Lords Sitting of 3 May 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 Newcastle.
Lady Sempill Lady Sempill—Took the Oath.

Royal Assent
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Finance Act,

Race Relations (Remedies) Act,

Road Traffic Regulation (Special Events) Act.

Woodlands Management: Incentives
Lord Astor of Hever Lord Astor of Hever asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will consider introducing tax incentives for the management of existing woodlands.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Employment (Lord Henley): My Lords, there are no plans to introduce such tax incentives. Since commercial woodlands were wholly removed from taxation in 1988, it would not be appropriate to introduce such incentives in isolation.
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Is he aware of the CLA survey which shows that 40 per cent. of woodland faces reduced management or complete abandonment since the 1988 tax changes? Can he confirm that the forestry review group has recommended tax incentives, with appropriate safeguards against abuse, to encourage woodland management?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am aware of the CLA report. It showed that some 63 per cent. of the woodland surveyed was in active management, some 16 per cent. was unmanaged and, therefore, presumably some 21 per cent. was partially managed. Obviously, if those figures are correct they are somewhat worrying. That is why we set up the forestry review, which Ministers are now considering, to look at, among other things, current incentives for forestry. I should stress that there are already grants for management of forestry, but the forestry review will look at whether the grant regime provides appropriate incentives. Its remit does not include reviewing the tax position.
Lord Rees: My Lords, will my noble friend admit that forestry is not entirely removed from taxation as certain forestry operations are subject to VAT? Against
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that background will he explain why, of all commercial operations in this country, forestry should have inflicted on it a tax regime which denies any relief fin losses?
Lord Henley: My Lords, my noble friend is right to mention VAT. Forestry was removed from mainstream taxation in 1988. I can inform the House that that is the only time that abolishing a tax has produced a net saving for the Treasury—a saving of some £10 million. The previous tax regime produced anomalies. Forestry was seen as something of a tax haven. That is why it was taken out of the tax net. I can inform my noble friend that there are no plans to introduce tax incentives. We believe that grants are a better way of providing the relief: they are available to everyone, irrespective of income.
Lord Eatwell: My Lords, how do the Government believe that the level of investment in forestry should be determined? Would they rather it was left to the market? Do they have any view at all? If left to the market, should that investment be entirely free of artificial incentives and subsidies?
Lord Henley: My Lords, we believe in encouraging forestry. We have a system of grants to encourage forestry, which is not so very different from other investments, because of the very long-term nature of investment in forestry. As I tried to make clear, we do not believe that tax incentives are the right way forward; we believe that grants probably are. That is also why we are reviewing the current regime of grants. That is one purpose of the forestry review.
Viscount Mountgarret: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the system of grants is entirely arbitrary and that some forests are considerably more expensive to plant and nurture than others? Is he aware that a good deal of anxiety was expressed about the: subject in 1988? Does he agree that those in the forestry business would much prefer to see it back in the tax bracket?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the point I am trying to make is that we believe that tax incentives are much blunter instruments than grants. My noble friend implies that grants are also too blunt an instrument. I stress to my noble friend that there are different levels of grant according to the type of wood being planted and the size of the individual wood.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, is the Minister saying that the Government are opposed to tax incentives generally?
Lord Henley: My Lords, it would be wrong for me to deal with the question of tax incentives generally. I am saying that in this particular case they had a distorting effect and that it was therefore right to remove them.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, is my noble friend satisfied that there will be adequate grants during the later stages of the growing of forestry, in particular hardwoods? Is he aware that without management those hardwoods are useless?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I can inform my noble friend that there are different levels of grant according to whether the wood being planted is coniferous or broad-leaved. There are also management grants. Those management grants differ according to whether it is a coniferous or broad-leaved plantation. The grants for broad-leaved plantations are considerably higher than those for coniferous plantations.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, will the Minister say what percentage of our timber requirements we import at present? What are the prospects of our being able to continue to import that percentage at a price we can afford?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I cannot give the noble Lady exact details of the amount of timber we import. However, I can assure her that we import a great deal. That is one of the reasons why we should like to see a great deal more timber planted. It is one of the reasons why we provide grants to the private sector, and some £95 million to the Forestry Commission to encourage planting.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, if the Government have it in mind to give grants, aid or tax relief to such projects, are they aware that there are many more deserving millions in the country who do not own forests and thousands who have never even seen one?
Lord Henley: My Lords, forests are open for everyone to see. We provide some £95 million to the Forestry Commission to encourage planting. I believe that most people will agree that there is much to be said for planting trees, and for planting a great many more trees.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, will the Minister assure the House that some consistency will enter into the policy for forestry? Is he aware that the Government's changes of policy have destroyed millions of young trees and created a complete mess? From now on perhaps forestry growers and would-be forestry growers may know exactly what is to happen.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I was not aware of any inconsistency in our policies. I am seeking to make clear that the forestry review group has now reported to Ministers. Ministers will consider its views and come to conclusions in due course. There will obviously be considerable consultation with parties concerned before they come to any conclusions.
Lord Moore of Wolvercote: My Lords, does the Minister agree that there are still considerable areas of woodland in south-east England which are badly in need of clearance six and a half years after the hurricane of 1987? It would be helpful if some assistance could be given to landowners, particularly of small areas, to achieve that badly needed clearance.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I cannot deal with the precise point that the noble Lord raises. I can say that
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there are grants both for new planting and for restocking. There are also grants available for the management of existing woodland.

Falklands War Crimes Investigation
2.46 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon Lord Stoddart of Swindon asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will confirm that no prosecution arising out of the Falklands war crimes investigation will be undertaken without the consent of the Attorney-General.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, the Director of Public Prosecutions has now received a report by the Metropolitan Police relating to its investigations. The possible offences to be considered are not the subject of any statutory requirement for the consent of a Law Officer. Any decision will be taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions in consultation with the Attorney-General under whose superintendence she acts.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor aware that the issue raises matters of grave and vital public policy, including the ability of our forces to fight future wars and battles? Therefore the Attorney-General should be involved in any decision to prosecute.
Is the noble and learned Lord aware that many people believe that it is an insult to the memory of all those who died on Mount Longdon that their comrades in arms who are still living are in danger of being prosecuted for war crimes in the British courts—with their former enemies, no doubt with all expenses paid, giving evidence against them in British courts—while the real perpetrators of the war, the fascist junta of Galtieri, remain free and are probably laughing their heads off at the behaviour of the British Government?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, on the first point that the noble Lord raises, as I have said, the Director of Public Prosecutions will take the decisions which are required of her in consultation with the Attorney-General under whose superintendence she acts. In view of what I have answered, there is no doubt that the first part of his supplementary question should be answered in the affirmative.
With regard to the second part of his question, I am sure that every Member of your Lordships' House shares the sentiments that the noble Lord expressed with respect to the fascist junta. On the other hand, this country has international obligations under the Geneva Convention with which we must comply. The purpose of the investigation is to make sure that we are complying with those obligations. Such an investigation is by no means to be considered as an adverse reflection on our armed forces. I would suggest to your Lordships that we ought to allow the Director of Public Prosecutions to come to a wise decision in the light of the information with which she has been provided.
Lord Bramall: My Lords, I am sure that the House will look to the right honourable and learned gentleman

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the Attorney-General to put the whole unfortunate investigation into proper perspective. Does the noble and learned Lord agree that the Government owed it to the armed forces—who, at their behest, went 8,000 miles to fight with great gallantry and overall discipline and decency—to have cleared up the whole matter a long time ago?
Finally, does the noble and learned Lord agree that, if any benefit of the doubt is to be given over any of the alleged incidents—as there is bound to be, taking into account the lapse of 12 years and the circumstances of intense battle prevailing at the time—that benefit should be accorded to those who risked their lives in the national interest?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, as the noble and gallant Lord well knows, the evidential burden in our criminal courts gives the full benefit of the doubt to any person accused. I am absolutely certain that, in considering the matter, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney-General will have it very much in their minds.
As regards the first part of the noble and gallant Lord's supplementary question, I am sure that all noble Lords, and certainly I on behalf of the Government, share his sentiments with regard to the gallantry and bravery of those who went 8,000 miles to the Falklands in difficult circumstances. I am sure that we all fully appreciate everything that they did. I wish to make it absolutely clear that the investigation carries no reflection whatever on our debt to our armed forces for their tremendous work on that great occasion.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, can my noble and learned friend say why the matter has been allowed to drag on for so long? Can he give the House some assurance that it will be brought to a conclusion quickly and that the anxiety which it is causing among individuals in the armed forces will be brought to an end?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, as has already been indicated, these are matters of some complexity and the events with which they are connected occurred a long time ago. My understanding is that the police report was delivered to the Crown Prosecution Service on 29th March this year. It is a complicated document. However, I have no doubt that a decision will be reached as soon as possible, having regard to the necessity to give proper consideration to all aspects of the matter.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord agree that it is particularly unhelpful of the Argentine Government to have launched an investigation of their own into the matter? Will he tell us what has happened to that investigation?
Further, is the noble and learned Lord aware that, although it is right that proper legal procedures should be observed, on the evidence available the investigation should never have been started in the first place?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I do not think that it would be right for me to offer any comment on the last matter raised by the noble Lord. The Director of Public
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Prosecutions is at present considering a detailed report. The House has already heard from me how it came about that the police were involved.
My understanding from the press reports is that a commission of inquiry was set up in Argentina. Exactly what transpired in that connection I am not certain, except that it appears from the press reports that the inquiry has now been completed.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, why was the matter given to the Metropolitan Police to deal with? Why was it not dealt with in the traditional way whereby matters of that kind arising out of active service are dealt with by the Judge Advocate General, probably leading to a court of inquiry? To give it to the Metropolitan Police seems to be an unfair burden on them, as they are not equipped to deal with that kind of matter. It is not fair on them; nor is it fair on the servicemen who deserve better than that of their country.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, my understanding is that it would not have been appropriate for the Judge Advocate General to be involved in the matter. He has advised me that that is his view. This is a question of an investigation which was referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions by the Ministry of Defence and the investigation followed from that. The Metropolitan Police were invited, on behalf of the director, to undertake the investigation. I have no doubt that all the circumstances to which the noble Lord referred will properly be taken into account in reaching a proper decision on the report.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, is my noble and learned friend aware that some of his replies are less than satisfactory? On 6th December he informed the House that the decision as to whether to prosecute would be taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions,
"under the superintendence of the Attorney-General".—[Official Report, 6/12/93; col. 740.]
Does that mean, or does it not, that the assent of the Attorney-General must be secured under the War Crimes Act before any prosecution is launched?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I hope that it is not remarkable that what I said today appears to correspond pretty closely to what I said on the previous occasion. Under the War Crimes Act 1991, the consent of the Attorney-General is required. Under any possible offence that might arise from this inquiry, as I said in my original Answer, the offences are not subject to any statutory requirement for the consent of a law officer. But because the Director of Public Prosecutions acts under the superintendence of the Attorney-General, her decision will be taken in consultation with my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General.
Lord Richard: My Lords, it is perfectly true and correct, that, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said, it would not be proper for him to intervene with the Director of Public Prosecutions in her consideration of the matter. However, he can be in no doubt of the general feeling expressed in most quarters of the House as to what the House thinks of the prosecution. Will the noble and learned Lord undertake

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to draw the attention of the director to the exchanges that have taken place today in the House and make it perfectly clear to her that this House at least wishes the matter to be dealt with as expeditiously as possible?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, in answering these questions, I am speaking on behalf of the prosecuting authorities. Certainly, the Director of Public Prosecutions pays the closest attention both to my answers and to your Lordships' questions in these exchanges. Therefore, she will be in no doubt as to your Lordships' views on the matter. I am sure that noble Lords would like her to reach her decision on the evidence which has been put before her, in accordance with the relevant law.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Wakeham): My Lords, I think that we should have two more questions and then we ought to move on.
Noble Lords: Move on!
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I think we ought to move on.

Nuclear Power: Review
2.58 p.m.
Lord Jay Lord Jay asked Her Majesty's Government:
When their review of future nuclear power production will be completed and whether the report will be published.
The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Strathclyde): My Lords, the Government will make an announcement about the terms of reference, the timetable and the format of the nuclear review as soon as possible. The conclusions will be made available to Parliament.
Lord Jay: My Lords, would it not have been better if the Government had carried out the review into the true costs of nuclear power production before and not after they had destroyed the coal industry?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the two issues are not linked at all. The nuclear review was originally announced by my noble friend the Leader of the House of Lords when he was Secretary of State for Energy, and the commitment was reaffirmed when we undertook the Coal Review in 1992. The Government will not be rushed into premature announcements of this very important review. I cannot of course prejudge the terms of reference.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, can my noble friend give an assurance that in considering the terms of reference for this review the Government will include the future of the fossil fuel levy, which the nuclear industry believes it can now do without—to the benefit of course of all electricity consumers?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, my noble friend puts forward a very helpful suggestion. I shall feed it in to the team that is looking at the terms of reference, which we shall of course announce as soon as possible.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, does the Minister recall that when I asked him on 30th January 1994 a Question very much like the one that we have just heard, the Answer was almost word for word the same as the one he has just given? I asked him to confirm that the review would indeed look at the use to which the nuclear levy is put since it appears to us that it is being used to subsidise current operations and he very kindly offered to feed my representations in to the review procedure. Is he aware that the Sussex University study is reported today as saying that the nuclear levy is indeed being used for other things and will hardly contribute to dismantling costs? May I ask him again: is that true, or is it not?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, again, these are the kinds of issues that will be looked at very carefully when the review takes place. As I said in response to an earlier question this afternoon—and indeed to previous questions that have been put on previous days—we shall have to wait for the announcement of the review before that process can take place.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, in replying to the supplementary question of the noble Lord, Lord Jay, the Minister said that coal and nuclear had no connection. But of course they have. Indeed, all forms of energy have a connection. How would it be possible for the nuclear industry to be looked at in isolation? Can the noble Lord give us an assurance that it will be looked at in the context of general energy policy?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I think that the point that the noble Lord, Lord Jay, was making was that somehow this was to do with the destruction of the coal industry. It was to that that I did not believe the Question should be related. I cannot prejudge the terms of reference. But no doubt those who are looking at the terms of reference will have listened carefully to what the noble Lord said.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, from whom do the Government take evidence in these inquiries? For example, would I be allowed to air my views?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I do not suppose that anybody could stop the noble Earl from making his views known. Already the Government have received a number of representations about the review from Members of both Houses and other interested parties. There will be nothing to stop the noble Earl making his views known if he has not yet done so.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that the costs of dismantling and dismembering the nuclear stations are estimated to be from very expensive to frantically and impossibly expensive? Will the Minister ensure that this matter is properly fed in to the committee? Quite clearly it is a very important factor which the committee will wish to consider very fully.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I cannot be drawn on this now, and I cannot prejudge the terms of reference.
Lord Jay: My Lords, should the review show that the true cost of nuclear power production, including decommissioning, waste disposal and interest charges, exceeds that of coal-fired stations, what will the Government do then?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, that of course is purely hypothetical. We shall have to see the results of the review.

Education Funding: Tower Hamlets
3.4 p.m.
Baroness David Baroness David asked Her Majesty's Government:
Why the grants for education, support and training (GEST 19) funding for parents in the primary curriculum in Tower Hamlets has been removed.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, Tower Hamlets is receiving support for expenditure of over £528,000 for 1994–95 under the GEST 19 programme for raising standards in inner city schools. That is the fourth highest share out of 27 local education authorities and accounts for some 6.6 per cent. of the total moneys available. Tower Hamlets' allocation meets in full the local education authority's bid for an increase of £177,000 over its 1993–94 allocation for reading recovery.
Baroness David: My Lords, yes, I understand that. But can the Minister say why this particular funding was removed before 31st March 1995, when the City Lit had been asked to produce a development plan for the three years from March 1992 to March 1995? Does she realise how very successful this project has been; how much both the parents and children in the Bethnal Green City Challenge area were getting; and how very disappointed they are that it has been broken before the three years are up?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, Tower Hamlets bid for over £½ million for reading recovery and, as I said in my initial Answer, received that amount in full. The project that the noble Baroness talks about is very important and is working well. The sum that was bid for was £79,000. We believe that we have the priority right, and that helping young people to raise the standard of literacy in Tower Hamlets—which was their own priority—was important. But it also has to be said that the total budget for Tower Hamlets is £248 million. That is 4.35 per cent. above 1993–94—an extra £10.4 million. If Tower Hamlets believes that £79,000, as against £248 million, is the difference between continuing the project and not continuing it, I believe that it is very much a matter for the authority to deem its own priority in this area.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, does the noble Baroness accept that 56 per cent. of the pupils in Tower Hamlets are Bangladeshi, and in many schools it is 100 per cent.; and will she take my word for it that many of those that I have met are extremely intelligent, bright,
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competitive and ambitious—all qualities that we need in our commerce and industry? Does she further accept the importance of investing in these children, and thereby investing in the economy of this country in the future?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I absolutely agree with the noble Lord in what he has just said. That is precisely why we fund Tower Hamlets at 50 per cent. more than the average for any other pupil in the rest of the whole of the country. It is precisely because of the challenges that are faced by Tower Hamlets, as set out by the noble Lord, that we do that. As I said, Tower Hamlets has received 50 per cent. more per pupil to spend on the children there; and it had a higher increase over the past year, as I said, than almost any other LEA in the country.
Lord Judd: My Lords, will the Minister accept that there is a good deal of evidence on this project that not only was there improved performance on the part of the children concerned—which was very significant—but that it was making a very important contribution to improved race relations and the integration of a significant ethnic minority? For those reasons, would she feel able, together with her officials, to look at this specific scheme again to see whether it can be protected?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I have to say that not only is Tower Hamlets funded at a higher rate than every other local education authority in the country, but it also received the lion's share of the grants for education, support and training moneys that were available. I said that it received over £½ million for one of its bids, which was met in full. We are talking here about £79,000. If Tower Hamlets wants to continue what is an important and successful project, it would seem reasonable that out of £248 million—10.4 million more over 1993–94 and an increase of 4.35 per cent. —if it regards the project as having that high a priority and given that it has been treated more favourably than most other local authorities, it should meet that cost itself.
Baroness David: My Lords, I do hope that the Minister might consider what my noble friend suggested and have a look at this project. It is the parents who ate so involved. It is helping the families. It is helping the families, the parents and the children. Would she consider going down to have a talk with them to see in fact what they are doing?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my department has done just that, and reports back that it is a good and successful project. But money is finite. We have to consider the whole of the country, and give just as much serious consideration to the rest of the country as we do to Tower Hamlets. The work in Tower Hamlets has been considered so important that it is funded, as I said, at 50 per cent. more than most other local authorities; and it has received in full its bid for a priority that is very important—namely, to aid the reading and writing skills of young people in that authority. Again, setting

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£79,000 against a budget of £248 million, I believe that it would be possible for Tower Hamlets to meet that cost itself.

Coal Industry Bill
3.10 p.m.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Strathclyde.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 52 [Opencast operations]:
[Amendment No. 73 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Lord Stanley of Alderley Lord Stanley of Alderley moved Amendment No. 74:
Page 47, line 46, leave out ("31st December 1999") and insert ("Royal Assent").
The noble Lord said: I move this amendment in support of the Coal Liaison Group, which comprises the CBI, the Coalfield Communities Campaign, the Council of Mortgage Lenders, the CLA, the Association of County Councils, RICS, the British Property Federation, the Association of British Insurers, the Law Society and the NFU. Of those organisations I am a member of just one. I mention them to emphasise that the amendment is not just a concern of landowners.
So far as the layman is concerned, compulsory rights orders, which this amendment addresses, to all intents and purposes are compulsory purchase orders. In my opinion, they should not be used in a free society unless very clear and valid reasons can be given for having them. I hope to persuade the Committee that they should not be given in this Bill for a number of reasons.
First, we have an abundance of coal for our needs. Coal competes with other fuels, such as gas, and should be treated similarly. Secondly, compulsory rights orders will only compensate for economic loss and not for loss of amenity. Imagine losing your garden ! Thirdly, it is illogical to have a CRO for the interim period up to 1999, as the Government propose in the Bill, when that does not apply to other minerals and fuels. I should have thought that it would be much more sensible for them all to be treated equally now rather than for coal to be a one-off until 1999. Anyway, the Government have said that CROs are not justified in the long run and so, I think I am right in saying, did the Labour Government when they were imposed in 1958 and 1975.
It is far from right for one private person or an organisation, just because it is a coal company, to be able to threaten another private person or persons with a CRO and so obtain more favourable terms. That does not seem to me to be a very level playing field. Indeed, the coal developer might well be forced to go for a CRO to obtain a better deal as a duty to his shareholders.
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Worse still, private owners will be at a similar disadvantage when negotiating satisfactory terms, particularly perhaps for future liabilities, which is a matter that the Committee has discussed at length.
The amendment proposes that, as from Royal Assent, all negotiations between owners and coal operators should be freely negotiated between the parties, as for all minerals and other fuels under the 1966 Act. I must remind the Committee that it allows a coal developer, if the owner proves obstructive, to obtain a right to mine by applying to the courts.
For the moment I conclude because I am anxious to hear the views of the Committee and of my noble friend. But I cannot help reminding the Committee that this Government have always been in favour of free negotiation between parties—witness, for instance, in my own field, the Government's desire to have just that for agricultural tenancies. Yet in this Bill, by prolonging CROs, they are doing exactly the opposite. Talk about giving a bad example! I beg to move.
Earl Peel: In putting my name to the amendment, I very much support my noble friend. It seems to me quite clear that it is far from satisfactory to have conditions in the Bill allowing licensed operators to gain access to land through compulsory powers.
I should like to raise another point. The provision seems to grate against the principle, for which this Government stand and which I very much support, of operating a free market wherever possible. It seems to me quite wrong that one private operator should be disadvantaged in negotiations with another private operator through legislation. It seems equally wrong that a private landowner should be disadvantaged to the benefit of shareholders in newly formed privatised companies.
There is here a principle which worries me. I read with very great concern what the Country Landowners' Association wrote about the Bill. It said:
"The Coal Industry Bill is yet another example of a Conservative government confiscating the rights of private individuals".
I find that a very sad and worrying statement. I am sure that the Government should heed and take notice of it. There is little doubt that there is a feeling that there has been what I can only describe as an insidious move to undermine basic property rights by a government that I support and, quite frankly, would not expect to move in that direction.
When I consider the effects of compulsory rights orders and note that it is the intention that they should continue for five years after the passage of the Bill, it strikes me—I suspect that it strikes others as well—that perhaps the Government do not have the confidence in the licensed operators to make a success of their businesses. If that is the case, it has other ramifications with regard to the Bill —the question of environmental duties, for a start.
If the Government believe that the licensed operators may struggle, they should not attempt to subsidise them at the expense of owners of land and farm businesses. It should be done in a up-front manner which all can see and not through what I see as some form of back-door subsidy. This amendment would stop the compulsory

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transfer of rights in land to the private licensed operator and would ensure that the owner of the land could negotiate on equal terms, thus allowing the full development value to be taken into account and not simply existing use value. The amendment seems to me to be quite fair. I support it very warmly.
Lord Hamilton of Dalzell: I speak as a member of the CLA and as a landowner who, at one time in history, on both sides of my family benefited very much from the coal industry. I believe that I have coal in places under my estate in Shropshire but it is not of a commercial nature.
Once again I come to cross swords with my noble friend Lord Strathclyde on the matter of the infringement of property rights of landowners by a Government which seem to take the elementary view that, whenever they have a difficulty, there are more voters who are not landowners than voters who are landowners. Therefore they take the easy way out. It is as though they have taken literally that old army story that when you were sent abroad as a young officer you needed to know two phrases in the foreign language of the appropriate country. One was, "Bring me all your prettiest girls", and the other was, "My friend will pay".
Perhaps that view is one of the reasons that the Government insist on kicking landowners incessantly in the teeth. Another is the feeling that when planning permission is given for a landowner to exploit his property, for some reason or another the increased value which arises from it belongs in one way or other to the community. That was the principle which led to the land betterment levy. I suspect that if the Government insist on this measure there will be a massive resistance to planning permission ever being given for future exploitation of the ground for opencast mining of coal. After all, there is an absolute plethora of organisations in this country where one can obtain advice on resisting applications for planning permission. If that fails, there is always Europe.
The coal industry may well find itself in severe difficulties in trying to expand its business before 1999 whereas in a free market, as landowners, we are all prepared to tolerate the inconvenience of sandpits, gravel pits and so forth which make an intrusion into our landscape. We do so because it produces the money by which we are able to make our property survive. I therefore strongly support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Stanley.
Lord Gisborough: I too support the amendment. The present regime was introduced in 1958. The CRO regime was introduced in 1975 due to the energy crisis without which it would probably not have been retained. Conditions are now totally different. There is plenty of coal and no energy crisis. There is therefore no justification for the measure. I support the amendment.
Lord Prys-Davies: Will the Minister kindly respond to a question I raised last Thursday? It may be the only opportunity before Report. The Minister may recall that I asked where one proceeds when one has been unable,
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after exhaustive inquiries, to identify the owner of the minerals below the surface of the land. If the minerals are coal there is no problem.
As a solicitor in South Wales I experience immense difficulties from time to time in identifying the owners of minerals other than coal. I mentioned earlier in Committee that in the 19th century, when the surface of the land was sold off by the large settled estates—Beaufort, Tredegar and others—they always reserved to themselves the right to gain the minerals other than coal. But from time to time the question arises as to who is today, in 1994, the owner of those minerals.
I shall be grateful if the Minister will deal with that question. Whether it comes within the orbit of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, I am not sure. However, I did not receive a reply on Thursday and I am anxious to clear up the matter once and for all. I have known cases of urgency where, as solicitors, we have tried to establish the ownership of the minerals other than coal. We found that it could be devolved over 100 years to property companies and pension funds. However, to find out who is the precise owner today is extremely difficult. I shall be grateful if the Minister will answer my question.
The Earl of Lytton: As my name stands to the amendment I too express my support for it. The case outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, is one that requires an answer. Of the bodies he referred to I can claim an involvement with three, so my card is duly marked. But the real problem is the long-term nature —running until 1999—of the uncertainties that attend these rights to compulsorily take the land of another. I agree that it is wrong for a private proprietor or company to have such rights where there is no overriding strategic national need. That point needs to be answered.
Beyond that, I remember distinctly when we were discussing the Planning and Compensation Bill that we amended the provisions so that there was no continual running on of compulsory rights in favour of local and other authorities. It fits ill with the principle in the Bill that we foreshortened the principles in that instance by indicating that if they had not been implemented they would lapse. Here, we have a situation where the rights apparently run on with great detriment to the weaker party, which is inevitably the party against whom compulsion will be exercised.
I feel that it is economically destabilising. We should look not so much on matters of ownership and rights of owners, but to those who made the investment in the land; those who had the duty placed on them with regard to its well-being and the business operation being carried on, often running back over centuries. That must be weighed in the balance with regard to the transfer of the rights. I support the amendment most strongly.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: We on these Benches find ourselves in sympathy with the amendment. Although the Bill will enable both deep-mine and opencast coal extraction to be licensed, it is the opencast sector that seems to receive the greatest assistance. The limit of 250,000 tonnes is to be lifted —and we shall return to that. The powers to make

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compulsory rights and other ancillary orders under the Opencast Coal Act 1958 are to remain until the end of 1999. Clearly, that is where the Government expect to make most profit from privatisation. The views of those unfortunate enough to live on or to own property neighbouring opencast sites seem to count for very little in comparison. I am reminded of the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield, when he said at Second Reading,
"So far as one can see, the only real reason for it is that it enables some people to get rich more quickly. In itself, that does not seem to be a sufficient reason for maintaining something that is so hurtful to so many people while it is happening and indeed afterwards".—[Official Report, 11/4/94; col. 1316.1
That is true also in the context of this amendment. The purpose of the amendment is to cancel the power to secure rights in land by compulsion for transfer to private sector mining companies. As we have been reminded, CROs were introduced during the 1970s in effect as a result of the oil crisis. In the post-privatisation climate of the 1990s they surely have no place. All such rights, by the Government's ideology and by simple natural justice, should be secured by negotiation in the open market of the new regime. We strongly support the amendment.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Strathclyde: I am glad to have the opportunity of taking part in this debate, particularly as so many of my noble friends used forceful language in favour of the amendment. I am grateful for the case made by my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley. If matters were as simple as he made out, I would largely agree with him. However, they are not that simple; I do not entirely agree with him and I shall explain why.
I suspect that my noble friend was using a certain amount of poetic licence when he said that one's garden could be taken away. It is my understanding that it would be extremely difficult for a garden to be taken away if next to a dwelling house, as I dare say most gardens are. However, as I said, I suspect that my noble friend was using poetic licence.
What was not poetic licence, though, was the way my noble friend used the language of the CLA, an organisation which I have always respected for the careful way it does its research. However, this time it has fallen below the standards for which I have always held it in high regard. It has had numerous meetings with the Minister for Energy. Indeed, I have made an offer to the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, to meet the CLA with him. It is not true that this is about private individuals confiscating land. That is to put a gloss on the whole subject that is ridiculous and not true. What we are dealing with are quite technical and complicated operations which I should now like to explain.
Under the Opencast Coal Act 1958, British Coal may at present make an order, known as a compulsory rights order (or CRO), which gives it the power to enter onto land and carry out opencast operations. The effect of Clause 52 of the Bill would be to carry those powers forward for a transitional period of five years. As well as extracting coal, the CRO gives an operator the right to carry out activities incidental to coal extraction, such as
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land restoration. CROs only have an effect if confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Environment—or the Secretary of State for Scotland or the Secretary of State for Wales, as appropriate. I should stress that a CRO in no way overrides the need for planning permission. A Secretary of State may only confirm a CRO if planning permission has been granted.
The availability of compulsory rights to land is not a special privilege of opencast coal operators. Any mineral operator, including a person extracting oil, gas, sand or gravel as well as coal, can apply to the High Court for compulsory rights under the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Acts. The High Court may grant compulsory rights if it concludes that it would be expedient in the national interest to do so.
The principle of compulsory rights therefore is well established. What is at issue—here I agree entirely with my noble friends—is the procedures that should be followed and, crucially, the safeguards that should be in place when an operator seeks compulsory rights to land. British Coal has used CROs as powers of last resort, and the Government are determined that they should continue to be used in this way—as powers of last resort. To achieve this, we are adding extra safeguards to the CRO regime.
During the transitional period, the responsibility for making the orders will fall on the Coal Authority. In practice, we intend that the authority should not make a compulsory rights order or any of the ancillary orders unless it is satisfied that the applicant has made all reasonable efforts to secure the rights by agreement. But that has not been possible for one of three reasons: first, that the owners of the land are too numerous or cannot be identified; secondly, that the owners do not have the authority to negotiate access to the land—for example, if their title to the land is defective or partial; thirdly, that the owners have unreasonably refused to negotiate, or sought unreasonable terms. To come into force, the CRO must be confirmed, as I have said, by the Secretary of State. My right honourable friends will only confirm a CRO if they are satisfied that it is in the public interest to do so. In determining whether to confirm a CRO, they will have to have regard to any representations received from the land owner.
The private operators, unlike British Coal, will not themselves have the power to make CROs. They will have to apply to the Coal Authority, which it is intended will agree to making a CRO only if the operator has made every reasonable effort to obtain access by negotiation; and then the CRO cannot come into effect until it has been confirmed by the relevant Secretary of State. Furthermore, a CRO is not a compulsory purchase power. Its duration will depend on the time that is expected to be necessary to extract the coal and restore the site, which I understand on average is between five and seven years in the United Kingdom. Once working at an opencast is complete, the site will be returned to the previous occupier. The operator will be obliged, under the terms of his planning consent, to carry out appropriate restoration and aftercare. That will be enforced by planning authorities in the usual way.
In addition, the landowner may call upon the wide-ranging compensation code of the 1958 Act.

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While a CRO is in force, the landowner and tenant are entitled to compensation for any rent or profits forgone from the use to which they were putting the land. If any works are required to bring the land back to its previous condition once working has ceased, the landowner may claim any reasonable expenses from the operator. If the land in question has fallen in value as a result, or indeed any neighbouring land owned by the same person, the landowner can again claim compensation. This debate is not really about compensation because we shall come onto compensation later this afternoon. I hope it has not escaped the notice of my noble friends that I have put down amendments which greatly enhance the compensation regime vis-à-vis other minerals.
Perhaps I may turn to the issue of five years. My noble friend Lord Stanley said it was illogical to keep the powers until 1999. I agree with him up to a point. We accept that it would not be acceptable for the opencast industry to have access to special powers that are not themselves available to other mineral operators. The Minister for Energy announced on 2nd December a review of the compulsory access provisions of the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Acts. We intend that the outcome of the review should be a common set of procedures which can apply to all minerals. That is the key. It is an issue which affects many interests, including those of landowners, farmers, tenants and the very diverse minerals industries. That is why we need the five-year transitional period. Of course, the date is a drop-dead date, which means that if the Government have not come forward with changes by 1999, the powers fall completely. We believe the powers for other minerals and the powers for coal should be the same once we have come to a view after we have had the consultation process.
As I have described, we shall expect CROs to be powers of last resort. The new safeguards will help to ensure that that is the case. I am satisfied that what remains is the absolute minimum necessary to prevent serious disruption for the industry in the meantime. While we shall expect opencast operators to make every effort to obtain access to surface land by negotiation, there may be times when the owner of the land is unable or unwilling to grant it, or seeks unreasonable terms. In those circumstances, and if it is felt to be in the public interest, the option of compulsory access must remain open.
Furthermore, I believe that it is necessary to preserve during the five-year transitional period the modified CRO regime that is set out in Clause 52 and Schedule 8 to the Bill. CRO procedures have been modified over the years to take account of the development of the planning system. The two sets of procedures now mesh very effectively. The general mineral procedures of the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Acts, by contrast, are widely felt to be time-consuming and burdensome. We are reviewing those procedures.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, asked about identifying the owners of minerals other than coal. I agree that this can occasionally cause difficulty. As the noble Lord said, those will normally belong to the surface owner unless ownership has been transferred at some time in the past. As a practical matter, if it is
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difficult to establish ownership the 1958 Act requires that notices be affixed on the land; and if there are any owners who have not been identified, they can then come forward. What happens if they do not come forward, I am not entirely certain. Perhaps I may look into the matter and write to the noble Lord.
Lord Prys-Davies: I am grateful for that information. The problem arises where the owner has good reasons for not identifying himself.
Lord Strathclyde: As I said, I shall look further into the question. In his opening statement my noble friend Lord Peel said many things which are very important, but he said one thing which is particularly important. He said that it came as a surprise that the Government believed in operating in a free market wherever possible. The key to that sentence is "wherever possible". We believe in operating a free market, but there may be limited occasions when we must have the right checks and balances to allow a compulsory rights order to go forward. I hope that my noble friends accept that point.
It came as a great surprise to hear the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, say that he believed in a free market and compensation at a free market price, because for decades successive Labour governments have nationalised people's belongings, with hardly any compensation whatever. I believe I am right in saying that they were even taken to the European. Court to make sure that money was paid over.
Lord Dormand of Easington: Would the Minister like to tell the Committee which industries were nationalised by a Labour government where no compensation at all was paid?
Lord Strathclyde: If I said "no compensation" then I apologise. There was very little compensation. I certainly do not believe that that compensation was made at the true market value, which was the impression the noble Lord, Lord Morris, was trying to give. If I were my noble friends receiving the support of the noble Lord, Lord Morris, I would wish to consider my position again very carefully.
I know that I have taken some time in explaining this situation. I wanted to place on record exactly the position concerning the CROs. It is a very important issue to get right. I believe that the checks and balances that are in place are appropriate to ensure that we have a regime with the lightest possible touch.
Lord Peston: Before the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, says what he wants to about his amendment, perhaps the Minister could clarify two or three points. I think I heard him say that from now on only the Coal Authority could apply for CROs. Can the Minister confirm that he said that and that, if the licensee wished to engage in opencast mining, the procedure would have to be via the Coal Authority and therefore the Coal Authority itself could say that it would not do it? Can the Minister explain that further to us?
I partly agree with the argument that, in a world with an excess supply of energy and with certainly no sign of energy becoming very scarce again, rules that applied in

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the past may well not apply to the present or in the future. What intrigued me is why the Government chose five years. What analysis did they carry out in order to say that the appropriate interim period was five years? The Minister has simply told us that it had to be a number greater than nought. It could as well be five minutes. Can the Minister say why five years represents the right interim period? I would like to know the answer to that.
Lord Strathclyde: I can confirm to the noble Lord that he is right; namely, that it is the Coal Authority which will agree to make a CRO, but will only do so once certain conditions have been met. It is not the private mining company itself that has the CRO up its sleeve. That is why I believe that it is a longstop reserve power which is important. The noble Lord also asked about the period of five years. There is no very good reason for that period, nor is there a very bad reason for five years; it is just five years. It seemed like a reasonable length of time when the Bill was being drafted, given that we are reviewing the situation and consulting with the industry to see what kind of regime should exist. If we come forward with proposals before five years, the regime under the Bill will be replaced. Five years is the longest possible time that these powers can remain in place.
Lord Ezra: The noble Lord has indicated the ways and the care with which the CROs will be agreed by the Coal Authority. But an important aspect is how the opencast mining operation is conducted, whether with the benefit of a CRO or not. I need hardly remind the noble Lord that, under the National Coal Board and British Coal, opencast mining was subject to very careful rules and regulations. All the contractors were bound to observe those rules—that is to say, during the course of the opencast mining operation they had to have care to minimise the impact on the local community and restoration had to be up to the optimum standard. Is the Minister satisfied that in this Bill, when opencast mining operations occur for whatever reason, it will be up to those very high standards?
Lord Strathclyde: The noble Lord himself pointed out that that situation applies whether or not there is a CRO. In that respect the CROs do not have power to impose those kind of provisions. They are imposed by planning permission. I join with the noble Lord when he says that these are measures which have been carried out extremely well by British Coal. I would expect planning authorities to impose the same conditions on future mining companies as they currently do on British Coal.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: Members on this side of the Committee will be very pleased to hear that in his words this afternoon the Minister has effectively given approval to the principles and practices of nationalisation by the use CROs, or their equivalent, in the national interest. We can all accept that and the fact that the
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relevant Minister is the custodian of those rules. I shall be interested to know how the Minister will inform himself of that national interest.
In his remarks the Minister mentioned that, while the relevant Minister effectively would have to give approval for CROs, the landowners could make representations to the Minister. I am not sure how landowners could advise the Minister about the national interest. I can think of other bodies, organisations and people who could very effectively advise the Minister of the national interest. I am thinking in terms of academics, people with specialist knowledge and local authorities. Obviously, information to determine the national interest would have to be given in public so that everyone could see it. Therefore it would be amenable to the whole democratic process and also inform the process of democracy.
Can the Minister confirm that that will be the practice of the relevant Ministers when they try to determine the national interest vis-à-vis CROs; namely, that effectively there will be something like a public inquiry to take evidence from bodies such as local authorities?
Lord Strathclyde: The noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, is being silly when he compares what I said with any belief in nationalisation. It should be completely clear to him—it certainly is to his noble friends—that I am not a believer in anything like that.
As regards the public interest, it is intended that the relevant Secretary of State will confirm a CRO only when he is absolutely satisfied that it is in the public interest to do so. In taking that decision, he will consider in every individual case whether or not there is broad public interest in allowing the coal to be worked which is sufficient to override the normal rights of a landowner to withhold consent for the development of his land. In other words, if the site were to go ahead, he will consider what benefits there will be for the public at large and not only for the opencast operator.
The decision to confirm a CRO is not one which any Secretary of State could take lightly. He would invite representations from all the interested parties and perhaps even from the academics whom the noble Lord mentioned. The decision could be taken only in the light of careful consideration of any representation which might be made in response.
Earl Peel: I wonder whether I may correct something that my noble friend said earlier. I think I am right in saying that when I quoted the press statement from the Country Landowners' Association my noble friend thought that I said that the CLA was accusing the Government of confiscating land. That is not the case and that is not what I said. What the CLA actually said was that this was another example of the confiscation of rights—a rather different thing. What we are taking about is the right to free negotiation. I am bound to say that from what I have heard from my noble friend I do not think that he has said anything to allay my fears on this matter. My noble friend quoted other mineral operators, but I do not think that that is any excuse. There is no national need—that case has been made on both sides of the Committee—and if there is no national need, it seems clear that the negotiations should take

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place above board, freely and openly, and subject to market conditions. I am very surprised and disappointed at what my noble friend has said.
Lord Strathclyde: I think I probably misheard my noble friend. I accept that he was talking about the removal of rights. However, it is only a question of the removal of rights after the system of free negotiation has broken down and the Secretary of State feels that it is in the public interest to confirm a compulsory rights order. What I had sought to indicate during my reply was that those powers would be used only in the most extreme cases. If those rights are removed, can my noble friend justify a position where one very small landowner (among a number of other landowners who have all agreed to sell their land to a coal operator) should be able to stop the whole development, which could well be in the public interest—indeed, in the national interest —and provide many jobs? That is what my noble friend has to justify. It is that kind of decision that the Secretary of State will take into account (and the Coal Authority will take into account) when he makes his decision. I have tried to make the point that we are talking about long-stop powers. They are not for everyday use. They are not threatening powers. They are to be used right at the very end of a very long process.
Earl Peel: Even if they are long-stop powers, we cannot get away from the fact that they exist. They are hanging over us like the Sword of Damocles and they will always have an effect on the ability of a private landowner to operate freely in such conditions. On the point about a landowner who may be obstructive and trying to prevent such a development taking place, I believe that that is his prerogative and that the negotiations must take place accordingly. That is what the free market is all about and that is what I believe we should have in this case.
Lord Sefton of Garston: Will the Minister accept from me that some of us are getting tired of hearing appeals from landowners? Is it not about time that some of the landowners began to look again at the question of the rights of landowners to examine how they acquired those rights and whether they should still have them?
Lord Prys-Davies: Further to the very valid point that was raised by my noble friend Lord Monkswell, can the Minister give us further enlightenment? When an application is submitted to the Secretary of State for his decision, will notice be given to members of the public in the locality of the fact that the application is before the Secretary of State, and will they be invited to send representations to the Secretary of State?
Lord Strathclyde: Much will depend on what happened during the planning permission process, which, as the noble Lord knows, takes fully into account the needs and requirements of the local area, which is dealt with by the local authority and to which individuals can make their representations.
Lord Prys-Davies: But in reply to my noble friend, the Minister said that academics and others would be
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entitled to make their representations to the Secretary of State. How will the academics know when the matter is before the Secretary of State?
Lord Strathclyde: Once planning permission had been given, I am sure that it would become well known that a landowner presumably did not want to sell his land to a mining operator. I am sure that a recalcitrant landowner would make that absolutely plain. It is up to the Secretary of State to make sure that he hears the right representations. I can assure the noble Lord that all the Secretaries of State I have ever known take their responsibilities very seriously.
Lord Monkswell: There is a bit of difficulty here in that the Minister is talking about planning permission which, as I am sure he will know, is completely separate from the business of commercial undertakings. In fact, I do not think that the commercial nature of an operation can be taken into account under planning law. In addition, the ownership of land or property is not taken into account in determining planning applications. They are two separate elements in the determination of what goes on. Therefore, it is not strictly true to say that everything will be sorted out by the planning application and that everyone who has an interest will be advised. I should be happy if the Minister could assure the Committee that where a CRO is being contemplated, the public at large will be advised and will be asked to make any representations that they need to make on the basis of the CRO rather than on the planning application.
Lord Strathclyde: The public at large are notified and their views are taken during the planning process, as the noble Lord well knows.
Lord Prys-Davies: I am sure that the Minister is being as helpful as he can be, but in reply to my question he said that he was sure that the Secretary of State would listen to the right representations. Can the Minister give us an indication of the kind of representations that are included within the category of "right" representations and what representations fall within the category of "wrong" representations?
Lord Strathclyde: I feel that I have gone over this at some length already. There are two quite distinct issues. One is the question of the planning permission and the other is the question of the CRO. I said that when a Secretary of State confirmed a CRO he would necessarily invite representations from all interested parties. The decision could be taken only in the light of careful consideration of any representations which might be made in response. If that is not clear, I really do not know what is.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I must try to address a number of points. The first is that this question does not apply only to large landowners, as was intimated. A small householder, smallholder or anybody could be affected. Perhaps I may put on record that I am not a landowner—or rather of only about 20 acres. Secondly, my noble friend the Minister replied to my noble friend Lord Peel about the CRO being used only in extreme

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cases and said that there could be one awkward smallholder among a number. The 1966 Act would deal with that.
I really think that my noble friend has a fairly weak case. All that he can accuse me of—I am sure that my old friend the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, will excuse me of this—is using poetic language. The reason why I made that case was that a compulsory rights order does not compensate fully for amenity rights, and it seems to me that a garden is as good an amenity area as any other.
I come now to the difficulty of obtaining a CRO, of which my noble friend made great play. He said that it was enormously difficult, but it is not. My noble friend must know as well as I do how one gets a CRO, but if I recite the process it might also answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies. Someone can get a CRO where the owners of the land are numerous or cannot be identified. That is one way. Someone can get a CRO if the owners do not have the power to grant the rights sought. Lastly, someone can get a CRO where the owners have unreasonably refused to negotiate or have sought unreasonable terms. I do not know—no Member of the Committee knows—the meaning of "reasonable" or "unreasonable". We have argued that many times since I became a Member of your Lordships' House.
Finally, there are other reasons which make it easier to obtain an order. I have to say that nothing in the Opencast Coal Act has been changed. With regard to CROs, the Act refers to,
"facilitating the working of coal by opencast operations".
I take that to mean that when the Minister is asked whether he is going to grant a CRO, there is a bias in favour, because he has to facilitate. We have had similar arguments about bias in respect of the regulator in other privatisation Bills. I see the noble Lord, Lord Williams, nodding. The order is not difficult to obtain, and it will not be, as I tried to say earlier, a power of last resort. It will be cheaper to obtain a CRO. The shareholders may well drive the company to obtain a CRO because then it will not have to compensate so much.
I agree with a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Morris and Lord Hamilton. At the back of my mind, I feel that there is an element of greed involved. The Government will be able to obtain a better price for the piece of land. I am therefore suspicious. I thought that the Conservative Party was in favour of free negotiation. I can help the noble Lord, Lord Morris, although I am sure he does not want any help. He said that he understood that that was what the Government stood for. Like me, he was rather surprised that they had suddenly changed.
The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, mentioned the national interest and public interest. That is an issue at which we must look carefully, perhaps at a later stage, or we must have a better description of what is in the public interest. I am worried about that point. The noble Lord, Lord Peston, asked why the period should be five years. He did not receive an answer. If I were to suggest to my noble friend the Minister that it should be five minutes, he might give me a good reason as to why it should not be five minutes. However, he did not give the noble Lord a good reason as to why it should be five years. I
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see my noble friend nodding and smiling. I agree again with the noble Lord, Lord Ezra. British Coal's responsibility was great, and it had a great reputation. The worry in everyone's mind is that when one has a private individual—I fall into that category—I am out there to get what I can at the cheapest price. That is what I am driven by. I am selfish. I am sure that we are all selfish. That is what worries me when particular rights are given.
I promised my noble friend the Minister and my noble friend the Chief Whip that I would take nothing to a Division at this stage, not least because I wanted to listen to and think about what my noble friend the Minister had to say. If he wishes to take the amendment to a Division, I am content to let him try—perhaps he is happy to do that—bearing in mind the feeling of the Committee. However, I believe that it would be better if we waited and tried to hammer out something between us.
I have to say that if I am to reach a compromise, it must be a compromise in my favour. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord has done that in court. I should be forced to insist upon that by the support that I have received from the Committee. I am a fair person, but I shall be forced to go for a hard compromise because of the support I have received from my noble friends and noble Lords opposite, in order to reach some agreement. Meanwhile, out of the kindness of my heart, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 75 not moved.]
[Amendment Nos. 76 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Clause 52 agreed to.
Schedule 8 [Amendments of the Opencast Coal Act 1958]:
Lord Stanley of Alderley Lord Stanley of Alderley moved Amendment No. 77:
Page 117, line 4, at end insert ("for the purposes of extracting coal, other minerals and for restoring the land but for no other purpose.".").
The noble Lord said: Once again I have to tell my noble friend the Minister that had he been wise enough to accept my amendment on CROs, the amendments in my name to Schedule 8, starting with this one, would have been less necessary. But while the Committee considers between now and Report stage what to do about CROs, I feel obliged to move my amendment to Schedule 8. If the Government are determined to resist it, so be it.
The amendment restricts the ability of the Coal Authority and the Secretary of State to extend compulsory rights to the import of material from outside the site to fill up the hole made by the extraction of coal. I am not against such an action; far from it. Of course, we want restitution, but if that action makes the site more valuable at the expense of one private party—we are back on the same thing—as against another private party, using compulsory powers, that cannot be just and is against, if I may say so, Tory party philosophy. I beg to move.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: Perhaps I may say a word about Amendment No. 77A, grouped with Amendment No. 77, the purpose of which is to prevent rights of compulsory acquisition being abused for purposes which are not connected with mining operations. It is a probing amendment to inquire of the Minister in what circumstances an operator might use compulsory acquisition powers for rights and operations which are purely incidental to mining operations and at a time when mining operations are not authorised. The times when that might be a useful right are, I suppose, in the preparation for mining activities, before a licence commences, and in restoration after the licence has ceased. But the subsection leaves open the possibility of an abuse of those rights at other times and for other activities. I should welcome the Minister's comments on that possibility.
Lord Strathclyde: I hope that I can be helpful to my noble friend who knows that I always try hard to be so. I recognise the concerns behind the amendments. The problems have been raised with the Government by the CLA. Concern has been expressed about a situation in which a planning authority may ask an opencast operator to dispose of an adjacent coal tip into the void of his opencast site. At present, it is likely, depending on the circumstances, that that could be done within the scope of a CRO. Amendment No. 77 is designed to prevent any CRO authorising any such use of the land subject to the order.
The movement, storage and eventual disposal of large quantities of materials, either minerals or mine wastes, is of course central to the whole working of any opencast site. It might be necessary in some cases to move existing coal tips in order to get at underlying coal. It will commonly be necessary to build up what are pretty much new coal tips in the process of working the site, the contents of which will eventually be returned to some part of the overall excavation, although not necessarily exactly the same part of the site as that from which they came. It is perhaps stating the obvious to say that the extraction of the coal from an opencast site creates a void which must be filled somehow.
In the majority of cases the landowner will want to negotiate with the operator the extent to which such activity may be carried out. But if the case is such that a CRO has to be made, I do not see any reason to exclude the kind of situation that I have described. It seems to me that using opencast developments in such a way to bring about clearance of dereliction has definite advantages for the locality. It seems a very natural way, if the circumstances are suitable, to link a new development with what may have been a long-standing eyesore.
I now turn to Amendment No. 77A. The amendment would remove the proposed Section 4(1B) (b) of the 1958 Act. As it currently stands under the Bill, Section 4 provides that the Coal Authority may grant a CRO to a licensed operator. A CRO may be used for coal mining operations, as defined in Clause 63 of the Bill, or for any activities incidental to coal mining operations.
The reason for including incidental activities within the permitted scope of a CRO is that in order to carry out
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opencasting at a site an operator must carry cut a range of activities. Some of these will involve winning and working coal and will therefore be included in the definition of "coal mining operations". Others, while essential to the operation of the site, will not. The Government see it as desirable that an operator should have the flexibility to carry out these other activities under the CRO. I recognise the probing element of the amendment, but if it were to be accepted an operator would not be permitted to restore the site after he had finished extracting coal.
My noble friend's amendment would forbid a normal and wholly justifiable practice in the opencast industry. I hope that he understands why I say that, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, will not move his amendment.
Lord Hamilton of Dalzell: My noble friend presented a vision of turning a coal tip into an opencast site in order to get rid of it. Would not that be a matter for the planning authority before it reached the Coal Authority? In an open market the issue would be one for the planners and the price would be determined in open market negotiations according to how much planning gain was attached to the planning consent.
Lord Strathclyde: The noble Lord is right. The situation that he mentioned could well be the case.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I am not against making eyesores better. As the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, said, that has been done extremely well by British Coal. As it became more experienced, the job was done even better. I am anxious that that should continue and to that extent my noble friend Lord Strathclyde and I are on the same side. If he is right, or entirely right, I shall concede the point and I shall not come back to it at the next stage. I shall reserve the right to look at what he said with a sympathetic eye and I might come back on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendrnent.
Amendment, by leave, 'withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 77A not moved.]
Lord Stanley of Alderley Lord Stanley of Alderley moved Amendment No. 78:
Page 117, line 29, at end insert:
("(4) After section 4 there shall be inserted—
Basis of payment.
4A. The owner of arty interest in the land which is included in a compulsory rights order shall be entitled to payment on the basis of either—

(i) the consideration in respect of the exercise of the rights granted by the compulsory rights order as would have been fair and reasonable if the agreement had been made between a willing grantor and a willing grantee, or

(ii) the compensation assessed in accordance with sections 17 to 23 of this Act,

whichever is the higher."").
The noble Lord said: Once again, this amendment is necessary because of the compulsory element that is introduced by CROs. I am getting bored with repeating that but I must do so. I am sorry to have to tell my noble friend that his Amendment, No. 79A, does not do what my amendment seeks to do. Therefore, I must give the Committee the reason for tabling my amendment.
Amendment No. 78 is essential in order to preserve the interests of all parties if compulsory rights orders remain. It provides the landowner or occupier with the ability to receive the higher rate of payment in line either with payments agreed between winning parties on the open market or with a payment to cover his direct losses. He cannot receive more than the right is worth, having regard to the open market settlements, unless it is so damaging to him that he incurs a greater extent loss.
In order to negotiate access with owners, British Coal has consistently paid more than the sums provided in the Act. Indeed, it leaves its offer open on the table to be accepted at any time, even after it has embarked on a CRO process. That has meant that few CROs have been exercised, although the process was initiated in respect of about one-third of the sites opened up between 1975 and 1991.
The Bill also gives smaller operators access to CROs for the first time. To date they have secured access through negotiation to operate licences up to £250,000. I understand that that has worked perfectly well. If CROs are to remain, the compensation formula must allow an owner who is subject to compulsion to be paid on a basis that is no worse than his neighbour's. For many reasons, the owner may be objecting to an opencast scheme. Concern for the local environment is a major factor, and I believe that it would be wrong for him to be penalised.
I conclude by reminding my noble friend that he has told the Committee that the main reason for the continuance of CROs is that it is the present practice of British Coal and so should be continued. As I have said already, I do not believe that is a good reason. This amendment does just that; it continues the present practice. On that basis, I cannot see how the Government can object to my amendment. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I am afraid that Amendment No. 79A does not satisfy me. I have nothing to add in respect of Amendment No. 80A. I beg to move.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: We firmly support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley. We agree that although the Government's amendments are a move in the right direction, they do not go far enough. This part of the Bill has the effect of making the legal position easier than expected, and easier than heretofore, for potential bidders of opencast sites. Why did the Government find it necessary to do that? Why is the path being so smoothed for these potential bidders? Could it be that without such favourable terms, without such cast-iron assurances and being aware of the utterly unquantifiable nature of the liabilities which they would be required to take up, the number of such applicants might be embarrassingly small?
Earl Peel: I entirely agree with the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Morris. I understand that smaller operators have operated for some time without the use
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of CROs. In many cases they have been successful. Why therefore suddenly do we have to have CROs being given to them in addition to other operators? It does not make sense.
Lord Strathclyde: Amendment No. 78 deals with Schedule 8 to the Bill, which amends the Opencast Coal Act 1958. These amendments are grouped with Amendments Nos. 79A, 80A and 80B, which stand in my name and also deal with the issue of compensation.
The 1958 Act provides British Coal with access to compulsory powers, where required, to take over land temporarily for opencasting of coal. The Government have begun a review of the general compulsory access procedures for all minerals. That was the point that I made in respect of Amendment No. 74.
Our intention is to preserve the power only for a transitional period. All existing entitlements to compensation of landowners and tenants will be retained. These are extensive. They cover any loss of income or profit from the land covered by a CRO; any reduction in the value of the land once opencasting has finished; and a wide range of disturbance payments.
My noble friend asked why we must preserve these powers as the coal industry goes into the private sector, whereas at present small licensed mining companies do not need them. The point is that, ideally, we should like to have the same regime for all minerals, including coal. We cannot have that because the existing regime for other minerals is flawed. We are consulting on that so that when we have come to a view we can have the same regime covering everyone. That is why we have the transitional period of five years. However, I shall be surprised if we need to use the full five-year period.
I do not believe that it would be sensible to prejudge the outcome of the review which is currently in train. Consultation is taking place with all the various bodies, and of course we shall be consulting the CLA, the NFU and dozens of other representative bodies.
I have some immediate sympathy with the argument that there should be some compensation for other minerals. That is why I tabled my Amendment No. 79A. I have the impression that my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley is not in favour of that amendment. I am quite happy to withdraw it but I thought that it would be of great benefit to many of my noble friends.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: It is not that I am against it. But it does not go as far as I would wish it to go. I am waiting to hear an explanation from my noble friend as to why his amendment is such a good amendment.
Lord Strathclyde: Perhaps I may first deal with Amendment No. 78 because it addresses the root issue of the compensation payable when a CRO is made. It proposes that compensation should be determined on the basis of what might be agreed between a willing grantor and a willing grantee.
My concern is that this would constitute a fundamental change to the Opencast Coal Act 1958. As I said, that is being addressed in the review that is currently under way and I do not want to prejudge that review.

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I also see practical difficulties with the amendment. I recognise that there are precedents for the use of the willing grantor/willing grantee test. However, there are few cases which have been determined by the courts under those precedents and it is far from obvious how those criteria would be interpreted in individual cases. I am concerned that that would lead to quite significant uncertainty within the industry about the exact basis for compensation when a CRO is made. I cannot believe that that would be in the interests of either my noble friend or the wider mining industry.
As regards Amendment No. 80, my honourable friend the Minister for Energy and I have listened carefully to the anxieties raised by the CLA on the issue of other minerals and, therefore, I have tabled amendments, which I am about to explain.
Amendment No. 79A deals with a feature of the Opencast Coal Act 1958 which has been argued—I believe rightly—to be unfair.
A compulsory rights order under the 1958 Act entitles an operator to extract any other minerals that are worked at the same time as the coal and provides that those minerals shall become his property. If the owner of the minerals is not an established minerals operator, he currently receives no consideration of their value, although he may receive terminal compensation if the freehold value of his land decreases as a result of the extraction of the minerals.
I should stress that the value of those minerals is usually quite low. The minerals most commonly extracted in any quantity together with opencast coal are sand, gravel and clay. In many cases, the coal operator may not consider it worth his while to find a market for them. Nevertheless, I accept the principle that the owner of the minerals should be entitled to compensation.
The effect of Amendment No. 79A would be to create a new entitlement to compensation. When any such minerals are worked, the owner would be entitled to compensation from the operator of an amount equal to one eighth—or 12.5 per cent.—of their market value. I am advised that that figure is consistent with the level of compensation that is generally paid in those cases where working rights agreements are negotiated. Amendment No. 80A provides that that compensation shall fall due at the end of the year during which the right in question was exercised. Amendment No. 80B is purely consequential on Amendment No. 80A.
The operator will be obliged at the end of each year to notify all owners of the minerals. He will have to describe what he has extracted and what estimate he has made of the market value. That will give the owners the necessary information to enable them to submit a claim for compensation. Any dispute over the entitlement to or level of compensation shall be referred to the Lands Tribunal, in common with other disputes over compensation under the 1958 Act.
These amendments were not included in the original draft of the Bill. I believe that the amendments demonstrate the worth of negotiation between interested parties and the Government. I hope that they will be welcomed by my noble friend because they demonstrate
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the seriousness with which the Government take those issues. When we reach them, I shall move the amendments formally.
Lord Peston: Will the Minister clarify one or two matters? He seemed to be arguing, in the case of his amendments, that they stand on their own and have a specific purpose. The noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, seemed to argue that his Amendment No. 78 is an alternative to the government amendments. I must admit that, listening to the two arguments, it seemed to me that they were somewhat at cross purposes. The amendments are grouped together. Are we meant to view them as alternatives, which is certainly what the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, argued, although the Minister did not justify his amendments in those terms?
We are discussing overruling the free market. Certainly going back as far as Adam Smith, one normally overrules the voluntary principle in times of national emergency. I have not heard—and this goes back to our earlier debates—any case on energy put forward by the Government in relation to a national emergency. If we are overruling the free market in terms of some kind of other criterion in connection with a national emergency, it surely follows—and I have always argued this when I have lectured on the subject —that one then tries to mimic the voluntary principle by saying that the relevant compensation would be that which would be paid to a voluntary seller by a voluntary buyer or, in the case of the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, between a willing grantor and a willing grantee.
That leads me to my question. In pressing for his view, and opposing the view of the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, was the Minister trying to tell the Committee that he rejects that voluntary principle; that he does not believe that the correct principle for compensation should be that which one would calculate as being arrived at by a willing grantor and a willing grantee?
I ask that because the overwhelmingly compelling part of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, was that aspect of it which provides that, if there are to be those infringements of property rights, then the outcome should be as in the case of what would happen in a voluntary state of affairs. I am partly wearing my academic hat but I am seeking to understand the argument. Will the Minister tell us whether in his judgment we are confronted with alternative amendments and, in particular, does he reject that aspect of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, to which I have referred?
Lord Strathclyde: These are not either/or amendments and I believe that my noble friend would recognise that. My amendments deal with a small but important part of the issue which concerns him.
The main reason why I resist my noble friend's amendments has nothing to do with the principles. I resist them because they interfere very early on with a regime which we all agree needs to be changed. However, how that regime needs to be changed is under discussion. That is why we are consulting on that issue and that is why I reject my noble friend's amendments.

1033
My amendments deal with an aspect of the current law which I accept is probably unfair to landowners in general. That is why we have brought forward the principle that they should be compensated for other minerals. I am entirely in favour of the voluntary principle where possible, but we are inheriting a regime which has been in existence since 1958 and which presumably has worked reasonably well but is not now seen to be the kind of regime which will lead us into the 21st century. That is why we are reviewing it.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I never thought that I should be in such agreement with or so grateful to an academic, having been a tenant of an academic institution for so many years. But I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, for bringing out the differences between the two amendments and explaining them in such a crystal clear way. As the noble Lord said, the problem is that my amendment rests on the voluntary principle. I thought that that was rather a good principle. That is where we differ. I am sorry that my noble friend the Minister accuses me of being churlish. Of course—
Lord Strathclyde: I have never accused my noble friend of being churlish; indeed, I would not dream of doing so. He is most powerful when he moves such amendments.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I am glad to hear my noble friend say that. Perhaps I should put it more clearly. It is possible that my noble friend thought that I was being ungenerous in not accepting what was on the table. However, I am more than happy to accept it and I do so with complete grace. It is just that it has a different approach and we come back, yet again, to the wretched chicken and egg situation: we are waiting for the review; we cannot do anything until it is produced; and so here we are, in the meantime, with the egg and a rather unsatisfactory chicken.
I shall think on the matter between now and Report stage because we have had a very good discussion. As I said, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, and to my noble friend the Minister for replying so fully to the problem. At least it is now clear in my mind what the Government are trying to achieve, whereas that was not the case at 2 o'clock this afternoon. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Stanley of Alderley Lord Stanley of Alderley moved Amendment No. 79:
Page 118, line 38, at end insert:
("(5D) The Coal Authority, or as the case may be the Secretary of State, may not make a transfer under subsection (5A) of this section unless the successor satisfies the Coal Authority that the owners of any interest in the relevant land has been given equivalent assurances to secure the performance of the obligations under the compulsory rights order."").
The noble Lord said: The amendment prevents a compulsory rights order being transferred to a new operator without adequate security being given for the performance of the obligations. I believe that my noble friend accepted the principle behind Amendment No.
1034
42, which was moved at an earlier stage by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. The present amendment imposes a similar duty. The law on the transfer of the burden of obligations for the benefit of property rights is unclear. It is important that the authority ensures that those against whom CROs have been made are fully protected. I beg to move.
Lord Strathclyde: I fully understand the concerns expressed by my noble friend. As I understand it, the effects of his amendment are fully dealt with in the assurances given under the transfer of an operating licence that would come before any transfer of the CRO. Perhaps I may explain the position more fully. Under the amendment, the authority or the Secretary of State when transferring a CRO should be satisfied that the successor has made equivalent assurances to the landowner to secure the performance of the obligations under the CRO.
I should like to explain briefly the circumstances in which it may be necessary to transfer a CRO. There may be cases in which an operator licensed by the Coal Authority seeks to transfer his operating licence to someone else. Before it agreed to do so, the Coal Authority would have to be satisfied that the new operator met all of its licensing criteria. Specifically, it would have to ensure, in so far as practicable, that the new operator was financially sound and therefore able to discharge his obligations. It would be able to require appropriate financial security as necessary.
If, in those circumstances, the former operator also wished his CRO to be transferred to his successor, that would be a separate decision for the authority. The transfer of equivalent assurances would be covered under the transfer of an operating licence, as referred to above. There would be no need to place an additional duty on the authority in respect of its role in transferring a CRO.
I am saying that my noble friend's point is covered because, if you transfer the licence, you have to go through the process of providing necessary financial security. Therefore, that would provide the necessary security that the landowner would need if a CRO on his land were transferred to another operator. I can assure my noble friend that that point is absolutely covered in the Bill. On that basis, I ask my noble friend to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Peston: Despite everything, the provision is to do, at least in part, with the rights of landowners. Whatever one may think about them, we do have landowners. As the law stands, they have rights. Moreover, as long as the law stays as it is, such rights must not be infringed. It seems to me that it is nothing to do with politics; it is to do with obeying the law.
If a licensee transfers the licence—and there is a whole part in the legislation to deal with such matters —will the transfer of the CRO be separate from the transfer of the licence? I believe that the Minister said that it would be and that there would be an additional procedure for the transfer of the CRO. However, would the landowner have any rights at all during the process of transfer? Alternatively, would the landowner be told,

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"Well, the CRO was given to the original licensee. It is now just a business proposition for him and nothing to do with you"?
The point is that the landowner may have a view about the new licensee; in other words, he might, at long last, have convinced himself that the original licensee was somehow acceptable. He may have doubts and just not like the new licensee. Indeed, it may not be a question of financial liability and could well be to do with many things as regards behaviour. Can the Minister tell us whether the Bill at present guarantees the rights of a landowner with respect to his or her land at least to be consulted if the CRO is in the process of being transferred?
Lord Strathclyde: The noble Lord asks an important question about the rights of a landowner. Throughout the Bill I have been at pains to stress the degree of consultation that would take place among the Coal Authority, the new operators and landlords, and that no licence could be offered unless such consultation had taken place. Therefore, I would expect a landowner to be consulted. However, it would be the legal duty of the Coal Authority to satisfy itself that the new operator was able to discharge his obligations, including the new obligations that he took on as a result of buying out or having the CRO transferred to him, and that he would provide appropriate financial security if necessary. The financial security is to be tackled as a result of the licence transfer which, as the noble Lord correctly noticed, is separate from the CRO transfer.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I am not absolutely certain that my noble friend answered the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Peston, regarding the right or ability of a landowner to object to the new transferor or transferee. However, I shall leave that aspect for the moment. My concern is that, whenever something is transferred once or twice down the line, things become less clear. For example, the first operator may well have been examined very carefully as to whether he was financially sound,
"in so far as practicable"—
a phrase about which I still have doubts. I accept that the operator will be re-examined when the transfer takes place by the Coal Authority, but I am still concerned about the matter despite what my noble friend said. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Strathclyde Lord Strathclyde moved Amendment No. 79A;
Page 127, line 45, at end insert:
("Compensation in respect of disposals of minerals
21A.—(1) After section 31, there shall be inserted the following section—
"Compensation in respect of disposals of minerals.
31A.—(1) The provisions of this section shall have effect where—

(a) any person ('the operator') exercises any right of his by virtue of a compulsory rights order and section 10(1) to this Act to get any minerals other than coal; and

(b) the land where the right is exercised was not comprised in that order in the circumstances specified in section 33(1) of this Act.

(2) The person who, apart from the compulsory rights order and section 10(1) of this Act, would have been entitled to the minerals shall be entitled (subject to the following provisions of this section) to compensation from the operator of an amount equal to 12.5 per cent. of the market value of the minerals at the time when the right is exercised.
(3) Compensation shall not be payable under this section in respect of any minerals in so far as (when they are got) they are not, and cannot reasonably be put, in a condition in which (if removed from the land comprised in the order) they would be capable of being sold by the operator.
(4) Where more than one person is entitled to compensation under this section, the amount of compensation mentioned in subsection (2) above shall be apportioned between them according to the values of the interests or rights in respect of which each of them would have been entitled to, or to a share of, the minerals.
(5) As soon as reasonably practicable, after the end of every period of twelve months during which any person has exercised such a right as is mentioned in subsection (1) above, that person shall give written notice under this subsection to every person appearing to him to be a person entitled to compensation under this section in respect of any exercise by him during that period of that right.
(6) A notice under subsection (5) above shall—

(a) describe the minerals in respect of which the entitlement to compensation of the person given the notice arises; and

(b) state the market value of those minerals as at the time when the right in question was exercised in relation to those minerals."

(2) This paragraph shall not apply where the right in question is exercisable by virtue of a compulsory rights order made before the restructuring date.").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 80 not moved.]
Lord Strathclyde Lord Strathclyde moved Amendments Nos. 80A and 80B:
Page 128, line 40, at end insert:
("(2A) After subsection (6) of that section there shall be inserted the following subsection—

"(6A) Any compensation payable under section 31A of this Act shall accrue due at the end of the year in which the right in question is exercised."").

Page 128, line 42, at end insert (", and for "subsections (4) to (6)" there shall be substituted "subsections (4) to (6A)"").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Schedule 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 53 [Environmental duties in connection with planning]:
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 81:
Page 48, line 32, at end insert:

("( ) to the desirability of avoiding nuisance to nearby residents in the form of dust, noise, vibration, lorry traffic, visual intrusion or loss of amenity, and the need to respond to the expressed concerns of those residents regarding the proposed development; and")

The noble Lord said: In moving the above amendment, I shall, with the leave of the Committee, speak also to Amendments Nos. 81A, 82 and 83B. The purpose of the amendment is to protect the environment and the "amenity" enjoyed by the residents living in the vicinity of coal mining operations. Here we enter into the great part of the debate on this Bill which is concerned with the environment.
The amendment is intended to ensure that opencast coal mining and its associated environmental impacts are fully and properly considered and discussed during

1037
the Bill's progress through Parliament. I say that because Standing Committee D of another place—whose proceedings I am sure your Lordships will have read in considerable detail—hurried this whole issue through on days 16 and 17 of its consideration and, in the view of many of us, gave it rather the fag end of its attention than the cream.
Of all methods of mining, opencast extraction of coal has the greatest impact on the environment. As deep mines have closed ahead of exhaustion over recent years, a considerable amount of coal at relatively shallow depths has been left in place. Largely as a consequence of local authority opposition, planning consents for opencast operations had declined from the 15.3 million tonne level of 1981 to 13.3 million tonnes by 1987. In 1988 the Department of the Environment issued a new mineral planning guidance note (MPG) on opencasting. This MPG3 significantly deregulated the opencast planning procedure by introducing national interest considerations and the commercial interests of prospective operators. I shall come back in a moment to the question of national interest.
Such criteria swung the balance against the planning authorities and the ability of local communities to do anything very much to prevent opencasting. At the same time, the extraction limit per site was raised to 250,000 tonnes, which had the effect of greatly increasing the size of opencast sites. They became very serious real blots on the environment. While opencast operations remain conditional on a minimum level of nuisance and environmental impact, even the best opencast sites give rise to public complaint. NIMBY—not in my back yard —applies.
Problems arising from opencast mining include, obviously, noise, dust, vibration from blasting, heavy lorry traffic, visual intrusion and the loss of long-established and valued landscape features. Take for a moment the question of heavy lorry traffic. This is not heavy lorry traffic trundling gaily down the M.1 or the M.4. These are great six, eight, 10, 12 and 14-wheelers going through small country villages. Believe me—I live in the middle of it in the Peak District—they are very rarely cognisant or observant of things like 30 mile-an-hour limits. Not only can they cause a great deal of noise and danger to small children, who, in villages, are not brought up to have the kind of streetwise appreciation of traffic that people in inner cities have, but they can also cause real structural damage where roads are narrow. The greater danger to children really needs to be taken into account. In some areas where opencast mining takes place there has also been increased incidence of asthma and other respiratory diseases in the nearby populations. That has been measured.
The new MPG3, which was issued for consultation in December 1993, coincides with this particular Bill now before your Lordships' House by which British Coal will be privatised. Many planning authorities now fear that the privatisation of coal will be accompanied by a stampede in opencast applications, given that several provisions of the Bill will clearly further deregulate the opencast licensing system. The planning authorities
1038
think that for several reasons. First, the present 250,000 tonnes per site extraction limit is to be abolished with no alternative limit proposed. Secondly, the new draft MPG3 imposes an obligation on local authorities to draw up plans in advance that set out clear criteria against which individual proposals will be assessed and to indicate in detail those areas where provision is made for coal extraction. That clearly suggests that there will be a presumption in favour of opencast applications over and above other considerations set out in a local authority's statutory development plan.
Thirdly, in the event of a local authority adopting an anti-opencast policy as part of its development plan then the Secretary of State—I am coming to regard almost every Secretary of State as my natural enemy at the moment because whichever Bill I find myself concerned with the Secretary of State seems to be assuming more and greater powers at almost every stage of the game —could exercise his determination to overrule that part of the plan by invoking the national interest criteria of MPG3. I ask the Government what exactly is meant here by "national interest" for coal in the year of our Lord 1994?
To go back for a moment to something we were considering earlier, under the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act 1966 I believe that I am right in saying that any mineral operator can apply to the courts for an ancillary rights order. The difference between that order and one granted under this Bill is primarily that to obtain an order under the 1966 Act, the coal extractor, like any other mineral company, has to satisfy the court that the grant of the order is expedient "in the national interest". That test is conspicuously absent from the Bill. But there it is, lurking quietly in MPG3. Why is it not trumpeted on the face of the Bill?
Fourthly, to revert to the planning authorities, the Coal Industry Bill also retains the powers of the Secretary of State to make compulsory rights orders in support of opencast applications at any time up to 31st December 1999. Combined with the provisions of the Bill for the proposed Coal Authority to issue extraction licences ahead of planning permission being granted, uncertainty and effective planning blight could and will affect many of the coalfield areas. We aired this matter last week and many of us retired sadly unsatisfied.
It is worth noting, too, that the problems extend well beyond the recently active coalfield areas. We are now looking, when we talk of opencast operations, at large areas of shire counties such as Avon, Gloucestershire, Hereford and Worcester, and even the county of Shropshire, beloved of P.G. Wodehouse—Blandings Castle country. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, has drawn our attention to it. There are coal deposits there. They are known to lie there. Shropshire could be similarly blighted. We are not looking at Labour-controlled areas like South Wales, Durham or places like that. We are looking at sunny Shropshire, the county of A.E. Housman. The noble Lord will remember those wonderful lines which Housman wrote in A Shropshire Lad:
"In summertime on Bredon
The bells they sound so clear;

1039
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and near,
A happy noise to hear".
I rewrote those lines last night:
"In summertime on Bredon
The JCBs are here;
Round both the shires they thunder
With opencasting gear,
A nasty noise to hear".
It is clear that the new MPG3 and its consultation processes have been delayed in order to make way for the Coal Industry Bill, which makes only a single specific reference to opencasting in Clause 52. Given the very real uncertainty regarding the operational standards of the new private regime, and the extent of opencasting and its regulatory framework, these matters deserve the fullest scrutiny by Parliament if the public interest is to be properly served.
I turn briefly to Amendment No. 81A. We have put it forward with the purpose of ensuring that the test of reasonably practicable is objective and not subjective. Amendment No. 82 ensures that mining operations and restoration of land used for coal mining purposes are carried out in accordance with modern planning standards. Those who advise me have given me several pages citing occasions on which that has not occurred. They have also raised the question of the older permissions as distinct from the new ones. It is obviously of benefit to us all that proper environmental amenity and restoration safeguards should be applied to all opencast sites.
The Bill gives an ideal opportunity to provide for just such a measure and to give due notice to potential mine operators. It will also give a measure of reassurance to the public that their interests were being protected in the privatisation process. If the amendment which I put forward is not acceptable to the Government, perhaps I may ask the Minister to tell us what steps the Government propose to deal with those older mining consents.
Finally, Amendment No. 83B introduces a new clause after Clause 54 which makes it explicit that in the event of failure of a licensed operator, any environmental liabilities would revert to the Coal Authority. As drafted, the clause also covers subsidence liabilities. I beg to move.
Lord Crickhowell: I do not intend to say much about Amendments Nos. 81 and 81A on which the noble Lord concentrated except that they raise the issue regarding where responsibilities should lie and therefore carry the risk of some confusion. I suspect that that is an issue about which my noble friend will have more to say in due course.
However, this group also gives us another chance to clarify some important environmental issues and to point to a number of improvements that can still be made in drafting the Bill. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde has already gone some considerable way to removing my worst fears about the Bill. The statement he made (at cols. 539 to 542 of Hansard for 26th April) when dealing with Amendment No. 1, was extremely important. It deserves to be carefully studied by anyone interested in these issues, not least because of what he said about pumping and the treatment of abandoned
1040
mines. It is relevant to Amendment No. 83B which we now consider. I should be grateful if the Committee will allow me to quote three brief extracts from that statement.
My noble friend stated:
"The Coal Authority will, of course, be the owner of abandoned coal mines throughout Great Britain irrespective of when these may have been worked. The Government have set out in the … explanatory note that they envisage that the authority would set itself certain broad policy aims in respect of the management of property, including all the mines which are not licensed to the private sector. These include the aim, where reasonably practicable, of protecting and enhancing the environment".—[Official Report, 26/4/94; col. 541.]
Therefore we have that important statement that the Coal Authority will be the owner of abandoned mines.
At col. 542, my noble friend said:
"The authority will of course discharge all its legal obligations, and its funding will have to provide for that".
Later in the same column, when dealing with the question of abandonment, my noble friend stated:
"It will clearly be necessary for the operator to consult the appropriate regulatory body about the possible consequences for the water environment of abandoning the mine. Before agreeing to termination of the lease, the authority will expect him to institute any reasonable treatment measures and to make an appropriate payment for any continuing costs".
Lord Prys-Davies: I am very interested in Amendment No. 83A. Unless I have misunderstood, that amendment is not grouped with the amendment now before the Committee; or am I mistaken?
Lord Crickhowell: I refer to Amendment No. 83B. If I referred to Amendment No. 83A, it was a mistake. I refer to the clause about possible bankruptcy and what happens afterwards.
My noble friend concluded the section at col. 542, stating:
"Once the lease has come to an end the authority will be responsible for the mine as for any other abandoned coal mine".
It seems to me that that was an important statement. What my noble friend said was reinforced in a letter from Mr. Patrick McLoughlin, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and. Industry, to the Selby District Council, dated 25th April when he said:
"This means that should a license holder fail responsibility would automatically fall back on to the Coal Authority at the stage when the company was dissolved and ceased to be a legal person, assuming that it had not already done so".
That is a consequence of the fact that the Coal Authority is the ultimate holder of abandoned mines and of property.
All that seems to me to be most helpful. But while statements made in Parliament and letters from Ministers are helpful, long experience has taught us to be cautious. One would like to see such assurances, if not written into the Bill, at the very least in the department's licensing documents. I cannot find that that is so at present. I believe the fact that Amendment No. 83B has been spoken to gives an appropriate opportunity to probe that issue.
One reason for our anxiety on some of those questions is that I do not believe the Government have been as effective as they might in describing the very considerable extent to which outstanding liabilities fall on the Coal Authority. When considering the maps provided, for example, in the memorandum issued by N.M. Rothschild and Sons Limited on behalf of Her

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Majesty's Government, we see vast yellow areas stretching over a very large part of the country. We see a huge number of abandoned mines with potential for pollution and subsidence damage. But we are concerned with the much smaller number of mines which are likely to be operated in the future—to opencast mines and to disposal points. The areas are much smaller and the number of cases with which we are likely to be concerned are much fewer. It took me some time fully to appreciate that point because on reading the document to which I referred one gains the impression that licensed bidders will be bidding for the whole area and the workable coal within it rather than for the individual mines.
At the moment we are concerned with 16 operating mines and about the same number on care and maintenance. Thus we are dealing with a fairly tightly defined set of problems. It is important that we understand that. I hope I have got it right and that my noble friend will be able to confirm it.
We shall therefore seek, so far as we can, to draw a clear line of responsibility around the future action of licensees and the past action—or perhaps past failures —of British Coal and its predecessor bodies. I think that we are entitled still to be concerned, if licensees pick up the potentially large liabilities of the Coal Authority. I should still like a further attempt to be made to place the responsibility for future operations on licensees from the moment they take up the licence rather than to ask them to take over the previous responsibilities of the predecessor bodies. Then at least it would be open to them and third parties who might be affected to seek to establish that the cause of pollution lay with British Coal or the predecessor miner and that it therefore fell on the Coal Authority.
I know that the Government have looked at the matter and I suspect that they would like to do something like that but perhaps they thought the difficulties were too great. I hope that they will reconsider. Apart from anything else, it would remove the legitimate fears of potential bidders and I know that the Government will be anxious to do that, as well as look after the environmental issues.
In the meantime, Amendment No. 82 also gives us an opportunity to consider another matter which, interestingly enough, we have skirted around during debates on previous groups of amendments this afternoon. I confess that I was not here at the outset, but when I entered the Chamber I heard much about the moment at which the licences were issued and the transfer of licence responsibilities. The amendment picks up the same point and reminds us that there is a difference between the moment when the licence is granted and the moment when planning consent is given.
That point arose again last week on 28th April when my noble friend Lord Renton moved an amendment put down by the noble Lord, Lord Moran. It was dealt with by the Minister in reply when he said essentially that we need not be worried —and by "we", in this case I mean the environmental regulator. Previously this afternoon we have been dealing with the landowner wanting to
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know what was happening when a licence was granted. On that occasion, we were dealing with the environmental regulator wanting to know what was happening when the licence was granted. They both have an interest and, as my noble friend pointed out on that occasion, it is not right to suggest that, after all, the whole matter was dealt with at the moment when the planning consent was considered and need not be looked at again.
On that occasion, my noble friend said:
"Our approach is based on the premise that bodies which have been given particular responsibilities should have the right duties and powers for the role that has been conferred on them. In this case, it means that the NRA and the corresponding Scottish bodies should have the powers to discharge their roles. I think they do".—[Official Report, 28/4/94; col. 883.]
They can only have the powers to discharge the roles if they have the information that enables them to do so. I am not satisfied that the planning procedures enable them to know exactly what is going on. Later, at col. 884, my noble friend said, referring to the point put to him by the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, of Easington:
"To turn to the noble Lord's primary point as to the NRA's role as a statutory consultee, that is its role in statute when planning permission is required. Since planning permission is required to undertake opencast coal mining, that is when the NRA will be involved in the decision whether to give planning permission".
Later, he said:
"I maintain that it should be at the planning permission stage rather than at the licensing stage".
The difficulty is that the moment you give a licence to a new operator, the new operator may decide entirely to change the basis on which the previous operator worked. The new operator may be mining in a totally different way. For example, his pumping procedures may be completely different, he may be operating on a different scale. The linkages between pits may be different in the new circumstances. The environmental regulator will have given a consent for a discharge at a particular point and for a given volume. But what we may see in this instance is, because of a change in mining techniques, a difference in the chemical content of the water which may now be much more polluting. For example, it may mean getting water from a connected mine which is no longer being mined.
So it seems to me that it is vitally important that not just landowners but also environmental regulators should be brought into the process at the moment when the licence is granted or varied. Therefore, they must be given the necessary information, just as they must be given information when the mine is to be abandoned.
My noble friend made helpful comments on the previous occasion about giving the Coal Authority plenty of notice at the moment of abandonment and consulting the NRA or the Scottish river purification board at that point. Once again, I should like to see the requirement written down in some other form, preferably in the Bill but at least in the licensing document, rather than simply in the Official Report of our debates.
Having made those points about things that need to be done, I conclude by reinforcing the point with which I opened. I agree wholeheartedly with the Minister that he wants to avoid confusion between the jobs of different bodies. I do not believe that it is the job of the

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Coal Authority to accept environmental responsibilities or to see that they are carried out. Some of the amendments with which we are dealing today are flawed for that reason. Nor do I wish to transfer liabilities after bankruptcy to the wrong body. If my noble friend approaches the matter on the basis that legislation should be drafted to keep the responsibilities clear, he will have my wholehearted support. But he will have to back that statement with an assurance that the environmental regulators will, at the appropriate moment—which is when the licence is issued or varied —be given the information that enables them to do their job.
5 p.m.
Lord Strathclyde: My noble friend has made an important contribution this afternoon and I am grateful to him. I should like to ask him for some information, although I should know the answer to this question. He gave the impression that when an operator took over from another operator who had a discharge licence from the NRA, the first operator could change the composition of the discharge without letting the NRA know and that that would not be illegal. Is that correct?
Lord Crickhowell: Yes. The situation is normally that a discharge consent will specify where the discharge can take place. It will also specify the volume limits which will take place. But it would not, in normal circumstances, contain a chemical analysis or limits on what is in the discharge from a mine. We have already discovered in cases which we have debated previously that when a mine is closed there can be flows from one mine to another whose chemical content can change drastically. People may change their whole pumping regime underground, and I think that the environmental regulator should be given notice of that information, have the opportunity to comment on it and take measures to counteract it. I do not believe that those arrangements are sufficient at the present time. I hope as a result of what I said, perhaps before we come back at a later stage of this Bill, my noble friend will look at the matter again.
Lord Parry: My noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris, needs little support from me; nor does the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, need to have support offered from this side. I wish to comment on the fact that areas of the country that have lived long with coal, such as the Amman Valley in West Wales, where coal is almost in the blood of the indigenous population, nevertheless look with considerable horror on the extension of the opencast mining to which they are subjected. It is possible to see the great hole in the ground that is so important economically and makes such a vital contribution to the fuel of the country spreading out towards the back gardens of houses in Garnant, and almost threatening the peace and quiet of the people who live there.
The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, represented for 20 years —despite my seasonal attempts to unseat him —the lovely county of Pembroke in West Wales. It is a fact that under the green grass of Pembrokeshire lies some of the finest anthracite coal in the world. It is the
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western extension of the South Wales/West Wales anthracite coalfield. From time to time the Coal Board identified areas where they might like to look for the opencast mining of coal 'which lay very close to the surface, as the noble Lord, Lord Morris., pointed out. There was an occasion when a road was being driven between Saundersfoot and Tenby when a very rich seam of valuable anthracite coal was found literally on the surface. The decisions that were taken then by everyone concerned took into account that the conflict between the tourism benefits of the area and the easy bringing out of that coal had to be weighed in the balance. The local authorities have been long established there. But their powers have been whittled away. My noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris and the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, talked about the local planning influences. Those influences are no longer nearly as strong as they used to be. It is quite possible that when the renewals come to be applied for the planning controls will be sited in placemen committees and in the Secretaries of State rather than where they once were at the beginning; namely, in the local authority.
I urge simply that it be recognised that in amending this Bill we make absolutely certain that we take into account the present pattern of local government and the present pattern of local controls on planning, and that we do not assume that what happened for the general good under the old system will necessarily come about under the new one.
Lord Dormand of Easington: I shall intervene very briefly. I do not wish to intervene in what appears to be a family dispute between the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell. I rise only because the noble Lord mentioned my intervention, as the Minister win recall, on statutory consultees. I am not absolutely clear now, although I was clear at the time, so I shall have another attempt.
The Minister said that,
"Since planning permission is required to undertake opencast coal mining, that is when the NRA will be involved in the decision whether to give planning permission".
That is not the NRA. Surely it refers to the planning authority. The Minister went on:
"I maintain that that is exactly where it should be present. It should not be in the decision as to whether to grant a licence. That quite properly is a role for the Coal Authority". —[Official Report, 28/4/94; col. 884.]
That seems to me to be fairly clear. Is there any dispute between what the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, said and what the Minister said to me on that occasion?
5.15 p.m.
Lord Strathclyde: I do not think that there is a great gulf of disagreement between my noble friend and myself on that particular issue. The NRA is a statutory consultee when it comes to getting planning permission. That is the key. It must be consulted. There is an obligation, particularly when dealing with issues of this importance where opencast or deep coal mining has an influence on the water environment. In England and Wales at any rate the NRA is the appropriate body that needs to be consulted. That is absolutely correct. I think that the Committee will—
Lord Prys-Davies: Before the Minister replies, there are issues that I believe the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, wants to raise. I should also like to raise one or two issues. I am of course in the Minister's hands.
Lord Strathclyde: I am sorry. I was going to reply to the substantive part of the debate. But if other Members of the Committee wish to speak, and I see that they do, I am sorry that I pre-empted them. I shall be delighted to hear them.
Lord Ezra: I am much obliged to the Minister. I wanted to comment on these amendments because I think that they are of great importance. I fully support Amendments Nos. 81 and 82. I shall start with Amendment No. 81 on
"the desirability of avoiding nuisance",
etc. I should have thought that that was a self-evident proposition. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, said that we have to be careful not to confuse responsibilities. There is no question of confusion here. This relates to Clause 53(2), which refers to a planning authority. It states:
"Where a planning authority consider any coal-mining proposals, included in such an application, they shall have regard … to the desirability of the preservation of natural beauty"
etc. That is excellent. But people should also be a consideration. Amendment No. 81 relates to the nuisance to people. I referred in an earlier intervention to the great care with which British Coal carried out its opencast operations to minimise the disturbance to people. I hope that the Minister will find Amendment No. 81 self-evident, and that he will not argue against it at all. It is perhaps an unfortunate omission that it is not already in the Bill.
As to Amendment No. 82, the licence should include these considerations. Here again we are talking about protecting the environment and the amenity of neighbouring occupiers. Those are very essential considerations in relation to activities such as coal-mining. Whereas the National Coal Board was set up to mine coal, it was also set up with a public responsibility, which it took very seriously indeed. That sense of public responsibility in connection with coal-mining operations should be continued. I feel that the amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Morris, do in fact do that. I hope that they will be regarded very sympathetically by the noble Lord when he replies.
Lord Prys-Davies: I should like to speak very much in support of Amendments Nos. 81 and 82. I support the thrust of the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell. But I propose to reserve my problems on the serious problem caused by the escape of polluted waters from abandoned mines until we come to Amendment No. 83A, although I concede that they could well be brought under the terms of Amendment No. 83B.
I have one slight problem with Amendment No. 82. That is that it refers only to the restoration of the land, whereas in the mining communities a clear distinction has been drawn between the restoration and the aftercare of the site. There is no reference to the aftercare of the site, so far as I can see, in Amendment No. 82. Nor of
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course is there a reference to aftercare in Clause 53. Clause 53(1) merely covers restoration works. But the aftercare requirements are equally important. As I understand it, they may extend for a statutory period of up to five years thereafter. Perhaps the Minister would comment on the significance of the omission from Clause 53 of a reference to after-care.
In my experience in Mid Glamorgan, the main problem with opencast mining arises where the operator either is reluctant to carry out the restoration and after-care works which he had agreed with the planning authority or has become insolvent before the works have been undertaken. So, I ask the Minister, who, in those circumstances, carries the burden of restoration and after-care?
Three of the Welsh local authorities are empowered by Acts of Parliament, which they obtained, to require a restoration bond to be deposited by respective developers of an opencast mine as one of the conditions of consent. Experience shows that the local authorities are very wise to require a bond. In Mid Glamorgan—I do not believe that Mid Glamorgan is different from West Glamorgan or Dyfed—I understand that the local authority has had to rely on the bond in one case when the operator became insolvent and in three cases when the operator failed to carry out the necessary works. In five further cases the necessary works were undertaken by the operator after the council had threatened to invoke the bond. I believe that that experience of the Mid Glamorgan County Council demonstrates the value of the insurance bond. But there is no reference to the requirement to deposit an insurance bond in respect even of the restoration obligations.
As I read the document published by the Government, it is their preference that the exercise of opencast mining operations should be controlled by the terms of the planning consent rather than the terms of the licence. However, the role of the planning system in this particular situation is to preserve that careful balance between the ease of extraction on the one hand and the need to protect the environment on the other. But if the planning authority is to discharge that role, surely either in the Bill (preferably in the Bill) or in the mineral planning guidance, the planning authorities should be empowered to require a bond to be lodged to pay for restoration and after-care in the event of the licensee becoming insolvent or being in default.
If the operators are not required to lodge an effective financial security, the cost of restoration or after-care may fall on the local taxpayers and often on industry. If we arrive at such a situation, the planning system will have failed in its function of preserving the careful balance to which I referred. To help us by the time we come to Report stage, perhaps the Minister can confirm my understanding of the position; namely, that in the absence of a provision in the Bill and in the absence of a local Act of Parliament, the planning authority would be unable to demand a restoration bond.
It is of particular concern in South Wales that a valid planning consent which had been given to British Coal without the requirement of a bond will now be assigned or transferred to a private operator without a bond. As I understand it, in practice a bond was not required of

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British Coal when it applied for permission since it was felt that with its Treasury backing it would be unlikely to be unable to carry out the restoration works. The same is just not true of private operators. There is a residual concern and I should be grateful if the Minister would address it. If we are to meet that gap in the law, the Bill should empower the planning authority to require a bond to be deposited before the licence is transferred from British Coal to the operator. I shall welcome the Minister's response.
I have a last question for the Minister. I am sure that he can confirm my understanding of the position. When the Local Government (Wales) Bill was before the Chamber, I regret to say that we omitted to question the Minister about the position in which one of the three local authorities has obtained the power by Act of Parliament to require a bond. Will that power be transferred to the successor authority under the Local Government (Wales) Bill? I omitted to ask that question. It is not strictly a question for the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, but I should be grateful if he could confirm that those powers will be transferred to the new local authorities.
Lord Strathclyde: This has been a long debate. It is right that we should have a long debate on the subject because we are dealing with protection of the environment, which is very important. We dealt with that subject on the first clay of Committee and we are now dealing with it again. It is right that we should do so.
No doubt the Committee will be grateful if I do not follow the example set by the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, as my poetry is far worse than his. But I should like to tell the noble Lord that if he sticks to poetry and keeps away from politics, I believe that he will be far more successful than he is being in pressing me to accept these amendments.
Perhaps it would be helpful if I said a little about Clause 53 and these amendments. The clause imposes an environmental duty on applicants for planning permission for a coal mining development. The duty is broadly equivalent to that which already applies to all applicants for planning permission for opencast coal and which in a slightly different form has applied to British Coal in respect of opencast proposals since 1958. When the duty was extended to licensed operators in 1990, the Government agreed in principle that it should be extended to deep mines when a suitable legislative opportunity arose. There could hardly be a more suitable opportunity than the present Bill. I am glad to be able to put this proposal to the Committee, extending to deep mines these well precedented duties.
The duty applies to the process of formulating proposals for any coal mining development. In future it will include proposals for deep mines as well as opencast mining. It requires anyone who proposes such a development, when drawing up his application for planning permission, to take account of the preservation of natural beauty and the other matters prescribed and to include in the proposals such measures as are reasonably
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practicable to mitigate any adverse effects that the proposed mining activities might have on natural beauty and the other matters.
There is a parallel duty on planning authorities, when considering the proposals put to them, to have regard to those principles and the extent to which the applicant has complied with his duties under this clause. That effectively links the duty into the planning system and provides such enforcement as is relevant.
As the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, rightly pointed out, Amendment No. 81 deals with planning authorities. The words of my noble friend Lord Crickhowell dealt with Amendment No. 83, to which I shall come in a moment. Amendment No. 81 would require planning authorities., when considering coal mining applications, to have regard to the desirability of avoiding nuisance to nearby residents in the form of dust, noise, vibration, lorry traffic, visual intrusion or loss of amenity, and the need to respond to the express concerns of those residents regarding the proposed development.
That is already provided for by the planning system. The planning authority, in arriving at its decision on any application, whatever the development may be, must take account of all material considerations. If there is a. case to be made in respect of some proposals that they might cause excessive or unacceptable nuisance to people living nearby, that would plainly be material and should be considered and given full weight by the planning authority. If there are any expressed concerns about a development, whether about these issues or any other, they too should be given proper consideration and full weight.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Ezra: Perhaps the Minister will allow me to intervene to ask him to explain whether, under the present rules for granting planning permission, Clause 53(2) (a) applies. If we are to mention the desirability of the preservation of natural beauty, conservation of flora and so forth, the other points to which the amendment refers should also be mentioned. I was worried about the exclusion of one and the inclusion of the other. If neither had been included I would have been quite satisfied. But I did not see why there should be all that emphasis on natural beauty and none on personal amenity.
Lord Prys-Davies: Perhaps I can rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, for the same reason. If the Minister is saying that these are matters which are covered by mineral planning guidance, why cannot they be transferred into the Bill?
Lord Strathclyde: Clause 53 deals with the protection of the environment. I was discussing and the amendment deals with the effects on human beings, which are material considerations. Under planning law material considerations must be taken into account. That is why the clause that appears in the Bill is necessary and the clause proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Ezra and Lord Morris, is not.
Perhaps I can go on to explain the other safeguards that have been built in. We recognise that there are particular concerns about many of the questions as they arise in relation to opencast coal developments. That is

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why the guidance to planning authorities—MPG3— specifically advises the authorities to consider the issues of visual impact, noise, blasting, dust, water and transportation. A substantial part of the guidance note —Annex D to the draft document published for consultation last December—is wholly taken up with advice to planning authorities on the potential problems in those areas and how they can be addressed.
The concerns raised by the Members of the Committee in this debate are serious and proper concerns; I do not deny that. But they are already fully addressed through the principle and practice of the planning system and the amendments add nothing. They are therefore otiose. There is no reason why Members should have known what I said, but I hope that it gives them some assurance.
Lord Prys-Davies: Perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to intervene again to ask him to confirm that the subject matter of Amendment No. 81 is included in the mineral planning guidance. However, the mineral planning guidance can be amended without parliamentary consent.
Lord Strathclyde: That is the position. Ministers decide on the kind of guidance but the guidance is always consulted upon and the guidance I mentioned is the kind of guidance I should have thought would have been welcome to the Committee.
I should like to speak briefly on the second amendment in this group, Amendment No. 81A, and the concerns that underlie it; that is, that the measures which might be thought reasonable for an applicant to include in his proposals should not be restrained by the particular financial circumstances of the applicant. In other words, the applicant should not be able to get away with environmental damage merely because he pleads poverty. It is a technical point, but I am advised that the reference to "that person" is designed to make the obligation more concrete, so that the measures that should be taken are those which are reasonable for that proposal and in all the circumstances relevant to it. There is no intention by the Government to provide an escape route or loophole; quite the contrary, we want to tighten up the situation.
Perhaps I can now deal with the third in this group of amendments which proposes a new clause. It would require the authority to impose further environmental or site restoration conditions on licences for developments which already have planning permission, in cases where the planning authority considers that the environmental protection offered by the existing permission is out of date. It might be helpful for me to turn to the words of my noble friend, Lord Crickhowell. I am grateful to him for his contribution this afternoon. I am delighted that he recognised the significance of the statement that I made in response to the first amendment that we dealt with in Committee last week. We return to the subject to some extent today. I am also delighted that he agrees with me that we should avoid confusing people as to which body has the proper role in dealing with these difficult and complicated issues. That is crucial.
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When we are trying to set up the Coal Authority we are not trying to get away from anything by not giving it the powers for environmental control. We are not giving it those powers because the NRA is already so important, particularly in dealing with the protection of water. My noble friend raised further issues which I shall not go into in detail now. I shall consider them further because they are extremely important.
Lord Peston: Perhaps I can interrupt the noble Lord. I appreciate he wants to get on. However, the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, raised a matter which echoed a point I raised last Thursday; that is, the question of where liability does lie and should lie. The Minister and his noble friend Lord Goschen were at pains to point out that I did not understand the Bill. I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, say that he too had had difficulty in understanding it. But I made the mistake, which the Minister was at pains to point out, that I assumed that we could distinguish between liability for the past and liability for the present; one would lie with the Coal Authority and the other with the new licensees. I was then told that I was completely mistaken; I did not understand the Bill. I interpreted that to mean that the Bill is sillier than even I could imagine.
The reason I raise the matter at this point is that the choice of words of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, led me to think—he clearly has more contact with the Government than I do—that the Government may well have thought that this rational distinction between the present and the past was worth considering or, even better, were still thinking about it. I am interrupting the Minister to ask him—I do not expect him to be as nasty to his noble friend as he was to me—to confirm that what he said to me (namely, that I did not understand the Bill and that the Government were not going to do it) he is about to say to his noble friend.
Lord Strathclyde: I am sorry if the noble Lord felt that I was being nasty to him. I was not. On these occasions I try to be as helpful as possible and, in dealing with these complicated issues, ensure that everybody understands what the Bill is trying to do.
What the noble Lord said gives me an opportunity to deal with the question of liabilities and where responsibilities lie. As well as one of our fundamental principles being that we should not give the Coal Authority powers which already exist elsewhere, through government agencies or local authorities, because that would confuse the issue, so with the question of liability we are trying to put the responsibility where it should lie. Those who are committing the liabilities will then know their responsibilities and should act responsibly when they are carrying out the activities which create the pollution. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, does not disagree with me on that.
Lord Peston: I understood the noble Lord to say last week that the Government would draw a circle around the pits—that was his analogy—and that the licensees would then be responsible for everything within that circle, including what had happened in the past. I took the opposite view. I took the view—because it sounded

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much more sensible to me —that the licensee would be responsible for everything that he then did in the future but that the taxpayer would be responsible for the past. That was my judgment of the rational way to approach the matter. I was then told that I did not understand the Bill. I do now understand it but I think that what is proposed is irrational, which is what I also thought the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, was saying. Is there any hope of persuading the Government to abandon this irrationality so that the taxpayer would accept responsibility for what had been done in his name in the past and the licensees would be responsible only for what they would do in the future? That is why I raise the matter now. I was going to come back to it on Report but as the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, raised it rather effectively, I decided not to let the Minister off the hook at this point.
Lord Strathclyde: I am delighted not to be let off the hook and I am quite happy to explain the point. I was about to launch into my explanation when the noble Lord interrupted me.
I shall try to deal with as many of the liabilities as I can because they are all important. The main concern that noble Lords have rightly expressed is on the whole question of water pollution and how it relates to mines that have already been abandoned, either recently or in the more distant past.
Lord Prys-Davies: Are we drawing a distinction between the responsibility for subsidence damage to the surface of the land and the damage caused by the pollution of the controlled waters through the escape of water from abandoned mines? They are two distinct situations and I do not want to blur the distinction between them.
Lord Strathclyde: How Members of the Committee opposite can possibly hope to understand what I am talking about when they continually interrupt me, I do not know. If I am allowed to finish my statement, I suspect that it will all become much clearer to the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, as it did to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, on Thursday night when we dealt with the question of subsidence.
Water pollution presents the main problem because it is most numerous and because it is the older workings which tend to be the shallowest and most likely to influence the surface, whereas modern underground mining is generally much deeper. Under the Bill, all these abandoned mines will automatically become the property of the Coal Authority and, as I explained in my statement of 26th April, the authority will take over British Coal's existing role as a responsible and environmentally aware public custodian. That applies, for instance, as the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, is pleased to know, to all deep mines in the Durham area, where there are no continuing deep mines. It will apply in most other parts of the country. If continued pumping of minewaters is necessary in order to prevent serious pollution, then pumping will continue. That, I believe, is the assurance which most concerned people are seeking and which the Government are quite rightly giving.
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The Coal Authority will also own the freehold of the mines that are continuing in production and it will lease them on a long-term basis to the mining companies which will be operating them. It seems reasonable to the Government that those companies should accept responsibility for meeting the associated environmental obligations. That requirement is set out in the draft leases which are available to noble Lords. Under the Bill the Coal Authority has an obligation to vet the financial standing of those companies in relation to all the obligations that they will be taking on before it licenses them to mine. The leases also provide, in the longer term after mining has ceased, that the responsibility for the mine can be returned to the Coal Authority but only after the mining company has taken all reasonable steps to protect the authority from continuing liabilities. That is a plain and straightforward arrangement and that is. what most noble Lords would have expected.
Perhaps I may deal with the point made by my noble friend about the memorandum put out by Rothschild on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, which is available in the Library. It shows the coalfields as divided into five geographical areas which are coloured yellow. That reflects my honourable friend's announcement that British Coal's business is to be offered for sale in five regional packages. Unfortunately, it has given some people the mistaken impression that the privatised companies will have mining rights and responsibilities right across these huge areas. That is absolutely not the case. What is being sold is simply the individual deep mines and specific opencast sites. Those cover only a minute proportion of the geographical area shown in the memorandum and do not include any of the derelict mines which, as I have said, are undoubtedly the main cause of anxiety. That is the misunderstanding which my noble friend Lord Crickhowell mentioned. I hope that I have clarified it.
The noble Lord, Lord Peston, talked about present and past liabilities, particularly in respect of subsidence. The noble Lord said that what is proposed is irrational because the bidding mining company accepts all the past subsidence liabilities, including British Coal's. The rational argument as to why we have done that is that it may sometimes be difficult to divide past liabilities from present liabilities and therefore it is easier for the mining company to accept all liabilities for subsidence at whatever time it was initially caused and whether or not it was caused by that company's coal milling. I hope that that is a clear statement. The noble Lord may still think that it is irrational but at least he will understand the basis on which we are going forward on the question of privatisation.
5.45 p.m.
Lord Crickhowell: I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way on this point. I do not want to have my views represented to the Committee completely by the noble Lord, Lord Peston. However, we do have some common ground in our anxiety on this point. I have no difficulty with him. Indeed, I wholly agree with his view that the licensee should assume liabilities for his future operations and the normal environmental obligations which go with that work.

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I do not at this stage seek any amendment to the Water Act and the section about knowingly permitting discharges, but it is possible that British Coal might in the past have taken steps which caused pollution and that that pollution will flow on and, under the principle described by my noble friend, become the responsibility of the new licensee. I do not see any great difficulty in principle with saying that the new licensee is responsible for the future, but if he can establish, or a third party can establish, that that pollution was caused by the predecessor body—by British Coal—that liability should fall on the Coal Authority. It is a past liability; it may be a very substantial one; and my noble friend quite reasonably says that it may be very difficult to separate past and present liabilities.
However, if one simply imposes the new liabilities from the moment the licence is issued, that is a matter for the courts. It will be for the licensee or a third party to prove that the pollution was caused by the predecessor body, or to apportion that damage. I do not see anything in principle against that. My noble friend has decided not to go down that road but there is no reason in principle why he should not go down that road. I am bound to say that I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Peston, that it would be a better way to proceed.
Lord Renton: Before my noble friend sits down, perhaps I may ask him to consider this point. In replying to the very first debate of the Committee stage my noble friend Lord Strathclyde very wisely said that continuity was one of the vital factors that we had to consider in the changes being made by the Bill. That would seem to support the view of my noble friend.
Lord Crickhowell: I am grateful to my noble friend for that. I have another point which may appeal to my noble friend the Minister. It will make the privatisation easier. There can be no doubt that potential licensees are anxious about inheriting a very large liability—expenses already incurred by the predecessor body. They have expressed that view. I believe that this quite simple change would do something to alleviate that anxiety and make it a more successful privatisation.
Lord Strathclyde: My noble friend shares with me the desire to make the privatisation successful. To some extent we are guided by the advice which we are given by Rothschild on this question and of course by using our own common sense. The noble Lord, Lord Peston, does not believe that we have very much of that, but we are seeking to find the right solution. My noble friend Lord Renton was absolutely right. I used the word "continuity" in response during the debate we had on the first day of Committee. It was in that respect that I made the statement about the Coal Authority's responsibilities when it took over the assets of British Coal. That is a very important point.
My noble friend Lord Crickhowell may well have brought forward something which we need to consider. Throughout the course of the Committee stage I have never been afraid of considering proposals which have been put forward by my noble friend, and we shall do so.
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But that is not if they are going to muddle or confuse. Privatisation is not the primary issue. The real primary issue is to make sure that the environment is protected as well as possible and that everyone knows what their responsibilities are. It is also to ensure that a potential environmental liability is not caused because people do not realise that they are responsible.
Lord Peston: Can I interrupt the noble Lord for the very last time? The reason that I intervened originally was precisely because I thought that the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, led to a possible opening. I was not seeking to argue for him because he argues very effectively for himself. I believe that the Government's approach is not the most rational way forward and that is why my interpretation of the Bill was wrong. I had assumed that the Bill was more sensible than it is. In making his remarks to the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, is the Minister saying that, if one can put up an argument about reliability, which I do not restrict to substance—it is a general question as to how we treat liability which has nothing to do with substance per se —it is not too late at this stage of the deliberations for one to seek to persuade the Government that perhaps this part of the Bill could be changed? That is the only reason I intervened in the first place. Have the Government any degree of open-mindedness on the question of where we should place liability or has Rothschild decided that for the Government?
Lord Strathclyde: The noble Lord, Lord Peston, has misunderstood these aspects of the Bill in the past. I hope that he will not do so in future. However, I believe that I bear some responsibility for not making the Bill absolutely plain from the start. In considering what my noble friend Lord Crickhowell said, I bow in his general direction because he is chairman of the NRA and he knows what he is talking about. That is why I am delighted that he has accepted the principle behind my statement which I made on the first day of Committee.
I do not wish to leave the door ajar. There is perhaps a very minor chink through which some refining by my noble friend or some advice from him would be helpful. But we are not going to rewrite these provisions in the Bill because I believe in the correctness of our central concern, which was also raised by the noble Lord, Lord Peston, on the second day of Committee; namely, that there should be one person to claim against. There should be no confusion as to who has caused liability.
The noble Lord was using the point in a rather different argument because he said that the Coal Authority should be liable and therefore the taxpayer. I believe that the operator should be responsible. The more responsibility we put on the operator, the more likely he is going to behave in a way which minimises his liability. There is absolutely no confusion as to what his liability is because when he bids he accepts all the liability within his area of responsibility. That is a very important principle. It is one on which the noble Lord and I could spend a great deal of time in debate. It is not entirely appropriate for it to be debated with these amendments, so perhaps I should continue to talk about the amendments that we are dealing with and particularly the third group.

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There is clearly potential for concern where planning permissions are some decades old and may have been granted at a time when expectations as to environmental protection and site restoration were very different from those of today. This is, however, unlikely to be an issue as regards opencast sites. Because of the relatively short life of these developments, all the planning permissions are pretty modern. Only two operating British Coal sites have planning permission more than 10 years' old; and all these sites are subject to modern site restoration conditions. By contrast, a few operating deep mines have planning consents dating from the 1950s and 1960s; and a significant number of deep mines, having already been in use before 1948 when the modern planning regime was introduced, are at present subject to no site restoration conditions at all. We are certainly of the view that proper restoration conditions should be imposed on these mines before they are privatised. The Government's proposals on this matter are set out in Clause 54 which follows next.
As regards sites which do have a planning permission, I have not been persuaded that there are major concerns which need to be addressed in this way. The Government have already taken steps, notably in the Environmental Protection Act 1990, to extend the powers of local authorities to deal with environmental nuisance, and that bites on coal mines as on any other kind of activity or undertaking. Also, the scope of the planning system to impose new conditions on longstanding minerals developments, particularly coal developments, has been significantly enlarged over the years. The Government have recently issued a consultation paper on the reform of old mineral commissions.
Ultimately, if a planning authority feels there is a strong case for them to impose further new conditions, the planning regime does provide the means for that, although such action could give rise to a requirement to pay compensation.
I believe it is clear that the updating of old commissions is an undertaking which is already far advanced by other means. I am not persuaded that there is a case for the measure proposed in the amendment. I have explained to the Committee in the context of earlier amendments that it is not our intention to make the authority an environmental regulator.
Amendment No. 83B, which is the last in this group, provides that responsibility for environmental liabilities, which have been caused by a licensee who has been wound up, is to fall on the Coal Authority. Environmental liabilities are specifically defined to include subsidence liabilities. Not only is this amendment unnecessary, but it does not go as far as the Bill in transferring these subsidence liabilities to the Coal Authority. It is unnecessary because Clause 43(3) (b) already provides that where there is no licence holder and therefore no area of responsibility—which is the case when the former licence holder has been wound up—subsidence liabilities are to fall to the authority.
I suggest to the Committee that these amendments are unnecessary. I hope that the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw them. I apologise for the fact that it has
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been rather a long debate, but we did deal with the very important environmental issue in the middle. I hope that the Committee will forgive me.
Lord Dormand of Easington: The Minister said that, if we on this side of the Committee were patient and did not intervene, all would be revealed. I have one question to put to him which has not been asked. He said that my noble friend's amendment was otiose because it is contained in other legislation. Can the Minister tell us what that legislation is? If one is to have opencast coal mining, it is impossible to avoid nuisance to,
"nearby residents in the form of dust, noise, vibration, lorry traffic, visual intrusion or loss of amenity".
Anybody who has lived in an area where there is opencast mining knows that it is impossible to avoid such things.
Perhaps I may give the Minister one brief example. I think he will know that all lorries are supposed to be covered when passing through towns but it never happens—or perhaps in only about one in 10 lorryloads. I am not treating this matter lightly or facetiously. If the Minister could tell us what the magical precautions are that are already provided in other legislation, many of us would be delighted to hear them.
6 p.m.
Lord Strathclyde: It is not a case so much of other legislation but of the whole system of our planning regulations. They are designed specifically to deal with the kind of issues that have been raised in the amendment. The noble Lord says, "Ah well, the law is being broken", but it is the responsibility of the local authority to deal with that. There is a myriad of town and country planning legislation to deal with such issues either specifically in detail or in general, allowing the planning system, through the policy guidance system, to come up with the finer details. It is up to the local authority to impose its will once it has decided whether planning permission should be given and what conditions should apply to the giving of that planning permission.
Lord Prys-Davies: I wonder whether the Minister will be good enough to answer the specific question that I addressed to him: Where an old planning permission has been granted to the Coal Board without the need for a bond to cover the restoration liability, can the local authority require the transferee to lodge a bond before the licence is implemented?
Lord Strathclyde: The Coal Authority must make absolutely certain that the company is financially viable. That requirement seems to me to deal with the problem raised by the noble Lord. If the company then goes bankrupt and gives up its licences, as it would, and the mine becomes abandoned, the responsibility falls to the Coal Authority.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: We have had a long and, I think, a very useful debate. It has lasted one hour and 23 minutes so far. It has been a better debate—if I may dare to say so—than most of us read as having taken place in another place. We have in particular teased out the matter of where responsibilities for

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environmental controls lie in a way which has brought a great deal to light which was previously hidden. We have explored the role of the NRA. We have dredged that river with enthusiasm and to considerable depth.
The noble Lord, Lord Ezra, reminded us that considerations of natural beauty and the peaceful lives of living people should not and need not be incompatible. I am grateful to him for his wise and well informed support, as I am also for the support of my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies. He raised the question of after-care and asked why that word is absent from Amendment No. 82. He is quite right to draw our attention to that matter. The answer is quite simple. I forgot to put it in. I am grateful to my noble friend for his vigilance on that matter. As one leading statesman of the Labour Party said to me not so very long ago, "When it comes to command of detail, a Pontypridd solicitor has no rival on this earth".
The Minister said that Amendment No. 81 is not necessary because it is already provided for in the planning procedures. I am grateful for that. I shall need to consider it, but it would not cause the heavens to fall if, even if that is the case, it were to be repeated in this Bill. We seem, all of us, not to have noticed it so far and, goodness knows, there has been no obvious attempt to make the Bill brief, laconic or crisp. The Minister's reply to Amendment No. 81A was much more reassuring and I am grateful to him for that.
On Amendment No. 82, the Minister stressed the importance of the NRA and made, I think, a useful and helpful point, but so often the Minister's defence against the amendment was that it is all the responsibility of somebody else somewhere else or, "It is all there in the Act of 1888". We, I think, would like time and again to see the provisions here, in this Bill. It would make it easier for all those who have to deal with these matters after the Bill becomes an Act.
However, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part so enthusiastically and at such great length and, for the moment at least—although unquestionably we shall go on talking about this today and shall revisit it at Report stage—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 81A not moved.]
Clause 53 agreed to.
Clause 54 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 82 not moved.]
Lord Stanley of Alderley Lord Stanley of Alderley moved Amendment No. 83:
After Clause 54, insert the following new clause:
("Limitation on enforceability of conditions
No conditions attached to any planning permission for coal mining operations shall be enforceable against any person other than the licence holder for the relevant land, the Coal Authority or, where it retains an interest in the land, the Corporation.").
The noble Lord said: We stay on the thorny problem of liabilities, so I fear some repetition. My understanding of the problem is now much clearer since I studied the remarks made by my noble friend, in particular on Amendment No. 1 at col. 544 of Hansard. However, I still have the odd problem on which I seek
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clarification. I was fascinated by the discussion on the previous amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Morris, and I shall study the report carefully when it comes out.
The purpose of Amendment No. 83 is to protect landowners and occupiers from enforcement action. Planning conditions bind the mine so that if the mining company defaults and the land reverts to the owner, the planning authority can enforce the restoration or other conditions against the owner. That could be very expensive and it is necessary for protection to be provided for landowners and agricultural occupiers against problems that might arise from mining activities. What I am trying to say is that the costs, the liabilities, come from mining activity, so I believe that the costs should be met by the mining companies or those who are responsible for the historic legacy. I suspect that this is in line with some of the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell on the previous amendments.
I return to the question which the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, put to me during discussions on Amendment No. 20—not least because my noble friend Lord Strathclyde told your Lordships at col. 639 of Hansard that I should look at Clause 54 for the answer. My question was—and, indeed is—as follows: If an owner of land is sent a bill for pollution not covered by the 1991 Act—perhaps relating to methane or dust caused by a disused mine—to whom does he send the bill for payment? I think that it is either the Coal Authority or the last mining company, but the problem occurs if the company is no more or is insolvent. I think that my noble friend said at col. 44 of Hansard that it goes to the Coal Authority. I think, again, that in the great majority of cases the liability falls on the Coal Authority, but can my noble friend confirm that that is the case if the Coal Authority has disposed of its landowning rights and if operations have been transferred by the Secretary of State before the restructuring date or, indeed, direct to the private sector on the restructuring dates?
Like my noble friend Lord Crickhowell, I think it vitally important that the Committee should have clear answers to those questions to know how we can proceed. I interpret my noble friend's remarks as meaning that in all cases the bill that I will be sent as a residual landowner will be settled by the Coal Authority. I just want the simple answer "yes". I beg to move.
Lord Renton: I hope that no intervention of mine will prevent my noble friend the Minister from giving the simple answer wished for by my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley. I should like briefly to emphasise one or two points. First, we should acknowledge on the principle of continuity that the Government are providing that the present planning law, in general, including that relating to coal mining, shall continue. In Clause 54, to which we have just agreed, and other clauses, helpful and useful adjustments are made, in effect, to that planning law. But the amendment is valuable, because we must be left in no doubt as to who is to have responsibility for complying with planning

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conditions imposed upon British Coal on a mine which is no longer being mined but where the consequences of mining can continue indefinitely, or where coal is still being mined by British Coal and may be transferred under licence to an independent operator.
It would be sad if, in all our efforts to preserve continuity of responsibility, especially for environmental damage, we did not make it clear that the conditions granted in the past for planning permission were to be enforced against the licence holder, the new Coal Authority, or, where appropriate—it will not often be so—against British Coal. The key factor is one that my noble friend Lord Stanley has mentioned; that is, the passing of the ownership of the coal. He was right to say that we need an assurance that no assets will be transferred from British Coal before the restructuring date. On this question of the transfer of responsibilities, that is a key factor.
Lord Gisborough: I should like to raise another point in support of the amendment. A landowner might be approached about mining by a company. He would take legal advice. Unless the point is tied up, his lawyer might say that it is not safe to go ahead because any liability that might arise in the years ahead could devolve upon the owner. The owner might say that the risk of that liability is too great and that he will not go ahead, in which case he could be forced by a CRO to go ahead and then find himself with liabilities. That would be unfair. The matter must be tied up so that, if an agreement is to be made, a lawyer will advise that it is safe to do so.
6.15 p.m.
The Earl of Lytton: As my name is to the amendment, I shall speak briefly in support of it. It is the third instance in a litany of voices all saying, "Please not us", and not least the landowning, property-owning and occupiers' interests. The amendment rests upon the fact that landowners and property occupiers are the weak party, in the sense that they are unable to assess risk, at any rate not at any reasonable cost. They are faced ultimately with powers of compulsion. We have a changed situation in that we start off with British Coal and we end up with a Coal Authority, an operator, and various other individuals, all of whom in their own way, might have to shoulder some part of the liability that was formerly contained within the one entity.
We all fear falling between two stools. That is known in the trade as "risk management", I believe. My children know it as "pass the parcel", but they do it for different reasons. We do not know what sort of covenant the operators will he able to offer. So while I take the point, and see the logic in the Minister saying that the liabilities must, so far as possible, fall on those operators, it is only fair to say that it is an untried and untested entity. It may be a large, substantial PLC. We just do not know, but we would all feel much happier if, rather than have to sift through ancient and modern pieces of legislation and to tie in all sorts of regulations from planning law., environmental law and elsewhere, we could have some sort of statement.
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If it is too complex a matter for the Minister to give the answer today for which his noble friend Lord Stanley was asking, perhaps he could ask his right honourable friend whether there could be some sort of comprehensive statement on how the liabilities and duties will fall, including all the "what if" scenarios about which everyone is concerned. There is a proper balance to be struck here between commercial activities and the protection of individuals, the environment, and all the other things that beset commercial life.
As the Government are setting in place new commercial entities to take on the running of these mines and to accept the liabilities, I feel that that is where the commercial mainspring lies. It is from that angle, as promoter of the legislation, that it is reasonable to look to the Government for a clear statement setting out what they envisage in those circumstances.
Lord Strathclyde: I have spent a considerable part of this afternoon and time on previous occasions in Committee trying to explain where the liability lies. I believe that everything I have said is clear and consistent. I point the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, to some of the statements that I have made. I shall not go through it all over again in reply to my noble friend Lord Stanley because that might well try the patience of the Committee. However, I want things to be as simple as possible inasmuch as dealing with some of the legal principles allows them to be simple. Of course I want to maintain the principle of continuity, which I have already outlined and which was mentioned again by my noble friend Lord Renton.
Let me make it clear that I understand the concerns behind the amendment and the new clause proposed by Amendment No. 83. I do not believe that it would be effective because, as many Members of the Committee will be aware, the basic premise of planning law is that the permission runs with the land. I do not believe that on its own the amendment would be able to defeat that basic principle. So while I understand the concerns, I believe that landowners will find more reassurance in the authority's duty to satisfy itself on the financial capacity of licence applicants.
The second amendment would provide that responsibility for environmental responsibilities.
Noble Lords: No.
Lord Strathclyde: We are dealing with Amendments Nos. 83 and 83A. No we are not. We are dealing only with Amendment No. 83. So there is no second amendment and the question does not arise. I shall deal with that point next time.
My noble friend asked me to whom he should send the bill. I am not clear under what circumstances my noble friend is likely to receive a bill demanding money for pollution. The regulatory bodies are unlikely to pursue my noble friend unless he has some relevant responsibility. For the sake of argument, let us assume. that the pollution in question is the fault of a coal mine operator or is connected to his activities. in that case, my noble friend should send any such bill that he receives to the operator, who will deal with it.
What if the operator should be insolvent?
Lord Gisborough: I thank my noble friend for giving way. What if the operator has gone bust?
Lord Strathclyde: That is precisely the question that I asked. What happens if the operator should be insolvent? In that case, my noble friend should send his bill to the receiver, who will take over the responsibilities of the operator. If the operator has been wound up and the lease terminated, my noble friend should send the bill to the Coal Authority, which will have responsibility for the mine as owner. The Bill makes that clear in the earlier clauses.
Lord Peston: I do not want to repeat the debate on liability. One of the many excellent features about the Minister's contributions is that they are always extremely clear. What worries us, however, is that when we understand the Bill we are more concerned than we were when it was obscure. But that is by the way. Essentially, the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, had a single purpose. He asked whether the owner of the land, who might have been willingly or unwillingly involved, could ever become liable not for pollution but for restoration. The key word is "restoration".
The Minister was asked to give a straight answer; yes or no. I take it that the answer is no; that the owner of the land can never become the person who has to meet the costs of a restoration. Is that what the Minister said? I do not want to repeat the debate on liability because I do not regard this as one of the liability issues. The principle of the Bill is that the mining people are responsible. The noble Lord, Lord Stanley, asked whether he could ever become responsible. Is the Minister able to tell him that he can never be responsible for restoration costs?
Lord Strathclyde: I understood my noble friend to ask who would pay if he received a bill for environmental responsibilities and he did not consider that he was responsible. I explained the process that should be gone through, which ended up with the Coal Authority.
Lord Renton: I am afraid that several doubts have been raised in the answers given by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde. Let us, first, take the case in which the operator goes bust. Alas, we all know that sometimes there are advantages in going into liquidation—to escape one's liabilities. If in those circumstances the liability will be passed to the surface owner, who had no responsibility and perhaps did not want the mining to take place below his land, that would be most unfair.
There are other issues but, first, I must ask my noble friend to answer a question that my noble friend Lord Stanley and I raised. What about the circumstances which continue indefinitely? Mining may have ceased some years ago but mining subsidence continues possibly for ever in one way or another. There are other unfortunate consequences of mining which was done by the British Coal Board but which has ceased and which we should be prepared to anticipate.
Clearly, it would be most unfair on the owner or occupier of the surface of the land to be made responsible under a previous ancient planning permission with conditions attached. Therefore, the
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amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Stanley, is of vital importance. I do not believe that the Minister has answered what I describe as a key factor. It may be legalistic to describe it as such, but in practice it is relevant. It is the date of the transfer of the ownership of the coal. Is that to be before or after restructuring? It would be helpful if my noble friend were able to answer that.
Lord Strathclyde: The first point that my noble friend made is important and we have returned to it time and time again. I agree that it would be unfair if the liabilities fell on the owners of the land. Quite clearly, they are the responsibilities of the Coal Authority which accepts all liabilities from all previous mining operations, whether carried out by British Coal or any other coal miner. Indeed, a Roman mine might be causing subsidence and the Coal Authority will accept responsibility for that.
As regards the date of transfer, I make no pretence that I do not fully understand the point made by my noble friend. However, there will be a vesting date on which the property assets and liabilities of British Coal will be transferred to the Coal Authority.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I wish, first, to refer to the remark made by my noble friend Lord Gisborough. I raised that point when I moved my Amendment No. 74, which dealt with CROs. The more I listen to Members of the Committee, the more I realise that CROs have many hidden problems and that we should be better off without them. I am sure that we must resolve that matter.
I refer to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Peston. The question I asked referred to liabilities, which included restorations. I do not quite know how to conclude, except to say that I feel I received from my noble friend the same answer as nearly 40 years ago I received from my wife when I asked her to marry me. I shall have to do the same with him; that is pursue him at a later stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 83A:
After Clause 54, insert the following new clause:
("Escape of polluted water
.—(1) In granting any licence for the exploration for or the mining of coal the Authority shall require the licensee to take such steps as shall be determined by the National Rivers Authority to prevent the escape of polluted water from the mine both during the operation of the mine and after its abandonment.
(2) In making any Scheme under section 12 of this Act in relation to the exploration for or the mining of coal the Secretary of State shall be subject to the same obligation under subsection (1) above as the Authority.").
The noble Lord said: Members of the Committee on all sides may consider that this is the time to go for a cup of tea or even for a pre-prandial aperitif because I propose to thank and to congratulate Members on the Benches opposite, starting with the noble Lord the Minister. That may be found to be extremely boring —except to him—and it may take some time.
Before moving Amendment No. 83A, I wish to record my grateful welcome of the Minister's

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announcement last Tuesday relating to the safeguards against the threat of water pollution from abandoned mines. That is what Amendment No. 83A is all about. At last we have a clear government recognition of this potentially appalling risk to the environment, and in particular to the woefully inadequate legal measures to prevent mine water pollution killing off vast tracts of this nation's rivers and streams. We welcome the Minister's commitment to maintain pumping in the Durham coal field. My noble friend Lord Dormand of Easington will alert us to the particular problem of the Durham coal field.
Equally, I welcome the Minister's commitment to similar action in other cases where there is risk. I refer to what he said in col. 542 of the Official Report of 26th April. The problem is not confined to Durham; it exists in every area where coal is or has been mined. It is illustrated all too clearly in the recent report of the National Rivers Authority. I salute its chairman, my countryman, the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, on what can be described only as a most thorough and illuminating account of the problems that we must face from the massive round of mine closures that have taken place in recent years.
The NRA report states that there are significant water quality problems from coal mine discharges as far afield as the North West, Wales, Yorkshire, the South East, Northumbria and the Trent. Some 200 kilometres of rivers, streams and brooks are affected. The situation will get worse if pumping and other water treatment ceases at mines which have recently closed or are scheduled for closure.
I illustrate that point with an example which was brought to my attention only today. It concerns a local beauty spot, a popular museum and country park complex in South Yorkshire —Worsborough Reservoir near Barnsley. In October of last year, only seven months ago, the pumps in nearby mine workings were switched off. Now—and I repeat, only seven months later—the reservoir and nearby rivers are literally dying. Algae are proliferating and fish are being killed off almost completely.
British Coal, no doubt in good faith, relinquished its responsibility for that ecological disaster—for that is what it is turning out to be—last October when it switched off the pumps. That was an act which under the present crazy legal situation it was perfectly entitled to do. The problem was too hot for Yorkshire Water to handle. It could not be persuaded to take over the pumping, despite being offered the pumping facilities free of charge. It said that the liabilities were far too large to take any part in it.
There are also severe implications for the Worsborough Reservoir. The amount of water draining into it is much less and the quality of that water is, to say the least, pretty awful. If that was not enough, the lack of pumping will affect local water tables; it will lead to a change in landscape habitat; and will affect mature woodland within that area.
So what now? That valued asset of one of the hardest hit areas of the coalfield is left—if I may coin the phrase —high and dry. I mention that and give that illustration to underline the value and importance of the Minister's
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proposals on this issue. We look forward to the Department of the Environment's review of contaminated land and liabilities, the results of which are due later this year. Not only do I welcome the Minister's proposal to maintain pumping in Durham and elsewhere—and I hope that he will tell the Committee that he has requested the NRA to compile immediately a list of urgent cases—but I pay tribute also to his announcement that the Government will expect the new Coal Authority to go beyond the minimum environmental duties imposed upon it by the Bill.
Furthermore, I support fully the requirement that the Coal Authority and the new operators must consult the NRA about the consequences of abandoning mines in the future and about the preventive measures that they must take.
Amid that welter of congratulations, perhaps I may make a few additional suggestions. At present an informal agreement exists between British Coal and the NRA that British Coal will give 14 days' notice to the authority before switching off any pumps. I should like an assurance from the Minister that, with immediate effect, no pumps will be turned off by British Coal or after its dissolution by the Coal Authority or by private operators without the express authorisation of the NRA. That is the first point.
Secondly, I should welcome an assurance that the NRA will be asked to investigate all pumping operations that have ceased since October 1992. I select that date, the date of Mr. Heseltine's fateful pit closure announcement, not for political reasons but because it marked the start of the recent massive round of pit closures which, if I interpret the NRA report correctly, could well result in an equally massive round of environmental damage from mine water pollution.
Thirdly, where the NRA authorises a cessation of pumping, the pumping stations should be maintained in operational order and nearby waters regularly monitored until the NRA is satisfied that there is no future risk. The continued care and maintenance of pumping stations will incur modest costs at the very most. But prevention is better than cure and, what is more, prevention is cheaper than cure.
Fourthly, in his statement the Minister said that a specific budget for the purpose of dealing with the problem would be made available to the Coal Authority when it is appointed, whenever that may be. Again, that is to be welcomed. But what about the problem now? Will the Minister outline the resources which will now be made available to British Coal to maintain the present mechanisms and, indeed, to save the Worsborough reservoirs of our nation, because there are many examples of this nationwide? Abandoned mines, as we are coming to see after this afternoon's debate, are very unpredictable creatures. We should be optimistic if we expected them to adhere to any government timetable.
I realise that in those four requests I have given the Minister quite an extensive shopping list. Obviously, I do not expect an immediate response, certainly not across the Dispatch Box. However, I look forward to a

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reply from the Minister, either verbally at our convenience or in writing, if possible well before Report stage.
I leave the acute, specific problems in the Durham coalfield to my noble friend Lord Dormand of Easington, although the Minister will not be surprised to learn that in the view of the Durham County Council his assurances fall far short of what is considered to be necessary to safeguard the environment.
That brings me smoothly to Amendment No. 83A, which I am moving. I am speaking also to Amendment No. 93. Amendment No. 83A is a new clause which provides that a comprehensive plan is prepared to deal with mine water before operations start; and that is important. That will include work during the operation of a mine and will allow for proper decommissioning after it has been worked. It will be comparable with the process of after-care agreements between opencast operators and local planning authorities. The provision for the complete restoration of the site, including the treatment of mine water where that is necessary, will be a necessary condition for the granting of planning permission. I wish to see it all signed, sealed, settled and delivered before operations start.
Although the NRA is currently consulted at the planning stage, if I understand the matter correctly, those consultations cover only the active life of the mine. They do not include the impact of either the operation or the abandonment of the mine on the water environment. Provisions in the local minerals plan could ensure that an abandonment plan is drawn up for each mine.
I believe that I am right to say that that change would be supported by the NRA, although the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, will correct me if I am wrong, because it says in the report:
"Consideration must also be given to changes to the planning system with regard to the opening, or re-opening, of mines in order that full provision is made in advance for its aftercare with respect to groundwater rebound".
That is from the Abandoned Mines and the Water Environment 1994 report at page 42. With what I take to be a powerful supporting statement, I beg to move.
Lord Dormand of Easington: I shall speak to Amendment No. 93, which is grouped with this amendment. I shall not repeat what I said about the County Durham position on Second Reading except to say that much of it was based on this splendid document called Coal Industry Bill Minewater Pollution which was produced by Durham County Council. I am glad to say that on the front it states:
"Briefing for the House of Lords".
Sometimes the House of Lords is not referred to on the briefs which we receive.
Perhaps I may return to the specific amendment. Amendments to the Water Resources Act 1991 are necessary to renew the exemptions for pollution arising from abandoned mines so far as they relate to British Coal and the Coal Authority. Section 85 of the Water Resources Act 1991 created the offence of polluting controlled water; namely, rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, groundwater and coastal waters.
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However, Section 89(3) provided an exemption by permitting water from an abandoned mine to enter controlled waters. Section 161 of the Water Resources Act 1991 gave the National Rivers Authority the power to carry out works to prevent or remedy pollution and recover the costs. However, Section 161(4) provided an exemption from the NRA's right to obtain reimbursement of costs by permitting water from an abandoned mine to enter controlled waters. Those exemptions make the question of responsibility for mine water discharges unclear and should not apply to British Coal and the Coal Authority.
Ministers keep repeating, as, indeed, we heard again today, that British Coal's liabilities will transfer to the Coal Authority. But they deliberately ignore the fact that British Coal is exempted from liability for permitting —I emphasise the word "permitting"—pollution from abandoned mines. Causing pollution gives rise to liability. Therefore, it can be seen that there is immense scope for dispute and expensive litigation. British Coal has consistently denied liability, even when it has undertaken remedial works. Thus, the liability to be transferred is heavily circumscribed.
We cannot rely on British Coal's previous, so-called, "good neighbour" policy, because it will no longer have the resources, both in terms of policy and, more importantly, in terms of manpower, to take action. The Coal Authority is primarily a licensing body and is not involved in operations as British Coal has been. Therefore, the responsibility to take action cannot be left to the goodwill of those two bodies: they must be made legally liable for pollution from abandoned mines.
Members of the Committee will be aware that the NRA is the agency which has the responsibility to deal with pollution of controlled waters and that, as I said earlier, includes rivers, coastal waters and ground water. The NRA has just published a report entitled, Abandoned Mines and the Water Environment, to which my noble friend referred. It describes both the potential and actual environmental damage resulting from abandoned mines and the legal and practical difficulties which the NRA faces in its efforts to prevent and clean up associated pollution. In view of the widespread closing of pits, the Government must give the most urgent and serious consideration to that report.
In North-East England, the NRA is faced with 15 significant discharges and about 100 discharges in total. Those are the discharges from one area and there are 57 areas defined in the report. That gives an indication of the measure of the problem. It is crazy that an industry, when in operation, has its discharges strictly regulated and yet, when it comes to an end, leaves a legacy of poor water quality and has no legal responsibility for the damage that it causes.
I find it incredible that the Government are treating the matter with some indifference. The circumstances from every point of view cry out—and this is the important point—for specific legislative action. They say that the Coal Authority will take over British Coal's current responsibilities for dealing with the water discharges from coal mines, except where liability has been passed on to the private sector, including licensed operators.

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Does British Coal's current responsibility include that matter? It appears not, in so far as it has consistently said that it deals with the matter only on a "good neighbour" basis. Further, it is certain there will be massive responsibilities to be faced by the Coal Authority. In our Second Reading speeches, many of us said that it is by no means certain that the authority will have either the resources or the expertise to deal with such an important matter.
It is for that reason that I asked the Minister to clarify a statement he made in his speech on the first day of Committee on 26th April (at col. 541). I should say that he has most kindly and promptly agreed to do so. I share the welcome that was given to the statement; indeed, it has been welcomed by Members from ail sides of the Chamber. However, I should like to look at it in a little more detail before I put one specific question to the Minister. I should like to remind Members of the Committee that the Minister said:
"A high priority should be attached to tackling situations such as that in Durham. There, on the best advice at present available, it seems that continued pumping is required to prevent a serious pollution incident; or at all events to give assurance that such an incident can be avoided".
Some of us have been saying that for many months. The Minister went on to say:
"Whatever else might come out of the consideration of priorities, I am certain that it must include a commitment to maintain the pumping there for so long as it is needed in order to prevent the risk of serious pollution; and there may be other cases elsewhere where pumping should likewise be maintained".
I readily concur with what has been said. It is not just a North-East problem; it is something that is happening and which will happen in every coal field throughout the country. Those words were very important and most heartening. However, there is an immediate and vital question to be asked: who will pay for it and how long will it last? That has not been spelt out. That is why some of us are most concerned. It is the nub of the problem. If it is not answered, I am sorry to say that it will seem that the Government are simply skirting around the problem.
One purpose of my amendment is to try to clear up the doubt that surrounds the matter. The Bill is the obvious measure to deal with the uncertainty about which I have just spoken. I do not think that there will be any disagreement in that respect. I hope that the Government will accept my amendment.
Lord Crickhowell: I intend to be very brief. I have a little problem in that I have a long-standing commitment this evening. However, I hope that I shall not have to leave the Chamber before my noble friend the Minister replies. But, if I do, I hope that both he and Members of the Committee will forgive me. What I have to say can be said quite briefly. My noble friend the Minister has been most helpful, both this afternoon and during the earlier stages; indeed, to quote words used just a short time ago he has been "clear, consistent" and, I should add, helpful.
The statement that my noble friend the Minister made last Tuesday has been frequently referred to; indeed, it has just been quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Dormand of Easington. I share the view that the statement made about the pumping, and in particular about the Durham
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coal field, was of great importance. In the light of that statement—which has really taken matters forward—it was somewhat cavalier a the noble Lord to say that the Government have not approached the matter with a sufficient sense of priority.
I believe that the Government have now shown that it is a very important matter and that they propose to deal with it. They have made it clear that it will be the responsibility of the Coal Authority to do so. My noble friend the Minister added that he would expect the Coal Authority to seek to meet its commitments in the most cost-effective way. No one can doubt that that is right. My noble friend has quite clearly given a commitment on behalf of the Government in that respect.
It is always rather nice to be the chairman of a public body when noble Lords suggest that all sorts of new powers should be given to it and that other authorities should be required to do things that one would like. I have to say that this is another occasion when I am able, at least to some extent, to support my noble friend. We do not want an obligation on the authority to require that the licensee shall take such steps as the NRA thinks necessary. I say that because once again we return to the position of confusing who is responsible. I want to be sure that the NRA is in a position to set appropriate conditions. That is the point I made earlier. I have explained to my noble friend why I do not believe that the NRA, or the river pollution boards in Scotland, will be in that position. I am not yet satisfied that they are involved in the right stage of the process. My noble friend has undertaken to look at that again. Subject to that proviso, I believe that the job should lie with the regulatory authority.
It is interesting that in the Environmental Protection Act there is a clause which states that for prescribed processes the enforcing authority—which is HMIP—shall not grant an authorisation if the National Rivers Authority certifies to the enforcing authority its opinion that the release will result in or contribute to a failure to achieve any water quality objective in force under Part III of the Water Act. The Act goes on to provide that any authorisation which is granted shall, as respects such releases, include such conditions as appear to the National Rivers Authority to be appropriate.
However, there is a fundamental difference there. HMIP, the environmental regulator, is the enforcing authority. Therefore, it is merely one environmental regulator in a position to put certain conditions into the authority for the operation of the particular process.
It is perhaps relevant that discharge from a mine is not a process controlled by the Environmental Protection Act. Perhaps at some future date we should consider whether it should be. I say at some future date because, again, while I understand and sympathise with what the noble Lord, Lord Dormand of Easington, said, these issues are complex. In the NRA report which the noble Lord quoted we say that dealing with the combined problem of contamination from abandoned mines and from contaminated land is a major one and it should be viewed on a combined basis. The Government are undertaking a major review at present. I have said previously that I do not want a major change in environmental legislation covering a huge, complex and

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important issue written rather hurriedly into the Coal Bill. We have to return to the issue at the appropriate time.
I would have some sympathy for the argument proposed in Amendment No. 93 that we should do away, at least for the future and in relation to the lessees and licensees to be licensed under this Bill, with the exemptions contained in Sections 89 and 161 of the Water Act in relation to permitted discharges. Where I part company with Amendment No. 93 as drafted is that it seems to be retrospective. It seems to me to place on the Coal Authority liabilities which did not exist previously. That does not seem to be a right principle.
The ability remains—and I argued earlier this afternoon that it should not be transferred—to establish that pollution was caused by the Coal Authority. So while I have great sympathy with the view that we need to change the law and that we need to move on I am not sure that Amendment No. 93 provides the appropriate way forward.
However, we believe, and the NRA report states, that we should be in a position to ensure that when an abandonment plan comes forward the mine operator should prepare an abandonment programme which includes the perceived impact on water quality; that the NRA should be informed at least three months beforehand; and appropriate steps are put in place to ensure that an effective programme is carried forward. We should also like to see the planning system amended to ensure that when a mine is opened or reopened full provision is made in advance for its aftercare with respect to ground water rebound and water pollution.
That leads me to say what I have said again and again this afternoon. I do not want the wrong powers to be given to the wrong bodies. I want effective powers for the regulator. I do not believe that we have them at the moment because I am not sure that the NRA is given the information and put in a position to enable it to take the appropriate steps under the existing planning law. If that is put right, then I am, prepared to wait for a wider and more embracing measure after the current review is completed.
Lord Prys-Davies: I understand that hitherto the Government have said that the underlying problem is complex and that when the pumps are switched off after the closure of a pit and the water level resumes its natural level, many causes may join thereafter to produce pollution. The Government say that it is difficult to pin the responsibility on any one individual organisation.
I would be the first to accept that it is difficult and complex. To the best of my recollection we have been told since February 1992 that the Government are investigating the issue and the legislative framework that is necessary. Can the Minister give an indication when the investigation will be completed and when we may expect the report?
I have followed what the Minister has said. I should like him to confirm that he is saying that henceforth if the polluted water emanates even from a colliery for which the Coal Board has had no responsibility at any
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time, the Coal Authority will be responsible for the pollution. What is the authority for that statement, if that is the Government's position? Secondly, if that is the position, what is the sanction if the Coal Authority fails to abate the pollution? We are entitled to ask that question given the wording of the Water Resources Act 1991.
I am particularly mindful that there was a case before the Cardiff Crown Court on 2nd December last year against British Coal. The case failed. The prosecution arose out of the pollution of the River Rhymney after the pumps had been switched off after the closure of the Britannia and Pengam pits. The prosecution failed because it was unable to show that the polluting material had emanated from the Britannia and Pengam pits. In fact, it had emanated from pits higher up in the Mynydd Islwyn seam.
I should be grateful if the Minister would say when he anticipates sanctions will be available and amendments will be made to the Water Resources Act to enable prosecutions to be brought against the Coal Authority if it fails to abate the nuisance.
Lord Strathclyde: I shall deal with this point right away, because it is one that we have dealt with again and again. First, the Coal Authority will take over all the assets of British Coal. British Coal owns all the coal in the country and the Coal Authority becomes responsible for its liabilities. That is set out in subsection (3).
In relation to the review announced by my right honourable friend Mr. Atkins, he indicated that he expected the overall review of the issues relating to contaminated land and liabilities, including the question raised in Amendment No. 93, to be concluded later this year. That deals with that issue.
Amendment No. 83A, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Morris, and Amendment No. 93 are similar to Amendments Nos. 46, 47, 49 and 55 which we debated last Thursday. The difference is that Amendment No. 83A requires that all licences should contain conditions enforcing the requirements of the NRA, whereas the earlier amendments dealt predominantly with consultation.
As regards the operational phase of a mine, there is absolutely no need for licence conditions to enable the NRA to enforce its requirements. It has its own proper powers to enforce its requirements. All that is necessary so far as Coal Authority licensing is concerned is that the licensing should not in any way obstruct the NRA's role, and I am confident that that is the case. As I have mentioned, Schedule 8 to the lease contains a covenant by the tenant, at his own expense, to execute all works and to provide and maintain all arrangements, whether affecting an owner, tenant or occupier, which are directed or required by any statute in force or by any competent authority.
I have also explained how we intend to deal with the abandonment of mines. The leases will contain appropriate conditions to secure that the operator will consult the appropriate regulatory body about the possible consequences for the water environment of abandoning the mine. Before agreeing to termination of the lease, the authority will expect the operator to

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institute any reasonable treatment measures and to make an appropriate payment for any continuing costs. Once the lease has come to an end, the authority will be responsible, as I have explained.
I think that this is the most effective way of securing that appropriate measures are taken to protect the environment in these circumstances. Therefore, I contend that Amendment No. 83A is unnecessary.
The second amendment, Amendment No. 93, deals with the question of statutory pollution offences in respect of discharges permitted rather than caused. It goes back to the statement that I made on the first day. Again it goes back to the consultation process by Robert Atkins. It deals with the question of who should be liable in the circumstances. Once we have the answers to that, we can set about changing the law, if that is required. That was the point that my noble friend Lord Crickhowell made; he is absolutely right on this question. I wish we could agree that the statement that I made on Tuesday—it may not be a perfect statement; it may not go as far as noble Lords wish me to go—is as far as we can reasonably be expected to go because of the uncertainties regarding the future regime dealing with these quite specific liabilities. That would save a lot of time.
The noble Lord, Lord Dormand of Easington, asked two specific questions: who will pay; and how long will pumping go on? The answer to the first question is that the Coal Authority will pay for all of this, as I believe I have made clear in the past. As for how long the pumping of the mines will continue, it will continue for so long as it is needed to forestall serious pollution. The authority will be the owner of the abandoned mines. It is not a commitment that is limited in time. However, I emphasise that the period is only so long as is needed to prevent pollution.
I have explained the review process. I do not wish to go over old ground again. But I believe that the amendment is unnecessary because the interim measures will not prejudice any new legal responsibilities which may fall on the Coal Authority as a result of the review. I believe that going further with the noble Lord's amendment would prejudge that review, which it is not worth doing.
I hope that in the light of that explanation—I have given valuable reassurance where that is required—the noble Lord, Lord Morris, will withdraw the amendment.
7 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: Because I was in close and intimate discussion behind the Woolsack on the crucial question of the Committee's dinner time, I regret that I was unable fully to follow the arguments put forward in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell. I apologise to him. I shall certainly read them carefully tomorrow. I think that he gave us at least qualified support and, if so, I welcome it; if not, I am sorry.
Lord Crickhowell: It was so qualified as not to be support for the specific amendments.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I shall read the speech tomorrow and see what crumbs of comfort I can
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extract from it. It sounded quite nice to me when the noble Lord said it. However, he alerted us to the complexity of the problem.
The Minister replied to me on Amendment No. 83A and to my noble friend on Amendment No. 93. He said that there was no need for such amendments because the NRA has all the powers necessary to achieve the thrust of the amendment without bothering anyone else. He also gave us reassurances on the powers of the lease. That may be so. I shall be obliged to take advice on his reply. Yet I must point out that, whenever I take advice, based on antecedent form my advisers tend to say, "Yes, that's all very well but", and produce another six factors which the Minister's reply leaves totally out of consideration, which would produce an entirely new set of problems. If the advisers do as they usually do, I shall return at Report stage with further amendments in this area. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 83B not moved.]
Clause 55 [Health and safety regulations as to rescue service]:
Lord Ezra Lord Ezra moved Amendment No. 84:
Page 51, line 12, at end insert ("provided that approval shall only be given to a scheme which maintains the same or a greater level of service as that in existence immediately before the restructuring date.").
The noble Lord said: I shall be brief. We come back to the question of health and safety. While I support the broad thrust of Clause 55, we believe, as suggested in the amendment, that it should be strengthened and that at line 12 on page 51 should be inserted the words,
"provided that approval shall only be given to a scheme which maintains the same or a greater level of service as that in existence immediately before the restructuring date".
That emphasises what we have felt repeatedly as we have dealt with the question of safety: that under public ownership a culture of safety was established—the point was made strongly by the noble Lord, Lord Haslam—and that we should do everything possible to continue that culture. That is why we make the point that any approved scheme will be up to the standard of previous schemes. I beg to move.
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: I support the amendment, although I wish it had gone further. I wish that it had begun, "There shall be a national rescue service". This clause is totally conditional upon a number of things happening. It is time that the provision was firmed up; and the noble Lord's amendment will help to do that.
I had intended merely to say, "Hear, hear", to those who spoke to the amendment. However, my noble friend Lord Mason of Barnsley, who would have spoken to the amendment, has had to leave. I wish therefore to take his place, however inadequate that may be, and to say a word about why I believe that the Government ought to go further on this matter and strengthen this very conditional clause, turning it into an affirmative provision.
There is no doubt that rescue at coal mines is a specialist function requiring workers who are specifically trained and equipped for that work. Two rescue

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stations have been closed down: one in Yorkshire and one at Dinas in South Wales. I believe that it is right that we should not have a dwindling of the necessary rescue stations. A policy should be announced and made clear on a vital matter—namely, the lives and safety of those who work in the pits. The training of the rescue workers is arduous, it demands full-time commitment and is dangerous. The regulations at the moment are quite strict—owners employing 10 or more workers underground are required to provide central rescue stations near to the mines and trained rescue workers.
There is no legal requirement for full-time brigadesmen, but on the other hand I believe that the Committee will be impressed when I say that British Coal found it useful—I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, himself was responsible—to set up a full-time service. That in itself was an indication that part-time brigadesmen and a part-time service are not adequate for the purpose. The Health and Safety Executive, which has been advised by the National Advisory Committee on Rescue Work, has accepted that there is a need to strengthen the present regulations. The European Community also has an interest in the matter. It is important that existing standards of provision should be maintained. Whatever scheme is adopted by the Government, I trust that that principle will be observed.
It is also important that small and remote mines should have access to a full-time service. I am sure I am right in saying that in South Wales today there are anything up to 100 small mines, some in inaccessible places. Only a full-time cadre, a skeleton service can have knowledge of the South Wales valleys and the other areas where many of the pits are inaccessible, even almost unknown to people who live within 10 or 20 miles. It is important that there should be full-time workers capable of knowing where those pits are and I am sure I am not exaggerating when I say there are 100 pits which employ 10 men or quite a small number. That is an important consideration.
I am not particularly in favour of privatisation, as is well known, but there is a case for saying that, if the Bill is to go through, then a disproportionate burden should not be placed upon the shoulders of the private coal mines which would drive them out of existence. Common sense leads me to say that in those circumstances the service should be the responsibility of the new Coal Authority which will be set up. Before any scheme is agreed, we should have an understanding from the Government that they are willing to ensure that there is a service which will be properly financed, without undue burdens being put on those who are ill able to pay for them, in operating the pits.
I wish to make clear that there is an argument that full-time brigadesmen should be replaced with part-time rescue workers. I believe that the reason British Coal set up a full-time service was because, by their nature, volunteers are not always available. They may be working overtime, on holiday or whatever it is, but it has not proved thoroughly satisfactory to have them and the rewards for the part-time brigadesmen are small. I ask for an assurance from the Government on this: if they
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are not willing to put into the Bill—it should not be conditional, it should be absolute—that there shall be a national mines rescue service, will they be willing to give the assurance that they will not approve a scheme unless it is based on a national service, a core of rescue brigadesmen who are full-time professionals? Volunteers, although able and willing even after undertaking some training, have shown that they are not capable all the time of carrying out the skilled operations that are required.
Finally, I suggest to the Government that, if any scheme is adopted, it should not be left to the small mine owners, whoever they may be, but should be the responsibility of the Coal Authority or of the Government themselves. If I could be given some assurance from the Government on those matters, I know from my own correspondence that a great many anxieties would be relieved and my noble friend Lord Mason would be overjoyed.
7.15 p.m.
Lord Haslam: My thoughts are similar to those of the noble Lords, Lord Ezra and Lord Callaghan. Currently British Coal has the sole responsibility for the provision of the Mines Rescue Service, which also covers the small licensed mines. The service provided by British Coal far exceeds that which is required under the fire and rescue regulations because experience has shown that to meet the demands of the industry this higher standard is needed. It is essential, therefore, that the proposed rescue service be based as a minimum on that which is currently provided by British Coal and every new owner should be committed to it as a condition of operation.
We have heard criticism of the performance of the private owners of the coal industry prior to nationalisation. That certainly did not extend to mine rescue activities. During that period, as a young mining engineer, I served in the mine rescue team at Boothstown, where we had adequate training facilities. The station served the Lancashire coalfield and was well supported by the private owners. Problems primarily arose when a number of rescue brigades from other coal fields had to converge on a pit to deal with a major incident or explosion, the equipment and procedures of the various teams not always being compatible. I firmly believe, therefore, that the future rescue service should continue on a national full-time basis, ensuring that the same breathing apparatus and ancillary equipment are generally available and that the rescue brigadesmen across all the coalfields are trained in the same procedures. I fully support Amendment No. 84.
Lord Prys-Davies: I hope that the Minister will be receptive to the anxieties which have been expressed by my noble friend Lord Callaghan and the noble Lord, Lord Haslam. There is only one additional point that I wish to make, relying on my own experience. The rescue of injured miners trapped in a small mine accident presents many grave difficulties because small mines do not have trained rescue workers on hand. They do not have the rescue equipment and, therefore, if the best facilities are to be available to the men who are

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working in the mines, it seems to me that the national rescue team, with its specially trained rescue brigadesmen, who are on call 24 hours a day, should be available.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I hope it will be conceded that we on these Benches yield to none in the importance that we assign to safety in the mines. Clause 55 gives powers to the Secretary of State to approve financial arrangements to ensure the provision of mines rescue. So far, so good.
We are concerned that such funding might be inadequate; not that it might not be there, but that it might not be enough. We have noticed that before in the provision made for CISWO. The Government did not refuse to provide assistance for CISWO, but they pitched their assistance well short of the obvious requirement and said: "Make up the difference by yourselves in some other way. Exercise your wits, get economies of scale or something of that kind; cut back on the operation". In the case of CISWO that might just be possible; in the case of mines rescue it would be deadly. For example, as the number of pits falls, revenue will be reduced but we shall still need the same capability to respond to a major incident. Major incidents cost the same, so the Government must guarantee an adequate level of funding both by making it a condition of the licence and by making the maintenance of a rescue service the ultimate responsibility of the authority.
We can draw a parallel between that and the fire and other emergency services. The Mines Rescue Service also forms part of that reticulation. For example, both at Flixborough and Kegworth, where we had major disasters, the Mines Rescue Service played a key role. The emergency services cannot be seen as independent and separate; they all operate as one great rescue service.
We are also concerned that the Government might be seduced by some cut-price scheme based on part-time rescue workers rather than the specialist, full-time rescue corps who currently man British Coal rescue stations. A part-time service will not do—if for no other reason than that it would not be able to guarantee adequate response times in case of emergency. If you are lying below ground with a broken neck, a broken back or even a broken leg, response time is what matters to you in terms of your life expectancy.
It is also questionable whether private companies would be quite as prepared as British Coal has been to release their employees for the necessary training if a part-time scheme was ever to be considered. For those reasons we strongly support this amendment and hope that the Government will concede it.
Viscount Goschen: I should like to begin by saying that British Coal can be rightly proud of the high standards which have been established by the Mines Rescue Service, and which have been praised by all Members of your Lordships' Committee who spoke on the subject this evening. Indeed, the service is second to none.
I should also like to stress right at the start of my remarks that the Government's fundamental objective,
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in the light of the advice from the Health and Safety Commission, is the maintenance of a national mines rescue service.
The commission's clear advice to the Government is that arrangements for rescue are a statutory responsibility of the owner, and that it is essential that any new arrangements should continue to reflect that after privatisation. As the commission rightly says, if they were seen as imposed, as the amendment suggests, or controlled from elsewhere, they would undermine the owner's responsibility, and they would be unlikely to work effectively.
The Health and Safety Executive has conducted a detailed review of rescue, working closely with the industry through the National Advisory Committee on Rescue Work and Rescue Apparatus, which comprises the owners, the Health and Safety Executive and the unions, with a view to bringing forward proposals for new regulations which reflect modern circumstances and take account of the current structure and proposed privatisation of the industry. That review led to the conclusions set out in the commission's letter of 26th January to the Minister of State for Employment. That letter has been made available in the Library.
At the centre of the commission's proposals will be a requirement that every mine must have effective rescue arrangements suitable for that mine so that, first, two rescue teams can be at the mine within around one hour of an incident; and, secondly, for a major incident, where rescue work needs to continue around the clock—such as was described by the noble Lord, Lord Morris—enough rescue workers to continue work 24 hours a day are available.
The commission's objective in proposing these requirements is to maintain or improve on the standards currently met by British Coal under existing regulations. On that basis, the HSE is currently preparing the draft regulations setting out the necessary requirements in full consultation with the national advisory committee. These will also, of course, be the subject of full formal consultation.
The commission also advises that it will be essential for the coal mine owners to co-operate with each other to achieve these requirements. This co-operation will need to encompass arrangements for the ownership of the existing assets of the rescue service, the arrangements for training and availability of men, and the need for common standards.
Clause 55 of the Bill therefore extends the regulation-making powers under the Health and Safety at Work Act to enable the Secretary of State for Employment to make regulations obliging those carrying out coal-mining operations to participate in a mines rescue scheme. Such schemes will have to be approved by the Secretary of State for Employment who will consult the Health and Safety Commission and other interested parties before reaching his decision. The commission will need to be satisfied that the proposals meet the requirements of the proposed regulations and guarantee standards.
The commission has said that its objective in preparing for the privatisation is to ensure that standards of health and safety are maintained or improved. I can

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reassure the Committee that it is an objective which both the commission and the Government take very seriously indeed. In preparing the new regulations, the commission is charged by the Health and Safety at Work Act to ensure that the proposals be designed to maintain or improve standards. That will be a very powerful safeguard.
The noble Lord, Lord Callaghan of Cardiff, asked about the question of training standards. Requirements will be covered in the package of revised regulations and guidance which is currently being prepared by the Health and Safety Executive. Those will indeed embody the current best practice.
The noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, also raised the issue of full-time brigadesmen as opposed to part-time. That will be a matter for the new owners to decide—but in the light of the new regulations. As the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, himself stated, the existing regulations can be complied with by the provision of either full-time or part-time men. Indeed, British Coal uses both. However, I agree that there is no doubt that full-time men will have to remain as the core of the rescue service.
The noble Lord also asked about the question of small mines and the problems that they would face. We fully agree that the rescue service must be available for small mines. That is one of the main reasons for requiring that the rescue scheme should be approved by the Secretary of State. He will ensure that the service is available to small mines and on reasonable terms. The noble Lord—
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: Will the noble Viscount confirm that "reasonable terms" include, for example, support from the Coal Authority? Or are the Government thinking along the lines of making the mine owners cover all the costs of the service?
Viscount Goschen: I have mentioned that the Secretary of State will have power to approve the terms for participation in a rescue scheme. The noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, was concerned that the provisions would be too onerous on the smaller firms. I agree that it is essential that the owners meet the costs of providing a service if it is to be properly and efficiently run; but that that cost will also reflect the need to use the service, and on that basis we would not expect the costs placed on small and remote mines to be excessive. Their contribution would be based on their need of the service.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, raised the broader question, again, of funding of the rescue scheme. The basic answer is that if a rescue scheme does not contain adequate proposals for funding, then the scheme will not be approved. It is as simple as that. The safeguards are very strong.
The proposed regulations will lay down the minimum standards for rescue provision in the modern industry that all mines participating in a scheme approved by the Secretary of State will have to meet. In line with the commission's advice, it is these standards, laid down in Health and Safety Executive regulations which will meet the concerns underlying Amendment No. 84.
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It is proposed that the new requirements governing rescue should be in place by the beginning of next year to coincide with the vesting of the industry in British Coal's successors. However, recognising the importance of effective rescue provision, and to allow the new owners time to organise themselves effectively to achieve the co-operation which will be required, we have agreed that, following restructuring, British Coal will continue to provide its rescue service to the new owners under contractual arrangements for a period of up to one year from the coming into force of the new regulations.
I can assure the Committee that the provision in the Bill, the proposed revised regulations on rescue and the existing powers of the Health and Safety Commission, will ensure that the existing very high standards of rescue, including a national rescue capability, will be maintained or improved on privatisation. In the light of that explanation, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Ezra: I am sure that the Committee will be pleased to have heard from the noble Viscount that the Government attach the same importance to the rescue service as have all those who spoke from all sides of the Committee. We are all pleased to hear that arrangements have been made for British Coal to continue to provide a service at least for one year. However, I cannot quite understand why the noble Viscount repeatedly said that the Government's intention was that when the schemes are finally approved the continuing rescue service will be at least at the standards presently achieved or better. As that is the purpose of the amendment, I am not quite sure why the amendment has been rejected. I wonder whether the noble Viscount could complete our pleasure in hearing what he has already said by saying that he also accepts the amendment. That is precisely what I thought that he was saying. Will he be prepared to accept it?
Viscount Goschen: No, we feel that it would be unnecessary. Through the very strict safeguards of the regulations, we set out how we perceived that the very important issue of mines rescue will operate. We have stated that we would seek the very best standards—which are already available under the British Coal scheme. But we have stressed that the operation of the rescue schemes must be linked to the responsibility of the operators themselves.
Lord Ezra: I hope that that last remark does not mean in any sense that such apparent flexibility represents any variation below the present standards and that the present standards will at least be maintained.
I am sorry that the noble Viscount did not accept our amendment. I believe that what he said was virtually exactly what the amendment proposed anyway. I feel that in those circumstances we should all like to study very carefully what he did say and perhaps—choosing his very words—come back at a later stage and put forward an amendment which confirms what he said to us. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 55 agreed to.
Clause 56 agreed to.
Viscount Goschen: I beg to move that the House do now resume. In moving that Motion, I should like to suggest that the Committee stage of the Bill should begin again not before 8.30 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Maternity Allowance and Statutory Maternity Pay Regulations 1994
7.33 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Viscount Astor)The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Viscount Astor) rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 24th March be approved [14th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Maternity Allowance and Statutory Maternity Pay Regulations 1994 be approved.
The improved maternity payments introduced by these regulations will benefit around 285,000 women a year. Some 90,000 women a year will be entitled to the higher rate of statutory maternity pay (90 per cent. of their earnings) for the first time. Women will have greater freedom about when to start their maternity leave. At the same time the scheme has been simplified to make it easier for employers to administer.
The regulations before the House amend the statutory maternity pay and maternity allowance schemes and comply with the maternity pay provisions of the European Community Council directive on the protection of pregnant women at work. That was adopted in October 1992 following negotiations between member states. The Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993 implements the directive's employment protection requirements, including the right to 14 weeks' statutory maternity leave.
The changes to the maternity schemes will be: the higher rate of statutory maternity pay will be payable to all women who qualify; the lower rate of statutory maternity pay and maternity allowance for employees will be increased to £52.50 a week to equal the higher rate of statutory sick pay; there will be one simple employment test of 26 weeks for statutory maternity pay. The two-year and five-year employment tests for higher rate statutory maternity pay are abolished; the test period for maternity allowance will be increased from 52 to.66 weeks, giving more women the chance to qualify; women will now have the freedom to choose when their maternity leave and pay should start; the amount of statutory maternity pay reimbursed to employers will be reduced to 92 per cent. but full reimbursement will be retained for small businesses (approximately two thirds of all employers); the new provisions will be introduced at the same time as the new maternity leave and dismissal provisions and will apply to all women expecting a baby on or after 16th October 1994.
These affirmative regulations are made under Section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972 and will amend the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 to effect the changes needed. They will be followed shortly by a further set of negative regulations which will use the revised primary powers to make the more detailed changes.
We published a consultation paper in August 1993. It sought comments from all sectors of industry and other interested parties on changes to maternity pay and described the additional financial costs. More than 700 copies of the consultation document were sent out and nearly 130 responses were received. The majority of employers favoured a simple approach but were concerned that there should be a length of service test for statutory maternity pay. There was a general welcome for the greater freedom of choice over when maternity leave can start.
I am grateful to all those organisations and individuals who responded. Their replies were taken fully into account and proved very valuable in helping us reach our final decisions. For example, as a result of the responses the service test of 26 weeks is being retained.
I realise that some noble Lords are concerned about the contribution to be made by employers. The Government believe that it is only right that employers should meet a small part of the costs of maternity pay for their employees during a period of leave from work. Employers in this country will still be doing better than their counterparts in most other EC states who contribute at least 50 per cent. of the cost of maternity pay.
It is important to remember that employers' national insurance contributions have been reduced by £830 million. That is £125 million more than the combined cost of this change and the change in statutory sick pay. Overall, employers will be better off as a result of the changes.
The changes are good news for 285,000 women. We have chosen a simpler option for implementing the changes; so there will be administrative benefits for business. We believe that it is reasonable to ask employers to meet the extra cost, given that the state continues to pay the lion's share —92 per cent.—of maternity pay. We have not cut the level of state funding at all and small businesses, which, as I said, account for two thirds of all employers, will not pay a penny more. I commend the regulations to the House.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 24th March be approved [14th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Viscount Astor.)
Earl Russell Earl Russell rose to move, as an amendment to the Motion, to leave out ("approved") and insert ("not proceeded with, and that this House calls on Her Majesty's Government to lay amended regulations which do not have the effect of transferring to industry social costs which would otherwise fall on the taxpayer.").
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I have no wish to obstruct the passage of these regulations. Indeed, the regulations are required under European law, since they

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implement the European Community pregnant workers directive. Under the European Communities Act 1972 we are bound to implement that directive. Since the directive has behind it the authority of an Act of Parliament, I do not see how any believer in parliamentary sovereignty can object to it.
On these Benches we do not always agree with what directives say, any more than we always agree with what Acts of Parliament say. In both cases we try and alter them in the appropriate forum. My objection is entirely to what the Government have done in the exercise of their own discretion in the course of implementing the directive. In fact, my objections are concentrated on Regulation 5, which is not part of what is required to implement the directive; it is a decision taken by the Government themselves. It is not based on any requirement of the European Community and the body of the regulations could stand perfectly easily were the Government to accept the invitation I am extending to them to withdraw Regulation 5 and proceed with the rest.
The use of the Motion to resolve, which invites the Government to amend subordinate legislation, is well understood. The closest parallel to the Motion I am moving today is one moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Mountgarret, on 22nd May 1989 on the Summer Time Order. He moved as an amendment that,
"this House declines to proceed further with the debate on the Motion for an humble Address for a Summer Time Order"— [Official Report, 22/5/89; col. 73.],
which is a rather stronger form of words than those I am using today.
I gave the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, notice that I intend to ask some questions about the vires of the regulations, or rather the vires of Regulation 5. I have no intention of challenging the vires. For the purposes of this House, though not of the courts, we normally take the verdict of the Joint Committee as final. But if these are correct vires then I should like to know what is their extent. What other action is the Government empowered to take under these vires? When have they been used before?
In the consultation paper to which the noble Viscount referred, the Government said that this change, if introduced, would require primary legislation. I was one of those who replied to that consultation paper. I said that, if the Government proceeded with that specific proposal, they might have some difficulty in passing the measure through this House. I have just heard that the views of everyone who wrote were taken into account. I wonder whether that remark was taken into account.
Again, on the Motion that the Bill do now pass on the Statutory Sick Pay Bill this year, the Government were warned by all parties that they might have difficulty securing passage of the measure through this House. It was after that that the Government made the timely discovery that it was possible to introduce these measures by regulation. That is done under Section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972. So far as that relates to the actual implementation of the directive, there is no problem about it. The problem is in the use of the vires to extend the costs to employers. That is
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justified under Section 2(2) (b) of the Act, allowing the use of regulations for matters arising out of or relating to the European Community directive.
That is perhaps a rather wide use of those words. If that use is correct, what else could be done under it? In particular, what can be done in the way of imposing charges? It is common ground on the one hand that it is possible to use regulations to introduce changes under European law which impose costs on business. The precedents for that are so wide that there is no scope for argument about it. On the other hand, under Schedule 2 to the 1972 Act, regulations may not be used to introduce taxes. We have here a charge which is not under the employer's control; it does not relate to any duty of care. If that can be introduced by regulation, what else can be introduced by regulation under these powers? And when have they been used in a similar manner before?
As I must speak to the Minister's Motion as well as my own amendment, Ì join in the welcome to the shorter qualification for access to the higher rate of statutory maternity pay. I also join in the welcome to the greater flexibility for the date of starting maternity leave. But I regret that they have not ended the anomaly of the difference between the 18 weeks' maternity pay and the 14 weeks' maternity leave. If the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, has more to say on that topic, she will probably be speaking for us both. I regret also the exclusion of women whose earnings are below the lower earnings limit of national insurance. I cannot see the ground in the directive for justifying that exclusion under European law. I am not a specialist in the matter. Has the Minister taken legal advice on whether that exclusion is within the spirit or the letter of the directive itself?
I also very much regret that the fixing of statutory maternity pay to a benefit which has itself not been uprated for a long time reminds me of the time when I was a boy when I rashly moored a boat with a short rope on a rising tide. I did not make that mistake again. I regret also the effect on the self-employed. If employers are to pay, who is to pay for the self-employed? But most specifically I am concerned with Regulation 5—the costs to the employer. Somebody must pay the costs. Under the directive it can only be the taxpayer or the employer. We need a great deal more discussion on the division of costs between industry and the taxpayer. As I see it, the true cost of labour should fall on industry, but social costs should not, especially if they do not relate to any duty of care by the employer, if they are not under the employer's control, and if they are uneven in their incidence. The basic point is that in any machinery like this we cannot deal with uneven levels of absence or uneven levels of maternity.
Some businesses employ many more women than others, and in particular more young women. The Minister told us that employers as a whole will not be worse off. But employers are not as a whole. No employer pays the wage bill of employers as a whole. They each pay their own, so some of them may be severely affected. I have often heard people complaining of the cost if their roof was damaged in the great

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gale. I have never heard anybody welcoming the saving because their roof was not damaged. So, equally, will be the reaction.
Employers cannot police the incidence of maternity, as the noble Viscount himself admitted on 11th April in this House. I cannot see that this change can be other than a disincentive to employ women. It may be argued from the precedence of the equal pay legislation that the increased cost of wages to women does not seem to have deterred people from employing them. But those cases are not on all fours. When employers were told to pay employees the same, a simplification of the payroll burden resulted, and that is something which is generally welcome.
If one listens to employers one hears over and over again that what they mind is the burden of paperwork. And., increasingly as academics have more dealings with this Government they sympathise. What we are given here is a greatly increased burden of paperwork involved in employing women. In fact, it will mean for many people increased cost in getting software, computer facilities and secretarial facilities. That, apart from the cost, is an increased burden arising from employing women. Again, I should like to know whether the Minister has taken legal advice on whether this is within European law and whether it is within the spirit and the letter of the directive itself.
It says in the preamble of the directive that measures to implement it should not treat women on the labour market unfavourably nor work to the detriment of directives concerning equal treatment for men and women. I wonder whether Regulation 5 meets that test. I am not a European lawyer but it seems to me that there is a real question to be asked here. If this burden is laid on employers, they may react unfavourably. They may dismiss women while pregnant. The noble Viscount may say that that is illegal. It is—and I thank the Government for strengthening measures in this area—but the last cases I read of this were in this month's Citizens Advice Bureaux bulletin which I was reading by chance about an hour ago.
Employers may fail to pay statutory maternity pay. The noble Viscount will recall a meeting he very generously gave us to discuss the risks of employers not paying statutory sick pay. He promised to monitor that situation. It is probably too early for him to report any results of that monitoring. If there are any, I should be very interested to hear them.
Nor do I know how all this will be policed. Whose job is it to ensure that employers pay statutory maternity pay? What will be done if they do not? How easy will it be without the fear of dismissal for employees to make the requisite complaint if they do not get it? What is to happen, for example, in the case discovered by the Maternity Alliance of a woman who wanted statutory maternity pay from her employer, who was a Harley Street dentist. He said, "Don't bother me. I am retiring. Go to the Department of Social Security". Or what is to happen in the case, still sadly too prevalent, of someone who works for an employer who becomes bankrupt? On whom do such people claim for their statutory maternity pay?
But, above all, it is time we accepted that employing women is the normal state of affairs. The report from the Institute of Management today which indicates a drop in the proportion of women in high management positions is bad news for our economic future. What is normally incident to women should be normally incident to employees. I see no more reason why employers should be asked to pay statutory maternity pay than why they should be asked to pay war pensions. Maternity pay is a social benefit. It is not a form of pay. And since many of the women concerned do not return to work, it seems unfair that the employer should bear the cost of a measure which enables them to do so if they wish, We all understand that the woman cannot ultimately know until after the child is born whether she is certain to want to return to work.
It is also the thin edge of a wedge. The noble Viscount will tell us, as he has done already, that employers as a whole—that mythical beast—are not worse off. However, he does remember what has happened with statutory sick pay. We were told that in 1991. But even if we accept totally the good faith of this Government, as I am sure with the noble Viscount we do, he understands that no Parliament can bind its successor. At some other time a hungry Chief Secretary will want to take a bite out of public spending. There is no reason at all now why he should not choose this. So we are getting here a privatisation of liability. Mr. Dewar, in a press release, said:
"This may not just be penny-pinching by the Treasury but a staging post to privatisation which would dump extra costs on employers".
We on these Benches agree with Mr. Dewar and we take it seriously. I beg to move.
Moved, as an amendment to the Motion, to leave out ("approved") and insert ("not proceeded with, and that this House calls on Her Majesty's Government to lay amended regulations which do not have the effect of transferring to industry social costs which would otherwise fall on the taxpayer.")—(Earl Russell.)
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, the Minister will not be surprised to learn that I am in considerable sympathy with the Motion put forward—
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness but I think that my noble friend Lord Reay is next and the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, is speaking further down the list.
7.56 p.m.
Lord Reay: My Lords, the CBI, by which I am advised, has for some time been concerned that the Government were contemplating making industry pay the full cost for the increases in statutory maternity pay which are going to result from the implementation of the European directive on the protection of pregnant women at work. I myself expressed those anxieties in your Lordships' House during the Second Reading of the Statutory Sick Pay Bill earlier this year and later at Third Reading.
The CBI could accept that there was a case—even a strong case—to be made for transferring the full responsibility for statutory sick pay on to industry in

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order to give an incentive for employers to monitor and control absence from work, for so long at least as this additional cost was more than fully offset by reductions in employers' national insurance contributions. But in the case of statutory maternity pay there was, and is, in the view of the CBI, no such justification. There are no bad habits in this field, so far as I am aware, which the Government need to use the influence of firms to correct. The Government do not wish firms to discourage pregnancy, or to take on fewer female employees of child-bearing age; or at least they have not declared their hand if they do. Maternity pay—I agree with the noble Earl—is a purely social cost which should be borne by government.
The Government argue that the cost to industry which will follow from the reduction in the statutory maternity pay reimbursement rate will be more than offset by the compensating reductions which the Government have introduced into employers' national insurance contributions. However, these reductions were introduced primarily to compensate industry for the costs of statutory sick pay. When the Secretary of State in another place in December last year introduced the Statutory Sick Pay Bill he made no mention of statutory maternity pay when he explained his reasons for reducing employers' national insurance contributions. And when he told the other place that employers would be some £160 million better off next year as a result of the combined changes which he was introducing, he plainly did not have statutory maternity pay in mind—because today the Government's figure, repeated again by my noble friend the Minister, for how much better off industry will be as a result of the combined changes has fallen to £125 million. The difference must be accounted for by a half-year's contribution by industry towards the cost of statutory maternity pay. It is to be hoped that the Government do not develop any further ideas for recouping what remains of the balance in industry's favour.
It must, of course, be emphasised that these calculations describe the effects for industry taken as a whole. In practice, some firms will lose out while others gain. As the noble Earl pointed out, in particular those employing larger numbers of women of child-bearing age will lose out. Do the Government wish to discourage the employment of women of child-bearing age?—for that must be the long-term effect of adding to their costs of employment. Already they are more expensive to employ than other categories. Fair pay legislation requires that they should be paid the same wage as anyone else. But the law also obliges firms to keep open the job of anyone on maternity leave for anything up to 40 weeks, depending on length of service, with the cost of recruiting and employing replacements falling on the firms themselves. Many firms now find this an onerous requirement, particularly as studies show that only a minority of women return to the jobs kept open for them.
Now for the first time the Government want firms to pay part of the cost of statutory maternity pay itself. Hitherto the Government have very meticulously seen to it that firms did not have to pay any of the costs of
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statutory maternity pay. Firms have been reimbursed 104 per cent. of the cost of benefit in order that they should also be compensated for the administrative costs of the scheme. So a principle of considerable importance is now being breached. And having once abandoned the principle, I fear that the Government will be less careful to ensure that the 92 per cent. reimbursement rate survives. After all, it took little more than three years, as the noble Earl pointed out, for the reimbursement rate for statutory sick pay to fall from 100 per cent. to 80 per cent. and then to zero.
Industry's expenditure on statutory maternity pay will therefore be in double jeopardy from further falls in the reimbursement rate and from future increases in the employers' national insurance contributions, impelled perhaps by some future financial crisis. The Government are asking us to take a lot on trust.
My noble friend the Minister argued that British industry is being treated much more favourably than industry on the Continent, which in most countries has to pay more than 50 per cent. of maternity pay entitlement itself. But the heavy social costs which other member states impose on their industry was something I thought we wished to avoid, not to emulate. I thought that the Government wished to persuade those countries to align their policies with ours for the sake of the competitiveness of their industry and to reduce their unemployment, not to align our policy with theirs. I thought that that was the whole purpose and philosophy behind our refusal to sign the Social Chapter of the Maastricht Treaty. We wished to reduce, not add, to the costs on industry. One is entitled to ask oneself: What has happened to the Government's sense of consistency?
If these changes are persisted in, not only will our record for one of the highest rates of female participation in the labour force within the European Union be put at risk—which itself is not an accident but a product of our own more flexible system—but, more crucially, we will be undermining our own case in Brussels at a time when other members of the European Union were beginning to be swayed by our arguments about the damage such burdens can cause to competitiveness and employment.
I do not believe that the Government are being true to themselves. I urge them to think again, and if it is too late for that—I would not be happy to vote to overturn an order on a matter such as this involving direct expenditure and which had been passed through another place—then I beg the Government not to do this sort of thing again.
I should like to make one additional point on the subject of small business relief. I believe that it would be desirable and logical if the consultations which the Government are holding now with industry before deciding which system of small business relief to introduce for statutory sick pay—the system in the original Bill or the one embodied in the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding and accepted by the Government—were now extended to cover the question of what should be the appropriate system of small business relief for statutory maternity pay.

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There would be much to be said in favour of having the same system in both cases, possibly even combining the two reliefs so that a firm whose combined statutory sick pay and statutory maternity pay exceeded the given percentage of monthly national insurance payments would be reimbursed. In the case of statutory sick pay the Government must report to Parliament by 1st December which system they intend to operate. I should like the Government to give an assurance that, even if this order is adopted, they will retain an open mind over what should be the eventual system of relief for statutory maternity pay as well as statutory sick pay until after they have completed their current round of consultations with industry. I should be grateful if my noble friend could reply to this point in his winding up; or failing that, as I have not been able to give him notice of the question, if he would write to me.
8.5 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I must start by declaring an interest. I am president of the Mechanical and Metal Trades Confederation which, through its members, represents some 5,000 companies (many of them very small) employing upwards of 350,000 people. The small companies with which I have contact in particular are concerned about the imposition of these additional burdens. Many of the arguments which my noble friend Lord Reay has deployed are sound and important. I hope my noble friend the Minister will take those into account as well as the consultation to which he has referred, before he comes to reply in a little while.
The effect of which I complain as my noble friend Lord Reay has pointed out, is the imposition of a further financial burden on companies by the reduction in the rate of reimbursement from 104.5 per cent., as I believe it has been hitherto, down to 92 per cent. That is a very significant additional cost on companies which is not welcome at this time when economic recovery is still so fragile.
Statutory maternity pay is not pay in the true sense of the word. I always thought that pay was payment for services rendered. Clearly, by definition, when a staff member is absent because she is pregnant then naturally she is not rendering the service. No, truthfully, this is a social security benefit. It has been long established that social security benefits are not paid by employers but by the Government as a result of the contributions which are made to them.
My noble friend has referred to the fact that other European countries ask their employers to make a substantial contribution to the cost of maternity pay. That may be so, but as my noble friend Lord Reay again pointed out, the fact of the matter is that we do not accept some of the less desirable aspects of the Maastricht Treaty and in particular of course the social chapter. We fought valiantly and effectively against the inclusion of that particular aspect of the Maastricht Treaty so far as concerns this country. This is very much a similar thing. I do not believe that we should be guided by the other members of the European Union when it suits us particularly in the context of social matters to which we have taken such exception in another context.
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I too have doubts about whether we should vote against this order tonight. This is a financial matter. It is in effect taxation. It may not be defined as such but clearly that is the effect of the order. It is very doubtful whether it would be right in this House to vote against the order tonight when the other place has made its views known and when in truth financial matters such as this are really for them and not for your Lordships. None the less, the effect of this order tonight is to impose additional burdens on companies at a time when that is the last thing we ought to be doing. I hope therefore that my noble friend will recognise the anxieties which have been expressed and offer some comfort to those of us, who feel worried by what he proposes.
8.9 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, the Minister will not be surprised to learn that I am in considerable sympathy with the Motion tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I put down a Question in similar circumstances several weeks ago. I welcome improvements in arrangements for maternity pay. As we have been told, they have been introduced to conform with EC requirements. I do not believe that they go far enough. Indeed, during the passage of the Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Bill several of us on this side of the House sought unsuccessfully to obtain improvements. As the Equal Opportunities Commission rightly says, the Government have missed an opportunity to introduce a simplified maternity rights scheme. In particular, there is the inconsistency in allowing for only 14 weeks' leave while the statutory maternity period lasts for 18 weeks. Furthermore, women who earn below the lower earnings limit—that is about 20 per cent. of pregnant employees——will continue to be excluded from the statutory pay scheme. Moreover, the higher rate statutory maternity pay (SMP) is payable for six weeks only. After that has expired, women will continue to rely on the flat rate SMP, worth only around 20 per cent. of women's average earnings.
Nevertheless, there are improvements—notably, the intention to reduce the length of service requirement for access to higher rate statutory maternity pay, 90 per cent. of earnings. The EOC says that that will benefit approximately one in five pregnant employees. Clearly, that is a step forward.
However, the noble Earl's amendment addresses the issue which we have raised in this House earlier, particularly in connection with statutory sick pay: the increasing tendency of government to load social costs on to employers. In the case of statutory sick pay, it was a gradual process, beginning simply with the arrangement that employers would administer the scheme but would be able to recover the whole amount. Then there was a reduction in the amount that employers could reclaim; and, finally, in the most recent Bill, the provision that employers could no longer reclaim anything, except in the case of very small employers.
The Government have claimed—the Minister claimed this again this evening—that it will cost employers no more because of the reduction in employers' national insurance contributions. However,

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many see it as the thin end of the wedge, as the noble Earl said, and believe that at some future date the national insurance rate will be increased quietly and the employers will be left to pay the benefits involved but with no recompense.
Let me say at once that I believe that social costs —for which we all pay either via national insurance contributions or via taxation—should not be put on to employers. When that is done, there is always the risk, as the National Association of Citizens' Advice Bureaux told us in regard to statutory sick pay, that some employees may not get their proper entitlement. It is no use saying that employees have a right which is enforceable by industrial tribunals. Many employees are ignorant of their rights anyway; and they are often, in days of high unemployment, too concerned about possible job loss to risk claiming them.
I must say that I find the Government's attitude in these matters surprisingly inconsistent. This is the Government who are always talking about "burdens on businesses". It is because the EC social chapter is supposed to represent "burdens on businesses" that we, of all EC countries, have opted out of it, as several noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, have said this evening.
It is supposed to be a burden on business to insist that workers get at least a living wage. In pursuit of this philosophy, the Government last year abolished wages councils. There is no evidence at all that that action has led to an increase in the number of jobs on offer. There has been evidence, collected by the Low Pay Unit, that some employers have even tried to slash the wages of existing employees following the demise of the wages councils. The Government also argued that abolishing wages councils would not result in lower wage rates in the industries formerly covered. But that does not appear to be the case either. A survey conducted by the Low Pay Unit found that about one-fifth of jobs advertised in Jobcentres which had previously been covered by wages councils now pay below the old minimum rates. Workers reaching their 21st birthday who would formerly have been entitled to go onto higher wages council rates have found that their wages have not been improved to what would have been wages council levels. All in all, it appears that we are well on the way to the creation of "sweatshop Britain", which is what we who opposed the abolition of wages councils said would happen.
It seems astonishing therefore that this Government should come along with provisions which undoubtedly add to burdens on business—and this despite opposition from their erstwhile friends at the Institute of Directors and the CBI. The CBI points out that the costs will fall disproportionately on businesses which have employed more women—a curious way, it says, of recognising equal opportunities policies. Do the Government really want employers to discriminate against the employment of young women? Are they utilising this as a way of getting young males off the unemployment statistics and into low paid jobs that were formerly occupied by women? The EOC, in its Maternity Rights Agenda, put at the top of its list of 10 points the demand to,
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"Remove the proposal to make employers liable for the cost of change".
The Maternity Alliance takes a similar view. So, I accuse the Government of hypocrisy. A "burden on business" is anything which lays down minimum standards and which seeks to protect workers from exploitation; but it is not a "burden on business" if it relieves—even in part—the Government from meeting social costs which it is bound to meet within the terms of the UK's commitment as an EC member state. I think that is totally unacceptable.
It is in all our interests to have a satisfactory maternity rights scheme. At present, the cost of maternity is borne disproportionately by women and their families, and yet it is in all our interests that healthy children should be born and reared by women who are not under pressure to return to work at too early a stage after childbirth. It is now generally accepted that working women are playing a crucial role in the economy. Indeed, many of the new jobs which have been created are being done by women—often, I may say in passing, at too low a rate of pay. I believe therefore that the EOC is right to campaign for an increase in the length of leave to 18 weeks and progression towards full income replacement during the leave period.
But the possibility of achieving these desirable objectives is lessened by transferring part of the cost to employers, who will be wary, lest on past experience with statutory sick pay, they eventually find the total costs transferred without appropriate recompense. So I support the general thrust of the noble Earl's Motion. The amendment is not a Motion against the regulations as a whole. As I have said, the regulations contain improvements; and although I certainly wish that they had gone a little further, I would not wish to do anything that would hold up the improvements that have been stipulated in the regulations. As I understand the amendment, it simply asks the Government to amend the regulations in the terms suggested by the noble Earl. Therefore, I hope that in the light of the contributions that have been made to the debate, the Minister will agree to take the regulations away and rethink them in the terms suggested by the noble Earl.
8.17 p.m.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, accused the Government of hypocrisy and of putting a burden on business. I found that a surprising statement from the noble Baroness when one considers the Labour Party's reply to the consultation on maternity benefits. The Labour Party proposed a universal scheme with full replacement income during maternity leave. That would cost £500 million or £0.5 billion. Its proposals included giving maternity pay to women on low incomes. That alone would cost £50 million. However, the Labour Party did not actually say —it never does—who would pay, but stated rather confusingly: "Labour believes fundamentally in the partnership approach towards costs". That means costs to industry.
The changes required by the directive and the measures needed to meet the additional cost are being

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made by affirmative resolution under the EC Act rather than by a Bill which would have taken up unnecessary parliamentary time. Both Houses have an opportunity to debate the regulations. They were debated and accepted in another place on 20th April. I have explained that although there is a cost to the regulations, industry as a whole will not be worse off. I shall give your Lordships more specific examples of that.
Perhaps I may deal first with the noble Earl's point that the EC does not allow one to impose a tax. The new reimbursement rate has been set to cover only the additional costs of the improvements so it is cost-neutral as far as the taxpayer is concerned. In any case, employers are not paying a tax—rather they are now being asked to meet a small part of the cost of maternity pay for their employees. Reducing the reimbursement rate in this way falls within Section 2(2) of the EC Act as it is related to a community obligation.
The noble Earl asked what else the Government could do. I should make it clear that I am speaking to the regulations that are before the House tonight and not about what the Government could, might or will consider in the future. All the regulations have to be seen by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments to ensure that they are correct. The committee has seen the regulations and it is content that it is a proper use of the powers. The directive allows us to have conditions of eligibility as laid down under—
Earl Russell: My Lords, I take the noble Viscount's point, but if I should not ask him for the scope of those vires, whom should I ask?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I was coming to the vires. The directive allows us to have conditions of eligibility as laid down under national legislation and all governments have a principle of a lower earnings limit.
With regard to the extent of the vires of Regulation 5, Regulation 5 is related solely to the costs of implementing the directive's requirements. It does not give a power to reduce reimbursement further.
My noble friends Lord Reay and Lord Trefgarne are concerned about the costs to employers. The level at which employers are reimbursed for the money they pay out in statutory maternity pay is to be reduced to 92 per cent. It is to pay only for the costs of the directive. The extra costs to employers are small. On average they are about £230 a year, which is just under £15 a week for each pregnant employee. The Government believe that it is only right that employers should meet a small part of the cost of maternity pay for their employees during the period of leave from work. As I have said, the reductions in national insurance contributions more than compensate.
The increased costs of maternity pay for an individual employer will vary depending upon the employment profile of the female staff. An employer employing women who, on the whole, tend to remain in that employment for less than two years and who currently would qualify for the lower rate of statutory maternity pay throughout the 18-week period would have higher additional costs than an employer with a more experienced workforce. A good example is that of a large retail store chain which gave us some figures. It
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employs 72,000 staff, of which 71 per cent. are women. It expects about 1,500 employees to take maternity leave each year. It estimated the cost of improving statutory maternity pay at about £250,000—a cost per employee on maternity leave of £167. That is £3.50 per year for each employee or 6p per week.
The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, made much of the extra administrative work involved. The Government have simplified the scheme which in the long run will save on business administrative costs. The three previous service tests of five years, two years and 26 weeks have been reduced to one service test of 26 weeks. All women who qualify for statutory maternity pay will now receive the same level of benefit. I have explained about small employers. We have full reimbursement for 750,000 small employers (two-thirds of all businesses), and the definition of a small employer will be the same as for statutory sick pay —an employer who pays £20,000 or less in gross national insurance contributions. These measures have been widely welcomed by small employers.
My noble friend Lord Reay asked why could we not link a relief scheme to one similar to that for statutory sick pay proposed by my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding and accepted by your Lordships. Small employers can recover currently all their statutory maternity pay costs. Large employers will still be able to recover 92 per cent. of their costs. The statutory sick pay scheme reimburses 100 per cent of a small employer's costs after four weeks of illness only. Employers receive nothing for the first four weeks. 'The amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Jenkin proposed a scheme whereby employers would be protected against abnormal levels of sickness from day one. Statutory maternity pay is already reimbursed from day one of the period of entitlement. Therefore such an amendment would not be an improvement for small employers. The scheme will be simpler to operate and changes to computer software will not cost more. Software companies are paid an annual fee which will include such changes.
The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, said that women earning under £57 per week are losing out. They are not losing out because they are already excluded. We do not believe that someone should draw an earnings related benefit when they have paid no tax and national insurance contributions. All governments have maintained that principle. Women with no other income can claim help from the income support scheme.
My noble friend Lord Reay said that we were undermining our position in Brussels. That is not the case. The Commission had originally proposed that pregnant women should receive full pay for 14 weeks, with no qualifying period. That would have cost this country about £500 million. The Government fully supported other member states in devising a more sensible proposal which was eventually adopted at a Council of Ministers in October 1992. We secured a number of improvements to protect employers. Of course the directive was agreed before the Maastricht Treaty, so I am sure that my noble friend Lord Trefgarne knows that an opt out from the Social Chapter does not apply.

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The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, asked why maternity leave was left at only 14 weeks when maternity pay lasts for 18 weeks. The 14-week maternity leave period strikes the correct balance between increasing employees' rights and adding to the burdens on business. To extend the leave to 18 weeks would add another £50 million to employers' annual costs, which in the Government's views is unacceptable.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, said that the benefit has not been uprated. The directive requires us to provide maternity pay at a figure at least equal to the amount of state benefit a woman would receive if she were off sick. The amounts do not have to be the same. The Secretary of State will continue to review the rate of statutory sick pay and statutory maternity pay each year. The Government's commitment to maternity benefits was underlined by an increase of £1 above the retail prices index given in 1991.
The noble Earl asked me who will ensure that statutory maternity pay is paid. It is a legal obligation upon the employer. The Contributions Agency enforces it and will follow up any complaints of non-payment. Of course, if the employer refuses to pay, the department will take over the payment. It is of course an offence not to pay statutory maternity pay.
I should make it clear that if the amendment were carried the regulations would fall. It is a wrecking amendment. The noble Earl should consider the advice given by my noble friend and others in your Lordships' House about whether that is a proper way to go. It is not a revising amendment; it is a wrecking amendment.
The Government's proposals for improved maternity payments, as I have said, will benefit 285,000 women. At the same time, the scheme has been simplified to make it easier for employers to operate. Women will also have more freedom to decide on the best time to stop work and have their baby. The EOC has welcomed some of the changes to the scheme, particularly the reduction in the length of service requirement, and is pleased that we have responded positively to the representations made by it to our consultation paper. The Maternity Alliance has also called the proposed changes good news, saying,
"they are more generous than we had anticipated".
It describes the introduction of the higher rate statutory maternity pay for all women entitled to statutory maternity pay as a "big breakthrough". We have kept the protection for small employers, who will remain eligible for the 100 per cent. reimbursement of their costs, and overall industry has still gained with the reduction in national insurance contributions. I commend the regulations to the House, and I urge your Lordships to reject the amendment.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. I cannot say that I was encouraged by it. He is not up to date with the Maternity Alliance which on 27th April said:
"The Maternity Alliance is opposed to any reduction in the rate of reimbursement to employers of the SMP they administer".
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The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, regrets that he is unable to be here tonight. He and I would wish to be associated with the observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne.
I must answer the point about privilege which the noble Lord also made. This is a matter of qualified, not absolute, financial privilege. In those matters, it is well known that there is no objection to this House asking. Another place may reply as it sees fit. The noble Viscount's comment that this was a wrecking Motion illustrated the usual government rule that there are only two classes of amendment: the unnecessary and the wrecking. It would be perfectly easy for the Government to relay the first four regulations, leaving out regulation No. 5, and no one need be bothered save the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who today is possibly not the Cabinet's favourite member.
The noble Viscount said that a Bill would have taken up unnecessary parliamentary time. Unnecessary to whom? He said that Ole regulations have been through another place. Has he read the remarks that were made in another place by his honourable friends Mr. Alexander, Mr. Wilkinson and Mrs..Currie? As regards the vires, he has given us no answer. That is truly a stern reply. He said that the cost to employers was very small —so was the maid's baby but it had life. Like the maid's baby, this has the power of growth.
Above all, I do not see how this House can possibly carry out its function as a revising Chamber unless some generally acceptable way can be found to challenge matters in regulations. Whether I have found a way tonight is not for me to say and therefore I ask the opinion of the House.
8.32 p.m.
On Question, Whether the amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 40; Not-Contents, 85.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Lawrence, L.

Airedale, L.

Lytton, E.

Bath, M.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Butterfield, L.

McNair, L.

Castle of Blackburn, B.

Meston, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Ogmore, L.

Ezra, L.

Perry of Walton, L.

Falkland, V.

Rochester, L.

Geraint, L.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Russell, E. [Teller.]

Grey, E.

Seear, B. [Teller.]

Hamwee, B.

Strafford, E.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Hooson, L.

Tordoff, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Jenkins of Hillhead, L.

Whaddon, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Wigoder, L.

Kirkwood, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

NOT-CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Braine of Wheatley, L.

Annaly, L.

Brigstocke, B.

Arran, E.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Astor, V.

Burnham, L.

Boardman, L.

Cadman, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Carlisle of Bucklow, L.

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Carnegy of Lour, B.

Long, V. [Teller.]

Carnock, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Lyell, L.

Chelmsford, V.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L. [Lord

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Chancellor.]

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Colwyn, L.

Middleton, L.

Courtown, E.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Cranborne, V.

Mountevans, L.

Crathorne, L.

Moyne, L.

Cross, V.

Newall, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Norrie, L.

Davidson, V.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

Renwick, L.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Rodger of Earlsferry, L.

Dundonald, E.

Saint Oswald, L.

Elton, L.

Seccombe, B.

Ferrers, E.

Sharples, B.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Gisborough, L.

Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, L.

Goschen, V.

St. Davids, V.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Stewartby, L.

Hacking, L.

Stockton, E.

Harvington, L.

Strange, B.

Hayhoe, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Henley, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Hives, L.

Swinton, E.

Holderness, L.

Torrington, V.

Holm Patrick, L.

Trumpington, B.

Hooper, B.

Ullswater, V. [Teller.]

Howe, E.

Vivian, L.

Inchyra, L.

Wade of Chorlton, L.

Jeffreys, L.

Wakeham, L. (Lord Privy Seal.]

Kenyon, L.

Wise, L.

Kimball, L.

Wynford, L.

Lane of Horsell, L.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Coal Industry Bill
8.40 p.m.
House again in Committee.
The Earl of Swinton The Earl of Swinton moved Amendment No. 85:
After Clause 56, insert the following new clause:
("Designated mining museums
.—(1) The Big Pit Mining Museum in Wales, the Scottish Mining Museum and the Yorkshire Mining Museum shall each be a "designated mining museum" for the purposes of this section.
(2) The Secretary of State may, by Order made by statutory instrument, after consultation with the Authority, designate any other mining museum as a "designated mining museum" for the purposes of this section.
(3) Each designated mining museum which includes underground areas open to the public shall have available to it, free of charge, the services of a mines rescue service established under the provisions of section 55 of this Act.
(4) Any historic artefacts found, by a licensee under Part II of this Act, during the course of mining operations shall become the property of the Coal Authority, which shall offer any such artefact to a designated mining museum in the relevant area within one year of its becoming the property of the Authority.
(5) The Authority shall be required to provide or secure the necessary maintenance and other services to enable all designated mining museums to continue in operation, and, in pursuance of the discharge of this duty, may make it a condition of any licence granted under Part II of this Act that the licensee is required to provide maintenance and other necessary services to any mining museum designated under this section.
(6) The Authority shall make it a condition of any licence granted under Part II of this Act that the licensee shall be required to offer any mining equipment or other machinery, tools,
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artefacts, etc., as they become obsolete, to a designated mining museum in the area in which the mine at which they were used is located.
(7) The Authority may, with the consent of the Treasury, make grants to any designated mining museum.
(8) Any Order made under this section shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.").
The noble Earl said: This amendment deals with the mining museums, which seem to have been forgotten by the Government when they introduced this Bill. There are three—one in Wales, one in Scotland and one in Yorkshire. Two of them—the one in Wales and the one in Yorkshire—have underground sections. I shall speak mostly about the one in Yorkshire because that is the one that I know. I am sure that other Members of the Committee will speak about the museum in Wales and perhaps about the museum in Scotland too.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, who unfortunately cannot be here this evening and sends her apologies, gave a detailed description of the Yorkshire Mining Museum on Second Reading on 11th April. She described it in depth, and that is reported at cols. 1330 to 1332 of Hansard. Therefore, I need not go into great detail about the history or give a description of the museum because any Member of the Committee who is interested will find all the details there.
As I said, it is an underground museum which is set out quite beautifully. One goes down in the cage and when one gets down there, one can walk around. I thought that I might have some trouble because I am not the smallest Member of your Lordships' Committee, but I moved around quite easily. There is laid out a series of tableaux depicting mining through the ages. They illustrate extremely well the great tradition that we have in this country. They illustrate coal mining, the Industrial Revolution and all that followed in our industrial prosperity.
The fact that mines are being closed and have been closed makes it all the more important that those exhibits should be there for parties of schoolchildren and other people to see. The fact that the museum is in an old disused coal mine makes it all the more difficult to ensure that safety is maintained. British Coal has done so much over the years not only by providing the expertise to ensure that safety standards are maintained but also by providing obsolete equipment. If that is no longer available, that may be fatal for the museums.
My noble friend may well say that in future it will be for private industry to maintain the museums and that it is not up to British Coal because it will no longer exist. It is true that British Coal will no longer exist, but I know that the director of the Yorkshire museum has had conversations with some of the representatives of the new independent companies. The museum has always had good relations with the independent companies as well as with British Coal. Those companies have said that there is no possibility that they will be able to provide the money to keep the museums going or, indeed, to provide the necessary expertise.
This afternoon we have been discussing opencast coal mining. It is important to bear in mind that the expertise will simply no longer be available to look after mine safety. Therefore, I hope that the amendment will

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commend itself to the Committee. I also hope that it will ensure that the mines are preserved so that schoolchildren, young people and, indeed, old people can see what the history of coal mining means to this nation. I beg to move.
8.45 p.m.
Lord Ezra: I warmly support all that the noble Earl said when he moved the amendment. In fact, this matter is exciting a great deal of public interest. That was demonstrated by a letter —of which the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, was a prime signatory, but which was also signed by other noble Lords—in The Times yesterday.
I have been approached more on the subject of museums than on any other single issue in connection with the Bill. So it has excited a great deal of interest. I believe that it has excited interest for two reasons. First, there is a feeling among people that the coal industry has been hard done by and that it would be (I do not like to say adding insult to injury) doing it even more harm if the memory of it were to disappear too.
Those three mining museums have preserved well not only the memory of the past in the mining industry but they also give some hope for the future because they demonstrate modern mining techniques. They have attracted the interest of a great many schoolchildren. The museums have a great educational value. Therefore, the museums do not merely sound the death knell of an industry; they record what has been achieved in the past and indicate what can still be achieved in the future.
I believe that the widespread support for those museums should cause the Government to think again about how they will deal with this matter. I have read carefully what they said in the fairly lengthy discussions on the subject in another place. In spite of considerable pressure from all sides, the Government's view at that stage—and I hope that it will be different now—was that this is a matter which must be left to the new private owners of the industry.
I cannot conceive that among the many matters with which those new owners will have to contend, supporting the mining museums will have very high priority. They will obviously all say, "Yes, they are highly desirable but let's get on with the job of organising ourselves. Let's cope with all the liabilities that we have. Let's get our safety measures in place. Let's get our coal out to market. Once we have established ourselves, perhaps we can think about the museums". Therefore, there is a very strong case for the Coal Authority to be empowered under the legislation to ensure that, at least for an interim period—and the letter sent by the noble Lord, Lord Montagu, suggested a three-year interim period—the museums are maintained. During that period the museums would be able to look for other sources of funding and by then the new coal companies may be sufficiently established to be prepared to look seriously at providing whatever support is required.
I believe that the proposal inherent in the amendment is eminently reasonable. There were a number of achievements while the industry was under public
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ownership; and the establishment of those three very successful mining museums is just one of those achievements. We say that that achievement should be preserved.
Lord Saint Oswald: As the noble Earl has already said, with the progressive rundown of the deep mining sector of the coal industry, the need for national museums to safeguard and preserve the history of coal mining becomes increasingly significant.
Digging or excavating for coal has a very long history going back probably well over 1,000 years, certainly to the times when the monks from local priories and monasteries spent their working hours digging coal out of the hillsides.
My family was involved in the industry from 1699 to 1947, during 248 years of slow but continuous progress in the methods of mining for coal. Conditions under which miners had to work were appalling until the end of the last century. Since then, there has been a steady improvement in both conditions and pay. It is, in retrospect, horrifying to recall that right up to 1842 not only adults, men and women, were employed at the deepest levels of the coal pits, but boys as young as five years old—although seven was actually the minimum legal age—had to work eight-hour shifts under Stygian and airless conditions.
The main purpose of a mining museum is to ensure that members of the public can be made aware of the history that has gone into the making of the industry by exhibiting artefacts that contribute to the history and showing conditions under which miners had to work, but also they should exist to commemorate the courage and skill of miners throughout the centuries and be a memorial to all those who lost their lives, particularly in the terrible pit disasters which have occurred from time to time.
The West Yorkshire coal field which is one, like the noble Earl, that I know best, has had its share of such disasters. Perhaps I may recall three of the most poignant. First, there was the Hasker Colliery disaster in 1838, when 26 boys were drowned as a result of a flash flood in the pit. Secondly, in the Oakes Colliery disaster in 1868, 365 miners perished—the highest number of recorded deaths in any single disaster. Then, of course, much more recently, there was the Lofthouse Colliery disaster of 25th March 1973, from which only one body was recovered. The rest are still buried inside the mine workings.
Of course, there are many other aspects of the history of coal mining that are recorded and should be exhibited. The Bill is causing some concern about the future viability of the three existing museums and the advice from government sources as to alternative ways of replacing the invaluable benefits provided by British Coal seems to be seriously flawed. For example, it has been suggested that the local authority should assume the transfer of those additional burdens. However, local authorities are already—and, indeed, have been for many years—under pressure from government to cut spending and such an imposition could only be contrary to government policy.

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Another suggestion that has been made is that, in order to cut maintenance costs, the museums should construct mock-ups on the surface of the underground workings of a drift coal mine, thereby, presumably, abandoning the genuine ones to which the public now have access. I understand that such an experiment has been tried but that it was not effective. In fact, the museum that built the device has since gone into liquidation.
The fact is that a coal pit is a coal pit and facsimiles will not take its place. It is certainly not possible to simulate the sensation of walking or crawling along a deep mine drift gallery knowing that there are several thousands of feet of earth above. Those are the conditions under which miners have to work and that is what the public are interested in experiencing. It may not be everyone's wish to partake of such an experience, but I can tell Members of the Committee that, of the 80,000 men women and children who visit Caphouse Mining Museum every year, something like 90 per cent. take advantage of that facility. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to accept the importance of the proposed new clause and that, if nothing else, he will undertake to put forward proposals which will be of a more practical nature.
Lord Dainton: Although I was brought up in an area where coal mining was one of the staple industries and, therefore, I have always been aware of the peculiar characteristics and especially the social cohesion and traditions of the mining communities, my support for the amendment does not depend on that sentimental reason. Indeed, it derives from something very much more substantial, which is that coal mining is, and has been, a major element in the British economy over almost two millennia.
At one point in our debate, the Minister referred to the Romans. Of course, there is plenty of evidence to show that the Romans took coal and burnt it. Moreover, there is plenty of evidence in the mid-ninth century Saxon Chronicle, that coal was being developed, cut and used. Even more important, I suppose, is the fact that, from the 13th century, we had handed down to us the phrase "coals from Newcastle" with coal being shipped south to London as it was for many centuries thereafter.
However, in my view, the most important thing is simply that coal provides by combustion the heat required for the steam engine which transformed the position of the nation. It gave us motive power for engines which enormously augmented the feeble power of the individual workman and enabled us to be a great manufacturing nation. It also gave us, as the reducing agent for the iron oxide of our land, the means of making pig iron and, from that, steel—and, from that, steam engines, steel rails and a system of transport which was quite remarkable. I believe it is fair to say that, by the middle of the 19th century, Britain with the United States and Germany—both of which also had an ample store of coal—were the most prominent industrial nations. That is something that we should never forget. It seems to me that we can only remember it by going back to the prime cause and ensuring that our children
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and others are made aware of where coal comes from, how it was won and at what cost, and of everything else that is associated with it.
As a former Museums and Galleries Commissioner, I have no doubt that Britain should—indeed, I would say, must—have museums which preserve that part of our history. I am beginning to gain the feeling that that view is rather widely held in this Chamber. My experience on the Museums and Galleries Commission also tells me that, to be fully effective and fully evocative of the past, at least some mining museums must be working and must be partially underground.
I visited mining museums in Germany—notably in Bochum—where attempts lave been made to construct replicas of underground galleries above ground. I am bound to say that they completely lack conviction and that they are clearly seen as not the genuine article. That essential requirement to have at least one part of the museum below ground does add to the cost of maintaining a mining museum. Of course, there is another cost; namely, that of ensuring the safety of the visitors and the staff who work there.
In this country we are fortunate in having, in Wales and in Yorkshire, two such mines with underground galleries, both of which have already been referred to and which do the job admirably. In large measure, that has been possible because British Coal has given—and one cannot stress the point too strongly—much support in kind; for example, artefacts, including some very large pieces of machinery, and services such as essential monitoring, maintenance, repairs and so on. In the case of the Caphouse Museum, assistance has been given to the tune of £150,000 a year.
I share the concern of the Museums and Galleries Commission, and as expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, that it is quite unrealistic to expect that the private firms which are to take over British Coal's present primary activities will at the outset of their ownership wish to burden the debit side of their annual balance sheets with such a sum. But, if underground workings are not properly maintained, they quickly become unusable and, in the long term, will not be recoverable unless vastly larger sums of money are spent.
In my view, the only sure way to guarantee that the Welsh and Yorkshire Museums survive is either for the Government to accept the amendment—which, as was evident from the debate which took place in another place on 22nd March, they will be reluctant to do—or, failing that, for them to underwrite those expenses which have hitherto been met by British Coal, subject to review after a period of, say, three years. That latter course would at least give the museums and the new mine owners some time to negotiate while those mine owners are finding their feet, not just in terms of working the pits but financially.
There is an adequate precedent for such an arrangement in the transitional funding which the Government provided in 1986 for those museums which had previously been funded by the metropolitan county councils, which, as the Committee will remember, were abolished in that year.

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The amendment as put forward seems to me to provide a better solution than those two suggestions that I have made in that it gives a secure and enduring method of providing the funding which the museums need. I therefore commend the amendment to the Committee as a very necessary provision if an important part of our industrial heritage is to be properly preserved in the future. The amendment is also in the spirit of liability passing to the licensee, to which favourable reference was made by the Minister I notice, although in this case British Coal had no legal liability to provide support to the museums but did so voluntarily. Nevertheless, it is a precedent which I hope the Government will be prepared to follow.
9 p.m.
Baroness White: We have a strong team here in my noble friends who come from Wales. We are very glad to know that there is also a very strong team of those who come from Yorkshire. I am not sure whether the Minister is single-handed in representing Scotland—or at least there are not so many from Scotland —and in any case, the Scottish museum, admirable though I am sure it must be, is nothing like as important as the two deep mine museums in York and in Blaenavon.
Some Members of the Committee may not be familiar with Blaenavon, so I should tell the Committee the good news which was confided to me when I spent three hours at Big Pit —Pwll Mawr—on Sunday. Pwll Mawr is in Blaenavon and is the most important single exhibit there. I had been there before, of course; but I wanted to discuss the current situation with the people responsible. A very interesting piece of news appeared this very morning in our Welsh press:
"A Welsh industrial mining town is being hailed as a unique piece of world heritage. Blaenavon in Gwent is considered to be one of the 25 most important sites of industrial heritage in the world"—
I hope that the Minister will take that in—
"and one of the top six in the United Kingdom. The Royal Commission for Ancient And Historic Monuments in Wales has applied for world heritage status for the town and its local mining environment".
Therefore, the noble Lord, Lord Dainton, and others have not exaggerated in saying that this is not merely a small domestic matter. It is extremely important that we should safeguard the heritage on the site, which has been remarkably protected and preserved.
It is very much appreciated by those involved in education. Between January and last weekend almost 20,000 school party members visited the site. Curiously enough, nearly one third were from France. I strongly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Saint Oswald, and others that it is no good pretending that one can make do with videos in a theme park. One has to experience it. It is fatuous to say that one can just have something which the children can watch. That is entirely different from the experience of spending a couple of hours underground, accompanied by people who were themselves miners and who can answer the questions which the children or other visitors wish to put from their own experience. It is very important that we should try to protect these manifestations.
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The museum is important in archaeological, historical, scientific and technical terms. It has the most remarkable exhibits. It is not a charity. It pays Her Majesty's Treasury some £200,000 per annum in VAT and other taxes. It has no regular annual subsidies, but it has had considerable help from European Community funds and other public money as sources of capital expenditure. However, there is now anxiety about where it will find its regular running costs. In the past three years our Welsh museum has been drawing on reserves for its maintenance and it is expected that it will have to continue so to do.
I do not wish to weary the Committee with too many details. I am sure that some of my noble friends will wish to add something. However, it is stated that privatisation of the remaining collieries, especially losing their support services, will add a further £200,000 a year to the museum's net operating costs. That is quite a large sum added to other normal expenses. Because of pit closures in the districts, some areas have already been in difficulties before privatisation. The museum states that it has already had to strengthen its mechanical and engineering staff because the back-up facilities provided by British Coal via neighbouring pits in the past are no longer available. Net cost of additional appointments is approximately £42,000 per annum.
On equipment it states that it has previously been able to borrow specialist equipment, through British Coal from other mines, at no cost. It will now have to hire or purchase such equipment.
An example is given regarding an emergency winder for evacuating trapped personnel from a cage in the shaft. We are not certain how the demand for such safety mechanisms will be met in the future. If the museum had to buy the winder, it would cost about a quarter of a million pounds. It is a complicated piece of mechanism.
The museum authorities cite various other difficulties. They are now faced with a requirement to install monitoring equipment in the main shaft. Compliance will cost at least £30,000, possibly more, unless the museum can obtain most of the equipment from a closing colliery. No doubt it can obtain a good deal of equipment from closing collieries, but by no means will all the equipment which they require be in the state in which they need it.
Perhaps I may refer to the Yorkshire list. The net cost of the underground tour is nearly £70,000 per annum. The support towards the surface running of the museum is another £24,000, and so on. The day-to-day running costs are something over £150,000. The museum will have to meet these now in a way which they have not had to do hitherto.
I do not wish to labour the point but it is perfectly clear that if one is to maintain these extremely exciting manifestations, we have to think sensibly and carefully about the situation. Museums cannot rely on obtaining the equipment from the small licensed mines which will continue to grow over the next few years. It is therefore up to the Government to make certain that there is some other rational pattern of maintenance for those extremely exciting places and that we do everything we can to sustain them.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: I speak as the chairman of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. Of course, industrial archaeology is part of our responsibility and the recording of the industrial heritage. Hence I warmly support the clause.
I believe that it is vital to ensure that future generations can, through access to the mining museums, learn something of the dangers and difficulties which were faced by miners and of which the noble Lord, Lord Mason of Barnsley, spoke so movingly at Second Reading. I shall long remember that speech.
The museums are an important part of our national heritage since our prosperity, as the noble Lord, Lord Dainton, reminded us, was founded on industry and particularly on coal. I believe, with the signatories to the amendment, that museums are a proper subject for national governmental support.
I intend to spare the Committee a lot of detail because your Lordships have already had many details from other people. British Coal has an honourable record of support not only in supplying and delivering items for the collection but also in providing a wide range of equipment and services free of charge as well as design work for the building and major repairs and conversions for existing buildings. The cost of services and equipment for the Yorkshire Mining Museum, for instance, one of the three mining museums, has been of the order of £100,000 per annum. The Government will presumably have to set aside fairly considerable sums to meet and continue British Coal's statutory responsibility for, for instance, subsidence and the effect of polluted water. Accepting the very minor continuing financial commitments to the museums, whether to the authority or in some other way, would surely be both right and acceptable, even if it has to be only for an interim period. I therefore support the amendment. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to give it sympathetic consideration.
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: I support the amendment. My noble friend Lady White has made the case for the Big Pit in South Wales and I need not repeat anything she said. However, I wish to echo her last comment about the infectious enthusiasm of children and other visitors when they visit this pit. It is a genuine pit; it finished being worked only in 1980. It has hardly been cleaned up, although at least one can get around it now. The conveyor belt works and the coal is on the belt. It is a joy to countless generations of children to see it. In addition, as my noble friend said, there are the overseas visitors, not only French but many of them American. It is a tourist attraction but it cannot support itself, and I hope the Minister will think again about the matter.
It is an important element in our national history and, after all, there were the days when South Wales was the largest coal exporter in the world and when no city in the world exported more coal than Cardiff. Our ships sailed throughout the world to remote coaling stations in the Pacific—to do what? To maintain the imperial grandeur of Britain. It is part of our national history.
My noble friend put the case of the miners and he was right. it shall always put the case of the miners because
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I am proud to say that, when the only national office in the Labour Party was that of the treasurer, who was nationally elected, it was the miners who first nominated me as treasurer of the Labour Party. I do not know whether I did any better at it than I did as Chancellor of the Exchequer, but at least the Labour Party survived. I have always had the deepest admiration for the miners but I do not put that case this evening. The case I put is that it is part of our imperial history and should be regarded as such. We have the National Maritime Museum and the Imperial War Museum, of which I am happy to be a supporter. We treasure those relics of our past because, unless we value our past, we shall have no call for the future. In the coal industry, 900,000 men were employed in hundreds of pits throughout the country, as the noble Lord, Lord Saint Oswald, told us. To preserve that history is a national responsibility. We are throwing away part of our national heritage if we do not support it.
I am deeply grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, for putting down the amendment and even more grateful to him for giving up his dinner to move it this evening. I know that that affects him deeply. I was sorry to hear him say that he did not think that financial support would be forthcoming. I can understand that there may not be all that much profit in the new mining industry, but the museums must be safeguarded.
I say to the Minister in all earnestness that we ought to build up a head of steam on the subject, we have right on our side. After all, one of the most famous poems that John Masefield wrote was about the,
"Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days, With a cargo of Tyne coal".
Much of our greatness was founded on that when we were in the industrial 19th century. Do not let us forget our past; in my view the preservation of these museums —the Big Pit Mining Museum in Blaenafon, the pit in Yorkshire—is as important to us as the preservation of any of our other museums. If it is necessary to call on the Government for financial support, I believe that the Committee would support it overwhelmingly.
9.15 p.m.
Lady Kinloss: I shall be brief, as much has already been said from all sides of the Committee in support of mining museums. The Yorkshire Mining Museum Trust was set up in 1982 to convert Caphouse Colliery into the museum for the Yorkshire coalfields. Those coalfields are well known and I understand that the museum attracts many tourists, thus also creating jobs. The museum is one way in which the history and culture of a coal mining area such as the well known Yorkshire coal mines can be kept alive, especially where mines are closing.
I understand that the seam at Caphouse was specially constructed, but all the same it is vital to have safety arrangements in place if people are to be allowed underground. During the passage of the Bill through another place, the Government expressed the opinion that mining museums should develop links with the private mining sector. The Yorkshire Mining Museum has always had strong links with the private mining

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sector, but the help it can give is not sufficient to cover the mining museum's loss of British Coal's support once British Coal is privatised.
As the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, said, the museums have excited a great deal of interest. Do the Government agree that it would be a pity to lose what could be an interesting history lesson for children, particularly those who are at school near the mine, to have a little of their local history brought alive for them? Therefore, I support the amendment.
Baroness Brigstocke: Members of the Committee who have already spoken have made my point for me. Think how much we have learnt this evening. We have not only learnt about English literature through poetry but also history, including oral history, not to mention technology, engineering, physics, science and geology.
I do not know whether Members of the Committee realise that at the moment there is talk between the Department for Education and the Department of National Heritage on the subject of museum education. They are working together. I would, very humbly, as a current member of the Museums and Galleries Commission, ask whether the Department of Trade and Industry could also come in on those talks. The whole question of education through museums is very important indeed.
The mining museums contain national treasures. But they also contain priceless teaching aids. We have only to look at the history syllabus. The new history syllabus in the national curriculum emphasises the importance to pupils of access to primary sources, of handling real materials and of being in real situations as much as possible. I am not sure that I altogether approve of the word that is used, namely "empathy", but this way of teaching history is so much more vivid than many of the older methods. Here we have the mining museums, rich in history, in the story of the past, as we have just heard. They are such a strength to the schools in their area. The Department for Education rightly wants pupils and teachers—although for teachers it is not always quite so easy—to think across narrow subject barriers. Mining museums are an unbelievably rich source of material for all those subjects. I beg my noble friend the Minister to preserve these treasures for our children's sake by making sure that the Coal Authority has the responsibilities clearly set out in this amendment.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: I should just like to add a few more points which perhaps have not been made. (So many have been mentioned.) I visited Caphouse a few weeks ago. The most important thing that I found was that it was a really genuine place. It was an exciting place and it catered for everybody. The facilities for disabled people had been especially well thought out. A disabled person in a wheelchair could go right down to the bottom in the cage and be taken round by a real miner. Everything was genuine. That was what was so important.
As we have heard, it is a very excellent place for history lessons. It took one right back to the beginning, to the time when the women wound down their children and wound them up again if they lived. It showed one
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how the Shaftesbury reforms took place. That is what is so important. It is interesting for children. If they see a thing they can remember it. It showed how miners had their baths and how they changed their clothes. It also showed the safety provision: how people had to wear torches and how they had to carry a coin. This is all part of learning.
The museums themselves are doing all that they can to earn money. They have restaurants and shops. Also, there are pit ponies and canaries. I do not think that they have forgotten anything. Then there is all the machinery. That is of course good for people with engineering interests. There is something for everybody. I ask the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who has visited Caphouse, how he rates it out of 10. I rate it very highly. So much taxpayers' money is wasted. As a taxpayer this is something that I should like to see my taxes go on. I hope that the Minister will find ways to support these museums and keep them going for future generations.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: I rise to support the amendment. The Minister too should support it or react to it properly. He often singularly fails to react. But he should support the amendment in view of the widespread influence in this country among the signatories to the amendment. It is supported by his noble friend Lord Swinton, with whom I am in some sympathy because I too have certain difficulty in getting through small apertures. My noble friend Lady Lockwood also has her name to the amendment. It is supported by a cross-section of the Committee.
It is absolute nonsense that the Government should refuse to support the history of mining. The prosperity of the whole country, breaking out from agricultural poverty, depended on the miners, the deep pits and so on. It is absurd for the Government not to support these museums, even the one in Scotland, which I have not heard mentioned quite as often as the other two.
It is absolutely essential that even this Government should pay attention to the vital part that deep mining has played in the history of the development of this country. I hope that the Minister will depart from his usual obscurity when replying and give a definite answer in this case.
Lord Parry: It was a week ago that I received a letter which began:
"Greetings from the last deep mine in South Wales!".
The letter continued:
"Little did we think, back in 1978, that our innovative tourism project would ever acquire such significance. 40 pits and the best part of 30,000 mining jobs later, its a strap line we would happily have done without".
That letter came from Gareth Gregory, the director—he has been the director since its beginning—of Big Pit, Blaenafon.
Some 10 or 15 years ago, or perhaps more than that, say 22 or 23 years ago—it was before the Minister was born and I can understand his impatience (his gentle impatience) as he has been sitting for a long time on that Bench—when I was still teaching, I took a party of young children to the National Museum of Wales. This House is remarkable. At times it takes small issues and elevates them. We have had an interesting debate which

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is part of our history. As I said, with some teachers, I took a party of children to the National Museum of Wales. We were taken to the foundations of the building and we crawled through a cardboard mine. I agree that crawling through a cardboard imitation mine gives little idea of the experience of people like my father when, between the age of 19 and 29, he cut coal in coal mines in the Tredegar district. But it was a fascinating experience and it taught us a little about our history.
However, the man who was with me—who was called Peter Jones and who subsequently became the director of arts for the Arts Council in Wales—said, "This is useless. We should have a mine dedicated to this in Wales". In the way that such things go, some years later I found myself as chairman of the Wales Tourist Board. I was talking about that experience with a young man called Gareth Gregory, who was an in-house manager for the Wales Tourist Board. He said, "There is a plan". The plan was taken down off the shelf, dusted and Big Pit, Blaenafon began to proceed. It was the most amazing thing that I have ever been involved in. We all know the frustrations of public life, even for young Ministers. The frustrations come because you try and try but things become more difficult.
Because of the coalition of interests that we were able to bring to this very issue that has been illustrated tonight from all sections of the Chamber, the situation got easier as we went along. Suddenly, the Coal Board came and said, "Big Pit, Blaenafon seems to be ideal. It is running out of productivity. It will become available. It has a deep shaft and a safety walk-down and walk-up shaft. If we can only get this thing together we might be able to present a core activity of our heritage in the Blaenafon district.
I found out later that Big Pit, Blaenafon was not originally sunk as a coal pit but as an ironstone pit. In sinking it they found coal. It was the proximity of ironstone and that specific coal that made the Bessemer process possible. When they began the rudimentary experiments in the puddling of steel they found the juxtaposition of those two elements in steelmaking—the Minister must be patient; I have listened to him speak for many hours without interrupting—actually confirmed that it was possible to produce the Bessemer process. Incidentally, the company sold the process on to America, saved itself from bankruptcy and another part of our history was reassured.
That is all we are asking the Government to do. If I were asked to advise the Government—God forbid!— on how they should proceed to win back the confidence that they seem to be losing, I would advise them to appoint a Minister to sit on the Benches, one in this place and one in another place, to look for the good ideas. They would say, "My God, here is a good idea! It is dirt cheap. It is obviously popular. It commands the support of almost everybody in the House. Why do we not utilise it?" The Government should say to the Secretary of State, "We have got a good one. Here is something that commands the respect of the House; it is clearly of massive advantage to do it; all the arguments are for it. Why do we not fund it?"
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The amounts of money involved are tiny compared with the money running to earth every day in plans that do not work at all. These plans are approved. Therefore I say with all the friendship in the world to the young Ministers, do not be impatient of us; by all means be amused—that is the privilege of youth. But take away the positive in this amendment. Do not try to find arguments for persuading the Secretary of State that he was right all along. Tell him that here is a better idea. Take up the amendment and fund it.
9.30 p.m.
Baroness Strange: I want to say just a brief word in favour of the amendment and in favour of the Scottish pits which have already been mentioned. I was at school in the area and once went down a real mine. It was an unforgettable experience and one which I should like our children and our children's children to share. I therefore support the amendment.
Lord Prys-Davies: I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, will be very satisfied with the support he has received from the House for this important amendment. I am sure that the three mining museums will do everything possible to avoid closure. But if they fail to produce the' funds that are needed—I believe it is in the order of £300,000 per annum, which is not a large sum in terms of government expenditure—then they face closure.
What will the Government achieve if those three museums are closed? Or is that their intention? Is it their intention that the people of the mining communities should not be reminded of their heritage and their past? I find that difficult to believe. If it is, then it would be evidence of a depressing lack of vision.
The Government, through their policies, have closed the pits. I hope that they will not undermine the museums which record the history of mining over the ages. Having closed the pits, I hope that they will look again at the situation and see what funds they can make available to underpin the financial viability of the museums in the future.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: Perhaps I may add another Scottish voice to the debate and apologise to the Committee for the fact that I have not taken part in the debate on the Coal Industry Bill until today. This for me is a sad occasion in the sense that we are debating museums dedicated to the mining industry rather than the preservation of the industry itself. Tonight is a watershed in the history of the mining industry. We are debating the preservation of the memory of the industry rather than the industry itself.
Over the years it has been my experience that if you speak about mining in this country you have, to place on the table your credentials. I speak from the background of my late father being 51 years a miner in the same pit in my native Fifeshire. Within two weeks of his retirement date on his 65th birthday the pit in which my late father was employed was closed down. I say with great respect to my socialist colleagues on these Benches that I never really noticed any great difference between the old private coal owners and those who managed the industry after nationalisation. I exclude my

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good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Ezra. Instead of saying to my father, "Well, Willie, you have only two weeks to go. Take two more weeks for your retirement", they found a job for my late father to do in that last two weeks before his 65th birthday. That was after 51 years in the same pit. Two of my brothers were miners and so I speak from a background of knowledge of the mining industry.
I wish that what we were discussing tonight was the preservation of the industry rather than these museums, important though they are. I was very friendly with the late Lord Gormley. This is one of the evenings on which I wish Joe Gormley could join us in this debate, not to reminisce—we are all good at reminiscing; they say it is a sign of old age when you start reminiscing—but to talk about the need to preserve the coal industry in this country. However, the Government have waged a campaign over the past 15 years—indeed, yesterday was the 15th anniversary of this Government coming to power—and the coal industry has been decimated. I predict that we shall live to regret what has happened over the past 15 years.
Be that as it may, what we are discussing tonight is the preservation of a memorial to the coal industry in the shape of these three mining museums. Two of them are deep mining museums. One is in Scotland. With great respect to them, I doubt whether the noble Baroness, Lady Strange, and the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, even know where the Scottish museum is located. If they know, I am quite prepared to sit down and give way. It is located in Newtongrange in Midlothian. I thought I would impart that piece of knowledge. It is not the only Scottish mining museum. There is one in Carton Den in Fife which has been solely financed by a philanthropist, a man called Bill Braid, who was fortunate enough in life to become quite wealthy. He has solely financed the mining museum in Carton Den in Fife which is a tribute to the Fife coalfield. There is also a further mining museum in Fife in the shape of the Lahore Meadows Country Park, where Fife Regional Council invested substantial sums of public money in preserving what was then a colliery which is still there. It is a wonderful place to visit. You can have a day out not only with your family but with a whole host of other relatives. That is why this amendment is so important. How are these memorials to the mining industry to be preserved if the Government do not provide the finance? The noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, unfortunately is not with us this evening. He is head of the consortium which is about to bid for the last deep mine in Scotland, the Longannet complex. The market is purely and simply the Longannet power station and there is no other market. How are these memorials to the mining industry in Scotland to continue if the Government are not to provide the finance?
I hope with all that has been said tonight that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who is visibly very impatient to leap to the Dispatch Box, will tell us that he is prepared to accept this amendment. I am against privatisation and I make that absolutely clear. If privatisation is to go ahead I hope that the Minister is
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prepared to say that, as part of it and as part of the conditions on which the pits will be sold, those private coal owners and the private people who are coming to bid for the coal industry will have to give an undertaking to preserve the mining museums which have been the subject of this debate.
I finish with this: possibly I am the only Member of your Lordships' House who is an honorary member of an organisation called the Ancient Lodge of Free Colliers. Before anyone jumps to any conclusions, I should say that that ancient lodge was the forerunner of the miners' union. The term "free colliers" meant that they were trying to buy the freedom of the men from the coal owners. The coal owners owned the pits, the shops, the houses in which the miners lived and, ipso facto, they owned the men as well. In the early 1800s this organisation was the forerunner to the National Union of Mineworkers. The Free Colliers organisation was set up to try to buy the freedom of the men from the coal owners. There is only one lodge left in the United Kingdom—in my old constituency of Stirling, Falkirk and Grangemouth. So I speak with some feeling on this matter. I have a family background in mining.
I leave with the Minister the slogan of the miners' union "The past we inherit; the future we build". We have inherited from the mining industry a wonderful past. It is for the Government to make sure that that past is not forgotten by building the future through the mining museums that are the subject of this amendment.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: The Committee is obviously grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, for bringing forward this amendment, judging by the number of people who have spoken to it. I do not doubt that he is grateful for the support which he has received. His noble friend Lord Saint Oswald put his finger on the heart of the matter straight away when he used the word "memorial". One of the things which has excited your Lordships' passion this evening is the fact that these museums are memorials to the thousands who died underground just as those others who died on the field of battle. The feeling is very much the same.
I referred to the Big Pit at Blaenafon in the first words that I spoke in the Second Reading debate on this Bill in your Lordships' House. I was for some 15 years a member of the Museums and Galleries Commission, in which a place was taken by the noble Baroness, Lady Brigstocke, who has spoken this evening. For the last five years, I was its chairman. We argued, we fought, to enable Big Pit, the Yorkshire Museum and Newtongrange in Scotland to be set up to tell the truth about coal mining to all generations so that it shall not be lost to our descendants. I would not now willingly see that work destroyed—and it has started. We have just lost one mining museum in the independent sector, Chatterley Whitfield, which has gone into receivership and its collection sold off.
So seriously is that situation regarded that the Museums and Galleries Commission has already commissioned Robert Shorland-Ball to produce a report, make a survey and produce some guidelines on

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the coal mining museums in this country to enable the commission to make representations to government. That should be available by the autumn.
We are not asking for all the coal mining museums in this country to be retained. There are plenty. There is the Woodhorn Colliery Museum at Ashington in Northumberland, which is not underground but which has a good collection. There is the Washington "F" Pit in 'Tyne and Wear; the Sunderland Museum; the Salford Mining Museum; the Leeds Industrial Museum; the Doncaster Museum; the Black Country Museum at Dudley, which has a wonderful collection; and the Snibston Discovery Park in Leicestershire. I think also of the North of England Open Air Museum, which has a wonderful underground display. Any Members of the Committee who are taken down there by some of the old miners (who go down doubled up into what is a drift mine) will realise that the Labour Party has no better recruiting sergeants than a few old miners in the North of England. I think also of Afon Argoed, the Welsh Miners' Museum at Cynonville near Port Talbot in South Wales. I think of the Summerlee Heritage Trust at Coatbridge in Scotland, which my noble friend Lord Ewing inadvertently forgot to mention.
There are plenty of such museums. They must take their chance. We are asking only that the three designated museums, the Yorkshire Mining Museum, the Big Pit Mining Museum at Blaenafon and the Scottish Mining Museum at Newtongrange, shall be kept and funded by government in whatever form they choose. That is the minimum that the nation needs and, in our view, the state must retain them. The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, begged leave to move this amendment. I beg the Government, in the cause of historical truth and humanity, to get up and accept it. This Government, after all, have killed the coal mining industry in England, Scotland and Wales. In all decency and in all charity, the least that they can do is to pay up for these three excellent tombstones.
9.45 p.m.
Lord Strathclyde: I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, and I have pre-empted many other noble Lords who might have thought of contributing to this debate. The debate is no less interesting for its length. Indeed, it has been immensely interesting and, in some cases, moving also.
I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Ewing, started his speech very well, but he then went on to bring in politics and, in particular, the record of the past 15 years of Conservative government. The noble Lord should reflect rather more on the record of the last Labour Governments. He would perhaps then understand why the Conservative Government have been in power for the past 15 years. I am sorry that the noble Lord has not been able to appear at any of our other deliberations on the Bill because his experience as a constituency Member of Parliament would have been useful. But I have a far more difficult job to do this evening, because I recognise the tremendous strength of feeling that has been demonstrated all around the Chamber; the strong sentiments; and the arguments that have been put forward.
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The noble Lord, Lord Dainton, talked about the UK in the mid-19th century being at its most prominent, largely because of the wealth it created out of coal. The noble Baroness, Lady White, talked about an extremely exciting museum. The noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, spoke with infectious enthusiasm about the infectious enthusiasm of our museums. I join with them all. I join particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, who talked about the Caphouse Colliery. As she knows, if visited the Yorkshire Mining Museum some years ago and was tremendously impressed by the quality of what it was offering. The underground experience was an excellent one. Like the noble Baroness, I met—if that is the right word—the pit ponies. I am convinced that many people would find that experience useful.
Another feature of the debate has been that many Members of the Committee have read what occurred in another place. There is not a great deal that I can acid to the debates that took place there. We naturally want to ensure that the privatised mining companies offer support on a voluntary basis similar to that which is currently offered by British Coal. It would be difficult to impose a requirement on the private sector. That leaves me in a difficult position, given what has happened this evening. To talk about funding in general, it is plain that many museums suffer financial problems because of the lack of support from local authorities. I was surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, whose party is so much in favour of local democracy, not upholding the case that it should be local authorities rather than central government which should support the museums.
Lord Parry: Will the Minister give way on that point? If we followed that argument, one smallish local authority would be asked to bear the cost of the entire heritage collection of the Big Pit Mining Museum at Blaenafon. That is impossible.
Lord Strathclyde: I do not believe that it should just be the local authorities. There are many funding organisations which could club together to support the museums, because every Member of the Committee who has spoken has spoken about the importance and the excellence of the museums. That is the fundamental problem I have with the amendment. My noble friend Lord Swinton has clearly worked hard on the drafting of the amendment because he has covered almost every conceivable issue. But that is my difficulty, because the amendment allows no room for manoeuvre and no incentive for the museums to try to reduce their costs. It places an immediate burden upon the taxpayer; and many Members of the Committee would agree that that should be for the private sector.
Another suggestion has been that of the interim period. I cannot give any commitment. I came to the Committee this evening to listen to the views that were being put forward. I go away under no illusion as to the strength of feeling. If my noble friend were to withdraw his amendment, I could perhaps consider it with other departments, if that is what is required, to see whether there is a way around the problem. There may not be. I am not giving a commitment. But I believe that this is such an important issue that it would be wrong to decide

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it this evening. I shall obviously speak to my noble friend during the next few weeks before we reach Report stage to let him know whether we feel that there is anything to be gained from moving forward. I hope that that meets with the approval of the Committee. Perhaps it is not as much as Members would like but it is as far as I am able to go tonight.
The Earl of Swinton: I am extremely grateful. Indeed, I am flabbergasted by the amount of support that the amendment has received from all sides of the Committee. Members from far-flung parts of the British Isles have spoken in support. I thank them all, especially as they stayed here to do so. I know of several other Members of the Committee who would gladly have given their support and weight had they not had to go home. To all Members who have stayed, I am most grateful.
I shall not mention all the speakers because that will take too long. However, the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, said that we must build up a head of steam on this. We have built that up—I felt the boilers going kerchunk, kerchunk, kerchunk! The steam was such that my noble friend Lord Strathclyde got the message.
I think that I bowled him with a googly. I was told that the danger with my amendment was that it was hybrid. I thought that that would be the first thing that he would say and that he would sink me without trace —collapse of stout party! He did not and instead most generously said that he would talk.
I am happy with that. There is a danger that the amendment is hybrid and I was not going to press it in any event. I am grateful for the way in which my noble friend has taken it and I am grateful for all the support that I have received. I assure my noble friend that, if we do not reach a fairly sensible compromise, the head of steam will blow him off his seat on the Front Bench. Therefore, it will be in his interests to talk and I look forward to that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 57 [Public access to information held by the Authority]:
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 85A:
Page 53, line 5, after ("above") insert ("to the information in the possession of the Corporation immediately before the restructuring date, which information the Authority shall take into its possession at the restructuring date,").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 85A, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 85B to 85F. We are in the year 1797. William Thomas proposed an office in Newcastle for the collection and registration of local colliery plans and sections in order to prevent accidents caused by breaking into the old workings filled with water and noxious gas. It was the beginning of mining records on a systematic basis in this country. There were further moves with the Geological Survey of Great Britain authorised as part of the Ordnance Survey in 1835, Thomas Sopwith, the geologist, reading an important paper to the British Association in 1838, and so on.
After the 1830s activity became greater until now. We have a huge collection belonging to British Coal and we are left to secure its future. The corporation's collection of geological information comprises data derived under the 1946 Act from Home Office mines department records, Coal Commission records, by transfer after 1947 from the British Geological Survey, the Mining Records Office, the MRO public appeal and the NCB or BCC papers. In addition, in the course of the board's, the corporation's, normal activities it has accumulated geological information from its own deep mining and opencast exploration working, from Section 36 of the 1946 Act relating to licence geological information and plans, from the NCB appeal for plans of old workings and many, many more sources.
The collection must be maintained as a whole. It must be kept up to date (with information from Part II of the 1994 Bill relating to licensing activities) for reference and for ultimate incorporation into the National Geoscience Database, which is maintained by the British Geological Survey. To secure all that is the purpose of this amendment.
Until 1958, when Section 51(1) of the Coal Nationalisation Act was repealed, NCB records were public records. In practice, those records continued to be made freely available to inquirers until about 1992, when the regional collections were consolidated at Bretby in Derbyshire.
British Coal is still publicly owned and the records would seem to be public property. I should be interested to learn whether the noble Lord or the noble Viscount could inform me authoritatively whether they are in fact legally still public property. But their future and the future accessibility of those records, if privatisation plans go ahead, is a matter of vital public concern.
Provisions in this Bill and information documents circulated by the DTI would indicate that there would be a very limited access for individuals and researchers. I gather that a fee will be charged for the right of access to that data. We regard that as totally unacceptable in principle. If that is not to be the case, I should be grateful if the noble Viscount would assure the Committee categorically that that is not the case.
The national collection of geological information is vitally important in understanding the structure and statigraphy of the United Kingdom and its Continental Shelf. For maximum understanding of national resources, it should remain intact. It should not and must not be dispersed during restructuring.
However, it is not absolutely essential that the entire collection should be held centrally. Recent reorganisation of the holdings by the corporation has resulted in loss to the regions and some absurd anomalies; for example, the transfer of the Scottish oil shale workings records down to Bretby when they should be in Scotland. We shall not argue about exactly where they should be held. But those records must be preserved; public access to them must be given; and it must be free. I beg to move.
10 p.m.
Viscount Torrington: I rise to speak to Amendment No. 85D in particular. I scratched my head and I have no great interest to declare in this matter except the interest of someone who has spent about 35 years working in extractive industries of one form or another.
We have had a very spirited debate on the subject of mining museums. Mining museums are the repository of the spirit and history of the mining industry. But the records to which the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, referred, are the real benefit to the nation which have come from the mining industry over 200 or 300 years.
In extractive industries, the information which comes from the successes and the failures of those who worked before is the lifeblood of the industry. In the oil industry, each dry hole, each well which does not discover oil, tells other people who come later where oil may be. Therefore, that information is a resource which should be made available as freely as possible to industries, to universities and to anybody who wishes to work in the field of the sub-surface structure of this country.
If, as has been the case in one or two instances of which I know in recent years, access to that information is made difficult by exorbitant fees being charged, it will make it impossible for people to follow up their ideas. The young geologist working in a mining company or an oil company cannot go to his boss and say, "Look, I have got this great idea. I need some information but the Coal Authority has told me that it will cost £Þ million". His boss will not be interested unless, as at the DTI, he can go and look free of charge at records of oil wells which are more than five years old.
We need access to this information in order for the nation to benefit from it in the future. It must not be a curiosity available only to a select few either with some special right of access or through a large bank account. I should like to ask my noble friend the Minister whether he can give us some assurance that the reference to an appropriate fee in Clause 57 will mean a reasonable fee; that is, a fee, perhaps involved in the reproduction of information, which is not a ransom for such information.
Viscount Goschen: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, for raising the important matter of information availability. It is an important function of the authority. The authority will take over a great deal of information from British Coal and will obtain further information as it carries out its functions. Clause 57 of the Bill places a specific duty on the authority to establish and maintain arrangements that it considers appropriate under which anyone would be entitled to be furnished with certain categories of information, to have access to certain of the authority's records and to be provided with copies of those records.
There are safeguards to protect information relating to individuals or companies where disclosure would seriously and prejudicially affect their interests, and information provided under a licence will be protected by the terms of the licence, although neither of those safeguards applies to the disclosure of any information relating to matters which may be relevant to safety.
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It is not desirable for the authority to take over all information held by British Coal on the restructuring date as sought by Amendment No. 85A. The corporation holds a vast amount of information covering a wide variety of subjects: for example, it holds information about its past and present employees; and it holds sales, marketing and financial information. None of that information is needed by the authority, but it will be needed by other bodies. I hope that Members of the Committee will recognise that some of British Coal's, information is not needed specifically by the Coal Authority but is genuinely needed by other bodies.
Amendment No. 85B would require the authority to hold geological and related information,
"in whatever form that information is kept".
Clause 57(1) already makes it clear that the arrangements that the authority is required to establish and maintain to make information available do apply to "any" of the relevant information which is for the time being in the authority's possession.
If the authority possesses, in whatever form, information that is caught by the requirements of Clause 57, it will have to make that information available. Therefore, we do not believe that it is necessary to spell out that provision on the face of the Bill. Similarly, we do not believe that we should prescribe on the face of the Bill the precise details as to how the authority should fulfil its duty under Clause 57 as envisaged by Amendment No. 85C.
The authority will have a chairman and a board of members. They will be responsible for running the authority and, ultimately, for the authority's actions. They must be given the discretion as to how they manage information in the authority's possession; how and when they update it; and how they make it available to fulfil their duty under Clause 57.
I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Morris, that Clause 57(2) allows the authority to charge such fees as it thinks appropriate for making information available. Amendment No. 85D would prevent the authority from charging any fees whatever in that respect, as detailed by the noble Lord in his remarks.
Schedule I to the Bill empowers the Secretary of State to determine the authority's financial duties. The authority will have to take account of any determination in deciding the charges it will make to recover the costs of making information available. I believe that I can reassure my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Morris, that, as we made clear in the Coal Industry explanatory note, it is envisaged that the authority will recover the full cost of establishing and maintaining its registers and providing access to information through fees payable by those to whom the information is provided.
The Government believe that it must be right that the authority has the power to charge for providing information. Its geological information could, for example, be of commercial value to potential licensees. It would not be right to give away such information without recovering the full cost of providing access to that information. I believe that the provisions in the Bill make certain that that would not be the exorbitant cost which has been suggested.

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Clause 57 contains two exceptions to the requirement on the authority to make information available. The exception to which this amendment relates is set out in Clause 57(3). This does not require or authorise the disclosure by the authority of any information (other than information contained in a register) relating to the affairs of an individual or a company if, in the opinion of the authority, disclosure would or might seriously and prejudicially affect the interests of that individual or company.
"Seriously and prejudicially" is a very severe test. It was deliberately drafted to be so. Our intention is that information should be made available unless there are good reasons why it should not be made available. Clearly, there is a balance to be struck. We believe that the discretion we have given the authority to decide whether the disclosure of information would or might seriously and prejudicially affect someone's interests is the right balance. Indeed, it is worth considering whether it would be right for information to be disclosed if the authority believed it might seriously and prejudicially affect someone's interest.
Turning to Clause 58, this requires the authority to maintain arrangements for keeping confidential information that relates to the affairs of individuals and particular businesses. That requirement does not apply in the circumstances specified in the clause, including, at subsection (2) (b), where information is disclosed in pursuance of arrangements made under Clause 57.
It is widely recognised that research and education in the earth sciences is important. It is the categories of information specified in Clause 57(1) that are most likely to be of interest to earth scientists. As I have indicated, that information is not covered by Clause 58, which is in any case primarily aimed at the protection of business and personal information.
As I have indicated in a somewhat full and detailed reply to the noble Lord and my noble friend, there is a balance to be struck between "openness" and "privacy". We believe that we have struck the right balance in the Bill. I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I am grateful to the noble Viscount for a remarkably detailed reply at this hour of the night. It is something of a curate's egg so far as I am concerned. He gave with the left hand and took back with the right. I am not sure that I have fully and totally taken on board the purport of the noble Viscount's reply, but I shall take care to read it tomorrow.
My initial response is that I feel slightly grateful. I am moderately cheered. To a certain extent, and reserving the right to consider it tomorrow, I am a little reassured, certainly by one or two things that he said, although not all of them. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 85B to 85E not moved.]
Clause 57 agreed to.
Clause 58 [Information to be kept confidential by the Authority]:
[Amendment No. 85F not moved.]
Viscount Goschen Viscount Goschen moved Amendment No. 86:
Page 55, line 46, at end insert:

("(vi) the river purification authorities referred to in the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) (Scotland) Act 1951 and for the time being specified in subsection (2) of section 17 of that Act").

The noble Viscount said: In moving Amendment No. 86, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 87.
Clause 58 requires the Coal Authority to maintain arrangements for securing that certain information relating to individuals or particular businesses is kept confidential. The clause also specifies the circumstances in which the authority is not obliged to keep information confidential.
One case where that requirement does not apply is in relation to information relating to water pollution. In England and Wales that is already provided for by the inclusion in Clause 58(3) (e) (iii) of a reference to the National Rivers Authority. Amendment No. 86 is a technical amendment required to ensure that the same principle is extended, to Scotland, where the relevant authorities are the river purification authorities referred to in the amendment.
Amendment No. 87 is a similar technical amendment to Clause 58(4) required for Scotland, which permits disclosure of information in relation to civil proceedings under the legislation under which the river purification authorities operate. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Viscount Goschen Viscount Goschen moved Amendment No. 87:
Page 56, line 2, at end insert:

("(ca) Part II of the Control of Pollution Act 1974;").

On Question, amendment agreed to.
10.15 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 88:
Page 56, line 10, at end insert:
("( ) this Act;").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the subsidence adviser can obtain all the necessary information to carry out his investigations. Under the present situation, compensation for planning blight can be claimed against British Coal in respect of land earmarked for coal production. Obviously compensation for blight will be more difficult to administer under a fragmented coal industry. Nevertheless, compulsory acquisition powers are being retained for up to five years and planning authorities are likely to be required under the forthcoming revised mineral planning guidance—we have referred to it before; it is now in draft—to earmark suitable sites for coal extraction in their development plans. The loss through planning blight to individuals will be no less and the right to compensation should in our view remain. I beg to move.
Viscount Goschen: Clause 58 requires the Coal Authority to keep confidential information that relates to the affairs of individuals and particular businesses.
That requirement does not apply in the circumstances specified in the clause, including where information is disclosed to Ministers and certain public bodies to enable them to carry out their functions under the relevant enactments. Clause 58(4) lists those relevant

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enactments. The amendment seeks to add the Bill to that list. We believe that the amendment is unnecessary. Clause 58(2) (a) already provides for disclosure by the authority to carry out its functions under the Act and for its disclosure to the Secretary of State and the Treasury so that they may carry out their functions under the Act. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I thank the noble Viscount for what he said. I have elicited from him what I wished to elicit. The amendment is concerned with the confidentiality of certain parts of information. I wish to consider the matter. I may well return to it at Report stage. We are concerned about the limitations of confidentiality. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 58, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 59 to 62 agreed to.
Clause 63 [Interpretation]:
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 88A:
Page 60, line 13, at end insert:

(""controlled" has the same meaning as in the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and in the Water Resources Act 1991;").

The noble Lord said: In moving the amendment, I speak also to Amendment No. 88B. The purpose of Amendment No. 88A is to ensure that the definition of the word "controlled" is consistent with that set out in all previous legislation.
The purpose of Amendment No. 88B is to ensure that "environment" has the same definition as set out in previous legislation. I should be grateful for confirmation of those two facts by the Minister. I beg to move.
Lord Strathclyde: It is not often that I am not clear about the amendment moved by the noble Lord. I have to say that this amendment mystified us because it did not seem to make any sense.
It is a rare occurrence not to have understood the noble Lord's amendment. Now that he has explained it, perhaps I may consider the matter and let him know whether there is force underlying his argument. I therefore shall consider the points and respond to him before the Report stage.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I hope that I have not caused him any mystification. It is a perfectly straightforward probing amendment in each case to make sure that the words used in these specific situations have exactly the same meaning as in previous legislation. Perhaps we may correspond about the matter between now and Report stage. In token of that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 88B not moved.]
Clause 63 agreed to.
Clauses 64 and 65 agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 88C to 89 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Schedule 9 [Minor and Consequential Amendments]:
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: Amendments Nos. 90 to 92 were to have been moved by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, but at his request and with his permission, I shall not move them.
[Amendments Nos. 90 to 92 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 93 not moved.]
Schedule 9 agreed to.
Schedule 10 agreed to.
Schedule 11 [Repeals]:
Viscount Goschen Viscount Goschen moved Amendment No. 94:
Page 156, leave out lines 47 to 51.
The noble Viscount said: In moving Amendment No. 94, I wish to speak also to Amendments Nos. 95, 96 and 97. Clause 66 and Schedule 11 to the Bill currently provide for the repeal of the references to British Coal and the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation (CISWO) in Schedule 1 to the Public Records Act 1958 from, respectively, the dissolution date and the appointed day. We believe that the records of both British Coal and CISWO, unless transferred to bodies not subject to the Public Records Act 1958, should retain their public records status. This can be done by removing the references to the repeals of British Coal and CISWO from the 1958 Act from Clause 66 and Schedule 11. I beg to move.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: We have looked at Amendments Nos. 94 to 97 carefully and we are happy to give them a guarded welcome. They appear to allow more information to be made available than was formerly the case, but they cover a lot of ground and we shall need to check it all not only for possible subsidence but for unexpected land-mines which may lurk there.
"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes".
We fear the Greeks when they come bearing gifts. We give the amendments a welcome but a guarded one.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Viscount Goschen Viscount Goschen moved Amendment No. 95:
Page 159, leave out lines 27 to 30.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 11, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 66 [Short title, commencement and extent]:
Viscount Goschen Viscount Goschen moved Amendments Nos. 96 and 97:
Page 65, line 8, leave out sub-paragraph (i).
Page 65, line 11, leave out ("the Public Records Act 1958").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 66, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.
House adjourned at twenty-three minutes past ten o'clock.