Lords Sitting of 17 May 1995

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.

Campsfield House: Asylum-seekers
Lord Hylton Lord Hylton asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, following the Chief Inspector of Prisons' report on Campsfield House, near Oxford, they will review the practice of detaining asylum-seekers.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, the report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons on his inspection of the immigration detention centre at Campsfield House does not address the practice of detaining people who have applied for asylum when that is judged necessary, and there is nothing in his report to suggest any need to review the Government's policy on this subject.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in March no fewer than 619 asylum-seekers were in detention and that they are costing the country about £20 million per year? Is she also aware that Amnesty International reckons that 44 per cent. of them were unnecessarily detained? Does not that make a strong case for an immediate review of the situation?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, what I am aware of is that the numbers detained account for only about 1.5 per cent. of the total number of applicants. There are something like 56,000 backlog applications waiting to be processed. If ever there was a need for efficiency, it is for turning round the speed with which those applications are handled. Indeed, 80 per cent. of the applications are bogus—and that does nothing to help us to speed up the processing of applications from those who are genuinely seeking asylum here.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, although not dissenting from the Minister's statement that we should try to speed up the processing of applications, bearing in mind that many of the cases that are now being dealt with are more than three years old and that people have been waiting all that time for the adjudication of their claim to asylum, does not the Minister agree that asylum-seekers are in a peculiar situation in that they cannot apply to a court for bail? Is the Minister aware that experience has shown that those who are allowed to go to a named address do not abscond? Is there not a ground for reconsidering the legislation which refuses asylum-seekers permission to go to a court of law to ask for their release, alone of all the people who are detained?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I hope that the House will put the whole issue into perspective. We are talking about 1.5 per cent. of asylum-seekers, and 80 per cent. of those who are detained either have their applications in the appeals system or are waiting to be deported. It is an immigration officer who initially detains someone. There
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is then a further review after 24 hours by an inspector of the immigration service. That is revised at least once every seven days by an increasingly senior member of the immigration service. Therefore, the position of all detainees is constantly reviewed. Furthermore, the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993 provides a right of appeal for anyone who is refused asylum.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, the Minister referred to "bogus" asylum-seekers. Does not that reflect the undue climate and culture of suspicion which is too prevalent in the Home Office?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, no. The noble Lord made the point about the dissipation of precious resources and the fact that such claims stand in the way of genuine asylum-seekers. On considering applications it is found that many people use a false mechanism for seeking asylum. That causes enormous delay and dissipates very important resources. It is not the aim of the Home Office to do anything more than make the system more accessible to genuine asylum-seekers and to find speedy ways of doing that. Indeed, my right honourable friend is in the process of putting measures before: Parliament to speed up the process so that we can get bogus applications out of the system to make way for genuine consideration of genuine asylum-seekers.
Lord McIntosh Of Haringey: My Lords, the Minister carefully and properly restricted her earlier answers to the issue of whether asylum-seekers should be in detention rather than to the issue of conditions at Campsfield House. Has she anything to say in response to the chief inspector's report on conditions there?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the Government have made public their response to the report. They have accepted most of its recommendations. We join Judge Tumim in his statement that the centre had a very difficult start. That was not surprising, given the particular challenges when it opened. The noble Lord will know that there was an unprecedented number of particularly difficult detainees at the time and that 140 of them went on hunger strike. That would test any management, but particularly an early management. Most of the recommendations have been taken to heart. Many are already implemented, and others are being put in hand. Where we have not accepted recommendations, I believe that we have a very good case for that.

Coal Privatisation: Expenditure
2.43 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington Lord Dormand of Easington asked Her Majesty's Government:
What was the total cost of privatising British Coal; and what was the total sum, including fees and bonuses, paid to NM Rothschild as advisers in the privatisation.
The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, expenditure on the privatisation of the coal industry from 1991–92 to 1994–95 amounted to approximately £36.8 million. A further

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£4.3 million, including VAT, has been provided for 1995–96. Details of payments to individual consultants are commercially confidential.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the cost so far to the taxpayer of privatising the coal industry is £700 million? Have any further payments of any kind yet to be made? In addition, why has it been necessary for the National Audit Office to publicise two things: first, that £1.6 billion was used to write off debts in anticipation of the privatisation of the mines; and that NM Rothschild has been given a bonus of £2 million, in addition to its fee of £5.5 million, for its work in privatising the industry? The Minister said that those are not matters for public comment. I suggest that they are. In any case, are not the last two matters I mentioned serious enough for public debate or debate in this House or another place?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord asked a number of questions. He asked whether the cost to the taxpayer was £700 million. The cost to the taxpayer is in fact the £36.8 million plus the £4.3 million, which amounts to about 3.5 per cent. of the gross receipts. If the noble Lord were to sell his house through the services offered by an estate agent, he would find that by the time he had paid the estate agent's fees and the legal fees he would be running jolly close to 3 per cent., and presumably selling off coalmines is rather more complicated than selling his house. He asked whether there are any payments still to be made. The answer is yes, there are some still to be made, but they were included in the contract. He asked about Rothschild. Rothschild was chosen by competitive tender: eight people were asked to compete for the tender; five tendered; and three were called to interview. The interviews were carried out by officials of the Department of Energy and the Treasury and the accounting officer of the Department of Energy. As a result of those three interviews, a recommendation was made. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State accepted the recommendation. I believe that that is perfectly clear.
Lord Boardman: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that the costs of privatisation were a mere fraction of the total costs of British Coal and the losses borne by the British taxpayer in the years before privatisation?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, my noble friend is, of course, entirely correct. In 1979 the operating profit was admittedly £45 million. In 1984–85 alone the loss was £9.7 billion. To get the industry privatised and working efficiently was in the interests of the coal industry, the country as a whole, and the taxpayer.
Lord Richard: My Lords, will the Minister confirm the two figures put to him by my noble friend—the £5.5 million to Rothschild and the extra £2 million by way of a bonus?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, no, I am not prepared to confirm that, for the very good reason that these matters are confidential. As I explained in answer to the noble Lord, the work was done as a result of a competitive
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tender. If what everyone receives for their tender is known, it will increase the opportunities for others to make larger offers in the future.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, in view of the fact that rather more than had been expected was realised from the sale of the mines on privatisation, and that the international price of coal has subsequently risen substantially, does the Minister agree that the Government may have been ill-advised to allow the coal industry to be run down at such a rate before privatisation?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I could not disagree more with the noble Lord. The fact is that coal is not used in the way that it was at the end of 1945. In those days 718,000 people were employed to produce about 200 million tonnes of coal. Now, 7,000 people are employed and they produce 86 million tonnes. That means that about 10 per cent. of the manpower is now required to produce about 45 per cent. of what was produced earlier. It is not a question of running down the industry; it is a question of making it efficient, and that is what we have sought to do.
Lord Mason of Barnsley: My Lords, will the Minister take the opportunity to clear the air concerning Richard Budge who bought the coal industry? The Minister will remember—will he not?—that just before the purchase, the AF Budge Group was put into administrative receivership, which cast a shadow over the group and, in particular, Richard Budge who was a director at the time. Have all the DTI's inquiries into the AF Budge Group ceased? Is the DTI now satisfied that Richard Budge is a fit and proper person to run the coal industry?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord is probably referring to a programme on that individual put out on "Panorama". I believe that it is improper for television companies to do inquiries of this nature; to put out programmes about people, castigating their characters without them having any chance to reply, although there would be no point in them being involved in a reply; and doing that on the basis of entertainment. All those matters were investigated, not by the DTI but by the Insolvency Service. As a result, and with the benefit of independent legal advice, it was decided that no action should be taken. In the light of the Insolvency Service investigation, the DTI reviewed the whole of the RJB (Mining) bid and concluded that it should remain the preferred bidder.
Lord Peston: My Lords, I take it that the answer to the question put by my noble friend Lord Mason is that the DTI believes that Mr. Budge is a fit and proper person to run the industry. That is the only sense that I can make of the Minister's answer.
As regards the Question on the Order Paper, I do not understand the argument about commercial confidence. Is the Minister saying that if the National Audit Office wished to investigate whether these public funds were properly spent, it could not obtain the data; but that, if it did obtain the data and wished to pronounce on them, it would not be allowed to tell us what the funds were and whether they were properly spent? Is the Minister saying that it is so commercial that we cannot know or be told?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, no. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, knows the position perfectly well. It is that when people contract with a government department

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for a certain job of work it is not customary to release the figures of that contract because it will bias other people and interests for the future. If it is known that one can compete at a certain level, others will compete at a different rate—
Lord Peston: My Lords—
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will contain himself a little longer. The National Audit Office is looking into the privatisation and sale of British Coal subsidiaries. That is a perfectly natural course of action to take and it does so in respect of all privatisations. Of course, all the figures will be available to the National Audit Office.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, bearing in mind the number of issues that have been raised today, and considering some of the explanations that the Minister has had to give in a short time in respect of this vital industry, does he consider that the House deserves an opportunity to debate the matter in full?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, what the House debates is a matter for the House. It is not a matter for the Government. If the noble Lord wishes to table a Question in the same way as his noble friend Lord Dormand of Easington, I shall be happy to answer it.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the Minister aware that, as regards the privatisation of electricity, events have shown that the industry was sold off at 30 per cent. less than its real value in order to make it more attractive? Will the Minister give the House an undertaking that that did not happen in respect of the disposal of British Coal?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the privatisation of electricity has nothing to do with the Question on the Order Paper, so I shall not follow that particular hare down the course. However, I can tell the noble Lord that £50 million per week was spent subsidising these nationalised industries and £50 million per week is now returned to the country in taxes on profits.
If the noble Lord is worried about the advantages of privatisation, perhaps I may remind him of what has happened at Tower colliery. It was bought by the employees, who are now supplying coal to Korea, Cambodia and all over Europe. This month they have signed a deal to send 100,000 tonnes of coal to France and the company is on course for an £80 million turnover this year. One of the leaders of the company said:
"In the bad old days of British Coal I was a really militant union man and backed strike action all the way. Now it's no longer a question of us and them; it's just us".
That is a typical example of the success of privatisation, admitted by those who were involved in the coal industry.
Lord Richard: My Lords, on behalf of Members on this side of the House, may I congratulate the Minister on being so fulsome about a workers' co-operative?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, it is funny because some people who were involved in the ethos of the mining industry or in certain aspects of the Labour Party cannot look to the future. Some of these people have always wanted to strike. I see that the president of the National
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Union of Mineworkers is saying, "Let's have a strike again now". The fact is that such people cannot look to the future, just as noble Lords opposite, having abandoned Clause 4, are running around like headless chickens because they do not know whether they were in favour of Clause 4 or against it.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, without revealing the figures, will the Minister say whether the Rothschild tender was the lowest? As he did not answer the question I asked earlier, will he now say something about the £1.6 billion sweetener, which was given without publicity?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, no. The arrangements with Rothschild were arrived at before the contract was agreed and they are part of the contract. The noble Lord asked whether it was the lowest tender. All I can tell him is that it was the best value for money.

Pension Increases: British Pensioners in Canada
2.55 p.m.
Earl Temple of Stowe Earl Temple of Stowe asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have any plans to ensure that British pensioners living in Canada are entitled to receive pensions in parity with those living in Britain.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, we have no plans to pay pension increases in Canada. This issue was debated in the House at great length during consideration of the Pensions Bill. Amendments on this subject were defeated by large majorities on 20th February (Hansard, cols. 966 to 983) and on 14th March (Hansard, cols. 300 to 807).
Earl Temple of Stowe: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. But is he aware that there are British pensioners living, for example, in British Columbia, many of whom are now in their 80s with a distinguished war service behind them, whose cases we may find particularly poignant at this time of national celebration? They have moved in order to be close to their families, and their pensions have been frozen at 22 dollars per week, while only a few miles away in the USA British pensioners receive 128 dollars per week. Does the Minister agree that that is a great anomaly and injustice, in particular in view of the fact that at one juncture the Canadian Government even offered to pay at least some of the cost? I believe that we should remember—
Noble Lords: Order, order. Question!
Earl Temple of Stowe: My Lords, does the Minister remember that these pensions have already been paid for in full and that the then Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance gave a written assurance in 1956 that that entitlement to benefit would not be affected should the pensioner retire to Canada or the United States? It is not, therefore, I suggest—
Noble Lords: Reading!
The Lord Privy Seal (Viscount Cranborne): My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the noble Earl. As I am sure he knows, it is the custom of this House to try to keep questions reasonably brief. I hope that he will be able to bring his question to an end.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I refer the noble Earl to the extensive debates on the Pensions Bill. He will find the answers to many of his questions in those debates. Everyone who emigrated to Canada did so knowing what would happen to their pensions as a result. It has been a condition of the ordinary pension scheme ever since it was invented and put in place. No government have ever seen fit to change it. We are always ready to listen to what the Government of Canada may have to say, but they have yet to make proposals which have any chance of making progress.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the same situation applies throughout the Commonwealth and that it is reciprocal? I am not entitled to claim an Australian pension here, even though I remain Australian.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, yes, a number of other Commonwealth countries contain a substantial number of British pensioners who do not receive the full pension. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are among them.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, will the Minister accept that that does not make it right and that the injustice remains? People in Commonwealth countries are treated less well than pensioners in non-Commonwealth countries. The Minister should remember that 33 other countries have changed the system and have agreed to the reciprocal social security arrangement which allows the payment of pensions. Is he aware that people are asking only that the injustice should be righted and that the same kind of agreement should be reached with the Commonwealth countries?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, this is not an injustice but a term of the scheme which has been there and known to anyone who emigrated. What the noble Lord proposes is an improvement to the scheme. That will be considered along with all other possible improvements to social security and all other possible additions to government expenditure. At the moment the improvement does not rank high enough for our immediate consideration.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, does my noble friend accept that ever since the pension scheme began in the late 1940s, today's workers have paid for today's pensioners and that therefore it would be quite wrong for them to be expected to pay for people who choose to live elsewhere other than in this country?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I am not sure that I entirely share my noble friend's argument. Indeed, we pay substantial sums to pensioners who live overseas. It is clearly true that pensioners who live overseas do not pay British taxes and are therefore not contributing towards the payments to pensioners in this country, and in many cases they have not done so for many years. I would not
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say that it was unjustified to pay pensions to people who live overseas, but merely that it is an improvement and not an injustice.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, does the noble Lord accept that, even though an injustice has been going on for a long time and people have emigrated despite the fact that the injustice was there, it still remains an injustice? I have never heard any real argument from the Government except that to change this is expensive. Is the Minister aware that the Conservative Party is trying to rally ex-pats to vote for it at the next general election and that it will need those votes badly? Does he not think that perhaps a little bribe might help?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, we have no intention of indulging in bribery. As I said before, this is not an injustice. What the noble Lord is asking for is an improvement to a perfectly fair scheme.
Lord Airedale: My Lords, is it taken on board that the National Health Service is relieved of the expense of having to look after these pensioners in their old age?
Lord Lucas: And the Treasury, my Lords, is relieved of the benefit of their taxes.

Newbury Bypass
3.2 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked Her Majesty's Government:
When they propose to authorise the construction of the Newbury bypass.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (Viscount Goschen): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport has asked the Highways Agency to look again at the plans for the bypass and to explore other options. He will consider the way forward when he has received further advice from the agency.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that his Answer seemed to lack any necessary sense of urgency for a matter which has been under consideration for years, and in relation to which it has been accepted that there will have to be a bypass if we are to deal with the appalling traffic congestion in this area? Can he give some indication that the Government realise the seriousness and importance of this matter and how unjustified is the delay that they are imposing on it?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I understand my noble friend's concern about traffic congestion in this area. The Government take this issue extremely seriously, which is why my right honourable friend ordered this further review; we want to be absolutely sure that we have the right solution to this difficult problem.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that he might well use another adverb besides "seriously"? An even more appropriate adverb is "urgently".
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, we are looking at this matter urgently.
Lord Roskill: My Lords, are the Minister and the Secretary of State aware of the amount of land which was set aside for the bypass on the proposed route, including a cottage belonging to the Mary Hare School for Deaf Children, which is now idle? Are they further aware that enormous losses and inconvenience are being caused to everybody who lives in that area? While I am on my feet, would the Minister care to convey to the Secretary of State an invitation to lunch or dinner on any weekend day between now and the end of September, starting next Sunday, which is the first Sunday at Newbury Races, when those of us who live in that area are expecting the entire area to be gridlocked? If he comes, I hope that he will come openly and not secretly, as he did last time. I ask him also to let it be known that he is coming and to come via the A.34 and exit 13 from the M.4. We shall undertake to keep his lunch or dinner hot in the oven for at least two hours.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, we fully understand the inconvenience caused by any delay to any traffic scheme. I underline the importance in this particular situation of getting the right solution. I shall pass on the noble and learned Lord's kind invitation to my right honourable friend.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that this route is part of Euro-Route E05, which gives some indication of how busy this road must be, and that it will become busier and busier? I take up the point raised by the noble and learned Lord as regards blight. I have a sheaf of material here, and a great deal more, about the secret visit of the Minister, Dr. Mawhinney, to see what the area is like. The situation is a terrible inconvenience to people. Not only is land now sterilised for no one knows how long, but the whole area must be waiting with some sense of urgency, which is the word used earlier by another noble Lord. The word "urgency" should be used instead of "thoroughness". Urgency is absolutely vital in this case.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I believe that both urgency and thoroughness are important. It is important to get the right route. Once the route has been chosen and the road has been built, we cannot un-build it very easily. It is desperately important that we get the right route, which is why the Secretary of State ordered a further review. He will make a decision as soon as possible after receiving further advice from the Highways Agency.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, can my noble friend indicate when a decision is likely to be made? Is he aware that for years it has been accepted that there should be a bypass there? The Government, having acted to hold up the matter, are surely bound to indicate when they will come to a decision.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, my right honourable friend has already indicated that he expects to be able to make an announcement in time for the publication of the road scheme starts for 1996–97, which will be later this year.
The Earl of Strafford: My Lords, is the Minister aware that there is now a very fine dual carriageway or motorway route all the way from Southampton to the Midlands and the rest of the country, which, as I am sure
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the Minister is aware, is a very important commercial route? Does he agree that it is slightly wimpish now, at this late stage, not to go ahead with the Newbury bypass?
Viscount Goschen: No, my Lords, I do not believe that it is wimpish at all. It is proper government to make sure that we have absolutely the right solution. It is an important route and we acknowledge that. There are also severe congestion problems, which we also acknowledge. We want to make sure that we have the right solution.
Lord Annan: My Lords, does the noble Viscount admit that there has been inquiry after inquiry into this route? If the Minister cannot make up his mind now, is there any likelihood that he will be able to do so in the future?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I have made it very clear that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State sees this as a matter of urgency.

Marine Nature Reserves
3.8 p.m.
Baroness Nicol Baroness Nicol rose to call attention to the importance of marine nature reserves; and to move for Papers.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, before I begin my speech perhaps I should declare an interest, although not a pecuniary one, in that I am a vice-president of the Marine Conservation Society.
The purpose of this debate is to explore the Government's intentions on marine protection, particularly those sites which have been identified for designation as marine nature reserves. Some of your Lordships may have noticed that in the past 10 years or so I have asked a large number of Questions about the progress on the designation of marine nature reserves, and I have received a wide variety of Answers from at least eight different Ministers. It seems to me that the medium of an oral Question was not very satisfactory and that is the reason for this debate.
During the passage in 1981 of the Wildlife and Countryside Bill, which is now an Act, the Government accepted that certain valuable marine sites needed special protection. Seven sites were identified in Great Britain at that time and one in Northern Ireland was added later. But so far only two of those sites have been declared. They are Lundy (in 1986) and Skomer (in 1990). Voluntary agreements exist in two others; namely, St. Abbs and the Isles of Scilly. I shall turn to the subject of voluntary reserves at some length a little later.
Negotiations are in hand on a number of other sites on the list, but progress seems painfully slow. For example, consultations on designation of the Menai Strait were initiated in 1988. Although at that time 80 per cent. of respondents favoured proceeding with the exercise, the Welsh Office would not make a decision. In January 1993, a second consultation was started and the result was submitted to the Welsh Office in March 1994. Nothing has happened since then, except a promise that a decision would be made by the end of March 1995. We have reached May 1995 and that promise has not been kept.
The main problem has been that, unusually, the Government seem to require 100 per cent. agreement from all those affected by the proposals before proceeding with the designation of a marine nature reserve. The reason why marine protection requires that approach is still not clear, but it has been a persistent thread in all the parliamentary Answers until Question Time on the 2nd of this month when the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, said:
"When the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 was passing through another place, undertakings were given that marine nature reserves would be designated only after important differences of opinion had been resolved. However, that does not mean that everyone must agree with the proposal".
Noble Lords can no doubt imagine that that response gave some hope. If that truly indicates a change of approach, then we may at last make some progress. In the same Answer the Minister said:
"I believe that in due course all marine nature reserves will be designated as special areas of conservation under the Habitats Directive".—[Official Report, 2/5/95; col. 1323.]
I hope that that does not indicate that the Government intend to delay action on marine nature reserves until the introduction of special areas of conservation—which I shall call SACs from now on for the sake of brevity. SACs do not become operative until the year 2004. We cannot afford another nine years of inaction on those sites. In any case, Menai—which is the one that we hope is nearest to conclusion—has not been included in the list of SACs so, in any case, it would require special treatment.
SACs provisions must be additional to and not instead of the requirements of marine nature reserves. Those reserves are sites of high value for educational purposes and for the research essential to the maintenance of marine biodiversity. They need special arrangements, and they need them soon. Evidence of deterioration is readily available, but I am afraid that I do not have time to go into such details today.
I turn now to voluntary reserves, which government seem to consider an adequate substitute for statutory protection. Voluntary arrangements can work well. They develop local community involvement and are useful for educational purposes; but they are vulnerable. Often the driving force is provided by one or two individuals. The departure of those individuals, for whatever reason, weakens the initiative and the whole project can run out of steam. They are also vulnerable to the operations of some commercial operators who are not impressed by anything less than a statutory restriction.
Most of all, voluntary reserves are vulnerable to financial difficulties. They have no guaranteed finance and when, as now, finances are generally tight, they suffer. For example, I understand that the voluntary reserve at St. Abbs has resorted to a three-month contract for wardening. Wardens are essential for many reasons, not least in developing public understanding of reserve purposes. There is concern on other reserves that the St. Abbs "solution" may be attractive to other voluntary reserves in financial difficulties and would lead to a deterioration in the level of effectiveness of those reserves.
In the past, English Nature has helped to finance projects on voluntary reserves, but this year it has decided to concentrate its resources on those areas where it has statutory obligations. Therefore, that source of funds for voluntary reserves has dried up. I understand why English Nature is in that state; it, too, is short of money. However, the effect on voluntary reserves could be quite disastrous. It is at least arguable that starting those projects and allowing them to fail is worse than not starting them at all. Local people become discouraged and disillusioned, and it does not encourage people in other areas who may have been contemplating voluntary arrangements in the future in the hope of some support from English Nature. Voluntary reserves are a peculiarly British phenomenon. Most other countries prefer statutory protection for their important sites. The only exception that I have been able to discover is in the Philippines.
There is not time to discuss in detail our international obligations; but with our long coastline and our favourable climate we inevitably have a large number of sites of international importance, and we are signatories to a number of conventions and agreements to protect those sites. We also have obligations within the European Union, notably under the habitat and species directive.
We are committed under the agreement signed at Rio in 1992, the so-called, "Earth Summit", to develop plans and strategies for sustainable development. At this point I should like to compliment the Government on the speed with which they have produced strategies in support of the agreement reached at Rio. Those strategies have been generally welcomed. One of them relates to the maintenance of biodiversity in the United Kingdom in which the health of the marine environment is a significant element.
Marine nature reserves offer protection to some unique and valuable areas which need special treatment if they are to survive. I urge the Government to take that responsibility more seriously and to press on with that important programme. I should like to think that this is the last time that I have to raise the subject in your Lordships' House. I beg to move for Papers.
3.17 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I should like to congratulate, and thank, the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, on introducing this subject, having been successful in the ballot. To my knowledge, the noble Baroness certainly has tabled many Questions on the subject over recent months and years. Therefore, there is quite a background to today's debate formed by the Answers received.
Of marine nature reserves, only two have so far been designated during a period of 14 years. It seems that agreement must first be reached among all users of the sea area concerned and that it is not easy to reach that agreement. For example, to my knowledge, fishermen have been worried that the formation of a reserve would interrupt and curtail their normal activities. I believe that they are wrong in most cases; but, nonetheless, they are worried. Those engaged in the recreation of sailing have also lodged objections because they thought that that recreation would be spoiled or even brought to an end in certain areas.

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Marine nature reserves have proved difficult to establish. I understand that their special purpose is to protect limited, defined areas of sea where species of marine life can flourish without interference from the effects of the presence of the human species or from pollution. I believe that they must be within our territorial waters at 12 miles. However, I am not sure about that fact and would be most grateful if my noble friend the Minister could confirm that in his reply. I believe that their designation and establishment should be encouraged in appropriate places. I look forward to hearing the Government's views on the matter at the end of the debate.
MNRs can contribute to scientific knowledge and studies of natural history because they preserve what would be the normal mix of species, their life cycles and the interrelated food chains when protected from man-made interference. What can be done about other parts of Britain's exclusive economic zone that go beyond the territorial sea, where conservation measures can help the environment but where routine human activities such as shipping cargoes and dredging must continue? Let us consider steps that can be taken beyond the special places where MNRs could be developed.
Around the coast of England I note that English Nature has identified 27 marine areas suitable for conservation measures. I remind your Lordships that Scotland, with the Scottish Islands, has about half the coastline of Britain. The Department of the Environment of course is responsible for England and the Scottish Office for Scotland and for those many miles of coastline.
I suggest that the Government and conservation bodies could concentrate also on the other concept which the noble Baroness mentioned; namely, marine special areas of conservation (SACs). They can be on land and also at sea. This will tie in with the requirements of the EU Habitats Directive to designate such areas by June 1998 and for formal designation to be completed by 2004. I see no reason why they could not be created earlier. If they are to come into existence, let us press ahead. I do not think that we need be tied by those dates, which seem a long way ahead, as the noble Baroness indicated.
Those involved will not only be the nature conservation agencies but also local authorities, harbour authorities and their equivalents. I understand that the Department of the Environment has already set up a Coastal Forum for England. I presume that the Government are aiming to promote good coastal management, with guidelines and persuasion. Is similar action being taken by the Scottish Office, Welsh Office and Northern Ireland Office for the parts of the United Kingdom for which they are responsible?
I understand that sites are already being proposed for SACs, including 15 in Scotland. All users of the seas for legitimate purposes should be able to work together. There have been encouraging experiences in Scotland. For example, in the Inner Moray Firth, near my home, there has for some years been a happy school of bottlenosed dolphins. They have not been disturbed by the presence of the Beatrice oilfield, only 13 miles from shore, which has been producing oil for the past 10 years or so. Of course great care was taken to avoid any disturbance or pollution of the natural environment and that was successful. The dolphins have added to the
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tourist attractions of the area. What is causing most concern now are the many enthusiastic sightseers and well wishers in motor boats who are traversing the dolphins' playground in the Firth.
There are also several drilling rigs close to this area. I usually count 10 or 12 of them at a time. They are there for maintenance but they do not disturb the wildlife. Even the noise of the maintenance, which can be loud, does not appear to affect the dolphins or the birds. Care is taken by the offshore oil industry and also by local shipping in the Firth. Nearby there is a bird sanctuary on the Black Isle near Cromarty where only a year ago I was asked to perform the formal opening of a hide on behalf of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
In the Minch, in the sea of the Hebrides, exploration for oil and gas took place over a period of about three years, starting about six years ago. Of course the greatest care had to be taken, and was taken, in that area. For example, birds might well have been badly affected by the work. I remind your Lordships that the adult guillemots who were resident in that area have to spend at least two months of the year swimming because they are unable to fly during that period. A great deal of trouble was taken over the work and the only disappointment was that no oil or gas was found. Those most disappointed were the islanders of Barra and other parts of the Hebrides.
I wish now to discuss a subject which is attracting attention at the moment, and that is the disposal of platforms used in offshore oil and gas production. I am not referring to rigs but to platforms, although of course the word "rig" is used by the media as a short headline word. Rigs are small mobile structures which can be moved around. It is the permanent structures which are floated out to sea and then are stationary for a period of 12 to 40 years in an oilfield which cause problems when they are no longer needed. The basic legislation on this matter passed through Parliament a few years ago, as some of us will remember. That legislation was in tune with IMO guidelines on this subject. The principle was that each redundant structure should be considered as a separate case.
In shallow water it seems likely that total removal of a platform is the solution. But in deep water of more than 400 feet in the middle of the North Sea, halfway between the United Kingdom and Norway, that may not be necessary. However, these matters must be worked out at the time with the fishing industry in particular but also with other interests. When the relevant legislation was passing through your Lordships' House a few years ago I was in touch with the leaders of the fishermen's organisations. They agreed that there were no fishing problems in some deep water where the seabed was not normally trawled and no one could remember trawling it for demersal fish. However, circumstances can change. Personally, I favour a case by case consideration of this matter, as is the purpose of the legislation which is already on the statute book.
It has been pointed out that wrecks and stumps of platforms encourage fish to congregate and to multiply. However, I must point out also that they cause obstruction and difficulties for the operation of normal fishing methods for trawling the bottom of the sea. I have raised this subject because of the suggestion that wrecks and

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stumps of platforms can be helpful in encouraging colonies of fish. That may be the case sometimes but in other cases they may simply be obstructions in the path of normal fishing methods on fishing grounds. I was encouraged to raise this subject because I was a Member of the Cabinet who was much involved in 1970 to 1973 when the oil in the North Sea was being discovered and when there was no Department of Energy. I have also been chairman of an international organisation which seeks to prevent pollution and to protect the sea. I have added that to my speech knowing that at least one of the speakers has retired from this debate.
3.28 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I find myself in somewhat of a difficulty speaking after the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, who knows much more about the subject than I and whose research is always thorough. I congratulate the noble Baroness on raising her favourite subject; she is right to do so. Indeed we are right to try to protect as many special areas as possible throughout the countryside and on the coastline. It is important to do that. However, I must say that I cannot entirely agree with her when she objects to the consultations which I think are necessary to protect the human inhabitants who have been there for quite a long time and whose interests must be considered.
There are only two official schemes in the whole of the country at present. I was in touch with Bob Allan, who is secretary of the fishermen's association. I asked him about the proposed scheme for Loch Sween. The fishermen there were desperately worried. They fought the scheme as hard as they could. They were successful in delaying it. They have a strong case in that Loch Sween itself is important to them. Therefore, they will always object.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, I should like to widen the issue. We are in terrible trouble on the seas due to over-fishing resulting from our tremendous technical ability to catch fish. Thirty years ago when I was Member for Caithness and Sutherland one of my supporters and a great friend was a chap called Jock Mowat in John o'Groats. He was a part-time lobster and crab fisherman who put out his pots. Suddenly a seine netter would descend on the area from the Orkneys and lay 200 pots. That would remove most of the lobsters, and his income would drop. Yet at that time he defended the right of everyone to the sea. He said that the sea is for everyone. I suggested that stretches of the coast should be licensed and rented to a particular person.
We have come to that now and quotas have to be established. We have to husband the lobsters, crabs and wildlife. We have reached the stage where fishing for sand eels and Danish industrial fishing is threatening the food chain of both birds and fish. Generations of people have dug for cockles with a spade. Now that they have started using the steam shovel they are beginning to destroy the life cycle of the cockles, and that affects birds.
When considering prohibitions and the harm that has been caused by certain human activities which are important to the people who earn a living from them, we
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ought to consider other ways of preventing the harm caused while allowing people to continue their activities. I can give some examples.
Many years ago, as a strawberry grower, I found that there were new pesticides, weedkillers and so on which would enable us to grow strawberries without digging them up for seven or eight years, which was a considerable saving. However, the strawberries became rather small and I ploughed up the field. I went to watch the ploughing. (Those were the happy days when a farmer could go about with a stick; nowadays I would be on the tractor myself.) I thought that there was something wrong: it was the absence of any gulls behind the plough. We had applied so many pesticides that the worms had been driven down and there were no earthworms there. That terrified me and I modified the way we proceeded. Never again did we find that we were harming the structure and the biological content of the soil. My point is that it was possible to use modern aids to grow good strawberries without going over the top. That is true in a great many cases.
Salmon farming is important in Scotland, but salmon farming can pollute the sea and be very harmful. Salmon farmers are doing extremely well. The site is important; there has to be a strong current running through it. The farmers have learnt that one does not need to pour in antibiotics. A large company has told me that it used to spend £| million on antibiotics but with new procedures it is now spending only a few thousand pounds a year.
That is the area where government bodies should be undertaking research so that we can ally human needs to the needs of nature. That is enormously important. I argue simply that all the measures that we necessarily take to protect nature should be allied to research, and decisions should be taken on the basis of scientific evidence and study.
3.35 p.m.
Lord Chorley: My Lords, marine nature reserves may seem a rather esoteric subject for debate, but they are nonetheless important and I thank the noble Baroness for giving us this opportunity to discuss the subject. I congratulate her not only on the thoroughly comprehensive way in which she introduced the subject but also on doing so in nine minutes. That is a lesson to us all.
I begin with a rhetorical question, which echoes the remarks of the noble Baroness. Why is it that we are so backward in achieving effective protection for marine nature in the UK? I find that all the more puzzling because we have undoubtedly the finest, most diverse and richest coastline in Europe. We pride ourselves on being an island nation. We live at the end of the Gulf Stream, which gives us an enormously rich marine environment. We have cliffs, we have estuaries, we have our wonderful Scottish lochs and we have over 6,000 miles of coastline. Yet we have managed to achieve only two marine nature reserves in 14 years, as has been said by every speaker so far.
In contrast, on the land we have a variety of forms of protection. We have 6,156 SSSIs and no fewer than 298 national nature reserves. We also have a system of

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designation. Why then are we so backward in relation to marine nature reserves? Does the answer lie in the wider issue of coastal zone management?
Three years ago the Environment Committee in another place produced a most useful and thorough report on this topic. Among other things it identified that there are no fewer than 240 government departments, local authorities and public agencies, both at national and local level, capable of having some interest or responsibility in the coastal zone. That is without counting NGOs, commerce, industry and so forth. No wonder we have a problem.
The committee had some fairly strong things to say. I shall not go into the details of those remarks, but shall confine myself to two of their conclusions. The committee stated:
"We are disappointed that there has been no progress with protecting marine conservation areas since our recommendation on this issue seven years ago. We recommend that when the Government reviews marine conservation legislation it explore approaches other than those of Marine Nature Reserves and Marine Consultation Areas"—
I note that the marine consultation area idea was not pursued, so far as I am aware—
"which have so far proved to be unsatisfactory and unworkable.
"We are concerned that the conservation of areas below the low water mark are hampered by the inability of landward designations to straddle the land-sea divide. This problem is ultimately linked to the wider issue of planning regimes in the coastal zone, which we dealt with in previous recommendations. We recommend that in its review of marine conservation legislation, the Government address the issue of how to link conservation of land and sea areas, how to protect sites of marine conservation importance, and consider as an option extending SSSI type mechanisms below the low water mark".
Rather defensively in reply, the Government acknowledged that,
"the progress in designating MNRs since the legislation came into force has not been satisfactory".
You can say that again, my Lords.
"The principal reason for this has been the difficulty of obtaining agreement from all interested parties, before designations are made, and ensuring that conservation objectives can effectively be secured using the powers and jurisdictions that are legitimately operated by other bodies".
The report continues; but I must move on.
That was in July 1992, three years ago. Since then little has happened. As has been stated, we still have only two MNRs. There has, it is true, been a meeting of the Coastal Forum—it was referred to by a previous speaker—I think last December, but I am not sure that it achieved a great deal; it was perhaps too large. Certainly the meeting brought together the interested parties; and that is to be welcomed. But talk is no substitute for firm commitment, let alone action.
My interest in the issue is in my capacity as chairman of the National Trust which now protects nearly 600 miles of coastline in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It so happens that the UK's only two MNRs are around the two islands to which the noble Baroness referred, Lundy and Skomer, both of which are in our ownership. We have many other properties where it would strengthen our hand if they were MNRs. First, there are two sites which have been proposed: the Menai Strait, to which the noble Baroness referred where we have extensive landholdings, and Strangford Lough where we own or lease a very high
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proportion of the shoreline of that wonderful and important lough, and most of its bed. We have lobbied strenuously to see both designated, so far without success.
Let me mention three other cases of sites where we should like to see designation. First, there are the Farne Islands with their high quality submarine communities, large seabird colonies, and major grey seal colony. Then there are some of our estuaries in the South West, for example Salcombe and Kingsbridge. Estuaries are perhaps a special responsibility of the UK because something like 28 per cent. of Europe's estuaries occur in our island. Thirdly, in default of statutory designations, a number of voluntary arrangements have grown up, for example in Purbeck and Wembury. But voluntary arrangements such as these should be seen only as an interim solution. We need long-term proper statutory protection.
The trust has four concerns regarding the process of designating MNRs. First, there is the considerable workload imposed on the statutory agencies in developing proposals. As the noble Baroness said, they, too, are short of money. Secondly, there is the very long timescale involved, including the lengthy and extensive consultations. They make building a new read—even the Newbury bypass—seem child's play in comparison. Thirdly, there is the apparent requirement of the Secretary of State—it has been mentioned by all speakers—to achieve a unanimity of all interest groups regarding a proposal. Fourthly, there is the ability of special interest groups to delay, apparently indefinitely, the implementation of proposals.
With only two MNRs achieved in 14 years, it must surely be apparent that the legislation is simply not working. That being the case, are there alternative mechanisms? Is a better starting point a proper system of coastal zone management which dealt with, in a co-ordinated fashion, the use of sea areas adjacent to the coast? That is what the Select Committee argued and it is what both the National Trust, the Marine Conservation Society and others have lobbied for.
I understand that some progress has been made in that direction at a local level. But these CZM plans are only local plans. They need to be co-ordinated. There needs to be consistency between plans. There is a need for policy guidance, as with the land-based PPGs. Nor is there any authority to implement them; and plans are: no substitute for management. Nor is there any overall strategy, nor an overall framework.
Those CZM initiatives have undoubtedly been useful. But one would have been much more enthusiastic about them if they could be seen to be part of a process which paved the way for, and speeded up, the process of achieving MNRs. However, unless the Minister is going to give us some specific and concrete news this afternoon, I am bound to say that I remain rather sceptical about the possibility of future progress.
It seems to me, bearing in mind the large number of interested parties to which I referred in my opening remarks, that no progress is likely if unanimity is required. Except in a few cases, it is just not conceivable. What is needed are arrangements similar to those that operate on the land—a planning system, a planning process and planning powers. That, I suppose,

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means legislation—not an attractive proposition. I hope, therefore, that my analysis is wrong. But I suspect that it may be right; and, therefore, I am afraid that I end on a rather pessimistic note.
3.45 p.m.
Baroness White: My Lords, those taking part in this debate know that our discussion today is in effect a continuation of the interchange between my noble friend Lady Nicol and the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, on Tuesday, 2nd May—an interchange in which several other noble Lords took part. The date is important because in the intervening two weeks matters have become more complex, at least in Wales.
Out of concern for the noble Viscount, I shall not stress the local government elections on 4th May, except to note that the result in the Principality of the reorganisation of all our local authorities leaves us with uncertainty in every direction among elected members, especially those with no previous experience, and among staff, many of whom are not sure whether they are coming or going.
Closely germane to our debate today is Saturday, 6th May. When the whole country was concerned with VE Day commemorations and most offices were closed, this was the morning that the Secretary of State for Wales chose, with an almost unbelievable lack of sensitivity, to launch his new proposals for the Countryside Council for Wales. CCW is, of course, the body in the Principality which is directly concerned with marine nature reserves, in particular with the Menai Strait, an area which has been considerably discussed already this afternoon. In his press release on 6th May, the Secretary of State emphasised the desirability of local authorities taking over certain work now in the hands of CCW, even if some statutory responsibility remained with the Countryside Council—hence my reference to 4th May as well as 6th May.
This is not the time to consider the almost universal dismay aroused among the main conservation bodies by the Secretary of State's treatment of CCW. That must be for another occasion. Today our concern must be with the seemingly endless delays—they have been referred to by every speaker—in reaching firm conclusions about the Menai Strait, the most important potential MNR, which has been under active discussion for so many years, as my noble friend Lady Nicol reminded us, beginning in 1982 and being formally proposed in 1988. A second formal public consultation started in January 1993. According to my information, 83 per cent. of those responding were in favour of the MNR. A submission was then sent to the Welsh Office on 21st March 1994. This has been formally acknowledged.
There the matter seems to rest, with innumerable proposals being suggested, as by the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, from the Government Front Bench on 2nd May when he referred to a draft order subject to a non-statutory inquiry—whatever that may mean.
By far the best description of possibilities and improvements which would result from marine nature reserve status was published by the Countryside Council for Wales. It pointed out that already there was a large number of coastal protected areas on the straits, far more
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than I had recognised. They were under a variety of regulations or consents and the bodies might have limited powers. Nevertheless, there would be major advantages, including those for research and education, if a formal marine nature reserve were in place.
I refer in particular to the revised consultative document which was widely distributed in 1992 and which I have here. It is worth examining the document entitled Menai Strait Proposed Marine Nature Reserve—Revised Consultative Document. It goes into considerable and valuable detail and points out:
"The Menai Strait, being a microcosm for much of the N. Wales coast, is uniquely suited for such study, under the controlled conditions that would be provided by a marine reserve.
If it can be shown that an activity is producing undesirable effects, such as threatening the survival of a species in a particular area, or causing harm to public amenity and enjoyment, then there is reason to bring in controls. However, it is anticipated that, for the most part, no active intervention by the Countryside Council for Wales will be called for. This is because of the ability of the Strait to assimilate the pressures placed on it, due to the durability of some of the habitats and communities".
The area has been occupied by human beings for the past 2,000 years, so it has not been a desert. The document continues:
"the over-riding objectives will be to provide for long-term studies of the marine environment, and for education and interpretation".
I was glad to read that because I know that there are some anxieties in the University of Bangor, to which is attached a well-known marine college. People there are concerned that it might be more difficult for their students. However, if they had read the document, they would agree that, if the Countryside Council for Wales were allowed to be in charge of matters, they would be well catered for.
The document continues:
"A marine nature reserve will allow certain forms of study, under controlled conditions, which could not be provided by other means. Besides having value in its own right, the research will complement work being done at Skomer Marine Nature Reserve, and at other marine centres in Britain and Europe".
Nevertheless, there are undoubtedly still apprehensions—or misapprehensions, according to one's point of view. As has already been mentioned by previous speakers, there are some situations where other public authorities, such as those concerned with fisheries or the NRA, have legal obligations. I am told that commercial interests would be likely to benefit from a marine nature reserve, which would ensure that the health and amenities of the Menai Strait would be sustained.
So one can go on. But the challenge is there. I am sure that my noble friend Lady Nicol is right to pursue the matter. A satisfactory solution can and must be found. Simply to indulge in delays shows a lack of statesmanship which as a good Welshwoman I strongly deplore.
3.54 p.m.
The Earl of Clanwilliam: My Lords, I am delighted to support the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, in her demand to speed up action on marine nature reserves. The noble Baroness is always at the forefront of all matters to do with conservation and is to be congratulated on the debate.

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As has been remarked, especially by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, the problem is of delay and prevarication, with 240 different views as to which sites should be selected. We had a Starred Question today on the Newbury bypass and the thought occurs to me that what was said clearly demonstrates that there is no right answer to the problem of the bypass. All that is needed is for someone to take a decision and do something about it. Much the same applies to MNRs, as I wish to put to my noble friend, with due deference.
I have only one point to make in supporting the initiation of MNRs. It is that they should be strategically sited to incorporate research into the problems of disease in fish farming. That is a pressing problem in the face of the loss of fish stocks in the open ocean, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie. Incidentally, I am glad to welcome him to the world of organic farming as a result of his discovery of the importance of the humble worm. Long may it continue! The problem is pressing in the face of the loss of fish stocks in the open ocean and in such relatively closed sea areas as the North Sea. I know that MAFF has initiated major research in the area and I ask the Minister whether there is an opportunity here to combine the interests of both great departments of state, In that way, perhaps progress may be speeded up.
The concept of MNRs is, I believe, Commission-inspired. Like all its inspirations, the concept can readily be improved by the application of common sense and subsidiarity. I venture to suggest that an opportunity presents itself in this case.
In fish farming the Norwegians are far advanced, with the great opportunity presented by their deep water and extensive fjords. A great opportunity occurs for us with the deep water lochs in large areas off the west coast of Scotland. The Norwegians are leading the way in preparing for the day when rapacious and greedy fishermen have finally eliminated the only resource that supports their lifestyle. The view that that day may be closer than we imagine is illustrated by the ferocity of the competition for fishing grounds around the world and by universal recognition in the councils of the free world that fish stocks are not the unlimited resource that we all once thought they were.
We already have a thriving fish farming industry, largely directed towards the more expensive species—or at least those with a large mark-up in the retail sale price. But historically fish has been a reliable and essentially cheap source of food which has disappeared from the shops as the fish caught on each country's continental shelf become ever more scarce. Indeed, I am advised, in shopping expeditions with my wife, that meat is now cheaper than fish. We need to think in terms of many hundreds of thousands of tonnes of food from fish which will probably require research into the farming of species not usually available in the UK. I ask my noble friend again whether there is an opportunity here which we should not lose, especially in terms of co-operation between the two departments.
The noble Baroness mentioned the particular instance of the Menai Strait and the report thereon. That report highlights, in its introduction to Chapter 2, the advantages and opportunities presented by MNRs to promote research. That is the basis of my submission—that the
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promotion of MNRs can best be enhanced by the establishment of an MNR with a fish-related disease research programme in conjunction with MAFF and other commercial interests. If nothing else, I hope that my words may serve to flag up this important issue.
4 p.m.
Lord Moran: My Lords, we must all be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, for giving us an opportunity to debate this important matter. The noble Baroness is one of the most notable environmentalists in this House. The Government would be well-advised to pay very close attention to her remarks on these matters.
It is, I think, obvious to everyone that the present arrangements for protecting important sites for national marine conservation in United Kingdom waters do not work. Two marine nature reserves in 14 years is a dismal record. If I live to be 100, I can at this rate hope to see another four MNRs created. Yet marine surveys of the past 20 years have identified several hundred sites of marine conservation importance. The degree of protection afforded to the existing MNRs by present legislation is also inadequate. And the procedure does not work. The remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady White, about the Menai Strait illustrate that point very clearly. To have held two consultations, discussions over 12 years, to have more than 90 per cent, support from the consultees, to have the proposals sent to the Welsh Office and then have them wait there for a year with only an acknowledgment is hardly a glittering record.
Moreover, reliance on voluntary conservation measures is not adequate for the problems we face. Special areas of conservation to be created under the habitats and species directive are certainly welcome. But they will apply only to sites of European importance; and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, pointed out, they will not come into force for another nine years. Apart from the two MNRs about which we know, there is no statutory protection for marine areas of national, regional or local importance, compared, as my noble friend Lord Chorley pointed out, with the large number of national nature reserves on land. Wildlife and Countryside Link, of which I have the honour to be chairman, has a marine group under the chairmanship of Dr. Susan Gubbay, including organisations such as the National Trust, the RSPB, the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Marine Conservation Society and others, which has done a lot of work on this subject. The Government would do well to pay attention to the suggestions of experts in that group.
I have a positive proposal for solving this problem. As noble Lords know, there is a crisis of over-fishing all over the world. The FAO reports that 15 major fishing grounds in the world are at or beyond their limits. In our own waters, cod and haddock stocks have crashed. I heard only yesterday on the BBC a report that at Arbroath, the home of the "Arbroath smokie"—which is a smoked haddock— there are no more haddock offshore. Although the Arbroath fishermen have stopped fishing for haddock for some considerable time, when they have gone out to look for them, they have found no sign of the stocks regenerating. That is very sad. The whole situation is extremely serious. It is well summarised in an article by David Fleming in the current issue of Country Life.

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I was a member of your Lordships' Agriculture Sub-Committee which held a full review of the common fisheries policy in 1992. We investigated all the technical conservation measures: mesh sizes; square mesh panels; the one-net rule. But the great difficulty seemed unquestionably to be enforcement. Our own fishermen are not guiltless. What are called "black fish" are landed illegally at points on the Scottish coast. And we all know that Spanish fishermen have recently disregarded the rules in many parts of the world. Having served on that sub-committee, I was left with the conviction that there is only one way in which fish stocks can be preserved in our waters, and indeed in all waters; namely, by the creation of no-go areas in which fish can spawn and grow up undisturbed.
In this area there has been some progress. We have the Norway pout box off north-eastern Scotland and the Shetland box. But those only restrict fishing. My proposal is that the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, whose skilful guidance of the Environment Bill through this House we all admired, should talk to his colleagues, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and Mr. Waldegrave, and persuade them to propose in the European Community, and more specifically at the fourth North Sea ministerial conference which will begin on 8th June next in Denmark, substantial conservation boxes to conserve vanishing fish species and to meet nature conservation needs. That is in accordance with the evidence that the Joint Nature Conservation Committee gave to our sub-committee in 1992. I believe that it is the right answer.
It is essential that in such conservation boxes there should be a complete prohibition on fishing. It is very much easier to enforce an area in which there is no fishing at all. There should be no dredging for aggregates and no dumping, but of course there should be free passage for ships and yachts, which is no problem. This method has been tried out in New Zealand with notable success. What is interesting is that it is now enthusiastically welcomed there by commercial fishermen, who realise from the results that this method enables fish stocks to regenerate, which is of course in their interests. Fishermen in New Zealand now want more boxes. I am not altogether surprised that the New Scientist should say that New Zealand is 10 years ahead of the United Kingdom on this matter. It is also interesting that the Dutch propose for the North Sea conference two major reserves in their sector of the North Sea.
Therefore I very much hope that we can put forward proposals along those lines. At Lowestoft we have excellent fisheries scientists who can advise on where the key areas for fish are. There are indeed maps of these areas in our 1992 report (pages 153–155). They were provided by the UK Association of Frozen Food Producers, but we should obviously rely on the Lowestoft experts to tell us where they are. The JNCC, under the notable leadership of the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, can advise on the nature conservation aspects, so that both can be put into the requirements. We should very quickly be able to determine what the areas should be. We should press very strongly for something to be done quickly along those lines. It should be done this year. If we did that, we should transform what has been a dismal record
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of failure into something that really would work and be effective, and would meet the needs of fisheries and fishermen, and of conservationists.
4.10 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, it is entirely fitting and right that my noble friend Lady Nicol should have come out first in the ballot for the debate today after her perseverance year after year in pursuing the Government about their dilatoriness in designating marine nature reserves. I am delighted. The large number of your Lordships speaking shows the real and widespread support that she has.
I thought that it would interesting to look back at the debates on the subject when the Wildlife and Countryside Bill was going through this House in the spring of 1981 and remind myself of the Government's attitude at that time. The background was that the NCC (the Nature Conservancy Council) had produced a document in 1979 entitled Nature Conservation in the Marine Environment, which showed the need for action in that area. Clearly, it had expected there to be provision in the Bill for designation of those reserves. The Government had signed the Berne and Bonn conventions but had taken no legal steps to implement them.
In March 1978 an inter-governmental working party was set up by the DoE to examine the legislative and administrative aspects of MNRs (marine nature reserves). Rightly, there was much consultation preceding the Bill and a reasonable time was given for responses. But then, one day before the Committee day when this subject was due to come up here, another consultation paper, two pages long, was produced. It asked for responses by the beginning of August, six months ahead. That was rightly described by my noble friend Lord Melchett, speaking from this Front Bench, as:
"a blatant try-on by the Government and really not on".
At Second Reading, six noble Lords supported the idea of MNRs and had given notice of their intention to move amendments at Committee stage. The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton (sadly not still in his place), moved a very comprehensive amendment on 3rd February at 11.44 p.m. It had all-party support. He pointed out the great need and said that the several reserves that had been set up by the voluntary compliance of users— Bardsey and Lundy being examples—remained unsupported by law and vulnerable to an unscrupulous operator. He pointed out that already in some 60 countries statutory provision had been made for designated marine conservation areas. Many of them were in temperate seas and protected habitats similar to those found round our shores. He was supported by my noble friend Lord Melchett, Lord Craigton and Lord Chelwood.
Lord Chelwood described it as one of the most important amendments in the whole of the Bill. He said that the subject had been of great concern to conservationists for at least 20 years; that the Nature Conservancy Council, as it then was, in March 1968 had raised the question in a paper called Conservation Policy in the Shallow Seas; and that the NERC had set up a working party on marine wildlife conservation under Professor R. B. Clark in 1971. He suggested that, if the

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Government could not accept that particular amendment, they themselves should propose an enabling clause at Report stage, which clause need not become operative until the consultation period on the present paper was over. There was an interesting intervention from the noble Earl, Lord Peel—in support, of course—who described his experiences of the marine environment as a result of his deep sea diving in all parts of the world. He censured Italy for allowing criminal damage to happen.
Lord Avon, speaking from the Government Front Bench, gave exactly the kind of response that we have learnt to expect. But he undertook to go to his Secretary of State to see whether it were possible to include an enabling power. So the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, withdrew his amendment.
At a later Committee day on 17th February at the more reasonable hour of 5 p.m. Lord Craigton made another attempt to have MNRs written into the Bill and moved a simpler amendment, which would have extended the land of Britain for SSSI purposes for three miles out, leaving the NCC to get on with it. That was supported by my noble friend Lady White, who enlarged on the great length of time that this matter had been on the agenda and agreed that, at the very least, an enabling clause should be introduced, though she would have preferred something more positive. My noble friend Lord Melchett was rather cross that the Government had shown no sign of shifting their position and urged a Division. There was further support. Lord Craigton put the amendment to the House and won by a substantial majority (98 to 54), which showed the strength of feeling on all sides.
We move to Report stage on 12th March. Clearly there had been discussion between Lord Craigton and the Minister and his department. Lord Craigton proposed a rather lengthy amendment on the grounds that it would be more acceptable to the Government as giving greater flexibility. The Minister promised that if Lord Craigton withdrew his earlier amendment, by then in the Bill, he would accept this one and come up with a similar Government amendment in another place. That was agreed.
On 9th June in another place, at Committee stage, some lengthy amendments were put forward by the Government and even lengthier discussion went on for the whole of that day until past midnight. Eventually, at the end of the day Mr. Peter Brooke moved that the Question be put and it was. So that clause was put into the Bill. Clearly, there was more discussion at Report stage because the Opposition had not been satisfied that what the Government had promised to do had been fully carried out. But amendments were made at Report stage, which resulted in the present Sections 36 and 37 in the Act going into the Bill.
So the saga is one of reluctance and feet dragging. It was only when beaten in the Lobby that the Government did the decent and sensible thing. But the results after 14 years are not what all those fighting for designation in 1981 would have wanted. My noble friend has made the case. One just has the gravest doubts about this Government's commitment to environmental issues. I hope that the strength of feeling that is emerging today will shame the Government a little—although shame is not something that they seem to feel very easily—and that they will feel, if they want their credentials to be believed,
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that they really must get a move on and not use every excuse to delay and procrastinate; or at least in the meantime take advantage of some of the positive suggestions that have been made by the noble Lords, Lord Chorley and Lord Moran, during the course of this debate. I hope that at least we can have that assurance.
4.16 p.m.
Viscount Waverley: My Lords, what will be done to stop the wanton destruction of the marine environment? We continue to exploit this vast and diverse resource with little regard for the consequences. Oceans, coastal waters and estuaries cover 71 per cent. of the earth's surface. Its environment provides the world's population with products essential to human existence. We fish into extinction or near extinction many of the world's marine species. We pump toxic and human waste and agricultural pollutants into the ocean. We dredge the seabed and undertake projects which cause major damage or destruction.
But there are promising worldwide initiatives: local communities, fishermen, governments, environmental agencies and private enterprise are coming together to establish marine nature reserves around the world. Those reserves provide a respite from exploitation and development and allow over-exploited species to recover and reproduce. Indeed, they protect the oceans' biodiversity. Many sectors of the economy also benefit: fishermen see a rise in stocks and tour operators discover a market for those who wish to see the marine environment in its natural state. Marine reserves provide the opportunity to balance development with protection and create sustainable development for the future.
I have had the good fortune to scuba dive in two countries where successful projects exist. The Hol Chan marine reserve in Belize is an excellent example. After initial local scepticism, that reserve now attracts thousands of tourists each year to the town of San Pedro, situated at the northern end of the Belize barrier reef. Visitors pay a fee and adhere to strict regulations, swimming in the waters of the reserve. Increased tourism has been matched with increased fish stocks. Indeed, Dr. Callum Roberts of the University of the Virgin Islands has said that the reserve now has perhaps the highest abundance of commercially important fish likely to be found anywhere in the world. It is not surprising therefore that local pride has led to support for the implementation of measures to protect the area's coral reef. Another reserve is also now proposed.
I believe the involvement of local communities is the key ingredient. In the Philippines the establishment of the Apo Island Marine Sanctuary involved the local community in the management process of a marine conservation and education programme. Once again increased fishing yields and tourist revenues encourage the locals in a form that they recognise and value.
That project contrasts with the Sumilon Island reserve. The local fishermen were not involved in the management process. That resulted in the breakdown of the reserve, with a corresponding decrease in fish yields through over-fishing, from approximately 36 tonnes per square kilometre to just 20 tonnes. Those are important lessons.

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Yet financial support for marine nature reserves is elusive, though many are self-funding once established. The Bonaire Marine Park, for example, was established for 0.52 million US dollars, with an annual running cost of 0.15 million US dollars. By 1992 the park was raising 0.19 million US dollars in visitor fees, with another 23.2 million US dollars entering the local economy in directly related activities undertaken by tourists visiting the marine park.
Despite the good will and enthusiasm, problems exist. Governments in all countries are reticent to sanction, let alone fund. Willing governments in the developing world find it hard to allocate the money that is required to cover set-up costs and are less willing to sanction the collection by marine nature reserves' management of visitor fees that possibly do not return directly to the public purse.
NGOs have an important role to play both in the UK and abroad to foster enthusiasm. One such British group, Coral Cay Conservation, has been assisting the Government of Belize to establish marine reserves at a number of sites along the barrier reef. Over the past six years more than 1,000 scuba divers have travelled to that country to collect data for the Coastal Zone Management Unit. That workforce has not only assisted with the establishment of marine reserves, but has also provided training for numerous young Belizeans in the skills necessary to undertake marine resource assessment and protection projects themselves. All of that has been done at no cost to the Government of Belize. Her Majesty's Government could well consider using the enthusiasm of such organisations. What is clear is that willingness exists to make marine reserves work.
In conclusion, I propose eight areas where I believe HMG can help. First, they can facilitate introductions through diplomatic channels to foreign government departments, industry and NGOs. Secondly, they can provide core funding for key NGO scientific staff and science programmes. Thirdly, they can facilitate greater involvement by British students of marine science in science programmes. Fourthly, they can assist in the dissemination of information. Fifthly, they can support education and awareness programmes both in the UK and abroad. Sixthly, they can support project development and the development of human resources in emerging countries. Seventhly, they can support the development of training centres. Eighthly, they can second NGO personnel to government advisory boards.
Perhaps I may be permitted to make a quick point for emphasis about the UK in my remaining time. I understand that an estimated 500,000 hectares of inshore sea-bed have been identified as being of particular importance for nature conservation, but only 5,000 hectares of the subtidal component are protected under wildlife legislation. I wonder whether the Minister could be tempted, in the spirit of deregulation about which we heard a great deal last Session, to propose the streamlining of the 17 government departments with more than 80 pieces of legislation that are responsible for this.
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On that note, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, for the opportunity to debate this important question. It has been a most important initiative.
4.25 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I join previous speakers in thanking my noble friend and colleague Lady Nicol for introducing this important subject. I intended to follow the previous speaker down the same road. I might as well say that I am going swimming in the same water; my contribution will be confined to our marine reserves.
I took the trouble to obtain a copy of a voluminous but good report produced by the inquiry headed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, entitled Safer Ships, Cleaner Seas. I concentrated on the part regarding cleaner seas. There is a massive number of recommendations to the Government in the report, and I was glad to see that they accepted most of them. But one must judge a government by their actions and, sadly, only yesterday the Minister charged with the responsibility gave approval for Shell to dump the Brent Spar oil installation in the North Sea, which will produce further fouling of our shores.
I listened with great care to the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, in his exposé of his responsibilities, and naturally we wish him every success. But the pollution of the sea starts far outside the area of his responsibility. If pollution starts to come ashore, it does not matter what we do. It swamps not only our coastline but other coastlines as well. And I am not talking particularly of so-called accidents that could possibly be avoided.
If we look at the oceans, the seas and the estuaries of the world as marine areas which need protection, we find that global pollution is on the increase and fish stocks are reducing alarmingly. One of the biggest culprits is the discharge of oil and the cleaning out of tanks well away from shore lines and in areas where the vessels cannot be checked. Inevitably that discharge finds itself on a coastline and appalling damage is done. We should take a more serious view of that type of practice and the way it is sometimes carried out by ships operating under a flag of convenience. That issue must be grasped internationally. At the moment very little is being done about it.
Dare I put forward the suggestion that the pollution of our shores has something to do with the fact that very few of our own merchant navy ships ply around our shores as there are so few of them left? The Government could certainly have helped to prevent some of that decline. But we are surrounded by ships. We saw a crash in the Channel only last week where the behaviour of the foreign ship that ran into the British tanker left a lot to be desired. No action was taken. Once again the Channel in that area is saturated with oil.
The Government must look at these issues more keenly and promote measures to deal with them more forcefully to incorporate the European dimension. Europe covers an enormous area of coastline, with the seas that encapsulate it. The Government should then move on to the international scale and persuade the major powers to agree to an international policy that will assist us. It was interesting to hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy. I do not say that he was making

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excuses, but he appeared to be saying that it was all right to sink oil installations in deep water but not in shallow water, and anyway the wreckage acted as some sort of aphrodisiac for the fish. It seems to me, from the way stocks are being reduced, that that policy is not working very well.
It is a tragedy that the Government made the decision yesterday to allow the sinking of the oil installation in the North Sea. It sets the scene for other people to do the same. There is no point in this Government going to other governments in Europe who have oil installations offshore and when they start to sink them in the sea complaining, "You have no right to do that". We have set the scene in Europe and I believe that we have gone down the wrong track.
Greenpeace, with all its faults, does a very good job in some areas. It specially commissioned a report entitled No grounds for dumping which deals with the decommissioning and abandonment of offshore oil and gas platforms and sets out some of the costs involved. It states:
"Estimates of the cost of total removal of the full inventory of North Sea platforms for the UK vary from just over GBP 3 billion to just over GBP 4.5 billion. Further, if a removal market is created, cheaper and more efficient methods of removal will develop. When considering cost, it is also worth comparing the relative expenditures and income of North Sea oil and gas:
Capital expenditure on new facilities in 1994 is estimated to be GBP 4.7 billion, and total expenditure between 1994 and 1998 is estimated at GBP 21.7 billion;
The value of oil and gas sales in 1993 was GBP 13.8 billion and the total tax take between 1984 and 1994 is estimated at GBP 44.9 billion;
The total capital expenditure on developing the UK fields is GBP 130 billion;
The total UK Government tax take has been GBP 100 billion;
The annual UK operating expenditure is GBP 3 billion;
The annual oil and gas exploration expenditure is GBP 1.5 billion".
The report states quite clearly that the £4.5 billion involved, with all the jobs that would be created at a time of very high unemployment, would be money well spent. It would remove the oil installations and completely negate any effects they might have in spoiling the North Sea. We have to look at the mistakes made in the past on land. What did the coal owners do to the land of the Lancashire coalfields, the South Wales coalfields, the Scottish coalfields, the north eastern coalfields and the Midlands coalfields? Wherever there were coalfields the land was scarred. There were no provisions to deal with the rubbish, the slurry and the slag which those pits produced. The people who were responsible for producing it got away scot-free. The land had to be reclaimed at public expense, mainly by ratepayers, in order to make it workable and acceptable again.
I know that what I have said has been a little wide of the subject of the debate but I hope that the Minister will understand why I have said it. I thought that this was an excellent opportunity to make the point. I ask the Government to look at the situation internationally. We are an island. Because of that we have to exercise more care than people who live in landlocked areas. If we do not get it right, our children and grandchildren will never forgive us for what we leave them.
4.33 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, on her good fortune in the ballot and I thank her for giving us the opportunity to discuss this subject today. It has been an interesting debate. What has come out clearly from the contributions of several noble Lords is the strong feeling that we have been surprisingly and disappointingly laggard in our provision of marine protected areas and reserves. The noble Baroness, Lady David, did us a great service and has done a great service to those who are interested in this subject by trawling back through Hansard to see exactly what happened in the early 1980s, which was before I entered the House. It shows something of the reluctance of the Government at that time to commit themselves on this important subject.
I hope that when discussions take place between this country and the European Commission following the European Union habitats and species directive there will be a more energetic and positive approach to these matters. It will be a long time before we can reasonably hope to have the agreements which will result in a final list of sites across Europe to accord with the directive. A good deal of deterioration is taking place in the area of marine life and in the areas discussed by other noble Lords. A consultation list has been sent out to conservation groups. It reached the hands of conservation groups only two months ago, although it was expected a good deal earlier. Their responses have to be in next month.
Noble Lords have spoken most eloquently about our "island nation", if I may describe it as such, with its astonishing coastline and in some areas its exquisite beauty and its enormous variety of wildlife. It is extraordinary that so many of the birds which breed around our coasts occupy breeding sites which supply the major number of birds for Europe. There are those which breed here and there are those species which visit here. The UK population of the Manx shearwater, which I mentioned the other day when the noble Baroness raised the subject in a Question, accounts for about 94 per cent. of the total world population of that bird. Its breeding area in the United Kingdom is fairly localised. According to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the trends in population are not well known so we cannot say yet whether that species is particularly threatened. Nevertheless, it is an important species. The petrel, the gannet, the great skua and the Sandwich tern are other species which immediately come to mind. Other birds which visit here and are important in our coastal areas are the diver, the scoter and the long-tailed duck. Those varieties of bird have an important part to play in our coastal bird life.
There are also important mammals. 'The bottle-nose dolphin is the subject of some concern among those who are interested, particularly the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. The habitat directive requires that provision should be made for dolphins and for harbour porpoises, a subject which has been brought up before in a Question in your Lordships' House. The United Kingdom's response has been disappointing in relation to those important mammals. I believe that it has been argued that harbour porpoises do not have a sufficiently

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identifiable breeding area. However, experts tell me that there are clearly identifiable areas around the Shetlands where such porpoises can breed.
Can the Minister tell us what position the Government will be taking in the conference that is to be held in June in Esbjerg in Denmark? I believe that eight states with North Sea coastlines will be at that conference, plus representatives from the European Commission and Switzerland. Obviously, that will be a useful and important opportunity to discuss the marine environment. Will the Government be taking into account at that conference all the waters of the United Kingdom, from the Shetlands to the Scilly Isles? Do the Government have a coherent and integrated plan to improve marine conservation, following the clear feeling that has been expressed in this House that there has been reluctance to move in that direction in the past? Will the Government take into account all the elements about which concern has been expressed, including the leisure industry, which has already been discussed, the extraction of marine minerals and the fishing question, which other noble Lords have mentioned?
In summary, this has been an enormously important debate, although not altogether an encouraging one. I wonder whether the Minister could inject into the debate an element of optimism which I have felt to be sadly missing. If the Minister could provide a counterbalance to the extremely clear and useful account of what happened in the early 1980s, we would then feel that we were going forward. This country is an important contributor to European discussions on this subject. I accept that I have been somewhat critical of many European directives, but I believe that the Habitats and Species Directive is important because birds and animals do not recognise boundaries. They move across them freely. Conserving the marine environment is one area in which the European Union can make a contribution not only for us but for our descendants. We must preserve an extraordinary and priceless part of our heritage.
4.43 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the House will be grateful to my noble friend Lady Nicol for tabling this Motion and we are glad that she won the ballot. We have had an interesting and informative debate through which two themes have run. The first relates to the protection of the marine environment in general, by which we may mean the North Sea, the Celtic Sea or the seas around Scotland. Indeed, the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, took us to the Philippines and Belize. The second theme relates specifically to the protection of marine wildlife within UK territorial waters. That raises the question of the marine nature reserves and the Habitats and Species Directive, to which I shall come in a moment.
Before addressing those two themes, I should like to raise with the Minister a problem that he knows that I had with the Environment Bill when it was considered by your Lordships' House. Is there really a political commitment on the part of the Government to protect the environment? For all their fine words, what is the Government's real position? I ask that question again—I have asked it several times—in the light of what my noble friend Lady
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White said about the Countryside Council for Wales. As my noble friend rightly said, the Secretary of State for Wales slipped out, at a most curious moment, a document that was designed, as I understand it—I have read the action plan—to reduce CCW to little more than a cipher. In doing so, the Secretary of State for Wales has, it is alleged, been somewhat less than frank in some of the statements that he has made. They will no doubt be taken up in another place, but the basic question remains: are the Government seriously committed to the protection of the environment?
I turn now to the first theme, the protection of the marine environment in general. My noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick referred to the Brent Spar installation. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, rightly said that we are talking about platforms, not rigs. Rigs are ships. They float and can therefore be towed elsewhere. We are talking about fixed structures which are platforms. The noble Lord said that there might well be occasions when such structures could be toppled straight into deep waters in the North Sea. I doubt that. Given that the Government have given approval for that installation to be toppled over so that it can rest at the bottom of the North Sea, can the Minister say whether that is meant to be taken by all oil companies all over the world as an indication that that is the right policy? Indeed, will the Government do the same with even larger platforms as they become redundant? We must remember that their lifespan is limited. As the noble Lord, Lord Moran, pointed out, the North Sea is already nearly dead in terms of fish. Is it to be cluttered with disused platforms that are simply junked there for lack of any better alternative?
To follow what the noble Lord, Lord Moran, said, there is a serious risk that the seas not only around our coasts but generally will die. I cite the Mediterranean as an example. Even the noble Earl, Lord Clanwilliam, with his enthusiasm for fish farming would find the Mediterranean a no-go area for a fish farm. It is simply dead. There is not enough food or organic matter in it to support a fish farm. There is a danger that what has happened in the Mediterranean will happen not only in our own seas but in the Atlantic and some parts of the Pacific also. As the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, pointed out, there is a serious risk that unless we do something internationally we are in danger of depriving the human race of one of its major sources of food. I hope that the Minister recognises that problem and that he can give us the Government's attitude to it.
I turn now to our own territorial waters. To answer the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, the Wildlife and Countryside Act applies to our territorial waters. It seems to me that there are considerable difficulties with the legislation. On the one hand, we have the Wildlife and Countryside Act, the proceedings on which my noble friend Lady David related at length, which is a United Kingdom Act which allows for the creation of marine nature reserves. On the other hand, we have the Community's Habitats and Species Directive which creates special areas of conservation but which will apply only to sites of European importance. So there is a clear conflict between the two. Are we to take it therefore that the Wildlife and Countryside Act arrangements will be subsumed wholesale into the arrangements created by the

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habitats directive, or will we still have a programme of marine nature reserves under our own domestic legislation?
Many noble Lords have pointed out, quite rightly—my noble friend Lady Nicol opened by saying this—that the Government have been somewhat dilatory on marine nature reserves. Let me just rehearse the list for your Lordships. In 1982, the following areas were proposed as marine nature reserves under the Wildlife and Countryside Act: St. Abbs, the Isles of Scilly, Lundy, Skomer, Loch Sween, Menai Strait, Bardsey and Strangford. Of that list, two have been declared as marine nature reserves—that is, Lundy and Skomer—two, St. Abbs and the Isles of Scilly, have become something called voluntary protection reserves. I hope that the noble Viscount will help us as to what on earth is meant by a voluntary protection reserve. The rest are all subject to consultation, submissions and so on: 13 years since that list was proposed—only two resolved.
The reason is clear. As the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, pointed out, there has to be, in the Government's view, total unanimity before any MNR is declared as such. In the case of Skomer—I hesitate to cross swords with the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley; I am not a sub-aqua or scuba diver—I understand that the Sub-Aqua Federation held up designation of the MNR for something like five years because it could not agree to the idea that its members would not be allowed to put on their gear and dive wherever they wanted to dive because it was an MNR. When we get to that stage, and to the yachtsmen in the Menai Strait saying, "We are not going to agree to this", we will never achieve unanimity. In no way will we achieve unanimity. So by insisting on unanimity the Government have indeed scuppered their own programme.
Many suggestions have been made as to what should happen. First, what should happen is that the Government should get their act together in terms of legislation. We should know whether the habitats directive or the Wildlife and Countryside Act will be the relevant pieces of legislation when it comes to marine nature sites.
Secondly, we should adopt, or at least look at, some of the ideas, for instance, put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, that SSSIs may be possible below the low water mark. The noble Lord put forward other ideas about coastal zone management which I thought were interesting. But, above all, as the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, remarked, there is on 8th and 9th June 1995—in a very short time from now—a ministerial conference, which is the fourth North Sea Ministerial Conference, which will gather in Esbjerg in Denmark. That will be an ideal opportunity to gain international agreement to protect the marine environment.
All the eight states with a North Sea coastline, as the noble Viscount pointed out, together with Switzerland and the European Commission, will be represented. We want to know—here I echo the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland—what proposals the Government have to make to that conference. Not what attitude, but what specific proposals will the Government make to that conference?
Furthermore, we want to know—this is where I end—whether the Government will show a greater political will than they have shown to date in enforcing and
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implementing whatever legislation comes out of that conference or any other conference that may take place. There is no doubt that the Government have been seriously dilatory in fulfilling their obligations under the Wildlife and Countryside Act. I only hope for their own sake that they are more speedy in the future.
Viscount Waverley: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down perhaps I may point out that I am a member of PADI, which is an American organisation. We do not seemingly adhere to the practices, pointed out by the noble Lord, carried out by the organisation which I understand to be a British organisation.
4.55 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Viscount Ullswater): My Lords, I understand the concern which has been expressed in some quarters about marine nature reserves and the delays in establishing them. We appreciate their importance and wish to make progress with marine nature reserves where their establishment would be productive.
In introducing this interesting debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, indicated that I am rather low in the batting order now, I think, coming in at number eight, but I hope that I shall be able to deal with a number of matters—with the thinking behind marine nature reserves in general; with the progress made with the proposed MNR at Menai Strait; and with the very important roles to be played by implementation of the EC habitats directive in marine conservation and by coastal measures such as coastal management plans, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy.
First, I was asked the direct question by the noble Lord, Lord Williams: what is the Government's attitude to this area generally? The Government's commitment to the conservation of our environment is beyond question. I have only to cite the leading role that we played in developing the habitats directive and the fact that we are at the forefront of member states in developing our list of sites and transposing directives into national law—a fact, I believe, widely acknowledged. More widely, there is the Government's sustainable development strategy—a leading model for other countries—and our leading role in advancing climate change targets at the recent Berlin conference. That is a measure of the Government's commitment to the environment.
As regards the establishment of MNRs generally, I should make it clear that it was never intended that there should be other than a small number of statutory reserves for conserving areas of special interest in the UK context or to facilitate study or research. We accept that statutory marine nature reserves have a role to play in marine conservation and we will continue to consider applications made by the country agencies whenever appropriate. The voluntary approach is deeply embedded in Section 36 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, and we are far from convinced that it has been exhausted. On the contrary, we remain convinced that the introduction of compulsion would only harden attitudes and thus be counter-productive. I should like to put the matter of marine nature reserves into perspective by, first, explaining the background to the existing legislation.

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The case for establishing statutorily protected marine nature reserves was made at considerable length in the 1979 joint Nature Conservancy Council/Natural Environment Research Council publication, Nature Conservation in the Marine Environment. The Government readily accepted, in principle, the recommendations contained in the report and proposed to introduce provisions for marine nature reserves in the then forthcoming Wildlife and Countryside Bill.
It has always been the Government's policy to protect the highest quality nature conservation sites through legislation, policy and management. But in the marine environment we were moving into "uncharted waters" for nature conservation. It was tempting to look for analogies with the existing legislation on protected land areas, but although that may have been possible up to a point, there are, of course, fundamental differences in methods of ownership, rights of way and even the simple act of drawing and marking boundaries in the marine environment. The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, pointed to some of the great difficulties in bringing together the various interests concerned with the use and management of our coastal waters. Of particular concern was that the UK legislation should be strictly in accordance with the international law of the sea—though, equally it needed to be as strong as international law allowed. The Government are, of course, committed to the voluntary principles set out in the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
The noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, reinforced what was said by my noble friend Lord Avon at the time of the Bill. Speaking for the Government, Lord Avon said:
"it is essential to take into account the views of all sectors of the community with legitimate interests in our coastal waters and to allay the fears of, for example, our fishermen. I know that those who argue the case for MNRs consider that these fears are unjustified and that conservationists and fishermen should be working together in the matter, to the benefit of both. Nevertheless, the fears are genuine and it will not be helping the cause of marine nature conservation at all if the very people whose goodwill will be vital to the successful operation of the reserves are quite unnecessarily antagonised. We must write into our legislation the safeguards which all those interested in the marine environment consider essential to their needs".—[Official Report, 12/3/81; col. 433.]
The legislation had a stormy and controversial passage through Parliament. The noble Baroness, Lady David, recounted some of the difficulties experienced in this House during discussions on that important Bill. When the Government's proposals were introduced in Committee, some 72 amendments were proposed and there were more than six hours of debate.
The resulting power for the appropriate Secretary of State, following an application from the appropriate conservation agency, to establish statutory marine nature reserves, to conserve and provide opportunity for the study of marine flora and fauna and of geological and physiographical features can be found in Section 36 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. In answer to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy, the relevant Secretary of State may apply such a designation to any areas of land covered (continuously or intermittently) by tidal waters or to parts of the sea up to the seaward limits of territorial waters. The relevant nature conservation agency (in England, that is English Nature) may make bylaws to protect MNRs, except where these would
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interfere with the bylaw-making powers of another authority. It is worth stressing that in 1981 the present habitats directive was not even a gleam in the eye of the European Commission, so if we wanted to further marine conservation we had to do the job ourselves. That is no longer the case. The habitats directive, which provides for the designation of marine Special Areas of Conservation, makes a fundamental change to the situation. I shall return to this point in a few moments.
Consultation and discussion with and the co-operation of all interested parties remains our policy: not coercion. Consultation prior to designation is essential. It provides the opportunity to take account of users' views and, if properly handled, provides the basis of further future co-operation. I accept that the process is often a lengthy exercise but it has proved its value. An interesting example is the case of Lundy Island where, with the full co-operation of owners and users—the chairman of the National Trust is here and has indicated himself as the owner—English Nature has been able to introduce a management plan which seeks to protect the area's habitats and species while providing for commercial and recreational use of the seas around the island. Most notable is the introduction of a zoning scheme which illustrates where activities can be carried on without detriment to the marine nature reserve. Such a consultation process may also lead not to designation but to other outcomes. At St. Abb's Head for example, a voluntary reserve has proved more generally acceptable than a statutory one, and both the Government and their statutory advisers are happy with that situation because the purposes for which the designation was originally proposed are being achieved.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, asked whether English Nature plans to withdraw financial support from voluntary MNRs. We are now in the third and final year of English Nature's marine grant scheme, which aims to encourage and support local communities in establishing and managing voluntary marine nature reserves in important wildlife areas. The effect of this funding scheme is being evaluated by English Nature and no decision has been taken about its future. The bodies currently being supported under this scheme are fully aware of the position. There are no plans to review support to the voluntary reserve at St. Abb's Head, which is being given by Scottish Natural Heritage.
My noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy mentioned the recently announced coastal forum. Guidelines will be published this summer. The Secretaries of State for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are considering what arrangements should be made in their instances. The forum agreed to set up topic groups to examine specific issues, including the management of SACs, and to report back to the forum. Topic groups will comprise representatives of government departments, NGOs and commercial interests. So there is a broad range of interests in the management of the coastal areas.
I now turn to the Menai Strait, mentioned in particular by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, and, perhaps more importantly, by the noble Baroness, Lady White. I should be the first to defer to the noble Baroness, Lady White, whose knowledge and interest in this reserve and others in Wales are considerable. Of the seven MNRs initially

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suggested, one of the two that have since been established—Skomer—is in Wales. The Menai Strait, if approved, would be the second Welsh MNR. The application to the Secretary of State for Wales by the Countryside Council for Wales was made in April 1994. The noble Baroness said that it was in March but there is hardly a difference. The intention was to process the application within the year and this intention was made public in The Environment in Wales—Third Report. In the event, it proved not to be possible.
The Menai Strait is not, of course, without protection. A large part of the Strait is either an SSSI, or SPA or both. The Menai Strait is not, however, included in the list of possible Special Areas of Conservation about which the Government are currently consulting. That was brought to our attention on 2nd May and again today by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel. The reason for this is quite straightforward. The selection criteria under the 1981 Act, which I have already described, are different from those set out in the directive. The habitats directive lists a number of habitat types whose conservation is important from a European perspective. Although the Menai Strait includes some of the habitat types listed in the directive, there are more significant examples of these particular features in other areas that have been included in the list of possible SACs now out to public consultation.
Further protection for the Menai Strait is provided by the development plans that apply in the area. The Gwynedd structure plan includes policies to safeguard the county's heritage of wild flora and fauna and geological and physiographical features, including particularly SSSIs. It has a policy designed to protect the nature and quality of linear landscape areas such as river valleys and estuaries. It has a presumption against any development which will discharge effluent in a manner likely to impair the quality of coastal waters. The Menai Strait local plan has policies to safeguard SSSIs and areas in close proximity to them and states that in such areas nature conservation interests will take precedence over all other considerations.
Despite the efforts of the Countryside Council for Wales, there is still, in relation to the designation of the Menai Strait, a considerable body of opposition. Clearly, the concerns of objectors must be considered. The majority of those objecting are angling clubs which operate in the area, but there are also objections from the RICS and the CLA.
Objectors have expressed a range of concerns. They question the scientific justification for the MNR; the way in which the area will be regulated; the relationship to development and business uses in an area where there is a long history of such uses. The noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, pointed out the important economic involvement of man over a long period of time in these areas and said that that should not be ignored. The objectors question the impact of the bylaws which will be necessary, the restrictions which will be imposed on anglers and the ability of the MNR generally to produce what is claimed for it.
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In processing the proposals of the Countryside Council for Wales for a MNR, the Secretary of State for Wales has various options open to him. He can ask the CCW to reopen negotiations with objectors with a view to overcoming their concerns. He can refuse to proceed further with the designation on the basis that there is still a significant body of objection to the proposal. He can decide to proceed with the order and, if necessary, if there are unresolved objections, hold a public inquiry or hearing under Schedule 12 to the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. When this matter was last before the House I gave the impression that such an inquiry would definitely be held and on a non-statutory basis. I am pleased to have this opportunity to correct what I said then. The decision rests with my right honourable friend and it is not for me to indicate at this stage what he might do. He has indicated, however, that the proposal will be determined as quickly as possible.
Many noble Lords stressed the problems created by over-fishing all over the world. Indeed, the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, gave us some interesting facts and figures. He also told us about the management of MNRs worldwide.
While we accept that statutory marine nature reserves have their place as part of a suite of protection mechanisms for the marine environment, we have no immediate plans to extend the list of possible MNRs originally proposed by the Nature Conservancy Council. Our efforts will be mainly focused on the designation of marine special areas of conservation (SACs) and the implementation of various coastal measures, such as coastal management plans. Of the 282 proposed SACs in the consultation paper published by the Government earlier this year, 36 are marine sites.
The overall objective of the directive is to contribute to the conservation of biodiversity in the territory of the European Union. Sites selected under the directive, and those classified as special protection areas under the birds directive, will together make up the "Natura 2000" network of sites protected under European law throughout the union.
Many noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy, the noble Lord, Lord Moran, and the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, were worried about the timetable for the designation of SACs. Designation should indeed be possible well before 2004. The list of sites should be submitted to the European Commission by June 1995 and agreed with it by 1998. They could be agreed earlier. They may be designated as soon as may be after agreement with the Commission. In parallel with discussions with the Commission, consultation with local interests will continue to facilitate early designation.
The directive requires that the sites selected should be significant in the relevant biogeographical region. In the case of the United Kingdom, this is the Atlantic region. The noble Lord, Lord Moran, suggested that in some way these sites would not represent important areas of conservation for this country. I do not agree with that. The sites selected should individually make a significant contribution to the overall aim of the network to maintain or restore the habitats and species listed in the annexes to the directive to a favourable conservation status. The sites

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will be the most precious in the Union. Each member state's contribution to the network must be proportionate to the representation of the listed habitat types or species on its territory.
The regulations implementing the habitats directive place a duty on bodies with jurisdiction in the marine environment to use their existing statutory powers, including bylaw-making powers, and to perform their duties in ways that safeguard the conservation interests of special areas of conservation and special protection areas. The bodies concerned will include sea fisheries committees and the National Rivers Authority—when they act as sea fisheries committees—harbour authorities, local authorities and the nature conservation agencies. No new body has been created; nor is it proposed to give an existing body authority over the others.
Just to set at rest the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, I believe that he will be pleased to learn that nature conservation agencies will be able to act where no other organisation is empowered or willing to do so to counter a potential threat to the site.
The Government believe that the relevant organisations will act voluntarily within a joint scheme of management to bring effective management to the designated area. That will follow best practice for coastal management plans. The nature conservation agencies will advise the relevant authorities on the nature conservation needs of the area, and they might well initially identify the bodies with the relevant interests in the designated area and seek to agree schemes of management. That is already happening along many stretches of the coast where inter-agency management plans are being established. For SACs, however, Ministers have statutory reserve powers to require the relevant bodies to work together and, with a designated lead agency, to draw up a scheme of management and implement it within a specific time frame.
My noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy and the noble Lords, Lord Dean of Beswick and Lord Williams, asked about the problem of abandonment of oil platforms. The Government's view is that the treatment of each oil platform must be decided on an individual basis, taking account of the depth of the water and other relevant factors. In fact, draft guidelines which address these matters in more detail are currently out to public consultation.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams, and the noble Baroness, Lady White, asked about the proposals put forward by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales about the future of the Countryside Council for Wales. It is for the Secretary of State for Wales to decide the level of grant in aid to be given to CCW. He has held discussions with the chairman of that body and he is satisfied that the council has sufficient resources to undertake the full range of its statutory duties. The chairman concurs with that view. Statutory responsibility for the designated sites will still rest with the CCW. The local authorities and other suitable organisations could, however, become more involved in the day-to-day running of national nature reserves and small SSSIs.
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My noble friend Lord Clanwilliam asked about the possibility of investigating the problems of disease, particularly in fish farms. MAFF and the Scottish Office fisheries department have embarked on a considerable amount of research into this problem. I shall write to my noble friend on what is presently being done and the Government's view on the way forward.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, and the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, asked about the proposals to be made at the fourth North Sea conference. The conservation of fish stocks can only go forward by international agreement. Any proposal must be on the basis of generally accepted scientific information. Indeed, the conservation of fish stocks is on the agenda for the conference. I shall report the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Moran, as regards the conservation boxes, to my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Other examples on the broad agenda for the conference include pollution, research and marine safety. I have to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Williams, that the health of the North Sea and, for that matter, other seas, must be taken forward by international agreement. I know that the Government will indeed work to that end.
I should tell the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, that the Darwin Fund set up by the Government to help developing countries meet their obligations under the biodiversity convention provides grants for projects that will conserve biodiversity on land or at sea. I think that that should give the noble Viscount some comfort.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, mentioned the Donaldson inquiry. Indeed, the Government welcomed the report of that inquiry and the ecological steering group. A voluntary code by the UK Chamber of Shipping came into effect on 28th November. Laden tankers will avoid a number of sensitive areas and a number of mandatory and voluntary controls are possible through the International Maritime Organisation to control the routes ships take to avoid sensitive areas. We are working with the European Commission in identifying sensitive areas, some of which might be SACs or SPAs.
Before I conclude, I should just like to tell the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, that the establishment of the statutory reserves is not the end of the story. The native cetacean species that the noble Viscount particularly mentioned are protected from deliberate harm by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Additional protection is now provided by the Conservation (Habitats etc.) Regulations 1994. The two cetacean species, the bottle-nosed dolphin and the harbour porpoise, are listed on Annex 2 of the habitats directive; in other words, they are included in SACs, particularly Cardigan Bay and the Moray Firth.
I believe that, taken together, the three-pronged approach that I have indicated of SACs, statutory and voluntary MNRs and our wider initiatives of encouraging the integration of coastal management plans provide a sound basis for conserving our most important marine habitats.
Baroness David: My Lords, perhaps I may ask the noble Viscount a question before he sits down. I believe that the Minister mentioned twice the voluntary principle contained in Section 36 of the Act. I have been

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looking for it, but have been unable to find it. Perhaps the noble Viscount would be kind enough to write to me on the matter.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I shall of course do so.
5.24 p.m.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, one of the strengths of this House is the degree of expertise that emerges no matter what subject may be raised; and, indeed, today was no exception in that respect. I know that it is not traditional for the mover in a short debate to attempt to wind up. Therefore, I shall not try your Lordships' patience by trying to do so. Nevertheless, I should like to make one point which I believe is fairly important.
It is not the consultation process that we object to. We quite agree that a maximum amount of consensus must be attempted. It is the insistence on 100 per cent. agreement and the amount of the time that the negotiations seem to take. We do not believe that either of those things is reasonable in the circumstances.
I am grateful to the Minister for his long response which I shall read with great care. I am also grateful to all speakers who took part in the debate. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Gas Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Single Issue Groups
5.24 p.m.
Lord Birdwood Lord Birdwood rose to call attention to the impact of single issue groups on decision making and policy formulation; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we have the chance to hear the voice of the House this evening on the subject of single issue groups. Perhaps I may spell out my own position on the matter. My interest springs from my observations in one particular area; namely, how power is drifting away from historic, political sources in this and in all democracies.
I do not think that there is any dispute that events on a world scale take power away from our national political institutions. We have had plenty of examples of the global capital markets making the running for our economy, and the federalisation of Europe has its own consequences for sovereignty. I am not saying that they are good or bad—they just are! The ordinary machinery of democratic government has to be reactive to world events, and it is futile to pretend otherwise.
However, power imperceptibly is also trickling down and away from conventional politics into thousands of tiny streams of local and individual influence. What we can see is a pattern of change made up of many little differences in our lives. For instance, we can see that diversity is now the expectation of every reader of magazines. There has never been a time when more people's interests were served by so many specialist
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publications. A new profusion of television media promises still more. The Internet and World Wide Web reinforce a general, cultural diversity which already adds hugely to richness and choice in people's lives. So, there is all that diversity, all that access to shared interests, yet the audience for a single TV programme is in the tens of millions. It seems that the big movements in terms of people participation have deserted party politics, and the little niche movements have done so as well.
The point that I am making is that politics—that is, the politics of Burke, Disraeli and Attlee—are being squeezed by interests which at best find politics irrelevant and at worst a negotiable obstacle to highly-focused objectives.
If politics was a choir, we have all been handed out mismatched pieces of music, a lot of us are making up our own, there are competing choirmasters and none of us can remember the tune. But, on to the contemporary scene has come a new, significant alliance: the single issue group, appearing as a formidable double act with the national media. Typically, the process announces itself by an item on the television evening news. The priority of news items on the TV evening transmissions sends a strong signal to the press the following day about areas where the readership awareness will be high. This market can be tested and the validity of a campaign assessed. In particular, the "legs" —that is, the natural life cycle of a campaign—can be judged. The language of a campaign is familiar enough. "Outrage", "Fury" "The public demands that…", and so forth.
Nothing new, and nothing in itself reprehensible. Competition, plus freedom of speech, will always make for a spirited, irrepressible press. As I said here a fortnight ago, one might quarrel with the dignity of language, but the motives behind it reinforce good, basic virtues. And in passing, the notion of a privacy law is an affront to press freedom.
What is different is that the media and single-issue groups have, so to speak, found each other. Their eyes have met across a crowded room. This changes things. For a start, the new ingredient is the power of the TV news report. Action, movement, offensive words and challenging acts all make excellent television. No matter that the numbers are tiny numerically, their exposure is enormous. A moment ago I outlined the sequence of TV news priorities setting an agenda for press comment. Obviously for a while the press is self-perpetuating with each feeding on the other, the beneficiary being the direct action demonstration which was the tripwire for that first report.
So here we have a fertile territory of people feeling individually better informed than ever before, but frustrated at what seems to be the glacial pace of change from political means; a dangerous combination of personal powerlessness and personal empowerment.
Perhaps it is time to rethink the constitutional basis of parliamentary representation before the rethinking is done for us. I think it is no longer generally understood that honourable Members are representatives of their constituents and not delegates. But perhaps because they are already perceived as delegates, the change should be allowed to proceed under its own momentum and the pressure of public opinion. Perhaps Parliament should

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evolve in this way. However, my personal conviction is that the representative character is appropriate and should be treasured.
Yet it is a critical responsibility of any government to be the broker in competing claims. This duty of broking should be one of the tests of a government's credibility. Direct action by contrast is a rejection of parliamentary democracy, a rejection of the broker role. Those taking direct action are showing that they cannot wait and will not wait for the time needed for the usual processes of electoral decision-making.
Eight days ago I listened to the programme "Call Nick Ross" on Radio 4. The subject was whether direct action was the best way of getting one's point of view noticed, and achieving change. I was listening in the car and could not keep notes but from memory every caller but one affirmed that direct action worked—not just that it worked, but that it was morally essential. Of course one 'phone-in is hardly a representative sample of the population, but the unity of opinion was more than a straw in the wind.
While I was marshalling my thoughts for today I read a number of pieces which have surfaced in recent weeks around our subject. It would stretch the indulgence of the House to quote as much and as directly as I would have liked; but there was something of a collective voice. The Spectator on 29th April led with the following:
"The pleasures of anger, especially when combined with self righteousness, are considerable. How generous one feels when one is angry on behalf of others! And righteous anger permits and excuses the impermissible and the inexcusable. A rioter, after all, is only a vandal with a cause".
It makes the point, as do I, that the number of people who concern themselves with public affairs has risen greatly, both because of the spread of education and because of the ubiquity of the means of mass communication.
I quote further,
"The impression is given by newspapers, radio and television that life is little more than a register of crimes, follies and misfortunes. Since most people's knowledge of other times and other places is outside their direct experience, they rapidly come to the conclusion that they are living in a situation of great and unprecedented injustice".
At the time, the Spectator coined the phrase,
"an age of emotional incontinence"
which was grabbed by the Telegraph in a hard-hitting leader headed "Restraining the zealots". This focused on motorway demonstrations and used these to make the key points that anger flourished from the attention of the media but that nobody was entitled to place themselves above the law. The writer came down hard on law-breaking and was not alone in making anarchy the potential alternative.
At the beginning of the year I noticed The Times leading with the assertion
"Direct action is an arrogant rejection of democracy",
and made points which echoed my own feelings. It emphasised that Britain's political system allows the representation of all points of view. Those who go outside do not deserve concessions, even if they do win airtime on national television by the nature of their actions. The ability to muster thousands of people to run riot on the streets of London may impress the cameras; but it is no
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mandate within an electorate of millions. Peaceful protest plays a respectable part in our political culture. But the forms of direct action increasingly endorsed by some of the most established campaign groups deserve no such respect. Claims of desperation lose their political force when they become routine as they have in this age of obsessive single-issue lobbying.
These ideas paraphrased from the broadsheet leaders highlight one of the reasons why governments and causes will always collide. It is obvious but needs saying, that single-issue groups have the luxury of single-mindedness, a government must have a complex, subtle response. When it does not the result is, well, legislation about dangerous breeds of dog. John Casey made a very telling point a few days ago when he wrote in the Telegraph of his reflections on listening to the radio,
"The broadcasters are simply following a fashion in which national institutions take on the role of pressure-groups".
He remarked that there are now plenty of examples of government themselves behaving like a pressure-group. If one has watched the changes in power over the past 30 years, Casey's point has some real warnings for any administration hoping to charm the electorate.
I am under no illusions that my role this afternoon is anything other than that of warm-up man. If I had wanted to kick-off the debate by offering a survival handbook for political institutions in a democracy, the speakers following are far better qualified to write it. I had suggested the subject of single-issue groups and their impact on decision-making. Behind this was my own interest in who has the power in a democracy. From where we are sitting, the system looks stable enough. Governments may come, Governments may go, but the electoral system—with a bit of fine tuning—limps on. Elections elect, and the system is built-in to our sense of nation and built to last. But is the system any longer delivering the goods in terms of actual power, or of thoughtful, measured reform? I suggest that by looking hard at how single issue groups manage to exert the influence they do—often quite out of proportion to their numerical strength—the system can learn. With the convergence of interests of the media and the single cause we have the town crier and the town bigot in the same person. But I will end with a quote from Martin Jacques of Demos and the Independent:
"If the characteristics of the old society were hierarchy, certainty, bureaucracy, homogeneity, class, centralisation, and the State, the equivalent metaphors now…are market egalitarianism, uncertainty, diversity, heterogeneity, multi-identity, decentralisation … and confusion".
From what I have said, I might have left the impression that I am against protest. Heaven forbid! What I am for are the rule of law, the recognition of complexity; facts rather than feelings. In the light of what we are going to hear today, I am sure I have the support of all parts of this House when I say I recognise the immense difficulties of the modern, serious politician. I beg to move for Papers.
5.39 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I feel privileged but somewhat embarrassed to be called so early in the debate. I pondered for a long time over the title for this short debate wondering what the noble Lord would

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talk about. I have been a participant in single issue groups all my life. I have a very high opinion of their value in a democracy. I give grateful thanks to many of the people who have co-operated to bring about significant social changes as a result of single issue activities.
After the flesh-creeping speech of the noble Lord, which was of such wide dimensions, I feel inadequate to continue the debate on his level. He raised many issues of a disturbing character, and I agree with much of what he had to say, but those are more than a short debate can accommodate. Speeches limited to 11 minutes do not always suit my frame of mind, but in this discipline I must observe the timetable strictly.
I shall confine myself to saying that single issue groups, in terms of pressure groups as they used to be called, are an essential part of our democratic system. After all, we are all free to think as we like and, within strict limits, we are free to speak as we like. That means that we are free to associate with others of like opinion and form ourselves into a stronger force of opinion formers. I am prepared to discuss that matter at any level, but that does not seem to have been the direction of the debate so far.
In my early youth I was plunged into the single group movement when I found that my father was going to prison. I discovered that he was a member of a passive resistance group in the local town for which he enlisted membership on a wide scale. The members were to be found mostly in the non-conformist churches, and were asked to protest against the inclusion of denominational school aid in the education rate under the 1903 Act. My father conducted a campaign against that unacceptable burden which had been placed upon the citizen against his conscience, as well as not being in accordance with his pocket. I was more successful in my choice of single issue groups.
Many of the major social changes have taken place as a result of the combination of thought and action of many people on a minority issue; for example, family planning and abortion law reform.
I am engaged in a single issue group now which is called the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 Reform Group. We have a mission in life, which is to try to educate the public that the 1991 Act was an offence against all constitutional principles, was rushed through in hasty legislation on false premises, and so forth. I am hopeful that that group will also prove successful.
With all the variations within our democratic system and the different views that we hold, groupings will form and will become of political significance. A successful movement at the time of the 1979 general election sticks in my mind. Over the years we had been upset at the failure to interest parliamentary candidates and Members of Parliament in animal welfare as a theme of moral and social importance. We formed the Animal Welfare Electoral Fund in 1979. We urged the heads of the political parties to include some form of animal welfare measures in their party policy statements. We had the slogan "Put animals into politics". If you want to change the law, all roads lead to Westminster. As polling day approached we urged the parties to include that in their manifestos so that we could achieve parliamentary action. Do you know, my Lords, in that election every major political party included in its manifesto a reference to
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animal welfare? I am grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw, who was chairman of the Conservative Party at the time, for taking on board so many of the representations that we made to him, leading to the creation of the Farm Animal Welfare Council and an extension of the terms of reference of the Home Office committee on animal experiments. That action was highly successful. I could quote numerous other instances.
Nevertheless, there is a problem when single issue groups turn from peaceful practices into a feeling for the need for more violent action. However, cast your minds back, my Lords. In your knowledge of history, has there been a major social change in Britain which has not involved people going into politics, in to the pulpit and into prison? Votes for women is one example. It took a long time for men to gain electoral democracy. Many people have joined in direct action when they have felt that debate was not leading to a satisfactory conclusion. It is not a matter of not waiting, as the noble Lord indicated; it is a matter of waiting so long and frustration that the parliamentary system is not yielding what it should in the light of public opinion.
That is merely an introduction to the debate. I am anxious to listen to other noble Lords and hear what they have to say about the subject. The single group will go on. Some of my heroes were single issue activists. One of my heroes was Charles Bradlaugh, who was a member of a group concerned with a single issue, namely to remove religion from the oath of allegiance for Members of Parliament. He managed to achieve that. He managed to have a secular oath of allegiance introduced. That action broke his health. He had to stand in several by-elections in order to be re-elected and was then thrown out of Parliament when he got back. That is lost on us these days. We do not realise how violent it all was and how upsetting socially.
I shall now sit down. I have added a little postscript to a most fascinating speech by the noble Lord. Much that he has talked about will be repeated in our thoughts and discussions on the future of society. As regards the hidden persuader, that is the real culprit in society today. He is the person behind the television and the media generally. In many ways that element is becoming a significant influence. On occasions, the media represent one of the greatest influences in our society. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his speech. I can now sit down within my time limit of 11 minutes.
5.51 p.m.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, it is always a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, in debates. It certainly is today.
We are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, for this debate which is the sort of occasion when your Lordships have a particular role to play in the constitution. It is perhaps a unique role. Perhaps I may also draw attention to the fact that the noble Lord who introduced the debate with his most interesting and thoughtful speech is a hereditary Peer. That may cause us to think seriously about the constitution of your Lordships' House.
I believe that the noble Lord is directing our attention to issues which are considered by their proponents as being of special importance but which are not yet

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incorporated into the general programmes of mainstream political parties. Some are genuinely single issues. Probably the purest was Samuel Plimsoll's campaign for the loading line in cargo ships, and—pace the noble Lord, Lord Houghton—he did not have to go to prison for it.
Although the Clapham Set had a general philosophy, undoubtedly the anti-slave trade campaign was a single issue—and I am glad to say that in the presence of my noble and learned friend Lord Wilberforce.
However, lest the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, should beguile us into thinking that all single issues are sensible and beneficent, one ought to reflect on the fashionable fad last century for bimetallism which, happily, ran into the sand. Sometimes what we regard, I think rightly, as single issues are extended. The most successful single issue group in our history was, I think, the Anti-Corn Law League. But that broadened into a defence of free trade generally and a general attack on the Navigation Act. Then there was the abolition of capital punishment. Although it can be regarded as a single issue, it was associated with general penal and police reform both under Peel and in the 1950s.
Many of the single issue groups of influence are beneficent, as appears from most of the examples that I have stated, but not all. I have mentioned bimetallism, but there is also the single issue group on the extreme Right of the political spectrum advocating xenophobia and racialism, and, on the extreme Left, the confiscation of all private property. One must discriminate.
The disadvantages of single issue groups are several. One has been referred to by both speakers who preceded me: namely, the propensity to devolve into violence. If a group believes strongly about a single issue, and feels frustrated, it feels entitled to have resort to violence. There are many examples upon which we can reflect today. If that is the worst, at best there is the persistent lobbying to which the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, referred and which has been reviewed with disfavour in the Nolan Report.
Military tacticians tell us to concentrate our forces. The single issue groups concentrating on a single issue are apt to obtain an inordinate influence—in other words, an influence in achieving objectives which are not really acceptable to the bulk of their fellow citizens. Finally, the single issue tempts politicians to shrimp for votes. The most notable example today is what happened during the Clinton campaign in America, where undoubtedly the shrimping for the homosexual vote has landed him in considerable trouble; and his shrimping for the Irish vote has not made our task of peacekeeping in Northern Ireland any easier.
So the question arises: how can we accommodate the single issue groups without the disadvantages? I can think of three ways. The first is proportional representation. I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Holme, will not be able to refrain from referring to that issue. I believe that it is the least favourable. The second is the commission of inquiry. The third is a matter the noble Lord, Lord Moyne, will remember that we glanced at when we debated the Swiss constitution—namely, the popular initiative which is also practised in
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a number of American states where it lies quite happily alongside the two-party system, the first-past-the-post system, and the winner-takes-all system.
However, without irritating the noble Lord, Lord Holme, too much, perhaps I may state what I regard as the disadvantage of proportional representation. Proponents will claim that it enables the minority to be fairly represented. One person, one vote, one value is a very attractive cry. It is true that it is valuable up to the point of the returning officer. However, beyond that it is a distortion. Let us take the case of a small religious party, perhaps representing 2 per cent. of the electorate, holding the view very strongly and conscientiously that all public transport should be halted on the Sabbath. They are the necessary ingredients of a working coalition and their views on the matter are their price. What happens then is that 2 per cent. of Parliament impose their views on 98 per cent. of the electorate.
So I would much prefer to see single issues resolved in commissions of inquiry which can weigh the advantages against the disadvantages. Such commissions went out of fashion in the past decade because the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, liked to get things done. She regarded commissions of inquiry as holding things up rather than getting them done. But there is much scope for them in the field which the noble Lord has raised. I venture to commend commissions of inquiry in the context of this debate and the popular initiative which I hope other noble Lords will develop. I end as I began, by expressing gratitude to the noble Lord for initiating the debate.
6.1 p.m.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, in all the speeches I have made in your Lordships' House I do not believe that I have ever followed such formidable speakers. I shall not completely follow what they said; a little variety in a debate does no harm. I am grateful to my noble kinsman Lord Birdwood and congratulate him on an erudite speech which I shall read with great interest tomorrow and which I heard with interest today.
As has already been said, the proliferation of special interest groups and their power to distort policy is not new. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, drew attention to it with the abolition of the slave trade and other matters in the past. That, of course, was wholly benevolent, but some of the special interest groups we have are nothing of the kind. A special interest group at present threatens to get out of hand and in many cases it menaces the very basis of our constitution. Members of another place with marginal majorities are particularly endangered by the kind of blackmail which the groups frequently use.
In this short debate, however, I shall confine myself to a few groups, most of them quite respectable, but in my view in certain cases they either go too far or they base their case on scant and distorted evidence and often on bogus statistics. No one would call the NSPCC a group whose interest is unimportant—though it is a single issue group —or whose aims are not respectable. But I would like to bring to your Lordships' attention a poster which the NSPCC recently sponsored and which was prominently displayed on nearly all the bus stops throughout central London. It states:
"One in eight persons who reads this notice was abused as a child".

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I have to ask your Lordships what mad statistician produced that drivel.
It is true that there is a lot of cruelty to children. There is also neglect, which in extreme forms can amount to cruelty. But we must keep a sense of proportion in these matters. No one can convince me that it is as widespread as the notice suggests, and the NSPCC does no one, including itself, a service by suggesting that it is. We have seen what happened in Cleveland and Orkney when that kind of thing gets wildly out of hand. Having seen that, some might conclude that no family in this country, however kindly and respectable, is safe from persecution. The NSPCC is not subscribed to by the public to put thousands of ordinary, decent families in a state of fear and anxiety.
Here I cannot avoid mentioning the report which came out yesterday in the newspapers, emanating from the charity Shelter, that one in four women is physically abused by her partner. I am well aware that there is another world out there. But that statement is so far-fetched and removed from my experience of all classes of society in the country that I find it incredible. That kind of wild exaggeration does damage to a perfectly good cause.
Leaving that, I come to a more controversial point: the huge and powerful anti-smoking lobby. It has a point of view which can be respected, but it uses statistics selectively and with the stagecraft of professional conjurors. All statistics or findings of researchers which suggest that smoking may not be as absolutely evil as the lobby suggests are brushed aside or savagely attacked.
The authorities in this country and throughout most of Europe and elsewhere have completely surrendered to those people. "Smoking kills", it says on my packet of tobacco. All I can say is that it has not killed Sir Denis Thatcher yet. He is nearly 80 and, according to the Sunday Telegraph, smokes 60 Benson and Hedges a day. I would not recommend that to anyone, but he does, or the Sunday Telegraph says he does. It took 101 years for smoking to kill Lord Shinwell, whom many of us remember with affection.
ASH and the anti-smoking lobby are a single pressure group and they ought to remember that. It is reasonable to discourage the young from taking up smoking, especially cigarettes, which is where most of the trouble originates. It is reasonable not to smoke near young babies, though I must observe here that, so far as I know, everyone smoked like a chimney round me when I was a young baby and I am still here.
It is right that we should not smoke near people who are allergic to tobacco smoke or who are otherwise affected by it, but the issue of secondary smoking is something that needs more attention than it has yet received. Again, the statistics are distorted, in my view, and used by the anti-smoking people because nothing suits them better than that.
Taken to extremes—and many of those people would go to extremes—our homes would be surveyed by anti-smoking police and our children, and maybe even our grandmothers, taken into care and we ourselves imprisoned. If that sounds extreme, I can only say that it is the logical conclusion of the ASH campaign.
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I should also like seriously to make a plea to the BMA and those who manage our excellent hospitals. I myself was in two this year. In many hospitals today there is absolutely nowhere for a smoker to go. Apart from the inhumanity of that, I urge that it is not logical. On the one hand doctors say that tobacco is addictive and on the other they add considerably to the distress of sick people by attempting, by force, to cure them of their addiction at a time when they are helpless and often vulnerable. In my opinion that is cruel and inhuman and not what hospitals are supposed to be for.
What worries me is the current fashion of many groups who disapprove of some activity or other. It may be an activity of which many noble Lords would disapprove; I am not particularly fond of professional boxing and I spoke about it the other day. But people also campaign to have such activities banned because they do not like them. As the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, said, we are free to say and do as we like within the law. But so many of the single issue groups want to stop us doing that. They want to stop us doing what we like and what has been perfectly legal for hundreds of years.
We live in a strange, mixed up moral climate. On the one hand, there are groups who want to ban smoking, boxing, fox hunting, meat eating, cars and road building, drinking alcohol and many more activities which I cannot remember. On the other hand, there is an extreme tolerance of every form of sexual vice and many think too great a tolerance of many forms of crime. There are cases where the convicted criminal pays a very minimal penalty for his misdeeds. We have all noticed that.
In conclusion, I say to all these people, many of whom are worthy, and some of them less, so: remember prohibition in America. The more laws we pass, the more criminals we produce, and often, like the Mafia, real criminals, who are just waiting for something to be banned. We should have enough laws for the proper regulation of a civilised society, and no more.
6.10 p.m.
Lord Desai: My Lords, in introducing this topic, the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, made one or two remarks that deserve very careful attention. He asked whether or not single issue groups were in some sense democratic. We have already heard a good counter-argument from my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale; namely, that there have been single issue campaigns in the history of many democratic states that have achieved a lot of good. That is not to say that all single issue campaigns have achieved a lot of good, but a variety of examples have been given of single issue campaigns that have been successful.
At the risk of sounding partisan, I would add the example of the anti-poll tax (or, I should say, anti-community charge) campaign. That campaign was extra-parliamentary. Many people did not like what it did. But it achieved something quite revolutionary. Within a single Parliament an Act was passed and repealed. That would not have happened without a strong direct action campaign.

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Obviously there are direct action campaigns that offend many people. Direct single issue campaigns attract people who, relative to others, feel very intensely about a topic. That intensity is, they feel, not quite captured in the ordinary voting process; in ordinary political parties there is somehow no one to reflect the intensity of their dislike or preference on a certain issue. Therefore they resort to a single issue campaign.
As my noble friend Lord Houghton pointed out, no single issue campaign can be successful unless it filters through the parliamentary process and gets into the legislative mainstream. Then it can win. Until it can achieve that within our democracy, it cannot be effective. Therefore we have to apply this maxim to a single issue campaign. However extreme the form in which it may start and conduct itself—it undoubtedly has to conduct itself within the law—eventually it can succeed only if it can convince enough parliamentarians of one or other political persuasion to take it on board; it needs to win a sufficient number of voters not only to reflect the views of a minority who feel intensely about it but to be seen as a general issue with which a large number of people are willing to go along.
To that extent, a single issue campaign is also an educational campaign. It makes us aware of matters that we did not think about before. The question of anti-slavery was mentioned. When the anti-slavery campaign began, slavery was thought to have the natural sanction of religion and to be a question of the right of private property. One can read that it was thought outrageous for someone to state that the slave trade should be banned. Many people said, "If we do not trade in slaves, other people will. So what good will it do Britain to abandon the slave trade?". First, people had to be convinced that the trade in slaves was not right, that it did not have any scriptural justification, or logic, or a humanitarian side. The campaign was not easy. However, it succeeded in educating people. The educational effect of single issue campaigns should not be forgotten. After the abolition of the trade in slaves, slavery itself had to be abolished. Sadly, it took the civil war, one of the bloodiest wars in the history of the United States, to bring that about. So single issue campaigns can occasionally be good. Occasionally, of course, they run into the ground.
The noble Lord made another important point; namely, whether in our present democracy certain sorts of power have gone away from the mainstream political arena, from the mainstream political parties and Parliament. There has been a drift away, on the one hand, to single issue groups which have an intensity of feeling and, on the other hand, to the media, and especially to certain people who determine programme making. We have to ask whether that particular combination—a meeting, as it were, of minds and hearts across a crowded room—is more of a danger sign than anything else.
In the past any campaign that had to be waged had physically to win a sizeable number of people on to its side. The anti-Corn Law campaign was mentioned. Cobden and Bright had to travel up and down the country arguing the case for Corn Law repeal. They had to build up a large coalition which had sufficient coverage across the country for it to command attention. Society is now so
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fragmented that very often people sit in their own private homes rather than attend public meetings. Indeed, politicians hardly address public meetings any more. It is all a matter of soundbites, television and so on. Is it the case that today one could mount a single issue campaign and, without making any great effort to recruit numbers of people, by the sheer manipulation of television change public opinion?
That is a very important question. It raises issues about the quality, the depth and the strength of political democracy. If that could happen—I do not know of an example but I am ready to be corrected—it could be an extremely dangerous sign. It would indicate that a very small minority, because of the reach that they have through technology, can extend to people the illusion that the matter is one of public outrage when there is no public outrage at all. It would mean that they could manufacture public outrage. The noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw, was accused of stirring up apathy before the 1979 election. The headlines stir up scandal when there is no scandal whatsoever.
It might be possible for a combination of television and newspapers—they involve very clever people who know how to affect public opinion—to make a serious inroad so that a reluctant Parliament is driven to passing a law. My noble friend Lord Houghton has justice on his side when he says that that is perhaps what happened in the campaign against dangerous dogs. If that were to become a more frequent occurrence, we should be seriously worried. It would mean that it is not enough for a single issue campaign merely to educate people and win them over and then have recourse to the parliamentary process. The parliamentary process must also be robust enough to be able to stop such a campaign, no matter how intense or popular, and discern, regardless of the noise and the support, that it is a minority campaign and that, as a minority issue, it does not have the broad-based support that should be necessary for any such campaign to command legislative approval.
That would mean that all political parties in this country would need to be aware that the danger of media manipulation is very serious. We must be very careful; it is not just a matter of cross-ownership. Ownership is not the only problem. The problem is that very often there seems to be a Gaderene force in the media and everybody jumps on the bandwagon, afraid that other newspapers might win readers and they will be left behind. It is that kind of thing to which we are most in danger of succumbing. In pointing out that danger to us, the noble Lord has made a very significant contribution.
6.20 p.m.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, I want very much to support the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, in what I felt was a most thoughtful and penetrating analysis of this issue. What he said about power draining away from our traditional political institutions is at the heart of the matter. It is happening. As the noble Lord, Lord Desai, said, there are various reasons for that. He mentioned one: the growing power of the press, perhaps without any concomitant growing responsibility. I shall come back to that point in a moment.

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For now I shall confine myself to the subject raised by the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, which is the rise of single issue groups. I believe that too to be a matter of fundamental importance, because we may be moving by that route imperceptibly, as the noble Lord said, from representative parliamentary democracy of a kind with which we are all familiar to something quite different. We should try to understand what that "something quite different" might be.
In our form of representative democracy, governments are elected on integrated, interactive and inter-related programmes, not on single issues. The difference with single issue politics is that they tend to ignore collateral effects. Single issues are pursued energetically and vigorously, very often without too much account being taken of the long-term economic and social implications of what is being proposed.
As other noble Lords have said, single issue groups are perfectly admissible in a democratic society. As the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, said, in a democratic society the right of the citizen to object openly to and seek to change laws which can be changed and which he (or she) regards as objectionable is long established. A typical example and one that we have seen a great deal on television recently is the protest against exports of live animals, by people who seriously believe that that is cruel. Here again, few would disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, that to civilised susceptibilities the offence of cruelty to animals has been recognised since Biblical days. Indeed, as the great German philosopher, Emmanuel Kant, put it:
"Violent and cruel treatment of animals is intimately opposed to man's duty to himself'.
That people should seek to change laws to which they object and which seem to permit that kind of cruelty is understandable and admissible.
But having said that, we now have to contemplate and confront the dangerous implications of single issue politics. We have heard of the good that they can do and there are many examples of it. But we must also, as the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, hinted, begin to contemplate some of the dangerous implications.
As we all know, in a democratic society there is an obligation to observe existing laws so long as those laws are democratically made, impartially administered, properly enforced and—this is the important factor—are capable of being changed or replaced by democratic means. That is where the key to the matter lies. It is self-evidently true that in the society of this country all those criteria are met: our laws are democratically made; they are impartially administered; they are properly enforced; and they are capable of being changed by the democratic process.
But it is very evident to me that many single issue groups operating in this country at the moment do not accept that essential principle of a democratic civic order. They are prepared to break the law, to trespass and to steal in pursuit of their political aims. As we heard, some are prepared to use deliberate, planned violence against property and people.
Plato in his famous Republic said that when people do that, they become hardly better than animals themselves. That may perhaps be pitching it a little strongly. But I believe that it is not too extreme to say that the use of
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violence in the pursuit of political ends—which is characteristic of many single issue groups—is a form of terrorism. It is terrorism, whether its practitioners are members of the Red Brigade, Greenpeace, the animal rights movement or anyone else. If, in the pursuit of political aims, in a society where change can be made democratically, they are prepared to use violence to obtain their ends, it is not extreme to call that a form of terrorism.
The use of force—violence—in pursuit of those political aims is not the only political problem. It is an important one; but we must also bear in mind—this has already been mentioned in the course of this most interesting debate—the phenomenon of infiltration and exploitation of single issue groups by political extremists who have nothing to do with the single issue at all. That is the technique of "entryism", which is familiar to any student of political science. There is little doubt that such familiar single issue groups as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and various animal rights movements have been and are being exploited by people whose agenda has little to do with anything that is contained in the agenda of those groups. Certainly it has nothing to do with preserving the environment or the rights of animals.
I suppose that a classic example of entryism in the days of the Cold War surrounded the activities of the prototype single issue group the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which was systematically exploited by the other side, as it then was in the Cold War, who regarded CND as "useful idiots"—to use the famous communist expression—to be exploited for its own ends.
Finally, just for a moment we must return to the point mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Birdwood and Lord Houghton, and, perhaps most forcefully, by the noble Lord, Lord Desai; namely, the symbiosis that seems to be emerging between single issue groups, especially the more violent ones, and the press. That is a real phenomenon. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, wondered whether that was indeed what was happening. Those of us who follow such matters closely have no doubt that there is a serious alliance—a symbiosis—between practitioners of violence, especially in the pursuit of political ends, and the media.
Protest, demonstrations and violent clashes with the police make good television and good copy and will be used for that purpose. A group occupying an airfield—"occupying" as they call it—throwing stones at the police, burning flags and smashing windows, can usually rely on the presence of a television camera somewhere and on the certainty that their activities will be reported in the news bulletin that evening. I suppose that that is and will be justified by the producers of programmes and the writers of copy in the newspapers as being in the public interest. Often that may be a justifiable claim. But there is also little doubt that some of those happenings which appear on our news programmes take place only because the cameras are there to record them. Had the cameras not been there, nothing would have happened.
This is a complex subject. As the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, said, it is not one that we can exhaust in a short debate of this kind. As I said, I feel that most of us would agree that single issue politics are an essential element of a free democratic society. But their impact is growing, the

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abuse of their freedom to protest is growing, and there is a change in the nature of the democratic process brought about, as we seem mostly to be agreed, by a kind of symbiosis between that kind of movement and the activities and responsibilities of the press. The worst outcome of this kind of process, if it were to continue unchecked and if we did not understand it, is that society will eventually become ungovernable and, as the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, said, we shall slide into a form of anarchy. I do not believe that we are anywhere near that point at the moment. But noble Lords need only to read the headlines in the latest edition of today's Evening Standard to realise that at least we should be aware of the dangers.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Moyne: My Lords, I too am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Birdwood for introducing this debate, which deals with one of the most important half-hidden issues in our society. I am not sure that I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, though I agree with him on most things. But I have the feeling that the symbiosis between single issue groups and television, which causes violence to appear on television, is as likely to frighten members of the public as impress them. The danger from that source of anarchy is therefore perhaps less than he implies.
In the country of the apolitical, the one-issue man is king. Or, to put it as my noble friend almost did, mainstream politics have become comparatively boring; one issue politics are inherently entertaining, which is why the media like them. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, is right. There have always been single-issue groups and they have done a great deal of good. Without them we should still have slavery and child labour. But we must remember also, and it has been mentioned, the fact of prohibition in the United States, which is the origin of the frightening power of gangsterism and the Mafia. It started with a small politically motivated group—I believe I quote the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, in that—who banned drink from the United States, which was something 99 per cent. of the population was against. It had the most disastrous effect.
On the question of the comparative fading of interest in mainstream politics, there is an interesting quotation from Eric Hobsbawm, the communist historian, in his recent book, The Age of Extremes, which states:
"The decline of the organised mass parties, class based, ideological or both, has eliminated the major social engine for turning men and women into politically active citizens".
There is something in that. But the proliferation of single issues has replaced throughout Europe—in fact throughout the democracies as my noble friend said—that mechanism. Today in the Daily Telegraph there is an item saying that hunt saboteurs in Germany have been sawing through the hides used by shooters of deer. They have caused at least 10 people to break their legs falling out of the hides, which is most unfortunate. I was slightly happier to see that one of the saboteurs sawed a little too enthusiastically and killed himself—serves him right!
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There is a whole family of modern single-issue campaigns and I see it as having two parents. The mother of the family is the campaign against capital punishment in the 1940s and 1950s. I remember the pictures, which were rather moving, of Mrs. Van der Elst sitting outside the prison where there was to be an execution. She seemed to be a crank. In my view—I suppose I am in a small minority—she was a crank. But the laugh was on those of us who thought that. Capital punishment was abolished, since when 80 people have been murdered by criminals who, before abolition, would not have existed because they would have been executed. That was a successful campaign; the mother of this family.
The father of the single-issue family was the campaign—thank goodness it failed—for unilateral nuclear disarmament. It failed because of the commonsense of most members of the public who saw that some, though by no means all, of the leaders of that campaign were primarily aiming for Soviet victory in the Cold War and were using others as "useful idiots" in the same way that Willy Munzenberg and his team used to do in the 1930s on other issues. I remember sitting in an Underground train in the early 1960s minding my own business. It was late at night and the only other two people in the carriage were a young man and a young woman covered in CND badges. The woman said to the man, "If the Russians are so peaceloving, why do they have missiles in Cuba?" The man was rather lost for a reply, but it certainly cheered me up to hear her say that. I did not intervene.
Before I deal with the family of issues, I must make the point that so often the Government stumble after these people in inept caricatures of the original campaigners, appointing quangos, implementing stale research, forcing the tobacco advertisers to cry "Stinking fish!", and so forth. The Government try but perhaps they should not try so hard. Several issues arise in the family. There are the social issues—feminism, race relations and homosexual rights. In almost every case the single-issue people have won. In the case of feminism we shall see the amusing sight of half of all Labour candidates having to be women. I happen to know that that is already causing trouble in the grass roots of that party and we shall see what happens in the next Parliament when the intake has been effected in that way. It is genuinely interesting, but I wonder whether it will do the Labour Party all that much good. We see the appointment of women priests and the introduction of politically correct liturgy into the Church of England and the Equal Opportunities Commission, which in my view exemplifies the culture of the whine.
Race relations has won also—thank goodness! But again it encourages a certain amount of litigation which is perhaps unnecessary. The issue of homosexual rights has won. However, it seems that the victors are not content with having won equality before the law—other than the age of consent, which is a detail; they seem to want to concentrate on looking into the private lives of bishops, which I suppose gives all of us a little instant amusement but is not really something to be encouraged.
Besides the social issues there are the environmental issues. They are mostly good causes. For instance, there is the rainforest and, protests against motorways and airports, which are sometimes right and sometimes

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wrong. Just because somebody does not want something in his backyard, does not necessarily mean that it should not be there. Unfortunately, in that regard the Government have stepped in in a slightly clumsy way in introducing their Cones Hotline. That was perhaps as absurd an example of trying to be with it as one can imagine. It is rather amiable, but absurd.
We have issues of air pollution, the ozone layer and lead in petrol. The anti-smoking campaign was mentioned, and the viciousness of it. I completely agree. It cannot be true that passive smoking, as it is called, causes the deaths that it is said to cause. That simply is not possible. The statistics saying that it happens must be rigged. I am not a statistician but I hope that I have a certain amount of common sense.
There is also the question of the preservation of buildings. I wish that the authorities in this matter were not so aesthetically blind as they are in the way that they list things without any apparent regard to whether they are attractive to look at. A block in Hampstead has been listed which is perfectly hideous. If the period is bad, why preserve what is typical of that bad period?
There are also the humanitarian campaigns and the anti-fur trade, anti-hunting and the save the whale campaigns. I think that hunting probably will be abolished because I calculate that there is now a fairly substantial majority in the House of Commons to abolish it. There are also the national campaigns. Northern Ireland is one great area dominated by a single issue for years. We hope that in future it may become less so dominated.
I must finish now. This issue will not go away. The media grow in power, politics grows in dullness and the single issue people certainly do not lose in shrillness.
6.41 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, for initiating the debate. I share the interest in his speech but I do not share his anxieties. I do not know whether anyone else is in my position, but I think that all these new anxieties are rather childish. We talk as if there are new dangers from single issues. The remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Moyne, about capital punishment showed an extraordinary ignorance of the history of the subject in this country. I agreed with him on one point. He said that when there is violence on television it does not do the violent people any good. If we asked Mr. Blair and whoever runs the Conservative campaign these days whether violence helped them, they would say that it certainly did not help the people who were revealed as violent. I think that all this anxiety is very much overdone.
I must pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. I do not agree with his message on all occasions but I never fail to admire the messenger. There was a phrase used by a famous Roman emperor, stupor mundi, meaning a wonder of the world. In my eyes, the noble Lord will always be that.
Coming back to the subject of the debate, I suppose that I have introduced more new topics into this House over the past 40 years than anyone else. One could call some of them single issues or some of them not. I shall mention only five of them. Noble Lords may or may not call them
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single issues. I opened a debate on prisons some 40 years ago. Is that what one would call a single issue? I opened the first debate on criminal injuries compensation in 1964. Is that what one would call a single issue? It is just a matter of opinion. Is pornography a single issue? Are the polytechnics a single issue? Are traditional family values a single issue? To me, the phrase is not a very meaningful one. I am sorry to be somewhat waspish but one must speak one's mind.
When one discusses these questions one is bound to be influenced by one's own experience. I would not say that I have in mind only debates in this House. Before the war, when I was a Labour councillor in Oxford, having recently joined the Labour Party, I took the chair for Harry Pollitt, Secretary of the Communist Party, and we campaigned away about the Spanish Civil War. I took the chair for the Dean of Canterbury, who claimed that wages in the Soviet Union were going up, up, up and prices were coming down, down, down. I do not know whether one would call those single issues, or what one would call them. Those are campaigns in which I have been involved at different times.
Taking some of the issues in which I have been involved, when I mention pornography I defer at once to the great name of Mary Whitehouse, who took up the campaign against pornography several years before I did and has carried it on ever since. It may be said that the situation with regard to pornography is no better or worse than it was 25 years ago, but it would certainly have been a great deal worse had it not been for the heroic Mary Whitehouse. When we struggle on in these debates and we take up these issues we do not know whether we are going to win or lose or what is victory or defeat. Nevertheless, we carry on.
I have been called a "Lord of Lost Causes" by a trendy critic somewhere. Some of these issues were not irretrievably lost and indeed the arguments have often prevailed. When I took up the cause of Germany it was considered to be very odd indeed—preaching forgiveness of the Germans. People tried to do the opposite for a few years after the war. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has fought for many of these causes. Some have succeeded and some have not.
Perhaps I may mention one cause where in a small way I appear on paper to have been successful. I was the first person to raise in this House the polytechnics. At the end of that debate, which took place in 1989, I said that the Minister had made a disappointing reply. However, three years later, hey presto, it was game, set and match to the polytechnics. They became universities. I am not for a moment being so stupid as to suggest that I did it, but I took up that issue, as the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has taken up his issues and others have taken up their issues, and in that case I happened to succeed. So it goes on.
I cannot see any harm in these endeavours. I am talking of issues which I took up on my own initiative, though in the case of criminal injuries I had been chairman of a committee of justice of the Legal Society. If one considers issues which are raised by large groups, I cannot see that they can possibly do any harm. Returning to what the noble Lord, Lord Moyne, said earlier, Mr. Blair and Mr. Major were not upset by these issues in the local elections.

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They were not "the" issues and they will not be at the next general election. I think that all this anxiety is rather misplaced.
One of the greatest changes of my lifetime was the coming of the welfare state. I do not think one could call that a single issue because so many people played a part in it over so many years. The emancipation of women is surely the biggest change in my lifetime. Various methods were adopted. There was a certain amount of violence and so on. At any rate, that prevailed. I do not know whether that is called a single issue. There was emancipation of women for the House of Commons, but it took more than 40 years to emancipate them here. We know what a struggle that has always been. Whether or not they are called single issues, they are campaigns, and I would say that they have been the lifeblood of democracy.
People in this House make their contributions in various ways. They make them in different ways. Some play a big part as official spokesmen for one Front Bench or another. Others do a great deal of hard work at the Committee stage of Bills. Others work in committees downstairs. I shall always personally feel that there is a tremendous part to be played in your Lordships' House for those who take up causes that are discussed here for the first time or causes that have never been properly discussed elsewhere. If they were discouraged in any way, this House would lose a vital part of its soul.
6.48 p.m.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, for introducing the debate. During the course of his remarks he mentioned a phone-in. I have to confess to him that they should be treated with a little caution. When I was Chief Whip of the Labour Party in another place I had a little team on tap to attend to such matters from time to time, as and when required.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, about the value of pressure groups in the old meaning of the term, but I would go along with the noble Lord, Lord Belhaven and Stenton, when he mentioned the zealots who carry things to extremes. We had an example of that not long ago in your Lordships' House when we considered the Bill relating to the sale of tobacco to young children. To our shame, we endorsed the sending of young, under-age children into tobacconists to see whether they could buy packets of cigarettes while an official lurked outside to see whether he could make a cop. I believe that using children for that purpose, however zealous those middle-class children may be, is going beyond the bounds of proper pressure.
The noble Lords, Lord Chalfont and Lord Moyne, mentioned the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. I have another confession to make to the House: at one time, I was a member of CND. Both noble Lords mentioned the phrase "useful idiots". Your Lordships will have no problem applying the word "idiot", but I am not so sure whether you endorse the word "useful". When I first joined CND and tried to canvass support for it, people would say, "Whatever other countries do, we should retain our nuclear weapons". By the time that I finally left the movement, the consensus was that if other people got
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rid of their nuclear weapons, that was okay for us too. So there was a perceptible change and I believe that much of it was due to the work of CND.
My noble friend Lord Desai mentioned two groups: the very intense groups and the media-related groups. The groups that concern me most are those which combine those two categories. There are now a number of pressure groups which concern themselves with constitutional issues. An examination of such groups shows that the same names crop up in one group and another, as do the same sources of funds and information about individual donations.
That fact was reinforced for me today when, browsing through the New Statesman in the Library, I came across an article describing the formation of a new group, the Labour Initiative on Cooperation (Linc), which is aimed at forging an anti-Tory alliance. The article states:
"Many of Linc's supporters are old hands from Charter 88 and the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform".
That is the sort of stage army which concerns me.
In fact, I have raised the subject of Charter 88 in the House previously. As early as 2nd November 1994, at col. 844 of the Official Report, when discussing the current report of the Liaison Committee, I wondered whether one of its suggestions had not been inspired by Charter 88. I went on to say that while there was much concern in another place about lobbying for commercial reasons, I thought that an even more insidious form of lobbying was taking place through the activities of Charter 88 and others. I cited some of the things that Charter 88 had published about the ways in which Parliament could be influenced. I also said that I could hardly recognise this country from Charter 88's description of it in some of its literature. We are supposed to be virtually a police state where one cannot find out anything.
Your Lordships may have noticed over the months a constant dripping of articles and letters in what are known as the "quality papers", mainly written by the same sort of stage army. Such letters come from that source rather than from independent members of the public or independent journalists. I believe that that group and others are in collusion with the quality press because the outstanding fact is that the only advertisement for Charter 88 which I have been able to trace in a tabloid newspaper is one insertion in Today. There has never been anything in the Mirror, Sun or any other popular tabloid newspaper. We are talking about an intellectual élite. Not content with trying to influence policies, Charter 88 is now beginning to pick on the Nolan Committee to pursue its aims, using it as a stalking horse.
There was a lull in those activities. It coincided with the period of the VE Day celebrations. I think that that was sensible because if such activities had continued at that time—if Charter 88 had continued to portray this country in the terms in which it likes to refer to it—its members would probably have been lynched by the many people in this country who were celebrating VE Day and remembering those who had given their lives in the service of this country.
Not content with trying to influence this country, Charter 88 has made a submission to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. I am old-fashioned enough to think that one does not criticise one's country abroad,

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whatever one may think of the particular government in power. However, Charter 88 has published a commentary on the Third Periodic Report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations. I shall not weary the House with it, except to cite one point. Page 15 deals with self-determination for Scotland and Wales and states that the Scottish referendum produced a clear majority in favour of devolution. However, it then states:
"A Scottish Assembly was not, however, created because the British government had attached a proviso to the referendum that devolution would only occur if 40 per cent. of the total electorate voted in favour".
It is hard to imagine a greater travesty of what happened. I was in the unsatisfactory position of being the Government Chief Whip who was defeated on the Floor of the House by that amendment which was inserted against the wishes of the Government. I can hardly believe that those words have crept through and been sent to the United Nations as a true picture of what happened. It is a disgrace.
The chattering classes are trying to implement changes without any real support from the public. A written constitution is no real guarantee. On 11th August 1919, the German Republic adopted a constitution, of which Article 135 in Section III states:
"All inhabitants of the Reich enjoy full liberty of faith and of conscience. The undisturbed practice of religion is guaranteed by the Constitution and is under State protection".
I hardly think that the state gave a great deal of protection to the Jewish population. The written constitution did not protect the Romany gypsies who were slaughtered or the mentally handicapped and the mentally disturbed who suffered the same fate. A written constitution is no automatic panacea.
I believe that the constant working up of grievances, with the constant suggestion that legal action through the courts is the way to achieve happiness for our population, is a lot of nonsense. I ask such groups to ask themselves whether, if all their wishes were brought into being, the general populace would be happier or less happy than before.
I am concerned about the growth in litigation. It is following the pattern of the United States. I have spoken about it previously in your Lordships' House. Perhaps I may give one last example of where we are going. I recently attended the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital where I received very good attention and had satisfactory results from the tests on my eyes. I was told, "Come back in a couple of months' time so that we can make sure", and was given an appointment card. When I turned the card over, what did I find? An advertisement read:
"Had an accident? Road accident, accident at work, tripped on the pavement? You may be entitled to compensation. Home & hospital visits arranged. Legal aid available"—
I stress that it does not state that legal aid "may" be available, giving various caveats. No, it states, "Legal aid available", meaning, "Come along and help yourself. The advertisement also reads:
"Solicitors specialising in injury claims. First interview free. David Levene & Co, Solicitors".
It then gave a freephone number, suggesting 24-hour service.
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When we get to that, and when people (possibly not fortunate like myself but in a reduced and weakened state because of, say, bad news) are given appointment cards carrying such advertisements, where are we going as a society? We must address such issues, otherwise the whole quality of our life will be destroyed.
7 p.m.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, for giving us the opportunity to discuss this subject and some of his own original and perceptive observations. He and one or two other noble Lords seemed, in a way, to want to make our flesh creep. They want to find special interest groups under the bed and worry us that that is a bad thing for the quality of our democracy. On the whole, I do not agree with that analysis. Of course there are some matters of concern to which I shall revert later, but I am by no means convinced by the general case against the role of special interest groups and pressure groups; in our society. On the whole, I find the reverse.
Civil society depends upon a combination of pluralism and participation, and a democratically elected Parliament, although a necessary condition of progress and civic involvement, is not, in itself, a sufficient condition. We need a host of intermediate institutions and associations of one sort or another. That is what does not exist in totalitarian societies. The Czech Republic, Hungary and all the countries that have emerged from the scourge of the totalitarian years are suffering from the fact that they do not have civic pressure groups and organisations to enrich the fabric of society and progressive debate.
In a post-paternalist era, which is the one in which we live, as parliamentarians we probably have to accept that there will be many other sources of impetus and origination in society than those represented by Members of Parliament.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, and the noble Earl, Lord Longford, I have to declare what they call in police courts "past form". I have form. I am a former single interest person. I used to run something called the National Committee for Electoral Reform, the Campaign for Fair Votes, and the Rights Campaign, and—I hardly dare admit this after the words so forcefully expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Cocks—I was the original founding co-chairman of Charter 88. I say that nervously in case he is going to leap across the Benches and throttle me after what he said. But there it is; it is on the record.
I am part of the sinister intellectual conspiracy. I must say that I prefer arguments advanced by intellectual means to those advanced by the direct action to which most of your Lordships have referred and deplored. I prefer people to engage in debate. Luckily, the noble Lord, Lord Cocks, does not, in that respect, speak for the party of which he is a member. I remember well the most moving occasion when the late John Smith delivered his lecture at Charter 88, supporting the aims of Charter 88. I remember Gordon Brown's lecture to Charter 88.
I have watched with great pleasure the Labour Party's conversion to many of the issues of constitutional reform which the noble Lord, Lord Cocks, seems to deplore, and

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which—admitting my form—I have to say has been so far unsuccessful. In a way we are winning the argument. I do not believe that the noble Lord would have been so vehement if he had not felt that the argument was slipping away from him, but I accept that we have not yet won a parliamentary majority. Perhaps one day, not too far delayed, we shall.
When it comes to issues of public policy and decision-making and the activities of special interest groups of one sort or another, where does the balance of public interest lie, because there is no doubt that Whitehall and Westminster are the targets of such groups? Again, I do not believe that there is anything intrinsically wrong with that. Indeed, in some Green and White Papers and some Bills, the Government themselves, and the relevant government departments, go out of their way to consult the various interest groups which they believe have a contribution to make. Where, over the years, would the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food have been without the NFU? Nowadays the Department of the Environment extensively consults environmental interest groups of one sort or another.
As for Parliament itself, I sometimes think that the help being given to the legislators in terms of research, arguments and even drafting, is so extensive that were Hansard to start giving credits, as do theatre programmes, instead of "Cigarettes by Abdulla" we should be reading in Hansard, "Amendment No. 17 by Amnesiac Action" or whatever was the name of the special interest group. Noble Lords know that to be the case. In fact, if noble Lords look around they sometimes see, peeping coyly from the notes of Members of your Lordships' House, briefs that come from precisely those groups that provide the statistics and arguments which noble Lords feel free to use.
It is interesting to speculate as to why such a dependence has grown up between the legislators and people who form organised pressure groups. One of the reasons is that individual Back-Benchers of all parties, and perhaps particularly the Opposition Benches, do not have the wonderful machine of Whitehall burning the midnight oil preparing the briefs and argumentation for Ministers. So noble Lords are inclined to take that alternative source of research rather gratefully when it is handed to them, and understandably they use it.
I have even wondered whether there was not some subconscious wish in an unrepresentative Chamber like your Lordships' House to represent someone. It may be what the Bishop of Edinburgh would call a representative gene trying to get out in all of us; trying to find someone whose views we could represent. There is no doubt that there is a symbiotic relationship now between many legislators and those interest groups.
The question has arisen of what we can do to ensure that Parliament itself is more responsive. I believe that there is a case for extending the principle of the Short money to provide, not general party propaganda money and not even the financing of parties by the state, but better research facilities for opposition parties and members.
There is then the question of proportional representation. I am very distressed that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, should think that
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I could possibly be irritated by any contribution that he might make in the House. He knows me well enough to be aware that any opportunity to speak about proportional representation is one which, far from being irritated about, I shall grasp avidly. I had intended to refer to the subject only briefly, but I shall now have to say one or two words more.
The great merit of a fair voting system is not just the obvious one of proportionality between parties, because that argument has been well rehearsed. There are other issues. There is the issue that countries with a proportional representation system tend to have a greater variety and diversity of members. Countries with proportional representation systems have more women members. That applies even in countries which are much less socially progressive than our own on the question of a woman's role in society.
Proportional representation systems mean that every vote helps elect someone. That means that one produces a higher level of ownership in the Parliament that ensues on the part of the electorate. It is one of the perverse effects of our system that most people get neither the Government nor, indeed, the Member of Parliament they want. If we had a system in which every vote helped elect someone, the connection between Parliament and the electorate might be strengthened; parties might become slightly less blunt instruments of popular representation.
I suppose when one has an overwhelmingly strong special interest group, such as the Euro-sceptics in the party opposite, it might even, with a proportional representation system, find it worthwhile to go off and found a party of its own instead of immobilising the Government of this country.
Finally, I should like to refer to the question about which several noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, have spoken. There is no doubt that there is a potentially malign interaction between the media and so-called direct action. I believe that direct action is no more than a euphemism for abuse and violence. It should not be idealised in the way that it is. Of course there is an honourable tradition of protest, and we have a right of free assembly in this country, but direct action, so-called, has one aim, and one aim only. It is by producing a display to be picked up by the media, when it becomes a form of theatre.
There is a duty on the media to do two things when direct action is involved. First, in all instances in which the direct action purports to want to change the law, to try to assess how representative is the feeling being put forward. Does it genuinely affect most people? Does it genuinely spring from some manifestation of popular opinion? We are entitled to ask the media to make that assessment—that includes the BBC and the broadcasting authorities—when they are reporting on issues of public policy. The second is a plea to producers to try to follow the issue and not the drama; otherwise, the whole agenda is taken away and seduced by people who wish to follow the anti-democratic route.

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I believe that this is the first full debate to which the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, has replied. I wish her well on her debut and congratulate her on having chosen such an interesting subject on which to wind up.
7 11 p.m.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton: My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, for initiating the debate. It has been extremely interesting, fascinating and controversial. At times I wondered whether I was a danger to the state. I wished that I had the opportunity to respond to some of the comments, in particular those made by the noble Lord, Lord Moyne. I appear to be participating in all the things that he dislikes so much.
The pattern of single issue groups and pressure groups, protest groups and so forth whose role is to try to move government policy to their view, is one of bewildering profusion and overlap and is too varied for simple classification. As was said by my noble friend Lord Longford, what actually is a single issue group?
Their complexity, function and activities, and in particular their influence with the media, requires further debate. Such groups cover almost every issue that it is possible to cover. Many have been discussed today, including economic interests, social causes, environmental issues and dangerous dogs. Most of the groups have aims that can be met within the political system and not outside it. Of course, there are those which are more concerned to affirm their cause and to assert their rejection of the system than to compromise in the hope of making at least a little progress towards their long-term objectives.
However, we must be careful not to confuse any of those groups with the quasi-religious cults and militia groups which catch the headlines—and the media like the sensations that they cause—by committing some major acts of violence. That was the case in the Spectator article which I too read. Some people have a tendency to be alienated and withdrawn from society. They rarely if ever involve themselves in the mechanics of change, persuasion and reform. But the vast majority of single issue groups are law-abiding and work through the accepted methods of protest.
Unfortunately, there are occasions when violence flares up and when individuals lose control of their emotions and anger. There are occasions when violent elements latch on to otherwise peaceful activities. The psychology of violence and the reasons which move people to violent action in the name of a cause is a subject of fundamental interest. What drives otherwise non-violent people to such passion that their sense of right and wrong causes them to commit violence against another human being or against the state?
The violence against doctors and women perpetrated by anti-abortionists in the United States is an illustration of the over-reaction to an emotive cause. We must be grateful that such mindless violence is not a feature of our campaigning in this country. However, today I began to feel that perhaps I have missed out somewhere. Controversy will continue—it is a condition of progress—but not without democratic participation.
There is therefore a duty—a responsibility—which those of us who rightly condemn mindless, indiscriminate violence have; that is, to see that the
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democratic process remains open and receptive to new ideas and confident to allow freedom of assembly, organisation and demonstration.
The use of legitimate pressure to effect change in our society is not a new phenomenon. Over the centuries, like-minded people have banded together to alleviate injustice, perceived or real, and have striven for a cause as a means of influencing government decisions. In the 18th century the growth of humanitarianism and the spread of Rousseau's doctrine led to the early promotional groups such as the anti-slavery movement, which was led by Wilberforce. As was pointed out by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, and my noble friend Lord Desai, that was a single issue group which in 1807 succeeded in persuading the Government to introduce legislation to abolish slavery.
The Suffragettes—my noble friend Lord Longford had doubts about whether it was a single issue: group, but it was—chained themselves to the railings in their demand for universal suffrage. And the Diggers attempted to take over St. George's Hill in Surrey for the people. Since the 1920s and 1930s, groups have fought for rural amenities and have opposed urban development. Today the motorway protesters build treehouses in an attempt to preserve the countryside from motorways.
We must also consider the genesis of what might be seen as respectable groups. The genesis of Shelter, which is now an influential and respected single issue group, was the informal squatters' movement of ex-servicemen and their families in the early 1950s. Many of the important political and social changes of this century have been caused, or at least accelerated, by protest or issue groups.
As we became a nation of consumers enjoying rising living standards, better education and more leisure, we became more self-confident and critical of the services provided and the society in which we lived. More people came to understand the value of participation. Since the 1950s and 1960s we have seen the growth of what might be termed in the broadest sense "community politics" and the mushrooming of single issue groups.
In addition to being an activist in my political party, like my noble friend Lord Houghton and other noble Lords I have participated in many such groups and continue to do so today. I shall not list them all but wish to mention only one; that is the Campaign Against Domestic Violence. I shall not take up the challenge offered by the noble Lord, Lord Belhaven and Stenton, in regard to the degree of violence against women. However, I believe that such a debate may be useful.
As regards the individual, the political institutions were and still are remote. But as part of a collective voice, a communal endeavour, they are more likely to be heard. Many single issue groups do not need to campaign; they already have the ear of government. That raises the question: should single interest groups have such direct access to government?
These groups have now become an integral part of our democratic process. As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Holme, government and policy makers of all kinds do not make policy in a vacuum. They are informed and advised not only by officials but by the people who are knowledgeable and committed to the issue. Back-Benchers, whether in the other place or in this

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House, also draw on that expertise in order to be able to scrutinise and amend legislation. We all receive or commission briefings from a wide range of such organisations.
The noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, was only partially correct in saying that the engine of legislation has been affected by this activity in every democracy in the world. In the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, as identified by the noble Lord, Lord Holme, such groups are in their infancy and will be a necessary part of the future development of those countries. However, in this country we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg compared with, for instance, the United States. It is estimated that 30,000 interest groups are registered in Washington and that a similar number are registered in the various states. That raises the question of whether there should be registration in this country.
It has been suggested that the enormous influence exerted by these groups in the United States of America is a factor in the low percentage turnout at American elections. If that is so, does it mean that electors decide that their interests are better served by such groups than by the electoral process as it is today? That again raises for me the fundamental question of the future of our democratic structures.
But I put a different emphasis on it from that of the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, because at the same time as there has been an increase in the influence of organised single issue groups, we have also seen an increase in the level of legislation enacted—some of it very complex—accompanied by the circle of decision-making being concentrated in the centre. The Executive has become immensely powerful; Parliament easily overwhelmed.
The ability of the ordinary citizen to challenge the Executive is tightly limited. Other institutions of Government to whom the electorate relate, notably local government, have been hugely curtailed. Much of British institutional life has become increasingly dominated by government appointees, undemocratic quangos, and centralised prescription. Decision-making has become even further removed from public scrutiny and local democratic action.
The Government's effort to overcome this problem by the introduction of the Citizen's Charter has to be applauded, but has the main thrust of the charter to remove secrecy and to deliver open and accountable government been achieved? I paraphrase the words of the Consumers' Association, the acknowledged interest group on behalf of consumers, when it says that it is not possible to move from secrecy to openness without the essential underpinning of a freedom of information Act.
Helping people to organise and speak for themselves is an essential part of government, but in order to do that effectively, it requires that they know the decisions that have been taken in their name and the reasons that those decisions were taken—a factor that will become even more important in the future.
The noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, referred to Internet. It may seem to be a fantasy, but with the ever-increasing developments in new technology, we might before too
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long not be debating the role and influence of single issue groups but the concepts and consequences of direct democracy and press button decision-making.
The development of the information superhighway will bring new interactive methods of communication which have the potential to transform the development of public services, ease the access of the interest groups, including the intellectual elite that my noble friend Lord Cocks referred to, and radically to change our democratic processes. They will not then require the media. They will have other means of access.
The superhighway will increase citizen participation in decision-making and contribute to the development of a more open society. Government itself will become more accessible and new forces will pull our politics in a more intensely global direction. That is the future, the near future, but for the present, within our democratic system, citizens' protests and enthusiasm for particular causes will remain as a vital part of our democratic process. If we want to preserve and enhance our democracy, we should welcome their input, not only as individuals, but also through the voluntary, single issue groups.
A new-style partnership between a truly open government and an informed electorate would be a fruitful one. Conflict would not be eliminated, but people would feel that their voices are being heard and that they are truly participating in making the decisions that affect all their lives.
7.23 p.m.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, may I first thank my noble friend Lord Birdwood for having introduced this most interesting and very timely debate and also those of your Lordships who have contributed to it. What a privilege for me, in my first reply to a debate, to follow so many distinguished speakers, and in particular what a pleasure it is to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, with her thoughtful speech. The noble Baroness and myself were both elevated to your Lordships' House in the same Honours List. We share many interests as well.
As I have told your Lordships on previous occasions when I have declared an interest, I have been involved with two such groups myself, including the 300 Group, an all-party organisation dedicated to getting more women into the other place. Its campaign was and is long term, with objectives extending over 25 years. It was not just some flash in the media pan. It has succeeded in increasing the number of women Members of Parliament over the past 10 years from 3 per cent. to about 10 per cent. now. That is not enough, but we are getting there. The other campaign, also cross-party, is for Women into Public Life, to ensure that more women are considered for public appointments.
In general terms, it is a healthy phenomenon that pressure groups should exist to ensure that a particular point of view should be heard and indeed on appropriate occasions acted upon. I was delighted that every noble Lord who spoke today agreed with that.

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The fact that pressure groups cover such a wide range of interests speaks well for the maturity and democracy of our society. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, was right in pointing out that they also have a role in educating public opinion.
In this country, until recently at least, Members of both Houses of Parliament could be relied on to vote for the party whose Whip they accepted. But looking abroad, we can see what happens in the United States of America. There that sort of party discipline has never existed. Members of both Houses of Congress vote across party lines on all sorts of issues. I have seen a publication by something called the National Caucus in which the voting record of every Senator and Representative on every issue is listed, the better to enable his constituents to pressure him.
We do not need to be reminded of the immense influence that the farming lobby has on the governments of France and Germany, whatever their political make-up. While looking abroad, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, for his reference to the power of the very small religious parties and the disproportionate influence they have to the size of their vote.
I am sure that your Lordships' postbags are, as mine, full of information packs on behalf of all sorts of special interests. When I was a candidate for the European Parliament there was a concerted campaign of telephone calls and letters demanding to know my views about seal culling. I discovered for the first time that there were allegations about the quality of raisins emanating from the Balkans and used in chocolate bars. Hardly a day went by when my stance on various subjects was not demanded in lengthy questionnaires of the "do-you-still-beat-your-wife" type—answer now, yes or no.
I very much endorse what my noble friend Lord Birdwood and the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, said about Members of Parliament representing their constituents rather than being sent as delegates. The notion of a representative democracy is central to the very way in which we govern our affairs in this country. I agree with the noble Lords that that is something to be treasured and protected. It is a valuable reminder that this principle may need to be re-emphasised and defended. Indeed, sometimes Members of the other place need to be possessed of almost saintly determination to support what they know to be right in the face of vociferous views expressed by some of their constituents.
One of the difficulties I have in considering the views of pressure groups is to find out how many people they represent, let alone who elected or appointed them. The volume of protest that they generate is no measure. Even in the case of well-established pressure groups, one sometimes wonders how far the knee-jerk reaction of their spokesmen to some new issue represents the interests of their supporters.
Only the other day the American Federal Aviation Authority announced its interest in a body scanner that could see through clothing and detect weapons not found by metal detectors. A spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union claimed that the Americans would never stand for it. I wonder how he knew. I wonder how many Americans he canvassed, especially those who have been hostages on hi-jacked planes. My noble friend Lord
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Belhaven and Stenton touched on the basis of information that these groups use when he mentioned the NSPCC report that one in eight children is abused or the report that one in four women is abused by their partner. Although I agree with all that, I have some difficulty in responding to my noble friend's diatribe against the anti-smoking brigade. I confess that I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Moyne, may well be right in the figures he quoted about passive smoking. While I would defend anyone's right to smoke, I am not a great enthusiast for sharing that pleasure with them. But the tobacco industry need have no fears. I do not believe that I am revealing any state secret when I say that at times of pressure the Whips' Office alone should keep it in business.
What then is the best way to ensure that pressure and lobbying have the best chance of success? Obviously it is to try to make sure that those views are known before a decision is made and set in concrete. It is strange, is it not, that if the Government actually listen and react to public opinion, even that whipped up by the media, or listen to a pressure group, or even to their own Back-Benchers, they are then derided by the Opposition for having executed a U-turn? That is the same Opposition which have performed, not a U-turn, but a complete cartwheel over almost everything they have previously stood for. I am not trying to be political—well, not really.
I should like to point out to the House that the noble Earl, Lord Longford, has campaigned very often for things that took many years to achieve. For example, in 1989 he campaigned for the polytechnics to become universities. Everyone said no, including the Government. But the noble Earl actually got his way in 1994, so even we can have our U-turns from time to time. However, what I really wanted to point cut is that one party's U-turn is another's flexible response.
Single issue pressure groups perform the essential task of drawing the attention of the public, and of the Government, to issues and factors which might otherwise be overlooked or disregarded. The examples that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, gave us, the way that the successful campaigns have gone and the historical examples given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, are aspects that we should not forget.
I realise that it is unwise to generalise, because many groups do not want to accept or even to hear that there is another side to their question or their problem. Culling seals is undoubtedly unpleasant and bloody. I can well understand why it evokes such protest. On the other hand, thousands of Canadian fishermen, as well as indigenous groups such as the Inuits, suffer from depleted stocks of the fish on which their livelihoods depend. The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, discussed similar problems as regards the export of live animals.
Saving the habitat of some rare insect or wild flower can only be applauded. But ask the motorist stuck in some fume-laden traffic jam or the resident of some juggernaught ridden village whether he would like a new bypass and you might get a totally different point of view. The need for a modern infrastructure and for job creation seem to mean nothing to the anti-road lobby, and yet they arc something that the Government arc bound to take into consideration.

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Leafleting, letters to the press, writing to Members of Parliament and press campaigns are all legitimate tools of pressure groups. So is responding to Green Papers and giving evidence to inquiries or Royal Commissions. What is not legitimate is mob violence, rioting, occupying premises, blockading roads, attacking lorries or sending letter bombs.
When there has been a public inquiry, the decision has to be accepted, even by the party whose views were rejected. Whether it is the Government—of any party—local councils or any other decision-making body, pressure groups need to remember that messages can be heard better if they are not shouted, chanted as slogans or delivered by stone-throwing yobs wearing balaclava helmets. Indeed, I must say that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, is always heard with great pleasure in this House. The way that he managed to keep within his 11 minutes and yet still give us so much information was wonderful.
My noble friend Lord Birdwood calls attention to,
"the impact of single issue pressure groups on decision-making and policy formation".
What the public is interested in is not always in the public interest. It is the Government's duty to put that first, even if it is not a popular or populist stance.
Her Majesty's Government are sometimes wrongly accused of not listening to the people. As the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, reminded us, there exist what arc known as advisory non-departmental government bodies, set up by Ministers to advise them and their departments on matters within their sphere of interest. They have a role in the processes of national government but are not part of government departments. They operate to a greater or lesser extent at arm's length from the Ministers who are responsible for appointing them. They arc there to give impartial, expert advice to departments on particular matters. Examples of those advisory bodies are the Farm Animal Welfare Council, the National Consumers Advisory Committee and the Committee on the Safety of Medicines. I have a short list of some of them with me for the attention of any noble Lord who is interested. But there are some 814 of them in existence, many—indeed, most—covering topics that are of concern to one pressure group or another.
In preparing for this first reply to a debate, I made inquiries of a number of government departments about their recent dealings with pressure groups. The following few examples may interest your Lordships. The Human Rights Policy Division of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has significant contact with Amnesty International, whose views are taken into account on various issues. Amnesty often speak on human rights courses run by the FCO. The Overseas Development Agency sees pressure groups as effective conduits for overseas aid and as valuable contributors to ODA policy through the sharing of information on a broad range of issues. That partnership is seen by the ODA as so important that it has recently set up a new network to enable such organisations to share information and experience with each other and the Government.
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The Ministry of Defence is sometimes involved in dealings with Greenpeace, whose members usually take what they euphemistically call "direct action". Recently Greenpeace attempted to prevent the sailing and docking of nuclear powered submarines. The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, actually referred to a headline which appeared in one of today's newspapers which dealt with a police raid on Greenpeace after alleged sabotage at Aldermaston. Such actions are dangerous and have no impact on government policy. On the other hand, the MoD is holding public consultation meetings at the behest of the Ramblers' Association, which is concerned about the effect of the burning of undergrowth in Northumbria.
The Cabinet Office, the DTI, the Department of the Environment and other departments have also sent me notes on their consultation exercises with a host of diverse pressure groups, ranging through the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Friends of the Earth, Shelter and so on. Again, I shall not burden your Lordships this evening with a mass of detail about them. However, in the five years between 1989 and 1994 the Government published no fewer than 1,483 Green Papers, on which all interest groups or any individual were free to comment. Those views are analysed and considered carefully.
It is an essential part of government to listen to what is said, to weigh the arguments, to gauge the extent to which a particular view or concern is widely held, to take account of the legitimate interests of different groups and, in the light of all that, as my noble friend Lord Birdwood said, to try to reach a balanced judgment on the best course for the country and for society as a whole. I took note that my noble friend Lord Moyne suggested that possibly the Government sometimes listen just a little too much. Nevertheless, the views of pressure groups are listened to very carefully. But I can assure your Lordships that the Government are very careful not to fall into the trap of taking the most notice of the most vociferous. Listening to pressure groups is part of the consultation process, but it is only a part. I often feel when people complain about a lack of consultation that what they really mean is that the Government end up by taking a different view from their own and not that there was no opportunity to participate. Lobbying is about persuasion; it is not about intimidation or bullying.
I listened with great interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Cocks, said about Charter 88, and to the very spirited defence of Charter 88 from the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham. I hesitate to intervene in a domestic dispute between the two noble Lords on the Benches opposite. I would just comment that in Italy there is a written constitution and there is also PR. Both of those are advocated in Charter 88, but they often seem to end up in some kind of trouble.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, I did not mean trouble; what I really meant to say was that the governments change from time to time. Perhaps some noble Lords opposite might think that that is a good idea.
My noble friend Lord Birdwood has done a great service in drawing attention to the way that violent demonstrations and marches seem to have taken the place of seeking redress through Members of Parliament

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instead of complementing it. Perhaps it is significant, and should be of concern to all of us who work in this building, that the public opinion poll recorded in the Nolan Report put government ministers and politicians on both sides at almost the bottom of the list of reliability. They are only just above journalists, who are right at the bottom.
There is nothing like a good riot to ensure publicity for an otherwise legitimate demonstration—a riot followed by the inevitable complaint that it was due to overreaction by the police, never mind the presence of men in masks and rent-a-mob generals seen on TV to be directing the action. Aside from the inevitable thugs, for whom any opportunity for a punch-up is sufficient—whether it is a football match or what was intended to be a peaceful protest—it has to be remembered that anarchists and those who believe in the violent overthrow of society did not get buried in the rubble of the Berlin Wall.
The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, was quite right to remind us of the dangers of "entryism" and the dangers that are sometimes run when 'certain people infiltrate legitimate groups. The anarchists are still there and still looking for every opportunity to discredit the established political order of whatever complexion. This past weekend we had a deliberately provocative and disruptive demonstration by a self-appointed non-accountable organisation calling itself Reclaim the Streets. It blocked off Camden High Street. Reclaim's aim was to,
"take the car culture head on".
But this anarchical and disgraceful conduct is not part of any democratic process; it is intimidation.
It is useful to remember that having the ear of the media and knowing how to hit the headlines—fleetingly, as it usually happens—does not prove the validity of an argument or even guarantee that it is a view that is widely held. Conversely, even a widely held view is not of itself necessarily valid. It does not matter how many people hold a foolish idea, it is still a foolish idea.
Let me conclude by saying that every Member of this House unreservedly supports the right of any individual or group, even those with their own special motives, to try to gain public support for them and to try to influence the Government to accept their aims. The forum for that is the media in its various formats, public meetings and peaceful demonstrations; also, not least of all, by the old-fashioned practice of writing to one's Member of Parliament. Violence has no place, and should have no place whatsoever, in our political scene. We have to prevent the conduct of just a handful of people, who are either simply irresponsible or who have hidden agendas of their own, turning the emphasis away from Parliament. We have to avoid allowing public opinion to be formed by television sound bites rather than by reasoned argument. To do this, it is up to all of us in both Houses to be temperate in our own conduct, to set an example of how political debate should be conducted and, above all, to show that even if proper representations cannot always be acceded to because there is another point of view, at least they have been carefully listened to.
Lord Birdwood: My Lords, what is it about the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, that every time he speaks I see ghostly street barricades across that part of the Chamber? I have listened with delight to
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all the contributors this afternoon. I am grateful to every single one of them. I shall read Hansard and re-read it. The world of street warfare and street warriors has lost a number of great potential contributors. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Carers (Recognition and Services) Bill
7.45 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
This Bill comes to this House from the other place with all-party support and agreement from the Government to support its enactment.
First, I must congratulate my honourable friend in the other place, Mr. Malcolm Wicks, the Member for Croydon North-West, for steering his Bill through the Commons. I was both pleased and honoured when he asked me to perform a similar task in this House. I was particularly pleased for two reasons. I was responsible from the Opposition Front Bench for dealing with the 1990 National Health Service and Community Care Act which put into law the present system of community care. My only sadness today is that serious illness prevents my noble friend Lord Ennals, my Front Bench colleague at the time, from being with us today to consider this Bill, which deals with an important aspect of community care which was much discussed when the 1990 Bill was before the House, and which has been discussed on many occasions since.
My other more personal reason relates to my own family. For seven years until he died, we cared at home for our own son who was disabled. We were immensely fortunate in having a network of loving and caring grandparents, relations and friends who provided support and help. But our experience then forcibly brought home the situation and the problems of that great army of carers who are often alone and do not receive the help that they should. This Bill will start to put that situation right.
The aim of the Bill is to give those who provide, or intend to provide, care on a regular and substantial basis a legal right under statute to have an assessment of their needs where the carer requests it. The statistics behind this Bill are familiar but they bear repeating. It is estimated that there are some 6.8 million carers in the UK of whom 1.5 million provide care for more than 20 hours per week. The peak age for caring is 45 to 64, with 27 per cent. of women and 20 per cent. of men in this group being carers. About one-third of care is provided by elderly people, mainly spouses, about half of whom are men. The more heavily engaged carers are likely to be sole carers receiving little help from others, living; in the same household and caring for someone with a mental impairment.
There are 360,000 disabled children in the UK of whom 98.5 per cent. are cared for at home by their parents. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation recently reported that most parent carers find that the stresses associated with the care of their disabled children are wide-ranging, unrelenting and sometimes overwhelming. There are about 400,000

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carers who are caring for a relative or friend with dementia. About half of these spend more than 80 hours a week on this exhausting task. However, the demands of carers for help are often quite simple. A 69 year-old husband, who was caring for his wife, said,
"The sitting service means that I can get out on a Sunday morning, play a round of golf and have a drink in the club. It keeps me sane. With four hours a week on a Sunday I can manage the rest of the week".
The Institute of Actuaries puts the annual value of unpaid care at £33.9 billion. Another survey, using a different method of calculation, puts the figure at £39.1 billion. To put those figures in perspective, the value of all institutional care in the UK in 1992 was £7 billion, and the value of professional home care was £3.1 billion. Those figures mean that nearly 80 per cent. of care was provided free by carers.
Before I go through the Bill to explain its purpose and structure, I can tell your Lordships that it is not my intention to seek to amend the Bill in its later stages. I shall therefore need to put a number of points to the Minister for clarification. I am afraid that that may make my speech a little longer than is normal at Second Reading.
The community care sections of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, which were implemented in 1993, placed a duty on local authorities and social service departments to assess and provide or arrange provision of appropriate services for a person in need of community care services. However, there was no such provision in the Act for carers, although the statutory guidance from the department clearly recognised the role of carers and stated that:
"Carers who feel they need community care services in their own right can ask for a separate assessment. This could arise if the care plan of the person for whom they care does not, in their view, adequately address the carers' own needs".
However, recent research carried out by the Carers National Association in 1994 showed that only 13 per cent. of carers had received a separate assessment.
In the Bill, adult carers, including people caring for children, will have a right to a separate assessment. Local authorities will have to consider the ability of the carer to provide and continue to provide care when deciding what services should be provided to the person being cared for. Services will be provided as a joint package for the user and the carer.
A carer is defined as an individual providing a substantial amount of care on a regular basis. Those are mainly the 1.5 million full-time carers, many of whom spend most of the day and night caring for their disabled, sick or elderly relative or friend. That caring force of 1.5 million people is a larger labour force than the entire labour force of the National Health Service and social services departments combined.
The Bill does not define carers by age or relationship to the person they care for, which means that young carers and parent carers are covered within the scope of the Bill. The Bill does not apply to paid carers or volunteers.
The local authorities, if requested, will look at the users' and carers' needs together when deciding on services rather than providing a whole new raft of services for carers. The provision for young carers and those
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caring for children is also an important step forward. Young carers will be able to ask for an assessment if they are providing a substantial amount of care on a regular basis. If an assessment reveals that considerable burdens are being placed on a young carer, under the Bill a local authority will be obliged to increase the level of service provision to the person who needs care—for example, home care, bathing services and the like. Under the Children Act local authorities have to consider the needs of the young person in relation to the child's health and development and offer services directly to that child. I was pleased to note that the Chief Inspector of the Social Services Inspectorate, Herbert Laming, issued a letter on 28th April this year to all directors of social services advising them of their duties to children who are also young carers.
People who care for children with disabilities will be able to ask for a separate assessment when the child is being assessed for services under the Children Act and under Section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. The carer does not have to be a parent. The only criterion is that the person is providing a substantial amount of care on a regular basis.
The Bill will apply to Scotland. However, because the Children Act 1989 is not applicable in Scotland it is not possible to give people who are caring for children in Scotland a right of assessment under the Bill. However, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, has given an undertaking to incorporate those duties in the Children (Scotland) Bill, which is due for its Committee stage in this House on 6th June.
In Northern Ireland the framework of legislation is somewhat different from the rest of the UK so the provisions of the Bill cannot be applied there directly. However, an assurance has been received from the Government that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will issue directions which have statutory force to the health and social service boards in Northern Ireland asking them to apply the main policy intentions of the Bill. Therefore, the provisions of the Bill cover the whole of the United Kingdom.
The Bill does not seek to separate the needs of the carer and the person being cared for. Assessment must look at the circumstances of the whole family or the whole situation in which a person will be cared for. The services provided must reflect that holistic approach and avoid the possibility of two assessment procedures running in parallel.
Neither will the Bill create two rafts of services, one aimed at the carer and one at the person who is being cared for. The person who is being cared for will remain the centre of concern. Community care services will continue to be provided to these people, but the Bill will give the first recognition in statute of the fact that carers must be fully taken into account when decisions are taken as to what, if any, services are to be provided.
To go through the Bill, the details of its clauses are as follows. Clause 1 applies to England and Wales. It is a freestanding provision which does not seek to amend existing legislation. At first sight it is rather long, but that is to ensure that all the categories of carer—young and old, and the carers of children and adults—are covered by the Bill.

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The basic philosophy behind the whole measure is that it is crucial to ensure that local authorities take proper account of carers' circumstances when carrying out an assessment of the need for community care services of the person being cared for.
There are two particularly important points in the clause to which I should draw your Lordships' attention. First, the clause makes it clear that the situation with which we are concerned is one where a carer provides or intends to provide regular and substantial care. That means that both those already caring and those who may be about to assume a caring role, perhaps following an accident or severe illness, will fall within the scope of the Bill. It is particularly important that we assure those about to assume a caring role that they are covered by the provisions of the Bill, for example, when someone is being discharged from hospital. We do not want the carers' needs to be considered only in the last resort. The local authorities must be able to respond to the needs of carers and those receiving community care services in advance of any difficulties.
Secondly, under this provision the carer will be assessed on his or her:
"ability to provide and to continue to provide care".
That underlines what already exists in the Department of Health's policy guidance and in other statutes. It states that assessment should not assume a carer's willingness to continue to provide care.
Parent carers and other carers of children are dealt with under subsection (2) of the clause, which gives parents or other carers of disabled children the right to an assessment when their child is being assessed under the Children Act 1989 or Section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. Parent carers will then have the same right to an assessment of their needs as carers of adults.
Turning to the issue of young carers, large numbers of children and young people take on considerable caring responsibilities. It has been estimated that 40,000 children and young people act as carers. We must also give recognition to their role. While young carers are not mentioned specifically in the provisions of the Bill, I should like to reassure your Lordships that the Bill will give young carers the same rights as adult carers to an assessment.
In carrying out assessments of people being cared for, local authorities should consider all the circumstances of those people, including whether there are children in the families who provide care. The level of services provided should then seek to ease the burden on the children or young people providing care.
Clause 2 deals with the Bill's application to Scotland. As your Lordships will see, a slightly different approach is adopted by amending the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968. The intention of this provision mirrors that in England and Wales in relation to those caring for adults and gives carers in Scotland the same rights as those in England and Wales. I have already pointed out that with regard to parent carers, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, has confirmed that amendments to the Children (Scotland) Bill will be placed before your Lordships' House when it is debated to ensure that the
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provision for carers of children with disabilities in Scotland will be the same as those proposed in the Bill for England and Wales.
The third clause is one with which we are familiar in health Bills. The clause is needed to clarify the unusual position of the Isles of Scilly which comprise a social services department but not a local authority. Clause 4 is a standard financial provision clause.
Clause 5 is basically self-explanatory, but I wish to deal with the question of carers in Northern Ireland. It is clear that carers in the Province have the same needs as those of carers in the remainder of the United Kingdom. However, noble Lords will see that the provisions of the Bill appear to be restricted to Great Britain to the exclusion of Northern Ireland.
The reason for that is that in Northern Ireland the Department of Health and Social Services has powers to direct that carers would have the same right to assessment as under this Bill. Therefore the aims of the Bill can be achieved by the Department of Health and Social Services exercising existing powers under the Health and Personal Social Services (Northern Ireland) Order 1972 to direct boards and trusts with which they contract for the provision of community care to carry out such assessments of carers' needs as the local authorities in England and Wales will be required by the Bill.
The important issue is that carers in Northern Ireland should have the same rights as those in England, Wales and Scotland. Reassurances have been given by the Government that the powers of direction will be exercised if the Bill reaches the statute book. With that reassurance, there is no need to make specific provision for the application of this Bill to Northern Ireland.
I should now like to put a number of points to the Minister for clarification when she replies to the debate. The first is a matter raised in another place and concerns a situation where a carer is unable to communicate; for example, as a result of severe deafness. Will that problem be dealt with specifically through guidance?
Will there be a further explanation in the guidance notes of regular and substantial care? We must avoid a situation where problems of definition give local authorities the possibility of not completely meeting their obligations in the Bill.
Does the department intend to address the situation revealed in the recent report by Binder Hamlyn Fry on community care information issues? It revealed that 60 per cent. of local authorities surveyed had inadequate or unsatisfactory information systems to deal with assessment and care decisions.
Presumably the department will interpret the Act to local authorities to make it clear that reassessment of carers' needs as circumstances change will be a statutory obligation. In the Bill the right to reassessment is exactly the same as the right to an assessment.
Finally, will draft guidance be issued for consultation? If so, perhaps the Minister will tell us when that is likely to be.
It is an important Bill. Its enactment will begin to deal with one aspect of community care and start to bring some relief to the 1.5 million carers who carry a great burden and, by so doing, relieve the rest of us of both cost and effort.

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I cannot finish without thanking the many organisations which have provided information and briefing on the Bill. I cannot mention them all, but I must single out the Carers National Association. In many ways it is that body's Bill. It deserves great credit for all that it has done to bring the Bill before Parliament. The Minister and her officials have been immensely helpful with meetings, advice and briefing. I am extremely grateful for the help that they have given.
We all want to see a decent, properly resourced system of community care. The Bill is but one step in that process. I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved that the Bill be now read a second time.— (Lord Carter).
8.4 p.m.
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Carter, on introducing this important Bill in your Lordships' House. His concern for people who face difficulties in their daily lives is well known and respected and I am delighted to support him with the Bill.
I was also very happy to give my support to the reforms that came into force in April 1993 giving councils the main responsibility for funding and commissioning care.
One of the stated aims of the reforms was to ensure that service providers make practical support for carers a high priority. With nearly 7 million carers, that is an enormous challenge, but now that the reforms have bedded down it seems that this is the right time to put best practice onto the statute book.
The principle of care in the community, giving those in need the opportunity to continue life as close to normality as possible, must be right. But sometimes it is at a very high price for the carer.
In my experience the need for care can develop in two ways: first, as a result of a traumatic happening, perhaps at birth, an accident, or the onset of a debilitating illness such as a stroke. That dramatic change causes decisions to be taken quickly and often whole families and support services become involved. However, the gradual deterioration of those in the second group is often not noticed except, of course, by the carer who takes on more and more tasks.
Very often the carer, too, is elderly. It can be difficult to state exactly when a helping hand develops into a caring role. It just creeps up on them. The demands can be enormous and whereas many of us could cope for a short time, long term care can result in physical, mental and certainly emotional illness for the carer.
I am sure that most of your Lordships on all sides of the House could give illustrations of carers whose lives have been blighted as they have given 24-hour love and devotion. Careers and pleasures have to be dropped because of the demands on them and livelihoods obviously suffer.
There is one group whose needs deserve to be addressed with special concern. I refer to the children and young people who have been expected to cope with a sick relative. Such experience has forced them to grow up too quickly and consequently they have been denied the
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natural pleasures of childhood. It has been extremely unfair and I am both relieved and delighted that the Bill seeks to eradicate some of the horrific situations that have come to light.
I hope that the required information for the assessment of carers will be acquired in a sensitive way. I understand that personal and private questions have to be asked. But officialdom must not be allowed to stop people who have reached the end of their tether from applying for help. A non-smiling person with a clipboard can seem absolutely irrelevant and intrusive. Perhaps I may suggest that those involved should receive guidance on their approach.
I am also concerned that the wishes of the carer should be listened to. The assessment should be the result of a genuine dialogue. The carer, after all, knows what help would be of the greatest assistance to him or her. It is very humbling to hear how little help is asked for. As the noble Lord, Lord Carter, said, it can be as little as four hours a week.
Before I conclude, I should like to mention the real need for respite care. Those responsible for round the clock care—many do not even have one unbroken night's sleep, or the chance to relax during the day—must therefore be given the chance of a break to recharge the batteries and to gather strength to cope again.
I congratulate Jill Pitkeathly and all her colleagues on raising the profile of carers. They have highlighted the extremely difficult conditions in many cases. In an aging population, it is essential that we address the problem now. Carers are often not appreciated by those for whom they care. So I believe that those of us who are fortunate enough not to be in a similar position have the responsibility to lighten the load when possible. Carers make a huge contribution to our society which should and must be recognised.
I have a slight concern, however. We want to give help to carers in every way. But sadly, of course, it will never be possible to answer all the demands. It is important not to build up expectations which cannot be fulfilled. I wish the Bill every success. I feel that its arrival on the statute book will be a real achievement, much needed and much appreciated.
8.10p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, I must declare an interest—as is fashionable at present—as the President of the Carers National Association and say how delighted I am that the Bill has come to your Lordships' House tonight. I hope it will have an extremely quick passage. We have been waiting for it a long time and do not want to wait any longer.
It would be most ungracious not to say how grateful we are to Malcolm Wicks in the House of Commons for having pioneered the passage of the Bill through the other place and acquired the support not only of all parties there but, most important, of the Government. I thank the Government for giving the Bill their support and for making it possible for the Bill to pass swiftly through both Houses. We are grateful for the help and sympathy that they have shown; Mr. Bowis has gone out of his way to be helpful. I remind noble Lords—perhaps some may not know it, so I cannot remind them—that many years ago

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when I was chairman of the carers' association, I had a promising young vice-chairman who was very helpful. Her name was Virginia Bottomley. That being so, I am not altogether surprised—it was just what I expected—that we should have good support from the department. Thank you very much.
It is not surprising that the subject calls for a great deal of support from all sides of the House. After all, I suppose all of us have been a carer, are a carer, will be a carer or with any luck, will he cared for. So it is not a matter which divides people. Essentially, it unites us with a common anxiety as to what will happen' to our own families and ourselves. So we give the Bill a warm welcome, with our grateful thanks.
In recognising the needs of the carer and giving the carer the right of assessment in her or his position as carer, the Bill is both symbolically and practically of great importance. It is symbolically important because it recognises and shows that the carer's position is at last— I say deliberately at last—understood for what it is. The carer is not just an appendage of the person who needs to be looked after. Of course, there is an important relationship between the two, but carers have their own rights and needs; they must be considered and given the right to be heard independently. Yes, ultimately the assessment will be a joint one, but carers will be able independently to put their views as to what they need and will have the right not to be given secondary consideration, after consideration has been given to the person being cared for. There is a recognition of the role of the carer as being independent although, of course, it is always in relation to the person who is being cared for. Those of us who have worked in the field have been struggling to obtain that for a long time and the Bill recognises the position. For that we are grateful.
However, the Bill is of practical importance too. As other speakers have said, it is important that the practical needs of carers are understood and met so far as possible and that what carers want is taken into account, rather than the carer being offered such services as are conveniently available from the authority with whom the carer is dealing. The carer's needs must be listened to.
On previous occasions I have mentioned a case where a husband was looking after his disabled wife. He asked for help with the cleaning and maintenance of the house. He was told, "No, no, we cannot give you anyone to clean. We can give you someone to bath your wife and get her up". He said: "But I bath her and get her up and she prefers that I should do that. I prefer to do it. I want someone not to bath my wife but to clean the floor". That was not available. For my part, if I were housebound I would far rather have someone cleaning the floor and doing the washing up than almost any other service I can think of. The more one is confined to the house, the more important it is to have the floor clean. Even I—a notorious slut—can see that that is important if you have to be in a house as much as is necessary, looking after someone through long hours, day after day.
I emphasise respite care which has already been mentioned. Caring day after day is bad enough; night after night is infinitely worse, with interrupted sleep. I have been fortunate, I have had little of that myself. However, I know that you can stand being woken up three times
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during the night; but when it is 10 or 15 times you get into a mood which is not far short of murder, however fond you may be of the person for whom you are caring.
Those are serious considerations. We are assuming that some people have an indefinite ability to strain their resources in the care of someone else. The fact that they love that other person does not make it easier; indeed it makes it more difficult. So the need for carers to have their requirements properly studied and met in the order of priorities that they have is of the greatest importance. This is an opportunity to do something of an Oliver Twist. We are now being given what we have been seeking for some time.
Perhaps I may remind the Government of another issue connected with caring which has been shelved for the time being but which, like this Bill, will, I hope, be revived in due course. I have talked about the importance of people caring for someone obtaining help on the domestic side. We know that the meeting of these domestic needs is difficult and the resources are not available. Sometimes it has been possible to give financial help so that the carer or the person being cared for can make their own arrangements for getting the help they need in the house. That is often welcome. However, in response, a number of private organisations have been established commercially to sell those services. That can be good but it can also be bad. It is extremely important that there should be a register of such organisations so that we can be confident that people coming forward and selling the services are of the standard that we would require if we were going to employ them ourselves.
There was a Bill in the House of Commons which did not see the light of day. It was intended to bring in registration. While thanking the Government for what they are doing, I ask them to think again about that Bill and the possibility that, having had one Private Member's Bill in the interests of carers, we might have another. That would be very good indeed.
Again, I thank the Government. May the Bill go through quickly so that action can be taken in the near future.
8.18 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, I too wish to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Carter, on so skilfully and clearly introducing the Bill. I should like to congratulate Mr. Wicks on giving us a Bill which we hope will not require amendment.
The Bill will help local authorities better to identify the problems facing carers generally, as well as the needs of particular carers, in dealing with particular sufferers. I suspect that in many cases carers soldier on over many years under ever-growing strain, without the local authorities or the health services being fully aware of the problems or of the vital support that the service of the carers is giving to the public bodies.
As noble Lords will know, my concern is in the main with the carers of those who are mentally ill. In particular, I am advised by the National Schizophrenia Fellowship. It sees the benefits in the enactment of this Bill to be a greater understanding of the problems of carers, which most of its members are, and of the ways of alleviating

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those problems. An example of alleviation that it gives is the provision of respite care, about which my noble friend Lady Seccombe and the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, have already spoken.
Respite care is when the sufferer goes into hospital or into a respite hostel or hotel, freeing the carer to have a much needed holiday and have the respite himself or herself. One such respite hotel is Forresters, near Southampton, which has just been saved for two more years from closing down because the National Schizophrenia Fellowship, which owned it, could not afford to keep it going. So far, it has found 35 local authorities willing to pay up to £275 a week for a sufferer to stay at Forresters. But it costs £200 a week more, an amount that the NSF has to try to find. Even that cost is cheaper in total (£275 plus £200) than the cost of a hospital stay for a sufferer or for care in a local authority home.
I hope that this Bill will show local authorities how important respite is for carers. It will enable them to compare the full cost of a respite home or hotel with the much greater amount that a periodically refreshed carer saves them or saves the health authority.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, gave some figures that match what I have just said and provide the detail that endorses the point that I am trying to make. This is a good Bill, with great potential for opening the eyes of officialdom. Let us speed it through this House without amendment.
8.22 p.m.
The Earl of Balfour: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for introducing this Bill. I hope that he will thank his honourable friend in another place for introducing it there. It is extremely encouraging to hear that carers will be fully taken into consideration for the very first time. I am very glad to see that within the provisions of this Bill users and carers are taken together.
Looking back through my life, I feel it was often so very sad to see young carers growing old before their time because of the burden of looking after an elderly relative. I am also very glad that amendments will be introduced to the Children (Scotland) Bill to meet the points that have been raised tonight. I shall read Hansard with great care.
One of the matters about which I feel very strongly is that a nurse in a hospital looking after a person who is severely disabled mentally or physically goes off duty at the end of her watch. Carers have no such break. It is the tremendous strain sometimes of their not getting any help or relief in those wee small hours between dinner and breakfast that can wreck their physical health very rapidly. Although it is sometimes extremely difficult to get the disabled person—on this occasion I shall refer to such people as patients—to go into hospital for a short break to give the carer a break, if the carer, particularly in more serious cases, does not have a holiday, the result is that the National Health Service, for example, may eventually be looking after two patients instead of one. That should be taken into consideration.
In view of the provisions of this Bill, and particularly the figure of 80 per cent. free care being given today, I wonder whether Her Majesty's Government—I know that
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this is not a function of this House—would consider giving tax relief where assistance is being paid for out of the patient's funds or the funds of other relatives in that same family. Otherwise, any care that is paid for has to come out of one's net earned income and cannot be set against anything else. I feel that there need to be tax considerations in those cases where it can be provided. Otherwise, I welcome this Bill. It should go through unamended. It is definitely a step in the right direction.
8.26 p.m.
Lord Thurlow: My Lords, I apologise for not having put my name down on the list of speakers. I missed the bus with the Whips' Office. Very briefly, I should like to give my warmest possible support to the general approach of the Bill and the particular hope that it extends to all those who are engaged in the sometimes horrendous responsibility of caring. It is a responsibility that I have shared with my late wife. I know what can be involved.
Like other speakers, I should like to mention particularly the need for respite care. Can the Minister tell us anything about the kind of guidance that may be given to local authorities on this matter? We know from the remarks of the Minister in the other place his deep commitment to the extension of respite care. I am not at all surprised to hear from what the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said about the Secretary of State's former incarnation that she also has a personal commitment. We know that the Minister who will reply shares that commitment. We also know that the understanding among local authorities of the priorities to be given in community care is patchy. There are some very good authorities and there are many that have not yet woken up to the priority problem.
I very much hope that the guidance that will be issued will include specific reference to the need to consider the contribution that possible provision of respite care may give to make it possible for carers to take on the responsibilities that they would like to take on. Here, I venture to quote the words that the Minister in the other place used at Second Reading. He said that in talking to a carer the carer had said,
"Don't take away this responsibility for caring. I … just want … a break". [Official Report, Commons, 3/3/95; col. 1370.]
That is what most of the speakers tonight have emphasised as a necessary and cost-effective condition for enabling carers to make the contribution that they wish to continue to make.
8.30 p.m.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I too would like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Carter on introducing this important Bill and on the very clear way in which he explained its provisions. As is customary in a debate on a Private Member's Bill, I am speaking from the Front Bench this evening in a personal capacity. But I must emphasise that this Bill is strongly supported by the Opposition. Indeed, many of its principles were included in the Labour Party's consultation document Making Carers Count, published last September. That document said that carers must be the focus of support just as much as the people for whom they are caring. Therefore I am

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particularly pleased that my noble friend Lord Carter and my honourable friend Mr. Malcolm Wicks in another place have successfully piloted the legislation thus far in both Houses. Both of them have a longstanding commitment to the issues addressed in the Carers (Recognition and Services) Bill and it is gratifying that the Government have been so helpful in ensuring that the Bill is likely to become law during this Session.
Several noble Lords who have spoken have recognised the crucial role of the Carers' National Association in campaigning for many years for the rights of carers and in framing the original provisions of the Bill. The CNA is, of course, powerfully led in your Lordships' House by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, its president. Like her, I wish to pay special tribute to the association and particularly to the work of the association's director, Jill Pitkeathly, and the assistant director, Francine Bates.
As my noble friend has explained, this short Bill is relatively complicated because it seeks to cast the net as widely as possible to include all carers. Last year my honourable friend in another place, Mr. David Hinchliffe, sought to amend the National Health Service and Community Care Act to include statutory assessments of carers. But my noble friend's Bill goes much wider, particularly, as has been mentioned by several noble Lords this evening, to cover parents and young carers through the 1989 Children Act. That broader scope is very welcome because it acknowledges that heavy responsibilities may be carried at every stage of life. This Bill deals with the idea of informal family care in the round rather than in compartmentalised slots through different departmental statutes.
As has been explained by several noble Lords who have spoken, demography and social change make that holistic approach an essential feature of any legislation. Already, as more and more people live to a great age, we are seeing very elderly people trying to look after each other. Increasingly, parents in their 80s and 90s are being cared for by their children, who themselves are in their 60s and 70s. At the other end of the age span, we see a vast increase in the numbers of single parents who may need to shoulder alone the burden of a disabled child, or maybe it is the child who must become the primary carer for a parent without a partner.
The plight of the young carer has been emphasised by several speakers this evening. It is especially poignant. The measures in this Bill to support the young carers are very important as they will now be designated as children in need under the carers' Act. The Carers' National Association has been trying for a long time to raise awareness about their special needs and has pointed out the problems for the 40,000 or so children and young people who find themselves in that role. The CNA has written to me to say that:
"Young carers are coping with the stresses of caring many hours for a parent or sibling at the same time as trying to continue with their studies. The disruption to their education can have serious consequences for their future … The emotional consequences of the child taking on the caring role, who may be performing intimate caring tasks and suppressing their own needs, clearly gives rise to serious concern … Many young carers and their parents are reluctant to come forward and seek help from local authorities fearing that officials will come into their home and break up the family".
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It is good news, as my noble friend Lord Carter said when he introduced the Bill, that since the Bill completed its passage through another place, the chief inspector of the Social Services Inspectorate, Mr. Laming, has issued a letter to all directors of social services reminding them of their duties to children who are also young carers.
The force of this Bill, as it applies to all age groups and not just to the young carers of whom I have been speaking, is that there is now a statutory obligation on local authorities to take the initiative in discovering their needs and creating a unified package of services for both the cared-for and the carer. Until now only the lucky few carers have had the individual assessments that the Department of Health guidance has suggested that they can ask for. As has already been mentioned, nearly 80 per cent. of those who have been surveyed have said that so far the community care reforms, including the ability to ask for an assessment, have made no difference to their lives.
One of the major factors has been that most carers have been stoical in bearing demanding responsibilities without complaint. One of the strongest comments recorded in the debate on this Bill in another place was from somebody quoted as saying, "Nobody ever asks me how I am". Most people seem to have felt guilty about drawing attention to their needs until they had reached breaking point. Now there must be a formal obligation for social services not only to ask but to act.
Several voluntary associations working in this field—and every noble Lord who has spoken tonight—have emphasised that carers' needs are often modest and may revolve around the need just to find a way of having a break. I was appalled last year to see a survey by the National Federation of Women's Institutes which showed that more than half of carers were not able to take even an occasional one week away. Respite care, as every speaker who has contributed tonight has said, should be a statutory right for carers with continuing responsibilities.
But having mentioned the relatively modest need for respite care, I must add a note of caution about the potential for raising false expectations in the wake of this Bill. Noble Lords are all too familiar—it comes up in one debate or another every week—with the particularly difficult financial problems that local authorities face in implementing community care. It would be especially tragic if those measures of positive commitment to improving the lives of carers could not be properly implemented because of resource constraints. There are many recorded instances, particularly in the recent report by Scope (formerly known as The Spastics Society) of hard-pressed local authorities withdrawing statutory services when social workers identified that in certain instances there was an informal carer already in place.
Legally, this Bill should prevent that cruel practice ever happening; but, as always, if local authorities genuinely cannot afford to provide proper practical support, the carer may be little better off. In another place, the Minister, Mr. Bowis, replying to the debate, said that messages about resources had been delivered to him to be passed on to what he called the "avid followers" in the Treasury and the DSS. Perhaps when the Minister replies

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tonight, she will say whether, since that debate, there has been any response from the "avid followers" to the request for resources.
The resource caveat is always with us. But, in conclusion, I should like once again warmly to welcome the Bill and to thank my noble friend for introducing it. I also thank the Minister and the Department of Health officials for giving it such a fair and encouraging wind. Informal carers play a pivotal role in community care, which we all want to succeed. This Bill will help them to help those for whom they care. I wish it every success.
8.39 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, I am delighted to be able to welcome the Carers (Recognition and Services) Bill. In supporting the Bill, I am very pleased to be able to reaffirm the Government's commitment to ensuring that the selfless and sometimes heroic contribution which carers make is recognised. I would like also to congratulate Mr. Malcolm Wicks on his skill, deftness and flair in introducing the Bill and taking it through the other House. I also congratulate my honourable friend John Bowis, whose determination to see this Bill succeed should also be recognised. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, for her warm welcome and for a powerful speech full of insight and perception.
As in so many debates, I know that there are people in your Lordships' House who have first-hand experience of this subject. Many of us arc or have been carers. We know members of our families or friends who have taken on caring responsibilities. We recognise the hard task that it can be, especially if they are feeling isolated; it is not only physically draining, but emotionally taxing. But there is also the other side—and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow—that caring can involve affection, and many carers, given enough support, would be reluctant to hand over their responsibilities to another. We recognise that when that occurs some carers feel that they are failing in their duty, albeit it is a feeling that is not justified. Nevertheless, it brings them deep unhappiness and guilt and we want to avoid that at all costs.
Your Lordships will no doubt be aware, as I am, of the considerable contribution made by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, to the cause of carers through her work as president of the Carers National Association. I join with others in paying tribute to Jill Pitkeathly and her staff at Carers National for their effort and persistence in achieving the Bill.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, highlighted graphically the rigidity and lack of sensitivity of some of the services provided, especially for those upon whom the demands are the greatest. Her comments in relation to broken nights struck a personal chord with me and I regret to have to tell your Lordships that I have been near to committing murder—fortunately my three children are still intact.
The Government have been particularly concerned to ensure that those carers who are providing the most care are the ones to benefit. For example, we want to ensure
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that the 78 year-old man who is caring for his 77 year-old wife, who suffers badly from arthritis and dementia and who cannot be left safely alone, does receive the support he needs through the home help service, meals-on-wheels, respite care and other services that are available. However, we recognise that it may not be those services which give him the support he wants, but something quite different which he believes to be more appropriate to his needs. The Bill will not only concentrate on those carers who are providing "substantial and regular care", it will also encourage the flexibility and sensitivity that we all seek.
The Bill outlines what we have already said in policy guidance. It underlines what is universally acknowledged to be good practice in carrying out assessments. It has the potential to ensure that the circumstances of the person being cared for and the carer are properly considered together by stating that carers should now have the right to an assessment on request when the cared-for person is assessed. Once that has been done, the results of the assessment should be taken into account in deciding what services, if any, should be provided for the user. In other words, the services provided should reflect what sort of help the carer needs to assist him or her to provide care for their loved one.
Not quite two years into the full implementation of community care I am pleased to report to your Lordships that local authorities are aware of the need to recognise and support carers. It is encouraging that 97 per cent. of local authorities believe they are now better able to support carers than they were 18 months ago. And there has been an overall improvement in the provision of respite care. but that does not mean that we should become complacent. To help with support for carers, we made available an extra £20 million last year and £30 million this year to provide more respite and domiciliary care—issues raised by the noble Lords, Lord Carter and Lord Thurlow, and other Members of your Lordships' House. But something that always strikes me when talking to carers is how very modest their requests are. What they cannot understand are the rigid "take it or leave it" packages which are not only expensive but inappropriate. For example, there is little point in providing only day care from 9 to 5 when what the carer wants is a sitting service one evening a week so that they can go down to the pub or club and meet friends or have a drink with them—the normality of social life referred to by my noble friend Lady Seccombe. Such rigid and inflexible packages of care and the attitudes which accompany them, need to be compared with innovative approaches such as in Bradford where carers are given vouchers which they can use to buy respite care as and when they want it.
My noble friend Lord Mottistone highlighted another alternative; and he is right in wanting a range of services and a range of choices open to carers. My noble friend Lady Seccombe, in her compelling speech, highlighted the needs of young carers. The Bill provides a right to assessment for young carers and parents who care for their disabled children. In doing that, I am delighted that it recognises some of the very real stresses and strains which these families are facing. The Children Act 1989 also applies and it is essential that links between community

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care legislation and the Children Act are made. A local authority should therefore carry out an assessment of either a parent or carer or a disabled child or a young carer, within the framework of the Children Act. That establishes in law the child-centred principles which should guide our work with children. These include the importance of the child's wishes and feelings, and that the child's welfare is paramount. Young carers are children first; their needs are very different from those of an adult who is caring. They must be allowed to be children and not grow up too fast. They must be able to do all the things that children do; play, or as teenagers go out with their friends without worrying about a dependent father or mother. All too often in the past young carers have not been recognised. I am pleased to say that that is changing, and their needs both as children and as carers are becoming more visible. The Social Services Inspectorate has work in hand to spread good practice in this area and, as the noble Lord, Lord Carter, said, the Chief Inspector for Social Services has just issued a letter which emphasises local authorities' responsibilities.
In establishing a right to assessment for parents who care for disabled children, the Bill is consistent with the Children Act. Guidance emphasises that social services departments should carry out assessments in a manner which takes account of the child's and the family's views and circumstances, and that plans should be made in agreement with them.
We can all appreciate what an extremely difficult time it is when a parent, wife or husband becomes sick or disabled through accident or illness. Sorting things out for the return home from hospital can be both distressing and stressful. It is vital that the carer's voice is heard in planning the hospital discharge, and the provision in the Bill will assist with this.
I should like to reassure my noble friend Lady Seccombe that this is not an invitation to increase bureaucracy. That is not what carers want. Rather, it is an Opportunity to improve practice. An integrated approach should enhance the carer's ability to provide care as well as the independence of the person whom they are looking after. I am sure that those staff in local authorities, some of whom may have caring responsibilities themselves, who are in contact with carers, want to provide the best possible help. Additional forms and procedures will not help them to achieve this.
I should like to respond to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and to thank him for his courtesy in giving me notice of his questions. In doing so, I pay tribute to the way in which he has handled this Bill. If I can say so, his parliamentary knowledge and expertise in promoting, and regrettably sometimes opposing, legislation is much respected. We also readily acknowledge his personal commitment to caring for others and his expertise in the field. I agree entirely with what the noble Lord said about the need for guidance. It will be important that guidance encourages a practical, holistic assessment and avoids a bureaucratic approach. We shall of course be consulting on the draft guidance which will be available later in the year. The guidance will be aimed at assisting local authorities to identify the carers whom we are seeking to help through this Bill. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, that the guidance will encourage local
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authorities to consider the full range of services that will help carers. He is so right about the need for respite care and the lifeline that that offers to carers.
I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked about reassessment. The Bill makes it clear that a carer may request their own assessment at the time of the user's assessment. If, therefore, either as part of a review or because of a change in circumstances, an individual is being reassessed, the carer can, naturally, ask for their own assessment to be carried out at the same time. The results of the assessment will, as the Bill says, be taken into account when decisions are made about services to be provided to the disabled person. We shall be seeking to make that clear in any guidance produced.
The noble Lord raised the question of carers with communication difficulties. This is an important matter which will most certainly be addressed within the guidance. The noble Lord also drew attention to information technology and local authorities. We fully realise that more work is needed on local authority information systems. I should like to reassure the noble Lord that we shall be looking at this important issue as part of the Community Care Development Programme.
My noble friend Lord Balfour raised the interesting point of tax relief on the costs of caring to carers and their families. As I am sure my noble friend anticipates, it is an area on which, though I find it intriguing, I shall need to seek further advice before giving a response.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, asked whether the Government will think again about legislating for the regulation and registration of commercial care agencies. We have accepted that there is a need to develop common standards for domiciliary care. The Social Services Inspectorate published guidance on developing standards in October 1993. We do not consider, though, that the time is right to introduce compulsory registration but we are to review the position this year as part of the overall review of regulation of inspection services.
In conclusion, this is an important Bill for carers and, I am sure your Lordships will agree, a significant step towards more responsive community care. I commend it to the House wholeheartedly. In doing so I should like to echo the words of my noble friend Lord Mottistone that your Lordships should speed this excellent Bill through the House without amendment.
Lord Carter: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and I shall be extremely brief in my response. First, I thank all the speakers for making it clear that they share the intention that I expressed of not wishing to amend the Bill so that it will have a quick passage through your Lordships' House. One point that was touched on which we should not overlook is that demographic trends mean that this is a problem which will grow in the future. As I said when I opened the debate, this is one step in a long process.
The point about expectations is an important one. We are placing a great responsibility on local authorities. But as a number of speakers said, resources are important but often the requirements of the carers are quite simple. Local authorities can meet a number of the problems with flexibility and at no great cost. Every speaker without

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exception mentioned the importance of respite care. All of us who have been involved in caring know how important it is just to get a break.
I thank the Minister for her very thoughtful and helpful speech. She dealt extremely fully with the points that I put to her. I commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Educational Low Priced Book Scheme
8.52 p.m.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth Lord Thomson of Monifieth rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will reconsider their decision to phase out the educational low priced book scheme.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have had an interest in the educational low priced book scheme since it was set up 35 years ago. Perhaps your Lordships will indulge me in just a little nostalgia. During the 1960s, at the time of the rush to independence in Africa, some of us felt that independence desperately needed a drive for more education if it was to have some chance of succeeding. In those days I joined forces with Richard Hornby on the other side of the House of Commons who was then PPS to Duncan Sandys, the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, and later a Minister with Commonwealth responsibilities himself, in founding the Commonwealth Education Council to campaign for a greater educational element in our overall aid programme. I well remember the welcome we gave to the Government's launching of the educational low priced book scheme.
Since then the scheme has become a valued, albeit modest, part of our educational aid programme, about which I know the Minister feels deeply. I believe that the educational low priced book scheme makes the best kind of contribution to Britain's influence and reputation abroad and does so at a minimal cost. In 1994 nearly 900,000 academic textbooks were distributed through the third world under the scheme. They covered scientific, technical, medical and business studies. They went to 54 countries nominated by the ODA. Twenty-six of those countries come within the ODA's low income GNP group, of which India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Ghana provide the majority of the ELBS sales.
The economics of the scheme are interesting and praiseworthy. The UK retail value equivalent of these 900,000 books amounts to around £20 million but the students throughout the third world countries pay £4 million. The ODA gets this saving of £16 million for a subsidy of £1.32 million. The publishers, the distributors and the booksellers share in filling the gap by reduced unit costs of production and by reduced margins in terms of the price. Altogether it seems a pretty good piece of economics and a good bargain all round.
If it is discontinued, as the Government are apparently tempted to do, it will cause a major disruption to syllabuses and to reading lists. The ELBS publishers have produced large numbers of letters from those who
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feel they would be affected. Perhaps I may give your Lordships a sample of them. One from Ibadan in Nigeria, signed by 110 medical students, says:
"We the undersigned medical students depend almost solely on this scheme for a large percentage of books for our studies".
I shall not take up the time of the House by reading extracts from other letters, but that is typical of the large number of letters that have come in.
None of us would suggest that the scheme is written in tablets of stone. The scheme itself must adapt to changing circumstances. There have been huge and in many cases beneficial changes of circumstances in the developing Commonwealth since the 1960s. There have rightly been regular reviews of the scheme. But the need for a review does not seem to be any reason for abandoning a scheme which has worked well. The ODA is rightly concerned about ensuring that the scheme benefits those who most need help and that it should target poorer countries and the poorer students within them. Changes can be made to help to bring that about. The geographical changes are presumably within the power of both the ODA and the publishers who are involved in the scheme.
I am told that one of the arguments that is sometimes used by the Government to justify their thoughts about phasing it out is that some of the books go to Hong Kong, which has a per capita income rather higher than that of people in this country. But they go to Hong Kong because the Foreign Office, the parent department of the ODA, insisted, presumably for Foreign Office diplomatic and political reasons, that it should be included.
What is undoubtedly more difficult is to ensure that within the poorer countries it is the poorer students who get the maximum benefit of the scheme. I do not suggest that there are simple solutions but I do suggest that all the evidence shows that the vast majority of books go to relatively poor and worthy recipients. If the Government are tempted to make radical changes to the scheme by perhaps substituting the so-called book presentation scheme under which free books are given to libraries, it would certainly mean many fewer books for the same cost or else a very greatly increased cost for the same number of books.
The Minister is to meet the publishers shortly and I am very happy that she has arranged to do so. She said in a letter which she kindly wrote to me that she is ready to explore all possibilities with them. When the Minister responds to the debate, I hope that she will say that that phrase allows the possibility of refining, if not retaining, the essentials of the scheme.
The ODA has conducted its review. There has been some criticism that it took quite a long time to conduct its review and even longer to make the findings of the review available to those who have the task of administering the scheme. Although the ODA review refers to the difficulty of reaching poorer students, its conclusions are that the scheme's merits outweigh its minor limitations, and that it should be retained with some modification. I very much hope that that will be the Government's considered reaction to maintaining the scheme when all the factors have been taken into account.
Finally, on the costing of the scheme, I should like to seek an assurance from the Minister that the proposed changes to the scheme—whatever finally emerges as to its shape—are not simply a disguised cut in educational book aid and that this tiny subsidy, which comes to 0.08 per cent. of the ODA's total aid budget, will be retained to make textbooks available to those who could not otherwise afford them.
9.1 p.m.
Lord Stewartby: My Lords, I rise briefly to support the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, in his request to the Government to think carefully about whether they have taken the right course, at least so far, in relation to the scheme. I do not for a moment claim to have either the length or impressive experience of the noble Lord on this subject, but having read something about it, I found myself feeling some concern about the way in which the matter has been handled.
My concern was originally triggered by the wording of a Written Answer from my honourable friend Mr. Baldry in another place, when he said that the scheme was being phased out over two years because it was not fully meeting the ODA's developmental priorities. I think, all of us would accept that the scheme may not have been fully meeting those priorities, but, just because a scheme does not fully meet the priorities of the department, it seems a radical course to say that it shall be discontinued and some undefined alternative put in its place. I should have thought that a better procedure would be to examine the scheme, to consider those parts of it which were not working satisfactorily from the ODA's point of view and then to see whether one could not deal directly with those points of weakness.
As the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, said, the inclusion of Hong Kong appears to be for entirely different reasons. When I looked at the figures that have been recently placed in the Library, I found that Hong Kong's share of the total was not large. However, if Hong Kong has been grafted onto the scheme, surely it is possible to adjust the list of countries which would be eligible for the scheme rather than doing away with the scheme and venturing into uncharted territory, which may produce a very different result.
When one looks at the way in which the scheme has worked so far, it is clear that the form of subsidy has enabled a considerable volume of books to be distributed to a wide range of countries. What worries me most is that unless a variation or adaptation of the scheme can be kept in place, any alternative is likely to remove the incentives for the publishers to produce such material at economic prices. As the noble Lord suggested, the overall effect might be that fewer books were available for distribution to the poorer students in the poorer countries, or, if the number of books was maintained, that that would be at a greater cost to the department's budget. I hope that my noble friend can give us an assurance that she would not wish to endorse any alternative that has either of those effects. Therefore, I wonder whether it is not possible, even
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now, for my noble friend to consider whether making adjustments to the scheme, as opposed to replacing it, would not be a better way forward.
9.5 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, has asked this question tonight. He has a wonderful record here, so I am only too pleased to support him. The subject is of immense importance to thousands of students in poor and developing countries, and it is impossible to think of any other scheme that would give such good value—so many books at so low a cost to so many people. The noble Lord mentioned the number of books and the readership which would be 1.5 million people, we reckon. He has also mentioned the value of them. I should like to say that the publishers are, in fact, contributing about £8 million in subsidy, whereas the ODA provides £1.5 million (going down) so we are getting very good value for money indeed.
Perhaps I may quote the price of one book. Longman produces Hughes' Electrical Technology. It costs £18.99 here. Produced in a special cover with a different coloured cover but otherwise absolutely identical, it is sold for £3.80 through the ELBS. That seems to show the sort of value that the students are getting.
I know that the Minister has received hundreds of letters from students. I have been shown a good many of them. The noble Lord, Lord Thomson, mentioned Nigeria. Part of a letter that I have seen states:
"As students we get well under one thousand naira as monthly allowance from our parents or subsidy from our government. This amount … to about £8 or less per head in a month".
You cannot buy many books for that.
The University of Nairobi bookshop states:
"University of Nairobi students get a book allowance of £50.00 per year as part of their loan from the Kenya Government. This amount is expected to cover their textbook and stationery needs. Clearly this is not sufficient for the serious student … If the scheme is withdrawn, it means that the students will net be able to buy any books".
I do not believe it is possible to think of a better scheme. I hope that the Minister can respond to that, because we understand that the department is thinking of alternatives. So I do hope she will tell us what they are thinking about. We know that there have been many criticisms of the scheme and that it is not well targeted. The poorest students in the poorest countries are not the recipients.
The figures in the noble Baroness's letter to Mr. Bennett are not accurate. She said the better off countries account for about a third of the ELBS books sold. The actual figure is a fifth; 78.5 per cent. of them go to students from low or very low income countries. So I hope that that has been made clear to her now.
The countries targeted can be changed. It seems to me that this is quite possible, but I do not see why the scheme should be blamed for bad targeting if the ODA itself can change matters. I understand that a year or two ago Singapore, for instance, was taken off the list. Hong Kong has been mentioned as a Foreign Office request. Malaysia and Turkey could he taken off perfectly well.

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I understand the review said that it was not possible, but I understand that it is. So I hope perhaps the Minister will respond to that and tell us what is right. I wonder whether I could say just a little about the review. I understand that it was undertaken by two consultants to ODA: Mr. Crapper, an economics don who did the costings; and Monica Vincent, whose experience was chiefly in teaching English as a foreign language with, with all respect, no great knowledge of publicity, markets, or scientific, medical and technical books.
No one went to visit any of the countries involved. There was no sampling in the countries, no research, no questionnaire. Neither the users nor the publishers were consulted. I gather there was one meeting in Edinburgh with Malaysian students who are, after all, atypical. They were studying education, not science or medicine. But despite all that, the review did say carry on with the scheme. The review was not shown to the publishers. It should have been out in July. It was dated September, but it was March before the decisions were known, and April before it was seen. There really should be partnership and better dealings between all the people involved.
For academic courses and producing the right books at the right time, there must be adequate foreknowledge or some books will not be available. The mere fact that news has got around that the scheme is to be phased out probably means that certain titles will not be available.
Another criticism has been that the scheme concentrates too much on medical books, the theory presumably being that medical students are likely to be middle class. There may possibly be some students who could afford to pay more; but the point is surely that the vast majority are poor and worthy recipients of aid. They could not possibly afford UK book prices. And remember the average income in India is £150 a head, and India is the most important recipient. Surely, for developing countries, doctors and nurses too are very, very valuable members of the community and need to be encouraged.
It would be interesting to hear what the department has in mind for the future. There have been other schemes. The ODA has in the past supported three specific schemes run largely through the British Council—the Library Development Scheme, the Book Presentation Programme and the English Language Book Society (ELBS), now known as the Education Low Priced Books Scheme, which is what we are talking about. This programme has been strongly supported by the British publishing industry, as I have explained. The industry also helps with training through the Book House Training Centre, established in the early 1980s.
ELBS has been an especially effective scheme, because its administrative costs are exceptionally low and because distribution costs are covered through normal commercial mechanisms, and because the student market itself determines which and how many books are bought at the reduced price. This avoids most of the costs involved in selecting and ordering titles, choosing recipients, despatching consignments and so on. It is very hard to see how any alternative scheme
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can be anything like as effective. Indeed, to make any sort of mark, to help mitigate the damage done by the termination of ELBS, what is required is indeed not £1.5 million, but a restoration of the funds previously made available—perhaps £10 million at current prices, plus the money spent by regional and country desks as part of major projects.
ELBS not only supports the quality of the education, but develops a long-term relationship with our country. It is easy to imagine the reaction if suddenly this long-established (35 years) and highly effective support is cut off. It would be a repetition of the disaster over overseas student fees. It sometimes seems as if ODA officials pursuing their own dogmas and internal organisational objectives overlook entirely the effect of termination of established schemes on the recipient country, leaving a hole in their educational provision which cannot easily be filled by alternatives and creating the idea that we in the UK no longer care.
I believe that the ODA should change its mind on this. It not only supports education and the provision of the skills required for social and economic development, but it helps to develop a continuing relationship between the new generations in the developing countries and the UK, thereby helping to create friendly relations and trade.
The students who follow the courses that the books help to sustain are likely to be the brighter and better students of the younger generation, the leaders of their country in the future. Surely it is madness on our part to deny them the wherewithal to make progress and risk losing the undoubted good will that is generated.
I do hope very strongly that today's debate will have encouraged the noble Baroness to change her mind and that of her department. It is not too late to recover the damage that could be done.
9.15 p.m.
Viscount Waverley: My Lords, I shall be brief and attempt to be practical, having already detained your Lordships earlier today. I fear that I am about to put the cat among the pigeons. If the Minister has determined to terminate or radically alter the scheme, I should like to approach the problem in a way different from other noble Lords.
What could be asked is whether possible alternative damage control mechanisms could be found in order that our friends around the world who are less well off will not suffer unduly. Let us ask ourselves who in the trade will be affected by change. There will be the publisher, of course, directly and indirectly through possible loss of structure in each of the countries concerned. Perhaps as many as 50 times more books are sold as a result of the subsidy, enabling a local representative in situ selling books, by allowing for more profitable order-taking in other market segments. The distributor, the wholesaler and the bookseller will all be affected, as will the ancillary trades comprising airlines and freight agents.
I recognise that concerns are for the needy around the world. However, I do not necessarily subscribe to the view that the subsidy which the ODA is paying to the

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publishers is the only way of retaining low prices. For example, the publisher could increase his discount to the distributor from 45 per cent. to 60 per cent., an amount which, although reducing the publisher's margins, is still affordable. I am not entirely sure why publishers believe that they need to sell new material to many of the markets. I can tell the House that schools, frankly, do not care whether a book or periodical is new, provided that it is readable and will last the test of time.
Supplying book returns from more affluent markets could have a tremendously beneficial effect. Additionally, the ODA or an appropriate body could act as a conduit for consolidating orders, organising break-bulking in the country of destination and distributing internally. It may be that considerable savings can be achieved by doing that as well as being a more satisfactory method of shipping.
Timely competitive deliveries are equally as important to the colleges and libraries around the developing world. Small orders sent by air or ship and individual orders sent by post are exorbitantly expensive in comparison with the method that I have outlined.
What is the amount of subsidy that we are talking about? A recommended retail price in the UK, for example, of an engineering textbook from a major publishing house might be £18.99. The amount of subsidy available to the publisher from the ODA is approximately £1.75. The old maxim stands in good stead: where there is a problem there is a solution. The scheme is undoubtedly of value to academics and students in developing countries. But it may well be that more prudent management can help or account for the total currently required.
I would however like to be told tonight by the Minister where the savings will be allocated as a result of not paying all or part of the subsidy to the book publishers. It may be that the amount is being deemed as moneys needing to be saved. If, on the other hand, the Minister sees wisdom in the proposals advanced tonight and decides to announce a scheme that essentially retains the ELBS, she may care to consider whether my proposals have merit.
9.18 p.m.
Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior: My Lords, the House should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, for bring the issue once more to the attention of your Lordships. I was interested to hear his account of the origin of the scheme. I must declare an interest in that in those early days I had the honour of having one of my texts selected for the ELBS scheme. I shall say more about that later.
The decision to phase out the ELBS scheme has caused great anxiety, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady David. Letters have been sent by students at various universities throughout the world. Furthermore, it has caused great anxiety in the publishing houses and, in particular, among those individuals concerned with education and training in the professions and the various vocational skills in the developing world.
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Those who have seen this scheme operate at first hand will know just how valuable it is. I have had that privilege in several countries of the world. When one is working at the sharp end of this type of scheme one realises how tremendously important it is to the education of people in the developing world and in the very poor countries of the world.
It is a unique scheme. No other country that I know of has produced a scheme like it. It is indeed the envy of a number of countries who put aid into the "third world" as we call it. It is of enormous benefit to the developing world. Two major areas which have benefited from the scheme over the years have been India, which has been mentioned previously, and Anglophone Africa. I would go so far as to say that much of the higher education in those parts of the world has been based on the availability of ELBS editions of various textbooks. It is textbooks that we are concerned with, not research volumes or any other subjects like that.
One goes to various countries, to Ibadan in Nigeria, to Nairobi, Harare and universities in India, for example, and one sees the ELBS books on the library shelves. They are well used because their dog-eared nature means that everybody wants to get at them. I can assure noble Lords that if one happens to be an author of one of the books, the local people, with great joy, want one to annotate it and add one's name. They feel very happy that one of their books has the author's name on it.
There are some universities in India which further subsidise the ELBS editions so that the very poor students can in fact buy them outright for a minuscule amount of money. The scheme will allow that to be done. Furthermore, the scheme brings great prestige to the United Kingdom. I believe that it affects her own influence and her reputation in the world, not only by promoting the knowledge and learning of our academics in this country, but it also has a spin-off because many people will then think first of buying British goods rather than buying other goods in the world. I believe that that effect has been particularly important. As regards Malaysia some years ago, a decision to charge high fees for higher education had quite the reverse effect because it was decided to go east rather than west with purchasing.
The ELBS editions are sold at approximately one-fifth of the regular price. There is an important effect of that in that it counteracts a phenomenon which is unfortunately rather widely practised—that is to say, the piracy of books by means of photocopying the volumes or through cheap reproductions. But the photocopies cannot undercut the ELBS editions, so the scheme protects the publishers in this country from the pirating effect that takes place in certain other countries.
The efficiency of the scheme is quite remarkable. We have heard tonight that for £1.5 million, up-to-date textbooks across the whole range of subjects are provided to tens of thousands of students in poor countries. That must be a minuscule part of the ODA budget. Further, the scheme is administered by three individuals at International Book Development, which, as has been said, last year was responsible for the distribution of 900,000 books under the scheme. That

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must be one of the most cost-effective endeavours that the ODA, of which I think most highly, has undertaken in recent years.
In view of that fact, I believe it is pertinent to consider why the scheme is under the threat of withdrawal. Why should a scheme so well regarded, which has been so effective, be withdrawn? I understand that the 1988 review decided to focus the scheme on countries where the gross capital input or wage was of the order of 1,000 dollars. That brought about 56 countries into the scheme.
The 1994 review maintained that the scheme was not targeted enough to the poorest students in the poorest countries and that it lacked accountability for the distribution of books. However, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady David, that review was conducted by two people who never went out of the country and who presumably relied on information that they gleaned from other sources. I can almost guarantee that, had they done so and gone to the poor countries and the universities which use the ELBS editions, they would have come to different conclusions.
One does not doubt for one moment that there is abuse of the scheme, shall we say, on the periphery; indeed, all aid schemes are open to abuse. But the greater good is so much greater than the abuse that occurs that I believe one can almost discard the abuse side. To my mind, that is no reason to withdraw the scheme. However, if, despite the pleas that we have heard tonight, my noble friend the Minister is still of a mind that ELBS as it is at present should be withdrawn, perhaps I may make a plea that the present scheme stays in place until another scheme—whatever it may be—is ready and capable of being instituted immediately. That would avoid an interregnum which, if it did occur, could be very harmful to the countries about which we are thinking and to the universities concerned.
If we lose the targets to which the books go, it may be very difficult to recoup them. It may well be that others will have moved in and the targets will have disappeared. Indeed, they may have moved in with less than satisfactory means of dealing with the issue. In fact, I understand that it may to some extent already be too late. I am informed by at least two publishers that funding is already being restricted so that they cannot maintain the stocks of books that would normally go for the ELBS edition.
I very much hope that my noble friend the Minister will give the matter close consideration. I also hope that she will reconsider the issue.
9.28 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, I should like to add my congratulations and thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, for tabling the Unstarred Question at such a critical time for the ELBS. In her reply, I very much hope that the noble Baroness will show that she is not only a listening Minister—which, indeed, we all know—but also one who can respond to what she hears by modifying the Government's intentions when the overwhelming evidence shows, as it has tonight, that those intentions are mistaken.
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I particularly ask the Minister to pay attention to the speech just made by the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, who has such wide, practical knowledge of the operation of the scheme. The Government's main reason for phasing out the scheme is that it is not reaching the very poor and that too high a proportion of ELBS books are sold in better-off developing countries. But I very much hope that the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, and by my noble friend Lady David will have dealt with that aspect.
However, there is also the suggestion that the books are going to those in the poorest countries who can afford them. It has been suggested that those who are training for the professions, especially medicine, are likely to come from the better-off section of the population, even in poor countries, and that they should be able to afford full price textbooks. I hope that the noble Baroness will not use that argument.
In the first place the elite in the developing countries, whose sons and daughters are the only ones who have the necessary money to buy full price textbooks, are a small proportion of the population and are quite insufficient in terms of sustaining the universities of the third world. Many students of these universities, as my noble friend pointed out, are desperately poor. The cheap but excellent textbooks provided by ELBS are a godsend to them, for which we in this country receive much praise. I hope that the noble Baroness will have read some of the 450 letters—I gather she has been sent 320—which the ELBS publishing committee has received from users of the scheme. Those letters show how much it is appreciated.
We on these Benches of course support the ODA's policy of concentrating resources on the poorest, especially if it helps them to climb out of poverty, rather than providing temporary relief. ELBS comes within this first and best category of aid; namely, helping countries to climb out of poverty. By helping to train a well educated superstructure—I was going to say infrastructure but that would not be appropriate in this case—we enable countries to develop self-sufficiency more quickly. Too many developing countries still depend too much on ex-patriates to man their professions and on ex-patriates to provide the technical base on which any modern country depends.
If the means by which we aid these countries to become self-sufficient more quickly are British books provided through the ELBS, there is a better chance that the knowledge that the students concerned will gain will be sound, because the books will have been carefully selected by academic referees. Here I address the remarks of the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley. One of the things that ELBS can do is to provide up-to-date books and the latest editions of textbooks. If one is attending a higher education institute, one needs those latest editions. One cannot depend on a book which is several editions old if one is to train one's students properly. British textbooks in any case are usually better written and explain complex concepts more clearly than those from many other countries, except perhaps the United States. The textbooks published by United States publishers might well creep in and fill the gap if ELBS books become less readily available.

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As other speakers have said, those who are helped to gain their qualifications through ELBS will have a lasting respect for British institutions. Those many letters which I mentioned that have been received by the ELBS publishers committee since the Government's announcement of their plans to phase out the scheme show how greatly it is appreciated throughout the Commonwealth. Those who gain qualifications, often with the help of the ELBS, are, as other speakers have said, likely to become leaders in government, commerce or the professions in their own countries. They will, as many already do, remember the help they received from Britain and are likely to encourage trade, international co-operation and friendly relations with the UK in the future.
It has been said many times, not only from these Benches—and my noble friend Lady David mentioned it this evening—that the value of the good will and friendly links which the UK lost by cutting subsidies for Commonwealth students in British universities 20 years ago was much greater than the savings gained. I know that there was a Labour Government in power then, but I believed then that it was mistaken, as it has proved to be.
While the savings envisaged now are much smaller, the ending of the ELBS would be another decision based on short-term thinking. I hope very much that the noble Baroness will be able to say that this highly cost-effective and popular scheme, modified if need be, will be allowed to continue.
Viscount Waverley: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may point out that the delivery plan that I propose would allow for publications to be delivered in as timely a fashion as under the current ELBS.
9.35 p.m.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Chalker of Wallasey): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, for initiating this debate and to your Lordships for making some useful points. I listened carefully to the contributions, but it is clear that many concerns over the issue are based on a misconception of our intentions and of the operation of the scheme. Therefore, I am glad to have this opportunity to respond.
First, the educational low-priced books scheme has not yet been phased out. We have said that it will be phased out in two years because we want to replace it with something better. We believe it essential that we do the very best for the students, particularly those poor students who cannot afford books. I can assure my noble friend Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior that the existing scheme will continue for a further two years.
I was extremely surprised by the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady David. She made a quite unfair and disproportionate criticism of my officials and the reviewers of the scheme. I shall return to the review in a moment. The noble Baroness will know, as I know the noble Lord, Lord Rea, knows, that it is my job and the task of my officials to get the very best value for money for student recipients in line with ODA policy laid down in the 1980 Overseas Development and Cooperation Act. I have no other remit than to do that. My concern is the students and that those students will turn to the UK when
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they are qualified and will bring trade for the UK in the longer term. Therefore, neither I nor my officials have any of the negative aspirations which were accorded to us.
First, perhaps I may explain how the scheme operates. The ELBS provides a subsidy from the aid programme to British publishers. That subsidy helps them to produce cheaper versions of standard texts which they have already published. As the noble Lord, Lard Thomson of Monifieth, said, we want the best kind of contribution, but at the least cost. The misconception in many of the letters sent to me, many of them stimulated by people outside your Lordships' House, has been that the ELBS supplies free textbooks to students or libraries. That is not so. These books are sold on the commercial market.
It is a fact that a number of publishers have chosen not to submit books to the ELBS, preferring to work through the commercial system. I mentioned the Overseas Development and Cooperation Act. The British aid programme is defined in that Act as:
"promoting the development or maintaining the economy of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom, or the welfare of its people".
Those are important words. The primary purpose of British aid is development. As I told many of your Lordships before, we seek, as we are required to do, the most cost-effective and best targeted way of delivering aid. That is exactly what the noble Lord. Lord Thomson of Monifieth, asked.
The aid programme funds the supply of books and other teaching materials but in a number of different ways, because we wish to be flexible and efficient in helping students in developing countries. The ELBS is just one of those ways.
It is perfectly true that we spent £1.5 million on this scheme last year, over £200,000 of which was the administrative cost of the scheme. But in the last financial year we also spent some £7.3 million to provide books through other schemes; so it is not the ELBS alone. There is the regional engineering centres project in India which focuses not only on books but on other information inputs in design, energy, information technology and materials engineering. There is the secondary schools textbook project in Jamaica. There is the supplementary readers for primary schools project in Zambia. There is the construction of a library and a Faculty of Information in Moi University in Kenya. There is the English language teaching project in Ethiopia. There is the English language teaching support system in Tanzania. There is the independent development trust school book project in South Africa. There are many other schemes. There is help through Book Aid International (formerly known as the Ranfurly Library Service) which provides free books to developing countries and does a first-class job.
There is an annual books allowance for all ODA supported scholars and trainees. Under the British Council there are project related books and information aid worth over £2 million. There are the heads of mission gifts and small project schemes. There is the Commonwealth of Learning information database and books. There are the low priced book schemes in Eastern Europe.
Your Lordships will understand that the educational low-priced book scheme is but one of a number of projects. That is why in each case I must ensure that the scheme is value for money and reaches the very students

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about whom the noble Lord, Lord Rea, spoke. We all know that the original objective of the ELBS was to sell information books overseas and to provide a limited pump-priming subsidy to publishers. The policy aims for ELBS were to spread British influence—a matter with which we cannot disagree and never will—and to further the growth of the English language—again a matter on which there is total agreement. It was to provide a form of aid—it is a form of aid, but it mainly goes to the publishers—to assist exports and to forestall similar action by the Communist world. Perhaps that aim is now a little out of date.
The scheme has had a fine reputation. No one disputes that. Over the years it has had some notable successes. A number of noble Lords have had their own works published as ELBS books. There is nothing against that and I am not critical of it because I am in favour of extending information.
Let me say a few words about the review of ELBS. As a number of noble Lords have said, there was a review in 1988. It concluded that the scheme lacked developmental focus. In some subjects the books did not correspond with the ODA's priorities. However, the scheme was permitted to continue subject to revised guidelines. One of those was that to qualify the country should have an average per capita GNP of less than 1,000 dollars per annum. It should be in receipt of British aid or multilateral aid towards which the UK contributes and where the publishers consider there is a market for UK books.
Since that time we have looked carefully at whether the scheme is meeting all those objectives. I have to tell your Lordships that the review undertaken last year showed little improvement since ELBS was last reviewed in 1988. There was marginal improvement, but overall not enough to give value for money.
Perhaps I may respond to the noble Baroness, Lady David, and what she said about the consultation on the review. It is not true that no questionnaires or letters were sent out. Our advisers in each and every development division were required to find out what was going on. It is not true that no visits were made. Ethiopia, Zambia, Kenya and Zimbabwe were visited. We had reports in from Asia after we had specifically requested countries to give us information about how the scheme was running. No decision was made on the matter until all the information had been received and the review was complete. Once the review was complete, I was not prepared to stop the scheme immediately because it takes time to adjust to such matters. That is why I gave notice that we would phase it out after a period of two years.
In addition, not only was the second review based on overseas visits, but so was the 1988 review. We also had discussions with the Publishers Association, the ELBS steering committee and the ELBS administrators. So the matter was thoroughly investigated. It was of great concern because I wished to extend the help we give but to ensure that it is properly targeted, as the rest of our aid is targeted.
I mentioned that one of the criteria laid down after the 1988 review was that the scheme should apply to countries with a per capita GNP below 1,000 dollars. In the latest review we found that 22 of the 54 countries
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within the scheme no longer came within that category. Between them those more prosperous countries accounted not for one-fifth, as the noble Baroness said, but for one-third of the number of books actually sold under the ELBS scheme.
Since the mid-1980s there has been an increase in the share of titles sold in South Asia as against a decrease in the predominantly poorer African countries. We all realise that there is a positive aspect to ELBS but—as has been said in correspondence and by a number of noble Lords in this debate—the scheme is not reaching the poorest students in the poorest countries. They were the people for whom it was intended. Therefore, it does not meet our developmental objectives. That is something which I must always keep in mind. I cannot allow a continuation of aid funds to subsidise students in more prosperous countries while students in the poorest countries cannot benefit. I must find ways of enabling the poorer students to benefit.
In the scheme, there is no way to guarantee who actually buys the books or that the benefit of the subsidy reaches the ultimate purchasers. So there is no way of ensuring that the subsidy benefits the poorer students. We know that the publishers make a profit. I have nothing against publishers making a profit, but I do not believe they should be subsidised when it is the students' needs that we seek to address. It is at a marginal extra cost to the publishers, but I gather that on a book costing £7.68, the gross return to the publisher is £1.96. I am sure that that is a variable figure because it will vary from some types of text books to others. But it is one example which we know for certain.
There are even instances which should worry us all where professional people from developed countries visiting developing countries purchase ELBS hooks for their own use. They then use them back in their own country. That cannot be a proper use of aid funds, but I cannot stop it happening with the scheme as it now is. That is one of the problems.
There are some subjects where the demand is greatest which gain precedence over other subject areas which are equally important in development terms. It is perfectly true, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, said, that about 60 per cent. of the books distributed under ELBS are medical books. We have nothing against that. But books on engineering, education, agriculture and environment form only a small part of the ELBS sales. They are still important, even if good health is fundamentally important to all.
The situation is this. The nature of the scheme is such that it is not possible to target individual students, institutions or even disciplines. It does not distribute free books. And I am sad to say that it has developed into a scheme that is overly influenced by commercial considerations, when I am required under the 1980 Act to put developmental considerations before everything else.
In order for a country to be included, we have to have in that country a potential market in the eyes of the publishers. That is how the scheme runs at the moment. It would be possible to change that and change the countries. But that would still not answer the earlier points that I made.

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One of the other problems that we have is the lack of available foreign exchange. That makes it difficult for poorer countries to import British books. ELBS does not meet those very real needs either. More generally, it is impossible to control the local selling price. Local booksellers apply a local mark-up which makes ELBS titles in certain countries more expensive than expected, despite the subsidy to publishers. Although the subsidy in many cases reaches its objective of providing key textbooks to poorer students, a disproportionate benefit is gained by others—by wealthier students in better-off countries and particularly by those who engineer to use the scheme for their benefit.
I am well aware that the publishers appreciate the ELBS. It gives them a foothold in countries where there is either unrealised potential for an expansion in the book trade or economic forecasts predict a rapid increase in demand for books of all kinds. So what ELBS does is allow publishers to underwrite the risks of establishing or maintaining a presence in countries where the potential is in the future. That is what worries me about the scheme. It is not following the objectives of which I spoke.
The noble Lord, Lord Rea, asked whether other countries might step in to fill the void left by ELBS. Other countries already have markets in the developing world. For instance, US publishers have developed a large licensing and reprinting business in India. They provide US texts at local prices equivalent to 10 per cent. of the standard edition price. They do that without any United States Government subsidy. So these sorts of reprinting— of, I accept, not such good quality books—go on all the time. It is not our job to try to work out a scheme which necessarily competes with another scheme like that. It is our job to get the low-priced books to the students who need them.
That is why I find there to be flaws in the ELBS. In view of that, I should be totally negligent not to seek to set those flaws right. I repeat that I am firmly committed to providing books in support of our aid objectives. I hope that publishers will be dynamic enough to seek to retain their position in developing countries without a subsidy from the ODA. I certainly know that there are some very forward-looking publishers around. I received a letter from the chairman of the export booksellers' group, the Booksellers Association. He welcomes the opportunity to look more widely at the role of books and information as part of our general aid effort,
"rather than concentrating narrowly on ELBS and on possible replacements".
He understands that,
"global schemes of this type are not nowadays felt to be the most effective way of targeting aid".
He also says that he is not entering a plea in favour of ELBS, although he says that the scheme has been well managed. We, too, believe that to be the case. We know that it has been relatively inexpensive but we also know the other factors which I explained earlier to your Lordships.
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We are not phasing out ELBS without looking at all the alternatives. Indeed, my aim, as I hinted and as the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, suggested, is to replace ELBS with something better. We are currently examining more effective ways of ensuring that poor students in poor countries who cannot afford to purchase books at full cost have access to the books that they need. We have a working group which will include the ODA's education advisers and publishers. Together they will examine all aspects of books provision under the aid programme. The aim is to develop well before the old scheme ceases in two years' time new arrangements that will fulfil the objectives to which we are committed.
One means of targeting may be to increase our direct support to libraries and educational institutions in the poorer countries, particularly those in need. But we shall look at all possibilities. They might include licensing arrangements with local publishers or cheap student editions, funded by UK publishers with an eye to business. For example, one notable publisher in this country has already approached me to discuss cheap student editions.
We shall continue our support too for Book Aid International that I mentioned earlier. It is really expert at getting the right books to the right places, where they are most needed.
I also want to encourage countries which can now do so to develop their own publishing resources rather than rely on imports. But I believe that the whole question of getting this right means that we should give notice that we are considering, indeed have decided upon, a change in order to fulfil our developmental objectives.
We live in a very changing world. ELBS has dealt in books, but only in books, for 35 years. We face an explosion in information technology and access. It is our job to look forward and consider all aspects of information needs in developing countries, not only for the rest of this century but into the next. I am particularly looking at that as the costs of new technology continue to fall. Universities and colleges are now acquiring access to Internet on their computer systems. Whole textbooks and encyclopaedias are now being made available, particularly in scientific subjects, on CD-ROM. Journals, multimedia distance education and a whole range of new applications are becoming available. That is why I have asked my professional advisers to discuss all those issues over the next few months with all the interested parties, including the publishers.
I can assure your Lordships, including my noble friend Lord Stewartby, that we do wish and intend to get the educational low-priced books to those who need them. But this is not the scheme by which to do it. There has been a great deal of special pleading in recent weeks. I understand why; but I also understand that I have a responsibility to make sure not only that I fulfil the law but also that our aid to education, as our aid in all other sectors, is the most effectively targeted that we can achieve to ensure that it benefits those who need our help most.
House adjourned at two minutes before ten o'clock.