Lords Sitting of 12 January 1994

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

M.4: Widening
Lord Stoddart of Swindon Lord Stoddart of Swindon asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the latest estimated cost of widening the M.4 between junctions 4 and 12.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish): My Lords, the recent public consultation for our proposals between junctions 4b and 8(9) gave an estimate for works of £240 million. Options for widening between junctions 8(9) and 12 are still under investigation but the 1990 roads report Trunk Roads, England: Into the 1990s put the cost at £70 million at 1987 prices.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Lord on his promotion but regret the tragic circumstances in which it occurred. Is the noble Lord aware that the amount of money which the Government are prepared to spend on widening the road is completely unnecessary? Is he aware that Berkshire County Council and a good many people in Berkshire are completely opposed to any widening whatever? Would it not be better for the Government to delay any work on that road until the effects of road pricing—which I understand may be introduced within four years—are felt, because that may very well reduce the usage of the road to a considerable degree?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his congratulations. Like the noble Lord, I very much regret the reasons for which I find myself answering these questions at the Dispatch Box.
As the noble Lord knows, being, I suspect, a user of the M.4, it is an extremely busy road especially in the section that we are discussing where a great deal of local traffic, which is on the motorway only for a very short time, leaves and joins it. It is extremely congested. We believe that we cannot leave the matter for ever. We must take steps. As the noble Lord knows, the matter is out for consultation. We shall look at all the comments received from all the people in the area before reaching a final conclusion and when considering the possibility of a public inquiry, if necessary.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I echo what my noble friend Lord Stoddart said about the Minister entering the transport field. I congratulate him on his appointment and hope that he will apply his common sense to rescue this country from the Government's motorway madness.
Is not this widening scheme just one of many planned by the Government? Is it not a fact that umpteen-lane
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motorways threaten enormous environmental harm as well as being an exercise in total futility because as motorways are Widened, they are merely filled with extra vehicles? Does not the Minister agree that what is really needed is a massive change in priorities heavily in favour of the over-strained public transport system?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I hope that over time I shall be able to persuade the noble Lord that the Government do not suffer from motorway madness. The truth of the matter is that many people wish to travel by car. Motorways are an important part of the fabric of our economy and social system. It is important that where there is terrific pressure on them, as there is in that particular location, we must take the necessary steps to make the roads capable of carrying the traffic which wants—I underline "wants"—to use the roads.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, I suppose that I should declare an interest as one who has to travel regularly to Oxford by road. Is it not the case that this particular stretch is a cause for concern not only to the inhabitants of Berkshire or the environment? Am I not right in thinking that the northward bound junction, which is part of the stretch of the M.25, is virtually impassable due to the pressure of traffic; that the Hangar Lane operation on the M.40, which affects those who wish to use this stretch, makes that almost impossible; and those who wish to go to Oxford must go by junctions 8 and 9 onto the M.40 by that means? Is it not important that those considerations should be taken into account?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, my noble and learned friend is quite right to point out that the M.25, at junction 4b with the M.4, is extremely congested. We are looking at that problem. The particular difficulty as regards the part of the motorway under discussion is that a great deal of local traffic joins it for a few kilometres and then leaves it. That adds to the congestion. The plan involves parallel roads which will take that local traffic away from the arterial M.4, which is a vitally important road to the west of England and to Wales.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, from these Benches, I reiterate the comments that have been made from the Labour Benches as regards the Minister. He is welcome to what is a somewhat exclusive club in your Lordships' House. He will find it extremely rare for so many noble Lords to be in your Lordships' House when transport matters are being discussed in the future. I ask a practical question on this matter. Would not the money spent on this project be better invested in a rail link from Heathrow to Reading? That would take a considerable amount of the traffic which is using that part of the motorway. It seems to me that the link into Heathrow is in place for coming into London but there is no link going outwards. I should have thought that it would be far better to use the money on such a rail link.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his remarks. I hope that we can stimulate more interest in transport matters in your Lordships' House.
As a first philosophical entry into the field, perhaps I may say that I do not believe that public and motorway transport are necessarily interchangeable. For a variety of reasons many people want, and will always want, to travel on motorways. That section of the motorway is extremely busy and congested, as I have said already, with a mix of local and long distance traffic. We believe that the scheme offers a way to improve and alleviate the traffic flow in that area.
Lord Monson: My Lords, does the Minister agree that a motorway with more than three or, at most, four lanes in each direction is so inherently dangerous that if the proposed widening goes ahead it will be necessary to lower the speed limit on the stretch in question from 70 miles per hour to no more than, perhaps, 50 miles per hour?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I must confess to the noble Lord that I have not yet studied the issue long enough to be able to comment on the first part of his question about the inherent safety of more than four-lane motorways. However, I must tell him that that is not what is envisaged here. We envisage that the motorway will be the two centre roads and that there will be two adjacent roads on either side which will cope with the local traffic. The local traffic will have to use those roads and will not be able to get on and off the motorway as it does at present.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, we have several times previously discussed the possibility of a public inquiry into the proposal for 14 lanes. However, today the Minister was rather more tentative. Can the noble Lord say whether there is a definite plan to hold a public inquiry; and, if so, has any date been fixed for it? Can the Minister also give an assurance that the changes in the rules of procedure will not mean that the objections to the scheme cannot be properly deployed?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I believe I suggested to the noble Lord's noble friend that this will not be a multi-laned motorway; in fact, it will be a motorway with adjacent dual carriageway roads which will take the local traffic. Therefore, it is not quite what the noble Lord portrayed. The position at present is that we are looking at the comments that we have received from the consultation. When we start the statutory procedures, depending on what we decide, obviously it may, if necessary, include a public inquiry. However, a date has not been set for it.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware that the Minister who authorised the construction of the M.4 finds it very gratifying that so many people want to use it?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, my noble friend made many wise decisions during his ministerial career. I hope that I shall be able to do likewise.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, from an environmental point of view, the most damaging thing is to have slow-moving traffic which means that vehicles are knocking into each other? Does he also agree that motorways are environmentally good for wildlife? Does he further agree that those who do not wish to have roads in their backyards should, in all fairness, not use roads which go past other people's backyards?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, my noble friend makes an extremely good point. I shall stand at the main door and count the number of walkers leaving your Lordships' House in future, after I have taken a look at who tables such Questions. I believe that there is an environmental aspect involved. However, there is another environmental point which has not yet been mentioned. I refer to the pressure on the local roads in the local housing estates, and so on, as people try to find ways to make progress east to west or west to east without going on to the congested motorway.

Transport Research Laboratory, Crowthorne
2.47 p.m.
Baroness Castle of Blackburn Baroness Castle of Blackburn asked Her Majesty's Government:
What plans they have for the future of the transport research laboratory at Crowthorne.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport announced on 27th May 1993 his belief that the laboratory should be privatised and that he was appointing consultants to advise him on the options for privatisation and their feasibility. He now has the consultants' report and hopes to make an announcement shortly.
Baroness Castle of Blackburn: My Lords, perhaps I may echo the congratulations extended to the Minister on his new appointment and also express the hope that he may bring a fresh approach to the matter of the betrayal of the research workers at the transport research laboratory. Is the Minister aware that the consultants' report to which he referred has been in the Department of Transport since before Christmas and that neither the unions nor the general public have yet been given a sight of it, on the alleged grounds that, first, any commercial embarrassments must be removed from it? Further, will the Minister give the House an assurance that no decisions will be taken or announced until this House has had a chance to debate the issue and the unions' views have been sought on the consultants' report?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I must tell the noble Baroness that it is not for me to say whether or not the House debates the matter. However, I can give the noble Baroness the assurance that we will not take final decisions until the unions have been consulted again. When they are consulted, they will have had a chance to see the report, although I have to

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say that those parts of the report which are commercially in confidence will have to be removed before the report is seen by the unions.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, does not the transport research laboratory enjoy a justly deserved reputation for its independence—its independence from government, too—its objectivity, its ability to take on research projects on a long-term basis and the fact that it works efficiently? Why meddle with the situation? Why put all that at risk? Following the establishment of the laboratory as an agency, why was it not given the three-year working period which was promised by the Government before any question of privatisation arose?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that the research laboratory has a fine record of achievement, but I do not consider that that record of achievement will be in any way lessened by it being in the private sector. The record of research and development facilities in the private sector is every bit as good as the record of the public sector. We further believe that the laboratory would be able to compete more fully in the private sector than it can at the moment as part of the public sector.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, why does the Minister not recognise that it is not only a question of the laboratory's efficiency and ability to work effectively, but that it also has a reputation for objectivity and independence from government, and it is this which is causing a great deal of concern not only to the workers but also to many who have taken advantage of the work of the laboratory in the past?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I do not believe that an institution in the private sector which works efficiently and well and has a high reputation cannot be considered to be objective in the same way as an institution which works inside government is considered to be objective. However, I must say that that consideration does not apply to every department of government when and if it suits the Opposition.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, following on the supplementary question just asked by the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, is it not a possibility at the very least that major, publicly owned research establishments which can take a long-term view of research could, if privatised, tend to take a much shorter term view because that could yield greater profits?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I do not agree with the noble Lord. After all, the institution, whether it be in the public sector or the private sector, can only take a short, middle or long-term view depending on the kind of contract it receives, and the contracts received by the research laboratory at the moment will be those available to it to compete for when and if it is privatised. I do not see that long-term contracts will be removed from it after privatisation, if that is the road we decide to go down.
Lord Eatwell: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that no independent scientific advice has been taken on the future of the laboratory and that the report to which he has referred was compiled by a firm of accountants?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I do not know what advice the accountants took, but many accountancy firms are used as consultancy firms not just by government but by many people in the private sector, and they have a fair range of experience within them. Where they wish to seek expert advice outside, those firms can of course seek it. I do not join in the slightly denigratory suggestion the noble Lord made as regards accountancy firms.
Lord Eatwell: My Lords, will the noble Lord say whether any independent scientific advice has been taken in this case?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I believe I told the noble Lord I was not aware of exactly what advice Peat Marwick had taken from outside sources.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, will the Government advise the House whether there are similar institutions in other European Union countries and whether those similar institutions are in public or in private hands?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I understand that there are similar institutions but I cannot answer the specific question as regards whether they are all in public or private hands. I certainly know that some of them are in public hands, as is the institution in this country that we are discussing.
Baroness Castle of Blackburn: My Lords, is the Minister aware that one of the most serious drawbacks of privatisation is the fragmentation of work, and that in this case what we shall have is a series of little, ad hoc, short-term pieces of research from private companies when what the Minister requires—and what I obtained from the road research laboratory when I was Minister of Transport—is a co-ordinated assessment of the different bits of research coming in? We still need that assessment; indeed, we need it now more than ever.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I am well aware that the noble Baroness has a somewhat maternal view of this institution because I believe I am right in saying that she opened it when she was a Minister. However, the matter of whether an institution can look at a project as a middle-term or a long-term one depends entirely on the project. The matter of whether this or any other institution can take a long-term view depends entirely on the contracts that are put out by government. I have little doubt that government will still require from their advisers—wherever they are—long-term planning arid long-term research arid development work.

Foreign Factory Ships: Inspections
2.55 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy asked Her Majesty's Government:
What conclusions they have reached after their inspections of the many foreign factory ships which have been lying near the Shetland coast.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, the inspection programme itself has led to considerable improvements in the safety standards of the vessels. Many have been poorly maintained for years, but the more recent inspections and re-inspections have found a much higher level of safety awareness. The vessels' masters have welcomed the advice given and have acted on it, and the problem of the lack of fuel has been addressed.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his reply, especially as these inspections must have been pursued in the past few weeks over Christmas and since I asked my previous Question on this matter. What signs are there that those responsible—presumably they are based in Eastern Europe—will correct the faults found, because these vessels perform a useful function for our fishermen? Many of these vessels will now be moving to Ullapool, as the mackerel migrate, joining other so-called klondykers there. Can my noble friend tell me what inspection arrangements there are there?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, we are still concentrating on Lerwick where the bulk of the so-called klondyke fleet is still situated, but as my noble friend rightly points out a mackerel migration takes place later in the year and at least some of the klondykers tend to move to Ullapool. In the event of the klondykers moving there, we shall have to consider whether we move some of our inspections to Ullapool.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, does the Minister accept that the RSPB is concerned about the damage, or potential damage, to important seabird sites in these areas, not only from these ships but also from the passage of heavily laden tankers? Can the Minister tell the House what has happened to the voluntary code which was agreed with the Government on routes for these tankers, and for other ships, which would avoid sensitive areas? Has this code been enforced, who is monitoring it, and is it likely that it could become compulsory rather than voluntary in the future?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, with respect I believe the noble Baroness has moved a long way away from the klondyker question and on to the matter of tankers. The problem with the klondykers is a real one and, if the noble Baroness does not mind, I shall address my remarks to that problem. A code of practice is being developed for the factory ships off Shetland. I appreciate what the noble Baroness has said. These ships are moored in an area of outstanding beauty with terrific birdlife interest, and obviously it is important not just for the safety of the ships and people but also for the
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safety of the environment that we ensure that the ships are maintained to the highest standards. That is what our inspectors are trying to do and we believe the code of practice will help them to do that.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, is the Minister aware that his reply to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, is good news? I was glad to hear that the ships have been inspected and that a great many improvements have been made because they were in a bad state prior to the inspections. Will the Minister expand a little on the matter of insurance cover? I understand that many of these ships were not insured. If that is the case, our rescue teams would encounter great difficulties if anything happened to the ships. I hope the Minister will also comment on the matter of compensation for those who take part in a rescue operation.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I confirm that none of the ships inspected appears to have hull or third-party insurance. Such insurance cover is not required in international law for vessels of this kind, but it is normal commercial practice that they are insured. However, I must inform the noble Lord and the House that we have not hitherto encountered great problems with uninsured vessels generally, and where there have been problems in the past where money has been involved, the Russians, for example—they are major players in this fleet—have been co-operative on issues such as compensation.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, in case there should be any confusion arising from the interesting point made by the noble Baroness, does my noble friend agree that most of these vessels spend most of their lives stationary, moored in our waters, and seldom move and the areas where pollution may occur is in the areas where they are moored round Lerwick and Ullapool?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right. These vessels sit at anchor for most of the time. It is important that when they sit at anchor they are able to steam off very quickly if problems arise or the weather deteriorates to such an extent that their anchorage becomes untenable. Therefore we have to consider how efficiently the ships are anchored and how ready they are to take the necessary steps to avoid any trouble arising from bad weather which may come on them while they are at anchor, so that they do not damage the coastline of Shetland and there is no loss of life.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House how these ships compare with the so-called rust buckets sailing in that area under various flags of convenience?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, in the second part of his question the noble Lord makes assertions on which it is perhaps too early to comment. Many of the ships are large former fishing vessels from Eastern Europe. Many of them have been going to that part of the world for many years. Our inspectors found that they were not in the best of condition and were not being well kept. I am happy to say that steps are being

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taken to improve the position. As the noble Lord will know, the vessels are of vital importance to the pelagic industry in this country as regards finding outlets for its fish.

Murder: Mandatory Life Sentence
3 p.m.
Lord Ashley of Stoke Lord Ashley of Stoke asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will now take steps to abolish the mandatory life sentence for murder.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, there are no plans to do so.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I am very sorry to hear that. Is the Minister aware that the powerfully argued report of the committee on the penalty for homicide chaired by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane., demonstrates conclusively that the abolition of the mandatory life sentence does not mean going soft on crime but quite the opposite, because it would restore real meaning to the term "life sentence" and would highlight the heinous nature of the crimes which disturb the public? Does he agree that in addition mercy killers would not be forced to receive the same sentence as mass murderers because judges have no discretion?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, quite rightly refers to the report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane. That report has only recently been received and my right honourable friend is considering it. He is not at present persuaded that it would be right to abolish the mandatory life sentence, but certainly that report encapsulates many of the arguments for change.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that many of us regard it as of great importance to preserve a unique penalty for the offence of murder and we were therefore very glad to hear my noble friend's original succinct answer?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am aware of the concern of my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter. He expresses the view of a great many people that murder is unique. At present there is only one penalty for murder but it is very flexible.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, is there not a contradiction between the unequivocal answer which the noble Earl gave to the first Question of my noble friend Lord Ashley and his subsequent statement that the Government are still considering the report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane? Have the. Government not in fact already made up their mind on the issue? If there is any chance that there is any element on which the Government have not made up their mind, will the Minister and his colleagues give careful consideration to the most serious of all problems with the mandatory life sentence, namely, cases where there is provocation, particularly by violent husbands?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, should not try to find divergences where there are none. I said that the Government have no plans to make such changes. That is a fact. I also said that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane, had produced an important report and that my right honourable friend is considering it. If as a result of that report my right honourable friend considers that there is a reason to change his mind, then he will do so.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the present system has the advantage that while the judge is obliged to impose a mandatory sentence he is entitled, if he feels it right, to make a recommendation to the Home Secretary as to how much of that sentence should be served and the Home Secretary then decides what the total sentence in prison should be and is answerable to Parliament for the decision that he makes?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Renton is quite right. In fixing the minimum period which is necessary to satisfy the requirements of retribution and deterrence my right honourable friend considers the circumstances of each individual case. In particular circumstances the Home Secretary can fix an early release date. In the past 10 years 14 mandatory life sentence prisoners were released having served six years or less. The important point, to which my noble friend referred, is the Home Secretary's discretion and decision. He has to take account of public safety.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, would the Minister riot agree that two of the fundamental and basic principles of a just sentencing policy are, first, that the sentence should fit the crime, referred to in a government White Paper recently as the just desserts principle, and, secondly, that the length of any prison sentence should be determined by a judge in public and not by the Executive in private? If he so agrees, would he not further agree that those principles are currently being flouted despite the firm views expressed in your Lordships' House? Finally, is not the Government's policy inconsistent with their own doctrine as interpreted by "back-to-basics"?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I would not go down that line with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, because if we went back to basics his suggestions would result in some cases being more harshly dealt with. I do not agree with his conclusions, although I agree that a number of people take the view that he takes. Murder is a unique offence. The mandatory life sentence is the only way of ensuring that those who kill deliberately always forfeit their liberty to the state for life. Once they have been given a life sentence that is a sentence for life. How long they spend in prison is a matter for decision.

Business
3.7 p.m.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, at a convenient time after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend the Leader of the House will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on the NATO Summit.

Local Government (Wales) Bill [H.L.]
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Rodger of Earlsferry on the Order Paper.
Moved, that it be an Instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the Local Government (Wales) Bill [H.L.] has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order—

Clause 1,

Schedules 1 and 2,

Clauses 2 and 3,

Schedule 3,

Clauses 4 to 18,

Schedule 4,

Clauses 19 and 20,

Schedules 5 and 6,

Clause 21,

Schedules 7 to 9,

Clauses 22 to 36,

Schedule 10,

Clauses 37 to 38,

Schedule 11,

Clause 39,

Schedule 12,

Clauses 40 to 62,

Schedules 13 to 16—(Viscount St. Davids.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

National Health Service
3.8 p.m.
Lord McColl of Dulwich Lord McColl of Dulwich rose to call attention to the case for giving the public accurate information about the National Health Service; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, noble Lords will have no difficulty in agreeing with the need for accurate information to be given about the National Health Service, but some of your Lordships may not have appreciated how much distress and anguish are caused by the relentless stream of false propaganda about how the National Health Service is sinking, collapsing, in crisis, and even reports about unnecessary deaths resulting either from lack of funds or from too much or too little management, and so on.
Some would argue that that is all good knock-about political fun, but it is not fun for those who are frail, elderly and may be in need of medical care in the future. Those vulnerable people are frightened unnecessarily by the constant shroud waving which has gone on since the beginning of the National Health Service but which seems to be getting worse.
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Needless anguish may be caused by a Parliamentary Question. For instance, a sensational headline in a newspaper was repeated in a Parliamentary Question. It included the unfounded opinion that more than 1,000 new-born babies die each year due to lack of basic equipment and inadequate staffing in the NHS. There seem to be several things wrong with that Question in view of the statement in the Companion to the Standing Orders and Guide to the Proceedings of the House of Lords at page 51 that,
"It is considered undesirable to incorporate statements of opinion … in the text of Questions".
Secondly, there was no evidence that specific deaths could have been prevented. Thirdly, there was no evidence of lack of resources as the cause of death.
A distinguished paediatrician explained the origin of the allegation. In any given year there is a total of about 4,000 such deaths. That, incidentally, is the lowest ever for this country and among the lowest in the world. A report suggested that if a certain treatment regime were followed, the mortality might be reduced by 25 per cent., thus preventing 1,000 deaths. However, that was a guess. Imagine the anguish caused to several thousand relatives when they heard that.
Several politicians have made repeated statements about the crisis in the NHS and how another crisis will occur in four months' time. They confuse prophecy with politics. Those moans have been wailing on for 40 years; and whereas many of us get used to that form of propaganda it constantly upsets the frail, the elderly and the sick who often have difficulty in distinguishing fact from fiction.
An article appeared in one of the Sunday newspapers to the effect that patients were dying while on waiting lists. When challenged, the writer—to give him credit, he admitted it—said that his article had more to do with polemics than facts.
The public are constantly being given inaccurate information by politicians who complain about the long waiting lists. But the number of people on the waiting list is totally irrelevant. What matters is how long they actually wait for their operations. The fact is that half the admissions to hospital are immediate because they are emergencies. From the waiting list, half are admitted within five weeks and 75 per cent. are admitted within three months. Only 2 per cent. wait more than a year.
We have constant moaning that the number on the waiting list now is greater than it was 16 years ago. But at that time day cases were not listed on waiting lists, and neither were patients who had been given a date for their operation. In fact, if one gave dates to all the million people on the waiting list today, there would not be a waiting list. Some patients do not want their operation done for six months or even a year. Waiting lists can also be quite unnecessarily inflated with the names of patients who need to come in regularly every six months. The moment that they are discharged from hospital their name is put back on the list.
The fact is that 3.5 million patients were operated on last year. That clearly indicates that the million patients on the waiting list could be operated on within four months if we started from scratch. So why all the fuss? Why all the fuss about the number of patients on the

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list? It is the waiting time that matters. If we increase the number of surgeons fivefold the total number of people on the list would actually increase. Therefore, for all those reasons, would your Lordships kindly consider the possibility in future of not talking about the number of people on waiting lists because it is totally irrelevant?
In order to achieve success in preventive medicine it is essential to supply the public with accurate information. Nowhere is that more important than in the field of vaccination of children. In the United States children are not allowed to go to school until they have been vaccinated. In this country we rely on persuasion, which entails a supply of accurate and persuasive information to parents. Some years ago a great number of those who worked in the National Health Service made a supreme effort and managed to persuade a larger than ever number of parents to have their children vaccinated against a particularly unpleasant form of disease. At that time a number of politicians made a few speeches about the danger of vaccination, with the best of intentions. But there followed a fall in the vaccine uptake from 80 per cent. to 30 per cent. which caused a fivefold increase in the incidence of that disease.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord for giving way. I was the Member of Parliament who led that campaign to seek compensation for children who were damaged by the vaccines. At the time I made it clear that I supported the vaccination programme but that the responsibility lay with the Government to pay compensation to those families which were damaged—a tiny minority of cases. The responsibility lay with the Government, not with the mothers and the families with whom I worked who were shattered by those few cases. The campaigners were right to seek that compensation at that time. The fault lay with the Government.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. I did not mention names. I was stating the facts. The fact of the matter is that because of that campaign the vaccination rate fell from 80 per cent. to 30 per cent. That resulted in a fivefold increase in the incidence of that disease. That is a fact. I did not seek to apportion blame. We all make mistakes. I do not say that the campaign that was launched at that time was a mistake. I simply state the facts. It underlines the importance of politicians and all in public life being careful before they embark on campaigns or make pronouncements because they can so easily harm a large number of patients. Accurate information is essential.
However, on a more optimistic note, the current levels of immunisation are at an all time high: the figures are 95 per cent. for diphtheria, tetanus and polio; 93 per cent. for measles, mumps and rubella; and 92 per cent. for whooping cough. Great credit goes to general practitioners, clinic doctors and nurses. What is the secret of their success? It is in supplying accurate information which manages to persuade the parents. Again, over 85 per cent. of general practitioners reached the higher rate for cervical cytology in 1992–93, which
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means an increase of 8 per cent. on the previous year. The perinatal mortality rate in 1992–93 was at an all time low of 7.9 per 1,000 live births.
In referring to preventive medicine, and to underline the point that I do not attack any particular party, in a recent debate on the banning of smoking on short runs on the southern region of British Rail, it was extraordinary to hear statements in this House which simply were not true. They were actually trying to deny the work of that distinguished scientist, Sir Richard Doll, Fellow of the Royal Society, who established beyond all doubt that smoking increases the risk of death from cancer of the lung in those who smoked. In that debate some would not even accept that when some asthmatics enter a smoke-filled environment an attack of asthma may be induced. Those who deny such facts hide behind a smokescreen of such slogans as, "The freedom of the individual", or, "These are all matters of opinion only". Such slogans are no substitute for accurate information.
Lord Stoddart of Swinton: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? I took part in that debate and I certainly did not try to mislead people; nor did I suggest that asthmatics were not affected when they went into smoke-filled rooms. However, if the noble Lord seeks correct information perhaps I may ask him also to see to it that the medical profession and the Government also give correct information in relation to smoking. Is the noble Lord aware that I have just received a reply from Her Majesty's Government which shows that people who die from smoking-related diseases or people who smoke—
Lord Elton: Order!
Lord Stoddart of Swinton: If the noble Lord will allow me to proceed, I shall do so.
Lord Elton: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? This is a timed debate in which time is of the essence. It is not acceptable for noble Lords to interject speeches of their own into speeches of people who have their names on the Order Paper.
Lord Stoddart of Swinton: My Lords, under those circumstances I shall sit down, but I hope that accurate information will be given on both sides.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I welcome all the interventions. In university circles, where I work, I do not often have the opportunity of doing remedial teaching! When some choirs have a choir practice, they have a custom that whenever members sing a wrong note they put up their hands, so we may have more interventions to come.
A politician said a few years ago that those who needed artificial limbs or wheelchairs would be means-tested and deprived of that essential equipment, but that proposition was not so. Imagine the distress it might have caused to disabled people. It is quite astonishing that MPs will stand up in public and make that kind of statement with no attempt to verify it. A simple phone call to the Special Health Authority for Disablement Services, chaired by my noble friend Lord Holderness, would have put the matter right and the

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distress would have been avoided. I should declare an interest in this because I was vice-chairman of that authority. During its life, we managed to produce reliable and up-to-date information about the supply of essential aids for disabled people. However, since the work of the authority came to an end a few years ago and the service was diffused throughout the country, it has become increasingly difficult to obtain this information. My noble friend Lord Holderness and I would be grateful to the Minister if she can assure us that a better and quicker form of data supply will soon be available.
Another politician attacked the Government for closing 10 per cent. of the beds in the previous 10 years, but he must have known that 10 per cent. of beds had been closed in the 10 years previous to that and 10 per cent in the 10 years before that. Every year since 1964, about 7,000 beds have been taken out of service, irrespective of which government have been in power. Beds are not always the safest places; we encourage patients to leave them as soon as they can. Thirty years ago when you had your gall bladder out, you sometimes had to stay in for three weeks. Now patients are hardly in for 18 hours. It is safer to be at home.
A candidate in the last election circulated a pamphlet saying that the local hospital was being sold off and that local people would soon need a credit card just to get in. At much the same time, we saw a television programme showing a little girl crying with ear ache because she had to wait nine months for an operation; but the truth is that children with ear ache need antibiotics today, not an operation in the future, and there is no waiting list for antibiotics. There were constant slogans that trust hospitals had left the NHS and, again, that was patently untrue. All this unsavoury propaganda about the NHS not only frightens patients, but it demeans politicians and brings into disrepute the world of politics as a whole. Of course, the Opposition have a job to oppose and to be constructive, but not to be involved in that kind of propaganda.
We are plagued by a series of half-truths such as, "The UK is fourth from bottom of the 21 OECD nations in our spending on health". But that omits the fact that the UK Government put into health the same proportion of the gross domestic product as do the governments of the United States, Denmark, Switzerland, Australia and Japan. Are these critics wanting the British Government to put into the health service more resources than those other governments, or are they hinting that what they really want is for the UK to follow the example of those other countries and increase the amount of private practice? Certainly some critics have given the impression in private—
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, there is a question which I must ask. Will the noble Lord, Lord McColl, confirm that we spend only three-quarters of the average EC budget on health care?
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that intervention. I am talking about what the Government put in, which is about 5.2 per cent.—the same as the American, Danish, Australian,
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Swiss and Japanese Governments. That is the point. The difference is made up by the private sector. We put in about 1 per cent., the Americans put in 8 or 9 per cent. Incidentally, 30 million or 40 million Americans are not properly covered. The question is: do people want more in the private sector? I do not know.
I am often faced with patients who are about to leave hospital after an operation and who say how much they have appreciated the service they received from everyone there. Then they go on to say: "But what a tragedy it is that the NHS is collapsing everywhere else". When I express some surprise, they explain that they repeatedly hear prominent people on television and at Westminster saying that the NHS is in crisis, that waiting lists are out of control, that people are dying on waiting lists and the Government spend less than any other nation, and so on. Those patients simply do not understand why the politicians so often make statements which simply are not true and which cause a great deal of confusion and anxiety. They ask me how it is that these people, whom they assume are intelligent, can keep on making such statements.
I think that the mechanism is fascinating and I have studied it in some detail. Those politicians put themselves at a disadvantage in a number of ways. First, they seem to have a congenital inability to listen. They will not listen. Secondly, they attack with slogans rather than reasoned arguments. As your Lordships know, "slogan" is a Gaelic word meaning "a war cry", which is, of course, perfectly appropriate in battle where rational arguments in the heat of the moment may not necessarily be appropriate. Although the slogan may be completely untrue, these people say it repeatedly and eventually they convince themselves of its truth. That is why I am sure that the principle is correct that no one should be called a liar, because they actually believe what they are saying.
A slogan may simply be part of people's imagination, creative thinking or something that has been gleaned from the newspapers, or just from common gossip. A slogan is often accompanied by a claim to have a monopoly on kindness, caring and rectitude. Those who really have such an attitude do not need to go around telling everyone else about it, it is obvious. Then, having delivered the slogan, the blind comes down, as it were, and a glazed look comes over their faces which indicates again that they are not listening. So the cycle continues.
Those who work in the National Health Service are at pains to try to make sure that patients are fully apprised of the treatments which are available and the ones that are recommended so that patients can play a significant role in the decision-making process. This involves them giving the patient accurate information about the natural history of the disease itself, the complications that may occur, the length of time off work, and yet at the same time not causing them unnecessary worry. Where appropriate, counselling is provided which underlines not only the need to give patients accurate information but also to make sure that they are given the opportunity to be listened to. Patients do not want slogans thrown at them. They want to be listened to. That is a very important part of the art of the caring professions.

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The Patient's Charter informs the public about the specific goals of the NHS. For instance, patients are advised that it is not expected for them to wait more than 30 minutes at a clinic. It also provides information about how patients can give their views on the service. We used to call it a complaints document, but now we say, "This is your service. Tell us how we can help to improve it". Laying down standards like that is certainly the correct policy and it has improved the service. But this kind of openness runs a risk, because it provides the depressive bands of moaners with the opportunity to take even more delight in picking on every possible item that they can to denigrate the NHS. Nevertheless, this policy of honesty and openness about the aims of the NHS has to be right.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, kindly told me of some incorrect information which was given to a colleague of mine in East Anglia. He was told that he had to stop operating on patients from a certain district because of the difficulties with a contract. Being a surgeon, of course, he took absolutely no notice of that incorrect information and went on operating—we surgeons get withdrawal symptoms if we cannot operate. It took him many weeks to straighten out that particular mistake. But it has to be said that while we have people around, mistakes will continue to be made.
My plea today is that those in public life will make a supreme effort to stop making the same mistake time after time—the mistake of issuing false propaganda. We need to concentrate on producing accurate information. I beg to move for Papers.
3.32 p.m.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, while I was delighted to see this Motion on the Order Paper, I must admit to some degree of naivety; I had not quite realised that it was to be moved in the partisan way that it was moved. I had assumed that when the noble Lord, Lord McColl, asked for accurate information, he was also including "more information". Certainly, most of what I want to say deals with having more information. Of course information should be accurate. But if we are simply arguing about whether it is accurate or not, then matters are often very difficult. All sorts of criteria apply. (I am so sorry, I am addressing the noble Lord. I should be grateful if he would try to listen to me.) Setting criteria for what is accurate and what is not accurate is very difficult.
I shall certainly not argue with the noble Lord about whether the National Health Service is in a state of real difficulties, or in crisis. I do not believe that that is the subject of the debate. As I said, in following the noble Lord I shall deal with the question of giving more information, because I believe that the public are often woefully ill-informed—I do not just mean "misinformed", but "ill-informed"—about the health service, what it can do for them and how they should best act in order to minimise the dangers that they will get into in the hands of doctors and nurses and in the health service generally.
I begin by talking about mental health, a field in which I have a very great interest. The National Health Service, and those who work with it, has a responsibility
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to provide much more information to patient who may be suffering mental distress and who need the maximum amount of information about what is available to them and how they should operate. The families need to know which services are available in order that patients can take the maximum responsibility for the handling of their own condition. Mental health practitioners should be able to provide clear and full information on proposed treatments and care in a form that is relevant and understandable to the service user. They also need to know about the nature of medication which may be on offer.
I give a personal experience. I got "stuck" for 17 years on valium. I never took more than the prescribed dosage; and no doctor ever said to me that there was a danger that I would become addicted to it. The problems of breaking an addiction can be very great and very painful. I shall not go into the subject but no one ever told me about that. Many other patients may be in the same position—though the situation may be a little better today. It was at the stage when, as chairman of MIND, I was involved in launching a campaign for more information about this matter that I realised that I had to get off the habit myself before I could go around lecturing other people. So I want to see much more information available to the public and to the families of those suffering mental distress.
I should declare a second interest: one is as the president of MIND; but I am also joint president, with the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, of the all party group on alternative and complementary medicines. I believe that much more information is necessary for the public about what is available in the field of alternative medicines. The nation has got itself far too stuck on "a pill for every ill". And too many doctors feel that it is not advice that they must give, but a prescription. People will go home with several items to take. That can be very expensive. Of course, it can be very profitable for the pharmaceutical industry, but it is not necessarily the best thing.
I asked a relative of mine whose father had died what she thought he had died of. I thought it was cancer. She said, "No, it wasn't. He died of his medication'. I believe that all too often people die of what is prescribed for them by their doctors—prescribed, I am sure, with the best will in the world. There is much that alternative and complementary medicine can offer, and it ought to be made more available to the public.
It is very interesting that the public are becoming much more accepting of alternative and complementary medicines—and not only the public. I saw from a recent report in the Nursing Times that 96 per cent. of nurses are very, or fairly, interested in complementary therapies; 78 per cent. had used or recommended the use of complementary treatments; over 55 per cent. had purchased essential oils or vitamin supplements, and so on. I believe that considerable progress is now being made on ways in which we can integrate complementary and alternative therapies within the National Health Service. I want the National Health Service and those who direct it (Ministers in particular) to see that such

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therapies are an important part of treatment, and to help to ensure that people understand the treatments more than they do at the present time.
Having got those two special interests off my back, let me look at what I believe to be the central theme of this debate. One matter that greatly concerns me—and which, I have no doubt, will concern the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding—is that the gap between the most healthy and the least healthy in our society is getting wider. The noble Lord knew that when I was Secretary of State I established, under Sir Douglas Black, the Black Report, to look at reasons why that was the case; namely, to what extent ill health was due to social factors such as housing, homelessness and unemployment, and also to what extent levels of income affected the health of the nation. Ten years after the report was published—it would not have seen the light of day at all if we had depended upon the noble Lord—
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord would be so kind as to give way. Let me scotch that once and for all. A copy of that report was sent to every newspaper, every medical journal and every periodical paper throughout the length and breadth of the land. I am tired of listening to accusations that I suppressed it.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I have not said that.
A noble Lord: Yes, you did.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I did not. Maybe the noble Lord thought that that was what I was about to say. He released it on 3rd August, which is a day when, on the whole, people are on holiday. He did not go to great trouble to make it available. Of course he did not suppress it. I was very glad that Sir Douglas and those who produced the report got together very recently and published, in the British Medical Journal of 5th December, a revision which showed that the gap has become wider. It is important that that should be understood.
I am also concerned at the extent to which the reorganised National Health Service has provided either more or less information for the public. As everyone would agree, access to information about the state of the National Health Service is absolutely vital if the service is to be accountable to patients and taxpayers. Through commercialisation and government inaction, in my view public access to information has been curtailed. The chief obstacle to public access to information about the NHS is the internal market. If providers release too much information, their competitors may gain an advantage and beat them in the race for contracts. In the market place, public access to information takes second place to commercial considerations.
I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, for whom I have great respect, is in the Chamber because this point relates to trusts. The NHS trusts which were created in the 1990 reforms are only obliged to hold one public meeting a year. I hope that the noble Lord will intervene again or tell me later when he speaks that his trust does much more than that.
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I believe that the public ought to have open access to the National Health Service. There are now structures of management which exclude representatives of local authorities and also ordinary people. Management is much more of a management team than it ever was. Perhaps management is better, though I have not seen signs of it. Certainly the amount of information that comes out is less. Trusts are meant to be part of the National Health Service: a public service which is publicly financed and publicly accountable. The public have a right to know the decisions that are made on their behalf.
Under the 1990 National Health Service and Community Care Act the Secretary of State has powers to make all trust board meetings open to the public. I hope that when the Minister comes to reply she will tell us whether she will use those powers. It is very unfortunate that those who take decisions about the National Health Service are now able to do so in a hole in a corner way. I shall give way again if the noble Lord feels that I am being unfair to him. There is a lack of information.
Another effect of the internal market is that health authorities have become purchasers rather than providers of care. They no longer have a direct interest in some aspects of service provision and do not bother to collect data. As a result, the degree of information available to the Department of Health and parliamentarians, and thus to the press and the public, has fallen drastically. Any study that we make of Written Answers to Questions shows that more and more often Ministers say, "This information is not centrally available" and "No, we do not know how many ambulances there are in England. No, we do not know the number of psychiatric patients being treated in the private sector. No, we do not know the number of community nurses in Wales."
I want the Minister to assure me that in the newly organised National Health Service she will make the maximum effort to ensure that information is not restricted and that it becomes more open so that the public get their entitlement to know.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, I believe that the call made by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, for more accurate information is indeed timely, if only to counter the constant stream of accusations against the current reforms as a betrayal of the basic principles of the National Health Service. As he said, doom merchants have been announcing it for many years, but doom has not come yet and need never come, if we look at our health arrangements openly and honestly and decide rationally how they can be sustained and improved.
With some visiting Americans I was recently at a seminar in which a discussion took place on the proposed Clinton reforms. It is evident that, although the main burden of finance will lie, as it does now, on employers, in other respects the Clinton Administration is seeking to replicate some of the strengths of the National Health Service and in particular its success as a large monopsony purchaser in keeping down costs.

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The main aim of the proposed regional purchasing boards in the States, as I understand it, is to emulate that aspect of the National Health Service.
If others envy our basic structure, it is clearly worth preserving. So it cannot be repeated too often that it is nonsense to talk about "creeping privatisation" undermining the whole principle of the National Health Service. Contracts are drawn and services are subcontracted within the envelope of public finance. In my view there is neither public support nor political will for a fundamental change in our tax-based financing arrangements. But if a backlog of operations can be cleared by contract with the private sector, or new facilities can be brought on stream more speedily with the aid of private sector finance, those are matters of congratulation and not recrimination. Good care should not founder on the rocks of ideology.
Much of the shroud-waving to which the noble Lord referred is, as he said, a kind of shadow-boxing or phoney war. The record of the two main parties on the National Health Service is remarkably even. It is not good form to quote oneself, but perhaps I may extract a few facts from my speech of 9th June last in a debate introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Jay. In the period 1974 to 1979, under a Labour government, government expenditure on health as a percentage of GDP was just under 5 per cent. Under Tory governments from 1980 to 1990 it was just over 5 per cent. I believe that the noble Lord said that it was just over 5 per cent. now. Likewise, central government expenditure on health as a percentage of total government expenditure has varied very little over the whole period from 1974 to 1990. The differences are not large but marginally the Conservatives have spent slightly more.
Sadly, it would be naive to expect, on the basis of that record, a willingness to lay down arms and depoliticise the health service. The Labour Party sees it as its strong policy suit, and will continue to attack the reforms, particularly in London, though it is salutary to remember that it was the Labour Party which put in place RAWP (the Resource Allocation Working Party), with the precise object of equalising resources across the country.
No magical transformation in the NHS is going to come about after a change of government, if and when that comes. Public expenditure currently stands at 45 per cent., which is not all that far short of what it was in 1976 when the IMF moved in. Moreover, though one might be forgiven for thinking otherwise, when health buffs are in full cry, there are other departments of state than the Department of Health and other rather pressing claims on public resources. A government of any party, or a coalition of parties, will be faced with exactly the same constraints as the present Government, indeed' possibly greater constraints if they are committed to raising expenditure in other areas.
Therefore, any sensible government will have to look very carefully at costs and outcomes. It is impossible to pretend any longer that all procedures can be justified without limit at the expense of less surgically and clinically glamorous requirements. The Government's
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reforms have brought such ethical dilemmas out of the woodwork, where they always existed, so that we can discuss them openly. It is high time too.
I should like to make a couple of suggestions in connection with the use of scarce resources and outcomes. The first concerns management, a point which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals. There is a very good case to be made that the NHS was and possibly still is under-managed. But the very idea of management is anathema in certain circles. The notion is still widespread that the National Health Service is a kind of huge, benign and cuddly monster, whose inner workings it is rude, if not sacrilegious, to probe. I do not share that view. I believe that the Government have failed to get across to the general public the need for tighter management. They are in danger of losing the debate, fanned by the press, in which increased expenditure on senior management is contrasted unfavourably with a relative decline in expenditure on clinicians.
In answer to a Parliamentary Question that I recently put down, the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, told me that general and senior managers now make up 2 per cent. of the total workforce and that their salaries represent only 1.3 per cent. of the total budget. That sounds pretty modest; indeed, low administrative costs are one of the great arguments in favour of a tax-based system. But in a sceptical climate of public opinion I would like to see general administrative costs, and senior management as a proportion of these, more clearly defined and openly available. As the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, said, Parliamentary Questions on these matters tend to be stonewalled with the classic formulae that the information is not available centrally or can be provided only at a disproportionate cost.
That may well be a legitimate and natural result of decentralisation. Even so, Parliament and the public have a right to that information because some reports that management is growing out of control have caused widespread anxieties. Is there any system for information gathering in this field? Has arty work been undertaken by the Director of Research and Development in this area? Some of your Lordships will recall that that post was set up as a result of a recommendation of a committee of this House chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Nelson of Stafford. In its first report the new Research and Development Division acknowledged the lack of and need for operational research; that is, research into the organisation and management of health services. Has that been followed up and, if so, with what results?
The second area that I want to touch on briefly is general practice. The general practitioner is at the heart of the reforms. Through a historical accident we have this unique system of family doctors as the first and often the only port of call in our health system. Only 10 per cent. of GP consultations lead to referral to specialists. That is a very important statistic. While the United States is desperately trying to boost its relatively low percentage of general physicians entering the profession we actually have them en poste: on the ground.

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The whole thrust of the reforms is to strengthen this end of the healthcare spectrum. There are enormous opportunities here to improve preventive medicine and primary care and to reduce pressure on hospitals. Health cannot be measured by the number of beds. Beds are a measure of ill health, which simply puts in a slightly different way what was said by the noble Lord, Lord McColl.
However, we have to face the fact that hospitals, especially ancient ones such as Bart's, are the temples of a secular age. And there is, and will continue to be, great resistance to their closure or change of function unless the Government are able to project more successfully their own vision of a new balance between hospitals on the one side and primary and community care on the other. I doubt that the rationale of this change of emphasis has got through to patients and consumers. And many GPs—by no means all but still a lot—remain lukewarm.
I was very much against the BMA's original kneejerk opposition to the reforms and I hope that it has adopted a more sensible attitude. I believe that it has. But that said, it is crucial for the Government to get general practitioners fully on board, just as they had to get the teachers back on board in education. This is partly a question of finance. Obviously there needs to be bridging finance to bring on stream improved GP premises and a wider range of services, including special information, before anything comes in from the closure and sale of old sites, especially in London. What funds are available for that purpose, and is that part of the Government's strategy on course?
While the United States is worried that its expenditure on health, which stands at about 14 per cent. of GDP and is heading for 17.5 per cent. by the end of the century, is far too high, some may feel that our figure of only 6 per cent. of GDP is too low. They believe that it should be increased to, say, 7 or 8 per cent. If so, there are two options. The first is for political parties which are of that opinion to go to the country proposing a tax increase for that purpose, as the Liberal Democrats did for education at the last election. Or they could propose even a hypothecated tax so that people can see the true cost of the service and decide whether they want to spend more or less on it. That proposal was made by my noble friend Lord Owen. The other route is to maintain public expenditure on health at about its present level and to introduce more private-sector finance and allow the private sector itself to grow somewhat, thus slightly changing the present public-private mix. I believe that political parties in a democracy should be open about these options and let the people decide.
But whatever route, or perhaps mixture of routes, is chosen it is nonsense—and dishonest nonsense at that—to suggest that we are on the brink of some kind of disaster in the field of health. We have a unique and successful structure of healthcare in this country with very good potential for development. I believe that that will equip us well to deal with the needs of our population in the decades to come.

NATO Summit
3.55 p.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Wakeham): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement on the NATO Summit made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a Statement about the NATO Summit in Brussels, which I attended with my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary.
"On 10th January the summit launched the Partnership for Peace programme with a framework document and an invitation to 25 states to participate. On 11th January it issued a declaration. These documents have been placed in the Library of the House.
"Madam Speaker, NATO Summits are not held routinely but only for a specific purpose. This was only the eleventh summit in 35 years.
"It met to carry forward post-Cold War evolution of NATO, which began at the 1991 Rome Summit.
"NATO's core function is to ensure the security of its member states. It has been by far the most successful collective security organisation in history; it was agreed the alliance will continue to be the cornerstone of post-war European security.
"As this was the first summit attended by President Clinton and by Prime Minister Chretien of Canada, a key objective was to renew the Transatlantic relationship.
"President Clinton's affirmation that the core of American security remained with Europe received a warm welcome. He confirmed his commitment to keep around 100,000 US troops in Europe.
"Madam Speaker, over the past five years new democracies have been born to the East. A pre-eminent challenge for NATO is to develop its relations with these countries in ways which will enhance stability across Europe.
"There must be no new dividing line; no new antagonistic blocs.
"The Partnership for Peace programme is an imaginative response to that challenge. All states which were once within the Warsaw Pact have been invited to join and NATO may also invite other CSCE states.
"The aim of the partnership is to bring Europe together by building practical military co-operation between nations in ways which reflect their different aspirations and capabilities.
"This could include joint exercises in peacekeeping, search and rescue or humanitarian operations; joint military planning; and exchanges on defence budgeting and the democratic control of armed forces. Each partner will draw up with NATO an agreed 'Partnership programme' tailored to that particular relationship.
"Partnership will be an evolutionary process. It will bring all partners closer to NATO.

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"The summit has opened a clear perspective of the enlargement of the alliance. It is too soon to determine which countries will be able to meet the obligations of membership or when. But there are obviously strong candidates in the democracies of Central and Eastern Europe.
"Madam Speaker, a second challenge for the summit was to improve the alliance's ability to mount new humanitarian and peacekeeping operations.
"During the Cold War NATO's military structures were based predominantly on static regional commands and large-scale formations. Experience in the Gulf and Bosnia has shown the importance of flexibility and mobility.
"The summit endorsed the new concept of Combined Joint Task Forces. They will improve NATO's capability to deploy task forces inside or outside the NATO area.
"Because they will be available for purely and predominantly European operations, the Combined Joint Task Forces could also meet the requirements of the European Security and Defence Identity. They will strengthen the European role within NATO, without detracting from its Transatlantic character.
"Partnership for Peace and the Combined Joint Task Forces are changes of fundamental significance. The alliance will now begin to implement them.
"Madam Speaker, the summit also discussed other important questions. It supported efforts by the United Nations and the European Union to secure a negotiated settlement in Bosnia. We discussed the recent intense fighting in Sarajevo. We reaffirmed our readiness, under the decisions taken last August, to carry out air strikes in order to prevent the strangulation of Sarajevo.
"We also looked at ways to solve two other current problems. The United Nations command in Bosnia has recently been prevented from rotating the UNPROFOR contingent in Srebrenica and from using Tuzla airport.
"On a proposal from the United Kingdom and France, the summit asked UNPROFOR to draw up plans for the Netherlands contingent to take over from the Canadians in Srebrenica. We also decided to examine with UNPROFOR how Tuzla airport could be opened for humanitarian relief purposes.
"We would prefer not to have to use force. But those who are impeding UNPROFOR at Srebrenica and Tuzla must realise that force is available if necessary to support UNPROFOR and its ability to protect relief efforts.
"In all of our discussions, Madam Speaker, we were conscious of the importance of closer relations with Russia's democratic leaders. Russia has a huge contribution to make to stability and to efforts to' resolve international problems. I hope that the Russian Government will take up the invitation to partnership with the alliance. This will be another way in which we can enhance our support for reform and democracy there.
"Madam Speaker, I shall briefly describe individual meetings which I held during these two
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days. I met the Prime Minister of Turkey, and welcomed her country's continuing support for operation Provide Comfort in Iraq. Mrs. Ciller expressed her commitment to a settlement of the Cyprus problem, which is long overdue.
"I focused on Bosnia in my meeting with the French Prime Minister. We decided to call for the action over Srebrenica and Tuzla which I have described.
"With the German Chancellor and the Italian Prime Minister, I discussed developments in Europe and further efforts to enhance relations with Russia and support reform there.
"I thanked President Clinton for his support over Northern Ireland. We welcomed the decisions taken on Bosnia, and looked ahead to our next meeting in Washington at the end of February.
"I had a long meeting with the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Joulwan, the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Sir Richard Vincent, and other senior NATO officers. We examined how Partnership for Peace would be put into effect, and also how the Combined Joint Task Forces would be set up.
"Madam Speaker, this was a timely summit. It has reaffirmed North America's commitment to Europe, and has shown that the allies stand closely together in maintaining their collective security.
"The summit has carried forward the modernisation of NATO's military structures, and has launched a vital new initiative towards the East, opening up the way to new relationships and new members.
"It has established the outward-looking character of the NATO of the 1990s, with a greater emphasis on operations in support of peace and humanitarian relief.
"Madam Speaker, I believe that the summit has successfully equipped the alliance to meet the new challenges. I commend its results to the House". My Lords, that concludes my right honourable friend's Statement.
4.4 p.m.
Lord Richard: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement made in another place by his right honourable friend the Prime Minister. I say right at the outset that we on these Benches welcome that Statement and broadly support it. It was an important Summit. I hope that it has produced some important results.
The Partnership for Peace initiative has great significance for both NATO and the former communist states in Eastern Europe. It does represent an important stage in the development of a post-Cold War security structure for Europe based at last on peace, co-operation and mutual trust. In that respect we hope that Partnership for Peace will be the first step in a process which will eventually lead to the integration of former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO. When I penned those words it occurred to me how, a few years ago, that sentence would have seemed the stuff of dreams or even Lewis Carrol-ish. But how nice it is to be able to make that statement today.

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Considerable progress has indeed now been made. I believe that noble Lords on all sides will recognise that. The important thing now is to identify ways in which the advances which have been made can be built on and indeed taken further. We hope that the closer military co-operation between NATO and the former communist states envisaged in the programme will now be pursued as a matter of priority. It is important that this momentum, which I hope that this Summit will have launched, be kept up.
Page 6 of the Statement says:
"It is too soon to determine which countries will be able to meet the obligations of membership or when".
I am not quite sure what are the criteria for full membership of NATO. I assume that they are such matters as democratic systems of government, a respect for human rights and strengthened civilian control over the military. If it is that, then it is probably a question of time and we must wait to see whether the countries of Eastern Europe will fulfil those conditions. If there are other conditions I shall be grateful if the noble Lord the Leader of the House can tell us what they are. In any event, can he tell us what we are now going to do to try to encourage the former communist countries of Eastern Europe in the direction that we would like them to go?
We welcome the agreement on Bosnia which reaffirms NATO's position on the use of air strikes. It is critical now that the Serbs, both in Belgrade and in Bosnia itself, understand that NATO has the will and the means to implement the agreement on air strikes. There is still a certain credibility gap in that respect which needs to be addressed. I assume that all who supported this in principle in the declaration will now be prepared to see it implemented.
Finally, perhaps I may say a word about the renewal of the trans-Atlantic relationship. For me, at any rate, that was the most important matter to come out of this Summit. It was clearly right that President Clinton came, and it was right that he should have spoken and acted as he did. I trust that, as a result of this Summit, the relationship between Europe, on the one hand, and the United States and Canada, on the other, will not only have been restored, but I hope that it will have been strengthened and for the future perhaps put on a more realistic basis than it has been at times in the past.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Richard, in thanking the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement made in another place by his right honourable friend. As has been said by both speakers, the Statement covers two points of real significance—that is to say, first, the relationship between NATO and the former Warsaw Pact countries and, secondly, the position in Yugoslavia.
I cannot altogether share the optimism of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, about the outcome of this Summit' in all respects although, like him, I greatly welcome the statement by the President renewing the American commitment to participation in the defence of Europe and undertaking that no fewer than 100,000 troops are stationed here. That is an important advance and confirmation of an attitude which it was high time was made.
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However, I do not find the Partnership for Peace proposals very convincing. They sound to me all too like a public relations exercise. I am absolutely convinced that they will not satisfy the Visegrad countries. That is something which has to be taken seriously. The anxieties of those countries as regards their security are real and justified when one considers what is happening to the east of them. It must be remembered that the political and economic reforms in which those countries are engaged will be seriously jeopardised if they believe that their security is at risk.
I should like to ask the noble Lord the Leader of the House a question. The Visegrad countries are all associate members of the European Union. They also attend the Western European Union forum which meets once a year. If and when they become full members of the European Union, they will automatically have the right to be members of WEU. What is there to prevent us giving them accelerated membership of WEU? That would have the advantage of providing them with the security that they want—it also has the advantage of French membership—something to which the Russians could not object because the Russians have never objected to those countries becoming members of the European Union, and membership of WEU goes with that if the country in question so desires.
It seems to me that that would overcome many of the fears of those countries while taking into account what I regard as the legitimate anxieties of Russia about the expansion of NATO which, after all, was an alliance that was formed against Russia. It is difficult for Russia to forget that significant fact. I put that point to the noble Lord and look forward to hearing what he has to say.
On the Bosnian situation, it must be said that the Statement amounts to a reversal of emphasis at least of the policy that was previously pursued by the Government. That point must be recognised. In the past, as I understood it, we have argued that air strikes would endanger humanitarian aid and would put British troops at risk. On 10th January, the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, said:
"The humanitarian aid would then be placed at very grave risk … I do not believe that we have yet reached that stage".—[Official Report, 10/1/94; col. 7.]
That was only two days ago, so this is a rather sharp change of emphasis.
I should like to know whether we have taken into account the implications of that change of emphasis. If air strikes have to be undertaken, are we prepared for the consequences —the consequences for humanitarian aid and for the safety of our troops? May they not require reinforcement? If the air strikes are not wholly successful, will they be asked to fight their way through to Tuzla or Sarajevo or wherever? Is there the political will to do that? If not, the threat of air strikes will be, as the Serbs have already said, an empty threat. It is a threat which has been made before and not carried out. We cannot afford to do that twice. Any ultimatum to the Serbs that we make now must be precise and unequivocal. If it is not accepted, it must be followed by action. Those are matters on which we need clarification.

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Finally, we have now been involved in the Yugoslav tragedy for three years or so. We have had a series of Statements and questions in your Lordships' House on the issues that are raised. It is impossible to discuss such a complicated matter as this in response to Statements or questions. I sincerely believe that it is high time that we had a debate in which the matter could be discussed more fully.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I am grateful to both the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, for welcoming the Statement and for their good measure of support for what is contained in it. I share somewhat the view of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that some parts of the Statement were the stuff of dreams not so many years ago. That indicates progress.
As both noble Lords dealt with many of the same points I shall, if I may, seek to answer both sets of points collectively. As I see it, the Partnership for Peace is not a closed shop. NATO is not a closed shop. It has not been one and it will not become one. What has been achieved is a clear and open perspective for enlargement. But the security of central and eastern Europe will not he increased if, by accepting some and excluding others right at the beginning, we recreate old divisions in Europe and antagonise Russia. The process must be managed over time. A close relationship with Russia is essential. The Partnership for Peace envisages an evolutionary process, building on relationships and practical military co-operation so that it is easier for us at a later date to contemplate the guarantees which are fundamental to the existing NATO arrangements.
I accept in part what the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, said and that it is clear that some of the countries of central and eastern Europe are probably nearer membership than others. However, I think that it would be a mistake at this stage to have any sort of "sheep or goats" approach. Membership of the European Union will, of course, change the situation as the noble Lord indicated.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, asked about the criteria for membership. No criteria have been set, but the noble Lord envisaged the main elements of democratic, civilian control over the armed forces, developing practical military co-operation and building integral armed forces which are capable of operating within NATO force structures.
Both noble Lords raised the very worrying and important subject of Bosnia. I should like to say at the outset that it is important to clarify NATO's policy, which is to support the United Nations in its humanitarian aims but not to get involved in the civil war. The commitment of saying that NATO would make support available for the humanitarian aims, which would or could involve air strikes, has to be' distinguished from the use of air strikes or anything of that sort in seeking to solve the civil conflict which we hope can he solved by negotiation. We hope that progress will be made when the parties resume their talks in January. As I understand it, what NATO has said has indicated to the United Nations that it is for the UN to draw up a plan knowing that in certain
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circumstances NATO would support the humanitarian assistance effort with air strikes. The plan which the United Nations has to prepare must, of course, take fully into account the consequences of any air action. That matter will have to be weighed carefully. The safety of international and United Nations personnel on the ground in Bosnia would have to be of paramount consideration in the plans which the United Nations commander and Secretary General now have responsibility for producing.
I am extremely glad that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, highlighted the importance of the strength of the Atlantic Alliance which was renewed at the summit meeting. I share his belief in the importance of that aspect. The summit was important in that regard.
With regard to a debate, I recognise that I cannot say, as many of my colleagues say, that that is not a matter for me. I recognise the importance of a debate. It is something that I should like to discuss with the usual channels to decide the most appropriate way forward.
4.20 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, will the noble Lord expand a little on his answer to the question put by my noble friend Lord Bonham-Carter? It seems to me that we are not in this business purely for humanitarian reasons. We are blockading Serbia in an effort to bring about a political solution. That is not a humanitarian purpose, although it might do a great deal more good in humanitarian terms than the present effort. If we are to use air power—there is no question of our immense superiority—the role of our troops on the ground will have inevitably to change back to what they are best suited. Instead of using crack troops to negotiate, to plead, and to placate often drunken irregulars, they will have to ensure that the objectives of relieving Sarajevo and the other towns are carried out. Surely that will be inevitable if air strikes are used.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, the consequences of using air strikes cannot be underestimated. However, the situation is such that if the UN humanitarian effort is to be maintained that possibility exists and has to be used. The NATO summit agreed that it would indicate to the UN that they would be available to the UN if it draws up a plan in which it feels they would help relieve the problems with humanitarian aid. All the considerations the noble Lord raised are of course important. The UN will have to address them before it comes to a conclusion and finalises its plans.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I wonder whether we might have some clarification about the time. The Clock has gone out of kilter, and to the best of my understanding is still out of kilter. The 20 minutes allowed for Back Benchers started when the Clock showed 34. It has been 34 for some time. Can we be guided as to how the 20 minutes will be judged?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, my assessment, gained from my noble friend who can read clocks better than I can and who has one in his pocket, is that there are about 16 or 17 of the 20 minutes left. We shall keep a watch on it.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I welcome warmly the concept of the Partnership for Peace. The presence of President Clinton, and the way he fulfilled his role, is a matter of great encouragement. The questions I wish to ask are about Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, because they were never part of the Warsaw Pact. The Baltic States were not referred to in the Statement. The Leader of the House will know that Lithuania was the first of the former Soviet nations not merely to gain its independence in Mr. Gorbachev's time but to apply for membership of NATO. The Leader of the House will also recognise that some of the Baltic States will have fears of Russia because they have Russian troops on their territory and are seeking to get rid of them as quickly as possible. I have a great interest in the subject. I have visited Lithuania and feel for it. What decisions were taken as to where Lithuania fits into those states which we hope will qualify eventually for NATO membership?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, the NATO summit declaration states that NATO invites:
"the other states participating in the NACC, and other CSCE countries able and willing to contribute to this programme, to join with us in this Partnership".
I have a list of all the countries. I see that Lithuania is an NACC country. It is all in the Library if anyone is in any doubt about it.
Lord Finsberg: My Lords, will my noble friend expand a little on what he said about North America. Have the Canadians now said that they will return and put something concrete on the European continent? In other words, are they going back from their total withdrawal? Secondly, will he say something about whether NATO has now agreed that its facilities will be placed at the disposal of the WEU? Will he also bear in mind that if air strikes have to take place, and British troops are endangered, there is always the possibility of some kind of action against Belgrade itself?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, my noble friend tempts me to go further than I should. The problem is the Canadian troops in Srebrenica, Bosnia, who need to be relieved. As my noble friend knows better than I, the WEU has an important role to play, but it is not in a position to offer guarantees independent of NATO. It agreed at its November ministerial meeting to enhance its relationship with central and eastern Europe. Of course, it can offer an added political security and dimension to countries on the path to eventual European Union membership. I shall write to my noble friend on some of the other points that he raised.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, on the subject of air strikes against Tuzla and Srebrenica, are not confusing signals being sent to the Bosnian Moslems? May not the peace process be impeded by the fact that they may believe—I believe that they do believe—that NATO and the UN will intervene on their side if they hold out long enough? Is it being made absolutely clear to the Bosnian Moslems that the air strikes involve only the relief of the Canadian troops and
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that under no circumstances will British troops be involved in the civil war in Bosnia? That must be made clear, and I hope it is being made clear.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, the position is clear. No decision was taken at the NATO summit for air strikes to be used as part of the solution of the civil conflict in the former Yugoslavia. We seek to solve that by negotiation, as I said. The commitment to possible air strikes relates to the three cases that have been mentioned. They are all designed to assist with humanitarian aid, and that assistance will be given only as part of a plan for their use which the UN has to draw up.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, does my noble friend the Leader of the House agree that behind the language of the communiqué, which is always diplomatic, there exists certain decisions of principle, the first of which has been to subject the guarantees which were and are requested by the countries of eastern Europe to what was felt to be the overriding necessity of maintaining in power the present regime in Russia?
That is a perfectly arguable case and one can see why it has not been stated in those bleak terms. But it leads to another question that I should like to put to my noble friend. Was any attempt made, or will any attempt be made, to use the preference that is now being given to maintaining the Russian government in power to do something about the civil war in Yugoslavia, because all that is being said now would assume that humanitarian aid, which has been our central point, is destined to go on for ever? The idea that under present circumstances there will be a peaceful settlement seems highly improbable. On the other hand, the Russians now have, and have always had, a particular interest in Serbia. It is only Russia which can compel Serbia to abandon its career of conquest and bring about the peace which would make the efforts of our troops and the voluntary agencies no longer necessary.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I do not believe that I should draw from the declaration and the summit quite the conclusions which my noble friend seeks to draw. If there was a decision in principle about the widening and enlargement of NATO, it was a decision to have an evolutionary process rather than a process of achieving that enlargement at the beginning and creating new divisions in Europe. We believe that decision to be the right way forward. In part that is because we believe that it is extremely important that we should have a close relationship with Russia, but it is not a Russian veto or anything of that sort. It is merely that we believe it to be the best way forward.
I share with my noble friend a feeling of—I should not say pessimism—concern about the length of time that it is taking to reach a settlement of the civil conflict in former Yugoslavia. But that does not mean to say that the Government wish to move from achieving that settlement by non-military intervention by NATO or others. We must seek to continue with the present process. Any part that Russia can play in assisting in

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that will be welcome. I am sure that the Russian Government will play a full part in that if they are able to do so.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, given that the collapse of the Soviet empire has led to the prospect of Europe's frontiers once again being up for grabs—a risk which was effectively neutralised by the NATO-Warsaw Pact stand-off—is there not a danger that the period of diplomacy needed to persuade Russia of the entry of Visegrad and the Baltic states to NATO will provide a window of opportunity for aggression? Is it not desirable that we should perhaps negotiate with considerable intensity with the prospect that the members of the former Soviet Union, including in particular Russia, should be able to have the hope of entering NATO so that the matter can be sewn up before people behave in the way in which I fear they may try to behave?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, my noble friend is right that there are dangers and difficulties. The NATO summit sought to find in those difficult circumstances the best way forward. We believe that that is what we have done. There are risks involved but we believe that this is the best way forward. My noble friend will know that NATO has stated clearly that the security of the member nations is inseparably linked to that of all the other states in Europe. It is not possible for us in NATO not to be concerned about what might or might not happen in central and eastern Europe. But that is a long way from saying that at this moment in time those countries in eastern Europe are in a fit state and have the proper arrangements to be full members of NATO.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, perhaps I may inform your Lordships that the debate will now end at 6.15 p.m. The digital clocks for timing speeches are now not working properly. They may have to be disregarded if they cannot be reset for each speech. If that is the case, I must ask noble Lords taking part in this and the next debate to be fully aware of the length of their speeches and to use the Clock over the Bar of the House to note when they begin to speak.

National Health Service
4.34 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, I begin by expressing my gratitude to my noble friend Lord McColl of Dulwich for launching this debate and, indeed, for delivering a most effective and interesting speech. He shot a number of arrows into the air. We were amazed by the unerring accuracy with which they found their targets on the Opposition Benches.
My noble friend looked at the picture from a national' point of view. I should like to look at the local scene and what it is like trying to run an NHS trust against the barrage of misinformation which seems to be so prevalent at present.
I have talked about Forest Healthcare Trust before in the House. I shall be brief in its description. We are a whole district trust. We are under considerable pressure.
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We have the largest and busiest accident and emergency department in London. Capitation has resulted in the trust losing some £7 million over three years. We are under financial pressure. Much of our estate is well-stricken in years and, although redevelopment is under way, we still have many old buildings. But our clinicians practise very high quality medicine, with a great deal of innovation. We have training and consultant posts which are much sought after. We have an excellent reputation for nurse training and, despite having made savings of over 8 per cent.—nearly £9 million—over the past two years, we are now treating at no extra cost 5 per cent. more patients than we contracted for. I can tell my noble friend that we shall meet our financial targets at the end of the year; and I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, that we do not stick to the one public meeting per year. We have more. On Wednesday last I had a two-and-a-half hour meeting with our entire community health council which I believe was recognised to be an extremely valuable occasion. And yet we work under a veritable deluge of knocking copy. Of course, we do not get everything right. We always try to acknowledge our shortcomings frankly and spell out what we are doing to put them right.
Where does all the copy come from? I can detect four main sources. I start with what I would call the professional knockers who knock the NHS industry. In London there is no doubt that the king of the knockers is the so-called London Health Emergency, a self-appointed group whose sole aim in life seems to be to discredit the system and arouse the maximum anxiety among patients.
Time does not allow me to cite more than one example, but last September a local newspaper carried the headline: "Profits before patients". It said that the Forest Healthcare Trust had been slammed for putting profits before patients:
"to end its first year with a cash surplus … The Trust has clearly decided to pursue profits, regardless of the consequences for local people waiting for treatment".
They are still living in the pre-election period. Somehow it is thought that we are part of the private sector and trying to put money into our own pockets. The matter was answered in the press. But the whole thrust of the article is to try to discredit the system and arouse alarm and despondency. Time does not allow me to give other examples but LHE is by no means the only professional knocker, although it is without doubt the most disreputable.
Source number two is the moles. Every public sector institution has them. The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, will remember that classic leak about child benefit. When I followed the noble Lord at the department, we detected a mole and quietly moved him to another department. The Guardian then accused us of having somehow blocked its source of information. 'That was very satisfactory.
Forest Healthcare suffers from a series of quite clever leaks designed to maximise distress and alarm. Mostly, although not always, there is a grain of truth in what is said and something is happening which lends credibility

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to the leak. But the essence of the mole's activity and the way in which we suffer from it is the distortion, exaggeration and often invention of:
"corroborative detail to add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative".
A good example of that is what we came to call the ants in the delivery room. What started as a report that two pharaoh ants had been seen on a piece of monitoring equipment in the maternity department ended up as a story of the husband brushing swarms of ants off the mother's legs while she was giving birth. Happily, we obtained a signed statement from the mother to say that the story had been grossly exaggerated. But the mole had achieved his purpose. The headlines were there. As we always say, the lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on. With a weekly local press, it took a week to catch up with the story.
An even worse case, which had quite serious consequences, was the headline:
"Pregnant woman catches Hepatitis during Caesarean surgery".
There was a long, extremely circumstantial article, almost all of which was substantially untrue. We had had a case of an ex-patient who had been identified as having Hepatitis B but at the time all the evidence pointed to Whipps Cross not being the source. Patients were telling their GPs that under no circumstances would they go anywhere near Whipps Cross because obviously it was riddled with Hepatitis B.
The sequel to that incident—and it was only one of many —was that we arranged for the editor to come to talk to us, together with the journalist responsible for the story. They admitted that they had done it under huge pressure of time, that they had not properly checked out the story and that it was all wrong. The following week a very handsome apology was printed on the front page of the paper. However, I am afraid there is too much of that.
The latter brings me to source number three, and perhaps one of the causes. I refer to the effect that the recession has had on the economics of some small local newspapers. They have reduced revenues, cut staff and the staff tend to be much more desk-bound. They engage in telephone journalism and rely more and more on tip-offs and readers' letters, often anonymous. That sort of compilation of news is a heaven-sent opportunity for anonymous scandalmongers. So a leak about changed rosters for health visitors becomes a wholesale sacking of community midwives; an anonymous grouse by a disgruntled junior doctor becomes a full-scale journalistic assault on the accident and emergency department; and a perfectly true story about 38 planned redundancies (virtually all of them non-clinical) becomes a horror story about the sacking of 38 doctors, including consultants. So it goes on. It is extremely difficult to keep up with such matters. The task of seeking to ascertain the truth and then dealing with the corrections is an enormous drain on management time and effort. Moreover, it does not actually help the treatment of patients one iota.
I turn now to source number four, which is very rare. It is what one might call the Department of Health cock-up, if that is not politically incorrect these days.
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The worst case of this was the infamous table of surgical deaths that some noble Lords will remember which was published last April and widely publicised in the national press. It showed our hospital to be the second worst in the country. Our consultants simply said that that was incredible. We made quite detailed inquiries but not before the local press had published a horror story under the headline "A Dying Shame"—come to Whipps Cross to die.
What had happened was that the NHS statisticians at management executive level chose not to believe our figures. They claimed to have detected a "statistical aberration". They made unilateral adjustments which converted the figures from being substantially better than the average and among the best in the South East to the second worst in the country. It took 20 column inches of explanation about six weeks later in the local press eventually to get the truth across to the public. A letter signed by the medical director, our clinical surgical director and the director of public health (our main purchaser) eventually put the record right. However, I must tell my noble friend that we could well have done without that episode which was a piece of very bad publicity.
What are we doing about such matters? First, we are making very determined efforts to work with local editors and journalists, but one has to say that there are some journalists who have their own agendas. I believe that they see themselves as budding John Pilgers and are anxious to prove their virility. It is very difficult to deal with the situation.
Secondly, we are publicising our successes—and there are many—and we confess frankly when things have gone wrong. We have much good news and our difficulties should not be allowed to obscure it. Thirdly, we are aiming to improve the service. Indeed, I receive many letters of commendation as well as brickbats. An effective complaints procedure is vital. We do not yet match the Patient's Charter standard for the time of reply, but we are aiming to do better.
Against all the difficulties, our top priority is to seek to engender in every member of our staff—from the leading consultants to the junior porters—the sense that they are working for a damned good service. It may be hard pressed, but it is very effective. They should be proud of their achievements in serving their local community. I have to say that we are not there yet but we are working at it.
4.44 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, when I saw the Motion on the Order Paper tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, to draw attention
"to the case for giving the public accurate information about the National Health Service",
my first impression was that only the highest sense of public duty in the noble Lord's mind would have induced him to put down a Motion which is so embarrassing to himself. In his opening remarks—and, indeed, throughout the speech with which he honoured us today—a derisory term seemed to appear in every other sentence about what politicians had said, as though the noble Lord is not one of the leading medical

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politicians in the country. I have had some experience of them. I had experience of Dr. Hill, the radio doctor, and of Dr. Guy Dane who led the original campaign against the National Health Service. I can assure the noble Lord that he has a long way to go before he measures up politically as an avowed Conservative to the skills of Dr. Guy Dane and the sense of humour of the radio doctor.
The noble Lord did not follow in any way the lines of his Motion. He gave us some instances which he called "propaganda" where he alleges misleading or, indeed, totally inaccurate information had been given to the general public by his second-hated species—namely, the journalist—concerning the progress of medical science over the past few years, the various varieties of medical treatment, and so on. However, what he did not do was to address the problem of more accurate information about the National Health Service being available. Of course, that is remarkable.
Speaking personally, I cannot recall having uttered a word of criticism about the medical profession in general, individual medical practitioners, specialists or about nurses. I must agree with the noble Lord that anyone who starts criticising the medical practitioners, the nurses and the people at the spearhead of the NHS will not be very popular. I say that because at the point of contact as regards the medical practitioner, the specialist, the nurse and the patient there is, I venture to suggest, a very considerable amount of confidence in the country. The criticisms are not against them. All the noble Lord did was to put up an Aunt Sally and then knock it down again.
What Conservative politicians, especially Conservative medical politicians of which the noble Lord is a distinguished member, seem to forget—or, indeed, do not seem to realise—is that, despite the excellence at the point of delivery of the treatment and care that is given by doctors, nurses and others, there is a widespread unease about the service as a whole, its administration and the way in which it is going. Of course, there should be more information about that.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, gave us some instances of gross misrepresentation. I pause to observe that it does not lie in the mouth of a former Conservative Minister to complain about misrepresentation after the gross misrepresentations contained in his party's manifesto for the last election. However, if the noble Lord complains about misrepresentation, perhaps he should take a look at the 63rd report of the Public Accounts Committee in another place—published, incidentally, at the price of £26.10 and, therefore, placing it outside the immediate pocket of those people who are unemployed but who, nevertheless, happen to be interested in such matters.
I invite the noble Lord to look through the findings of the Public Accounts Committee on the investigation into the Wessex Regional Health Authority. There he will find as bad an account of waste of money, bad administration, bad faith, an absence of value for money, gross administrative errors, gross errors of judgment and of managerial incompetence as he will ever see. It is not necessary for the press to enumerate those faults. If the noble Lord takes another look at the 57th report of the Public Accounts Committee which
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deals with the West Midlands Regional Health Authority, he will find a further example of the waste of millions of pounds of money. That is another case of gross maladministration and gross incompetence within the National Health Service. If the noble Lord complains that these reports misrepresent the position, I should remind him that there is a majority of Members of his own party of another place on the board I am discussing and their decision and their denunciations were unanimous.
We all know perfectly well—the Minister has made it perfectly clear through the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and through her own words in another place—that one of the principal aims in the reorganisation of the National Health Service was, aside from the objective of improving services to the "customer", the saving of public money. Ordinary human individuals have now been abandoned, it appears, and we have now descended to the word "customer". The reorganisation sought to limit the growing expense of the health service and to match it with what we in the United Kingdom are supposed to be able to afford. In other circumstances and under other time limits I would have addressed that total sum and that would have led me rather outside the subject I am discussing this afternoon.
Surely the principle of saving money and obtaining value for money ought to be written in blood across the hearts of noble Lords opposite. It is their avowed intention to give value for money and not to waste anything. The matters we are discussing should add grist to that mill. But do we hear from noble Lords opposite any demands that the accounts of the regional health authorities—I am talking about accounts and not summaries—or the accounts of the various hospital trusts should be published? We hear no demands for such publication. I should have thought that noble Lords opposite, particularly those who are concerned with expense, would have demanded those accounts as a first priority. However, there has been no such demand. I now demand that we should receive proper accounts and that they should be published in a proper form. I demand accounts that distinguish the sums of money that are spent on management, administration and clerical services and the amounts that are spent on what we will call for the moment the operating expenses; namely, doctors, specialists, nurses, midwives, radiologists and other such specialists, together with the various other ancillary staff. Those accounts should give a numerical analysis which shows how many people are engaged in each of those areas so that we can determine whether the authenticated and heavily documented stories of the gross overemployment of administrators, accountants and people of that ilk are true. If the accounts were published in that form, we could obtain some information on these matters. I shall limit myself to that factor because of the time restriction.
I am sure we could reach an amicable arrangement on this matter. We could be entirely factual as regards the accounts. I am quite willing—I am sure this applies to my noble friends—for one hospital trust to be selected as an example and for all the details of its financial working and the analysis of staff occupations and other

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matters to be set out. If that were done, we could find out exactly how a typical hospital trust or a typical authority is organised. Surely there can be no objection to that. If that were done, we could make some judgments as regards where the Government's real priorities lie. We could determine whether it is a Government priority to increase the car allowance of regional authorities by 30 per cent. in one year to a total sum of £70 million. If we had the information I have demanded, we could determine whether these allocations are justified.
My next point touches on the impartiality of administration and on the direction of policy. What we ought to be provided with in the case of these organisations, including in particular non-governmental organisations, are particulars of their political make-up. Which avowed parties do these appointees of the Minister, of the boards and of the trusts belong to? I can give an example of that matter from this House. As a result of the searching questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, we know that out of the 13 positions in the National Health Service in the bailiwick of the Minister, there are 13 appointments from your Lordships' House. We also know by collation and comparison with Vacher's that 12 Conservatives in this House received appointments—one of whom had two posts—while there were no appointees from the Liberal Party, none from the Labour Party and none from the Independents in this House. It is widely known throughout the country that appointments to these positions are progressively being governed by party considerations rather than by considerations of ability and drive.
4.57 p.m.
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, first let me add my thanks to my noble friend Lord McColl for initiating a debate which many noble Lords on this side of the House welcome greatly. We do so not least because it provides the House with a rare opportunity to give proper recognition to the many examples of excellent care provided by National Health Service staff. All too often, it seems to me, when providing information on the health service the media prefer to concentrate on the negative rather than the positive.
One might be tempted to suggest that those who have the good of the NHS at heart should be encouraged by this. There springs to mind a certain adage which points out that in every walk of life it is the exceptional event, not the commonplace, which attracts the attention of the press. In the case of the NHS it is certainly true that the great majority of cases are successfully treated and completed to the satisfaction of all concerned. Yet, in reality, no one is helped when this fact is obscured by the disproportionate amount of attention given to the, tiny minority of cases where patients are not satisfied with their treatment.
We can all see the result of this unfortunate imbalance in information. Almost invariably individual patients praise the quality of care they receive. They quite rightly refer to the dedication of the doctors and nurses in the wards and they often notice the impressive equipment available. Many feel that they have received
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the finest treatment anywhere in the world. But, owing to the discrepancy between this personal experience and the media reports they see, patients often think that their own experiences are the exception rather than the rule. They are not. For example, studies demonstrate that some nine in 10 people who have used the services of their local GPs recently believe that GPs are performing well. Surveys by, among others, the National Association of Health Authorities and Trusts show that satisfaction with hospital treatment is also high. Although its findings were generally reported in a negative fashion, the recent National Consumer Council survey concluded that, for example, more than eight in 10 of those who had used health services in the previous year felt that sufficient attention was paid to their individual needs.
Unfortunately, the national press rarely report such facts. There seems to be a substantial difference of perception between those who actually use the National Health Service and those who merely talk or write about it.
In specific areas, too, we receive only partial information from the media. Perhaps I may take just two recent examples. First, I declare an interest as deputy chairman of Nuffield Hospitals.
Changes in the field of health care have reduced the need for as many hospital beds. It is widely recognised, and demonstrated by opinion polls, that most people prefer to leave hospital the day they are treated, if that is possible. Advances in medical technology mean that to an increasing extent it is. There has been a 10 per cent. to 15 per cent. movement to day surgery each year across many countries. In addition, other patients may have to spend less time in hospital. I understand that the average stay in hospital is now around four days per patient and reducing. That has led to a long-established trend, supported in theory by both major parties, towards fewer hospital beds, enabling the health service to invest the money in other areas of patient care. It would be encouraging to see such facts mentioned by the media when reporting figures on hospital beds.
The second example concerns the talk in recent months about the numbers of NHS managers. We hear less frequently about the fact that the NHS management accounts for a little over 2 per cent. of the NHS workforce, with less than £3 in every £100 spent on administration. Nor do the reports point out that for every 100 patients treated in hospital in the year before the NHS reforms were introduced hospitals expect to treat 115 this year. Improved management of the health service's £100 million a day budget has contributed to that dramatic improvement in patient care.
As a nation, many now appreciate the need to pay greater attention to the important area of health promotion. GPs across the country, North and South, in inner cities and rural areas, have improved dramatically their immunisation and cancer screening services in recent years. Britain's cancer screening services are now among the finest in Europe and we were the first country to introduce nationwide cancer screening programmes based on computerised call and recall. Those programmes have clearly been of particular benefit to many women in this country.

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Of course, the best way to obtain balanced information on the NHS is to ask the patients themselves. Fortunately, more hospitals are now embarking on that route. Among members of the medical profession, however, there was once perhaps a tendency to accentuate the negative. Doubtless that was in part at least the product of an understandable but misplaced desire to give greater credence to a particular case for enhanced funding for the department concerned. Fortunately, that tendency is diminishing. The devolution of control to the local level under the NHS reforms—and, in particular, the creation of NHS trusts—has created a renewed sense of ownership in our hospitals and has encouraged all staff to feel part of a team. That has helped to change the attitudes of patients and staff alike.
Finally, there are three related areas where further progress should he made in providing information for patients. First, patients themselves need to be given adequate information on the care they are to receive. That forms a vital part of the Government's Patient's Charter initiative.
Secondly, the public as a whole may require better access to information about health services and health care in general. The new health helpline, providing information on the NHS free of charge, has demonstrated by its success the appetite of the public for such information. Many district health authorities are using their new purchasing role to keep their patients better informed and to involve them in a genuine dialogue about priorities for expenditure.
Thirdly, there is a need to ensure that complaints procedures are efficient and effective so that when problems occur they are acknowledged and, if possible, rectified. The charter has encouraged people to be less passive recipients of services and more active in complaining when things go wrong. Provided they are also active in praising when things go right, that is clearly a beneficial development.
In each of those areas the NHS reforms are proving to be a catalyst for change and improvement. The climate of openness in the NHS and of partnership between patient and provider is to be welcomed. But for openness we need balanced information on the NHS. In providing such information we all have a responsibility to play our part.
5.6 p.m.
Lord Butterfield: My Lords, I glance at the clock. I have been fascinated by the presentations which have arisen out of the Motion for debate tabled this afternoon by my former colleague at Guy's Hospital, the noble Lord, Lord McColl. When the noble Lord sat down I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, that he had had a devastating effect on my notes because he referred to the growth of private medicine and the very important general practitioner service which covers us all and which is so envied by those lovely people in America, where the system leaves the equivalent of the British population without access to doctors. I was a medical student in America and I used to stand up for the health service. I was called a rabid Left-wing socialist who believed in socialist medicine. I suppose I
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did. That was socialist in philosophical terms. I shall not declare a particular interest with either the Benches on this side of the House or the Benches opposite, if noble Lords will forgive me.
I was also delighted with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. I remember that when I was a member of the regional board in East Anglia the other regional board members would complain at hospital staff meetings about those dreadful professors and consultants and how they were undisciplined and did not know how much anything cost. A day or two later I would sit with the same professors and consultants and hear them complain bitterly that the regional authorities did not realise where the breakthrough points were and were interfering with the prescribing of new drugs for cancer and so on. I regretted that and did all that I could to improve matters. I used to hold little dinner parties and get the two sides together. They always departed very close friends, but the local press and radio soon showed that they were not such good friends as I thought them to be.
When I considered the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, calling attention to the case for giving the public accurate information I began Ito think about the public rather than patients. Various speakers have drawn attention to the appreciation of patients of what the health service has provided for them. Among my Christmas reading I was very struck, as I am sure all your Lordships were, by a marvellous booklet issued by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office entitled The European Community: Facts and Fairytales. It explains why there has been so much fuss about straight cucumbers and curved cucumbers, home-made jams not being able to be sold at church fêtes, and so on.
I have only one complaint about the document that I should like to pass in writing in due course to the Secretary of State, the right honourable Gentleman Mr. Douglas Hurd. There are no pictures in it. There is a good, jokey picture on the front. It shows men changing the sign outside Scotland Yard from "Scotland Yard" to "Scotland Metre". That is the first point that I wish to make. In giving factual information it is important that the receivers of the information can interpret it. It is one of the issues about which Ian McColl and I used to talk. We used to talk about it with our students. We were always borrowing patients' temperature charts to draw pictures on the back to explain to students what was going on. I am a strong believer in the notion that people who are in the information-providing service should illustrate that information whenever they can.
I run the Health Promotion Research Trust. We have put out over half a million pamphlets. About 70 per cent. of those have pictures. Some are funny and some are accurate interpretations of foods, drinks and so on. We have been interested to find that the public uptake of the pamphlets that have illustrations is far higher than for those with just turgid prose. We are also fascinated to note that, where we have illustrated the messages that we have sought to get across, the press—I hope your Lordships will forgive my saying it—have been much

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better in appreciating what we sought to convey. Words get into a muddle in those computers we call brains. Pictures often tell the story that we wish to get across.
Figures, pictures, graphs and tables can be helpful in getting across complex concepts. For example, I have seen wonderful graphs of the increasing expenditure which has come under what is now the Department of Health. But we have to remember that those increases in expenditure cover not only increases in the drugs bill, which has remained a steady 10 per cent. of whatever the total might be—which is not surprising because more complicated drugs have been required for the more complicated conditions that we can now treat—but we have also seen a reasonable increase in salaries for the people who work in the health service. A great proportion of the people working in the health service are nurses and nurses aides. I can remember, as I am sure can the noble Lord, Lord McColl, the shame we felt when we heard how much our staff nurses made compared with maintenance engineers in hospitals. Now, thank goodness, a great proportion of the nurses are seen coming to work in Mini Minors, perhaps with old registration numbers—but they are better off. That has been a great glory of the health service: it has retained a great deal of the loyalty to the service.
However, it has to be explained to people that what is thought to be a massive increase in injection of funds is in fact much absorbed by salary increases and so on. I scribbled some notes on the rises. Seventy per cent. of those in the NHS used to be salaried; the figure is now 82 per cent. The amount of money going into salaries has risen by 15 per cent. If one considers the volume of work done by the NHS for money, one finds that between 1971 and 1991 the actual purchasable volume of work has increased by only 40 per cent. If one looks at expenditure one sees rises of 200 or 300 per cent. However, that figure has been taken up with all kinds of inevitable discounts.
In our work we have found it immensely helpful to use figures in comparative data. I am very bad on pie charts; I do not find them much use. However, I find vertical and horizontal columns of information helpful. The proportion of the NHS expenditure as a percentage of the gross domestic product in 1973 was 4.6 per cent. In 1993 it was 6.5 per cent. That is a 41 per cent. increase in the proportion of GDP, which is very close to the increase in the volume of 40 per cent.
There is no easy way to inflate the amount of work that one can have in the health service. It is a salaried service and inevitably has a high salary bill. But in addition to the 6.5 per cent. there has been a marked growth in private medicine. That has caused concern about such matters as double standards, and so on. When I was last in Guy's I went on to the private ward. I was intrigued to find that the first patient I came across" was a policeman; in a nearby room was a docker. They both had cover with BUPA. Therefore, we have to be careful before we are too critical.
Figures and graphs are helpful in explaining such complex problems as waiting lists. The noble Lord, Lord McColl, referred to the way in which people always say that the health service is disintegrating and
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the number of beds falling. If one considers graphs of the number of beds in the health service over the past 30 years it looks like the beginning of a waterfall. That is because living standards are improving and a patient does not want to lie in a hospital bed if he can go home and enjoy his wife's cooking.
I have ascertained most of the figures in my remarks from a Compendium of Health Statistics. It refers to the Office of Health Economics. The compendium is researched and written by an economist called Robert Chew. I should like noble Lords to know that I have ascertained that there is a copy of this compendium in the research room of your Lordships' Library. The compendium includes much of the information for which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, asked about trusts. It shows the figures and facts for the whole country. I believe that that is the kind of information that persons such as myself and the noble Lord, Lord McColl, have to convey. There is an enormous amount of statistical information and, oh dear, why can we not get many of the people who are misinforming the public to see how serious their misinformation is by looking at general national statistics?
5.18 p.m.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, for bringing this interesting debate before us. I have been asked by the Consumers' Association to raise some points which it finds of particular interest with regard to the health service. One relates to the lack of patient involvement in the GP decision-making process about which hospital the patient should go to and which treatment should be considered. The Consumers' Association research shows that many people would like to have more information on that.
The association refers to another point—I shall go into it in more detail later; I have my views on it too—on failure of communications and how many complaints arise simply because of that. It is not because the patient has a real grievance; he simply wants more information.
Mistakes are made in medicine. Very sadly, we often hear about them afterwards only because they become apparent later. I refer to the recent radiotherapy doses which were wrongly calculated many years ago; the patients are suffering now. There is, too, the long-term assessment of how many more endothelioma cancers will arise due to asbestos. It is all very well taking preventive action now, but people were never aware of the risk and nothing therefore was done in advance.
It is natural for the public to find it fascinating reading such matters and that is why we tend to read the alarming stories about the health service. All the time in life we uncover facts that we did not know before. There is a case for publication eventually—and I do not believe that we have reached that point yet—of league tables of results of treatment at different hospitals. In the London context, when we discuss whether to keep this or that hospital, many patients would be happy to go to one of the two hospitals if they knew it gave a greater prospect of living a longer and healthier life afterwards. Many who feel a great personal attachment to a local

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hospital would perhaps view it differently if they knew that there might be a different outcome afterwards. That is where league tables would be good, but it may be some time before they are suitable. For example, if someone has a road accident, they are much better off going to a major trauma centre than just going into the local cottage hospital when they will probably have to be moved on afterwards. All those are areas in which the public would like to be better informed about the choices available so that they may think about them.
As a dentist, I am only an offshoot of medicine but in medicine we must always be aware that patients do not understand jargon. Every profession, trade or business has its own jargon; we all use initials and words that mean nothing to people. We must be sure that whatever information we provide is in a form which people can understand. In his speech the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, commented on the various areas of social problems which have difficulties.
I am a member of the North-East Thames Regional Health Authority, and we have areas of high ethnic communities. Those areas have different health problems from other parts of our region and there is a need for information to be in languages that local people will understand. Research has shown that the information should not be in all languages, but it should be in the major languages used by the community.
Earlier this afternoon I spoke to my noble friend Lady Flather on that subject. I had never thought of it and I was grateful to her for raising the point. She said that it was important for leaflets to be in the local language and in English. She said that some people only knew certain words in English and not in their own language. but for others it was the reverse. In addition, people are learning the language and improving their English if they have the texts side by side. I know that in European meetings often we want to see the original just to see how good the translation was. The same applies to other languages, and that is an important point.
Information must be simple. As a dentist, I found that patients understood certain things I said but with other instructions they had no idea what I was talking about. One man had rather bad after-effects from an operation and I put him onto antibiotics. His wife came round two days later and said: "I've come because he is not well enough to come". I asked whether the tablets I had given him were helping and she said "Oh no, he hasn't taken any of those". I asked why not and she said: "The instructions said 'take after food' and he hasn't felt like eating". That was a simple point, yet it prevented the man's treatment having any effect. He had put the tablets on the shelf until he felt like eating. After that I reached the point where I was careful to tell everyone: "Whether you eat or not, still take the tablets". That is important.
Other tablets in the dental sphere are good in terms of prevention and we may tell people to take half a tablet, but many patients think: "If half a tablet is good, a whole tablet will be better". Of course, a whole tablet would be hopeless and possibly even dangerous. So it is important to explain matters fully and accurately to patients.
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The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, said that people should take as much responsibility as they could for their own treatment. He was speaking about mental health cases, but the Consumers' Association makes the point in more general terms. Patients expect a prescription and they almost feel cheated if we do not give them one. I should like to see the day come when patients will question: "Do I need a prescription? Do I need a tablet? Could I do without them?" That is when we shall see an improvement and a sign of success in preventive treatment.
The opening of meetings to the public was raised. Our regional health authority meetings are open to the public and we even move them from the morning to the evening to enable more of the public to attend. I believe that public attendance is between two and six people. One person is always there, at every meeting. Usually there are two, unless there is an item of particular interest, when there may be a whole busload of people from a particular hospital. We deal with the region and I have spoken to chairmen of trusts who have told me that they are quite willing to open their meetings to the public but when they do, no one attends. They said that they were waiting for the public to ask for meetings to be open to them and then they would be. I can speak only for some authorities; I cannot make a general statement for all.
There is a need for research in order to provide accurate information. In North-East Thames, we are fortunate in having a general practitioner professor who is assessing the needs of patients in our region and the application of particular research to general practice. That is valuable. In London, there is a need for a major culture change in that people tend just to go to casualty rather than to their GP. I know that I am the same, there is no difference.
A most important feature of life is the counselling service. Recently a dentist died of AIDS, and the FHSA in, I believe, the North-West Thames region spent the whole weekend available on a helpline. On the first day 100 patients phoned in expressing great anxiety, and the calls continued for many days afterwards. People need the opportunity to obtain advice and assistance from those who can answer their questions calmly, quietly and in a way that is personal to patients' needs.
People want more information, but they want it at the time of need and not in the abstract. The volume of attendance at public meetings of health authorities shows the degree of interest people have in the abstract. There are a few dedicated souls. However, the moment it comes to a point where you or your loved ones, or even a friend, requires treatment, the health service is expected to be there ready to provide the necessary treatment adequately and well. Again, I am the same, I should expect that.
It is most important that one should know immediately where to go for the relevant information. That must surely be the first priority to the GP or to the community health council. Those councils do a good job of acting as advocates and sources of information. In North-East Thames, which is unique in London and possibly in the country, all CHCs have computer databases which are regularly updated each month by

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the regional health information service. Thus, each CHC in the region has access to all the information that others have. One could go to Hampstead and find out what services are available to one's mother in Southend, and that is good.
The Patient's Charter has now been extended. We know all about that, so I shall not go into it. One of the most common criticisms made recently was that waiting times in outpatient departments were due to the late arrival of consultants, so the consultants have something to look at there. However, the practice charter for general practice is still on a voluntary basis and it varies very much from weighty tomes to just a chart on the wall of the doctor's surgery. At least every GP has to have a practice leaflet which gives valuable information. Like all dental practitioners I was horrified to see that there was a leaflet on how to complain. I am pleased that it has now become more constructive and the usual form is for comments, complaints or compliments, and that is a positive and good way of looking at the problem.
Returning to the comment of the Consumers' Association, it says that the first improvement is better communication. Most people who have made a complaint are really attempting to get information or an explanation and therefore it is good to have more as well as accurate information.
5.30 p.m.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord McColl, for introducing this subject. When I read the terms of the Motion I thought that we were to discuss information services in the National Health Service. We have listened to many wonderful speeches eulogising the work of the NHS, with which I agree, or condemning other things that it does, with which I sometimes also agree. We are really here to talk about whether adequate information to the general public exists—at least, that is what I thought we were to discuss.
I agree with the noble Lords, Lord McColl and Lord Jenkin, that it is deplorable that so many scare stories can appear in newspapers, both local and national, which quite frequently turn out to have no truth behind them, or are based on misinformation. If we deplore that, we must look at the reason behind it and why it is that people believe what they read, knowing, many of them, that the service provided by the NHS has stood them in very good stead.
It is also interesting that the recent Audit Commission report What seems to be the matter shows that problems in communication within the NHS usually come at the top of the list of patients' concerns. An analysis of the complaints received by the ombudsman shows that the most common complaints relate to poor communication and lack of information. So there must be something wrong with what we are providing.
To be effective, communication must become more than a mechanical process. Effective communication must reflect a common purpose and integrate the common goals of the service. That requires much
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thought. It also necessitates an understanding that communication is a two-way system which includes listening, and observing and understanding the other point of view.
Much has been said, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, about public access to information being one of the victims of the Government's health reforms. Like the noble Lord, I too am concerned about the openness of the NHS trusts. After all, they are required only to hold one public meeting a year. I appreciate, from the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and indeed I know, that all trusts do not hold to just one statutory meeting. They communicate with their local community in quite a different way. But there are many that do not do so, and that gives rise to the feeling that we do not have enough communication with people in the community.
The health authorities get upset when the public do not appear to understand the reason for a hospital closure because the right information has not permeated through to the community. They become defensive about their decision. That is not good for communication and for creating support for the changes in the NHS. I believe that much more thorough attempts must be made to involve the public, patients and carers in dialogue and partnership in the running of the services—which in one sense they owe. That can only be done by providing better quality information.
I am disturbed that under the new reorganised system there is less communication with community health councils and local self-help groups than there was in the past. In the days when I was a regional chairman—the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, will remember this—we had cumbersome, almost unworkable, authorities which were very difficult to run. On the other hand, on those authorities were representatives of almost every interest within the community. I do not say that we should go back to those cumbersome boards, but we should make certain that those same interest groups can have an input into the decision making.
I have a further suggestion which might help particularly the general practitioners. There is without doubt a feeling in some quarters that fund-holding GPs will be cheeseparing about what tests they are prepared to pay for. That view is probably completely wrong, but such ideas exist in the minds of many people. I do not see why the general practitioners should not have one annual general meeting a year with their patients to explain their attitude, their programme and their plans. That would not be too much to ask, and it would be terribly helpful for putting across their ideas. Given the right information, people will support the decisions that are taken. People are not stupid, but they need more information than they have been given in the past.
The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, referred to Written Answers to MPs. On each of 57 occasions the information requested was not available centrally. I approve of disseminating the decision-making process as closely as possible to the community. But that does not absolve the department from keeping statistics which can be given as information to MPs. When in

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desperation most members of the community will turn to their MP to try to find out what the real answer is. That information should be available.
I welcome and look forward to the completion of an experiment which I hope the noble Baroness the Minister will tell me will be allowed to continue. There are two pilot schemes running at the moment, one at Brighton Healthcare Trust and the other at Frenchay Healthcare Trust, where a special new post has been created for a "patients' representative". I believe it to be a genuine step forward in helping to communicate with the community and the patients that attend the hospitals.
That patients' representative will have responsibility for providing detailed information of the health services available. He or she must ensure that clear explanations are given of treatments proposed, including risks and any alternatives, before patients agree to treatment. He or she also has the responsibility of liaising with local community groups and building good relationships. There are a number of strengths to the appointment of a patients' representative. I can talk to a GP and am not so over-awed by his expertise that I am not prepared to say what I think. But this country is full of people who stand in such awe of the medical profession that they dare not ask a question. The appointment of a patients' representative who is not involved in the care of the patient could go a long way toward helping patients feel more relaxed about asking the questions that they want answered. It is important that such a person should have direct access to the chief executive and the chairman of the trust or the district authority. This experiment is in its first year and has a second year to run. I hope that it will be successful and that we see many more such appointments around the country.
5.40 p.m.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I should like to offer my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, for introducing the debate this afternoon. I echo the words of my noble friends Lord Ennals and Lord Bruce of Donington, who were surprised that he presented the facts which he wanted to relay in what I can only describe as a somewhat partisan fashion.
Of course there is a need for greater information for the public in the health service. More information is needed about the health service for people who use it as well as those who work in it. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, who has just spoken, I expected that this afternoon we would discuss the questions of whose responsibility it was to give that information to the public, how that information could most usefully and sensibly be facilitated and to where members of the public could go for the kind of simple and accurate information that everyone desires. Several speakers this afternoon mentioned the responsibilities of local authorities within the health service. The availability of information and the openness of meetings of trusts were also discussed.
I agree with those who feel that it is inadequate for meetings of trusts to be held on an open basis only once a year. My experience of local health authorities is rather different from that of the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner. The local health authority on which I sit has to
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limit on the basis of the size of the room the numbers of people—members of the public—who can attend. Certainly local participation has never been lacking. I see no reason whatever for not making trusts as open as those district health authorities which have established a regime of open communication with their local people on the same basis.
One matter that has not been spoken of this afternoon is the availability and accessibility of staff within the health service to provide the public with accurate information. I have raised before in your Lordships' House the notorious so-called "gagging clauses" for some local health trust members. Indeed, questions were asked last summer about whether or not some rather inappropriate advice given by the Department of Health to local health authorities in fact challenged the constitutional rights of members of staff of local health authorities to do what is called colloquially "whistle blow". I understand from the reply given to me by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, earlier this year that that advice has now been rescinded.
However, there is a sense in which there is now a culture of secrecy within the health service in terms of both the staff and trust meetings being held in private. As has also been mentioned this afternoon, there is the issue of commercial secrecy. That is a phenomenon which I find distasteful; namely, that it is regarded as uncompetitive for local trusts to reveal particular facts and figures about their own health care because of perhaps losing a commercial advantage.
But it is in Parliament—again this point was raised in the debate—where we look for responsible, accurate information about the health service. The unavailability of statistics and the lack of centrally held data were referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, and mentioned also by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals. That is absolutely extraordinary. We have a National Health Service which is publicly financed and nationally accountable. Surely Ministers must take responsibility and have the ability to answer questions relating to all parts of the country.
It is there that the root of the problem about obtaining accurate information lies. I believe that my noble friend Lord Judd (who is not present this afternoon but has given me permission to raise this matter) is usually regarded by your Lordships as an amiable person. He wrote a very angry open letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, during the Recess just before Christmas. He released it to the Oxfordshire media because he was so frustrated by the nature of her reply, abrogating responsibility for knowledge about what was happening in Oxfordshire. That letter ended by stating that her reply:
"made him tremble not only for the NHS but for the quality of democracy in this country".
Frankly, I do not believe that he exaggerated. It is not surprising—no doubt the noble Lord, Lord McColl, will call what I say sloganising—that confidence in the Government on health matters has dropped to the extraordinarily low figure of 13 per cent.
However, this afternoon we have been given a golden opportunity. The noble Lord, Lord McColl, invited us to consider the issue of accurate information and to search

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for it. There seems to be no easy way to achieve that, particularly as I suppose I could qualify for both groups of people who came in for particular criticism for propaganda by the noble Lord, Lord McColl. I qualify as a politician and as a journalist, at least manquée.
Perhaps I could just adopt the attitude or position of a user of the health service and ask some of the questions which the noble Baroness, as the Minister responsible for a national service, will, I hope, be able to answer. They are on the kinds of matters about which the public are seeking accurate information. First, I am registered with a local general practitioner who is not a fund-holder. But my current anxiety is whether I should try to move to a fund-holder practice in order to obtain a more privileged, fast-track service if I need hospital treatment. What would the Minister advise?
Strictures have been laid on us by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, to the effect that we should not ask questions which include opinions, at least not personal opinions. Therefore, I shall quote from a survey carried out last month by the BMA. It showed that 42 per cent. of hospitals give preference to patients who are referred by fund-holding practices. That is an already developed practice. It is bound to go further as more GP fund-holders come forward and are encouraged by the Government to adopt the system. I do not feel that it is inaccurate or in any way propaganda to describe the result as a two-tier system which undermines the basic NHS principles of equality of access and treatment on the basis of need. That information has been published. It should be better known. It is not a piece of propaganda to ask, as an individual user of the health service, what is the situation about GP fund-holders.
My next question as a patient and member of the public, whether or not I am registered with a GP fund-holder, is: will I have to wait a miserably long time for a hospital appointment or treatment? Again, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, spoke of the irrelevance of waiting lists. But to many people—particularly the frail and the elderly, whom he described so vividly as being the victims of propaganda —it is not an irrelevance when they are waiting, often in pain and in considerable difficulties, to have treatment.
It is true, whatever noble Lords opposite may say, that waiting lists have increased by 100,000 people in the last 18 months and have now reached a record figure of over 1 million. The number of people waiting for treatment for over a year rose by a quarter in the first six months of the financial year since April 1993.
All those "waiters" are individuals. They are "real people". They are members of the public and each one is a person who is separately counted. But counting people is no longer the way in which the Government calculate their figures for the so-called outstanding performance within the reformed National Health' Service.
We are constantly told—it is not propaganda; I am quoting Ministers—by Ministers (and it seems to be the standard first sentence of any reply given to any question about the NHS) that more people are being treated than ever before. But their figures are based on counting so-called "completed episodes of consultant
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care". They are not based on counting people. For the past three years patients have not been counted as they were in the past when they were discharged from hospital but each time they pass through any one part of treatment within a hospital stay. In some hospitals that may mean that a patient is counted each time he moves to receive one type of specialist care, if he moves from one ward to another and even if he returns to a different bed after an operation. Each is a different "activity", an episode of care, recorded in the statistics. No wonder levels seem to be rising. But is it not dishonest not to make it clear to the public that "increased activity" does not mean that more individual patients are receiving the treatment that they need more quickly? Sir Duncan Nichol, chief executive of the NHS, said that counting hospital activity was a crude and one-dimensional way of measuring the performance of the NHS. That is the type of accurate information which the public needs.
I return to my odyssey. I am not going to my GP, I am not seeking to visit the outpatient clinic and I am not seeking elective surgery. Let us suppose that I am knocked down in a road accident, or have acute appendicitis, or need any other kind of emergency hospital care. In those circumstances I expect the extraordinary casualty and accident services of the NHS to be at their superb best. But even in that respect, as a member of the public, I am beginning to be doubtful and concerned. Again, the Government apparently cannot tell me how many A&E departments there are in NHS hospitals because, according to an Answer in Hansard on 1st December, the information is not collected in that form.
But local research is alarming and suggests that one in five A&E units closed during the past year. An independent authority, the Royal College of Nursing, reported this week that in one-third of the A&E departments that are still open patients face overnight waits in the casualty department because of the bed shortages in wards. It states that in London that figure rises to nearly one-half. The Royal College of Nursing states that its staff have difficulty providing proper care in those circumstances; there are mattresses on the floor, patients are left on trolleys and the patients have little privacy. That is more information that the public are entitled to know.
The question of league tables was raised. I do not believe that there are major difficulties about some of the questions on the limited sets of data which hospitals have been asked to give, and which will be given from this summer. But of course they do not include the quality of service, which is difficult to measure. We should not be too bemused by the notion of league tables or assume that they will be the answer to every requirement for public information. The other questions about surgical performance and mortality also seem to ignore some of the basic problems, as is the case in schools. Often bad school exam league tables partly reflect the socio-economic composition of the population in the area. I suspect that that is bound to be true in hospitals. Of course, they do not deal with the important factor that where centres of excellence take on difficult cases the levels of mortality will be higher.

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In conclusion, I accept the terms of the Motion that the public has a right to know and a right to have accurate information. I also accept that the primary responsibility for this must lie with the bodies which organise and manage the health services. My assertion is that the new systems and reforms make that more difficult. In particular they make it more difficult because through the new systems the Government have succeeded in abrogating responsibility for the kind of information which the public must have. There must be ministerial responsibility for what, after all, is still a public service funded by public money.
5.54 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, there could be no more fitting person to initiate this debate in your Lordships' House than my noble friend Lord McColl. He is a surgeon of great distinction who has been the Chairman of the Department of Surgery of the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St. Thomas' hospitals since 1988 and has had a great influence on the NHS both through his academic work and his clinical practice. During the course of this debate, with other members of your Lordships' House, he has made a persuasive case for providing more and better information to the public. It is an issue which has a high priority in all public services and one in which the Government are determined to make continuing progress.
The publication of the Citizen's Charter marked the beginning of the end of the "one size, fits all" public service. The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, in his thoughtful speech, rightly said that the NHS reforms, the Patient's Charter and a range of other initiatives which the Government introduced have begun to instil into the culture of the NHS principles of choice, quality and above all openness. I thank the noble Lord for his congratulations.
I consider the NHS to be the epitome of all that is best in Britain today. It embraces the ethics that we value the most: loving your neighbour; to each according to his needs. They are principles of very different antecedents, but combined they are the most powerful force for good.
Good things are precious. At a time when the country is debating what is right and what is wrong the Government believe that people of all parties can agree that the underlying ethic of the NHS is superb and a catalyst which unites us all. But if for political gain or out of sheer cussedness we denigrate the service to the point where people lose faith in it, we will destroy the NHS.
My noble friends Lord McColl and Lady Seccombe are right to say that people who have just had successful treatment are grateful but then continue to believe that they are the exception and that no one else can have the' same good treatment. This is, of course, untrue, but a cause for concern because ultimately when people lose confidence in the service they may then unwittingly destroy what they love the most.
To meet people's aspirations the NHS has to change. But change is difficult to bring about, especially in an organisation which has a near monopoly. Without
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competition there are few incentives to encourage responsive attitudes to patients. Through the reforms and the internal market the Government are actively promoting competition and a policy of patient participation. We want people to influence the service and to make decisions as to the type of health care that they want.
We have published a strategy to achieve this entitled Local Voices. Today my right honourable friend the Minister of Health, Dr. Brian Mawhinney, has written to purchasers, health authorities, asking them for details of the progress that they have made in carrying out this strategy and the efforts that they have made to involve community health councils, voluntary organisations, GPs, interest groups and members of the public in influencing contracts and purchasing plans.
The Government are aware that the public cannot make a valid contribution without good information. We would open these efforts to ridicule if the public had to fall back onto anecdote or sentiment when the provision of health care is so complex and changing at great speed. The Government are also conscious that people are content with the notion that "the doctor knows best". There is no intention to undermine the faith that people have in the medical profession, but there is every good reason why people should be concerned with the quality and quantity of the provision made and to be realistic about the total budget that can be allocated to the NHS.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, raised the question of management costs. We share his view that the NHS should not be ashamed of its investment in better management. That view was also shared by my noble friend Lady Seccombe. The noble Lord asked how the information could be made available. It is available largely through the annual reports and the financial statements that are produced by the trusts. These documents are available for public scrutiny.
The noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, rehearsed the debate on the Wessex computer systems. I would be concerned had the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, been unable to raise the issue because he was unaware of it and that it had been kept secret. But it was a topic of public knowledge long before the Public Accounts Committee report was published. In fact, we welcome that report. The noble Lord will know that the chief executive of the regional health authority has taken extensive action and prior to the report he called in the auditors and stopped the project.
The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, was also concerned that hospital accounts would not be published or would at best be skimpy. But, as I said in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, there is a requirement to publish those accounts. Both the National Audit Office and the Audit Commission keep a close, independent watch on financial probity and value-for-money.
I am sure that my noble friend Lady Gardner will be pleased to know that next June we shall be publishing the first set of NHS authoritative and comparative league tables. These will be discussed and verified with the service prior to publication, to avoid the repetition of—I believe the word used by my noble friend Lord Jenkin, was—a "cock-up". They will cover six areas,

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five of which are contained in the Patient's Charter. First, immediate assessment in the accident and emergency departments; secondly, a waiting period of less than 30 minutes in out-patient clinics; thirdly, the cancelled operation standard; fourthly, the emergency ambulance response times; fifthly, waiting times for admission for treatment and, lastly, the proportion of day surgery performed and certain procedures.
This will be vital information for the public, for the Consumers' Association and for other voluntary bodies, for management and for the Government to use, but more importantly, it will inform purchasers. They are charged with commissioning the best services for their populations and, informed by Patient's Charter standards, they will be able to place contracts with greater certainty. As my noble friend Lady Gardner so rightly said, hospitals do vary in their performance and it is right that this information is widely available.
Bacon's adage that "knowledge itself is power" has been adopted as a major theme for the department's activities in supplying information. Like the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and my noble friend Lady Seccombe, we have welcomed initiatives taken at local level to inform people about their clinical care. I am sure that the Consumers' Association mentioned by my noble friend Lady Gardner, will be pleased to know that it is our policy to involve patients in their treatment and for clinicians to discuss with them the alternatives of different forms of treatments with their differing outcomes. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, that it is particularly true of mental illness where medication may not only improve a person's condition but also worsen it.
Looking to acute services, many clinicians are tackling this issue with imagination. Some provide leaflets and information sheets to patients. I know, for example, that St. George's Healthcare Trust has provided cancer patients with personalised information guides; others are using audio tapes and interactive videos to encourage patients to be active partners in their care.
There is, however, a lack of reliable research-based information on many of the services which we provide. By that I mean information which is drawn from systematic reviews of well conducted research. We have been addressing this need and have commissioned a series of effective healthcare bulletins. We have supported the setting up of the Cochrane Collaboration at Oxford which collects validated research worldwide in key areas such as pregnancy and childbirth, and makes it available to the public. We have supported the new central clearing house in Leeds which provides a comprehensive source of information on outcomes and the effectiveness of different treatments.
Although much of this information is aimed at purchasers, we have ensured that patients also have access to it. For example, we have made the effectiveness bulletins available to the public. We are reviewing them to make quite sure that they are easy to read and in layman's language. We are increasing the range of topics which they cover.
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A new unit is being set up at the University of York to increase the research information available to the NHS on effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of health-care interventions. Through the unit information will be spread to professionals, users and user groups. Information officers at the unit will help the public who wish to use that service.
We are also working on a national register of research. We have launched an initiative to make better use of research-based evidence about clinical effectiveness.
In the new era of openness in public services, the Government strongly believe that people are entitled to good quality information about their health, about services and also about how the NHS is performing. Spending increasingly large sums of taxpayers' money brings with it increased accountability and a heightened need to explain, to communicate and to justify. But I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, that there is less information. My experience, as a previous old-style DHA chairman, was that although in the 1980s we had open meetings, we had very little other contact with the public. I listened to what my noble friend Lord Jenkin said about the trust and the way in which he is involving the public in its activities.
That is not unique. Now health authorities and trusts are producing newspapers; they are using local radio; holding public meetings and forming interest groups. They are working with voluntary organisations and individuals as never before. I can reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, that things really are improving. It is no longer good enough simply to give information or to ask questions about hospital catering or waiting times. The public are being asked much more about profound issues such as the setving of priorities. That means talking a new language about the health service and not just about beds, manpower numbers and percentage real-term growth in spending. It is about quality, effectiveness and better health. We have no doubt that these issues will become more difficult and more pressing as the capacity of modern medicine increases. The answers are not abstract ones about resource allocation formulae. They are based on a shared understanding of what health services can achieve involving patients, health professionals, managers, politicians and the media.
There are other important reasons for giving the public accurate information. On occasion there is the need, as my noble friend Lord McColl illustrated, to set the record straight and by doing so to recognise the very real achievements of NHS staff at all levels in the service. I agree with a number of your Lordships that there are also very important issues surrounding the answering of parliamentary questions. But I totally refute the suggestion that the Government are reluctant to reply to these questions. In the 18 months prior to December the department received 6,500 parliamentary questions, 5.7 per cent. of which it was unable to answer. I believe that that is a tiny percentage, especially when one looks at the obscurity of some of the questions which were asked. It was difficult to define of what value they were.

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A number of your Lordships have mentioned the media; the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, and my noble friend Lord Jenkin in particular. Health is a topic of great interest to the media primarily because it is of interest to the public, but also because there are now only a few state-run industries whose activities are open to government attack. These attacks the Government are robust enough to repel, but governments are ephemeral. One presumes that people's healthcare is for ever.
There is all-party support for the NHS, but attacks on a strong government must not ricochet into the NHS and destroy it.
On the reporting of medicine—in this context I do draw the distinction between medicine and services—the media is usually accurate and well researched. I believe that point was made very effectively by the noble Lord, Lord Butterfield. Apart from some notable exceptions, reporting might only be criticised for raising false hopes. The wonder cure is an easy bait with which to catch the gullible reporter, but peddling the elixir of life has a long history. But medical reporters are usually factual, fair and well qualified.
However, as my noble friend Lord Jenkin illustrated, reporting the health service is quite different. That tends to concentrate on bad news, sometimes with little or no foundation. My noble friend rightly pointed out the pressures on local papers. But in the race to sell more papers it would be folly for them to forget that the NHS employs almost a million people. They nearly all care very deeply and they are all fallible. They are dealing with hurt, sick or anxious people who are sometimes drunk, violent or abusive. Crises may occur in the middle of the night when no one is at their best. But the vast majority of treatments are correctly done and the outcomes are successful. It is only a tiny minority which fail and get a disproportionate amount of media coverage.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, raised the question of management costs and particularly the research and development programme. I know that that was an initiative raised in your Lordships' House. Your Lordships' were very anxious that it should be operational research. That is under way, but it is early days and we have yet to get comprehensive results.
The noble Lord quite rightly paid tribute to general practice and primary healthcare teams. We endorse his view that they are central to the National Health Service. With GP fund holding and our recent initiatives, we are anxious to place them right at the centre of care. We have invested over £40 million in capital schemes in London alone, to enhance their practice. Those schemes are listed in Hansard volume 551, No. 19 at column No. WA8.
My noble friend Lord McColl asked a specific question—
Lord Rea: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for allowing me to intervene. The statistics which she mentioned were given in answer to a Question for Written Answer that I asked her at the end of the previous Session just before Christmas. Is she sure that the capital schemes for inner London which are listed will cope with the problems among the population of
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London that will occur as a result of the diminution in the number of beds which has resulted from the closure or running down of London's hospitals as proposed by the Government's policies? Has enough research of the kind that the noble Baroness mentioned been carried out in order to ascertain that?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I think that we could have a full debate on this issue and I am conscious that I am trying to beat the clock. Those schemes are to go ahead. It is a question of "How long is a piece of string?" When do we know that we have sufficient services to serve all the needs of the population of London? The balance between acute services and primary care is a difficult question and I am happy to go into it on another occasion.
My noble friend Lord McColl particularly asked advice on the disablement services and whether the information that the authority used to produce is now lost to the service. The department publishes a booklet containing the information. It is comparative. I shall ensure that my noble friend receives a copy.
The noble Baroness, Lady Robson, asked me about patients' representatives in Brighton and Frenchay. Perhaps I can agree with the sentiments which she expressed that they are extremely valuable. We are funding a study to ensure that that valuation is based on a scientific basis. Subject to that, we shall see whether the scheme should be more widely introduced.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jay, raised the issue again of the two-tier system concerning GP fund-holding—or the allegation that it was a two-tier system. The purpose of fund-holding is to drive up standards of care. Our aim is to level up to the standards of the best, not to level down. There are numerous examples where the advantages gained by GP fund-holders are shared by the patients of non-fund-holders. Indeed, the opposite has happened where DHA purchasers have now achieved a quality which the GP fund-holders then share. Again, I think that that is a subject for another day.
In conclusion, to inform the people is to be open; to be open is to be honest and the Government are increasingly instilling a culture of openness throughout the NHS. The health service belongs to the people and armed with information they can both have the best chance to stay healthy and the knowledge to control their own treatment and make an effective contribution in organising their NHS.
We are determined that the NHS should succeed; but success depends on public support. Support is generated through a well informed public. The fact that millions of people work or contribute voluntarily to the service is good evidence that they are committed to the service and this Government are their staunchest supporter.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, before the Minister sits down—
Noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I think that I am in order. Before the Minister sits down, will she deal with the question that I raised on which she has not

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passed any observation, and with the challenge which I renew about the whole question of political patronage in the health service?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I think that I have only to look across the Chamber to see a member of the Opposition Front Bench who is a member of a health authority and takes an active part in the National Health Service. She is not alone. Other members of the Labour Party are closely involved.
6.14 p.m.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this fascinating debate. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, does not understand the waiting list problem: 75 per cent. of all people are admitted within three months of being put on a waiting list, so if we gave them all a date for their operation, that would reduce the total number on the waiting list to 0.25 million, which might please her.
I freely admit that I am prejudiced. I am unashamedly prejudiced in favour of the patient, whom I shall continue to defend in a very robust way against the onslaught of the propaganda which denigrates the NHS. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Business
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, for the benefit of noble Lords who were not in the Chamber earlier today, perhaps I may inform your Lordships that the digital clock has broken down. Please will noble Lords keep a wary eye on the clock above the Bar.

Pornography and Violence: Broadcasting
6.15 p.m.
The Earl of Halsbury The Earl of Halsbury rose to call attention to the level of pornography and violence exhibited on television by the BBC and other broadcasting agencies; and to move for Papers.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, in moving the Motion which stands in my name, I should like to thank the many Members of your Lordships' House who have put down their names to speak in this debate and to express my pleasure that the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Lincoln has chosen this debate in which to make his maiden speech. I am sure that I shall listen to it with great pleasure.
The number of working days between the Ballot and this evening have been rather eroded by the holiday, for which reason I asked my old friend Mary Whitehouse to prepare a brief of which I circulated a number of copies to those who had promised to speak and who, in some cases, had already put down their names. On Monday, I placed a copy in the Library so anybody who wants to
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confirm anything that is said can have access to it either during or after this debate. Time has been too short for me to do anything more than that.
I believe that many Members of your Lordships' House will deal with points of detail. For my own part, I shall give your Lordships no more than a tour d'horizon, ranging over what is to be covered in general terms. Dealing with the Motion as drafted, it is not intended primarily to be an attack on the BBC, although one will emerge later. I am much more concerned with what follows under the words "other broadcasting agencies". People have asked me whether that covers the circulation of video nasties, to which I have replied in the affirmative, "broadcasting" in the Motion having a lower case initial letter. In the dictionary, its primary meaning is given as "to disseminate, to scatter". Therefore, by whatever medium pornography or violence is disseminated or scattered, I believe that reference to it is in order under the terms of reference of the debate.
Man, in a state of nature, untaught, undisciplined has two characteristics which in principle debar him from ever becoming civilised: violence and sexual promiscuity. But man is capable of learning and of spontaneous insights which he can adopt before he fully comprehends them. By curbing sexual promiscuity, we can provide nuclear families capable of curbing our children's violence in the home at the hands of parents dedicated to their children's future. Children's violence? Oh yes, have not your Lordships seen a child in a temper, breaking and destroying some of its toys, pulling pussy cat's tail and screaming hate at other children in the school playground? Perhaps some of your Lordships have been bullied. I was—until I discovered that if I gave a bully a black eye, the bullying ceased. That was more violence—mea maxima culpa.
The nuclear family and its indoctrination of children into pacific behaviour, good manners and tolerance are civilisation's only defence against collapse. Children cannot learn the three R's at school until the home has prepared them for obedience and attention to teachers. Learning at school and learning in the home must pull together in partnership. One will, of course, yield primacy to the other as the years draw on, but it must begin in the home.
The nuclear family implies an embargo on sexual promiscuity. This is in some sense a sacrifice and although something fewer than 100 per cent. are prepared to make it, a sufficient number are so disposed as to stabilise the system. If one-third of marriages break down, two-thirds of marriages survive. We may be at a bifurcation point where one regime could pass over to another. Your Lordships should have no illusions as to where we would find ourselves if civilisation were to collapse in general. The media ignore that possibility because, short term, there is money in so doing.
Let me refer now to bad language and its association with what I have said. I shall begin with the old Anglo-Norse term "flyting", which has nothing to do with the flight of birds or aeroplanes. Flyting was a slanging match between champions upon an occasion of challenge and response. It is very old. It was commented upon by the Venerable Bede. It was still an

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understandable term in Chaucer's day. It falls under the general heading of what animal ethologists call "epideictic" behaviour; that is, showing off—the substitution of mock combat for real combat. The effect of that from the evolutionary point of view is rather spectacular, because in the case of a fight to the death, although the vanquished may be dead upon the spot, the victor may survive sufficiently damaged as to be not so good a parent for a future generation. Therefore the substitution of mock combat for real combat has evolutionary survival value. I brought in flyting to illustrate that term.
Swearing is like flyting. It is better to utter a forbidden word than to do a forbidden thing. I imagine a situation in which a Member of your Lordships' House has a problem to solve. He wants to hang a picture. In his left hand there is a nail. In his right hand there is a hammer. Bang, he goes, and then, "Oh!" He has hit his noble thumb instead of the nail and under those circumstances he may relieve his feelings by uttering a forbidden word rather than by losing his temper and throwing the hammer out of the window where it will break the glass and possibly land on the head of some innocent passer-by.
How do we choose words for embargo? We choose them from the vocabulary of forbidden subjects, usually sex, excretion or blasphemy. We always have a duplex vocabulary, part of which is clinical and can be used for serious discussion, and part of which is a four-letter word used for purposes of prophylactic exercise against the temptation to violence. But if those forbidden words are used too often, they lose their effectiveness; they lose their connection with their original meaning; and finally have to be substituted with others. I shall give your Lordships an instance in French. The Latin for "sexual intercourse" is "future". That goes into French as "foutre". But it may mean almost anything. It can mean, "I couldn't care less". It can mean, "Shut up". It can mean, "Buzz off". It can mean that something is broken beyond repair. I do not need to go into the French language. Those are the English translations of what the word can mean.
Although the word has ceased to mean anything to do with sexual intercourse there still remains a flavour of the forbidden about such French terms. They were not in general use on the stage in Paris when I was young. I cannot report progress on them in Paris because I have not been there for a long time, but they are coming into general use in Britain, where I believe their effect is to reduce their capacity for prophylactic exorcism of the temptation to violence.
In the immediate aftermath of my being a governor of the BBC and the arrival of a new programme called "TW3", which used language which was much more permissive than customary, I remember writing to the former governor, Arthur Ford. I said:
"Have you taken leave of your senses? This is a new step further downhill".
On Sunday 2nd January, the BBC put on a two-part programme from a book called A Dark Adapted Eye. The second part was broadcast on Monday evening. It included a scene of one young man buggering another in a toolshed. There was no question about the
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interpretation to be put on what we saw. It was a tergo cum intromissione penis per anum, which I leave in Latin for the sake of parliamentary decorum.
A married woman of 50 (my daughter) the mother of two, with her daughter (my granddaughter) were viewing it. She told me that she was disgusted by what she saw. It was totally unexpected. We remembered receiving no warning. It was unnecessary to tell the story. Why, in heaven's name, should the BBC be free to import that contamination into an unsuspecting household? The 9 p.m. watershed is a totally bogus alibi—the pornographer's secret weapon by which corruption can be facilitated. Children, during Christmas, New Year and school holidays, do not go to bed at nine o'clock.
I come, lastly, to the challenge that this debate presents to the legal profession. I am no lawyer. My competence in drafting a parliamentary statute to punish those who offend is negligible. But there are noble Lords who are members of the legal profession. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, with whom I have discussed this subject previously, is in his place. My noble and learned friend Lord Ackner will speak in the debate. I hope that learned lawyers will get together to produce a draft Bill, which can be a Private Member's Bill in due course and which will have the effect of punishing those who offend against it.
The present Obscene Publications Act is unsatisfactory, dealing as it does with a tendency to corrupt and deprave members of the jury. How can one have evidence of tendencies? Who is ever so corrupted by reading something once, under instruction to do so because he is a juror? A juror will ask himself, "Do I feel corrupted?" His answer of course will be, "No". Yet some solution to the problem must be found so that civilisation does not deteriorate. I can only hope that the legal profession will go to it with a will and give us a viable statute. I beg to move for Papers.
6.27 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I am sure that it is the wish of all noble Lords that I thank the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, for initiating the debate, and congratulate him on the admirable and penetrating way in which he did so.
In this country there is now more violent crime than ever in this century, and standards of sexual behaviour have been declining for years. The extent to which those trends are influenced by television programmes which are seen in every home is something which should be examined by Parliament and by the Government, without attempting to interfere with the independence and freedom of the broadcasting authorities.
Some broadcasters claim that no firm conclusions can be reached on the vital question of whether their programmes have, or have not, a bad influence, but it would be idle to pretend that they have no influence at all. Some of the programmes produced by all the broadcasting authorities are splendid. There are the educational programmes, music or, at any rate, most of the music programmes, and most of the news programmes, but I must say that with the news programmes there is sometimes a tendency towards

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heresy hunting and witch hunting. However, many of the fictional programmes are deplorable. It is assumed by the broadcasters that the great mass of viewers enjoys fictional programmes in which unpleasant people are being unpleasant to one another. It is assumed also that most viewers are positively thrilled by scenes of violence and that many of them are keen to see the most explicit sex that can daringly be shown. I do not believe that most viewers wish to be entertained in those ways. But if there is a minority of viewers who wish to see such awful programmes, why should producers of programmes pander to their deplorable instincts?
I know that those responsible for TV programmes feel that they must not pander to elitism. Shortly before Christmas Mr. Birt of the BBC said that at a meeting of members who are interested in this matter. It is true that elitism represents only a minority point of view, and therefore broadcasters say that they must ignore that and go only for what the majority wants. However, I am sure that they are not meeting the wishes of the majority when producing programmes which contain violence and pornography on the scale which the noble Earl described. I trust that television producers will take note of what is said in your Lordships' debate this evening.
6.31 p.m.
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, my wife and I were conversing recently in a theatre bar when a strange man in an educated but slurred voice butted in. He began using coarse language. When I asked him to take his obscenities elsewhere, he said, "What do you mean by 'obscenities'? You hear those words on the television every day", and so you do. What we used to call the language of the barrack-room is now frequently voiced on radio and television. In a play it may sometimes be defended as realism, but comedians use it too. You can argue that there is no harm in all that and no sin against the light, only bad taste. That may be so, but I should rather keep it out of my living room.
Forty years in Fleet Street hearing and often employing coarse language make it impossible to claim that I am shocked. I just believe that crude language should be brought less often into our houses.
I did not know what the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, had in mind when he condemned the level of pornography. I merely say that I am tired of seeing sexual intercourse on television. I do not wish to be a voyeur and yet it seems almost to be a necessity for producers to picture the thrusting and panting in any story of love, although it adds nothing to our understanding. For example, it is better for us to imagine what Madame Bovary did technically behind locked doors or how Don Juan dealt with his 1,003 ladies of Spain than to be given a realistic picture.
As regards violence, most of us are of the age when we prefer our crime stories to be sanitised, but if we enjoyed the little grey cells of Hercule Poirot or the shrewd old-maid charm of Miss Marple, that is a concession to us. If we are to continue to have television, we must put up with violence and overt sex too. But whether it depends on licence fees or on advertising, television can survive only by a perpetual
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successful search for a massive audience. I have no doubt that violence and pornography has a bad effect on some viewers; and yet the peak hours will never be filled with material which raises the spirit.
The complaint against television is not against its quality. Each item may be justified. The curse of television is its quantity. Any single programme might be harmless, but a diet of violence has its dangers and a diet of pornography can subvert the tenderness of love. We can never ban those things but I hope that we can press for them to be cut back and toned down to protest, as the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, demands, against its current level.
6.35 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Lincoln: My Lords, few of us can doubt the powerful effect of television on our perceptions and feelings. To deny that would be to fly in the face of the evidence of the effectiveness of television advertising. However, what is disturbing is the way in which television can play havoc with the feelings of the young and the vulnerable.
My wife, who is a GP, tells me from time to time of children brought to her surgery who are troubled by insomnia or some other form of hidden fear. On investigation it is usually the case that the fear stems from scenes of violence on television.
I visited a young offenders' institution early in December in my capacity as bishop to prisons. I was concerned to learn from the chaplain how many young inmates were exposed to screen violence through films and videos on television in their leisure periods. "Child's Play 2", condemned in the Bulger trial in Liverpool, was one of the videos currently being shown. His protests about that had been ignored.
I am well aware that debates of this nature draw in a host of concerns. Briefing Note 44 of June 1993 from the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology draws attention to the effects of screen violence and, more disturbingly, identifies a recent rise in complaints about the level of violence on television. All that surely demonstrates the need for continued watchfulness on the part of the general public and by our public watchdog bodies, especially where children, as we have already heard, now frequently watch television long after the so-called watershed time.
In particular, it seems to me that care needs to be taken in the way in which actual crimes of violence are handled on television, whether in documentaries or in dramatised programmes involving reconstructions. I visited a village school in my diocese early last year and talked to the children. I tried to be at my most engaging. I asked, "What is grey, lives in a tree, eats nuts and has a bushy tail?" A small girl put up her hand and said, "Please sir, I know that the answer should be Jesus but it sounds like a squirrel to me". Bishops have to earn children's respect and hearing as much as anyone else these days, and the innocence of children is extremely precious.
Margo Norman in The Times asked yesterday:
"Can the bishops lead us back to basics?"
She quoted some wise words by the Archbishop of Canterbury, himself no stranger to the depredations of

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the media. He said that the consequence of privatising morality is that we shall stumble about lacking any vision upon which to base the inescapable moral judgments of public policy.
Those are words worth heeding. The level of pornography and violence exhibited on television is a matter of public anxiety and morality. It cannot simply be a matter for private judgment. That is why I am glad to support the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, in drawing our attention to that matter today.
6.39 p.m.
Viscount Tenby: My Lords, it gives me great pleasure on behalf of the House to congratulate the right reverend Prelate on a first-class, entertaining and robust maiden speech, exactly what I should have expected from a Cambridge man. Although green is associated with Lincoln, I assure the right reverend Prelate that there was no sign of that colour in his performance today. We look forward to many more contributions from him in the months to come, in particular on prison affairs on which he possesses such expertise. I am happy to inform the right reverend Prelate that there is to be a debate on that subject in early February and perhaps he will make a note of that on the episcopal sleeve.
I am sure that the House is grateful to my noble friend Lord Halsbury for airing this subject today. No topic is more important, striking as it does at the very heart of civilised society. The fact is that today scenes of an unacceptable sexual and violent nature appear almost daily on one TV channel or another. Indeed, some directors and producers seem to regard the inclusion of at least one explicit scene in every production as an essential part of their macho image. In a phrase they would recognise, it gives them "street cred" among their peers. In recent weeks on television I have seen numerous acts of sexual congress, most of them totally irrelevant to the development of the plot, and, like my noble friend, I saw an explicitly portrayed homosexual act in what was otherwise an excellent production at peak time on New Year's Day.
It is a mistake to regard pornography as only sexual; there is the pornography of violence, too, and in my view the latter is more serious. When they are both present programme makers are indeed trawling the depths. I believe that in this area the greatest danger lies in the video market, which is a subject serious enough to warrant a whole debate to itself at a future date, as I am sure noble Lords will agree.
But television has little cause for satisfaction in this respect. In the autumn an otherwise excellent series called "Cracker" was marred by excessive violence. Only in the past week a new series opened with the shot—shown more than once—of a murdered and battered corpse hanging upside down. How do the producers of such programmes get away with it? For years creative people have adopted a belligerent, unyielding attitude towards the executive arm, playing on people's largely unjustified fears that for them to query anything artistic would be to reveal their cultural ignorance and insensitivity. It is a con trick of course of staggering proportions, but over the years it has succeeded.
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We are told that such and such a scene is essential to the spirit of an author's work—never mind that he or she has omitted to put such a signpost in the work in the first place. We are also confidently told that the vast body of viewers are not influenced by what they see. I am sure that that statement goes down like a bomb in the advertising industry. One wonders about the millions of pounds being spent by public companies on what is apparently a fruitless exercise.
But even if only a small proportion of our people are affected by what they see—and research has shown conclusively that this small proportion largely consists of those with some kind of behavioural disorder or those who live in problem homes; in short, the very people that we ought as a caring society to be protecting—that surely is enough. The more we come to accept debased standards as the norm, the quicker we shall reach the "anything goes" level. With digital television on the horizon, that is indeed a terrifying prospect.
How can controls be strengthened? I believe that much of the ineffectiveness in regulation today lies in the multiplicity, and therefore fragmentation, of regulatory bodies. That not only divides responsibilities between such bodies to an unacceptable degree but also confuses potential complainants, making it less likely at the end of the day that they will bother to do anything.
It remains a mystery why Parliament has not decided to establish a single regulatory body—a broadcasting council, call it what you will—whose remit runs not only over the whole ITV spectrum but also over the BBC. I am afraid that in this day and age it is no longer desirable for the latter organisation to be self-regulating in this respect. Time is not on our side in grappling with this complex but desperately important problem.
6.43 p.m.
Viscount Caldecote: My Lords, perhaps I may join in congratulating the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln on a splendid maiden speech.
I believe that the case has already been adequately made that all is not well in this field. I should like to ask some questions about government policy which I hope my noble friend will be able to answer when she replies. First, do the Government accept that there is a serious problem to be addressed in raising standards, particularly in television and videos? Secondly, are the Government satisfied with the existing regulatory arrangements and the way the authorities carry out their tasks? It is a somewhat complex situation as the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, indicated.
As far as independent television is concerned, the Independent Television Commission has been set up under the Broadcasting Act 1990. That places a clear statutory duty on the commission to ensure that licensed services do not include material which offends against good taste and decency, or is likely to encourage or incite crime. The commission is also under a duty to produce a code of practice binding on the licensed broadcaster. The ITC has adequate sanctions, whether they be fines, licence restrictions, or, in the last resort, cancellation of licence. Are the Government satisfied that those powers are properly used? I believe that there is a widely held view that those powers are not used as

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they should be. Sometimes complaints are upheld, but seldom is any punishment meted out for failing to obey the code of practice.
The regulation of the BBC has already been referred to. That is a much less clear and, I believe, totally unsatisfactory situation. The BBC has no statutory duty to enforce the code and no regulatory authority to whom it is responsible. The governors are responsible solely to themselves. If the law, such as it is, is infringed, governors cannot be punished as can directors of a PLC who infringe the Companies Act. I believe that we shall be dealing with all of those matters when we consider the renewal of the BBC charter in a few years' time. However, I submit that the present position is most unsatisfactory.
I should like to deal with the related matter of videos, to which the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, has already referred. Videos are easily obtained and many show degrading and depraved material on violence and sex. They are controlled by the Obscene Publications Act and the Video Recordings Act. Under the Obscene Publications Act a programme is obscene if it would tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely to read, see or hear it. But prosecutions under that Act can be brought only with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, who is apparently reluctant to set about those prosecutions.
The Video Recordings Act sets up the British Board of Film Classification which has the duty to classify all videos in relation to suitability for different age groups. But that board has no standards and no public accountability. The circulation of unlicensed, obscene videos is illegal. Prosecutions can be brought under the Obscene Publications Act but it is virtually ineffective because of the way it is drawn up. Do the Government intend to rectify that unsatisfactory position?
Lastly, reference has already been made to the code of practice and the so-called nine o'clock watershed. It is intended to prevent children seeing damaging television programmes but, as other noble Lords have said, it is wholly ineffective. Do the Government intend to take steps to alter the concept of the nine o'clock watershed perhaps to ten-thirty or eleven o'clock?
6.49 p.m.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, I should have liked to spend more time congratulating the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln on his maiden speech, but given the amount of time available I hope he will not mind if I am fairly brief and merely say that I found his speech delightful and that I look forward to hearing him often.
I should declare an interest in that until fairly recently I was vice-chairman of the Board of Governors of the BBC. That does not mean that I do not share the concern' of all who have spoken in this debate about violence, pornography and the rest of it. I share that concern, as do the chairman of the BBC and all other members of the Board of Governors.
On 16th December in another place Liz Lynne, the honourable Member for Rochdale, referred to some of the matters already mentioned in this debate. I agree
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with much of what she said. But the real question is not whether there is violence, pornography and bad language on television. I do not dispute that; we know that there is. However, it depends on the context and definition, and also the judgment of the broadcaster. Some of your Lordships may take a different view from the producer or director of a particular programme. That does not surprise me. It is a matter of judgment.
However, the real question that we should be asking ourselves is what are we going to do about the situation. We should not be asking ourselves whether it is there; indeed, we know that it is. I am afraid that, so far this evening, there has been a shortage of practical solutions to the problems that we see on television or on video—that is, apart from the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, who talked about having one regulatory authority. That may be a solution. I am not sure. One would have to look into the matter.
In the debate in the other place to which I referred, Liz Lynne proposed the usual solution of a Royal Commission. In fact, on the 8th December in this Chamber, while speaking as a Home Office Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, said that over the past 30 years there have been more than 1,000 studies into the whole issue and that nothing had been found. I am interested to see the Minister who is to reply tonight nodding her head in agreement. Indeed, it would be difficult for her to do otherwise because she would not disagree with her noble friend Lady Cumberlege.
I agree with much that was said by the Minister in reply to the debate in the other place. He said:
"We have developed a system of media regulation in the United Kingdom based on 'arms length' principles and it is a long standing tradition that the Government do not seek to intervene in matters such as programme content or scheduling.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/12/93; Col. 1402.]
In other words, they leave it to broadcasters and regulatory bodies. I very much agree with that view, although just before I, or the present chairman, Duke Hussey, joined the BBC, there had been intervention by governments. Sir Leon Brittan, the then Home Secretary, sent a letter to the former chairman and vice-chairman, who accepted the intervention and withdrew a programme called "Real Lives" from the broadcasting schedule. It may have been sensible to do so, but that was intervention by government which I hope will not happen again in the future. I like to think that if Duke Hussey and myself had been there at the time we would have told the Home Secretary what to do with his letter, though perhaps in rather better language than some that we have heard.
The BBC has very strong new guidelines. I believe that it is worth mentioning them. They include, for example:
"Is an incident appropriate within its context?
Is the material appropriate for its screening time?
What will be the impact on the home viewer?
If programmes containing violence are scheduled close together, the cumulative effect must be taken into account.
Has the viewer been given enough information to enable them to decide whether they want a programme to be watched in their households?"
The latter at least goes some way towards what I hope your Lordships would like to see. I must point out to the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, that I am nearing my

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conclusion. I hope that no one will bring forward a solution of censorship. That is the last thing in the world that we would want to see as a potential solution to the problem.
6.53 p.m.
Lord Palmer: My Lords, I too am grateful to my noble friend Lord Halsbury for calling this evening's debate. He is, I think, by years alone the second most senior speaker tonight and I the most junior. I find it reassuring that our views on pornography and violence are the same. I share many of the views which have been discussed tonight and I believe we have reached the moment when it really is time to have a crackdown on the levels of pornography and violence on television. The media, and here I include the video market, are responsible for the way we eat, sleep, drink and, perhaps most importantly, act socially. As such, society has broken down. It is for that reason that I want to concentrate on issues on the wings of my noble friend's Motion.
As many speakers have said tonight, television undoubtedly encourages children and, indeed, grownups to swear. My three children aged between eight and 13 use language which when I was their age I did not know existed, let alone knowing what the words meant. During the Christmas Recess I decided to introduce a swear box with a fine of 50 pence per swear word. I was amazed at the immediate reaction and to date there is but £2.50 in the box and I am ashamed to admit to £1.50 of it being my own. I quote that example only to emphasise that if our regulatory bodies are to have teeth, then they must use those teeth to the utmost. A £5,000 fine to a company like Channel 4 is equivalent to the revenue of a 10-second advertising slot.
Just before Christmas there was a story in the national press which shattered me. Few people seem to have seen it and it certainly caused the minimum amount of press commentary. To me it just summed up how tragic a state we are in. The story that I am referring to is of a man lying dead in his flat in a council block—and I emphasise the word "block"—for very nearly four years. How can that possibly happen in a so-called civilised society today? I do not believe that even five years ago that situation could have arisen.
Why is there so much pornography and violence on television? It must be that television producers think we want and need it. If we really want pornography (and, of course, it is a vast industry) then we can buy it in the form of naughty magazines, sex chat-lines, videos, live shows and so on. My main abhorrence is that what is broadcast on television sets can be videoed by many young children so often left alone at night or indeed during the day. I think none of your Lordships would disagree that children are far more adept at working such machines and therefore the so-called safety net of nine o'clock, as mentioned by many noble Lords tonight, is totally meaningless.
In order to create a society with values, that society needs to be taught those values and that must come from all levels of our infrastructure: from parents, schools, Churches, voluntary bodies and the like. Surely we need a Royal Commission, or something similar, to look into
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the way we conduct our lives and endeavour to reform them so that we do not breed a race which delights in mugging and raping old ladies, killing 3-year-old boys and leaving old men dead for nearly four years. That commission ought to encourage the television companies to have a far more constructive and caring attitude in influencing our lives.
There is a philosophy that it is so much easier to be nice to people than nasty. I believe it is that philosophy which is needed to make our society respectable and law-abiding—a society of which we can be proud and, it is to be hoped, of which future generations can be proud.
6.57 p.m.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, as we are limited to a four-minute speech, I am afraid that there can be no frills, no niceties and no jokes; but I hope that there will be some construction. Broadcasting with a public service like the BBC or independently under the regulation of the ITC is, I think, best discussed in this House. I really believe that we are more independent. We are not looking over our shoulders to see how many votes we will lose if we criticise one thing while praising another.
I noticed in the Select Committee's report that, of all the members present, only one was bold enough to say in a report in the Evening Standard that he was rather critical of the BBC. The remaining 11 believed, perhaps, that should there be criticism they were unlikely to be asked to appear on all the programmes that they hoped would have some influence in their constituencies. After all, that is only natural. Therefore, because the House of Lords is more experienced and less politicised between the Benches, it is a very good place—indeed, many Members have had experience as governors—to discuss such matters. With the huge improvement in technology which is now coming forward, it is particularly appropriate that we should be thinking about such issues between now and 1996.
If people are critical of the BBC, it is because it has been its own judge and jury for a long time. The corporation recognises that fact. However, the only snag is that the ITC does not seem to have got on board a way to correct the situation. It has not devised any sanctions: things are either upheld or not upheld. The case last year of the television programme "Spitting Image", where Jesus Christ was portrayed, produced a. volume of complaints of over 140. Indeed, could anything be more offensive to the mass of people who take Christianity very seriously? The complaints were partially upheld. But how can one satisfy respectability, decency and balance when one allows Jesus Christ to be featured in a "Spitting Image" programme that is to be shown in a Christian country where 70 per cent. of the population consider themselves Christians? There are no sanctions and there have never been any sanctions in this area. The Radio Authority has had sanctions, however. It has deprived of its licence a body that continued to disobey the law and the codes and it has fined others. However, we have simply not found any way of punishing—if that is the right word—those television producers who consistently break the codes and break the law.

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The Government have suggested in a Green Paper that a broadcasting council should be the regulatory authority. Looking back over the past 43 years I have been in Parliament, I do not believe the Press Council has been a tremendous success. We simply do not have a formula to regulate the press and I wonder whether we shall be able to devise anything to regulate terrestrial broadcasting and the satellite and alternative forms of broadcasting. I endorse the words of my noble friend Lord Halsbury. Perhaps the lawyers will pool their thoughts and be a little more constructive in this regard than we are able to be.
The 1990 Broadcasting Act stated that programmes must not give offence to public feeling and that companies must not transmit programmes likely to,
"incite crime or to lead to disorder".
Some producers shelter behind the 9 p.m. rule when breaking the codes. Like many other Members of your Lordships' House I do not accept that all children are in bed by 9 o'clock at night. I have grandchildren and I find that when I am sitting down to supper a small face appears at the door and the child asks for a drink or asks to be allowed to watch television.
Noble Lords: Time!
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, noble Lords are indicating that I am going on for too long. The clock is not working properly.
Noble Lords: You have had five and a half minutes!
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, I conclude by saying that many teachers have noticed that children are tired when they come into school as a result of having watched television until midnight. I believe this state of affairs could be corrected quite simply by a Private Member's Bill. I believe that would be acceptable to most people.
7.3 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I rise to speak as I have long had a deep interest in anything which concerns the moving image; that is, largely matters which concern television and the cinema. Last year I was asked to sit in a prominent place in the audience of a television programme transmitted on Channel 4 in which the issues we are debating tonight were being discussed. I did not intervene in the debate as the crossfire of vituperation was too hot for me. I thought that, unlike many parliamentarians, I would sit and listen for a change. My thoughts on that programme were confirmed by what was said in the excellent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Barnett.
There is a problem as there is too much violence and sex on television. No one wants to take responsibility for that and no one wants to take the blame for it. There are no easy solutions as regards how to deal with the problem. However, one thing is clear to me and that is that the imperatives of television programme making have changed dramatically. The imperatives of television programme making of the old public service television broadcasting, with which we were so well served for many years by the BBC, have changed
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because of the advent of satellite and cable television. The imperatives of the old BBC were to provide entertainment for the licence payer. Sometimes the BBC went astray and there were rules to bring it to book if it stepped over the line.
However, the imperatives of cable and satellite television are concerned first of all with their duties to their shareholders and sponsors. Therefore the imperatives are concerned with money and the conventional wisdom as regards making money through the moving image. The noble Lord, Lord Attenborough, said in America last week that the conventional wisdom that sex makes money is now being overdone and those who make films and television programmes should consider that matter carefully.
At the weekend a radio programme was transmitted in which the new production for television of "Gone with the Wind" was discussed. It is a remake of the great Hollywood version of that film. It was said on the programme that the new production would be vastly different from the glamorous film that was made over 50 years ago and that the new production would rely largely on the sexual chemistry between the two leading players. I do not wish to criticise those two leading players in any way but I believe they are faced with a difficult job. It was stated in the radio programme that the new production would contain explicit love scenes which were not evident in the original production. The original production which featured Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable relied upon glamour. Glamour does not make money nowadays; sex makes money.
The two leading players in the new production of "Gone with the Wind" have appeared on television. They were shabbily dressed and I should have thought there was more sexual attraction between my neutered cat and the dog next door than between those two leading players. I should imagine they will have a difficult job achieving the kind of sexual chemistry which they say will be needed for the production. I do not think the new production will be a success and I do not look forward to any more heaving, grunting and other expressions of love-making which too often are foisted upon the unsuspecting viewer, as the noble Earl said. We must deal with that aspect also.
I believe the only way to deal with this matter is to encourage selectivity and discrimination, particularly among young people, so that they turn the television off if a programme appears to them to be unsuitable. If we develop this selectivity, young people will not pay to watch offensive films at the cinema. In my view that is the only way we can deal with this problem. I agree with the remarks on bad language that have been made by noble Lords. I believe this is a matter of one's generation. Nowadays young people do not care about bad language whereas people of my generation and people who are older than I—perhaps even people who are younger than I—worry about bad language. The board of film classification is concerned about language. However, I think it is over-concerned with language and that it should turn its attention to curbing explicit sex and violence on the screen. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, for giving me the opportunity to speak on this

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subject. I also thank the right reverend Prelate for his excellent speech and for his squirrel joke, which is the best joke I have heard this week.
7.8 p.m.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, I have heard it argued that pornography should not be banned because sex therapists find that it has a therapeutic effect on some of their patients. The operative word is "effect". The proponents of this argument believe that it has an effect on people, as do those who advertise on television.
We have all heard the dictum, "You are what you eat", which does not mean that if you habitually eat roast pork you will eventually turn into a pig but that the quality and nutritional properties of what you eat will have an effect on your physical health and well-being. I do not think the medical profession would disagree with that. But if you accept this, I think that you also have to accept that you are what you read, what you hear and what you watch. It is simply idle to pretend otherwise, or that the viewing of violence on television does not have a pernicious effect especially on children, who are still forming their ideas of what is right and wrong and what constitutes acceptable behaviour. At the very least it can put ideas into their heads which otherwise might never have got there.
Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, I believe that all television programmes should be censored by an independent board, as films used to be when the Lord Chamberlain's Office was responsible for doing it, and that all videos not classified as suitable for family viewing should be banned so that they are no longer available for sale or hire in the high street. "But that will drive them underground", I hear in my mind's ear some people cry. Well, why should that not happen? At least they will no longer be easily obtainable, out of idle curiosity, by irresponsible people who at present obtain them with no difficulty and do not keep them away from their children any more than they turn off the telly when unsuitable programmes are being shown.
7.10 p.m.
The Earl of Stockton: My Lords, I must offer your Lordships my apologies as I shall be unable to stay for the conclusion of this interesting debate. Perhaps I may congratulate the right reverend Prelate on his début, although I have to say that my worst childhood nightmare came after reading The Turning of the Screw by torchlight under the bedcovers.
Although I share many of the anxieties of your Lordships about the content of individual programmes, I feel that I must stress that the majority of programme makers—whether in- house or independent—are careful, responsible and sensitive in the way they address difficult and potentially upsetting topics. The basic issue is not whether I or any of your Lordships is outraged by any individual programme but whether society is damaged in any way by that programme. I would suggest that in many areas of broadcasting your Lordships threshold of outrage is rather lower than that
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of the majority of our fellow citizens. I am not saying that that is a good or a bad thing; I merely state it as a fact of life.
It ill behoves the House, and little serves the broadcasters, if your Lordships produce a litany of complaint because they have seen, or been told of, television programmes where rather more of the female or male anatomy has been shown than they regard as seemly, based on the judgments of a society as they knew it. In the dramatic sphere, art has always been linked closely to life and to contemporary society. To our eyes the witches of Macbeth may seem faintly ridiculous, but to the ordinary people of Elizabethan England they were terrifying and disturbing, for ordinary people believed in witchcraft.
In my opinion, all art, but especially the performing arts, has to be dangerous. If it is not daring, innovative and experimental, it soon degenerates into a boring, repetitive pastiche. The exposure by Charles Dickens of the exploitation of young people in David Copperfield or of the debtors' prisons in Pickwick Papers was as shocking to his readers as Nell Dunn's portrayal of the lot of unmarried mothers in Up the Junction was to the readers of 25 years ago.
I would, of course, be the first to say that not all attempts to be daring and innovative succeed. But as a publisher I can tell your Lordships that there were a large number of 19th century novels which tried to do what Dickens succeeded in doing and failed. I should know; my firm published many of them.
I concur with the view that the watershed must be strictly adhered to. In some cases—perhaps marty—I would suggest that, given the trend of television viewing by the young, there is an argument that the watershed should be 10 p.m. I would urge consideration of a voluntary rating system along the lines of the voluntary system in the cinema in which the appropriate symbol (PG 16 or 18) could be displayed in the corner of the screen and on programme listings.
In the case of violence, we live in a violent world. In news and current affairs man's violence to man, the animal kingdom and the planet needs to be reported. It may shock us, and if it does maybe, just maybe, we may seek to do something about it.
Portrayal of violence is another issue, and one that I know broadcasters take seriously. The producer guidelines, revised last year, and the guidelines for the portrayal of violence issued last year are examples of their concern. Clearly the transmission of material showing murder, torture and abuse would be extremely damaging to society. Equally, similar torture and abuse meted out to Tom by Jerry, to Elmer Fudd by Bugs or Sylvester by Tweetie-Pie is not damaging to society.
There is a middle ground. If at the present time we feel that the broadcasters have erred too far in one direction we can switch off.
I do not believe that television can or should be made the scapegoat for our unease about any malaise in our society. We have the television programmes we want. I trust that we do not get the ones we deserve.
7.13 p.m.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, since its inception, television has had a special role in society because it is in our homes. It is part of our family and of our day-to-day life. That is why we have recognised that there needs to be some form of control. The difficulty is that we are not a society with an agreed set of values and what one person would regard as obscene—whether pornographic or violent—another may not. Equally, to say that one person should act as the moral policeman for all that we view is a difficult argument to sustain. It is a difficult task indeed.
The reason we are talking about television is that it comes into our homes. However, that is not the only area, now or in the future, where there will be that immediate access to our homes. There is the development of video. In future there will not be video shops in our high streets. One will dial via the telephone to get the individual video one wishes to have on one's screen. There is the development of fax and video phones. One of the areas with which I am concerned is the development of premium-rate telephone services. There are telephones in 21 million homes in Britain, giving direct access to pornography, if that is what people want. That is one area of concern. We have to consider the debate as a whole.
One of the areas of concern in the organisation with which I am involved was explicit advertising—far more explicit than anything we see on television—in some of the national tabloid and regional newspapers and magazines. From 1st January this year ICSTIS—the organisation with which I am involved—decided to ban those advertisements, limiting them to only two top-shelf magazines. Almost the whole of the industry, except for a small group, supported us. But some in the industry took the matter to judicial review. I am pleased to say that on this occasion the courts, in my view, saw much sense and refused that. They upheld our decision to restrict such advertising to top-shelf magazines only.
What happened? Your Lordships may have read in the press that last week those involved tried to circumvent that decision by advertising services available in Chile and Guyana. With the support of British Telecom those services were disconnected within hours. Therefore, control is possible, with the support and general acceptance of those concerned. From July this year British Telecom and Mercury will be providing those pornographic services only by specific opt-in arrangements.
Therefore the debate is not exclusively about television in our homes; it concerns developments in our society. We have all heard about virtual reality, which is the next step. If one wants an expert on computers who does one go to? One goes to children. They know how to get into such systems better than most of us in this Chamber.
It is not a simple issue, and it is not an issue which can be dealt with by one organisation. It needs to be considered in great depth before we take major steps which we may regret in retrospect.
7.17 p.m.
Lord Annan: My Lords, in 1977 the Committee on the Future of Broadcasting, of which I was chairman, said that the broadcasters ought to mend their ways when two such disparate figures as the late Lord Clark and Mrs. Whitehouse criticised what the broadcasters beamed into the family sitting-room. Therefore, I have much sympathy with what the noble Earl said about violence, but I am afraid that I have much less sympathy with what he said about pornography.
Pornography has two features. It intends to inflame the audience sexually. It does so by showing explicitly the sexual organs of men and women and showing them engaged in sexual activities. Neither the BBC nor ITV have put on such programmes. When the Dutch satellite channel Red Hot TV did so the Government blocked the programmes under the EC broadcasting directive.
Therefore, when people speak of pornography they really mean the erotic and the obscene. Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon gave a marvellous erotic performance in the film of that great romantic novel Wuthering Heights. Different again was a film shown by the BBC a few nights ago, Bunuel's classic Belle de Jour about a wife's frigidity. I can well understand some people being shocked by the way the wife set about conquering her frigidity. However, apart from one brief scene in which Mlle Deneuve walked away from the camera clad only in a see-through nightdress, there was no scene in which she was nude, let alone displaying any sexual organs.
If one is to say that such films are to be banned then we will go back to the days of the Hays code, when if a man and a woman were shown in a bedroom together the man had to be shown with one foot on the floor. Even today there is a convention in which a man and a women getting into bed are nearly always shown he wearing pants and she knickers. Is that like life?
The noble Earl was good enough to tell me in advance that he intended to cite a BBC drama in which buggery was simulated. My Lords, I have here the tapes of that programme. I watched it last night. In a very brief scene only the heads and shoulders of the two men were visible. Though I do not want to quibble, and though I will speak in Latin, the act simulated could just as well have been intercourse inter crures. The scene was joyless; it was non-erotic. The purpose was to express the horror and the shock which struck a young girl when she saw that act involving her cousin and her discovery of the secrets that her family kept hidden. I mention that only to say that there can be two reactions to the same programme.
It was precisely because of the concern which noble Lords have expressed tonight that the Government set up the Broadcasting Standards Council. Yet how few of the complaints does the council sustain? Between January 1991 and October 1993, out of 407 findings only 36 were upheld against the BBC. Of those only one was about sex and three were a mixture of sex and violence. And who during that time was chairman of the council? It was not some tearaway radical arguing that

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sex on television has a cathartic effect, not Mr. John Mortimer, but the noble Lord, Lord Rees-Mogg. Is it suggested that he has been a negligent gatekeeper?
Perhaps I may return to the question of sanctions and the BBC. During the past decade the Director-General of the BBC was sacked and, to my certain knowledge, three of the producers did not have contracts renewed.
Two hundred years ago, Britons had a robust attitude towards sex. When Harriette Wilson's publisher tried to blackmail the Duke of Wellington by disclosing that he had been to bed with her, the Duke replied, "Publish and be damned". Then came a great revolution in taste and morals inspired by the evangelical movement—a movement which transformed public life in this country. That movement was every bit as noble as the Oxford Movement. But bad as well as good things flow from revolutions and the revolution brought about the rule of Dickens' Podsnap, who was determined that nothing should bring a blush to the cheek of the young person.
Then 30 to 40 years ago another revolution took place and John Bull and Britannia were released from the sexual prison into which Podsnap had put them. Again, bad as well as good results flowed from that change. Speech has become proletarianised. I entirely agree with those who say that they are bored by the endless scenes of bonking which are simulated on television. But you cannot expect producers to ignore the change of taste about sexual practices any more than Thackeray was prepared to ignore Podsnap's rules.
I have time to ask the noble Baroness only one question. The French tried to protect their industry against offensive American imports by refusing to allow this matter to come under the recent GATT agreement. Will the noble Baroness tell us whether our Government w ill go down that road?
7.23 p.m.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, we have always been used to violent death on the film screen, as cowboys and Indians kill each other, and this was never offensive. But now we have to witness the viciousness of every attack and to see animals and people killed in detailed, agonising and lingering deaths. We are also shown explicit sex, and even explicit homosexuality as if to promote that as normal and acceptable behaviour.
Producers do not portray sex and violence to enhance their stories. That is just their excuse. They produce them purely to pander to base instincts, just like the drug dealers, to make the maximum profit regardless of the effect on crime and moral standards.
The film producers and the press editors say that sex and violence is what the public want, and indeed many people do. But surely there is no limit to what the public may be said to want; and the corollary is that producers should show details of every perversion and sordidity that they can dream up, if some people can be found who are prepared to watch it.
The same applies to the gutter press. I have not the slightest doubt that the constant lurid stories on every page encourages some people to emulate what they think everyone else is up to. Meanwhile the leaders of the glitter press excuse themselves by saying that they are only the messengers. But in fact they will print
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anything to increase their circulation regardless of good taste, accuracy, or of the distress to the individual or the effect that it may have on other people.
It is probably true that most people are now so inured to violence and sex on the media that they are able to ignore it. But there is no doubt whatever that there have been many cases of copycat crimes by people stirred up by what they have seen or read who otherwise would not have conceived such action, and whose sense of decency has been dulled by constant exposure to violence on the box.
It was a sorry day when the European Directive on Transfrontier Broadcasting was signed allowing into this country all the pornographic Dutch and Danish programmes; and that directive should be renegotiated.
Many people do not realise the extent of the horror that is available on the various media. They simply do not watch or know what goes on. We know that sex and violence is not meant to be shown on television until after nine o'clock when the children have gone to bed. Who do we think we are kidding? Responsible parents are concerned as to what their children are subjected to and try to monitor both the quantity and quality of what their children watch. But there is no doubt that many parents allow their children unlimited access and children grow up unable to converse or to entertain themselves, with their senses dulled from what they have seen. I am assured that some parents actually record late night programmes for their children. But apart from that, many children now have their own computers and tv sets in their rooms and can switch on as they wish, including watching horror videos. Where parents have access by dish to foreign pornography, so presumably have the children in their rooms.
If there is to be a clean up, there arises the insoluble question of who is to be the censor. The only answer is for the public to say, "Enough is enough". That will require a crusade against pornography, violence and homosexuality, not led just by the Government, but by every institution and, above all, by individual pressure. It is not so different from the drug situation where there are large numbers of people who want to use drugs, but the silent majority have managed to ban them.
Recourse to the courts has consistently proved a failure ever since the trial concerning Lady Chatterley's Lover. But in America there is a shift of public opinion starting to revolt against the mindless horror churned out by the media and on screen. That shift of public opinion has begun to be recognised by producers. I hope that this country will follow the American lead, as it so often does, although usually to our detriment, and that the public will express its concern over violence, pornography and bad standards by ever-increasing complaints to the media, producers and to Members; of Parliament.
7.26 p.m.
Lord Robertson of Oakridge: My Lords, I should like to start by thanking the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, for initiating the debate. We have one of the best, if not the best, television services in any country, but it is marred by the repeated failure of the broadcasting

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authorities to meet their statutory duty not to broadcast material that offends against good taste and decency or that which is offensive to public feeling.
One kind of offensive material is bad language, in particular the misuse of the names of God and Jesus Christ. It is on that that I wish to speak. Their names are frequently misused on television as expletives, in a way that puts them in the same category as the alternative word for excreta. In a film shown by the BBC on 1st October 1993 at 9.30 p.m. there were 10 instances of misuse of their names. On 3rd September there had been a film, again shown by the BBC at 9.30 p.m., in which there had been 26 such instances. More recently "Prime Suspect 3" shown by ITV, was full of foul language, including misuse of the Lord's name.
A recent reply to a viewer's complaint demonstrated that at least the BBC knows that such misuse causes offence to Christians and to others. They seek to justify that misuse on the grounds that it is a part, even if a shameful part, of our language. In other words, it is necessary for realism. That is not good enough when broadcasting itself has contributed significantly to making it so. In any case, there is a lot to be said for leaving something to the imagination.
I offer three reasons why misuse of the Lord's name on television should be stopped. First, it is deeply hurtful to those who love the Lord. How would we like it if the names of our loved ones—our spouses, parents or children —were used as swear words on television? Secondly, it sends out a message that we do not mind if God's name is misused in public. Before every business day, noble Lords pray "Hallowed be thy Name". After that prayer, how can we stand by and do nothing when the Lord's name is repeatedly misused by organisations which owe to the public authorities their very right to broadcast? I do not agree with much of the Moslem religion but I admire it for the way that it takes seriously the need for God's name to be honoured. Thirdly, I have often heard the argument that God can take care of himself. Of course he can, but that is not the point. It is we ourselves who run into danger. God has said that he will not hold guiltless those who misuse his name; and that surely applies also to those who fail to use their influence to stop that misuse. If God were to withdraw his protecting hand from this nation, then our position would be dire indeed. I therefore urge the Government and the directors and governors of the various television companies, as well as the programme sponsors, to look hard at the matter and do what they can to stop the misuse of the Lord's name on television.
I should also like to see the chairmen of the various television broadcasting companies to be asked by some body like the National Heritage Select Committee in another place to give a public account of their actions and to explain how these square with the obligations and duties laid on them by Parliament.
I end by saying that I look forward to the time when this nation of ours echoes the cry of the psalmist:
"O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth".
7.31 p.m.
Viscount Brentford: My Lords, I too wish to thank the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, for introducing the debate so effectively. Clearly, it is a popular topic from the number of noble Lords speaking on it. I should also like to congratulate the right reverend Prelate on his most interesting maiden speech and like others, I look forward to hearing him again on, I hope, many occasions.
I am not too concerned about the effect of television on your Lordships. I am concerned about its effect on the vulnerable members of our society such as the young, those with learning disabilities and those with some measure of psychological disorder. The effects of the media can perhaps be said to be two: first, they encourage imitation. This may be good if the media are giving cookery lessons: I am sure that everyone would gain by imitating what is being portrayed. But, when the effect is to imitate a portrayal of violence, then it is significantly bad. We need to be aware of that.
The second effect is to cause emotional problems such as depression and anxiety. There is a clear link—whatever people may say—between television violence and aggressive behaviour. It is not the link, it is a link, and it certainly has an effect, as has been said in the debate, particularly on the vulnerable members of our society who are unable to make a fair judgment for themselves.
What annoys me, for example, is that I believe that between 90 and 95 per cent. of sexual acts portrayed on television are between those who are unmarried. That does not reflect life in this country, where I believe that far more sexual activity goes on between those who are married. But that is not what is portrayed on television, therefore it breaks the television guideline of reflecting life. It encourages people to imitate the urge to have sexual activity outside marriage.
The BBC guidelines, which I have read, are thorough and well thought out but they seem to me to ask the questions and point the issues but not to give the guidelines. The BBC may feel that it cannot measure what it considers to be immeasurable, but that is what the country needs. It should not just be for producers to think about matters but to take action. The BBC says that the producer must consider where to strike the balance between truth and desensitising people, but it does not give a guideline on how to implement that.
The use of "Jesus Christ" is something that offends me, as it offends the noble Lord, Lord Robertson. If someone uses that name blasphemously as a swear word in my presence I ask him if he would kindly not do so. I cannot ask the television screen not to do so. I was glad that I received an answer to a complaint about that which upheld my complaint. What disappointed me was that the reason was that it was before 9 o'clock.
Three practical conclusions: I believe that the watershed should be moved to 10 p.m., as has been suggested. That is a small practical point which could be adopted immediately and I believe that it is important for the protection of our children today. Secondly, we must write complaints to the councils concerned and encourage others to do so. With respect to the right

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reverend Prelate, a clergyman complained to me the other day about television violence and pornography. I asked him: "How often have you written to complain and encouraged your congregation to do so?" His mouth dropped open: he had never thought of it. I said: "Well, you think about it".
The third point is that I believe that complaints councils need to apply the guidelines much more strictly. I see no reason why the present structure should be changed if it is made clear that the guidelines must be followed.
7.35 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I join other speakers in congratulating the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, on opening this debate in such a distinguished fashion. It is a long time since I heard someone speak in three languages in the same debate; that alone constitutes some kind of record. I also congratulate him on attracting such a fine body of speakers, perhaps almost too many for those who want to speak at length. At any rate, he has achieved that, and I am only sorry that that wonderful woman Mary Whitehouse has not been included in the list. No one has done as much as she in fighting the battle. In fact, she has effectively done more than all the rest of us in this House put together, so let us regret her absence and proceed with the debate.
I wish to pose three questions to the House; two are easy to answer, the third is much harder. First, does pornography tend to promote sexual licence? In other words, fornication and adultery. The answer is pretty plain: it does. The next question is: is there much of this pornography on television today? I would say that there is a certain amount. I am not deriding all television. By and large television has been a great educational force, but some programmes are undoubtedly pornographic in the sense described. Therefore, there is no difficulty in answering that question.
The third question is, what to do about it. If I may say so, the noble Earl left that open at the end of his speech. It was difficult over 20 years ago when I initiated the first debate on pornography in this House. I moved the Motion that pornography had increased, was increasing and ought to be diminished. That was 23 years ago and I sat on the committee which reported 18 months later. What we do about it is a difficult question.
In these few remarks, I shall not deal with what we might call hard pornography, others have done that. I am talking about soft pornography, which is an exceptionally elusive subject. The example which the noble Earl gave us was what I would call hard but most of the material about which we Christians and other enlightened humanists complain is not hard but soft pornography. That is more corrupting for the nation than hard pornography, it creeps through in all kinds of peculiar ways. How do we deal with it?
Leaving out the important proposals made by the noble Earl and others about improving the law, I say that we should find a way of strengthening and giving new inspiration to the Broadcasting Standards Council. That council is a fine idea. It had an excellent chairman in the noble Lord, Lord Rees-Mogg, and in the present
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chairman, Lady Howe. However, the fact is that it is ineffective, it cuts no ice. No one in the country is the slightest bit frightened of the Broadcasting Standards Council. How do we give them more strength? There are various ways of doing that, and I only have time left to lay one thought before the House. It is that the council should be given much firmer guidance from the Government, represented tonight by our much admired, noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington. I do not expect a positive answer tonight, and for her to create a positive policy in the next hour or two is too much to expect., but perhaps she will lay all these thoughts before her colleagues.
How shall we give more strength to the council? We must give it more guidance. What kind of moral guidance will the present Government give? They have said some good things, and John Major came out for something called "traditional family values". I am not talking about "back to basics" which means absolutely nothing, as everyone knows. Traditional family values do mean something and I am saying that that is what we want the Government to impose on the Broadcasting Standards Council. Will they come forward arid say that they want the council to make sure that no programmes are soft porn, to put it crudely? Will they say: "We want to improve the moral life of the nation"? John Major, the Prime Minister, said that he wanted to improve the moral life of the nation, but then he backed away from that and said that it had nothing to do with personal morality. That, of course, makes absolute nonsense of the whole concept. But let us forget that. It is perhaps not very likely, but he may have studied the works of Hegel, the German philosopher. The noble Earl will of course have studied Hegel.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: It is time.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, the Chief Whip says to leave it there. All right, we shall leave it on Hegel.
7.40 p.m.
Baroness Wharton: My Lords, television does not operate in a vacuum. It only reflects us as a society. It exaggerates that society, and by the exercise of artistic licence violence and sex are normalised. The viewers eventually become anaesthetised and need more stimulation; and so it goes on. No one producer wishes to call a halt for fear of slipping in the ratings war.
If we ourselves continue to blur the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, how can we possibly get the programme makers to change? Besides reflecting us, television also tends to build up a preconceived idea of what we want to watch. We need to restore more pride and compassion in ourselves. We need television to reflect the better aspects of us. If we feel that it has failed, we have the power to switch it off. We must take that responsibility ourselves. It is not right or fair of us to expect the broadcasters to be the sole arbiters of taste.
I am well aware that we live in an increasingly violent world, and I do not suggest that we remove it all from our screens. However, in a fictional setting could not more of it be "off screen", thereby lessening the

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invasive impact? Film is the main culprit. Children too have access to such films. Nobody can convince me that they have no effect whatsoever on potentially violent behaviour later on. Young children find it difficult to separate fictional violence from the real thing, and have no problem in mimicking what they see.
When we buy a cinema ticket we make a conscious choice about what we are going to see. But when that film appears on television, there it is for all at the touch of a button, irrespective of whether or not it is suitable. Therefore I feel that certain types of film portraying both excessive violence and explicit sex should be on very late or not at all. After all, television has a duty to protect its viewers.
I personally would like to see more women in creative roles on television. At the moment it is heavily male dominated. For quite some time I have noticed that when sex and/or violence is called for in a script, the subject appears to be handled differently. "Prime Suspect 3", a thriller written by Lynda la Plante, was a two-part drama shown just before Christmas. The subject matter was murder and the abuse of young rent boys. We were not shown in detail close-ups of the abuses, and yet this drama lost none of its visual impact with the viewer for not having indulged in needless violence. The writer dealt with a very difficult subject caringly, but left us in no doubt as to the horrors inflicted on young boys by paedophiles. In spite of the subject matter, this was quality television.
One director among several to whom I talked noted that the top rated shows had little offensive material. Agreed, they were all before 9 p.m., but were nonetheless good television. Children are rarely in bed before 9 p.m. Frequently they are in front of the viewing set, as has already been said, so why is there not perhaps a case for moving the watershed to 10 p.m.?
More and more people watch Sky Television. At the moment Sky is able to pump out endless unsuitable material during the day. It has no watershed to protect its younger viewers.
Already we have the ability to shop from the comfort of our own home, and to keep in touch with our bank accounts by computer and even by telephone. In the very near future, we shall be faced with the multiple choice of hundreds of stations and the terrifying potential, as the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, said, of "virtual reality", the ability to access a video from a library through a cable and on to our own television set.
Having said all that, I still believe that we have the best television in the world. We have a great tradition for quality. However, I have a word of caution. I read today that the BBC wishes to make future pay reviews, performance-related, and I quote:
"This could mean some being rewarded with higher-than-standard pay rises if their show does well in the ratings, and others being punished with lesser deals if viewers switch off".
Are we to understand that somebody working on the "God slot" will thus earn less than somebody who is lucky enough to work on "Only Fools and Horses"? Are the ratings to be the arbiter of taste and quality? The
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BBC is our flagship; but we are its paymaster. Therefore, as a society we must play our part in protecting it, even if that means protecting it from itself.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, I view—I hope realistically—my position in the list of speakers as that of a long-stop. Accordingly, I do not propose to stop long. I should like merely to raise two issues. The first is what the lawyers would call "causation". To what extent can it be established that pornography—I take the definition given by the noble Lord, Lord Annan, of "inflammatory sexual material"—may give rise with some people, perhaps the inadequates or unstable personalities, to sexual offences? To what extent can it be adequately established that an unremitting diet—I stress "unremitting"—of sadistic violence on TV, or video nasties, not only de-sensitises, as it obviously does, or ultimately brutalises the viewer but can give rise, again in some people, to the commission of crimes of violence?
In raising this issue one should bear in mind the analogy of the tobacco market. There is still the strongest resistance in the tobacco lobby to accept that there is a clearly established connection between smoking and cancer. Noble Lords may expect that the same resistance will arise in this particular market. There are big financial stakes. There are strong profit motives for saying, "This has no connection at all". I believe that that overlooks the ability of the media to hijack the individual's imagination. We have only recently seen the power of a radio soap, "The Archers", in regard to the plight of Susan Carter, who was sentenced by some sensible judge, to six months' imprisonment for aiding and abetting her robber brother to escape. Letters have been published in The Times about the matter. There have been letters to the Home Secretary, to which, apparently, he has reacted.
I understand that the TV soap opera "EastEnders" has recently had this experience. The actor who plays one particularly unattractive character who was involved in violence was recognised in the street. He was set about, and the passing bystanders, or those that remained, seemed to treat the attack with considerable support. A juvenile or a child not only watches a TV nasty, but watches it repetitively, probably over a period of several days. It is not a "one-off" film. Having found that it is exciting, the child may watch it several times during the day. I submit that it is a gross insult to anyone's intelligence, or to one's common sense, to think that a child's imagination, battered and distorted by that material, emerges unaffected by it and does not in many cases seek to act out what it has seen—perhaps initially in an innocent way, but subsequently, obtaining little satisfaction from that, transferring the imagination of the video nasty in ways which have been suspected recently.
My only other contribution is a very short one. It is on the question that has been raised of the "watershed". The French are viewed as a very practical race. They are also not viewed as a race given to puritanism. In France, the watershed is 10.30 p.m. I cannot see why we continue with the gross unreality of resisting this

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alteration. It would not only have the advantage of children to a large extent being protected, but adults are likely to be more selective because the effort of staying up after 10.30 p.m. for some may necessitate better quality in the films.
7.50 p.m.
Lord Ashbourne: My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, for putting down the Motion for debate today. Sadly, we live in a violent society, where new crimes of horrific proportions seem to happen with increasing frequency. What we can say with certainty is that there have been huge advances in technology since our youth and that television dominates our lives today in a way that it would have been hard to imagine 50 years ago. There is an increasing proliferation of channels, so that it is not uncommon today for 15 channels to be available in this country and as many as 50 channels to be available in the United States.
Against that background of more channels and more television sets, I want to address two specific issues. I wish to congratulate the Government on one and raise a serious concern on the other. I shall deal first with one aspect of the "bad news". It seems to me that television is becoming increasingly dominated by films that were originally made for the cinema. That is not surprising because of the cost of making TV programmes and the amount of air time that has to be filled. It is easier and cheaper to show a film that has already been made. But those films often include sexually explicit and violent scenes. I disapprove of that when it is shown in the cinema but I approve of it even less when it is coming into people's homes.
There is a grading system for films which the British Board of Film Classification administers. I contend that it is often much too lenient with its classification. But for better or worse it is there. But the television companies themselves do not have any similar classification system. They make their own judgments about what is suitable for their channels. That denies to the viewer a helpful guideline. Should not we be told more about the nature of the material in a film before it starts and possibly through a symbol at the corner of the screen?
Noble Lords may feel that the answer should lie with the individual, the parent or the family watching. In my view that is wholly inadequate. Broadcasters have a responsibility, as does any company, accurately to describe the product that they are selling and not to market unacceptable products. That responsibility is all the greater because the product is delivered straight into the living room or even the child's bedroom.
I should like to call for two actions. Firstly, there should be much higher standards in the selection of films by broadcasters and the rejection of violent and' sexually explicit material. Secondly, there should be a grading system, perhaps based on a more restrictive version of the BBFC system, which would appear in the Radio Times, the newspapers, all other listings magazines and in the corner of the screen. Such a system could be extended from films to all programmes.
I turn to the "good news", where the Government
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have taken firm action. Eighteen months ago a new satellite channel appeared, initially called "Red Hot Dutch", transmitting from Holland what can only be described as pornographic filth of the most depraved kind. "Red Hot Dutch" changed its name to "Red Hot Television" when it moved to Denmark, but the material did not change. "Red Hot Television" was disgusting material. There was no attempt at a storyline; it was just a diatribe of explicit sexual activity. Thankfully, the broadcasting authorities and the Government for once recognised the threat and acted with commendable vigour in proscribing the channel. By preventing it from advertising or collecting subscriptions in this country, its commercial prospects were strangled.
However, I gather that there have been attempts to revive the channel with subscriptions sent to Spain. I have no doubt—I warn the Minister about it—that the pornographers will try to find a way around any ban. They think that they can make easy money from that disgusting material. Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether they know about the Spanish arrangement and what other actions the Government intend to take, especially with other countries, to prevent another "Red Hot Television" from even getting past the starting post.
Finally, let us be under no illusion about the power of the media and its potential for good or evil. We ignore TV at our peril. I call on all broadcasters to take the advice of St. Paul to concentrate on portraying things that are:
"lovely, pure and of good report".
The BBC has that quotation in the entrance hall of Broadcasting House. Perhaps its staff should be encouraged to read it every day when they arrive for work. All of us would benefit if that standard were followed by all broadcasters.
7.55 p.m.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, I join with other noble Lords in congratulating the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln on his excellent maiden speech. I am sorry that it had to be so brief. We all look forward to hearing him at greater length on future occasions. I should also like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, for raising this important issue in his characteristically erudite, philosophic and fascinating way. It is clear from the debate that he has been the source of an expression of considerable concern about the impact of television on society today.
I am inclined to agree with the noble Earl, Lord Stockton, that the concern expressed in your Lordships' House is perhaps greater than the concern among the general public. That does not mean that your Lordships are wrong. But I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, that it is a little dangerous for your Lordships' House to become too remote from the reality of the outside world, the new technological developments that are taking place in the field of telecommunications and indeed the general feelings; of people as a whole.
There is a very real problem. There is unanimity in this House on the matter but there are no easy solutions to the problem. I myself do not believe that either the single Broadcasting Council or the Private Member's Bill will be miracle cures. It is useful to try to look in

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some fair perspective at some of the facts about viewers' attitudes toward British broadcasting which, for all its warts and flaws, remains the best in the world.
The Independent Television Commission, for example, carries out a regular annual review of viewers' attitudes. The last one showed that for both the commercial television and the BBC it is bad language that offends most. I share the views of the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick. I belong to a generation which finds bad language inserted into the sitting room by television extremely offensive. But bad language comes top of the list of what people feel strongly about, some way ahead of violence and with sex some way behind both.
The Broadcasting Standards Council, which has been mentioned, has established a reputation for excellent research studies in those areas. Its study of sex on television in 1992 came to somewhat similar conclusions to those of the ITC. Roughly two-thirds of viewers felt that there was too much violence and too much bad language on television. On the other hand, 54 per cent. of viewers felt that the amount of sex on television programmes was about right, compared with 41 per cent. of viewers who thought that there was too much sex.
The conclusion that I draw from those figures is that they show a need to be very vigilant about the impact that television makes in our homes and particularly, as the right reverend Prelate said, on our children. There is the danger that the constant drip of violent programmes will have a damaging effect, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, argued. That is a particular risk with BSkyB, which, while it is encrypted, relies very much on a continuous diet of violent American films.
As regards violence, professional broadcasters—and I am bound to say, with a certain amount of shame, sometimes professional regulators—are inclined to fall back on the argument that research in the UK and elsewhere has not demonstrated conclusively that there is a causal link between television and violent behaviour. I was glad to hear the Standards Council stating robustly that while the extent of any relationship has yet to be established it is foolish to proceed on the assumption that none exists. I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, that it is a singularly weak line of defence for the broadcast medium in which hard-headed advertisers spend millions of pounds to change people's shopping behaviour and hard-headed politicians devote their lives and vie with each other to change people's voting behaviour via the television medium.
I was therefore happy to note that recently the ITC told its contractors in terms:
"Terrestrial, cable and satellite licensees should all take steps to ensure that there is a reduction in the amount of violence shown. ITC staff will monitor the programmes shown and will, report the extent to which such a decline has taken place".
Both the ITC and the BBC have guidelines on violence, taste and decency which are regularly revised. It is important that they should be rigorously applied by the regulatory authorities. There is, however, a limit to what regulators can do in a world where global standards of taste and decency have become much more permissive and where global technology produces some hard-core
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pornographic satellite channels and a flood of horror videos for the domestic video-cassette recorder which would never conceivably be allowed, and are never allowed, on the BBC or ITV. In my view, therefore, more government regulation would help in toughening the classification of videos to outlaw a whole layer of violence and pornography which is at present freely available in the video shops. As was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, we shall soon be in a world where we can telephone and receive a video down the telephone line.
We must try to keep a sense of proportion. The real world in which we live is violent and nasty and television makes its horrors instantly available to us as we sit at home like comfortable voyeurs over our evening cup of cocoa or, in my case, my evening whisky and soda. The fantasy world of film reflects the same horrors and frequently embroiders them. In a free society we cannot all share the same tastes. As has been said by more than one noble Lord, the most legitimate and practical form of censorship is the self-censorship of the on-off switch.
As in many other fields there is no getting away from attempting to encourage the maximum sense of parental responsibility. It is easy to poke holes in the broadcasters' nine o'clock watershed. I am not dogmatic about the particular time that that is set but a watershed there must be. Grown-ups have their rights too and parents have their responsibilities and they should be persuaded to live up to those. So do professional broadcasters. I agree with my noble friend Lord Falkland, whose knowledge of the film business is considerable, that one can use one's creative skills to portray implicit instead of explicit sex and implicit instead of explicit violence. The example given by the noble Baroness, Lady Wharton, of "Prime Suspect" was relevant. In the past great cinematic art never needed every grunt under the bedclothes to portray passion or every clinical crunch of bones to convey violence.
I conclude by echoing the words of the noble Lord, Lord Barnett. I hope that in all our efforts to persuade broadcasters, parents and regulators to live up to their responsibilities we are not tempted to go down the road of governmental censorship. I remind your Lordships' House that during my time the countries in which there was no pornography and no violence of the kind to which we are objecting on their television systems were Stalin's Soviet Russia and the old South Africa of apartheid. They are the examples that we must do everything that we can to avoid. There is no way forward for Britain in that direction.
8.5 p.m.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate on his excellent maiden speech. I also thank the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, for raising this undoubtedly important issue. Given the vast amount of violence currently being perpetrated by the British gutter media against the alleged sexual activities of various politicians, it may be deemed timely.
We begin with a difficulty in the debate because the existing evidence does not reveal any secular trend of increasing violence and pornography on television. Nor

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does it show a significant percentage of viewers expressing great concern about that, so perhaps more Members of this House should complain. Indeed, no research has convincingly demonstrated a conclusive causal link between violence and pornography on the screen and anti-social behaviour in society at large. Common sense suggests an influence and nobody has proved that there is no causal link.
Having set out those caveats, I suspect that they may not convey the full picture. For a start, the situation may have deteriorated recently. Most of the research published by the ITC and others pre-dates the appalling Broadcasting Act 1990. Under its baleful influence, bottom-line accounts matter more than the quality of programmes or the amount of violence. It may be significant that since the passing of the Act the number of complaints to the Broadcasting Standards Council increased by 10 per cent. in 1991–92 and by 21 per cent. in 1992–93.
But whatever the evidence, there is undoubtedly serious concern about violence, pornography and even more about obscene language transmitted through various media channels.. The long list of speakers taking us so late in this debate demonstrates that. It is an anxiety that I fully share. Whatever the precise level of screened violence, it seems too much. And, I may add, many responsible broadcasters share our anxieties. It would be wrong in this House to underestimate the amount of time and effort and the pages of manuals devoted by the BBC and ITV to this question.
But it is very important to identify the correct villains and the correct targets. It is not usually mainstream, prime-time television, although it is not innocent, which is a major original purveyor of violence and pornography. The finger of rebuke should be pointed elsewhere, to video nasties, computer software, Hollywood films and Murdoch's Sky film channels. In the video area young people can buy video magazines on open sale, fill in a coupon claiming that they are over 18, which is uncheckable, and acquire unregulated videos of extreme violence and pornography. As regards films, those originating in America are the main repositories of screen violence. Recent research showed that 81 per cent. were found to contain significant violence; that is double that found in British films. Indeed, nearly three-quarters of the latest Hollywood output is officially considered unsuitable for transmission before 10 p.m.
Yet, Sky's satellite movie channel often buys its films in bulk from America, many sight unseen, and of those three-quarters of unsuitable films the vast majority will appear on Sky TV, although sometimes edited. The American film is the source of violence and pornography on our TV screens. I regret, almost deplore, the lack of support given by the British Government to the French Government when they were rightly defending European cultural values in the recent GATT negotiations. So British television producers are not the main source of this problem.
I would argue that even more importantly it is wrong to look at television as though it were a discrete and unique source of violence and pornography. In fact, I suspect that to most British people the main problems of
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violence and pornography in society lie not on the BBC and ITV screens but are seen in their every-day lives, especially in Britain's inner cities. Violence stems from the collapse of our physical, social and moral infrastructure. It is not TV producers who have caused that, but they do reflect it and may aggravate it. I do riot propose to identify the guilty since we all have our share. But a Government who have so neglected our physical and social infrastructure are not exempt.
When we turn, as my noble friend Lord Barnett did, to ask what we should do about our media problem and violence on television, the debate usually grows—I suggest that it did tonight—a little more nebulous. It is not clear what we can do, for instance, about the fracturing of our moral framework. Occasionally Peers may seem to speak as though there is an agreed common framework of values and moral certainties relating to matters such as the presentation of sex and violence. There is no such consensus, as my noble friend Lady Dean said.
The Government themselves have made that mistake and are now painfully discovering that no three Cabinet Ministers can agree among themselves on the basic values which we are supposed to go back to. Perhaps the apparent ambivalence of television producers about these matters partly reflects the absence of any moral consensus in society as a whole.
An even greater problem is the media revolution which lies ahead—the globalisation of multi-media operators and the multiplicity of channels which will result from the technology of digitalisation and the multiplication of satellites and local cable TV stations. That lies immediately ahead and means that our ambitions, if we have them, to control the content of programmes will almost certainly prove over-ambitious. It is certainly so unless it is done, as I believe it should be, on a pan-European scale.
I imagine that by the end of the decade operations such as the dear Broadcasting Standards Council and even the ITC as presently constituted will seem like cottage industries spitting in the gale of multi-media violence and pornography originating from abroad.
Therefore, I ask the. Minister this. Are the Government content with the present regulatory framework? Will they give the ITC more—which may mean any—teeth? Will they press for a later watershed? Have they any plans to clarify their powers to regulate pornography beamed from Europe, especially given the ambiguities of the EC directive? Have they any plans to regulate the flow of violence from the Sky movie channels, or do they accept that new technology may render all traditional regulatory endeavours obsolescent? If so, how do they propose to regulate this new technological world? Would it be more sensible simply to rationalise and make enforceable the existing laws on pornography and obscenity covering the whole of publishing.
I look forward—I confess more with hope than with faith —to enlightenment from the ministerial reply. I finally ask the Minister this. Does she not agree that any hope of limiting violence and pornography and maintaining civilised values on TV must have as its

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foundation the kind of public service broadcasting which this Government spent so much of the 1980s attacking?
8.15 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, by initiating this important debate the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, has clearly provoked your Lordships into expressing their views on a subject which deeply concerns not only this House but also many people in the wider world outside this Chamber. I have, of course, listened to your Lordships' speeches with the greatest care. I can assure the noble Earl, Lord Longford, that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will take careful note of your Lordships' views when he reads Hansard. Both of us have read the views of the group of noble Lords chaired by my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing.
At this stage perhaps I may add my congratulations to those already received by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln. What a splendid speech that was! I would also like to join the noble Earl, Lord Longford, in paying tribute to Mrs. Mary Whitehouse, who has, as we all know, contributed valuable briefing to several of your Lordships and who has for so many years pioneered the way concerning the very matters which we are discussing this evening.
Television is a subject on which very few people do not have an established view. My task this evening is to state the Government's policy and to explain the roles and responsibilities of the independent bodies which regulate broadcasting in the United Kingdom.
First pornography. Pornography is an emotive term. It is not a word which has any specific meaning in law but I am sure we all have our own view of the sort of material that is pornographic. Perhaps the most common use of the term "pornography" is to describe material which would be considered obscene within the terms of the Obscene Publications Act.
May I remind your Lordships that the Broadcasting Act 1990 brought broadcasts within the provisions of the 1959 Obscene Publications Act. It is an offence under Section 2 of that 1959 Act to publish an article, including a broadcast programme, whose effect, taken as a whole, is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt those likely to read, see or hear it.
I remind my noble friend Lord Caldecote and the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, that the action, as the noble Lord, Lord Annan, reminded us, by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State in proscribing the satellite television channel "Red Hot Dutch" earlier last year should make it clear to anybody in doubt that the Government will not tolerate such broadcasts and will maintain their vigilance.
In the Government's view, free media are an essential component of a democratic society. However, I would emphasise that we must always balance the rights and freedoms of individuals with the need to protect the young and the vulnerable in our society from degrading and unsuitable material. We so do by having a firm framework of regulation which is as tight as anywhere
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in the Western world. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships of the regulatory position for television in this country.
As many noble Lords will know, the responsibility for what is broadcast rests with the broadcasting regulatory bodies and the broadcasters themselves. The regulatory bodies, the BBC, the Independent Television Commission, the Radio Authority and S4C (the Welsh fourth channel authority) are independent of Government and are responsible for safeguarding the public interest in broadcasting.
It is a long-established principle that Ministers do not seek to intervene in the day to day content or scheduling of programmes. Our whole regulatory framework is based on this arm's length approach. But that is not to say that the Government have abrogated their responsibilities for broadcasting.
The Broadcasting Act 1990 created a clear framework for the independent broadcasters to follow with regard to broadcasting standards. Section 6 of the Broadcasting Act sets a clear statutory duty on the ITC to ensure that every licensed service includes nothing in its programmes,
"which offends against good taste or decency or is likely to encourage or incite to crime or to lead to disorder or to be offensive to public feeling".
The Act also empowers the ITC to require an apology to be broadcast, to impose financial penalties and ultimately to revoke a licence where the conditions of the licence are not met. Related provisions are contained in the annex to the BBC's own licence and agreement.
In reply to a point that was raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, perhaps I may point out that accountability to the viewer, including accountability for taste and decency, is an issue to which we have been giving careful consideration in the context of the review of the BBC. Any changes that we make in that area might also have implications for the independent commercial broadcasters.
It is too early for me to respond substantively to the points raised by your Lordships in today's debate and in the report of the Broadcasting Group. Equally, it is not too late for those thoughts to be brought to the attention of the Secretary of State, who is formulating policy in this area. I undertake to inform him fully of the views that have been expressed by your Lordships today.
It was precisely because of concerns expressed by many members of the public that the Government established the Broadcasting Standards Council in 1988. The council acts as a focus for public concerns about the portrayal of violence, sex and standards of taste and decency in all forms of broadcasting. It has a number of functions, which include the consideration of complaints from members of the public about broadcast programmes, conducting research and undertaking surveys of public opinion.
The council also produces and maintains a code of practice, the provisions of which broadcasters are required to reflect in their own individual programme codes. The council's code was published in 1989, following extensive discussion within the broadcasting industry and by other interested parties. It is important to note that it is presently undertaking a comprehensive

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revision of the code, and we look forward to seeing the results when they are published later this year. Your Lordships may also be aware of the valuable research which the council conducted for its 1993 annual review into possible effects of violence in factual television, the results of which were published in December.
Lady Howe has succeeded now to the noble Lord, Lord Rees-Mogg, the first chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Council and I wish all power to her elbow. All the evidence suggests that the broadcasters take the Broadcasting Standards Council's findings seriously, and it is important that they do so in view of the weight of public opinion behind the council's work.
A further safeguard exists in the form of the British Board of Film Classification. This body, acting within the framework of the Video Recordings Acts, has been successful in introducing a tight regulatory regime to a previously uncontrolled market and in removing much of the most objectionable material, which could have appeared on our TV screens, from circulation.
My noble friend Lord Ashbourne wondered whether we should introduce a grading system for TV programmes à la BBFC. That is an interesting suggestion which I shall most certainly draw to the attention of my right honourable friend. I am afraid that I do not think that it is free of difficulty but, alas, I do not have the time to go into that now. However, I shall write to my noble friend about it if he so wishes.
I want to turn now to the functions of the independent regulatory bodies. The ITC must draw up and enforce a general programme code which includes comprehensive advice to programme producers and purchasers on such matters as the portrayal in programmes of violence, sex and had language. It includes guidance on scheduling and the broadcast of clear on-air warnings where broadcasts contain material unsuitable for some audiences. All ITC licensees are required to ensure that any programmes they transmit comply with the commission's code and the ITC itself has substantial powers to sanction licensees who do not comply, including fines, and ultimately, the revocation of a licence.
There is at present no statutory duty on the BBC to enforce a programme code. However, the governors reaffirmed their commitment to maintain standards in the annex to the BBC's licence and agreement and have produced guidelines for all levels of production staff.
Your Lordships may be aware that in July last year, both the BBC and ITC issued revised, tightened guidelines for their programme producers and purchasers on the portrayal of violence. In summary, these guidelines are to prohibit the use of gratuitous violence; to require that the consequences of violent acts are not overlooked; to require close attention to the scheduling of violent programmes and advise on the use of clear "on-air" warnings; and, perhaps most importantly, to warn of the dangers of broadcasting material depicting violent behaviour children might imitate, at times when large numbers of children are likely to be watching.
We welcome these positive moves by the broadcasters. We are particularly pleased to note that the
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ITC has instructed its licensees to bring about a reduction in the amount of violence shown and will monitor the situation to see that this takes place.
A number of your Lordships have spoken about the television "watershed". I would not pretend that all children are tucked cosily up in bed at 9 p.m. or that it is impossible for them to have access at other times of day to programmes which have been recorded after the watershed. But that is not the intention of the family viewing policy which our broadcasters have adopted It is not possible to prevent children seeing anything at all which might offend or be unsuitable if television is to meet the reasonable expectations of the adult population.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wharton, suggested moving the watershed to 10 p.m. I noted that suggestion with interest. It is really a matter for the ITC and the BBC and I am sure that they will take careful note of the noble Baroness's comments. Your Lordships may wish to be aware that both the BBC and ITC guidelines recommend that the most potentially disturbing material should be shown well after 9 p.m.
I turn now to something on which your Lordships have not dwelt perhaps quite as strongly as I had hoped. The primary responsibility for what children watch lies with parents and others who have children in their care. It is their duty to shield children from aspects of the adult world which are unsuitable, and I have in mind that there are many aspects which are not confined to television. The point of the watershed is to help parents in exercising those responsibilities. Parents need to be comfortable (if they allow their children to view material broadcast or taped before 9 p.m.) that nothing which is unsuitable normally will be seen.
I am aware that your Lordships, including the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, in his powerful speech, have expressed concern that, despite the care that we have taken to ensure a strict regulatory regime, one which I would remind noble Lords once again is as tough as any in the free world, there has been a decline in standards. There will, of course, from time to time, be individual cases where broadcasts exceed the bounds of what is generally acceptable. In those circumstances, the broadcasters must receive a clear warning with a view to what they show in future. However, the evidence that I have seen does not support the view that there is widespread flouting of the guidelines by broadcasters or that there has been a demonstrable decline in standards in our broadcast television. We also need to look carefully at all the available evidence before we jump to the conclusion, which has been suggested in some quarters, that there is some automatic link between a perceived drop in standards and any increase in violent crime.
There has been extensive research over the years on the possibility of a link between violent television programmes and violent or criminal behaviour. There are, as one might expect in such a controversial field, extensive claims and counterclaims which are not easily summarised. However, the balance of all this research—more than a thousand studies in the past 30 years, as the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, and my noble friend Lady Cumberlege have agreed—has not

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produced any conclusive evidence that such a link exists. I am not being facetious when I ask—and this is produced strictly for children—"What could be more violent than a Punch and Judy show?" Nevertheless, television is a powerful medium, and our simple common sense must suggest that it must have an effect on the choices and decisions of at least part of the audience. The Government believe, therefore, that broadcasters must exercise caution and assume that there may well be some relationship between television and behaviour.
The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, suggested a need for a Royal Commission to look into the way we conduct our lives. Perhaps the noble Lord would care to expand those thoughts to me in writing. The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Lincoln spoke about the control of video recordings. The regulation of video recordings is a matter for my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. I shall bring the right reverend Prelate's words to his notice.
The Video Recordings Act 1984 successfully outlawed video nasties, but a minority of traders continue to supply unclassified videos, or classified videos to those below the specified age. Therefore, a Bill to improve the enforcement of the 1984 Act was introduced last year by the noble Lord, Lord Birkett. It was supported by the Government, and came into force by 20th September 1993 as the Video Recordings Act 1993. The new Criminal Justice Bill also includes measures to tighten enforcement of the video recordings legislation.
The noble Lord, Lord Annan, asked whether the Government would follow the French example of providing protection for its audiovisual culture. As your Lordships will know, the audiovisual sector was the subject of extended consideration in the recent GATT negotiations. In the end, in the absence of agreement on a specific set of understandings between the US and the EU, the matter was left to be covered on the new general agreement on trade in services without special provisions. The result is that the status quo ante has been preserved for at least the time being. So we and the French, and our EU partners, can continue to maintain the range of protections which already exist, such as the European quotas in the European broadcasting directive.
The noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, asked me various questions. Here, I hope, are the answers. He asked whether the Government were content with the present regulatory framework. The Secretary of State for National Heritage is currently considering the present arrangements for accountability in the context of the BBC charter review. The ITC, and the Radio Authority, are a recent creation of the Broadcasting Act 1990, but the Broadcasting Complaints Commission and the Broadcasting Standards Council are of longer standing. There have been suggestions about combining the latter two bodies into one. The Government have not reached any conclusions on that proposal and will announce their views in due course.
We should give the ITC teeth, said the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue. The ITC already has teeth. It has
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powers of censure, fine and, ultimately, revocation of a licence. Those powers have not been used to a significant extent until now, but that is not to say that they will not be used if necessary. The noble Lord's next question was about plans for clarifying European powers. I am aware of no such plans at present, but the UK Divisional Court, in considering the Red Hot Television application for judicial review, referred two questions of interpretation of the EC broadcasting directive to the European Court of Justice. One of them related to the article in the directive dealing with the protection of minors from pornography and violence.
A further question from the noble Lord related to the better regulation of Sky Movies violence. The ITC's programme code, which includes provision on violent programmes, applies equally to licensed satellite television services. The enforcement of its code is a matter for the ITC in the first instance. The ITC has asked BSkyB, and it has agreed, to look carefully at its evening scheduling of its film programmes and channels. How to regulate new technology with multi-channels is indeed a big question, and I agree that there is need for vigilance. The ITC and the Broadcasting Standards Council are the Government's eyes and ears. The Broadcasting Act 1990 gives power to proscribe unacceptable foreign satellite services. The Secretary of State for National Heritage used that power to proscribe Red Hot Television. The Government will not hesitate to act, as I have said before.
Plans to reform the pornography laws was, thankfully, the subject of the last of the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue. The law on obscenity is a matter for my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, who I know has given long and serious consideration to possible ways of tightening up the Obscene Publications Act 1959. That has proved extremely difficult. The Government have indicated that they will consider sympathetically any suggestions by Members of Parliament for reformulating the test in the 1959 Act but do not themselves have any proposals to bring forward.
It is easy to criticise. It is easy to complain, and it is right to do so, but, living as we do in an imperfect world and, in our case, in a jealously guarded democracy, it is not easy to provide solutions to every problem. As I have said, taken all in all, we in this country are fortunate to have the best broadcasting system in the world. The Government will not let it be destroyed by a gradual erosion of standards, and on that we shall remain firm.
8.37 p.m.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, in asking your Lordships' leave to withdraw the Motion standing in my name I add the following. I thank everyone who has found it an acceptable Motion to discuss, and I thank the noble Baroness for the trouble she has taken in replying to the points raised. I congratulate the right reverend Prelate on his maiden speech, which I found interesting.
I should like to make just two points. Various definitions of pornography have been given. Pornē, in Greek, means "prostitute", and pornography is the decor, conversations and literature one might expect to

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find in a brothel. With respect to my noble friend Lord Annan, he recited an enormous amount of experimental work in which witnesses are shown a film of something—a traffic accident, for instance —and are asked to report what it is that they saw. They get the details wrong. Briefed by me, my noble friend had a cassette recorder which he can replay and check on what I told him. The result is slightly different from what I told your Lordships, but I reported it in good faith, and I now accept the noble Lord's description. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion standing in my name.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

New Towns (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
8.38 p.m.
Lord Finsberg: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the order of commitment be discharged.—(Lord Finsberg.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Sale of Goods (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
8.40 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. First, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Strathclyde upon his appointment as Minister of State. I knew his father and his grandfather and I served with them in another place. I know how proud and happy they would be about his achievements because he is one of the youngest Ministers of State ever to be appointed. He is only 33 years old but he is much more mature than that.
As the Bill's Long Title makes clear, its purpose is to abolish the rule of law relating to the sale of goods in market overt. It is a law which has applied for 800 years in England but not at all in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland or in Eire. The general rule of English law is that a buyer of goods acquires no better title to them than the seller had—nemo dat quod non habet. That is stated in the Section 21 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979. That re-enacted the equivalent section of the Sale of Goods Act 1893 which in its turn had codified the common law on sale of goods, including the market overt rule.
The thief has no title to goods that he steals and, therefore, no later buyer can obtain a good title apart from the exception created by the market overt rule. Section 22(1) of the 1979 Act states:
"Where goods are sold in market overt, according to the, usages of the market, the buyer acquires a good title to the goods, provided he buys them in good faith".
The market overt rule applies to markets that have existed since before 1189 or were created by statute or by charter. For example, I believe that the ancient market of St. Ives, my former constituency, near Huntingdon was created in the 13th century by a Royal Charter granted for the purpose. The goods must be on
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open display for them to be covered by market overt and the sale must not take place behind a curtain. The sale must take place after dawn and before sunset.
Ancient street markets and country fairs existing continuously for those 800 years are markets overt but shops are not, even those which displayed their goods openly in front of and outside the shop. There was an exception to that in the City of London with regard to shop fronts—goods displayed in front of the shop—but it has become obsolete and for the past 80 years, there has been no claim to market overt in the City of London. Therefore, we can ignore that factor.
I should mention that the rule of market overt does not apply to "car boot sales" or to those modern so-called "antique fairs" which are a fairly recent development of the past 20 or 30 years arid which is the expression used to refer to sales in village and church halls which are held mostly on Sunday afternoons. Therefore, neither car boot sales nor the so-called modern antique fairs invoke the market overt rule arid the Bill has no need to refer to them.
The rule applies these days mostly to the few ancient traditional street markets, of which perhaps the best known is Bermondsey market, which is held every Friday from dawn until mid-afternoon. It has become notorious as a place where stolen goods can be easily sold, especially silver and jewellery, as well as other antiques. Pictures are sometimes on Sale and sometimes there are valuable paintings by old masters. For example, the year before last two Gainsborough portraits and a Reynolds were stolen from Lincoln's Inn. One Gainsborough and one Reynolds were sold about six months ago in Bermondsey market. Each picture fetched less than £150. The buyer claimed that he had a good title to them because they were sold in market overt. He said that he did not know that they were stolen and thought that he gave reasonable value for them. They were each worth thousands of pounds.
Although I am a member of Lincoln's Inn and used to serve on its pictures committee, that is not why I am introducing the Bill. I should be doing so even if our pictures had not been stolen because, quite frankly, the market overt rule has become a thieves' charter. Something should be done about it and very soon.
Large quantities of valuable stolen goods are sold successfully in some street markets as a result. They are sold mostly for cash and records are rarely kept. Therefore the Bill is a necessary crime prevention measure.
So much for its purposes; its method is clear and simple. It repeals subsection (1) of Section 22 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979. I have considered carefully whether the Bill should contain any consequential amendments but on balance I do not find it necessary. I have consulted several learned friends in the legal profession and they agree with me. One of those whom I consulted is a former member of the Law Commission—a man of exceptional learning who is greatly respected.
I am glad to tell your Lordships that the Bill has wide support in the recognised antique dealing world, including the Society of Antiquaries and the Council for the Prevention of Art Theft, which is a representative

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body on which various of the antique dealing bodies are represented. It is supported by the British Art Market Standing Committee, the chairman of which is his honour Judge Stephen Tumim, who is Her Majesty's Inspector of Prisons. It is supported by Sotheby's, Phillips and others. The police would like it. I am glad to say that it has the support of eminent lawyers, two of whom, noble and learned Lords, are to speak later in the debate.
The Attorney-General of the Isle of Man has written to me supporting the Bill. He says in his letter:
"It is gratifying to see the United Kingdom following in the footsteps of the Isle of Man".
With your Lordships' help, I trust that we shall do so.
Although this is a valuable and necessary crime prevention measure which therefore engages the responsibility of the Home Office, the Government's reply to the debate will be given by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde on behalf of the Department of Trade and Industry because it is extremely interested in all aspects of the sale of goods. I understand that the department is reviewing the 1979 Act, including this question of market overt. I understand also that my noble friend may tell us what is to be done about it. I shall reserve any comment about that until I hear his reply.
Meanwhile, I should point out that this is an urgent crime prevention matter. It cannot wait indefinitely for a long and full inquiry leading to legislation perhaps next year or the year after. It must be attended to immediately. Accordingly, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time—(Lord Renton.)
8.48 p.m.
Lord Oliver of Aylmerton: My Lords, I shall not take up a great deal of the time of the House because I believe that the arguments are so overwhelmingly one way that there really is little that needs to be said that has not been said already by the noble Lord, Lord Renton.
I urge the House to support this Bill which, in truth, is short and simple enough and may be thought to be many years overdue. We are concerned here with a legal anachronism that dates back certainly to 1332 and probably beyond. It is surprising that in this year of grace 1994 our law is still encumbered by what has become a senseless and antisocial medieval survival. In a medieval society, where a great deal of everyday commerce was conducted on customary fairs according to the customs then prevailing, the rule of market overt might have had some justification. Sir Edward Coke in his Institutes justified the rule on policy grounds, the supposed rationale being that it facilitated the replenishment and furnishing of goods of all kinds in fairs and markets which were necessary for the sustenance of a largely static population.
At a time when transport was both slow and rudimentary and people relied upon local markets for the buying and selling of goods, that might have had some little basis in good sense. The true owner of goods that had gone astray knew where to look for them; he looked in the local market because they could not travel
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very far. If he was not alert enough to intercept them before an innocent purchaser obtained them in good faith there might have been some sense in protecting the purchaser's title. It is perhaps significant that in the case of the most easily transportable goods at that time—the horse, which could swiftly be taken away and sold somewhere other than in the local market—it was found necessary in the reign of Elizabeth I for the legislature to intervene and restrict the application of the doctrine in the Sale of Horses Act 1588.
In modern conditions, where the population is no longer dependent upon local markets for commerce and when goods of all kinds stolen at lunchtime may be several hundred miles away by sundown, I venture to submit that this rule can have no possible useful, social purpose. The only purpose that it serves is that of assisting thieves in the disposition of stolen goods. This rule of medieval markets has no legitimate place in our law. We should look at other common law jurisdictions. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, has already referred to the Isle of Man, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. I venture to cite Australia and New Zealand where this doctrine forms no part of their jurisprudence. I submit it is shaming that it still does here.
Abolition of the rule in England was suggested by a distinguished law reform committee nearly 30 years ago. It is high time that it went. I find it difficult to believe that any sensible argument can be advanced for its retention. I suggest that the only real question is whether it should await a more comprehensive revision of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 or whether this long-overdue reform should be carried out now in this short, simple, readily intelligible and discrete Bill now before the House. A review of the principal Act will inevitably be a lengthy and laborious process. In the meantime, stolen property is being and will be disposed of on a substantial scale in defeasance of the titles of the true owners under a doctrine for which there is no possible justification in good sense, public policy or common justice. How long must we put up with this? I urge the House to support the Bill.
8.55 p.m.
Lord Crathorne: My Lords, my remarks will be in keeping with the length of the Bill. I add my support to my noble friend Lord Renton in his efforts to correct the anomaly of market overt. Having worked in the art market I have some experience of the problem. I have been involved through the Georgian Group with the organisation of two international art, antiques and architectural theft conferences. It was those that led to the setting up of the Council for the Prevention of Art Theft.
Market overt was created centuries ago for circumstances quite different from those obtaining today. The only use today of market overt is as a laundering service for thieves. They are the only people who will be sorry when market overt is done away with. My noble friend Lord Renton spoke of the case of the Gainsborough and Reynolds, but there are many others. I mention just one that concerns an 18th century bracket clock that was stolen from a country house in the Midlands. The next day it appeared in a car boot sale

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and was bought by a dealer's runner who took it to a small stall in the weekly Birmingham market. There it was spotted by a clock dealer who bought it for cash. The police were very quick and efficient in that case, as indeed they often are, and tracked the clock down to that dealer. The dealer was persuaded by them to return it to the owner. A year later the owner decided that he wanted to sell the clock and sent it to a London auction house. The same dealer saw it in the auction catalogue in London, got in touch with the auction house and, having had a change of heart about giving it back, said that under the market overt rules it belonged to him. I think it is quite clear that he could have pushed that claim. However, an agreement was reached that when the sale went through there was a division of the proceeds between the owner and that dealer. That is extraordinarily unfair.
There are many cases that never come to court because of the near impossibility of proving that something has not been bought in good faith in these markets. It is not easy to know whether or not a deal is completed before or just after sunrise, which is critical in the context of market overt. The law relating to market overt is not a quaint and harmless survival from medieval times. It enables stolen goods to be disposed of so as to prevent the original owner from recovering them.
We have a well-developed sense of fair play in this country, and I hope that this manifestly fair and sensible Bill will he supported by the Government. I look forward to hearing what my noble friend the Secretary of State has to say.
9 p.m.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, in days, indeed in years, gone by, when I and my noble and learned friend Lord Oliver were Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, often on a Thursday judgment day I enunciated a well-worn formula that I had read in advance the draft speech prepared by my noble and learned friend, that I agreed with it in its entirety and that I had nothing to add. That is a strong temptation. However, I shall add the following observations.
When the noble Lord, Lord Renton, invited my attention to the Bill, I had a sneaking recollection that when I was an officer of the Bar Council nearly 30 years ago we submitted a memorandum to a Law Reform Committee. With a little research, I found that it was the Law Reform Committee which in its 12th report in 1966 (Cmnd. 2958) on the subject matter of the Transfer of Title to Chattels dealt specifically with the market overt exception. In paragraph 31 of the report, the committee said:
"The present rule about market overt is capricious in its application and we think it should either be abolished or else extended so as to cover all retail sales at trade premises as well as sales by auction. Which solution is adopted plainly depends on whether it is thought better to protect property rights or to facilitate commercial transactions".
The report continued to point out that:
"so far as market overt is concerned, there was a marked diversity of opinion in the evidence that [the committee] received. The Bar Council, the Law Society, the Chartered Auctioneers' and Estate Agents' Institute and the Association of British Chambers of Commerce all thought that the rule should be abolished,
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principally on account of the anomalies to which it gives rise. The British Insurance Association and Lloyd's were satisfied that the rule does not present any practical difficulties to insurers, although both bodies were concerned that nothing should be done to facilitate the disposal of goods obtained by theft or fraud".
Apparently, other witnesses,
"had no objection to the present rule but were not in favour of its extension, while yet others thought that it should be extended to cover all retail sales".
The committee by a majority decided to recommend that it should protect all commercial transactions.
The report said:
"Those of us who are in favour of a change in the present law"—
in the manner that I have just described—
"acknowledge the force of the arguments advanced by Lord Donovan"—
a very senior member of that committee—
"in his Note of Reservation".
Lord Donovan specifically supported the view of the Bar Council, the Law Society and the other institutions to which I have drawn attention. He made the following observations, which your Lordships may think are of some little relevance. He pointed out that:
"Lloyd's Underwriters, out of their wide experience",
had observed,
"The injured innocence of the purchaser who discovers that he has bought goods under a transaction tainted by theft or fraud and is sued for damages for conversion is, it is feared, all too often tinged with lurking doubts which he had successfully stifled when the transactions took place".
In regard to establishing that the person had acted in good faith, Lord Donovan pointed out that there would be many cases in which the purchaser,
"could assert that the unduly low price was due to clever and persistent bargaining on his part and to nothing else".
He also pointed out that if the person thus raised,
"a prima facie case in his own favour",
how was that case to be overthrown? He asked:
"How is the true owner at this stage of the case to establish that secretly the 'innocent' purchaser doubted the bona fides of the retailer but conveniently stifled his doubts?"
Finally, his Lordship said that the "justification for the recommendation" that it would "facilitate commercial transactions" would be,
"poor consolation for the true owner of some valuable picture or some heirloom which has been stolen from him and which he would be unable to get back, even though he could trace it into the hands of some purchaser and find out from whom he had bought it. The substitution of a right of action against the retailer"—
who, of course, would not be protected—
"for money compensation … would be no real recompense".
His Lordship further observed that,
"if the purpose of the recommendation is to protect innocent purchasers, one wonders on what ground the retailer who has purchased innocently is to be left vulnerable".
I agree with the observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Renton. It is always a pleasure, and indeed a privilege, to support any initiative which he takes. This Bill is no exception.
9.6 p.m.
Lord Derwent: My Lords, I rise to give the strongest possible support to my noble friend Lord Renton. I declare an interest as I am the chairman of the London and Provincial Antique Dealers' Association (LAPADA), which is the largest association of antique dealers in Britain, with over 700 registered professional antique dealers from every county in the country. I must

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congratulate my noble friend on drafting a Bill which, as your Lordships would expect, is a model of clarity and brevity. One can only contrast it with the obfuscation of some other Bills with which your Lordships have to grapple.
In supporting the Bill, I do so not only with the backing of LAPADA, but also with that of the three leading regional antique dealers' associations—the Thames Valley, the Cotswold and the Bath and Bradford-upon-Avon Associations. Every honest antique dealer has been clamouring for years for the abolition of market overt. Not only does market overt give the trade a bad name, but antique shops are themselves now a prime target for thieves. It is obvious that raids on antique shops—and we have suffered a lot of ram-raiding recently—are only worth while if the thieves can dispose of and pass title to the stolen goods quickly before descriptions can be circulated. The law relating to market overt now serves as a common means by which stolen antiques are disposed of in such a way as to prevent the original owner recovering them.
My noble friend referred to Bermondsey market. The majority of dealers at Bermondsey are totally honest, but every month there is a regular stream of reported cases concerning stolen antiques sold in sections of the market. The goods change hands for cash and no receipts are given. The seller, who is often a dealer fronting for the thief, or is the thief himself, cannot be traced. The mere fact that market overt exists even enables clever defence counsel to claim that goods were bought in market overt. That claim may be difficult to disprove, even if untrue.
In mediaeval days, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, has pointed out, these markets essentially catered for a local clientele. Thieves were no doubt cautious about passing off stolen goods as the person robbed would also be at the market looking for his missing goods. Horses may indeed have been excluded from the goods which could be sold to prevent any stolen equine galloping off out of easy range. But today there are well worn paths from all over Britain down the motorways to accomplices who can acquire good title in market overt.
I, too, am aware that there is a wider debate in progress in Whitehall about the Sale of Goods Act as a whole; and internationally the British Government are indeed participating in Unidroit's efforts to solve the problems in private international law of obtaining compensation for bona fide purchasers of goods which turn out to be stolen. The Department of National Heritage is closely involved in these negotiations.
With the best will in the world—I am sure the Government have the best will in the world—such wide revision of the law will require considerable consultation and will take many months. Thereafter it is impossible to foretell when parliamentary time may be available to legislate. This Bill, however, is not concerned with these topics. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, has pointed out, the Bill is concerned with whether a different law should apply in certain locations to that applying in the rest of the country. All this Bill does is to remove what is
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considered by all those working on the Unidroit convention and by all those lawyers concerned with international cultural property to be an aberration permitting a thieves' paradise.
With due respect to my noble friend the Minister, it is something of an anomaly that because the abolition of market overt requires an amendment to the Sale of Goods Act it falls within the ambit of the Department of Trade and Industry which does not have prime responsibility either for crime prevention or law enforcement or protection of the national heritage, although I am sure the department appreciates the importance of all these subjects. But art and antique theft has now become big business. It is international in scope and it is, according to the police, closely linked to the international drugs trade. If the Government seriously wish to reduce crime not in two years' time but now, they will back the Bill and facilitate time for its consideration in another place. If they are not serious about this, they will argue for delay.
It is very seldom that any government have the opportunity to support a measure like this one, which will have the immediate result of reducing crime but which does not at the same time call for more resources, either human or financial. As no one wishes to preserve market overt as such it is also non-controversial and therefore, if given a fair wind, will not require much parliamentary time.
Whenever I visit the dealers in my association the question of increasing art-related crime comes at the very top of their agenda. They feel that their livelihoods are threatened by market overt. Ministers have been vocal about their plans for reducing crime and for helping victims. In every constituency in the country honest antique dealers are waiting to see whether they mean what they say. I strongly commend the Bill and express the great hope that the Government will facilitate its passage not only here but also in another place.
9.12 p.m.
Lord Bridges: My Lords, I too wish to support this Bill. I am not a lawyer nor any kind of jurist, nor am I involved in the art trade, but I am concerned about the practical effects of the law on market overt as it now stands. Although I have not encountered this difficulty myself, I have known quite a number of people who have seen in a shop, or listed in an auctioneer's catalogue, an article belonging to them which had been stolen from them some time previously. They have failed in their attempt to recover the article by legal means because the principle of market overt has been invoked and it is impossible in these circumstances to counter it.
The use of Bermondsey market has already been mentioned and there can be little doubt that much of this trade goes on there. I therefore agree that the time has come to end this historical anomaly, and I support the Bill because I believe it does so in a precise, effective and economical way.
From the inquiries I have made it appears that in the past there has been a balance of argument on the subject among those involved in jurisprudence. On the one hand

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there are those who emphasise the right of an owner to recover his stolen property, and on the other there are those who emphasise another aspect, namely the need to protect the legitimate rights of those who have bought an article in good faith.
I can understand those arguments but I submit that the question now needs to be resolved on a more urgent basis in view of the volume of crime which is taking place, particularly the increase in robbery, regrettably often armed robbery. It is therefore desirable to lay much greater emphasis on the first of the arguments which have occupied the jurists. A measure which will make it possible for the owners of property to recover their property is surely one which we should encourage. We should also note that in doing that we would make it more difficult for stolen property to be disposed of in the first instance.
There are some wider problems in this area, some of which have been mentioned. We have to recognise that if it succeeds this Bill will do little to curb some of the faster growing forms of theft. From a study of the statistics it is evident that those involve thefts from vehicles in particular. Stolen goods from that source appear to change hands very readily in garage sales. A number of questions on that subject have been put to the Government in this House in recent months. The problem of garage sales has to be handled separately. It is a different matter. We recognise its existence, but I do not believe that the abolition of market overt should be delayed on account of that quite separate anxiety.
Another aspect which is worth mentioning is the international dimension It is now extremely easy for goods to be stolen from addresses in this country and carried abroad in a car, truck or container. Once the articles are sold abroad it is very difficult for them to be recovered by their rightful owner in this country. That is partly because of the complexity of the matter, but also because of the inclusion in many foreign civil codes of provisions which protect the rights of the bona fide purchaser, particularly after some years of ownership. I submit that that is also a separate difficulty which we should recognise, but we should not allow it to prevent us from proceeding with this Bill.
It is true, as has been mentioned, that the international problem may be covered by the negotiation of the Unidroit Convention. However, the conclusion of that convention will take some time. It needs also to be accompanied by the modification in due course of the continental civil codes which I mentioned, which I hope may occur in the course of time.
Thus, although we cannot solve all of the problems connected with the most serious thefts of property which occur in this country and the circulation of the goods abroad, we can nevertheless do something which is practical and useful. This is one of those subjects where the introduction of a useful measure may be considered untimely by some because it might be affected by some wider and more comprehensive measure which is being considered. As has already been suggested in this brief debate, discussions may be taking place within the Government about broader legislation on the law of title. However, I greatly hope that if such discussions lead to the advancement of legislation in
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due course that that will not be used as an argument for blocking this Bill. It is a modest measure of limited scope, but we need it. I hope that the Government will speed its passage both in this House arid in the other place.
9.18 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I rise to support the Bill, mainly because I am the only person on these Benches who is not a lawyer who understands what it is about. That is because my late father was burgled in 1980 when 21 miniatures were stolen. Over the intervening years I have recovered six of those miniatures. Eight of them have re-emerged. I was unable to recover two of them because of market overt. I was advised by the police and others close to me, including my solicitors, that any further efforts on my part to pursue those two miniatures would have involved me in costs which would probably have exceeded their value. I am extremely grateful to have those objects back. I am somewhat concerned by the story of the noble Lord, Lord Crathorne. I only hope that those vendors—the items appeared at auction—who read Hansard (if indeed they do) change their minds. I hope that the reading of Hansard has not stretched that far. Even so, they would find it very hard to get them back from me.
Because of the success of an anti-theft device with which I was involved with the automotive industry, I had some discussion with the major auction houses about the use of electronic transponders on certain goods—antiques and pieces of fine art. It is a technology that I believe will become more common in future. However, the chief security officer of Christie's told me that, notwithstanding those advances in technology, the most important change which could take place in his view was the abolition of the market overt which he described in exactly the same terms as the noble Lord, Lord Renton, in so admirably introducing the Bill. The chief security officer said, "It is a thieves' charter and gives us the most enormous headache". He described, perhaps not so eloquently as other noble Lords, the historical origins of market overt. It was quite clear to me then that there was no logical reason why the rule should have continued beyond the stage when electric light was invented and probably the invention of the internal combustion engine. That historical origin has been well explained by other noble and noble and learned Lords tonight.
To echo other speakers, the provision is well overdue. It will be of enormous relief to police officers, antique dealers, the auction houses and people such as myself who have suffered either directly or indirectly from burglaries and from the difficulties in regaining goods to which people believe that they have good title. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Renton, on introducing the Bill. Having spoken to the chief security officer at Christie's it had been my intention to ask a Question for Oral Answer in the House. The Bill saves me the trouble of doing so, in particular since few people would have understood what I was talking about. The noble Lord has explained the Bill admirably; every noble and noble and learned Lord in this Chamber has understood it perfectly. I see from the expression on the

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face of the noble Lord on the Front Bench that he appreciates the arguments that have been put before him. I hope that that will be reflected in a favourable response from him and that we shall soon see the rule of market overt obliterated from English law.
9.23 p.m.
Lord Peston: My Lords, perhaps I may first associate myself with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, on his promotion to Minister of State. His rise in your Lordships' House has been, to say the least, spectacular but well deserved, although I think that he will wish, as we all do, that it had occurred in happier circumstances.
I wish to be as supportive of the Bill as I can. One of the pleasures of being a Member of your Lordships' House is that one's education never ceases. I had never heard of market overt until I was told that it was a subject with which I had to deal. I find it all quite fascinating. Speaking as one of the most conservative Members of your Lordships' House, I immediately took the view that a principle that had lasted from 600 to 800 years should not be abandoned too easily; there might be a point to it. However, I took advice. Certainly my advisers have been entirely in agreement with what the noble Lord, Lord Renton, said. If I had had any doubts, then listening to the noble and learned Lords, Lord Oliver and Lord Ackner, I am firmly convinced that this is something which ought to happen.
It is a simple matter. My advisers have told me, and other noble Lords have repeated, that there is a strong case for changing the Sale of Goods Act in many ways. We shall come to that in due course. But it would be a most unattractive position for the Minister to take not to give this measure his full support because there is a lot more that we shall do some day in the future. Thus I support the Bill, and if, as I hope, the Government give the Bill a fair wind, I am confident that the Opposition will in no way oppose it. On the contrary, they will do all they can to help it through as quickly as possible to the statute book.
9.25 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Strathclyde): My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity given by my noble friend Lord Renton to take part in the important debate on this subject. I thank him warmly for the congratulations he gave to me in the preface to his speech and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Peston, for his congratulations. I also join him in admitting that I too had little or no knowledge of "market overt" before the debate came to pass.
It has been an interesting debate and one which has illuminated one of the stranger corners of English law. It says something for the continuity and profound historical roots of that law that we should today be discussing a legal principle in which the first leading case, if my advisers are to be believed—and to some extent that was confirmed by my noble friend Lord Renton—dates from the reign of Edward I. But the fact
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that a law is ancient does not entitle it to any special respect if the reasons which brought it into being are no longer good. I would be the first to agree with my noble friend that the original justification for the rule of market overt has long ceased to hold.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, remarked, the rule of market overt grew up in the Middle Ages at a time when most goods were bought and sold at the local market and neither goods nor people were normally mobile. It followed that, if goods were stolen or mislaid, they were likely sooner or later to turn up in the market, because there was no other means of disposing of them. It seemed a reasonable duty to place upon the original owner of the goods that he should search for them in that market, and a reasonable protection for buyers that one who bought in good faith from that market should get good title.
The world has moved on since then. Goods are no longer normally bought and sold from open market stalls, and with the advent of the motor car and other means of transport they have become highly mobile. Indeed, it may be worth noting, if I may be permitted another historical aside, that horses as goods, which were themselves mobile, were excluded from the rule of market overt in the 16th century. I very much accept the argument that, if we were sufficiently alive to changing circumstances to update the rule of market overt in the 16th century, then we should not be shy of doing so again in the late part of the 20th century.
So far, I have been agreeing with my noble friend. However, I have to say that his Bill begs a question. We are all agreed that the law of market overt needs to be reformed. What has not been settled is in which direction. Should it, in short, be abolished or extended? We have heard the argument for its abolition. I do not necessarily disagree with that argument, but it is only one argument and I hope the House will bear with me while I mention the contrary one. The noble Lord, Lord Bridges, weighed up the opposition view in his speech.
When goods have been stolen by a rogue who then disappears a loss is created. Somebody must bear that loss. There are only two possibilities: it must be either the original owner or the purchaser. It is not self-evident that, if he has bought in good faith, it should necessarily be the latter. Indeed, the argument has been advanced that it should be the former because, in practice, he is the more likely to be covered by insurance and therefore the better able to bear the loss. Finally, there is the argument that to have a general rule that the innocent purchaser gets good title would facilitate the certainty of commercial transactions.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, recognised that these arguments were considered with great care by the Law Reform Committee in its report on transfer of title published in 1966. I understand that, with one dissenting voice, albeit a powerful one—namely, that of Lord Donovan—the committee concluded that the interests of the innocent purchaser should take precedence and that the rule of market overt should be extended to all purchases from normal retail premises or at auction. The committee recommended accordingly. That recommendation did not find favour

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with the government of the day, very much for the reasons that we have heard about this evening. But that is not to say that it should be rejected out of hand.
In the event, no action was taken on the Law Reform Committee's report, and for some years the issue slumbered. It was raised again in Professor Diamond's report on security interests in property, published in 1989, and in their response to that report the Government said that they would be giving the question of transfer of title further consideration. I fear that the wheels of Whitehall ground a little slowly, and it was not until April of last year that it was announced in another place that the Government proposed to publish a consultation paper on the question of transfer of title, of which of course the rule of market overt forms a part. I can confirm that the consultation paper will be published very shortly—it is hoped before the end of this month.
I hope therefore that my noble friend, and other noble Lords who have spoken, will understand now why I have some reluctance in supporting this Bill. To repeat, that market overt is a medieval anachronism which has outlived its original purpose is common ground between us. But abolition is not the only option. There is a serious argument that the rule should be extended to retain and adapt the principle to the trading realities of the twentieth century. I am not saying that the Government agree with this argument. But it deserves a hearing. I sense that it would be wrong, at a moment when an in-depth review of the law regarding transfer of title is about to be launched, that any particular part of that review should be pre-empted.
I do not wish to be churlish to the united voices that we have heard in the House this evening. I simply voice a caution about moving hastily on this matter. I must say to my noble friend Lord Renton that I am unable to give support to this Bill until I have seen the results of that consultation. However, as is our custom, I have no intention of delaying the Bill's passage through this House.
9.34 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I am glad to hear my noble friend's last remarks. But, frankly, I am quite shocked by his suggestion, after all that we have heard, that consultation is needed by his department. It needs no further consultation than to read the speeches that have been made in this House tonight. Perhaps I may say how grateful I am to every noble Lord, and every noble and learned Lord, who has spoken. Every single one of them has strengthened the case for the Bill. No consultation that might take place could weaken those arguments.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver, reminded us that Australia and New Zealand do not need a market overt rule, and never had one. He pointed out that there is no longer any useful service to be performed by it. My noble friend Lord Crathorne pointed out that the abolition has the support of the Georgian Group, yet another antiques body which is respected. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, referred at some length and with great learning to the work of the Law Reform Committee in 1966, and my noble friend Lord Strathclyde followed that up. But I must point out that
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that report and the minority comments, though of great value, by Lord Donovan, date from 30 years ago. There has been a great increase I n thefts since then. The matter has become even more urgent. Even so long ago, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, pointed out, abolition of the market overt rule had the support of the Bar Council, the Law Society and the British chambers of commerce.
My noble friend Lord Derwent added to the list of various respected bodies concerned with this matter by referring to the Antique Dealers' Association. He said that the rule creates a "thieves' paradise". He made a good point not made by anybody else; I certainly had not thought of it. He said that if the rule were abolished, no more government resources would be needed. One can carry that argument further. It would reduce the government resources needed. It would lighten the task of the police and create less of a burden for them. Money would be saved by the police.
The noble Lord, Lord Bridges, pointed to the urgency of the matter and reminded us that the existence of the market overt rule has even facilitated and encouraged armed robberies. He also referred to the international factor, about which I must confess I am somewhat ignorant. But quite frankly I do not think it affects the need for this Bill, and neither does the noble Lord.
The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, gave a most telling example of the theft of 21 miniatures from the collection of his famous family and mentioned his difficulty in obtaining possession of some of them, even those that have come to light. If I may say so, it was a very telling example.
I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Peston, for making clear that he, and presumably therefore his party, support the Bill. He was very good to say that they would do nothing to impede its passage through either House.
I come back to what my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said. I am grateful to him for making his position clear. But it is a position that I personally cannot accept, and I do not believe that any of your Lordships will do so. I hope that he will challenge that position in the circles in government in which he moves. He said that reform was needed but asked how it was to be done. There is only one issue. Do we abolish the market overt rule or do we not? There is only one way to do it and that is by this short and simple Bill.
My noble friend spoke of a consultation paper. What would a consultation paper do? It would presumably produce the answers that together we have produced tonight—the evidence, the legal arguments and so on. That could be the only result of a consultation paper. 1 am also worried about the timing. There is every prospect that the Bill could be passed through your Lordships' House within a fortnight or by the end of this month. Then the other place would have a reasonable time to consider it and, I hope, get it through before the end of the financial year. But if there is to be a consultation paper, what would happen to that timetable? I am very worried.
This is a government of whom I am a keen supporter, as my noble friend knows. I honestly advise the Government that the DTI is being over-zealous,

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over-cautious and wrong in deciding that this matter shall be delayed by a consultation paper. I commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Hill Samuel Bank and United Dominions Trust Bill [H.L.]
Presented and read a first time.

London Underground (Green Park) Bill
Brought from the Commons, read a first time and referred to the Examiners.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before ten o'clock.