Lords Sitting of 16 November 1992

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.

Biodiversity Initiative
The Earl of Halsbury The Earl of Halsbury asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they intend to implement the proposal from the Natural History Museum, and other organisations, in response to the Prime Minister's announcement of the Darwin initiative for the survival of species at the UNCED Conference in Rio de Janeiro in June.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Strathclyde): My Lords, consultations with interested institutions and organisations, including the Natural History Museum, are continuing and we expect to make a statement later in the year on the structure of the initiative and the activities to be undertaken as part of it.
I am pleased to be able to tell noble Lords that provision has been made in this year's public expenditure survey for the Darwin initiative of £1 million for 1993–94, £2 million for 1994–95 and £3 million for 1995–96.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. May I ask for more details of his reply relative to securing the future of the National History Museum and its continuing ability to provide international leadership in the field of biodiversity? What action will Her Majesty's Government take to provide it with modern storage and research facilities, according to its latest corporate plan, not yet published? What benefits might it expect to receive from the Chancellor's Autumn Statement, in which he announced that he intends to rescue the construction industry by placing massive orders on public account?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am not sure that a question on the future of the Natural History Museum is the one on the Order Paper. However we very much want to work with the Natural History Museum to further the cause of biodiversity.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I warmly welcome the announcement of the financial provision over the next three years? Will he say a little more about the consultation? What opportunities to take part will there be for non-scientific bodies interested in all aspects of the follow-up of the Rio Conference so that there will be maximum consultation with interested parties?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the noble Lord is right, there are many different organisations, not just
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scientific ones, which we shall wish to continue to consult. We recognise that many different people have an interest in the subject.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, for those noble Lords who are not scientists, will my noble friend tell us what is biodiversity?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, biodiversity is the study of the different species that occur in our natural environment.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, is the Minister satisfied that the figures he announced are enough for the Natural History Museum and others to implement that most important initiative announced at Rio by the Prime Minister?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, we believe that the money is enough. We have not yet decided how that money will be shared out. That will be decided in a report that will be made before the end of the year.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Minister's announcement about funding is, of course, welcome. Will he say a bit more about the report which will be made before the end of the year? Who will it be made to and upon what will the decisions be based?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, we shall have to see the report before I can say what it is going to report. It will be given to the House. Exactly how it will be given to the House will depend upon the importance of the report.

Trident Missiles: Testing
2.41 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney Lord Jenkins of Putney asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, following Baroness Trumpington's Answer on 26th October [col. WA 93] that "it is not practicable for the UK to test [nuclear weapons] while the US Government is itself unable to do so", Trident missiles will not even be tested to ensure their safety; and, if so, whether the country most threatened by the missiles will be Scotland.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Viscount Cranborne): My Lords, like the noble Lord and, I suspect, all Members of the House, I am delighted to be able to rely upon the considerable authority of my noble friend whom he quotes in his Question.
It is important to distinguish between the testing programme of our Trident warhead, which has been successfully completed, and the quite separate process of testing the Trident missile. The missile has already been extensively and successfully test-fired in the United States, and will also undergo a comprehensive series of trials, assessments and formal safety approval procedures before entering service with the Royal Navy.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, if the Minister and the Government are so satisfied with the position, why do not they join the United States in declaring a moratorium on nuclear testing?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I must point out to the noble Lord that the present Administration in the United States, like us, feels that the resolution proposed and passed by Congress is unfortunate and misguided. As I have made perfectly clear to noble Lords, and to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, in particular, on previous occasions, the reason it is important that we should continue testing is, above all else, for matters of safety.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, if I may correct the noble Viscount on a point of fact, the United States Administration has since accepted the position of Congress and the President elect equally accepts the idea of a moratorium. The British Government are alone in standing out against it. Is it not about time that they changed their minds?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I do not wish to indulge in your Lordships' House in a pantomime-like, "Yes, it is", "No, it isn't" exchange, but I must emphasise to your Lordships that the US Administration believes, like us, that Congress's legislation for a moratorium and an end to testing in 1996 is misguided.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that far from being threatened by these missiles, Scotland—in common with the rest of the free world—feels secure in having them, as she and the rest of the free world did with having the Polaris submarines? Will he further point out to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, that even the Labour Party now concedes that the defence of our country in nuclear terms is important? Not only does it back the siting of Trident on the Clyde, but it is rightly campaigning for the reprocessing and refitting of the Trident submarines at Rosyth, also in Scotland.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, as always, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for his authoritative interpretations of public opinion in Scotland. I am the first to agree with him that I should be unwise in any way to challenge his diagnosis of what people think north of the Border. In the Ministry of Defence, we have noted the remarkable degree to which the Labour Party is campaigning towards the retention of nuclear refitting at Rosyth. It is a decision which the Ministry of Defence will find difficult to take, but which will certainly be taken within the reasonably near future.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware that, whether or not the United States legislation is misguided, it is there? Since we test in the United States, it means that we shall only be able to have three tests up to September 1996 and no tests thereafter. In the light of that, will the Government reconsider their view and cease opposing a comprehensive test ban treaty?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government have certainly never denied the desirability of ultimately endorsing a complete test ban treaty. However, it is perfectly clear that the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, should, if I may be so bold as to suggest it, realise that any future testing from now relates not to the safety of the Trident system itself but very much to the safety of future systems and the capabilities of the teams we have in place in this country.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the commitment of the Labour Party is still to a total ban on nuclear testing? In his replies, he seems to assume that there has not been an election in the United States. To what extent are the Government in touch with the next Administration in the United States—which on many issues pursues a different policy—in order to bring our policy a little more up to date?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, will know from his experience and would rightly expect Her Majesty's Government to be in close touch with events in the United States and I can reassure him on that point.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is it not fair to say that the noble Viscount has now admitted that the Government are in favour of a comprehensive test ban treaty? It is just a question of time. If—and it is an "if"—the new Administration of the United States takes the resolution of Congress at its face value and does not continue testing in the United States and removes our testing facilities, to reiterate the question of the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, and puts a time-frame on it, when will the Government come out in favour of a comprehensive test ban treaty?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I do not think that there is anything revolutionary or new in a declaration from Her Majesty's Government's Ministers that we are in favour of an ultimate test ban treaty. That has been perfectly common ground between us for many years. What we have to realise is that such a treaty has to be capable of standing, of verification, and it has to work. There is a great deal going on in the world today which makes single-minded and easily-taken resolutions of the kind to which the noble Lord referred potentially dangerous. We know of a great many nations in the world, particularly in the third world today, whose reliability on matters of non-proliferation is open to question. I know that the noble Lord himself has referred to them in the past.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware that no negotiations towards a comprehensive test ban treaty have taken place during the lifetime of the Bush Administration, but that the new President elect has stated that he is in favour of a comprehensive test ban treaty? If he proposes that negotiations shall be reopened and resumed, will the Government accept that? In other words, is the Government's adhesion to a comprehensive test ban treaty real?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I have to say to the noble Lord that I do not know that I can add very much to the situation which I have once again described this afternoon on behalf of Her Majesty's Government. We have never been against an ultimate test ban treaty. What we have to make sure is that the agreement sticks and will be of some value. I would add that for the moment the noble Lord ought to realise that, from the point of view of safety, for those who have nuclear weapons and use them as a deterrent those weapons are infinitely safer if there is a testing capacity. It is the safety aspect to which I urge the noble Lord to address himself.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, as one who took part in the negotiations for the original three environment test ban treaty in 1963, does my noble friend agree with me that nothing could be more dangerous than a four environment test ban treaty which was incapable of verification or incapable of enforcement?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I am extremely grateful for my noble and learned friend's intervention. His experience in these matters is certainly much greater than mine. I am happy to give him the assurance which he seeks.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is it not the case, and will the noble Viscount not admit, that modern technology can detect a nuclear test wherever that occurs in the world, and therefore the problem of enforcement is not really a great one?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, there is no doubt that a great deal of technical progress has been made and that it is much easier to detect nuclear tests than it would have been many years ago. Nevertheless we must accept that it is not so much testing and the detection of tests that is the difficulty, it is the acquisition and proliferation of nuclear weapons, particularly among third world countries, which is a danger. From the noble Lord's previous remarks, I know he is fully aware of that position.

NHS Computers
2.51 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether an evaluation has been carried out centrally into the use of computers in the NHS; and if not, whether they will refer the matter to the Auditor General, in view of the levels of expenditure involved.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, the National Audit Office conducted an in-depth audit of NHS computing and published a report Managing Computer Projects in the NHS in November 1990. The department has accepted and acted upon the recommendations made in the report.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. However, is she aware that
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after the audit took place Wessex Regional Health Authority, for example, lost £43 million, of which only £21 million has been reclaimed so far as I am aware? West Midlands Regional Health Authority is now showing substantial losses. As I understand it, Guy's Hospital has discontinued the use of computers because of the failure to find a suitable one for the hospital's needs, and the London Ambulance Service has recently dispensed with computers as they put life at risk—indeed, some people may have died as a result of the operation of computers. Does the Minister think that that situation is good enough? When in another place Members raised the issue with Ministers, they were told to write to the chairman of the appropriate regional health authority. I do not believe the position is good enough. Will the Minister do her best to persuade the Secretary of State that some sense of direction is needed in this difficult situation'? Without that, I believe that there are further similar cases lurking below the surface that will surface shortly?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, my answer to the first question is yes, and my answer to the second question is yes.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, will the Minister comment further on the use of computers, as that is what the Question on the Order Paper asks? As regards the ambulance débâcle, it would appear that the people who purchased the computers involved had no training and were conned by all kinds of slick salesmen. It would also appear that the people who used the computers had even less training. The whole matter ended in disaster. Will the Minister give some more information about those aspects of the matter?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I am well aware of the issues concerning the London Ambulance Service. Your Lordships will be aware that the chief executive, Mr. John Wilby, resigned from the service on 28th October. The NHS management executive has been developing national standards within which local managers can evaluate commercial systems. The aim is to publish revised guidance early next year.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the report of the Audit Commission on the West Midlands Regional Health Authority—the difficulties it raises and the need for speedy action—is taking pride of place in the local press? Is she aware that there could be a possibility of fraud in this area?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, the Audit Commission is now working with the regional health authority at its request. The Secretary of State has asked Sir Roy Griffiths to go to the West Midlands to help the authority discharge its duties efficiently and effectively.
The Viscount of Oxfuird: My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister advise and assure the House that any future evaluation of computer systems will take into account the latest technology? Much progress has been made recently and indeed there is much to come. It is vital that we in this country are up to date.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that the management executive is pursuing the latest technology in computer systems. I am absolutely confident that that will improve health care in this country.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, I understand that the district auditor's report on the situation in the West Midlands Regional Health Authority has not been published in full. Will the Minister say whether it will eventually be published in full and also whether the report of the inquiry of Sir Roy Griffiths will be published in full when it is completed?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, the Audit Commission has not yet completed its work but I understand from the chairman of the West Midlands that he will wish to make all relevant information available to the public. Sir Roy Griffiths has not been asked to produce a report; he has been asked to work with the regional health authority to help it discharge its obligations efficiently and effectively.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, the Minister is clearly aware that one of the consequences of the £20 million loss in Wessex was the closure of 20 beds in St. Martin's Hospital which cares for the elderly and the mentally handicapped. Will she confirm that those beds are still closed, or has it been possible to find funds from other sources to enable that much needed service to continue to be provided?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, that is a matter for local determination. I am not aware at the moment what the position is with regard to those particular beds.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I serviced the entire captain's office on HMS "Siskin" with an old Imperial, a Gestetner and a few filing cabinets? Are we absolutely sure that all these advances are really in the best interests of patient care?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, the NHS is a huge organisation. If we were to combine the turnover of British Airways, ICI, Shell, Glaxo and IBM, the NHS would still be larger than that combination. Computers are used in a whole range of diverse aspects in the NHS; for example, nursing, pharmacy, clinical diagnosis and treatment, accidents and emergency, in and out-patients, administration, stores, catering, maintenance, and clinical and scientific research. It is a huge complex organisation. No longer can we, sadly, administer it with a quill and ink.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, is it not a fact that if one gets to the very forefront of technology in an organisation such as the National Health Service there are bound to be embarrassments and failures and this is what happened in the recent débâcle over the London Ambulance Service?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I think I have gone into the whole issue of complexity. It is
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enormous. I am absolutely convinced that the large organisations in this country are not perfect when it comes to developing computer systems.
Lord Desai: My Lords, given the size of the NHS, its complexity and what is at stake, is it not time we learnt the costs in terms of beds not being kept open, pacemakers not bought or units not kept open that result from the mismanagement of computer systems? Every time money is lost through computer mismanagement, something else has to give way. Will the Minister promise to provide us with a list of all the embarrassments and mistakes that have occurred and the cost of those mistakes to regional health authorities? If those costs are added up, they might show it is time we had central control of computerisation in the NHS.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I am absolutely convinced that the road to disaster lies in the centralisation of everything. It is essential with computers that they are developed locally, that there is a feeling of ownership and that they operate according to the local conditions.

Civil Servants: Engineering Degrees
2.59 p.m.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil Lord Peyton of Yeovil asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many civil servants of Grade 3 and above hold engineering degrees or have what could reasonably be described as an engineering background.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Baroness Denton of Wakefield): My Lords, at least 31 people in the top three grades hold engineering degrees and 14 others have an engineering background.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I am quite grateful to my noble friend for that Answer. I hope she will go a little further, however. Does she not agree that if we are going to secure the necessary improvements in our balance of payments it is necessary that there should be a wider understanding of both the needs and the potential of industry? Does she also agree that throughout the Civil Service there should be something more than a haphazard acquaintance with the necessary engineering skills?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am pleased to tell my noble friend that at least a quarter of the secondees now in the Department of Trade and Industry have engineering backgrounds. He will possibly be amazed to discover that there is an engineer in the Treasury. I suggest that, although neither the noble Lord, Lord Benson—to whose words last week our attention has rightly been directed —nor I are engineers, we could not be better advocates for manufacturing industry.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, does the noble Baroness accept that engineering must be at the root of the emergence of manufacturing industry from the

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recession? Does she therefore agree that it is time that we had another look at the question of apprentices? So far as I am aware, there are no apprentices being trained in engineering, certainly in the north London area. Does the Minister agree that that means that there will be a lack of skills in the one industry where it is required if we are to come out of the recession?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord that engineering and manufacturing are the key to our future economic growth. That is why I am pleased to report that in the five years to 1990 there was a growth of more than 46 per cent. in engineering degrees from polytechnics.
Lord Annan: My Lords, is not one of the reasons why there is not a higher proportion of engineers in the Civil Service that at the age of 23 a young engineering graduate wants to go into industry to make things instead of entering an office to draft regulations to impede people from making things? More seriously, is there not a case for greater flexibility to allow entry into the Civil Service in middle age, such as is the case in France, where there is much greater co-operation between industry, business and the Civil Service?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am delighted to agree with the noble Lord that making things is what engineering is about. I am pleased to tell him that if one joins the DTI deregulation unit one certainly does not impede; one prevents that from happening. The Civil Service is conscious of the need to ensure that there are opportunities for people with engineering experience at the sharp end to enter the service. That is why I was so pleased to be able to announce the number of secondees and why I am pleased to report that the Office of Science and Technology held a seminar for senior people to look at those issues.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, will my noble friend follow up the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Annan, as to the recruitment of experienced people to the Civil Service in middle age? Is she aware that it is now extremely difficult for any such person to be taken on? Is that not rather a pity?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that it is important that we ease the communication between industry and the Civil Service, and all possible routes have been examined.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, is the noble Baroness satisfied that professionally qualified people—accoun-tants as well as engineers—who are recruited into the Civil Service, difficult though that may be, are given adequate opportunities to rise to the highest levels and to influence policy-making decisions since many policies cannot be properly formulated unless they are devised by professionally qualified people?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, the noble Baroness has raised an important point. That is important if our policies are to be correct. I am delighted to tell her that my records show that we have already had one Permanent Secretary who was an
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engineer. I am sure that it is perfectly easy for people with the right skills and of the right quality to come through.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that at the time we investigated the matter in the McGaw Committee we found it outstandingly difficult for such people to reach the higher levels and that they were therefore discouraged from staying?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I hope that the present situation will please the noble Baroness more.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, can my noble friend tell the House what proportion of civil servants in the Treasury have experience in industry or commerce and what proportion also have experience in other ministries?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am afraid that I caught only half of my noble friend's question from behind me. However, the half which I caught suggests that I should take the matter away and write to him with the details.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I believe that the Minister misunderstood the question of my noble friend Lord Stallard. The Minister talked exclusively of certificated engineers from the polytechnics and universities, whereas the most dreadful shortages will be in the area of craft apprenticeships. For instance, is the Minister aware that only a third of the number of apprentices are now being trained in engineering as fitters, turners and skilled craftsmen compared to 10 years ago, and that those are the areas where the greatest shortages will occur? What are the Government going to do about that?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am sorry if I misunderstood the noble Lord's question. We are very concerned that there should be facilities for training in engineering at all levels of education. It was for that reason that the technology schools initiative was formulated to encourage youngsters to consider engineering, whatever their talents.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that it has taken me all the time since her original Answer until now to get over the surprise of learning that some engineering influence has at last infiltrated into the Treasury? Perhaps I may conclude by expressing the hope that, whoever he or she is, that person is high enough in the Treasury and has a loud enough voice to be heard effectively.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am sure that if he has not my noble friend Lord Peyton will draw my attention to the fact.

Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill
3.7 p.m.
Viscount St Davids: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
The Bill before your Lordships is intended to authorise the construction of a barrage and associated

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works across the estuaries of the rivers Taff and Ely in Cardiff Bay. It provides for the acquisition of the land and the rights necessary to achieve those two objectives. There is also provision for the necessary framework to enable the barrage to be operated in an appropriate manner with regard to water quality, flooding, the protection of fish and for the management of the lake.
The scheme embodied in the Bill is exceptionally important to the future of Cardiff and to the economy of south-east Wales. It provides an opportunity for the former docklands area of Cardiff to be redeveloped as a high quality, high density part of the city itself and would permit the development of a waterfront that would be an asset to any major city in the world. It would provide an environment where housing and jobs could be created on a scale which could not be achieved by any other scheme which has been considered for the area.
No one who is familiar with South Cardiff can doubt the need to regenerate the area. Much of it is derelict and polluted by the remains of the industries which used to be located there, and major sewerage outfalls flow into the bay itself. Such a situation can only have served as a disincentive to investment. The barrage project will result in the clearance of that dereliction and the recycling of land within the city's existing boundaries for productive use. It will also mean the removal of the 14 main sewerage outfalls which currently flow into the bay. Many opportunities will arise to create environmental benefits for the people who live and work there and for a range of flora and fauna to flourish in the new freshwater environment created by the barrage.
Improved access to new and existing development will clearly play a vital role in the success of the regeneration strategy. Lessons have been learned from docklands. The development corporation place great emphasis on improved infrastructure and has committed £25 million towards the costs of the Butetown link currently under construction. This is a major road link running directly into the heart of the bay area. It will provide key links east and west from the bay. Links between the bay area and the city centre are also being improved. The corporation has undertaken several studies into the provision of public transport in this area. It is concerned that the employment opportunities created should be open to people from the valleys of South Wales as well as from Cardiff. It is discussing options with South Glamorgan County Council and with British Rail, including the possibility of providing a light rail system.
I should remind your Lordships that this is by no means the first time that this House has had an opportunity of debating a Bill to authorise the construction of the Cardiff Bay barrage. Your Lordships may recall that a Private Bill promoted jointly by the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation and South Glamorgan County Council completed its passage through this House with little amendment on 12th July 1989. It then passed to another place where
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it underwent extensive debate and further detailed scrutiny. However, on 16th April 1991 that Bill failed to complete its consideration stage.
The Government had given very careful consideration to the barrage proposal and supported the objectives of the Private Bill. Therefore, when the Bill failed to make progress in another place, they announced that they would introduce their own Bill to achieve the main objectives of the Private Bill.
The proposed line of the barrage as shown on the plans deposited with the Bill was one of several options considered in the early feasibility studies. It provides the greatest area of enclosed water, retains the operational use of Cardiff Dock and provides the greatest opportunity for waterside development and recreational use. It is a fundamental principle that the design of the barrage authorised by the Bill should impound the estuaries of the Taff and Ely, thereby replacing the current tidal regime with a fresh water lake. In doing so, it should not impound the entrance to the operational Cardiff Docks but should enclose the Penarth Marina.
The Government have been fully aware of the need to study carefully the environmental implications of the project. In accordance with standing orders a detailed Environmental Statement was deposited with the Bill in another place. I have arranged for copies of the Environmental Statement, and a non-technical summary of it, to be available for your Lordships. Your Lordships will have satisfied yourselves that, in coming to a decision on the principle of the Bill, a full assessment of its environmental effects has taken place.
An inevitable, and regrettable, consequence of the barrage would be the loss of the Taff Ely site of special scientific interest, which provides feeding grounds for migrating birds, notably dunlin and redshank. Those of your Lordships who followed the debates on the Private Bill, and particularly those who were involved in detailed scrutiny in Select Committee, will recall that the Bill included provision for a tidal lagoon at Wentloog, just to the east of Cardiff, to act as alternative feeding grounds for birds displaced from the bay by the impounded lake. Similar provisions were included in the government Bill as introduced in another place.
However, your Lordships will wish to know that these provisions do not appear in the Bill as presented to this House. They were removed at the request of the Select Committee in another place. For our part, the Government remain committed to seeking some form of compensation for the loss of the feeding grounds. We have consulted the Countryside Council for Wales and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds about other possible means of mitigating the loss of those feeding grounds. Their firm advice was that they did not wish to see the lagoon provisions reinstated in the Bill.
On the 30th June my honourable friend the Parliamentary Secretary at the Welsh Office announced that the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation and the Land Authority for Wales had commissioned a feasibility study into the suitability of a site on the Gwent Levels as a major bird reserve.

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Both the Countryside Council for Wales and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds were closely involved in drawing up the terms of the study and continue to be represented on its steering group. The intention is to create an area of wetland which could prove to be a far more effective mitigation measure than the original lagoon proposal. The study is being carried out by consultants, including Mason Pittendrigh and David Bellamy Associates, with high reputations in their fields. The results should be available by the end of the year and your Lordships will, therefore, be able to consider the proposal in more detail at a later stage if you so wish.
If the results of the study are favourable and a decision is taken to proceed with the creation of a bird reserve, we shall not be seeking power under this Bill. No new legislative powers are being sought: the necessary authority is available under existing legislation.
Part I of the Bill provides, in Clause 3 and Schedule 3, for a deemed impoundment licence under the Water Resources Act 1991. These provisions have been included in the Bill with the full agreement of the National Rivers Authority which has a statutory responsibility for such matters. Your Lordships should be aware that in December 1991 the National Rivers Authority issued a detailed position statement on the proposed Cardiff Bay barrage. Copies of the statement are available in the Printed Paper Office. It deals at length with issues for which the NRA has statutory responsibility. Your Lordships will note that the statement indicated that, on the basis of undertakings given to the authority by the Welsh Office and the development corporation, together with the provisions of the Bill, the NRA believes that its statutory duties are adequately safeguarded. Since that time I can tell your Lordships that legal agreements between the NRA and the Welsh Office, the development corporation and Cardiff City Council have been finalised. These cover flood defence and fisheries monitoring arrangements. The agree-ments were signed last month and the NRA has confirmed that its statutory duties were fully preserved and protected.
As I have already indicated, the Government believe that the economic case for the barrage is a very strong one. The proposal has been subject to rigorous and detailed economic appraisals. An updated economic appraisal was published last month, copies of which are available to your Lordships. It shows that the attractive new environment created by the barrage could support over 23,000 new jobs. Private sector investment of well over £1,000 million could be attracted into the area. About 4,400 homes would be built. In all respects the barrage proposal produces greater returns than development without a barrage.
South Cardiff has already attracted significant amounts of private sector development in recent years. The Atlantic Wharf project, involving Tarmac, Wimpey, Lovell and the local brewers, Brains, has transformed the derelict Bute East Dock area into a high quality residential, office and leisure development, at a total project cost of some £40 million. Some of the best known names in the United Kingdom
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housebuilding industry—Barratt, Beazer and Westbury—have combined to develop a major housing complex known as Windsor Quay on what will be the edge of the impounded lake. Grosvenor Waterside has planning permission for its prestigious office, residential and leisure development at Capital Waterside, on which construction has already begun. The total development cost will be about £20 million. Given the level of commitment that we have seen from the private sector in advance of the construction of the barrage, we believe that the assumptions in the economic appraisal concerning the likely level of private sector investment post-barrage are justified.
Your Lordships should note that the economic appraisal considers development activity and property values over a 20-year period. This is a sufficiently long period to ensure that intermediate fluctuations in the property market do not undermine the validity of its long-term assumptions. The appraisal has also been subjected to stringent sensitivity tests which also made a range of pessimistic assumptions. The results of these sensitivity tests are contained in the appraisal, which is available to your Lordships. They show that the economic case for the barrage remains robust.
I should like now briefly to refer to groundwater. There have been considerable concerns about the possible effects on houses of rises in groundwater levels once the barrage is built. The former Private Bill contained detailed protective provisions in respect of groundwater. That protection has been reproduced and extended in the government Bill. The details are set out fully in Schedule 7. Although they look different from the earlier provisions their effect is the same.
The groundwater protection scheme embodied in the Bill is a very comprehensive and generous one. Nevertheless, it is by its very nature a complex scheme and we cannot guarantee that minor difficulties may not emerge when we come to put it into practice. The Bill, therefore, contains a power for the Secretary of State to make regulations to amend this scheme of protection. Your Lordships will wish to know that during the Second Reading debate in another place my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales gave this assurance about the power to amend the groundwater protection scheme. He said:
"I wish to make it clear that I have no intention of using that power at present, but I would be prepared to use it if it emerged that individuals' interests were not being fully protected by the scheme in practice. If I decided to act in that way, any regulation to amend the scheme would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. Therefore, the House would have the opportunity of debating any proposed changes to the scheme".—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/91; col. 636.]
Your Lordships will wish to know that the reassurance given by my right honourable friend still stands and I am happy to give the same reassurances today. However, should it prove necessary to amend the scheme, the opportunity to debate any proposed changes will, of course, be available to your Lordships as well as to those in another place.
The very complex issue of groundwater has been examined in detail over a long period. At the request of the Select Committee in another place which examined the Private Bill detailed studies were

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undertaken of the possible effects over a 12-month period between August 1990 and August 1991 by Hydrotechnica Ltd.
The results of these studies were published in September 1991. There followed a three-month public consultation period for interested parties to make written representations to my right honourable friend on the reports produced by Hydrotechnica. The public consultation exercise ended on 31st December.
My right honourable friend then considered all the evidence, including representations received during the public consultation period. He also considered the advice of his specialist groundwater adviser, Mr. Roy Stoner, Director of the Institute of Irrigation Studies at Southampton University, who had been appointed specifically for that purpose. The Government had made it clear that public funding for the construction of the barrage was conditional on the satisfactory outcome of these studies. On the basis of Mr. Stoner's report, copies of which are available in the Printed Paper Office, my right honourable friend was satisfied that the economic, safety and technical criteria relating to groundwater can be met.
Your Lordships should also be aware that in his report Mr. Stoner suggested that it might be possible to control groundwater levels after the barrage had been built by means of dewatering wells. Very simply, the suggestion is that if groundwater in the gravels is controlled by pumping wells, the groundwater in the made ground above it—on which much of South Cardiff is built—will remain at existing levels.
A feasibility study into this proposal was published in August 1992. Copies are available in the Printed Paper Office. It concluded that dewatering wells could make a significant difference should the "extreme" case of groundwater rise predicted by the Hydrotechnica studies arise. I should tell your Lordships that Hydrotechnica Ltd., Cardiff Bay Development Corporation and Mr. Stoner do not believe that the "extreme" case will arise. The Government share that view. However, we believe it is right that a pumping well pilot study should take place as recommended by the dewatering report. Results should be available in the New Year. If they confirm the report's findings, the need to carry out remedial works to properties —as set out in Schedule 7 to the Bill—will be significantly reduced or removed altogether. That would, of course, mean little or no disruption to householders.
Clearly, we cannot yet know whether it would be appropriate to proceed with dewatering wells. We must await the results of pumping tests. If a decision to proceed is taken, the Government will not be seeking powers under the Bill to do so. That can be done under existing legislation.
There is a related issue which I should draw to your Lordships' attention. The Select Committee in another place was concerned about the adequacy of local authorities' land drainage powers to deal with land which became saturated as a result of the barrage but did not show any apparent sign of surface flooding. The Government, therefore, propose to amend the Bill at a later stage in its passage through
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your Lordships' House. Intention of that has already been published to allow interested parties to petition against it if they so wish.
The Government have concluded that by extending three references to flooding in Sections 14, 15 and 66 of the Land Drainage Act 1991 local authorities would have adequate powers to deal with saturated land caused by changed groundwater levels. We are not proposing to give local authorities new powers. Instead we propose an extension of the application of existing powers. It will, in effect, clarify the ability of local authorities to act in respect of land saturated by changed groundwater levels in exactly the same manner as they are currently empowered to do in respect of flooding.
The three local authorities in Cardiff, the National Rivers Authority and Welsh Water plc have been closely involved in this proposed amendment to the Bill. Your Lordships will wish to know that the principal local authority involved, Cardiff City Council, has indicated that it is content with it. None of the other bodies consulted has expressed objection in principle.
Many of your Lordships will be familiar with Cardiff and its former docklands area. Many have supported fully the regeneration of Cardiff Bay. They know that regeneration cannot be successfully achieved on the scale and quality which Wales's capital city deserves unless we have the barrage. That is certainly the Government's view. It has been borne out by the economic appraisals. The scheme embodied in this Bill will replace the dereliction of the past with an attractive, modern urban environment. There will be many thousands of new jobs and thousands of new homes. This Bill is of vital importance to the future of Cardiff and I commend it to your Lordships.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time. —(Viscount St Davids.)
3.30 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, first, I welcome the participation of the noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids, in the debate as he is the Government Whip with special responsibility for Welsh affairs. I thank the noble Viscount for explaining to the House so carefully and comprehensively the contents of the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill.
The Bill is contentious. It has generated an intensive debate among all the people and interests which may be affected by it. The strong support for the Bill and the equally strong opposition to it have divided the political parties and local authorities and caused divisions within local authorities. Indeed, the controversy is reflected by the 93 petitions which have been lodged against the Bill.
That is also reflected by the Bill's parliamentary record—and that was touched upon by the Minister. The Bill was given a First Reading in 1987 and subsequently was converted into a hybrid Public Bill. There are four versions of the Bill; two of the Private Bill and two of the hybrid Public Bill. Apart from the first Private Bill, which did not proceed to Second Reading, each of the Bills has been examined in detail by a Select Committee; yet it would appear that the

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Bill is still in the learning curve stage. There remain key issues which need to be further examined by, I suggest, a Committee of your Lordships' House.
Of course, it is agreed that the barrage will bring economic benefits to the people of Cardiff and beyond. That is right. Sadly, unemployment in Cardiff is among the highest in Wales. However, I must challenge the Minister's claim, which he made more than once, that the need for the barrage and the huge artificial lake behind it, covering some 500 square acres, is essential to the reorganisation of Cardiff docklands. By its very nature that is a claim, at this stage, which is not capable of being proved or disproved.
I am heartened that the text before the House shows evidence of concessions to meet some of the real anxieties that have been expressed. I am particularly pleased that the long Schedule 7, which contains vital provisions for groundwater damage protection, has been strengthened. Nevertheless, perhaps consideration should be given as to whether some of the powers and safeguards in Schedule 7 should be entrenched and not subject to Clause 21(2).
The Bill incorporates also additional powers for Cardiff City Council which has all the necessary powers it requires to discharge its land drainage duties. The Minister confirmed that we are still awaiting two further reports. In turn, they may indicate the need for further amendments.
It would be extremely difficult not to be concerned about some aspects of the multi-million cost of constructing the barrage and its associated works. Indeed, the total costs are estimated in the Financial Memorandum to be £146.9 million. It is an old and significant doctrine that Parliament, having passed a Public Bill, must be satisfied that the funds will be available to implement it. However, there could be a problem with one of the estimates. The sum earmarked for repair of damage to basements and foundations of properties by rising groundwater underneath them is £13 million. However, in the light of the report to which the Minister has referred, one is bound to ask whether that is enough. According to Mr. Stoner's report, the number of properties which might be in need of repair because of rising groundwater could be between 1,650 and 5,695. The cost of repairing 5,695 properties could be as high as £23.52 million.
Mr. Stoner notes that the development corporation is at pains to point out that it considers 5,695 properties to be an extreme case and would expect much lower levels of groundwater in practice. However, in earmarking only £14.3 million for repairing groundwater damage, the Welsh Office has disregarded the worst scenario. That is worrying.
In our present state of knowledge, that is an area of great uncertainty; and the Minister acknowledged that. However, in the light of the uncertainties, I ask what will happen if the Welsh Office has got its figures wrong. The fact that this question can be asked this afternoon is far from reassuring. Was it a Treasury decision that £9 million must be saved from the cost of the scheme? If it transpires that the Welsh Office figures are wrong and that £14.3 million is an
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underestimate who will provide the deficit, which could be as high as £9 million? Will it be the Treasury, the Welsh Office, the development corporation or will it be shouldered by the citizens of Cardiff?
The noble Viscount told the House that the Welsh Office had commissioned from KPMG an up-to-date economic appraisal of the project. Much has changed since 1987, the date of the first Private Bill. The Welsh Office was clearly right to commission an up-to-date appraisal. However, it seems to many who have studied the appraisal that the updated appraisal—and the final conclusions are cautiously drafted—fails to address itself adequately to the future demand for development land and property and assumes too readily that the short-term property market performance is only of limited relevance. Clearly I am not equipped to offer any worthwhile comment on the differing views, but there are differing views.
I return to the foundations and the basements of the properties which are likely to be affected. Those are basements of old houses built about 75 to 100 years ago in an old part of Cardiff. As the Minister acknowledged, there is considerable anxiety among the people of Cardiff about that issue. Of course, prevention is better than cure. I believe that it was at a very late stage in the long history of the Bill that minds began to concentrate on preventing the groundwater table reaching the risk level. In theory it should be possible to control the levels of the groundwater in the gravels so that the barrage impoundment would make no practical difference to the groundwater level. As the Minister explained, one possibility is the use of dewatering wells. However, I am advised that dewatering wells are untested over time in built-up areas anywhere in the world. If the field trials are successful, I am informed that it will be necessary to sink 70 to 80 such wells. How many will be sunk in sensitive areas in the vicinity of people's homes? How will the pumping process affect nearby householders? How will the well water be disposed of, particularly where the well is at a good distance away from the banks of the lake? What is the life expectancy of each dewatering well?
The Bill as drawn contains no specific reference to dewatering wells, and the Minister explained that omission satisfactorily. However, it may be that the Bill must be amended further to deal specifically with the operation and renewal of the wells, and also to provide compensation for any disruption or blighting which may arise.
I earnestly hope that the Select Committee's timetable, if your Lordships see fit to refer it to a Select Committee, will be so designed that it will be able to defer its consideration of the impact of the dewatering wells until about the end of February, by which time, I am informed, that the trials, to which the Minister referred, will have been completed. Clearly, the Committee must have the benefit of access to the results of the trials.
An issue which has been the subject of some anxiety is the water quality in the impounded lake, particularly under low flow conditions. I live not far from the River Taff and the reduction of flow in both the Taff and the Ely is enormous during the summer

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months. Both rivers are nutrient rich and are among the most heavily polluted in Wales. We have an assurance from the Welsh Office—and the Minister repeated it—that the Bill contains a framework for the maintenance of acceptable standards of water which, under Clause 12, must comply with the reasonable requirements of the National Rivers Authority. That is reassuring. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, is to speak in the debate. He will speak as a supporter of the barrage, but also with the authority of his office as chairman of the NRA. I trust that he will be able to confirm to the House that the NRA is satisfied that the appropriate protective provisions have been built into the Bill or are covered by agreements and that the NRA's capacity to discharge its statutory duties has been fully safeguarded.
In December 1991 the NRA, when fortunately the Bill was still at the Private Bill stage, issued an appraisal of the position. That was placed in the Library of the House of Commons. We now understand that this document is in the Printed Paper Office of your Lordships' House but it was not available to me here at the end of last week. I congratulate the NRA on producing the document. It identifies all the critical issues relating to water quality, fisheries, conservation and it discusses ways and means of ameliorating the problem. It is a frank and thorough document and is essential reading.
It has been submitted that there is a snag about Clause 12. It places on the development corporation a duty to comply with the requirements of the NRA. That is fine. But there is also a provision that in the event of a dispute as to the reasonableness of any direction, that dispute has to be referred to the Secretary of State for Wales for determination. That proviso is worrying. Many people are puzzled as to why the development corporation, which is one of the Secretary of State's quangos, should enjoy this right of appeal to its own principal because the relationship between the two bodies is that between principal and agent. Given that it is the NRA's statutory duty to preserve and protect water quality, fisheries, conservation of flora and fauna, recreation, flood defences, navigation—and all these areas will be affected by the Bill—why should the development corporation enjoy this right of appeal against its reasonable directions? After all, it could have access to a judicial review if it considered that the NRA was unreasonable in the matter.
It is not reassuring that the Welsh Office is so determined to build this appeal mechanism into the Bill. If a right of appeal is necessary it should be to a tribunal, which is manifestly a disinterested party, to adjudge between the very finely balancing arguments. I ask the Minister to tell the House whether there is a precedent for this provision. I know of none. The Minister was pressed in Standing Committee F on two separate occasions to answer that question. He skated lightly over it. I am sure that the noble Viscount can do better. I also hope that the Select Committee will wish to address itself to the question of the right of appeal to the Secretary of State for Wales.
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At a late stage when the Bill was being examined by Standing Committee F, two other issues as regards water quality bubbled to the surface. They appear to me to require some clarification. The first relates to the possible application of the EC municipal waste water directive which is to be implemented in stages after 1998. Will its provisions apply to the impounded lake? In Committee the Minister again skated somewhat lightly over that question. Will the noble Viscount inform the House whether the impounded lake is to be defined as a sensitive area within the meaning of the directive? If so, what new measures will be required to treat the water and where will the treatment works be located? What additional capital and revenue costs will be involved? If the Minister cannot give the answers to those two questions today—he may well feel that he is unable to do so—may we have an assurance that the answers will be available to the Select Committee while it is still considering the Bill?
The second issue arises out of a recent study in Oxfordshire by Dr. Max Wallis and Mr. Munro. I have not read the study, but I am informed that it establishes statistically a possible relationship between waterlogged soils and infant mortality. Will the noble Viscount tell the House whether the Welsh Office has any evidence which suggests a positive link? Does it have any grounds for believing that the risk, if it exists, is so small that it can be safely disregarded?
That brings me to the next area of concern. It is an area which is described as being of extreme concern in three of the Petitions. I refer to the profound damage to water fowls. The barrage will destroy forever the 400 acres of mud flats and salt marshes—as acknowledged by the Minister—in the Taff Ely estuary which have been there since time immemorial. It is an SSSI comprising rich feeding grounds for about 8,000 wading birds in the winter months. The site is also of international importance. It forms an important and integral part of the Severn estuary which qualifies for designation under the 1971 Ramsar Convention and as a special protection area under the terms of EC directive 79/409. The Welsh Office has excluded it from the designation proposal although it is, so I understand, the most important of all the other areas in the Severn estuary to be included in the SPA.
Unlike the three earlier Bills the current version does not place any duty on the development corporation to provide adequate alternative feeding grounds for wading birds. But the Minister has explained this omission from the Bill. Such was the anxiety—and possibly the despair at one stage—of the Countryside Council for Wales, that it is now to be found among the objectors to the Bill before the House although it did not petition against it when the matter was before the House of Commons. I was therefore greatly heartened to hear from the noble Viscount that the discussions between the Welsh Office and the CCW are proceeding smoothly to their conclusion and that they are close to agreeing the mitigation measures which are to be introduced. Those measures should be available to the Select Committee. But it must be emphasised that they are always second best. Moreover, their adequacy is

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untested. They will not fully compensate for the loss of an SSSI which is a part of our national heritage and also of international significance.
The angling interests which are so strongly represented in your Lordships' House appear to be satisfied with the Bill, subject to what the noble Lord, Lord Moran, has to say when he speaks. I was delighted to read in the NRA position paper that salmon and sea trout are now once again entering the Taff and the Ely and that their numbers are expected to increase substantially within the next decade. With the likely closure of the Taff Merthyr Colliery in a few months' time, the river Taff will be free from coal pollution for the first time for about 200 years. In that respect at least it can revert to its pre-industrial condition when it was the premier sewin river of Wales, and as famed for its sewin as the Usk for its salmon.
However, the barrage will be a formidable man-made barrier to the passage of fish to and from the open sea. It is therefore vitally important that the design of the fish paths complies with the best design available and that it works. I trust that there will be an opportunity for the Committee to satisfy itself on that key point.
Finally, I wish to touch on the membership of the Cardiff Bay Advisory Committee to be established under Clause 20. It is a consultative body. The setting up of the committee in the first Private Bill was warmly welcomed and I am gratified that the concept has survived. However, I believe that there are a few problems about the clause. Under it the membership is to consist of representative members of the three local authorities in the area, presumably in equal number, together with an unspecified number of members to be appointed by the Secretary of State. The Bill does not set an upper limit to the total membership. That is rather odd.
Is it intended that the local authority members should constitute a majority or a minority of the membership? It is also appropriate to ask whether the membership will also include, as of right, representation of such bodies as the health authority, the Countryside Council for Wales, the Welsh Consumer Council or the Welsh Sports Council or their nominees, whose interests are likely to be affected by the impounded lake. May I dare ask: is it intended that the development corporation should provide the committee with an adequate budget to undertake the responsibilities which the Bill places on it? Will it be given access to all the information in the possession of the corporation which it reasonably requires? I hope those points will not be overlooked. I suggest that Clause 20 may be another area that could be usefully explored by the Select Committee.
This is a well-intended Bill, but it poses considerable difficulties for very many people although it also has its strong supporters in Wales. One of its most resolute backers is my noble friend Lord Brooks of Tremorfa who introduced the second Private Bill in 1988. My noble friend is the vice-chairman of the
development corporation, and an elected member of the South Glamorgan County Council. I believe that he would have told the House
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that he has no reservations about the need for the impounded lake and about the benefits which it will confer upon Cardiff and south-east Wales. When I discussed the Bill with him last week, he asked me to inform the House that he deeply regrets that he is not able to participate in the debate this afternoon as he has to be abroad attending to other business which had been pre-arranged for today.
I profoundly believe that it is right that a Select Committee of your Lordships' House should have a last opportunity to examine the Bill to see what further improvements can be made to it, and thus make it more acceptable to a larger body of opinion in Wales.
3.50 p.m.
Lord Moran: My Lords, I should like first, if I may, to raise a procedural point which seems to me of some importance. There are 93 petitions against the Bill—some from major bodies such as Cardiff City Council and the Countryside Council for Wales and many others from private citizens in Cardiff. All maintain that their interests will be injuriously affected by the Bill and express grave concerns about various aspects of it.
I inquired about these petitions last Wednesday—4th November—and was told that they were still coming in and that the full set was not available. It was available on Thursday 5th November when I collected a set. It is this thick and heavy bundle that I have with me. That was only four days ago. Three days ago—on late Friday afternoon —the Welsh Office delivered nine documents, one of them with 150 pages—another substantial bundle—to the Printed Paper Office. It seems to me unreasonable to expect noble Lords to be able to read, absorb and reflect on 93 petitions and nine documents in three or four days. But noble Lords taking part in this debate should have an opportunity to study all the petitions and the documents carefully beforehand.
It may be said that your Lordships' Select Committee will be able to consider the petitions. Indeed, it will. But noble Lords taking part in the Second Reading, who cannot serve on the Select Committee, surely ought also to consider the petitions, many of them submitted by citizens who have vital interests at stake. It seems to me wrong to put on this Second Reading only four days after the petitions became available. To do so suggests at any rate at this stage that we are not taking serious notice of the points made in them. This is surely denying the House the opportunity to give full and proper consideration to the Bill at each stage and is, in my view, unfair to the petitioners. I hope that when he replies the noble Viscount will explain why this Second Reading has been put on before noble Lords have had a proper opportunity of studying the petitions and the documents, and how the Government justify this way of proceeding to the petitioners.
This legislation has had an extraordinary history, as the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, has pointed out. The present new hybrid Government Bill is, in effect, the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill Mark 4. But the project itself has not, I think, changed fundamentally since we

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gave a Second Reading to the second Private Bill on 23rd February 1989. I gave my views in detail on the project in that debate and essentially they have not changed.
The rivers of our country are a priceless part of our national heritage. For millions of years they have flowed unobstructed to the sea. In England and Wales we have set up the National Rivers Authority under the vigorous chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, to look after them, which it is doing very effectively. It will be no surprise to noble Lords when I say that I dislike the whole concept of barrages, fashionable though that concept unhappily still is. To build a concrete barrier across a river, blocking the downward flow, seems to me unnatural and damaging. All the muck that we tip into the rivers, particularly into those that, like the Taff and the Ely, flow through urban areas—sewage effluent, heavy metals, plastics, pathogens, nutrients, dead animals, supermarket trolleys—instead of being carried out to sea, is held up in stagnant water and either remains there or has to be removed at substantial expense. The cleansing tide can no longer ebb and flow. Fish passes can be installed, but, however elaborate, can at best be only partially effective, as studies at Pitlochry have shown.
I am particularly sceptical about the arguments for those barrages which, like the proposed Usk barrage or this one, are for purely "amenity" or cosmetic purposes—simply to cover up mudbanks so as to create a stagnant lake which is supposed to attract investment. All of us want to see the regeneration of Cardiff and the development of an attractive and prosperous city. The key question is whether to that end a barrage is essential.
When the second Private Bill came to your Lordships' House, a Select Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Elibank, in HL paper 57 of 1989, broadly accepted the promoters' case for the barrage, while making some amendments to improve groundwater protection, accepted the destruction of the site of special scientific interest, dismissed concerns about the water quality of the inland lake and recommended that the Bill should be allowed to proceed. I must say that at the time I was profoundly disappointed by that report, and the fact that our Select Committee was so easily satisfied contrasted rather painfully with the immensely thorough consideration given to the Bill in another place.
I hope that the Select Committee which will consider the present Bill will undertake a much more rigorous scrutiny of all aspects of this contentious proposal. I would suggest that it should address itself to the following main aspects: first, the economic arguments. It is for the Government and the promoters to demonstrate that the barrage proposal is the only means by which Cardiff can be effectively regenerated and that consequently the severe environmental damage it will entail must be accepted. The Government have to show that the project is economically viable. Doubt has been cast on their appraisal by a report prepared for the Royal Society
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for the Protection of Birds by Jacqueline Mallender, an economist formerly with the Treasury, who contends that there will be a large negative economic return on investment if the project goes ahead. The Select Committee will want to look at that, bearing in mind that the previous plan fully to develop the Ferry Road refuse tip site has been abandoned, that costs have greatly increased and that the property market is, as we all know, in a dismal state. Canary Wharf is a warning. It should consider whether, as many contend, Cardiff can be effectively regenerated without a barrage.
Secondly, the Select Committee should consider the intractable problem of groundwater and the effect of a rise in its level on properties in Cardiff, a problem which was considered very thoroughly in another place and is raised in many of the petitions. The cost of tackling this in an urban area will be substantial, and the Select Committee should note that the special provisions set out in Schedule 7 provide for remedial work on houses and gardens but not on commercial properties.
Thirdly, the Select Committee should consider the problem of the SSSI, the proposed designation of the Severn Estuary as a special protection area and the threat to the 8,000 or so wading birds which use the mud flats in Cardiff Bay in winter. I continue to think it is entirely wrong for the Government to plan the total destruction of an SSSI. To do so makes pretty good nonsense of their overall conservation policy. Nevertheless, I welcome what the noble Viscount has told us this afternoon about the plans for an alternative site for the birds on the Gwent levels.
In its petition the Countryside Council for Wales says:
"The SSSI is of particular importance in supporting large numbers of water fowl during the winter months and has the highest density of waders for any site of its size in the Severn Estuary. The site, which by reason of the richness of its feeding grounds, shelter in adverse weather conditions and tidal regime, forms an important and integral part of the Severn Estuary which is of international importance for its water fowl, and which has been identified as qualifying for designation under the Ramsar convention and as a Special Protection Area for the purposes of the European Community's Council Directive".
It points out that,
"following amendments to the Bill in another place there are now no proposals contained in the Bill for the provision of any compensatory measures to take account of the loss of wetland that will arise from the construction of the barrage and the subsequent impoundment of water within the inland bay".
It goes on to say,
"the Secretary of State for Wales has confirmed in another place that the Government is committed to the provision of some form of mitigation for the loss of the wetland areas presently providing feeding grounds for wading birds and that proposals have been made in this respect which are the subject of various feasibility studies. As yet those studies have not been brought to any conclusion and therefore it is not certain as yet as to whether the current proposals will prove to be feasible and provide adequate compensation or whether other proposals will need to be considered".
It urges that if the Bill should be approved,
"such approval should be on condition that assurances are given to your right honourable House by the Government that prior to the construction of the barrage compensatory measures which are regarded as satisfactory by your petitioner and which include provision for permanent management and protected funding shall be put in place and

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shall be fully operative prior to the impoundment of any waters within the inland bay so as to minimise the effects upon wildlife of the loss of habitat thereby caused".
That seems to me only right. Any new habitat for the birds must be adequate in size and satisfactory in design in any event and funding must continue for all time.
The Government have not only delayed declaring the Severn Estuary as a special protection area under the Community's bird directive but have decided to exclude Cardiff Bay from the future SPA, which appears to be a deliberate and rather shameful attempt to circumvent Community law by excluding Cardiff Bay from the ecological unit of which it is an integral part. I am not surprised that the RSPB says on this in its petition:
"In reaching that decision, the Secretary of State made it clear that he has paid regard to the requirements of the Wild Birds Directive and to the implications of the decision of the European Court of Justice in case no. 57/89 Commission v. Germany ('the Leybucht case'). However, he has treated with Cardiff Bay in isolation, alleging that it does not meet the selection criteria for SPA status … Your Petitioner is concerned that the Secretary of State, in considering the Leybucht case, has noted that but for the exclusion of Cardiff Bay from the potential SPA he would be in contravention of the Wild Birds Directive; and consequently the barrage scheme would be unable to proceed … Your Petitioner wishes to register extreme concern at the manner in which the Secretary of State has sought to circumvent the Leybucht decision, and to record that this is a matter about which it intends to lodge a formal complaint with the European Commission".
At the Second Reading of the second Private Bill on 23rd February 1989 I moved an Instruction to the Select Committee, to which the House agreed, relating to water quality in the inland bay and the effect of the barrage on the migration of fish. I know that the National Rivers Authority has had detailed discus-sions with the Welsh Office and the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation on these matters and that the arrangements for fisheries have been substantially improved. I welcome the fact that the noble Viscount has told us today that the authority is now satisfied that the side agreements and the schedule within the Bill provide full protection for the NRA in relation to the performance of its statutory duties. The NRA seems now to be reasonably content with the arrangements for maintaining water quality in the inland bay, but I see from the petitions that a group of members of South Glamorgan County Council say that they are,
"concerned about the quality of the impounded water especially in periods of hot weather and low river flow",
that they are,
"particularly concerned about smell, scum, algal growth, bloom and rodent infestation at the heart of their capital city and the unhealthy and unpleasant effect upon residents and visitors",
and that,
"it is disappointing and contrary to advance publicity that the inland bay is most unlikely to be suitable for water contact sports".
One of the essentials for fisheries is to provide a minimum flow through the fish pass. This, I understand, depends on an agreement between the CBDC and Associated British Ports, which at present has abstraction rights which, if exercised, might cut off that minimum flow. I believe that, though negotiations continue, there is as yet no such agreement, but
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perhaps the noble Viscount or the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, who is to speak next and who is, I believe, a non-executive director of Associated British Ports, can tell us how matters stand on that.
And, despite all the efforts, I do not think that we can really be happy about the prospects for the fishery. We cannot be certain that salmon and sea trout, sweeping up the estuary on the tide, will be able to locate the small entrance to the fish pass. At a conference some time ago organised by the Atlantic Salmon Trust and the Institute of Fisheries Management, which the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, and I attended, an NRA fisheries scientist gave an account in the presence of the Prince of Wales of the 20 years' work on the restoration of the Taff after the ravages of the industrial revolution and said that, even if fish passes were built and water quality in the inland bay strictly monitored, he expected that numbers of salmon and sea trout would fall by at least one third and possibly much more. If that happens the CBDC will now have responsibilities to mitigate by restocking or compensation, but it will be sad to see a river that has been so brilliantly restored by the NRA damaged again in this way.
I draw attention to one further point. In its petition Cardiff City Council says:
"The Bill as drafted makes no provision identifying the successor to the Development Corporation for the ownership and management of the barrage, the outer harbour and the inland bay. The Development Corporation is a body of limited life. Your Petitioners contend that it is absolutely vital that proper provision should be made from the outset for the long term ownership and operation of the Scheme—not least so that prospective developers will have confidence in it".
That seems to me a point of fundamental importance on which the Select Committee should satisfy itself beyond any doubt.
4.6 p.m.
Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, I have three separate interests to declare. I am, as the noble Lord, Lord Moran, reminded the House, a director of Associated British Ports Holdings, which is a major landowner in the area. I am also chairman of the National Rivers Authority, which has major responsibilities arising from the Bill. And it was I, as Secretary of State for Wales, who originated the scheme and brought it to the starting block.
Perhaps that is not the best analogy. Starting blocks are used for sprint races, and this particular race has turned into a marathon. I little thought when I made the announcement and set up the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation at the end of 1986 that we would still be debating the whole affair in Parliament six years later. Perhaps, fortunately, in view of the length of the race, I had not hurried the training programme but had spent a whole year in consultation seeking views and advice from both sides of the Atlantic. After such prolonged consideration of all the issues, both in Parliament and outside, I hope that this House will not delay things much longer. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Moran, that I cannot think of any measure that has passed through Parliament, at least in modern times, that has had such detailed scrutiny of all the points that he has raised and a great many others besides.

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As chairman of the National Rivers Authority I must make my position perfectly plain as I did when the previous Bill had its Second Reading. Because of my other interests I gave an instruction in writing to the authority's chief executive at the outset that I was not to be involved in any way in the NRA's consideration of the issues and that the authority's highly skilled professional staff should take whatever action they felt was necessary regardless of my views. I need hardly say that they have done just that. Last week I asked them to send me a position statement. I quote now from the document sent to me by the regional solicitor:
"During the passage of the Bill through the House of Commons, the NRA had detailed discussions with the Welsh Office and CBDC on a wide range of technical and legal matters. These have culminated in a comprehensive 'package' of protection for the Authority in the form of:—

(i) A schedule to the Bill containing deemed conditions on the impoundment licence

(ii) A detailed agreement with the CBDC covering (inter alia) fisheries monitoring, compensation, etc.

(iii) An agreement with Cardiff City Council, CBDC and the Secretary of State in relation to Flood Defence.

Taken together, the side agreements and the schedule within the Bill provide full protection for the NRA in relation to the performance of its statutory duties".
The position statement goes on to address precisely one query raised by the noble Lord, Lord Moran. The authority's solicitor says that,
"before any work starts on the barrage the NRA must be satisfied as to the arrangements for what has been referred to as 'the water budget"'.
That protection appears in paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 3 to the Bill which provides that before the commencement of construction of the barrage the corporation must submit to the NRA for approval proposals for how the minimum flow of water through the fish pass should be maintained. Therefore, before construction starts the NRA has to be satisfied about the arrangements that have been made concerning ABP's rights of abstraction.
The scope of the clauses in the Bill that relate to the NRA's range of responsibilities is sweeping and remarkable; so also, in my view, are the arrangements that have been made to deal with fears about groundwater. The Minister referred to the de-watering scheme proposed by Mr. Stoner. I understand that investigatory works are being carried out at the present time. I am bound to say to the noble Lord, Lord Moran, that that does not seem to me good grounds for further delay. The Bill provides very extensive protective arrangements for anyone who may suffer from the consequences of rising groundwater. What we have here, as I understand it, is an added protection in case that can be done more cheaply and effectively than by providing compensation. I make the same point to the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, who speaks from the Front Bench. He was complaining about the possible cost of any programme for dealing with compensation. As I understand it, what we have here is a scheme that is being pursued at least in part because it may provide a cheaper and more effective form of protection without any need for compensation.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, I was not complaining about the cost of the prevention works. I wanted to be certain that the matter had been adequately covered in the estimates and, if there was a deficit, to discover who at the end of the day would meet it.
Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord will be satisfied that if the CBDC decides that this is a cheaper and more effective way of proceeding to some extent his fears will have been mitigated.
The House will understand my impatience with the delays that have occurred, but I feel also a growing sense of satisfaction and pride in what has been achieved since I first gave the CBDC its task. Large parts of south Cardiff are no longer a wasteland. The time has been used to prepare imaginative plans for the area, establish standards of design, construct infrastructure, clear dereliction and prepare public areas. A promising start has been made on development. That being so, it is legitimate to inquire whether the barrage is really needed. At the outset we in the Welsh Office judged that it would be on the basis of the advice received from those with experience of these matters both here and in other parts of the world. We have heard that since then there have been further extensive studies. Speaking simply on the basis of the knowledge I have acquired as a director of ABP and the experience gained in Cardiff by its subsidiary Grosvenor Waterside, I strongly reinforce that judgment.
Initially, there was great hesitation by developers and potential occupants of sites because they had serious doubts whether or not the barrage would go ahead. I believe that the major developments now under way or about to start would not have gone ahead without the commitment of the Government to the Bill and the progress being made with it. As the legislative process has approached its final stages so the interest of possible investors and occupants has been growing, even in the midst of recession. I have no doubt that the scale and pace of redevelopment of south Cardiff will be of a different order of magnitude if the barrage is built, with immense potential benefits not just for Cardiff but the whole of South Wales.
The connection between Cardiff Bay and the rest of South Wales is a point that needs to be made again and again. If one looks around the world the lesson that is driven home is that a prosperous city creates a prosperous hinterland. Cardiff is linked to the valleys by a network of rail lines and increasingly excellent roads. However, old prejudices and antagonisms die slowly. Those who know Wales and its history will not be surprised that the small group of Members of Parliament who have delayed the project has included a number from valley communities that have traditionally distrusted those on the coastal plain whom they have regarded as rivals. That may have made some sense in the days when men walked from their homes to pit and plant; it makes no sense today.
The House must understand that this is not a party issue. From the outset I took great care to try to create a partnership between the new CBDC and the Labour-dominated local authorities. That partnership has worked well. I have much appreciated the

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encouragement given throughout by the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, whom I am delighted to note is to speak later in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Brooks of Tremorfa, who regrettably cannot be with us this afternoon, has played a leading role both in local government and in the corporation and his contribution has been of inestimable value—a judgment that I know will be warmly endorsed by Mr. Inkin, chairman of the corporation.
A wider majority of those involved in local government, business and politics in Wales have from the start recognised the potential and importance of what has been attempted in Cardiff. During the past 10 or 15 years Wales has thrown aside its mood of hopeless pessimism and has begun increasingly to recognise that it is at the end of the long bleak decades of relative economic decline. I had the great privilege and opportunity to play a significant part in the process of attracting new industry, removing dereliction, creating the necessary infrastructure and building a new mood of confidence and pride. Wales now sees itself—as the competitive world outside increasingly recognises—as a place able to compete with the best and a suitable location for industry and business that wishes to succeed in European and world markets. Wales is determined never again to be dependent on a few basic but vulnerable industries or to have just a "branch factory" economy.
What is in train in Cardiff is a crucial part of a wider process of broadening and enriching industrial, economic, social and cultural activity throughout the region. Cardiff is a city insufficiently known or appreciated by the rest of Britain where people seem to be unaware of its magnificent parks, civic buildings, great museum, concert hall and university faculties or the wealth of its activities. For all its virtues Cardiff has for too long been like a sailing ship with one of its masts missing. What used to be its power base, driving force and the reason for its growth and success has been broken and left a tangled wreck. Despite the importance of the still active port, the sheer emptiness of the city south of the railway for many years bore witness to what had been lost. Cardiff has for too long been half a city incapable of fulfilling its full potential, and yet it possesses—and the barrage can enhance this —one of the most magnificent locations for a modern city anywhere in the world.
Few of those who praise the muddy estuaries that open into the bay live there. Fewer still, in recent decades, have bothered to go there, and that applies to most of the population and business leaders of Cardiff. It is only because of the work that has been done in the last half dozen years that people are flooding to look at, and be astonished by, the area. The excitement of what we are about in its potential has come as a revelation to many.
However, I was told by the noble Lord, Lord Moran, that the mud is an SSSI and the feeding ground for waders, part of a potential RAMSAR site and, therefore, untouchable. As someone who spends the greater part of his working life protecting the environment, I do not take lightly the claims of rare and precious sites to protection, but each day, as chairman of the NRA, I find, as I found each day
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when I was Secretary of State for Wales, that there are conflicting priorities to be balanced and differing environmental requirements that cannot be recon-ciled. Very often hard choices have to be made.
I should like to explain why I have made my choice. The House of Commons Committee heard evidence that the winter count of dunlin is 2,891 and of redshank 486. We may doubt the remarkable precision of those figures. I do not know if any noble Lord here has tried to count dunlin 400 yards away across a misty bay in winter, but, be that as it may, I accept that a considerable number of dunlin and redshank feed in the bay and that not all of them may find alternative feeding grounds in the Severn Estuary.
The existing bay area, with its mud, is the artificial creation of 19th century man and the present enclosed area was largely created by the building of Cardiff Docks. Dredging has ceased and the bay is silting up. Over the next 20 years a significant part of those feeding grounds may cease to exist, barrage or no barrage. However, that is not the decisive factor now any more than it was when I made my decision as Secretary of State. First, I weighed the fate of a proportion of those birds against the unemployment and social deprivation that had been the fate of the people of South Wales for so long. I decided that it was an intolerable suggestion that the birds were more important than the people.
If there are those who say that they have no confidence that the barrage will create jobs and better living conditions, then I must respond by stating that I have immensely greater confidence in the forecasts of those who believe that it will do so than I have in the judgment of those who say that the birds will not find somewhere else to feed.
That is not the only argument. There is a powerful environmental case. The barrage will create a vast area of fresh water, bordered by large areas of grassland, with island and river bank habitats that will attract birds in great numbers. There may be many fewer waders, but I suspect that before we know where we are the conservation organisations will be proposing the designation of SSSIs for other reasons.
During a recent visit to Slimbridge I began to wonder whether or not we would soon be welcoming Bewick swans and other visitors from northern Russia to the new habitats in Cardiff Bay or to the possible bird reserve on the Gwent Levels about which we have been told this afternoon.
Perhaps more important, so far as I am concerned, is the contribution that the construction of the barrage will make to alleviating the pressure on the Vale of Glamorgan, that beautiful vale, dotted with largely unspoiled villages, that is the green belt for Cardiff, a precious heritage under grave and continual threat. It is a nonsense to contemplate allowing development in places like the Vale of Glamorgan when there are derelict, polluted, empty deserts close to the hearts of our great cities, waiting to be brought back to use, and when we have a chance to reverse the remorseless process which has led people further and further from increasingly lifeless cities into a ceaseless round of petrol-consuming, ozone layer-devouring, soul and

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environment-destroying commuting. I want to bring people back to live and work and play in the cities, and that is what the barrage will do in Cardiff.
We will not be constructing a few privileged homes for rich people alongside the water. We are bringing people of every kind back to live close to where they work. The Bill will bring university premises close to industry; modern industry and business close to new places of entertainment; and office buildings and an opera house, places of recreation, parks, avenues, pubs, restaurants and play houses into a desert in order to create a living, vibrant, heart, pumping blood back to the communities that spread out into the valleys of Wales that have contributed and suffered so much.
If it is wrong to dream a dream, I plead guilty, but I am proud to have dreamt it and pray that this Parliament will make it a reality.
4.25 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Gwydir: My Lords, I cannot pretend to speak with the authority and experience of my noble friend Lord Crickhowell on the subject of the Cardiff Bay Barrage project. When I was the Secretary of State in the Welsh Office my experience was limited to taking the occasional initiative in order to help Cardiff, but I never had the good fortune to be instrumental in introducing a momentous project such as this.
I congratulate my noble friend Lord Crickhowell and my noble friend Lord Walker of Worcester, who followed him in the Welsh Office, on the way in which they have brought this project into being. We have just heard a remarkable speech from my noble friend Lord Crickhowell and anyone who heard that speech inevitably must vote for the Second Reading of the Bill with a clear conscience. It is a very important Bill and I support it not because I know much about it but because I am very concerned about the future of the capital city of Wales. It is Cardiff that we should think about.
Very few noble Lords have mentioned the fact that we are talking about a derelict deprived area. We are talking about a city which is the youngest capital city in Europe which once upon a time was the biggest coal exporting port in the world. There has been a change in the economy of South Wales and there has been a change in the port of Cardiff. Cardiff has improved and has become a capital of which we can be enormously proud, but there remains a part of Cardiff which needs regeneration.
I am pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, because he represented the part of Cardiff with which we are concerned. I hope that he will have the opportunity of intervening in the debate.
My knowledge of the Bill is restricted to having read the Bill and one or two of the reports. I understand the concerns that have been expressed. I was very surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, was so critical. I hope that he is speaking for himself and not for his party because if ever a Bill should be bipartisan, this is it.
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The Private Bill about which noble Lords have spoken was presented jointly by the development corporation and South Glamorgan Council, which is Labour dominated. There is no doubt that, although the noble Lord is right to state that the Bill is contentious, most Bills are contentious in some way, but it is not as contentious as he tried to make out in his speech.
Since the Private Bill left the House almost four years ago there has been delay and contention—if that is the right word—in the other place caused by a small select group of people. That may initially have been for political reasons, because we were approaching an election, but it has not been anything of which we can be proud. This is an enormously important Bill.
In his excellent speech, my noble friend the Minister said that the economic case for the Bill was strong. He said the Bill was important for the future of Cardiff and south-east Glamorgan. I agree with him. This is the biggest capital project ever to take place in Cardiff. The project would transform that deprived area of Cardiff which I mentioned and would be a high quality asset for our capital city. In place of the present dereliction, there will be a freshwater lake of some 500 acres and over eight miles of waterfront. It will regenerate a large part of Cardiff and provide permanent jobs, new houses and private sector investment.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, said that he hoped that the Select Committee would study the economic viability of the proposal. He obviously again felt that there was contention and that its economic viability may not be made out. He will be aware that over the years, while the Bill has been under the scrutiny of both Houses of Parliament, appraisals of the project's economic viability have been carried out by independent bodies. However, shortly after a report is published people say that there has been a change and that therefore a new report is needed. They call for the report to be brought up to date. The latest report was in October 1992.
That report claims that everyone seems to accept that there must be some regeneration and redevelopment of that area of Cardiff, and that the barrage scheme is superior in all respects to redevelopment without a barrage. It suggests that over 23,000 permanent jobs could be created by the barrage scheme—almost twice the number of permanent jobs that could be created without the barrage. Further, construction employment with a barrage scheme will be twice as much as that without the barrage, and over twice as many new houses would be built with the barrage scheme than by redevelopment without the barrage. According to that independent, up-to-date report, the most important factor is that the project should attract over £1 billion of private sector investment. Although I agree with the noble Lord that one should always study the economic viability of such a scheme and measure it against other suggestions, the evidence which is presently before the House and which was before the other place indicates that the barrage scheme is infinitely preferable to any redevelopment without the barrage.

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I do not wish to go into all the objections that have been raised, but it is obvious that people in the area are worried about issues such as the rise in the groundwater level. That is a matter which will undoubtedly cause considerable anxiety. I have some experience of studying Bills and Acts of Parliament, and I have to say that Part IV and Schedule 7 contain exceptional provisions designed to provide protection. I do not know how many noble Lords have read Schedule 7 but it is exceptional to find incorporated into a Bill such a schedule which provides for the protection of people who may be injured by a project. I commend that to the House.
Another matter raised by the noble Lord was that under the Bill the Secretary of State has the right, by order, to change Schedule 7 in some respects should it be desired. The Secretary of State, and my noble friend who opened the debate, have made it clear that there is no intention to weaken the protection afforded by the provision. It is essential that the Secretary of State should have that power should it be necessary to amend in order to improve the provision. As my noble friend said, the power will never be used to weaken the provisions. The House can bear in mind, as my noble friend said, that the affirmative resolution procedure will be used. That of course means that both Houses of Parliament will have an opportunity to debate any proposed changes.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, expressed anxiety about dewatering wells. As I understand it, the full report on that issue has not been received, but I understand that it is proposed that there should be a well-pumping pilot study. I should be grateful if my noble friend would confirm that that is so. The House would be grateful to know when the report is likely to be made. Dewatering wells could be the complete answer to the problem of groundwater levels which worries so many people. All the surveys, remedies and compensation provided in Schedule 7 may not be used because there may be no risk. We all hope that that will be the case. If dewatering wells are not the answer, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales has made it clear that there will be no change in Schedule 7. Therefore, I commend the Bill to the House. I hope that everyone will give it a Second Reading.
4.37 p.m.
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: My Lords, my name is not on the list of speakers because it was not until 2.30 p.m. that I gave notice that I should like to speak. I thought that the Bill was so uncontroversial that it would go through on the nod. However, I was a little disappointed to find that that was not the case and so I thought that I had better add my voice. As one who has known the area for 50 years and represented it for many, I have some slight knowledge of it.
I should like to begin by saying something that I never thought that I should live to say, and that is how much I agreed with the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell. It was a remarkable speech, and I thank him for it. He raised our eyes from some of the considerations that have loomed large in the Bill to the point of excluding the general approach and
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magnitude of the proposition. He enabled us to see the proposal in perspective. I hope that your Lordships will read carefully what he had to say, because I believe that that is a speech that will stand.
The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, gave us the history. My own approach—and I cannot remember who invented the phrase—is that this is "deja vu all over again". I have not heard a single new argument this afternoon that has not been put forward during the past six or seven years. Nothing further can be said. Many relevant questions have been asked during the progress of the plan and the approach to the Bill has been considerably improved as a result.
When, as Secretary of State for Wales, I first supported the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, on this proposition, I immediately raised one issue: the history of flooding in that part of Cardiff because of the land on which the houses are built. The problem was the groundwater and the possibility of flooding. That had not been properly considered at the outset; there was no real time to do it then. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gwydir, said, since then it has been exhaustively examined. Perhaps I do not have experience of it, but the provisions in the Bill to safeguard against the possibility of anyone conceiv-ably being damaged by flooding go beyond the limits of anything the noble Lord said he had seen. I therefore defer to what he said. On that ground, which was my first and principal worry when we started the procedure, matters have been very much improved.
My noble friend Lord Prys-Davies rightly asked a series of questions. I wish he could have expressed himself a little more warmly about the magnitude of the proposition and the beneficial effect it will have, not only on Cardiff but also on the valleys from which he comes. Like all hinterlands, they depend upon the prosperity of the port, as we have been told. If we go to the other side of the world, we can see the impact that Hong Kong has had upon the province of Guandong in China, precisely because of the way in which that area has been developed. The same would be true of the valleys. I hope that there is no lurking suspicion in my noble friend's mind, in view of his valley loyalties, that this can be of benefit only to Cardiff. That is not so. It will be of benefit to the whole of the hinterland of South Wales. I hope that if he speaks again, he will be a little more enthusiastic about the Bill. Nevertheless, many of his questions will need to be examined and answered and he was correct to raise them.
On the nature of the proposition itself, every time a new proposal is put forward in Wales one can guarantee that there will be a thousand objections. It is our nature and I speak as one who is an adopted son. I suppose one or two noble Lords here will recall the great objection raised when the proposal to build St. David's Hall was put forward. There were editorials in the South Wales Echo, objections were made on the ground of cost and all the rest of it. Now St. David's Hall is a treasure in Wales, we all speak of it with great delight and it is a building where we are on an international footing. I warrant that the same

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will happen in relation to this proposal when it eventually gets through and when the opposition has died down.
I ask my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies to modify some of the things he said. The plain truth is that on a proposition of this magnitude there is no limit to the number of speculative questions that can be asked. There is no limit to the number of doubts that can be raised and alternatives that can be presented. I do not speak of my noble friend here, but it is in that spirit that much of the opposition to the Bill has been conducted. People are interested in different matters. The noble Lord, Lord Moran, made his position quite clear. He said unashamedly that his interest was that he was opposed to barrages in general, so he would vote against the Bill. I suppose that that is a perfectly valid reason for voting against it, but if he sets that against the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, I feel he ought to think again.
There are others whose prime interest is in the 500 dunlins and the 460, or whatever it is, redshanks which feed—no doubt very happily—in the feeding grounds there. On reflection I would say that there are probably nearly as many rusty bicycles in the feeding grounds as there are redshanks in the course of the winter. That is all right, it is a perfectly legitimate interest and the bird preservation people are quite right to put it forward. I think that a great effort has been, is being made and rightly should be made to meet them on it. We cannot meet the noble Lord, Lord Moran, on the barrage because either we have it or we do not. But we can meet people who are genuinely concerned about the birds.
However, when all is said and done and all the interests have put their case, I am afraid I have only one interest—the people who live there. When I weigh that interest against the limited interest of the noble Lord, Lord Moran, in his opposition to barrages, the interest in birds, which can be met in other ways, or the difficulties of the anglers who wonder whether their interests will be interfered with, I have no doubt on which side I shall come down. Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that, considering that I represented the poorest and most deprived area of Cardiff for over 40 years.
I put it to your Lordships that in the end, if we add on the basic interests of people who have lived in the deprived area, the worst area in Cardiff, and weigh them against the other interests that have been put today, there can be no doubt which way the vote should go.
I hope that in Committee the opposition to the Bill that has been raised by the special interests will not be pursued to the point of disruption. We have had enough of it; it has been going on for six or seven years since the proposals were first put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell. It is time the matter was brought to an end. Some people will not be satisfied, indeed, they cannot be satisfied. But in my view, there is no doubt where the balance of advantage lies.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Moran, that I am sorry to tackle him in this way because I agree with him more often than not on many matters. However,
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when he says that it is shameful that these mud flats around which people in Cardiff have been living should have ceased to be a site of special scientific interest, I can only tell him that all of us who know and have lived in the area and who know the people there are astonished that this was ever included as a site of special scientific interest. It makes me wonder whether some of these sites of special scientific interest are all they are cracked up to be. However, that is another problem.
I wish to say a word about water quality. Much has been said, rightly and properly, about it and I have no objection to that. However, it has certainly not been said here this afternoon—nor has it often been said elsewhere—that in south Cardiff we already have a small illustration of what might happen (but no one can be sure) to the quality of the water when the barrage is built. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Moran, has been to see the Bute East Dock. If he has, and if he visited it on a Saturday afternoon, he would have seen that not only are there people sail-surfing, falling in regularly, but there is also dragon boat racing where people manage to topple out of the boat on many occasions. It is an area of water which is wholly enclosed, fed from the river Taff up at Blackweir and which is impeded in its exit in the same way as the barrage would be impeded. The quality of the water there, which has been tested, is as good as anyone can possibly find. By any standards, now that the sewage discharges will be diverted to Lavernock, I would say without hesitation, speaking as a layman, that the probable result is that in the end the water will be of better quality when the barrage goes through than at present. I believe that on the basis of the evidence that has been given so far it is difficult to reach any other conclusion.
I do not wish to hold up your Lordships. I only disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, on one point. I may have misheard him but I thought he said that Cardiff was lifeless. The noble Lord shakes his head, and I am glad; obviously he said something that I misunderstood. I believe that Cardiff, having had a stagnant period during the 20 or so years after the war, has recovered to a remarkable degree. Everyone who goes to Cardiff goes with some apprehension, but when they get there they say what a wonderful city it is. They look at the civic centre and see how it has been developed. They see the university and the civic buildings too. One can get out of Cardiff into the countryside in 10 minutes and there is the River Severn and the Bristol Channel nearby.
I remember when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer 30 years ago having arguments with the Civil Service because its members did not want to go to Cardiff. However, they went and now they could not be persuaded to leave. Incidentally those civil servants have contributed a great deal to the life of the city. Cardiff has a cultural centre and a sporting centre. In parts the city is wonderful already and I believe that with this development has the potential to become one of the show places of Europe. I hope that this Bill will meet with no difficulty in obtaining a Second Reading. I also hope that those who have genuinely expressed their own interests will recognise

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that a great deal has been done to satisfy those interests and to meet the difficulties that have been raised.
I hope that when the Bill reaches the Committee stage we shall be able to proceed with reasonable expedition while taking into account all the proper reasons that have been brought forward for consideration by the Committee. Finally, I wish to add to what has been said by my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies about the noble Lord, Lord Brooks of Tremorfa. I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Brooks, cannot be here today. Much of the initiative that has been taken in Cardiff is a result of his forward vision. He has now relinquished some of his responsibilities there although he will remain a member of the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation. However, his name as a City Father and as one who will have helped to create the 21st century will, I believe, live in history. I am glad to add to the tribute paid to the noble Lord, Lord Brooks, by my noble friend.
4.52 p.m.
Viscount St Davids: My Lords, the Principality has been well served by your Lordships this afternoon and I join with its people in thanking your Lordships for the informed and enthusiastic comments which, despite a few reservations, you have made about the Bill. Having heard the speeches of my noble friends Lord Crickhowell and Lord Thomas of Gwydir and of the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan of Cardiff, I may as well pack up and go home because they seem to have covered most of the outstanding questions that were raised by other speakers.
In summing up the feeling of apprehension about the scheme we need to re-examine certain points. The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, asked whether the barrage was essential. We have never claimed that no development would take place without the barrage although there is wide support for its construction among developers already in the Bay. What is clear is that, without the barrage, development would not be of the same value or quality. It would not create as many jobs and it would not attract so much private sector investment.
If one looks out across Cardiff Bay today one sees what is no more and no less than a manmade sewer. One asks oneself whether that is to be the centre of the capital city of the Principality. Without a barrage that is exactly the vista one would be presented with. However, with a barrage the vista will be very different.
Questions have been raised about the water quality in this manmade lagoon. I listened to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Moran. If I were young and unemployed and I were looking out over Cardiff Bay today, I would wonder whether the noble Lord and I lived on the same planet. The intimation is that having built this manmade lagoon we are going to try to recreate the Sargasso Sea with seaweed, mud, muck, filthy water, supermarkets, plastic and I do not know what else. I listened in amazement to the noble Lord. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales and many of your Lordships here today would not have put years of work into this project if we
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intended to replace one hideousness with another. An unemployed 21 year-old in Cardiff would wonder whether we were living on the same planet if that were our intention.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, referred to remedial questions. There must be some apprehension in this area. I can reassure him that if, without dewatering, we have to look at the higher number of houses which may need remedial action, we are talking about another £9 million. I cannot say that that sum is earmarked within a budget because when we are talking about a 20-year government budget noble Lords know as well as I do that I cannot do that. However, it is in the mind of the Welsh Office that we may have to consider the higher figure. Dewatering, as we know, is an innovative procedure. I should say to my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gwydir that we hope to receive the results of the first pumping experiments together with a report on that early in the New Year.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, asked where the wells would go. One can almost imagine the scenario of a poor council tenant waking up one morning to find a nodding donkey in his back garden pumping out the water. We believe that any land that is needed on which to place dewatering wells is already within public sector holdings. I understand that the wells are not likely to disturb anyone's vista. I cannot say they are invisible because they would not be invisible. There are a couple of manholes in the ground.
Some claims have been made by parties involved with both the bird life and the wild life of the estuary. There has been apprehension about the fish going up the fish pass. As I said, consultations are continuing with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Countryside Council for Wales as regards providing a compensation site, although not necessarily a mitigating site, for wildlife. That will be discussed no doubt in the Select Committee. We do not necessarily believe that the dunlin and redshank which at the moment live in Cardiff Bay will move to where we want them to go. We are not replacing mud flats with mud flats. However, it is proposed to replace mud flats with a water-based environment. We may lose some of the population of redshank and dunlin but we may obtain other rarer species on the compensation land. Obviously the RSPB would like to gain half the planet, but we cannot give it that. We have to think of a smaller site, and the budget for that site must be reasonable. However, as I said, we shall shortly receive the results of the consultations I have mentioned.
I do not believe the EC directive poses a problem. It is probably disingenuous to say that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has done everything to, as it were, duck this issue. We have to do the very best we can for the people of Cardiff and for the regeneration of Cardiff. We have to square the circle with the demands of wildlife and of fish. We shall endeavour to abide by all directives which are placed upon us.
The EC waste water directive is not required to be in full operation until the year 2000 for larger outfalls and 2005 for smaller outfalls. For waters considered

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sensitive areas the directive must be in operation by 31st December 1998. We are not in a position to say exactly how the requirements of the directive will be applied.
On the basis of criteria likely to be applied to the designation of sensitive and less sensitive areas, under the directive it seems unlikely that at present the Taff-Ely estuary would be designated as a sensitive area. Clearly, different circumstances will apply after the construction of the barrage. It is likely that the bay waters will then meet the criteria for designation as a sensitive area. If so, the extent to which discharges affecting the bay may require additional treatment will be considered at that time. At present that is as far as I can go in answer to the noble Lord. As more information on the directive comes to hand I shall write to him.
At the beginning of his speech the noble Lord, Lord Moran, raised a procedural point. I have tried to find an answer. The 93 petitions will not all be heard on the Floor of the House but by a Select Committee. The Select Committee will be examining them at some time in the coming months. Therefore, the gathering together of the petitions by the Select Committee and the timing of today's debate are not in synchronisation, but they are not required to be so. I do not know whether that is a satisfactory answer but I understand that that is what is to happen.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, also raised questions concerning the economic argument. Other speakers today have given him as good an answer as I could. He tried to draw a parallel with docklands. Many lessons have been learnt from docklands. One was the lack of public transport infrastructure when development started. That will not be the case with Cardiff. Due not to our own good management but perhaps to divine providence, the Cardiff Bay barrage scheme will start at the right point in the economic cycle. I cannot think of a more opportune time in the economic cycle at which to start than at the beginning or on the upswing.
Doubts have been expressed in relation to the fish pass, but I understand that those points have been covered by the National Rivers Authority. I understand that the water flow over the fish pass will be in excess of that required by the NRA.
The Cardiff Bay barrage is a vital component in the regeneration of Cardiff Bay. The benefits it will bring will not be confined to Cardiff alone. Recent surveys of major employers in Cardiff suggest that nearly 40 per cent. of their employees live outside the county of South Glamorgan. The thousands of job opportunities offered by the inclusion of the barrage in the regeneration strategy will, therefore, benefit the people of the valleys as well as the residents of the city and its immediate periphery.
The image of Wales worldwide will be enhanced by such a prestigious project. Wales already has an excellent record of attracting inward investment. The perception of Wales as an attractive location for the international investor will be greatly increased. The benefits of the project are substantial, and are far greater than development without a barrage. I make no apology for mentioning some of the figures.
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Development with a barrage will support over 23,000 permanent direct jobs. That is some 10,000 more than would be supported without a barrage. About 4,400 new homes would be built in the barrage scenario; over 1,600 more than would otherwise be built. The barrage scenario would draw in £7.50 of private sector investment for every £1 of public money spent. That is nearly twice what is likely to be achieved without a barrage. Private sector investment with a barrage could exceed £1,200 million. Without one, it would be reduced to just over £650 million.
A great deal of development is already taking place in the bay area. That reflects the measure of confidence which already exists in its future. When the barrage is built I am sure that we shall see a further impetus in the pace of development. The project offers a unique opportunity to secure for the capital city of Wales the type of development which would be a major asset for any city in the world.
As I indicated in my opening remarks, derelict and polluted land is being cleared and made available for a range of industrial, commercial, residential and leisure uses. Significant environmental improvements have already been achieved. Before construction work starts on the barrage the development corporation will divert 14 main sewers and thus remove a major source of pollution from the bay.
An attractive new environment will be created around the lake. This will include the introduction of trees and plants along the shoreline and the creation of wildlife habitats. Your Lordships will wish to note that the Bill obliges the development corporation to have due regard to flora and fauna. They are required to have regard to the desirability of developing and conserving flora and fauna before and after the barrage is built. Construction of the main and ancillary works, the operation of the barrage and management of the bay must all be carried out with that objective in mind, and in perpetuity.
The Bill contains provisions for the protection of water quality. The corporation will be obliged to meet the very stringent dissolved oxygen levels prescribed in the Bill. The National Rivers Authority also has powers of direction, which will ensure that the barrage is operated so as to protect the quality of water in the inland bay, to prevent or alleviate flooding and to protect fish in the inland bay. I remind your Lordships that the NRA has confirmed that its statutory responsibilities in respect of those issues are already adequately safeguarded.
The householder, too, is protected by the Bill. The Government do not believe the pessimistic prediction about groundwater which opponents of the scheme have made. They are not borne out by the detailed studies, nor by the eminent expert who advised my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales. Nonetheless, the Bill contains a very detailed scheme for protection which will ensure that where damage does occur the development corporation and its successors will be obliged to put it right.
I referred in my opening remarks to what the Government are doing outside the Bill—to mitigate the effects of the scheme on birds and to explore fully the dewatering solution. I believe that the protection

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written into the Bill, and the willingness to pursue measures such as mitigation and dewatering outside it, is ample evidence of the Government's constructive approach to this project.
I believe that this approach strikes the right balance between the most beneficial regeneration of the former docklands area of Cardiff and the need to ensure that the interests of all—particularly the local population—are adequately protected. I urge your Lordships to give the Bill a second reading.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.

Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) (Amendment) (No.2) Regulations 1992
5.10 p.m.
Viscount Goschen Viscount Goschen rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 28th October be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 1992 be approved. The regulations were laid before the House on 28th October 1992. I understand that it will be convenient to consider at the same time the equivalent Scottish regulations, which were laid on 27th October. I shall speak to both regulations.
The regulations, which have been considered in another place, introduce several changes to the "parent" regulations for England and Wales approved by Parliament in 1989 and for Scotland in 1990. If approved by this House, the amending regulations will come into effect on 4th January 1993.
The main change introduced is a general increase of 10 per cent. in the level of fees charged for planning applications. Since they were introduced in 1981, fees have represented a contribution by the applicant to the costs which local authorities incur in processing and determining applications. Applicants are charged according to the nature of the proposed development and to its size.
The Government are committed to progressive increases in fees in order to achieve their objective, announced in July 1990, that nationally fees should meet in full local authorities' costs of processing planning applications. In January in each of the last two years, fees have been increased by 20 per cent. towards that goal. The time is now ripe for a more modest increase.
We appreciate that a general increase of 10 per cent. in fees may be less than some planning authorities would have wished. The increase remains, however, substantial and higher than the rate of inflation. The Government believe that their proposals strike the right balance between the need to continue progress towards their target of full recovery, while having regard to the impact further increases will have on the construction industry. For developers, fees remain a very small part of their overall costs, considerably less
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than 1 per cent. And as most kinds of minor domestic development do not require a planning application, very few householders pay any fee at all.
Let me give some indicative figures. An application to alter substantially an existing dwelling house would be charged at £60; to build a new dwelling house would attract a fee of £120. The maximum fee for a factory or office development would rise from £5,520 to £6,000; an application to win or work minerals from £8,280 to £9,000. Slightly lower fee levels will apply in Scotland.
When announcing, in February of this year, new procedures requiring some form of publicity for all planning applications, the Government undertook that the extra costs of that requirement would be taken into account in the next review of planning fees. Most local planning authorities were already carrying out some form of publicity before the new requirements came into effect on 17th July. Available evidence suggests that the extra expenditure is relatively small. Nevertheless, an allowance for this has been made in proposing the 10 per cent. increase.
The draft regulations also make three minor changes to the fees regime. The purpose of the first change, the only one to apply also to Scotland, is to rectify an anomaly. Certain types of "permitted development" which do not require express planning permission, a general permission having been granted under the general development order, nevertheless require the approval by a local planning authority of certain details before proceeding. One such is agricultural buildings, where the floor space created does not exceed 465 square metres. The fee for such determinations is currently £20. But there is a nil fee for agricultural developments of a similar size requiring planning application. To resolve this anomaly the regulations will introduce the same fee, £22, for both planning applications and determinations.
The second of these minor changes is consequential. An amendment to the General Development Order, introduced by a statutory instrument due to take effect on 4th January, extends the scope of permitted development to include particular types of radio mast, radio equipment housing and public call boxes. That amendment also requires operators to seek the prior approval of a local planning authority before installing such equipment. As with other such prior determinations, a fee of £22 will be payable.
The third minor change introduces a flat-rate fee for applications to extend the duration of an unimplemented planning permission which has not yet lapsed. That replaces the current arrangement, which charges the full amount for the particular category of development. This change rectifies an inconsistency.
Applications may be made, under Section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, for relief from a condition imposed on a planning permission. This provision includes application to vary or revoke a condition requiring development to begin within a specified time (generally five years). A flat-rate fee, currently £55, applies to such applications.
However, there is no equivalent provision for similar applications; namely, those made under

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Sections 91 or 92 of the 1990 Act for the renewal of unimplemented planning permissions which would otherwise lapse after the statutory period, normally five years. As a result, the full fee, as for the original planning application, is payable. This inconsistency has led to disputes between applicants and local planning authorities in a number of cases.
In a consultation paper issued in July last year, the Government proposed that a flat-rate fee should be charged for all renewals. This proposal was broadly welcomed as eliminating a troublesome inconsistency, although local planning authorities were concerned that some applications for renewal needed to be considered afresh. I accept this argument, but we do not believe that the few cases that do need to be looked at anew justify all such applications attracting a further full fee. It is therefore proposed that a flat-rate fee of £60 be payable.
The Government believe that users and potential beneficiaries of the development control system should meet the costs incurred in determining planning applications, which would otherwise fall to be met by charge payers and business-rate payers generally. Even after taking into account the increase in fees proposed in the amending regulations now before the House, planning applications fees continue to be modest, and a very small proportion of developers' overall costs. We also believe that the other proposed amendments to the fees regime are fully justified. I commend the regulations to the House.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 28th October be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Viscount Goschen.)
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, we thank the noble Viscount for introducing these regulations. As the Government are aware we have supported increases in fees proposed in the past and we see no objection to them at the present time. As the noble Viscount rightly said, the regulations do not fully meet the desire of local planning authorities to have all their costs in determining planning applications met by fees but they continue to go some way toward it.
The major change to which he referred is the change under Parts 6, 7, 24 and 31 of Schedule 2 to the General Development Order which applies in particular to agricultural buildings. If the noble Viscount had followed the proceedings of the Planning and Compensation Bill, which took place before he had responsibility for these matters, he would know that we also supported the extension of planning controls over agricultural buildings. It seems right to us that the anomaly to which he has drawn attention should be corrected by this new provision. In general we support the two sets of regulations.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) (Scotland) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 1992
5.19 p.m.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I have already spoken to this Motion. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 28th October be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Viscount Goschen.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Dog Control and Welfare Bill [H.L.]
5.20 p.m.
Read a third time; an amendment (privilege) made.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
The Bill does not yet qualify as a hardy annual but it is heading that way. It was first given a Second Reading one year ago and it was the first Private Member's Bill to be presented in the new Parliament in June. I then reintroduced the Bill and it has come full circle. I thank all noble Lords who have brought it to its present stage.
Since the Second Reading in June much has happened to strengthen the case for an advisory committee as is proposed in the Bill. Only last week the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons presented a new item for the committee's agenda; it has decided to outlaw the docking of dogs tails. I am old enough to remember the controversy about the docking of horses tails. That waged for years and ultimately the practice was outlawed and banned. However, this is a new development and we have yet to see what parliamentary controversy it will provoke. Awaiting treatment is a government decision, which presumably must be embodied in the law, making it an offence for anyone who is not a qualified veterinary surgeon to dock a dog's tail.
The Motion passed by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons bans unqualified and unjustified mutilation and states that it is unethical unless done for therapeutic or prophylactic purposes. What is to be banned is the docking of dog's tails for cosmetic purposes. There is some lovely drafting of law on the subject and I have no doubt that there will be controversy about it.
The first attack on the Dangerous Dogs Act in Parliament occurred on 4th November when the honourable Member for Brighton Kemptown, Mr. Andrew Bowden, opened an Adjournment Debate immediately following the great crisis Vote that night. He wished to draw attention to the injustices and the defects of the Dangerous Dogs Act and to plead for a review. He received a not unsympathetic answer from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Home Office and was asked to bear in mind that the Bill had been in operation for only a year. It was said that time

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should be given to see how it progressed in full operation. The Minister welcomed what his honour-able friend had done and promised that:
"The Government will continue to listen carefully to my hon. Friend and others who wish to comment constructively on the controls. But at the same time I would ask that they bear in mind the Government's overriding duty to ensure the adequacy of the law to protect the public".—[Official Report, Commons, 4/11/92; col. 392.]
I question that as the basic philosophy of what the Government should do. I believe that the overriding purpose of Parliament is to protect the rights of the public—the civil rights of everyone concerned. To regard the single item of the protection of citizens against the minority problem of dog control is putting the issue rather high.
On 11th July another event of considerable importance took place. A legal conference of lawyers was held at Lincoln's Inn in order to look at the flaws and problems of the Dangerous Dogs Act. Mr. Bowden took the chair. The principal speech was made by Mr. Field-Fisher, QC, who is director of the Battersea Dogs' Home. I am sorry to say that I have not yet received a copy of the report of the conference, although it received a certain amount of publicity. I am glad to note that the Home Office is awake to the matter and has written for a copy. It will be of considerable importance. I mention the Dangerous Dogs Act because it stands to reason that any advisory committee appointed to assist the Home Secretary on matters of dog control and welfare would be bound to deal with that Act. Indeed, there is widespread belief that the Bill will foster the hope that a review of the Act will take place in the not too distant future.
Support for this Bill is growing continually. In addition to support from animal organisations such as the RSPCA, the National Canine Defence League, and so forth, a magazine called Our Dogs published a profile of me a few weeks ago. In the photograph I was not stroking my dog—I do not possess one—but I was cutting my roses, of which I possess quite a number. Flowing from that article I received the largest amount of mail that I have ever received during my 18 years in your Lordships' House. It was beyond my capacity to cope with that and I had to engage specialist assistance. The letters were not routine—they had not been signed at the behest of some organisation—they were revelations of human misery, unhappiness, resentment and anger at the operation of the Dangerous Dogs Act.
There is not the slightest doubt that there has been the most regrettable transgression of the liberties of the subject that I have encountered in my experience in Parliament. Although it may be early days for a review of the Act—its diabolical work is still in progress—preparation should be made for a review in the not too distant future.
We lack statistics. The Home Office has nothing and will not have anything worthwhile on the operation of that Act because they do not collect the statistics centrally. Questions that I have asked in order to obtain information have produced no results. So it is time to begin to prepare for a review. It will take some time and require a good deal of attention.
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We are told that an advisory committee is not necessary because the Government have all the channels of consultation available to them. Indeed, they used them at the time that the Dangerous Dogs Act was before Parliament. I have heard first hand accounts of the consultations which the then Home Secretary had with various representative bodies on the Dangerous Dogs Act. People went in one after another. It was really a parade of delegations. The Home Secretary heard what they had to say and then did little or nothing about it. That is not what I call consultation.
I fear that we shall head for fresh trouble in that regard and in other regards because the Home Office have no record which gives any confidence whatever that it can look ahead and make preparations. I can understand the Home Office not being able to look ahead because it does not know what the problems will be for the Home Office. Its attention is frequently concentrated on matters which have arisen quite unexpectedly.
It is late in the day to begin to justify the case for an advisory committee. I can understand the Home Office not wishing to acknowledge that such a committee is necessary. If it does acknowledge that, it might be asked to pay for it. We are running into a regime when governments do not wish to pay for anything if they can possibly avoid it. So often they say that they cannot spend any new money. Extremely strict controls and a good many cuts are to be made in the field of public expenditure.
During the Summer Recess I canvassed ideas as to how it may be possible to meet that situation. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Home Office and the Home Secretary should be aware of ideas that I have had. One idea is that the Home Office should appoint an advisory committee and then privatise it —that would be in keeping with the Government's current policy—or perhaps encourage private interests to combine to fund an advisory committee of this kind, provided that the Home Secretary was satisfied as to its composition, authority and reliability in the giving of sound advice. The Home Secretary always needs sound advice; and some Home Secretaries need more of it than others.
It seems to me that there are ideas that we should look at in the field of change and in the relationship between public purposes and private provision. For example, I recall that years ago the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, set up a prestigious committee on the reform of charity law—or it was set up and he was invited to become the chairman. The Goodman Report was current thinking in the charitable world for a long time. One should not overlook my noble friend Lord Longford who in 1964 presented the Labour Government with a report of a committee of his own presided over by an archbishop. It was called Crime—A Challenge To Us All. It is still a challenge to us all but that report was a contribution on the subject.
Perhaps I may modestly refer to the fact that in 1975 I produced the first ever report, of which I am aware, on dogs in society. I did that under the auspices of the British Small Animal Veterinary Association.

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Shortly after I produced my report the government set up an interdepartmental committee of their own to which I gave evidence. When that committee produced its report, it was largely a copy of mine. I do not quarrel with that because it was the best report that they had. It stood as part of the policy of the political parties for some time. Times change and other policies come along.
I first conceived the idea of this Bill during the ridiculous goings-on both in your Lordships' House and in another place over the proposal for a national dog registration scheme. I thought, "If this is Parliament, it is time it was reformed". I remember the antics which the Government got up to in order to prevent the House of Commons doing what the House of Lords had done; namely, to amend the Environmental Protection Bill in order to provide for work to be done on a national dog registration scheme. On one occasion it cost tens of thousands of pounds to get all the Ministers and absent MPs back to London to vote against the rebellion on the Tory Benches, which nearly succeeded. The Government had only a single figure majority on the vote on the proposal for a dog registration scheme. In the end, the Government slung into the Environmental Protection Act a set of proposals about waifs and strays and local authorities in order to edge out the amendment on dog registration. Are we to go through all that again? The national dog registration scheme holds the field in the policy of at least one of our major political parties; and that may be extended as time goes on.
Before this Bill reaches its final stage, I ask the Government to respond to ideas put to them about a different form of an advisory committee with status, quality and opportunity for investigation and research. Can that be done? Is it something novel? It means that the funding of the work of an advisory committee would pass from the Government to private sources. Do the Government object to an advisory committee being funded by a combination of charities or a combination of individual and commercial interests? I can tell the Government where to get money from if they are ready to accept commercial interest in this matter—after all, the Government do not mind deserving purposes being funded by commercial interests. Every day on the television something is being funded or sponsored. That is now taken as a matter of course.
I shall not mention any names, either of charities or commercial undertakings, but I remind your Lordships how little money is required to fund such an advisory committee. I have given figures before but the Farm Animal Welfare Council costs less than £100,000 per year. The statutory advisory committee on animal experiments costs less than £50,000 per year. Of course, if you want to take care of the nation's morals and keep sex and violence on television away from people, you must be prepared to spend £1.5 million on the Broadcasting Standards Council. If you want racial equality, an advisory committee will cost £14 million.
Those amounts are really chicken-feed when one looks at the matter from the point of view of funding.
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The committee would give advice for nothing and, in certain circumstances, would not even claim its expenses from the Government. There are all kinds of sane ideas which I have been putting forward in the past few weeks to different people to get this committee set up. It would not be selected by the Home Secretary but approved by him as being a fair and quality advisory committee representative of the different interests on whose advice he will rely. Get that and we are home and dry and we need not bother any more about public expenditure on an advisory committee.
I have shown my hand to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers. I do not know whether the noble Viscount has a hand to show; he usually has not. They will not let him have one. I am not really expecting any earth-shaking response from him. This Bill will be taken up elsewhere. I am very glad to say that we are getting friends in another place who feel that this is something which they should undertake.
This is a long speech to be made on Bill do now pass, but I have been waiting all summer to get this off my chest. I have been working very hard during the Recess. If any noble Lord wants a packet of my misery mail I shall be very glad to forward an instalment of it. If noble Lords do not weep then they are much harder hearted than I think they are. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Houghton of Sowerby.)
5.41 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, on a Private Member's Bill like this the Labour Party is neutral, and I speak not for the party but for myself alone. I was recently re-reading some of the poetry of Alexander Pope, and I came across a couplet inscribed on the collar of the dog which Pope gave to a member of the Royal Family. It read:
"I am His Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?"
I must say that on the matter of this Bill I feel a little like that myself, having been put on my lead and taken out for walkies around the arguments in favour of this modest measure on more than one previous occasion and quite unable to strain at the leash in pursuit of new and persuasive examples or statistics with which to attempt to convince the Government and soften the noble Viscount's stony heart.
Indeed, in re-reading the previous outings we have had on this topic, I found myself not only totally convinced by the excellence of the arguments in my own speech at Second Reading, but strangely impressed by the fact that no one, apart from the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, seems to have spoken against the Bill. The nearest to an objector was the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, who said that he had previously given it "qualified support" and had possibly moved from that position a little in the direction of my noble friend. Of the bodies usually consulted on canine matters only the Kennel Club was opposed to the Bill, and the chorus of support for it, from so many different quarters, has been as loud as it has been harmonious.

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The great strength of the proposal, to my mind, is that it is based so firmly on the constitution, the functions and the work of the Farm Animal Welfare Council, which has a long and distinguished record of useful achievement. The problems and the welfare of the nation's 7.4 million dogs could surely best be considered if we agree to follow the example created for the welfare of farm animals.
Perhaps I may briefly remind your Lordships of the view taken by that very responsible body, the RSPCA, when it prepared a briefing for the Second Reading debate on 18th June. It believed that the Dog Control and Welfare Council could play an invaluable role in providing independent expert advice to the various Secretaries of State responsible for dogs. The RSPCA quoted my noble friend when it said:
"This is an area which raises a number of complex and emotive issues, and the Council would, in Lord Houghton's words, 'point the way to a calmer and more considered approach'".
That is every bit as true in November as it was in June. The RSPCA at that time noted the weight of support for the Bill and listed a number of the organisations in favour of it and even of dog registration which included the RSPCA and Scottish and Ulster SPCAs, the Association of District Councils, the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, the Association of London Authorities, the London Boroughs Association, the National Association of Local Councils, the National Canine Defence League, the Battersea Dogs' Home, the National Farmers Union, the Country Gentlemen's Association, the Country Landowners' Association, the Institute of Environmental Health Officers, the National Dog Wardens Association and the British Veterinary Association —indeed, every front-line organisation concerned with dog welfare, except, for obvious reasons, the Kennel Club.
The RSPCA also noted that every European member state save Belgium and Luxembourg now has full registration schemes as do many states in the United States of America, Australia and now Denmark. One virtue of the Bill which could perhaps be re-emphasised with profit is that it creates a body capable of taking an overview on the many aspects of both dog control and dog welfare in our society. The RSPCA, the Canine Defence League, the Kennel Club, the PDSA, and other such organisations all do excellent work, but there is, as yet, no body with direct links to government which looks at all the issues, from dog licensing to dog breeding and dog training, and advises government on them all. My noble friend's Bill co-ordinates and simplifies the transfer of information and advice in the most effective way possible, while at the same time ensuring that that advice is of the highest and most reliable quality.
Over the past weekend I have carefully re-read, with all the sympathy that I could summon up, the reply given on behalf of the Government by the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, at Second Reading. I am sorry to say that I found it, with all the goodwill in the world, still deeply unconvincing. His strongest point seemed to me the argument that to set up a Dog Control and Welfare Council would create additional administrative work and added expense. And yet
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neither he, nor anyone else, so far as I can see, has established how much additional administrative work would be required. How many civil servants would need to be recruited? How many person-hours are estimated to be necessary to service such a council? Indeed, has anyone ever seriously calculated what would be involved, and costed it? If so, who, and when, and what is the estimated expense?
As my noble friend pointed out at Second Reading, the Farm Animal Welfare Council costs something like £80,000. A Dog Control and Welfare Council could hardly cost more than that, and in the carefully considered opinion of very many of us, all across the country, it would be money well and wisely spent. I hope that on this final occasion the noble Viscount will feel able to agree.
5.49 p.m.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to have a further opportunity to discuss dog-related matters with the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. I believe that he and I have discussed dogs on a number of occasions—about five or six in the past few years. This Bill received its Second Reading in your Lordships' House some five months ago. Since then I know that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has been exploring how effect could be given to the aims of the Bill without the need to establish a statutory council. I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for keeping the Government informed of the developments as to his discussions with animal organisations and how they have progressed.
When your Lordships last discussed this Bill, I set out the Government's reservations about its purposes and the reasons why we felt unable to give it our support. I know that this has disappointed the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, who introduced the Bill from the very best of motives.
However, before responding to the particular points which he has raised today, it may be helpful if I were to explain briefly why the Government have still not felt able to support the establishment of a statutory council as the Bill envisages. The Government welcome advice from many quarters on matters for which they are responsible. This applies no less to the subject of dogs. Indeed, this is an area in which we receive an abundance of unsolicited advice, in addition to the advice which we receive from our contacts with the very many organisations which have an interest in dog-related matters. Perhaps I may advise the noble Lord, Lord Morris, that my officials met only last week with their opposite numbers in the RSPCA when dog matters were discussed among other things.
I understand the concerns of both the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, and the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris. Both feel that there is a strong case for having a body—not dissimilar to the Farm Animal Welfare Council or the Animal Procedures Committee —which can consist of people who are expert and knowledgeable in dog matters which not only can take the breast of objections or proposals of existing or new

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legislation but which can advise my right honourable friend the Home Secretary and to whom my right honourable friend can turn for advice.
I do see that there is a force in this argument, but I am bound to tell your Lordships that any new statutory body is inevitably bureaucratic. It would also be expensive to run and, at a time when we are trying to avoid additional public expense and to avoid the increasing desire to legislate on everything, we do not feel that this is the appropriate time to set off down this road. We are, at the moment, kept alert to the many and varied opinions on dog issues by the flexibility of other existing non-statutory consultation arrangements. We do not feel, therefore, that there is quite the urgency for a statutory council as the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, proposes. The Government are not alone in this view. The Kennel Club also doubts the need for the Bill. I do not want the noble Lord, Lord Morris, to have to read out again his long list of those who are for such a statutory council if, indeed, he can. There are differing views, but the Government's position remains the same.
However, there is, of course, room for improvement. There may be an argument for a forum in which issues of dog control and welfare could be filtered, assessed and passed on to government. That need not —and indeed should not—be at the expense of our existing valuable, informal arrangements. If the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, were to be successful in obtaining agreement with the bodies with which he is consulting to the establishment of a non-statutory forum, the Government would naturally be willing to consider any advice that it might offer.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, mentioned the operation of the Dangerous Dogs Act. Your Lordships may be aware that this was discussed on 4th November in an Adjournment debate in another place. The Government made clear that we believe that it is right that the operation of the Act should be closely examined and that we will continue to listen carefully to constructive comment on it.
The noble Lord also talked about tail docking. The Government amended the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 last year to remove the right of an unqualified person to dock puppies' tails. That change takes effect on 1st July 1993. The Government are waiting to see the details of the recent deliberations of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.
I must repeat that the Government remain ready to discuss any proposal which the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, might wish to put to us on how his ideas for a non-statutory council might be taken forward. We are always ready to receive what he might call "the Houghton Report" although we shall not necessarily agree with all the conclusions.
5.54 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I must thank the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, for the most informative speech that he has yet delivered to your Lordships on this subject. He must have gone back to his officials and said, "A repetition of what I said before won't do." Anyhow, it may be that he has
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triumphed over more forthcoming advice that he has already received. I am sure that the noble Viscount has personal resources that have not yet been revealed to your Lordships' House, and I thank him for what he said. I do not think that I should go into any more detail now.
My noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris, speaking from our Front Bench, put up a spirited and complete case for the Bill. However, on the practical points that he mentioned in response to my suggestion of other arrangements for establishing working advisory machinery on which the Home Office could rely and the existence of which it would acknowledge, I remind him that the Farm Animal Welfare Council is not a statutory body. It is appointed by regulation by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It may well have been that any such committee would not have needed a statutory sanction. It could probably be established under regulations which the Home Office may already have the power to make.
I shall pursue what I have embarked upon because I think there is one thing missing from all that the noble Viscount said—and that is, listening to collective advice. I have had experience of this. One can listen to everybody coming separately to state views and, when they have gone, one has great difficulty knowing how to select the advice that one should follow. In my connections with the teachers' organisations—a difficult lot, if you like—I said, "I shall see you altogether. I shall take your advice when I hear it from you altogether." That proved the most successful part of the work that I had to carry out on behalf of teachers.
However, during the passage of the Dangerous Dogs Act, the Home Secretary had the various bodies involved in one at a time. They were waiting in the waiting room. One would have thought that they had all gone to the dentist. They went in one by one, and the Home Secretary called upon particular officials to explain the Home Office point of view on various contentious items in the dangerous dogs legislation. If one examines the Dangerous Dogs Act, one can see what is not there and the flaws that are there. One can see why respectable bodies such as the British Veterinary Association in particular and the RSPCA are putting forward the urgent need to restore the rights of the citizen to appeal in a judicial procedure, but those rights are not there. I do not think that the public fully understand how authoritarian it all is and how the various safeguards against injustice have been withdrawn in order to allow no respite in the pursuit of what are believed to be dangerous dogs. As I said at the time, it is a fiendish Act.
I have said all the things about the legislation to which I think that the House would wish to listen. So, I shall persevere. I hope that in due course I shall come up with something which will convince a future Home Secretary—if the present one is not still in post. Let us see what we can do. I repeat that to review this requires collective action on the part of considerable interests, and I think that they should be encouraged. That is all that I have to say for the time being.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

Books for Schools, etc.
5.59 p.m.
Baroness David Baroness David rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied with the current levels of expenditure on books for schools, colleges, universities and libraries.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, three publications this autumn concern us today. The first is Books in Schools, a report of an investigation into the use and provision of books in schools, conducted by a working party under the chairmanship of Michael Marland, the headmaster of North Westminster Community School, and sponsored by the British Library and the Book Trust. The second is a report on book and journal spending in university and polytechnic libraries 1978–79 to 1989–90 produced by the Council of Academic and Professional Publishers. The third is Public Libraries and Their Book Funds, a report by the National Book Committee. I should declare an interest (though not a financial one) as chairman of that committee whose members are representative of all with interests in books: writers, agents, booksellers, publishers and the reading public through Book Trust, which is the successor body to the National Book League. It is because of what those three reports reveal that I am asking this Unstarred Question.
I believe all of us here accept the main thesis of Books in Schools that reading is the key to learning and that a sufficiency of books in the home, schools, colleges, universities and libraries is the key to reading. What we have to do is convince the Government and the Minister that if they are serious in wanting to raise standards in this country and avoid the loss of our reputation as world leaders in research they must make available funds to ensure there is ample provision of books for all levels of students.
I had hoped that when I read a press notice on 9th September that Mr. Patten was beginning to understand, though I may now be wrong. In writing to the chairman of the curriculum council agreeing to a review of the orders for English, he said that they were not sufficiently explicit about how pupils could develop the habit of reading widely and be introduced to the richness of great literature. Books in Schools however reveals all too clearly that pupils are not getting the reading experience they need, for the Government are failing to provide adequate funding for schools to make sufficient reading material available.
Learning to read at primary school is only a beginning. The crucial development of full reading and information-handling skills at secondary school is neglected. In many secondary schools children seldom read whole books. Books are increasingly replaced by photocopied extracts and information sheets. We are in danger of creating a book-starved generation. The HMI report of 1989 Reading, Policy and Practice at Ages 5 to 14 said that advanced reading skills, including information and retrieval skills, were not developed in a coherent way. Little was done after
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initial reading was taught to take children further and help them to understand and make use of a wider range of reading in a variety of ways.
The working party found that in good primary schools opportunities for silent reading were provided. Children had books in their lunch bags and could take them home in the evening for leisure reading. But in secondary schools sustained reading was not encouraged; pupils used worksheets and booklets put together by teachers. One teacher commented that pupils felt comfortable only with worksheets that clearly set out the limits of the reading to be done. The assumption was that pupils would be discouraged by a whole book.
A successful school should teach reading skills throughout a child's school career and provide not only sufficient books and opportunities for reading but also make use of books across the whole curriculum. Many teachers have not been adequately trained to create or make use of opportunities for children to extend their reading skills or understand fully the role of books in the learning process. Changes in teacher training, with schools having the major responsibility for the professional preparation of future teachers, mean that many more are likely to have only a superficial grounding in the teaching of extended reading.
School libraries are discussed both in the Books in Schools and the public library reports. My noble friend Lord Dormand had a very good debate on this subject in February 1991. The library or library resources centre is found to be cost-effective and is highly valued. It should be at the core of primary and secondary school work, responding to changing needs, extending pupils' awareness of imaginative literature, meeting reference needs across the curriculum and helping to develop information-handling skills. The library is usually the school's largest learning resource. In some schools the book stock alone has a cash replacement value of £150,000. Unfortunately, the majority of school libraries remain undeveloped. The 1984 report of the Library and Information Services Council for England concluded that they were under-used and under-funded. Eight years later few of its recommendations have been acted upon.
The 1990 survey of the HMI found disturbing disparities in provision that did not sit well alongside the best intentions of the national curriculum. Its 1991 report on library provision and use in 42 primary schools found the use of library resources satisfactory or better in just half the schools visited. It also found among other things that library funding did not match current book costs and replacement needs and that there were unsatisfactory staffing arrangements and inadequacies in library organisation. I should like to say how important it is to have a professional chartered librarian in charge. Most secondary schools do not; in England it is only one in seven. Scotland does much better; three-quarters of their schools do. Every head I have talked to confirms the invaluable help such a librarian gives to the work of the whole school.
But what is to happen under local management of schools and when, as we are told will be the case, more schools become grant-maintained? If schools are under-funded now will school libraries suffer more? Many LEAs have kept back funds to finance the service but in future schools will have to buy in that service. Will they? Will grant-maintained schools buy in from the LEA? If so, will they continue to be able to do so in future if they so wish? I ask the Minister to respond to those questions.
Books in Schools says that the chronic problem is money. Schools remain severely under-funded when it comes to spending on books for classroom and library use. By the late 'eighties expenditure per pupil in both primary and secondary schools had declined in cash value and in real terms and was well below the Book Trust's recommended figures. The actual spending in England in 1989–90 was £9 per primary and £13.50 per secondary pupil. The recommended reasonable (not good) provision was £15.27 for primary and £24.97 for secondary. It is worth remembering that surveys in 1989 showed that on the basis of replacement every three years a GCSE student required £23.25 per year for textbooks alone. I remind noble Lords that the actual figure was £13.50. No doubt we shall be reminded by the Minister that the DES earmarked funds for books when it made £35 million available between 1986 and 1989 via the educational support grant scheme for books and equipment for the new GCSE, and that a further £45 million is being provided for books for the national curriculum between 1991 and 1994 via grants for education support and training—the GEST scheme. First, one has to remember that providing funds for major educational change is a separate exercise from ensuring an adequate level of regular expenditure for basic provision. Secondly, one of the country's major publishers has calculated that the amount required by schools to restock with national curriculum books is £71.4 million for primary and £96 million for secondary schools, a total of £167 million over and above normal spending. Others estimate a higher figure. Coopers Lybrand Deloitte suggest £235 million over a five-year period or £47 million a year. Those are vastly different figures from the Government's.
Before I turn to the public library pamphlet I want to put in a special word for the 16 to 19 year-olds in sixth form and further education colleges. Many more young people are staying on, because of unemployment or whatever. We are very glad they are staying on, but the increased numbers will put a big extra strain on book provision. I should like to ask the Minister to comment in his reply. I hope he will not say that it is all up to the Further Education Funding Council. Public library and book provision have been more in the spotlight in 1992 than before because of the establishment of the Department for National Heritage with a Secretary of State in the Cabinet, thereby augmenting the profile of public libraries. On the other hand, never has there been so much concern about the ability of public libraries to provide books
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and the comprehensive and efficient service required of them under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964.
In February my noble friend Lord Willis opened an excellent debate on the libraries and 27th February was "Save our Libraries Day", which focused on the poor provision of books and services. In fact, 80 million fewer books were issued by libraries in 1991 than in 1981. Professor Richard Hoggart, in a lecture at the new British Library Centre for the Book, said:
"In this period of unusually rapid cultural change, the public libraries are both one of the main indicators of that change and among its most prominent casualties".
It is ironic that under the 1964 Act the Minister for the Arts, now the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of State for Wales have a duty to superintend and improve—I emphasise the word "improve"—the public library service when we know that the hours of opening are drastically reduced, cash book funds have seen cuts varying from 50 per cent. to 10 per cent., no new books have been bought by Camden since September 1991, far fewer new books are going into libraries than was the case 10 years ago, a good many libraries have been closed and more cuts and closures are feared. All these are contributory factors in the decline of library issues.
However, on the credit side, Peter Brooke's statement of 9th November on compulsory competitive tendering was much more favourable than once feared. Public library support services are not to be subject to CCT, and the Library Association's argument that it would be better to carry out pilot studies rather than press ahead has been accepted. But the association will be seeking an assurance from the Secretary of State that, whatever the outcome of the investigation, the statutory requirement to provide a comprehensive and efficient service will remain and that the core service shall remain free at the point of delivery.
I turn now to the report on book and journal spending in university and polytechnic libraries. It covers the years 1978–79 to 1989–90, 1990 being the final year that funding was specifically earmarked for books for university libraries by the Government and the UGC. Earmarked funds were not made available to the then polytechnics, and the far greater decline in provision there must in part be attributable to that. The figures reveal two distinct trends. The first is a steep long-term decline in university and polytechnic library funding for books and periodicals. The second trend seems to show that big cutbacks have been made since the previous year.
Everyone knows the facts of increased student numbers. In the 10 years to 1990, numbers in universities rose by 15 per cent.; in polytechnics by 21 per cent. In addition, teaching and learning are changing. I quote from the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, who I hoped would be speaking today. I am very disappointed that she is not. In June of this year she said:
"We must (use) different patterns of teaching and learning … teaching inputs must be accompanied by a greatly increased use of student self-learning materials, both computer based and more traditionally book based".

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The welcome emphasis on mature students, distance learning, students with non-standard entrance qualifications and part-time attendance all put additional stress on library provision. One additional factor is the increasing need to acquire materials in electronic form, often requiring significant invest-ment. Looking at both book and periodical provision, it can be seen that a total of nearly £18 million would be needed to make up the shortfall for the past 11 years—and this with the benefit of three years' earmarked funding.
Many librarians see the consequence of the upsurge in numbers as erosive of the libraries' research function, as the funds to retain the critical dual role of libraries are lacking. And it is the danger to research in this country that is really alarming. Our prosperity depends very much on it. I know that my noble friend Lord Morris will speak more on higher education, so I shall leave him to enlarge on this. But I must say how glad we are that the Higher Education Funding Council for England announced at its first meeting the establishment of a committee to review library provision in the higher education sector, which shows its awareness of the critical situation.
To sum up, reading and all the other skills of assessment and appreciation that ultimately derive from reading are essential to the development of a nation's culture and of the various kinds of expertise on which its livelihood depends. Nor is it enough that children should just be taught to read. They need to exercise and expand that skill; and for that ample material must be available to them and they must be encouraged to make full use of it. It is abundantly clear from the reports that I have cited that in Britain at present that material is woefully, but woefully, deficient and that the supply continues to decline. Are the Government really satisfied with the situation as it is? Are they unable, or unwilling, to do something about what in our view is a serious and indeed a critical situation?
6.16 p.m.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, the House will be greatly indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady David, for raising this important issue today and for doing so in such an expert and authoritative way. For my part I shall concentrate my brief remarks mainly on the public library system but I shall say a little about schools and colleges as well.
Our free public library system, from the days of the philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie onwards, has been a source of national pride in this country and very much the envy of other countries. In an increasingly leisured society—some of it sadly the enforced leisure of unemployment—it makes a vital contribution to the quality of civilised living. Its role in the underpinning of our educational system in its widest sense, as was emphasised by the noble Baroness, from children at school to senior citizens pursuing their various interests and hobbies, has never been more important.
Education is in general a top priority for this country if we are to remain internationally competitive. We live in an age when most people are
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likely to have to change their jobs and their skills two or three times during their working life. It is a world of mature students with non-standard entrance qualifications, of part-time courses and of distance learning, which in my day was called correspondence courses but is now very much more sophisticated.
The role of the local library in that educational revolution cannot be exaggerated. Roughly one third of the population make regular use of their local library. Surveys of the popularity of local government services always have public libraries at or near the top of the scale. For a government who have citizen's charters at the centre of their policies, the level of service in our local libraries should be a matter of great concern.
As the noble Baroness, Lady David, has shown, that level of service now varies alarmingly from one part of the country to another. The details are given in the document to which the noble Baroness referred. I am bound to say that some of the discrepancies as set out by the National Book Committee report are somewhat baffling. Looking in my parochial way at my part of Scotland, for example, I discover that in 1990–91 the city of Dundee spent £1.23 per head of population on books whereas neighbouring Angus managed no less than £3.58, which is almost three times as much, although there is an uninformative footnote which says that perhaps some of that may have been spent on more than books. Nevertheless, in my day as a working politician in that part of the world, it was Dundee that was considered to be the spending authority and Angus that was considered to be the rather parsimonious authority. I do not quite know what has gone wrong in the case of libraries.
In Kent where I presently live, and where my local village library is excellent, expenditure per head is less than £1, whereas in nearby Sussex expenditure is £1.73. I hope that the Secretary of State himself will note that local authority expenditure in his constituency of Westminster stands at £5.39 per head compared with £1.26 per head for Northern Ireland, where he was previously Secretary of State. I hope that that will encourage him to do something about that degree of discrepancy.
Although the prime responsibility for public libraries lies with local authorities, the Government have a heavy responsibility. Many of the distortions are a direct result of the financial policies of the Government that relate to local government, to the poll tax and to the general squeeze on local government expenditure.
George Cunningham until recently was the chief executive of the Library Association. I quote from a letter that he sent to me earlier this year.
"It used to be that objectionable cuts took place here and there. Now they are taking place right across the country. Opening hours are being slashed, book funds reduced, and in some cases libraries are actually being shut for good. In the mid 70s there were 229 libraries in England and Wales open for 60 hours a week or more. Now it is 18. People are in danger of losing the library habit".
The library habit of going to the local library and of looking to it for information and recreation is

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surely the mark of a civilised society. We cannot raise a literate generation or improve reading standards if people find that their libraries are shut.
I was astonished to note from the report that in north Tyneside there has been a 60 per cent. cut, which has meant that all branch libraries are now open only for 10 hours a week. I was even more saddened to see that in Manchester, a city famous for its cultural life, the great Central Library is now closed all day Thursday.
While local authorities struggle with financial problems, of which libraries seem to be the principal victims, the Secretary of State has made a curious announcement relating to public library support costs. I was not as optimistic as the noble Baroness, Lady David, about the implications of that announcement. We welcome it as far as it goes. The Secretary of State stated that the support costs are not to be subject to compulsory competitive tendering, since librarians already achieve value for money in that area by encouraging competition. So far so good. However, the Secretary of State went on to propose a series of pilot projects into the feasibility of contracting out the direct delivery of all or various parts of the library service. I emphasise the word "all". I am a layman in such matters but that sounds like trying to reach CCT by another route. The Library Association has stated that the risk is that managerial money may be wasted in a fruitless search for contractors, who will not be thick on the ground, that could be better spent on direct delivery of a quality of service that is widely admired.
I tread with timidity on the theological ground of the net book agreement, which is a peculiarly divisive subject. If libraries, however, are looking for ways of obtaining better value for money in respect of their books, they would have greater bargaining power in the marketplace if there were no such net book agreement and if resale price maintenance were to disappear in that respect.
The so-called "bookseller index" on which some of the argument of those who have been providing us with information rests, is always well ahead of the retail prices index. I confine myself to stating that that is a very peculiar situation. At a time when a technological revolution has been taking place in the print industry generally, one would have thought that book production would be cheaper rather than dearer.
I should like to mention school and academic libraries which, as the noble Baroness explained, are suffering as much as the public libraries. The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, the CVCP, states that over the six years to 1990–91 book expenditure per student has had to be reduced in real terms by 30 per cent. That percentage relates to the retail prices index and not to the other indexes that I have mentioned. At the same time the Government want to see more than 300,000 additional students in higher education by the end of the century. That is a worthy aim, but the Government will have to provide the means by which that aim may be achieved.
There is a similar sad story in regard to universities. There is the dismal story of the soaring building costs
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for the British Library which have had an impact on its expenditure. The British Library has the best library of German material in the world outside Germany—and some might say inside Germany. Last year it was not able to buy a single German monograph; there were no funds for that kind of expenditure.
School libraries, on average, are able to add only one third of a book per child per year to the book stock. That is the present situation. There is no school library service in at least five local authorities, three of which are London education authorities. That is profoundly unsatisfactory.
Under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 the Government have surprisingly strong powers of intervention, but more importantly they have a duty to superintend and promote the improvement of the public library system. If there are complaints about the quality of the service, the Government can do a series of things, from setting up a local inquiry to removing the local authority's library functions and taking them on themselves. I am told that the intervention powers have been used only twice since 1964. The second occasion occurred very recently when Derbyshire had closed 11 branch libraries and cut its book fund by a half. The Government are still following up that matter and I hope that they will see it to a successful conclusion. On the basis of the National Book Committee report the case for further intervention in the worst cases seems to us to be strong.
However, the concerns of the Secretary of State should be spread more widely than his direct powers under the 1964 Act. They should spread to the nation's libraries as a whole, to local libraries, to school libraries and to the libraries in colleges and universities.
The Secretary of State is the Secretary of State for National Heritage and our libraries are an important part of that national heritage. Those of us who are concerned about libraries gave a cheer when the Office of Arts and Libraries suddenly found itself rising in the world to part of a major department of state with a place in the Cabinet. We wish the Secretary of State well in his new post. The library aspect of national heritage cries out for his urgent concern and action.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Holderness: My Lords, there have been occasions in your Lordships' House when I have been visited by doubt as to whether my qualifications are sufficient to enable me to take part. Those doubts, I say with presumption, are not with me tonight because I believe that the only qualification necessary to support the noble Baroness in the Question that she has asked is a deep respect for the business of reading. That sentiment is shared by most of your Lordships. Such a deep respect is a key to learning and is a source of almost infinite treasure. Reading is an essential component to the intellectual, cultural and economic health of any nation. It is able to enrich the life of everybody who takes part in it by bringing before them the whole range of human experience.

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I shall begin, as did the noble Baroness, by mentioning the Book Trust's report, Books in Schools. As that is where the process begins, I greatly welcomed the willingness of the working party to consider widely and with imagination the whole business of learning to read. The report recognises that the provision of books is only a part—obviously an essential part—of the approach to reading skills. It makes clear that the imparting of necessary skills can be inhibited as much by the imperfect training of teachers with too little time subsequently available to them, as by the dearth of necessary books.
I also welcomed the working party's recognition of the essential part that parents play both in the process of learning to read and the later process of reading to learn. I hope that I shall never forget the debt I owe to my parents and a handful of others for pressing on with persuasion in the years when I was tempted to set greater store by other pursuits which then seemed more active and more exciting.
Today, when television plays the part it does in nearly all our lives and has undoubtedly done much to enrich them, it is probably hard for many people to switch off the set and take up a book. It is equally difficult for parents and teachers to encourage those over whom they have influence to do the same. But that merely emphasises the lack of wisdom in creating (or of not removing) any barriers to the encouragement of reading.
No one can feel in the least happy when the first sentence of that important report claims,
"Rarely have so many pupils had so few books".
Nor indeed can one feel happy that another report from the National Book Committee, mentioned by the noble Baroness, points to "a disturbing decline in book provision" over much of the United Kingdom. The comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, emphasised that even more strongly.
To me, therefore, the suggestion of the noble Baroness seems unanswerable. Expenditure on books, both for earlier education and for subsequent learning and enjoyment, is too low. In what ways can it be increased? When he replies, I hope that my noble friend will tell me the exact obligations under the 1944 and the 1988 Acts. As I understand it, the 1944 Act considers schools insufficient which do not have enough equipment to provide proper educational opportunities —I assume that "equipment" includes books—whereas the more recent Act of 1988 makes clear that neither parent nor pupil is expected to pay for books and other equipment. Jointly, therefore, those two obligations seem to amount to a duty on behalf of the Department of Education, the local authorities and the schools to meet that shortfall. I shall be grateful for enlightenment by my noble friend on the legal obligations of each.
Even less clear in my mind is where the main responsibility lies for the comprehensive and efficient service required of public libraries under the 1964 Act. Wherever that responsibility mainly lies, it is difficult to see why, in the case of the libraries, a greater obligation should not fall on those who make use of the service. The cost of providing entertainment through the opera, ballet, theatre or even the cinema,
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is reflected to quite a large extent in the price I pay for the ticket. But the loan by a library of a book, often of no cultural value whatever, takes no account of the cost of providing it—which is the whole subject of our present debate. Now that there is an imperative need to improve the performance of libraries all over the country, as the noble Lord made clear, it seems positively wrong not to ask the question whether those who depend on that service should not be asked to make some contribution.
Finally, although it may be wrong to pursue this argument tonight, which goes wide of the Question of the noble Baroness, I cannot avoid comparison of the unmet needs in the United Kingdom with the almost insatiable hunger for books across the world. That need is reduced but certainly not met by a combination of voluntary efforts and such agencies as the Ranfurly Library Service, of which many of us are well aware. The only reason I mention that wider aspect, which is probably out of order, is my belief that similar steps will be required of many individuals within this country if we are to achieve the kind of service that we should all like to see at home.
6.36 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, was it not the noble Viscount, the first Lord Samuel, who said in 1947, "A library is thought in cold storage"? If he were contributing to our debate tonight he might well rephrase his apothegm and replace "cold storage" with "deep freeze". Especially in university libraries, to which I beg leave to invite your Lordships' attention, the cold winds of change have reduced resources available for books and periodicals to well below the freezing point. Indeed, book funds which are frozen are fortunate; in most university libraries they have been cut and cut and cut again over the past decade.
The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals report that between 1984–85 and 1990–91 expenditure on books per full-time equivalent student stayed almost constant in cash terms at somewhere between £41 and £44. In real terms, as provided by applying the GDP deflater, that represents a drop of over 30 per cent. But the GDP deflater is a blunt instrument. More sensitive, more penetrating is the Universities Pay and Prices Index—the UPPI—which calculates price changes as directly experienced by universities. Within that index there is an individual index for costs of books, periodicals and bindings. If we apply that to the situation for the same period, the fall is over 45 per cent. So, from within universities we see a situation in which only just over half as much money is available for books as was available in the mid-1980s.
Over the same period expenditure on periodicals rose in cash terms by over 20 per cent. In real terms, therefore, by applying the GDP deflater, we see that that represents a drop of almost 15 per cent. and, using the UPPI, the cut is over 30 per cent. The cost of academic and research publications has increased relentlessly. Resources have not been made available to meet that increase or even keep within sight of it, and year upon year, inexorably, the situation becomes worse annually and cumulatively.

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When the noble Viscount replies he may well echo the words of the chief priests and say in effect, "What is that to us? See thou to that". He may point out that universities are free to spend as much or as little as they like on their libraries. They have choice; they have freedom; they have opportunity. If he were to argue so, I would reply to him with only two words: "Not so"—because the cuts in book and periodical expenditure could be matched by the cuts that universities have had to make in every other area of their activity: in laboratory provision, in the purchase of scientific equipment, in the maintenance of buildings, in student accommodation, student union facilities, medical facilities, counselling and so on. A university is an organism: one part is inexorably connected to every other. The noble Viscount would be right to point out that books and periodicals are fairly close to the centre of what universities exist to do, but so are the buildings in which study and research are carried on, so is the provision of reader places in the libraries themselves. The way things are going most students will have to read books and take notes standing up, and one seat at each library table will be labelled, "Don't wait to be asked: please give up this seat if you see an elderly or infirm student who needs it more than you do".
In that same period of 1984–85 to 1990–91, student numbers in universities have risen by 22 per cent. And at the same time universities have been subjected to rigorous research selectivity exercises, where the money they received from the UFC was partly dependent upon the quantity as well as the quality of the research work they published. That meant that academics and postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers placed more and more pressure upon their limited library resources. In many cases academics have found themselves in competition for some library services with the very students they teach.
The situation was summed up, soberly, by the CVCP in its statement to the Secretary of State for Education on 26th May 1992:
"The current expansion in student numbers and the increase in research activity are imposing heavy strains on the existing asset base. Institutions' central facilities are particularly badly affected, especially their libraries which were built with much smaller student populations in mind. Today institutions not only have difficulty in maintaining their library stocks but also in accommodating those wishing to pursue private study. New capital investment in such facilities is essential if the quality of the students' learning experience is to be maintained".
Soberly and seriously, that sums it up. The "quality of the students' learning experience" is not likely to be maintained if they are unable to buy books which increase in price at such an alarming rate and are obliged to queue up for the use of the one copy that their university library can afford of a book that it is necessary for them to read.
General impressions and nationwide statistics give us one aspect of this miserable situation, but we need also to examine the effect of government underfunding on specific institutions. Perhaps I may draw the attention of the House to just two: one, a large, highly successful, prestigious municipal university, the other a small, unique and ancient college of the University
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of Wales. In the case of the University of Sheffield, a very successful university in terms of the Government's own demanding criteria of research excellence, teaching quality and rapid expansion of student numbers, we find a highly professional library service, with the advantage of a superb state-of-the-art building and generously funded relative to its "larger civic" peer group. But, even with major increases of some £200,000 in each of the past two years, its library faces further major cuts in its research periodicals owing mainly to the high inflation in subscription costs and the declining value of the pound versus the United States dollar and the deutschmark.
Major additional funding, earmarked specifically for library collection development, will be required to maintain the momentum of advanced research in all areas of excellence. If that is true for the University of Sheffield, which funds its library generously, what must be the problems of other universities which are unable (or unwilling) to make similar investments in their own libraries?
The Higher Education Funding Council for England has recently established a review of library provision in higher education, chaired by Professor Sir Brian Follett, FRS, who is currently at Bristol University and soon to become Vice-Chancellor at Warwick. The Follett Report should appear in the Spring of 1993. I hope that it will set new and higher national standards for university library investment, co-operation and levels of service. Whether it makes the same impact as the great seminal Parry Report in 1967 remains to be seen.
What is clear is that one of the best university libraries, generously funded by its university, which is one of the most successful in the United Kingdom in research and in teaching, is still contemplating serious cuts in its budget for research periodicals. Surely the Government cannot view such a situation with any sort of equanimity or complacency.
Let us take, for comparison, the library of St. David's University College, Lampeter, of which I had the honour to be the principal until last December. It is small, it is specialist, dealing almost exclusively with the humanities and some social sciences. It is well managed and highly professional, with the special characteristics of working in both Welsh and English and being set deep in the heart of rural Wales. Like Sheffield, it has been strongly supported in the resources allocated by its parent body.
I did not realise just how generous it had been until I read the recently issued report on Book and journal spending in the university and polytechnic libraries published by the Council of Academic and Professional Publishers. When I read the figures the college produced for its library, I began to think that I, as principal, had been seriously conned for a period of 10 years by a very, very persuasive librarian.
Over the past 10 years and more, it has always been near the top in the table of percentage of annual recurrent grant allocated for library purposes: where the national average has been about 4 per cent., Lampeter never dropped below 7 per cent. and it was often close to 10 per cent. Yet in the period 1982–83 to 1991–92 the amount of money available for book

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purchases, in cash terms, dropped from £50,406 to £41,800—a cut of 20 per cent. in cash terms at a time when student numbers were increasing steadily, the automation system was already fully stretched and the next nearest library was still nearly 30 miles away (by a wholly inadequate bus service).
So the use of the British Library and the inter-library loan system increased relentlessly through the decade, with all its associated costs. Library staff numbers were more or less static, and the pressure on accommodation for readers and library services grew more severe every year. Book purchase simply had to take the "backest" of back seats, and the "quality of the students' learning experience" suffered accordingly and measurably.
The university libraries at both Sheffield and Lampeter make it abundantly clear that, large or small, urban or rural, single or multi-faculty, however well managed, however generously resourced by its parent body, the current levels of expenditure on books are lower than they have been, lower than the libraries themselves wish and lower than the "quality of the students' learning experience" requires.
It should concern us all, if we care for the economic well-being of the country and the education of its cleverest citizens, that funding for libraries in academic institutions is manifestly failing to match the increases in books and journal prices and the increase in student numbers. That has been true for many years, but the recent rapid increase in student numbers has exacerbated the situation and future growth will make it intolerable.
There is just one thing, however, upon which I find myself able to congratulate the Government. At a time when it must have seemed tempting to do so, they have not "mothballed" the British Library building at St. Pancras. I am grateful for that, because with the terrible state in which university libraries find themselves, the British Library is the last resort, the long stop, the ultimate hope in the world of scholarship and research; and the St. Pancras building, for all its troubles, will be one of the great information centres of the world. It must be funded in its annual recurrent grant to be so. That, however, is the only ray of light on an otherwise dark and dismal scene. On that one question, I must say to the Minister, as Francisco says in Act I, Scene 1 of Hamlet:
"For this relief much thanks".
But on the rest of the university library scene I must continue the quotation and say:
"'Tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart".
6.50 p.m.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, my noble friend raises an important question. We are grateful to her for doing so and for the knowledgeable and informative way in which she introduced the subject. There appears to be general agreement in the House on two points: one is the vitally important part that books intrinsically play in both higher education and at schools level. Secondly, the decreasing level of expenditure in real terms on books for education purposes is a matter for concern.
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As noble Lords have indicated, the position relating to higher education is well documented in the report by the Council of Academic and Professional Publishers. In the period 1978–79 to 1989–90 book expenditure per pupil in universities had fallen by 32 per cent. and periodical expenditure by 36 per cent. Of course, the amount spent by different institutions varies in different ways. I am associated with three institutions of higher education and their expenditure on books varies from £23.30 per student to £55.50 per student, whereas their expenditure on periodicals is more or less the same—about £46 to £48 per student. Much depends on the type of universities with which we are concerned and whether or not they have a broad spectrum of faculties or whether they are the newer technological universities.
The comparison with the former polytechnic sector, now the newest universities, gives even more cause for concern. The expenditure on books over the past 11 years is down by 56 per cent.; periodicals are down by 51 per cent. Polytechnics did not have the earmarked fundings that the universities had up to the financial year 1989–90, so now, at the beginning of their new status, they have the additional disparity and problem.
The problem will not go away, it is very much still with us. The difference between the RPI and the cost of books is indicated in the Library and Information Research Report No. 82 which indicates:
"the prices of both academic books and journals have increased significantly more than RPI over this period. Between 1981/82 and 1987/88, academic book prices increased by 59%. Only seven university libraries had proportionate increases in … recurrent expenditure as high as this.
"Journal prices over the same period increased even more, almost doubling in price over this period (99%). Only one university library—Ulster—managed to keep its (total) recurrent expenditure up with journal inflation over this period".
A recent comment from Leeds University indicated that the 1991–92 rate of inflation on books and periodicals was 10 per cent., compared with the RPI index of 3.8 per cent.—a gap of 6.2 per cent. in the one year.
So far as I can see, there is no evidence that the Government are seeking to mitigate the differential in their expenditure forecast. It would be helpful if the Minister could comment on that.
Like other noble Lords, I welcome the decision of the Higher Education Funding Council to set up a committee to look at library provision. However, it seems that the matter is one of urgency and I hope that the Government can comment, even before the inquiry is concluded and the report is available.
Of course, universities are doing what they can to cope with their severely reduced purchasing powers, through virement between staff and non-staff expenditure and through the use of information technology. I know from my experience that Bradford University is using computer-accessed information widely, as I believe are a number of other universities. But there is a limit to how far such policies can and should be pursued. Or perhaps we should ask, is there? Perhaps the Government are pinning their hopes on the development of modern technology along the lines

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outlined in a THES article of 23rd October 1992. There it was speculated that students, through the assistance of electronic catalogues and an electronic database, could immediately obtain printed and bound extracts from the publication of just the pages they required, with no reference to seeing the original publication at all.
Fortunately, we are not quite there yet and some serious judgments will have to be made about how far information and knowledge are to be made available to students through that route. For example, how does one teach history? The Government have been concerned about the history syllabus under the national curriculum, but how could one teach history merely by having extracts from an electronic computer base? How does one teach literature? How does one teach philosophy by these methods? Clearly, it is impossible.
So there is still the same important role for traditional library facilities, for books and periodicals to be made available to students if education is to be about knowledge and scholarship and not just about facts and information.
Perhaps I may say a word about schools where there are similar problems relating to expenditure on books. Here it seems that one of the problems appears to be the absence of any nationally tabulated information on book expenditure in schools. The obtaining of such information is likely to be even more difficult in future with LMS and the opting out by schools of local education authority control.
Although LEAs—where and if they continue to exist—will have information about the allocation of funds for library and book expenditure, they will have no certainty that the money allocated will have been spent in this way. My noble friend Lady David mentioned the importance of schools, particularly secondary schools, having the services of a chartered librarian. I believe that the metropolitan district of Bradford is the only metropolitan district to have a chartered librarian in all of its upper schools at a cost of about £10.53 per pupil per annum. One wonders whether or not that service will be able to continue if there is an erosion of the services provided by LEAs.
It seems to me that the apparent or the real decline in expenditure in schools is of real importance to us all. It is reflected in the decreasing use of books in the community as a whole. It seems that, more and more, members of the community favour information coming through television and other modern media at the expense of reading and handling books. Unless children have the opportunity to handle books themselves—real books and not just part of a book —and read those books while they are at school, they will not develop the ability to make culture judgments or to make judgments relating to the current and many affairs in which they are involved.
Someone has to do the writing of books and articles even if modern information technology is to be an increasing conveyor of information and facts. Therefore encouraging children to read, to learn through reading and to write correctly is essential if
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the education system is to do its job properly. On that basis books must be available to children on an adequate scale.
7.3 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lady David for introducing this debate. I regret the fact that there are so few speakers from the Government Benches. Indeed, until this afternoon I thought there were going to be none other than the noble Viscount speaking for the Government, so I was delighted to see that the noble Lord, Lord Holderness, had put down his name to speak in the debate. In spite of the fact that there have been rather few speakers in this debate, I am sure we all agree that the quality of the debate has been very high.
I particularly admire the capacity of my noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris always to find the most apt quote from some great writer in English literature. In the previous debate he quoted from Pope and in this debate he quoted from William Shakespeare. I am afraid I am not able to match him in that skill.
I wish to reinforce what some of my noble friends and other speakers have said in this debate and perhaps to ask the Minister one or two further questions. It is now 18 months since we last discussed school libraries and school library services in an Unstarred Question in this House. The previous Unstarred Question was tabled by my noble friend Lord Dormand of Easington. On that occasion anxiety was expressed on all sides of the House about the adequacy, or perhaps I should say inadequacy, of provision. Regrettably, in the period since then—it is just over 18 months—there has been a further deterioration. This evening we are debating a rather wider subject covering post-school educational institutions as well as schools. We are also covering public libraries.
The need for a wider debate became apparent on the publication of the reports mentioned by my noble friend Lady David. All of those reports paint a disturbing picture about declining levels of provision in our educational institutions and also in our public libraries. Like my noble friend Lady David, I want to spend a little more time on the availability of books for schools. I shall say a little less about public libraries and higher education institutions where I should declare an interest as the Master of Birkbeck College in the University of London.
I begin by saying something about what is happening in our schools. Few schools now spend more than 1 per cent. of their budget on books. That is a tiny amount. The managing director of Longmans, one of the biggest educational publishers in Britain, said that the entire UK schools textbook and library market is only about £160 million a year. That is under one-third of the money spent on photocopying paper. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of that statement, but if it is true it is rather disturbing.
I strongly agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Holderness, said about the huge importance of reading. I think all of us in this House agree on that. I am not just talking about reading in the technical

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sense of being able to decipher words on a page of print, but reading as a vitally important source of information, reading to acquire knowledge, to obtain a deeper understanding of the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities, and reading to appreciate great literature and to enhance our understanding of the human condition. Television can never replace books in that respect. But, perhaps above all else, it is important to learn to read for pleasure.
One of the most frightening findings of the Bullock Committee, which is referred to in the Book Trust report on reading in schools, is that many adults with reading difficulties who were surveyed by that Government inquiry had no idea that reading was something people do for pleasure. If we are to change that situation so that there are no longer any adults who are unaware of that fact, we need to help children acquire the habit of reading from the earliest possible age. The later it is left, the harder it is to achieve that aim.
I totally support what the Book Trust report states as regards the important question of reading policies. That is important not just in primary schools but also in secondary schools. I rather regret the fact that debates about teaching methods have started to obscure some of the wider and important questions about reading right across the curriculum. My noble friend Lady David discussed this matter at some length and I shall not discuss it further, but I should add that we know from educational research that the best predictor of educational performance at 16 in examinations is the reading scores of pupils at 11. We know that the best predictor of reading scores at 11 is the readiness to read at the age of five resulting from a child's preschool experiences.
It is perhaps therefore appropriate to mention at this point the important role of parents in encouraging and supporting reading. Parents need not only to read to their children when their children are young, but they also need to continue talking to them about what they are reading as they get older. Parents need to help their children regard books as a source of fulfilment. This, of course, requires a partnership with the schools and generous and well thought out courses to lend pupils books so that they can take them home and read them together with their parents. We must always remember that there are many families who possess few books in their own homes.
In the light of the importance of reading, are we spending enough on books in our schools? Regrettably, we are not. There may be some dispute about the Book Trust assessment of what is needed, and I shall be very interested to hear the views of the noble Viscount who is to speak for the Government, but even if its assessment of what is needed is on the generous side, the shortfalls in provision at present are nevertheless enormous—£80 million down on what is needed for good provision and £53 million down on what is needed for reasonable provision. It would surely be complacent to argue that the current situation is satisfactory. On the basis of the Book Trust figures, schools are spending less than half of what they should be spending to make adequate
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provision for our school pupils. If those figures are right it is hard to escape from the fact that educational standards are being put at risk.
I hope that the Minister will not try to wriggle out of responsibility for that by blaming local education authorities or the schools themselves. There was an element of that in the previous debate we had on the subject. At the heart of the problem is government under-funding. The Government have the responsibility to provide sufficient funds and to turn round the decline in spending on books which has taken place, especially in the late 1980s, and which appears to be continuing.
If the noble Viscount tells us that resources are available perhaps he will explain why that decline in expenditure in real terms has taken place. Surely it is not because teachers do not care or have some malicious intent about cutting spending on books? It is quite the reverse. Perhaps he could also say what steps, if any, the Government intend to take to protect expenditure on books in schools.
The problem about a cumulative decline in expenditure is that it creates a backlog of needs which is then very hard to make up. It also means that pupils are exposed to out-dated and inappropriate textbooks and library books because of a failure to replace them and to weed out obsolete titles. In our last debate on this subject we produced some amusing—but also sad —examples from books still in use in our schools. Unfortunately, I suspect that there are still books in school libraries making such claims as "When the 'Queen Mary' is completed she will be the world's largest liner", or "Pygmies are fierce little creatures, but all loyal subjects of King George V".
No doubt the noble Viscount will make a great deal of the extra £15 million per annum under the GEST scheme which is being provided for three years—amounting to £45 million in total. That is intended to support the national curriculum, but it is peanuts in relation to what is needed. One assessment suggests that about £70 million is needed in primary schools and another £165 million in secondary schools. It is not just books to support curriculum change which are needed but also books to create well-stocked libraries and to provide that source of adventure for children, and real pleasure, as well as the foundations of independent learning which must be laid in pupils' use of libraries.
Concern about libraries in schools has been expressed by HMI in a survey on secondary schools in 1990 and another on primary schools in 1991. As regards the second of those surveys, the inspectorate found the use of library resources satisfactory or better in only just over half of our primary schools. Inspectors found damaged, old and inappropriate book stocks in more than one-third, thus confirming what the Labour Party survey had found earlier. They found library funding was not matched to current book costs and replacement needs. I hope that the Minister will be able to say whether the Government accept Her Majesty's Inspectorate's findings and what action they are taking to deal with the problems they revealed.

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I do not have to remind the Minister, who is always very well informed, that under the Education Reform Act 1988 neither parents nor pupils should be required to pay for materials, books, instruments or other equipment. However, it is clear that parents are having to stump up quite large sums of money. A survey by the National Foundation for Educational Research found that parents have contributed £75 million over three years to ensure an adequate supply of textbooks and help maintain the fabric of buildings. It may be arguable that we should ask parents to pay something towards extra curricular activities such as trips or outings, but to ask them to pay for textbooks and school buildings is a disgrace. All it will do is increase the disparities between schools in well-off areas and those in poorer districts.
Because schools' own book provision is below par the support of the school library service, which is provided by local authorities, and public libraries is very important. Unfortunately, as a number of speakers have said, both those services are under very great pressure. Although there is survey evidence from a study carried out in the University of Loughborough which demonstrates the dependence of schools on local authority library services—for advice, pro-motion of information skills, as well as for loan stock —in a number of authorities there is now a real question about the future of the library service. One or two have already closed down.
The interesting question is what the effects of delegating to schools will be in this area. If some schools do not buy back into the service the cost to other schools could become so high, because there are economies of scale in this area, that the survival of the service would become an issue. I should like to hear the Government's view. Do they wish the library service to survive and what will they do to ensure that that happens?
I turn now to the public libraries. They are also under great pressure, yet they are now being asked to make up for some of the problems of schools by stocking textbooks. That cannot be a sensible use of their resources. They are being cut back, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, said. Branches are being closed, opening hours reduced and staff cut. That is a direct result of the huge financial constraints being imposed on local government.
Children need public libraries as a place in which to browse, to learn how to search for information and to help establish the habit of reading. I hope that the noble Viscount will draw that point to the attention of his right honourable friend. It is a fact that the amount of money which public libraries have to spend on children's books is now down to £1.37 per head per annum—in other words, less than a third of a book per head per year.
As already stated, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, the public library service is a popular one. It is used by something like a third of the population with, on average, 10 books being borrowed each year by those who use the libraries. It has a great tradition which goes back well over 100 years. It is a service of which we have been justifiably
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proud. It is vital that we do not destroy it through a slow death by cuts. Between 1978–79 and 1989–90 the real purchasing power of public library book funds fell by 17 per cent. I hope that when the Minister quotes figures on book spending he will use the booksellers average price index—which is the appropriate index —and not the retail prices index.
There are worrying disparities in expenditure around the country. The noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, is particularly unlucky to live in Kent, which spends only 98 pence per annum per head. Other authorities in the same part of the country spend more than double that. Such disparities appear to be widening with the decline in spending which has taken place in some parts of the country, especially recently.
A deep recession means that the general public are buying fewer books. As public libraries do the same book prices rise, fewer and fewer books are bought and there is a vicious spiral at work.
I should like to make one other point on public libraries. I take issue with what the noble Lord, Lord Holderness, proposed. He suggested that it might be appropriate to charge more. Under the existing law, local authorities are not allowed to charge for book loans or use of materials on the premises; but they are allowed to make some other charges. I am concerned about charges such as £2 to reserve each book. That will affect the less well off members of the community and it would be very sad if they could not afford to reserve books.
I turn to university and polytechnic libraries. The picture is no less gloomy. From my own experience as head of a higher education institution I know just how difficult it is to keep pace with growing knowledge, the development of new courses and the expansion of research as well as the very rapid increase in student numbers. Whereas we can all just about survive, uncomfortable as it may be, without replacing our furniture or with too few places in our refectories or canteens, I am sure that everyone in your Lordships' House will agree that we just cannot maintain high academic standards once library provision starts seriously to deteriorate.
A good library is the absolutely central core to students' needs at undergraduate and post-graduate level and across all disciplines. It is also vital for research, especially in the humanities and social sciences. There is now clear evidence that provision of both study space and books is inadequate.
The focus of this debate is about the provision of books, but we neglect library accommodation at our peril. I certainly do not expect that, as my noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris suggested, we should have to stand up to read in libraries. That would be absurd and a total deterrent to visiting them. We cannot go on expanding higher education at the current rate without some capital expenditure, in particular on library provision. Higher education on the cheap in this area will eventually lead to lower quality and falling standards.
The figures for spending in university libraries have already been quoted at length by my noble friends Lord Morris of Castle Morris and Lady Lockwood.

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The figures are deeply disturbing. I shall not repeat them now. Like my noble friends, I hope that when the noble Viscount who speaks for the Government replies he will not tell us that this is a matter for the universities. The findings on expenditure are a direct result of the pressure under which higher education institutions have been put by the Government. This is what so-called efficiency savings mean on the ground.
It would also be helpful if the Minister could indicate just how universities will accommodate another 300,000 students by the end of the 1990s, without expanding library facilities. We have heard about the Higher Education Funding Council's inquiry and no doubt that will be helpful, but its recommendations will be quite meaningless unless the Government are prepared to back them with the necessary funding.
In conclusion, it is particularly worrying that we face decreases in expenditure on books right across the public sector in all types of libraries at the same time as the general public is buying fewer books because of the recession. Books are so important that to sit back and do nothing strikes at the very core of civilised life in this country. It will also damage the education of thousands of children and young people who depend on a wide-ranging supply of interesting and challenging books. I hope that the Government will accept that it is now time for them to stop the rot.
7.25 p.m.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady David, for raising this important subject tonight. Overall spending on schools and spending on school books in particular has risen significantly over the past decade. The local authority grant settlement for 1992–93, including the additional grant for the teachers' pay award, allows education authorities in England to spend £18.8 billion on education—a 7.4 per cent. increase on the 1991–92 settlement. That follows a 16 per cent. increase the previous year. Spending on school books and equipment has risen from £20 per pupil in 1979–80 to £57 per pupil in 1990–91 (the latest year for which complete figures are available). After taking account of inflation, that is a real terms increase of 31 per cent.
There are a number of ways of measuring inflation. The Government's long-established convention is to use the GDP deflator as a measure of general inflation in the domestic market. I believe that that answers the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris.
Our philosophy is that schools are best placed to decide their spending priorities, but we have felt it important to underpin the introduction of the national curriculum with specific grants. We recognise that many schools will need to improve or overhaul their book stocks in this respect. We therefore earmarked grant from the specific grants programme for 1991–92 to cover £15 million worth of expenditure, and the same in 1992–93, for the purchase of books related to the national curriculum. In 1993–94 there will be grant of £85 million for books, equipment and in-service training, for schools to spread among the three categories, as they wish. Local education
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authorities have consistently submitted bids for all or nearly all the grant available, and virtually every school has benefited.
The specific grants are designed to focus and encourage spending on particular activities. They do not represent what we expect schools to spend overall. Schools must also handle the normal, routine replacement of books that should go on all the time. Given good management of resources overall, that should allow schools the scope to target additional expenditure where it is most needed.
I am quite certain that it is not just a question of money. Schools need good management as well: sensible purchasing policies, a careful matching of books to the curriculum, and close liaison between library staff and classroom teachers. Her Majesty's Inspectorate has said repeatedly in its reports that the national curriculum has provided a powerful stimulus to schools to plan and manage their curricular provision. Marked improvements have taken place where there is good management, and particularly where schools have a clear policy about the role of the school library in delivering the curriculum. Attitudes have changed for the better. LEAs and schools have taken special initiatives on libraries. There is an opportunity for new thinking.
Self-determination has been another stimulus. Schools now have increasing control over the management of their own budgets under the local management of schools initiative. A growing number have grant-maintained status. Schools have the opportunity to match resources to needs more precisely than ever before. We usually find that those best placed to take decisions are those who will be implementing them in practice, and this is what local management of schools and grant-maintained status will achieve. How schools go about providing books for children is a matter for local decision, not for central Government. Many schools make extensive use of a schools library service run by their LEA and they may well choose to continue to do that in future; or they may choose alternative approaches. The Government do not require LEAs and schools to adopt any one method. Nor do we tell them what their spending priorities should be.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, perhaps I may seek clarification on that point. Does it mean that the Government will be perfectly happy if school library services are closed in a number of local education authorities?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I was just about to answer that point. The noble Baroness, Lady David, asked me whether grant-maintained schools would still be able to buy services from LEA's in future. The Government have proposed in the White Paper, Choice and Diversity, to lift the prohibition on LEA's and allow them to provide a range of services to grant-maintained schools for a period of two years, after which time the private sector suppliers will be able to step in.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I am grateful for that reply but it does not answer my question. Perhaps the noble Viscount will answer the question more directly?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, it is an answer to part of the question. The answer to the other point is, in effect, no; it is for the local authority to make that decision.
Baroness David: My Lords, surely it will be for the school to decide whether it continues to buy in the services. It is not a matter for the local authority. If the schools do not want to buy in the services, they will not exist.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, that is right. I said that, but the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, asked me another question. I said quite clearly that it is up to the schools after a period of two or three years. I must emphasise that in 1991 Her Majesty's Inspectorate's report stated that books, other materials and equipment were satisfactory or better in 60 per cent. of schools.
Where the governing body controls the budget of the school it means that governors and heads will still have the scope to give priority to books. It also means that schools can purchase books most appropriate to the curriculum within the framework of the national curriculum that is offered at the school. That is the way to gain maximum efficiency and value for money. The Government are taking action in three ways to ensure satisfactory levels of expenditure on books for schools. First, they are increasing the overall funding for education. Secondly, they are providing additional support through specific grants. Thirdly, they are giving schools greater freedom to make their own choices about how to use their resources. I wish to emphasise that that is taking place in the context of our key policy of the national curriculum which focuses schools on the effective planning management of teaching and learning.
Schools, including sixth-form colleges, are prohibited from charging for books, as the noble Baroness reminded us, and for materials and equipment associated with courses of study. The Government have given an assurance that funding will continue to be available for books, materials and equipment and it will be open to colleges to continue to provide them free of charge.
The position of tertiary and further education colleges is slightly different. Most tertiary colleges model their practice on that of schools and provide books and so forth for 16 to 19 year-olds free of charge. Many further education colleges provide set books, or whole sets of books, for students studying GCSE subjects, especially where such books can be used for several years. The funds within the local authority funding at present devoted to the purchase of books have been transferred to the new further education sector. Where tertiary and further education colleges currently provide books free of charge it will be open to them to continue to do so in
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future. Where they do not, similarly it will be for them to determine the basis on which they provide books in the future.
The Government have announced the resources to be provided to the Further Education Funding Council for 1993–94 to 1995–96. The funding council will be responsible for distributing those resources to colleges. It will be for the colleges to determine the basis on which items such as books are made available to students.
I turn to the universities. Funding for higher education has risen in real terms since 1979. The latest plan is to provide for an increase of 7.3 per cent. in available recurrent funding in 1993–94. This follows planned increases of 10 per cent. in each of the three previous years. It is for universities and colleges to determine their spending on libraries from within that and other income at their disposal. The evidence is that institutions attach different priorities to spending on libraries. Some institutions have increased spending faster than others. Total spending on libraries in universities increased in real terms in the 1980s. In addition, information technology and flexibility of opening hours have a major impact on the service to students. All aspects of the funding and management of higher education libraries are currently being considered by a review group established by the Higher Education Funding Council for England. That will take account of the views expressed by universities and colleges about the priorities of library provision and effective approaches to management.
Responsibility for providing public library services rests with local authorities. They are best placed to decide on the detail of the service provision, including allocations to the book fund. Eleven million books were added to the stock of public libraries in England in 1990–91. That compares with 10.8 million volumes added in 1980–81. Actual expenditure on books was £41 million in 1980–81 and £84.8 million in 1990–91. That represents a real terms increase of nearly 13 per cent. during the 10-year period. The National Book Committee report demonstrated that many library authorities substantially increased their expenditure on book provision in real terms during that period, even using the unfavourable Bookseller index.
Nevertheless, the Government are aware, as the National Book Committee report stated, that there are large discrepancies between different authorities in their levels of expenditure. The Secretary of State for National Heritage continues to monitor the situation and will not hesitate to step in where there is doubt about an authority's ability or willingness to fulfil its statutory obligations under the Libraries and Museums Act. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, that the new chief executive of the Libraries Association will see the Secretary of State for National Heritage next week.
The noble Lord, Lord Thomson, asked about library closures. Where inappropriate library closures, or unnecessary reductions occur, or cuts appear to strike the basic services and statutory responsibilities, the Secretary of State is prepared to step in. While appreciating competing pressures on local authority

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resources some authorities may need to use their resources better and libraries should not bear a disproportionate share of any cuts. There have been reductions in opening hours in some library services but the picture is patchy across the country. Six county library authorities increased their opening hours this year and recent statistics indicate that there is evidence of response to public pressure to reverse the decline in opening hours characteristic of recent years.
Of course, public libraries make charges but they are imposed largely to cover the many and varied services which the public libraries offer; for instance, video and audio services. My noble friend Lord Holderness emphasised the importance of learning to read and the importance of books and of handling books, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood. Her Majesty's Inspectorate's report on reading in primary schools concluded that few schools were short of books for the teaching of reading and that most provided attractive reading material of other kinds. I agree with my noble friend and the noble Baroness on that important matter.
My noble friend Lord Holderness asked about the obligation under the 1944 and 1984 Acts relating to books and equipment. Local authorities and individual schools are responsible for providing books and equipment. Indeed, it is their obligation under the Act. Legislation forbids forcing parents to pay for books, materials and school activities during the day. However, it is absurd to deny parents the right to make voluntary contributions if they wish to do so. Parental contributions are tiny compared with the total resources made available for education—
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way. I was not suggesting that we should deny parents the right to make voluntary contributions. I was concerned about the fact that because of the shortage of good textbooks and the failure of schools to replace books and library books as a result of lack of funding many parents feel that they have to contribute. Surely that is not a satisfactory situation.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I understand the noble Baroness's point but I was making a slightly different point.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, spoke of cuts to universities and said that spending on higher education libraries had fallen. The figures show that spending on libraries in universities increased by 8 per cent. in real terms between 1979–80 and 1989–90. Figures showing a fall relate to spending per student and that takes no account of the economies of scale achieved through expansion. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Morris, for his continuing support for the British Library. It is a vital project and we all look forward to its progress and completion.
I listened with interest to the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, when he spoke of the net book agreement. He and I have discussed that subject previously at Question Time and perhaps it is not for tonight.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, talked about the comparison between the old universities and
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polytechnics as regards receiving less funding for teaching. The higher education White Paper published in 1991 made clear that universities and polytechnics receive similar levels of funding for teaching per student. Different institutions have attached different priorities to spending on libraries for research and teaching.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, I do not believe that I talked about money available for teaching. I was referring to books.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I included both in the answer that I gave to the noble Baroness.
Many school libraries could be better and there are some which are definitely poor. However, the overall trend is one of improvement. Her Majesty's Inspectorate has repeatedly pointed out that there is no simple relationship between resources and quality. There is certainly a link between good management, organisation and leadership.
The facts bear testimony to the value which this Government place on the importance of books for pupils, students and the general public. Thus, local education authorities' spending per pupil on books and equipment has increased by over 30 per cent. in real terms since 1979. Spending on university libraries has also increased in real terms. A specialist central government grant of £30 million in the past two years has improved the supply of books for the national curriculum in just about every school. Spending on books for public libraries has increased.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Viscount. I think I must be getting extremely stupid because, although I have not read the figures myself, I heard one set of figures presented on this side of the House and a totally different set presented on the other. Perhaps the noble Viscount will tell us how he reconciles the different figures. I am prepared to believe that either may be wrong, but they cannot both be right. Perhaps the noble Viscount will give us an explanation.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the noble Baroness shows with absolute clarity that there are two sides to every argument.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, is the noble Viscount taking a different baseline for measuring what has happened? That is an old game. If you take the right year to start with, you can achieve any result that you want to. Is that what the noble Viscount is doing? I ask because I am genuinely seeking knowledge. I have not done my homework on the figures, but I am totally confused.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Baroness is confused. I am using the Government's figures, and, as I said before, there are different ways of arriving at figures. I have spoken about the various inflationary and deflationary indexes. I can speak only for my own figures.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, I too am genuinely confused. The figures that I have used—and I believe that they are common to the briefing which

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we have all received from interested parties —are for the period from 1984 to 1991. The noble Viscount referred to 1979 as his baseline. If our sets of figures are accurate and the noble Viscount's sets of figures are accurate, the implication must be that there has been a dramatic downward trend in the second half of the decade.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, it is possible that both sets of figures are right to a degree. I cannot speak for the figures that have been quoted at me by noble Lords opposite. I am not responsible for their figures. The spending on books per school pupil figures are taken from local authority returns. I realise that the figures are extremely complicated. I hope that I have explained them as well as I can. I shall look carefully at the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and if there is an explanation that I can give her, I shall write to her and send a copy to other noble Lords who have spoken.
Baroness David: My Lords, I think it depends on the baseline which is taken.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, as I said, I shall write to the noble Baroness and to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate if I can assist further on that matter.
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It is not only the absolute amount spent on books which is important. Quality and value for money are also extremely important, as are book purchasing policies, book management and the way in which books are used in schools and colleges. Evidence of Her Majesty's Inspectorate has shown that those are areas in which schools generally have considerable scope for improvement. I am glad to say that Her Majesty's Inspectorate's most recent reports have detected some improvement in that respect.
For their part, the Government have ensured that schools and colleges have much more freedom than ever before to make their own spending decisions within their delegated budgets. Schools and colleges now decide the priority to attach to spending on books. It must be right that money is better spent when the decisions about spending are taken by those best placed to judge the need to spend.
In a final answer to the noble Baroness I should say that the Government are not complacent. They would like schools, colleges and libraries to have more funds for books, but we have to be realistic. Public expenditure must be contained. That said, levels of spending on books have grown over the past decade. We trust that the steady progress made in recent years will continue well into the future.
House adjourned at fourteen minutes before eight o'clock.