Lords Sitting of 14 December 1994

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Worcester): The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham
Mark, Lord Bishop of Birmingham—Was (in the usual manner) introduced between the Lord Bishop of Worcester and the Lord Bishop of Oxford.

HIV Prevention in Prisons
2.37 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton Baroness Masham of Ilton asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether money allocated for prevention of HIV by the Department of Health is available for work in prisons; and if so how it is distributed geographically.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): Yes, my Lords. Distribution is through regional health authorities.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, is she aware of the great concern arising from the fact that regional health authorities are shortly to go? Is she further aware that districts feel that some of the prisoners are from far and wide and not from their own districts? Will she please look at Onley young offenders' institution which has had its HIV and AIDS programme cut in the middle because of this development?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, if a service has already been discontinued, that has nothing to do with the re-organisation because that has not yet taken place and is subject to legislation, not least in your Lordships' House. With regard to the future arrangements, I anticipate that when regions go health authorities will form consortia, or at least appoint a lead authority to act for the others.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the noble Baroness has raised a very important question? Will she confirm that for many prisoners the only allocated resources for HIV prevention work are the ring-fenced moneys to which she has referred? Is she aware that in many cases health authorities have not made allocations to prisons, that prisons have not sought the funding available, and that therefore the HIV prevention work is not being undertaken in some prisons?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I undertook a survey of all regions in the country. In every region at the moment work is going on concerning the prevention of HIV and AIDS in prisons.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, prisons are under the control of the Home Office and not the Department
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of Health. They are isolated units in communities where people of the same sex are herded together, not always in the best or most hygienic conditions. Bearing that in mind, would it not be better if this responsibility were passed to the Home Office as a special case with adequate funds in order to prevent something happening which we will all regret?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, HIV prevention co-ordinators work with the prison and probation service. That is a good arrangement because prisoners, it is to be hoped, leave prison and therefore need continuing advice and in some cases care and treatment. The Directorate of Health Care, which used to be the Prison Medical Service, does on occasions also get involved when it feels that it is necessary.
Baroness David: My Lords, does the education service in prisons have no input into this area, as indeed it did in schools through its science programmes? I am rather mystified that the education service should not be involved in any way.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, the education service is involved. Schools, too, still have instruction and advice, not particularly in the science curriculum but in the general values and moral context.
Baroness Hilton of Eggardon: My Lords, I am also mystified that the Prison Medical Service is involved only occasionally in this matter. Surely it is a matter in which it should be taking a lead and advising prison governors. Is the Minister content with the rather limited role played by the Prison Medical Service in this respect?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, HIV prevention co-ordinators are specifically trained for this task and have great expertise in the field. It is appropriate that they should be involved. But as I said, where the Directorate of Health Care—the former Prison Medical Service—wants to be involved, there is nothing to stop it.
Earl Jellicoe: My Lords, perhaps I may assure my noble friend the Minister that this matter is of general concern, and not only of concern to one party in your Lordships' House. The incidence and prevention of HIV infection in prisons is a very serious matter indeed, as I know from a good deal of experience. I therefore ask my noble friend to keep a very close eye on this matter.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Jellicoe for the interest he has taken in this specific subject, especially with regard to the insurance industry. The Department of Health keeps a very close eye on AIDS and HIV countrywide.
Baroness Mallalieu: My Lords, given that in many, if not most, prisons drugs seem to be almost as freely available as they are in many of our big towns and cities, which I believe the Minister recognises, is any joint approach planned between the Home Office and the Ministry of Health about giving guidance to prison governors? Does the Minister agree that they may wish to see the distribution of clean needles and some means permitted of sterilising them within their prisons rather

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than see people, particularly young people, going into prison, sharing needles and coming out not just with a criminal record but also HIV positive?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, it is essential that all the professions involved should work closely together. We encourage that. In February we issued guidance to ensure that that happens. As regards prisons specifically, we have undertaken a survey of three London prisons to see what the prevalence is and also to discover what action is being taken. We are expecting the results of that survey early in 1995.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, is the Minister aware, following the questions of my noble friends and the support given by the noble Earl, that there is considerable confusion about precisely who is responsible for this work in prisons? I have spoken recently to the governor of one of the major London prisons who is undertaking a great deal of work in this area. He is concerned that when the regional health authorities go difficulty will arise about who should support him. He is also concerned that the lowering of grants to some of the voluntary agencies has reduced their ability to help with work in prisons on this very important subject.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, we are increasing funds for local authorities and health authorities for prevention work on HIV and AIDS. I am concerned if there is confusion in the prison service. That is not the information which I had. I have been told that in Trent, Yorkshire, South Thames, Leicestershire, Staffordshire, Avon and the West Midlands, there are some very good examples of the excellent work which is taking place, not least by the chaplain at Parkhurst. Chaplains have a crucial part to play in this matter.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I would not want the Minister to believe that the work being undertaken in the prison which I mentioned is in any way under par; the work is very good. I was simply repeating the expressed confusion of the governor about where and how he will be able to draw resources for this work in future.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, as I said in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, this matter will arise when we are considering the Bill that will come before this House. However, there are clearly ways forward, including a consortia of health authorities taking on the responsibility for others.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, when the Minister is looking into these new procedures will she see that all governors throughout the country receive clear guidelines, because this matter is so important? Will the Minister also ensure that the governors know that money is available? This Government have been generous as regards HIV and AIDS prevention and we want that to continue.
Baroness Cumberlege: Yes, my Lords.

Airline Pilots: JAA Draft Report
2.46 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis Lord Clinton-Davis asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are aware of concerns about safety being expressed by airline pilots' organisations relating to recommendations made in the draft report of the Joint Aviation Authorities on pilots' flight and duty time limitation; and whether they will oppose any reduction in safety standards.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (Viscount Goschen): My Lords, the concerns expressed by the British Air Line Pilots Association were passed on to the Civil Aviation Authority who is responsible for aviation safety in the UK. The Joint Aviation Authorities and the UK CAA consulted widely on the draft proposal and the views of pilots and operators have been taken into account. There will be no reduction in safety standards.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I thank the Minister for the last part of his Answer. Notwithstanding the expression of concern about safety expressed in the JAA draft report, is the Minister aware that the view of the pilots' organisations—and I am president of the British Air Line Pilots Association—is that the draft proposals represent a substantial reduction in safety as a result of the increasing flight time proposals which are being made? When this matter comes to be dealt with at the Council of Ministers in due course, will the Minister appreciate that the Government have a responsibility and that it is not solely that of the CAA? Will he ensure, in line with what he has said about safety, that those expressions of concern which come not simply from BALPA but from many pilots' associations are recognised and that the draft proposals as they stand will certainly not be implemented?
Viscount Goschen: No, my Lords. I recognise the views put forward by the noble Lord, but they are certainly not those of the expert body which advises the Government on these matters; namely, the Civil Aviation Authority. Its view is that these proposals will bring substantial benefits in raising the general standard of safety around Europe while maintaining the very high standard of safety that we have in the United Kingdom.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: My Lords, if we increase the number of flying hours and reduce the number of duty hours per airline pilot between Britain and the rest of Europe, how can the Minister possibly give a guarantee that that will not lead to fatigue and therefore increase the risk that is always present in any case? As regards the directive, does not the noble Viscount agree that if ever there was an example of a matter which is suitable for subsidiarity, surely this is it? Why on earth do flying hours have to be the same in the United Kingdom as they are in Spain and in other European countries? Why cannot we decide these things for ourselves?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I do not agree with the noble Lord. There will be substantial benefits from

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harmonisation in the safety field. The noble Lord is also not right to take one particular aspect of these proposals. One cannot just take one aspect when there is a whole package. In the view of the Civil Aviation Authority this package represents equivalent safety standards to those which we already operate; namely, the CAP 371. For instance, in comparing the annual duty hours permitted for flight crew, the maximum permitted under the UK's present regulations is 2,470 hours, but under the new proposal the figure is 1,800 hours. That example shows that one cannot take any one specific figure and say that one package is higher or lower than another.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, is it not a fact that that overall package represents an increase in flying hours? Is it not also a fact that the medical centre at Farnborough has expressed deep concern about the health of air crews and has raised questions about the safety of both air crews and passengers? Is not that a factor that should be weighed very heavily in the balance when considering this matter?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I quite agree with the noble Lord about the importance of taking the best possible medical advice. That has been done. However, the noble Lord is not correct to say that the proposals represent an overall increase in the number of flying hours. On an annual basis, they will be the same at 900 flying hours per annum.

Prisoners on Release: Public Safety
2.50 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many offences were committed in the last year by persons temporarily released on "leave" during the currency of sentences of imprisonment, and in how many cases such offences involved injury to other citizens.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, I regret that the statistical information which my noble friend has asked for is not yet available. As my right honourable friend the Home Secretary announced in another place on 18th November, a new system of release on temporary licence will be introduced early next year. As part of those arrangements, a system to monitor the operation of the new scheme is being established. This system will provide more comprehensive statistical information than is currently available, including information about the number and type of offences which are committed by prisoners temporarily released.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer, but is her department aware that the very large number of cases of release on leave has involved not only the committing of further offences, sometimes involving innocent people, but also seems to be undermining the deterrent effect of penal sentences?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. It is precisely because of that concern that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is
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tightening the system and introducing the new scheme. It is our view that it will address some of the problems that my noble friend has mentioned.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, it is difficult to see how that can be the case. Although it is welcome that the new scheme will include improved statistical information on offences that are committed while prisoners are on leave, is it not the case that the Home Secretary has announced a blanket overall cut of 40 per cent. in the amount of home leave? Is it conceivable that that blanket cut can be justified in the absence of the statistics for which the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has been asking?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is properly addressing the issues of public confidence in the system and of public safety. He is also doing something about restoring the balance away from favouring the prisoner to favouring public safety and concern for victims. It is our view that there will be a reduction of about 40 per cent. in the number of temporary releases.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, in view of the continuing criticisms of home leave, is it not worth recalling why we have the system at all, however much it will be curtailed? It sometimes seems to be forgotten that all prisoners, with a very tiny number of exceptions, are eventually released. Is there not much to be said for a measure which, if suitably operated in a suitable case, helps to prepare the individual for a more satisfactory reabsorption into the community?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right on that point. The word that I should like to address is "suitability" for release. That is what is important. More rigour must be applied to the assessment of risk in relation to release. In terms of helping people to adjust from prison life to freedom, helping them to prepare for release and providing help with education and training and with resettlement and housing are very important. So there is a very good reason for temporary release, if it is properly managed.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that "suitably operated" is the crucial phrase in the last supplementary question? Is she also aware that the Home Secretary's instinct seems to be in accordance with the nation's instinct, because the public are disturbed by the fact that many instances of crimes being committed while a person is on temporary release are reported every day and flow from such extravagant levity?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble friend. This is not only a concern of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. He was rightly responding to public concern about this matter.
Lord Hooson: My Lords, I agree with the Minister that suitability should be the test, but how can she square that with the across-the-board cut of 40 per cent.?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the noble Lord must at least recognise that the incidence of breaching conditions of release leads one to the notion that some

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people are being released although they are unsuitable. It is the view of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary that there will be a reduction of about 40 per cent. in the number of people being released because they simply will not pass the more rigorous test.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I think that we can forgive public opinion for expressing concern without adequate statistics but can we forgive the Home Secretary for reacting in this knee-jerk way without adequate statistics? The Answer given to the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, indicates that there is not adequate evidence that excessive home leave is leading to an excessive number of offences being committed while on leave. Should we not be more concerned, as the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, said, with the ultimate release of prisoners and with the issue of discipline within prisons which will be endangered if the blanket cut of 40 per cent. is enforced?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the latest figures show that there were 6,300 breaches of the conditions of temporary release. I think that that should concern both noble Lords and the public. If it is "knee-jerk" to be concerned about the victim, public safety and public confidence, so be it.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, when the figures that were asked for in the Question are available, will my noble friend provide details of the number of cases in which members of the public were injured by prisoners on leave?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, a computer database is now being built up and I believe that we shall be able to provide such detailed information for my noble friend.

Lettuce-growing Industry: EC Proposals
2.57 p.m.
Lord Middleton Lord Middleton asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they regard the future of the United Kingdom lettuce-growing industry as secure in the light of the current proposals of the European Commission to reduce permitted levels of nitrates in lettuces.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Howe): My Lords, the position is that although the EC Scientific Committee for Food has not yet completed its work on nitrate, the Commission has gone ahead and published damaging proposals (which we have vigorously opposed) ahead of the committee's conclusions. The matter is now in abeyance pending completion of the scientific evaluation. Meanwhile, the Commission is examining a comprehensive dossier which we have prepared challenging the scientific basis for its proposals to set limits for nitrate in lettuce and spinach and detailing the serious damage they would cause to the UK glasshouse lettuce industry. The Government will
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continue to use all possible means to have the proposals either withdrawn or amended in a way that will preserve the position of our growers.
Lord Middleton: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that robust Answer. He will be aware that similar proposals in the past have been of concern to Sub-Committee D. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that such proposals are not put forward until the relevant evidence has been assessed by the Commission's own scientific committee?
Earl Howe: My Lords, my noble friend highlights a very important point. As a matter of course, we feed into the Commission and the Scientific Committee for Food the results of our own scientific research and assessments before the Commission's proposals are formulated. We then take a full part in the discussions that take place in the various expert groups in Brussels to try to ensure that all proposals are based on sound science. That includes fielding both administrators and scientists into the discussion process.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, is it not rather alarming that such discriminatory legislation can be considered which will give such a competitive advantage to other member states when it is backed up with such a small amount of research and supporting data? Further to his robust Answer, can the Minister say whether, as a result of their reaction, the Government have used their best efforts to persuade other countries which produce lettuces under glass to follow our arguments closely and to bring further pressure to bear on the European Commission?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I believe that the Commission has now realised the practical constraints which apply to glasshouse lettuce growers in Northern Europe. I should like to pay tribute to the producers in this country and the British Retail Consortium who have worked hard to get across their message in Brussels and in other member states. We shall be looking for amended proposals that are sensible and well-founded.
Lord Clark of Kempston: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the European Commission's continued interference in this country's economy is in some cases detrimental to some of our industries, in particular, the lettuce-growing industry? Further, does he agree that M. Jacques Delors should not interfere in our domestic politics in relation to the so-called Euro-sceptics by suggesting that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister should resign? That has nothing to do with M. Delors.
Earl Howe: My Lords, the European Commission's competence is well defined, and by no means are all of its proposals well-founded, as is well exemplified by the subject of the Question on the Order Paper tabled by my noble friend.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I wonder whether I may extend the Question slightly and say that questions arise from other parts of your Lordships' Select Committee on European Affairs. The issue of a

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database on scientific matters has caused anxiety to other sub-committees, particularly that chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Lewis, in relation to bathing water, a matter which is to be raised in a report which will be published shortly. Of more concern is the fact that this type of proposal is not one which would normally come before your Lordships' Select Committee, because it is, in a sense, delegated legislation. Will the Government use their good offices to ensure that in future the Commission at least gives notice to your Lordships' House so that such matters can be scrutinised?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I am aware that the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, has written to my right honourable friend the Minister on behalf of the Select Committee on the European Communities, expressing anxiety about the extent to which powers should be delegated to the Commission and the implications for parliamentary scrutiny. We take his points extremely seriously, and I hope that the Government will be in a position to send a considered reply before very long.
Lord Gallacher: My Lords, we share the Government's opposition to this, and congratulate the industry on the support that it has given the Government in this matter. The precedent of ignoring advice and jumping the gun by the Commission when it calls for information from the Scientific Advisory Committee is a bad one, and should be condemned in the strongest terms. However, will the Minister tell the House whether the abolition of the waste handling grant to farmers announced on 29th November will help in the context of this problem, particularly in view of the fact that 9,000 grants have been awarded since 1989? If the Minister is disposed to tell me that formal designation of nitrate-vulnerable zones next year, with payment for people in those zones, will help in this connection, will he say how soon the designations will take place? Most of the preparatory work seems already to have been done.
Earl Howe: My Lords, the incidence of nitrates in the UK glasshouse lettuce crop has little to do with the factors to which the noble Lord has just alluded. Most UK growers of butterhead lettuce, as it is called, will be unable to comply with the proposed nitrate limits. A major factor in determining those levels is the intensity of the light reaching the crop. Relatively low light intensities in the UK due to cloudy weather make it impossible for our glasshouse growers to meet the proposed limits for lettuce. That is why we have taken such strenuous exception to the proposals. The matters to which the noble Lord referred are not germane to the Question on the Order paper.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, following what the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, said, does the Question not raise the fundamental issue as to the relative powers of the Commission and the Council? I had always understood that while the Commission had the monopoly of proposing changes in European law, the Council decided whether they took place. Am I right in thinking that in cases where the Council—wisely or unwisely—has delegated to the Commission certain
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regulation decision-making powers, for some reason it cannot recall, to the Council for decision those regulations even where it appears that there is a matter of considerable national political importance? Will my noble friend reassure us that where there is delegation to the Commission, the Council will still be able to recall so that it, on behalf of the countries which are members of the EU, can make the decision?
Earl Howe: My Lords, my noble friend is right. Many proposals the Commission makes have to return to the Council for a decision. There is no doubt that the Commission is entitled to make proposals in this area which is a technical one related directly to the single market. Where we take issue is on the way its proposals were formulated, which was well in advance of up-to-date scientific analysis. As a result of the UK's intervention, those proposals have been shelved until a full study on nitrates is available. We have made it absolutely clear that we will not accept such an unwarranted and damaging threat to our glasshouse industry.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, in defending the UK lettuce-growing industry, have the Government drawn to the Commission's attention the recent outbreaks of dysentery in this country which are thought to be due to eating Spanish lettuces?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I am not sure whether that matter has been the subject of discussion in high circles. The advice I seek to convey to your Lordships is that there is no danger to the consumer from eating lettuce. On the contrary, all the experts agree that we should be eating more, not fewer, green vegetables, including our own excellent British lettuces. The controversy which is the subject of the Question on the Order Paper should not distract us from that central message.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, will my noble friend be a little more precise in informing the House as to what remedies might be available to this country if the Commission, having gone through all the procedures which he has so kindly outlined, still decides to go ahead with this pernicious regulation? Does my noble friend agree that since less than 0.1 per cent. of our lettuces are exported, their nutritious quality or otherwise should be a matter for subsidiarity; in other words, a matter entirely for our national competence?
Earl Howe: My Lords, subsidiarity on this issue would not be helpful. In essence, this is a single market issue, and the single market is something that our food and agriculture industry is keen to maintain and build upon. We have to ensure that amended proposals come forward, and that those proposals are based on sound science and take full account of the special conditions which apply in the UK. Those messages have been received in Brussels loudly and clearly.

The Legislative Process
3.8 p.m.
Lord Nathan Lord Nathan rose to call attention to the Hansard Society report on the legislative process, and in particular to consultation on and preparation of legislation, its passage through the House of Lords, and to the lapse of time between the passage of legislation and its implementation; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the debate arises from luck in the Ballot. I am especially glad that it has, because I have witnessed with increasing concern the fall in Parliament's public esteem in recent times. I put down the Motion relating to the processes of legislation not because I have any deep knowledge of the subject upon which so many of your Lordships have great experience, but because of that concern which is, I believe, shared widely.
Worries about the volume and quality of legislation and the processes and procedures by which it enters the statute book are of long standing. The committee under the noble Lord, Lord Renton, examined them and made recommendations in a report published in 1975, but little was done. I am delighted to see him now recovered from some serious ill health, and taking part in the debate. That report was followed of course by the Hansard Society's report of a major investigation by a commission chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Rippon, which was published in 1992. I should like to express my great sorrow that due to his ill health, as he informed me, he is unable, as he would have wished, to take part in the debate.
Our most ancient institutions, which are deeply embedded in our history and culture, are under close scrutiny and attack. That is not surprising, in view of the fundamental changes during the last 40 years or so in cultural, social and political attitudes and modes of thought; a greater change in so short a period, it has been said, than in any other period in history.
My purpose in putting down this Motion for debate is to consider the broad issues in the hope that they will not be confined to your Lordships' House but will extend into wide public discussion. In view of the large number of speakers on the list today, I shall confine myself to two issues. The first is the involvement of the public in the law-making process by pre-legislative consultation. The second is the development of law, which is not mandatory on government but permissive, by the use of commencement provisions exercisable without limit of time. These derogate from the authority of Parliament, whose prime function is to make law.
As the Hansard Society emphasised in its report,
"All the processes by which statute law is made and published should be governed by the needs of users and not by the needs of those who pass legislation".
It follows that involvement of the public in consultation prior to the introduction of legislation is a key requirement. Increasingly, the interest and energy of those active in matters of public concern confine their talents to support single issues by participating in pressure groups and campaigns. Consultation engages them in the processes of legislation. Furthermore, their expertise will help to formulate good law which will
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work effectively. A good example of success is the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990—a subject of great difficulty—which was enacted after extensive public consultation.
There are many means for such consultation. The most formal is by a Royal Commission. I had the privilege of serving on the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution for some 10 years. Part VI of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which relates to genetically modified organisms, did not give rise to the controversy which might have been expected because, I believe, of the Royal Commission's report on the subject and the related consultation. Public disquiet could have stultified all activity in genetic engineering. I suggest that the more extensive use of Royal Commissions and departmental and inter-departmental inquiries should be promoted.
The less formal consultations on the environment agency legislation—that is now Part I of the Environment Bill—and the publication of draft clauses as well as the willingness of the department to discuss them are further examples of how these matters should be dealt with. The Second Reading of the Bill, which takes place tomorrow, will demonstrate whether that is so.
There are, alas, all too many instances of bad legislation. Bad legislation diminishes Parliament and alienates the public. An example is the provision of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 substituting a predefined penalty for discretion of the court. These provisions, which were central to the policy of the Act, proved unworkable and generated such strong public hostility as to require repeal within seven months of introduction. The Child Support Act 1991 generated serious hardship when applied and public hostility resulted in the changes announced in December 1993. Certain provisions in the legislation relating to football stadiums had to be withdrawn—more accurately, not brought into force and abandoned—within two months of Royal Assent.
It is a matter of some anxiety as to whether cuts in the Civil Service have given rise to these errors and whether the cuts presently in view will have an adverse effect on the quality of advice given to Ministers and the quality of legislation. Will the noble Viscount the Leader of the House comment on this in his reply? The statute book is littered with abandoned legislation which should be repealed. It has been suggested that such legislation should be retained in case it is required at some unknown future date. If it is required later it should be reintroduced.
I turn to commencement orders, which are now found in most Acts, by exercise of which alone their provisions or any of them are brought into force. There is normally no time limit within which an order must be made and, therefore, a provision may never come into force. Legislation is thus now not mandatory on government but permissive. For instance, after long and exhaustive debate, Section 143 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and associated sections relating to contaminated land were enacted. Now, nearly five years later, they have not been brought into force. The Government have

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decided to abandon them and to start afresh, as they have done in the Environment Bill the Second Reading of which is to take place tomorrow.
I am told that we coined the expression "optional legislation" in the 10th report (1984) of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution in the context of delays—which at that time ran for some 10 years—in bringing into force Part II of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, which was central to the purpose of the Act. We used it to describe the practice by which the unfettered discretion of Ministers over the commencement of key provisions of an Act was used effectively to frustrate Parliament's intentions in enacting the Act.
Various suggestions have been made to limit the period during which a commencement order can be made. It could be provided that the provisions of an Act shall come into force a specified time after Royal Assent unless previously brought into force by order. That was suggested in the 12th report (1993–94) of the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee. Alternatively, it could be provided that the provisions of an Act shall lapse if not brought into force by order within a specified time. That is favoured in Australia and is to be found in its legislation; for instance, the Fisheries Legislation (Consequential Provisions) Act 1991. In Australia it seems to be recognised that the Administration should not include provisions in Bills which cannot commence within a reasonable time and that existing provisions which have not been brought into force for years should be repealed.
In the Memorandum from the Chairman of Committees to the Select Committee on Procedure of the House, dated 1st December 1994, the idea was canvassed that the Government should report to the House from time to time what legislation has yet to be brought into force, giving reasons for delay and an indication of the Government's intentions. This will not do. The present parlous situation, whereby the authority of Parliament has been undermined, would continue.
Your Lordships may well ask what provisions in recent Acts remain to be brought into force under orders of this kind. So I asked the Government about Acts passed between 1989 and 1992. (I gave the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor notice that I intended to refer to this matter today). He replied in writing stating:
"It is not possible other than at disproportionate cost to identify specific provisions of Public General Acts enacted, with commencement provisions, between 1st January 1989 and 31st December 1992 which have not yet been brought into force. However the percentage of such provisions not yet in force is, I believe, around 1 per cent.".
The point is, which 1 per cent.? It is very odd and worrying that government cannot find the answer—and nor, therefore, the public without disproportionate cost. Will the database, on which I believe the Lord Chancellor's Department is working, help and, if so, when can we expect that to mature?
I was prompted to put down this Motion for debate because of my concern that Parliament should remain the bulwark of freedom and the source of sound law on which that freedom rests. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.20 p.m.
Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, on the wisdom of his choice of Motion and echo the therapeutic comments with which he commenced his speech to my noble friends Lord Rippon and Lord Renton, whom I welcome back to the Chamber.
I congratulate them also on the near unanimity of their insight into those problems, expressed over the ages in different words. First, there is no doubt that this is a problem of great seriousness. Secondly, it is a problem of very long-standing. It was Tacitus who said, "Whereas formerly we suffered from crimes, now we suffer from laws". It is a problem which has provoked some fairly eccentric solutions. It was Swift in Brobdingnag who said that in that kingdom no laws must exceed in words the number of letters in their alphabet; that few of them extend even to that length; and that to write a comment on any law was a capital crime. I am not sure that that made much difference.
The third point on which there is unanimity is about the essential requirements of reform. First, there should be better management of the legislative programme by government. The noble Lord, Lord Nathan, gave examples of what I came to describe as policy-making on the hoof, which even during my brief time as Leader of the House of Commons I was not able to check beyond a very modest degree. We need much better management of the legislative programme.
Secondly, more resources are needed for the drafting of legislation. That has often been said but has never been resolved. We need more resources which are better deployed, with time to plan the work; time to think about the process; time to consult colleagues in Commonwealth countries and time to catch up with themselves instead of having to handle reforms in the spillover period when work should be done on the next round of Bills; and time to look at the question of reform.
Thirdly, we need better and more innovative and imaginative management of legislative procedures. All the right proposals are set out in a sequence of reports: timetabling, Select Committees rather than Standing Committees and so on.
Fourthly, we need more time and resources for the preparation of policy and, above all, as the noble Lord said, for consultation, for draft clauses, for Green Papers, for Royal Commissions and so on.
As I say, there has long been unanimity on most of those practical points. Most of the texts of the reports consist of repeating and amplifying the recommendations of their predecessors. But I plead guilty to two aspects of that continuing debate. First, I plead guilty to recurrent bouts of reforming lust. I have long been dismayed and anxious about the way in which we do those things.

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Secondly, I plead guilty to inability to satisfy that reforming lust to any significant extent. I am never sure which side, in the end, I shall be judged to have been on. I am delighted to see my noble friend Lord Can of Hadley in his place because he will recall that, before the election of the government in which we both served under the premiership of my right honourable friend Sir Edward Heath, we were both most concerned with regard to the simplicity of the legislation that we were to produce in the shape of the Industrial Relations Act. We arrived in office full of zeal and enthusiasm and, indeed, full of draft clauses and of a draft redraft of the section of the then Labour Government's Bill which had only just been brought before Parliament, and simplicity was our message, endorsed specifically by the Prime Minister of the day with enthusiasm. And simplicity, I fear, we did not deliver. I am not now going to analyse that story because the reasons for it are set out in the many reports which we have before us.
In my humble role as Solicitor-General at that time, I played some part as one of the midwives to the appointment of the Renton Committee, which reported in 1975 again with many of the right solutions. Then, after a further period in Opposition, under the leadership of my noble friend Lady Thatcher I delivered in 1977 a speech to the Addington Society about the right way in which to prepare fiscal legislation, which was full of wisdom, as one always is in Opposition. I delivered a longer speech to the Society of Conservative Lawyers entitled "Too Much Law?", with a cautionary question mark at the end of it. Once again, those words of wisdom were endorsed enthusiastically by the then Leader of the Opposition, my noble friend Lady Thatcher.
Alas, alack, in our last three years together in Government, the Government of whom my noble friend and I were both members found themselves enacting on average three times more pages of legislation each year than in the last three years of the Labour Government whom we had replaced. So much for one's aspirations.
I claim some achievements but not many. First, during my time as Chancellor of the Exchequer, I believe that I was able to introduce a much wider pattern of consultation on fiscal legislation. I was glad to see that one of those most interested in this subject, Mr. Malcolm Gammie, said that it was clear that the development of pre-legislative consultation since my 1977 speech had:
"significantly altered the landscape against which we must judge the fiscal process in the United Kingdom".
So far so good.
Secondly, I played a modest part in relation to the embryology Bill which the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, mentioned, because in the Commons stages of that, we were able to timetable the decisive stages; to offer the House rational choices; and to proceed with a programmed debate.
Therefore, everyone knows what needs to be done and occasionally it can be done. But for the most part our achievements are achievements of extreme modesty.
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Why is that so? Why is it that recommendations which are so unanimously endorsed have so little done about them, and what, if anything, are we to do about it?
I believe that the attempts that have been made by successive governments to give responsibility for that task to this or that Minister or department, be it the Attorney-General, the Lord Chancellor, the Prime Minister or, heaven forbid, the usual channels or the Leader of either House, all run into the sand because in the hands of any one of those individuals they find themselves competing with the selfish departmental interest of those individuals themselves or the shortage of resources of those individuals. Sometimes they find themselves literally competing with conflicting departmental interests. And, above all, the usual channels normally have no enthusiasm for innovations in the legislative process.
Most serious of all, nobody is charged with the centrally important task of continuous sole responsibility for the management of the legislative reform process. It is never in the hands of any one individual, and that must be the answer. I offer one piece of encouraging experience in that respect in relation to the reforms in management of both Houses separately and in relation to each other that have taken place in the past four years. Those resulted very largely from the recommendations of the Ibbs Committee which was appointed and reported and whose recommendations were adopted during my 15 months as Leader of the House of Commons. Those recommendations have been put into place in the past four years and have transformed the effectiveness and administration of both Houses in relation to each other.
That did not happen because of my personal commitment but because politicians in both Houses were ready to be mobilised to do something about the problem. The House of Commons Commission, under the leadership of my noble friend Lord Weatherill, was able to dynamise the House of Commons in that respect. Leaders of both parties in both Houses also did the same. Above all, the task of defining the process of reform was in the hands of Sir Robin Ibbs who, with enthusiasm and gusto, started and finished it within a measurable timescale. For that to happen, political commitment is vital and it is not sufficient to identify just one Minister. The Government must identify an official with that responsibility, sufficiently equipped to follow it through from day to day, from month to month and from week to week. That is a task of supreme importance for the administration or even creation of law in this country.
One last point: I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, is to speak in the debate because very recently he produced another Hansard Society report entitled What Price Hansard? That is another topic—the absurd prices now being charged, perhaps even as a consequence of some of the policies which I initiated as Chancellor of the Exchequer, for Hansard and for Bills to be available to the public. We need to do something about that.
Again, that is a task which can be tackled by ourselves. If the House of Commons Commission proceeds to enlarge its expenditure, as it is able to do—

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and, indeed, as I found it was when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer and tried to stop it from so doing—and if it is willing to do so with the co-operation of this House, then at least the two Houses together, regardless of what Her Majesty's Government may say, can tackle that aspect of the problem. However, far be it from me to foster revolutionary thoughts of that kind.
I close with a simple, single message, quoting from my 1977 speech:
"It is the politician who must bear the responsibility for changing the system, whether as Ministers or parliamentarians. It is we who are in charge. Only we can change the system".
3.30 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, has given us the opportunity to discuss the Hansard Society report today, particularly as I was unable to speak on 2nd November in the debate on the report on the sittings of the House. I believe that a letter from me to the Procedure Committee, expressing my outrage at the repeated late night-early morning sittings during the passage of the 1992 Education Bill, was one of the triggers that encouraged the setting up of that committee, and so I am anxious to comment.
I presume that we all start from the premise that legislation and the business of the House could be better organised. There is general agreement that Bills are produced in too much of a hurry without enough consultation with interested people and organisations, the parliamentary counsel and the civil servants who have the job of preparing the Bills. I thought that the evidence from the FDA report was very illuminating.
The gestation period for a Bill is, or should be, very long. Although I cannot agree that a Bill, once introduced, should be carried over into a second Session, there should be the proposal for a Bill, perhaps with a Green Paper and a White Paper for comment, at least a year before First Reading. Consultation in that way should mean a smoother and faster passage for the Bill.
A prime example of a Bill where there was no consultation was the students' union and teacher training agency Bill which was brought forward last Session. Not even those on the Government's own Benches, who were really well informed, had been listened to. It was, in the end, they who brought pressure to bear on Ministers which meant major changes to the Bill and a very long gap between Second Reading and the Committee stage while the government amendments were created. It is ironic that, according to the CVCP, the Government could have made any changes that they wanted without any legislation at all.
Another excellent example is the Education Reform Act 1988 in which I was heavily involved. It was a major measure. There was no White Paper. Short, consultative documents were published in haste in July and August 1987, allowing from five to 11 weeks for replies. That was over the period of the school summer holidays. No analysis of the responses was published. LEAs were at no point involved in consultative discussions. It is not surprising that many measures in the Bill, pushed through against strong and reasoned opposition, have had to be changed—the national curriculum and testing being prime examples.
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In that respect, Recommendation 71 of the report which says that:
"The operation of every major Act … and all the delegated legislation made under it, should be reviewed some two or three years after it comes into force",
seems very apt. Such a review might prove very salutary for a government that has rushed through Bills with indecent haste.
I support strongly the proposal that after Second Reading there should be a meeting of Ministers, Front Bench Opposition spokesmen, civil servants, a few interested Peers and some organisations which are highly involved and affected by the Bill. Evidence could be called. After Second Reading seems the right time, as it is then that anxieties and, perhaps, misunderstandings about the Bill are aired. There might well need to be a slightly longer gap between Second Reading and the Committee stage than the statutory two weeks.
The report tells us that the Australian Senate and the Canadian House of Commons have those meetings and that they work well. In her 2nd November speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, pointed out how profitable such meetings that she arranged had been as regards the Children Bill. I agree with the noble Baroness; I was there. Similarly, the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, arranged meetings on the code of practice for children with special educational needs in the 1993 Bill. That was very enlightening and helpful.
I was impressed by the evidence given by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, in the report. He has immense experience. He advocated the meeting after Second Reading that I have just been applauding. I urge the Government to pay heed to all his written evidence in M1 and M2 on page 153 of the report, where noble Lord's ideas seem to me to be extremely constructive and practicable.
What has been said about primary legislation goes also for delegated legislation—consultation at the formative stage with appropriate experts and affected bodies. Greater openness is called for, and that is a recommendation for all legislation. As Recommendation 35 says:
"Some means should be found of informing the citizen, his lawyers and the courts of the intention underlying the words of the statute".
Recommendation 94 says:
"The Government should do all … [in its power] to explain new law to the public, and especially those most affected, in terms that are readily intelligible".
Going along with that, the Government should enable HMSO to price their publications, and especially Acts and statutory instruments, at well below cost. I am glad that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, referred to the price of Hansard in that respect. Open government has been promised by the Prime Minister. Well, let there be a start here.
There are interesting discussions in the report on European legislation that affects us. I applaud the suggestion that the powers and resources of the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee should be enlarged to enable it to detect potential legislative conflicts with the European Convention on Human Rights and, again, for it to detect prima facie conflict

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between provisions in proposed legislation and the requirements of European Community law. That seems to me to be necessary.
I do not think that there is enough acknowledgment of the excellent work and reports of our European Select Committee. But the proposal (and this is already happening) that the Lords, through Select Committees, should look at matters more peripheral to current legislation, though clearly relevant in the long term—for example, questions such as those of civil rights, of central local government relations or of the environmental impact of legislation—seems to me to be totally acceptable.
I am sure we all agree that Law Commission Bills, many already drafted, should be sent to Standing Committees off the Floor of the House and that other Bills of a non-controversial nature could be treated in that way too.
We conduct ourselves in a very strange and erratic way. So I hope that many of the proposals in the report can be embraced by the House. I am very glad that the noble Lord has given us the opportunity to express our views.
3.37 p.m.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, the Hansard Society and the Commission of the noble Lord, Lord Rippon of Hexham, are to be congratulated. Their comprehensive report contains enlightened, practical and much-needed proposals to improve the way that we make law and understand law. The noble Lord, Lord Nathan, deserves our gratitude for having initiated a debate on a brilliantly informative, critical and constructive report on a subject which affects the quality of law making and the citizen's access to the processes of law making and to the law itself.
As other noble Lords have already indicated, I am very sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Rippon, is prevented from being here today because of ill health. Let us hope that the work of the commission, so skilfully chaired by the noble Lord, will not suffer the fate of so many previous reports on the legislative process, including the admirable report 20 years ago of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, of being debated solemnly and seriously and then quietly relegated to gather dust on library shelves.
The five central principles which have guided and governed the Rippon Commission's recommendations need to be engraved in bold letters on the pillars of the Palace of Westminster and on the doors of every government department. They also need to be fully heeded by Ministers, civil servants and ourselves as parliamentarians. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships of those five principles.
First, laws are made for the benefit of the citizens of the state. All citizens directly affected should be involved as fully and openly as possible in the processes by which statute law is prepared. Secondly, statute law should be as certain as possible and as intelligible and clear as possible for the benefit of the citizens to whom it applies. Thirdly, statute law must be rooted in the authority of Parliament and thoroughly exposed to open
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democratic scrutiny by the representatives of the people in Parliament. Fourthly, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Therefore the current statute law must be as accessible as possible to all who need to know it. Fifthly, the Government need to be able to secure the passage of their legislation, but to get the law right and intelligible for the benefit of citizens is as important as to get it passed quickly. That was a point underlined by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, resisting the making of policy on the hoof in mitigation of his own reforming zeal and lust—a zeal and lust that I share but not always in exactly the same direction.
Year after year the volume of legislation continues to increase at a chokingly high rate, as does its quite bewildering complexity. This makes it essential for the legislative process to conform to democratic ideals, producing well conceived, well drafted and accessible legislation, with as much consultation of affected parties and relevant experts as is reasonably practicable. As the Rippon Report clearly demonstrates, successive governments of whatever colour and successive Parliaments have paid lip service to these ideals without adopting effective measures to implement them.
I shall just deal briefly with two or three of the many topics raised by the report. The commission is surely right to recommend, and the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, and the noble Baroness, Lady David, to emphasise, that the Government should always seek the fullest advice from those affected on the problems of implementing and enforcing proposed legislation. The Rippon Commission concluded that the overwhelming impression from the evidence is deep dissatisfaction. The commission emphasised the importance of timing.
The bodies consulted should be given all the relevant information in good time and, as the commission recommends, there is great benefit in publishing draft Bills for consultation. I also agree with its conclusion that bodies invited to the consultative process should be given the necessary documents free of charge.
As regards commencement orders, I simply wish to register my complete agreement with the powerful observations of the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, on that subject. The failure to bring into force the criminal injuries compensation scheme in the 1988 Criminal Justice Act is simply one recent bad example of the vice.
On legislative drafting, I support all of the commission's recommendations for clarity, simplicity, brevity and the pursuit of the Holy Grail of certainty in the drafting of legislation; and for Ministers, civil servants and parliamentary counsel to do all they can to eliminate unnecessary and complicated detail in the Bills for which they are responsible.
There is too the important question of ministerial responsibility. I warmly welcome the proposal that responsibility for the work of the Parliamentary Counsel's Office and the oversight of drafting methods should be assigned to the Attorney-General. If only that had been the position in the mid-1970s when I was Special Adviser to the Home Secretary, my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, we could have had readily intelligible, user-friendly legislation to deal with sex and race discrimination rather than the excessively detailed and technical Bills more suited to income tax legislation.

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Neither the Home Secretary nor the Attorney-General was able to persuade parliamentary counsel to redraft the key definition clause of what is meant by unlawful discrimination. I was told by the Attorney-General, Sam Silkin, that only the Prime Minister could do that. As a result, there have been years and years of costly litigation to clarify basic concepts that could have been dealt with at the drafting stage. I believe that overall responsibility has to lie with a legally qualified Minister and legal advisers. I also agree that parliamentary counsel should review their drafting styles and be willing to learn from best practice in other Commonwealth countries and, I dare say, Europe as well.
The other topic which has been touched on already by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, is the price of government publications. The Rippon Commission received a number of complaints about over-pricing. Its own report, some 400 pages long, is modestly priced at £16 and it recommends that the Government should enable HMSO to price its legislative publications, Bills etc. at well below cost. I was stimulated by the Rippon Report to co-author another report for the Hansard Society entitled What Price Hansard? to look at the problem in greater depth. It is a problem worthy of an entire debate in its own right but I shall just briefly make a few points.
Hansard is quite absurdly overpriced at £11.70 a day for the combined work of both Houses. It is beyond the reach of any but the wealthiest citizens and institutions to buy on a regular basis. The price is seven times what Germans pay, seven times what the Americans pay, 14 times what Australians pay, eight times what Canadians pay, and eight times what the French pay for comparable reports.
Parliament needs to decide to disseminate the Official Reports of our debates as widely as possible. We really need to adopt effective measures to achieve that aim. Public ignorance about what is said and done in Parliament is inimical to good and democratically accountable government. Public ignorance about the law is no excuse for law breaking, but makes it essential for Parliament to ensure that there is a right of access to legislative material at marginal cost. The need for accessible material is especially important now that our courts look at parliamentary debates and other background parliamentary material—post Pepper v. Hart—where the legislative text is unsatisfactory because of either a lack of clarity or some apparent absurdity.
I suggest that it is quite inappropriate that HMSO, the office which deals primarily with Crown and parliamentary copyright, should also administer the copyright on parliamentary publications which, for purposes of democratic dissemination of information, should be treated much less restrictively, whether for printed material or for CD-ROM material. I strongly endorse the Rippon Commission's recommendation that everything possible should be done to make our law and the legislative process as freely accessible as possible to all citizens.
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The central problem is that HMSO is obliged to operate according to purely commercial factors. I suggest it is inappropriate that public documents, including the records of the workings of Parliament and its laws, are treated simply as commercial products. I do not believe that Hansard, Bills, statutory instruments or Acts are commodities whose general availability should be determined by the kind of commercial considerations dictated by HMSO. I suggest that Parliament should undertake, as part of its democratic function as the fount of public information, to deal with this problem as a matter of urgency.
The commission's proposals are well designed to strengthen parliamentary democracy and the rule of law, modernising our outmoded and inefficient law-making processes. The question is not whether these reforms are needed. They clearly are. The real question is how government and Parliament can be persuaded to give effect to them as a matter of urgency and high priority, and beginning, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, has, I think, indicated, now in this parliamentary Session.
3.48 p.m.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, I presume to follow the previous speakers in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, on his excellent speech introducing this important document for the consideration of your Lordships. I also congratulate the Hansard Society on having established such a powerful committee, and that committee on having produced such a circumspect and complete view of the legislative process. In particular it not only describes that process but shows how it could be improved. I hope that we shall hear today how far the Government are accepting the specific recommendations.
I presume also to agree with practically everything that has been said so far, in particular about commencement orders. I shall be very surprised if I do not agree with what is to be said hereafter if noble Lords run true to their usual debating form.
I wish to touch on only two aspects of the report. The first concerns what was said about the drafting of legislation. I agree with what has been said so far in the debate, but it is not only the volume of legislation which has increased so dramatically but also the length of particular measures. Statistics have been quoted on a number of occasions and I shall not repeat them.
The Renton Committee recommended, in pursuance of an important memorandum by the senior Scottish judges, that drafting should generally take the form of laying down general rules instead of trying to cover every situation which might be envisaged, as a result of which, in the nature of things, important considerations will be missed.
In a recent debate I quoted from that memorandum and from the Renton Committee's endorsement of it. I repeated that in a letter to the noble Viscount the Leader of the House. I am sorry to say that the reply was all too predictable and it was all too clear who had drafted the reply. It quoted another passage from the Renton Report emphasising the supreme importance of certainty. However, those are not by any means

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mutually exclusive. They would not both have been quoted by the Renton Committee if that had been so. A general rule can be certain. Lawyers among your Lordships will remember the famous rule in Ryland v. Fletcher, which was extremely fruitful in its repercussions and stated with admirable certainty. At present we do not have certainty simply because one or two of the individual situations will have been missed.
What is to be done? It is quite clear now, 20 years after the Renton Committee, that we shall not get any further unless the recommendation of the Hansard Society that the draftsmen should come under the Attorney-General is accepted. It is not the first time that that has been recommended. The Government themselves appointed Sir Robert Andrew, a most distinguished retired civil servant, to advise on the government legal services. He recommended that the draftsmen should come under the Attorney-General. Of all Sir Robert's recommendations that was the one that was not accepted. It is not difficult for anybody who knows Whitehall to envisage the machinations and manoeuvres which went on to defeat that proposal. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Renton, takes the same view about the desirability of the draftsmen coming under the law officer's jurisdiction.
That is the first point, and I hope that the noble Viscount will deal with it specifically.
The second point is a more difficult matter. It is referred to in passing by the Hansard Society; namely, that drafting would be much improved if we reverted to the old role of the legislation committee of the Cabinet. I am quite certain that we would never have had so disastrous a measure as the Child Support Act if that Bill had had to pass under the scrutiny of the legislation committee in its former role.
The last matter that I want to deal with is referred to in the terms of the Motion; namely, the role of your Lordships in the legislative process. That is increasingly important as the other place comes more and more under the domination of the Executive, and, dare I say, the political Executive comes increasingly under the influence of Whitehall. Therefore, your Lordships' role is ever more important.
On the other hand, we see increasing efforts to marginalise your Lordships' role in legislature. There was first the extraordinary invocation of the Parliament Act to pass the War Crimes Act. I believe that it is now generally accepted that that was a complete waste of money and time. However, nothing has been learnt from that. On the contrary, there have been successive attempts to arrange government business so that your Lordships cannot effectively debate amendments before a full House.
When the Courts and Legal Services Bill was before this House the only way to ensure that an important constitutional amendment was debated before a full House was to sacrifice every single preceding amendment on the Marshalled List. The amendment was then debated in the early evening and the Government were defeated. What is more, the Government accepted that defeat.
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Then there was the Child Support Act, which I have just mentioned. We sat late into the evening night after night. The shortcomings of that Bill were clearly identified in your Lordships' House but we were quite unable, as the debate was late at night and the business managers had their little posse outside, effectively to amend that measure, to the great distress and misery of thousands of our fellow citizens and to the great embarrassment of the Government.
The last example is the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill of last session. An important amendment was introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Carr of Hadley, a former Home Secretary, supported by my noble friend Lord Allen of Abbeydale, a former Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, who knows more about the impact of penal measures than anybody in the Home Office or in Whitehall, and perhaps more than anybody in the country. Although that amendment was carried and although it was by no means inimical to the policy of the Act, the Government used their majority in the other place to reject it. When it came back to your Lordships' House a number of what ornithologists call rare visitors were present who took no part in the debate and were obviously there for a political purpose.
I ask the noble Viscount to say that it is not part of the Government's policy to frustrate amendments by your Lordships' House where they seem desirable, in view of your Lordships' vast experience and depth of expertise.
4 p.m.
Lord Aberdare: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, for giving us the opportunity to debate the subject, although I greatly regret that my noble friend Lord Rippon is indisposed as his contribution would, I am sure, have been extremely valuable.
I have always had a great admiration for the Hansard Society and for the admirable papers that it produces from time to time. This is no exception. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Rippon and his colleagues on the report, which is full of good sense and easy to read. The value of the Hansard Society reports seems to me to be that a particular topic is studied in depth and proposals put forward that aim at ideal remedies. They may not be easily attainable but they set a target to which our efforts can be directed.
There can be no doubt that our legislative system at present is far from adequate. Bills are often not well drafted, the legislative process in both Houses is too long and increasingly dependent on statutory instruments, and often even the judges themselves have doubts about the interpretation of the Acts that we pass. That has resulted on all sides in a demand for less legislation. But, unfortunately, I think that that is very unlikely given the pace of modern life and the need for governments to act swiftly to meet the tide of events. In fact, I think that we are more likely to have to deal with more rather than less legislation in the future.
The report tackles the problem professionally and pragmatically. It contains recommendations on the preparation of legislation and the need for wider consultation with those people affected, the drafting of

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legislation, especially the need for clarity, simplicity, brevity and certainty, and the legislative process in Parliament.
Like all those who have spoken before me, I welcome the recommendations. However, there is no doubt that if they were all to be implemented, more time would be required for consultation, drafting and consideration in Parliament. I was particularly pleased that at the beginning of his admirable speech my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon mentioned the word "time". I am sure that that factor is a major difficulty. The commission recognised that and faced the issue squarely with a recommendation for a two-year legislative programme. I believe that that really is the only solution. It may be a pipedream. It certainly will not be acceptable to Parliament at present. The government business managers, and I am sure any party's managers, would not welcome that change. However, I believe that it is an objective which we should keep within our sights even if it be on the far horizon. We should continually keep the recommendation in our minds and seek at least to work towards it. Perhaps it would be possible at some time to apply that recommendation to certain Bills somewhat on the pattern that occurs in private legislations.
However that may be, if we continue to work within the present one-year cycle, at least we can seek to achieve some of the other recommendations in the report. On 2nd November we debated the report of the group on the sittings of the House. I know that the Procedure Committee is likely to recommend that some of the proposals should be examined in an experiment.
I was flattered to note that the group referred to an idea of mine to which the noble Baroness, Lady David, was kind enough to give her support: that an unofficial group called together by the Minister should arrange an informal meeting with Opposition Front Bench speakers, interested Back-Bench Peers and representatives of outside interest groups to clarify the Government's intentions and to dispose of minor amendments, especially probing amendments, before the full Committee stage on the Floor of the House. We have to remember that we spend more of our time proportionately in Committee than on any other procedures of the House. Any time that we can save in Committee must be valuable.
On Monday I did a little personal research on the Committee stage of the Agricultural Tenancies Bill. To my surprise I found that there were quite a number of occasions when a preliminary meeting might have helped to save time on the Floor of the House. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Carter, on moving the first amendment said:
"The purpose of the first group of amendments is to discover what the Government intend by the phrase 'farm business tenancy'".
That, I believe, could well have been explained at an unofficial meeting before the matter ever came to Committee stage. The Minister, my noble friend Lord Howe, said:
"I am grateful to the noble Lord. Perhaps I may clarify one or two further points".
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Referring to Amendments Nos. 5 and 6 standing in his name, the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, said:
"Their intention is to clarify the position".
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, said:
"The discussion has been helpful; we now understand that the Government are anxious to promote diversification".—[Official Report, 12/12/94; cols. 1089–94.]
There are a number of other examples which I do not have time to cite. The same was true of the Committee stage yesterday. I believe that quite a lot of time could have been saved if there had been discussions before Committee stage.
If, as I hope, this proposal is to be tried out, I wish to make three points. First, I would hope that notes on clauses would be available to the meeting. The Government have been very helpful in providing notes on clauses in the past. They are valuable; and I am sure that they would be valuable to such a meeting.
Secondly, I think it important that, quite apart from the Minister having his own officials present, there should also be present those experts who are advising the Opposition and other interested Peers, so that all those people can bring to the notice of the Government the basic facts of life as they view them with regard to the way in which the legislation is drafted at the time.
Thirdly, I hope that the Minister in the Chair would intervene strongly to prevent discussions going over into matters of policy, on which the final decision has obviously to be made in Committee.
I have mentioned the importance of notes on clauses. That leads me to refer to another recommendation of the commission at paragraphs 36 to 38. The report recommends that after the enactment of a statute, the relevant government department, with assistance from parliamentary counsel, should issue notes on sections based on the original notes on clauses but taking account of the further proceedings in Parliament. Those notes should be approved by Ministers and should be allowed to be used by the courts as an aid to their understanding of the intentions of the Act. I believe that that suggestion is well worth consideration.
In general I am fully in sympathy with the proposals in the report; and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Rippon and his colleagues.
4.9 p.m.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, I am very glad to be able to follow the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, because I particularly wish to refer to his proposal which has been adopted by the Hansard Society Commission. I thank my noble friend Lord Nathan for introducing the debate. Like other noble Lords, I regret that the noble Lord the chairman of the commission, is not present today to take part in our proceedings; I am sorry for the reason for that.
I congratulate the Hansard Society Commission on its report, even though I shall be critical of some of the report in major respects. For example, I regret that it did not seem to have taken evidence from the business managers. We heard today from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon. As a former Leader of the House of Commons, he must be counted as a

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business manager and he has greatly added to our knowledge. However, if the business managers had been heard, there would have been much talk about goal posts and playing fields but not much acceptance. It is an important omission in the report that the business managers were not heard. We want to know what are the objections to all the fine proposals which have been made; and no doubt we shall hear from the business managers in the next month or two what the proposals are. However, I should like to have heard the views of the Hansard Society Commission on them.
The Lord Privy Seal (Viscount Cranborne): My Lords, will the noble Lord forgive me for intervening? Perhaps I may refer him to paragraph 18 of the introduction to the report where it is made clear that both the Lord President of the Council and the then Lord Privy Seal were consulted. Both of them qualify as business managers.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, I stand corrected by the noble Viscount; but I do not think that they were accompanied by their Whips, and that seems to me a rather important omission.
In Chapter 5, on the parliamentary process, the Hansard Society Commission Report states in paragraph 316:
"In debates on bills, particularly in committee, there has been too much emphasis on policy issues and inadequate attention to the practicality of what is proposed".
Quite frankly, I would address that criticism to the Hansard Society Commission itself. I found myself wondering just how practicable the proposals are.
That brings me to the significant proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. I very much hope that the House will adopt it, at least as an experiment; I have long been in favour of such a procedure. I ask that the practicalities should be examined in great detail by the Procedure Committee because that proposal suggests that Bills of some length and complexity should be examined in that kind of committee. If that is so, and if Bills really are of some length and complexity, I should have thought that the procedures in the Aberdare committee would themselves be lengthy and complex. If a Bill is lengthy and complex, I very much doubt whether it could be properly considered by the Aberdare procedure in, let us say, one day. If it takes more than one day—for example, two or three days—then it will considerably affect the timetable of the Bill. Matters of that kind have clearly not been gone into by the commission, as they will need to be if the proposals are to be adopted in the House, as suggested.
The report states in paragraph 316:
"legislative business is often too rushed".
But how is it to be less rushed if we introduce a new stage in the parliamentary timetable? It seems to me that a great many of the recommendations are desirable in themselves—and I agree that they are—but all require more time in days, weeks or months, if we add them all together.
The commission is to be much congratulated on the successful implementation of Recommendation 75, which concerns the Delegated Powers Scrutiny
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Committee in this House. That is a notable success. In Recommendations 100 and 101, the commission also recommends that the committee should take on further powers. I fully agree; but that new committee is already expensive and if it is to be given those extra powers, it will require additional resources, as the commission acknowledges. I believe that that expenditure is well worth while; but I doubt whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer would take the same view. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, said that when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer he proposed amendments to procedures which he thought were desirable on the grounds of cost. I doubt whether that will be followed.
It is important that the recommendations should be subject to a strict audit on both time and cost. Like so many other desirable things, priorities will have to be decided, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, said, by politicians who will not wish to accept all the recommendations because of the total cost in both time and money.
I wish to say a brief word about the delightfully written Memorandum 18 entitled "Clarity". I wish to know who or where is Clarity? What is she—or is that an official secret? The memorandum was so well written that I think it should be published as a separate paper. The excellent memorandum discusses the use of purpose clauses, and recommends them. I was disappointed not to see that endorsed in the recommendations of the Hansard Society Commission. Purpose clauses could reduce exceptional resort to Hansard by the courts. In that connection, I am sorry to have to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, but I cannot wish on the courts the use of Notes on Clauses made into Notes on Statutes. Where will we end if we adopt that, as well as looking at Hansard? I doubt whether it is profitable.
I have been critical of the report, and I have one positive solution. It is to accept all the recommendations on pre-legislative consultation. There lies the way in which the legislative log jam in time can be remedied. Time spent before the introduction of legislation is time which will be important, and it will save time on the Floor of both Houses of Parliament.
The very important innovations which are taking place for Law Commission Bills should in future be followed for non-contentious public Bills. Why should we spend hours of our time, for example, on weights and measures or such Bills, departmental Bills, which are totally accepted in a non-party political manner by both Houses of Parliament? We should not debate those Bills, because every detail should have been subject to consultation and political agreement before their introduction. If we remove the mainly non-controversial substantial Bills which emanate from departments, we would then leave Parliament to discuss the crucial controversial legislation to which it should devote the greatest attention. If that should happen, if there were real, proper consultation before the introduction of legislation into Parliament, then I believe that such Bills could go to special committees, in the same way as Law Commission Bills do. Then the subsequent proceedings in Parliament after the Bill has gone to such a special committee would be brief. Therein lies salvation, so far as I am concerned, rather than—and here I differ from

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the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare—the extension of one Session into another, so that we have two-year Sessions. I believe that the saving by pre-parliamentary processes should be the answer and not tampering with the terminal arrangements which we know so well, the arrangements for single Sessions where business falls if it is not completed at the end.
4.20 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton. He was a valuable member of the committee on the preparation of legislation. The report of that committee, of which I had the honour to be chairman, is the only official report on the drafting of legislation that has been presented to Parliament in the past 120 years. It is however a very good thing that the Hansard Society decided to hold another inquiry.
I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, not only on initiating this debate but on the kind way in which he referred to the little bit of local difficulty that I have been having. I, too, greatly regret the absence of my noble friend Lord Rippon of Hexham. Indeed, had he been here, I would have given him advance warning that on one important matter I shall have to disagree with the findings of his commission. I pay tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, for all his influence over many years towards improving the drafting of statute law.
In the main I agree with the Hansard Society report, but especially with its recommendation that the Attorney-General in England and Wales should be responsible for parliamentary counsel, just as the Lord Advocate is responsible in Scotland. It is absurd to have the Lord Advocate responsible on one side of the Border and on the other side the Prime Minister, who cannot give a moment's time to the policy or the output. Perhaps I may say with great temerity that in my opinion, broadly speaking, Scottish legislation is better drafted than is other legislation. I have corresponded with every Prime Minister except one since 1975 on this question of responsibility. I am afraid that the answers are not of a kind that it would be helpful to put before your Lordships.
There is just that one matter in the Hansard report with which I strongly disagree. Paragraph 239 of the report states:
"we do not agree with its proposals"—
that is the Renton report—
"for solving the problem of how to inform users of the intention underlying the words of a statute. We firmly believe that certainty in the law must be the paramount aim in the drafting of statutes, and we do not believe that the automatic inclusion of statements of principle or purpose in the body of Acts would help to that end".
However, it is those statements which help to achieve certainty, especially when detailed provisions are ambiguous or obscure in their meaning. Our committee received evidence from the top judges on both sides of the Border; and every single one of them implored us to get the underlying intentions of Parliament made clear in every statute so as to ease their difficult task of interpretation.
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Perhaps I may give an example. In the Children Acts—not only the 1989 Act but in some of its predecessors—there is a provision that says in effect that in interpreting and applying the provisions of the Act the interests of the child shall be regarded as paramount. A long and very detailed statute follows; and what a wonderful guide to interpretation that is! So I really cannot agree with the Hansard Society when it states that if guidance like that is given it leads to a conflict. I am sorry to have to say so, and I am being more blunt than is customary in this House, but I believe that that is quite unacceptable as a statement.
The overriding advantage of purpose clauses is that they are approved by Parliament. They have the full force of law. They are contained in primary legislation. That is much better than a fallback solution of Notes on Clauses, even those which have become Notes on Sections and are prepared after the Act has had Royal Assent. They would be prepared by officials. Parliamentary draftsmen may be asked to help, but one draftsman wrote to the The Times a year ago saying that they simply did not have time, that they had to move on to prepare the next Bill. The fallback situation that the Hansard Society Commission recommends is not the best solution.
My noble and learned friend Lord Howe, in a most interesting speech, pointed out that our statute book gets longer every Session. That is not so much because there are more statutes but because officials, MPs and occasionally we ourselves try to cover every hypothetical contingency. But then in practice, in coming before the courts, contingencies arise which have never been thought of. When that happens, what are the poor blessed judges to do if they are not to be given the underlying intention of Parliament? We really must have purpose clauses. I say to my noble friend the Leader of the House, whom I am delighted has been given the responsibility of answering this debate, that I hope he will persuade his Cabinet colleagues that Ministers should take the responsibility. Each Minister is responsible for his own Bill. It is not officials who are responsible. Every Minister should order officials and parliamentary draftsmen to make the underlying intentions of Parliament clear whenever that is necessary. Sometimes in a very long Bill there may have to be half a dozen purpose clauses. Sometimes, as in the Children Act, one will do. But it must be done.
Finally, and as part of my main theme—especially in the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, who has given such great thought to these matters and whose speech we also enjoyed—I feel bound to refer to Pepper v. Hart. That is also regarded as a suitable alternative or fallback position. But anyone who has piloted a Bill through either House of Parliament knows—although none of the judges except the Lord Chancellor who was on the judicial committee of Pepper v. Hart has ever had that responsibility—that Ministerial statements fall far short of legal certainty. One cannot get away from that.
Why is that the case? First, I know, one has sometimes had to submit to persuasion at an early stage of a Bill and at a later stage has contradicted what one said. Counsel appearing in a case would have an awful

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job when getting two contradictory statements from the same Minister. Another difficulty is that many of the statements that are made by Ministers are made on the spur of the moment without advice and some are ill-considered. Even worse, sometimes they may be based on wrong advice! But the worst thing about Ministerial statements is that they are not part of the law. So do not let us regard them as being a suitable fallback. Let us try to get the law right! And we are more likely to get the law right if we avoid too many attempts to include hypothetical detailed circumstances and if we make the broad intentions of Parliament clear. So some day—I hope before too long—let us have Pepper v. Hart reversed.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may say that I do not wish to re-argue Pepper v. Hart before your Lordships' House. It would be highly inappropriate for me to seek to do so. I quite agree with the noble Lord, Lord Renton, that recourse should be had to the parliamentary record only where legislation is defective in its text because it is ambiguous or apparently absurd. There must be clear limits to the use of the Pepper v. Hart exception by the courts.
I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Renton, is aware that, during the course of argument, the Attorney-General made to the Appeal Committee precisely the kind of point made by the noble Lord. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, who is too modest to say again today what he said on that occasion, interrupted the Attorney-General and asked, "Mr. Attorney, is the proposition that a Minister should think before he speaks inimical to the proper processes of government?" The Attorney-General found it difficult to reply.
Lord Renton: Unfortunately, my Lords, the noble Lord has driven me beyond my 10 minutes. I should love to answer and comment on that rather frivolous interruption.
4.31 p.m.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, on that happy note, I rise intending to limit my submissions to commencement orders. But perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, that I was a party to the decision which is not his favourite one; and that ever since it was in the Law Reports, I have observed no problems of any kind and quite a considerable degree of assistance. We have been following what I understand is done in Australia and New Zealand, which we were told caused no problems at all.
I turn to the subject of commencement orders. They usually allow the Minister to appoint a date or dates for the coming into force of one or more provisions of an Act. I submit that they are capable of being productive of two quite different vices. First, it gives rise to the absence of parliamentary control; secondly, it enables the Government to ignore reality by not being obliged to think through the consequences of their legislative proposals, thus giving Parliament a false sense of security.
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Perhaps I may illustrate my propositions by three examples which have all occurred this year. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, referred to the position of the victims of violent crime. I shall refer to that situation very shortly. I am acutely mindful of the fact that there is a pending appeal from the decision of the Court of Appeal and I shall in no way make any observation about the legal situation. I am concerned purely with matters of constitutionality. I shall refer merely to one or two dates to show how the absence of parliamentary control is illustrated by that particular situation.
In 1964, 30 years ago, provision for the compensation of victims of crime on an ex gratia basis were brought into force, in order to see how it would work out. It appeared to work very well. In 1979, some 15 years later, the Royal Commission under Lord Pearson, of which the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, was a member, approved of the compensation and the basis of that compensation, which was common law damages—damages which the victim would have received if he had successfully sued the criminal—but suggested that it should be put on a statutory basis in order that Parliament should exercise control over a situation in which a large amount of public money was being spent. The Government accepted the recommendation but did nothing.
In a debate in 1984, the noble Lord, Lord Allen, drew attention to the situation and the Government again confirmed that the scheme would be put on a statutory basis. In 1988, the Government, in the Criminal Justice Act of that year, introduced detailed legislation—found in Sections 108 to 117 and Schedules 6 and 7—to do precisely that; and in Section 171 an obligation was placed on the Minister to bring those provisions into force.
In 1993, without any consultation, a White Paper was produced by the Government which provided a radically different ex gratia scheme: the tariff scheme. In June of this year this House made to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill an amendment which was later defeated in another place, which required the Government to carry out their statutory obligation as contained in Section 171. There were many voices which said that the Government, through the use of the commencement order, had committed an abuse of parliamentary democracy.
My second example relates to the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990, to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, referred. Under Section 58 of that Act, the Lord Chancellor was given the power to provide by regulation for speculative litigation to be permissible. It was not permissible prior to the Act as it was considered to be contrary to public policy because of the danger of a litigant being exploited and the prejudicial effect that it might have on the interests of justice in giving a lawyer a stake in the proceeds of litigation. In the teeth of opposition—among others from seven Law Lords, the Master of the Rolls, the former Lord Chancellor, the Royal Commission under the noble Lord, Lord Benson, the Government's White Paper in 1984 and a report by the Law Commission—Section 58 was passed.

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A year later, in 1991, there was a consultation document provided by the Lord Chancellor which proposed that the lawyer who was successful should be able to increase his fees by 10 per cent., so that the successful litigant would himself have to pay 10 per cent. of the lawyer's fees, the rest coming from the unsuccessful defendant. The Lord Chancellor's very own Advisory Committee thought that that was sensible. Two years later, in May 1993, the Lord Chancellor doubled that figure to 20 per cent. That was not apparently acceptable to the solicitors who contemplated becoming parties to the scheme, and in August 1993, without any further consultation with his Advisory Committee, the amount was increased to 100 per cent.—that is 10 times the original proposal.
The Lord Chancellor's own Law Advisory Committee was so affected by what it considered to be the "startling complications", it issued a press notice requiring the Lord Chancellor to think again. He is still thinking about it. Last November there was a debate in this House under an Unstarred Question on the draft regulations, which are not yet in final form. They are still not in final form. We must expect that, if they ever come into final form, it will be in 1995.
In my submission, Parliament would not have worn proposals of that kind. It would have realised that the possibility of the litigant losing the entire proceeds of the litigation was unacceptable.
The other example arises under the Judicial Pensions and Retirement Act 1993. Under that Act the retirement age for judges was reduced, as they themselves had initially suggested, to 70 but at the same time there was brought into force a proposal that they should have to work an additional five years—from 15 years to 20 years—to earn their pension. That is exactly twice the time a judge has to spend earning a pension in the United States, in Canada and in Australia, and was dubbed by The Times as "an absurd anomaly". The interesting thing is that the Act was passed in 1993. At that time there was great pressure for more judges to be created and, ultimately, after the Act was passed, 10 more judges—High Court judges—were created. But the Act was not brought into force. The Act still has not been brought into force.
The Lord Chancellor recently announced that he was going to increase the establishment of Law Lords by two and the Court of Appeal by three. That means at least five new judges in the Court of Appeal. When one takes into account that there are resignations soon to come, both there and in the High Court, there will be a requirement for another batch of some 10 judges. In the course of his statement supporting that order the Lord Chancellor said that he "expected" that the Act of 1993 would come into force in 1995. I am prepared to wager that it will not come into force until that large batch of judges is appointed, for the very simple reason that if the matter had been properly thought through it would have been realised that one cannot achieve the quality that is needed if one downgrades pensions in the manner in which it has been done.
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Those are merely examples of legislation not thought through, examples of self-induced myopia by the Government, thereby depriving Parliament of seeing the reality of the true position.
4.42 p.m.
Lord Hayhoe: My Lords, first I want to add my appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, for initiating this debate, the importance of which is underlined by the very fact that the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the House are to reply. Unlike preceding speakers, I have no great expertise on these important matters, but I venture to intervene because for four years, from early 1990, I was chairman of the Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government. As chairman, I was involved in the establishment of the Hansard Society Commission on the Legislative Process, whose report has been much referred to today. Most important of all, I persuaded my noble friend Lord Rippon of Hexham to be chairman, and I share the real anguish of many of us that he is not able to be in his place today to participate in the debate, as I know he would have wished to.
The original suggestion for the commission came from my noble friend Lord Aberdare, then Chairman of Committees. The financial backing to make the commission possible came after a great deal of effort from the Nuffield Foundation and we were most fortunate to secure the services of Michael Ryle, a former Clerk of Committees in another place, to act as secretary. These, together with an authoritative and distinguished group of colleagues, produced this very important report.
I was also glad that we were able to publish a selection of the written evidence and I hope that any of those who have an interest in the matter do not confine their reading merely to the report and its recommendations but look at that evidence which is set out in the appendices of the report.
The Hansard Society—perhaps I should say a brief word about it—was founded in 1944 and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Stephen King-Hall, the founder, had as his principal objective "to promote knowledge of and interest in parliamentary government", and through publications, schools' conferences, mock elections, its Hansard scholars programme, and many, many other activities, the Hansard Society carries through the objectives of its founder. From time to time it sets up commissions on matters of considerable public interest. For example, in recent years there was the commission concerned with the place of women, particularly in public life, which published a report Women at the Top. The chairman of that commission was Lady Howe, the wife of my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon, whose important contribution today was welcomed in all parts of the House.
In 1991 was published An Agenda for Change: The Conduct of Election Campaigns, a commission chaired by Christopher Chataway. I hope that its recommendations will be implemented more widely as time goes on and that there will be greater appreciation of their value. Last year, Making the Law came forward.

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No one can be satisfied with our law-making processes. The Hansard Society Commission puts forward more than 100 detailed recommendations which deserve detailed consideration, and much more consideration than can possibly be given in our short debate this afternoon. I wonder whether this debate will at least encourage Ministers, parliamentarians, civil servants, advisers to Ministers and officers of both Houses to look again at the report, its recommendations and the evidence. I wonder whether the Government might be prepared to go a little outside their normal way of dealing with matters and perhaps provide a government response to the report along the lines of the responses which government normally make to the recommendations of the report of a Select Committee. I believe that if there were a real desire by the leaders of both Houses of Parliament to contribute to this important public debate they could find a way of publishing a detailed response to these recommendations.
So far as concerns the critical comments we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, and from my noble friend Lord Renton, perhaps I may refer them both to paragraph 22 of the report, where it is said:
"There may be doubts and disagreement about the details of our proposals"
—I suspect there would be quite a few of those if we were to get a formal report from government—
"but above all we hope that our conclusions and recommendations may stimulate further debate, open up the argument, and get the thinking moving".
That really is an objective to which we could all subscribe. I realise that my noble friend the Leader of the House may not be in a position to give a positive response this afternoon but I hope that he will consider the possibility of giving a more formal response in written form to these recommendations.
In conclusion, I had intended to reiterate the guiding principles that are set out at the end of Chapter 2 but the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, has pre-empted me in that, although I must say that those five principles certainly deserve repetition and I hope will be constantly in the mind of those who are concerned and responsible for the various parts of our legislative process, which of course must be improved. This debate, the Hansard Society Commission report, the as yet unimplemented recommendations of my noble friend Lord Renton in his report on the preparation of legislation some 20 years ago—all those and much else besides, as my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon made clear, have contributed to a widespread general agreement about the essential requirements of reform. All that is now required is a determined will by all concerned to get that reform moving.
As someone who is not a great expert in the legislative process, I would add one last plea to governments of all complexions. I believe that there has been far too much legislation in recent years. If only we could have less legislation the public interest would be better served. It is a fairly standard political response to
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anything that a government may do to say, "It is too little and too late". As regards legislation the record shows that "It is too much and too soon".
4.50 p.m.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, it is a particular pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hayhoe, not least because for the years in which he was chairman of the Hansard Society, I had to do so as his vice-chairman. It gives an indication of the cross-party and all-party nature of the Hansard Society that I should be following him from this side of the House. If anything, in his usual modest way he understates his role in having established this commission under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Rippon.
I believe that the Hansard Society performs the role which he has described and that it is sometimes neglected in the very adversarial political culture in which we live; namely, the role of delineating the public interest. This is surely a matter of public interest and not merely of partisan interest.
As well as paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Rippon, as other noble Lords have done, and expressing my regret that he cannot be here, and without in any way detracting from his contribution and that of the other members of the commission, I wish to make particular mention of the secretary to the commission, Mr. Michael Ryle. As the noble Lord, Lord Hayhoe, has said, he is a former Clerk of Committees. The report bears the imprint of his drafting and the clarity of his thinking. I believe that that is one of the reasons for it being such an outstandingly useful document.
This has been a very interesting debate. We enjoyed and are grateful for the opening contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, and we are grateful to him for procuring this debate. What the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, asked the noble Viscount the Leader of the House, was particularly important. He asked: whose responsibility is it within the Government to run with this issue? Unless it has a departmental and ministerial home it is very unlikely that anything will happen. I hope that when the noble Viscount responds to the debate he will tell us what his thinking and that of the Government is on this matter.
The point which the noble Baroness, Lady David, made about scrutinising legislation to see whether it complies with the European Convention on Human Rights is extremely important. I know that is being considered by the Liaison Committee of this House. Perhaps when the noble Viscount responds he will tell us something of the Government's attitude to that matter. We are not just signatories to the treaty. The British citizen now has a right of individual petition to Strasbourg. It is important that legislation complies with the European convention. I shall be interested to hear what the Government's attitude to that will be.
As he always does, my noble friend Lord Lester made an outstanding contribution to the debate. He has particularly drawn our attention to the outrageous pricing policy on the cost of Hansard. I believe it is now all the more important because there is no broadsheet quality newspaper that any longer reports in a sober way what happens in Parliament. Parliamentary reporting has

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become a sub-branch of political reporting and political reporting itself seems to have become a sub-branch of showbusiness. Therefore it is extremely difficult for interested members of the general public to gain any sense of what is happening in Parliament. That is all the more reason why I believe that the Government and HMSO should look at a popular pricing policy instead of a prohibitive and elitist one for their publications.
Although I am associated with the Hansard Society, I agreed with the observation of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, about the need for a statement of purpose and principle in Bills. I was interested to note that the Hansard Society reached the opposite conclusion. I am sure that that is a matter which we should pursue.
One common theme which has distinguished this debate has been the need for more consultation with the general public and expert bodies of one kind and another. The truth is that this and previous governments have no clear policy in this matter. As regards some Bills and legislation there is consultation; on others there is very little or none at all. When the noble Viscount the Leader of the House replies perhaps he will tell us whether it is contemplated, in the recesses of Whitehall, that there should be a consistent policy which will operate across all legislation on the matter of consultation. That seems to be intrinsically within the principles set out by the Hansard Society as a necessary and good thing.
We should accept that we compare very unfavourably in Parliament with Congress, the Bundestag and with the European Union itself, in our pre-legislative discussion and the ability to have consideration of legislation before it reaches too final and definite a form.
The noble Lord, Lord Hayhoe, and my noble friend Lord Lester both referred to the five principles adduced in the Hansard Society report—that is to say, that the law should be clear; that it should be intelligible; the product of consultation; democratically scrutinised and that it should be accessible. They are good principles. If we pursued the thought of the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, that there should be an audit in this age of charters, and said "Let us have a real Citizen's Charter", what would it say about our own activities? What requirements might be laid on Parliament to conduct its own activities in accordance with those principles? If we were to check performance against principles, how well would we respond? If there were a regulator or "Oflaw", would "Oflaw" have reason to criticise Parliament fairly often and say that we have not lived up to our obligations to the citizen? I suspect that this putative regulator would say that we had failed in our obligation to meet the principles of accessibility, clarity, democratic scrutiny, intelligibility and so on.
I personally have no doubt that if these problems are put in a wider context, they are not merely mechanical and procedural. I believe that they are symptoms of overload; that there is a systemic problem about what Parliament does as well as a procedural problem. We are now probably the most centralised democracy in the world. We have—and it is a common matter for academic discussion—a part fusion of the Executive and the legislature. One can see what has happened to Parliament by looking at the statistics in the appendix to
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the report. There has been a 20-fold increase in statutory instruments during this century from about 156 in 1901 to nearly 3,000 currently. We have a Parliament which, as has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Hayhoe, is possibly trying to do too much.
What is the answer to this? I am not convinced that it is merely exhortation that we should exercise restraint in some way. I believe that part of the solution is to devolve more power from this Parliament to the nations and states, the regions and the local government of the United Kingdom. Perhaps we are too congested at the centre because we are trying to do too much. If we did less, we might do it better. We would do less if we devolved power.
In conclusion—this is the only political point that I shall make in what has otherwise been an admirably bipartisan discussion—I do not get the impression that the Government, measuring their months or years ahead, have a particularly full legislative kit bag. They do not seem to be overburdened with legislation that they would like to put on the statute book. The Government now seem to be in the depressive cycle at the moment—governments tend to go through manic depressive phases. If that is so, could not the Government turn their full attention and energy from the product of parliament to the process of parliament, from law to law-making? Is this not a good time for trying literally to clean up the parliamentary act? A good indication of a determination to do that—a good first step—would be for the Leader of the House to pick up the proposal that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Hayhoe, and to tell us whether the Government feel able to make a formal and full response to the Hansard Society Commission. That would be in the spirit of your Lordships' debate and would take us one step further.
5.1 p.m.
Lord Richard: My Lords, it is usual in such debates to begin by thanking the initiator and those who produced the report on which the debate has been based. I do not regard this afternoon's debate as a matter of form in any way. Having listened to the whole debate, I should say that I have found it extraordinarily good. This is perhaps one of the things that this House does rather better than the other place. We should all be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, for initiating the debate. We should certainly be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rippon, and the Hansard Society for producing the report. I am sorry that the noble Lord has not been with us this afternoon.
This has been an interesting and fascinating debate. Contributions have ranged widely. Half of the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, was an apologia pro vita sua and the other half was a major contribution on what should be done. I believe that it is right to say that the report on legislative drafting which was produced by the noble Lord, Lord Renton, has been more quoted in Parliament than any single report in the last half century—or 40 years—
Lord Renton: My Lords, 20 years.
Lord Richard: My Lords, in the past 20 years. It is a very good report, which I enjoyed.

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I suppose that we should ask ourselves first: is there a problem? I looked first at the figures in the report and found them revealing. In 1901, 40 public Acts were passed, taking up 247 pages of legislation and 400 sections. In 1981, 72 Acts were passed, occupying 2,276 pages. In 1991, 69 Acts were passed, taking up 2,222 pages. I thought that the amount of legislation had decreased by 50 pages in 10 years, but then I read the footnote which stated that the paper size was increased to A4 in 1987, so fewer pages are required. Therefore, the fact that the number of pages has decreased does not affect the volume of legislation, which is immense. Turning to delegated legislation, in 1901 there were 156 statutory instruments. By 1991, there were 2,945.
Not only does Parliament now have to deal with an immense amount of legislation; the general public has to assimilate it. If there is one general plea to have come out of the report and our debate, it is that, when producing legislation, governments should consult more wisely before starting. They should draft their legislation more clearly and simply before presenting it to Parliament. They should pass legislation more efficiently and effectively through Parliament and they should disseminate the results of that legislation more widely once it has been passed. Those are the four general points upon which the debate has hung and I should like to say a brief word about each.
On consultation, it is interesting to note from the figures in the report—the raw material of the report—that, in effect, a process of creeping consultation is now taking place. In 1986, eight Green Papers and 11 consultative documents were issued by the Government. By 1991, those 11 consultative documents had increased to 232, on subjects ranging from scallop dredging in the 12-mile inshore zone to the local government review. There is now a wide variety of issues upon which the Government think it right to have some form of consultation before they produce their plans for legislation, let alone the legislation in draft. What seems to be wrong is that there is no pattern, no mechanism and no obligation on the Government to enter into any kind of consultation process.
From reading the report and listening to the debate, it has become clear to me that it is incumbent on governments to try to produce a firm and definite mechanism for consultation. In other words, some kind of consultation will be expected to form part of the normal legislative process. I should not dream of trying to spell out at the end of such a debate the precise way in which that consultation should take place or the bodies and people with whom the Government should consult. However, the lack of such a mechanism seems a major omission which governments could put right without too much pain.
One answer to the plea of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for a two-year legislative cycle is that there is no reason why there cannot be consultation in one Session even if the Bill is not introduced until the next Session. Indeed, there is no reason why a Bill cannot be drafted in one Session even if it is not introduced until the next. Therefore, to some extent, the issue of whether there should be a one-year or two-year parliamentary
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cycle is somewhat irrelevant to the process of producing Bills. Everybody seems to agree on the principle of consultation; the difficulty is agreeing the mechanism. I hope that the Government will now begin to take that seriously.
Perhaps I may say one or two words about drafting, about which several points have been made. I turn first to the office of the parliamentary draftsmen. The argument for putting them under the Attorney General seems to grow stronger as the years pass. It is not a new argument and I am sure that they would resist it with all the skill and determination that they are known to possess. However, perhaps it is now time that the parliamentary draftsmen were put under the overall direction of somebody who is legally qualified and who can spend some time looking at the way in which they work. That does not seem to be happening at the moment. That part of the report is persuasive, and I accept it.
As is stated on page 47 of the report:
"There was now no body charged with scrutinising the form, arrangement and language of proposed legislation before it was presented to Parliament, the Legislation Committee of the Cabinet having largely abdicated this function".
I am not quite sure why the committee has abdicated that function, because taking a general oversight of the legislative process at that stage and an overview of what the drafted Bill would mean seems a sensible proposition.
I also take the point about Notes on Clauses being converted into Notes on Sections when the Bill has been passed. That could usefully be considered. Frankly, if Notes on Clauses were more widely available during the legislative process, we should probably have more sensible Committee stages and a more detailed examination of the terms of Bills. They would, in effect, be converted into Notes on Sections once the Bill was passed, as I understand the proposal. Frankly, it is much easier to read a note on a section than to read the section—and I say that as a lawyer. If a layman knew at least the general intent of what the legalise was meant to express and enshrine, it would be helpful in terms of informing the public.
I do not take the same purist view on drafting as does the noble Lord, Lord Renton. It is not an either/or thing. One cannot say, "If only the drafting were right, you would not need"—as he called them on a number of occasions—"these fallbacks". It would be difficult to get the drafting right. If it happens, it will take place over a period of time and not because suddenly there is one morning a blinding light in the eyes of the parliamentary draftsmen on the road to wherever their office is in Whitehall. It will happen gradually over a period of time, but what the noble Lord calls "fallbacks" will nevertheless be terribly useful.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I agree with the noble Lord to this extent, it will take years for drafting to become perfect, if it ever does, but the better we make it the less fallback we need.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I accept that entirely. It may well be that, once the drafting is perfect, we shall

1321
not need the fallbacks. They would no doubt fall into disuse, but until we reach that stage of perfection—I said that the noble Lord was somewhat purist in his attitude—and can look at legislation and say, "My goodness! It is clear, understandable, precise and pure", the fallback proposed in the Hansard Society report is worth having.
I shall say two brief words about the parliamentary process itself. One lesson is that too much haste in the preparation of legislation and the rushing of it through both Houses of Parliament results in bad Acts of Parliament. There have been some notable examples. Some have been quoted this afternoon. I think particularly of the Dangerous Dogs Act. If ever there were a Bill upon which the Government should have consulted more widely, should have ensured was properly drafted before introducing and should have taken more time getting through Parliament, it was the Dangerous Dogs Act. I see that my noble friend Lord Houghton is in his place. I suspect that he would agree with every syllable that I have just uttered in relation to that Bill. It is a good example of how, if legislation is rushed, there is a bad result.
Perhaps I may say a word about the techniques that now seem to be thought of in relation to this House in particular. I do not want to repeat the discussion we had about five or six weeks ago in relation to the procedures of the House, but some of the proposals for an intermediate stage—an inquiry stage, if I may put it that way—before we reach a formal Committee stage, may help, and are worth looking at. I do not believe that in the end they would take up much more time. One of the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, was that were such measures to be introduced, more time would be needed. That may be so, but I should have thought that in the long run we would have better legislation and the formal Committee stages would probably take less time.
If we can produce proposals which provide for wiser consultation, clearer drafting, legislation going through both Houses more efficiently, and better dissemination of the results, and if the Government can give us assurances on at least some of those matters, then the debate will have been worth while, and the House will owe its thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Nathan.
5.14 p.m.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Richard, I feel that this has been a most useful and helpful debate, and like every noble Lord who has spoken I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, for introducing the subject this afternoon. As the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, said, this is a matter of public interest, and therefore perhaps a particularly suitable subject for your Lordships.
I have read with considerable interest the 1975 report produced by my noble friend Lord Renton and the report of the Hansard Society Commission on the legislative process which we are discussing—if I needed any reminder by those two reports. Like my noble friend Lord Aberdare, I am aware of the drum beat of dissatisfaction in your Lordships' House and elsewhere over the legislative process. It was expressed notably in
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the recent debate on the Sittings of the House which has been referred to a number of times this afternoon. The House then debated a report of a group also chaired by my noble friend Lord Rippon, whose absence has been so rightly noted and which I, too, greatly deplore. We wish him a rapid discovery.
Like the Hansard Society, I have also had occasion in your Lordships' House to refer to the writings of my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon, and have listened with considerable admiration to the animadversions on secondary legislation of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. I say to my noble friend Lord Hayhoe that I have been increasingly conscious in the face of that accumulating evidence of interest that the Government owe your Lordships at least an interim reaction. It is for that reason that I am especially grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, for the opportunity he has given me. I suspect, however, that this is more likely to be my first rather than my last word on the subject in view of the short time we have this afternoon and because by its very nature the subject is one to which we shall return constantly. For surely, as many of your Lordships have hinted, the price of good legislation is eternal vigilance.
As this is a short debate, like others who have contributed I can hope to touch on only one or two points raised by your Lordships on a long and complex report on a complex subject. I have said this is an important subject. All noble Lords have said the same. It is important for us as legislators but, above all, it is of practical importance to those who use the legislation and are affected by it. That is why I welcome the principle enunciated in paragraph 7 and in the introduction to it of my noble friend Lord Hayhoe that the processes by which statute law is produced should be dictated, above all, by the needs of its users.
The simplest way to contribute towards achieving that object is as many have described this afternoon. It is important that the language of legislation should be intelligible. I was pleased to see at paragraphs 213 to 222 that the commission felt that much improvement had already occurred in that field in recent years and it welcomed the recent move towards textual amendment. However, I was equally interested to note at paragraph 219 that the commission recognised that certainty in legislation is also a virtue. Unlike the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, the commission recognises that that must militate against simplicity, at least to some extent. However I recognise, as does the Hansard Society, that there is no simple answer to that dilemma.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, also chided me for quoting selectively from the report of my noble friend Lord Renton in reply to his recent letter. I agree with him that certainty and brevity in legislation are not necessarily wholly mutually exclusive, but it is fair to say that there is a tension between the two. The only point I was seeking to make—I apologise if I expressed it less than clearly in correspondence—is that legislating merely by laying down general principles is in most cases unlikely to provide the certainty which Parliament and the public should expect. I agree with the noble and learned Lord

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and my noble friend Lord Renton that there is no virtue in legislation which attempts elaborately to deal with every conceivable circumstance, heaping—if I may put it this way—detail upon detail.
However, other factors can contribute to clear legislation. They serve the user and if brought into play they can improve the quality of legislation. The first—and it may seem obvious—are the resources of the parliamentary draftsmen. After a short acquaintance with that remarkable office, I am particularly pleased that at paragraph 187 the commission approves in principle of the present arrangements. However, as many noble Lords have pointed out today, it believes that the draftsmen ought to report to the Attorney-General.
I agree that we are immensely well served by that office. As was recognised by my noble and learned friend Lord Howe, among others, one of the main constraints upon it is shortage of staff. It therefore gives me particular pleasure to be able to announce today that the Office of Parliamentary Counsel will recruit four more draftsmen in 1995. I know that my right honourable friend the Lord President of the Council, who has a special concern with the Government's legislative programme, is also pleased that it has been possible to agree that.
One of the reasons why my noble friend Lord Renton approves of Scottish drafting may have something to do with the fact that there are relatively numerous Scottish draftsmen. The measure that I have announced today will help to improve the situation in England and Wales, which may not be entirely attributable to the causes that he suggested.
The report also makes much of the need for adequate consultation, which virtually every speaker today has emphasised, whether the Front Bench spokesmen or the noble Lord, Lord Nathan. I too pay tribute to the efforts of my noble and learned friend Lord Howe when he was in office. He will know better than I that there are considerations which constrain all governments in this regard. Perhaps not all are noble but they are necessary. I need not go into them now. The Government must get their business and, dangerous dogs or not, there is sometimes a need for speed. To be fair, in paragraph 52 the report recognises at least partially the justice of these imperatives—or at least their power.
In last July's Open Government White Paper, the Government recognised the value of consultation on policy matters. However, it is clear that proposals which remain unimplemented are no more than a bare statement of intent. I hope, therefore, that the House will accept that we have taken and are taking a number of measures to try to put this undertaking into practice. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, has recognised that fact.
For instance, we have begun to publish more Bills in advance. Several noble Lords referred to that. We have done so either in whole or in part. Some parts of the Environment Bill, which will receive its Second Reading tomorrow, were published before the end of the last Session. We intend to publish in draft fairly soon a new Reserve Forces Bill which could therefore form the
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basis for detailed discussion before it is introduced. We would like to increase the incidence of advance drafting, in particular with Bills of a technical nature. That suggestion was made by the noble Baroness, Lady David. In this respect, I too am encouraged by the example of the law reform measures and I hope that in this way we can address at least some of the recommendations in Chapter 7 of the report. To that extent, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that this approach is probably better and more practical than the suggestion of a two-year legislative cycle, for all the attractions which seduced my noble friend Lord Aberdare.
In recent years, one of the most striking developments has been the growth in the proportion of legislation which is made under delegated powers. Some weeks ago we had an interesting debate on the special arrangements for scrutiny of orders made under the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act. I shall therefore not dwell on them now.
I would, however, suggest that the general balance between primary legislation, on the one hand, and conventional secondary legislation, on the other, is an important issue on which it is possible for sensible and well-informed people to hold divergent views.
On the one hand, there is no point in occupying Parliament's time with detailed uncontroversial provisions which could equally well be dealt with in regulations. If, as I know some of your Lordships believe, there is a tendency towards over-elaboration in some primary legislation, it may be because such material has been included. On the other hand, other noble Lords are understandably anxious about conferring wide-ranging powers to implement important policies by means of secondary legislation. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, is one and I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, is another.
It is a difficult balance to achieve and, as ever, there is no substitute for sensible judgments in individual cases on which matters should be enacted in which form. But, if I had to express a personal view, my suspicion is that there may be room overall for somewhat greater use of delegated powers, provided that this can be done without loss of quality and with the necessary degree of parliamentary oversight, to which so many of your Lordships referred. I should be extraordinarily interested if the debate were to continue in your Lordships' House and elsewhere as a form of consultation in its own right.
The Motion also invites us to consider the lapse of time between the passage of legislation and its implementation. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, addressed himself to the question today. This is a matter to which the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee gave attention in its 12th report. It recommended that the House should seek a mechanism to ensure that Acts of Parliament are brought into operation. That mechanism has also been advocated by a number of your Lordships today, including the noble Lord, Lord Nathan.
The recommendation is under consideration by the Procedure Committee and, therefore, I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I do not pre-empt that

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consideration. However, I would make the obvious point that no government invite Parliament to enact legislation without intending that it should be brought into effect. It is open to Parliament to specify in enactments the date on which or by which provision will take effect. But that is a course which will not always, or even often, be the wisest one to take.
Circumstances change. It has even been known for governments to change, although that has not been part of our recent experience. It would be an uneconomical use of Parliament's time to have to introduce amending primary legislation whenever it proved necessary for good reason to defer the implementation of legislation. The point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, to the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee—that complex legislation may take time to implement and only the Minister will know when a provision is ripe for commencement—also seems to have a considerable force. However, I recognise that a number of your Lordships might add, sotto voce, "He would say that, wouldn't he?".
Several noble Lords—notably the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, and my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon—commented adversely on the price of Hansard. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, drew attention to an interesting report on the subject. I was fortunate enough to have read it when it was published under the auspices of the Hansard Society. The Government's policy is that the cost of Hansard should he borne by its readers rather than by the public at large. It is worth noting that there has been no increase in price since 1991. Nevertheless, I have an instinctive sympathy with the impulse behind the report and its conclusions—that our proceedings and those of the House of Commons should be as readily available to the general public as possible. I hope that your Lordships will not press me further, but I certainly wish to reflect extremely closely on the comments that have been made today by Members from all parts of the House, and I am grateful for them.
Finally, perhaps I may reiterate what I said in the debate on the report on the Sittings of the House. Timely instructions to counsel from departments are one of the keys to producing well-drafted legislation. Many of your Lordships made that point this afternoon. I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, that I am glad that the commission recognises the importance of that and that the answer, as my noble and learned friend Lord Howe said, lies in the Government, and by that I mean government Ministers.
We can never achieve perfection, as I believe I remarked during the course of the debate on the report on the Sittings of the House. But I agree with my noble and learned friend that we have made some progress in that area, as we are beginning to do with the parliamentary aspect of the legislative process. In particular in your Lordships' House I suspect that we shall continue to do so, particularly if any of the experimental measures suggested in the group report on the Sittings of the House turn out to be a success. I was delighted to hear the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, in relation to that.
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Time precludes me from commenting on a number of matters raised in the report and, indeed, in this debate. For example, I should have very much liked to have made more than a passing favourable reference to the virtues of consolidation and the importance of encouraging the progress of the statute law database. However, as I said a little earlier, this is a subject to which we should and will return. Perhaps I have said enough to your Lordships this afternoon to show that Her Majesty's Government wish to make a positive contribution towards improving the quality of our legislation and giving a convincing answer over the coming months and years to the noble Lord, Lord Nathan.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, before the noble Viscount finally sits down, perhaps I may say that your Lordships will be extremely grateful for the speech that he has made. However, would he care to respond to the invitation to say that the Government do not regard amendments to Bills made by your Lordships' House as other than normal and acceptable and that they do not regard them as humiliating or embarrassing, as was expressed in the summer?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, that is almost like a "When did you stop beating your wife?" question. However, I can say to the noble and learned Lord that I regard your Lordships' House as a House of Parliament and not as an elderly, and indeed young, gentlemen's and ladies' club. Therefore, it is well within the rights and duties of your Lordships' House to seek to amend primary legislation if that is your Lordships' collective judgment. I should be the last person in the world to stand in your Lordships' way of doing so.
Perhaps I should point out that for every defeat inflicted on Her Majesty's Government over the past few years which has been reversed in another place, there have been many hundreds of instances of your Lordships' amendments being accepted. I could give many examples of that if we had the time.
Lord Renton: My Lords, before my noble friend finally sits down, perhaps I may put one further thought in his mind which I am sure he will be glad to have and perhaps declare; namely, that, above all, we are a revising Chamber for legislation.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I certainly accept my noble friend's stricture that that is indeed one of the more important functions which we perform and, as we all know, it takes up a great deal of our time. Higher quality legislation will no doubt lead to less time needing to be spent, but it will always be there.
5.31 p.m.
Lord Nathan: My Lords, in winding up the debate, I should like to say how very grateful I am for the speech that has just been given by the noble Viscount the Leader of the House. I thought that it was most affirmative and helpful.
I am delighted about two matters in particular: first, the reference right at the beginning of his speech to the dissatisfaction of the House and elsewhere about certain matters, and perhaps I may refer to that word

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"elsewhere" in a moment. There were many matters to which he referred which seem to be more than helpful, in particular, that he wishes to return to the subject and aspects of it on future occasions. It is a matter of the very first importance.
I should also like to thank those many Members of your Lordships' House who have participated in this debate. As I said at the very beginning of my remarks, I tabled the Motion not because I knew very much about the subject but because it raises questions of great importance. The Motion was purposely widely drawn into four or five different headings: the Hansard Report itself; the process of legislation; questions of consultation; the position of your Lordships' House; and the questions relating to commencement orders. Those have all been addressed by one or other of your Lordships, or more. They are all important.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, asked what the problem is, and he then answered the question very clearly referring to questions of legislation. I confess that my problem—and it is the reason that I was so concerned that the matter should be debated, as it has been so excellently in your Lordships' House—is that I am greatly concerned about the decline in the esteem in which Parliament is held by the public as a whole. Therefore, I hope that in order that the public may not be further alienated from the parliamentary process there will be further debate and that the subjects that have been discussed today so interestingly and seriously will be disseminated widely and known publicly so that members of the public may also play their part in the debate. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Disablement
5.36 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy rose to call attention to the case for recognising the many different kinds of disablement which occur and the ways in which the community in the United Kingdom can contribute to their alleviation; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is an opportunity to consider the different forms of disability which exist and the varying requirements to help those who are handicapped to live lives that are as normal as possible. Because I was disabled 49 years ago, causing me to have to change professions, and having been in a wheelchair at times during that period, I feel that I can speak frankly and offer advice to my colleagues in the disability organisations.
Having also campaigned for more than 30 years in both Houses of Parliament, I welcome the Government's undertaking to introduce legislation in this parliamentary Session. Today, I am raising relevant matters in preparation for our later debates. I am aiming to help to set the scene. I shall not concentrate on any particular category. My object is to present the general comprehensive picture.
I am glad that distinguished noble Lords and Baronesses, knowledgeable on the subject and concerned, have undertaken to speak. I am sure that particular kinds of disability will receive attention. In that context, I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Rix, in his place, because I understood that he might not be able to take part in the debate. He and I were operating together in 1981 in the International Year of Disabled People when he was the chief executive of MENCAP and I had been invited to play a prominent part in that international year. He and my noble friend Lord Renton have drawn attention to the fact that the largest single category of disabled people is the mentally handicapped.
First, I shall recall briefly the history of efforts to assess numbers and locate disabled people. The situation over 30 years ago, when I was starting my parliamentary campaign, was that help for disabled people was restricted to war disabled, like me, and the industrially injured. People who had been disabled from birth or early youth and housewives or others who had not been in employment were not in the system at all. Their only support was national assistance—the ultimate safety net.
In the mid-1960s, I pressed the government of the day to assess numbers. One had to have a starting point. At that time no one had any idea how many disabled people there were in the country. In October 1967, I was rewarded. In reply to a Question from me, the Government announced that the Government Social Survey, as it then was, would undertake an operation to estimate numbers.
In 1971 the results were announced, in what became known as the Amelia Harris Report, by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys—the OPCS. That survey was carried out by sampling only, and was limited to persons aged 16 and over in private households. Nevertheless, it was the first-ever reliable estimate in Great Britain. In addition, it introduced classification and so provided the very first rough estimate of the number of severely disabled people.
We now have very much better information from the 1991 census. In that census, the terms "disabled" and "handicapped" were not used. The description chosen was, "limiting long-term illness", which of course includes the chronically sick. The definition was:
"Any long-term illness, health problem or handicap which limits the daily activities or the work that a person can do".
When considering the forthcoming legislation that we are expecting, one should be aware of the size and nature of the subject. An estimate of 6.5 million disabled people in the United Kingdom has been made by the OPCS, based on that 1991 census. However, crucial to interpreting that figure is the fact that more than five million of them are over retiring age, and that most of them were not disabled during their working lives. The 6.5 million figure includes all forms and degrees of disability from the slightly handicapped, even those with no employment difficulties, to the wholly paralysed and unable to speak. There are many categories and combinations of handicap between those extremes; so trying to generalise about "the disabled" can be misleading.
The estimates produced as a result of the 1991 census should be of special interest to all concerned with disablement: 79 per cent. of the 6.5 million were over pensionable age (and the ages of 65 and 60 were observed for men and women respectively). That is significant, bearing in mind that all forecasts show an increase in the proportion of elderly people in our population in the future. It is also significant for the whole system of care in the community, because it is having to cater for elderly people who are increasingly incurring disabilities. There are other important findings by the OPCS.
Turning to the nearly 1.5 million who were under retirement age and to those between the ages of 16 and 59, 25 per cent. of men and 12 per cent. of women were found to be in full-time employment, and 45 per cent. of men and 30 per cent. of women were described as "economically active". There is one other helpful estimate which has recently been made, and that is that about 500,000 people, of all ages, permanently need a wheelchair. That figure is generally accepted by government authorities.
To sum up these most recently available estimates, which helpfully provide much more information than ever before, about one in nine of our population has a disability of some kind, whether slight or severe, and four out of five of those people with disabilities are over retirement age. About one in 112 of our population is permanently in a wheelchair. That comparison is important, because there are sometimes public oversimplifications to the effect that disabled people and wheelchair people are the same and synonymous. That happens, for example, at airports and at railway stations.
My noble friend Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish is to reply to the debate. I presume that he is not yet in a position to elaborate on the Government's proposals for legislation. I am sure that we would be most grateful for anything that my noble friend can tell us before we depart for the Christmas Recess. We would also be grateful for any comments that he may have on situations which I and other speakers describe this evening.
What can we as a community in this country do to improve life for disabled people, especially the severely handicapped? One way to improvement, and not an expensive one, would be to promote further public awareness of the different kinds of disability, thus spreading information and so changing attitudes. The principles which I believe should inspire our progress as a nation, in all those matters, are equality and integration.
To able-bodied people I put the following thoughts. A disabled person who is on his feet may well have to regard every day, nonetheless, as a test to be thought out in detail beforehand in terms of mobility and effort. The attitudes of other people can vary to an extraordinary degree. A friend whom he has known for years will say, perhaps when he has a setback and has to go back to a wheelchair, "I didn't know there was anything wrong with you". In one sense that is a compliment to the success of the disabled person in coping with daily life. But, unfortunately, it also often reflects the unobservant nature of the friend.
At the other extreme, other acquaintances will treat the same disabled person as if he was totally incapable of any independent thought or action. The disabled person will encounter both attitudes within a few hours on the same day. What is his or her reaction? Unpredictable at first, but later, probably, philosophical. The public can help by learning more and by exercising good judgment, with sensitivity in extending help where needed.
I shall touch on one part of life which is difficult or impossible for certain categories of disability; namely, transport. Improvements for disabled people are in general being made; but they cannot be achieved instantly. On all sides in Parliament—and, again, in this House recently—it has been agreed that it will take about 25 years before everything necessary can be done in public transport in this country for wheelchairs. Even that time-scale can only be achieved by determined efforts.
The London Underground is virtually a no-go area for wheelchairs, besides some other disabled people, because of the many steps and the very few lifts. That situation would be transformed if a new safe system could be invented for accommodating wheelchairs on escalators. There is a challenge for inventors and designers! There are many forms of disability which do not require a wheelchair and they also meet obstacles and difficulties of other kinds.
Discrimination against disabled people is, accordingly, very different from sex or race discrimination. The completely paralysed man is unlikely ever to seek to board a bus or to work in an ordinary office. That is why I do not favour the term "civil rights" as an appropriate description of new legislation. Even the United States has not used it for the Americans with Disabilities Act which aims for "reasonable accommodations" to be reached.
Another reason why I am worried about the use of the term "civil rights" is that an impression can be given that the enactment of a Bill can, in itself, immediately remove obstacles and difficulties. I have already met that impression among some disabled people and their carers. In taking this view, I know that I part company from several of my colleagues who serve on the Parliamentary Disabled Group. I do not know what title the Government intend to use for their Bill or Bills. I offer my view for what it is worth.
This leads me to something which the right honourable gentleman Mr. Alf Moms has asked me to raise at an early opportunity. In our debate on 22nd June I referred to his Private Member's Bill which became the 1970 Act. I said that it had been drafted by the Government. That was widely understood, then and later, to be the case; and many winners of the annual ballot in another place, like him, accept a first draft from the Government.
Mr. Morris has since told me that the situation was in fact somewhat different: that the then Secretary of State, the late Mr. Richard Crossman,
"was strongly opposed to the whole proposition".
Fortunately Mr. Morris persisted and put together a draft Bill, with difficulty, in time for the Second Reading. The Government did then give help with drafting amendments. This I remember because I was one of the Bill's sponsors, at Mr. Morris's invitation, and I moved the amendments to extend the scope of the Bill to Scotland. They were provided by government draftsmen. I am glad to put that part of history correctly on the record. It could only have been known to very few at the time that the Minister was strongly opposed to the introduction of that Private Member's Bill.
In opening this debate, I hope I have exposed the vastness of the area of problems and possibilities within this subject—a subject we expect to be considering soon in this House over a period of several weeks at least. I suggest that many of the special problems of various disabilities require separate solutions and that these should be tackled with vigour and determination. I beg to move for Papers.
5.51 p.m.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I wish to congratulate the noble Lord on providing us with this opportunity of debating disability and on his speech setting the scene and outlining some of the problems. Of course I disagree profoundly with the noble Lord on the issue of civil rights, because I feel strongly about that and about the need for civil rights and calling them civil rights. But I respect the noble Lord's viewpoint and I wish to pay tribute to the splendid work he has done over many years, both in this House and in another place, in helping disabled people. As he spoke of the background to this matter, I also am delighted to see one of the great campaigners on disability in the past and now, the noble Earl, Lord Longford, who did so much about the Act to which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, referred.
I welcome this debate on the eve of what will be unprecedented legislation to outlaw discrimination against disabled people. The Government are fully aware of the views of the all-party disablement group, of which I am co-chairman. The group believes that three essential changes are required in the Government's consultative document proposals to make the forthcoming Bill satisfactory. First, a disability rights commission is crucial to monitor, to investigate and above all to enforce the Bill's provisions. Secondly, the proposal to exclude from the Bill's protection disabled people working in businesses of fewer than 20 employees is totally unacceptable. Thirdly, a new definition is required because the one in the consultative document is too restrictive and unfair.
The first two points as regards the commission and people being excluded from protection because of the size of the business have been fully dealt with at great length both here and in another place and I do not propose to speak on those now. Tonight I want to focus on the key issue of definition. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, properly focused on that. Everyone, of course, recognises the problems of wheelchair users. I am especially glad to see the noble
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Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, in the Chamber, willing and able to speak on this important subject. I pay tribute to the wonderful work she has done.
Wheelchairs are, of course, visible and easily identifiable. Wheelchair users deserve great credit for campaigning so ardently and so successfully. However, there are other disabilities such as epilepsy and deafness which are invisible, misunderstood and therefore neglected. Naturally there can be obvious consequences of a medical condition. For example, some deaf people inevitably require the help of interpreters to overcome communication problems. But the social consequences, especially the stigmatising of some disabilities, can be equally or more serious. I believe that this stigma is an aspect which should be acknowledged if anti-discrimination legislation is to be effective.
Disabilities such as deafness, epilepsy and speech defects tend to provoke a reaction because they make people feel uncomfortable—with some disabilities people are perfectly happy, but others make them feel embarrassed—and they are not as easily handled as pushing a wheelchair. They cause embarrassment which is transmuted into discrimination. The same attitudes and the same kinds of discrimination prevail towards people suffering from disabilities which are visible but which also cause embarrassment to an undiscerning public, cerebral palsy for example. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Rix, will deal with those disabilities in some detail. Cerebral palsy can easily be recognised but by its nature, distorting the physical frame and its movement, can disguise the qualities, especially the intellectual ones, of the people concerned.
Perverse as it may seem at first sight, people can suffer discrimination even though they have no disability. That is a striking comment but I believe it to be true. In those cases the disability is in the minds of others who falsely perceive a disability where none exists. People who are HIV positive—I am delighted to see present the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, who has done so much for those people—former cancer patients and those who have recovered from mental illness face discrimination because people believe them to be disabled.
I hope that Ministers will recognise these sad realities, avoid the easy options and include those suffering discrimination because of perceived disability. A comprehensive and wide-ranging definition of disability would rescue people from the wilderness of distress and even despair. To fail to do this would be an abdication of responsibility and a morally wrong evasion. Stigma cannot be abolished by legislation but it can be tackled and dealt with effectively if the political will is there. I am sure it is with some Ministers and I hope that those who are converted will convert the whole of the Government when this famous Bill is brought forward.
The question of definition of disability is therefore not one of theoretical abstraction but one of profound importance to millions of people. That is why I have tried to deal with it. It is crucial that this problem of definition should be recognised by the Government.
It is certainly recognised by some responsible voluntary societies, such as the Law Society, which favours the inclusion of "reputed or perceived

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disability". The Law Society suggests that it is perhaps worse to be excluded from opportunities because of something which does not exist than because of something which does. That is debatable, but it is ironic to suffer lost opportunities if there is no disability. Surely, the Law Society says, it is not suggested that such people should be excluded from protection. Well, yes, that is what is suggested by the Government. In their consultative document they suggest precisely that, because they confine the definition to those people with a substantial and long-term disability or one with such effects. Therefore, the Law Society ought to have its own word with the Government.
If consultation by the Government has been meaningful rather than a public relations exercise—and I am sure that it was intended by the Ministers concerned to be meaningful—then perhaps Ministers will change their minds on this crucial problem of definition.
The Law Society makes a further important point to which I should like to draw the attention of the House. It suggests that, although the goal of:
"straightforward and easy to understand legislation",
is welcome, there should not be a higher standard in this field than in others if the reason is to limit protection. That is precisely the reason, and that is why we want the definition changed. If the principle of full inclusion is accepted, it should be possible for the Government to clarify it through regulation and a code of practice.
I want to conclude by suggesting that the crucial issue is the principle that discrimination encountered by disabled people is not the result of their medical condition but of social circumstances. Only when that principle is recognised shall we effectively counter discrimination.
6.2 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Worcester: My Lords, I am very glad that this debate is taking place and am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for the marvellous survey in his opening speech of the diversity of disability and disablement. That is the ground on which we have to work. We must recognise that there is an immense diversity. Nothing less than recognition of that fact will do.
I should also like to pay tribute to the enormous contribution which the noble Lord has made personally to the raising of awareness of the needs of people with disablement in this country. That came out in his speech, without his intending it.
Not only is there great diversity of disablement but there is an enormous diversity of voluntary and charitable organisations seeking to help those with disabilities. The number is so large and the field is becoming so competitive that I feel that any government must look at the need for core funding for those bodies. The charitable fund-raising field—as I know because I am chairman of the Children's Society—is almost ludicrously competitive. We organised the first sponsored walk through the Channel Tunnel, raising £2 million for charity—nearly £1 million for ourselves and £1 million for the other organisations which took part.
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What do we do next year—have a sponsored ride to the Moon? There is great difficulty in this field. Has not the Imperial Cancer Relief Fund had to reduce its budget by £6 million this very year? There is a real problem which must be addressed.
In our own county and my diocese of Worcester, only last week I was able to invite to my house a large cross-section of purchasers of services. The whole system of provision is very complex. I offer this as a suggestion to others. We want to set up a funding forum so that whether or not voluntary societies obtain funds is not such a hit and miss affair. There are large charitable organisations with a great deal of clout and professional staff, but there are smaller ones. I think of Crossroads in the Worcester diocese which provides time out for people who have a handicapped person in their house. That is something which they need. The funding forum would exist to ensure that smaller charitable organisations may find a path to the provision of funds and so that purchasers of the services which voluntary organisations offer may have an overall plan and there is a fair distribution of funds.
I welcome the consultation on government measures to tackle discrimination against disabled people. However, we could do with a clear, global statement of commitment to the rights of those with disabilities. I am grateful that Her Majesty's Government have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. I believe that we need something similar in any legislation for those with disabilities. It is not good enough merely to say that we are a caring society. Care has to be organised. I hope that there will be a clear statement in any proposals which come forward in 1995.
There is a disparity in the response to benefit claims from area to area and from local authority to local authority. Could there be some unifying guidelines so that people are treated the same all over the country? It is true that those with disabilities or those families who have to care for people with disabilities face far greater expenses. I think of someone in the depths of the Teme valley in my county who suffers from a tendency to fits. The condition is under control, but that person may not drive. Therefore, living in that rural area she is unable to go out unless she hires a taxi or gets a lift from a neighbour.
There are sometimes difficulties over personal insurance. That issue ought to be addressed.
Furthermore, in the consultation to which I have referred there is no mention of education. I heard the other day of a disabled student who had to be put in a little box room to study on her own. The teacher had to come every so often to see how she was getting on. That student very much wanted to be with the others, to be treated as one of the others and to be educated along with them.
There is the question as to whether there should be a quota system in industry. I know that the suggestion has been put forward many times, but it is problematical in that some people with disabilities do not favour it. A quota has never been enforced. Those people do not favour the enforcement of a quota system because they feel that it sets them apart in a way that they do not want to be set apart. However, we need to address the

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question of how to ensure that disabled people have equal access to jobs, to the fullest life of which they are capable—a participatory life in our society and in industry, commerce and the professions—and are able to live as far as they can to the height of their powers. I hope that that matter will be addressed. There is no simple answer.
With regard to the convenience of our buildings, streets and transport, and access to them, there is still an enormous amount to be done in raising awareness. A great deal was done in the International Year of the Handicapped. But people grow weary of well doing. Do we need a disability commission which will keep those matters ever before us? Certainly I believe that we should strengthen the advisory body which the Government propose and give it some teeth. However, in the first and last resort, it is a matter of educating people, of improving attitudes.
One cannot make a nation good, as is well known, by Act of Parliament. I do not believe that we can make our society one which cares in a practical and organised way for people with disabilities merely by legislation, although detailed legislation is needed. He who would serve mankind must do so in minute particulars. But I believe that the measure of the civilised standards of a nation is to be found in the way in which it treats its citizens who have disabilities. As the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, pointed out, that requires persistent research. There is in people with disabilities a treasure to be unlocked if we only will unlock it. Perhaps it is right for a Lord Bishop to say that it is the basis of a Christian view of life that all should be affirmed, all should be enabled to live to the height of their powers, and all should be so far as possible both independent and interdependent.
I am glad to have this opportunity of taking part in the debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy.
6.13 p.m.
Earl Haig: My Lords, it is a great privilege to be able to say a few words in the debate on this meaningful subject. It is particularly meaningful for me because my mind goes back to a march in 1926, and the British Legion parade from Horse Guards to the Cenotaph. I remember being with my father. There was an enormous parade of men on crutches and many in wheelchairs. Many of my early days were spent with such problems around me.
My noble friend Lord Campbell has chosen an appropriate moment to raise the problem of the disabled in the wake of the recent Statement about discrimination and on the eve of the proposed Government disability Bill. My noble friend, with a wonderful record of service to others, despite severe war disablement, has called attention to ways in which the community contributes to the alleviation of disablement. Perhaps the Motion should also have included a phrase emphasising service to the community, and how disabled people, despite their physical difficulties, place whatever health, strength and talents they may have at the disposal of the community.
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Such a two-way approach has created links between the disabled and the communities to which they belong. Many communities have been inspired by the way in which disabled ex-servicemen have overcome their disabilities. A number of young servicemen are injured every year in road accidents while on duty or on leave from their units. They are discharged and left in hospital without support from the Ministry of Defence. They are left to themselves and suffer from loneliness and lack of support. The Royal British Legion is considering the establishment of a care unit in its village at Maidstone. I hope that the Minister will offer support to that plan if and when it comes to fruition.
Another Royal British Legion enterprise which deserves support is the British Ex-Servicemen's Wheelchair Sports Association which does much to raise morale and find jobs. Many of your Lordships will have seen its members at the Festival of Remembrance at the Albert Hall and will know of their success at the disabled Olympics. The Royal British Legion is hoping to move them soon from Docklands to a more accessible part of London.
In a recent Statement on disability, my noble friend Lady Cumberlege said that the objective is to give disabled people more power over their own lives. The Government Statement proposed the establishment of a national disability council. That is welcome at a time of bitterness over the loss of the disablement Bill last summer. The new Bill is urgently awaited by the British people who are aware of the need to improve facilities for the disabled. To accomplish that the Bill must provide legislation which will be effective. Some years ago various organisations representing disabled people—ex-service organisations among them—explored the idea proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, to establish an organisation which would work on behalf of all the organisations. We had a meeting in the House of Lords. However, the tide was not right to achieve such an organisation, because there were too many differences between younger disabled people and the established voluntary organisations. But delays in closer cohesion will be to the disadvantage of the disabled.
One example of disabled organisations getting together is the organisation called Disability Scotland. The proposed national disability council would help to ease the difficulties of co-operation. It should advise the Government at arm's length; it should be a catalyst to enable disabled people to voice their concern; and it would be required to report annually to Parliament. To do all that it would need adequate funds. Perhaps in some ways such a body would perform the functions of the disablement advisory committees on which I served as chairman in the south of Scotland. It is now more than 20 years since I handed over and since then matters have improved. In my view the quota system was difficult to enforce. I am glad that it is now to be repealed.
Although I realise the need for better buildings and transport, I still believe that the problem of employment is at the crux of this debate: how to find job opportunities for the disabled and to mesh individuals with their particular capabilities into those jobs where

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they will find love, companionship and fulfilment. There is now the supportive employment scheme whereby financial support is designed to help employers take on individuals whose output is reduced, on the understanding that that output is not less than between 30 per cent. and 80 per cent. of that of a normal person.
There is the access to work scheme which seeks to overcome some of the practical obstacles and to ease disabled people into jobs. Funds are available to equip disabled people to take advantage of the scheme which provides supporters for disabled people, to help them use or understand special equipment. It helps visually handicapped people to understand the technical details of machinery by having instructions read to them. It provides special chairs for people with back problems. In the Borders region, a blind piano tuner has a supporter to drive him from piano to piano.
The Scottish National Federation for the Welfare of the Blind, though welcoming the access to work scheme, has criticised some of its requirements, particularly the £21,500 ceiling over a five-year period and the shelving of employer contributions pending further investigation.
Then there is the job introduction scheme which enables employers to take on registered disabled people for a preliminary period of six weeks, during which time they can recoup £45 per head per week against the wage. That encourages employers to try out possible employees while still uncertain whether the employment will succeed on a permanent basis.
So great progress has been made these last 20 years, both in the dominion of support schemes and benefits, as well as in the dominion of public awareness of the nature of disability. There is greater support available through modern medical skills and from social workers. There is greater care available at local level from individuals and voluntary organisations.
Help from the community is needed for families who have a member who suffers from mental illness such as schizophrenia. Professional alleviation of disablement is essential, but caring community support is also needed. It is at moments of anxiety, when help is essential, moments when there is stress, when worries turn to despair, that there is a real danger that the sick person will go off and live rough in large cities. That is a move which too often ends in suicide. It is in that context that my noble friend's debate is so relevant tonight.
6.22 p.m.
Lord Rix: My Lords, I begin with an apology that at this exceptionally busy time of year I have to leave before the conclusion of the debate, to fulfil a long-standing engagement. As well as owing apologies to those who follow me for not doing them the courtesy of being here to listen to them, I owe thanks to those who have allowed me to join the middle batting order to play a brief innings.
So many of the barriers that people with learning disabilities encounter are in our minds rather than in our architecture that I particularly wanted to take the opportunity that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, has offered us. I also wish to join with him in doubting the wisdom of pressing the phrase "civil rights", which I suspect is a red rag to a government bull. We want that
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hull charging ahead with effective and comprehensive legislation—not pawing the ground and glowering at all and sundry in an agony of indecision because of semantics or because they fancy going next door to the field of cows.
All those years ago, in the dawn of the era of disability politics, when the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy—I am sorry that he is not in his place to hear this compliment—pointed the way to the first major survey of disabled people, he can have had only a tentative idea of the developments that would follow. In making a determined effort to influence public attitudes for the better, we cannot be sure of the outcome. Virtue is not learnt by rote or goodness secured by instruction, but we can make a substantial dent in ignorance. That is worth doing.
The Government have made a move in this direction by producing a little booklet entitled YOU and disability, and there are posters all over the place proclaiming its publication. Imbued with the spirit of Christmas, I wish I could welcome this "guide for everyone" unreservedly. Alas, I cannot; for, while recognising the need for a public education campaign, I believe that this work of the Department of Social Security fails to address the real problems and issues facing disabled people, taking a superficial view of the world as it really exists out there for them. For example, in the booklet is the story of Steven who,
"has a learning disability caused by complications when he was born".
The story may make you feel sad for a fleeting moment, but it does not really suggest that being treated badly, as has been Steven's lot, is quite simply discrimination of a particularly unpleasant and unacceptable kind. After all, bullying at school, being ignored in company, being turned out of a swimming pool are happenings in the lives of many young people, disabled or otherwise—more's the pity. Steven's story seems relatively common. The horrors of intolerance, inhumanity and ignorance faced by so many people with a learning disability are kept well at bay, while the degrees of disability, from a learning difficulty to a profound and multiple handicap, are dealt with only fleetingly.
On the other hand, Mencap is producing a schools pack with teacher's notes which seeks to do in greater depth for the younger generation what the Government's booklet does more parsimoniously but for a much larger audience. The Mencap pack talks about discrimination and prejudice, about what people do, not knowing what they do. It tells stories of people with a wide range of learning disabilities and related disabilities, so that they can be seen as real, three-dimensional people, not types of disablement.
The worst thing we have done to people with learning disabilities is to put them in boxes of our making, with labels of our choosing. What can we do to make amends? Can we avoid the heresy of treating them all as people from another planet, without falling into the other heresy of pretending that there are no differences?
I want to offer three suggestions. One is that some of the new money for improving the access of disabled children to schools should be used to encourage imaginative projects for children with profound and

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multiple disabilities to share time and activity with children without disabilities in a way that will benefit both groups.
The second suggestion is that in diversifying and in plugging the large gaps in day services, we build on the experience of teaming up people with and without learning disabilities as partners in leisure. Mencap's leisure arm, the Gateway Federation, is already developing such activities and it is clearly a fertile ground on which to sow and reap.
The third suggestion is that, in celebrating the 25th anniversary of the 1971 White Paper on what were then called "mental handicap" services, we produce for a mass audience some of the success stories of community care, seen through the eyes of the people themselves. There are those out there ready to say that community care has failed; and there are communities out there which are failing as communities. Lack of money is generally blamed for any shortcomings, but I believe that the worm of discrimination is at the core of the problem.
Clearly, public education is of vital importance in any campaign to change attitudes and the Government are now coming round to the view, long held by many of us, that such a change has to be backed by legislation. A pity, maybe, but a prerequisite nevertheless. It was Alexander Pope who wrote:
"'Tis education forms the common mind, Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined".
In the first two years of life, children seem to be wholly unaware of disability. Thereafter, they learn prejudice … from us. Since Christmas begins with a small child, maybe we can drag ourselves nearer to one of the virtues of early childhood and give open-minded acceptance a chance—not only at this season of goodwill, but when the realities of the year ahead have once more to be faced.
6.28 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for giving your Lordships the opportunity of discussing this subject, which involves so many families throughout the UK as well as individuals with disabilities.
A short time ago I attended a lecture at the hospital for neurological conditions in Queen Square here in London. The consultant who spoke had an enormous list of different and varied conditions which came under the umbrella of neurology. Some of these are obvious; some are not. If the conditions are not treated by the experts, who above all are interested in the problems, the complications are manifold.
Beyond the field of neurology many other conditions result in disability. I know from first-hand experience that had I not been treated in a specialist spinal unit by experts, I should not be here in this House today. If I had to set one priority for the way in which the community in the United Kingdom can contribute to the alleviation of the many different kinds of disablement which occur from genetic problems, illness and accidents, it would be to have expert medical personnel who understand the various problems. If the conditions
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are not treated correctly, complications will arise. Treatment, research and rehabilitation all go hand in hand: treatment for the condition; research to find ways of stopping a condition happening or alleviating it, or to find ways of mending or regenerating nerves such as those in the spinal cord, which is so complex that nobody as yet knows how to do that; and rehabilitation to make the individual as independent as he possibly can be for as long as possible. Ongoing check-ups are also necessary so that the person can keep as well as possible in the community.
Of the many changes that have taken place in the National Health Service—some of them necessary but some damaging —the most worrying is that a number of the excellent specialising hospitals feel vulnerable even though they are recognised throughout the world. This is very serious for patients, who feel that their lifeline might be cut, and it is damaging for hospital staff, who want to get on and find ways of curing or alleviating complex conditions. If staff morale is bad, patients are affected.
Yesterday I attended the parliamentary carol service. I sat next to a charming man who was using a wheelchair. He had multiple sclerosis. How important it is to give such people hope that research is continuing. With the funding of extra-contractual referrals, problems are arising. Health authorities are saying that they will not pay for patients to go to specialised units if it is for research. But without research how can we hope for any progress in these devastating and complex conditions?
I am at the moment dealing with the case of a person who suffers from the results of organophosphorus poisoning from sheep dip. The health authority does not want to pay on the grounds that it is a matter of research and may not be of benefit to the person. At the moment there does not seem to be a cure. But, with interest, and with clever doctors doing tests and observing the symptoms, advances in treatment may be made. At least there will be hope that something is being done. That case is still unresolved. The health authority is looking at it, but relationships with the family and the general practitioner involved have almost broken down.
Another case was brought to my attention on Sunday night. In that case, relations with the GP had broken down and those involved were in the process of changing their GP. This was a case of ME, where the wife had had to give up her job as a result of exhaustion. If there is not to be a deluge of people leaving their GPs because of the Patient's Charter, should there not be more training of GPs in the many and varied conditions that result in different forms of disability? When relationships break down, stress increases —and stress is not productive for anyone.
There is a new Bill before Parliament which provides for the merging of the health authorities and the FHSAs. That will cause a great deal of extra work, as mergers always do. I am concerned about the pressure on patients, whose needs should come first, because it is natural that staff will be looking to their jobs as a priority.
As I said, disability is very varied and complex. A new set of rules for people with intermittent disability will come into force in April. Such disabilities can be

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made worse by things that the patient does: by the exertion of walking or carrying out a task. I should like to ask the Minister: when people with those kinds of conditions come for assessment, how will the adjudicating medical officer take account of people's various levels of disability without medical evidence such as records and the advice of GPs and specialists? Will there not be many cases going to appeal? Will the new system not be more bureaucratic and cumbersome in the long run? Lots of appeals and tribunals will add stress for the disabled person. That is why I feel that there should be encouragement to general practitioners to take an interest in and understand disability. So often they just want to pass the problem on to the social services as a social issue. Given the pressure on health funding and the even greater pressure on social services, people with disabilities may well fall between the two and become very much at risk, with the danger of pressure sores, which cost the country millions of pounds, and a lack of help from social services with activities such as having a bath, which has now been cut to only one in every two weeks.
Yesterday, some noble Lords heard from the Association of County Councils that some social services were working on crisis programmes only. The tragic situation is that only severely disabled people are getting help. So many just need a little help to keep them going in the community. They are not getting that help. If the Government do not listen to the very many pleas for help, these problems will not be alleviated, they will be exacerbated.
Disabled people need adequate housing. If they use a wheelchair or have difficulty in walking, they need housing without steps, and suitable bathrooms and kitchens. The disabled population now includes those people with AIDS. There is an urgent need for flats with warden help. I hope that housing associations will extend their help here. They also need help with transport, as has been mentioned. Such help is vital, but it is not very often forthcoming in many rural areas. Such schemes as Dial-a-Ride and Taxicard are of great help. There are so many vital needs crying out for help.
As North East president of the Kidney Association, I was very concerned to read the following in the press on Monday:
"NHS units unable to cope with the rise in kidney patients".
Wherever I look I see the needs of many people with disabilities. I wish that the lottery money was going towards meeting some of those needs. However, we welcome the money that may come for disability and the arts. At least there could be tax relief, so that people who do pay taxes can offset against tax some of the extra costs that are due to their disability.
I look forward to the Minister's reply. I look forward also to the Bill on anti-discrimination legislation, because people up and down the country who have disabilities need it in this pressurised society.
6.40 p.m.
Lord Selsdon: My Lords, I feel that the scale of the problem which confronts us—my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy, in his inimitable way has raised the
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matter again and drawn attention to one of the greatest issues that face our society—is perhaps matched by the scale of the opportunity. In preparing for this debate and lacking experience in this field other than as the member of a family which has many problems of a similar sort with disabilities across the board, I wondered whether we were back in the Dark Ages.
I walked through the Royal Gallery and looked at the two great pictures of war there. I recalled that if you were an able bodied seaman and had a splinter in your leg as a result of a cannon, you would lose that leg within a few days; or if you fought in the field of war on land, similar things would happen. I recalled as a small boy talking to my grandfather, of whom I was very proud because he had won the Sword of Honour at the Britannia Naval. College. I wondered what he had done in the Great War, thinking that he must have risen to great rank. He had been invalided out at an early age because of Malta Dog. Wishing to join up, but having failed because he was disabled, he became a stretcher bearer at the front. Over Christmas he used to tell us stories of how he, as a stretcher bearer, would bring in someone with a wound and a surgeon would take off the limb there and then. He would be given that limb to dispose of and would wrap it in newspaper and bury it in a field, only to see it blown up or dug up by dogs a few days later. The horror at the scale of it—death came not from being killed immediately but from disability—made me wonder, if I were faced with the choice of being severely disabled or dying, which one I should prefer.
Things have moved on since those days. There have been technological developments based upon research over time. There has been the development of antibiotics, obviously, and in the early days the development of artificial limbs to replace the pegleg stump. More recently there has been better use of technology and new materials.
Much has been done in this field but to me it is sad to find that we, the British, brilliant though we may be in the invention of new machinery and new technology, fail to obtain the research resources to develop and apply that technology. To illustrate that point, let me choose but one area: the orthopaedic area. Noble Lords will know that these days some of the most successful and common operations are the replacement of parts—nothing more than the maintenance and repair that every car is expected to receive from time to time when components wear out. As we get older, our minds perhaps begin to outlive the capacities of our bodies. Our bodies may be in need of repair due to bone degeneration or as a result of accident brought about by a lack of stability. Such repairs are an area in which the British were pre-eminent. I refer to hip replacements, knee replacements, elbow and shoulder replacements—everything. It is of course based upon engineering.
At the end of the First World War there were many disabled who needed new limbs. Since then, there has been a need for replacements, for equipment and units, that often came from defence technology. Noble Lords will know that the retractable undercarriage ultimately led to the splendid, collapsible baby chair and often to the success of British designed cars in grand prix motor

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racing. But hip replacement is an area which has interested me. I am trying to help one of the organisations which raise money for those operations—the Wishbone Appeal and the British Orthopaedic Association.
In the early 1960s there were two men—Mr. McKee and Mr. Charnley—both of whom developed in parallel the first hip units. The joints were hinged and did not work very well. But to some extent they began to get rid of the disability which affects so many people: abject pain. Over time, perhaps over 10 years, that technology was developed by the London Splint Company and by Thackeray, two British companies which, sad to say, fell into American ownership. New developments arose. At present some 50,000 people in this country have hip replacements every year and with them goes the removal of pain. In the United States the replacement of knees has overtaken the replacement of hips, one of the most common operations of all time and almost guaranteed success.
But in this field, if there are no researchers, as the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, said, we fall behind. How far behind are we? I am told that, because of the technology available, we are desperately short of orthopaedic surgeons and that we have fewer doctors per 100,000 of the population than any European country other than Turkey—and there is a question of whether or not Turkey is in Europe.
These areas of development require money but they also require commitment. They require a mood. Your Lordships will be aware when a particular topic has, from time to time, captured a nation's imagination and the money, sponsorship and thought start to come forward. In the engineering divisions of our universities, there are ample numbers of people capable of pursuing and developing research alongside the Government, the orthopaedic organisations and others. One may be surprised to find that the grants that are made to universities by private individuals, often in their wills, are for the development of medical research in many fields.
It is a difficult and sad area. But I have had great pleasure when, from time to time, I have been involved in activities with the disabled. Yesterday we had our annual tea party for what are called "the children of courage". It was held after a very moving service in Westminster Abbey. Children who have committed acts of bravery are honoured and always half of them are those who have suffered from some major disability as a result of disease or an accident but they have come through smiling and shining. Yesterday, one small boy, who had lost one of his legs because of meningitis, announced with pride, as he showed his award to us all, that he was now hoping to be captain of the school football team, because of the technology that had come with the movements in engineering.
I do not know who in this country is responsible for the development of research in these fields. It is interesting that often the very people who have benefited as a result of technological development are those best able to promote and encourage the raising of more funds. Should your Lordships feel like attending, on 4th
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June next year we are having another of those "hippy walks"—perhaps I might invite the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester—where disabled people who have had hip replacements walk a mile along the Thames, having a great day out. They are not raising money for charity but for research. Raising funds for research should not necessarily be charitable. There are many people who, if they knew that their personal effort of sponsorship was going into that field to alleviate suffering and help other sufferers, would put a lot more into it.
We have a long way to go. The Dark Ages are long past. We have the technological ability to develop equipment and services which can turn able bodied people who have become disabled into able bodied people again. It is only a matter of technology and commitment.
6.49 p.m.
Lord Quirk: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the timely debate introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy.
We hear a good deal in the media about care in the community. At least, we hear about it when things have gone wrong. This is of course necessary in order to trigger rectification. What we do not hear about so often is when things have gone right; and that is just as necessary if we are both to reassure the disabled and to give proper recognition and encouragement to those whose hard work and dedication have resulted in the good news that reporters ignore.
Time was when communities assumed responsibility for the local disabled without question; when their charitable instincts were all the better for it; and when indeed the disabled had precious little other recourse. That is still the position today in many parts of the world: still, also, the position in rural areas of our own islands. Given the fact that as many as one-fifth of the child population may have a "special educational need", it is not surprising that in the small farming community in the Isle of Man where I grew up, we had our share of the congenitally disabled. But in so far as their handicaps permitted, they took part in the social, educational and recreational life enjoyed by the rest of us.
Let me tell your Lordships about Bessie, a deaf-mute girl on a neighbouring farm who, so far from being isolated, had the extraordinary effect of stimulating the dozen or so girls of her age-group to acquire the then current sign language (largely finger spelling, I think). I can recall the mixture of admiration and envy I felt as Bessie and my elder sisters enjoyed silent, giggly anecdotes I could not follow. Who taught Bessie and her mother, I do not know. Nor do I know how her friends learnt the system. What I do know is why they learnt it. Bessie was part of the social circle. Her place in it depended on the co-operation of the rest. Needless to say, she benefited by being able to join her peers in reading and writing, knitting, playing cards and Christmas party games. But her circle of friends benefited too, not only in her being an addition to the very small peer group, but because they discovered in Bessie talents she possessed in greater quantity than they

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themselves. And they learnt to empathise with what the politically correct would now call the "differently endowed".
Of all the disabilities embraced for the purposes of this debate by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, it is of those affecting communication that I have had most experience and it is on these that I should like to focus my few words. But they are certainly also among the most obvious of the disabilities that can be alleviated by active, informed, community support.
This is increasingly accepted within the education system, not least as a result of the inquiry conducted in the late 1970s by the lady who subsequently became the Baroness Warnock. In this respect, the Warnock Report of 1978 was following the recommendations of the Snowden working party of 1976, which on page 7 of its report stated:
"Integration for the disabled … means social acceptance. It means being able to be treated like everybody else. It means the right to work … to contribute materially to the community, to have the usual choices of association … to be educated up to university level with one's unhandicapped peers".
Children with "special educational needs"—whether it be learning disability, hearing loss, cerebral palsy, autism, or a specific language disorder such as dysphasia or dyslexia—are immeasurably helped in their communication difficulties by being thus integrated so far as is possible with their age group peers. And as in the case of my neighbour Bessie, the benefit flows not only to the afflicted.
A recent joint publication by the Dyslexia Institute and the City Technology Colleges Trust is illuminating in this respect. Sir Philip Harris's very successful career masks the enormous difficulties he suffered as a child through being seriously dyslexic, so it is not surprising that in the South London CTC that bears his name, there is a notably active Dyslexia Centre. This operates as the engine for a "whole school" approach to supporting the unfortunate minority whose maths, writing and reading are all adversely affected by their dyslexia. To quote from this publication:
"The first step is for the whole school community—students, staff, head, governors, parents, neighbours—to see themselves as responsible for helping to carry out the aim",
of ensuring that every disabled child has access to the entire range of education.
I have paraphrased the document here with this phrase "every disabled child", for of course such a "whole school" approach fulfils the needs not only of dyslexics. As was said recently by the head of the Humberside County Council's Education Centre:
"If a child has one muscle in his body which responds consistently, we can access the National Curriculum for him".
Her words reminded me of the Dublin working-class mother who noted just such a single muscle in her little boy and who, along with her neighbours, nurtured that single ability until the little cerebral-palsied boy became the world acclaimed writer, Christy Brown.
In the well-structured operation of a "whole school" policy, the disabled develop their fullest potential and the rest of the school learns how rewarding it is for the able to help the afflicted. So it is—and has always been—in the world outside school: in the communities
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of the workplace, of the pub, of the church. And we today, as has been noted, have the enormous advantage of skilled professionals, trained in addressing the specific needs of those disadvantaged by a wide range of ills. But in fact this can have a downside. Their very existence and the professional nature of their expertise is one of the reasons for our tendency to believe that there is little that lay folk can do by comparison: little that they need to do, perhaps. We are tempted to shift responsibility to the health professionals, and turn away.
How disastrously wrong such a conclusion is can be seen by a brief glance at speech therapy, the profession most concerned with the whole range of communication disability. As I was privileged to remind your Lordships during a debate in October, here is indeed a highly skilled, deeply motivated, superbly dedicated profession. But they number only 4,000 or 5,000 for the entire country. On top of their delicate task of diagnosis, assessment, design and prescription of treatment, they are also the people who, as their name implies, are responsible for carrying out the actual therapy. This means that most therapists have a dauntingly large caseload and can sometimes see a patient for only a single session per week. It is all too easy to see how the effect of any such splendidly prepared intervention quickly wears off if it is not strenuously reinforced by loved ones in the family, teachers in school, or friends at a social centre.
But this is what I had in mind when I referred earlier to "active, informed community support". Because, in an advanced country like our own, we have these expertly trained professionals like speech and language therapists, lay folk in the community should feel that they now have access to their skills and the chance of building up precisely the kind of informed support which can indeed reinforce the specialised but necessarily brief and infrequent therapy sessions.
What I should like to see, in fact, is the health professions diverting some of their time from a one-to-one treatment of individual patients and using it to devise delegable strategies of treatment and support which can be implemented, not for one hour a week by a professional expert, but for several hours a day by family, friends, volunteers: in short, by the community.
7 p.m.
Lord Addington: My Lords, the Motion before us tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, draws attention to the wide diversity of the disability problems that we are faced with in this country today, as have the speeches that we have heard so far.
I first began to talk about one type of disability when I made my maiden speech in this House. I spoke about dyslexia. On many education Bills we have tried to get more attention paid to special needs. There are other people who know about other types of disability and they have made contributions. When discussing these Bills and these problems, we have discovered the different perceptions of what should be done, where we should go with help for the disabled and we have found out about the different kinds of problems.

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I have used the example of someone who has had his movements restricted by being in a wheelchair. The case I had in mind was a classroom situation with that person being unable to go into a classroom, but being quite capable of taking the lesson. As the noble Lord, Lord Quirk, has mentioned, we have dyslexics. I am one myself and we have a different learning curve and we need different teaching processes. It may be that for certain lessons a dyslexic can very easily get in and out of a class but needs different types of tuition.
Usually, both situations can be accommodated if there is sufficient will. That is what is required to help all these groups: it is the will. The Government have legislation pending which will take steps towards giving better rights, no matter what those rights are called, whether civil rights or basic human rights. It is a question of giving disabled people rights which will enable them to be treated on a par with others. That is vitally important. We are not asking for special consideration or favours for the disabled of this country. We are asking for them to be shown enough consideration to enable them to be treated on even terms.
The legislation which we have in front of us is not as all-encompassing as many of us would like, but at least it is a start or, rather, one further step along the path. We have made progress before. The code of practice for special educational needs was a great step forward in that field. We are now moving into the world of work, but the Government are approaching it in rather a piecemeal fashion. I believe that most of us feel that they are taking a great deal of pushing to achieve their goal, but at least their appears to be some movement. One can only hope that we have overcome most of the initial inertia and that we shall make progress rather more rapidly in future.
We have to try to take on board the fact that we are dealing with a vast range of disabilities. We have to take on board the fact that we have to give knowledge about the vast range of disabilities. We have to try to educate people. Because something is not understood it should not be distrusted: one should try to get information. That means that we have to make it readily available, but at the moment it is not.
Various organisations and charities are involved in certain activities which are generally called in the charities field "awareness raising". That involves arranging a meeting, a press release or the celebration of an achievement. Then one talks about what has been achieved in that field and emphasises what could be done and also talks about the problem. The Government have not really taken that full level of activity under their wing. They have left it to the charities. I can understand that the Government would not want to try to replace all the things which charities do, but certainly they could become more involved in this field. Surely the Government should become more active in explaining consistently to people what, for instance, having dyslexia or having a learning disability means and the difference between those two types of problems and the different types of appropriate help.
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When the new legislation comes to fruition the new advisory body will have a formidable task in terms of employers. When the Minister replies tonight I hope that he can give us some idea of the actual composition of that body and from where it will be drawing its expertise. That would be a help because then we would know to whom we can make suggestions.
One of the major problems is that the range of subjects is so wide that it will always be virtually impossible to guarantee that all the combinations of problems that may occur will be covered.
Another subject which has been touched upon in this debate is that of research. The noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilion, mentioned the need for research into various fields. Another noble Lord mentioned the idea of being able to give better assisted joints and limbs to people through other types of research. This is an area where the Government really must take the lead because charities cannot do that. Many of the disabilities which have a genetic base have, possibly, a bio-chemical origin. There is the example of gene therapy.
It is possible that these problems can be avoided. Some kind of remedial action can be taken once the danger has been spotted. Those problems cannot conceivably be addressed by the charities or other private groups. We are talking about major funding with vast amounts of resources. We are talking about open-ended funding. How many charities can afford to pump possibly millions of pounds into an area of research which may well turn into a dead end, because that is the nature of research?
I have a connection with several small charities. Putting this kind of project to them is something which may make them turn white with shock or just laugh. The charities cannot carry out such projects. The Government have to state their claim here because the charities cannot do it. If we manage to alleviate these problems or prevent them occurring again, we will be saving vast amounts of money in the long term. Not only will human tragedies be avoided, but we will also please the Exchequer.
One would have thought that this kind of investment, which may even be sold afterwards, would be something which the Government would take on and that they would say "Yes, we shall help". There is much more that can be said on this subject for the simple reason that it is so vast.
I leave noble Lords with one thought: we shall always have new problems in this field, but we can take mighty strides towards alleviating many of their symptoms even if we cannot eradicate all of them, by making sure that people know that the disabled persons whom they are dealing with are, first and foremost, people. I very much look forward to the day when we shall have it in law in this country that such people are entitled to basic rights be they civil, human or any other kind.
7.9 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, like other noble Lords, I sincerely thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for initiating the debate which allows all of us to recognise and affirm the individual nature of disability and the distinctiveness of a disabled person's

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experience. My noble friend Lord Ashley of Stoke reminded us of invisible disability. The noble Lord, Lord Rix, reminded us of learning disabilities. The noble Earl, Lord Haig, spoke about the war injured. The noble Lords, Lord Selsdon and Lord Quirk, and the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, referred to those needing specialist medical and orthopaedic help.
As the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, said, the word "disability" brings to mind the image of the guide dog or the wheelchair. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, rightly pointed out, tonight we are talking about the differences. It is worth reminding ourselves that, for every 1,000 people, three of us will have severe learning difficulties; another 20 will have some impairing degree of learning disability; six of us will have a significant loss of hearing since childhood and over 100 of us will be wearing hearing aids; 10 of us will be in wheelchairs and 10 of us will have dementia—namely, Alzheimer's; 17 of us will be blind or partially sighted and 100—that is, one in 10—will have mental health needs, to say nothing of those with asthma, angina or arthritis. Our needs—their needs—are different. Our abilities—their abilities and their disabilities—are different. Their aspirations are different and the demands that they may make on services and carers will be different.
The Disability Income Group has shown what that means for two real-life families. Jennifer is a five year-old child with severe cerebral palsy. Her parents already face heavy laundry bills and heavy costs because of extra clothing and bedding, fitments for the wheelchair, as well as heating costs and the like. They amount to some £60 per week. If Jennifer had a lightwriter, which would allow her to communicate by blinking, that would cost £2,400. A special chair with adaptations for her parent's car would cost between £6,000 and £7,000.
The DIG also cites the case of James from another real-life family. He is 57 and brain-damaged as a result of an accident. His sight, speech and hearing are worsening. He is sometimes violent. He is often dizzy and spends his time playing expensive computer games. His wife cares for him around the clock. She tells DIG that she has to have domestic help at £21 per week, that he needs private physiotherapy at £20 per week and that their laundry, clothing, bedding and hygiene costs amount to £50 per week. Almost £1,000 has been spent replacing furniture that has been damaged, to say nothing of the computer games.
As my noble friend Lord Ashley reminded us, someone with hearing difficulties may need amplifiers or interpreters. Those with loss of vision may need anything from a magnifying glass to a talking calculator. Someone who has broken his or her back in an accident and is now in a wheelchair but who has the capacity and the will to seek work may well need to employ a team of carers throughout the day and night.
As each and every one of us has said tonight, the abilities and disabilities are different, yet what disabled people have in common perhaps outweighs the differences between them. What they have in common is not so much their disability, but their poverty and the poverty of their carers. Two-thirds of the nearly 7
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million disabled people in this country live in or on the margins of poverty. It is poverty that reduces their quality of life, disables them and excludes them from mainstream society.
Three out of four disabled people live on social security benefits. They are three times more likely to be unemployed and, if in work, they are likely to earn much less than non-disabled people. Yet, with lower incomes, disabled people and their carers face higher costs. Being disabled is extremely expensive because of taxi fares, home adaptations, special diets, extra laundry, additional heating, personal care and special equipment. Disabled people have lower incomes but higher costs and an inadequate and incomplete benefits system to bridge the two.
What is wrong with the current benefits system? First, it is horrendously complex. I tried to count the benefits. It appears that there are something like 30 different disability benefits to which a disabled person or carer may be entitled. It is a full-time job being disabled.
Secondly, the actual level of benefit for both disabled people and their carers is woefully low. If he or she is fortunate, the average carer will get an invalidity care allowance of some £35 per week if caring for someone full time for more than 35 hours per week. However, if the carer cares for two people for 20 hours each a week, the carer will get nothing at all. Therefore, the carer's income depends in turn on the type of benefit which the disabled person is entitled to claim, thus affecting all sorts of relationships.
Thirdly, the way in which and the place where someone becomes disabled, where they have worked, their age and their national insurance contributions determine what they get. So two people who are equally disabled may find a difference in their benefit of over £200 per week. What is needed is a benefit that reflects not how or why people became disabled or where they incurred their disability—or even how disabled they are—but a benefit that reflects what is necessary financially in order to provide that person with an acceptable quality of life.
Fourthly, although the level of benefits is determined nationally, the cost and quality of care in the community is locally determined, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester said. Whether local authorities do or do not charge for home helps, day centres or personal care is up to them, and whether they do or do not charge makes a tremendous difference to the disposable income that is available to a disabled person for heating, laundry, diet and taxi costs. Referring again to figures from DIG, Hertfordshire charges a minimum of £18 per week for three hours' care. That is about half of the entire DLA care component. In Doncaster, which has privatised its non-medical care services, clients—disabled people—are being charged over £5 per night and nearly £5 per day for care. Some authorities are even considering asking people on income support—the most minimum level of income—to pay for care services. Why? Not because local authorities are nasty, but because the Government have required local authorities to recoup 9 per cent. of their costs through charges. How are they to be met? By charging disabled

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people. From where do the Government expect disabled people to find that money apart from top-slicing it off their benefit, which is what they will have to do?
Fifthly and finally, I should welcome a comment from the Minister on what appears to be an emerging problem in the benefits system for disabled and partly disabled people. It looks as though people are going to be signed off what is now invalidity benefit and what will become incapacity benefit on the ground that they are fit to do some light work. Already, however, the NACAB is finding that one-third of the people who are referred to it are having difficulty being regarded as fit and available for work and so do not qualify for unemployment benefit and may not in future qualify for the jobseekers allowance. So, people are being disqualified from one benefit but are failing thereby to qualify for another. What are they to live on?
Few disabled people can survive on their benefits or on so-called "care in the community". Instead they are subsidised. By whom? Their carers. Those carers spend their own money on diet, heating, laundry and transport for the disabled person. In the process, the carers exhaust their own savings and too often go into debt. Indeed, they are often dependent on benefits themselves. When their caring responsibility ceases—I hope that the Minister will tell me that I am wrong on this—they will apparently not be eligible for benefit because a disqualification from unemployment benefit will be carried over to the JSA if they relinquish a caring responsibility and, as a result, have fallen short in terms of their national insurance contributions. So they are poor. They are often in poor health. The result of being a carer means that they in turn become so socially isolated that they lose the opportunity of being cared for in their turn when they need it.
The Alzheimer's Society has told us that half of all its carers spend more than 80 hours a week employed in care: two-thirds of them are stressed or tired; a third are lonely; and a third are in poor health themselves. That is why I hope—again I should welcome the Minister's comment on this—that the Government will look sympathetically at the Bill being promoted by the Carers National Association —the Carers (Recognition and Services) Bill—that my honourable friend Malcolm Wicks is introducing in the other place this afternoon which would require local authorities to assess the needs of carers and to be responsible for providing services such as respite care to carers.
As we all know, many disabled people do not want, and rightly do not want, to be dependent upon a carer to be cared for. They are able to care for themselves if they have the income to do so. That is why direct payment—we welcome the Government's proposed initiative on that—may become important to empower a disabled person to make the choices that all of us here take for granted each and every day. For other disabled people, especially those with learning difficulties, dementia, a fluctuating condition, chronic illness or who are in pain, their carers are their lifeline.
The relationship between a disabled person and his carer is not always easy. It is sometimes reluctant; it is sometimes conflictual; but care is usually offered with
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tenderness and generosity, and usually accepted with courage and grace. Let us be in no doubt that the most appropriate way in which the community can respond to disability is by ensuring that disability no longer means poverty; that carers' needs are assessed and met; and that disabled people enjoy the rights, opportunities and choices that only a proper civil rights Bill will guarantee.
7.22 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish): My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy for giving us the opportunity to debate disability and to keep it on the agenda. Over many years my noble friend has kept the issue on the agenda. He is walking proof, even with the disability that he suffered in the Second World War, that one can be very active in one's chosen career and reach the top; that is, I suppose, if one considers being Secretary of State for Scotland being the top.
My noble friend represented a constituency just about as far away from Westminster as one could get. Travel arrangements which today are very simple—my noble friend began as the Member of Parliament for Moray and Nairn—were, I imagine, very complex. It is a big constituency, although not as big as the one that I had the honour to represent. My noble friend did not just represent the people of Moray and Nairn well for many years; he became Secretary of State for Scotland, and anyone who has served in government at any level—I never reached those exalted levels—will know that that involves a great deal of work, a great deal of travelling and a great deal of meeting people. My noble friend is an example to all disabled people that one can overcome such problems and reach the top of one's chosen career or profession.
Over the past 15 years the Government have notched up an impressive record. Increasingly, disability has been given a high priority. We have pursued a range of reforms, from widening and improving the benefits system, to the introduction of community care and the introduction of the Access to Work programme, to list but a few. They were all designed to improve the lives of disabled people.
Some 10 years ago, the Government commissioned the most thorough and comprehensive survey of disability ever undertaken in Great Britain. In the light of that survey, we introduced a coherent and integrated package of changes. In introducing the debate, my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy attempted to show what was behind the ballpark figures that are often thrown around without too much thought. The most interesting point may have been the distribution of people who are elderly as well as disabled within the 6.5 million—which I noticed during the course of the debate grew to 7 million. It does not help too much to expand numbers beyond those upon which we agree.
The main changes from April 1992 focused additional help with the extra costs of disability on those people who are disabled from birth or early in life, on those who are unable to work or to save and on those who received no help from the previous system. They

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provided help for disabled people who can and who wish to work by making it easier for them to keep or take work. To date, that package has provided extra help for about 1.5 million disabled people at an estimated additional cost of £625 million this year.
By introducing better targeted benefits, we have been able to direct significantly more help towards disabled people. Total spending on benefits for long-term sick and disabled people and their carers has trebled in real terms since 1978–79 to about £17 billion in 1993–94. I shall repeat the figure because noble Lords who perhaps listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, may have been forgiven for assuming that almost nothing was being spent in that field: £17 billion is a considerable amount of money, and a 237 per cent. increase from the days when her party was last responsible for such matters.
In addition to the benefits system, Section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 requires authorities to provide a range of services, if necessary, to meet assessed disablement. They include the provision of recreational facilities, home adaptations, clever devices and new materials which, with the improvements in technology, have come on by leaps and bounds; practical assistance—for example, in holidays and meals, telephones and various items of special equipment, which are increasing in number all the time. Local authorities are fully aware of those responsibilities and I believe that they face up to them all over the country.
The noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, asked me about the incapacity benefit in relation to targeting benefits. The introduction of that benefit represents a fundamental reform to achieve a more coherent approach to incapacity provision and a more affordable system. I assure the noble Baroness that adjudication officers will consider and weigh all the evidence from the claimant, the claimant's doctor and the Benefits Agency's own medical staff in deciding whether a person is incapable of work. I trust that that covers the point she raised about people with intermittent difficulties.
The community care reforms gave thousands of disabled people the chance to stay in their own homes rather than lose their independence and go into care. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Quirk, for saying that there may be the odd horror story in the newspapers—who can believe the scale of them from what the newspapers say?—but let us not forget that up and down the country there are excellent success stories which it would be nice to see reported to encourage everyone in this new, excellent idea of looking after people as far as possible in the community and in their own homes.
The implementation of that policy has been a good story for disabled people. The new arrangements give local authorities the flexibility they need to tailor services to individuals. The point made by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy and other noble Lords was that these people are individuals, and it is not easy to classify them in great chunks of disability. People with the same disability may have a different range of difficulties within that same disability, and there are all
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the differences between various disabilities and the problem that people often have multiple disabilities—something of which we should not lose sight.
We believe that the new arrangements mean that the users and the carers are fully involved in the process of developing the care package and that their preferences are taken into account. This year local authorities in England have received £4.6 billion for community care services. That includes additional resources of more than £1.2 billion to meet their new responsibilities to implement the new reforms. In the coming year they will receive £5.1 billion for community care services, including £1.8 billion for their new responsibilities.
A major aim of the Government has been to encourage more employers to concentrate on the abilities rather than on the disabilities of employees. Progress towards this aim has been made, with more than 950 employers now using the disability symbol that signals their commitment to the employment of disabled people. The Access to Work programme, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Haig, was introduced in June and it is a positive step in the right direction. It provides a wider range of help for people with disabilities, helping them to overcome physical barriers and with transport costs. Assistance is flexible enough to meet individual needs; for example, it can provide communicators for deaf people and support workers for those with learning difficulties. That will help to make work a reality for many more disabled people.
But we still have a long way to go. Attitudes cannot be changed overnight and it will take time before disabled people are totally accepted as full members of our economic and social community. A number of noble Lords made similar points today. Discrimination exists. Much of it may be unintended or accidental; it may be caused through ignorance or fear. Nevertheless, it exists. Disabled people wish to be able to study, work, travel and enjoy leisure activities in the same way as the rest of us.
As your Lordships are aware, in July we published a consultation document on a wide range of proposals to tackle discrimination. One thousand organisations and individuals responded. In the light of those responses, on 24th November we announced a package of measures which go a good deal further than the original proposals. The noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, said that this was unprecedented legislation to outlaw discrimination. I hope that he was referring to the proposals, and I was delighted to hear him say that. I know that he would like to push the Government a little further but I hope that his disappointment in us not going the whole way will not overcome his thinking on the subject to the exclusion of the fact that he welcomes the unprecedented legislation. It would be a great pity if we

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squabbled overmuch about the issues upon which we disagree but did not underline the issues upon which we agree.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I should like to place on record my thanks to the Government for responding to the pressure from disabled people and the disability lobby, and for introducing this legislation.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and I hope that when the Bill comes to this House we can continue the spirit.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester mentioned employment, as did my noble friend Lord Haig. Many employers have taken advantage of our initiatives; but, clearly, there is plenty of evidence to show that discrimination continues. It is also clear that the quota system is not working as originally intended, not least because of a reluctance on the part of disabled people to register. We therefore propose to replace the quota scheme with a new right which will outlaw unjustifiable discrimination on the grounds of disability in all areas of employment. It will be unlawful for an employer to treat a disabled person less favourably than he or she would treat a non-disabled person, unless there are justifiable reasons. Employers will be required to make a reasonable adjustment to the workplace or to working practices where that would overcome the practical effect of disability.
Of course, it is essential to ensure that undue burdens are not placed on business. It is partly for that reason that we have decided that firms of fewer than 20 employees will be exempted. The noble Lord, Lord Ashley, was not happy about that proposal, and no doubt we will return to it on a number of occasions. The American Disabilities Act excludes small firms. Indeed, the bulk of small firms are one and two-man or woman shows and do not add up to many employees. I did not hear it said tonight—which perhaps means that the argument has been made—but it can be said that, individually, 95 per cent. of businesses in the country employ fewer than 20 people. However, another statistic shows that those firms employing more than 20 people account for 83 per cent. of employees in the country. I hope that we do not lose sight of that simple fact. We believe that we must introduce the lower limit for the sake of good business and affordability and the difficulties that small firms will have. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that those above 20 employees cover the vast majority of employees in this country.
Disabled people who experience discrimination in the field of employment will have recourse to industrial tribunals. The procedure will be broadly the same as for complaints under other discrimination legislation. A statutory code of practice and guidance will be available for employers and disabled people following further consultation. The availability of good advice and information for employers and staff alike should reduce the likelihood of disputes arising in the first place. I am sure that we should all like to aim for that.
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As regards rights of access to goods and services, in the consultation document we recognised the importance of improving access to goods and services. As your Lordships are aware, our proposals have gone further than we originally proposed. We listened to what respondents said, and we acted upon their advice. The entire exercise has been an excellent demonstration of the value of consultation. The new right of access will prohibit any direct exclusion of disabled people. Where it is reasonable, proprietors will also have to provide aids and services to improve access for disabled people. In addition, they will have to remove physical barriers where that is readily achievable.
The overall costs may be subject to a financial limit, depending on the outcome of further consultations with disabled people and service providers. Where barriers are not removed, goods and services will have to be made available by alternative means, provided that that is practicable. It would be fairly naive to believe that these changes could be effected without hiccups. There will be a learning period for us all, especially the service providers. That is why we intend to set up a conciliation service which will be able to look at and, in the majority of cases, settle disputes.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester mentioned in particular financial services and the insurance industry. Equal treatment in financial services was not included in the consultation document. However, in the light of the views expressed, we propose to include them in the new statutory right. The proposals will outlaw unjustified loadings on the insurance premiums of disabled people. In consultation with the insurance industry, we will be looking closely at how legislation can best be framed in this particular field.
I turn briefly to the issue of definition because I suspect that we shall return to it. The word "disability" covers a wide and diverse range from slight to very severe. Many disabilities are caused by complaints associated with ageing. Arthritis and hearing loss are two of them. For that reason, it is generally agreed that important new rights should not include those whose condition has relatively minor effects. We would risk bringing these measures into contempt if they were extended to cover minor ailments and complaints. That is why the rights will apply to those persons with a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial long-term effect on the person's day-to-day activities.
The noble Lord, Lord Ashley, made some comments about that. Perhaps he will accept that if we go down the road that he suggested, we shall move considerably beyond the more medically-based approach suggested by us in the consultation document. I assure the noble Lord that we shall take powers to add conditions to the definitions by means of regulations. We have it in mind also to issue a code of practice to ensure that there is a full understanding of the Bill's employment provisions especially.
The National Disability Council is another subject to which I am sure we shall return. The Government propose to establish a National Disability Council. That will be a new independent body focusing on issues affecting disabled people. We believe that it will provide

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a powerful voice for disabled people and it will present an annual report on its activities to the Minister for Disabled People. That report will be laid before Parliament.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked me about the composition of the council. The Secretary of State will appoint the chairman, the deputy chairman and members of the council after consultation with individuals and organisations. Fifty per cent. of the members will be disabled people or parents or guardians of disabled people. In appointing members, the Secretary of State will be keen to ensure that the members also include representatives of business, industry and the professional groups.
The subject of education was raised on a number of occasions in the course of the debate. It did not surprise me that the noble Lord, Lord Quirk, dwelt on the importance of communication in education, not only from the point of view of the professionals but also that the professional advice should be backed up by active and informal efforts in the community and with the help of lay people, especially given some of the new technologies that have come along to help people with communication. I could not agree more with that.
The more that disabled children can be educated alongside non-disabled companions, the less we shall see adults avoiding and ignoring them, and the more integrated they will feel. However, our education legislation does indeed recognise that there are many different kinds of disability. Accurate identification and assessment of children's individual needs are essential. That is the thrust of the new code of practice which your Lordships approved so warmly in May this year.
There is a spectrum of different needs and there must be a continuum of provision to meet those needs. Our policies are designed to create educational diversity and to maximise parental preferences for disabled children. The 1993 Education Act was a major advance in meeting special educational needs. We believe that the Funding Agency for Schools which we propose will help with access for children to the schools, because we must not only make available the education; we must make sure that the children can get into the schools.
I have taken more time than I meant to, so I will merely say on the subject of community care that the important feature of the package that has been announced recently is direct cash payments in lieu of community care services. We believe that that will give disabled people and their carers greater choice about the care that they receive. That initiative complements directly our aim to give greater independence to disabled people and has been widely welcomed.
The noble Lords, Lord Selsdon and Lord Addington, introduced some interesting matters into the debate. I should have liked to be able to spend some time dealing with those. My noble friend Lord Selsdon quite rightly pointed to the advances in technology, in what might nowadays be called "spare parts surgery" and its importance in bringing back to people, perhaps especially elderly people, the mobility which they thought that they had lost through problems with joints, hips and so on. There are great advances still to be made in those particular fields.
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The noble Lord, Lord Addington, invited me to go into rounds of research deeper than that. But a great deal of money is spent on research through the medical research councils and through the various departmental and NHS budgets. There is a big programme with research. It is always difficult for the people who make those decisions to decide what is the best way to spend the money; which piece of research is most likely to produce results, and so on.
The noble Lord moved into the field of genetic engineering research. I always tiptoe into that one with some trepidation because it may stimulate some difficult moral dilemmas which may well be just round the corner for us when medical science produces some very clever ways in which to prevent genetically inherited diseases.
The noble Lord, Lord Rix, who unfortunately is not able to be here at present, mentioned the importance of improving public attitudes and he mentioned the campaign of which my honourable friend Mr. William Hague launched the first phase last week. It is important in any public campaign that it should be directed not only at the disabled but also at the able bodied. They are the people to whom the disabled must look, necessarily, when they need help to do whatever it is that they are doing, they are finding difficult to do.
I am sure that all noble Lords on all sides of the House will agree that this has been a notable year for disabled people. Our Statement held some surprises and went further than most people imagined. The Bill will be published shortly and noble Lords will be able to see just how far it has moved. This is not just about legislation. We need education, persuasion and increased public awareness. Let us not forget the importance of following a course which is not only achievable but which is also practical and balanced. I feel sure that most sensible people will agree that, taken together, the Government's proposals represent an historic advancement for disabled people in this country and will enable them to achieve the dignity and independence that is their rightful expectation.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I realise that he was pressed for time but I did put three or four questions to him, none of which he has had time to address. May I hope that he will write to me with those answers? They are of vital concern to disabled people.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I shall read the speech of the noble Baroness with some care and interest. I am always reluctant to deal with hypothetical cases or even real cases across the Dispatch Box when I do not have the proper information at hand to decide what are all the factors. I shall certainly read the speech with some interest and will write to the noble Baroness if there are points which require answer. I may also try to cost some of the proposals made by the noble Baroness.
7.47 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I thank all those who have taken part in the debate. The speeches have

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illustrated more than I could have hoped the wide diversity of disabilities to which I aspired to draw attention.
I have a little time left now at the end of the debate but I shall comment only on a very few points. The noble Lord, Lord Ashley, drew attention to the fact that with such a wide field of different conditions it is important that any legislation should contain a definition of "disabled people". I hope that the Government have taken that on board and will do their best to meet the point.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester mentioned the part which charities are playing and the part which they can play in the future. Again, I hope that the Government will take note of that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, drew to our attention the availability and the need for medical expertise and care in dealing with the many different kinds of disabled people.
My noble friend Lord Selsdon spoke about replacements and in particular, hip replacements. I believe that he would be interested to know that through disability organisations I came to know the late Professor Sir John Charnley, who was one of the pioneers of hip replacements, which of course have been possible only in the past 30 years. He told me that he took his degree in engineering before he took his medical qualifications. That very much confirms what my noble friend said about replacements being engineering. His expertise was in surfaces and friction, so he had all the knowledge required—that is, both engineering and medical —to work out how artificial hips could most effectively be manufactured. He and his colleagues in that field have brought immense benefit to the human race and have also been the cause of the relief of much pain.
The noble Lord, Lord Quirk, spoke about speech therapy. I was hoping that he would do so. The noble Lord headed the timely and important inquiry which reported on speech therapy in the early 1970s.
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The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, spoke of the complexity of the present system of benefits. I entirely agree with her. The noble Baroness may recall that in my opening speech I described how there was none in the 1960s, except for the war disabled and those industrially injured. While the introduction of allowances and benefits since that time has been universally supported, they have appeared separately to meet particular situations and the number of them now causes confusion. I realise that a rationalisation may be difficult to carry out as we should all want to ensure that no one would suffer by losing anything which they are now receiving as a total of benefits. That is perhaps one of the main difficulties that has prevented more rationalisation taking place.
I should very much like to thank my noble friend Lord Mackay for his reply and for dealing with so many of the points raised by speakers in the debate. I should just like to mention one; namely, the quota scheme and the new proposals for employment about which my noble friend spoke. I initiated a debate in this House on 13th April on the quota scheme, so I shall not repeat what I said then. However, I suggest one reason for not including small firms—and the present quota excludes those employing 20 people or under—is that they would then be required to employ a decimal point of a person. I say that because unless a firm employs 33 people, it is in any case required only to employ fewer than one. That has always made it difficult.
I must confess to being congenitally numerate and, therefore, such things always hit me. But, so far as concerns small firms, I believe that they have just been encouraged in the past to play their part in employing disabled people. In any future legislation the Government should try to find a way in which they can be further encouraged to employ disabled persons. Of course, for the mathematical reasons that I have just suggested, that cannot be on the same basis as a quota system.
Again, I should like to thank all speakers who have taken part in the debate. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at eight minutes before eight o'clock.