of the committee's report amount to a package of measures covering part-time and temporary work—what the European Commission, rather unhappily in my view, calls "atypical" or "non-standard" work.
I think that we can deal with one of the draft directives quite quickly. It is the one concerned with the health and safety of temporary workers, the so called Article 118a directive. The reason is that progress has been made on this directive. It reached common position at the Labour and Social Affairs Council on 18th December last. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, will be pleased that we have been able to move so quickly on the matter.
The Government have always supported the principle behind the Article 118a directive and agreed with the comments made on it by the committee. However, the Government were concerned that two of its provisions, on written information and a ban on temporary workers working in certain jobs, were unnecessarily inflexible. Successful negotiation led to those worries being taken into account in drawing up the common position. That common position will now be considered by the European Parliament. If it approves the common position or fails to report on it within three months the directive will automatically be adopted.
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However, the other two draft directives pose great problems. We believe them to be misguided. These are the directives which deal with working conditions, the so-called Article 100 directive, and with distortions of competition, the "Article 100a" directive.
With much of what the committee says about the directives we agree. We certainly agree, for example, with the committee's final recommendation that the directives raise important questions to which the attention of this House should be drawn. It is obviously right that we should have this debate.
We also agree with some of the specific points made by the committee. For example, we agree with the committee's view that the directives do not sufficiently distinguish between regular part-time employees and temporary employees. We agree with the committee that it is unnecessary for temporary employment contracts to specify the reason for their temporary nature and that oral explanations are in many circumstances sufficient. We agree also with the committee's view that the legal base chosen by the European Commission for the Article 100a directive is incorrect.
All those are positive points on which we have found the committee's analysis and views helpful. But there are some points on which we find ourselves in disagreement with the committee. Our chief point of disagreement concerns the assessment of the likely effect of the directives on jobs and employers' costs. The committee supports the Commission's proposals to extend the employment protection afforded to part-time workers and its report says that the directives are a step in the right direction towards creating equal opportunities for women. The committee recognises that the directives would involve some increase in cost to employers, but it was unconvinced of the accuracy of some of the estimates supplied by both the Government and by companies.
On that point the Government's view differs from that of the committee, as our formal response to the report made clear. Our view is that the Commission's proposals would greatly increase the costs of employing part-time and temporary workers. They would significantly reduce the number of jobs and thereby damage not only our own industrial competitiveness but also that of the European Community as a whole. In doing so, the directives offend against one of the most important criteria unanimously agreed for action in the social area at the Madrid summit of June 1989—that directives in the social area should give top priority to job creation and development.
The noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, queried whether that is the prime concern of government. My Lords, yes. I confirm that it is still an overriding principle.
The committee draws attention in its report to the relatively high proportion of part-time workers in the employed workforce in the United Kingdom. It also notes the great expansion in part-time work since 1983. We believe that the Commission's approach to part-time and temporary work, which it seems to see

927
as somehow second-best to full-time work—and some Members of this House have agreed with that—would put at risk all those desirable developments.
The effect of the Commission's proposals would, in our view, clearly make part-time and temporary work more expensive for employers and more difficult for them to organise. There can be only one result of this—fewer opportunities for part-time work. Since so many part-time workers are women, the proposals would have a disproportionate effect on the employment of women. That would certainly not improve equality of opportunity.
Despite the committee's comments in its report about the accuracy of our cost estimates, I have to say that the Government stick by those estimates. The committee concedes that small and medium-sized companies and individual employers may be affected by increased costs. But the committee goes on to say that many large companies have already incorporated the extended benefits envisaged in the directives into their system so that such companies will not be involved in any extra cost as a result of the directives.
The department's estimates already take account of that factor as far as it is possible to do so. Our economists have looked at the available information about the actual benefits provided by employers in the field covered by the draft directives. They have calculated how much it would cost employers to raise their benefits from those existing levels of provision to the levels which would be required by the directives. For example, where employers are already providing benefits equivalent to those envisaged in the directives our estimates assume no extra cost to such employers of complying with the directives. Wherever possible the department's estimates measure the cost of moving from existing benefits to the level of benefits required by the directives.
It should also be noted that the department's estimates assume only that companies increase their provision to the new minimum required by the directives. As we pointed out in our response to the committee's report, it may be that some companies which currently provide more than the statutory requirement will continue to do so after implementation of the directives, perhaps in order to attract more skilled workers. In that case the cost of complying with the directives could well be higher. Furthermore, the departmental cost estimates take no account of restructuring the national insurance system, which has been mentioned more than once, which may well be necessary if the directives are agreed.
We are not alone in our views. We consulted widely on the Commission's proposals. Almost every response from UK employers saw the potential in the proposals for costs to increase and the inevitable consequences for their ability to create jobs. Perhaps I may quote what the Association of British Chambers of Commerce said when we consulted it. It stated:
"We have very serious concerns about these initiatives and fully support the stance taken by the UK Government in opposing the current drafts".
Nor are we on our own in Europe, as is sometimes suggested. It was clear, for example, from the meeting
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of the Social Affairs Council on 26th November last that other member states shared the UK's doubts and reservations about some of the Commission's proposals. The directives have made no progress since then.
I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, welcomed the fact that part-timers should be positively encouraged. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, will agree with that. The Government thoroughly concur with the view that part-time work suits many people who do not want full-time work. Among others the noble Lords, Lord Rochester and Lord Dean of Beswick, and the noble Baroness, Lady David, spoke of vocational training and the requirement that part-time workers should also receive such training. The Government's aim is to facilitate access to relevant training and education throughout working life for every member of the workforce. But burdening employers with legal requirements would not achieve that. Therefore, the Government believe that access to training is generally best dealt with on a voluntary basis between employers and individual employees or their representatives. That will be the strength of the TECs because they will be best placed to meet the local needs of full-time, part-time and temporary workers.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, asked about promotion. As they stand the directives do not contain any requirements concerning the rights to promotion for part-time or temporary workers. Again she made a useful point. The noble Baroness was also anxious about equal opportunities for women. As I said earlier, and it is worth repeating, the Government consider that because employers' costs would increase as a result of the directives their likely response would be to reduce the number of part-time and temporary workers. Women make up the vast majority of such employees and therefore would suffer most as a result of the directives. The Government believe that the principle of equal opportunities is already guaranteed by the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the European equal pay and equal treatment directives which provide protection against unjustifiable discrimination on the grounds of sex.
The noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, stressed the importance of part-time employment for disabled people and for those who care for disabled people. That is an important issue. She mentioned the quota system which is at present being reviewed. It is a complex subject, not least because many people prefer not to register as being disabled. However, the noble Lady is right in saying that part-time work is important for that sector of the workforce.
The noble Baronesses, Lady David and Lady Turner, commented on the requirements for the provision of child care. The Government's view is that it is a matter for employers to deal with on a voluntary basis and not a matter for the law. The enormous growth in part-time work since 1983 does not suggest that child care is a serious problem. There is nothing specific about child care in the directives.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, pointed out many difficulties in describing the various categories

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of part-time and temporary workers. The Government agree that the legislation required to cope with such complexities and differences would be complex and too restricting.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, gave an interesting view of her concept of future employment patterns and stressed the requirement of training. I have already stressed the importance that the Government attach to the training of full-time, part-time and temporary employees but on a voluntary basis rather than on a statutory basis.
I wish to conclude by commenting on our commitment to the European Community. Contrary to what is sometimes suggested there can be no doubt about that commitment. I suggest that the true criterion for commitment is the extent to which countries have implemented and put into effect measures to which the Community has already agreed.
On that criterion, our record of commitment is outstanding. In fact, we have the best record.
According to a report presented to the Social Affairs Council on 26th November by Commissioner Papandreou, we are the only country to have implemented all 18 existing social affairs directives. We are ahead of Germany and France, which have implemented only nine. That record must surely show that the UK is not half-hearted about these matters, as is sometimes suggested; quite the reverse, in fact. Our approach is to take a full part in discussions, weighing up the costs and the benefits before deciding whether or not we can vote in favour of a proposal.
Clear thinking is vital if the Community is to adopt a constructive role in social affairs. We believe strongly that the Community should be very clear about the areas where harmonisation and common Community standards are really essential. If we burden Europe's businesses with new and unnecessary regulation in the name of the social dimension, we shall negate the single market and undermine the jobs and living standards of all citizens of the Community.
We take the Commission's proposals seriously because the decisions which the Community will take will affect employment practices, employers' costs, competitiveness and jobs throughout the Community. We shall continue to play a constructive role, judging each proposal on its merits according to the three criteria agreed at the Madrid summit of June 1989 and reaffirmed at the Rome summit last December: first, will the proposal encourage the creation of jobs for the people of Europe; secondly, if it passes that test, is action necessary at Community level; and finally, if such action is shown to be necessary, does the proposal respect the different national traditions and practices which exist in the Community? I believe that that is a constructive and realistic approach. I commend it to the House.
7.32 p.m.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, I should like to thank those noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. A number of different points have been raised which are covered in the report before us. I am
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grateful also to the Minister for his reply to the debate, given in his usual courteous manner. I do not believe that it has added any new information on the subject. However, we did not expect that because we had the full report earlier from the Government.
There are one or two points which I should like to raise. First, the Minister said—and I believe that this is also in the Government's response—that equal opportunities are guaranteed by the equal pay and sex discrimination legislation and by European directives. I believe that that is rather exaggerating the situation, given the fact that the United Kingdom has already had to change some of its laws as a consequence of equal pay and sex discrimination cases taken to the European Court. A number of such cases are still pending. In addition, the Equal Opportunities Commission—a statutory body responsible for overseeing the implementation of the equal pay and sex discrimination legislation—is seeking a judicial review on whether or not that legislation complies with European requirements. Therefore, I believe that the Minister was rather exaggerating.
Secondly, I was rather surprised—and this is not in the response—when the Minister said that he did not believe that child care had posed any specific problems between 1983 and the present because part-time employment had increased at such a pace. Most women who still want to give their children special care, whether they be small children or grown-up teenagers, would agree that child care is still a real problem which deters many women from going out to work.
Thirdly, I wish to make it absolutely clear—I hoped that I had done so in my introduction—that the report does not in any way indicate that the committee felt that part-time employment was second best. The committee recognised the importance of flexibility in that area. However, the committee wanted to establish that part-time and temporary employment are not sub-standard employments. I believe that one of the best answers to the concept which many people have that part-time work is sub-standard is to ensure that part-time workers have the same terms and conditions of employment as full-time workers. I am sorry that the Government do not accept that argument but we cannot pursue that further this evening.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

The Dalai Lama
7.26 p.m.
Lord Willoughby de Broke Lord Willoughby de Broke rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in the light of the growing recognition of people's right to peaceful self-determination, they will be receiving His Holiness The Dalai Lama during his forthcoming visit to London.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, 14 months ago my noble friend Lord Mersey raised the matter of Tibet in this House asking whether, in view of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Her Majesty's Government would ask the People's

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Republic of China to modify its behaviour towards the people of Tibet. I note that a number of noble Lords who spoke on that occasion are here this evening. I believe that they will agree with me that the Government's answer was rather disappointing, falling back on the tired old formula that any meeting between a Minister of Her Majesty's Government and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, "would be open to misinterpretation".
The Dalai Lama is coming to this country in March Therefore, I make no apology for asking whether the Government have reconsidered their position in the light of events since the last debate. The world has changed remarkably since that time. For the first time for half a century, the countries of Central Europe are electing their own democratic governments. Germany has united in accordance with its people's wishes. Even in Albania—the last totalitarian regime in Europe—the communist regime is crumbling; while the people of the Baltic states are struggling to gain the right to determine their own destiny A small nation, Kuwait, has been invaded by its much larger neighbour. The Government's reaction to that invasion has been prompt and decisive.
Meanwhile, what of Tibet? Six months after our last debate martial law, which had been imposed in March 1989, was lifted. We hoped that that would lead to some real relaxation of the oppressive regime in Tibet. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The lifting of martial law was a cosmetic and politically opportune exercise. I wonder whether it was mere coincidence that martial law was lifted shortly before the United States Government were due to make their decision on whether to renew China's most favoured nation status.
The Gulf war, almost too neat a parallel with China's invasion of Tibet, has naturally taken what limelight there was off the activities of the Chinese governing forces in Tibet. The lifting of martial law has been a sham. The army marched out of one door to be replaced through another door by the paramilitary armed police units. Religious persecution continues unabated. Dissident monks are expelled from their monasteries and made to work on the land—shades of Pol Pot. Possession of the Tibetan flag can be a capital offence and new laws have been passed making it yet more difficult for Tibetans to demonstrate peacefully against Chinese oppression in their own land.
The example of one young Tibetan, an 18 year old schoolboy, Lhakpa Tsering, may alert your Lordships to what is now happening inside Tibet. This boy was arrested in November 1989 for the major crime of putting up posters in his school asserting Tibet's right to independence. In December his body was returned to his family; his death was caused by torture and beating. A letter dated 20th February and signed by 30 US Senators has been sent to the premier of China, Li Peng, asking for a full and impartial investigation into the circumstances of his death. I hope that our Government also will inquire into the matter. The Government must not be misled into swallowing the
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Chinese line that stability has returned to Tibet. Stability in this context simply means a very effective crackdown on the freedom of expression.
While the Tibetans' right to protest against the religious and political stranglehold of the Chinese is cruelly limited, the absorption of Tibet into the People's Republic of China continues unabated. As late as 1950 there were a mere handful of Chinese in Tibet, probably under 100 in the whole country. While China's alteration of Tibet's borders has made it difficult to deal exactly with numbers, by best estimates there are at least 7 million Han Chinese in Greater Tibet today. In Lhasa, the sacred city and home of the Dalai Lama, Tibetans are now in the minority of the population.
Educationally Tibetans are at a disadvantage. Most secondary education is in Chinese, as are all university examinations. Tibetans are held back by the requirement to learn Chinese at the secondary level. The Chinese solution is to cream off the most promising students and send them to China for the whole of their secondary education, which lasts for seven years and has the necessary consequence of these people losing their Tibetan identity.
If that situation continues there will soon not be any Tibet for us to help. The Dalai Lama who is to visit in March could well be the last Dalai Lama. The fear of becoming a disregarded and disenfranchised minority in their own country has been forcefully expressed by Tibetans inside Tibet and by the many Tibetans in exile. I believe that China has a long history of absorbing independent peoples. The Tibetans are determined not to become yet another historical statistic swamped by Han Chinese.
The principal point we should bear in mind is that, prior to the Chinese invasion of 1950, Tibet was an independent country. It was a fully functional state. It had its own religion, race, language, army and mint and issued its own passports. Successive British Governments recognised Tibet's de facto independence. We have had treaty relations with Tibet going back to the Simla Convention of 1914, and from 1910 the British Government treated Tibet as an independent state with which they have had treaty and diplomatic relations.
In a note to the Chinese Foreign Minister in 1943 Sir Anthony Eden put the British Government's position perfectly clearly—that Tibet had enjoyed de facto independence since 1910 and that Britain was in treaty relations with Tibet. Britain was nonetheless ready to accept that China had suzerainty over Tibet —and this is important—conditional on China's acceptance of Tibetan autonomy. This makes it crystal clear that Britain equated autonomy with de facto independence. This was repeated in November 1950 by the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, Mr. Ernest Davies, who in reply to a Question in another place on China and Tibet stated:
"For many years this Chinese suzerainty has been no more than nominal, and indeed, since 1911 Tibet has enjoyed de facto independence".—[Official Report, Commons, 6/11/50: col. 602.]
Further, when Tibet was invaded by China in 1950 and appealed to the United Nations, the Foreign Office told its representative at the United Nations that Tibet had the necessary qualifications as a state under the UN Charter to make such an appeal. However, tragically for Tibet, political expediency dictated that we should not help Tibet in its hour of need. On the spurious grounds that Tibet's legal position was in doubt, the Government declined to support the Tibetan appeal, which was then dropped, allowing China to proceed in its rape of Tibet unchecked by any international restraints.
We sold Tibet short then. I am convinced that the present Government, with their clear commitment to supporting victims of aggression, will not allow history to repeat itself. By way of encouragement, if any is needed, I remind your Lordships that both Conservative and Labour Governments have backed United Nations resolutions in 1961 and 1965 which clearly supported Tibet's right to self-determination.
The Government must stand firm on those commitments and above all not allow themselves to be coerced into conceding that what the Tibetans have now is in any sense autonomy as we understand it. The power of government in the so-called autonomous region of Tibet is entirely in the hands of the Chinese or of their nominees, with only token Tibetan representation to rubber-stamp decisions taken on their behalf.
I hope that the Government will make it clear that they recognise the right of Tibetans to determine their own future, particularly as we have so clearly nailed our colours to the mast of freedom elsewhere. The Government strongly condemned the use of force in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. They have repeatedly insisted that the people of the Baltic States should be able freely to decide their own destiny, while we are now fighting for the second time in eight years to liberate a small territory invaded by a larger, greedy and ambitious neighbour.
Of course we all recognise the wish of the British Government to remain on good terms with China, particularly in view of the hand-over of power in Hong Kong in 1997. Who can argue with that? However, those good relations should be based on mutual respect and not bought at the expense of concessions elsewhere. As the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, said in our last debate on Tibet in regard to appeasement,
"It never works. It has never worked in history and it will not work now". [Official Report, 13/12/89; col. 1377.]
Standing up for Tibetans and their legitimate aims will send the right signals to the people of Hong Kong who have consistently wished for us to back them up rather than back down. "Linkage" is not a word that has found favour recently with world statesmen; the Tibetan issue should be decided on its own merits.
I am encouraged therefore to note that the Dalai Lama on his visit here next month will be received by the Speaker, by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor and by His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester. It would surely be the ideal opportunity
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for my noble friend Lord Caithness to meet the Dalai Lama in his capacity as a Nobel Peace Prize winner. I hope that my noble friend Lord Reay will be able to tell us whether consideration will be given to arranging such a meeting. Were he to agree to the meeting he would be in good company, as during the past two years the Dalai Lama has been received by the King of Norway and the Norwegian Prime Minister on the occasion of his Nobel Prize award; he was received by President Havel of Czechoslovakia; he had a private meeting with President Weizsäcker of the newly united Germany, as well as official meetings with Ministers in France, Belgium, Holland and Sweden.
Your Lordships may be interested to hear that in December the Australian Senate expressed unanimous support for the right of Tibetans to self-determination. I need hardly add that China protested about that,
"brutal interference in China's internal affairs".
The message is that the Tibet issue will not go away. It is firmly on the international agenda and will remain so. It is surely right that we regain the courage of our convictions over Tibet and give due regard to the legitimate claim of the Tibetans to determine their own future and that of their country.
Tibet alone among dispossessed nations has never resorted to violence. The Tibetans heeded the advice and example of their leader, the Dalai Lama, to pursue the path of peaceful persuasion rather than that of the bullet and the bomb. But I wonder how long this can go on. Anger and frustration are building up both inside Tibet and among Tibetans in exile at the deaf ear turned worldwide to their peaceful arguments. Radical Tibetans are aware that bloodshed makes news and that violence gets headlines. It must make sense to tackle this issue now before another explosion that will cost yet more lives and more misery. The British Government, with their historic link with Tibet and their record of commitment to freedom and self-determination, are ideally placed to be the catalyst for such a move.
Finally, I ask the Government to look afresh at Tibet, perhaps from a different perspective. Who would have forecast only two years ago that the Berlin Wall would crumble, that we would have a united Germany, that Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Romania would have their own democratically elected governments and that the Baltic states would become independent? The only certainty is that there are no certainties. The political ideologies and boundaries which we have come to know no longer seem so secure either in Europe or in Asia. The winds of change are blowing even in the Himalayas.
7.51 p.m.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, the whole House will want to thank the noble Lord for introducing this debate today and to say how encouraging it is to see so many noble Lords on both sides of the House taking part. I believe that what the noble Lord has said in his outstanding speech will be heard in many countries by

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Tibetans who are themselves yearning for freedom. I believe that this message will be read by many in Tibet itself. I congratulate the noble Lord.
Some might have said that this is perhaps not the best time to hold such a debate. All eyes are turned on the Gulf. All of us are hoping and praying that the conflict will soon be over and that after six or seven months the people of Kuwait will be able to rebuild their own country. Tibet has survived, not six or seven months of occupation and brutality, but 41 years of cruel occupation. It is a remarkable tribute to the spirit of the people themselves that the concept of Tibet, its language, culture, religion, history and self-esteem, is still alive. The tribute which we pay to those in the Gulf who stood up for their own country is equally a tribute to those brave Tibetans who stood up for their own cause and have suffered as a consequence. It is also a tribute to the leadership of his Holiness the Dalai Lama, whom this country will have the great privilege of receiving. It is the first time that he has been here since he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He is the unchallenged leader of his people, recognised not only overseas but by China itself. He will arrive in Britain at a time of growing support not only for his cause, but for that of the United Nations, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, has said, has on three occasions condemned the Chinese occupation and denial of human rights. Two of those occasions established quite clearly by big majorities Tibet's right to self-determination. Now it is a right enshrined in international law.
One would have thought that the red carpet would have been put out for this great man, as it has been put out for him in other parts of the world. I have been to some of those countries where presidents have received his Holiness the Dalai Lama and thousands of people have flocked into the streets because they see him as a symbol not just of freedom, liberty and justice, but of compassion, gentleness and many of the qualities which the world most desperately needs.
But there will be no red carpet. Regrettably, the Prime Minister concluded that it would not be right for him to meet the Dalai Lama. To be fair to the Prime Minister, a very courteous letter was sent, which was also sent to me. The Prime Minister is new in his office and he has many other preoccupations at the present time. I believe too that the decision was not taken by the Prime Minister but by the Foreign Office. It is a decision which is deeply to be deplored and it is one taken by the Foreign Office largely as a result of a policy of appeasement of China. We never appeased the Soviet Union during those long years of Soviet oppression. We always said that our attitude towards the Soviet Union would be based on the extent to which it respected the human rights of its own people. Why do we not say the same to the people of China? I believe that it would cut far more ice and carry far more weight in Hong Kong and around the world were we to treat China in the same way.
Those who have studied the history of Tibet over the past 1300 years—and I do not include myself among them—will know that there have been times
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when Tibet has conquered and occupied large areas of China itself. There have been times when it has repulsed invasion not only from China but from Nepal and from Britain itself at the time of the Younghusband expedition. But at no time has Tibet ever conceded the right of any nation to control its territory or to usurp its right to self-determination and independence. As was said by the noble Lord, the tragedy is that since 1950 Britain has connived in accepting China's occupation of Tibet.
There is no question but that before the invasion Britain regarded Tibet as having all the rights of a fully independent state. By agreements made in 1914, 1921 and 1943, Britain accepted Tibet's right to absolute internal freedom to conduct its own external relations with other states, to conclude treaties and trade agreements and to receive diplomatic representation. The last British representative in Lhasa, Mr. Hugh Richardson, is still alive today. He was in the Foreign Service and he has stated:
"The Government of Lhasa with which I dealt"—
That was for the nine years between 1936 and 1950—
"was beyond question in complete control of its own affairs, dealing directly with the Government of India in such matters as frontier disputes, trade questions, supply of arms and ammunition and so on. There was no Chinese participation whatever in such matters and no reference to them, nor were they informed. In all practical matters the Tibetans were independent".
It is a sad thing that it is now being pretended, not just by China but by people in this country, that somehow or other Tibet has never had complete independence. There were statements by Ernest Davies, a dear friend of mine when he was alive, who was at the Foreign Office, and by Anthony Eden. The Dalai Lama was also received by the Prime Minister of the day, Mr. Clement Attlee, who received a trade delegation which arrived with its own passports as representatives of an independent state.
After all that has happened since the Chinese invasion in 1950 on the orders of Chairman Mao, a programme of brutal annihilation of life, property, monasteries, shrines and schools during the cultural revolution, a continued cruel denial of human rights, documented clearly by Amnesty International, and a calculated form of cultural genocide have been undertaken in an attempt to destroy the Tibetan language and traditions and to make them a minority in their own country. After all that one might have imagined that the powers that be in Britain would have wanted to give support and encouragement to the forces of good in Tibet. Unhappily, no, it is the forces of totalitarianism which seem to command the support of those who make policy.
It is not only a rewriting of history which seems to prevail—the Chinese themselves are very good at that—but an extraordinary distortion of the concept of self-determination and independence. I point out to the Minister who is to reply to the debate that during our earlier debate, speaking from the Government Front Bench, he said:
"We believe that all peoples have the right to self-determination".

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So far so good. But he then said:
"We do not believe that independence for Tibet is a realistic proposal".—[Official Report, 13/12/89; col. 1384.]
There may be others here who think just the same. But what is self-determination if it means no more than, "You can have self-determination but only on the basis that I want"? If the one single thing you want is independence, self-determination is an absolutely meaningless phrase.
Is it suggested that there is some self-determination and autonomy for the Tibetan people in Tibet today? I can state from my own experience that they live the lives of slaves. Would those who deny this apply the same principle to South Africa: the right to self-determination but not the right to choose, with one man one vote? Would they concede to the Baltic States the right to self-determination, but not if they chose to break away from the Soviet Union? I suppose that it it might have been argued by the Iraqis that Kuwait could have the right to self-determination provided that it chose to be the 19th region of Iraq. Thank heavens that story is now almost ended.
It is really distasteful to hear British Ministers speaking up in this unprincipled way. Self-determination is a right under international law. It means the right of Tibet as a separate people, with its own history of centuries of freedom, to determine its own future. No one chooses slavery. No one chooses subjugation or the denial of human rights.
The Prime Minister, in his very courteous letter to me of 13th February, said:
"The Dalai Lama's aspirations for self-determination for Tibet have not been endorsed by any other government".
It was a most extraordinary statement. As the noble Viscount has said, 56 countries, including Britain, the United States and all our colleagues in Western Europe, voted for a resolution which, in 1961 and again in 1965, stated quite specifically that Tibet had the right to self-determination. So we are one of the countries representing exactly that right.
In the Gulf men and women are laying down their lives in support of UN resolutions relating to Iraq's unacceptable occupation of Kuwait. What about China's unacceptable occupation of Tibet, already condemned by UN resolutions? We cannot pick and choose what self-determination means. I do not believe that we can say, "Right, we will go to war. We will risk our lives for those UN resolutions because they relate to the Gulf. But we will do nothing at all about those similar resolutions which say that Tibet has a right to its own self-determination". Do the Government accept Tibet's right to self-determination? I hope they will say that they do.
Perhaps I may make one other point before sitting down. In his letter to me the Prime Minister said:
"I do not want to lose sight in all this of our main concern—a better deal for the Tibetan people. We have been talking to the Chinese regularly about Tibet".
It is a very powerful statement that, regularly, Britain has been talking to China about Tibet. What have we been saying? I do not know. I hope the Minister will say. What information do the Government have
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about the Tibetans' view about the future of Tibet? If they are not in consultation with Tibetans about how Tibet can have a better future, then the moment is coming next month. Of course the noble Lord is right that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, should take the opportunity. Who better and what better moment to have a discussion with the Dalai Lama in order that he can find out? We are dealing, as the noble Lord said, with an issue which is arousing increasing interest in your Lordships' House, elsewhere and around the world. It is an issue that will not go away. It is well timed. Between now and 17th March, when his Holiness arrives in London, there is time for the Prime Minister—perhaps the war will be over and he will have a little more time—to receive his Holiness and do him the honour he deserves, and for the Foreign Secretary and his Foreign Office colleague to do him the honour he deserves. If we decide what should be the future of Tibet without consulting the people of Tibet, what have we learnt in all our long history? This is the moment for consultation with a man of peace. With a man of such a reputation coming here, we should seize the moment with both hands, as we will in your Lordships' House. No doubt the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will preside at that meeting, but let the Government, politically, treat this as a serious visit.
8.5 p.m.
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, we have heard two powerful speeches. I warmly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, on bringing forward this subject. It is a subject which we should discuss. I do not pretend to have been to Tibet. I have been as far as Nepal, and when one is there one sees a lot of Tibetans. One can tell them very easily because people who live at 18,000 feet have their faces covered in a certain way which distinguishes them sharply from those who are born and brought up at a rather lower altitude.
As I said, this is an important subject with which we must deal. Tibet is an interesting country which, in its day, had its kings. Not only that, it defeated the Chinese and captured their capital. That is quite an interesting point. They were not small people at all. They took over their religion from the other side of their land, from India. They developed this religion in a very remarkable way. This is an extremely interesting body of people, difficult as they are to get to. They are not an easy people to get to.
One question is to my mind very important. I shall put it rather bluntly. How does one re-educate the Chinese? The Chinese have had a most unhappy history. Nowhere have violence and vigour been more widely exercised than in China. This was probably going on during the life time of the noble Lord. Until the beginning of this century medieval practices went on. They have had about three revolutions since that time which have brought about change, but they still have a long way to go. It is the quality of their style which makes the difference.
How do we deal with this matter? I am not sure. I think it is perfectly fair for the Prime Minister to meet the Dalai Lama. He is a unique man. There is no-one

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like him in the world. He is both a political and religious leader of his people and stands quite alone in his dedication to either subject. With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, I do not suppose that he has studied politics as closely as the Dalai Lama has studied religion. This is unique: a man who is not striving for power or anything of that kind; he is merely a standard of conduct.
What I am coming to is this. We are going through a changing world. We in this country and people elsewhere have to adapt to a changing world. It is our duty—and other noble Lords may say this too—to help the Chinese to come into a new world. It is all very well to live at the top of the Himalayas. The Tibetans were all alone, but now we can talk to them on the telephone. They can fly out of their country. Aeroplanes can go all round it. This is a new world to which all of us will have to adapt ourselves bit by bit. I think that we can help the Chinese. It will take a long time for them to bring themselves into the modern world. It is important that we should help them to do so and I believe we are doing that.
The Chinese are very powerful people. I am very fond of them. I lived with Chinese people for three or four years and I think they are wonderful. But they are very dogmatic. They have very strong views of themselves and of the world. The legacy remains that they are the centre of the world and that all of us here and elsewhere are no more than visitors coming to see the major country. That idea dies hard in the Chinese. All I can say is that, on the whole, we have made fairly good friends with them and we can help them. Although they might complain if the Prime Minister shook hands with the Dalai Lama, I do not think they would go very far with it.
I believe that the noble Lord made a worthwhile point: we must teach the Chinese that this is a new world in which we have to work hard and which we must try to understand. I think that they will understand because they are a very intelligent people. Of course, as I said, they are pretty dogmatic in their views but in time they will learn.
The people of Tibet should not be allowed to suffer. Indeed, it would be quite wrong if that were to continue to happen. Of course, this is a matter which should be referred to the United Nations. The essential job of that organisation is to look after us—that is, everyone—during the 21st century so that we have no more dictators. We do not want any more dictators; indeed, we have had quite enough of them already this century. That should be our cry to the united Nations. I can count at least a dozen of them and it is possible that there may have been more. I hope that this has been a valuable debate.
8.10 p.m.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, like other noble Lords I am moat grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, for having raised the matter again and for doing it so eloquently. After hearing his speech and that of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, it may seem extraordinary that anything more should need to be said, bearing in mind that we went over this ground
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not so long ago. Moreover, as the noble Lord so rightly reminded us, the only answer that the Government gave previously was that they thought that if they did the right thing it might be misunderstood.
We have learnt from previous speakers that the Chinese are engaged in exterminating the ancient civilisation of which the Dalai Lama is the head. Indeed, the atrocities and oppression continue to take place in the area. It seems quite amazing that the British Government should appear to connive in such actions. Of course we know why that is so. It is appeasement.
The noble Earl said that we are living in a changing world. That is indeed the case. A new spirit of self-determination is rising in the world. That is one way in which the world is changing. However, in some ways the world does not seem to have changed enough. Everything that has been said by the Government about their refusal to meet the Dalai Lama has been said before. Indeed, it was said before the last war. I well remember people saying, "We must be nice to Ribbentrop because the Germans are changing their nature. It is not our business that he is persecuting the Jews and is about to invade Europe. We must be nice to him. British interests and trade demand it". Many people were taken in by that view. Now we have appeasement again. It is of course nothing but appeasement, as I said previously and as the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby, pointed out.
If it were not for Hong Kong, there is no question but that the British Government would have received the Dalai Lama and ceased to make placatory noises about the extraordinary invasion of Tibet and the treatment of its people. As I said, it is appeasement.
In my view appeasement will not work. It has not worked in the past and it will not work now. Further, it does this country a great deal of harm not only so far as concerns our moral standing but also in practical ways. Let us take, for example, the position of the IRA. We hope to combat the IRA by weaning people away from the idea of violence being the only way of righting grievances. The Tibetan people have far greater grievances than the IRA, but as yet they have shown no violence. They are indeed a non-violent people. However, what thanks do they get for that? All that happens is that nations such as ourselves keep them at arm's length, despite the fact that other nations have received the Dalai Lama.
Let us take also the example of the Middle East. If at the end of the war over Kuwait we come to agree on any sort of peace, it is essential that we do so with clean hands and do not appear to act differently when our own interests are involved than when international matters of freedom and self-determination are involved. It will do us no good whatever to attempt to appease now, any more than it did before the war.
Of course the Dalai Lama has no votes in this country. He has no concessions to offer and he represents a civilisation which is far removed in certain respects from that of our own country. But the principles he stands for mean something to the world. Britain should stand for what is best in the values of the world and not simply for material short-term

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advantage. I do not believe that we should receive any short-term advantage. It is probably quite wrong to think that the Chinese will be in the least influenced by the fact that we have not received the Dalai Lama. Therefore, at the end of the day, if we still refuse to receive him and discuss with him the troubles experienced by his civilisation and his country, Britain will be the loser. The Dalai Lama's reputation will not suffer as a result but Britain's reputation will. Moreover, I believe that our material interests will also suffer.
8.15 p.m.
Lord MacLehose of Beoch: My Lords, I too should like to thank the noble Lord for introducing this subject and congratulate him on the eloquence and care with which he delivered his speech. I wish to intervene in the debate by expressing the rather unpopular view that I believe the Prime Minister was right in the line he took in his reply to the noble Lord, Lord Ennals.
We have an old historical association with Tibet. The personal interests of many people, of scholars and more latterly of many tourists, have continued our interest in Tibet since we left India. It has a fascination for us. I know the allure of Central Asia. I visited the Panchen Lama when he was a boy of only eight in a lamasery which had 5,000 lamas. It was like going back to the Middle Ages. Indeed, the smell of rancid butter still makes me nostalgic. I realise the unattractiveness of being prudently political or "protocolaire" about anything Tibetan. Somehow or other, Tibet seems slightly out of this world; but of course it is not so, as certain noble Lords have already said.
His Holiness is universally respected for what he has done and for what he is. In any event, he will be meeting the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, the Speaker of another place and His Highness the Duke of Gloucester in his personal and religious capacity. Why, therefore, should he not also meet the Prime Minister?
Before dismissing that point as being petty protocol, I suggest that we reconsider what happens in other countries to which reference has been made. Such references were, if I may say so, somewhat selective. It seems to me that other governments receive the Dalai Lama in a reverse level to their practical interests in Asia. I believe I am right in saying that he is not received by Ministers in the United States, in Japan, in India or in Nepal. However, he has been received at Foreign Minister level by some of our European partners, as has already been said this evening. The question is whether we should realign with, say, France and Germany in that practice. I hope that we do not do so. I believe that any change in policy would be regarded by China and by the Tibetans—I am especially concerned about the Tibetan people—as an act of state.
I do not wish to pursue the historical analyses which have been made this evening about Britain's recognition or non-recognition of Tibet as an independent country. We all know that there were odd
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factors which no longer exist about the relationship which arose because of our responsibility for India. However, the fact remains that Tibet has never been internationally recognised as independent. But if the Dalai Lama were to be received by the Prime Minister, it would be regarded by China as a small but gratuitous move in the encouragement of independence. Moreover, in Tibet its practical implications could well be exaggerated and misunderstood.
Of course there is enormous sympathy for the dalais and people of Tibet over the terrible things that have happened to them. However, I do not believe that the reception of the Dalai by the Prime Minister would assist the greater observance of human rights by China in Tibet or anywhere else. Those rights are best pursued by us bilaterally with China, as they have been, and as the Prime Minister said in his reply to the noble Lord. I was fascinated by what the noble Lord said about China in a changing world, and I should like to reply were it not for the fact that this would then be a completely different speech.
I shall confine myself to the argument that, unless the United Kingdom stands up to Chinese activities in Tibet and disregards Chinese sensitivities over reception of the Dalai in the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom would not stand up to China over any of its activities in Hong Kong. The noble Lord implied that, and the same point has been made by other noble Lords this evening. They are completely different cases.
Our position over Hong Kong, what happens in Hong Kong now and what will happen after 1997, are defined in considerable detail in a bilateral agreement. The United Kingdom has a special obligation to ensure that the provisions of that agreement are kept. The implementation of that joint declaration is the most important element in present Sino-British relations. In the case of Tibet we have no such standing. If we were to take any form of political action in respect of it or do something that could be understood to be political action, we should be open to misunderstanding and resentment, to no one's benefit.
The future of Tibet, difficult as it now seems, is best pursued in talks among the Tibetans, the Dalai and the Chinese Government. They have been proposed in the past but have never been realised latterly. I hope that the Dalai's visit here will be a success and that he will receive the attention that he so clearly merits. I suggest that it is neither necessary nor prudent to inject a political element into it.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I wonder whether his attention has been drawn to last week's leader in the Asian Wall Street Journal published in Hong Kong in which it is said:
"It would be a reassuring sign for oppressed people anywhere and for Hong Kong's people as they look to their future, were Mr. Major to meet with the Dalai Lama—with the full acknowledgment that Tibet's spiritual leader also happens to represent the kind of freedom that has always been denied to anyone unfortunate enough to fall under the rule of China's Communists".

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I have no doubt that the noble Lord will agree that there are two views in relation to the effect on and attitude of Hong Kong.
Lord MacLehose of Beoch: My Lord, I did not see that article. I agree that there could be two views, but the prudent one, and the one held by the people there I respect most, is the one that I have put forward this evening.
8.24 p m.
Lord Eden of Winton: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, spoke with his great authority derived from wide experience. I listened with great respect, as I am sure did other noble Lords, to what he had to say. I agreed with much of it, although I too will take an independent line in the debate. My view is that we should distinguish between calls for Tibetan independence and for the showing of the respect which is due to the Dalai Lama. I do not necessarily say that the two have a single objective. I am grateful, as are other noble Lords, to my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke for giving us the opportunity to consider these important matters, for such I believe them to be.
Anyone who has even cursorily studied the history of Tibet will recognise its incredible complexity. Through most of its history it has been under some form of hierarchical monastic or aristocratic rule. The people of Tibet have been kept down. There is little which represents democracy to be found in Tibetan history. I do not see Tibet's past through rose-tinted spectacles as representing a period of beauty, tranquillity, calm or liberality, because it certainly was not.
One feature stands out from that history: almost throughout its entire period, there has been some form of link with China—be it with Mongol or Han; Kuomintan or the Communists in Beijing. That link has been described as similar to the relationship of nephew to uncle. Whatever terms are used, today the relationship is much more that of the walnut being brutally crushed under the heel of the aggressor.
In the past, China has invariably taken the view that it should leave alone and undisturbed the political, social and religious practices of Tibet. However, more recently it has taken the opposite view. It has been pursuing a policy, which, far from leaving the people of Tibet to carry on according to their own customs unmolested, is clearly intended to exterminate the very identity of Tibet itself. It has been, and still is, a horrendously brutal exercise of naked power.
I hope that if no other message goes out from the debate today, it will at least be clear that all of us deeply regret, and take the strongest exception to, the policy and brutality of Communist China. China has recently been promoting the introduction of Chinese people into Tibet to make it clear to all concerned that Tibet is part of the greater China. I do not want to press the case for independence; I want to press the case for proper regional autonomy within China. I do that, not because I wish to interfere in matters which are properly the concern of the Chinese authorities,
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but because I have a great interest, as do other noble Lords, in the future of Hong Kong after 1997. What China does in Tibet matters because it could indicate the sort of attitude that it will bring to bear in Hong Kong. I hope that what China has been doing in Tibet in no way implies that that is likely to be its attitude towards Hong Kong after 1997. I have confidence enough to believe that that will not be the case for in any event that would be strongly against Chinese interests. More than that, China has signed an agreement with the United Kingdom Government, and I would expect it to abide by the terms of that agreement. It is important for confidence in Hong Kong between now and 1997 that China shows a more human face to Tibet, for that will be noticed in Hong Kong, and it will be reassuring. China has nothing to fear from Tibet. It has everything to gain from being reasonable and responsible in its conduct in the affairs of the autonomous region of Tibet.
The Dalai Lama is a man of quite exceptional merit. I have not had the honour of meeting him but, like others, I have seen him on television. I have read what he has been saying, and I have come to hold him in the greatest possible esteem. He personifies all that is good. He is in every sense the ambassador for peace, and more than anyone I know, he points the way to proper civilised conduct in the relationship between nations. It is in that capacity that he should be received by Her Majesty's Government.
8.33 p.m.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, whatever the answer from Her Majesty's Government this evening, we all owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke not only for putting down the Question but also for painting a graphic and descriptive picture of the situation in Tibet today and as it has been in the past. As to the facts about Tibet, there is little that any of us can add. The picture has been graphically described and forms the basis of our discussion.
Many historical parallels have been raised. We think of the aspirations of the Tibetan people for self-determination. We see in other parts of the world the enormous problems that have arisen precisely because self-determination has not been allowed to certain sectors of the population. The Tibetans have the right to decide how they shall be governed and the internal laws that will govern them.
I should like to refer to a speech that his Holiness the Dalai Lama made when I had the honour, with a fellow MEP, to invite him to the European Parliament. He made the speech before a press conference of 300 people. I was told that there had never been a press conference like it. Never had there been so many journalists, and never had so much attention been given to one man. Yet here was a simple monk in his robes addressing the people of Europe. The atmosphere in the Parliament that day—and this was the view of everyone; the secretaries, interpreters and indeed people at all levels—was totally changed by the presence of that one man. It was remarkable how his goodness, his beliefs, his simplicity and his humility shone through.

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Incidentally, the speech was printed in the reports of the United States Congress. It was textually repeated. The Dalai Lama made a great offer saying "I do not claim that we should demand to have the right to decide our own defence and foreign policy". He said he would be prepared to leave that to the People's Republic of China and its government. But what he would demand was the autonomy of the Tibetans to look after their own internal affairs, very much along the lines of what my noble friend Lord Eden has been adumbrating —the idea that there should be autonomous regions but that the peoples of those regions would decide for themselves the kind of government that they would have.
Another point that must be made is that when the Dalai Lama was asked, "Are you intending to go back to Tibet?", he said, "No, I do not want to go back as a great leader of people". I am quoting him verbatim. He said, "I am a simple monk. I have no wife and I have no children. What happens to me is nobody's concern. It does not matter. My concern is the suffering of my people and the treatment of my people in Tibet, and for this I will give my life".
That is his attitude. He is not a great political leader expecting red carpets wherever he goes; quite the reverse. That is why I think the Prime Minister should receive him, not because he sets himself up as a great world leader but because of the fact that he does not. That is a very strong argument for his being received at any level in this country.
Following his visit to the European Parliament, as the noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, mentioned, although not in that particular context, China offered to have talks with the Dalai Lama because it thought there was something in his speech that could have been a basis for future negotiation. But it made the conditions so totally unacceptable and impossible that the talks have not taken place so far.
The letter that the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, referred to, which he received from the Prime Minister—a perfectly proper letter, if I may put it like that—said that no government has recognised this government in exile. But who recognised the Baltic states five years ago? Let us remember that history changes matters. As my noble friend Lord Selkirk pointed out so graphically, many areas of the world are changing dramatically. There may well be a change in China. We should not disregard events today; there is a possibility for the future.
I should like to raise the question of relations between the United Kingdom and China. I do not wish to go into the question of Hong Kong because that is a very special point —the noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, is a real expert in that field—but I suggest that it is in the universal interest that the economic and social development of China should be encouraged and helped by the nations of the world. It does not help to deny economic or technological aid. When China shows that it has modified its treatment of people, whether they be Tibetans or its own people —let us remember that the brutal treatment of its own people is as bad as the treatment that we have seen in
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Tibet—and when its government is not so centralised and so dominated by the military, I believe we should give more aid. Throughout the history of the world we have seen that there is a guarantee of the observance of human rights only in societies where there is no poverty and where there is economic and social development and a democratic system of government. That is an area where the United Kingdom could make a contribution —I do not say alone. But certainly, these are the lines along which the Western industrial world should go in relation to China. I do not believe that denying aid to China is of any help whatever.
There are other issues of mutual concern which are of universal interest to which I do not believe noble Lords have referred. There is the question of the environment. As many of us know, terrible things are happening in Tibet such as the denudation of forests and the dumping of nuclear waste, causing massive water pollution in the great rivers that flow from Tibet through the Yangtze and the Ganges, and there is air pollution from nuclear waste. In his remarkably modest and humble autobiography called Freedom in Exile, the Dalai Lama says:
"If we unbalance Nature, humankind will suffer. Furthermore, as people alive today, we must consider future generations: a clean environment is a human right like any other".
This kind of thinking of the Dalai Lama is fundamental to the continuity of a safe and free world. As his Holiness prepares his visit to this country, I wish to express my thanks to the Speaker in another place and to my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor for meeting him and receiving him in the great spirit of welcome of which I know they are capable. Remarkably enough, they are both deeply religious and when they meet the Dalai Lama they cannot fail to feel his deep religious presence. The only people who will lose are those who do not meet him.
8.41 p.m.
The Earl of Buchan: My Lords, I wish to express my strongest gratitude and support to the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, for raising this subject. Before turning to the main part of my speech perhaps I may take up two points made by the noble Lord, Lord MacLehose. He referred to rancid butter and nostalgia. I too remember rancid butter, but nostalgia is not the only thing that comes to mind when I think of it.
The noble Lord's point about Chinese resentment must be overridden and dealt with. The cause of the Dalai Lama in Tibet is greater than the mere matter of Chinese resentment. The noble Lord, Lord Eden, referred to democracy in Tibet: no doubt there has not been much democracy in Tibet, but there has not been much democracy in Asia until recently, and in the Middle Ages we were not particularly democratic. I am not sure who is talking about democracy in Tibet's history. A further point made by the noble Lord concerned linkage with China. The first linkage was in 1761 when China invaded Tibet—some linkage. That linkage is not popular nowadays, quite rightly.

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Therefore I still believe that there are no better causes than that of this holy, spiritual and temporal leader of an ill-treated people—the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans. Furthermore, unlike the previous subject on which I spoke in this House, the environment, where the broader the sentiments expressed and the more disastrous the apparent consequences of not doing this, that or the other, the more powerless one felt, here the Government can, simply by acknowledging the Dalai Lama, by officially receiving him, do both good and a right deed. There seem to be so few opportunities these days for the Government to do both good and right deeds which cost nothing that it is surprising that on those grounds alone they do not seize the God-given opportunity to meet the Dalai Lama
I was somewhat puzzled by the mysterious ways of government. I am perfectly aware, and emphasise, that this Administration had nothing to do with the matter, but I recollect that some years ago our Sovereign had imposed on her as a guest at Buckingham Palace the Romanian dictator, Ceaucescu, and his horrible wife. Therefore, who is and who is not welcome is an extremely interesting subject.
The point was dealt with by some other noble Lords but I wondered about our attitude to the EC and its governments receiving the Dalai Lama. I wondered whether our Government were anxious about stepping out of line—but not a bit of it. I believe that many resolutions of the United Nations have supported the Dalai Lama and his cause and now that the United Nations has come back into fashion in this country following the Iraq-Kuwait conflict, its views must surely at last carry weight.
Perhaps the Government feel that the Dalai Lama is in spine way unworthy of us—not a fine enough person, with no temporal power—or perhaps he is too controversial in his views on, for example, monetarism; too wet or too dry, according to the movable fashions in Downing Street. He has no financial resources, merely spiritual ones. He is a good and holy man, an example of non-violent forbearance. He is the saintly leader of 4 million Buddhists. The most he has said of his struggle against the brutal Chinese aggression is:
"Our struggle is not anti-communist, not anti-Chinese. It is not anti-revolution. It has nothing to do with race or ideology. It is for the happiness of 6 million Tibetans."
Is it that the acceptance of the Dalai Lama might not be thought to be popular or that there are no votes in it? Surely there are always votes in good deeds in the long run, probably more even than in the re-jigging of the poll tax. Could it be thought that no one bothers about Tibet now? From noble Lords' speeches it is obvious that we are all greatly concerned. I believe that we feel for the country, its history and its tragic destruction. Many of our families have been there recently and seen its casually crushed culture and mangled monasteries.
As to the popular perception of the Dalai Lama, your Lordships may know the story of the British sergeant who was on duty at the Tibetan border. He
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had instructions to look out for the fleeing 13th Dalai Lama who was escaping from the pursuing Chinese and was approaching the frontier with a wild group of people. The sergeant addressed the group in a parade ground voice, saying, "Which of you blighters is the Dalai Lama?" He then gave up his bed to the exhausted holy man who offered 1,000 troops to the British Government in the First World War.
The many brilliant men who have served Tibet's cause have been referred to by other noble Lords: Younghusband, Bell, Richardson and Sherriff. When the last was British Resident, with his wife, in Lhasa, he taught the lamas to play croquet in their garden. In their long robes they were soon good at concealing the croquet balls and craftily transferring them in front of the hoops.
I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, mentioned the former Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, and his support for the Tibetan cause. He went on record as saying, on hearing of the Chinese invasion of Tibet,
"Chinese pressure on India will continue. The Chinese Communists did not capture Tibet for the scenery".
He went on to add,
"Their purpose was the same as Mussolini's when he seized Albania".
We all know his feelings on Mussolini.
As concerns the false claims of the Chinese Government to suzerainty in Tibet, I believe that the Tibetans know it all to have been said at the time of the signing of the treaty in 821 AD between the Tibetan king and the Chinese representative of the T'ang dynasty. The treaty delineated the border stating, "Chinese are happy in China and Tibetans are happy in Tibet".
I therefore urge the Minister, who is such a distinguished member of the Government, to agree to meet the Dalai Lama when he comes to Britain in March. He will well know that the present courageous Administration have fought two wars in the cause of self-determination in the Falklands and over Kuwait. The Dalai Lama's case should not be treated in any less sympathetic manner by the Government.
8.49 p.m.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for asking this Question. I feel that Her Majesty's Government will answer it as did the deputy editor of the Daily Beast in Evelyn Waugh's novel Scoop. They will reply, "Well, up to a point, Lord Willoughby". It is with modified rapture that I learn that other countries have been meeting his Holiness the Dalai Lama "up to a point" since he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. In Italy the Dalai Lama met only the all-party Tibet Group. In Spain he met only the parliament of Navarra. In Belgium he met only the heads of both Houses of Parliament, and that is what he will do here: he will meet the Speaker and he will meet my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, for which I am very grateful. It is good that 10 more countries have received his Holiness since our last Unstarred Question in this House in 1989. Slowly, we progress.

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Having said that, I am sad that our Prime Minister is not planning to meet the Dalai Lama. That is evidently because we still do not recognise the Dalai Lama as the secular head of Tibet. There is no difficulty about him being the spiritual head. Difficulties arise over the secular aspect because as we enter this territory we enter a minefield of semantics. Do we wish Tibet to exercise its right of independence or its right of self-determination? We deny the Chinese sovereignty but do we allow them suzerainty—and what is suzerainty? The meaning is clear to my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke and to the noble Lord, Lord Ennals; on the other hand I think that it means something different to the noble Lord, Lord MacLehose. Its meaning is unclear to me. It is a vague word and, worse, I believe that it has 17 meanings in Mandarin.
There is the word "autonomy". In 1943 Sir Anthony Eden described Tibet as autonomous, as de facto but not de jure independent and under Chinese suzerainty. He was repeating what Lord Curzon had said 20 years earlier; that Britain has recognised Tibet as de facto independent since 1910. Britain is ready to recognise China's suzerainty provided that China recognises Tibet's autonomy. China replies by agreeing that Tibet has autonomy. Therefore, they call half of it the Tibetan Autonomous Region. The other half they claim as part of China.
The key to understanding that attitude to Tibet lies more in race than in territory. The Han Chinese regard themselves as superior to all other races. They live in the Middle Kingdom, or the centre of civilisation, as my noble friend Lord Selkirk has stated. They call everyone who is not Han a barbarian, which includes the British. It applies with much more force to the ethnic minorities within the People's Republic of China: the Manchus, the Kazakhs and the Uighurs. The Chinese regard them as backward people with quaint customs and picturesque costumes who probably welcome the civilising influence of the Hans. The interesting exception is the Mongols, who are now independent, at least in the north. I find the Mongols even more interesting because it was under the rule of Kublai Khan that both China and Tibet were part of the Mongol empire. It is on that fact that the Chinese base their claim that Tibet is part of China. It is a thin claim as, by extension, it would make Afghanistan a part of India, because both countries were once part of the Moghul Empire. It would also give Great Britain suzerainty over France, whatever that might mean.
Therefore, the Chinese claim Tibet for a weak reason. Much of what they are doing there can be explained by their instinctive feeling of superiority, but to explain is not to condone. The destruction of the monasteries, the torture of the monks and the executions are scandals so often recited that I shall not go into them tonight.
However, I should like to mention education, as raised by the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby, where the Tibetans are put at a natural disadvantage. Should a Tibetan wish to learn English, he has to do so in Chinese. Therefore, he will not get a good job. Even in
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Lhasa it is unlikely that he will get a job as, for example, a bank clerk. He is more likely to be at the bottom of the heap, very dispirited and, I daresay, drunk. That is hardly the picture of a superior civilisation helping an ethnic minority to overcome its backwardness: rather it is keeping it down.
In 1989 the Chinese broadcast an educational message on radio Lhasa:
"We must settle the issue of what kind of people must be trained. We must train qualified personnel who love the motherland and maintain national unity. By no means should we train people who seek to practise splittism. We must see whether the students we train are politically qualified".
A general Chinese criticism of Tibet is that before 1950 it was not so much a Buddhist haven of calm and balance as a cruel feudal slave society. However, even if that is true, it does not justify intervention. Indeed it contravenes the United Nations declaration on the right to self-determination, Article 3, which states:
"Inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence."
The Chinese exploitation of Tibet's forests and minerals contravenes the UN General Assembly resolution of 14th December 1962, Article 1:
"The right of peoples and nations to permanent sovereignty over their natural wealth and resources must be exercised in the interests of national development and of the wellbeing of the state concerned".
In general, I believe that there is an important difference between Western and Chinese attitudes to Tibet: the West is a little bit woolly; China is hard and precise. The West sees a degree of independence but also a degree of Chinese suzerainty. There are differing views even within countries. In the United States, Congress backed an independent Tibet but the Reagan Administration did not. The waters are a little muddied. Contrast that situation with the crystal clear waters of China. I read from the magazine Outlook:
"Tibet is an inalienable part of Chinese territory. Any splittist action is not allowed by state law. Independence, semi-independence or independence in a disguised form will never be tolerated. The riots in Lhasa were engineered and instigated by a handful of splittist elements inside and outside Tibet. They tried to split Tibet from the big family of the motherland. They will never be allowed by law or tolerated by the Tibetan people".
That statement is clear. However, I believe that the issue can be resolved. It is not a question of whether Tibet be independent or a colony; the situation is not so basic. The Dalai Lama wants a middle road. In his address to the European Parliament on 15th June 1988 he suggested that Tibet be demilitarised but he does not advocate total independence. Tibet should be responsible for its internal policy, but China could manage its foreign policy. The Dalai Lama thus sacrifices a considerable measure of independence in return for the creation of a zone of peace, a sanctuary. His Holiness has proposed a sensible compromise. It is for that reason that I am a little sad that our Prime Minister will not meet him.
8.58 p.m.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke for initiating the debate on Tibet, or what the Chinese call

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the fifth nation of China, and the Dalai Lama, although our hearts and minds are full of anxiety and hope for what is happening to our forces and those of our allies in Kuwait, or what Saddam Hussein once described as the 19th state of Iraq.
In its wisdom the Government Whips' Office has managed to arrange the debate on an unwhipped Tuesday, late at night, after the television cameras have long departed and all next-day newspapers have gone to bed, as indeed have all but the most intrepid of your Lordships. However, the right of free speech in this country is an inalienable and precious one even when it is largely inaudible.
For years Tibet has been a hidden land, a country the size of Europe, beyond the veil of ice among the Himalayas. It is a country bordered by China and India, by Bhutan, Sikkim and Burma, but due to its difficulty of access it has long been isolated and able peaceably to pursue its destiny. The people are Tartars, akin to Mongolians, but racially and in every other way different to the Chinese, Indians and Burmese. As long ago as the seventh century they were a warlike people, extending their boundaries into Kashmir, Nepal, North Burma and even into China. The conquering Tibetan King, Tsuk-Tsen, married two princesses; the Princess of China and the Princess of Nepal, who were both Buddhists. After his conversion the whole of Tibet became Buddhist and, as it has remained ever since, a monastic, theistic society. Subsequently there was some contact between the courts of China and Tibet. Lamas travelled to Peking and in theory Tibet enjoyed the protection of China. The relationship was loose and, in the nature of things, never defined because it took three months to travel from one country to the other.
By the early 18th century the Chinese were interfering more frequently in the internal affairs of Tibet as they did not like the religious influence of the Dalai Lama over the peoples of Mongolia and Manchuria. They appointed an Amban in Lhasa. At the end of the 19th century the British were increasingly worried about Russian interventions in the sub-continent: what Kipling had called the "great game" had started. It occurred to the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, that if Tibet could be isolated from Russia there would be a protected frontier over nearly all the north of India. In 1904 an expedition under Colonel Younghusband penetrated Tibet and reached Lhasa where, after protracted negotiations with various lamas, but not the Dalai Lama who had conveniently disappeared, a treaty was signed between Britain and Tibet providing that the Tibetans should have no dealings with any foreign governments, which effectively ruled out the Russians.
In 1906 and 1907 conventions were signed with the Chinese and the Russians placing Tibet as a buffer state under the protection of the Chinese. The Chinese then organised a military expedition of their own which reached Lhasa in 1910, whereupon the Dalai Lama and his government fled to take refuge under the protection of the British at Darjeeling. Luckily for the Tibetans the Chinese revolution broke out in 1911, their troops were recalled and the Dalai Lama and his
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government returned to take possession of Tibet in 1912. For the next 40 years Tibet remained an entirely independent country. In 1917 the Chinese again attacked Tibet. This time they were repulsed.
After the First World War a British mission was sent to Tibet under Sir Charles Bell, who had befriended the Dalai Lama on his flight to India. Other British missions followed under Frederick Bailey, Sheriff, Leslie Weir, Frederick Williamson and, in 1936, Sir Basil Gould, who had in his entourage the young Hugh Richardson, trade secretary at Gyangtse.
On Friday of last week my husband and I spent the afternoon with Hugh Richardson in his house at St. Andrews on the Kinnesswood Burn. It was sheeting down with heavy sleet, and as he came down the steps of his house to shelter us, with old world courtesy, under his huge black umbrella I felt as if I were being transported back in time half a century to the Dekyi-Lingka in Lhasa, the Garden of Happiness, where he had represented the British from 1936 until 1947 and then for three years had represented Pandit Nehru until he left in 1950 just before the Chinese invasion.
"The Tibetans are a marvellous people", he told us, "gentle and peaceable. Life there was very primitive, but it was a very happy life. Of course, latterly, we had some electricity to work the radio". As we sipped coffee we talked of the Tibet which had gone. We talked of their monasteries, libraries and temples—3,500 of them, now all blown up or destroyed except for 13 which partially remain. Hugh Richardson also talked of China's destruction of the forests, which are not being replanted. Above all, we talked of the old days; of Tibet before 1950 when the temples still existed, the gardens were full of flowers and the little Dalai Lama—only 3½ years old—already radiated some special quality of goodness.
Since Hugh Richardson left Tibet the Chinese have blown up and destroyed the monasteries, they have taken the gold and silver objects to China and melted them down. Many Chinese have moved in to colonise Tibet. There have been forced marriages and sterilisation of Tibetan women. Pot plants and flowers have been pulled up and smashed. Dogs and pets have been killed. Women's hair has been cut off. Girls have been marched naked in the streets. There were beatings, tortures and killings. Books and sacred papers were used as lavatory paper. It was a brutal, systematic destruction of a whole people and a way of life. By the mid-1970s there was a new mood in China and things became marginally better. Besides, there were fewer Tibetans to kill, or monasteries to destroy or despoil.
However, since 1987 Chinese oppression has started again. More troops have arrived; people are still being killed and tortured. Only last year a 20 year-old student, Lhakpa Tsering, was tortured and killed. His case has been taken up by Amnesty International and by Senator Edward Kennedy. Some of the details were given by the Dalai Lama to the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, who passed them on to me.

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Though it hurts me to relate them to your Lordships as much as I am sure it will upset noble Lords to hear them, I think that they should be known.
Lhakpa Tsering, a Tibetan nationalist was imprisoned in November 1989 in Drapchi prison in Lhasa for distributing leaflets. He was born in Lhasa and lived in Kyere, with his father, his grandmother and his younger sister and brother. They were a very poor family. He was known for his gentle behaviour. Some foreign journalists were coming to inspect the conditions in Drapchi prison and the prisoners were briefed to say that Tibet was not independent but part of China. The prisoners, including Lhakpa Tsering, replied bravely that they were imprisoned because of their belief in the independence of Tibet which they would carry through to the end.
As soon as the prisoners said that the Chinese authorities started beating them. Because Lhakpa Tsering was the most quick witted he was singled out to be beaten mercilessly. Even those outside the prison walls heard the cries of pain of Lhakpa Tsering when he was beaten to death. When they saw that Lhakpa Tsering was badly beaten the other prisoners pleaded with the Chinese prison authorities to take him to the hospital for medical treatment. The prison warden ignored the request and so, unattended, Lhakpa Tsering died of his injuries on 15th December 1990.
Next day the Chinese authorities handed his body over to his family, who could not bear to look at it because he was so badly beaten. His body was blue, and blood had come out of his ears. Because his body was blue his family accused the prison authorities of giving him poison. They countered by saying that they had not done so and that his body could be thoroughly examined in the crematorium. The body examiners came from the Tibetan Medical Institute, members of the judiciary, members of the Health Institute and the topden (the regular body carrier). They discovered large clots of blood under the skin, which the topden said was because of the frequent use of electrical cattle prods on Lhakpa Tsering.
That horrifying story is only one among many. It makes us grieve for the poor boy so tragically and brutally murdered, for his family, for the Tibetan people, and for the Chinese who have to live with the consequences of their actions.
We in Britain have a long history of friendship with China. We admire its art and love of beauty. We love Chinese flower arrangements and Chinese cooking. Above all, we love China's people. They are our friends. It is because they are our friends that we have to speak out. We cannot bear to see our friends behaving badly in the eyes of other people and of the world. We should like to see Tibet restored to the complete independence that it enjoyed between 1912 and 1950 with its own people and its own religion and way of life so that, as an independent nation, it may once more regain the friendly relationship which it had with China in the distant past.
9.8 p.m.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, I rise briefly to support my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke. I could not possibly emulate the very powerful speeches made by many noble Lords who have spoken this evening. Unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Strange, my knowledge of Tibet is by no means immense. However, I can explain to my noble friend Lord Mersey that suzerainty is something that England used to claim over Scotland and possibly still does.
Along with other noble Lords I urge Her Majesty's Government to take a broader view than governments are usually accustomed to take in matters of this kind. In doing so I add, as other noble Lords have said, that the past two years should have taught us that things are not always quite what they seem in countries where there is autocratic or tyrannical rule. Not so very long ago in Europe we were faced with a seemingly immovable and monolithic communist bloc. It was easy to believe that that situation would not change in the foreseeable future. Indeed, up to about two years ago many people, including myself, thought that.
The result was that the Foreign Office and the authorities in this country tended to ignore foreign oppositions because to do otherwise was to offend the government in office. One can understand the reasoning behind that attitude but if the past few years have taught us anything they have taught us that we live in a turbulent world where almost anything can happen and usually does. My personal experience tells me that, as a result of that attitude, we have not earned the overwhelming gratitude of the present rulers of the former communist states in Eastern Europe or of their peoples. I shall not say any more about that matter.
I believe that Her Majesty's Government, in the person of the Prime Minister, ought to receive the Dalai Lama. He stands for something unique and precious in this world. At his trial King Charles I said, "Sir, I am no ordinary prisoner" and, to paraphrase him, the Dalai Lama could say, "Sir, I am no ordinary dissident". Indeed, he is not a dissident at all but the rightful ruler of Tibet and its people.
So far, I side with those noble Lords who have said tonight that China has no more right to rule Tibet than Iraq has to rule Kuwait. Indeed, from what I have seen, it has possibly rather less right. The culture and religion of Tibet make it one of the most interesting civilisations in the world. That civilisation has been all but destroyed in the past 40 years. The Dalai Lama alone remains a beacon of hope, spiritual and temporal, to his people. His country and religion were and are an inspiration to many and a threat to none. Who can say that of the murderous followers of Mao Tse Tung and his successors? Thanks to television, we were all observers of the events in Tiananmen Square. Hope flared briefly there, not only for China but also for Tibet and indeed for Hong Kong, only to be brutally stamped out by the vicious gerontocracy that now rules China. But the old men will die, things will change and what seems impossible today will, I believe, not always be impossible. I

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believe that Tibet will be free again and when that happens we may ask ourselves where Britain has stood during Tibet's agony.
Up to now our government have refused even to receive the Dalai Lama because of fears of upsetting China over Hong Kong. I do not want to say much about Hong Kong except that, in my humble opinion, when China takes Hong Kong in 1997 she will do exactly as she pleases. That is my opinion.
Talking or not talking to the Dalai Lama will not make a hair's breadth of difference except to the honour and standing of this country. We shall have refused to receive a just, holy and good man in order to placate the aged tyrants who for the moment happen to be ruling China. I do not believe that this country ought to lick the boots of tyrants. We are still, against all the evidence, the hope of much of the world that longs to be free.
Finally, I understood that the last time the Dalai Lama was in Britain he was restricted in what he was allowed to say in this country and undertook not to talk politics. Indeed I asked a Question in your Lordships' House on the subject. I was told that his Holiness had volunteered that undertaking to the Foreign Office. That is what I would call a likely story, but I suppose that we have to accept it. Will the Minister assure me that, should his Holiness offer such an undertaking this time, Her Majesty's Government will assure him that speech is free in this country?
9.15 p.m.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, we owe a deep debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, for initiating the debate, for the powerful advocacy with which he put the case for receiving his Holiness the Dalai Lama, and for his advocacy on behalf of the Tibetan people that more attention be paid to their rights by Her Majesty's Government. There is little that one can add to the description which he has given of the horrendous situation faced by the Tibetan people. The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, called it cultural genocide. A word coined by Leo Kuper to describe what is happening in Tibet is ethnocide. What we witness today is the extinction of the culture, the religion and whole ethos of a people by an oppressor. That underlies the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke.
We are not merely speaking of the reception by Her Majesty's Government of the Dalai Lama but of what that means in terms of the British Government's attitude to the sufferings which have been endured by the Tibetan people over the past 40 years. I wish to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, for the work that he has done, in particular in the leadership of the parliamentary group on Tibet, and the immense energy that he put into the organisation of the conference last year at which we discussed the aspirations of the Tibetan people. Much of the attention now paid to the cause of Tibet is due to the work that he did and to the impact that it made on public opinion within this country.
It is not long since we last debated this issue. We asked the Government then why they declined to welcome his Holiness the Dalai Lama. Several noble
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Lords have pointed out that while many things have been changing in the world in the intervening months, the Foreign Office policy on Tibet appears to be set in concrete. Nothing has changed in the way in which we approach the question of Tibet or the reception of the Dalai Lama in spite of everything that has occurred in the outside world. Those matters have been mentioned. The independence of Namibia is another example. It has been held in subjection by its powerful neighbour, South Africa. It has now obtained freedom with the aid of the international community. It is an interesting example where the force of international public opinion has in the end carried the day and forced the oppressor to give up the domination of the smaller and less powerful neighbour.
Mention has been made of the Baltic States. Not only the Baltic States but all the other republics in the Soviet Union are now claiming their independence, including the Ukraine and Georgia. Even the Russian Republic has declared in favour of transforming the USSR into a loose confederation of sovereign states.
In the Horn of Africa, Eritrea has almost won its 30 year struggle for independence from Amhara colonialism. In Kashmir the people are engaged in a life and death struggle against Indian imperialism. In Acheh, East Timor and West Papua, there is a new spirit of hope in the freedom struggles. In the Gulf, the Kurds are determined that when Saddam Hussein finally topples their claims will receive, as they should, at least as high a priority as those of the Palestinians. In short, everywhere in the world peoples are demanding the fulfilment of the promise of Article 1 of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which provides:
"All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development".
It goes without saying that the Tibetans are a people. They have a long history of statehood. However, as has been pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, that does not in any way deny the fact that there existed close links of a unique kind between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese Emperor which we now describe as suzerainty but which in fact is nothing of the kind. As students of Tibetan history will be aware, what was known as the Cho Yon relationship provided for an exchange between equal sovereigns where the Dalai Lama gave spiritual benefit to the Chinese Emperor and in return the Chinese Emperor conferred military benefits on the people of Tibet. That was not suzerainty. It is a form of ethnocentricity that we apply a term that is appropriate in relation to Western history to a situation which had nothing in common with what happened in Europe when suzerainty meant something here.
The people of Tibet have their own institutions, religion, language and culture. The brutal annexation of Tibet by China was comparable to the annexation of the Baltic states by the USSR in 1940. That is an instructive parallel because the United Kingdom never recognised the Soviet occupation. While the Government received visiting dignitaries such as Mrs. Casimiera Prunskiene, who was then Prime Minister

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of Lithuania, or Mr. Lennart Meri, who was the Foreign Minister of Estonia, we meekly accepted the Tibetan anschluss and snubbed the only legitimate representative of the Tibetan people.
The noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, was a little dismissive of the other leaders who have received the Dalai Lama. He said that their propensity to receive him was in inverse proportion to their interest in the problems of that region. I suggest to him that their preparedness to meet him and to receive him in their countries bears a relationship to their view of the question of self-determination. The reason why President Havel received the Dalai Lama was because the self-determination of the people of Czechoslovakia was of some importance in that country. Might not the situation alter a little as the various nations of Eastern Europe stand on their own feet and realise the strength of their own independence? As the republics of the USSR do the same, what attitude might be taken by a future independent Latvia, Estonia or Lithuania, or by an independent Ukraine or Georgia, to the aspirations of other subject peoples who have not yet been liberated by the empires that still exist? The era of European colonialism came to an end and we now face the dismantling of other empires which, unfortunately, still exist but have been ignored by the United Nations.
However, at present we are fighting to uphold an important principle of international law—that sovereignty cannot be acquired by forcible occupation. I fully support the war against Saddam Hussein but at the same time I must point out that we apply multiple standards in such matters. We stood aside when Suharto brutally invaded East Timor in 1975. We did nothing to prevent him massacring 150,000 of the territory's inhabitants. In fact we continued to try to sell him weapons, as we did to Saddam Hussein provided that the only people he killed were Iraqis and Kurds rather than Kuwaitis. We have nothing to say about the atrocities now being committed by the Indians in their occupation of Kashmir.
Mrs. Lynda Chalker goes to the Horn of Africa and hobnobs with the butcher Mangistu who has murdered his political opponents and caused the deaths of thousands of his countrymen. The Government were quick to reingratiate themselves with the perpetrators of the 4th June massacre in Beijing. As soon as they thought that decency would allow they sent representatives from the Foreign Office to Beijing and to Lhasa. The representative who went to Lhasa found out little. He arrived two days after a large demonstration by the Tibetan people against their occupation. A Chinese general was subsequently decorated for the repression of the demonstration but the Foreign Office representative was unaware of those events. He only made inquiries of some European residents in Lhasa and did not bother even to speak to any representatives of the Tibetan people.
However, it does not matter to the Government that dissidents were tried and sentenced under procedures which do not conform to any principles of natural justice. It did not matter, as has been
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mentioned, that Tibetans continued to be arrested and tortured; that huge forces of the police and army of the Chinese occupiers intimidated the population; that monks and nuns have been singled out for particularly vicious ill-treatment, and that a systematic campaign of ethnocide is being waged against Tibet. As has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Bellhaven, our policy has been to lick the boots of the dictators in Beijing.
The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, was good enough to send me a copy of his letter from the Prime Minister which stated:
"The Dalai Lama's aspirations for self-determination have not been endorsed by any other government".
I make no apologies for returning to that statement because self-determination is not a right to be claimed by an individual, however distinguished he may be. It is unique among the rights which are laid down in the United Nations covenant on political rights in that it belongs to a people:
"All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development".
The Tibetans are incontrovertibly a people, as I have already said. However, when he winds up perhaps the Minister will confirm that that is also his view; namely, that the Tibetans are a people and that therefore they possess the right enshrined in Article 1.
One noble Lord mentioned that there was not much democracy in Tibet before the Chinese occupation in 1950, but, as has also been said, neither was there anywhere else in Asia. Nowadays the position is different. I point out to your Lordships that recently an election has been held of all the Tibetan peoples in exile for a new assembly. The results are due to be announced within the next week.
Therefore, whatever may have been the history of Tibet prior to Chinese occupation, if the Tibetans regained control of their own affairs they would assuredly have a democratic system. Indeed, his Holiness the Dalai Lama has said that he has no particular political aspirations. As the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, reminded us, he likes to call himself a humble monk. Once the Tibetans obtain the right to self-determination, it is entirely a matter for them as to how they should be governed.
Returning to the Prime Minister's letter, he implies that we cannot begin to consider the claim to self-determination unless it has first been endorsed by other governments. I should like to press the Minister as to whether that is really the view of the Government. If it is, and if other signatories to the covenant take a similar view, Article 1 is a dead letter. The only way in which a territory would ever be able to make good a claim would be through the use of superior military force, as in the most obvious case since the war, that of Bangladesh, and, quite shortly I hope, in Western Sahara and Eritrea.
Once a people has expelled its oppressors and established its own administration, governments recognise the right to self-determination. However, the obvious consequence of that is that it encourages peoples to use military rather than political means of asserting their rights as one can see from the conflicts

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in Western Sahara, Eritrea, Kashmir, the Punjab, Acheh, West Papua, East Timor, East Turkestan and even Tibet. In spite of the Buddhist tradition of non-violence, which has already been mentioned, and the firm insistence by the Dalai Lama that only peaceful means should be used to secure Tibetan rights, the Chinese authorities have not hesitated to use extreme violence against the civilian population and some young Tibetans are now advocating armed struggle.
Comparison has been made between the peaceful way in which the Tibetans pursue their aspirations and the horrible atrocities committed by the IRA in Ireland. It was an Irishman who said in 1880 that violence is sometimes the only way of securing a hearing for moderation. I hope that that will not be the lesson given out by either the British Government or any other state which has to deal with the People's Republic of China. Shall we say to the Dalai Lama and his people that because they continue to pursue their case by peaceful means they will not receive a hearing in the outside world whereas others, such as the Palestinians, who are quite prepared to use violent means, are entertained in the councils of the United Nations and given a proper hearing by the leaders of import ant states?
I am sure that it would be infinitely preferable for the United Nations to establish procedures for evaluating and processing claims for self-determination so that the outcome would not be arbitrarily decided on political grounds. I hope that in the Gulf, when Kuwait has been finally liberated from Iraqi occupation, consideration will be given to finding better procedures for evaluating those claims other than the arbitrary one of deciding whether or not a specific people has been successful by force of arms in carrying through the claims that it was denied through political means. After all, the Tibetans have a far longer history of statehood in national institutions and a better claim than the Kuwaitis to the support of the international community. The reason why they continue to get the brush-off is because we are all terrifies of offending the Chinese. That has always been the case. We do not want to upset them not only because of Hong Kong, but also because China is an important power in the world. We think of it as an essential trading and political partner in matters such as the Gulf, where the Chinese have been specifically singled out for praise for the help that they have been giving to the Allies in terms of moral support.
I hope that the new order which has been mentioned as occurring after the Gulf War in the Middle East will not be limited to that region. Although no clue has been given to its components, I hope that it will provide for some international impartial authority which I may call—as I did at the conference on the rights of Tibet which the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and I attended in Tokyo—a United Nations High Commission for Self-determination. Its function would be to receive claims, to have the power to disallow those which were manifestly ill-founded and to refer those which were judged admissible to an appropriate committee of the United Nations.
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By what criteria would the High Commissioner decide on admissibility? The governing instrument might require him to have regard to the factors I mentioned earlier—previous history of statehood, ethnicity, language, religion, culture, existence of national institutions and any evidence of the wishes of the people. All point clearly in the direction of giving Tibetans the right of admission.
The committee to which the High Commissioner would report might be a reconstituted Decolonisation Committee, with the members appointed as experts in their own right, like the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, rather than as representatives of their government, as the Committee of 24 now is.
It may be objected—and was by Ministers when I made the point in correspondence with them—that states would never agree to procedures which would be likely to breach the principle of so-called territorial integrity. But the purpose of this procedure would be only to implement the United Nations' own principles which are set out in the Universal Declaration and in both Covenants. Those should surely take precedence over lines arbitrarily drawn on maps. When Britain was an imperial power we voluntarily granted independence to all the territories that we governed when after the war the economic and political disadvantages of maintaining control of the empire became clear. Why should not the same arguments now apply to the Chinese and to the other empires which still exist? Is it not up to us to point out to China that it could enjoy amicable and profitable relationships with a free Tibet and at the same time eliminate the enormous burden of military occupation of an increasingly hostile people? Might not China also accept, if the subject could be discussed with it at all, that legally there is no difference between local and salt sea imperialism? As a UN rapporteur expressed it:
"If, beneath the guise of ostensible national unity, colonial and alien domination does in fact exist, whatever legal formula may be used in an attempt to conceal it, the right of the subject people concerned cannot be denied without international law being violated".
The Government have not said that making claims to self-determination justiciable would be undesirable, merely that the Charter gave member states protection against external interference directed at their national unity and territorial integrity, and that they would oppose any new mechanism which undermined this protection. What I have proposed is that the initiative has to come from a people inside the existing territory, that frivolous claims can be discarded, and that those found to have some merit be considered by a UN committee, not by individual member states. With those provisos, why not at least test the water and see whether there is any support for such a proposal internationally?
Whatever the Government may say, let them be in no doubt that the cause of Tibet is backed in this country and in the West generally by the great majority of those who know anything about the issue. I think that that has been exemplified by this evening's debate. The vast majority of people also admire enormously the dignified and peaceful way in which the case has been presented by his Holiness the Dalai

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Lama. I hope that his visit will convince the Government of the need to take a stand, as has been said, on moral considerations and not on those of expediency which have determined their policy hitherto.
As the Government consider what has been said this evening in this debate I commend to their attention words spoken by President Woodrow Wilson in an address to Congress towards the end of another great conflict. He said:
"National aspirations must be respected; peoples may now be dominated and governed only by their consent. Self-determination is not a mere phrase. It is an imperative principle of action, which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril".
9.38 p.m.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, gave a very forceful and effective introduction to the debate on what is a very emotive subject, that of Tibet. From what was said by a long list of speakers it is apparent that it is a matter which concerns many in this House and elsewhere. As the noble Lord said, it is a concern that will not go away. The central point to the noble Lord's Question is whether the Government will meet his Holiness the Dalai Lama on his forthcoming visit to London. The Government may have received a great deal of encouragement from what noble Lords have said this evening. It was only the noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, who urged caution and spoke of the harm that such recognition might give to relations with China over Hong Kong. As other noble Lords have said, our responsibilities to the people of Hong Kong should not disqualify us from making our views about Tibet known to China.
Many noble Lords have stressed the Tibetan people's right to self-determination as called for by the UN resolution of 1961. Many have also praised the admirable non-violent methods used by Tibetans, led by the Dalai Lama, to achieve that. Her Majesty's Government should support Tibet by urging the Chinese Government to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the Tibetans.
I join my noble friend Lord Ennals in asking whether Her Majesty's Government have any plans at present to meet representatives from the Chinese Government to discuss the situation in Tibet.
In the few minutes I have to speak I wish to draw attention to the present suffering of the people of Tibet. I have in mind human rights violations and also the deprivation suffered by the majority of Tibetan people. When one is debating whether the Tibetan people have a right to self-determination one should look rather carefully at the results of Chinese occupation. There have already been many references to the violation of human rights: Amnesty International has reported the violations perpetrated by the Chinese army and the security forces. For many years we have read troubling press accounts about the imprisonment and arbitrary execution of prisoners of conscience. Have the Government made representations to the Chinese Government with respect to
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human rights violations in Tibet? Does the Minister know how many political prisoners are currently held in Drapchi prison, and are any held in other prisons and labour camps in Tibet? On these Benches we believe that it is of the utmost importance that China should be confronted over its treatment of the Tibetan people.
We remember that there seemed to be an improvement when before Christmas a delegation of Scandinavian diplomats was allowed to visit Tibet and to report on conditions there. This followed the call of the US Congress for the cancellation of economic concessions to China in view of its human rights abuses in Tibet. The Scandinavian delegation complained to the Chinese authorities about the treatment of the estimated 50 or more prisoners held at the prison and called for more humane treatment of and possible release for those held. This effort, however, sadly suffered a setback soon after the delegation's departure, with the torture and the murder of Lhakpa Tsering, which was described in a very heartbreaking and graphic way by the noble Baroness, Lady Strange.
I too remind the House that this murder drew a stern response from 30 US Senators, led by Senator Edward Kennedy himself, who wrote to the Premier of China expressing their concern over the death of this political prisoner and the violent repression of Tibetans peacefully seeking to express their political views. Senator Kennedy called Tsering's death:
"Yet another human rights tragedy in Tibet, all too typical of the cruel Chinese repression of the Tibetan people".
Perhaps the Minister can give the Government's assessment of the human rights situation in Tibet and say whether it has improved since the visit of the Scandinavian delegation before Christmas.
The undeniable fact of these human rights violations is there for all to see. Unfortunately, evidence coming from one source—the UNICEF reports—stresses the inequalities within China, with enormous gains in child health, nutrition and economic security for the urban, coastal and river-basin regions, in contrast to the high poverty and poor health in the remote, rural, mountainous and minority inhabited areas which include Tibet. Yet the Chinese Government claim to have a policy of giving priority to its deprived areas. It is crucial for all donor countries to stress to the Chinese Government that they must keep their word in this regard and prioritise the poorest regions. The special studies indicate some very wide disparities. For instance, while average child mortality in China is 36 per thousand, which is not a bad level, it is thought to be as high as 122 per thousand in Lhasa; and with adult illiteracy at only 31 per cent. in China, it stands as high as 73 per cent. in Tibet, which is over double the figure. The noble Viscount, Lord Mersey, spoke about the educational disadvantage of the Tibetans. I believe that that is a very important point.
However, I should point out that those inequalities in health care are also of concern to the UK Committee of UNICEF, which has just renewed its long-standing commitment to China's expanded programme of immunisation, for which the sum of

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£250,000 spread over a period of three years has been pledged. UNICEF's supporters and volunteers all over the country striving to raise money would like to see that money evenly distributed among the Tibetans where there is the greatest need. That is why the inequalities to which I have referred are so worrying. Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether the Government are supporting any NGO activity in Tibet.
In conclusion, perhaps I may stress the fact that everything points to the urgency for the Tibetan people's rights to be recognised and for them to be allowed to return to the standard of living, to the culture and to the way of life which they enjoyed prior to the Chinese occupation in 1950. Those rights have in effect been conceded by many countries where his Holiness the Dalai Lama has been received. Further, I believe that it is important for Her Majesty's Government to remember, as the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, said, that the United Kingdom was one of the 59 countries which voted for the UN resolution calling for the restoration of Tibet's right to self-determination in 1961. Moreover, since that time his Holiness and his non-violent warriors, if I may so call them, pave earned the respect and admiration of many people throughout the world. These people are dedicated to the peaceful resolution of conflict. As the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby, and many other noble Lords said, this subject will not go away.
9.47 p m.
Lord Reay: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke for raising the question of the Dalai Lama and the situation in Tibet and for providing the opportunity for us to debate the matter and for me to set out the policies of Her Majesty's Government.
The Government have made clear their attitude to the Dalai Lama on many occasions. We have always recognised his role as a distinguished spiritual leader who has won widespread international respect for his admirable dedication to the cause of peace. That was confirmed by the award to him in 1989 of the Nobel Peace Prize. He is welcome to visit the United Kingdom at any time and there has never been any question of our seeking to dissuade him from coming to Britain or of restricting his activities while he is here. He has indeed visited this country on several occasions and was here briefly last September to promote the launch of his autobiography.
Nevertheless, the Dalai Lama remains a political figure as well as a spiritual leader, regarded by many of his followers as the leader of a government-in-exile. It is important for everyone to be clear that no government recognises this political body and we like others have no dealings with them. Often meetings with the Dalai Lama organised in his spiritual capacity have later been portrayed by his supporters in a political manner. In these circumstances we have concluded that it would not be right for the Prime Minister or Foreign and Commonwealth Office Ministers to meet the Dalai Lama during his visit.
As the noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, said, any change in our policies would be interpreted as an act
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of state. I agree with him. It would be an act open to misinterpretation and would be to no one's benefit. Nevertheless, his Holiness will be received at a high level and a full and varied programme has been arranged for him. As well as meeting such prominent figures as the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and Cardinal Hume, he will spend time in another place where he will meet the Speaker. Furthermore, my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor will meet the Dalai Lama at a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Tibet which he will chair in his capacity as Speaker of this House and which his Holiness will address. There can therefore be no question of discourtesy to a widely respected spiritual figure.
So far as the status of Tibet is concerned, successive British Governments have consistently regarded Tibet as autonomous while recognising the special position of the Chinese there. That continues to be the Government's view. Tibet was declared an autonomous region of China in 1965. The Dalai Lama has made various proposals for the future of Tibet. Those are matters for him to discuss with the Chinese Government, and we have encouraged the Chinese authorities in that direction.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, is there any respect in which the Minister feels that the Tibetan people in Tibet have any degree of autonomy today? If so, will he tell us?
Lord Reay: My Lords, it is our view that Tibet has autonomy. I shall say more about that in due course.
We believe that all peoples have a right to self-determination, but that right can be exercised in several different ways. We do not believe that independence for Tibet is a realistic proposal and consider that it would be no service to the Tibetans to encourage them to seek independence. We continue to believe that the most promising solution to the problem of Tibet is through dialogue between the Chinese Government and the Tibetan people, including the Dalai Lama. The Chinese authorities have recently reiterated their willingness to open such a dialogue and we welcome this commitment.
Our prime concern in all of this must be to achieve a better deal for the Tibetan people and Her Majesty's Government share the concerns of many Members of your Lordships' House over reports of human rights abuses in Tibet. It is a sad fact, however, that there have been reports of severe human rights abuses throughout China, not only in Tibet. We deplore such abuses wherever they occur and have made our concern clear to the Chinese authorities both in public and private on many occasions. My honourable friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, then Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, specifically referred to Tibet when speaking of that concern to the Chinese leaders on his visit to Peking in July last year, and my noble friend Lord Caithness had a long exchange on that topic with the Chinese Vice Foreign Minister, Tian Zengpei, who visited the UK in November.
The EC Presidency made two statements to last year's session of the UN Commission on Human

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Rights, on behalf of the Twelve, calling upon the Chinese authorities to guarantee full respect for human rights throughout China, including Tibet, in keeping with their international obligations. The second statement called for the release of all political prisoners and respect for the rights of all Chinese citizens to free expression and peaceful assembly. The UK was also a co-sponsor of a UN resolution on human rights in China, which unfortunately was narrowly defeated in the UN Commission.
We should not see every action of the Chinese in Tibet in a purely negative light. Since 1980 China has shown a more positive attitude in the region. The Chinese themselves have acknowledged that serious mistakes were made in Tibet, particularly during the Cultural Revolution, and have admitted that the Tibetan people's interests have been harmed by those mistakes. They appear to have been making an effort to show some respect for Tibetan beliefs and way of life. The Government have commissioned the restoration of more than 500 monasteries and temples destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. The authorities also give substantial aid to Tibet, some of it jointly with international organisations. They have, for example, set up three health centres for women and children in conjunction with UNICEF and have allowed the Red Cross and Save the Children Fund to work in Tibet. They set up a Tibet Development Fund which collects money from overseas donors for development projects in the education, health and welfare spheres. They are committed to making Tibet self-sufficient. After the demonstrations in March 1989, the Chinese authorities reaffirmed that they would not change their policies of promoting economic and cultural development in Tibet, while preserving freedom of religion and respect for local customs.
The member of the British Embassy in Peking who accompanied three members of another place on their visit to Tibet in October 1989—at a time when Tibet was still under martial law—reported that, despite the heavy military presence, the economy of Lhasa and the surrounding area appeared to be thriving and the general atmosphere seemed relaxed. I am aware that some noble Lords have queried that description, but in our view it reflects the situation at the time.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, has the Minister any comment to make on the official's ignorance of the event that occurred two days before his visit—that is, the large demonstration which I mentioned, for having repressed which a Chinese general was afterwards decorated?
Lord Reay: My Lords, we stand by the report our our delegate. I have no reason to suppose that he was in ignorance of the situation which he was describing.
It is also a fact that those disturbances which have taken place in Lhasa from time to time between 1987 and 1989 were relatively limited in time and extent, even if, regrettably, deaths and injuries undoubtedly occurred. As has been mentioned, after the lifting of martial law on 1st May 1990, four Scandinavian ambassadors were able to visit Tibet in November
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1990. They reported that security was relatively muted although there were large numbers of plain clothes police in evidence. They said that conditions in the prison they visited appeared reasonable by Asian standards. More generally, they observed of their visit to Tibet that significant technological and economic development had been taking place. I am aware that there are many different views of China's efforts to modernise and develop Tibet. But I believe there has been a genuine attempt to improve conditions in that region which should be recognised.
I shall attempt to deal with some of the points that were raised by noble Lords taking part in the debate and which I have not entirely covered. My noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke and the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and perhaps others, observed that Tibet had enjoyed de facto independence after 1911, but Tibet never enjoyed de jure independence. Tibet was never internationally recognised as independent. That is why there is no parallel with Kuwait. Kuwait is a sovereign independent state recognised internationally as such, and is a member of the United Nations.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Would he agree that the British Government signed a treaty with Tibet at one stage between 1911 and 1950? If Tibet was not a sovereign independency how could it sign a treaty?
Lord Reay: My Lords, it remains the case that successive British governments have regarded Tibet as autonomous, while always recognising the special position of China. That continues to be our view. Similarly, we do not regard the situation of the Baltic States as a comparable parallel. Her Majesty's Government never recognised the legality of the incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union, whereas we have always recognised the special position of the Chinese in Tibet.
The noble Lords, Lord Ennals and Lord Grimond, spoke of appeasement. There is no question of our appeasing China. Human rights abuses in Tibet concern us as they do when they occur anywhere in the world. We have never hesitated to make clear to the Chinese our views on this issue. We wish to improve our relations with China, but this does not prevent us from stating clearly to them our position on abuses of human rights.
Several noble Lords referred to the fact that Ministers from other countries had met the Dalai Lama, although the noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, pointed out that the countries with the greatest interests in China had not done so, and he cited the United States, Japan and Germany. Of those countries whose Ministers have visited the Dalai Lama—
Lord Ennals: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? On the first day of German reunification the President of Germany received the Dalai Lama. He was the first foreign visitor to be received.
Lord Reay: My Lords, I stand corrected. I accept the noble Lord's correction, but those Ministers who have met the Dalai Lama stressed that they had done so in his private and religious capacity, and at the

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same time most have reiterated to the Chinese authorities their recognition of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet.
My noble friends Lord Willoughby and Lady Strange raised the case of Mr. Lhakpa Tsering and we are concerned about the report of Amnesty International about his death under torture. We are trying to establish further details.
The noble Lords, Lord Ennals and Lord Avebury, referred to the letter which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister wrote to the former. The letter was intended to convey the point that a Tibetan claim to independence had not achieved support from member states of the United Nations. My noble friend Lord Selkirk said that we should take the matter to the United Nations. We see it as essentially a problem which must be solved by the Chinese Government and the Tibetan people. We do not think that United Nations involvement would lead to a solution, but we are of course prepared to raise human rights issues at the United Nations; indeed, we have done so on several occasions.
I agree with the concern of my noble friend Lord Eden of Winton about human rights in Tibet. We have told the Chinese repeatedly of our concern. He raised the matter of Hong Kong, as did the noble Lord, Lord MacLehose. We see no parallel and consider it misleading to make too close a comparison. There are fundamental, historical, ethnic, economic and constitutional differences between Hong Kong and Tibet and between Chinese policies towards those two places.
We consider it to be wrong to draw a direct parallel also between the 17-point agreement that China signed with the Tibetans in 1951 and the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong. The latter is a binding international agreement registered at the United Nations. It provides as secure a guarantee for Hong Kong as possible. We believe that it is very much in Chinese interests to honour that Sino-British Joint Declaration.
My noble friend Lady Elles was concerned about damage to the environment. We are aware of the allegations that the Chinese are damaging the environment in Tibet. However, an eminent American anthropologist who has spent over a year travelling around Tibet's northern plateau recently reported that the flora and fauna were flourishing. He had found no ecological degradation.
The noble Earl, Lord Buchan, mentioned linkage. Chinese links with Tibet go back seven hundred years. The Chinese do not regard themselves as having suzerainty; they claim sovereignty based on this relationship. My noble friend Lady Elles referred to negotiations between the Chinese and the Dalai Lama. As we understand it, the position is that the Chinese have offered to talk to him about Tibet but they set certain conditions. The Dalai Lama responded positively to the principle of talks but was not happy
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with some of the conditions. The impasse has still to be resolved. We believe that dialogue between the Chinese Government and the Tibetan people offers the best hope for a solution to the problem of Tibet. We shall continue to encourage the Chinese authorities in this.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked whether we saw the Tibetans as a people with a right to self-determination. The United Nations has not determined the criteria for establishing who are a people. We are not in a position to make a definite decision on that.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I asked whether the Government saw the Tibetans as a people, not whether the United Nations did.
Lord Reay: My Lords, this is in the context of the United Nations resolution. There are problems over the question and the criteria have not been determined by the United Nations. In the absence of such a determination, we cannot make a definite decision.
My noble friend Lord Belhaven and Stenton spoke about the freedom of the Dalai Lama to say what he wishes. When he visited here in April 1988 or when his visit to this country was proposed, assurances were offered on his behalf that his visit would principally be pastoral and he would not make political statements while he was here. We accepted those assurances. They were not a pre-condition of his being allowed to enter the United Kingdom. No such assurances were offered or sought during his last brief visit in September 1990, nor have any been offered or sought in respect of his forthcoming visit next month. He was not gagged last time; he will not be gagged this time. He is entirely free to say what he wants.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, asked me some questions. I am not in a position to give her an answer to all of them. We make our views about Tibet known to the Chinese authorities. We urge them to talk to the Tibetans and the Dalai Lama.
With regard to the question of political prisoners, the Chinese told the Scandinavian ambassadors that there were 56 political prisoners in Tibet and 63 in re-education camps for labour offences.
I was also asked about NGOs. There is no HMG support for NGO activity in Tibet and none has been requested; but if it was it would be given sympathetic consideration.
In conclusion, I should like to reiterate that, while we advocate dialogue and improved relations between the Chinese and the Tibetans and we would like to see the Tibetans play a greater role in Tibet, we do not believe that independence is a realistic option. We do not think that people who promote the idea are doing the Tibetans a service. Let us see greater support here for dialogue between the Tibetans and the Chinese, which is something that the Dalai Lama has been trying to promote.
House adjourned at six minutes past ten o'clock.