Lords Sitting of 19 May 1993

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

EC Draft General Budget 1993
Lord Bruce of Donington Lord Bruce of Donington asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, before giving their approval to Section 1, Volume 2 of the EC Draft General Budget for 1993, relating to the European Parliament, they queried the projected expenditures under Articles 3705, 3706, 3708 and 3709 and Chapter 101, and whether they were satisfied with the explanations provided.
The Minister of State, Department of Transport (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, we examine all expenditure contained in the Community budget. We did not raise any concerns on the expenditure to which the Question refers.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the Minister aware that expenditure here for 1993 amounts to something like £30 million to be expended on political groups within the European Parliament? That sum is not at all connected with the salaries and expenses of Members of Parliament, which are already running at a very high level. This is a matter for political groups under headings so wide that the money could be spent on almost anything. Is the noble Earl aware that the accounts are not audited by the Court of Auditors, which has no powers of interrogation, but that they are audited by accountants appointed by the groups themselves? Is the Minister aware that there is wide evidence to suggest that that amounts not to value for money, but money for the boys?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord will know more about this subject than I because he was a beneficiary of these budget lines when he was in the assembly in the 1970s. Then he would have been able to interrogate the budget in detail. Yes, the sum is something over £20 million, but of course the parliament's budget is subject to the same constraints which apply to all Community spending in general.
Lord Wyatt of Weeford: My Lords, will the Government undertake, after ratification of Maastricht, to ensure that the newly beefed up Court of Auditors examines the cases of fraud in the headquarters of the European Commission itself, about which there have been many rumours?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I look forward to the support of the noble Lord, Lord Wyatt of Weeford, when we come to discussion on the Maastricht Treaty. As he will know, that treaty, when ratified, will strengthen the role and powers of the Court of Auditors. As regards fraud, I know that your
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Lordships have discussed that subject in great detail in the recent past and I know of the Government's commitment to try to eradicate it.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the Minister aware that those of us who were members of the European Parliament, elected by the other place to serve there, received nothing of what the Minister said we did receive? Therefore, will he withdraw the last part of his statement to my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington? Will he also examine the case submitted by my noble friend?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I certainly would not impugn the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington. With the leave of the House, perhaps I may say that he is a friend of mine and that we have had many discussions on this and other issues. I was making the point that he would know more about this matter because these were budget lines which were agreed before we joined the European Community and would have been discussed during the time when the noble Lord was in the assembly.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, we are members of the Community. Does not my noble friend agree that it is pretty easy knowledge that the money referred to by the noble Lord is rather loosely distributed and that it is very difficult indeed, even for those of us who are members of that Community, to know exactly how it is spent and why it was given in the first place?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, that raises the wider and important point which' is that the Parliament, like the Council, is responsible for its own budgets unless it exceeds the agreements that were entered into in 1970 and the guidelines laid down in the treaty.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, does not the Minister agree that £20 million is an inordinate amount of money? Can the Minister tell the House how much is expended in the so-called "Short money" —assistance to political parties in both Houses of Parliament? That would be an interesting figure to have. Can he also say whether that amount is included in the £390 million a year which is expended on the European Parliament compared with only £125 million for both Houses of this Parliament?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the nearest figure that I could find that is comparable to the budget lines raised in the Question by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, is the £1.3 million in the 1993–94 budget provided by the taxpayer to the opposition parties.
Lord Richard: My Lords, can the noble Earl confirm one or two points so that the House can put this matter into perspective? As I understand it, the budget lines are not new. They have been in the budget for a long time. Will he confirm that every time a budget is proposed it is subjected to the most rigorous negotiations between the Parliament and the Council of Ministers? Finally, will he confirm that if one actually looks at the figures, comparing 1992 with 1993, one sees that the increase amounts to something

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like 3 per cent.—does it not—in the proposed budget for 1993 as compared with that for 1992? I hope that the House will forgive me if my question was rather long, but it seemed to me to be important to put this matter into some perspective.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord is right. He confirms what I said earlier and I am grateful to him for that. These were budget lines that existed before we joined the Community. The overall increase in the Parliament's budget in 1993 was 6.9 per cent., which was below the maximum rate provided for in the treaty.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, will the noble Earl take it from me that the European Parliament does not subject the budget to the most rigorous scrutiny to which he referred? Indeed, he can verify that himself by reading through the proceedings of the European Parliament over the six months following the issue of the preliminary draft budget, which I have taken the precaution of doing. Will he give the House an undertaking that when it comes to the preliminary draft budget for 1994, which should by now be issued and in the hands of the Council, he will ensure that at least the British members of ECOFIN will subject that and other items to the utmost scrutiny?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord is well acknowledged for doing an immense amount of research before asking questions in this House and I would not contradict him across the Floor on that point. However, it is for the Parliament to decide how best to meet the responsibilities placed upon it and to determine its own budget. As far as the 1994 preliminary draft budget is concerned, I can confirm from experience that those of us who have had the honour and privilege of serving on ECOFIN do, indeed, subject everything to the closest scrutiny.
Lord Wyatt of Weeford: My Lords, will the noble Earl take the trouble to read the Treaty of Maastricht? He will see that there are new powers for the Court of Auditors and that it will be able to examine cases of fraud in the EC headquarters. Will he ensure that it does?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I certainly do not disagree with the noble Lord. In fact, I confirm to him that there will be powers in the Maastricht Bill for strengthening the Court of Auditors, and I look forward to his support.

Insurance Intermediaries
2.45 p.m.
Viscount Chelmsford Viscount Chelmsford asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, in view of the EC recommendation on insurance intermediaries, they will now require all non-life intermediaries to be registered and subject to the Insurance Brokers Registration Act 1977.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are considering carefully all the
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responses to our consultative document on the European Commission Recommendation on Insurance Intermediaries. My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Corporate Affairs will wish to meet some of the main interests, including the Insurance Brokers Registration Council, to discuss further the issues raised by the recommendation. We remain to be persuaded that the extension of statutory regulation to all non-life intermediaries is required.
Viscount Chelmsford: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that not unexpected Answer. However, will he ensure that in their continuing deliberations the Government take full account of the somewhat curious fact that currently an intermediary, acting as an independent and as an agent for a buyer of an insurance policy, finds himself conforming to a code of conduct which has been set up by representatives of the sellers of that policy? Is that not curious? Would it not be better for the intermediary to be regulated rather than supervised, and be regulated by a body unconnected with either the buying or the selling of the insurance policy?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, the Association of British Insurers, which represents the insurers themselves, covers about 88 per cent. of the non-life policies sold. The Government are well aware of their responsibility for consumer protection, but are also aware that over-regulation would not be in the long-term interests of the insurance industry.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Consumers' Association has carried out very strict monitoring of what has been going on and that it has come to the conclusion that the job of supervision is not being undertaken properly in an area which is of very great moment to consumers—indeed, it could be one of the most important transactions in an individual's life? Consequently, does the Minister agree that it is vitally important that this sector requires very much tighter regulation than is currently the position? Is there not a great deal of room for improvement in the performance of supervision by the ABI and by the Insurance Brokers Registration Council?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, there is always room for improvement, but I should point out to your Lordships that in 1991, the last year for which we have the complete records analysed, 50 million non-life policies were sold. That occasioned 700 complaints to the ABI and something under 2,000 to the Insurance Ombudsman. We are, of course, aware of the study that has been carried out by the Consumers' Association as part of its response to our consultative document on the recommendation. The results of what is, admittedly, a small sample show that there is room for improvement. We know that the ABI and the IBRC have a copy of the Consumers' Association's response to our document. We are sure that they are taking it seriously. We shall consider carefully what the CA has said.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Minister was asked an unambiguous Question by his noble friend Lord Chelmsford. He was asked how it could be right that intermediaries, who are supposed to act between sellers and buyers of insurance policies, could be controlled by a code of conduct devised by the sellers, and how they could maintain their independence under those circumstances. Would the Minister care to answer that Question, because he did not answer it in his first Answer?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, a considerable number of intermediaries are covered by a regulatory body. We are discussing only those who are not members of the IBRC.
Lord Clark of Kempston: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that one of the unfairnesses in the insurance industry is that insurance companies on the Continent will not allow British interests to purchase them whereas our partners in the European Community can buy insurance companies here? Surely it would be better if we could achieve some continuity and consistency.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, I am not aware of the problem my noble friend raised, but I shall look into the matter.
Viscount Chelmsford: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his various responses. Perhaps I may follow up with one other point. Will he be so kind as to ensure that the Government take into account what has been a running sore for many years so far as concerns the insurance broking industry? It is that every time one of its members is found wanting by the registration council and is banned from being a broker, that person may, by dropping the term "broker" from his name, continue trading under the title of "intermediary". That does not seem to help to improve standards, so will he ask the Government to take account of that matter?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, there are a number of reasons why one cannot be a member of the IBRC. For example, if one becomes a tied broker in the sale of life assurance policies, one is prohibited from becoming a member. One can lose one's registration merely through forgetting to pay the fees due. I shall ensure that my honourable friend looks further into the matter.

Works Councils: EC Draft Directive
2.53 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they are taking in the light of the proposed EC directive imposing works councils on certain British industries.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the Government are strongly opposed to the draft directive which would require many transnational companies to establish European works councils. We have made our position clear in negotiations, and will continue to do so.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. Will be take it a little further and indicate that Her Majesty's Government will use all possible means to resist the proposal? Will he also identify the British industries which are directly affected?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the Government believe that there is no proven need for the proposals. Many companies already operate across borders and successfully involve their workers within the framework of existing and differing employee involvement practices. The industries that would be affected are those with transnational interests.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is this a matter to be decided by qualified majority voting, or do the Government have a veto?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, at the moment the Government have a veto.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: My Lords—
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that in his replies he has not even hinted that we have the power to stop the directive being used. If that is the case, how does he square it with the social chapter of Maastricht which was supposed to make this type of thing impossible? It seems to me to be a pyrrhic victory if we have to implement it under the Treaty of Rome although it is suggested that we might be protected under the Maastricht Treaty?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, my previous answer set out the situation as it is at present. The Government opted out of the social chapter to protect British employers and employees from laws and regulations which would add to costs, reduce competitiveness, and destroy jobs.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, would not a more constructive response to the draft directive be for the Government to introduce legislation, as we on these Benches have long advocated, requiring all companies employing more than a certain number of people in the United Kingdom to have bodies of a kind that would enable employers to inform and consult employee representatives on matters of concern to them as employees and affecting the business?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the Government are firmly committed to the principle of employers informing and, where appropriate, consulting their employees about matters which affect them. However, we believe that in the UK companies should be free to develop employee involvement arrangements which are appropriate to their own circumstances and the needs of their employees.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: My Lords—
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, is this not a clear case in which the principle of subsidiarity should apply?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I have set out the situation which currently applies and also that which will apply given the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, is the Minister aware that by opting out of the social protocol the UK will lose all opportunity to influence the European works directive and that the 11 may well go ahead without the UK's involvement? How then will it be possible for multinationals, which will have to comply with the directive, to exclude UK employees from it? Obviously they will be unable to do so. In any event, what is wrong with workers' participation? We had works councils during the war, and Germany has had them for a very long time. What are the Government afraid of?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, if the matter were to be pursued by the 11, companies based in the UK would be under no obligation to implement the terms of the directive in the UK merely because such requirements existed elsewhere in Europe. The directive's proposals take no account of the UK's own successful employment practices, which are based on a voluntary approach.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I feel like Trevor Macdonald saying, "and finally"? Has the Minister noticed the growing practice used by trans-European companies of playing off one workforce against another? For example, the Hoover company deliberately played off the workforce in Dijon against the workforce in Cambuslang; the Nestle Company played off its workforce, again in Dijon, against the Nestlé workers in Glasgow; and, finally, it closed one of its factories and left the workforce in the factory that remained open with much lower wages and fewer employment protection rights. Is that something that the Government now defend?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, a measure agreed by the 11 would not require the Government to legislate for European works councils. UK-based companies would not have to introduce councils for UK employees.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the probability is that few Members on either side of the House have ever served on a works council? I did for some 10 years. Many powerful trade unions and employers' organisations were not fond of works councils because they were able to reach an amicable agreement with employers. The experience of my 10 years was that works councils almost abolished the strike weapon voluntarily. Let not the Government condemn something which has done employers and employees a world of good. They must admit to themselves that they know very, very little about works councils. They should examine them and they would find that they are a good example of sensible behaviour by trade unions and employers.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the Government continue to promote and endorse best practice. For
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example, our joint campaign with the CBI demonstrating the importance to key aspects of business performance of employee involvement has proved most successful. Many British companies have set an excellent example by devising effective and imaginative ways of involving their employees.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, do not the Government at last begin to recognise that nothing has led to a greater mixture of farce, squalor and embarrassment for themselves than the alleged triumph of the exclusion of Britain from the social chapter?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I totally reject that.
Lord Eatwell: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that in Germany, where works councils are the norm, labour productivity in industry is roughly 40 per cent. higher—
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, the noble Lord is not standing in the appropriate place within the rules of the House.
Lord Eatwell: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his advice. Will the Minister confirm that in Germany, where works councils are the norm, labour productivity in industry is roughly 40 per cent. higher than it is in Britain?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I cannot supply that exact figure. However, a statutory obligation to have works councils would damage company decision-making. The European works council would have the right to be informed and consulted about any management proposal likely to have serious conse-quences for the interests of employees or the group of undertakings as a whole.

The Security Service: Parliamentary Control
3.1 p.m.
Lord Mishcon Lord Mishcon asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they propose to bring MI5 and MI6 under parliamentary control and, if so, by what means.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Chalker of Wallasey): My Lords, both services have close oversight by Ministers who are responsible to Parliament. Parliament passed the Security Service Act 1989 providing a framework for that service's work, safeguards against abuse and an avenue for complaints. Legislation to place the secret intelligence service and GCHQ on a statutory basis will give Parliament an opportunity to debate such matters as accountability and oversight.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving me a modicum of justification for my existence on this earth—
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, that has occurred because I have asked a Question on this matter which has at least received a positive Answer from the Government. Is not the Minister aware that, although she is talking in terms of ministerial responsibility, these important services, which render great service to the Crown and to the country, have walked into severe criticism during the past months? Would it not be in their interests to ensure that there is proper democratic control? Furthermore, will the Minister confirm that the Government are completely satisfied that the two services are obeying the provisions of the Interception of Communications Act 1985 and the Security Service Act 1989?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will join me in saying that the noble Lord has made many good and valuable contributions to our debates—
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I agree with the view expressed recently in another place by my right honourable friends the Home Secretary and the Lord President that ridiculous allegations have been made against the security services. There has been a great deal of media hype which has absolutely no foundation whatever.
The noble Lord was right about the importance of the Interception of Communications Act 1985 and the Security Service Act 1989. Both services are obeying those provisions. I refer the noble Lord and the House to the two reports on the services published at the end of March, which are in the Library of the House.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, is not the dilemma that the only democratic control which is worth tuppence involves publicity and that any full publicity relating to the services would destroy their secret character?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am sure that when the Bill comes before Parliament we shall find a way of providing an increased amount of supervision, which is what your Lordships' House seeks. However, I wholeheartedly agree with my noble and learned friend that the publicity which the media are so keen to give to any bit of tittle-tattle and to lay that at the door of services which work in the interests of the security of the country is shocking and undermines the services.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, does the Minister agree—
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, does the Minister agree that in the light of important responsibilities which have been given to MI5 in dealing with Irish terrorists it is not unreasonable that Parliament should be provided with information in order to judge whether the service is executing those responsibilities
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with efficiency and at what cost? I believe that to be a reasonable parliamentary demand and one to which I hope the Government will accede.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I wish to refer the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, to the two reports to which I referred. I commend what was said by Sir Thomas Bingham, the Master of the Rolls, in the annual report published on 31st March. He concluded:
"From time to time stories are published in newspapers describing interception said to have been carried out by GCHQ or by what are usually called MI5 and MI6. Such stories are, in my experience without exception, false".
That is an important point always to remember. The noble Lord asked for greater information and referred only to Irish terrorism. I must point out that a great deal of potential terrorism and weapons proliferation threaten us which do not come only from Irish terrorists. The noble Lord should know that the 1993–94 published provision on the Cabinet Office's main estimate for the security and intelligence services is £197 million.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that for several years it has been possible for members of the public to buy sophisticated eavesdropping devices and that the transgressors in recent incidents are probably private persons eager to make money from the newspapers? Does she agree that it is facile, therefore, to assume that MI5, MI6 or GCHQ must be involved and that deliberate bugging should be made unlawful?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I have much sympathy with what my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy has said. It is true that eavesdropping devices are widely available and can be found in many main street stores in this country, let alone abroad. The most important point is that when the Bill comes before Parliament it will have the opportunity to discuss those services for which the Government are responsible. As regards making eavesdropping and other devices illegal, a great deal of policing will be required; it is not merely a question of passing a law. We must think about the matter most carefully while realising the limitations upon being able to stop such incidents. Our job is to ensure that the security services obey the law as it is written.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the Minister—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, takes a modest view about his earthly contribution? Aafter all, some years ago he appointed me as an articled clerk. Why are not the Government prepared to consider the issue on a basis far wider than that which the Minister has been contemplating; one which is comparable with that enjoyed in the United States and in a number of EC countries, where there is much greater accountability than that projected by the Government?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, will make such comments in detail during the debate which will follow. We are a very different country from the United States of America.

Business
3.8 p.m.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I should like to say a word about today's debates, standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. As the mover is allowed 15 minutes, the Front Bench spokesmen at least 10 minutes, and the Minister should rise to reply not less than 20 minutes before the scheduled end of the debate, in the case of the debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, all other speeches should be limited to a maximum of seven minutes and in that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, 12 minutes. I should remind your Lordships that, if any noble Lord were to speak at greater length, he would be doing so at the expense of subsequent speakers in the debate and that the hour is one minute beyond that which shows on the digital annunciator.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, is it not the case that the Procedure Committee recently passed through your Lordships' House an arrangement whereby the Opposition wind-up speakers should have a few more minutes and that, in relation to today's debates, the speakers on the Opposition Front Benches will have 10 minutes each?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, yes.

A Democratic Socialist Society
3.10 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington Lord Bruce of Donington rose to call attention to the case for the progressive establishment of a democratic socialist society within the United Kingdom; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it is my purpose this afternoon within the limited time at my disposal to obtain a cross-party consensus from all quarters of the House as regards the steps that I shall venture to suggest to your Lordships should be taken if we are to avoid some disastrous events which in my view lie on the horizon unless something is done.
Forty-nine years ago, some weeks before the invasion of France in the last great war, which many of your Lordships may recall, there was issued by the coalition government of that time a unique document. It was an all-party document and in point of fact it is the first document, so far as my researches indicate, in which a socialist policy was enunciated by a government composed of all parties and predominant-ly composed of members of the Conservative Party. Of course, I refer to the coalition White Paper on employment policy which is Cmd. No. 6527 of 26th May 1944. That is one of the most remarkable documents that has ever been issued because there, for
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the first time, an all-party government accepted full responsibility for the maintenance of full employment and made that the cardinal aspect of their policy.
Indeed, it went much further than that. It set out the various steps which a democratically elected and accountable government would have to take in order to achieve and maintain full employment. Among other things it included the adjustment of public expenditure from time to time, particularly when consumer demand was depressed, and it sought also by the manipulative powers lying within it—for example, by the buying and selling of our own currency and by the establishment of interest rates at varying levels as necessary—to maintain a reasonably stable foreign exchange rate.
One of the most important powers which it proposed to take was that relating to investment. The White Paper states:
"It should be possible for the Government to maintain the stability of public investment when private investment is beginning to fall off at the onset of a depression. But this may not be enough: for the purpose of maintaining general employment it is desirable that public investment should actually expand when private investment is declining and should contract in periods of boom".
Those are the policies that were put forward. They were put forward prior to the invasion and, indeed, they supplemented the earlier proposals concerned with social security of which your Lordships are aware under the Beveridge proposals. Therefore our troops in the field and the people at home were given some vista of the direction which the government would take immediately following the war when the battle for freedom was won.
The people were conscious no doubt of the promises which were given during the First World War that we would establish a land fit for heroes to live in. Very properly, in 1942 and in 1944 the coalition government thought it wise that the efforts of our people in the battle for freedom, whether in the forces or at home, should receive that extra fillip by a firm assurance of what kind of world and what kind of country they were fighting for; and there can be no doubt that those assurances and proposals, together with others coming from a government composed of all parties, stimulated powerfully the endeavours of our people during the war.
Your Lordships will be well aware that so well was the country administered during the war owing to a very fair system of rationing based on fair shares for all that for many of the poorer people in our country, who were fairly and justly treated under the war-time regime, it became the first time that they had decent and balanced meals, which they could not possibly have had before.
Therefore, when I speak this afternoon of steps taken towards the establishment of a democratic socialist society, I am talking about matters within our perception and in continuation of the proposals which were made under different but very urgent circumstan-ces at this country's time of peril. It will be part of my purpose to suggest this afternoon that, for entirely different reasons, we are in peril today in an entirely different way but, nevertheless, in an extremely ominous way with which we must deal.
It is common knowledge that following the war the policies of the first socialist government were regarded as relatively non-contentious. I well recall a statement by the late Lord Butler, when we called him Rab Butler, in which he said, "We are all socialists now". That did not seem to raise any particular argument. Indeed, the various steps which were taken by the Labour Government in 1945 to 1951, when I had the honour to be a Member of another place, were not very much disturbed by the following Conservative Government who operated very much on the basis of the maintenance of the welfare state, the maintenance of conditions of full employment, and so on. Indeed, I can well recall Mr. Harold Macmillan, the late Lord Stockton, when at a Tory Party conference he made a bid for the building of 300,000 houses. He was bid up in the course of the conference. It was well established and agreed that there was a broad consensus; namely, that the policies followed for the maintenance of full employment during the war should be continued.
As time passed the sense of unity began to wear off a little, which is not surprising. Most reforming governments who base their policies on the removal of grievances find eventually that the more grievances that are removed, the more conservative people become. Moreover, to some extent that process is accentuated by the very division of labour itself, the division of labour in industry. which splits into various compartments and sections— whole lines of production—which has resulted in the terrific increase in wealth in the country, mainly, I must say, at the hands of private enterprise. But what happens? In the process of becoming specialist in a particular sphere and in narrowing one's mind to cover the performance of a particular function, so, too, one's mind becomes narrower. Unless we are postmen, we take the postman for granted and unless we are milkmen, we take the milkman for granted. We tend to narrow and restrict our views. But the time must come when we will all have to take a far broader view of what is happening among us.
I repeat, during the years following the war, the enthusiasm for further social regulation, whether by change of ownership or otherwise by the Government in the broad interest, diminished. Indeed, that is exemplified in one way by the conflict which emerged between corporate capital and the trade unions in the 1970s, where the orderly progress which had proceeded hitherto was disrupted by a quadrupling in the price of oil. We then had a conflict and a choice. The incomes policy that was necessary at the time to maintain full employment was, to some extent, enshrined in the then Mrs. Barbara Castle's, In place of Strife. I believe that we made a very great mistake there in not taking the opportunity then offered to us of a co-operative procedure between capital and labour in order to ensure stability.
I return now to unemployment. The maintenance of a welfare state is the other part of the employment equation. Unless full employment is maintained, the strain on the social services will be considerable. In fact, it is estimated that 3 million unemployed cost about £21 billion, which represents a very considerable strain. Therefore, it is in our interests that full
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employment should be maintained. There is also the loss of production by idle factors in terms of human labour. At the same time we are missing out on being able to satisfy human needs. Therefore, unless we take constructive steps by governmental intervention on the lines originally proposed, we shall not produce all the wealth that is vitally necessary.
In consequence of the failure of those policies due to the fact that they were not continued, and precisely because the policy of free market forces was adopted thereafter, the result has been absolutely disastrous. The whole social fabric of the country has been put under strain: unemployment is running at 3 million; homelessness is running at a very high level; and there are very wide disparities of income. Society has created an underclass—that is, an underclass which is bitter and which is becoming more and more restive and separated from the rest of society.
That position has to be corrected. We must establish a fairer and more just society so that those festering sores within our own living community can be eliminated. Although we may not always be able to establish absolute equality, as some may infer from my use of socialist terminology, nevertheless, we shall be in a position where we can, once again and as we did during the war and immediately thereafter, march ahead together. That is what we have to do. If we fail to do it, we shall live bitterly to regret it. There will be a spread of what many already term "the sick society". My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.25 p.m.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, the House will be most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington. The noble Lord is always pointful, forceful and indeed original. Today he has chose a subject which to my mind is of great importance but which may come as a slight shock to some members of the party who had thought that socialism was dead; I am afraid that it is not dead. But the democratic method is suffering from its failure to deliver the ideals of Lincoln; namely, to ensure:
"Government of the people, by the people, for the people".
On the contrary, it has been smothered by bureaucracy and by a certain greed in the ruling classes of the country.
Bureaucratic methods are not confined to bureaucracy itself, but to the general running of the country. With that has gone the great strengthening of capital against labour. Now it is control of capital which determines the power basis of the country. Surely what is needed is to assert the democratic principle and, above all, individualism and effective individual ownership and control of capital.
If democratic socialism means "distributism" as it used to be called, then Liberals and Social Democrats are at one. Further, the driving force both, I think, of social democracy and of Adam Smith's liberalism was a moral force. It rested not so much upon economic measures as upon a moral, ethical or political view of society.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a question?
Lord Grimond: No, I am sorry, my Lords; there will be ample time to do so in seven minutes.
Adam Smith placed very great importance upon the beneficial effects of the "hidden hand". But he was under no illusion that that hidden hand needed to be controlled and guided, especially by law. All ethics must surely be individual and must not only be concerned with the individual but with the individual's place and his responsibilities towards the community.
Today the idea of responsibility to the community and the idea of a common good is not popular; indeed, it is roundly spewed upon by those who say that the business of mankind is to make money for himself and his friends. But, in my view, the market run simply for profit-making by comparatively few people, who happen to gain control of capital largely through luck, is bound to end in a most amoral and inefficient society. Moreover, too many aspects of our life which cannot be subject to the market are contaminated by the attempt to import into them the ethics and the outlook of the market. For example, surely you cannot run the criminal courts and criminal law by the market; and you cannot run education and, to my mind, health in that way.
Attempts are made to force all those matters into the straitjacket of the market. Much as I admire the market, it must be confined to areas where it is relevant and proper. Even within that relevant and proper sphere, as has been understood since Adam Smith, it requires the regulation of a framework of law and also of society, which on the whole have certain aims in common, and certain lines of behaviour must be enforced.
If by the market we simply mean that each large corporation in the market pursues what is now, I think, called "the bottom line"—that is, the maximum value for the shareholders—then we are bound to have an inefficient and unsatisfactory society. I am afraid that that is what we have. One only has to look at recent events to see that. One only has to look at the handling of our affairs by the Treasury; at the history of Lloyd's insurance; at the use of computers in the Stock Exchange; and at the muddle in all aspects of government from local taxation to the Common Market. One only has to look at our economy, which is one of the most lagging in Europe, to appreciate what a sad state our society is in. Above all, one only has to look at the lack of honesty in society. One firm of accountants has estimated that £25 million of fraud is perpetrated in the City every day. That cannot be a satisfactory or efficient state of affairs.
What then should we do? First of all, we must distinguish between what can be subject to the market and what cannot. We have to decide where profit may properly be made and where it may not, and try to establish other motivations in those areas which should not be subject solely to the market.
We also need to enforce some form of common good, or, if not enforce it, at least encourage it. If that is to have any relevance to most people, with it must go certain common rewards, the opportunity to make one's way in the world, and to benefit from the immense wealth-creating advantages of the present century.
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I do not believe that the present Government have any clear idea about the kind of society they want to create. I am not suggesting that governments should create societies but they should have some idea of the kind of society for which they are prepared to do the ground work. The majority of the people in this country do not understand what is in the Government's mind. Unless the people understand what is in the Government's mind, it is impossible to conduct a sensible programme of legislation.
The term "social engineering" has been used but one cannot have social engineering unless one has some idea of the engine one is trying to construct or repair. I see some hope at the moment. The Newbury by-election was a sign of hope, not only because a Liberal Democrat was elected but because it showed that the people of this country are fed up with aimless government. The statement made by the Governor of the Bank of England yesterday was hopeful because he emphasised that top people have an obligation to set an example. He said they are part of the community and they share its aims. If inflation in this country is to be stopped, it must be stopped at the top. If efficiency is to be promoted, it must be promoted from the top. Perhaps the ideals, if not the actual methods suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, may yet prevail. If they do that would be a good thing. However, I cannot endorse all the methods he suggested.
3.33 p.m.
Lord Moyne: My Lords, we should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, for calling this debate. It may be rather theoretical—I think it is—but theory has consequences. Theory consists of seeds which do not, perhaps unfortunately, always fall on stony ground.
I suspect that democratic socialism is a contradiction in terms, but, rather than get bogged down in defining terms, I am taking the expression to mean social democracy, which is that hybrid between socialism and capitalism under which we have been living ever since the days of Churchill and Attlee. The remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, implied that that is what he is yearning to restore.
I believe we are still under that system. It is a system that very much reflects the nature of the Labour Party which engineered it, for the Labour Party as a whole has rarely been fervent in its pursuit of that socialism, which is in fact incompatible with democracy partly because its instincts are democratic but mainly because it is a syndicalist party linked to the trade unions. Trade unions, of their essence, need employers to wrestle with. Abolish employers and trade unions lose their function. If they fight nationalised industries, they tangle with the public. Under the system of complete state socialism of Stalin, the trade unions had to become government poodles. As regards fighting workers' co-operatives, they would have absolutely no function at all because a workers' co-operative and a trade union is in theory identical.
But if the social democratic settlement after 1945 reflects the nature of the British Labour Party, it also reflects more profoundly the propensities of the

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British people as a whole. During the early decades of this century there was a radical shift in what may be called the national sensibility; that is, the extent to which British people of all classes would put up with intolerable conditions for the masses that in Queen Victoria's reign were accepted with a shrug. If it was the Labour Party which gave effect to social democracy, it built on foundations laid before and during the Second World War, largely by nonsocialists—the liberals Keynes and Beveridge (the document quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, reeked of Keynes) and the Conservative R. A. Butler. Despite the privatisations and the tax changes of the 1980s and despite the holes that are appearing in the welfare state, the essential features of that settlement remain. Much of what your Lordships will hear this afternoon will amount to little more than the repainting of that familiar facade, the replacement perhaps of the odd cornice and the clearing of the gutter. By that I mean that whatever government are in power must concern themselves with the under-class, though not in the way suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce.
So what shall we do? In seven minutes I cannot, of course, suggest much but clearly we shall not discard the capitalist economy, which is the only possible engine for the good life. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the adoption of free enterprise by the Chinese it would be perverse to adopt the system which has brought those countries to penury. However, I would also like to remind the House of something much more controversial—a principle passed over in silence by most modern Conservatives who are in fact Victorian liberals, followers not of Burke but of Cobden. It is put more succinctly than I could manage by a French correspondent of Keynes. I owe it to the book written by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, on the life of Keynes which states:
"Stable fortunes, the hereditary permanence of families, and sets of families of various social standings are an invisible social asset on which every kind of culture is more or less dependent".
Keynes replied:
"I fully agree with this … But I must not allow you to make me too conservative".
Is not this almost girlish distaste of conservatism strange among intellectuals of that vintage? For this is a perception more profound than mere elitism. It is not only peers and not only Tories who have contributed to our society precisely because they were shaped by their families and by the history of their families. Without such influences could we have been edified by the writings of Paul Foot, or charmed by the stage performances of Vanessa Redgrave?
3.38 p.m.
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, on his unusually restrained and statesmanlike opening to the debate, which I fear I cannot hope to emulate. He certainly produced a Motion that we can all accept, even those of us on the Cross-Benches. After all, he does not state in the Motion that he "recommends" but only that he "calls
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attention" to the case. He calls attention to "the case" for his panacea, not to "a strong" or an "irresistible" case.
If he had dared to use the words "urge the case" in the Motion, he would have had to move for rather more than Papers. I would have thought it prudent at least to move for help or to move, like the noble Lord, Lord Healey, in 1975, for an early invitation to the IMF. We should be grateful to the noble Lord because he has raised an intriguing question which no one, apart from Fidel Castro and some ageing Chinese communists, has mentioned recently.
Growing up as a young man in High Cross, Tottenham, I was not unmoved by the strength of the emotional case for socialism. I was never at all troubled by what is called inequality. I have resolved that the reason is that I could look around me and see within the working classes wide inequalities. I could detect that those frequently sprang from differential habits, training, perseverance and even sobriety—what economists call differential contributions to the national product justifying differing rewards.
However, like most people I was then and am still moved by poverty. I once tried unsuccessfully to persuade Lady Gaitskell that my heart was in the right place, which was left of centre. The trouble was that, having gone to Cambridge just before the Keynesian iron curtain came down, I had the idea that on important matters my head might frequently overrule my heart. On poverty both head and heart cry out for a better way than the present all-party socialist method of indiscriminate subsidies to ensure a decent minimum for people who cannot help themselves in my own preferred market economy.
I look forward to hearing the noble Lord, Lord Plant, but unfortunately there is no time to do justice to the great philosophical issues. With due apologies for appearing dogmatic, I offer my view, for what it is worth, that both in theory and especially in practice the apparent delights of socialism—which Lord Robbins used to call the "mystic joys of tribal unity"—are but a snare and a delusion.
I shall not rehearse the superior case for the market on grounds of incentives to efficiency, technical progress and wealth creation to resolve problems of poverty, and so on. Instead, I shall reject socialism in four minutes flat by reference to the single issue of individual liberty.
I found it interesting that one of the great advocates of socialism, Professor Richard Titmuss, always cast his mind back to the example of the war and urged that we should wear the socialist badge as "a badge of citizenship". Even liberals as far gone as myself accept that some form of socialism is indispensable in a state of siege. Indeed, in wartime socialism is inescapable. It does not function very well, but it cannot be avoided. However, it involves—as Professor Titmuss seemed to be unaware—severe suppression of individual freedom of movement, of spending, of consumption, choice of job and the rest.
Briefly recalling another socialist saint—Aneurin Bevan—I would point out that socialism is concerned not only with deciding priorities but above all with imposing priorities. The dilemma is this. First, the

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waging of war offers a single overriding criterion by reference to which priorities can be set. Secondly, war brings a shared sense of danger which makes central enforcement more tolerable. Except to serious social engineers, neither of those two crucial simplicities applies in the diverse world of a free society in time of peace.
Despite all equivocations, democratic socialism means a continuing, progressive extension of coercive government far beyond the necessary role of supplying what economists debate as public goods. Democratic socialism means the pervasive spread of politicisation to more and more aspects of our daily lives. I recall a book by a former Labour Minister, now I believe sheltering somewhere in this place, entitled Politics is for People. To that I say "Bah!" and "Humbug!". Normal people have been fed up with politics and politicians for years. My colleague Arthur Seldon quipped that a truer title would have been: "Politics is for political people".
Politicians are, of course, personally often very nice. We would all agree that they are even better when they reach the eminence of the Back-Benches in this House. Mixed up with vanity, histrionics, zest for power or the illusion of power, they mostly have good intentions. Socialism is the means of converting those golden intentions into dross. We have seen that the progressive aggrandisement of the state has been a total failure. The further it has been pushed in Eastern Europe and throughout Africa the greater the failure and the less individual liberty there is left.
Nevertheless, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, for drawing our attention to the case for democratic socialism. He appears in rude health, but I suggest that he should take up a less strenuous and taxing hobby than advocating socialism. I suggest that instead of withdrawing his call for Papers he asks for a copy of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.
3.45 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, there is no one who is easier to listen to or more thought provoking than the noble Lord. The only thing that puzzles me is why he sits on the Cross-Benches. The noble Lord took a certain pride in his perch there just now, but why is he not among the Conservatives? I suppose that he thinks that they are a lot of softies and crypto-socialists. The noble Lord is so far to the right that he does not recognise that they have anything in common with him. He will forgive me if I do not follow him too closely.
My noble friend Lord Bruce is a fine and vigorous friend of mine. If I was in real trouble I would go to him. He would not ask me whether I was guilty; he would just make sure that the other man did not show his face in public for a long time. He is that sort of friend.
One question which arises is whether these labels are of any importance. I must apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, for interrupting. It is a rather absurd convention of this House that we do not have interruptions. Otherwise, we have addresses to tied
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audiences all afternoon. It would be so much more fun if we could interrupt. However, the noble Lord was within his rights and I apologise.
However, I want to raise the issue of phraseology with the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, and other Liberals and with my former pupil the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, is not here today because I understand that he is the leader of the Liberals and in that sense the noble Lords, Lord Grimond and Lord Mayhew, are his underlings. When he spoke the other day in a debate the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, said:
"although I may have belonged nominally to three parties, it is my firm view that I have remained exactly where I am and that other people have changed. I have held exactly the same moderately social democratic views for at least the past 25 years".—[Official Report, 24/2/93; col. 322.]
I do not know whether that applies to the other Liberal champions today, but that is why I question whether democratic socialism and social democracy are the same thing. However, in my few minutes I cannot pursue the subject.
I have often said here that I am a socialist because I am a Christian. When I say that I realise that there are better Christians than I who are Conservatives and members of other parties. One of the most notable on these Benches is my noble friend Lord Soper. When we debated the Education Reform Bill two or three years ago who was it who took the initiative in introducing the word "Christianity" into the Bill? It was the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, who is a strong Conservative. One might almost call her a Right-wing Conservative. Therefore I realise that it is possible to be a Conservative and a Christian. I understand why because I was once a Conservative myself, 100 years ago.
It is possible to believe that capitalism pursued along very unequal lines in the end is the way that enriches everyone, including the poorest. Therefore we have many good Christians. I speak as a socialist because I am a Christian. I realise that there are other traditions in the Labour Party. I do not refer to Marxism. In my view, Marxism contributed nothing to the Labour Party.
In 1947, before most of the Members on the Front Bench were born, I was Minister of Civil Aviation. I went to a dinner at the Russian Embassy and sat between Mr. Molotov and Mr. Ernest Bevin. Mr. Molotov asked me, "Have you studied Karl Marx, Lord Pakenham?", as I called myself at the time. I said, "I have studied Karl Marx". I had lectured on him; I had lectured to the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, on him. I said, "I am afraid that I have not become a marxist". Speaking through the interpreter, he said, "I quite understand, Lord Pakenham, that one would not expect to find a good marxist in the House of Lords". Mr. Bevin then said—I shall not try to copy his voice—"That's where you're wrong, Mr. Molotov. Members of the House of Lords are the only people who have time to read Karl Marx". Still courteous, Mr. Molotov replied: "Mr. Bevin should study the works of Marx in the commentary of Hilfiding". Bevin was not to be defeated. He said, "I have studied Hilfiding and have found him tedious". That finished the discussion for the moment.

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Marx has had nothing to do with the development of the Labour Party, although marxists have been included in it. Secularism, taking the Fabians as an example, has had a great deal to do with it. One has had the Christian and the secular tradition. So far as I am concerned, society is grossly unjust and became more unjust throughout the Thatcherite and Conservative years when the inequality of wealth was increased. It had been decreased under various governments, including Conservative governments. It has been increased until now. I cannot understand how any Christian can justify that.
For me at least there is no doubt about the conclusion. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Grimond. We must find a way in which enterprise is rewarded and at the same time justice done to those who are called in the Gospel the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind—in other words, the disadvantaged in this country and other countries. That must be the direction in which we move. No human society can be perfect. No motivation among politicians or others will be perfect. In my eyes—I can speak only for myself—the Labour Party will follow the banner that floats nearest the sky.
3.52 p.m.
Lord Plant of Highfield: My Lords, I wish to support the Motion of my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington. I wish to do so by concentrating on one issue: the idea of social justice. I believe that it is absolutely fundamental to socialism, whether in its marxist, democratic socialist or social democratic form. It is a point which Hayek (one of the gurus of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross) has emphasised; namely, that social justice is in many ways the core value of socialism. Yet that concept of social justice has been considerably undermined by the intellectual prominence of economic liberal and new Right thinking over the past 15 years.
It is important, not to set the record straight, but to say something to balance the other side and to rehabilitate the idea of social justice. It is an appeal to the moral value of social justice that underpins the political attempt to allocate resources as opposed to a market attempt to allocate resources. It is central to the economic liberal's case that markets do not serve social justice. To use the words of Hayek, they are in principle unprincipled. That is to say, their outcomes do not embody any particular moral outcome. Markets are neither just nor unjust. The category of justice does not apply to them. It is important therefore for people on the Left to respond to the criticisms of economic liberals. In the few moments available to me, I wish to refer to some of the criticisms.
One of the central criticisms from the economic liberal front of the idea of social justice is that freedom has nothing to do with the possession or lack of possession of resources. In particular, it has nothing to do with ability. To be free to do something is quite different from being able to do it. To be free to do something is not to be prevented from doing
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something by the intentional action of someone else. Freedom is the absence of coercion not ability, and the associated resources and opportunities.
The logic of that position led the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, in his book on equality, published in the 1970s, to argue in one of his chapter headings that poverty is not "unfreedom". Poverty is not unfreedom because the possession of abilities and the associated resources and opportunities has nothing to do with liberty.
To argue that there is a categorical distinction between being free to do something on the one hand and being able to do it on the other is a fundamental error for three reasons. First, if I asked the noble Lord, Lord Joseph—I wish that he were present today—"What is so great about being free from coercion? Why should I wish to be free from coercion? What is valuable about negative liberty in that sense?", surely the answer that he would give is that if one is free from coercion, if one is not prevented from doing things, one can live a life shaped by one's own purposes and values. One is enabled to do various things that one would not be able to do if one were coerced. The value of liberty rests upon what one is then able to do with it. Therefore a categorical distinction cannot be drawn between being free to do something and being able to do it.
The second reason I believe that there is no categorical distinction is that for most people, whether someone is free or "unfree" to do something depends on whether there is a generalised ability to do it. If I asked noble Lords, "Were people free or unfree to fly aeroplanes in the last century?", your Lordships would consider it a silly question because no one was able to fly aeroplanes in the last century. What makes people free or unfree to fly now is that there is a general ability to fly. If that is so, the ability to do something is a necessary condition of being free to do it. Therefore there cannot be, as the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, and economic liberals argue, a categorical distinction between being free to do something and being able to do it.
The third reason I believe that the attempt to drive a wedge between liberty and resources will not work is this. If one said that freedom is the absence of coercion, how would one figure out whether one society is more or less free than another? It would have to be a purely quantitative judgement. How many coercive rules are there in one society compared with another society? That would lead to a very paradoxical conclusion: that a simple society with few transactions, with little complexity in its life and therefore few rules, might be a freer society than a society such as ours. For example, before the recent changes in Albania there were few cars and virtually no financial transactions. There were therefore few rules governing those activities. Yet if freedom is the absence of coercive rules, one would be in the paradoxical position of saying that Albania is a freer society than Britain because there are fewer rules in Albania than in our own country. No one will accept that statement for the good reason that in Albania the people were not able to do things that we were able to do such as to emigrate, to criticise the government, to

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invest and so forth. It follows from that argument that freedom cannot be categorically different from ability because what makes Albania a less free society than Britain is a reference to what we are able to do and what they are not able to do.
That may sound very arcane and philosophical. However, it is central to the economic liberal's case that freedom is the absence of coercion and not the possession of abilities and the associated resources and opportunities which go with it. If freedom and ability are linked, and if therefore resources and opportunities are also linked, then the defence of individual liberty also means the securing to individuals, by political action where markets fail, those resources and opportunities, and level of income, which will enable those individuals to do things which, if matters were left to the operation of the market, they would not be able to do. Therefore, I think that social justice has a close and indispensable link with the idea of liberty and thus the defence of individual freedom and the defence of distributive politics, it seems to me, go together. That is a central insight into the socialist tradition.
4 p.m.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I believe that we should not use the word "democracy" without first considering what it means. That is particularly important with so many nations at the moment seeking a democratic solution. At one extreme there are people who think that everyone should have access to instant voting on any issue, whether or not they have studied the matters at stake. At the other extreme, democracy is simply equated with our existing system in England.
Whichever view one may take, it must now be clear that election on the basis of "first past the post" or delegation of responsibility to so-called "duly elected representatives" does not always constitute true democracy. A philosophic definition of democracy is hard to find, yet if it is to represent government by all the people it must be the antithesis of complete autocracy. More specifically, therefore, there should be a genuine attempt to consider the public's wishes, and for that reliance on the ballot box is insufficient because the issues at election times are generally very narrow. Maybe reliance on stereotyped election propaganda is the prime cause of the present Government's notable failure to keep in touch with the electorate.
For example, they have received absolutely no mandate or recorded public wish to privatise the railways. Nor, I think, has any other important reason for doing so been canvassed, and that applies to much else.
A government must, of course, be prepared to take unpopular measures where the national interest really demands it. But they should not pretend that party dogma which is not generally acceptable comes under that category. The present Government's extreme attitude to privatisation and the so-called market
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place, with their short-term thinking, is a blatant example of dogma. I would castigate the Government for almost everything they have done recently.
They seem not to realise that what the public wants and has a right to demand is gradual change—I say again, gradual change—where it seems generally desirable. What is wholly unacceptable is the introduction of new philosophies and excursions into the unknown without adequate thought. Surely, the Government might even now realise that there is no merit in change for change's sake. They are perhaps following the ridiculous idea that in order to survive, all governments—new or old—have to show their vigour and virility by making dramatic and irrelevant changes. It is certainly not democratic to do so in the teeth of the public's wishes to follow a more sensible road.
One wonders how far party interest, coupled with the need for the advancement of Ministers, is now the predominant motivation of so much unfortunate parliamentary thinking. I would go even further—to question whether the existing parliamentary system ought not to be improved to serve the national interest better than it seems to today.
4.4 p.m.
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, 25 years ago I was reporting a Conservative party conference for my newspaper. At the bar, an obvious former empire builder mistook me for one of the Tory faithful. He said, "I didn't return to this country to see it led by a ruddy communist". I told him that I knew Harold Wilson well and I could assure the man that he was no communist. "I am not talking about him", he said, "I mean Rab Butler"—and he was not being funny.
Many of us rejoiced in the days of what was called "Butskellism" in which the Tories accepted the achievements of the Labour Government of 1945, with full employment, the welfare state and nationalisation of the utilities and the Labour party had discarded its dream of a total socialist society. Indeed, Gaitskell wished to get rid of Clause 4 in its constitution, and my noble friend Lord Jay wanted to change the name to the Labour and Radical Party.
However, beneath the unwritten consensus at Westminster there was a profound middle class disquiet and often bitterness in the country at the failure of Tory Governments to lower taxation and to restore the privileges and differentials which the middle classes had once enjoyed. Indeed, Mr. Heath started with the intention of appeasing them. But it was Mrs. Thatcher who gave them what they wanted and turned consensus into bitter confrontation. The consequence after 14 years is the plight that Britain is in today: a land of unemployment, bankruptcies, personal debt, with great institutions at war with the Government and the Government at war with themselves.
So I heartily endorse my noble friend's case for the progressive establishment of a democratic socialist society, though I wish he had not confined it to this country. There are things which Europe has to show us about the treatment of workers.

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I am a cradle socialist. I was brought up in the IOP, the shop assistants' union, the co-operative movement with its splendid women's guild, over which my noble friend Lady Fisher once presided. Just as a cradle Catholic may speak candidly about the Church, so I may from time to time speak candidly about the Labour Party. Mine was one of those many homes which were more Methodist than Marxist; and the conception of socialism was a moral creed of a collective society of brotherly love under the fatherhood of God. It was also concerned about social and political inequality and about a fairer distribution of goods. Only when we came to the application of the creed in order to obtain those good things were we at odds with one another.
Now it will not be easy to preach that full socialism which some people have preached for many years. For a long time most socialists have been disturbed by the Soviet Union and its satellites; but their collapse revealed an even greater cruelty, corruption and chaos than we had suspected, and also the awful inefficiency of a command economy.
However, despite our long-standing contempt for the Soviet Union—the fact that it claimed to be socialist makes it no easier for us—we share a part of its history, and at one time we shared part of its creed. Nevertheless, if we were to see a Labour government, I think we should find a government who would be faced with appalling difficulties, as the President of the United States is now finding.
The Political Quarterly, in a striking editorial, argues that this Conservative Government have no longer the remotest idea of where they are going. They still cling to odd bits of Thatcherite projects of the 1980s, of further irrelevant privatisation here and another mean-minded swipe at the welfare state there, but with diminishing conviction. Not even Ministers today imagine that selling off British Rail or the Post Office will make the British economy more efficient or more productive.
I find some sympathy with the argument that all of us—Liberal Democrats, Labour Left and Labour modernisers—are still trapped in the intellectual categories of an era dominated by the century-long contest between capitalism and socialism. It is certainly a different world now. It is one in which few people can expect to have a job that will last until retirement, in which people are anchored by houses they cannot afford to sell, in which one child in three is in a single-parent family and in which 60 per cent. of housewives go out to work. That is the kind of society we have. It is a fractured society which government have to work in and try to put right.
Fortunately, the Conservatives, if their Financial Secretary is to be heeded, believe that the market is no longer "the thing". He denounced it yesterday. He said that it had never been part of real Conservative philosophy, and that they must be concerned with the kind of thing with which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, was concerned in his opening speech.
4.11 p.m.
Lord Desai: My Lords, we are grateful to my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington. We have already seen an excellent debate in which the philosophical, economic and political foundations of democratic socialism have been examined. I value democratic socialism. Such democracy as we have today in advanced capitalist countries has been fought for by socialists. If trade unions had not fought for basic freedoms and extension of the franchise—from the Chartists onward to the trade union movement in the 1850s and 1860s—universal adult franchise would not have been seen. Let us not forget the contribution that socialists have made.
Also, socialists have in a sense humanised capitalism. Every shortening of working hours, every health and safety measure at work and every little comfort were fought tooth and nail by the capitalists, who said that if one shortened working hours, profits would disappear. They said that if any freedom was given, such as the right to strike or making factories safer, profits would disappear. Despite that, profits grew and capitalism became possible, and civilised, thanks to socialism.
In the 1920s and early 1930s, when capitalism was going through its worst crisis of mass unemployment and deep depression, it was (for all practical purposes) the New Deal in America—the sort of ideal of democratic socialism that Lord Bruce has put forward—and later on its full incorporation in western Europe through full employment and the welfare state, which saved capitalism for posterity. Indeed, I would argue that the success of that experiment maintained full employment for the first time in the history of capitalism for a period of 25-years. No previous 25-year period in the history of capitalism had seen full employment, sustained economic growth and high mass consumption. Yet those very victories caused the problem for socialism. Once they had been won, it began to threaten profitability. That threat took the form of inflation; and it was the reaction against inflation that undermined the case for socialism.
I am not at all despondent. I take democratic socialism to be the twin of capitalism; the one twin that is needed to civilise the other. As we have already seen, and as my noble friend has emphasised, if we are to avoid an underclass in a two-thirds rich and one-third poor society; if we are to guard the stability of the system against financial speculation and the fragility of financial institutions; if we are to guard the system from running into an ecological crisis; if we are to achieve true democracy, in which everyone has the ability—as my noble friend Lord Plant pointed out in his excellent speech—to fulfil his or her potential as a citizen—if all those things are to come about, capitalism always needs socialism. It would be a false idea for those who are against socialism to believe that somehow they have seen the last of socialism. Such delusions have been entertained for a long time. Alternatively, people say: "We are all socialists now". Fifty years ago Rab Butler said it, and Sir William Harcourt said it in 1896. People occasionally become socialists when it suits them. Socialism is indeed necessary for capitalism.

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I believe that when finally mature capitalism runs to its limits—as one of my favourite authors, Karl Marx, predicted—when mature capitalism finally cannot solve problems and cannot grow any further, it will be out of mature capitalism that proper socialism will come to this country. At that stage we shall have prosperity and liberty. It is only when fully utilising the human potential, which capitalism frequently forgets or neglects, that we shall have a proper free society. I commend to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, not just the Wealth of Nations, but also the Theory of Moral Sentiments, which is probably a better book.
4.16 p.m.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I have always been fascinated by socialism. Therefore, when the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, put down his Motion, I was quite unable to resist the temptation to take part in this short debate.
Unlike the noble Earl, Lord Longford, I became hooked on socialism rather earlier in my life. I was first seduced by the gentle charms of William Morris in News from Nowhere. In preparation for this debate, I have been looking at it again. It is a book I strongly recommend to those who have not read it. As an undergraduate at Cambridge in the 1950s, I was fortunate enough to be taught by Maurice Dobb and Eric Hobsbawm and was once described by Joan Robinson as a revolutionary youth. It was only a little later, when I realised how nasty human nature really is, that I realised socialism was not such a practical proposition. I believe that it was Juvenal who said that a statesman who assumes that the world is populated with angels will be sorely disappointed.
I much enjoyed the trip down memory lane which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, gave us. I certainly do not dissent—it would be presumptuous of me to do so—from his account of history. It is true that there was a central direction of the economy by the wartime coalition. It is true that this was continued after the war by the 1945–51 Labour Government. That government had two great triumphs of enduring value, for which I continue to salute it. One was the introduction of the welfare state; the other was the introduction of planning laws, which have enabled our country to retain its rural beauty to a far greater extent than most countries in Europe.
I would agree also that the socialist consensus continued after the defeat of that government, although some of the controls which had been continued after the war were dismantled by the Churchill government and succeeding Conservative governments. But there was indeed a socialist consensus between 1951 and 1964. It was then revitalised to some extent by Mr. Wilson (now the noble Lord, Lord Wilson) in his Government of 1964. In 1970 the socialist consensus was cheerfully accepted by Mr. Heath. Then the mantle became rather more sinister. It became a corporatist mantle. I personally found that so-called tripartite government profoundly undemocratic. It was based on power sharing between industry, the trade unions and government, with remarkably little look-in for Parliament. Indeed, it
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was at about that time that the Liberal Party produced an election poster in which they showed Mr. Heath and the then Mr. Wilson under the slogan: "Which twin is the Tory?"
The socialist government that succeeded Mr. Heath continued along much the same lines, although there were rather charming and enlightening moments when one wondered whether they had had second thoughts. I remember a passage from Tony Benn's diaries when he tried to persuade the Cabinet to go for the socialist solution—I believe it was during the IMF crisis of 1976. He said that if one was in a lifeboat and had one loaf of bread one could either ration it or auction it. Jim Callaghan (now the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan) chimed in, "You could always eat it."
But it was only after the departure of that government that the socialist consensus was challenged. It was challenged originally by the thoughts of my noble friend Lord Joseph. Then history itself was challenged by my noble friend Lady Thatcher. I believe that she has produced an irreversible shift of power from unions, bureaucrats and tax collectors at home. She ushered in the decay of socialism in Europe and beyond.
I fear that the Labour Party of today has still not learnt the lessons of its own history. It has suffered from the rather unsuccessful first year of the present Conservative Government and has been enabled to continue with its same traditions. It is not much further forward than it was in April last year when it could be said that it was socialism which caused the defeat and in particular issues such as Mr. John Smith's tax policies. When he put forward the proposal for increasing the rate of tax from 40 per cent. to 60 per cent., many people in the Labour Party believed that it was a very low rate compared with taxes in the old post-war days. In fact, people were looking at 40 per cent. No matter how much general support there was for the idea that higher taxation is fair and desirable, in the privacy of the polling booth people tend to vote on the self-interest ticket.
I doubt whether a political party will ever again win power in this country under the socialist banner, whether it is democratic or otherwise. I do not believe that democratic socialism is much more appetising. That is what I believe it was called in East Germany. Democratic centralism is another horrible use of the word "democracy", and was, I believe, a form of Leninism.
There will come a time when a change of government in this country is desirable. I hope when that time comes that the Labour Party has cast aside the nostalgia of its own history and arrived at the moment when it can join with the Liberal Party and can march to the polls under the banner of liberalism. But that is some time off. So the present Administration has much more time and much more to do during its tenure of office.
4.24 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, I risk being accused of living in the past by opening with a quotation from a Dr. P.H. Holland, who investigated a suburb of Manchester in 1844. I hope to explain why I go that far back. Dr. Holland said:
"When we find the rate of mortality four times as high in some streets as in others … invariably high in those streets which are in had condition, and almost invariably low in those whose condition is good, we cannot resist the conclusion that multitudes of our fellow creatures, hundreds of our immediate neighbours, are annually destroyed for want of the most evident precautions".
We have come a long way since then. The health of all social classes has improved vastly. But the differences in health between social classes are still evident. Professor Douglas Black's report on inequalities in health, published in 1980, showed that infant mortality in Social Class 5 (unskilled workers) was 2.5 times as high as that in Social Class 1 in 1932. In 1972 it was 2.6 times as high. Across the board the same kind of social class differences in almost all causes of serious illness or death was demonstrated. Later work shows that the trend has continued and, despite overall improvement, social class differences are as wide as ever.
In his introduction to Professor Black's report the then right honourable Patrick Jenkin said:
"It will be seen that the Group"—
the working group that produced the report—
"has reached the view that the causes of health inequalities are so deep-rooted that only a major and wide-ranging programme of public expenditure is capable of altering the pattern. I must make it clear that additional expenditure on the scale which could result from the report's recommendations—the amount involved could be upwards of £2 billion a year—is quite unrealistic in present or any foreseeable economic circumstances … I am making the report available for discussion, but without any commitment by the government to its proposals".
In fact the findings were so awkward for the Government that he only issued a few cyclostyled copies. Publication was delayed for two years until Penguin Books published a report to a worldwide audience which appreciated its scholarship and profound implications. However, it is true that even the worst off in Britain have far better health than the average person in the South, the developing world. The infant mortality and other health indices are still in many countries as bad as they were in Victorian or Edwardian Britain. In the same way it is the workers and poor farmers of the South who are now being exploited—that is, when they are working at all, for wages at subsistence level—by capital, much of which comes from the North.
The working classes in the North in comparison have achieved wage levels and a social security system which protect them from deprivation, starvation or destitution even when out of work or unable to work. As many noble Lords have said, that is far too high a proportion of the workforce. When in work, a majority in the North are now sufficiently highly paid to buy houses, cars and other products of a consumer society. They have been hooked into the system. They are therefore not too keen to rock the boat, a phenomenon which is very well described by the veteran economist J.K. Galbraith in his latest
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monograph, The Culture of Contentment. But while the increasingly skilled working class—when in work, as I said—is relatively affluent, the really rich in this country have become even richer, especially during the sojourn of this Government.
My noble friend focused on democratic socialism in Britain. But I suggest that he should look beyond these shores also. A democratic socialist government worth their salt would be doing just that. At present not only are wages abysmally low in the third world but there is in fact a net transfer of wealth from the South to the North because of very low commodity prices and international debt, aided by the structural readjustment programmes imposed by the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. For those reasons, many of the poorest countries in the world, especially Africa, cannot get economic lift-off.
One of the first priorities of a democratic socialist administration should be to cancel or buy up the debts of the poorest countries. They would then be more able to buy much needed capital goods or machinery to restart their development, which has been at a standstill for the past decade. Our development aid budget should rapidly be raised to the 0.7 per cent. of GNP recommended by the United Nations, or more. That would still, at around £4 billion, be only a fraction of our defence budget but it could bring the long-term dividend for this country of being able to trade with more active and well disposed economies. That would help us who live in the capitalist world to ameliorate perhaps the inevitable recessions and booms that afflict us at the moment.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, in seven minutes I do not believe it is possible to add more than a footnote to the opening speech of my noble friend Lord Bruce. It is not possible because he struck at the fundamental roots of the subject that we are discussing.
We are discussing the kind of society we want, not only in the economic sense in that we want to make a profit, but also in the sense of relationships between people within our society. Unless we talk of that it is no use talking at all. That is the most important point.
One lesson we must learn in that regard is that there is no such thing as "human nature". One may think that human nature is something that is created and then stays always the same; that it is the attitude of standing to one side, seeing people suffer and doing nothing to help them. I do not accept that that is the character of the human nature. The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, said that he changed his mind because he began to realise what human nature was all about. Fundamentally he was saying that we are greedy and want it all. I do not accept that as a reason for changing one's mind about politics.
The danger about politics and power, as has been said so often, is that power corrupts. When one has absolute power within society—never mind what the original intentions were; for example, the original intentions of 1944 as outlined by my noble friend Lord Bruce—it will corrupt that society. The practice of the power will corrupt it still further.
That is one reason why the good aims of the revolution in the Soviet Union went so badly awry. No socialist worth his salt was unaware, way back in the 1920s and before, that the trouble was that the powers in Russia had been corrupted by the very power they sought—on a false pretence. Ultimately that led to its breakdown.
Let me bring your Lordships up to date. The battle between the trade union movement and capitalism in this country will shortly lead to a situation where both will collapse unless a solution is found to the terrible social problems that are being suffered.
Last week we debated the creation of wealth. In opening the debate the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, said that one of the joys of the last century was that the subject of the economy rarely raised its ugly head. Of course it was a joy to the capitalists. But what caused socialism—the desire for a better way of life—to rear its head? Did it have something to do with the terrible privations being suffered by the labour in the coal-mines and mills of this country, from which capitalism had originally made so much of its money? Did it have something to do with the fact that children in Lancashire in the last century were being taken out of warm beds and put straight into the bobbin-mills and those already in the mills were being taken back and put into the same beds? Did it have something to do with the fact that we were conducting society, in a free capitalist society, in such a way that Liverpool, as a local authority, was compelled to introduce the first medical officer of health because of the scandalous conditions of the working class? Of course it did.
It was the power of capitalism that finally created the trade union and Labour movement as a protest and as a means of finding some way out of the dilemma the country was facing. Those are the fundamental facts of society. Today, when we see somebody standing on one side and boasting that he has taken £200,000 in salary but is going to freeze the amount for five years and at the same time we see a wage freeze of 1.5 per cent. for other people, it is obscene.
One of the leading building societies has conducted a campaign of cutting staff numbers, reducing wages and increasing hours, yet the managing director received an increase in salary of something like £100,000. That is an obscenity. I make no apologies for the fact that I believe that a moral issue arises in all this. What kind of society led the Church of England, having an investment income in the City of London of about £400,000, to appeal for funds for the poor third world? That is accepted as normal.
The truth is that the capitalist society perverts everything that it touches. The desire for money seems to give the people who want that money a belief that they have a right to take it, without any responsibility. Until we tackle the moral aspect of our society and talk of the right thing to do rather than the profitable thing to do, we will never advance.
Let me say this in regard to the under-class mentioned by my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington. We must find some way of giving them a fair share. Mrs. Thatcher, as she was, said that there
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is no society; there are only individuals; that this is a society where the individual counts. In other words, devil take the hindmost. Unless we get rid of the under-class, unless we give all the people a fair share of the things that they produce rather than the money men in London, that devil will kill us all.
4.37 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, as they say, follow that! I will, with great difficulty. First, I must thank my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington for introducing the debate. I apologise for not being here to listen to him. It is a reflection on our society that the train on which I travelled to London was late because of lack of investment in British Rail, and yet almost every other day I receive letters from banks wanting to lend me money. If the banks are so awash with money that they want to lend it to somebody like me, and presumably to lots of other people, there must be money available to invest in British Rail to keep the trains running on time.
The debate concerns the case for people. To my mind socialism is about empowering people, in contradiction to the power of money. That can be described as capitalism, market forces or what you will. Basically, that is the fundamental conflict that we are discussing—the conflict between people on the one hand and money on the other.
What are the reasons that we argue for socialism? They are all around us but can be summed up in one word—unemployment. It is the ultimate expression of the devaluation of people. We have mass unemployment of over 3 million at the moment; less than 15 years ago we had 3 million unemployed. We have gone through two periods of mass unemployment with a hit of a dip in the middle. I believe that it was the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, on the Conservative Benches, who said in a debate a few months ago that no society could be successful that had mass unemployment on the one hand and a continuing demand for goods and services on the other.
Socialism is a concept of common sense. One of its ideas is to match the resources to the needs of society. One only needs to look around to see the enormous degree of unmet need. But socialism is also extremely British. It is about fairness, which is an essentially British trait. I hope that your Lordships will agree with me. We British have an almost instinctive concept of fair play. Of course we can all succumb to greed and the idea that it is justifiable to hang on to that which we earn. But is it fair for individuals in this country to earn £1 million a year or more and for the vast under-class to live on £2,000 a year or less? That is a fundamental unfairness which really strikes at the heart and attacks the fabric of our society.
When we talk about the valuation of people it is not just in terms of them having an economic contribution or a job through which to contribute to society. It does not mean simply a monetary value in terms of a fairer distribution of income. It is also meant in terms of democracy. This is where I fall out with some of my comrades. I always think of democratic socialism as being tautologous. We do not need "democratic"

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because socialism is democratic. If we had a truly democratic society we would not need to talk about socialism because that would be the net result.
There is the concept of valuing people and democracy. Democracy is about people being in control of their destiny. It relates to the individual and the individual's ability to control his destiny by having the same kind of capabilities, educational standards, physical health, housing, nutrition and all those kinds of things and the same kind of income as other people. Given those circumstances, that person can have the same kind of power as other people.
But when we look at the matter collectively we come to the process of what is normally described as democracy with the business of voting, representation and Parliament. In that regard we can see that our society has come a long way. About 1,000 years ago there was Magna Carta when the barons wrested some power from the King. About 160 years ago we had the Reform Act which gave some representation to householders. Just before the Great War there were female suffragettes. In the 1960s suffrage was extended to 18 year-olds. So we now value 18 year-olds and over, whether male or female, fairly equally. They are still not completely equal because there are some fairly small constituencies which send a Member of Parliament to Westminster and others which are fairly large. So there is a disproportionate valuation of people in that respect.
There is also the lack of power of our democratic representatives themselves which denies the value of the people. One considers the power of the City, the judiciary and of big business. They all operate independently—especially international business—of what our House of Commons says or does, because we have a canker right at the heart of our body politic. Part of that canker is ourselves. The fact is that this undemocratic Chamber contributes to the operation of Parliament and that means that the British people are distracted from what their representatives are doing. Governments which operate almost separately from the House of Commons get away with things. If they were held properly accountable, and if people recognised their own essential value in the process, I suggest that in the past 15 years those governments would not have got away with the terrible depredations which they have imposed on the British people.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, I felt a keen personal interest in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. I was the founder and first chairman of an organisation of Labour Party members known as the Democratic Socialist Group. We propagated political views indistinguishable from those given us today by the noble Lord in his nbtable speech. But that was 55 years ago. My question to the noble Lord is: Are there no lessons to be learnt from the events of the past 55 years which might lead us to modify our previous beliefs in democratic socialism?
The noble Lord called for party consensus. He quoted as his annus mirabilis 1944, when, it is true, all three parties agreed on an historic paper on
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employment and welfare. But on what was that paper based? It was based on the thought of two great liberals, Keynes and Beveridge. At the time it was not called democratic socialism. I assure the noble Lord that had it been called by that title the Tory Party would not have looked at it for a moment. If he means that there should be a future consensus of parties based on liberal democratic ideas, such as those propagated by Keynes and Beveridge, that is a very promising line of thought.
But so much has happened since then. He and I took part in nationalising five great industries after the war. The results were disappointing. That should be kept in mind because in those days socialism was very much identified with nationalisation. Nationalisation was socialism. I cannot remember what Lenin said, but, whatever it was, it indicated that nationalisation of industry was a key feature.
But the noble Lord's party has tried its best to adapt to the changes over the years. We welcome the changes on these Benches. Each change brings the Labour Party closer to the basic political philosophy of the Liberal Democrats. The Labour Party has carried out a number of notable and important reforms in recent years. Under the leadership of Mr. Kinnock it more or less crushed the lunatic Left. Although Clause 4 still stays, I believe that no one in the Labour Party takes it seriously. I believe that it has abandoned its commitment to public ownership.
Another great development since the annus mirabilis of 1944 has been the enormous growth of the economic interdependence of this country on other countries and especially on Western Europe. Here again, the Labour Party, painfully and slowly, has adjusted itself to the new reality. There was a time when it strongly opposed British membership of the European Community, arguing that the Community was inimical to its Left-wing aspirations. But it has come round now. However, the noble Lord has not quite shown the flexibility of his party on that point. We hope that one day he, like his party, will be converted to the reality that Britain has no future outside the Community. There are many noble Lords who will hope that that conversion comes before the Committee stage of the Maastricht Bill.
There is a further development in the Labour Party which is welcome to us and which follows the lines advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. The Labour Party is seriously considering introducing an element of democracy into our electoral system. We could not help feeling a slight disappointment in one respect about the admirable speech of the noble Lord, Lord Plant, in that we wished to hear from him the latest news of whether or not the Labour Party believes in a democratic electoral system. He thinks that the Labour Party should change and that it should support such a system, but I read on the tape that the party leader is against it. Nevertheless, it is a sign of hope for future consensus and these Benches welcome the fact that those moves are going on inside the Labour Party.
However, I must warn the noble Lord that there is one major issue on which the Labour Party has not adapted at all, on which it distances itself not only

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from the Liberal Democrats but from the electorate of Great Britain. It is still the creature of the trade unions. The unions finance it and dominate all its major decisions, its party conferences, the leadership and other matters. Political democracy is advancing in many parts of the world: in the former Soviet empire and in parts of Latin America. But that civilising trend stops short of the constitution of the British Labour Party, which stands out against democratic reform. It is true that the leader, Mr. Smith, is well aware of this and has spoken openly about the lack of democracy in the Labour Party. He has urged certain reforms, in particular OMOV—that is, one member, one vote. Mr. Smith is urging his party to adopt that absolutely elementary and basic form of democracy and to follow the steps so recently exemplified by the Yemenis and the Cambodians. Let the Labour Party follow their lead and institute the principle of one member, one vote.
However, the party leader may fail in that. In October at the Labour Party Conference we may well be treated to the entertaining spectacle of the block vote being saved by the block vote. It may happen because even Mr. Smith is not willing to propose the abolition of the block vote, but only to modify it by allowing it 70 per cent. instead of 90 per cent. of the total voting power of the Labour Party Conference.
The truth is that there are obstacles to what the noble Lord was saying about party consensus based on the record of the wartime government. There is, we know, tremendous need for such consensus. Noble Lords have spoken about the underclass. One of the outrageous features of our society today is the way in which those who are already too rich are determined to get richer and richer and to spend their money worse and worse. That is the kind of thing which a proper consensus government might join forces to tackle. There are obstacles to face in the future, and although we must take note of the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, may not have a large number of allies now, his basic thesis will command a great echo in this country and should be taken seriously by the Government.
4.53 p.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, like others in this debate, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington for his imaginative Motion and thoughtful speech. During a long political career, my noble friend has been an outspoken advocate of Labour policies and of his own genuinely held views, and he is respected for that. He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Aneurin Bevan and reflects many of the views of that great man.
My noble friend has summarised his political testament and none of us would quarrel with the basic argument of his speech that democracy is the essential element in the British constitution. The two great wars of this century were fought in large part to preserve it, but it is a fragile plant which needs constant care. We want to see real democracy established in Russia and other former Soviet countries after the collapse of Soviet communism. They called their political
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doctrine "socialism", but it was not the socialism which my noble friend has in mind, as he made clear. Surely one of the central objectives of our foreign policy, and that of our allies, must be to do all that we can and all that is in our power to see that democracy survives and grows in Eastern Europe because the return of Russia to the old dispensation would be a major tragedy and a disaster to mankind. We should remember that in this debate.
We value our parliamentary democracy; it is the oldest and probably the most steadfast in the world. But we must never take it for granted. No Gibbon has yet emerged to write The Decline and Fall of the British Empire; the title would be a mistake anyway. The British empire was dismantled. I remember Harold Macmillan saying that "a wind of change" was blowing across Africa.
As to our own Parliament, there are moments in history when reforms are needed, not least in this House, and we must have the sense and the courage to grapple with them, as otherwise our parliamentary system itself will suffer. For example, Edward Gibbon in his great work wrote:
"The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive".
In our own time, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, warned some 15 years ago that,
"an elective dictatorship could arise by a government taking advantage of the virtual absolute sovereignty of the House of Commons to behave in a manner which is undeniably anti-democratic".
Time does not allow me to pursue this theme, but I say again that we must face up to the need for reform and I believe we would be wise to set up a commission along the lines of the admirable Bryce Commission of 1917.
Over a century ago, our predecessors in this Parliament had the imagination and drive to extend the boundaries of democracy by creating county and district councils with powers to govern well-defined communities. But they were elected authorities and they have been one of the great successes of the century in this country. I deeply regret to have to say that over the past 14 years, successive Conservative Governments have eroded the powers and undermined the confidence of local authorities without adequate cause and without proper consultation. They have dealt democracy a cruel blow at its grass roots. After all, the elected council is the most effective counterweight to central government, which acts as the alternative channel for democratic participation. The truth is that the powers of local government over this period have been transferred to Ministers, to Whitehall, to the Executive and not least to quangos to an extent that is unprecedented in peacetime. It has been a questionable process. I was glad to see that this week's House Magazine has a number of interesting articles on the problems posed by quangos.
Consider what has taken place: in the past 14 years there has been a flood of local government Bills, over 14,000 pages of local government legislation and several major changes in local government finance.

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This treatment has dealt a blow to conscientious men and women of all political parties and of none who have served their communities as councillors.
What is dangerous is the shift away from democratic accountability, and this has taken place across a wide range of our national life. Those who criticise my noble friend's aspirations choose to overlook that. Huge sections of our lives in Britain are sliding from well-established democratic practices into a dangerous web of quangos.
Let us get this straight—I know that noble Lords opposite will be as concerned about it as I am—unelected people who are not known to the general public are running a vast range of our public services. I understand that last year there were 1,846 quangos, with 114,400 board members and staff, and that they spent over £14 billion, of which £10.5 billion was taxpayers' money. Forty thousand of the posts were directly in the gift of Ministers. I must point out that the NHS, with its £37 billion budget, is additional to that. Where is the democracy in all this?
What is equally serious is that there is more political patronage in those appointments than there has ever been in modern times. There is a deep feeling in Wales about the political influence exercised in making appointments to nominated bodies, of which there are 81 with an overall expenditure of £1.4 billion. It is a dangerous trend. The time is approaching, and it will come very soon, when the public will demand a major examination and inquiry into those developments and their implications for the democratic system in Britain. Let me say to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, to whom I listened with interest, that it is this Government, not the Labour Government, who have lessons to learn at this time.
In his speech, however, my noble friend Lord Bruce advocated a democratic socialist society, and he did so with sincerity and conviction. A good deal of what he said was sensible, but I know that he will agree that the word "socialist" has been damaged and polluted by a generation of twisted dictators who were responsible for the deaths of millions of people. But their so-called socialism was as far distant from that of my noble friend as the policies of Adenauer and Willy Brandt were from those of Hitler. Christianity itself has, over the centuries, produced sects which bear no relationship whatsoever to the teachings of the New Testament.
The late Alexander Dubcek, who suffered in the cauldron of post-war communism in Eastern Europe, said in 1968:
"We wish to meet people's longing for a society in which they can feel human among human beings. This active, humane, integrating quality of socialism, a society without antagonisms, is what we want to realise systematically and gradually".
It is hard to quarrel with that. My noble friend referred to the Government of 1945, and those, I believe, were the objectives of the Attlee Government, one of the great reforming governments of our history—something that the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, who was a member of that government, failed to mention in his speech when he was criticising the Labour Party.
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In this country we have our own concepts of socialism. We must concede that they vary, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Let me remind the noble Lords, Lord Moyne and Lord Harris of High Cross, whose speeches I enjoyed, that it has been said that the Labour Party, as my noble friend Lord Ardwick reminded us, owes more to Methodism than to marxism. Of course we have always had our Christian socialists whose influence upon the Labour movement has been profound. They have outstanding representatives in the House who are respected throughout the country. I hope that I may be allowed to mention two of them; namely, my noble friend Lord Longford, whose speech we much enjoyed, and, as he said, my noble friend Lord Soper. Their aspirations rise above party politics. As for myself, I still believe in a mixed economy sensibly achieved. I take the view that most of the current privatisation programme is against the real public interest. As the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, said of nationalisation, privatisation is "a real disappointment".
People are led to believe that they must choose between a command economy and a market economy and that there is no other option. As my noble friend Lord Plant said, that is misleading. We should know that the one can lead to disaster and collapse and the other, at its worst, to gerrymandering, the Fraud Squad and to what Edward Heath called,
"the unacceptable face of capitalism".
We know that there is a better way. It must be the objective, struggle and hope of political parties to find that better way.
We believe in a democratic government, which implies consultation with people at all levels, accountability to elected Parliaments and councils which carry out policies which have been approved by the electorate. I fear that we are drifting away from that. We need, above all, leadership with strength and total integrity which can retain the confidence of the people of this country. The noble Lord, Lord Grimond, rightly pointed out that people are disillusioned with the Government, as the Newbury by-election revealed so dramatically.
Above all, we need a compassionate Government who give priority to the urgent needs of all the people: the priorities are housing, health, education, the needs of the elderly and the provision of work; 3 million unemployed people are no foundation for a fair society. The under-class; to which several noble Lords have referred, must go. We need a Government whose objective is to raise not just material but moral standards in a free society and to tackle the breakdown of civic order, the family and other institutions which make up a civilised community. Let us work together to achieve that and to make Britain great in things that really matter.
5.7 p.m.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Fraser of Carmyllie): My Lords, I enjoyed the debate more than I expected. I appreciated especially the elegant and eloquent settling of rather elderly scores on the Benches opposite and the posing of what appeared to

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me to be some rather ancient questions. I was particularly enthralled by the account the noble Earl, Lord Longford, gave of sparring with Molotov at a time when the height of my vaulting conservative ambition was to get out of my playpen. That is a fitting metaphor for what it seems to me the Motion calls for: it was not to leave me as a child in a playpen but to leave me as an adult within it as well.
What struck me as somewhat of a surprise with the Motion was that I was unaware that there was a case,
"for the progressive establishment of a democratic socialist society within the United Kingdom".
Nor, frankly, was I aware that there were any socialists left. The peripatetic Leader of the Opposition in another place has made what I understand he describes as a raft of keynote speeches since taking up office last July. One would need to go through the speeches with a fine-toothed comb to find the word "socialist". Many years ago, Aneurin Bevan said that the Labour Party was a crusade or it was nothing. When the Leader of the Labour Party shies away from the use of the word I can only conclude that it may be nothing.
Within recent days and weeks the only occasion upon which one has seen the word "socialist" used was on a banner in Dundee marching towards Timex. The words "socialist" and "worker" were used together. What is astonishing about the way that matters have developed there is that no respectable member of the Labour Party would have anything to do with those seeking to march behind that banner. The definition of what is socialism has now become so elusive as to be essentially meaningless. If the Labour Party ever espoused a socialist philosophy, what now appears to be espoused is a philosophy of "soundbites" and the politics of a press release.
Outside the Soviet Union, if the expression "socialism" means anything it was used in its grossest form in Germany when the word "national" was put in front of it. However, the noble Lord in his Motion prefers to put in front the word "democratic". That particular variety has not faired too brilliantly, either. The people of France have the dubious distinction of possibly being the last major country to have a socialist Government, which was recently comprehensively swept from office. Surely it is now time for socialism to face up to its failures. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister recently observed:
"Socialism has been discredited by experience. Conservatism has been validated by history".
The trouble with socialism is that it goes against the grain of human nature. As the estimable author, Michael Oakeshott, observed, human beings are impelled by an acquired love of making choices for themselves. Choice is anathema to socialism; it is, on the other hand, at the centre of Conservative philosophy.
I like the description given by my noble friend Lord Moyne. He said that from time to time those who would have described themselves as liberals or socialists came close to accepting some of the tenets of conservatism but at the last minute swerved away. My
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noble friend described it as "girlish". In these modern times I am not allowed to follow him down that path but I certainly understand what he meant.
In the past 14 years the Government have sought to extend choice at every turn. And, frankly, at every turn socialists have sought to stop that choice. As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, rather than allowing choice, socialism imposed priorities.
Thirled still to the view that the state can manage economic and personal relations between people better than businesses or families, if socialism ever held the emotional or moral high ground mentioned today it has sadly degenerated into little more than a busybodies' charter founded on the premise that people cannot be trusted to make the right decisions for themselves.
The world is filled with monuments to the failure of socialism. Africanised socialism is little more than a password for a Swiss bank account. My noble friend Lord Marlesford had the generosity to say that he applauded parts of our public life which have been introduced by the Labour Party. He made reference in particular to the welfare state. The noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, correctly spoke of the moral ground which the Labour Party claim to have held. I hope that it is not heretical to my noble friends if I say that I too can think of occasions when a high moral ground was held by the Labour Party, in particular during the time of the Founding Fathers. Anyone who comes from a Scottish background cannot but acknowledge the correctness of the appalling evils which Wheatley discerned when he looked at housing in the west of Scotland during the first decades of this century—and rightly so.
However, one has only to contemplate the consequence of the socialist solution to those evils; the vast municipal housing estates. They are totally without humanity, totally without a sense of community and are frequently a centre of what is least attractive in our public life. What is right and what ought to have been appreciated is that those solutions, which were at once idealistically engaged upon, were not the right way forward. Our techniques of extending home ownership and strengthening the rights of tenants is a far preferable way to move forward.
The noble Lord, Lord Plant, adopted the terminology of "bottom line", which the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, so dislikes. I shall read his speech carefully; but he appeared to say that socialism was "where markets fail". If that is correct, I am intrigued by the definition because it is implicit within it that the primacy of the market must first be acknowledged.
It appears that socialism has now degenerated into little more than a confusion of free market revisionism where, according to the Leader of the Opposition in another place, ownership of industry—an astonishing idea when one contemplates the period of time to which we have referred—is largely irrelevant. If ownership of industry is largely irrelevant so too, one must assume, is Clause 4 of the Labour Party's constitution. I sometimes wonder which particular

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Morrisonian model the Labour Party would hold to be appropriate with regard to the ownership of industry or any public assets.
One becomes confused when, again according to the Leader of the Labour Party, socialism is now about putting power back into the hands of the citizen. That may be a fine phrase fashioned in the dulce suburbs of Morningside in Edinburgh but one wonders how vigorously the Member of Parliament for Bolsover will adopt it as a style of campaigning when he is in his native Derbyshire.
Interestingly, the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, homed in on the use of the word "empowering". I suppose that one of the more intriguing political battles of the late 1980s and the early 1990s was that of the differing political persuasions seeking to arrest that word from one another. I loved the noble Lord's remarks about fair play. It sounded like a lovely passage from Trollope. However, there is a yawning gap between rhetoric and reality when it comes to the Labour Party. Its claim to be the party of power to the citizen, individual freedom and accountability is at odds with its opposition to the greater role of parents in education, or the extension of trusts and GP fundholding in the health service, or the reform of local government which has the extension of accountability at its heart.
My noble friend Lord Marlesford referred in passing to my noble friend Lord Joseph, who regrettably cannot be here today. Some of us will never forget my noble friend's great speech at a party conference in which he said that our task was not merely to put a ratchet on the advance of socialism but to reverse it. I must say that there were those with faint hearts who listened hopefully but with some scepticism. I agree with my noble friend Lord Marlesford that the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, in seeing a way forward to the progressive introduction of democratic socialism, might better have reflected on and appreciated the fact that things have changed. The opportunity to move forward relentlessly, which appeared to be the option available until my noble friend Lady Thatcher became Prime Minister, has well and truly gone.
I accept that the British Labour Party has a distinctive British character. However, it must begin to understand the changing role of government and to become open-minded and realistic. The party claims to have a fellow feeling for the Democrats in the United States of America. In spite of the desire progressively to move forward it has failed to understand as yet that, in the words of Mario Cuomo, the Democratic Governor of New York, it is not necessarily the Government's obligations to provide the services but to see that they are provided. If that is understood, a wealth of different opportunities then opens up as regards the way in which the country might be governed. The noble Lord, Lord Grimond, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, do not like some of our privatisation proposals. But if that approach is accepted, it is in no sense wrong or unthinking to see how best the market might provide for those services that it is the duty of government to see are provided.
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In winding up the debate, the noble Lord on the Front Bench opposite referred to local government. As I understand it, he felt that if there is one place that socialism and democracy is still satisfactorily to be found in place, it is in local authorities in various parts of the country. I should like the noble Lord to think long and hard about the local authority of Monklands in Scotland. There are hugely undemocratic procedures in place there: there are jobs for the boys; there is bias in the distribution of resources. If you seek to obtain a job in Monklands, there are different colours of forms which will indicate where you come from, whom you know and—perhaps worst of all—what your religion might be. There are green forms and other coloured forms. I should have thought that anyone describing himself as democratic or socialist would believe that to be utterly reprehensible. It is the feeblest plea in mitigation that I have ever heard to say that those coloured forms are of no importance because by the time the forms appear before a committee they have been through a photocopier and are all reduced to white.
Those allegations do not emanate from the Conservative Party, the Scottish Nationalists or the Liberal Democrats in Scotland. Those allegations are made by Labour regional councils, Labour district councils, constituency party chairmen and Labour party members. In spite of those exhortations on behalf of his constituency association, both the Leader of the Opposition and the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland have been deafening in their silence as regards offering any condemnation of those practices on the part of that district council, where both have their seats. As was said recently, the present Leader of the Labour Party threatens to go down in history as the only Member of Parliament to be picketed outside his surgery by his own constituency party, as happened recently. With friends like that, who needs enemies?
At one point during the debate when no very clear explanation was being given to us as to how we might advance democratic socialism within the United Kingdom, I sat up when the noble Lord, Lord Rea, said that it was wrong—and he criticised his own party—not to look beyond our own shores. I am sure that a number of noble Lords sat up wondering on what trip to which exotic land we were to be taken. Were we to be taken to Ghana, to Cuba, to Chile, to Mozambique, Cambodia or where? We subsided in our seats when it became clear that no promised land was to be offered to us as an example because, quite simply, there is no promised land to look to.
Such is the unwillingness of those who espouse the socialist cause to show any intellectual vigour that they have not put forward any new model for us to consider. There is at best a Trabant motor car which has had a change of its external colour but little else. It remains smelly, inefficient, uncomfortable and the people do not want it.
The socialist perspective, and add to it what you will in terms of the democratic or otherwise, is still wrong because it feeds the presumption lying not in favour of the individual but in favour of the state. Edmund Burke said:

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"I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other centuries and in this. But I do say that, in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least on a par in favour of the people".
I did not deny the early moral beginnings of the Labour Party, and I do not deny that many are so motivated. What some fail to appreciate is that the presumption which lies behind the course which they run is one which the people do not want. For my part, I hope that the progressive movement which the noble Lord seeks will stop. I believe that it was stopped in the 1980s and I hope that its progress will never be resumed.
Lord Macaulay of Bragar: My Lords, before the noble and learned Lord sits down, perhaps I may ask him whether he has read the report published yesterday—and I have not yet had the opportunity to see it—on Monklands District Council. That report indicates that there was no undue interference in the democratic process in the Monklands area any more than in any other place in Scotland. The report makes certain recommendations. Obviously, one must look at the report. However, the noble and learned Lord has made certain assertions about what is happening there which have not been borne out by the report.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, my response to that is that, as I indicated, the allegations are not made by me nor are they made by other political parties in Scotland but are made by members of the Monklands District Council and Labour Party members there. I should be interested to hear their response to the report. I hope that sooner or later the Leader of the Opposition and the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland might give us the benefit of their views on what is clearly a matter of considerable anxiety.
5.26 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate this afternoon. I am grateful also for the fact that quite a large number stayed to listen to it. Noble Lords who have participated will forgive me if I do not refer to them individually.
The debate was extremely friendly and until the noble and learned Lord, Lord Fraser, made his speech, there was a remarkable consensus. I could not help but feel that the standard to which the noble and learned Lord dragged the debate was rather lower than one would have expected of a person replying to a debate of this kind. In view of the fact that he made certain allegations about individual members of my party that are not the subject of the debate—and I attacked no one—I give him notice that next time he rises to his feet in a debate such as this I shall be less merciful than I propose to be today.
The noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, was a former colleague of mine in another place. He made some extremely interesting observations which I thought were in the nature of trailing his coat for me to reply. He paid some tribute to my regard for Keynes. My
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regard for Keynes, like his own, was largely derived from his general theory, contained in a book which I acquired early on. It said:
"I conceive, therefore, that a somewhat comprehensive socialisation of investment will prove the only means of securing an approximation to full employment".
It said also:
"Moreover, the necessary measures of socialisation can be introduced gradually and without a break in the general traditions of society".
I can hardly be blamed for admiring Keynes when he set forth views which are almost identical to my own.
The noble Lord did chide me about my attitude towards the Maastricht Treaty. I shall respond briefly because I cannot anticipate my Maastricht statement. When he makes his strictures in the future, I invite the noble Lord to bear in mind that my principal objection to Maastricht is its lack of democracy and the growth of a bureaucracy without any accountability to anyone. No doubt we shall hear his tributes to democracy in due course.
When one intends to make a reference to a Member of the House, I know that it is customary to give that noble Lord notice in advance. However, I was not able to give the noble Lord in question the notice that is normally required, mainly because I do not intend to do anything other than support him. However, I should like your Lordships to pay attention to the remarks made by a very distinguished member of the Conservative Party in the debate last week on wealth creation. I think that they probably more nearly reflect the views of most Members of the House of any party than those reflected in the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Fraser. Therefore, in complete endorsement, I refer to the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, no less, in that debate. He concluded with the following words that I commend to your Lordships:
"I do not want to wander into theology or to be carried away by my own enthusiasm. But I believe that the context in which we look at the generation of wealth will be entirely lopsided if we do not recognise that…wealth has to be put to a purpose which serves the whole of the nation and the whole of mankind and that we shall not be fit to discharge that function if we do not again recognise those values on which we stood in two world wars and which are fit for an eternity of peace".—[Official Report, 12/5/93; col. 1302.]
Those are my sentiments and, I venture to suggest to the noble and learned Lord, those of the majority of the people in this House. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

The "Salisbury Doctrine"
5.32 p.m.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale Lord Simon of Glaisdale rose to call attention to the "Salisbury doctrine" and other practices which qualify the House of Lords' parliamentary role; and to move for Papers.
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, your Lordships have just debated the momentous issues.of socialism and democracy. I am asking your Lordships to focus more narrowly on the various practices which inhibit noble Lords from playing their full parliamentary role. There are about half a dozen issues of great

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constitutional importance which are calling urgently for the consideration of a Royal Commission. Among them, as the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, just said, is that of the powers and composition of your Lordships' House.
However, I propose to focus today's Motion on the present powers and composition. That inevitably means that there must be less than full deployment of the legal powers at your Lordships' disposal. That is because political society at large has not yet really worked out the place of an elite in a democratic society. Unquestionably, a House which is partly hereditary and partly nominated is an elite. As a result, an elected House seems to have a sort of democratic magic. Whether it has such magic and whether it is truly democratic depends upon two factors: first, how it is elected, as I expect the noble Earl, Lord Russell, will want to remind us in due course; and, secondly, to what extent an elected House transmutes itself into an elite. It has the famous words of Burke as an encouragement to do so when he said to the electors of Bristol:
"Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion".
One must consider that the other place is not entirely democratic at all times. Nevertheless, there is no question that public opinion views your Lordships' House as having less than complete political credibility. That must affect how your Lordships proceed. I shall therefore be urging not only some extension in the deployment of your Lordships' powers, but also some caution.
I wish to say at the outset how grateful I am that the Motion has attracted the attention of so many eminent students of the constitution. I am especially grateful that two former Leaders of your Lordships' House have put down their names to speak. I am greatly honoured that the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition and the noble Lord the Chief Whip are to speak at the conclusion of the debate.
The first question is to determine the proper role, or roles, of your Lordships' House. I would put very high, but not really entirely relevant to the subject matter of the debate, your Lordships' role as a great council of state. If one considers the wealth of experience, knowledge and authority that your Lordships bring to bear on finance, economics, defence, foreign affairs, justice and education—indeed, it is hardly possible to come to the end of the list—no other deliberative assembly in the world can match that experience and authority in those respects.
However, what is more to the moment is your Lordships' role as a constitutional watchdog. Again, I need not expatiate on that because it has just been admirably expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn. Finally, the most of moment question is your Lordships' role as a revising Chamber. I believe that that is universally conceded. All too often, I fear, it means merely registering the Government's tinkering with the drafting of a Bill. But there is no question now that your Lordships on occasion, and not infrequently, carry amendments against the Government. That is sometimes put euphemistically—and, I think, very misleadingly—as asking the
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House of Commons to think again. That implies that it is the Members of the other place who do the thinking, and that the thinking is about the issue implicit in the amendment. But in point of fact neither of those things is true. Your Lordships have only to think of the Further and Higher Education Bill at the end of the last Session when this Chamber, in the teeth of fierce government opposition, wrote an important amendment into the legislation in vindication of academic freedom. The Government accepted that amendment; but they accepted it because a prorogation was pending and if they had resisted it the whole Bill would almost certainly have been lost.
Moreover they did not concede the issue; because in the Education Bill at the moment before your Lordships the Government returned in Clause 1—however, at the moment they are in retreat—to the issue on which they were defeated at the end of the previous Session. That is the important role that is most relevant to what I wanted to submit to your Lordships.
It is most important in respect of delegated legislation. The highly respected chairman of the Joint Select Committee on Statutory Instruments, Mr. Cryer, has recently drawn attention to the extent and importance of delegated legislation. He did that in evidence before the Hansard Committee and he made a valuable appearance on television. To realise the extent of that legislation, one has only to consider the last year—oddly enough that was as long ago as 1989—for which all the statutory instruments have been published. There are seven massive volumes of them as against three volumes of statutes and ecclesiastical measures, plus one index.
Your Lordships will appreciate the vast extent of the legislation that affects the citizens of this country. As for the importance of that legislation, the Child Support Bill, which is now the Child Support Act, was virtually only a skeleton measure. Everything effective was to be done by subordinate legislation. Only last Monday your Lordships considered subordinate legislation relating to such important matters as marine pollution and the rights or the duties of citizens—or the burden on them—to be wheel-clamped. One could go on almost indefinitely.
The reason, of course, why government departments like to proceed by subordinate legislation is that it avoids the gauntlet of statutory procedures; it is unamendable; and, if there is a negative procedure, the House of Commons is frequently bypassed. Above all, if the legislation is wrong and causes injustice or hardship, the statutory instrument can simply be withdrawn and a new one laid. If some people in the meantime have suffered hardship and injustice, there is the homely and rather heartless phrase about having to break eggs in order to make omelettes.
I place very high in the duties of your Lordships' House the increasing scrutiny of subordinate legislation. I need not go in detail into your Lordships' powers and inhibitions because a most valuable memorandum has been produced by the Clerk of the Parliaments. It is dated last February and I understand it is freely available. At any rate I have been told I can refer to it. The inhibitions of your

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Lordships' House are largely the following. Your Lordships do not as a matter of practice vote down a statutory instrument. The last occasion when that was done was in 1968 on the Southern Rhodesia order.
In addition, as I have said, your Lordships cannot amend a statutory instrument. I urge your Lordships to do two things. The first is to adopt what has been done by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on several occasions, and that is to move and support a resolution recommending amendments in a statutory instrument. That has been to a great degree successful. The other course is to adjourn consideration of the measure. That almost always evokes government action.
I pass shortly and quickly to the Salisbury doctrine; namely, that your Lordships do not vote against the Second Reading of a Bill which is foreshadowed in the election manifesto. I do not think any of your Lordships would have doubted that measure at the time it was propounded, when there was a Labour Government with a strong majority in the other place and a reforming programme and an overwhelming Conservative majority in your Lordships' House. I think your Lordships would readily agree that that was a very sensible proposal.
Of course it is arguable that now your Lordships' House is differently constituted your Lordships can abandon that course. I myself would venture to counsel against that. There are several circumstances in which your Lordships can undoubtedly vote against a Second Reading—for example, on a Private Member's Bill, on a free vote of the other place and on other such occasions. I only want to mention two circumstances where it would involve a breach of the Salisbury doctrine to do so. One is where a Bill is quite outrageous constitutionally. I have mentioned the Child Support Act. Not only was it a skeleton Act but it committed practically every constitutional enormity in the book.
The other circumstance where your Lordships can properly refuse a Second Reading is when your Lordships are given insufficient time to discuss a measure of great importance. I think, on reflection, we ought to have voted against the Education Bill on the ground that prolonging discussion until the early hours of the morning was an abuse of your Lordships' House. I beg to move for Papers.
5.48 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I am sure your Lordships, regardless of the views they hold, are very grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, for instituting this debate on a subject on which he is of course an acknowledged authority. I am sure that it is a most useful debate following the one which we have just participated in.
This debate is concerned with the effective working of your Lordships' House. This is of very great importance both to the general constitutional situation in the country and to your Lordships' House itself. On the first matter, as has already been mentioned, there are people who contemplate, and indeed advocate, very considerable changes in your
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Lordships' House, or indeed its abolition. To them the only answer can be the effective working of the House. Is it doing a good job, and can it do an even better one? Its procedure certainly is of very great relevance from this point of view.
Therefore, I say both to those of your Lordships who favour radical or revolutionary reform and to those who, like myself, believe that the present structure of our parliamentary system is about right that in both cases we must surely be concerned to see that the system works well. If it is to work well it has to be looked at from time to time.
The Motion refers to the "Salisbury doctrine" and the splendid job of work which the late Lord Salisbury did on that occasion. That was undoubtedly right at the time. However, events have moved on. The pressures on your Lordships' House in terms of the pressure of legislation, the pressure of work and the pressure of the demands of public opinion have all greatly increased. Therefore, it is singularly appropriate that we should now examine the situation to see whether our rules, principles and practices are appropriate for the current situation. That has a bearing, first, on our being able to do a good job, and, secondly, on what public opinion may or may not feel is the proper future and shape of this House. Therefore, I propose to touch on one or two specific points where it seems to me that there are matters which your Lordships may wish very carefully to consider.
First, I should like to contest the view which has recently been expressed by the Select Committee on Procedure that if an issue has not been debated for many years then it should not be debated at all. That seems a very restrictive and out-of-date approach. First, it eliminates the possibility that our predecessors had been wrong not to debate it. The doctrine of the infallibility of our predecessors is not really sustainable. Secondly, circumstances change. As I ventured to say a moment ago, circumstances have changed since the Salisbury advice was given. We may feel that it is necessary to modify views, such as the one I quoted, which date back to that period.
The question which then. arises is which matters should be debated. I accept, as I believe most of your Lordships accept, the general provisions of the Parliament Act that we cannot and should not amend a money Bill and, as my noble and learned friend said, that we certainly should not reject a Bill which is an election manifesto Bill. However, beyond that there are difficult questions as to the extent to which your Lordships' House should be prepared to reject legislation coming from another place.
A classic example, to which my noble and learned friend did not refer, was the Bill dealing with war crimes, which your Lordships' House rejected emphatically and which nonetheless another place, by a rather unusual use of its powers under the Parliament Act, eventually passed over our heads. The fact that since then many millions of pounds of public money have been spent without, so far as I know, a single person being brought to trial, and it has been

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condemned as an unfair and unsound legal procedure by most of the leading legal figures in this country, shows that we were right.
It is perhaps ironic that after spending millions of pounds not only have proceedings not even been started against anybody, but I see from the press that in Australia the other day somebody was brought to trial and was acquitted. The jury said that it was absurd to try a man for offences alleged to have been committed such a long time ago and, therefore, was not prepared to convict him. It is quite possible that if anybody was ever brought to trial here an English jury would take the same view.
There is also the question, which we have already discussed on a number of occasions, of our treatment of the Consolidated Fund Bill. Here again the attitude of the Procedure Committee has shown excessive concern for the well-being and comfort of the usual channels and rather less for the legislative role of this House. The Consolidated Fund Bill is of enormous importance. Although, being a money Bill, it is not one which your Lordships can or should attempt to reject, with the enormous volume of experience of economics and public and private finance which we have in this House, your Lordships could contribute usefully to discussion of the Bill.
Here again I must be critical of the Procedure Committee because one of its reasons for rejecting the proposal that the Bill should be debated was that it came to us at very short notice. I ventured to inquire of the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees whether inquiries had been made as to whether there was any procedural or practical necessity for the shortness of notice. I was informed that no such inquiry had been made. It does not seem to me that there could be the slightest difficulty in arranging for information that that Bill was on its way to be given in due time.
Therefore, I hope that your Lordships' House will feel that it is wrong to debar debate on such issues, whether or not we can vote on them or defeat them, because your Lordships' House can contribute so much by way of knowledge and experience. This House can contribute so much more to discussion of such matters than is available in another place or anywhere else in this country. Even if that discussion does not result in the immediate amendment of the measure, it puts into circulation ideas, criticisms and thoughts about the matter which will be of the greatest use in the future. Therefore, I suggest with great respect that your Lordships' House should be given the maximum opportunity to debate such measures, even though they may be measures which for one reason or another your Lordships' House cannot reject.
I shall raise a question which perhaps my noble friend the Chief Whip can answer. Your Lordships' House very properly debated the Disability (Grants) Bill, which is a very interesting and important social measure. In the course of the Second Reading debate a most moving and effective speech was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton. However, for some reason all the remaining stages of that Bill were
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not taken. Again, that curtails the debating opportunities of this House totally unnecessarily. It is the greatest pity.
Finally, I am very glad that my noble friend the Chief Whip is on the Front Bench because our great problem is the increasing shortage of Ministers in this House. During the 20 or so years that I have been a Member of this House the number of senior Ministers in the House has been steadily reduced. We now have only two members of the Cabinet, of which my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor is one. In the nature of things, being on the Woolsack most of the time, he has some difficulty in taking part in debates except on wholly legal matters. We are also very short of senior Ministers of State.
I am full of admiration for the way in which our young junior Ministers participate, sometimes not even being in the department involved. They are exposed to unnecessary strain; and it is no criticism of them that they are unable to contribute to our debates quite as effectively as perhaps one might hope. Therefore I leave with my noble friend the Chief Whip the thought that Her Majesty's Government should be advised that if your Lordships' House is to work as it should we must have more Ministers, more senior Ministers and representation of all the government departments, including the Treasury.
6 p.m.
Lord Shackleton: My Lords, the reason that I wished to take part in the debate is because I am one of the few Members who knew Lord Salisbury. I arrived in the House conscious that Lord Salisbury was a great figure, a very reactionary figure and one to be ignored. I was not here long before I realised that he taught us one of the great qualities of your Lordships: good manners. I received a letter from him when I was about to make a speech. He apologised that he could not be present for it. His contribution to your Lordships' House in terms of manners as well as procedure was profound. I hope that that will be remembered. There will not be many of us—my noble friend Lord Longford is one—who served when Lord Salisbury was Leader of the House.
I was Leader of the House at one time when we had to apply our procedures in difficult circumstances. We managed well largely because we contrived to speak in a friendly way to our opponents. There was a degree of understanding in another place which is not so strong now as it was when we were there. That is a fundamental point in the working and procedure of the House. It is very satisfactory that so many noble Lords are at present listening to the debate.
Lord Salisbury produced a solution that made it possible for this House to function and to do its duty as well as it could under difficult circumstances. That has not been entirely honoured by all parties. Indeed, I would hesitate to say that the Salisbury doctrine is a valid doctrine: it certainly is not recorded officially anywhere. I believe therefore that the consideration of our procedures, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, is necessary. At one time it was suggested that there should be consideration by the Procedure Committee. That consideration never took

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place, I believe probably rightly, because the system was narrow and it was difficult to weigh matters fully in the atmosphere at the time. However, I believe that it will be necessary to carry out some procedure. We have to live with certain anomalies, in particular with regard to the statutory instruments, which are unsatisfactory. We are rather dishonest about it. We had better recognise that and give some further thought to tackling the problem.
However, a major change will mean a major constitutional change. I do not believe that we are ready for that yet. I hope that the Labour Party is producing a good and useful system which will contribute to an understanding of the right constitutional role of the Second Chamber. However, I doubt whether it will come into much powerful effect in my lifetime. Therefore I believe that it is worthwhile to ask the Procedure Committee to consider what is said in the debate.
The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, certainly opened my eyes to certain subjects, as did the noble and learned Lord who initiated the debate, much to our advantage. There is no simple solution. Ours is a procedure which is difficult to understand and in which not many Peers take an interest. We want to foster interest in procedure. More Peers ought to take an interest. The debates arising from the reports of the Procedure Committee are rather perfunctory.
Much can be done by example. In that respect I believe that the responsibility of the Leader of the House and the Tory Chief Whip is fundamental to carrying improvements in the House. Advised by the excellent Clerks who give us ideas, I hope that they will give some attention to the issue, bearing in mind that the fundamental nature of the Salisbury reforms was based on the good manners and good understanding which existed in your Lordships' House.
6.4 p.m.
Lord Rippon of Hexham: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House is grateful for the way in which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, has introduced the debate, and I thank him for raising what we all understand are important constitutional issues. I would accept that the main role of the House is to improve and amend Bills either by vote or by persuasion. What I would not accept in 1993 is the doctrine of the mandate in quite the simplistic terms expressed by Lord Salisbury in his statement in 1964 which is reported in Hansard, 4th November 1964, col. 66, which indicated that the decision of the House should be taken merely by reference to an election manifesto.
In modern times election manifestos, as I know, have become increasingly long and turgid and are rarely read even by candidates themselves. Moreover, the Bills that are subsequently produced in alleged furtherance of a manifesto pledge often bear little or no relation to the one or two lines or paragraphs presented notionally to the electors. I believe that there is therefore much merit in the suggestion by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale,
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that one might consider that there is a right to delay if insufficient time has been provided to anybody inside or outside Parliament to consider measures of great importance, even if they are briefly referred to in an election manifesto.
The doctrine of the mandate should apply only where (as, perhaps, I may suggest, in the case of the Maastricht Bill) a party has made its policy perfectly clear at a general election; or where (again as in the case of the Maastricht Bill) there has been a full discussion of the issue in another place. If the power to delay a Bill is one to be used only rarely, I do not believe that any such inhibition should necessarily apply to amendments, in particular those designed to limit the power of the Executive. In that connection I hope that the House may be helped from time to time by the work of the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee. The growth in the volume of delegation in recent years has been enormous. Last year the total number of statutory instruments exceeded 3,000 for the first time. The total was 3,359. The first four months of this year show an even higher rate of output—1,192 to the end of April.
We are always talking about the bureaucracy in Brussels. We ought to take more notice of what goes on in Whitehall. I am told that Counsel to the Speaker and Counsel to the Chairman of Committees in this House, and their staff, are absolutely overwhelmed by the volume of instruments that they are asked to consider, working even at weekends and sometimes on holidays.
In certain circumstances, it seems that this House may decide that there should be no delegation. But, where they agree that delegation is perfectly proper, it is not, in my judgment, sufficient to say, "Oh, well, is it to be negative or is it to be affirmative?" when there is no vote in either case. In practice, the affirmative procedure amounts to "Take it or leave it", and the negative to "Take it and be damned". I agree entirely with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, said—that we should at least be prepared from time to time to move a recommendation for amendment or to move adjournment for further consideration. I believe that I am right in saying that power has occasionally been given to both Houses of Parliament to approve a draft order in Council or draft departmental order with modifications. In such cases, orders could only be made with such modifications as have been agreed by both Houses, as was done, for example, under the Ministry of Health Act 1919 and the Government of India Act 1919. I am afraid that I cannot find any more recent examples, but there may be future occasions when such a procedure might be considered by the authorities.
However, the mischief in modern legislation, it seems to me, goes deeper. I do not wish to dwell today upon the increase in quantity and the decline in quality of legislation. We have debated that on other occasions and we shall no doubt do so again. I hope that in due course the report of the Hansard Society Commission on the Legislative Process, which I had the honour to chair and on which served representatives from both Houses of Parliament, a former Permanent Secretary, a former Chief Parliamentary

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Counsel, and others of distinction, will be found to contain some recommendations that will commend themselves to your Lordships.
However, what certainly deserves study is the evidence presented to the commission which is annexed to the report—and it can be read in the Library—which comes from a whole variety of responsible bodies. Virtually without exception, they complain about lack of consultation before Bills are introduced, although some departments—including the Inland Revenue—do better than others. They complain of lack of time between the stages of Bills to consider amendments and deal with the practicalities of understanding implementation and enforcement. Reference has been made by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter to the Disability (Grants) Bill. Time and again, we are simply not getting the legislation right.
Thus, the Association of Chief Police Officers of England and Wales told the commission how, in the recent past, the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and the Aggravated Vehicle-Taking Act 1991 provide examples of legislation in which there was little time given for in-depth consideration. There was no consultation or inadequate consultation about the 1989 Act on public order relating to gypsies and travellers and the Road Traffic Act 1991. In all cases, the police were asked to be responsible for matters for which they quite clearly did not even have the resources. They would have advised about the difficulties if they had had time to consider the legislation. Again, they are concerned, like other bodies, about the lack of consultation which takes place if, in the course of the passage of a Bill through Parliament, clauses are added or other amendments made which considerably alter the Bill's effect. We know from our recent experience that time and again government amendments alone far exceed in length Bills which themselves run into hundreds of pages.
Apart from the particular examples given by bodies such as the police, there is the more general mischief that all too frequently no sooner has a statute been enacted than it may be subject to massive amendment, as in the case of the Criminal Justice Act 1987 amended by the Criminal Justice Act 1988, and, of course, as we know, there is another one coming along soon.
We are sometimes told that correctness and certainty must be sacrificed to speed. The programme must be got through by the end of the Session at all costs, regardless of all considerations. There is therefore one particular recommendation in the Hansard Society Commission's report which I commend to your Lordships. It is that we should move towards the adoption of a two-year legislation programme. If our parliamentary sweatshop is to perform the proper function of amending and improving Bills, I believe that there must be an adequate interval between the stages of important Bills.
The present one-year legislative programme both delays and compresses the drafting stage in some cases and leads to under-prepared Bills being presented to Parliament. If there were a rolling programme, that
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would not necessarily prevent the Government bringing forward urgent legislation. In fact, it could not do that. The Government must be responsible for their programme. But if we plan a more thorough examination of the Bills that come before us—and a rolling programme is one way of doing that—we would at least allay some of the very serious concerns that are now being expressed right across the board by one organisation or another outside Parliament.
6.15 p.m.
The Earl of Strafford: My Lords, I too should like to thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, for introducing the debate, which I believe is especially important at this time.
Perhaps the root cause of our problem goes back to the bruising battles which culminated in the Parliament Act 1911 which marked the political supremacy of the Commons. Since then, the other place has got us in a psychological half-nelson. We have been told repeatedly that we should not really be here, so we tend to tiptoe about, afraid to make too much noise in case we are noticed and given our marching orders.
A factor which undoubtedly inhibits us is the acceptance of the conventional wisdom that election rather than nomination is a superior form of selection. That may seem sound in theory; in practice it is not. An elected second Chamber would result at this moment in the Members of both Houses of Parliament being fettered by party politics. One of the most valuable side effects of the present composition of this House is that party politics are muffled. The country likes it that way.
It is certainly instructive in this context that, in a recent Gallup poll in which people were asked to state whether they had "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in 10 of our leading institutions with which they came into contact, the results were as follows. The Army came top with 82 per cent. closely followed by the police with 74 per cent. Parliament trailed third from bottom with a modest 24 per cent.; only the trade unions and the press scored less.
Another poll which compared people's evaluation of politicians in general and their own MPs in particular came up with an interesting fact. Politicians as a group scored very badly, individual MPs, surprisingly well. Both of those polls were aimed at the Commons and suggest that a major problem is party politics and the party politician playing "party games". People can accept this in moderation but the continual din of party politics turns them off. This House is perceived to be largely above all that.
However, back to that psychological half-nelson which inhibits us. The position has changed and changed dramatically. First, in 1968 the Government of the day, with our co-operation, proposed a radical overhaul of this House. They failed to get it through the Commons. That established that we were not against reform as such. Secondly, and of far more significance was the introduction of the first Life Peers 10 years previously. It has been noted that this House has steadily shown more confidence during the past decade and that is clearly the result of the increasing

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impact made by successive waves of Life Peers who now play the major role in our activities. The result of that influx of talent has been to give the House a massive blood transfusion. It has also been an important way of ensuring a voice for groups in our society who are not adequately represented in the Commons. In this context, it is certainly no accident that there are so many able and articulate women on all sides of the House and that they play such a prominent role on the Front Benches.
We are in the middle of a gradual evolution of an institution with a 600 year-old history and very deep roots in our society. It is worth remembering that the hereditary principle was considered quite normal for most of this period and that the transition to Life Peerages only started in 1958.
In this evolutionary process several issues deserve our attention. First, the privilege of voting should be separated from the right to attend and the right to speak. A shrewd comment has been made that those who attend are effective; those who are disinterested stay at home. A low threshold of, say, 10 visits during the previous Session of Parliament would give an entitlement to vote. It would certainly weed out the true backwoodsmen. Raised to 15, the threshold would involve a visit only once every two weeks.
Secondly, the representation of women in this House must reflect their increasing role and status in our society. The obvious imbalance is that at present no more than 3 per cent. of hereditary peerages are open to women. A variation on the Hereditary Peerages Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, would start that particular ball rolling by creating an option that, if a Peer had no sons, his title could be passed to his eldest daughter. I believe that all Peers who are sympathetic to an hereditary element being retained in this House would come to accept that such a reform is not only essential but highly desirable.
Thirdly, on the Salisbury convention, I accept the words of caution from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, on this subject. But I remember him saying a few weeks ago that conventions, if they are not really necessary, can be discarded. I believe that the Salisbury convention no longer applies and its continued usage masks an important function of this House. A Peer's Writ of Summons includes the phrase, "to give your counsel". In other words, we have an advising as well as a revising role. That can take the form of our right to send any Bill back to the Commons, which is in effect asking them to think again. We are fulfilling our duty as a watchdog. Sending a Bill back is merely a bark to alert both the Commons and the public that all is not well. This six months' pause is only a modest gesture. But we shall have made our point, and it will have been noticed outside the Palace of Westminster. It does not have to become a great constitutional issue. The weakness of the present system is that under the umbrella of the manifesto, the Government can claim that they have a mandate to push through whatever tickles their fancy.
Fourthly, on the selection of Life Peers, the present system puts too much patronage in the hands of the
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Prime Minister. A solution would be to extend the powers of the Honours Scrutiny Committee and give it a more formal structure. It could advise on the balance of party membership in the House and the range of expertise available and lacking. The system has worked very well in the past few years, but in the 1980s it was not as impartial as it should have been.
Fifthly, I refer to the role of the Cross-Benchers. Apparently we are very unusual. There is no group quite like us in any other parliamentary system. Among our Members are people of exceptional ability. As independents we soften party politics and act as a jury. Our numbers have grown. In the past 19 years that the noble Baroness, Lady Hylton-Foster, has been our convenor they have nearly tripled from just under 100 to nearly 300.
I believe that new hereditary Peers, unless they have strong political affiliations, should be encouraged to sit on these Benches—to start with anyway. They will get a more detached view of our proceedings and may discover that genuine independence is not a prize to be given up lightly. A shift in that direction would be healthy because the built-in advantage that the Conservatives have because of the hereditary Peers does not make for balance or harmony.
All institutions, like species, have to change to survive. It must be a continuous process. The challenge for us is how to preserve the best of the past and adapt to the needs of the future. If we do not have sufficient resolve to change, the job will be done for us, and will probably be done badly.
6.24 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I was very interested in what the noble Earl said about the composition and character of your Lordships' House. I had to help the late Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, when he was Home Secretary, pilot the Life Peerages Bill 1958 through another place. I must confess that it has wonderfully transformed this House without creating, so far as I am aware, any disadvantage to it. It has widened and enriched the composition of the House, as I believe the noble Earl indicated. I was glad to hear him say that he feels that we are now, as a result, a more confident Chamber. In addition to the experience that we obtain from former Cabinet Ministers and other more humble people like myself coming from another place, the hereditary peerage gives us the advantage of youth to a greater extent than the other place has. So we have the benefit of both youth and experience. That should not make us complacent about our composition and our powers, but we are entitled to have it acknowledged.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, has, I suggest, done more in the past 20 years than anyone else to try to improve our ways in constitutional, legislative and procedural matters.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Renton: The members of the Committee on Preparation of Legislation, of which I had the honour to be chairman, are especially grateful to him for his constant support in trying to improve the quality of

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primary legislation in accordance with our recommendations. Not enough of the important ones have been accepted, alas. But I hope that the Hansard Society Commission's report, of which my noble friend Lord Rippon was the chairman, will have a better fate. It certainly implements a great deal of what we said.
Primary legislation has for many years become more detailed, more complicated, longer and more obscure. The basic intentions of Parliament contained in it are less ascertainable. That is a pity because, if we are to have that great mass of detail, we should have some broad idea of what Parliament intends to be the result of imposing it.
In this matter, parliamentary draftsmen are in my opinion more sinned against than sinning. They have to follow the instructions given to them by civil servants. In my experience, Ministers have come into the matter at too late a stage; and I believe that that is so now. But the great mass of detailed and complicated legislation has added to the importance of your Lordships' House as a revising Chamber.
My noble friend Lord Rippon gave us good examples of legislation which was badly digested before it received Royal Assent. One of the causes is that Members of another place have become so much involved in the important work of departmentally related Select Committees and in other time-consuming and unavoidable activities that they have not always had the time, even if they had the inclination—which they do not always have—to scrutinise legislation as it should be done. So your Lordships' work in doing so is vital.
As a result of what we do, in every Session for some years thousands of amendments have been made to legislation by your Lordships. Sometimes that has meant, as has been mentioned, reversing decisions of another place. But I am glad to say that more often than not our contrary view has been accepted.
There is only one point which I would dare to dispute with the noble and learned Lord; that is when he poured scorn on the expression "asking the House of Commons to think again". I do not know any better way of expressing it. If he could tell me of one, I should be very glad. I believe that the most important power we have is to ask the House of Commons to think again, while it must have the last word, however great the quality of this Chamber compared with another place, because it is elected by the people.
I am glad that my noble friend Lord Hesketh will reply to the debate. In doing so, if he were able to give us any facts and figures about the extent to which our advice to another place on legislation has been accepted or rejected, it would be helpful and indeed valuable.
So much for primary legislation. I turn now, as other noble Lords have done, to our attitude toward secondary legislation. In doing so, I should like to acknowledge the joint efforts of the noble and learned Lord and my noble friend Lord Rippon in persuading the Government to make more restrained use of Henry VIII clauses, the extensive use of which for amending legislation has been quite unjustified for many years—although in minor ways it has been
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accepted and should be accepted as inevitable. For example, in fiscal legislation when a particular amount in terms of money has been inserted in a Bill, even though it is only in a schedule, inflation may cause that sum to be revised without bringing the matter before Parliament and troubling Parliament with a Bill. Indeed, it may be a mistake to wait too long before such amendment is made. Therefore to that minor extent a Henry VIII clause is necessary.
But one has to accept that when legislation goes into the masses of detail that I mentioned, Bills would be even longer than they are if secondary legislation, including Henry VIII clauses, were not used to some extent. What is important is that the delegated power to use it should not be abused. The report of the Jellicoe Committee was extremely valuable because it recommended the appointment of the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee—again, under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Rippon—which has already produced its first report; namely, on the Education Bill.
But when we find that a piece of secondary legislation is for some reason unsatisfactory, we should use the power, which constitutionally we have, to vote against it. It is only an outworn convention that prevents us from doing so. Is it not a ridiculous paradox that we ask the House of Commons to think again dozens of times in every Session but do not do so with regard to secondary legislation? I hope that the usual channels will get together and try to reach some agreement on this outworn convention and that we shall hear more about it in quite a positive way. I strongly support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, on this issue.
Those are the matters that I wish to mention. I conclude by saying that it is becoming increasingly understood by the public that your Lordships' House has a very valuable part to play. I find in perhaps casual conversation but conversation with a good many people of various kinds that there is no great clamour for revision of the composition of your Lordships' House. People accept that the House of Commons should have the last word but they increasingly recognise and welcome the value of the work done by your Lordships. We must take the fullest advantage of that.
6.35 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Renton, paid a well justified tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, for his work in this House over the past 20 years. I gladly join in that tribute. I pay a similar compliment in slightly different terms to the noble Lord, Lord Renton. Some of us who have been in this House for a long time occasionally find ourselves giving advice to young Members on how to proceed. The advice is not always asked for and certainly not always taken but sometimes it is given. In recent times the advice I have given to young Members is to model themselves on the noble Lord, Lord Renton. I hope that if there are some novices present—I look round and see one or two—they will have listened to his speech today with the usual benefit.

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I hope that the House will allow me to interpret the phrase the "Salisbury doctrine" in slightly different terms so that it enables me to supplement what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. I hope that it will not be mere repetition. His performance as Leader of the House filled me with undisguised envy. The noble Lord referred to Lord Salisbury in his contribution. I should like to dwell a little more fully on that time because I came to the House in 1945 when I saw him acting as Leader of the Opposition and before that he had been Leader of the House. His contribution was twofold: one was what one might call social and the other political.
Socially he made us all feel equally welcome. That may sound fairly obvious now but when I came to this House in 1945 there were only a handful of Labour Members. The place was overflowing with Conservatives. The Independents, apart from the Bishops and the Law Lords, hardly existed and the Liberals were not very numerous. Today I consulted Vacher's to see the figures for the distribution of the House but it did not even bother to give them. It was just assumed that overall it was Conservative. I suppose that one cannot find those figures. That was the situation. It might have been a very hard time for the little handful of Labour Members. Lord Salisbury made us all feel at home and realise that we were Members of a friendly society. Lord Addison also played a very big part in the formation of the post-war House with the Leader of the Labour Party. But Lord Salisbury, inevitably here at least among the serried ranks of the Conservatives, as the fourth member of his family in succession to be Leader of the House, had a unique position and he used that influence entirely for the good.
So this House became then and it has remained since the least snobbish society in the world. I say that with confidence. It may be thought that that is only what one might expect from civilised gentlemen but it might not have been so. We owe a great debt to Lord Salisbury. That is one part of what I call the "Salisbury doctrine".
The other part is, in a way, rather more interesting. I shall tell one story to illustrate what I mean. There was a much respected Labour Peer who took it on himself as his duty on one occasion to criticise Conservative Members for failing to disclose their interests in Rhodesia in the debate in which they had spoken. Lord Salisbury was one of those concerned. He was not in the House when the criticism was made. There then occurred something that I have never seen before or since in this House. A number of noble Lords stood up and walked out. If I may say so—making a party point—it was not a dignified operation. I was the Leader of the House at the time and was informed that my noble colleague had had a bad time. However, it all finished honourably, otherwise I would not be telling the story.
Lord Salisbury met my Labour friend in the corridor. He went up to him and said, "I gather that our fellows were angry with you for something you said the other day. If you thought that what you said
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was the truth and right, it was your duty to say it. This is not a club"—though in a sense it may be a better club than any other—"It is a House of Parliament".
That was the double contribution of Lord Salisbury to this House. Though I realise that there are many other aspects of the matter that have been and will be raised today, I felt that that anecdote should be told and be on the record because that is the spirit that has animated this House ever since.
6.41 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords we must all be grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale—not for the first time—for directing our attention to our own proceedings and what governs them. It is a well-known maxim of constitutional historians that the constitution, by and large, emerges in the interstices of procedure. It is procedure and changes in procedure over centuries which have made our Parliament what it is.
One can also have revolution. Everything we discuss today in relation to the Salisbury doctrine, in relation to our rights as a revising Chamber, whether in regard to primary or secondary legislation, is relevant to a House of Lords composed as it is today; that is, of hereditary and nominated persons. However, if, as a result of implementing what I understand to be the policy of the party opposite—the noble Lord, the Leader of the Opposition, will no doubt confirm that when he speaks—that were to be replaced by an elected Chamber, all this would fall away.
In every country in which there is a bicameral legislature with two Chambers, most attention is paid to conflicts between them. Those conflicts are inevitable since both can refer to the ultimate sovereignty of the people that elected them. Therefore we exist at a moment in time when we accept the sovereignty of the people in the sense that the House of Commons must have the last word and has it, in fact, in most cases—if it requires it—under the Parliament Act.
But we must think of how things change even within a House so constituted. It seems to me that in the light of that doctrine we must re-examine the Salisbury doctrine in regard to not opposing what is in a manifesto. As has been pointed out, manifestos are not only documents unknown to the constitution; they are also documents unknown to most voters and, indeed, to many candidates.
What the doctrine meant was not that something appeared in print in a manifesto, but that the country, in the course of a general election, had clearly decided on the issues raised. That is to say, were a Labour Government to be elected next time on a programme of renationalising utilities and, after a hard fought election in which that policy was central to their position, they succeeded in obtaining a majority, clearly an unelected Chamber would have reservations about opposing such a programme.
But that does not always happen. I find myself obliged to disagree with my noble friend Lord Rippon that the Salisbury doctrine could possibly apply to the Bill to implement the unfortunate Treaty of

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Maastricht. Although that appeared in the manifesto of a governing party, it appeared also in the manifestos of the two opposing parties. To my recollection it was never debated or discussed during the election. The country gave no verdict on it one way or another. The question was whether Mr. Smith's taxation policy was correct and whether the Government had done this or that in relation to one of the public services. Maastricht was a non-issue. Therefore to claim the protection of the Salisbury doctrine for something which the people have not had the opportunity of debating on the hustings, seems to make that doctrine a laughing stock.
Furthermore, although my noble friend Lord Rippon was right to say that it has been exhaustively—or at any rate exhaustingly—discussed in another place, we know, as the presence of the Government spokesman, our own Chief Whip, reminds us, that its success in its various stages in another place was due to whipping of unimagined intensity and indeed ferocity. No one seriously believes that an unwhipped House of Commons would have returned the majority which that Bill received.
Therefore when it comes before us, in my view, we start with a clear field. I am not suggesting—because it would be a constitutional innovation which has nothing to do with the Salisbury doctrine—that we vote against it on Second Reading, tempted though I would be to make my disgust for the Bill clear from the beginning. But it must affect the degree to which we feel able to amend it. Much of the problem that we face, not only in relation to that Bill but also in relation to other Bills, is the question of when the amendment of a government Bill becomes obstruction.
The Government feel totally free to use the amending process. We all know that the absurd Clause I of the Education Bill, to which we will return on Report, was inserted at a late stage in the other place so as to avoid it being debated there. But we gentlemen, unlike Ministers, have more inhibitions in regard to using the amending process. Some people take the view that it should be extremely limited.
My noble friend Lady Blatch (whom I informed that I would be raising this point) wrote to me and said that she regretted she could not be present but had no objection to my raising the matter because she has a reply. The other day in this House, in reference to an amendment which she had described as a "wrecking" amendment, she said,
"My definition of a wrecking amendment is: this is something the Government want to do; it is something the Opposition do not want to do".—[Official Report, 29/4/93; col. 458.]
That makes it a wrecking amendment. If that were taken literally, there would be no role at all for your Lordships' House as a revising Chamber.
Subsequently in a letter to me—I gather that my noble friend will be repeating this in some form when we come to debate that unfortunate Bill—she said that that was not really correct. "I withdraw it". Her definition would be that if the House of Lords has passed a Bill on Second Reading, it must be assumed
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—correctly—to have assented to its principle. Amendments which clearly violate the principle of the Bill then would become wrecking amendments.
It is a difficult area. These words and phrases come into use in the course of debate in which one is more concerned with the actuality of the issue than with the precise constitutional niceties. Having listened to other noble Lords on both sides of the House, there seems to be at least a consensus that this House is a genuine revising Chamber. Clearly, it cannot obstruct or endlessly oppose government measures for which there are majorities in the other place. But particularly at a time of appallingly badly drafted legislation—we owe much to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, and the noble Lord, Lord Rippon, for pointing out those deficiencies—a revising Chamber is essential. One of the difficulties which I see about changing the composition of the House, as I mentioned at the beginning, is that an elected Chamber might find it more difficult to act as a revising Chamber because the element of constitutional competition between the two houses might make it much more difficult.
It is also the case that it is only by insisting on and exercising our right to amend such legislation—for example, getting rid of Section 1 of the Education Bill—that we can persuade Ministers to overcome the primary reason for the weakness of so much legislation. As has been pointed out by more than one speaker in this debate, that is their failure to consult the people who can explain to them how the legislation can be made to work. There would have been none of the problems which has occupied myself and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, who follows me, as regards the Government and the universities, which have dogged their career in relation to higher education over the past few years, if they had been willing to sit down and consult those who can tell them how universities work and what the universities feel should be the ambit of their responsibilities. I fear that that is probably true concerning legislation and matters about which I know less.
I do not know why the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, cannot be here this afternoon. I understand that Ministers are all very busy. I assume that she is in a school trying to do the testing for herself since the department finds itself unable to get anyone else to do it. A kind of DIY in the DFE would be a valuable contribution to government in this country. I believe that this is a useful occasion for us to point out both what are the responsibilities and the limits of our powers. I hope that noble Lords who have still to speak will follow along that line.
6.53 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall speak very briefly in the gap in the list of speakers. I promise that I shall not speak about Maastricht or the Education Bill. I wish to raise a point of view which touches on matters which previous speakers have raised, but from a slightly different angle. That may be of use to your Lordships in deliberation on this very important procedural matter.

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I see the Salisbury doctrine as an exercise in self-preservation in the sense that if we have the House of Commons dominated by one particular party and the House of Lords dominated by another, there is a very great risk that with a popular mandate the other place may take the view that either the powers of this Chamber or its very existence, should be done away with. I suspect that that is part of the reason for the emergence of the Salisbury doctrine. It effectively gave an incoming government, which was not of the persuasion of the House of Lords, the opportunity to get through its major pieces of legislation. Therefore they would not need to do anything drastic about this place.
One of my anxieties is what has come out of that process. It is the emergence and development of what is generally described as enabling legislation. Effectively, the government of the day puts through a Bill which gives them powers which they wield through secondary legislation, and statutory instruments which are not very well debated in Parliament and are incapable of amendment. This evening we have had references to the enormous raft of statutory instruments which come before us.
In our deliberations and suggestions for changes in the future, we must be very careful to protect the democracy of this country. One of my anxieties is the way in which legislation goes through the other place first and then comes to this House. Quite often it is then extensively amended. That is the reason for the enabling legislation concept and the statutory instruments because in that process of extensive revision and amendment the Bill may be changed out of all recognition.
The essential factor is that the House of Commons should be seen to be the power in the land. I suggest that our great strength in the House of Lords is as an advisory Chamber. We are in a very strong position because of the membership of this House. It is seen to be fairly independent and comprised of experts in a whole range of subjects. We have tremendous authority and our advice should carry weight. I fear a situation where we are seen to be almost superior to the other place. That situation may arise where the other place passes a Bill and then we are seen to revise it extensively. We shall be seen to be in some way superior. That will do no good for democracy and the good government of this country.
6.58 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, if you should grow useless, you will soon grow burdensome. That warning was delivered to this House by the first Earl of Shaftesbury in 1675. If it is not immediately topical today the credit for that is in no small measure due to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, and other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I should like to thank him for introducing this extremely valuable debate.
Before we can take Shaftesbury's advice, most of us have to answer some questions about our legitimacy. I believe that that is a very simple question. If one looks at the Parliament Act of 1911 and of 1949, one
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will find that in taking away certain powers which we then enjoyed, the other place chose to leave us others. Since they chose to do that, it means that we enjoy those powers now by grant from another place until such time as it chooses to take them away again. So in the meantime we need have no moral or constitutional compunction about using them. The question is normally about the political wisdom of doing so.
Like another place early in the 17th century, we enjoy our title to power from those we are supposed to check. That is a difficult, ambiguous and troublesome tightrope, but it is of the nature of tightropes that one can fall off them on one side or the other, so I think that we should take care on both sides.
I have listened with a great deal of interest to what has been said about the Salisbury doctrine. My own instinct in approaching that is to say that, like other rules, it should be construed to contain the word "normally". During the debate on the Second Reading of the War Crimes Bill, I recall saying that I could not at present imagine circumstances in which I would vote against the Second Reading of a Whipped Government Bill. It is, I think, without contradicting that statement, that I say that were we to have before us a Bill to alter the judges' tenure—to make it, again, during pleasure—even if that Bill had been in a manifesto, I would be very sorely tempted to vote against it.
It may not surprise your Lordships, however, to hear that in the main I want to concentrate on the issue of delegated legislation and to say how much we owe to the noble Lord, Lord Rippon of Hexham, and to the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee. The Secretary of State for Education, in his Swinton Lecture of 1991, claimed that Parliament controls the Executive, but how far does the conduct of the Secretary of State's own department illustrate that principle? I have checked this against a matter of current controversy, the tests under the national curriculum which are now so much in dispute. Perhaps I may reassure the noble Lord, Lord Hesketh, by saying that I do not intend to deal with the substance of that issue, but only with the form.
I decided in that context, and remembering that we are sometimes told that we have approved these tests, to look back at our debates of 5th May 1988 to see how far that is the case. In fact, what we approved was a simple statement that there should be assessment, the form of which was to be specified by order by the Secretary of State not subject to any parliamentary proceedings. In the words of the noble Baroness, Lady David:
"No details are contained in the Bill, which leaves the form of implementation to ministerial orders.
Yet the assessment arrangements are central to the direction of the national curriculum. Without at least a broad indication of the Government's thinking, it is impossible for Parliament to judge the practical effect of the legislation". [Official Report, 5/5/88; col. 690.]
As the debate progressed, it became clear that all parties were willing to support testing; but, apart from a firm assurance that we were not going to have league tables, the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, speaking for the Government, was unable to tell us what form of

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testing the Government envisaged because she did not know. When asked her intentions, she replied (at col. 706 of Hansard):
"in certain respects it is not possible to know them yet because we are still waiting for further reports and further decisions".
My noble friend Lady Seear asked whether the teachers would have a share in formulating the tests, and said (at col. 708):
"We would then feel a great deal more comfortable about it"
She received no answer.
Nowhere in the debate was there a syllable about the "accountability" of schools, which in recent weeks we have been told is the most important requirement in the whole affair. It is no wonder that the late Lord Stewart of Fulham said towards the end of that debate (at col. 709):
"we are no wiser … now at the end of the debate than we were at the beginning".
When pressed further, the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, had said (at col. 707):
"it was never the Government's intention to put this sort of detail into the Bill. It is a framework Bill".
It is interesting to put that remark beside the memorandum of the Hansard Society to the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee of this House:
"We emphasize that statutory delegation should never leave an Act bare of everything except a framework of ministerial powers, with all the real substances being left to ministerial regulations, etc. This has been done (see the legislation on student loans in the Education (Student Loans) Act 1990, for example); it should not be repeated. The main principles of the legislation and its central provisions should appear in the Act itself."
When these principles are ignored, as they were in the provisions of Clause 4 of the Education Reform Act 1988, there is force in the argument then made by my noble friend Lord Grimond (at col. 711) that,
"our legislative process is being made a mockery of".
The principle that there should be testing, which was all that the 1988 Act laid down, was uncontentious. All the contentious points were in the nature and content of the tests; and on those points, which were embodied in non-parliamentary orders, this House had no opportunity to give or withhold its assent. It was therefore denied the opportunity to carry out its normal—and in this case very necessary—duties as a revising chamber. It is true that when there is a parliamentary order, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, said (at col. 707), there is,
"scope for people to make their views known at that stage".
But that is a little like the residual right of resistance in Hobbes' Leviathan, defined by Christopher Hill as,
"the right to kick on the way to the scaffold".
It may relieve our feelings, but it does not change anything.
In introducing all the key provisions for testing by order, it is hard to resist the suspicion that the Secretary of State's department has refuted the central argument of his Swinton Lecture, that Parliament controls the Executive. When this House is faced by framework provisions such as were put before in 1988, it has only two options. One is to reject the clause in the Bill conferring delegated powers, even if in order to do so it has to vote against a principle which it accepts. It is easy to understand why the House gave the Government the benefit of the doubt on that point in 1988. The other option, and the one more relevant
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to this debate, is to accept the advice given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale—either the advice that he gave on 23rd April 1990 (at col. 352) that this House should depart from what he called the "weak convention" that it does not vote against regulations, or to accept the milder advice that he gave today.
Restraint shown on the other side of the House and the success of the milder procedures may influence what decision we take on which of those procedures is appropriate. The noble and learned Lord is, indeed, right that it is a "weak convention". Since 1968, it has been departed from in 20 Divisions on affirmative instruments, and three on negative instruments. To take just a few examples which are within the memory of many Members of the present House, on 6th August 1980 there was a Division on the Motion to approve the affirmative resolution on the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Regulations. On 30th July 1982, there was a Division on an affirmative resolution on the Motor Vehicles (Wearing of Seat Belts) Regulations—always a contentious matter. On 22nd July 1982, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, divided the House on a Prayer for an Address to annul the Town and Country Planning (Vauxhall Cross) Special Development Order. I will take one final and rather ironic example. On 24th November 1983, the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, moved a Prayer for an Address to annul the Milk-Based Drinks (Hygiene and Heat Treatment) Regulations, and the Motion was negatived. Whoever was responsible for negativing that Motion thereby conceded the propriety of having a Division on it.
The power exists, and the only question is about the wisdom of our using it on a particular occasion. On that subject, I listened with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, and I shall listen with great care to the response of the noble Lord, Lord Hesketh.
7.10 p.m.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I am afraid that the noble Earl will have to listen to me between those two speeches. I shall do my best not to disappoint him. Perhaps I may say at the outset how grateful we are to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, for introducing the debate and for introducing it in the way that he did. I am bound to say that it has been a fascinating debate.
Two things have been notable. First, there is the genuine affection that everyone who has spoken feels for your Lordships' House and for the role in the British constitution that it discharges. Secondly, I was fascinated by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff. May I say that that was not for the first time. He stimulated my thought processes. He will forgive me if I do not intervene in the private fight that seems to be going on between himself and his Front Bench, the noble Lord, Lord Rippon, and the absent noble Baroness, Lady Blatch. His was a speech of great interest.
I am grateful also for the expertise that has been shown in the course of the debate by so many constitutional experts. I do not mean that in any pejorative way. I mean it genuinely. During the past

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few hours, your Lordships have heard from some noble Lords with an experience of the way in which the House functions and runs, and how it fits into the British constitution as a whole, which is unique. As the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said, I do not believe that it could be equalled in any other deliberative Chamber.
I have heard a great deal about Lord Salisbury himself. I did not have the privilege or pleasure of knowing him. There is no doubt about one thing, and that is that the mark he left upon the House is one that has been both enduring and, so far as I can tell—the consensus of views expressed here tonight leads in that direction—is wholly beneficial to the way in which your Lordships' House operates.
Obviously the Salisbury doctrine—to use that somewhat imprecise shorthand term—was designed to answer a problem which needed to be solved at a particular time; namely, the relationship between this House and another place at a moment when there was a massive Conservative majority here—I interpose merely to observe that there is still a massive Conservative majority here—while there was a Labour Government who naturally wanted to get their legislation through. Therefore the simple proposition, which it seemed to be at the time, was that if the matter was in the manifesto, then this House could not oppose it. That proposition, as a proposition then, was indeed probably right. As a general proposition now, that proposition is probably right; but, although the doctrine has, by and large, worked reasonably well since it was introduced, it may be that the processes of parliamentary life, and the way in which governments feel that they have to legislate, are now perhaps so complicated that I am not sure whether the Salisbury doctrine, pure and simple, can any longer be wholly sufficient to cover the position in this day and age.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, for example, takes the view that, in relation to Private Members' Bills, Bills upon which a free vote was allowed in the other place, Bills which are constitutionally objectionable—I feel sure the proposition as to what was or was not constitutionally objectionable would command a fair degree of dissension in the House, but I leave that aside for a moment—and, finally, Bills upon which there is no manifesto commitment, the House should consider seriously and calmly whether the existing Salisbury doctrine covers the present position.
The doctrine clearly helped to lead in the past to the identification of a relatively clear role for the Second Chamber; namely, the revision of Commons' Bills; the initiation of non-controversial legislation; and the limited use of delay to permit detailed consideration of Bills and full debate on general issues of policies. There still seems to be a consensus in the House on the desirability of what, I suppose, I can call the general practice of self-restraint when it comes to legislative matters. But it is important to acknowledge that as the House has become busier, questions will increasingly be raised, and have been raised, about the viability of its former role. Perhaps it is time for the House to
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examine its workload, the question of its powers, and its relation to the other place. I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Shackleton for his suggestion that perhaps the attention of the Procedure Committee should be drawn specifically to the deliberations that have been taking place here this afternoon.
There has clearly been an unplanned and large growth in the work of your Lordships' House. The average length of a daily sitting, for example, has increased from five hours in 1967 to 1970 to seven hours in 1985 to 1986. In 1946, at the height of the Labour Government's post-war legislative drive I am told that this House agreed 1,027 amendments to 23 Bills. That was all. In the 1987-88 Session, 1,257 amendments were agreed, not to 23 Bills but to only 3. So the amount of work that is being done by the House has increased enormously over that period of time. That is not just because more legislation is being put onto the statute book; it is because mistakes in drafting now seem to be almost routine and have to be corrected in this House when the mistakes have been made in another one, as was pointed out in the excellent Hansard Society Report Making the Law, which was chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Ripon.
I read that report, if I may say so humbly, with great interest. I found it stimulating, and many of the ideas contained in it were ones that I could accept. If the problem of drafting is one of the reasons why the scale of work undertaken by the House has increased, it is doubly true (is it not?) in relation to our role as scrutineers of primary and secondary legislation.
The function of the House, though, has changed, as I see it, from being primarily a revising Chamber. One of the main functions the House now has in relation to the other place, is that it is effectively the only place in which the legislature can curb the power of the executive. If this House is the place in which detailed scrutiny of legislation is taking place, it is because legislation is being guillotined or rushed through in the other place. One aim that we could perhaps push for collectively is less legislation, more elegantly and precisely drafted, which is less likely therefore to need widespread redrafting when it arrives in the House. I know from experience that that is something to which the noble Lord, Lord Renton, would give his wholehearted approval, especially so far as concerns drafting.
I am sure, for example, that none of us on these Benches particularly wants to examine and resume work on an Act such as the Criminal Justice Act 1991 which is now to be altered fundamentally only seven months after it first came into effect. But there it is. No doubt the House will do its duty in that respect as it does in others.
Perhaps I may return to the question of the workload of the House. The House sits the second longest hours of any legislative Chamber in the world; the longest are being endured by another place down the Corridor. As this is a non-professional Chamber, many Members of which have to earn a living outside the House, that is a pressure which needs to be considered and considered seriously. When and if certain recommendations of the Jopling Report into the sitting hours of the other place are implemented,

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the pressure here could become even worse and graver. It would be paradoxical if the hours of the other place (the democratic Chamber) were lightened to the extent that this non-professional, undemocratic Chamber would then be sitting the longest hours of any legislative Chamber in the world.
It might well mean, if there were no equivalent lessening of the hours here, that we were effectively having to take on part of the workload previously covered by the other place. It is therefore of the utmost importance that any change to the sitting hours of the other place is co-ordinated with changes here.
In the meantime, perhaps we should think about ways of taking some of the pressure off this House. One way of achieving that, which was covered in the excellent report of the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, might be to send more Bills up to Public Bill Committees, which would function something like Standing Committees in the other place. The House takes the view that only non-controversial Bills should be dealt with in that way. However, perhaps I may place on record my belief that this is an avenue which we ought to explore for more Bills if we are to cope with the pressures on the parliamentary timetable and effectively to carry out our role as a revising Chamber.
I wish to express the anxiety of those on these Benches, as has been expressed elsewhere, at the emergence of what has become almost a culture of delegated legislation. I profoundly agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that this flood of delegated legislation undermines the principle of parliamentary scrutiny. I would not want to see our workload reduced at the cost of less scrutiny of controversial measures.
In the light of that argument the House might want to examine the possibility, which was recommended in the first report of the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee, that this House should be able to delay secondary legislation by one month so as to permit proper scrutiny which otherwise could not take place. That is particularly important if it is true, as I believe it is, that this House is where the most detailed scrutiny of delegated legislation now takes place.
I was invited by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, to make a speech about the reform of the House of Lords and what my party may wish to see happen. I wish to make only a few comments, if the House will permit. I believe that three points must be considered in any reform. The first is that our constitution requires a second Chamber which works effectively and efficiently, in particular in the role of revising legislation. The second point is that somehow it ought to be possible to preserve the unique contribution in experience which the Cross-Benchers now bring to our House. The third point, although I do not demand such generous accord, is that in the view of the Labour Party we must do something about the hereditary principle and the mass of hereditary peers who sit on the other side of the House.
I have spoken for one minute beyond my allotted time. Therefore, perhaps the House will forgive me for merely stating principles and not going into the nuts and bolts of the details of their implementation. It is
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up to the House to decide whether it wants to change the procedures within which it works or even to consider a more wide-ranging reform of its role. It could actually do both if it so wished. However, it is obvious to all that this debate is a timely reminder—and I repeat my thanks to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon—of the need for all institutions to consider their own role from time to time and to explore possibilities for change. This has been an interesting and important debate in that respect.
7.24 p.m.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, the House will once again be grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, for affording us the opportunity to debate the parliamentary role of the House of Lords. It is perhaps particularly opportune that we should have such a debate to examine our working practices at a time when the House is at its busiest, as my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter pointed out. I think that that is a consideration which should colour our thinking about what, as a House, we should do and how to achieve it.
First, however, I fear that I owe the House an apology. Your Lordships may feel that in view of the rigours of the past few weeks that is entirely called for. However, my apology today is more personal. It is that I should present myself, inexpert though I am in comparison with those who have preceded me in this debate, to respond to the points which your Lordships have made. I know that my noble friend the Leader of the House would have liked to respond to the debate but he had an unbreakable commitment elsewhere. However, his miraculous reappearance, having reduced the commitment in order to be with your Lordships, will I hope make my contribution that much better and not disappoint your Lordships. I can only pray your Lordships' customary indulgence.
The Motion which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, has placed before your Lordships this afternoon refers to conventions and practices which limit the constitutional role of this House. The noble and learned Lord, along with my noble friends Lord Rippon, Lord Renton and Lord Strafford, has in addition drawn attention to issues of wider constitutional significance. If noble Lords will forgive me, I do not propose to follow them down that road today in the context of what is a time-limited debate. Suffice to say that I acknowledge that such matters are well worthy of full debate on a separate occasion. Nor do I intend to discuss the composition of the House; this seems to me to raise equally far-reaching questions and propositions.
I take the Motion—and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, explicitly confirmed this—to start from a position of acceptance of the existing powers, as well as composition, of the House. The main formal limits on such powers are set, as noble Lords have already pointed out, by the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 and by the financial privilege of the House of Commons. I might also remind your Lordships of one vital constitutional power which your Lordships have

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under the 1911 Act; namely, the power to veto any Bill to extend the lifetime of a Parliament beyond five years.
To these limits we must add other constraints which the House has agreed to apply to its own activities, principally those laid down by the standing orders of the House, and the interpretation which the House has given to those standing orders contained in the Companion, the bible given to every young Whip on his first day in the House. This class of rules, if I may so term them, is of course flexible. The House is master of its own procedures and when it deems it appropriate it is free to depart from them; for example, it may agree to dispense with standing orders to enable some uncontentious or urgent piece of legislation to be disposed of quickly. That such flexibility should exist—and that your Lordships apply a pragmatic approach to applying your own procedures—is I think a great strength of your Lordships' House. It enables us to concentrate our time and effort on those issues which are of most importance while providing a valuable safeguard against abuse.
Thirdly, there are the conventions—neither procedural nor enshrined in statute—which govern the way in which your Lordships' House chooses to exercise its powers. In discussing these conventions I suggest that we need, first, to set them against the background of what we understand our role to be as a second Chamber within the constitutional arrangements which we now have. Here I agreed with much of what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, had to say. Our prime role lies in the examination and revision of Bills. That is, of course, borne out by the statistics. We spend well over 50 per cent. of our time in discussing legislation, most particularly in Committee (30 per cent. of sitting time) and on Report (14 per cent. of sitting time). Secondly, we act as a forum—and a particularly well-informed and constructive forum—for the discussion of general questions of policy. General debates account for about 16 per cent. of the time of the House, but to this we must add the many hours of work which are performed by Select Committees, whose sometimes rather narrow scrutiny remit is frequently belied by the breadth of their inquiries. I know that that second role is highly valued, and rightly so, by many of your Lordships, by many outside the House and by the Government. One of the great strengths of the House is that there are comparatively frequent opportunities for general debates, particularly in the earlier part of each parliamentary session.
Perhaps I may pick up a point made by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter. Even when the House may be restricted in the close scrutiny which it can profitably bring to economic and financial legislation—a matter which predates the Salisbury doctrine—it may still make known its views in more general debates on such issues. For example, in this Session alone we have already had substantial debates on a range of economic issues, from the broad economic issues facing the country to more narrow questions such as the role and function of the Bank of England.
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However, as I have suggested, it is in scrutiny of legislation that the House derives its prime importance. I should stress at the outset that the Government in no way underestimate the importance of the views of this House on the legislation which they place before it. If I have sometimes had particular reason to regret the strength and resolution with which your Lordships have pressed your views against the Government, that is not to say that your Lordships do not have the right to press those views or that they are not considered most seriously both in government and in the other place. It is your Lordships' constitutional right to ask the other place to think again.
That seems to me central to the role of a second Chamber in our system and it is a right which both I and my noble friend the Leader of the House take very seriously indeed. If, on occasion, my colleagues and I complain about that, I hope that your Lordships will recognise that we cannot always be expected to welcome being told we are wrong. Maturer reflection often shows us perhaps that we were not entirely right.
My noble friend Lord Renton asked me a question of which he gave me notice. I have done some speedy research on it without a great deal of success. He asked me about the number of amendments that were carried in this House and the number of amendments that were accepted in another place. It has been difficult to obtain that information because sometimes part of an amendment has been accepted or a government amendment is tabled in lieu. However, it was an extremely worthwhile question to ask and I shall continue my research to see whether a representative and accurate reply can be given to your Lordships.
In exercising those functions of revision and scrutiny the House has, in theory, broad powers only circumscribed by the Parliament Acts. But the manner in which the House chooses to use these powers is the critical issue, as indeed it is to almost all facets of the way the House operates. As I recognise perhaps more frequently than some of your Lordships, this place functions on the basis of agreement. I do not think that the House could operate as effectively as it does without the existence of a consensus about what is or is not an appropriate course of action for your Lordships to pursue—that is, without the general agreement of the House to observe conventions which regulate its activities. That involves in all of us the exercise of self-restraint—from the length of our speeches to the more fundamental recognition of the limits of what is practically or constitutionally appropriate.
Of course, it is always open to your Lordships to change your habitual way of proceeding, and noble Lords have suggested today that change is indeed needed in some areas. I believe that we should be very cautious about that. The conventions and practices of the House have evolved over a long period of time and in response to many political and constitutional considerations. There is much accumulated wisdom inherent in them. Tempting though it may be for your Lordships to seek to depart from such practices—perhaps in response to specific anxieties which your

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Lordships may have—I think that your Lordships would want to consider the consequences carefully, both for the House internally and in respect of the wider perception of the House.
Perhaps I may take, first, the Salisbury doctrine. That is the convention that the House will not oppose legislation for which a government with a majority in another place have a mandate; that means in practice that the House does not seek to vote down a manifesto Bill at Second or Third Reading. Like the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, I am an unashamed supporter of the doctrine. It is not merely true that it has served the House well. It has, I think, become essential to our parliamentary system. I remind the House that the doctrine had—and, as this debate has shown, still has—support from all sides of the House. Its first supporter was the grandfather of my noble friend Lord Addison who was then Leader of the House.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, sought to make a case for departing from the Salisbury doctrine in circumstances where the legislation in question is constitutionally objectionable in form. The Child Support Act was cited as a case in point. I repeat that it is of course for the House to determine whether the doctrine should continue to apply and, if not, why not. But I believe that it is difficult to distinguish categories of Bills to which the doctrine should not apply. Not only would the House set itself against the express will of the other place, but it would involve also the development of new constitutional doctrine. I do not know what a constitutionally objectionable Bill might be, and nor would it be easy to define one. The phrase would be likely to be used in respect of a large number of pieces of legislation which might not find favour in some parts of your Lordships' House.
The noble and learned Lord referred in particular to the concept of a skeleton Bill and his anxieties about the powers of delegated legislation. That is a matter about which he has the respect of the whole House. But for other noble Lords it may well be the policy for which the delegated powers are to be used that provokes objection rather than the form of the legislation. I suggest that agreement on those issues would be unlikely to be forthcoming.
My noble friend Lord Beloff and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, referred to the Education Bill. The noble and learned Lord suggested that there should be a departure from the Salisbury doctrine in cases where insufficient time was given to consider legislation. I do not see that noble Lords can object to a Bill on Second Reading on the grounds that it will be considered at a late hour in Committee. That would put us in an extremely difficult position. I remind your Lordships that in my brief span in this House—in the happy days of 1988 and 1989—I remember very well my noble friend Lady Young moving an amendment at 5.30 in the morning on the Education Reform Bill. I see the noble Baroness, Lady David, is present in the Chamber and I am sure that she too remembers that well. For all of the crimes that I have committed of late, we have not yet reached five o'clock in the morning.
Baroness David: My Lords, I believe that the noble Baroness moved the amendment at about 8.30 in the morning when some noble Lords were beginning to return to the House.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that intervention. I fear that I may have told the Chief Whip at the time that I was off sick and thus I was not present at that moment. I have now been vilely exposed.
It is only a short skip from the question of delegated powers in Bills to the issue of scrutiny of delegated legislation by the House. That was discussed not only by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, but also by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, my noble friends Lord Rippon of Hexham and Lord Renton and the noble Lords, Lord Monkswell and Lord Shackleton. It is the convention of the House that it does not seek to divide against delegated legislation. No such Division has taken place since 1982; and, as was pointed out earlier in the debate, in recent times the House has only once, in 1968, voted down a piece of delegated legislation. Instead, a number of devices have been developed which enable the House to express its opinion on a piece of delegated legislation without challenging it outright.
That does not in any way mean that the views which your Lordships express on delegated legislation can in any way be ignored. As a Minister with some experience of debate on such issues, I can bear witness to that fact in my previous incarnation. My colleagues and I are fully aware of the strength of feeling in the House about the growth, amount and scope of delegated legislation. It is only right that your Lordships should be vigilant about those matters. Indeed, I believe that the knowledge that your Lordships are rigorous in scrutinising delegated legislation is a significant factor in the Government's considerations.
The House, with the support of the Government, has recently taken a significant step to meet those concerns through the establishment of the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee, under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Rippon of Hexham. That committee does not look at delegated legislation itself, but it has a perhaps more fundamental remit to report to the House on the appropriateness or otherwise of Ministers taking powers to make such legislation in the first place. The committee has, of course, been established on an experimental basis only, and the Procedure Committee and the House will wish to evaluate that role. Although I am a member of the Procedure Committee, I, luckily, carry no remit from it and thus will restrict myself in trying to provide answers to some of the questions posed by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter as regards the direction of the committee. However I think that noble Lords will have been impressed by the committee's first two reports, which, if I may say so, appear to steer a judicious course through difficult waters.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, referred specifically to the powers taken in the Education Reform Act 1988. I know that the noble Earl will wish to develop his theme in more detail when his Unstarred Question on the subject is debated after Whitsun. But I wish to

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stress that the point to which the noble Earl referred is one which would now fall within the remit of the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee, so I think that some action has been taken.
I should also draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that all affirmative instruments are taken on the Floor in this House and that time is invariably found to debate Motions relating to, or prayers against, negative instruments; in each respect, your Lordships have more opportunity to debate delegated legislation than is available, for example, in another place.
Nevertheless, some noble Lords have questioned the continuing validity of the convention against voting on Motions to approve or annul delegated legislation. The power to do so certainly exists. It would be open to your Lordships to use that power. However, I think that we should again be very wary of that. It would sit uneasily with the revising aspect of the work of the House. Indeed, it would run directly contrary to it. The House has the right to ask the other place to reconsider its decisions. But delegated legislation, almost all of which has been debated in another place before it comes to your Lordships, cannot be amended. There is no mechanism available whereby the other place can be asked to think again. Were the House to reject a piece of delegated legislation, it would fall. That would be a step which your Lordships would wish to consider most carefully. I think that it could lead us into some considerable difficulty.
My noble friend Lord Rippon referred to the recent report of the Hansard Society. The report raises a number of issues which the House may well wish to debate on a later occasion. However, I should like to pick up the point that my noble friend stressed; namely, that we should move to a two-year parliamentary Session. That may well have some attractions, but it would also have certain political implications. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, drew attention to the fact that the end of the Session may well provoke concessions from the Government if they wish to get their legislation through. I think that it is an important check for our constitution. It is a check which would be eroded if we had a two-year Session.
Finally, perhaps I may place this debate in the wider perspective of the way the House discharges its business. In a way, I apologise for bringing the House to my more parochial concerns. But the House is now more active than it has been for the last few Sessions. The number of your Lordships who attend the House with some regularity is now 750. Daily attendances of over 400 are now commonplace. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, provided us with a number of other statistics which add to those figures in terms of the actual volume of work that is passing through the House, both in terms of legislation and as regards noble Lords. That represents a large increase, and those figures and statistics are continuing to rise.
As each of your Lordships has an unfettered right to participate in our debates, and many of your Lordships are assiduous in exercising that right, the pressure on our procedures grows apace. We have to
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regulate our own procedure; but that becomes daily more difficult. We consider virtually all legislation on the Floor of the House, with no Standing Committees as in another place to ease the pressure on the time of the House. We have no guillotine; and few restrictions on the ability of noble Lords to speak or to table amendments and have them debated.
Yet we are an amateur House. Your Lordships' dedication and assiduity is widely admired; but even those of us present during the days in Committee on the Education Bill, for example, had cause to wonder whether we had got the balance quite right and whether self-regulation, which has always been so prized a part of your Lordships' procedures, was working. Our procedures would inevitably appear more difficult if the other place were to agree to reforms in its sitting hours in response to the Jopling Report.
Against that background, noble Lords today have proposed extending into new areas the way we conduct our business. They have, of course, made their case with the moderation and persuasiveness for which your Lordships' House is known; but the effect of that would be to add to, rather than relieve, the pressures which we face.
As I have already stressed, our procedures work only because we all agree to abide by conventions and to exercise general restraint. I should like to float two ideas for your Lordships' consideration. The first is the desirability of committing some Bills—it would not need to be many to make a substantial difference—to Public Bill Committees. That would clearly depend on securing agreement on appropriate Bills to commit. It might also depend on an agreement, as proposed by the Jellicoe Committee, to defer decisions on particularly contentious issues to the Report stage.
That is one idea. The other is to look again at our procedures on the Floor of the House; and at the nature of the Committee and Report stages in particular. I think that there is at least an argument to be made that Committee-proceedings have increasingly moved from being based on a presumption of elucidating the purposes and effect of legislation, of probing the consequences, and inviting the Government to respond to something which is of a rather more adversarial nature. Matters are now frequently put to the House for a decision at the Committee stage which might formerly have been deferred to Report. I make no complaint about that. But it does seem to me to be questionable whether the House is making the best use of its time when, as sometimes happens, debates on issues decided in Committee are replicated on Report—perfectly proper procedurally though that may be. Unless there has been some material change in circumstances, or in the information available to the House, I see only limited value in that exercise.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, made a very simple statement, but a very true one: we need less legislation and better drafting. I can assure him that he has the entire support of the Whips' Office on both points. There is a malicious falsehood sometimes put about that the Whips are enemies of debate. I do not know how that impression can have arisen, let alone gained

1813
credence. But, in any event, debates such as this today would convince even the most dedicated member of the freemasonry of Whips of the value, at least on occasion, of listening to the argument. In conclusion, I should like to thank the noble and learned Lord for initiating the debate and for the stimulating contributions to which I have attempted to reply. I am grateful for the opportunity to return to the Dispatch Box and for the courtesy with which your Lordships have heard me.
7.48 p.m.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, I am extremely grateful for the speeches that have been made on the Motion which have so illuminated us. It would be invidious and impertinent if I mentioned other than very few of those speeches. I shall only do so in passing.
I respectfully agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said about the War Crimes Bill and the odd invocation of the Parliament Act which I am bound to say owed more to maintaining a reputation for iron government than constitutional propriety. I also agreed with what the noble Lord said about the importance of ministerial representation in your Lordships' House.
The noble Lord, Lord Renton, expressed a tribute to the hereditary element in your Lordships' House. I venture to agree with that. In any change in the composition of your Lordships' House I would hope there would be a continuity of the hereditary principle, perhaps by vote of the hereditary peers, rather on the lines of the old Scottish and Irish representative peers. I think that would meet the point of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, about the likelihood of collision between two Houses with equal democratic credentials. I do not believe that that would run counter to the ideas expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Richard.
I second the tribute paid by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, to the noble Lord, Lord Rippon of Hexham, as regards the Hansard Society document on the legislative process which should really become a textbook in any course of constitutional law. I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Rippon of Hexham, for his chairmanship of the Scrutiny Committee both as regards the way he framed its general approach and for the immense tact and clarity of the report on the Education Bill. I note that my Motion includes a prayer for Papers. However, as I am too old for filing, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Agri-Environmental Measures: EC Regulation
7.51 p.m.
The Earl of Selborne The Earl of Selborne rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what stage has been reached in the consultations on the implementation of the Agri-Environmental Measures (EC Council Regulation
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2078/92) in the United Kingdom, which was the subject of the 14th Report of the European Communities Committee. [HL Paper 45].
The noble Earl said: My Lords, when the common agricultural policy was reformed last year many of us felt it was something of a wasted opportunity in that once again a large amount of money was spent on guaranteeing commodity prices and area payments and on many provisions that many people clearly disliked. However, there was one small element in that package which many people looked on with favour and that was the agri-environmental measures on which I am delighted to base my Unstarred Question today.
I am pleased that we have a list of such distinguished and knowledgeable speakers who are to speak on this matter. I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity to hear the maiden speech of the noble Earl, Lord Macclesfield. The reform package of June was important in one respect in that for the first time it was compulsory for member states to put forward environmental proposals as part of a common agricultural policy. We must give credit to the United Kingdom Government for having been the trail blazer in many respects; for example, as regards environmentally sensitive areas and the country stewardship scheme. Many of those pilot schemes, which are now recognised as having been precedents in Europe, were clearly in the minds of the members of the Council of Ministers when they decided to accept the proposals for agri-environmental measures.
When we in Sub-Committee D considered the reform of the CAP in the report of July last year, we quoted with approval the verdict of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds on the measures. The RSPB stated:
"These measures are an exciting and positive aspect of the reform. However, we are concerned that these measures have been marginalised in the common agricultural policy. It is not a central measure. Its funding is insecure and it is not integrated with other measures such as set-aside".
We in Sub-Committee D decided to take a further look at these proposals. We produced a short report in December 1992 entitled The Environmental Aspects of the Reform of the CAP. We took evidence from nature conservation agencies, non-governmental organisations, farming unions, the Country Landowners' Association and others. The consensus of view from all those organisations was that the concept was widely welcomed. However, there was concern on the funding base which was clearly extremely narrow. There was hope that there would be an opportunity to have a consultation process which would not work from the top down but rather from the bottom up. In our report we made a number of proposals as to how those measures might be implemented.
Our overall view was that these proposals represented a much better use of money than guaranteeing commodity prices, as the latter course was likely to perpetuate a feeling among taxpayers that the common agricultural policy was a waste of money and was delivering some unsound land use policies. We agreed on the need for local and regional planning and we emphasised what so many other people have told us; namely, that there was a need to

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integrate the existing often excellent schemes such as the environmentally sensitive area schemes, the stewardship scheme, schemes for nitrogen sensitive areas and the set-aside proposals, both old and new. I am afraid we had to wait until March to receive MAFF's proposals, but we understand that MAFF was preoccupied with other aspects of the reform. We have now just completed the consultation period. We must all recognise that the proposals which will be presented to the Commission by the end of July contain many welcome provisions.
The 20-year set-aside measure now reappears as the habitat improvement scheme. I believe that measure will be widely welcomed. However, it would be more welcome, in so far as arable areas are eligible for that scheme—I hasten to add it does not just apply to arable areas but can also apply to other farming land—if that land could be set against the set-aside requirement for the area payments. I hope the Minister will still challenge that point in Europe.
I am sure that other speakers in this debate will wish to refer in more detail to some of the other aspects of the package; for example, the moorland scheme which is designed to reduce the intensity of farm stock, particularly in conservation sensitive areas. Other speakers may mention the provisions for access to certain non-rotational set-aside land or the provision for helping organic farming. We were pleased to note that a condition of that support was that the farming should contain a conservation element. I believe we all welcome the more flexible approach to managing set-aside which suggests that certain exemptions can be made as regards regulations which might not always be in the interests of conservation.
Our original concern was that there should be an opportunity to develop what are truly local, regional programmes. It was for member states to decide what the zonal programme should comprise. Understandably we have four zonal programmes in this country which comprise England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The respective agriculture departments for those countries have published their proposals. However, that does not of course exclude establishing regional or even parochial plans within those zones. Because of the need to submit the plans by 30th July, I must immediately accept that it would be unrealistic to engage in a debate at what one might call a parochial level. Nevertheless, I hope that that point has not been lost sight of and that it is accepted that a genuine ownership of these schemes at a local level would be highly desirable. That will only be achieved if there is local consultation.
Our other anxiety—I am sure this will be expressed by many other speakers tonight—concerns the level of funding. I understand that 50 per cent. of the funds will come from the common agricultural policy but it would be helpful if my noble friend the Minister could tell us just how much he thinks will be allotted to each zonal programme in Britain; that is to each country in the United Kingdom. There have already been many
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requests for a simplification of the scheme. The Countryside Commission gave evidence to us. The commission stated:
"Opportunities for redesigning the existing plethora of schemes and presenting them in genuinely regionally differentiated packages should be taken".
Clearly there is some way to go on that. The precedent I wish to draw to the attention of the Minister on what is an extremely far-sighted and helpful scheme for stewardship is that of the Countryside Council for Wales entitled Tir Cymen. It is a whole farm scheme. It operates in only three counties at present. It is a pilot scheme but one which gives an opportunity to any farmer to make a contribution, whether or not he is in an environmentally sensitive area. The farmer draws up a voluntary plan and submits it to any agency which might be prepared to pick up part of the bill. As a result, there is a much more integrated approach.
Again, it is clear that in view of the sums of money available in this package, it would be asking too much to expect that approach to be adopted throughout the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, it is an objective which we should have in mind in the long term.
Time precludes me from dealing with more than a very small number of aspects. In relation to the non-rotational set-aside scheme, which was widely welcomed by the Committee, it is important that the percentage of non-rotational set-aside which is required should be as little above 15 per cent. as possible in order to make it more attractive. It is also important that there should be a degree of flexibility in the management of that non-rotational set-aside. The instance of fraud within the common agricultural policy is of concern to many; but to graze non-rotational land in order to establish the type of meadowland which many conservation agencies wish to see would clearly be desirable.
I end by saying that these measures are to be welcomed. They are to be seen as an evolutionary process. They must be meshed in with European directives and other aspects of the common agricultural policy which are perhaps not as green as they might be. Someone recently described the common agricultural policy and these agri-environmental measures as being like a penny-farthing. There is the main cost of the common agricultural policy of £3 billion and then a small wheel of £30 million at the end. I hope that we shall end up with a rather more conventional bicycle.
8.1 p.m.
The Earl of Macclesfield: My Lords, I read the excellent report of the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, and his Committee with a great deal of interest and the feeling that considerable thought has been given to the problems of the countryside and the best ways forward.
One aspect which has been lightly covered is the question of public access, almost as though when the time comes there will be no great problem in accommodating any more of the public who wish to come, wherever they wish to come. I feel that that is not the case and that there are pitfalls ahead if we do not consider the issue now. First, there is the

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relationship between town and country. The public tend to think that they are "green": we know that they do not understand the countryside, yet they come out and tell us how to do our job.
In this excellent report there is one small item that I would question; it is relating to educating farmers. I should like to think that that term should be changed to retraining for the future. I believe that we are sufficiently educated to do the job we are doing. I do not feel that the public are sufficiently educated to come out into the countryside. They cause damage, and much of that is as a result of lack of understanding.
There are a large number of very good wildlife programmes on television. It would be very interesting to learn from the BBC the viewing figures for those programmes. I expect that they are rather low. That would demonstrate that townspeople were not taking an interest in acquiring information and knowledge about the countryside. Without that knowledge, they will come out into the countryside without understanding it and cause damage.
With any luck, if the framework suggested in the report is successful there will be less pressure on the countryside from farmers and fewer pressures on farmers themselves. In addition, land will be freed from agriculture. For this purpose agriculture is the growing of crops and the rearing of animals as opposed to forestry, for which we should be seeking more land and the production of more timber, particularly as it disappears in vast quantities down the throat of Brussels, which churns out enormous amounts of paper which we could well do without. We would hope to see improvements in the landscape and in the quantities and quality of wildlife.
With the extensification of farming, there will be a need to create jobs in the countryside for those whose jobs will disappear as a result of the reduction in food production. With the increase in protection of wildlife it is worth making the point that wildlife is already protected in law. Disturbance is against the law. The public do not know that. If one points out that it is illegal to go near certain areas because that would disturb nesting birds, one is met by a blank face.
At this point I should like to thank the Joint Nature Conservation Committee for its hard work in the reintroduction of red kites. That example demonstrates that if the public are allowed uncontrolled access and are untrained, we shall not have the red kites. In the Chilterns we lost buzzards some 10 years ago when we were inundated by a camp of diddicoys. It took a long time to remove them. We now have set-aside travellers, and it is almost as difficult to move them with the incompetent legislation which we have. I believe that that is fair comment. We have the kites and I am very grateful for what I see in the skies. The public can still see the birds without having to trample over large tracts of land. If they cannot see the birds in the sky, I do not want the public hunting them because that would only disturb the birds and we should lose the kites as a result. There are certain species on this planet which breed regardless of interference. We are one, and rabbits are another. I am not entirely sure what that says, but that certainly does
1818
not apply to the red kite and other birds of prey. They require peace and quiet during the breeding season, as do most species.
There is one problem in respect of access to the countryside; namely, which areas should be open, how farmers should be paid to open the countryside and how they should be paid to close areas of the countryside in order to protect wildlife during the breeding season. The major problem is that the breeding season occurs in the summer when everybody wants to be out in the countryside. It is also the time when big feet do most damage. For example, today is almost the first day of pheasant hatching. Pheasants have already been incubating for three weeks and started laying some three weeks earlier. There is talk of a six weeks' closed season. That is a joke. It would cover the bulk of the summer period. It will still be two months before a family of chicks is able to move out of the way and will not mind interference. There is no point in encouraging wildlife if we are not to have some form of controlled access to the countryside.
So far as I can see, no consideration has been given to what the public would like by way of increased access to the countryside. There is a question of what they should pay and how they should pay. With any luck, as a result, we could reduce the burden of the CAP. In my opinion, and in the opinion of fellow countrymen, the public should pay for the use of the countryside. I accept that we cannot charge them by the mile for the use of footpaths, but the cost of upkeep is borne by those in the countryside. That is not appreciated by those who use those paths.
Again, parking is free in the countryside. Parking is not free when I catch a train to come to London. I do not think that it should be free for people who visit the countryside. In a way that is a subsidy. Like a number of other subsidies, we are better off without it if the public do not appreciate its value. Cheap bread was not a good idea if it meant that people could afford to waste it. It is not a good principle. By the same token, the public might see the countryside in a different light if they were asked to pay to enjoy it. Next door to where I live there is a Forestry Commission area where parking is open. Therefore, the public's day in the countryside is paid for by the central exchequer through the Forestry Commission. That does not seem right.
There are many problems in relation to what use might be made of the countryside. There is probably scope for more riding and for livery stables. However, it is one thing to convert redundant farm buildings for use as livery stables. That does not exercise the horse. If there are to be more people in the countryside, that means more cars, and therefore we do not want horses on the roads. It would be much better if they were not on the roads, anyway: the number of accidents is minimal, but it is still worrying when one drives on country roads, particularly as there will still be large cattle lorries on minor roads. There are problems.
It would be a good idea if we could reduce the problems that exist today. If a farmer could take his land out of farming and use it—if it is the right acreage and so on—for such an enterprise, it might be possible

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to arrange that the farm was no longer a burden on the CAP. If the farm was self-financing that would be fine. So far as concerns this country, such a change of use requires planning consent. That is not easily forthcoming. However, the concept of yesterday was simply that the farmer would have a livery stable and horses would have access to the road. It might be possible to generate a riding and livery stable, thus ensuring that horses were on land and not roads. That would take land out of farming and at the same time take the cost of the subsidies of that land away from the CAP while the public paid for the facilities that they enjoyed.
There is presumably a need for general picnic and recreational areas of one kind or another for those who do not wish to park on the motor routes to the seaside on bank holidays. Large areas are required in order to allow people to spread out and enjoy themselves. Let us consider the 15 per cent. set-aside concept. Fifteen per cent. of half a dozen small farms does not produce very much for anyone. If it were possible to trade in set-aside, it would be possible to collect together a unit which could be used for the purpose of recreation. It might be possible for that unit to be self-financing. The farmer would run facilities for the public. As legislation exists at present, that would require a change of use and there would be problems. Perhaps even more acreage could partially be taken out of the CAP; it would be another use for the countryside. It would also allow access to areas and at the same time protect the wildlife. If left in peace and quiet I believe that wildlife would happily move to such a large tract of land. The problems arise when people turn up who do not have a clue about what is going on.
At present everyone seems to want to open a golf course. The demand is unclear. It is a long-term project. I have never seen reference to a traffic survey on existing golf courses in planning applications or local reports in the press and so on. Such a survey might well demonstrate whether or not there are traffic problems within the locality which objectors foresee if planning permission were granted. Such a report might well make it easier to make planning consent to go ahead. It might be easier to knock the project on the head because it would attract traffic. However, if we have the public in the countryside, we shall have cars. That cannot be denied. If there are other ideas for the use of the countryside I am sure everyone will welcome hearing them.
I refer to the right to roam. I became involved in access to the countryside in the autumn of 1990. I stayed in the Chilterns. Ramblers designated that area for attack. It was considered that everyone should have the right to roam over non-agricultural land whenever and wherever. I have demonstrated a number of reasons why such access could give rise to a great deal of harm. In October 1990 the Field devoted most of the paper to the subject. I was supported by the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, the noble Earl, Lord Peel—he will speak in due course—and my redoubtable noble and learned
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friend Lord Denning. Noble Lords will note that my noble and learned friend has put a Question down for Written Answer on a countryside matter.
There are a number of other reasons why it is necessary to control the public. The word "control" comes into all our lives most of the time. There is no good reason why it should not apply to the public in the countryside. Uncontrolled public behaviour in all ways, shape and form has done immense damage to the planet. People work in the countryside. Would the Health and Safety Executive be happy that a man working with a chain saw could have his concentration disturbed by an onlooker turning up unexpectedly? The onlooker would not stand in the line where the tree was supposed to fall; but trees do not always fall where they are supposed to fall. Who will clear up the mess when matters go wrong? It is obvious to those of us living in the countryside that people should be left in peace and quiet to do their jobs. It is also true that most of us in the countryside take home less pay than people in towns. A quid pro quo is that most of us are able to do our jobs in peace and quiet without large numbers of people around us. It is arguable that if one lets the public loose in the countryside, one alters the terms of employment. That is not fair to those in the countryside even if it is legal.
The flora and fauna are protected in law from illegal disturbance. The chances of the public doing more damage in that respect, albeit unwittingly, would obviously increase. If people damage designated areas, the wildlife flora and fauna will successfully thrive in undesignated areas.
The right to roam would not allow the people in the countryside to take note of those faces they did not expect to see. Many houses in the countryside would be more vulnerable to theft than they now are. I refer to the country house burglary syndrome. It would be far easier for someone to case the joint if he can wander around the woods behind the house. That applies to the Chilterns area. There would be greater unrest in the countryside than exists today; and unfortunately there is more unrest today than existed 25 years ago. We have an increased number of people in the countryside. We have increased car park areas. They seem to attract the petty thieves. We do not have the police; and the police do not have the resources to sort out the problems that arise today. With the proposed increased access for the public in the countryside—assuming that the public takes advantage of what one hopes will exist in the future—will presumably come increased crime and numbers of criminals. Thieves seem to find easy pickings of a relatively minor nature. They break the windows of cars in the car parks with simple tools and take what property is there. It would be nice to think that there would be proper protection for the countryside as and when increased public access occurs.
Finally, there appears to be a need to encourage farmers to accept the new ideas. With the new schemes will come forms. Forms are not popular with country people. They are exceedingly unpopular at present. IACS and CIDs spring to mind. With the mental approach of farmers at present, the Government would be well advised to consider carefully what

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forms they inflict on the farmers, and the need for consultation. In the last debate there was reference to consultation before legislation was published. In this situation, farmers are confronted with documents which they are expected to complete in no time. The documents have mistakes in them. They are unclear. I draw your Lordships' attention to the new numbering which has been brought into effect by the Minister of Agriculture, perhaps from his hotline:
"12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 15, 18, 19, 20".
Those figures are on the field data sheet of the IACS form. It would have been nice for farming to have received an apology from someone for that, which might well have taken the heat out of the unfortunate notices that appear to be circulating round Ministries suggesting that a rude and angry farmer is coming. Do you blame them, with that mistake in the form?
In conclusion, if the Government want the wholehearted co-operation of farmers in the reform of the CAP, they can achieve most from them by ensuring that all the forms which we receive are examined by a small group of farmers, perhaps from your Lordships' House, before the forms arrive on the breakfast table. Let us face it, there is only one envelope that I like to see arriving and I can recognise it—the one with the cheque. I am grateful for your Lordships' kind attention.
8.20 p.m.
Lord Wade of Chorlton: My Lords, first, on behalf of the whole House perhaps I may congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Macclesfield, on his maiden speech. It was a wide and interesting contribution to the debate for which we are grateful and we look forward to hearing from him on many other occasions. Perhaps I may also thank my noble friend Lord Selborne for introducing the debate and dealing with the excellent report, which covers an interesting and important aspect of the future of our rural areas.
It was inevitable that when changes were brought about and confirmed in the reform of the CAP, we should have considerably to reduce the amount of food that we needed to produce on our own land. There were then opportunities which we did not previously have for the use of the land. I have always believed that that opportunity should bring benefit to the whole nation—to use the asset and resource of land to benefit everyone and not to be too limited in what we were able to do with it.
It is interesting that in recent months, even recent weeks, in this House we have debated some of the priorities with which the nation is confronted. We have debated and shown the need to reduce food imports and increase food exports. The Government have confirmed their priority of wealth creation and growth and have shown that they are against regulation. They wish to reduce the amount of regulation with which everyone in the country is faced. We want greater freedom of choice and believe that market demands should decide much of what we do. All sides of the House have shown support for many of those issues in recent debates. We have also shown
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that we are not happy with central planning and unnecessary central control in many aspects of society and that they are not to everyone's benefit.
The Government have made it clear that they believe that change should be brought about by non-regulatory means and using fiscal policy as much as possible to encourage people and business, or whatever it may be, to change from one direction to another. I particularly wish to refer to the proposals on the agri-environmental measures which the Government have put forward and on which consultation has just come to an end. However, there will be an opportunity for them to take note of the views expressed tonight. I accept that we have an opportunity considerably to improve the environmental aspects of our countryside and to bring more pleasure to people. I suggest that in finalising various schemes the Government should bear certain points in mind.
First, please keep it simple. As the noble Earl, Lord Macclesfield, said, we should make sure that farmers and landowners are not inundated with unnecessary forms and regulations. Please make it apply to everyone. I do not believe that it is in the interests either of the schemes or the environment for us to divide the country into areas which make it difficult to decide what should be done in one bit and what should be done in another. It is interesting that many areas of high scientific interest which are dealt with in the regulations are not near towns. Yet one of the areas where people most want to make use of the countryside is near the towns. I should like to see much more support for and proposals to help environmental attitudes and open land to the people near urban areas.
I was interested, and agreed, when the noble Earl, Lord Macclesfield, said that there was an opportunity to charge people. I cannot understand the concept that wherever we go we have to pay but that access to the countryside should be free, at the taxpayers' expense. There is a great opportunity in the scheme to allow farmers to charge for certain amenities which they make available to the public and we could look again at the schemes which we had before the CAP applied to the country, such as direct grant schemes. We could allow grants for capital expenditure which may be needed for setting up car parks, toilets and other facilities that people need and then farmers could charge those who visit them. That could make a difference. In opening the countryside to more people, that aspect could be given much more consideration.
I should like to see a more detailed cost assessment of some of the schemes. Is there a real cost benefit for the public who wish to visit and see the land and make use of the countryside? Under the proposals, is that the most cost-effective way to do it? It seems to me that the application of some of the rules and regulations will be unnecessarily expensive.
I should also like to see a more agricultural or rural economic assessment of some of the proposed measures. As we all realise, the agricultural economy is an important aspect of our whole economy and we must be careful that we do not bring in environmental controls and regulations which might appear good but

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which have an important down-side in their impact on the people who live and wish to earn a living in rural economies.
I wish to make sure that the schemes avoid unnecessary central planning and management. That is not the most effective way to run anything. The failure of the CAP and criticisms of it have been that it works on the basis of bureaucratic central planning which at the end of the day is to the detriment of everyone. We need to make sure that the money spent on the schemes benefits the landowners and the public who will have access to the land and that it will not go on unnecessary administration.
Finally, I should like an assurance from the Minister that in finalising the various schemes the Government will consider the overall needs of the rural economy in which all those activities take place. The public who wish to use the land should benefit in trying to achieve the various schemes rather than the small numbers of pressure groups which have narrow aims. I emphasise again that the benefits we now have within our rural communities should be used for the advantage of the whole nation, ensuring that our resources and assets in land benefit all of us. We should not be too localised and rigid in the way we apply the various initiatives.
8.28 p.m.
Lord Moran: My Lords, I was glad that my noble friend Lord Macclesfield, in his interesting maiden speech, raised the question of access to the countryside—a complex question that merits full consideration on another occasion. He clearly brings to us a deep knowledge of farming which will be of real value to us.
I was a member of the Agriculture Sub-committee under the admirable chairmanship of the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, which produced the report which is under consideration tonight. I welcome the agrienvironmental regulation as an important first step under which, for the first time, European farmers can be paid for conducting their farming operations in an environmentally friendly way. That is progress and I greatly hope that in the period ahead we shall build on, extend and perhaps simplify the new procedures. I am glad to see the efforts which the Ministry of Agriculture is putting into it and I applaud the way in which it is now working increasingly with environmental non-governmental organisations.
We have, sadly, not yet put the environment at the heart of agricultural policy, as a paper published on 4th May on behalf of its agriculture group by Wildlife and Countryside Link, of which I have the honour to be chairman, pointed out. The paper said that the green regulation had been bolted on to the CAP and that over the next three years we in the United Kingdom would be spending just £31 million on the agri-environmental measures, £168 million on environmentally sensitive areas, but £7,630 million on our share of the CAP. Spending on the agrienvironmental measures and ESA together will, the paper shows, amount to only 2.5 per cent. of agricultural spending.
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The Link paper argues that priorities should be established and implementation overseen by a panel representing government departments, statutory conservation and landscape agencies, environmental, recreational and farming organisations. That recommendation was also made to our committee by the RSPB, which we endorsed in paragraph 41 of the committee's opinion.
The paper also called for effective monitoring in the Community and the United Kingdom, for good, free environmental advice to farmers and for the measures to be related to the United Kingdom biodiversity and sustainable development plans and the Communities species and habitats directive. It pointed out that existing habitats and landscapes were of greatest environmental value, that a return to mixed farming should be encouraged and that farmers should be encouraged to maintain traditional orchards, cereal and fruit varieties and local breeds of livestock.
The sad fact is, however, that those measures come very late and are long overdue. A huge amount of damage has been done, largely by intensive industrial farming methods, since the Second World War. Wild flowers, insects and birds such as partridges, lapwings, skylarks and several buntings are still declining despite steps taken in recent years. Those noble Lords who live in the country will know of the dramatic decline of the grey partridge in recent years.
A key feature of the new measures is set-aside. I should like to say a word about that, especially as I understand it will be discussed by Community Agriculture Ministers next Monday, 24th May.
I have never been an enthusiast for set-aside. As Dr. Potts of the Game Conservancy said in his thoughtful Massey Ferguson lecture, which is reproduced on pages 86 to 104 of our report,
"Set-aside assumes that land is the surplus commodity. With the problems of intensification that is, in my opinion, a wholly false assumption".
What is needed is more natural, less chemically-based farming methods. But the Community has plumped for set-aside, so we need to try to make it as environmentally beneficial as possible.
The one-year rotational scheme is clearly valuable. Until 1st May, the Game Conservancy says, an abundance of wild life was found on it—partridges being three or four times as numerous as on surrounding land. The RSPB argues that farmers should be allowed to include more than 15 per cent. of their land if they wish, be allowed a mixture of rotational and non-rotational set-aside on the same farm, which seems to me highly desirable, and be allowed to leave the natural regeneration uncut throughout the year.
The Game Conservancy is concerned at MAFF's failure to respond to its fears about the likely catastrophic effects on wildlife, especially on ground-nesting birds, of early cutting of set-aside. Our committee too was worried about that, as it said on page 48 of its opinion. But in the proposed management conditions for rotational set-aside MAFF appears to have proposed making the situation worse by suggesting,

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"replacing the natural regeneration flora with a planted green cover; destroying the cover by cultivation or non-residual herbicides between 1st May and 30th June, and cutting in June".
The RSPB shares the Game Conservancy's concern over the rules for controlling set-aside land and is concerned at the popularity since May of the ploughing option, which according to the Game Conservancy is often preceded by heavy rolling, swiping or spraying and has, it fears, destroyed a great deal of wildlife.
I raised that issue last March with Mr. David Maclean, who took it up with Mr. Gummer. But the only mitigating measures are that farmers can apply for an exemption from the cutting requirement for environmental reasons. I doubt whether many farm managers and farm management companies will so apply. At any rate, the DoE seems alive to what Mr. Maclean described as the,
"potentially damaging effects of the cutting requirement".
There are different views about the value of long-term non-rotational set-aside, the details of which are, I believe, to be settled at Monday's meeting. The RSPB hopes that that can be extended to 10 years to maximise wildlife benefits and that land coming out of the five-year scheme should be encouraged to enter. It is worried that too many farmers may return that land to arable on 1st October, when the scheme closes, despite the valuable wildlife habitats that have been created on some of it.
However, the Game Conservancy's research shows that permanent set-aside cannot begin to restore numbers of the declining wildlife. It probably does more monitoring of that than any other body. MAFF should take its views very seriously and seek its advice, which I am sure would be constructive. The noble Earl, Lord Peel, who is to speak shortly, is of course a pillar of the Game Conservancy and can speak for it with much more authority than I can.
On specifics, the conservancy has suggested a shift of the date of destruction of the crop from 1st July to 15th July, the use on appropriate parts of set-aside of selected herbicides, ploughing of natural regeneration restricted to derogation and grazing with appropriate safeguards.
The question of grazing is of central importance. I recognise that there must be safeguards against farmers using what is grown on set-aside to provide income, but at present grazing is, for example, strictly prohibited on some of the options under the potentially very valuable 20-year habitat improvement scheme. But the RSPB points out that it is, for example, almost impossible for wet grassland to be managed under set-aside without some form of grazing; and that grazing is also important to help encourage the development of species-rich grassland and to prevent heathlands becoming rank. There is no reason why such grazing should increase surpluses of beef or damage the livelihood of hill sheep farmers. It could be done by not allowing breeding stock onto set-aside, which would then not attract ewe premia or HLCA payments or increase the Community budget. I greatly hope that we can argue that case for the permitting of some grazing at next Monday's meeting. I believe that our view might well prevail.
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I should like to make one other point about the habitat improvement scheme. I understand that the Commission may have just concluded that land which is put in the scheme will not count towards the farmers' set-aside quota. That may force farmers away from beneficial options. Those who want to create chalk grasslands, wet grasslands and heathland—for example, to help conserve stone curlews—may be disadvantaged and discouraged from entering the scheme. I hope, therefore, that at Monday's meeting the Minister will, with his colleagues, seek to overrule the Commission so that land put into the habitat improvement scheme can count towards a farmer's set-aside quota.
It is important that in the interests of all forms of our wildlife we should try to get all this right. I very much hope that to that end MAFF will continue to work closely with the non-governmental organisations whose views I have quoted.
8.38 p.m.
The Earl of Clanwilliam: My Lords, I too should like to thank my noble friend Lord Selborne for introducing this timely debate and to congratulate the Select Committee which he chaired, which took copious evidence in making its report, including written submissions from Mr. Raven of the SAFE Alliance representing some 26 groups, including the Soil Association and the British Organic Farmers. I should say that I am a patron of the Soil Association. I should like at this point to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Macclesfield, on his excellent maiden speech. No doubt we shall be hearing more from him in the future.
It is a historic moment for the British organic situation that MAFF and the EC have recognised organic farming officially. This is the first time in 50 years. I shall, if noble Lords will permit me, confine myself to the subject of organic farming, to which the report gives some space but to which as yet no confirmed sum of money has been allotted by the ministry. Council Regulation 2078, which was discussed, particularly emphasises and recommends organic farming as a basic method of implementing its recommendation. Indeed, twice the preamble mentioned organic farming and there is an implied reference in Article 1 describing the purpose of the scheme. It is specifically in Article 2.1[a] dealing with the provision of aid, which is very close to the heart of the matter. That is especially so with organic farmers who, from what I am sure are the purest motives, have sacrificed their time and money in the cause of the environment over many years.
The question of the environmental benefits of organic agriculture is crucial to the discussion. The certification standard of the SYMBOL scheme administered by the Soil Association delivers all those requirements and many more. I am a fervent supporter of subsidiarity and its implementation by the Government, but in this instance it appears that the organic farmers are certainly getting the worst end of the case. I am not sure that I am quite so keen as I was in the past.

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I understand from the ministry that £42 million is to be spent on ESAs but from the noble Lord, Lord Moran, I heard that the figure may be £146 million, which I welcome. Indeed, I welcomed every word of his speech. So £42 million is to be spent on ESA and related projects this year. They do not necessarily do a great deal more for extensification farming than organic farming does and indeed mainly less so. The Stewardship campaign has been nominated for £3.5 million. I welcome that generosity, especially in view of the fact that it is quite clear that organic farming is at least twice as efficient in delivering the reforms. Perhaps I may ask my noble friend whether he can tell us that organic farming will be funded in proportion.
As the noble Lord, Lord Moran, also said, the set-aside figure is between £700 million and £800 million. Those are very large sums of money which are being spent everywhere. But none of those activities espouses and combines the principles and discipline of organic farmers, who are already delivering the required 15 per cent. and more in extensifying farm production. Organic farming delivers the CAP requirements, as the regulation clearly states. The Commission believes it and I suggest that we should also do so.
But to enable our farmers to live and thrive in the market-place with organic produce from UK farms, the industry needs to achieve a basic and critical mass. It cannot compete while its farms are isolated and disparate against competition from our EC partners, with up to £100 per acre in subsidy. We need a cohesive and compact industry. At the moment there are some 86,000 acres currently in hand but widely spread. The regulatory system is there. MAFF recognises the UK registered organic farmers scheme and the Soil Association, as well as the Soil Association SYMBOL scheme, which is recognised by all organic farmers as the key system which would deliver the controls necessary to put in place organic farming. The organic farmers need positive help to implement the CAP proposals. They are there, willing and able to deliver that requirement without any further bureaucracy.
There is also an additional and important point to be made about the size of eligible organic farms. Many are of smaller size than the minimum proposed by the Ministry. It is important that all farms which are UK registered in the organic scheme should be eligible for support from the ministry. Organic farmers must have support at least at the level granted to schemes by our EC competitors. I believe that that is virtually acknowledged by MAFF and indeed by my noble friend on the Front Bench. Perhaps I may pay a small tribute to him for the help and generosity that he has displayed to me and other members of the organic operation, with which I believe he has some considerable sympathy.
But the recognition has not yet been translated into support. We know that German support is at least £206 a hectare. Over three years the total conversion to organic farming in Germany is 234,000 hectares—over half a million acres—while the plan for 1993 is for a total of 274,000 hectares; that is, 677,000 acres,
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which is, incidentally, exactly one third of the land proposed to be set aside in the UK. Organic farming in Germany is one third of our total set-aside.
As a result of the subsidies, the German and Danish organic farmers account for most of the EC slice of the UK market, accounting for 60 per cent. of organic produce sold in the UK. The resulting deficit in the balance of payments may be relatively small in the overall context but it is growing at an alarming rate. With the present growth rate it is expected that the value of the organic produce in the UK will be something in the region of £1 billion by the end of the century.
We believe that it is realistic to convert 350,000 hectares, or over 800,000 acres, over some five years at a cost of £35 million and a saving to the Treasury in reduced support prices of £5.25 million. At the same time they will deliver the positive achievement of CAP reforms needed on a permanent basis. If the Germans can do it, so can we. The CAP suggests that we can do it and so we should.
I am largely quoting from the paper submitted to MAFF by the British Organic Farmers and the Soil Association. In it they show that the Treasury stands to gain from organic farmers at the rate of £15 an acre through reduced claims for set-aside, reduced claims for arable compensation and reduced claims for cereal intervention, storage and export refunds. Is it a coincidence that the proposed figure of £1.2 million which has been bruited about the corridors over the present organic acreage of 86,000 is just £14 an acre? The Treasury seems to have done its sums very well and is making a quiet £1 an acre on the deal.
Organic farmers deserve better than that. I believe that noble Lords will agree with me on that. I am sure that it was not the intention of MAFF to allow such a situation to arise. But to prove that, it must put its money where, to put it politely, its best intentions are.
In respect of the certifying agencies, those carrying out the statutorily required function, as it is to be, have received no remuneration for their work so far. Indeed, the SYMBOL scheme has been financed by charity. To carry out a statutory function without payment, or indeed to finance it by charity, is most unusual. I believe that arrangements are in hand but I should be glad to hear the intentions of the Minister from my noble friend. Included in that is the important question of training newly enrolled organic farmers.
I look forward with keen interests to the remarks of my noble friend in commenting on what I have said. In the meantime if any noble Lord wants to have a copy of the Soil Association's submission, I should be very glad to let him have it.
8.47 p.m.
Earl Peel: My Lords, I too should like to thank my noble friend for tabling this Question. Nobody is better qualified than he, both as a practical farmer and as the chairman of JNCC, to discuss such matters. We are very grateful to him. I also want to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Macclesfield, on his maiden speech. I confess that when I first saw his name I was not quite sure who he was. But when I came into the

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Chamber and looked across, I recognised him because the last time I saw him was on television when he and I had been involved in a rather controversial programme on public access. I am delighted that this evening's debate has not so far been as controversial. It was quite obvious from the contents of his speech that he feels very passionately on the subject. As other noble Lords have said, I hope that we shall hear from him again, not just on this subject but on other matters as well.
First, I very much welcome this package. It is very positive and the Government deserve our congratulations. But it is another scheme and part of the plethora of schemes that we all have to contend with in the countryside. I hope and pray that one day we will be able to get things a little bit tighter, a little closer together; with not quite so many organisations and schemes so that the landowner, farmer and, indeed, the public at large can understand a little more of what is going on.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Wade, who made that point. He said that the scheme should be more simple and open in the countryside. Having said that, of course money is scarce; we have to have our priorities. It is right that more money should be spent on areas such as sites of special scientific interest and so forth, which perhaps deserve more attention than the countryside at large. But my noble friend's point is well made and, in principle, I certainly agree with him.
I was interested in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Moran. As vice-chairman of the Game Conservancy and chairman of the Research Planning Committee, I spend most of my life going round praising Dr. Potts. It is very nice to have someone else say it for me. I shall not have to mention Game Conservancy, therefore, as the noble Lord has done it for me, and I can concentrate my remarks this evening principally on one aspect of the agri-environment package; that is, the uplands.
I see the moorland scheme as a further step by the Government in attempting to redress the balance between sheep grazing and the extensive loss of habitat that we have seen principally since the war and, of course, since the introduction of the subsidy system. As has already been pointed out, there is a considerable amount of money attached to the overall environment package. But like other noble Lords I wonder, after the six ESAs have been funded from it, what will remain for all the various schemes and for the wider countryside. Whereas I welcome it enormously, I wonder whether it will have the impact that we are led to believe it should have.
I am bound to say—I know that it is easy to be wise in retrospect—that if environmental conditions had been imposed from the word go on those in receipt of subsidies, we should probably not be in this position today and should not have to spend this level of money. But that is past. I hope that, if new farming production subsidies are introduced in the future, the Government will pay careful attention to the fact that they must ensure that the environment is looked after and that environmental considerations are part and parcel of any such subsidies.
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We have seen considerable changes in the hills. I welcome the new definition of "overgrazing". I welcome also the additional powers which MAFF regional officers have to tackle on an individual farm basis or on common land, either through the common as a whole or on a regional common basis, the problem of overgrazing. At the moment it is being tackled under the HLCA system. I believe I am right in saying that my right honourable friend the Minister is attempting to have it extended to include the ewe premiums as well. I sincerely hope that he succeeds.
There is one major new initiative on which I should like to touch. It suffers under the rather unpleasant term of "de-coupling". But its intention is good. It is a scheme which has been largely thought up by the NFU in conjunction with the Moorlands Association. It is simple in concept. It takes some of the headage payments and substitutes or translates them into an area payment, all on a voluntary basis. In other words, the farmer would have the choice to keep x per cent. of his ewe stock on the headage basis and convert the remaining percentage into an area payment. His gross margins would increase. His profit at the end of the day would certainly remain the same and might indeed be greater. The environment would benefit and, perhaps most important of all, it would not cost the Exchequer a single penny. I hope that that is something that my noble friend and his colleagues in the Ministry of Agriculture will take seriously when they come to consider it.
Returning specifically to the moorland scheme, I am pleased to see that the Government recognise that there is a problem of overgrazing on common land. I hope that the moorland scheme within the agrienvironment package will not be sold short regarding the commons. There is a real opportunity, even if only a few members of a common participate in the scheme, to see a real recovery in heather. I have done it myself. I have seen it done in other areas. It would be a great shame if it was the Government's view that all commoners had to participate in the scheme before it would work. That simply is not the case. It can work and I can show it.
There is one further point on that. Some say that before such a scheme could work we would need legislation on common land in order to create statutory management committees. But the scheme would be voluntary anyway. Therefore it would not change regardless of whether we had statutory committees. I urge my noble friend to ignore the plea for legislation on common land before the moorland scheme comes into effect under the package. I can assure him that it can work if it is given the opportunity to do so.
Another point is the question of temporary fencing. I know that a number of individuals and organisations are against fencing on common land. I see my noble friend Lord Barber, ex-chairman of the Countryside Commission, sitting across the Chamber. I know that his ex-organisation—if I may call it that—was not in favour of fencing. But it is a cheap and effective tool in helping heather regeneration. Provided stiles are put in at the appropriate places where fences cross footpaths, I do not see why they should not be used.

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Another point concerns cattle. Cattle do an immense amount of damage to the uplands. I would hope that any scheme that applied to sheep would also incorporate cattle. The noble Lord, Lord Moran, touched on another important point; that is, grazing on set-aside. It seems to me highly desirable to link the uplands with the lowlands to ensure that sheep that are being removed temporarily from the uplands to allow heather regeneration, are allowed to graze on set-aside land—set-aside land where the green crop at the moment is being cut, which is doing damage to quite a lot of ground nesting birds; sometimes it is rolled; later it is ploughed, thus disturbing the insect life. If we could marry the two, uplands and lowlands, in this way, as I am sure must be possible even under the EC regulations, it would be of enormous benefit. I ask my noble friend to consider that.
On the question of stocking rates—I do not want to go into them in detail because it is a tricky problem as they can vary enormously between the various types of moorland, whether it be heath or blanket bog—having seen the recommendations in the package, I believe that the rates are a little too high as they stand. The existing ESA proposals and the recommendations put forward by English Nature both indicate that the Government would have to be a little more generous with their money for the package to work as effectively as they would like.
Finally, my noble friend Lord Selborne mentioned the whole farm system. That is something which we must look at much more readily and seriously than we do at the moment. It is not very sensible to look at habitats in isolation; they must be looked at in a holistic way. Certainly, considering the matter from an ornithological point of view, birds do not stay in one place. They move and change according to nesting and feeding habitat and so forth. That is something which we should perhaps try to incorporate more satisfactorily than we do at the moment.
I hope that my noble friend will excuse the number of points that I have made. I hope that he will recognise the intention, which is to be constructive and helpful. I look forward very much to hearing what he has to say.
9 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, we have had a quiet debate. The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, will be a little disappointed that he has not aroused the fire that he did on Monday night. Nevertheless, he has produced a most admirable report on an extraordinarily difficult, diffuse subject. Everybody is interested; everybody wants to improve the environment and just about everybody knows how to do it, with the result that the objective is not clear.
I liked the report, the things it said and I appreciated the difficulties which were pointed out. I particularly liked paragraph 54 which states:
"In the context of long-term planning the Committee would also like to stress the need for payments for long-term schemes to be indexed linked, or otherwise guaranteed."
That is because we have already seen the damage done by changes in taxation policy and in forestry in this
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country. It is very important that any scheme to improve the environment is long-term because it is an extremely long-term job.
I would also like to comment about the objectives which are set out very nicely in the report, particularly the one which refers to reducing the polluting effects of agriculture. With enormous respect to organic farming and to extensification, we must realise that intensive farming and modern farming are absolutely vital if we are to feed the world. If we went organic, we might have a good deal of good food, but we would not have enough to feed the world. We would certainly have no problem with surpluses. I am not against organic farming; I am very interested in it. I was a member of the Soil Association for years. It is right and proper to produce organic food if the public want it, but we must realise that intensive farming is here to stay and that to reduce pollution needs a great deal of long-term research of a scientific character to produce sprays which do not pollute; and machines which use less chemicals to achieve the same result. There will have to be research into the biological methods which do the same thing without ill-effect.
The other danger we face from diversity is the number of people who are interested. The RSPB is a most admirable body. It does a great deal of good work. It is also extremely rich, which is also a very useful thing to be. Its activities range over a wide field which sometimes I feel might lead to grave trouble if applied fully by the Government. I have picked out a couple of items from its admirable paper:
"No goats should be allowed where shrubs and other vegetation have survived grazing on cliff ledges and steep stream banks".
The inspector of goats will have a great deal to do as he chases around. It is an important point.
The noble Earl, Lord Peel, will be pleased to note that the RSPB says:
"Away-wintering of sheep should be granted on a discretionary basis and the sheep should not be transferred to land susceptible to environmental damage".
I dare say that that is true, but all these factors would require a great deal of policing. The Minister would be chasing round with his civil servants doing too much. Therefore, I believe that we have to be fairly practical, particularly as the sum of money is fairly small and has to be spread in the direction where it can he most effective.
Another factor is the grants for forestry. Because farmers all over the country are taking up the planting grants, that is very hopeful, and that the continuation of the grants would be quite reasonable. I can see that being quite profitable and, if not profitable, no money will be lost and great pleasure will be gained out of planting considerable areas of farmland.
But that situation does not apply to the whole countryside. If we are to have only odd patches planted by different farmers, we shall not achieve the kind of effect found on the great estates of the past or indeed of the present. Nothing is more enjoyable to me just now than going around the countryside of Angus, particularly around Glamis, where areas have been well planted with beautiful trees which are now mature. It is absolutely wonderful. For people to say that the countryside is ruined is absolute rubbish.

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However, in the main, those areas are concentrated around the house. They are called the "policies". Very often there is very little afforestation in the rest of the countryside.
We need to look at local schemes. The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, mentioned that the regional schemes are very important regional plans and that the efforts of different farmers and estate owners should be co-ordinated in producing rides which the public can enjoy in a continuous line over many people's land. Such a proposal would need to be looked at because it would involve a great deal of work.
I have not gone into any detail because I do not know the detail. It is up to the Minister to tell us how he is going to proceed. However, I think that we must guard against the enormous multiplication of forms. We have already seen the forms for the reduction of set-aside, which have been a great trouble to many people. The Minister kindly wrote to me, detailing the number that we would have to deal with. It horrified me, as no doubt it horrified him. I hope that simplification will come. The idea is good, but the future looks fogged with good intentions and not enough money. I look now for a little direction from the Minister.
9.8 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, like other noble Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, and to congratulate his committee on producing an excellent report. After the skirmishes that we had on Monday on potatoes, it is nice to see that the House has returned to the sweetness and light with which we usually discuss Select Committee reports. I join other noble Lords also in congratulating the noble Earl, Lord Macclesfield, on his maiden speech. He made some thought-provoking remarks about access, jobs and wildlife, each of which is a subject that needs a debate on its own.
Discussion of the report also enables us to consider the agricultural environment a little more widely. There is, I fear, something of a tendency when discussing agriculture and the environment sometimes to leave the impression that farming, farmers, farm workers and food production are somehow incidental to the apparent prime aim of preserving wildlife habitats and producing a wide range of environmental benefits. The background to all our discussions of environmental matters should be the realisation that farmers, farm workers and the industries ancillary to agriculture are producing some 70 per cent. or more of our temperate food requirements. There would be little point in having the very best agricultural environment if we thereby substantially reduced our food production capability. Almost all our environmental policies in agriculture should be ranked according to their reversibilty because, as we are reminded by Mr. John Gummer, there is always the possibility that seven lean years will follow seven good years.
Having said that, I have felt for a long time that we have not given enough attention to ways of developing less intensive and more environmentally friendly methods of farming, certainly as an alternative to
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set-aside. I refer to the "greening" of the CAP as mentioned in paragraph 40 of the report. Suggestions for such an approach were referred to in the evidence that was given to the committee. I certainly hope that over time the package of agri-enviromental measures can be adapted to allow farmers to farm in a less intensive way if they wish to do so. The Labour Party, for example, produced proposals for a "green premium" before the last election to grant-aid farmers who decide to farm less intensively. I know that many other organisations have produced similar proposals.
In paragraph 44 of its report the committee supports the principle of aids to convert to or to continue with low input farming, provided that nature conservation requirements are included. When the Minister replies he might be able to tell the House what view the Government take generally of the encouragement of low input farming.
The departmental view has certainly changed in recent years. It was not so very long ago that I tried to arrange a seminar on low input farming. When I invited ADAS, the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service, to take part, it refused to do so unless I changed the title to "lower input" farming—that is a connoisseur's distinction, but one which was very important to ADAS at the time. Also, I think that it is correct that up to comparatively recently there was no research anywhere on organic farming which was sponsored by the Government. However, that has now changed to some extent.
There is clearly a change of view now regarding environmentally friendly farming, but the amount of money to be devoted to it compared with the total cost of the CAP shows how far we have still to go before it becomes a substantial feature of agricultural policy. That point was made by a number of witnesses to the committee.
One of the most welcome features of the CAP reform package as it finally emerged was the removal of the discrimination against larger farms which was in the original proposals. I am the first to congratulate the Government on their negotiating skills in achieving that—and that is the first time that I have said that. If the original proposals had been implemented, the chances of getting a real environmental input in this country would have been much reduced because we have so many larger farms compared to the rest of the EC. If we had put them at a substantial, if not a ruinous, financial disadvantage, we would have certainly reduced their enthusiasm for environmentally friendly farming.
There is a theme which runs right through agri-environmental policy and it is reflected in the evidence to the committee and in its report. It is the acceptance of environmental protection as a public good which must be paid for. But the problem then is, despite what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Wade, and the noble Earl, Lord Macclesfield, that the "public" cannot really be the customer as such and the governments of member states must become the surrogate customer and use taxpayers' money to pay for the perceived public good. That is a very important principle. Free market economists would say, "Let the market sort it out", but this is an area where the

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market cannot sort it out. As I say, the Government have to act as a surrogate customer and use the taxpayers' money.
It is unlikely that payments for public goods will replace the loss of farm income resulting from attempts to control the cost of the CAP. That is a point mentioned in paragraph 58 of the report.
The agri-environmental measures have to be viewed in that light. They are not substantial enough in absolute terms to have a marked effect on farm incomes in total. The crucial question is: do they tend to point in the right direction so that they can be developed and strengthened over time? The committee seemed to give the measures two cheers at least, although there are clearly many detailed questions still to be answered. We can all agree that the simplification of the current plethora of schemes is overdue. I agree with the recommendation in paragraph 41 of the report that a panel should be established to draw up and oversee the proposed zonal programmes. Perhaps the Minister will be able to indicate at least the direction of the Government's thinking regarding the more localised zones which have been mentioned and how they might be defined.
I agree with the committee that the forestry proposals are too broad and must be made more specific. That subject needs a debate of its own. We know that Regulation 2078/92 and the committee report referred to the importance of training. It is a shame that there is to be the change in the status of the Agricultural Training Board. That seems to conflict a little with the emphasis on training in the agri-environmental measures and the committee's report. It is still not clear how the Government propose to develop the rotational and 20-year set-aside programmes to obtain the maximum environmental benefit. I agree with the committee's recommendations regarding the 20-year set-aside set out in paragraph 47. We should regard this as an ideal opportunity to maintain the properly managed environmental benefit that it is hard to perceive resulting from rotational set-aside.
There is an important point about rotational set-aside which could affect considerably the possibility of developing environmental benefits from the programme; that is, the possibility of penalty set-aside for 1994 and subsequent harvests. I do not believe that that point was mentioned in the committee's report. I put down a Question for Written Answer on the subject. In fact I received the Answer today. I emphasise to the Minister that it is important that farmers know as quickly as possible whether they have to set aside more than 15 per cent. of their arable land next year for penalty set-aside. The Question I asked was:
"when the Government expect to announce whether or not there will be penalty set-aside … so that farmers can take this into account when preparing their cropping plans".
The Answer I received was that the Government:
"will make an announcement as soon as we have received all this year's claims for arable area payments and established whether any of the United Kingdom's regional base areas have been exceeded".—[Official Report, 18/5/93; col. WA 84.]
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I understand that, but can the Minister give us an indication—I shall not hold him to it—of when the ministry thinks it might be able to tell farmers? If there is a substantial set-aside next year, that may have an effect on the take-up of the 20-year set-aside, and I am not sure that that point has been picked up. As I say, the Minister might like to comment upon that when he replies.
To conclude, perhaps I may return to the important point of simplification. Most farmers are now pretty confused by the plethora of schemes which are available or which will become available as the measures are implemented. There is a strong case for the requirement, as phrased by the NFU, that all schemes offered by the Government to improve the environment should be delivered as a strategic whole.
In today's post I received some information about its farming from Sweden. I received two excellent and beautifully produced documents. One is called Environmental Goals of Swedish Agriculture: A Cleaner Future. It summarises what it regards as the contribution of society. It is worth considering. It states:
"Agriculture is an integrated part of society. A stable agricultural policy and a biological, ecological and economic responsibility from society is thus a fundamental condition for achieving positive developments in the environment. In order to achieve the targets, a condition is that society participates in, foremost, the following sectors".
There is then a list of sectors, but I shall quote only one or two:
"Increased inputs on research aimed at developing ecologically suitable cultivation systems with regard to production level, environmental influence and economy of natural resources".
The last point is:
"That the State will, foremost, consider the improvement of knowledge, information and extension before restrictions are introduced in the shape of laws and regulations".
The other document is a statement by the farmers called The Swedish Farmers' Revolt. I believe it is intended for schools and the public generally. The Swedish farmers then make this statement:
"We, the farmers of Sweden, shall create the purest form of farming in the world. We are halving the use of chemical pesticides. We are reducing the use of fertilisers. We are refraining from giving animals hormones or antibiotics to increase their growth. We shall respect each animal's needs and behaviour when raising it. We shall improve the handling of farmyard manure so that nitrogen leakage will be drastically reduced. We are directing our research towards environmentally-friendly agriculture which is in harmony with the cycle of nature itself".
I am well aware of the differences between Swedish agriculture and our own, but those statements include some interesting ideas of the way those farmers are approaching the whole problem of environmentally friendly farming.
We know that there is a great deal to be done by government, non-governmental organisations, farmers and others if we are to obtain the full benefit of the agri-environmental measures. The report has examined the subject thoroughly. The committee and its chairman, the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, are to be congratulated on producing an excellent report.
9.20 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Howe): My Lords, I believe this has been a useful and informed debate. It has focused on many of the issues raised during the public consultation on our proposals. Many contributions tonight have also referred to the conclusions of the report prepared by the Select Committee on the European Communities chaired by my noble friend Lord Selborne. I join other noble Lords in welcoming that report and in thanking my noble friend for initiating the debate.
Before I reply to points raised by noble Lords, I should like to say a little about the Government's thinking in developing the proposals which we have put forward. Our starting point has been warmly to welcome the Agri-Environment regulation. The Government actively encouraged and supported the adoption of the regulation and it was, as many noble Lords mentioned, a major step forward in the development of the Community's policy in bringing environmental considerations to the heart of the CAP. We have sought to grasp the opportunity afforded by the Agri-Environment regulation in a positive and imaginative way.
Secondly, we are mindful that this measure cannot be seen in isolation from the rest of the CAP. Our proposals will be most effective in securing environmental benefits if farm support generally is adjusted to take greater account of environmental considerations. It is for this reason that the Government remain committed to further changes to "green" the CAP. We have already made progress with the Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances scheme, in which environmentally damaging overgrazing is discouraged. We have also incorporated environmental safeguards into the set-aside management rules. We plan to carry forward this initiative and are continuing to press for the integration of appropriate measures of environmental protection into other support payments.
Thirdly, in implementing the agri-environment measure, we have taken the view that wherever possible we should build on the proven success of existing schemes. Central to our proposals is therefore a further expansion of the Environmentally Sensitive Areas scheme to new areas, bringing the total to 44 throughout the UK. ESAs have been widely acclaimed by both farmers and environmentalists and their expansion has also been welcomed. The proposed new schemes have been tailored to reflect the environmental character of each area.
In England we are also proposing to designate up to 30 new Nitrate Sensitive Areas which will build on and extend the approach pioneered in the pilot NSA scheme. These are areas where the National Rivers Authority advises that changes in farming practice will help protect groundwater sources affected by rising nitrate levels.
We have indicated that we wish to introduce some entirely new environmental schemes as well. Our proposals for a moorland scheme and a habitat improvement scheme are both targeted on specific environmental gains; enhancement of the nature
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conservation value of moorland in one case and creation and extension of wildlife resources such as saltmarsh and water fringe habitats in the other. My noble friend Lord Peel concentrated his speech on the moorland scheme and I shall deal with the points which he raised in a moment.
Environmental requirements are also included in our proposed organic aid scheme, which fulfils an outstanding government commitment. My noble friend Lord Clanwilliam welcomed that. Our proposals to create new opportunities for public access on land in ESAs and in set-aside offer an important new element in agricultural schemes which will encourage public enjoyment of the countryside. The noble Earl, Lord Macclesfield, directed his remarks to that area. The proposals will build on experience gained with pilot schemes operated by the Countryside Commission.
The consultation period on the main package of proposals has now ended. We have received a large number of replies; the proposals have been widely welcomed and their objectives commanded broad support. We have also received a great many detailed comments on specific aspects of our proposals, and on the relationship between them, and we are considering all of these carefully. Today's debate has provided further food for thought before we finalise our plans.
Although not part of the agri-environment programme as such, we have also been consulting on set-aside. Many noble Lords directed their remarks to that subject. The large number of comments we have received reflects the public's interest in set-aside. It is far from being our idea of an ideal policy but we have to make the most of it and I am therefore very gratified by the strong endorsement we have received for our proposals for exploiting its environmental potential. How we now proceed will depend on EC decisions on non-rotational set-aside. We have received support for our negotiating objectives and we will continue to press for EC rules which enable us to make the most of set-aside environmentally.
Finally, before I turn to points raised today, I should say a word about funding. All the schemes which form part of our programme will attract a financial contribution from the EC but I must underline that EC part-funding is not a pot of gold: the UK is a significant contributor to the EC budget, so the greater part of the funding of these schemes is provided from our national resources.
Against that background, it reflects the importance that the Government attach to the agricultural environment that we are sharply increasing expenditure on it. UK expenditure on the ESA scheme is planned to rise from £14 million in 1992-93 to £64 million in 1995-96. In addition, UK expenditure on the other proposed new schemes is planned to rise to £31.5 million in 1995-96. Moreover, to this has to be added expenditure on the countryside stewardship scheme, planned to be some £10 million in 1995-96, and other schemes which form an important part of the Government's policy and which are funded by it. In all, the Government have made a major

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commitment which I think all noble Lords will agree is good news for the countryside and good news for farmers.
My noble friend Lord Selborne, asked about the funding of the measures in each of the four territories. For the £64 million ESA budget, the breakdown is: England, £43.5 million; Scotland, £8 million; Wales, £8 million; and Northern Ireland, £4.5 million. For the £31.5 million that we have allocated to the new agri-environmental measures, the breakdown is: England, £19 million; Scotland, £6 million; Wales, £5 million; and Northern Ireland, £1.5 million. That excludes the cost of administering the scheme by agriculture departments. Fifty per cent. of eligible expenditure on all agri-environmental schemes will be reimbursed by the EAGGF in Great Britain and 75 per cent. will be reimbursed in Northern Ireland, which qualifies for special help from the EC budget.
There are differences between the proposals for the four territories; for example, different options are proposed under the habitat improvement scheme, reflecting varying environmental circumstances in different parts of the United Kingdom. And of course, each ESA is unique, reflecting the environmental character of the area. However, the basic structures of the schemes are on similar lines.
My noble friend pointed to the need for local consultation and for local ownership of schemes. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked about the idea of a panel to oversee such programmes. We have consulted widely on our proposals, drawing comments from a range of voluntary, professional and local bodies. We have received much advice from individual local authorities and bodies such as county wildlife trusts and parish councils. All their views are being carefully considered. We are already setting up local liaison groups for each of the ESAs which will meet as often as necessary to ensure that local anxieties are taken into account. I assure my noble friend and the noble Lord that the point has not been lost sight of.
My noble friend Lord Selborne asked why the country could not be divided up into various bio-geographic zones. We take the view that that is not necessary. All the individual schemes, except the organic scheme, will be targeted on the areas where they will be most environmentally beneficial. For that reason, we see no grounds for limiting the organic scheme geographically. To cover a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, we shall be monitoring all schemes, as we do now with ESAs, to ensure that the environmental benefits targeted are being produced.
My noble friend Lord Selborne directed some of his remarks towards set-aside, and in particular the percentage that the Commission may propose for non-rotational set-aside. The Commission has now produced its proposal for the percentage requirement for non-rotational set-aside. The proposed rate is 20 per cent. As my right honourable friend the Minister made clear at the April Agriculture Council, our view is that the percentage requirement should be set at a level consistent with the technical evidence on the
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effects of non-rotational set-aside, but no higher. My right honourable friend will continue to negotiate to achieve a fair rate for UK farmers.
The noble Earl, Lord Macclesfield, in a wideranging and stimulating maiden speech made the point that we should make the most of set-aside land. I agree with that objective. That is why we issued such a substantial document containing proposals for increasing the environmental benefits of set-aside. The noble Lord, Lord Moran, asked about land which is due to come out of the five-year set-aside scheme and how it would be treated. We are pressing for producers to be able to set aside more than the minimum percentage requirement under the arable area payments scheme. That should be especially helpful to those coming out of the five-year set-aside scheme. The Commission appears to be open to that idea and we shall continue to argue for it.
My noble friends Lord Peel and Lord Selborne asked about grazing on set-aside land. I recognise that grazing may, in many cases, be the optimum method of managing grassland; but there is no prospect of the EC Commission accepting grazing on set-aside. There are good reasons for that decision. Without the introduction of arable quotas, grazing at commercial levels would undermine the purpose of set-aside. The idea of low-level environmental grazing is an attractive one in theory, but it would be virtually impossible to control both here and elsewhere in the Community and could lead to widespread abuse.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, mentioned particularly the effect on wildlife of the cutting requirement in set-aside. We are sensitive to the concerns about the effects of set-aside cutting requirements. We received many comments on them. But we have to strike a balance between control measures to prevent fraud and the interests of wildlife. Of course, we are very ready to consider requests for permission to delay cutting where there is a particular risk to wildlife on the land. As respondents have acknowledged, in our proposals for set-aside management next year, we have sought to give as much flexibility as possible; for example, it may not be necessary to cut sown covers; the use of non-residual herbicide will be permitted instead of cutting or cultivating and derogations from the rules will continue to be available. But, at the end of the day, we must ensure that the scheme is not open to abuse.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked when we would be announcing whether or not there would be penalty set-aside. As I indicated in my recent Written Answer to the noble Lord, we shall make an announcement once we have received all this year's claims for arable area payments and established whether any of the United Kingdom's regional base areas have been exceeded. It will obviously take a little time to process all the relevant information, but we shall inform farmers of the position as soon as possible. I cannot, unfortunately, be more specific than that at this stage—much as I would like to be.
My noble friend Lord Selborne and the noble Lord, Lord Moran, spoke about the habitat improvement scheme. They asked, in particular, whether arable land set aside under that scheme could count against the 15

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per cent. set-aside requirement. We shall continue to press the EC Commission to allow arable land withdrawn from production under the habitat improvement scheme, and the farm woodland premium scheme, to count against a farmer's non-rotational set-aside obligation. In the consultation there was full support expressed for that.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, pointed to the benefits of grazing on land within the habitat improvement scheme. We recognise that grazing is desirable in many circumstances from an environmental point of view. Grazing at commercial levels will not be allowed; but where it is compatible with environmental objectives, some, as it were, lawnmower grazing at low stocking levels may be possible subject to EC agreement and appropriate controls. In this matter, as so often, we seek the advice of the Game Conservancy and other bodies.
The noble Earl, Lord Macclesfield, as I have said, directed his remarks chiefly to the public's enjoyment of the countryside and emphasised the desirability of increasing public access. I can assure him that we are conscious of the need for new public access not to conflict with the needs of wildlife. We would not expect to encourage access where that is likely to arise. However, we believe that where public money is being used to encourage the conservation of the countryside, it is also right to encourage opportunities for responsible access to that countryside.
My noble friend Lord Clanwilliam spoke particularly about organic farming, of which he is a knowledgeable enthusiast. I hope he will forgive me for not covering all his questions. He referred in particular to our proposal for a minimum hectarage requirement. Many respondents to the consultation wished to see the proposed minimum hectarage of 10 hectares, and 50 in less favoured areas, dropped on the grounds that it would disadvantage the many small producers who currently farm hectarages below those limits. We shall be considering carefully how we can respond to that suggestion. My noble friend also mentioned the current German scheme to encourage organic farming. I understand that that scheme is available to producers of certain agricultural produce who undertake to reduce output by at least 20 per cent. That can be achieved either by taking land out of production or by introducing less intensive ways of farming, including conversion of the total farm to organic production.
Our own information suggests that payments vary according to the Lander involved and that the maximum amount payable would be a little less than the £215 that is sometimes talked of. The German scheme ends this year but will be replaced by one based on the European Community regulation for agriculture and the environment. Our own level of support for organic agriculture will be determined in the light of the current consultation exercise on our environmental schemes and of course taking account of expenditure priorities and the need to control public expenditure. It will not involve the commitment to reduce output which features in the current German scheme.
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As my noble friend will recognise, the UK was one of the prime movers in securing the inclusion of organic agriculture within the agri-environment regulation. Having done this, we have consulted on a conversion scheme that would be available throughout the UK, and we have also sought views on the possibility of payments to those producers who have already converted. These are major initiatives. I fully understand that the organic movement would like rather more but my noble friend should not overlook the big steps that we have already taken.
Moving one step away from organic farming, the noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked about the Government's attitude to low input farming. Several of the agri-environment schemes we are proposing encourage different forms of reduced input farming. We in any case encourage farmers to minimise input use to the economic optimum. Where we expect farmers to reduce inputs beyond that in order to achieve specific environmental benefits, we offer financial incentives. We spend nearly £50 million a year on environmental R&D, much of it related to minimising the use of inputs.
Turning to the moorland scheme, my noble friend Lord Peel asked what provision will be made for common land to be included in that scheme. Much agricultural land in the LFA is common land. Our consultation document on the moorland scheme therefore sought to ensure that there would be scope for commoners to participate. We proposed that they should be permitted to enter the scheme at the discretion of the MAFF regional director, subject to certain conditions. In particular, we felt that it would be necessary for all right-holders who exercise their rights to enter the scheme and for any others who maintain an active interest—for example, by membership of a commons association—to undertake not to graze livestock on the moor during the life of the agreement. Those conditions mirror those in place for the environmentally sensitive areas scheme.
I recognise that some organisations would like them to be drawn more loosely. My noble friend shares that view. We shall of course reflect carefully on the responses to the consultation. However, I am sure that my noble friend will recognise that the scheme will need to avoid the situation where one or more graziers could frustrate its objectives by declining to enter an agreement and increasing their own stocking numbers.
My noble friend also asked whether the moorland scheme rules would allow temporary fencing. We have received a number of comments about erecting temporary fences on land covered by the scheme. Some organisations were in favour of their use as a tool to encourage heather regeneration. Others felt that fencing should be prohibited because it would detract from the open character of the land. We shall need to consider all those responses very carefully before final decisions are made, but I take particular note of my noble friend's remarks.
Earl Peel: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. Returning briefly to the question of commons, does my noble friend agree that on most common land the numbers of stock are

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registered under the Commons Registration Act 1965, and therefore the possibility of farmers increasing those numbers and filling in the areas that have been vacated as part of the moorland scheme should be prevented if the MAFF regional officer is doing his job properly?
Earl Howe: My Lords, my noble friend makes a telling point. I am grateful to him. We shall take note of that point.
My noble friend also asked why only sheep were to be included in the scheme. I appreciate the point that he made about the inclusion of cattle. However, targeting the scheme on sheep maximises the potential for environmental benefit given that the deterioration of semi-natural vegetation from heavy stocking levels is most commonly associated with grazing by sheep.
My noble friend made some pertinent observations on the greening of CAP support. It is important to be clear, as I know he already is, that our moorland environment was created by traditional livestock farming and cannot be maintained without continued grazing by sheep. If it were not for HLCAs the upland LFA environment would undoubtedly suffer. I accept, however, that in some places heavy stocking levels have caused deterioration of heather and other typical moorland vegetation. Where serious over-grazing causing serious damage to the vegetation is involved we already have powers, as my noble friend mentioned, to reduce or withhold hill livestock compensatory allowances. Of course, those allowances constitute only one element of the support available to hill farmers. My right honourable friend seeks to extend the powers we already have to the ewe premium.
My noble friend spoke about the concept of voluntary de-coupling, in other words providing for a proportion of CAP livestock headage payments to be paid on an area basis. I can see the environmental attractions of that idea, but it would represent a major restructuring. I do not believe that it is likely to be negotiable in Brussels at the moment.
My noble friend Lord Wade pointed to the need to take account of the requirements of the rural economy. The fundamental point here is that environmental schemes offer an alternative source of income for farmers and landowners. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for his acknowledgement that those schemes are a worthwhile step in the right direction.
The noble Earl, Lord Macclesfield, bemoaned what he saw as the unnecessary imposition of forms on
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farmers. The noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, echoed that sentiment. We are well aware of the need to minimise the burdens that we impose on farmers. We spend a great deal of energy trying to keep the forms as simple and understandable as possible. I am gratified that farmers' representatives have acknowledged that. However, ultimately farmers are receiving large amounts of public money and that money must be properly accounted for. We have a duty to safeguard the public purse against fraud.
All the points that have been made in today's debate will be taken into account as we now proceed to take decisions on the final shape of these new agri-environment schemes. Those schemes form part of the trinity of measures available to the Government in influencing our farmers and landowners to take good care of the countryside: guidance, protection and reward. We spend nearly £50 million a year on R&D which forms the basis for the guidance that we give to farmers through codes of practice, through direct advice and through demonstrations and example. To ensure that basic standards of environmental protection are met, we set out the requirements in statutory form, for example to prevent pollution and to ensure that farmers who benefit from taxpayers' support do not degrade the countryside, as I have already explained. But there is a limit to what can be achieved by advice and protection measures. So, we reward farmers for stewardship of the countryside that goes beyond normal good agricultural practice.
In this we have led the way in Europe. We were the first to introduce ESAs in 1987 and the scheme has attracted the admiration of many other member states. Now, thanks to our pioneering efforts, all EC countries have to offer a range of environmental schemes to their farmers. In the 10 years from 1986, our expenditure on environmental management schemes will have increased from zero to over £100 million. On any assessment, that is a substantial amount to devote to conservation and enhancement of our countryside. We expect our farmers and landowners to show that it is an investment well made.

Foreign Compensation (Amendment) Bill
Returned from the Commons agreed to with a privilege amendment; the amendment considered and agreed to.
House adjourned at fourteen minutes before ten o'clock.