Lords Sitting of 12 December 1996

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Carlisle.): The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Lord Killearn—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his half brother.

Great Lakes Region, Africa
Lord Judd Lord Judd asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their latest evaluation of the humanitarian needs of the Great Lakes region of Africa and what action they are now taking both bilaterally and multi-laterally in the light of it.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Chalker of Wallasey): My Lords, on 18th November the UN Secretary General issued an appeal for £155 million for food aid and for other urgent needs for the next six months. On 21st November the Government of Rwanda circulated a further appeal to meet internal rehabilitation and reconstruction needs. Reported pledges amount to nearly £200 million, including substantial new pledges from the European Union. On 20th November I announced a further British commitment of £10 million.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, will the noble Baroness accept that she has nothing but good will from this side of the House as she endeavours to play her part in grappling with this immense human tragedy, with more than 2 million people across the region still as refugees and displaced persons? Will the Minister also accept that our concern centres on whether emergency supplies are now reaching all those in need and whether additional support is being provided to the Governments of Tanzania and Uganda to help them cope with the burden of refugees and to Rwanda to help with reintegration and reconstruction? Can the noble Baroness tell the House what is being done to curb the killing, especially in Burundi, and whether there are sufficient human rights monitors in place? Above all, can the Minister say what support she and the Government are able to provide to the OAU and to President Nyerere in their efforts to work for a regional solution which must, presumably, encompass both Francophone and Anglophone countries in the region?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that, where we know the location of refugees or displaced persons, emergency supplies are getting through. However, if the estimates are as high as the United Nations Secretary General has suggested—that is, between 300,000 and
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700,000 refugees—it is still quite clear that they have not yet all been discovered. Until they have been discovered they cannot be assisted.
The noble Lord also asked about help to Tanzania and other countries which are hosting refugees. That is a well-made point. We are already helping in Tanzania, both for the voluntary return of refugees and, indeed, in Rwanda, where they are mainly returning, to help them settle down. That is why of the £10 million that I announced on 20th November there is £3 million for the human rights operation, not only in Rwanda but also in Burundi. Britain is the largest contributor to that particular and important aspect of need.
As regards the OAU, I have indeed looked with the organisation, on a recent visit to Addis, at how we can help further. We have of course partly funded the office supporting past President Nyerere in all his efforts. There will be a meeting next Monday in Nairobi of the regional heads of government, which I hope will take the voluntary repatriation of refugees still further and ensure that the pipeline of supplies to those who need our help is a sure pipeline which will reach them.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, considering the Tanzanian Government's decision, in their declaration, to make all Rwandan refugees go home by the end of this year, is the Minister doing anything to assist that government to help Rwandan refugees integrate? I ask that question because if the number of refugees—over 700,000—were all to leave within the next three weeks it would cause a humanitarian crisis.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I do not believe it is feasible that anything like that number of refugees could return to their home countries before the end of December. We have committed over £3 million to help the Tanzanian Government cope with the return of refugees. The most important thing is that there are already reports that Rwandans themselves in Tanzania are making preparations to return. Indeed, 4,000 of them have already returned of their own volition, while others have fled the camps to avoid repatriation. That makes me believe that there will be nothing like the number of refugees that has been announced. The UNHCR is in close consultation with the Government of Tanzania and with the aid agencies in preparing for that return.
It is most important that both the Government of Rwanda and that of Tanzania should work for a staged and orderly return. It is all very well to have target dates; but it is much more important that those people should get back safely and securely and that they are actually able to resettle. That is what we are working for.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, can my noble friend tell the House whether there is any prospect of the countries in the OAU getting together to work out an economic scheme for the development of the Great Lakes region and its economic resources?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I think that there is a very firm wish on the part of the OAU

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to do just as my noble friend has suggested. However, the difficulty in the OAU at present is that many of its member countries feel that to concentrate just on the Great Lakes region would detract from other areas which need assistance. I can assure my noble friend that the matter is one which is conscientiously being considered both by the senior officers in the OAU and, indeed, by the leaders of the East African countries who are meeting next Monday.
The Lord Bishop of Carlisle: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House what particular action is being taken in support of British nationals working for the humanitarian agencies assisting not only refugees but also displaced persons in the area?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is right to ask that question. The non-governmental organisations and the UN agencies which have many British people working for them are doing a first-class job. One of the difficulties that we will always have is that of ensuring that those who are displaced can return to their original homes. One of the ways in which that is being done by the Government of Rwanda, with the help of human rights monitors from this country and others, is to set up temporary refuges for those who have to leave the places that they have occupied for the past few years so that the returning refugees can go back to their own homes. They are also providing refuges for those who return from other countries until such time as they can be settled. We are putting resources to that through the NGO movement.
The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, is it not the case that the multinational force could be reinstated for the protection of the non-governmental organisations which would like to locate the refugees in Zaire and discover what condition they are in? Is the Minister aware that in the period up to Christmas many people in this country will be concerned about those hundreds of thousands of refugees? Is she also aware that an Anglo-Norwegian plane sent by the Churches has been sent back and was under fire? That surely proves that the NGOs need better protection.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, while I believe it is absolutely clear that NGOs must register their interests and where they are going before they make flights or any other forays into eastern Zaire, I do not believe that they are in need of troops to be deployed in their defence. The situation has changed greatly over the past four weeks. The situation regarding the Anglo-Norwegian plane is not entirely clear at the present time. We are looking into it. If there is a need for forces on the ground we shall be prepared to give what help is needed. At the present time none of the information from the British Canberra bombers which are flying overhead leads me to believe that we should be deploying troops in this situation.

Trident Nuclear Submarines: Costs
3.11 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney Lord Jenkins of Putney asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their estimate of the total cost of the Trident nuclear submarine fleet, and how it is likely to be spread over the probable lifetime of the vessels.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe): My Lords, the current estimated cost of procuring the Trident system is £12.2 billion. This represents a real cost saving of £3.4 billion over the original 1982 estimate. It is too early in the programme accurately to assess Trident's running costs but our expectation is that they will average around £200 million per annum over the lifetime of the system; some £6 billion in all.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that I did not always catch when he was referring to millions or when he was referring to billions? However, I think I got it right. In any case we can read it in Hansard, can we not? Is the noble Earl aware, as I am sure he is, that the Washington Group, which is a group of high level, professional people in the military area, met recently in Washington in support of the Canberra recommendations for the elimination of nuclear weapons? The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, was also present. Is the noble Earl aware that the group pointed particularly to the high cost of maintaining nuclear weapons and the lack of any necessity of maintaining nuclear weapons on alert? Can the noble Earl give us an assurance that none of our nuclear weapons is maintained on full alert?
Earl Howe: My Lords, I believe it puts this question into context if I tell the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, that over its entire procurement period Trident will have absorbed fewer than 2.5 per cent. of the defence budget. I believe that is a modest percentage in relation to the value of the system. With regard to the Canberra Commission, it is perfectly correct that the report contains a good many ideas with which we agree; for example, the importance of non-proliferation measures in parallel with nuclear arms reductions. We also support some of its objectives; for example a comprehensive test ban, which we have already signed. However, nuclear disarmament cannot realistically be pursued independently of the broader security context. I have made that point on previous occasions.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that in 1982 the then Secretary of State, Sir John Nott, forecast that Trident would cost £8 billion at 1980 prices? Will my noble friend reconfirm, as it were, that the final cost of Trident was less than the £8 billion forecast by Sir John Nott and therefore was really rather a good buy?
Earl Howe: My Lords, my noble friend is perfectly right. As I said in my original Answer, the

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procurement cost of Trident of £12.2 billion represents a real cost saving of £3.4 billion over the original 1982 estimate.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, will the Minister tell us whether the Franco-British defence dialogue, which we know has touched on nuclear matters, has identified significant savings over the term to be found by sharing patrols and perhaps reducing the number of boats on target? Has that in any sense been under discussion, and does the Minister think there are savings to be found through closer co-operation?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the short answer is no. So far our discussions with our French colleagues have not embraced those matters. However, we are in discussion with them over nuclear safety matters.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, does my noble friend think it worth pointing out once again to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, that the possession of nuclear weapons by the great powers has kept the peace among them for the past 50 years and we hope that it will continue to do so for the next 50 years?
Earl Howe: My Lords, my noble friend makes an extremely important point. Nuclear deterrence has played a major role in preventing conflict in Europe over the past half century and I believe it continues to play an essential role in maintaining stability in Europe in the post Cold War era.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, will the Minister answer the specific question and give the House an assurance that our nuclear Trident fleet is not kept on full alert?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the Trident vessel out on patrol is of course on alert in the sense that it is there to perform a task if it is needed. However, the missiles on board the vessel are not targeted in any way.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, bearing in mind the text of the excessive deficit protocol of the Maastricht Treaty, will the noble Earl give the House an estimate of the amount by which the country's public sector borrowing requirement will be increased during the period of payment, or indeed liability of this country for the construction and fitting of these vessels?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the period of construction and fitting goes well beyond the period of three years over which the Government plan their finances so I cannot, unfortunately, give the noble Lord the answer that he seeks.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, the House will have been intrigued by the Minister's reference to the fact that when Trident is out on patrol the missiles are not targeted on anything. Can we therefore take it that
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should any problems emerge and the nuclear missiles need to be used they will just go up in the air and land anywhere?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the missiles can be targeted at short notice if they need to be.

Training and Enterprise Councils: Finance
3.17 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington Lord Dormand of Easington asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have received recent representations on their training programmes for the unemployed from the Training and Enterprise Councils' (TEC) National Council.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Lord Henley): My Lords, the Government have regular contacts with the Training and Enterprise National Council. The most recent was on Budget day when the Secretary of State for Education and Employment met with the council to discuss the implications of the public expenditure settlement.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the most recent paper—I am not sure whether he has just referred to it—prepared by the Training and Enterprise National Council is reported as being highly critical of the Government's training programmes? However, the paper referred to government appointed TECs. Will the Government publish that report? Surely it is essential that everyone involved with the training programmes should be aware of the contents and try to do something to put the matter right. If the findings of the paper are justified, will the position be critical because the TEC budget has now been reduced by no less than £34 million?
Lord Henley: My Lords, publication is obviously a matter for the Training and Enterprise National Council. I must say, however, that following what was a very tight public expenditure round, expenditure on the programmes from the department delivered by the TECs is set to fall—as the noble Lord put it—by £34 million, that is 2.3 per cent., when compared with the expected spend in the current year. I must also tell the noble Lord that there has been a welcome fall in unemployment over the past year and the previous three or four years, including the number unemployed for six months or more where the fall was some 11 per cent. The opportunities provided by training for work and other programmes delivered by the TECs will be reduced by a mere 9 per cent. That should be seen in the context of an 11 per cent. fall in unemployment.
Lord Clark of Kempston: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that over the past three years the unemployment figure has fallen month after month? Is that due not only to the help that the TECs give but also to the competent management of the economy of this

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country which has in particular increased the number of small businesses by one million over the period of office of this Government? Does he further agree that to put that in jeopardy by introducing the social chapter or minimum wage would be disastrous?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I agree absolutely with my noble friend. Perhaps I may remind him that unemployment has fallen virtually every single month for the past 36 months. I believe that there was one month when it did not fall; and for that one month we received a lot of publicity. Sadly, we do not receive publicity for the falls that we had in the 35 other months. Unemployment has fallen and fallen again.
Earl Russell: My Lords, can the Minister tell us whether, for the first time since 1988, the public expenditure round was able to make provision for uprating the youth training allowance and the youth training bridging allowance?
Lord Henley: My Lords, that is another question. I wrote to the noble Earl on this matter only yesterday; the letter may not have reached him. I can assure him that we were able to uprate one part of the youth training bridging allowance. The noble Earl will receive my letter shortly. He will be able to study it in due course.
Baroness David: My Lords, is it not a fact that the Government lost £118 million of European training aid money in the period 1994-96 because they did not put forward a training programme? Can the Minister tell me whether the Government will respond to the warning of the TECs that they could lose £280 million in 1997-99 if they do not put forward a programme in good time? I believe that that comes from the same report of the Training and Enterprise National Council.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am not aware of the allegations that the noble Baroness makes. I shall look at them. The important point, as I stressed in my response to my noble friend, is that we have seen unemployment falling very quickly for a number of years at a time when it has been rising throughout the remainder of Europe. That seems to imply that the sort of training programmes we have are the right training programmes and that the economic management policies that we pursue are right. That is why unemployment is falling.
Baroness David: My Lords, if the Government have had to cut the programme by £34 million, it seems foolish to cast aside this European money which would be extremely helpful.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I said that I would look at the allegations made by the noble Baroness. I also said in answer to an earlier question that we have cut the TEC programme by some 2.3 per cent. in the light of a very difficult public expenditure round. It is right that the Government should retain control over public finances. That is why we do so. I also stressed that unemployment
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has been falling and is falling faster than the amount by which we have cut the training provision being made available to the TECs.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, despite what the Minister says about falling unemployment figures, is he aware that there is still grave cause for concern about the level of male unemployment in particular in areas which were once heavily industrialised? In view of the social problems involved, should not special attempts be made to deal with that issue?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Baroness is right to draw attention to particular aspects of unemployment. I think that she is right to draw attention to male unemployment. It is right to draw attention to youth unemployment. That is why we have the TECs. That is why we give them the flexibility to design their programmes so that they can concentrate on those who are particularly in need of help.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, will the Minister be more specific about training and the report produced by the Training and Enterprise National Council? Has he read the report? If so, will he confirm that it is a critical report? What will the Government do about it?
Lord Henley: My Lords, how the report is defined is a matter for the individual reader. We shall pay appropriate attention to that report. However, as I made clear to the noble Lord, publication of the report is a matter for the Training and Enterprise National Council.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, since the objective of the training exercise is to get people out of unemployment and back to work, is it not important that the trainee should have the will to succeed? Does the Minister consider that the situation is helped by the fact that the trainee who does not take the course offered will lose his benefit? Surely it would be more constructive to have a willing trainee.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I believe that it is also right to have a benefits system which encourages people either to take up opportunities to work or to train.

Public Examination Standards
3.24 p.m.
Lord Quirk Lord Quirk asked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they deem may be necessary following the report by Ofsted and SCAA (Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority) on Standards in Public Examinations 1975-1995.
Lord Henley: My Lords, the report makes a number of important recommendations, all of which the Secretary of State has already endorsed for urgent action by SCAA and Ofsted, working with the examination boards. My right honourable friend has also indicated that she intends to

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consult in January on proposals to rationalise the number of examining and awarding bodies in England in the interests of assuring consistent national standards.
Lord Quirk: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response. While we can surely congratulate ourselves on the two well-led bodies that produced this report, and congratulate ourselves too, on the massive increase in the number of candidates taking public examinations over the past 20 years, would the Minister agree that it might be premature to congratulate ourselves also on the almost equally dramatic increase in the percentage of candidates coming out with very good grades, in view of the misgivings that the report makes about, for example, excessive reliance on pocket calculators, the lack of rigour in testing basic mathematical and logical skills, the degree of dependence on course work, the increased use of open-text examinations, the shift from canonical literature to the more ephemeral writings of the present time, the declining emphasis on accurate usage and vocabulary—it is quite a list—and the fact that examination boards have not been keeping enough samples of scripts from the past to make such reports more authoritative? May the Government please respond?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I shall try to respond briefly. The noble Lord put forward quite a list. I join him in congratulating both SCAA and Ofsted on their work. I believe that it is also welcome that we have seen an increase in the number of candidates. But we should be wary of starting to knock the improved results of candidates which I believe reflect well on the schools, the teachers, the pupils and their parents.
The report does not say that standards have fallen. It has not found evidence for that. But the noble Lord gave quite a list, as he put it, of recommendations that the report makes. I shall not go into the response made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. However, she had quite a list of recommendations that she felt ought to be pursued. The list included the use of calculators in examinations, the use of canonical literature, and so on. No doubt those matters can be pursued, as I made clear in my earlier Answer.
Baroness David: My Lords, in the light of the report, will the Minister tell the House why, after 17; years, the Government have failed to reform A-levels? What progress has been made on that in the light of the proposals by Sir Ron Dearing, which he asked should be implemented some time ago?
Lord Henley: My Lords, Sir Ron Dearing made his report in the earlier part of this year. As I dare to say I believe the noble Baroness will welcome, we agreed to consult on that report. We have consulted throughout the remaining part of the year. Having done so, we are now agreed that a number of recommendations should be brought forward which will bring new rigour and various changes in A-levels.
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The noble Baroness will accept that we cannot change A-levels overnight. Any lead-in period will take time. For that reason the noble Baroness will not see the changes to A-levels tomorrow or even next year. They will come in in due course.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it does not denigrate the efforts made by current students at A-level to say that there are these failings which have been identified? If professors of mathematics find that people coming to university cannot count, and professors in the humanities find people coming to universities who cannot write, there is clearly something wrong. Is not the correct answer to the noble Baroness, Lady David, that we are still suffering from the damnosa hereditas of Tony Crosland and Shirley Williams?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I echo some of what my noble friend says. However, I must remind him that the report is quite clear. It does not say that standards have fallen. For that reason I believe that it is wrong to start to denigrate the efforts of individual students. From my experience of going round schools, many people are working very hard indeed. They are certainly working much harder—dare I say it?—than I and many noble Lords did when we were at school many years ago.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, does the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, speak to the House in Latin because he finds himself unable to speak in English?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not answer for my noble friend, much as I should like to.
Earl Russell: My Lords, is the Minister aware that decline in literacy and numeracy is even more conspicuous in the United States than in this country? That cannot be explained as the legacy of any British Minister, however distinguished.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not accept that there is necessarily a decline in literacy and numeracy. I think it is very wrong of us in this House to look back to some mythical golden age, which usually happens to be roughly when we were at school, and imply that education has declined since then. I believe that what is taking place in the vast majority of schools is very good indeed.
Lord Quirk: My Lords, do the Government see any dangers in there being four separate examination boards, each producing a multiplicity of optional examination schemes?
Lord Henley: My Lords, as my right honourable friend made clear, there are a number of different examination boards and that is something that she would like to look at. However, we are not in favour of denying schools and colleges choice and innovation in looking at different possible syllabuses, particularly at A-level; nor are we necessarily in favour of nationalising all the examination boards to form one single body, which we think would be

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the wrong approach. As my right honourable friend made clear, there is scope for looking at the multiplicity of different examination and awards bodies.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, with regard to consultation on the Dearing Report, can the Minister give some indication of which way the Government currently lean between toughening up A-levels, with a smaller number of them, and a broader syllabus between the ages of 16 and 18?
Lord Henley: My Lords, as I said, that is a matter for consultation. We have looked very carefully at what Sir Ron Dearing has said and I would not want to comment any further at this stage.

Business of the House: Consolidated Fund Bill
3.32 p.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Viscount Cranborne): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 44 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with on Tuesday 17th December to enable the Consolidated Fund Bill to be taken through its remaining stages that day.—(Viscount Cranborne.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

National Health Service (Primary Care) Bill [H.L.]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the National Health Service (Primary Care) Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:

Clauses 1 to 11, Schedule 1,

Clause 12,

Clause 21,

Clauses 13 to 16, Clause 22,

Clauses 17 to 20, Clauses 23 to 34,

Schedules 2 and 3.—(Baroness Cumberlege.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Land Registration [H.L.]
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to acquaint the House that they, having been informed of the purport of the Land
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Registration Bill, have consented to place their prerogative and interest, as far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

National Heritage Bill [H.L.]
3.33 p.m.
Read a third time.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of National Heritage (Lord Inglewood): My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Inglewood.)
Lord Howie of Troon: My Lords, as your Lordships will know, I have been interested in this Bill since it first came before us. During the earlier stages of the Bill the Minister was kind to me, in that he recognised some of the concerns which I raised. I hope that I can be kind to him today.
I rise to speak this afternoon because I received a letter from him yesterday afternoon which I wish to reply to on the record. He takes up the points which we had been disputing during the earlier stages of the Bill, particularly my feeling that buildings and structures are separated in paragraph 1 of the schedule but not in new Section 3 as it appears in Clause 1(1) of the Bill, where I thought that they should be separated. In his reply to me, the Minister said that paragraph I of the schedule enabled the trustees—of the heritage fund, I suppose—to take action themselves rather than providing financial assistance to others to act. He points out that that part of the Bill will not be used very often.
What I find curious is that the trustees are specifically asked to deal with buildings or structures when they take action themselves but buildings are not separated from structures when they give financial assistance to others. I thought at first that the Government would be using the locution which has been used once or twice in the past to define "buildings" as including "structures" but that turns out not to be the case.
The Minister drew my attention to the Interpretation Act 1978, which apparently includes "structures" within the definition of "land". When I read that in his letter, I thought that the Minister had torpedoed me below the water line, and I daresay he thought so as well. However, driven by curiosity, I obtained a copy of the Interpretation Act 1978, of which I had not previously heard, and I notice that what he says is true: "land" does include "structures". However, it also includes "buildings". I note that he uses the argument that "structures" are included in "land" in order to leave "structures" out of the Bill, while he uses the fact that the definition of "land" includes "buildings" in order to leave "buildings" in the Bill. This is a case of the goose and the gander which I do not fully understand. I merely wish to draw that point to his attention.

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I turned also to the housing grants Act which we passed earlier this year. In that Act buildings and structures are separated. Land is mentioned as well, but only in the sense of buildings or structures forming, or to form, part of the land. This is an area of considerable confusion. If my earlier amendments had been accepted, that confusion might have been cleared up. I dare say they might care to look at that matter in another place.
I referred to that part of the schedule to the Bill which refers to "objects". I wondered what those objects were. The Minister said in his letter that objects which relate to our engineering heritage are also objects of historic interest. That is very often true, and I do not object to that. However, I noticed that, when he listed my house last week—and we discussed this across the Floor—it was listed because of historic and architectural interest. There is no difficulty about combining the two interests. As a matter of fact, it is not very historic and it is not very distinguished architecturally, but that is another matter. If historic and architectural interest can go together, historic and engineering interest can go together too.
But what are these objects? I had drawn attention to the fact that there were many objects of engineering interest which were not structures or buildings. I mentioned at Report stage the kinds of things that I had in mind: machine tools, pumping engines or perhaps the lock gates on a canal. Those are objects of engineering interest. The Minister should perhaps encourage his colleagues in another place to look at the matter once again.
I am very grateful to the Minister for the attention which he has given to my arguments in the course of the past few weeks. I would merely suggest to him that he should encourage his colleagues to look at those arguments.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, in rising to support the remarks of my noble friend Lord Howie of Troon, I think it is useful to point out to the House that he does not speak for himself alone. This is not a matter which he alone is interested in. We need to put on record that the noble Lord speaks not only for an enormous number of engineers, both of the present day and the past, who have contributed and still contribute to the basic fundamental strengths of this country. He speaks for the nation, in the sense that the elements for which he speaks—the structures, the engineering elements and so on—are so important to the fabric of our society that we are disturbed when civil servants and Ministers sometimes need a lot of persuasion to accept the validity of the argument.
I hope that the eloquent way in which the noble Lord, Lord Howie, spoke this afternoon, in particular in asking the Government, as the Bill progresses through another place, perhaps to see fit to reconsider the slight resistance (if I may so call it) which they seem to have aroused to including within these important definitions structures, including engineering. They might think again and reflect on the very great importance not of the words themselves but of what those words mean to the fabric of our society and our history.
Lord Montagu of Beaulieu: My Lords, I should like briefly to congratulate the Government on bringing forward this Bill, which rights a wrong and a serious flaw
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the original Bill. As past president of the Historic Houses Association, I also thank the Government. The Bill will eliminate a great sense of injustice felt by a majority of owners of historic structures in this country.
It cannot be stated too often that it is the building and not the owner that benefits from grants. Since 1953 there has been the accepted quid pro quo of public access, which has now become accepted by all and become, indeed, traditional.
My only worry is that, now that so many more people have the opportunity to have a slice of the cake and the cake is no bigger, there will be a serious problem of funding. Otherwise, this is an excellent Bill and I thank the Government for bringing it forward.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, from this side of the House I join in the earlier comments. We believe that this is an excellent and practical Bill. It contributes to the welfare of the heritage of the nation. Not all Bills are like that and we were rather relieved to have this one.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, I am most grateful to your Lordships for their contributions to this debate and for their comments on the Bill. I was most reassured by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon. On his own admission, the difference between us is one not of substance but of style. He agreed with me and corroborated my view that what we have done in the Bill meets the case that he would like to see addressed. Where we disagree is on the style in which we have done it. We drafted the Bill in this way in order to give the greatest degree of assurance and clarity, bearing in mind that it is a legal document and not a layman's draft. So, while we shall consider most carefully the noble Lord's remarks and those of the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, I think we can rest assured that there is no difference in substance between us as to what the Bill achieves.
I also listened with great care to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Howie, in respect of the listing of his own house. It occurred to me that it may have been the historic aspect of his house, to wit the fact that he himself had lived there, which led to the listing. But then I thought no, that is not possible because he did not live in the other 400 or so houses in Hampstead Garden Suburb that were listed on the same occasion.
My noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu went to the heart of the purpose of the Bill; namely, to put right an anomaly which meant that certain aspects of the heritage—those which are privately owned—fall outside the eligibility criteria of the National Heritage Memorial Fund acting as the distributor for the lottery.
The change that we have effected has been supported by all the Front Benches in this House, for which I am most grateful. I am also grateful to my officials for their help and to my Whip, my noble friend Lady Trumpington. I commend the Bill to your Lordships.
On Question, Bill passed and sent to the Commons.

Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 1997
3.45 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Baroness Denton of Wakefield)The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Baroness Denton of Wakefield) rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 20th November be approved.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in speaking to this order, with your Lordships' permission, I shall speak also to the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland Consequential Amendments) Order 1997.
The purpose of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order is to update the criminal law in Northern Ireland in several important areas. It will implement proposals flowing from the 1993 discussion paper Crime and the Community, and will also introduce a series of other provisions which will bring Northern Ireland broadly into line with more recent changes in England and Wales. For ease of reference by practitioners and courts, the order will also restate some existing legislation on the treatment of offenders.
The introduction of a new statutory sentencing framework for financial, community and custodial punishments is of central importance. While the Criminal Justice Act 1991 established such a framework in England and Wales, sentencers in Northern Ireland continue to rely on guidance from the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal.
The enhanced range of community penalties will offer the courts a more varied but no less challenging range of options for dealing with offenders within the community. Before imposing a community or custodial sentence, the court must be of the opinion that the seriousness of the offence, or the combination of the offence and one or more associated offences, justifies it. In addition, before deciding whether to impose a custodial sentence for a violent or sexual offence, a court must also consider the need to protect the public from serious harm from the offender. The new framework will make a considerable contribution towards ensuring fairness, consistency and clarity in sentencing decisions in the Northern Ireland courts.
Unlike England and Wales, Northern Ireland has no general system of post-release supervision of offenders. The order will make two changes in this area. First, a new sentence will be introduced for offences which are serious enough to merit imprisonment for one year or more. In these circumstances, the "custody probation order" will, with the consent of the offender, involve a period of custody followed by a period of supervision under probation of between one and three years. Second, the courts will be given the option of being able to require those convicted of sexual offences to be supervised on licence from the date of their release from prison until the expiry of the pronounced sentence.
As a result of the consultation process, a small number of changes have been made to the published draft, and I feel it appropriate to draw these to the attention of the House.
There are three new provisions which will bring Northern Ireland further into line with Great Britain in matters relating to knives and other dangerous weapons.
These will: prohibit the sale of knives to children under the age of 16; ban the manufacture and sale of flick and gravity knives; and make arrestable the offence of carrying an article with a blade or point on school premises.
In order to ensure that pre-sentence reports are sought and obtained when necessary, a court must now give reasons why it is of the opinion that a pre-sentence report is not required.
The provision which extended the normal 60-day limit in relation to activities and attendance at a day centre where an offender was convicted of a sexual offence has been removed from the list of additional requirements in Schedule 1 to the order. The other additional requirements will provide the courts with an adequate range of options.
In cases of breach of the probation element of a custody probation order, the court will now be able to take into account the extent to which the sentence has already been satisfied by the time spent in custody.
In relation to the release of sex offenders on licence, concern was expressed about the extent of the powers given to the Secretary of State to revoke licences and recall offenders without recourse to any judicial process. Failure to comply with the conditions of a licence will therefore now be dealt with by the courts which may impose a fine of £1,000 or suspend the licence and return the offender to prison for up to six months. Should the offender be convicted of a further offence during the licence period, the court will be able to return him to prison for all or part of that period. Finally, the provisions on fines and financial circumstances now include those aged under 17.
A number of consequential amendments to the Criminal Justice Act 1991 extend to the whole of the United Kingdom and it is therefore necessary, by virtue of Section 38(2) of the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973, to include them in the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland Consequential Amendments) Order 1997 which was laid along with the main order.
In conclusion, I believe that these important orders will enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 20th November be approved.—(Baroness Denton of Wakefield.)
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, the House is grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Denton, for her detailed explanation of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order and the consequential order. In many respects the provisions are similar to those already operating in Great Britain. I welcome both orders on the authority of my noble friend Lord Williams of Mostyn who regrets that he cannot be with us this afternoon.
I do not want to take up the time of the House except briefly to make one point. When the order was introduced to the second standing committee on delegated legislation in the House of Commons on Tuesday, the general point was made that Northern Ireland should not have had to wait so long for these provisions. In response the Minister

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in another place rightly emphasised the importance of retaining the integrity of the Northern Ireland statute book and that of course is part of the picture.
Nevertheless, there seems to have been a problem of delay in introducing new legislation to meet the need in Northern Ireland. Mr. Ross, an experienced Member of the House of Commons from Northern Ireland, said in Tuesday's debate that we should be moving faster than we are. I could not have put it better. I trust that the Minister will not say that this is undue simplicity on our part.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness for her customary clarity in introducing the order. We on these Benches welcome the order and particularly the process of consultation that has taken place leading up to its introduction. We accept the consequential amendments order that goes naturally with it.
It is particularly welcome that Northern Ireland is now to benefit from the same legislation over the sale of knives to under 16 year-olds as the rest of the United Kingdom. Like the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, I ask whether the Government can say why it has taken so long to reach here. But if that is a complaint, perhaps I can say how agreeable it is to be able to discuss Northern Ireland business before tea rather than after dinner, which is the normal experience of those who deal with these matters. With those remarks, let me say that I support the order.
Lord Alderdice: My Lords, these orders are a welcome contribution to the refinement of our criminal justice system in Northern Ireland. This humane refinement stands in stark contrast to the brutal assaults on young people in Northern Ireland. They are trussed up like chickens and beaten mercilessly until their bones are broken. I find it objectionable that the press frequently describe those attacks as "punishment beatings" as though they were some form of rough justice. They are no justice at all. They are a cruel attempt to impose a cruel reign of terror in parts of Northern Ireland. Euphemisms such as "punishment beatings" should not be used. They suggest that the motivation and effect are in some distant way related with the sort of responsible and humane criminal justice which is the substance of these orders.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their support of the orders. The delay causes concern to everyone. The noble Lord, Lord Holme, drew attention to the fact that we are fortunate today to be able to bring the Northern Ireland business to the House not only at an early hour, but also with rather more people in the Chamber than is often the case, although it is obvious that they are here for the future business of the afternoon.
We consulted heavily and brought forward the amendment to the 1994 order. There is a fine balance between coming forward with another piece of legislation for every change and coming forward with a substantive order which allows practitioners and courts to operate effectively. That is what we have tried to do.
I express total agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice. What we see day on day in Northern Ireland unfortunately represents no sense of fairness and no sense
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of law and order. It is pure criminality and to disguise it as having a right by the term "punishment beating" is wrong. I make the commitment that I shall try never to use that term and also take the message to my colleagues. We must recognise that it is pure brutality of the highest order. No one in Northern Ireland is outside the reach of law and order and we must concentrate on ensuring that that is how justice is dealt with. Having said that, I commend the order to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland Consequential Amendments) Order 1997
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 20th November be approved [5th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Denton of Wakefield.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) (Scotland) Regulations 1997
3.57 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Earl Ferrers)The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Earl Ferrers) rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 2nd December be approved [6th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Earl said: My Lords, for the convenience of your Lordships, in moving this Motion I should like at the same time to speak to the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) (Amendment) Regulations 1997. These apply to England and Wales and were laid before the House on the same day.
Both sets of regulations introduce new levels of fees and, if approved by your Lordships and by another place, will come into effect in late January or early February of next year. The Scottish regulations, in addition, consolidate the 1990 regulations for Scotland.
The Government announced in 1990 the objective that fee levels should be increased over time until they reach a level where they fully cover the costs which local authorities incur in processing and in determining planning applications. The proposal in the regulations is that there should be an increase of approximately 10 per cent. in fees as soon as the regulations are implemented, and a further increase of 5 per cent. on 1st October 1997. Fees are only a very small part of developers' overall costs—considerably less than 1 per cent. in fact. Few householders pay any fees at all, as most minor domestic developments do not require a planning application.
Under the proposals the minimum fee for a factory or office development would rise from £160 to £180 on implementation, and to £190 from October next year. The maximum fee for the biggest of buildings, like a

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supermarket of some 3,750 square metres or more, would rise from £8,000 now to £9,000 in early 1997 and to £9,500 from next October. An application to build a new house would attract a fee of £180 in early 1997 and £190 in October. Substantial alterations to houses would be charged at £90 and £95 respectively.
The Government are of the view that those who apply for planning permission should meet the costs that are incurred in determining their applications, otherwise these costs would fall, as they once were, to be met by council tax and business rate payers. Even after taking into account the increase in fees proposed in these regulations, the fees for planning applications continue to be modest and they represent only a small proportion of the developers' overall costs.
I commend both sets of regulations to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 2nd December be approved [6th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Earl Ferrers.)
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the House is grateful to the noble Earl for introducing these two Motions. They are uncontroversial, in our view, and we are happy to accept them.
However, there is one small point. On paragraph 4 of the Town and Country Planning Order for England and Wales there is an amendment to the definition of "disabled person". It refers to certain matters which have been described in legislation previously. Could the noble Earl, when he replies, set out in clear terms for the House exactly what these amendments concern, and in what sense they will affect disabled persons of whatever category?
I am not an expert on Scottish legislation, but I am a little concerned about the question of "deemed application", which is indeed defined in the Scottish order. I wonder whether the concept of a "deemed application" is suitable for England and Wales as well as for Scotland. In so far as it is convenient, I am in favour of aligning the legislation in the two countries, if I may put it that way. Can the noble Earl say a little more about what a "deemed application" means?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to reply to the noble Lord, Lord Williams, because he has always done his homework. He likes to look at these matters in great detail and find some curious question to ask. That is highly commendable. In this case, of course, he asks a perfectly reasonable question; in fact, two questions. He wishes to know why the definition of disability is being amended in the regulations. The reason is that the fee regulations provide a fee exemption for various works which are aimed at providing access, and other facilities, for disabled people. Disabled people are defined in the fees regulations by reference to Section 29 of the National Assistance Act 1948, but this section was amended by the 1989 Children Act to exclude those who are under 18. The proposed change in Regulation 4 ensures that the fee exemption applies both to disabled adults and to children.
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The noble Lord was also concerned about the expression "deemed application". A "deemed application" is one where an application for planning permission is deemed to have been made in consequence of an appeal against an enforcement notice; in other words, action taken by an authority against an individual or company that has not sought planning permission for a development which is undertaken or which is completed.
I hope that explanation satisfies the noble Lord. He is a difficult person to satisfy, but I see him smiling in agreement this time, and that is a great pleasure. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will accept these regulations. I beg to move.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) (Amendment) Regulations 1997
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 2nd December be approved [6th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Earl Ferrers.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Financial Services Act 1986 (Extension of Scope of Act) Order 1996
4.6 p.m.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish rose to move, That the order laid before the House on 25th November be approved [5th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this order is being introduced to extend the coverage of the Financial Services Act to bring custody services and certain activities in relation to open-ended investment companies within the definition of investment business within Schedule 1.
Let me start by explaining the provisions in paragraph 2 of the order. This deals with investment companies with variable capital, or open-ended investment companies to give them their more familiar name. Your Lordships will recall that I introduced the nickname of OEICs to the House some weeks ago. As a result of the creation of the corporate code for OEICs there are two new activities which will require authorisation under the FSA. Every OIEC must have a depositary and the ECA regulations require the depositary to be an authorised person. The depositary, normally a large institution such as a bank, will have a role similar to that of a trustee of a unit trust. The definition of investment business requiring authorisation in Schedule 1 of the FSA, includes acting as a trustee of an authorised unit trust. This order will add a similar provision in respect of the depositary of an OEIC.
The ECA regulations allow the board of an OEIC to consist of a sole director, but if there is only one director, that director must be a corporate body which is an authorised person. The order, therefore, adds acting

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as sole director to the coverage of paragraph 16 of Schedule 1. The effect of adding these activities to paragraph 16 of Schedule 1 means that those involved in two key areas of the corporate governance of an OEIC must be authorised and, as a result, their activities can be regulated. This is an important element of the protection for investors which is built into the OEIC structure.
Let me now turn to the bulk of the order which deals with custody. Custody is often an international and very competitive business. Indeed, your Lordships may have noticed within recent months a number of announcements of withdrawals from this market. It is carried out by a range of professional firms. The Treasury's decision to regulate custody services has not been taken lightly, or indeed in haste. There have been widespread consultations, both by the Securities and Investments Board and by the Treasury.
In December last year the Securities and Investments Board formally recommended to the Treasury that custody should be made an authorisable activity. Their arguments were based on the fact that custodians are institutions to which other people's investments are entrusted. It was not that their activities were regarded as inherently hazardous—custodians in general have sound management and control their operations well—but the value of the assets held in custody is such that the loss involved in a disaster could be vast.
The SIB was also concerned to remove an anomaly. Where custody is provided in connection with a regulated firm's investment business, a regulator recognised under the FSA can make rules governing that business. The gap arises, at least potentially, where a firm provides a stand-alone or third party operation, and holds investments other than in connection with its own investment business.
The SIB has concluded that there would be no significant costs associated with making custody authorisable. The standards proposed would codify existing good practice and provide reassurance to users of those services.
At the beginning of this year the Treasury consulted a number of custodians informally. The purpose was to gain an insight into the operation of the custody business and form a view about the SIB's recommendation and the form an order might take. The Treasury is most grateful to those who provided their views. As a result, the Treasury advised that the economic secretary should accept the SIB's recommendation, and on 9th May that decision was announced in another place.
The Treasury issued a consultation document in June setting out the way in which we proposed to put this onto the statute book. The document was circulated widely and there were just over 60 responses.
Custodians come in a range of shapes and sizes. At one extreme is the global custodian. Typically, this is a multinational bank, not necessarily based in the UK, offering services to major businesses across the world. Then there is the fund manager operating a discretionary portfolio; and the stockbroker who may arrange to hold
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assets in a nominee company, either its own or that of a client. The custody operation in either case may be conducted in-house or be bought in.
There is also the trustee of a fund holding assets safely on behalf of a child. The management of the assets in such a case could be placed with an investment manager but the trustee himself could be involved in providing custody services.
It is important to bear in mind that a pure custodian has no discretion as to the way in which he deals with the assets. Custodians simply act on the instructions of clients. They do not give advice or take any decisions about the sale or purchase of investments themselves. So the term "custodian" can apply to firms from the multinational bank through fund managers and stockbrokers to trustees. But it can also cover the small country solicitor holding share certificates for an investor in his safe for safekeeping.
The business which this order will bring under regulation is somewhat less than all this. We do not want to regulate our country solicitor who only safeguards assets. So the definition requires that both safekeeping and administrative services are being provided before it will bite. It is also crafted to cover firms which arrange, or offer to arrange, for such services to be provided.
We are determined that this extension of scope should not impose additional major burdens on companies. The standards which the SIB published in the summer set out the safeguards which it will expect the self-regulating organisations to maintain in regulating their members. The SROs will consult about the way in which these standards will be translated into rules in the spring. At that time, the SIB will undertake a cost benefit analysis of the anticipated effects.
The extension of the regulatory regime in this way will improve the protection provided for investors. It will ensure a level regulatory playing field, enhanced standards and boost confidence in the industry. I commend the order to the House.
Moved, That the order laid before the House on 25th November be approved [5th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish.)
Lord Peston: My Lords, I thank the Minister. I know I am speaking on behalf of all your Lordships, but especially the OEICs, in welcoming the order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Welfare of Broiler Chickens Bill [H.L.]
4.12 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Beaumont of Whitley.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Skelmersdale) in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Protection of broiler chickens]:
Lord Beaumont of Whitley Lord Beaumont of Whitley moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 11, leave out ("seven birds") and insert ("21 kilogrammes").
The noble Lord said: Since the Second Reading of the Bill I have met the British Poultry Meat Federation which represents the industry. It continues to be opposed to the Bill on the basis that what the Bill provides is already covered by legislation and that the federation's members administer the industry with the utmost kindness. The fact that the industry is covered by a code of practice which is unenforceable does not mean that it is covered by legislation. Admittedly, there is the general animal cruelty legislation, but the trouble there is that it is largely unenforceable since the rearing of broiler fowls happens very much in private—in sheds to which the public do not, on the whole, have access. I continue to maintain that, of all the factory farming practices, broiler rearing is the only one that is not governed by specific legislation.
I pay tribute to the improvement in the industry and I have no doubt that it will continue. But if all is sweetness and light in this field, there can be no objection to a failsafe Bill which will no doubt ensure that it does continue. Nothing reinforces virtue more than a certain amount of legislation. Where there is money to be made there is always the risk of reversion. Here the legislation can serve a very useful purpose.
There are those who say that the animals would not get fat and make money for their owners if they were ill-treated, but I refer them to a former farming correspondent of The Times who countered that argument with the reminiscence that the time in his life when he put on most weight was when he was in the trenches in the First World War. The two do not necessarily go together.
I am most grateful to the Minister for his letter to me and for the information he gave about the present position and the position that he hopes will come about. I received the letter earlier this afternoon just before I came into the Chamber and so I have not been able to incorporate it, so to speak, into what I have to say in moving the first amendment. I know the Minister will realise that I am saving him time and trouble if I quote from it to a certain extent. The letter states:
"Reports have been published on the Handling and Transport of Poultry (1990) and on the Welfare of Broiler Chickens (1992). This latter report was concerned only with the rearing of birds for meat. A further report on the welfare of breeding birds is expected to he published next year.
The Council's reports on rearing and breeding birds will be used to inform our preparation of a new welfare code. At present the codes of welfare recommendations adopted under Section 3 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1968 deal jointly with all domestic fowl. Our intention is to develop that code into separate measures for broiler chickens and laying hens. As is always the case the revised draft code on broilers will be subject to full consultation and approval by both Houses of Parliament before it comes into force.
The new Code will also take into account—as appropriate—the recommendation on the welfare of domestic fowl adopted last year by the Council of Europe. This recommendation has been endorsed
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by all the EU member states and so will provide a basis for us to work for EU standards in due course. However, the EU already has a significant amount of important animal welfare work to complete (on transit, veal calves and—very shortly—laying hens). You will appreciate therefore that I am not in a position to predict when there will be space in this schedule to achieve progress on broiler chickens.
As I indicated in the course of the debate there is much action that can be taken to promote the welfare of broilers without the need for further legislation. In addition to proceeding with the new broiler code, we are funding research and advisory programmes aimed at identifying and encouraging management techniques which promote good welfare. The industry has also responded to the FAWC's 1992 report and is carrying out a survey to measure the locomotory ability of broiler chickens at or near slaughter weight. The results of this survey—which is still ongoing—will indicate whether the steps taken by the industry to ameliorate the leg problems commented on by FAWC are having the desired effect".
That is all very satisfactory as far as it goes. I congratulate the Government and I thank the Minister for writing to me and assuring me of that. However, for the reasons I have already given, I do not see any reason not to pursue the Bill with its rather modest objective, bearing in mind the limited time remaining for this Parliament and of trying to get a fully considered Bill through your Lordships' House in a form in which it can be picked up, if necessary, in a future Parliament by either the Government, of whatever complexion, or by a Member of another place.
The object of these amendments is to get the Bill into that kind of shape. In the first version of Amendment No. 1, which is before the Committee at the moment. I tabled an amendment to move the density of stocking from seven to 10 birds. It has been pointed out to me that at different stages of the bird's life different densities are better defined by weight because the number of birds per metre will differ depending on whether they are small or large. Defining by weight follows a practice in various European welfare codes. The one recommended here is equivalent to 10 birds per square metre at full growth. I beg to move.
Lord Carter: With this amendment and the later ones that we shall be considering, the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, is trying to meet some of the points made at Second Reading and in consultations outside the House. I would like to add to the point that he made about the fact that we now have 700 million broiler chickens unprotected by specific regulation and protected only by a voluntary code. I still cannot see why we have to rely on codes and not regulations as for other species of livestock. In the Minister's letter he said,
"As is always the case the revised draft code on broilers will be subject to full consultation and approval by both Houses of Parliament before it comes into force".
It has to be approved as a code, so what is the argument for not doing this by regulation, which would take the same amount of parliamentary time and which would give the matter the full force of law in place of the voluntary code that we have at the moment?
If one reads back through speeches on the Second Reading, and particularly as regards this and the other amendments, it appears that the problem for the broiler industry is that the margins are slim so through-put is all-important. Indeed, the broiler industry is a sort of

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agricultural version of the saying by Jack Cohen of Tesco, "stack'em high and sell'em cheap". I remember many years ago discussing this with a leading broiler keeper when I remarked on the very slim margins that were earned per bird. He said, "Yes, but we find the volume quite fascinating".
That is the problem. There are very low margins on broilers. We have seen how the industry has developed to achieve fast through-put, with all the problems that have occurred in the past and which still occur in certain areas of the industry. One result of the stocking rate and the health of the birds generally is the effect on human health. There are the problems of salmonella and campylobacter mentioned at Second Reading. I do not believe that those were answered by the Minister at Second Reading.
The change that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, is suggesting to 21 kilogrammes is equivalent to about 10 birds per square metre, when they are slaughtered. That means that as the birds grow they will have slightly more room. We know that it is only a period of six weeks before the birds reach slaughter weight, when there will be pressure for room.
Instead of having to deal with the point in relation to all the other amendments, perhaps I may say that besides the voluntary code there are welfare standards for chickens introduced by Freedom Food and the RSPCA. I received information on these this morning. When the Government come to consider the revision of the voluntary code—if that is the route that they intend to use, which clearly seems to be the case—will they take a look at the welfare standards which Freedom Food have produced? I shall not read out all of them. There are five standards relating to feeding and six to buildings. These are all individual recommendations, and I believe that they are out for consultation at the moment. There are also four standards as regards health and veterinary care. The standards deal with inspection, transportation, handling and slaughter. I wonder whether the Minister has seen these. Perhaps he can say whether the Government intend to take them into account when they come to redraft the voluntary code.
The amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, is suggesting—I am not sure that he is going to press it to a Division—brings home the important point about the stocking rate. I hope that the Government will be able to give us a constructive answer and, particularly, deal with the point as to why we have to rely on a voluntary code for this important industry and not on regulation.
Baroness Nicol: I apologise for being 30 seconds late. It means that I must ask whether or not we are speaking to all three amendments at once.
Lord Carter: No, we are speaking just to Amendment No. 1.
Baroness Nicol: I would like to say in general that I am rather disappointed to see these amendments being tabled. It seems to me that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, has retreated before he was even seriously attacked. His original Bill was very good as it
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stood and I do not wish to see him retreat from it. However, it is his Bill and I do not propose to war with him over it.
As regards Amendment No. 1, it seems that seven birds per square metre, or the equivalent in weight, would have been a much more humane and better target to aim for. But this is not the amendment on which I wish to say most. I simply record the fact that I am disappointed that the noble Lord has seen fit to retreat from his original figure. Perhaps I may endorse what my noble friend Lord Carter has just said about a code as against regulations. I believe that regulations would be much more appropriate, given the wide range of people who are involved in this kind of production and the need to keep them in line.
Lord Forbes: If stocking density is to be determined, surely it is very much easier to count the birds rather than to weigh them.
The Earl of Clanwilliam: Perhaps I may make a quick intervention here. The noble Lord's amendments are intended to reduce intensive farming. If I appear to be going slightly into a Second Reading speech I hope that the Committee will forgive me. The object of this Bill is to reduce intensive farming. We know that it is damaging to the health and wealth of the nation and we are all trying to reduce it. In fact, the whole tenor of the reduction in the effects of the CAP is to that end.
The other side of that coin is that if we reduce the level of intensive farming we shall increase the level of employment. If that is done, as the noble Lord, Lord Carter, pointed out, the industry will destroy itself. It is a very important industry and it should not be allowed to do so. The industry is bound by the price war among the supermarkets. They drive prices down, demand cheap food and invite poor quality. It is they who are at fault here. We do not want to see the industry decimated by the introduction of an enormous level of imports because of increased costs. This Bill is unlikely to work.
Lord Lucas: With the leave of the House, perhaps I may reply to the Second Reading questions first, as it were. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, is seeking to rephrase his amendment in terms of kilogrammes rather than numbers. That certainly addresses one practical problem. It is easier to count numbers, but when the birds are small the chicks are confined to a small area so that they can keep warm. Therefore, one would not want such a low density specified in the Bill. So it is a question of rearing practices. I agree that measuring that in practice would be more difficult. But generally we do know on any given day roughly the weight of the birds.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, referred to the letter I sent to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, and others on the contamination of chicken meat by bacteria, which was raised at Second Reading. All raw meat tends to have its surface contaminated by bacteria. Different animals harbour different bacteria. Cattle tend to be contaminated with E. coli; chicken with salmonella and campylobacter. That has been known for a long time. For many generations governments have advised people

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on handling raw meat and cooking it properly to take that into account. There is nothing new about this. Given people's common sense there is nothing to be too concerned about.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, and others were concerned that we should be providing these measures by way of regulations rather than by a code. Perhaps I may first defend a code. It is not something that I would understand as a totally voluntary measure because it is allowable in evidence. In other words, if someone has committed an offence and transgressed the code, that transgression is evidence of the fact that they have committed an offence. But we are reluctant to put the matter in formal, specific regulations as we have the power to do until that is taken up by Europe as a whole. We do not want to put our producers in a position where they are unable to compete with Europe. We want to take forward European standards as a whole.
We do not believe that the position at the moment is that unsatisfactory. Broilers are covered by legislation specific to the welfare of livestock on a farm. Schedule 4 to the Welfare of Livestock Regulations 1994 made under the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1968 contains detailed provisions. Therefore, all intensively farmed livestock, other than battery hens, cows and pigs which have their own separate schedules, is covered by those regulations.
To deal with the particular amendment, we recognise that stocking density is critical to the health, welfare and production of broilers. If it is too high, the birds will not have sufficient space for movement and rest. Access to feed and drink becomes limited, and there is a high risk of poor quality litter and other consequences that are of no benefit either to bird or producer. If it is too low, good environmental conditions, especially warmth, are very difficult to maintain. Litter quality becomes poor and low ventilation rates can lead to a build-up of pathogenic micro-organisms. All of these factors are recognised in the welfare code recommendations for broilers either explicitly or implicitly, and the dangers of overcrowding are emphasised.
At the current recommended stocking density of 34 kilogrammes per square metre, birds generally still have enough space to meet their physiological and behavioural needs. They can exercise, dust bathe and move to different parts of the broiler house, for example to feed. It is axiomatic that satisfactory management and stockmanship are important to maintain good welfare, but this is the case in any system of animal production. The figure of 34 kilogrammes per square metre has been arrived at on the basis of inspection of birds in the practical situation of real broiler houses. It is not based upon an exact science, but nor is the suggestion of the noble Lord that it should be lower. Based on the collective experience of the industry in looking at broiler houses, there is great doubt whether the reduction in stocking density proposed by the noble Lord will bring much benefit to chickens. But it will certainly result in a substantial disbenefit to humans. We estimate that the cost of the noble Lord's amendment will still be of the order of 23 pence per bird. That may not sound much, but when viewed in terms of supermarket mark-ups it
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may represent up to £150 million a year to the consumer. We do not view that as necessarily a good thing to do. We disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, that to achieve a mild and possibly negligible benefit to chickens is worth that disbenefit to humans.
Therefore, while we shall not oppose the amendment of the noble Lord, we do not believe that it makes the Bill any more satisfactory.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Carter: Before noble Lords decide what to do with this amendment, I should like to raise a question about Freedom Foods. In the redrafting of the voluntary code will the Government take account of the recommendations of the RSPCA?
Lord Lucas: Over the past year or so I have become accustomed to the noble Lord, Lord Carter, being ahead of me in knowing what is going on in the world of agriculture. I am aware that the Freedom Food initiative exists but I have not seen it. We will take into account all information, including what emerges from that initiative, in drafting the new code. The RSPCA and other interested parties will have an opportunity to comment before the code is finalised. However, without seeing the particular document to which the noble Lord refers, I do not believe that I can go any further today.
Baroness Nicol: Perhaps I am being very naive. The Minister quoted the figure of 23 pence per bird as the possible cost. Even if 100 per cent. of that cost is passed on to the consumer, how can it be more than 23 pence in the supermarket? I do not understand the economics of it. If it is to remain at an increase of 23 pence, there are very few consumers who would be unwilling to pay that. Most of them would not notice it.
Lord Lucas: It is a matter of common experience that supermarkets tend to make mark-ups in relation to prices rather than absolute amounts. If one raises the value of an item they increase their mark-up in proportion. One would expect that 23 pence per bird at the producer level would be magnified down the chain. One cannot be specific about it. If we thought that that amount was necessary to pay for a major improvement in the welfare of chickens and that it was required because chickens were in a state of distress, we might consider it worthwhile. However, we do not see that it offers any worthwhile benefit to chickens. We agree that we have no research to show that it does not, but the noble Lord does not have any research to show that it does. From our practical experience we believe that chickens are well off as they are.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate on this amendment. In particular, I am grateful for the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, which was very helpful. I am extremely sorry that I have disappointed the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol. I usually find myself on exactly the same side as the noble Baroness in almost all subjects in this area. I look forward with some trepidation to the amendments about which she says she

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will have more to say and criticise. Nevertheless, in trying to achieve a balanced and workable Bill I believe that this amendment is a good thing. I agree entirely with the noble Lord who said that it was much easier to count birds than to measure their weight. However, if one has a pocket calculator and picks up one bird each day one can discover the weight of that individual bird and probably work out the stocking density pretty quickly.
I am sorry that the noble Earl, Lord Clanwilliam, has been persuaded that the Bill may mean the destruction of the industry. I do not believe that that is so. The Bill is part of a proceeding that applies pressure to the industry to provide better welfare. It also puts pressure on the Government to achieve something through the European network. I do not believe that we should give up hope of achieving agreement on this matter throughout Europe. It may take some time, but this is only the first stage.
Mention has been made of supermarket prices. I accept what the Government have said about the usual practice. But supermarkets are getting better in this area, and some are better than others. There is a definite tendency to try to meet the wishes of the thinking and caring consumer. More and more consumers are thinking and caring. I do not doubt that eventually we will manage to achieve a result whereby supermarkets in Europe and the UK can find agreement on something that benefits the welfare of these birds. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley Lord Beaumont of Whitley moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 12, leave out ("3,000") and insert ("5,000").
The noble Lord said: Here I am on much more dicey ground. The amendment is concerned with flock size. I confess that I do not entirely understand how a flock should be defined for the purposes of legislation. It has been put to me that it can be better done by sub-dividing enormous flocks in large areas into smaller areas. But the purpose of the exercise is to have a flock the size of which can be inspected by eye once or twice a day. Those of your Lordships who have had experience of counting animals, whether they be sheep in a field, hounds going through a gate or whatever it may be, know how extremely difficult it is. The objective is not for the person who is inspecting to pick up every bird and examine it. That would be ridiculous and bad for the birds. The objective is that the inspector's eye should pass over every bird every time. There must be a limit on the size of flock in order to ensure that that happens and we believe that 5,000 is manageable. The 3,000 in the Bill might be too ambitious an objective. I beg to move.
Lord Carter: I am sure that the amendment is desirable but I believe that the Minister will say that it would be expensive. If he has the figures, it would be interesting if he could give an indication of the cost of such a restriction on flock size. I do not have the statistics and I am not sure whether they are collected. On the whole major broiler producers keep birds in much larger flocks than the amendment proposes. This relates to the previous
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amendment on which we mentioned Europe. Our producers could be placed at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis other producers, both inside and outside Europe, if, as the Minister said in his letter, we had to wait for Europe. It would be a long drawn out process before we could bring in such a restriction on flock size throughout Europe. That is an important consideration.
Reference has been made to the role of the major supermarkets and retailers. From memory, I believe that the five major supermarket chains buy 60 per cent. of the fresh produce. In the case of broiler meat, they must be by far the largest buyers. They are big and are powerful agents for improvement and change. A voluntary code for producers, the major supermarkets and retailers could be the way to achieve an improvement in the operation of the broiler industry that was at least as effective as regulations.
4.45 p.m.
Baroness Nicol: I was advised by a good Irishman that the best way to count a flock of sheep was to count the legs and divide by four. However, in this case, it might not work. On the previous amendment I said that I did not approve of Amendment No. 2. Even 3,000 birds could be considered too high a figure. If a person wishes to raise an organic flock, the Soil Association will require him to keep no more than 500 birds in a house. Thus we can see the wide difference in standards applied to them. It seems a good argument for looking hard at the figures.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is interested in keeping to European standards and will be aware that the absolute maximum under those standards for birds labelled free range is 4,800 during the time they are in the broiler house. The poor unfortunate birds in the Bill are in the broiler house 24 hours a day; free range birds, for a good part of the day, are outside. The difference implies a degree of cruelty. If the maximum for part-time prisoners is 4,800, then 5,000 must surely be far too high a figure for full-time prisoners. I do not wish to prolong the debate more than necessary, but I hope that the noble Lord will not wish to go ahead with the amendment.
Lord Lucas: I appreciate what the noble Lords, Lord Carter and Lord Beaumont, said about the power of the supermarkets. They certainly have power which they used to exercise. When the price went up as a result, they would buy products from elsewhere. However, they are now developing a more co-operative, one might say Japanese-model, relationship with suppliers. That should enable progress to be made so that what the consumer wants can be translated into what is happening on the farm without the need for heavy-handed regulation.
Turning to the amendment, I now understand from what the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, said, what is being aimed at. I have always had a problem in understanding how small flock size with essentially juvenile birds within the first six weeks of life is a relevant factor. The difference between 5,000 birds and the industry standard which may be five times as great is merely that the shed is bigger. The

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environment for the individual bird is made up of its immediate neighbours. It does not matter whether 20 yards away there is another group of chickens; it is more a question of the economics of the industry. If the sheds are too large the producer is taking too much of a risk with infection or some other problem, perhaps with the feeding mechanism, which may knock the shed out. The producer does not want all his eggs in one basket, but if the numbers are too small, costs are increased. It seems that 25,000 is the figure on which the industry settled.
I do not know the organic regulation to which the noble Baroness referred, I imagine it refers to older birds, particularly those outside, which may have developed a social structure. My experience with chickens is that they develop quite complex social structures and if they are in too large groups they will become stressed and find life difficult.
Baroness Nicol: No, I referred to organically reared broilers which would not have a life much longer than the birds we are talking about.
Lord Lucas: As usual, it is a case of my ignorance in not knowing the basis for the regulation. I am not aware of any problems which arise in practice from commercial flock sizes. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, is aiming more at the way in which the flock is supervised and individual birds looked after. The method used is that someone will walk through the houses; as they do so, the chickens will move away from them. Those birds which are not so good at moving away will become noticeable. Again, I do not feel that the flock size makes any difference to that. It is more a question of the frequency of inspection and how good the method is of detecting the chickens in need of attention.
I think that the method used at the moment, with a sensible rate of inspection of perhaps up to half a dozen times a day, would be reasonable. If a disease problem develops in a house, it develops fast and therefore it is in the interests of good management to inspect the birds frequently. The method of walking through a house will enable the birds in trouble to be picked up at an early stage and dealt with appropriately. I do not believe that any concept of flock size would help. We shall not oppose the noble Lord's amendment if he wishes to press it, but we do not feel that it makes a difference to the Bill or a useful difference in practice.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: Once again I thank Members of the Committee for their contributions. It seems to me that the amendment is on slightly dicey ground because of the definition of a flock on which no Member has commented. I put the amendment forward rather tentatively and as no one seems to be much in favour of it and at least one Member is against it I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Short title, commencement and extent]:
Lord Beaumont of Whitley Lord Beaumont of Whitley moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 11, leave out ("one year") and insert ("three years").
The noble Lord said: The amendment is obvious. It is right that we should give an industry the time that it needs to adjust to various changes. I have already said that I hope that there will be a coming together of how other countries in Europe and the shops react to these changes, to the threat of these changes, and, eventually, to the changes when they happen. If there is that coming together, one should give the maximum of leeway to putting the Bill into practice. I beg to move.
Lord Carter: The only point I wish to make is that because of the structure of the broiler industry three years may not be long enough for the adjustments required.
Baroness Nicol: Perhaps I may ask a question on this amendment. When a farmer is given notice to leave his farm, for whatever reason, I believe he is given two years in which he can reap any crops that he has to reap, and so forth. In the case of broiler chickens, the harvest, if one cares to put it that way, is every two months. What, therefore, is the reason for wishing to extend the period beyond what is said in the original Bill. I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, or my noble friend Lord Carter explained why the period should be three years.
Lord Lucas: There are obviously some changes proposed in the Bill which would not require much time at all to put into effect, if one chose to do so. However, there are others—particularly those which relate to the amount of space which would be required—which might, as the noble Lord, Lord Carter, intimated, take considerably longer. If one is moving to something where one requires a 50 per cent. expansion in broiler capacity because of lower stocking densities, or whatever, there may be a problem in obtaining the sites and planning permission. Planning permission is extremely difficult to obtain for these enterprises now. That might well take more than the three years.
Three years would be a tight timetable to which to keep, if we take all the provisions in the Bill together. Indeed, looking at the details, it might well not be possible to do it. It is not a proposal that we are against, because I believe that it improves the Bill. It does not address the problems which lie at an earlier stage in the Bill which to our mind make the whole enterprise too impractical to wish to take forward.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: I endeavour to be a reasonable man. It seems to me that the amendment makes the Bill more reasonable for all those who have something to do with it.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.

British Nationality (Hong Kong) Bill [H.L.]
4.54 p.m.
Lord Willoughby de Broke: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
The Bill offers us the opportunity to ensure that we do our duty to a small number of people in Hong Kong—probably no more than 4,000 to 5,000 people (non-Chinese British nationals)—who will otherwise be seriously disadvantaged. This is not a subject which is new to anyone who has participated in debates on Hong Kong in your Lordships' House. I am merely carrying on where the late Lord Bonham-Carter left off, because, in common with other noble Lords who have spoken in those debates, I recognise that Britain has a sovereign responsibility to that group of people, which it has not yet properly discharged.
Since 1993, when the late Lord Bonham-Carter moved his nationality Bill, things have moved on. We have a much clearer idea of the numbers involved and the difficulties that those people face are much more widely recognised as the date for the hand over approaches. Perhaps I may remind my noble friend the Minister that only a month ago the principle behind the Bill was widely supported in another place.
I should like to cover two key points this evening: the predicament faced by those people and the inadequacies of the Government's current policy. First, the great majority (the few thousand people about whom we are talking) were born in Hong Kong and in some cases are second or even third generation Hong Kong citizens. They and their parents had full—I repeat, full—British nationality with the right to enter and live in this country. That right was stripped from them by amendments made to the 1962 and subsequent immigration Acts. They will in a few months' time be left in the unenviable position of having no more than a British National (Overseas) passport.
That document does not give the holder right of abode anywhere, and although the Government maintain that a BNO passport will give the holder a proper nationality, the truth is that a BNO passport is only a travel document. I am supported in that belief by no less an authority than Fransmann's British Nationality Law, which on page 436 states:
"A person who is a BNO, like one who is a BOC, possesses not so much a nationality as a qualification for UK travel facilities".
So those British nationals will not have a proper nationality with full citizenship in July 1997. Nor, on that date, when Hong Kong becomes part of China will they have the right to Chinese citizenship which is based on ethnicity. Non-Chinese need not apply, and the Chinese government have invited Britain to sort that out by giving full passports to that group.
In Hong Kong, the status of those individuals is widely recognised to be ambiguous, and there are already documented cases of discrimination at work. I can provide details for my noble friend the Minister if she would like me to do so. Their ethnic status also
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restricts their career prospects at the higher levels of the Civil Service to which they may legitimately aspire. Again, documentary evidence is available.
As to present government policy, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister stated in Hong Kong on 4th March this year:
"Her Majesty's Government will guarantee admission and settlement should they come under pressure to leave Hong Kong".
That statement implicitly recognises that that group is a special case, but I fear that the guarantee is seen in Hong Kong as having little value. For what is that pressure? Who is to decide it? Will that be decided in Hong Kong or in the remote comfort of a Whitehall office? This looks like an administrative and moral swamp, employing objective criteria that the Government refuses to define, leaving 5,000 individuals uncertain of their eligibility. But, what is most important, that policy will result in the need for each person to put his or her case individually, exposing himself or herself to further discrimination if their specific circumstances do not fall into the, as yet, undetermined definition of "under pressure".
In addition, that policy completely misses the point. That community does not want to rush into the UK. All it is asking for is a full British passport so that its status in Hong Kong will not be an anomaly that exposes it to discrimination and a subjective interpretation of their status. Ministerial assurances, however well-intentioned, are in this case just not good enough.
I should like also to address some of the Government's arguments against making that important commitment to a loyal group of subjects. The Government are concerned that international precedents will be set by making a special case of that community. Then why have they themselves made a special case for that community by developing a specific policy related to that group? Why does that policy not address the real concerns and needs of a unique situation? Of course the Bill sets no precedents, as it deals with the unprecedented: all our former colonies were granted independence, while Hong Kong is to be transferred to China. The Government state that those people do not want to live in this country and therefore why give them passports. Passports will give them security in Hong Kong, a status that is transparent to them and to the authorities there; a status that offers them choices and, which as a result, will diminish the opportunity for discrimination.
Furthermore, a perhaps unexpected consequence of the Government's ambiguous policy is that those people will be able to exercise their rights under that policy only by coming to live in the United Kingdom. The Government are concerned that this Bill weakens, rather than strengthens, the position of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. I have examined that carefully with legal experts in Hong Kong, with members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council and the Hong Kong Government, none of whom believe that this Bill will do anything but strengthen their position. More important, the Government should ask the ethnic minorities why they have never at any point given up their relentless

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campaign to gain passports. They obviously do not believe that their position will be weaker with a British passport.
I shall briefly go through the Bill which is before the House. The first part of Clause 1 outlines the purposes of the Bill and ensures that it is bound geographically by Hong Kong. That clause also establishes the uniqueness of the legislation and excludes all those who may hold other passports. It essentially sets out the qualifying criteria which restrict the Bill to genuine stateless members of the ethnic minority community.
The second part of the clause defines who may become a British dependent territory citizen by virtue only of a connection with Hong Kong after commencement but before 1st July 1997. The third part clarifies the issue of people who are British dependent territory citizens also holding British National (Overseas) passports.
The second clause explains the two types of British citizenship. The more favourable category is described as "otherwise than by descent". The lesser category is described as "by descent". British citizenship is divided into those two categories on the basis of a respective ability to transfer citizenship to one's children born outside the United Kingdom. That clause is intended to secure the most favourable status for those who qualify under the Bill.
Clause 3 dictates that one must fulfil different requirements as described in Schedule 2 to successfully achieve British citizenship as provided by this Act. To gain British citizenship under this Act, one must fulfil the requirements described. The key paragraph of Schedule 2 is paragraph 4 which determines that an applicant must prove that he is entitled to British citizenship under the Bill.
Clause 4 states that once a person gains British citizenship through the Bill, he is no longer a British dependent territory citizen or a British national overseas citizen and can apply for neither of those. That is simply a measure of good housekeeping.
Finally, I draw your Lordships' attention to a small typographical error. Clause 5(2) states:
"This Act has the same extent as the provisions of the principal Act mentioned in section 3(3) above".
That should read Section 4(3).
Having had discussions with the Home Office and Hong Kong, I am aware that the Bill as it stands will need some further tightening. Therefore, I intend to bring forward the necessary amendments in Committee to ensure that any existing anomalies are resolved. I draw much comfort from the fact that this Bill is supported by noble Lords who have so much experience of Hong Kong and I am heartened by the presence of my noble friend Lady Thatcher whose abiding interest in Hong Kong is so important. I am heartened also by the concern for this particular group of people which was shown by the debate on Hong Kong in another place on 11th November, as well as by many independent commentators outside Westminster.
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This Government should take the credit for the smooth handover of Hong Kong. Therefore, if only for political reasons, let us resolve this issue which could blight our record and reputation in Hong Kong and tarnish our colonial legacy. As we all agree on the need for safeguards, why can we not take this short step further for a mere 5,000 passports?
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Willoughby de Broke.)
5.4 p.m.
Lord Wilson of Tillyorn: My Lords, we owe a great debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, for focusing our minds yet again on this issue.
Of course, we have been here before but that is no good reason for not being here again. Indeed, it is a very good reason for being here again. The fact is that despite the widespread support given in this House to the Bill introduced by the late Lord Bonham-Carter, the uncertain and unsatisfactory status of that small group of people—the non-Chinese ethnic minority in Hong Kong—still persists.
It is a small group, as the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, pointed out. It is perhaps 5,000 people and probably fewer than that. But many of those people have been in Hong Kong for generations and have served their Hong Kong community in government, in the disciplined services and in commerce. The present arrangements are surely unsatisfactory. That group is neither one thing nor the other. Those people fall through the mesh of all the other multiple arrangements made in relation to nationality in Hong Kong.
Technically they may not be stateless. They may well have British nationality in the form of British national overseas passports. Their children and grandchildren, if they have no other passports, can have British overseas citizen passports. But there is no right of abode to go with that British national status. There is no right of abode in the United Kingdom. They can have a right of abode in Hong Kong if that has been their place of permanent residence for many years up to July next year. But because they are not ethnic Chinese, they have no automatic right to Chinese nationality, as ethnic Chinese in Hong Kong do. It is a classic case of falling between two stools. It cannot be considered satisfactory and it quite clearly is not satisfactory.
It would be churlish not to recognise what the Government have done already to try to deal with that situation. As the noble Lord has just mentioned, the Prime Minister gave a guarantee when he was in Hong Kong in March of this year that if those people came under pressure to leave Hong Kong after July 1997 then they would be admitted to the UK and allowed to stay. No doubt he thought that that would deal with the issue, but it has not. As the noble Lord pointed out, people remain uncertain as regards exactly what would constitute pressure to leave and what a future government would do. In any event, do people want that assurance for the future if their situation becomes intolerable in Hong Kong? The answer is that they do

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not. They want an assurance now which enables them to remain in Hong Kong and to continue to contribute their talents and energy to the success of Hong Kong.
The Opposition foreign affairs spokesman, Mr. Robin Cook, has also recognised that there is a real issue here. He has gone a step further and said that a Labour government would ensure that all people in that group would be given an unconditional right to enter and settle in Britain. But, inevitably, that is the future conditional tense and what is needed is action now.
There are many factors about which we in Britain cannot determine precisely what will happen in Hong Kong. But here is something which affects a small but real problem—the lives of a small group of people and their futures—for which we should feel a sense of responsibility, and the power to deal with that lies entirely in our own hands. Furthermore, fulfilling our responsibility on that would be widely supported in Hong Kong. It would in no way create difficulties in our relationship with Beijing.
I believe that on this issue we can do what is needed, and surely we should do what is needed along the lines set out in this Bill.
5.9 p.m.
Lord Rees: My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, on introducing this Bill. It covers well tilled ground and many noble Lords will recall the Bill that was introduced in 1993 and regret with me that it foundered in another place. However, I hope that, against that background, my intervention can be brief. I am neither qualified nor concerned to be drawn into the niceties of international law, but it could just be that this case is covered by the United Nations convention of 1961, which relates to cases where there is a transfer of territory, and that both the countries concerned should accept some responsibility to ensure that there are no stateless persons as a result. Against that, it may be argued that the British overseas nationals in Hong Kong designed to be covered by this Bill will not be technically stateless because they will have some kind of travel document. However, what is important is the fact that they will have no right of abode in this country.
Equally, the Chinese authorities—and I regret that they should have done this—have disclaimed any particular responsibility for this category who are former subjects of Hong Kong because they claim that their nationality laws cannot be altered to take account of people who are not of ethnic Chinese descent. I am the last person to want to take up that issue, but, against that background, there clearly is a risk that the people for whom we are showing concern this evening might be in a very difficult and dangerous position after the transfer of power. Therefore, if the Chinese in their discretion were not to offer any people falling into that category a right of abode, I do not believe that this country could stand aside. So much was indeed conceded by the Minister who took part in the debate in 1993. I believe that the Bill is only doing what is right and honourable; is doing, indeed, what has been recognised by this Government to be the right and honourable course to take.
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I have no doubt that my noble friend the Minister, who has the unenviable task of responding to today's debate, will tell us that dangerous precedents would be established and that questions of citizenship and immigration are of the utmost political sensitivity. Those of us who have had any experience of public life over the years will know that that is so, but we must get this particular case into perspective. It is rare for decisions of government—practically in any field, but certainly in this field—to be painless or without cost. However, I believe that this is such a case because, as my noble friend who introduced the Bill reminded us, probably no more than 5,000 people in Hong Kong at the maximum are likely to be affected.
We may be told that there are other residual dependencies, but I cannot believe that they involve as many as even 5,000 people. If people produced the case of St. Helena, my response would be that I had no awareness that this Government—or, indeed, any other government of this country—were contemplating the transfer of power there to another territory. Therefore, if we view the matter in its true perspective, I believe that it will be seen that this is a very small problem which should be handled with honour and charity.
I know that my noble friend the Minister has a warm heart and a fine sense of honour. We know that from her many appearances at the Dispatch Box. I hope that she will follow what I judge to be her instincts in this case and not the cautious departmental brief which has no doubt been pressed into her hands. I also hope that my noble friend will not attempt to block this small, very worthwhile Bill and that she may even go a little further and give it her support, however cautious.
5.13 p.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I am sorry that the House has been deprived of a very much more eloquent speech than I can make. If I may say so, in this Chamber the repetition of points which have been made by previous speakers is frowned upon. So fond am I of your Lordships that I do not wish to earn any displeasure in that respect. Therefore, I shall try not to repeat points that have already been made so well, especially in the introductory speech to the Bill on its Second Reading.
The question of allowing this very small group of faithful citizens—and I call them "citizens" deliberately—has been debated quite often in another place, but on the 14th November there was a very telling exchange in regard to the workability of the conditional offer which has been made on behalf of the Government. Mr. Robin Cook, who is the shadow Foreign Secretary in the other place, said:
"The Prime Minister's statement was certainly an advance on the Government's previous position. However, the Foreign Secretary will be aware that there is considerable confusion among the ethnic minority in Hong Kong as to what those exceptional circumstances might be. The Government have offered no definition in that regard. Will the Foreign Secretary tell the House in what circumstances the right of abode will he triggered?"—[official Report, Commons, 14/11/96; col. 518.]

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In reply (at col. 519 of Hansard) the Secretary of State said:
"We have said that if those people came under pressure—it is in their interests that we do not try to specify circumstances which must be hypothetical—if there was undue discrimination against such people"
and I emphasise the word "undue"
"if they could not carry on their normal lives without unacceptable pressure being placed on them"
and I stress the word "unacceptable"
"if there was activity which clearly demonstrated"
again, I emphasise the word "clearly"
"that they were being treated unreasonably and unacceptably, we would wish to honour the obligation that we announced. That is a source of additional security to the people concerned".
I wonder what kind of sense of security was given to the Asian minority in Hong Kong on hearing that response.
If one is making a gift—and this is a seasonal time at which to comment on that—for heaven's sake, make it absolutely and with a good heart. The Minister has been described much more graciously by the previous speaker than I could, but I echo his sentiment; indeed, she has the very high regard of this House. Will the noble Baroness accept that it would be a rather miserable way of giving a Christmas present if one said to the donee, "You don't get it unless you prove to me that you won't celebrate Christmas without it and on condition, too, that no one else is giving you a similar gift". That would not be the kind of generosity of which the Minister is capable. I ask her to consider that and to reflect, if she will, on the following deficiencies in the offer that has been made.
The case for making an offer has been made by others. That is why I need not repeat it. But, first, is it not really quite absurd and illogical to say to someone who is seeking security in Hong Kong in very tempestuous historical times (which all of us hope will prove not to be so but to be quiet and tolerant) with China there—and I speak with respect to that great country but with disrespect to its record of human rights—"Well, despite the fact that you are leaving relatives and friends behind who will be known to the authorities as being your friends and relatives, it will be perfectly easy for you to apply on the basis that you are undergoing such pressure in Hong Kong that you have got to leave"? Will they not think that the risk is being passed on to members of their families? Quite apart from that, will not the Foreign Secretary and his colleagues have to consider carefully the diplomatic effect of giving permission? It will be an admission by the British Government that there is discrimination and that life for these people in Hong Kong is so pressurised that they have to leave. They have to prove "undue" discrimination. Are the Government aware of the difficulty they would face in granting permission in those circumstances? This cannot be right. Apart from anything else, I thought we were trying to preach a little sermon to China. With all the diplomatic activity that has been going on, we are trying obviously to say to them, "Imitate our democratic ways if you can in Hong Kong because our democracy has virtues attached to it".
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If that is the lesson we are trying to prove, ought the Government, on the basis of the Bill being passed in your Lordships' House, as I am confident it will be, not to give it an easy wind—because the other place is the voice of democracy—to ensure that it becomes an Act before 30th June? In fact, that will mean it becoming an Act before 1st May. We shall lower the Union Jack on 30th June; please may it be done with honour.
5.21 p.m.
Lord Blaker: My Lords, I, too, make a point which I hope may be a new one in this much debated issue. The British nationality selection scheme, which was passed into law by Parliament in 1990, was intended—as noble Lords will remember—to give British citizenship to up to 50,000 heads of households and their dependants. It was estimated at that time that that would mean giving citizenship to a total of approximately 225,000 people in all. Up to the present time 49,000 heads of household have received British citizenship. The scheme ends on the date of the transfer of power but the total number of people who have received British citizenship is nowhere near 225,000; it is 135,000. There is therefore a shortfall of 90,000 people whom we expected to receive British citizenship but who will quite clearly not receive it, although a few more may receive it between now and 30th June.
The number affected by this Bill is 5,000—a trifling number compared with those whom only a few years ago we expected and accepted would receive British citizenship. My first question to the Minister is: does she accept the figures which I have mentioned, and does she agree that we shall have certainly many fewer British citizens granted citizenship in Hong Kong than we had expected? If my figures are correct, that seems to me to be a powerful argument in favour of this Bill.
Secondly, what sort of people are we talking about? They have been well described by the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn. They and their forebears have played a distinguished role in the life of Hong Kong from the beginning, as there were Indian soldiers or military people in the garrison from the first day of British ownership. They have been civil servants, members of the disciplined services and some of them were members of the Hong Kong volunteers, the Hong Kong reserve defence force which fought the Japanese in 1941 when some of them were killed and some became prisoners of war of the Japanese. They have been prominent in business, industry and in the professions. Even if they were to come here, they would not be a burden on this country's resources. They have an established position in Hong Kong and they would not be a burden on the state if they came here. But, of course, they do not want to leave Hong Kong, any more than the 49,000 heads of household and their dependants whom I referred to a moment ago. It is evident that few of them have come to this country since they were granted British citizenship. What they want is an insurance policy. I believe it is unlikely they will be forced to leave anyway because of the useful role they will be able to play in Hong Kong in future.

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I believe that the Prime Minister's statement in March was a step forward. The Government have come under pressure to list the precise circumstances in which the guarantee would apply. I believe that the Government have been right to resist producing such a list because if it were produced it would tend to narrow the discretion which a future government would possess if the relevant circumstances arose. However, there are administrative difficulties. In what I thought was a powerful speech, the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, explained some of the reasons why the ethnic minorities might lack confidence in the Prime Minister's statement, as elaborated by the Foreign Secretary on 14th November. After all, we are talking about Government statements which are not law. I believe that what we need is something firmer than that. In any case there would be administrative difficulties in putting the Prime Minister's policy into effect. For example, would it apply only to individuals who came under pressure, or would it apply to the whole class? Does a judgment have to be made to the whole class which has come under pressure—all 5,000—or is it enough that one or two come under pressure? That is not clear.
Are different degrees of pressure relevant? Clearly they are according to the Foreign Secretary's Statement. The present Government cannot guarantee the interpretation of a future government. Whatever confidence we may have that a future government would honour the guairantee, that is not how it appears in Hong Kong. Would an applicant who wished to take advantage of the guarantee be able to keep secret the fact that he had made an application to do so? If it were not secret, would he come under further discrimination? Supposing his application was not accepted and he had to remain in Hong Kong, would the discrimination against him be even stronger than before? I do not regard it as at all surprising that the ethnic minorities in Hong Kong lack confidence in what has been said by the Government, although I welcome what has been said. That is not strange given the obvious fact that it has been, and will be, the policy of successive governments to limit immigration into this country as strictly as possible.
My third question to my noble friend the Minister is: what are the objections to the passage of this Bill, or a Bill which embodies the main principle of the Bill? It is clear that it will not provoke China. It is supported by the Executive Council of Hong Kong and the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. It appears to be supported by the population of Hong Kong. I do not know of many objections from the average Chinese citizen of Hong Kong. It will not provoke other BNO passport holders. It is thought that the Government's reason for not accepting the Bill—if that is their position, I hope it will change—may be that it would set a difficult precedent. Can my noble friend the Minister give—if that is the case—examples of the kind of precedent that might be set? I find it difficult to see any difficult precedent.
The situation of the ethnic minorities in Hong Kong is unique. The situation of Hong Kong is unique. We shall not transfer other territories to the sovereignty of another power. There is no precedent this century for
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handing over a colonial territory to another power. When colonial territories have become independent, their citizens have had the option to obtain a passport of the newly independent state. The situation was entirely different. Can the Minister tell us what are the difficult precedents which might be established?
I welcome the Statement made by the Prime Minister in March. However, I hope that the Government will be able to go this step further.
5.30 p.m.
Lord MacLehose of Beoch: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, for bringing forward the Bill on which I know he has spent so much time and trouble.
The issues involved have been well covered already by previous speakers. Taking account of the words of advice of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, I shall not go over the same ground again. I am also conscious of the fact that my noble friend Lady Dunn will speak later with far more authority than I can do in present circumstances. However, I wish to emphasise one issue.
It may appear to the Home Office that there have been many Bills about Hong Kong nationality. There may be an element of impatience in perceiving this further Bill. It might be asked, "Does the issue matter that much that we should have so much legislation about it?" However, of all the issues that came to my desk in the course of 12 years in Hong Kong, nationality was the most difficult and most emotive. No issue seemed to stir people in Hong Kong so greatly. That is because it has been played around with (if I may use that term) so much in the past 40 years and there is great impatience on the part of those people about anything to do with nationality.
It seems to me a great pity that we should leave the colony with the issue of British nationality for the ethnic minorities unsolved. In Hong Kong the ethnic minorities may be comparatively small in number but they deserve our consideration. They are well thought of in Hong Kong. They are highly articulate. It would be a great pity to have this blot of meanness towards the ethnic minorities—for "Britannia" to sail away with the Governor and the Prince of Wales, with the British flag down and the Chinese flag up, just when we wanted to leave behind a clean page. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will support the Bill and that it will be passed.
5.34 p.m.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, I have never spoken in any of the debates on Hong Kong in your Lordships' House and probably would not have considered doing so today were I not conscious of the fact that this Bill seeks to address an issue of justice. The Bill proposes the removal of a blatant unfairness. The people affected are few in number but I believe that we have a responsibility towards them. I believe that we have a moral obligation to address the issue that has arisen, and speaking in this Chamber under the fresco depicting Justice, I feel compelled to involve myself in the debate.

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We are talking about non-ethnic Chinese living in Hong Kong whose ancestors, let us recall, were taken to Hong Kong by the British founding fathers of the colony in the 1840s. About 2,000 Indian troops were there when the British flag was first raised in Hong Kong. They did not choose to go there; they were taken there by us. Since that time many of them have suffered as a result of their "British" nationality. They are regarded by the ethnic Chinese as British. During the Second World War some were taken to Japanese prisoner of war camps because they were perceived to be British. This House has great knowledge of the deprivation and the sheer horrors that occurred in those prisoner of war camps. We should remember that. They suffered alongside British prisoners. Their loyalty to the Crown was never in question. More of them served in Britain in the Armed Forces. Again, their loyalty was never in question. And more of them gave sterling service to this country in the voluntary support services.
Loyalty does count. We are not loyal just because we want to gain something. Loyalty is an inherent characteristic which has been shown time and again by these people. Surely we in turn should show loyalty to them.
Because of their situation, the 5,000 people we are discussing can hold BNO passports but not full British passports. I suspect that few noble Lords have ever been deemed to be stateless. As my noble friend Lord Rees said, these people need not be technically stateless, but they are as good as stateless if they do not have the right of abode. We do not know about being stateless because it is not within our experience. We cannot truly imagine how appalling it can be. Our full British passports are among our most treasured possessions—or they would be if we stopped to think about the alternative; namely, to be without a passport.
In preparation for the debate, my attention was drawn to the case of a lady aged over 80. She will become stateless next year. Her immediate family has received two MBEs and one OBE. Her brothers were both on active service during the Second World War; one was imprisoned in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Other members of her family have been leading figures in the Hong Kong Government. Her future is now uncertain. She is highly unlikely to expose herself by applying for residency in the UK under the Government's as yet undefined criteria. In any case, she does not want to reside in the UK but is aware that if she stays in Hong Kong she will have no status with the new regime.
There are many similar cases involving people who have shown loyalty to us and towards whose plight and concern about the insecurity of their future we appear to be indifferent.
However, this is not a Bill about the past, about treatment meted out to those who are approaching the end of their lives. It is more importantly a Bill addressing the problems of the younger generations who will be affected significantly next year. The future of those younger people is blighted by the fact that neither they nor their children will have full citizenship of any country. There will be no country in the world where
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they can exercise political rights or hold high office. There is a statutory ceiling in Hong Kong that precludes them from offering their full potential to any community.
We are condemning those people and their offspring to a world in which they will never be able to exercise their full human rights—a legacy that might well come back to haunt us. We can and must show our loyalty to them. I do not need to remind your Lordships that both Houses of Parliament over the past 35 years have dealt sensitively with the issues surrounding our colonies. Let us not fall at the last hurdle on Hong Kong. Let us provide security for those 5,000 people and grant them passports.
5.39 p.m.
Baroness Dunn: My Lords, British sovereignty over Hong Kong will revert to China in six months' time. One of the world's most successful capitalist economies will become a special administrative region of the world's largest socialist country. What is to take place simply has no precedent in history.
The Government have pledged that the rights which Hong Kong people currently enjoy will be protected. The Government have done much to carry out that pledge. Yet they have obstinately refused to ease the plight of a small group of non-ethnic Chinese Hong Kong citizens who effectively, although perhaps not technically, face being rendered stateless when the British flag comes down.
Your Lordships are familiar with the unique circumstances of this group. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, for bringing forward this Bill. I shall not repeat the facts. Numerous groups from Hong Kong have made representations on behalf of this group to the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and Members of both Houses of Parliament. I have called on the Home Secretary twice, once in the company of the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Mr. David Howell, and once with the late Lord Bonham-Carter, who so tirelessly championed their cause. The Foreign Affairs Select Committee supports their case for full British citizenship, as does the present Governor of Hong Kong.
On 15th July 1993, by a vote of 60 to 48, this House called upon the Government to give them full British citizenship. Those who supported the Motion spoke from all sides of the House and included two previous Governors of Hong Kong and a former Minister responsible for Hong Kong.
None of this has moved the Home Secretary. He has argued against granting full British citizenship on three main grounds: first, that this is not a special case; secondly, that giving them full citizenship would require legislation which it would be difficult to get through Parliament; and, thirdly, that existing arrangements give them sufficient protection.
None of these objections stands up to scrutiny. As to the first objection, that this is not a special case, I would ask the following question: where, in all the history of Britain, has sovereignty ever been transferred to another

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state where British nationals left behind will have no right to become citizens? If this is not a special case, what is?
As to the second objection, the difficulty with legislation, it is now clear that this objection has been overtaken by events. In a debate on Hong Kong in another place last month there was all-party support for legislation to be introduced. The Shadow Foreign Secretary assured the Government that the Labour Party,
"would co-operate in facilitating the passage of such legislation".
As to the third objection, that existing assurances were good enough, the Prime Minister himself has now recognised that loose words of comfort are not good enough. As noble Lords have mentioned, during the Prime Minister's last visit to Hong Kong on 4th March this year, he announced that, if these people came under pressure to leave Hong Kong after 1997, Britain would "guarantee" the ethnic minorities admission and settlement. He said:
"The guarantee today is more specific and a good deal harder".
He went on to concede that previous assurances had not gone far enough. But these are still only words. They do not meet the will of this House, expressed in its Motion three years ago, to grant them full citizenship; the Bill before us does.
Like all Hong Kong people, the ethnic minorities wish to continue to live in Hong Kong; but they are apprehensive that after 1997 there will be no sovereign obliged to protect them. Their number is small; they lack clout. Their plea is just. They have not yet despaired of their British sovereign.
I am deeply moved by the compassion, understanding and sense of justice shown by noble Lords who have spoken before me. I urge the Minister to support this Bill and to put an end to the anxieties of this small, unique and deserving group of individuals.
5.45 p.m.
Lord Geddes: My Lords, one of the great advantages of speaking at this stage of a Second Reading is that everything that should have been said has been said. I shall therefore make my remarks extremely brief.
Before coming on to the Bill itself, perhaps I may express my personal gratification at the election yesterday of Mr. C-H Tung as the first Chief Executive and even more so if, as reported in The Times today, that appointment is to be coupled with that of Mrs. Anson Chan, the present Chief Secretary, as the future Chief Secretary. I am delighted at Mr. Tung's appointment, which I think will be an extremely good one.
As to the Bill itself, I wish to emphasise one point only. To use the perhaps overused and abused word "unique", this is a completely unique situation. There has never been a situation like this before. The noble Lord, Lord MacLehose of Beoch, made a very telling comment when he said that in all his 12 years of governorship—outstanding years, if I may say so—the question of nationality was by far the most emotive that he came across. I can remember being in correspondence with the noble Lord during the passage
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of the British Nationality Act 1981. One of the biggest problems from the Government's point of view was the sheer weight of numbers. I do not think that that was said in as many words, but, reading between the lines, that is how we all interpreted it. During the passage of that Act the illustration was used of Macao and how the Portuguese, with a different nationality law from that of this country, were granting and would continue to grant—and still will grant, to the best of my knowledge—full Portuguese nationality to the Chinese citizens of Macao. The difference is, of course, that the numbers in that case were infinitely fewer than those of the population of Hong Kong.
It is water under the bridge as far as the Chinese ethnic population of Hong Kong is concerned and therefore there is no longer a question of numbers for Her Majesty's Government. But we still have this very small number of 4,000 to 5,000 who will become stateless. It is a unique situation. As my noble friend Lord Blaker said, it cannot set a precedent; there is no precedent to set.
I do not envy my noble friend her job in replying this evening to such a battery of one-sided comment. I urge her to persuade her right honourable friends that the Government, even at this late stage, should do something really decent—and perhaps even generous, if that is how the Foreign and Commonwealth Office wishes to look at it—by giving this Bill a fair passage.
5.49 p.m.
Lord Briggs: My Lords, the speeches which have been made during the course of this debate have been so moving that I do not intend to add anything of particular depth. People know Hong Kong so well and those who have spoken before me have played such a big part in its recent history that they have said everything there is to say.
Justice is at stake here. In addition, there is a case for regarding this as an historic moment. In fact, we are going through a particular change in the history of the world in which our record will be looked at very carefully in years to come.
These people about whom we are speaking have played an enormous part in the history of Hong Kong. As was said, many of them did not go there of their own free will. Through their work and their loyalty, as well as through their very special and individual talents, they have contributed much to the history of Hong Kong. I have talked to many of them in Hong Kong. They look to his House as a place where their views, ideas and interests can be heard. If, at this moment, we make our own gesture of an historic kind, we shall make relationships in that part of the world a great deal better in the future. We have the chance to do it.
During the course of this debate—I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, on bringing it forward—many marvellous things have been said. Much of it has been said before. The ground has been tilled. But the timing is now crucial. We do not have any more time. Unless we act now, we shall miss an opportunity of getting right our own historic record in a part of the world where we shall need in the future to have our record right.
5.51 p.m.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I support the Bill. I have only two questions to ask my noble friend the Minister. If we are concerned, and feel some responsibility for how Peking may treat the people of Hong Kong after 1997—and that, I would suggest, is in part (some might say considerable part) what the negotiations over the past 14 years have been about—how would we stand if we now abandon the 5,000? The subsequent question is: What would be the moral force of any protest that we might have to make in the future if there were to be—I hope there would not be—any ill treatment of the Chinese people of Hong Kong?
5.52 p.m.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, from these Benches I strongly but briefly support the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, in moving this Bill. From this Bench we particularly appreciate the references that he made to the late Lord Bonham-Carter, our colleague who was a leader in initiating this concern in your Lordships' House.
Everything has been said. I do not speak with the knowledge of Hong Kong shown by so many of those who have spoken, including two distinguished former governors. But what has emerged over the long period in which this case has been deployed is that there is a small but unique group for whom we in Britain have a responsibility. It is a situation without precedent. As one noble Lord pointed out, we do not see how conceding this matter would create future precedents which would make difficulty for the Government.
Over my long political lifetime, I have had a good deal to do with the process of spreading independence within the British Commonwealth. It is a process of which we can be properly proud. But never before have we been in a situation in which we face leaving people for whom we have a moral responsibility stateless. The Government ought to face up to that situation.
The Government's position was stated by the Foreign Secretary in another place in November. He took the view that those people already have a right of abode in Hong Kong. He went on to say that, if there were undue pressure, unacceptable pressure, they would be looked after by the Government. He gave an explicit assurance that they would have a right to enter the United Kingdom.
Let me say to the Minister who has the slightly thankless task of replying to this debate that, with reference to the statement that these people have a right of abode in Hong Kong, the fact is that the ethnic minority's security is not guaranteed by the Basic Law. They will not be full Hong Kong citizens. In individual cases, of which all of us could give examples, there are people who have already suffered in their careers because of the present situation.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, dealt in an unanswerable way with the proposition that if there is pressure something will be done; namely, that there is no proper definition of "undue discrimination". What is the definition of "unacceptable pressure"? How does one define "normal lives"? What is the meaning of "unreasonable or unacceptable treatment"?
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When it comes to an explicit assurance about looking after that tiny group of people, I feel that what is required is the very small step by Her Majesty's Government from giving those unenforceable assurances to giving the security of full United Kingdom citizenship, with the legal guarantees that go with it.
Time is now desperately short but it is not too short for the Government to take up the Bill, to amend it in whatever way is required, and make it an appropriate statute. The Government are assured of the co-operation of the Opposition parties on this matter. This is a small group of people for whom we have a responsibility and who are faced with being stateless. It is a group of people who are proud of their connection with Britain and who over generations in Hong Kong have given good service to our country. This is a debt of honour. Before it is too late, the Government ought to meet that debt of honour.
5.57 p.m.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, on having introduced this Bill, on his longstanding commitment to the cause of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong and on the enormous amount of effort that he has put into the Bill to make sure that it is the kind of Bill that will meet the need.
I am conscious that in this House today there are many persons who have enormous experience and knowledge of Hong Kong. My knowledge of Hong Kong is much less. But, given the weight of opinion in this House based upon such talent and experience of Hong Kong, I hope that the Government will listen hard to the arguments.
I am also conscious that every one of us, as 1st July next year dawns, will be apprehensive and concerned on behalf of all the people in Hong Kong. We shall also be concerned lest there be anything that we failed to do that we could have done to safeguard all the people. One of our failures might be that of not looking after the rights of the ethnic minorities. There is a chance today for us to demonstrate that, at least in that respect, we shall have done everything possible. I do not say that we shall not have done so in other respects as well, but here we are concerned with a very particular issue.
I have made three visits to Hong Kong. On each one I met representatives of the ethnic minorities there and been impressed by the force of their arguments. As has been said very clearly, they will not have the same status as other people in Hong Kong because China will not guarantee them citizenship as they are not technically ethnically Chinese. So they will be left without the rights to which they ought to be entitled. They will have a document but it will merely be a travel document. It will not be a document that will guarantee them the proper rights of citizenship and admission to any territory. Never before in our history of decolonisation have we left people in that position. We have looked after the interests of other people when we have decolonised many other parts of the world; we cannot make an exception with regard to this one small, but important, group of people.

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My noble friend Lord Mishcon dealt capably with the Government's arguments that if people in Hong Kong came under pressure, the Government would look after their interests. But that may well be too late; it may well be invidious, and it is only a partial assurance—so partial, that we regard it as inadequate.
When I first went to Hong Kong and talked to the ethnic minorities I found that around 9,000 people were affected by this situation. A number have since then acquired British or other passports and the figure has fallen to between 4,000 and 5,000. Those are individuals, not heads of households. The number of households is of course much lower than that. As has already been said, many of those people came to Hong Kong originally at our invitation and instigation. Many are second or third generation Hong Kong residents. I understand that most of them came from the Indian sub-continent and many have served the Crown loyally over many years, if not generations.
In the past there has been concern by people opposed to the giving of passports that to do it on this occasion would set a precedent elsewhere in the world to other groups who demand British passports. But, as has been said this evening, no other group in the world has that claim. If they did, somebody would have mentioned them. We are talking about a unique group of people and in granting them passports, as the Bill suggests, we shall not in any way be setting a precedent for other groups elsewhere in the world.
I served in the other place on the standing committee dealing with the British Nationality Act and we spent a lot of time discussing Hong Kong—perhaps we were not all that prescient in regard to what is happening now, but we did spend a great deal of time on the issue. Though the argument about opening the door to other groups has existed since then, nobody has produced any examples to deal with it. It is a unique group.
If all goes well in Hong Kong, as we all pray and hope it will, the majority—indeed the totality—of those 4,000 to 5,000 people will prefer to stay in Hong Kong. We would be giving them an assurance and a safeguard. In fact, I believe that if they came to Britain they would be an asset to this country. They have demonstrated their entrepreneurial talents and skills and no doubt would immediately make their mark on this country and contribute to our economy and to our life. However, if all goes well in Hong Kong, they will not want to come here.
The proposition in the Bill is a simple one and it is difficult to see what opposition there could be. My understanding is that the Bill is widely supported in this House and in the other place; it is supported by the present Governor of Hong Kong and two previous governors; it is supported by the Chinese Government, LegCo and the bulk of public opinion itself. Who is against it? I know that the Government of this country speak with one voice. But if one looks behind that voice, there is reason to believe that there are many voices in government who would urge that this Bill be supported. I know the Minister cannot comment on that, but my understanding for some time has been that the only thing
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that stands in the way of the passage of this Bill is the Home Office. Perhaps tonight we shall hear something different and I shall be proved wrong.
The noble Baroness, Lady Dunn, went through what appeared to be the Government's arguments against the Bill and successfully demolished every one of them. I suppose there is one other argument—let us be frank—an election is coming. Is the Home Secretary nervous lest he be accused of being soft on immigration? I can say emphatically that that will not be an argument in the election. Every party has said that, if the Government give the Bill a passage, we shall give them our total and wholehearted support. It will not be an election issue therefore and the Government need not worry about that.
Over the years the ethnic minorities in Hong Kong have never failed to give Britain their support; let us make it clear to them tonight that Britain will not fail to give them our support when they need it.
6.5 p.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, it is clear from today's debate that this Bill deals with a subject about which not only my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke but many others in your Lordships' House feel very strongly.
An earlier Bill closely resembling this one was introduced in 1993 by the late Lord Bonham-Carter, and my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke spoke in support of that Bill. The present Bill is primarily concerned, as was the Bill introduced by Lord Bonham-Carter, with the 8,000—there is a difference between us of around 3,000, but I make no issue of that—or so Hong Kong British dependent territories citizens or British nationals (overseas) who hold no other nationality. I recognise that the Bill is not therefore aimed at the other 22,000 or so members of Hong Kong's ethnic minority population who also have some other nationality besides British.
It has been argued very strongly today that because of their unique position those members of the ethnic minorities with whom the Bill is concerned should be given British citizenship as a form of insurance against what might happen to them after June next year. Parliament concluded, when the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Bill was debated in 1990, that no special citizenship arrangements were needed or appropriate.
One of the arguments for special citizenship measures has been that the ethnic minorities concerned will become stateless on 1st July 1997. The Government do not accept that argument. Specific provision was made in Article 6 of the Hong Kong (British Nationality) Order 1986 to deal with the possibility of statelessness. Under the terms of the order people who have only British nationality—in the form of Hong Kong British dependent territories citizenship or British nationality (overseas)—before 1997 will keep British nationality, primarily as British nationals (overseas) but, alternatively, as British overseas citizens if they fail to register as British nationals (overseas) and would otherwise be stateless. The children of these people will automatically become British overseas citizens if they

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would otherwise be stateless. The anti-statelessness provisions even extend to their grandchildren who will have an entitlement to acquire British overseas citizenship by registration if they would otherwise be stateless.
It is thus clear from Article 6 of the 1986 order that the ethnic minorities will not be stateless. I cannot stress that enough. Another issue is the often-repeated claim that the ethnic minorities will have no right of abode after 1997. The solely British ethnic minorities have a right of abode only in Hong Kong at the moment. They will continue to have a right of abode there because the Joint Declaration and Article 24(6) of the Basic Law guarantee it for people who do not have a right of abode elsewhere. That has been reaffirmed in recent discussions with the Chinese Government.
Most of the Hong Kong population will be in the same position as the ethnic minorities in that they will have the same rights of abode after the change of sovereignty as before, with the vast majority not having the right of abode in the United Kingdom. The Government's view is that the change of sovereignty will not impact upon the ethnic minorities in any way which justifies their being given special treatment in the form of a right of abode in the United Kingdom.
Considerable doubt has been voiced tonight about the value of British nationality (overseas) and British overseas citizenship, one or other of which the ethnic minorities will have after June next year. Those nationality statuses are in no way inferior to the British dependent territories citizenship which the ethnic minorities now have. There are tens of thousands of people in the world at large with British overseas citizen status, and the British overseas citizen passport is well established. I would point out that a large number of the British overseas citizens, scattered throughout the world, have this as their only citizenship. As to British nationality (overseas) status, there are likely to be around 3.5 million people in Hong Kong by next year with this status and the British Nationality (Overseas) passport is accepted throughout the world.
Holders of the British Nationality (Overseas) and the British overseas citizen's passports do not need entry clearance for visits to the United Kingdom. The holders of such passports can also call upon British consular assistance worldwide. These passports are much more than just travel documents. Their holders, if resident here for the required period, have an entitlement to registration as British citizens as opposed to having to apply for naturalisation, which is discretionary.
Your Lordships will see therefore that there is no difference between the position of the ethnic minorities now and what it will be after next June in terms of ability to travel, consular protection and entitlement to British citizenship after fulfilling the UK residence requirements.
I want to emphasise that it is not appropriate to consider this problem purely in the context of Hong Kong, although I know that that has been the strength underlying many of the points which have been made. If the argument were to be accepted that having a form
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of British nationality that is not British citizenship, and having right of abode somewhere else besides the UK, is a totally unsatisfactory situation and one that has to be brought to an end forthwith, that would undermine the whole basis of British nationality law. The British Nationality Act 1981 provides for different forms of British nationality to be acquired according to the circumstances of the particular case. Each form of British nationality is perfectly acceptable and valid. It is absolutely legitimate for someone to have, say, British dependent territories citizenship and no other nationality, and right of abode only in the relevant territory. There are many thousands of people in the world who have one of these other forms of British nationality and who have right of abode only in a particular territory. The ethnic minorities are not unique in having a form of British nationality which is not British citizenship and in not having a right of abode in the United Kingdom. This global situation has to be taken into account.
The ethnic minorities have, for many years, been secure in the knowledge that if, against expectations, they came under pressure to leave Hong Kong and had nowhere else to go, the British Government of the day would consider their case for admission to the United Kingdom sympathetically. That assurance was given because the ethnic minorities feared that as non-Chinese residents of Hong Kong they might be discriminated against and their lives made intolerable.
In March this year the Prime Minister made it absolutely clear that we were giving the ethnic minorities a firm guarantee of admission to the United Kingdom for settlement if they ever came under pressure to leave Hong Kong. The Government have accepted that evidence of discrimination in a particular case could be a relevant factor in deciding whether any individual had come under pressure to leave. That is a partial answer to a point raised by my noble friend Lord Blaker. We would most certainly take into account any form of racial harassment.
The Government have been pleased to note that several hundred members of the ethnic minorities have been successful in their applications for British citizenship under the British nationality selection scheme, which provided for British citizenship for 50,000 key personnel and their families, because we recognise that the ethnic minorities have made, and continue to make, a substantial contribution to Hong Kong's prosperity and stability.
Our primary objective has been to ensure the ethnic minorities' security in Hong Kong, which is where their ties are and their future lies. We believe that we have adequately protected their position. There are, in the Government's view, no new circumstances which would justify our now making additional citizenship arrangements for the ethnic minorities.
To summarise, the Government have set in place the selection scheme which has given British citizenship so far to more than 130,000 people in Hong Kong, among them members of the ethnic minorities. I will come back to the specific point made by my noble friend in a moment, if I may. It has safeguarded through the Joint

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Declaration the Hong Kong residence rights of all the ethnic minorities who currently have right of abode in Hong Kong, including the residence rights of those ethnic minorities who are the subject of the Bill before us today. We have guarded against their statelessness by means of the Hong Kong British Nationality Order 1986 and have provided for their British nationality to continue. Of great significance also is the promise made in March by the Prime Minister. I repeat his words today. If the House will bear with me today I shall give the full statement. The Prime Minister said:
"There are two other immigration and nationality matters which have been raised many times by Hong Kong people: the position of the wives and widows of ex-servicemen who fought for Britain in the War and that of the non-Chinese ethnic minorities in Hong Kong after 1997. Let me address first the question of the non-Chinese ethnic minorities with no nationality other than British. This is a limited group; their right of abode in Hong Kong after 1997 is guaranteed by the Joint Declaration; the British Government have made clear that any member of this group who would otherwise be stateless will be entitled to British Overseas Citizenship as will their children and grandchildren. We have also said repeatedly that if against all expectations any solely British nationals come under pressure to leave Hong Kong, the British government of the day would consider with considerable and particular sympathy their case for admission to the United Kingdom. Let me make clear today to this group that we are prepared to guarantee-1 repeat to guarantee—admission and settlement if at any time after 1 July 1997 they were to come under pressure to leave Hong Kong. It is the position, of course, that this group do not wish to leave Hong Kong, they are settled here, their business is here, their families ties are here but they wish to be sure that if they come under pressure to leave that they will have a country to go to. Mr. Chairman, from today, they have that assurance.".
The Prime Minister also made it clear that he was not convinced of the merit of setting down in detail the specific circumstances which would need to be met for that assurance to come into effect. The Government have also said that discrimination or racial harassment would be taken into account when deciding whether any individual had come under pressure to leave. I cannot add to that statement.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, I am much obliged to the Minister. Will she say, in connection with all these assurances, whether the ethnic minority will enjoy British consular protection after July of next year?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, yes I can. I have already made that point, but the answer is, yes, they would have consular protection.
My noble friend Lord Blaker referred to the shortfall in the number of people who came in under the special scheme. Parliament decided, of course, that the scheme should cover a maximum of 50,000 households, and that is the figure specified in the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990. The figure of 225,000 was only ever an estimate of the total number of people, including family members and children born after 1997, who might ultimately receive British citizenship as the result of that Act. Therefore, it was an illustrative figure—not definitive—and only an estimate of the total commitment. Therefore, the figure quoted by my noble friend was right. It was 130,000, but the 220,000 has no formal status at all.
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My noble friend Lady O'Cathain referred to a particular case in Hong Kong and clearly set out the case for that family. I hope my noble friend will accept that I cannot enter into individual cases. What I can say, referring to the point illustrated by the case, is that the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law make clear that foreign nationals serving in public service in Hong Kong have the right to serve as public servants in government and in government departments at all levels, except, of course, for a handful of principal official posts, considered to be of particular sensitivity. That is no different from many countries, including this country. There are a number of posts in this country of such sensitivity that it has to be British nationals and citizens of this country who hold those posts.
The Joint Declaration also makes clear that appointments and promotion of public servants shall be on the basis of qualifications, experience and ability, and giving British citizenship would not improve the position of those people in principal posts.
My noble friend Lord Geddes referred to the Macau and Portuguese issue. Portugal makes no distinction between Portuguese nationals in Portugal and Macau, as I think my noble friend knows. The United Kingdom has had to make citizenship distinctions enshrined in the British Nationality Act 1981 restricting right of abode in the United Kingdom to British citizens. Therefore, we do not believe it is sensible to draw that analogy. Different historical and constitutional factors are reflected in long-standing differences between the two countries' policies on legislation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Dunn, asked a direct question about the uniqueness argument. She is absolutely right. There has been no such set of circumstances before. Other colonies have become independent. There was no transfer of sovereignty. Hong Kong is therefore no different from other territories where solely British nationals live who have a right of abode only in those territories. To do something for Hong Kong would set a precedent in respect of other territories. The scenario set out by the noble Baroness was right.
My noble friend Lord Marlesford intervened with a question about ethnic minorities and the possibility of abandoning them. I hope I have said enough to assure my noble friend that that is not the case. We have set in place a number of measures to ensure that those people are not abandoned. They have British nationality; they have a right of abode; and they have a guarantee of admission here. Therefore, in the circumstances described by my noble friend, I should like to think that that would trigger in the guarantee that we have given that ill treatment of people in Hong Kong, particularly this group of people, simply on the grounds of their nationality would be a possible reason, although, as I say, we have set our face against specifically setting down particular circumstances. I repeat the point I made earlier. They would have full British consular protection in Hong Kong.
The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, referred in passing to the attitude of the Chinese Government to the minorities acquiring citizenship. This is a confusing picture

1233
because there have been reports, mainly in the press, claiming that the Chinese are not favourable towards awarding Chinese citizenship and other reports suggesting that the Chinese might be favourably inclined to granting Chinese citizenship to ethnic minorities. We have no confirmation either way. A number of questions on nationality are outstanding. They remain part of the negotiations and detailed discussions with the Chinese, especially on right of abode matters, and we shall continue to press for answers to those questions.
This is a Private Member's Bill and therefore I shall not oppose the Question that it be given a Second Reading. However, I thought it was right to set out for the House the Government's view of the matter.
6.23 p.m.
Lord Willoughby de Broke: My Lords, before dealing with some of the points raised by my noble friend on the Front Bench, I should like to say how much I appreciated the wide support given to the Bill from all sides of the House. The speeches in the debate were outstanding not only for their expression of feeling but for the depth of experience behind them. From our Benches we had some outstanding speeches. I thank those who made them. From the Cross-Benches we had a concentrated amount of experience of Hong Kong which is unmatched anywhere else in the House. I was also pleased to hear such good speeches from noble Lords on the Labour Benches and on the Liberal Democrat Benches, who spoke about the late Lord Bonham-Carter. As usual, Hong Kong has brought out the best in your Lordships' House.
When I listened to my noble friend on the Front Bench I felt that if I closed my eyes it would be like listening to the speech of my noble friend Lord Ferrers from three years ago. I am a little disappointed that no progress has been made since then despite the broad experience and wisdom that has been brought to bear on this subject. My noble friend disagreed that these people would be stateless. That flies in the face not only of everything we have heard today from many experienced speakers but of Fransmann, the International Commission of Jurists and Justice, all of which have been previously quoted. They have said firmly that these people will be stateless. They may not be technically stateless but, effectively, they will be stateless; and I find it hard to accept that passing this modest Bill will undermine the fundamental concept of the British nationality law. That cannot be quite right.
I know that my noble friend has had a difficult time opposing all the arguments, but I believe the Government's arguments were comprehensibly demolished one by one. I certainly do not want to embarrass anyone by going over them again. I believe that hope makes a good breakfast but a poor dinner. The day is still yet young so far as the Bill is concerned and I remain optimistic and full of hope. I thank everyone who participated in the debate for giving their time and advice. The people in Hong Kong, if they are listening—it is early in the morning there—will be very encouraged by what has been said in all the speeches
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except the closing speech of my noble friend Lady Blatch. I ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Dangerous Dogs (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
6.26 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. I approach the task of introducing the Bill with mixed feelings. Most of your Lordships who take an interest in dogs and associated matters will have heard on many occasions the arguments rehearsed about the amendment of the Dangerous Dogs Act proposed in the Bill. If the late Lord Houghton of Sowerby were here, he would be introducing the Bill. He had a long and remarkable parliamentary life, in which among many other subjects he made a notable contribution to the welfare of dogs. He was deeply opposed to any action or legislation which threatened the lives and well being of dogs.
Lord Houghton had not an untimely death because he lived to what anyone would reasonably say was a ripe old age. Until a short time before his death he was able to stand up in your Lordships' House and debate any subject of which he had knowledge, at, if I may say, inordinate length if required. A year ago, when he was ill and I had the pleasure on his behalf of introducing a similar Bill, I was horrified to see that I, too, spoke at some length. I do not propose to do that today. All I wish to say is that although I intend to be brief I am no less committed to the underlying argument supporting the Bill.
The Bill is simple in its scope. It aims to reintroduce into the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 the discretion of the courts which was taken away from them by Sections 1 and 3 of the Act. The legislation was introduced in the early 1990s in response to a rightful clamour for action to be taken to control the use of certain dogs, particularly the pit bull terrier, in the unattractive activity of dog fighting. In addition to that there was a great deal of publicity about a number of attacks which had been made on persons, including children, which had the unfortunate effect of causing damage and wounding. That gave rise to what I believe was a not surprising demand in the press for some action to be taken by government.
I am a great supporter of the press. I do not intend to speak in the debate which is shortly to take place in your Lordships' House on the media in a democracy. I take perhaps a more lenient view than some noble Lords on the role of the media, particularly the popular press, in drawing attention to areas in our life where certainly great attention is needed from both government—and individual citizens. But I believe that the relationship between the popular press and government—particularly when a government is losing popularity and seeks to court it by taking up matters which have been pushed in the press—has in the past become a little too close to be healthy, although I expect it will happen in the future.

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In this instance the action taken to control dangerous dogs, specifically the pit bull terrier, was taken in great haste. It was unfortunate that the problem of fighting dogs had to be dealt with together with the other matter of dogs and their behaviour in public places. There is also the danger to the police, in the pursuance of their duties, of dogs used by the criminal world either to attack the police when raiding their premises or to deter them from entering. I support absolutely, as I am sure would most other noble Lords, government action to prevent that. To be fair, from all the evidence that I have heard—other noble Lords may have other views—the Act has reduced the use of pit bull terriers by criminal gangs. However, the Act has not altogether got rid of the use of other breeds of dogs for similar criminal purposes.
The simple attempt of this Bill is to restore discretion to the courts. At present, both under Section 1 of the Act, which relates to pit bull terriers, and Section 3, which relates to other dogs, the regulations are such that no court, where it is found that a dog has contravened the law, has any discretion other than to bring in a mandatory sentence for destruction. That has resulted in many appeals where dogs have been separated from their owners and confined at great expense for long periods of time. That applies particularly to Section 1 and pit bull terriers. It is a difficult breed to identify even by experienced persons in the dog world, including veterinary officers. Many tens of thousands of pounds have been spent, in some cases, in kennel fees. At the same time there has been great mental hardship where owners have been separated from their pets with the uncertainty of what will happen to them.
It has always been in our tradition of jurisprudence—no doubt the noble Earl will expand on this when he replies—that one is innocent until proven guilty. In this case it is up to the dog owner to prove that his dog is innocent rather than for the dog to be proven guilty by the court. I suggest that every case, whether it involves human beings or human beings and their animals, is different in some degree and requires the court to exercise judgment and discretion which otherwise makes its decision extremely unsettling in many regards.
There is another element which I did not introduce on the last occasion we spoke about these matters. The Dogs Act 1871 is still in existence. On reflection, it seems to me that, as it is now shown, the police can choose—especially under Section 3 of this Act—whether they wish the dog to be prosecuted under the 1871 Act, where there is discretion in the court, or under the 1991 Act, where there is not. Therefore, effectively the police have the power to decide whether or not a dog is to be destroyed. That is an unsatisfactory state of affairs. That onus should not be laid at the door of the police.
I know the principle behind this Bill because the noble Earl who will be answering this evening informed us of that when we debated this matter a year ago. I believe that the view of the Government and that of their advisers is that this legislation has been effective in taking out of circulation to a great degree a breed of dog which was unwelcome; namely,
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the pit bull terrier, even though no one knows exactly what it is. The Act has created a situation where the Government can claim that they have reacted to popular demand. But, in fact, they have created an enormous amount of expense and hardship. There needs to be a simple adjustment to the Bill recognising to some extent that the Bill deals with a difficult situation.
The difficulty confronting the Government is that the whole subject of dogs in this country is beset with problems. We do not know exactly how many dogs there are in this country: there may be 3 million or 5 million. There is no certainty. We have no means of ascertaining the true figure. Sooner or later we shall have forced on us the need to discover exactly how many dogs we have, whether that is as a result of the prospect of rabies or for other reasons.
For the time being the Government do not want to be faced with the difficulty of creating what can be termed normally as a registration scheme. I can see that from their point of view it is a very difficult matter. It will cost money and it will probably have to be administered by local authorities. As we all know, that would be a situation to fill the Government with understandable concern. Nevertheless, sooner or later, the situation of dogs generally will have to be dealt with. When that happens I suggest that the whole problem of dangerous dogs and how they should be dealt with can be addressed more satisfactorily.
Meanwhile, it is surely time for us to consider the unnecessary suffering of dog owners and their dogs when they are parted as a result of decisions taken in the courts on the basis of this Act rather than on the basis of the facts presented to them. If this system of dealing with offences continues so that all the courts do is refer to a piece of paper which tells them what they must do by way of sentencing, without considering the rights and wrongs of each case, our society will be much the poorer for it.
This Bill seeks to address that situation by restoring discretion to the courts and thereby save not only a lot of unhappiness and suffering by dog owners but also save the state a great deal of unnecessary expense. The Bill will also save a considerable amount of police time taken up in chasing dogs with long poles with wire loops attached, often by officers who are not familiar with dogs let alone the type of dog they are pursuing.
Most noble Lords will be aware that more often than not in cases of this kind the police go out to catch a dog that has been reported to them, perhaps by an anonymous letter or telephone call, for reasons other than the threat posed by that dog. They are forced to go out and take action. That is often the start of a protracted case that results in a great deal of expense and often unnecessary suffering by the owner.
I hope that the noble Earl will have something new to say this evening. Perhaps there will he a change of heart on the part of the Government and their advisers on this subject. Originally, the press clamoured for action. Without exception the press say that this Bill has not worked in the way intended.

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Surely it is time for the Government to make a minimal change to this legislation to satisfy the demands of dog owners, dog groups and the public.
Others more experienced than I in dealing with dogs will speak tonight. I am grateful for their participation in the debate. I look forward to this Bill being given a second reading in this House, passing through the other place and becoming law; but I am always an optimist. I beg to move.
6.42 p.m.
Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior: My Lords, the House should be grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, for reintroducing this Bill. He has put it well and I will not take many minutes to emphasise a number of areas. The noble Viscount does great service to the memory of the late Lord Houghton of Sowerby who put his heart and soul into amendment of the Dangerous Dogs Act. I recall that he was one of the very few who opposed the original Bill on the basis that it lacked justice in the United Kingdom.
Attempts to modify the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 are well known. Because the noble Viscount has put it very well I will not rehearse them. They are supported by the findings of the Select Committee of this House on the Bill. Since the enactment of the 1991 Act there have been numerous examples of the law being brought into disrepute because of the operations of that Act. I suspect that more examples will be given in this evening's debate. This Bill attempts to give discretion to magistrates as to the fate of a dog that has been "arrested" on a charge of being a dangerous dog.
The Bill does not seek to alter the main thrust of the 1991 Act. I do not want to persuade my noble friend the Minister that the legislation is wrong in principle. It is not. The problems lie in the operation of that Act. I regret to say that the Act has been brought into disrepute as a result.
It may be argued that the number of attacks by dangerous dogs on children and others has been reduced by the Bill. I do not doubt that that is so. But numerous cases reported in the press and on television and radio have resulted in a situation where 85 per cent. of the population now want the legislation either amended or repealed, compared with the 85 per cent. who initially supported the measure in 1991.
I do not agree that the Act should be repealed, but I plead with the Minister and the Government that it should be amended, simply giving to magistrates the discretion that is provided for in the Bill. I hope that the report on the operation of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 by the Home Affairs Committee in another place will be favourably disposed to the arguments to be made in the House tonight. I believe that the speedy dispatch of the Bill through this House should provide the necessary conjunction, leading to a resolution of the acknowledged difficulties of the Bill which will allow it to operate in the manner intended, namely, to control dangerous dogs and to prevent the harm occasioned by them, in particular attacks on children.
6.46 p.m.
Baroness Mallalieu: My Lords, from these Benches we welcome the Bill, and thank the noble Viscount for re-introducing it in this House. It has our wholehearted support. It is a little like seeing an old friend again. I hope that on this occasion the Government will see fit to give this Bill a warmer welcome than they did last time when, having been examined and approved by the Select Committee, it was shown the door by the Minister in its final stages in this House.
As has already been said, the original Bill was very much the work of the late Lord Houghton of Sowerby. He was the driving force behind it, and its progress through this House occupied much of his final months. He was determined to right an injustice as he saw it. It was one that he predicted during the passage of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, and it was one about which subsequent events proved him to be right. His concern for injustice both to men and animals was, and continues to be, an inspiration to many of us. I believe that he would have been glad to hear that this cause, about which he cared greatly, will not be laid to rest with him.
I, together with the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, who speaks immediately after me, had the privilege of serving on the Select Committee of this House on the original amendment Bill under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Templeman. Following extensive evidence and deliberation, that committee considered that the Dangerous Dogs Act should be amended in the way that this new Bill seeks to do. The original Act came into force at great speed on a tide of public outrage following some appalling cases in which children in particular had been killed and seriously injured by dogs. There was also growing and justified public concern about the ownership of dogs of the pit bull terrier type.
Much of the Act—from the evidence which the Select Committee heard—has worked well, but the public perception of that Act is that it is a bad piece of legislation. Some parts of it are undoubtedly bad. Its effects have led to the destruction of dogs belonging to owners who have committed only technical offences, lengthy court hearings while experts on both sides debate whether or not a particular dog is of the pit bull terrier type, and dogs kept for years effectively on death row at great public expense. But it has also had successes. As we understood it, the Act was intended to do two things: first, to eliminate in a relatively short time dogs of the type known as pit bull terriers by imposing stringent conditions on anyone tempted to own such a dog. Those conditions involved registration, neutering, insurance, muzzling and so on.
The second object of the original Bill was to strengthen the powers of the courts to deal with dogs of any type which proved to be dangerous or potentially dangerous. In reaching its recommendations, the committee was anxious not to frustrate the intention of Parliament in either of those respects. After hearing extensive evidence, it was our considered view that the proposed amendment did not and would not do so.

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Exempt dogs of the pit bull terrier type—in other words those which are properly registered under the Act—have been drastically reduced in numbers since the Act came into force. It was our understanding that in 10 years not one will remain. I wonder whether, when the noble Earl comes to deal with the matter, he can give us some indication of just how many of the dogs now remain on the register. We were told originally that there were something in excess of 8,000. By January 1995—the latest figures we have—they were down to 3,500 and they are clearly diminishing daily.
As concerns the illegal pit bull terrier types, it is virtually impossible to establish how many there are. Some are being kept illegally by their owners who have either not bothered to register them or have, for some reason, failed to do so. A number of those owners were, it seems, criminals. We were told that the ownership of the dogs by the criminal fraternity had largely ceased because to attract attention through your dog might well lead to detection of your other activities.
We were told that, although there is no clear evidence as to whether it is widespread, there is still some use of the dogs for fighting purposes. But it seems that it is very much an underground activity and appears to be confined to the travelling fraternity. No figures, I stress, are available to us to give any indication of how many dogs are kept for that purpose.
The remaining illegal pit bull terriers would appear to be kept either by owners who have kept them underground and not registered them or people who own dogs which, because of the vagaries of breeding and heredity, have appeared to be pit bull terrier types, often from dogs which are of other breeds.
The third category are those owners who simply do not realise that their dog comes into this category and therefore have not taken any steps to register them. The lack of any discretion on the part of the courts has led to manifest injustice in relation to all brackets of dogs, both exempt and those which are illegal. As regards exempt dogs—that is to say those properly on the register—there have been instances of dogs being destroyed because a muzzle was removed in order for the dog to be sick or when a dog was found unmuzzled but securely locked in its owner's car.
As regards the illegal—if I may call them that—dogs, there are a number of owners who genuinely did not appreciate that they fell foul of the law by failing to register their pets. That has led to expensive and protracted hearings in the course of which arguments have been mounted with experts on both sides.
The Select Committee recommended that the discretion of the court not to destroy should only be exercised if the court was satisfied that both the dog and the owner could be trusted. In those circumstances, permission should be given to put the dog on the register, which would trigger all the other requirements such as neutering, insurance, muzzling and so on.
The lack of a discretion in respect of a destruction order in the Section 3 cases also causes great injustice. No account can be taken by the magistrates, for example, of the severity of injury or of provocation. So when a poisonous little boy with a stick pokes a dog
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repeatedly in the eye until eventually in exasperation it turns and snaps at him, grazing his hand, if the charge has been brought under Section 3, the court has no discretion. It has to order the dog to be destroyed and cannot take into account the circumstances in which that happened. But the committee was clear that discretion in those circumstances should only be exercised when the court is satisfied that the dog presents no continuing danger to the public.
The essential principle for any legislation dealing with dangerous dogs surely must be: first, that the public should be protected by the law from vicious dogs of any breed; and, secondly, that there should be no change to the existing law which weakens that protection. These modest amendments to the Dangerous Dogs Act will not weaken the original Act. What they will do is to correct an injustice. Those noble Lords who have in recent weeks been receiving a huge postbag of letters in connection with the proposed gun legislation—which comes before this House, I believe, next week—will know how often the Dangerous Dogs Act is cited by members of the public as the prime example of bad legislation, conceived in haste and as a response to transient public pressures. The public have now seen that the Act is wrong in some of its respects. Some parts of it clearly are not working well and this short Bill should correct them.
Responsible dog owners are constantly urged to clear up any mess made by their pets. Surely it cannot be too much to ask the Government to clear up the mess made by their pet Bill, by giving encouragement and support to this Bill tonight.
6.56 p.m.
Viscount Simon: My Lords, I promise two things: first, I shall be brief and, secondly, I shall be antagonistic. The Dangerous Dogs Act, like other legislation introduced without understanding the full implications, is flawed. For this reason, this is the fourth attempt to get it amended, as detailed by the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland.
As has already been stated by the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, we were both members of the Select Committee which was set up to look into amending the Act. The committee was unanimous in its opinion and recommended that the Act be amended. On 27th March this year, the noble Earl, on behalf of the Government, rejected the committee's recommendation: a committee formed from Members on all sides of the House and a committee which had listened to numerous witnesses. This rejection by the Government seems to me to be arrogant. If the Government had already formed an opinion before convening the Select Committee, why did they set it up? Further, as they did set up the Select Committee, why did they ignore its recommendations?
A lot of parliamentary time was wasted if the Government already knew that the committee's report was going to be ignored. In all honesty, I cannot see the Bill succeeding this time, due to the election being called sometime in the near future. Let us hope that the Act can be amended shortly thereafter. Lord Nelson benefited from using his blind eye. Trying to copy him does not suit the Government in this instance.
6.59 p.m.
Baroness Wharton: My Lords, I too wish to thank the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, for bringing the Bill back before us tonight. I also wish to thank everyone who has paid tribute to the late Lord Houghton, who was such a strong influence on all of us.
I have spoken many times on the Second Reading of the Bill so I do not intend to detain the House for too long. Naturally I, like many others, look forward to reading the report of the home affairs Select Committee which will be out next week.
In November, 1994, a gentleman by the name of Mr. Chieke left his dog outside the newsagent's while he went in to buy a newspaper. The dog was arrested. The police wanted Mr. Chieke to sign a disclaimer authorising them to destroy the dog and then they would not pursue the matter through the courts, as they believed the dog to be of the pit bull terrier type. Needless to say, the owner refused and apparently he did not understand any of it because he said: "The dog has done nothing wrong". On 16th August, 1995—about eight months later—at Wells Street magistrates' court, before a stipendiary magistrate, the prosecution applied for an adjournment as the veterinarian used by the police was unavailable. The magistrate was critical of the Crown Prosecution's inefficiency and refused the adjournment. The prosecution barrister refused to proceed, so the case was dismissed, with the magistrate saying "This is the same as an acquittal". So on 20th September at Parchmore Road police garage the dog was presented to Mr. Chieke. He then identified his dog and was re-charged under Section 1 of the Dangerous Dogs Act. By this time the poor man was crying and his dog was howling. More than a year later, on November 25th 1996, the case went to Croydon magistrates' court. On the fourth day Mr. Chieke was found guilty of owning a dog of the pit bull type, fined £100 and given a conditional discharge. The dog was ordered to be destroyed. Mr. Chieke has owned his dog since it was two months old and it is a family pet. Mr. Chieke is 77 years old, has a heart condition and is slightly deaf. It is not surprising that he collapsed in court sobbing uncontrollably, begging to see his dog.
I only mention all of this because there is precious little humanity around when it comes to cases of this kind. If an owner is acquitted at trial on a legal technicality, the police still refuse to return the dog. So you see a person can be freed on acquittal but a family pet cannot, if the police still believe, but cannot prove, that it is of "the pit-bull type". There are dogs in limbo, locked up for years with nobody appearing to make a decision as to their future. I never thought that was right, and I do not think so now. There is a crying need to introduce some common sense into the original Act, and I believe that this amendment Bill does just that.
7 p.m.
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, first, I wish to associate myself with the comments which have been expressed by many noble Lords about Lord Houghton whose Bill this has been in previous years. The whole House acknowledges the determination and commitment he gave to the cause of animal welfare.
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The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, in introducing the Bill, explained that it would remove the mandatory destruction provisions of the Act and allow the courts discretion in sentencing. It is also about the courts being able to give convicted owners the opportunity for late registration on the index of exempted dogs and review all current cases where a destruction order has been made but not yet carried out.
Before I deal with the provisions in the Bill, let me set out for the record why the Government introduced the Dangerous Dogs Act. The reasons in 1991 remain relevant today. Your Lordships will recall, as the noble Viscount said, the horrific events which led the Government to bring forward the legislation and the wide support which the proposals received. Our belief was, and remains, that there is no place in this country for fighting dogs and that the present generation of such animals should be the last.
The principal provisions of the 1991 Act were all designed to achieve precisely that objective. Under the Act, owners of pit bull terriers and other dogs bred for fighting were allowed to keep their animals on condition that they complied, by 30th November 1991, with the stringent conditions set out in the legislation. The mandatory destruction order applies where the owner of a fighting dog failed to comply with those requirements or fails subsequently to keep the dog muzzled and on a lead in a public place and where a dog of any type or breed causes injury to a person. In these cases, magistrates have no option, as noble Lords have said, but to order the destruction of the dog.
On each occasion when a Bill has been introduced to amend the Dangerous Dogs Act, the Government have given the matter careful consideration in the light of current circumstances. That is the case on this occasion. I have to tell the House, though, that the Government's view is that the provisions in the Bill would have two undesirable effects: first, they would undermine the incentives which the Act provides towards responsible dog ownership, and they would risk the perpetration of fighting dogs in this country; and, secondly, in our view, they would amount to a weakening of the protection which the Act affords.
Mandatory destruction was designed to face owners of fighting dogs with a clear choice: comply with the registration and associated requirements of the Act by the due date or face the certain destruction of the animal concerned. To owners of dogs of any type, there is an equally clear message. An owner whose dog is dangerously out of control and attacks and injures someone will, if convicted under the Act, face the certain destruction of the pet animal. The provisions ensure that dog owners who fail to act responsibly do not have any chance of regaining charge of their animals. That is an important provision. We do not want an owner who ignored the provisions of the legislation to regain custody of the dog concerned.
The Bill also provides for the courts to direct convicted persons to register their pit bull dog. But to allow those owners who originally failed to register to do so now would suggest that Parliament was no longer committed to ensuring the elimination of pit bull terriers

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since there would be nothing to prevent fresh dogs, imported into this country or bred unlawfully here, from benefiting from the concession.
It would be a dangerous invitation to some people to risk bringing new dogs into this country, knowing that there was a back door route to registration if they were caught, and, perversely, that to legitimise one's position as an owner of an unregistered dog one would first have to be prosecuted and convicted of owning it unlawfully. Clause 4 of the Bill would go further by enabling the court to review all current cases where a destruction order had been made but not yet carried out.
The Government accept that the Dangerous Dogs Act contains tough provisions. But pit bulls, or other dogs which become dangerously out of control and injure a person, are no less of a threat today than they were when the 1991 Act was introduced.
The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, mentioned identification of pit bulls and pit bull type dogs. I am well aware of the argument about having to prove that a dog belongs to a type which is not a recognised breed. At the time of the legislation Parliament recognised that the identification of pit bull terriers would be a problem. The difficulties were not under-estimated but it was felt that the threat of such dogs made it necessary to reverse the burden of proof in the way that the Act does. The noble Viscount also said that there may have been over-use of the 1991 Act. In fact, more prosecutions are brought under the Dogs Act 1871 than under Section 3 of the 1991 Act.
In the past four years there have been 2,460 prosecutions under Section 3 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 but 2,562 under the 1871 Act. I can also tell the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu and the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, that we reflected long and hard on the recommendations made by the Select Committee of your Lordships' House, particularly in the light of the committee's assessment that discretion should and would be exercised only where the protection of the public would not be at risk. But we must never lose sight of the reasons why the Act was introduced in the first place: the public concern that existed over dog attacks and the Government's absolute responsibility to take steps to address the problem, and the continuing risk.
The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, asked me how many pit bulls are still on the register. I understand that there are still 3,500 dogs on the register.
This is the fourth occasion on which a Bill to amend the Dangerous Dogs Act has been presented to the House. As I indicated at the outset, we have considered the proposals carefully. As I have made clear, the Government consider that the Act was a responsible recognition that something had to be done to meet widespread concern and to protect the public. The mandatory destruction order and the one-off nature of the registration scheme are matters which are integral to the provisions of the Act and to the objective which Parliament agreed. The Act remains relevant and necessary. It follows that I have to tell the House that the Government cannot support the Bill, although, as is the convention with a Private Member's Bill, we shall not seek to vote against it.
7.8 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his reply and all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. Although it has been a short debate, and although we have expressed the arguments on many occasions, something more has come out tonight. There have been some notable contributions, particularly from the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, who put clearly her reasons for believing—they are the reasons which most who oppose the Act have—that this is bad law; and from the noble Baroness, Lady Wharton, who gave us a clear example of an idiotic injustice. She gave a heart- rending story.
As before, the noble Earl's reply—it is not his fault, because I know him to be a kindly and compassionate man—was curiously frustrating, because he did not answer what we were all saying. All we are saying, and all the Bill is about, is giving back discretion to the courts. Giving discretion back to the courts will make it a better Act. We are not attacking the fundamental Act. We agree that fighting dogs should be removed from society; we agree that something had to be done; all we are saying is that the haste with which the Bill was brought in has caused it to be extremely damaging to people and their pets. This has been an extremely bad example of the way in which our great traditions of jurisprudence have been changed by the Government by not allowing the courts, which are full of people who are well educated and able, to bring to bear their judgment in these cases and where necessary to use their discretion.
We agree absolutely that something had to be done. We agree that to some extent, the Bill has been a success. Of course the police are using the 1871 Act because, if they have a choice and they can see that there may be injustice, they will use the Act which gives the courts discretion. They are not using the later Act, which is patently unfair and creates difficulties.
However, there seems to be a slippery relationship between those noble Lords who have spoken in the debate tonight and the noble Earl, because he does not seem to grasp the problem. The noble Earl seemed to imply that there are no longer any dangerous dogs. Everybody, even the newspapers who put the greatest pressure on government to bring in new dangerous dogs legislation, knows that there are still dangerous dogs and there always will be. Even a small terrier in the park which is out of control can inflict an enormous amount of damage.
Therefore, we have no argument with the noble Earl about the question of fighting dogs. We are told by the noble Baroness—and I am glad to hear it because I did not know—that the ownership of fighting dogs now seems to be limited to the travelling community. We all know what that means and I am glad that that is so. I wish that the travelling community did not have fighting dogs and I congratulate the Government if they have reduced the number of fighting dogs and in particular pit bull terriers.
However, the lack of discretion does no credit to our system of jurisprudence, to the Government or our society. It really is time that something was done about

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that. This Bill seeks to achieve that. The Select Committee of your Lordships' House was ignored by the Government but I hope that it will not be ignored by a Select Committee of another place should it reach the same conclusions. If the Government do ignore that, they will show that they are arrogant. If they did that, it would be downright pig-headed. I know that the Government have other problems but if they are hoping for support at the next election, they should not show themselves to be pig-headed. Therefore, I ask the House to give this Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Education Low-Priced Book Scheme
7.13 p.m.
Lord St. John of Bletso Lord St. John of Bletso rose to ask Her Majesty's Government, in the light of previous assurances from the Government that the ELBS (Education Low-Priced Book Scheme) will be replaced in 1997 by something better, what progress the ODA (Overseas Development Agency) has made in planning and promoting an alternative scheme and what resources will be made available to support it.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am delighted to have an opportunity today to introduce this debate. As the Minister is aware, I have for some time been an ardent supporter of the ODA and of the able leadership of the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker. However, I must say that I found it difficult to comprehend why the Government decided last year to phase out the education low-priced book scheme, which for many years has been both cost-effective and, just as important, extremely well managed.
There is no doubt that the scheme has made a major contribution to Britain's influence and reputation abroad. The arguments for the retention of what I shall refer to as the ELBS were well covered in the debate of 17th May of last year initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, who I am delighted to see will be speaking in this debate.
The purpose of this debate is to address what progress the ODA has made in planning and promoting an alternative scheme with, in the words of the Minister:
"something better when the ELBS is replaced in April of next year".
This debate also seeks to address what resources will be made available to support any proposed replacement scheme. In her reply to the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, the Minister said that the ELBS would be phased out because the ODA wanted to replace it with something better and she said that many of the concerns raised by noble Lords were based on:
"a misconception of our intentions and of the operation of the scheme".
For those noble Lords who are not familiar with the ELBS, it was set up some 35 years ago by the ODA to supply British subsidised textbooks to students at tertiary level in poor countries—in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean—covering
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practical disciplines such as medicine, science, engineering and business management. One of the major beneficiaries has been India.
British publishers have been paid a subsidy which has enabled them to produce and sell ELBS editions at a fraction of the standard edition price. From the ELBS sales by region for the calendar year 1995, more than 1.1 million books were distributed at an average unit cost to the ODA of only £2.50 per book compared with the average retail price of about £18.
I noted that one of the criticisms of the Minister of the ELBS was that the subsidy in many cases did not reach the poorer students. From the figures that I have, it appears that last year, 80 per cent. went to World Bank so-called "low income countries".
Many believe that the ODA does not regard tertiary education as a high priority and that it is elitist. Could the Minister, when she winds up this debate, comment on whether this assumption is true or false? It is noteworthy that the report in September 1994 on a review of ELBS, while it had many justifiable criticisms, recommended that the scheme should continue but should be reformulated so as to meet its development objectives more effectively.
I noted that, in answer to the Written Question by the noble Baroness, Lady David, on 17th July this year as to what progress has been made in providing a replacement for the ELBS, the Minister replied that:
"ODA's Education Division has had extensive discussions with various interested parties in the UK, including publishers, booksellers, the BBC and the British Council; consultations have also been initiated with relevant officials in Ministries of Education in three countries in Central Africa with a view to starting pilot book projects in this current year."— [Official Report, 17/7/96; col. WA 62.]
However, I understand from the working group of book professionals, that most participants favoured an "ELBS-style" replacement, but that the ODA's Chief Education Adviser had told them that this was not an option.
If, and I stress if, the Minister has an interest in promoting tertiary education in poorer countries, would she not agree that continuity in the supply of individual titles over the years is essential and that in many poorer countries, courses have been built around the ELBS textbooks that they have received?
Eileen Gillow, the head of ELBS administration, pointed out in her outline proposal for tertiary level textbook provision in the developing world that:
"students' ownership of their own textbooks is considered highly desirable by academics both in the UK and the developing world".
She went on to say that several countries—more specifically Zimbabwe and Kenya—are almost entirely dependent on ELBS for the provision of tertiary level text books. I am sure that others will touch on the alternative option of book tokens, giving students the opportunity to purchase their own textbooks. I do not intend to discuss that option this evening.
While I am well aware of the many commendable schemes that the ODA has implemented for providing books and other educational assistance to targeted countries and regions, I cannot fathom in what way the

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ODA feels that the ELBS has not provided value for money. The figure that I gave your Lordships a little earlier of £2.50 compared to the retail price of £18 seem in my opinion, and in that of the ordinary person, to be extremely good value.
In this phasing out period the ODA has provided the ELBS with £700,000 for books subsidies and an additional £66,000 for administration, which is approximately 50 per cent. of the ELBS budget of £1.5 million for the 1994-95 budget year. I understand that stocks of most ELBS titles are either exhausted or shortly will be. Can the Minister be more specific this evening as to the replacement scheme for the phased-out ELBS'? Further, can the noble Baroness clarify whether the World Bank low income countries, which have over the years been receiving ELBS tertiary level textbooks, will continue to receive such books? Alternatively, will those books be targeted only to the so-called "poorest" students. If so, how will the poorest students be selected? How will the books be provided more specifically to outreach students, such as nursing students in rural hospitals, who have no access to large libraries?
Finally, as we are nearing the so-called "D-day" when the ELBS will be phased out, can the Minister say whether any new arrangements have been developed and, if so, are they ready to be implemented on 1st April of next year? I trust, in the words of the closing comments of the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, in his debate last year, that the phasing out of the ELBS will not be a disguised cut in educational book aid.
7.22 p.m.
Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, for tabling this Unstarred Question, particularly because many noble Lords very much wish to know the progress being made towards the replacement of the ELBS which was announced in 1995 by my noble friend the Minister. It would be fair to say that many of us, including myself, all of whom very much admire the work carried out by the ODA, viewed that decision with alarm. We did so because of our experience in many instances of the great value of the ELBS in the developing world. Perhaps also we saw yet another erosion of the influence of the United Kingdom in those needy countries.
However, since that debate I have come to appreciate the need for such a review of the concept behind the ELBS. I say that in part because of the quite remarkable advances in the field of information technology in the world and also the equally remarkable developments in the ability of developing countries to make use of this broad range of IT. In some quite remote parts of the world, I have been most surprised at the sophisticated nature of the computer hardware and software that exists and, indeed, the great enthusiasm that there is for it in those distant parts of the world.
To my mind it is probably more logical to think in terms of a range of offerings under the concept of the ELBS rather than simply in terms of books alone.
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I would certainly agree that there is always a place for the ELBS, as has been mentioned by the noble Lord, in areas where for example, nurses and animal technologists out in the bush can only rely on books, not on any other means of communication. Nevertheless, there is a wide range of possibilities which could be considered.
As I believe we all know, another increasing problem is that the type of textbooks which would normally be designated under the ELBS are becoming fewer in number. One of the reasons is that they are now being published electronically. Indeed, many scientific journals are published in that way. While that is quite suitable for the western world, such publications may not be readily available in third world countries. Therefore, if we took on board the concept not only of books but also of electronic information, we could view the future provision of information (for which the ELBS scheme was set up many years ago) with more optimism and achieve much more. It is my understanding that a pilot programme using ODA funds has been set up in Ghana which comprises an electronic network. It is to be hoped that that will prove to be successful and encourage the expansion of the system.
An area where I see a particular need, if we want to move into the field of electronic communications for educational purposes, is in the provision of short-term scholarships for individuals from the developing world for, say, three months. That would enable them to come to this country to receive instruction and training in the use of information technology. They could then return to their native countries and instruct others.
While I was somewhat disappointed and concerned originally at the demise of the ELBS, I now believe that there is a new range of opportunities available based on the rapid evolution of information technology, some of which could probably be made more amenable to different areas of the world. It could provide an effective provision of textbooks—though, having been part of the ELBS and having had the honour of having some of my textbooks designated as such, I must admit that it will come hard to see the demise of a scheme which has for so long done so much good in the developing world.
7.28 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I am extremely glad that the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, has tabled this Question tonight. It seems to me to be high time that we had some statement from the noble Baroness, as it is over 18 months since we had the last debate on the subject on 17th May 1995. The Minister made some firm commitments at that time which, so far as I can see, have not been kept. Her department had announced the phasing out of the scheme in the spring of that year. I shall now give your Lordships some quotations from columns 655 to 660 of Hansard of what the Minister said in that debate:

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"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".
The Minister continued:
"My concern is the students and that those students will turn to the UK when they are qualified and will bring trade for the UK in the longer term".
That, of course, is what we all want, and why we think it is so short-sighted to get rid of the scheme. The Minister also said:
"The scheme has had a fine reputation. No one disputes that. Over the years it has had some notable successes".
The Minister added that,
"my aim… is to replace ELBS with something better… 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".
The Minister also mentioned information technology. The noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, has just referred to that. It seems to me odd that if that really is a proper proposal, the ODA has not let us hear what it is. I am sure my noble friend Lord Peston will deal with the point because I am not so well-informed about information technology. However, I should have thought it was quite difficult to reach the distant parts of some of those countries in that way. They would need electricity and rather sophisticated equipment. However, if the Minister thinks the scheme will work, I hope that she will give us a clear description of how it is to be made to work. As I say, I am a little sceptical about that, but as the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, was so keen on that scheme I hope it will be followed up. I believe the Minister said in the debate in 1995 that whole textbooks and encyclopaedias were being made available on CD-ROM. However, will these people have the necessary equipment to receive them?
I feel that we have been let down. What has happened since that day in May last year? The ODA set up a Books and Information Working Group, chaired by Myra Harrison, its chief education adviser, to consider alternative arrangements that might replace ELBS. The group met for the second and last time on 22nd February this year. A further meeting was to be called in April and then September, but despite inquiries no call for a third meeting has been forthcoming. The 22nd February meeting proposed that pilot projects should be set up to test the feasibility of the respective replacement schemes: the voucher scheme, the book presentation scheme, etc. Not one of those pilot schemes, so far as I know, has ever got off the ground.
It was also proposed that a bibliography of low priced textbooks should be compiled. The ODA commissioned John Smith and Sons to carry out the work, although I understand that this has proved a far more difficult task than the latter anticipated. However, the bibliography was never presented as other than a useful aid and certainly not as the main plank of the Minister's programme for replacing ELBS.
The noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, referred to the Written Answer to a Question I tabled in July this year. After referring to the bibliography that had been commissioned, the Minister stated:
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"We shall continue to examine various methods of getting books to needy students, which will enable us to target books and information provision more effectively than under the former Educational Low-Priced Books Scheme. We shall consult further with publishers and other interested parties through the ODA-convened Books Working Group".—[Official Report, 17/7/96; col. WA 62.]
That Question was tabled in July, but the working group does not appear to have met since last February.
I suspect that if the ODA would seriously consider creating a scheme to deliver low priced or free books to the poorest students in any significant numbers, it would discover—perhaps it has discovered—that the most cost-effective way of doing so is the scheme currently being dismantled.
I have seen a copy of a dissertation for an MA degree at Loughborough University submitted by Emily Kogos, who was librarian at Moi University, Kenya, and who had direct experience of ELBS as she was herself a Kenyan student who had made use of books provided by ELBS. I wish to quote a few phrases from her dissertation. She writes:
"Getting new editions of books at a lower cost has made ELBS invaluable to students especially at the post-secondary school level of education in Kenya. In the absence of such subsidised books, some bookshops such as the Text Book Centre…would order older editions of standard paper back books so that the prices could be within the reach of their customers".
That enabled the customers to buy books at an affordable price. The dissertation continues:
"However, the research carried out in respect of Kenya shows that ELBS books actually played the role of supplying cheap text books to university students. The students come from differing backgrounds with different purchasing capabilities. The majority though come from families that need external assistance to he able to pay the fees as required in the era of cost-sharing…Research done in Kenya showed that ELBS books reach the targeted groups…Books still provide the basic tools of learning in developing countries…Following the decision by the ODA to withdraw the scheme and to phase it out completely by 1997, there was an outcry from ELBS users with hundreds of letters being sent by students, librarians and booksellers. The general feeling conveyed was that the ELBS scheme had been invaluable in helping provide the much needed cheaper priced books, as well as keeping up with the latest book editions. Most letters expressed fears that the book market at the tertiary level in the affected countries would suffer considerably and that academic standards would be affected as students find it even more difficult to buy books…In line with the original objective of the scheme, ELBS books were availed to the tertiary market in Kenya at prices within the means of most students. The research showed that the main beneficiaries of the scheme were students…ELBS played a major role in the supply of affordable text books for higher education institutions in Kenya…The ELBS book scheme provided a stimulus for students in tertiary institutions in Kenya to own books. The withdrawal of the scheme therefore brings with it the repercussions of loss of purchasing power especially in the areas of Science, Engineering and Medicine. Students taking these subjects will be forced to buy fewer books or resort to the bad practice of mutilating library hooks to survive".
One of the supervisors connected with this dissertation, Mr. Sumsion, is probably known to the noble Baroness as he is the distinguished and respected director of the Library and Information Statistics Unit.
In April next year, if nothing is done, there will be no books for the students to buy. From what she has said in the past I am sure that the noble Baroness is sympathetic to the needs of students in the poorer countries of the world. To think that they will be

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deprived of help to get a proper education and proper qualifications is to me extremely distressing. I hope that even at this last minute—we are very close to March 1997 now—the Minister will reconsider what has happened and come up tonight with some firm proposal that will help these students.
7.38 p.m.
Lord Walton of Detchant: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord St. John, for tabling this Unstarred Question leading to this interesting and important debate. When I tabled a Starred Question in this House on 2nd May 1995, I felt it right to declare an interest because, like the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, two textbooks on medicine which I had written had previously been included in the scheme, but have not been included for some years.
Subsequently, in correspondence with myself, the Minister was kind enough to say that she had every intention of making certain that the ODA would come up with something better than ELBS. She repeated that assertion in the reply to the Unstarred Question in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, a short while afterwards. As the noble Lord, Lord St. John, has said, this scheme has been in existence for over 35 years. Two years ago the grant from the ODA to support the scheme was £1.5 million. In 1994-95 it fell to £1.3 million. As the noble Lord, Lord St. John, has said, this year it has fallen to £766,000, or 0.08 per cent. of the ODA budget. It is true that the textbooks included in the scheme have been for tertiary level business education, engineering and technology, law, medicine and science, including social, agricultural and veterinary sciences. The books have been sold in 54 developing countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and in Oceania.
The noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, is right. We are seeing a revolution in information technology, in electronic publishing, which is likely progressively to replace some textbooks in many circumstances. Some of the publishers who have had books included in the ELB scheme in the past are in the van of this electronic publishing revolution. Why would it not be possible for their electronic products, where appropriate, to be included in such a scheme in the future in those countries where the facility is available to make use of such IT material? Nevertheless, as a teacher in universities for many years, I still believe that one of the most important of all teaching aids is, and will continue to be for many years to come, a book.
In answer to the debate, the noble Baroness said that the ODA review was concerned with targeting a replacement scheme at the poorest students, in particular in countries with very low or low income. It is true that certain countries—I refer, for example, to Singapore and Hong Kong—where the electronic revolution has gone ahead apace were originally included in the scheme. Perhaps Hong Kong was included for political reasons. Surely it is not beyond the wit of man and of the ODA to exclude from such a scheme those countries, some 22 in all, which are richer, for which, as the scheme has materialised and matured, such targeting is no longer appropriate.
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Like the noble Baroness, Lady David, I have read with great interest the paper by Emily Kogos from Kenya. It made abundantly clear that students in the university where she was librarian have been wholly dependent on the books published under the ELB scheme. Like the noble Baroness, I have seen masses of letters to the Publishers Association and other organisations from students in Nigeria, Uganda, Malawi and other parts of Africa, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It surely cannot be the case, as has been implied in certain correspondence, that the ODA believes that tertiary education in such countries is elitist. Such tertiary education will produce in the future the teachers in all disciplines in those countries; and they need the support of the scheme.
I do not believe that we can or should underestimate the crucial importance of British influence in the education of those students in developing countries. From my experience in British universities, and my chairmanship of the Sub-Committee of the Science and Technology Committee of your Lordships' House looking at the international investment in UK science, I know how greatly British education and British textbooks have influenced the work in many developing countries. It has ultimately been responsible for a good deal of inward investment from those countries, and individuals educated by British books and learning have ultimately made contributions.
The great virtue of the ELB scheme has been the rigorous selection of books, controlled local prices, the absence of pirating and the low distribution costs. Surely it is not out of the question that of the 54 countries originally included, the 22 which are now regarded as too rich should be discarded. The suggestion has been made that some of the books have been purchased by professional visitors to developing countries for personal use. That must be only a minimal problem. The textbooks in the scheme have not been advanced level textbooks but textbooks for use by undergraduate students.
Is it right that ODA believes that tertiary education is elitist? The chief education adviser to ODA said in correspondence with the ELBS administrator and others that the continuation of ELBS, even if modified, was not an option. Why ever not? It seems to me extraordinary that that should not have been considered.
The working group established by the ODA saw an excellent and detailed paper produced by Eileen Gillow. However, that paper, consisting of many pages with a carefully marshalled set of arguments, was not discussed by the working group. It was told that it must consider only alternatives to the ELBS and not a modification of the scheme. In view of the fact that the scheme will run out by the end of March next year—that is only three months from now—it is important to ask what the ODA proposes to put in its place. Will it be a scheme which will help tertiary level education by the provision not just of books but of electronic and IT material for countries which can use them? What will be the unit costs? What will be the administrative arrangements? What will be the total resources provided? As a result, will students in poorer countries have better access to teaching level books than the ELBS provided? Many of

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us are doubtful that that will be the case. Will the new arrangements have been developed, fully assessed, evaluated and in place by 1st April?
Many of us believe that any scheme proposed by the ODA will not effectively replace the ELBS, which has done so much to use British textbooks for the education of students in developing countries. I hope that the noble Baroness will reassure us to the contrary. Many of us believe that any scheme put in its place will not be better. Some of us have come together with the full support of the Publishers Association to establish an ELBS replacement trust because we genuinely believe that the scheme is so important to the future of education overseas that we must replace it with a similar scheme.
7.48 p.m.
Viscount Waverley: My Lords, the principle of distributing textbooks to those who in normal circumstances would be unable to receive them is commendable. It plays an important part in alleviating poverty by attacking illiteracy, which in turn creates the future professional and trading culture. It can also assist with teaching in agricultural and engineering matters, addressing practical issues. To that end, I am grateful to my noble friend for organising the debate.
With that said, and to reiterate my position as regards our last debate, I have long suspected that the ELB system was flawed. This is as much to do with direct publishing and distribution issues as with the age in which we live, of across-the-board, Treasury-led cuts. It is inevitable that some schemes had to go.
I have never been entirely clear who were the main beneficiaries under the existing scheme—the UK book industry, either through the contribution to administrative costs or by the resulting ability to retain an agent who could then service other forms of book orders, or those people in the country of destination who in many cases, I suspect, could afford the title anyway.
Additionally, bookshops around the developing world certainly cannot be relied upon to hold price structures that reflect the ELBS principles. That point cannot be denied. Retailers have to achieve, or strive to achieve, a certain percentage on turnover and hike prices in local currency to offset inflation and currency fluctuations, often over official rates. Only intensive and accurate agent scrutiny would resolve that. From a central bank perspective, scarce foreign currency is also used. Possibly the death knell of ELBS is even due to the complicated computations used in the UK. I do accept one point, however: local printing, as an alternative, other than in larger markets with a reduced book list, is probably not the answer.
I also accept that my concerns could be argued in other ways, but, regrettably, it appears that funds for ELBS do not seem to be available. But does not the ODA commit to substantial assistance in other book-related aid? Perhaps the Minister could tell us more about that.
However, we are where we are. What are we going to do about it? I have given some thought to how to resolve this. I was certainly impressed with the IT
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proposals. Hard copy is an expensive commodity, and it might be that IT is the answer. I would want all my previous concerns addressed, and those of publishers, while at the same time giving the recipients a speedy, effective, wide range of titles which can be paid for in local currencies, even at a cheaper cost than that at which they obtain ELBS titles currently.
This is what I came up with. A core catalogued list of titles covering subjects appropriate to developmental needs should be created from a wide range of publishers, with order-taking facilities set up in each university town in targeted countries. It would be quite simple to identify likely candidates as agents, who should have some idea of the publishing world—although that is not necessarily essential. Pre-paid orders would be submitted weekly via a UK central point for dissemination and execution. Orders would be consolidated for a weekly or bi-weekly air-freight service for customs clearance and local distribution. Because of the appalling nature of many overseas internal postal services, orders could be collected by the client or hand-delivered.
Advantages to all this would be that expensive intermediaries would be cut out and there would be stricter control on prices and quality of service. In other words, everybody would get what they want.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, was right to remind us that only three months remain until the official end of ELBS.
Finally, it being that time of year, it behaves me to wish the Minister bon voyage for tomorrow and her well-earned holiday.
7.53 p.m.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, I listened with great care to the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley. When he said that his proposals would give everybody what they wanted, I began to feel a little doubt as to whether the Waverley plan would be any better than the existing situation.
Viscount Waverley: Perhaps I should make it clear that, having established this type of operation on behalf of UK publishers in 14 overseas countries, I speak to that end with some experience.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord in the sense that I share his feeling of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, for raising this issue. I confess that he has raised it in a timely way, which had escaped my notice, my having initiated the debate nearly two years ago. This is a proper time for us to ask the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, to tell us what the results have been of the steps that she initiated following that debate in May 1995. Although we disagreed with her views about the ELBS, we were all rather encouraged by her confident assertion that she intended to phase it out and replace it with something better. As has been said by a number of noble Lords, we have no evidence so far of something better being created. The meetings that were intended to plan this seemed to come to a dead end

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almost a year ago, in February this year. Perhaps something is happening. This debate will have been well worthwhile if the Minister is able to produce something better for us.
Having thought a good deal about these matters since our debate, I fully recognise that the ELBS, as the Minister told us nearly two years ago, is only one of many ODA-assisted efforts in the field of educational books. I am particularly aware of the role of Book Aid International, for example, which she mentioned on that occasion and with which I was actively associated for many years when it was the rather splendid Ranfurly Library Service.
Last year Book Aid International sent out 680,000 books, principally to sub-Saharan Africa and to countries in particular need. Those books were provided by some very welcome assistance from the ODA but also by the voluntary effort of the Rotarian movement in this country and very generous gifts from the educational publishers. I refer to that because there was a certain tone in what the Minister told us on the last occasion which indicated that she believed that one of the weaknesses of the ELBS was that it was in the commercial interests of publishers rather than directly in the interests of development priorities.
We all recognise that the Minister, perhaps more than anybody else in British politics, is devoted to the field of overseas development and understands the difficult priorities better than anybody else. However, I venture to say that in the field of educational books there is an identity of interest between the development needs—of which education is a very important one—and the fact that the English language and British education are two of our great assets worldwide. I believe that the interests of the publishers and of our development aims in helping the poorest countries in the world overlap a great deal and largely coincide. The role that the publishers play in Book Aid International in terms of donations which go along with the subsidised ELBS ought to be taken account of.
Not knowing what the Minister will tell us about what has happened since the last meeting of the working group in February, we are searching for some constructive proposals. In May 1995 I said that I accepted that the ELBS, like any other scheme, needed to adapt to changing circumstances. The noble Lord who spoke about the impact of information technology on tertiary education is absolutely right; we are in a revolutionary new situation. However, one must be cautious about how applicable it is to some developing countries; the situation varies a great deal from one to another. I am actively engaged with a charity which deals with the training of journalists in third world countries. We have constantly to be aware that the kind of technology used in newspaper production in this country is not necessarily applicable to some of the poorer countries of the world. We must take account of information technology but we need to be careful about how we apply it.
In my brief remarks I wish to offer to the Minister a plan which would enable the ELBS to deal with its weaknesses and to be part of a wider mosaic of
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educational publishing from this country. I wonder whether we might streamline the existing ELBS scheme instead of phasing it out. We might concentrate it on the poorest countries and accompany it by an ELBS contribution to the book banks and presentations discussed in our last debate. Alongside that, I believe that there is a role for encouraging publishers in this country to go out of their way to see what help they can give. In eastern and central Europe, we engage a good deal in know-how operations and know-how funds. Perhaps we could try to do know-how fund operations in terms of publishing in some of the poorest countries of the world and help to encourage local publishing.
In the last debate the Minister mentioned the Indian experience in this field. I know, for example what Book Aid International does in its very modest way (it operates largely on a shoestring). It provides know-how kits for publishers in developing countries on how to set about the job of being a successful publisher. There are a good many ways in which the ELBS scheme, instead of being phased out, could be adapted and incorporated into the overall strategy of the Minister in this particular field.
It is on that point that I want to end, as other noble Lords have done. We are all aware that the Minister, like all Ministers, has had problems in the battle over public expenditure priorities. As I read the Red Book on the Budget, the ODA budget is fairly static in inflation terms and probably facing some reductions. It would be very helpful to us if, in responding to the particular problems of the future ELBS scheme, the Minister were also to put it against the context of her educational strategy for the ODA, to reassure some of us that tertiary education still has a significant role to play along with other forms of education in terms of our aid programme. Within tertiary education, perhaps she could assure us that the educational book side will be dealt with in a way that, as I said in my final words in the debate of May 18 months ago, is not in any way a sort of smokescreen to conceal a real cut in this particularly important form of educational aid.
8.3 p.m.
Lord Peston: My Lords, I join with other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, for introducing this short debate. I have a couple of interests to declare and, regretfully, an interest not to declare. I am a director of two very small publishing companies, neither of which has ever had a book in the ELBS or is ever likely to have. On the negative side, I am not and never have been the author of a textbook that has been adopted by ELBS. But, being above these things, that will not prejudice me against them. I am also, as is the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, one of those involved in trying to set up a trust to do something in this area in the future.
I shall make several points but I shall not go over the ground covered by other noble Lords, as most of the material has been dealt with very effectively. The noble Lord, Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, introduced the subject of IT. I am as committed to IT as any Member of your Lordships' House. I spend—perhaps waste—a great deal of time on the Internet. I use CD-ROMs

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and so on. However, although I accept all the visions of the future, we are a million miles away from the end of the book. With all respect to noble Lords, it is absurd to suggest that the future of education in the third world within our lifetime lies with IT. I should like to believe that, but it is simply absurd. The situation does not even lie like that with us. I am sure that, like me, the noble Lord spends most of his time reading books. There are CD-ROMs which are better than books—the Oxford English Dictionary on CD-ROM is undoubtedly better than the book. But there have been very few examples of that so far. The other thing to bear in mind is that they are all much dearer in electronic form. We shall not save money by going electronic—one day it will happen but not in anything like the near future. If we are serious in our desire—I emphasise my seriousness—to help the emerging countries (or whatever expression one wishes to use) in the educational field, books are of the essence. I have no doubt about that whatsoever. The question therefore is how we do something about it.
Secondly, following the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, I believe in utilising everybody's interests. Therefore, to be told that this is in the commercial interests of publishers I find astounding coming from the Conservative Benches. Of course, following Adam Smith, we want things to be in people's commercial interests so that they do them. Certainly, I shall not advocate anything that is not in someone's commercial interests because, if it is not, then nothing will happen. So I do not regard as a minus point and cannot believe that it could be the serious view of the ODA that one objection to the scheme is that it is in the commercial interests of publishers.
Viscount Waverley: My Lords, do they not contribute to the overall costs of the activities abroad?
Lord Peston: Of course they do. We do not expect our publishers to be altruists. We expect our publishers to respond to incentives. In my judgment this is a suitable incentive and, to use an expression that I do not particularly like, one which is cost effective. I refer again to the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley. If he is right and this is just across the board led Treasury cuts, we are wasting our time. What are we doing here late on a Thursday night? If this is simply a case of the arguments following a decision rather than a decision following the arguments, I certainly do not know what I am doing here, because I am quite tired. I assume that we are discussing this matter rationally in terms of the correct use of a given budget—in this case the ODA budget. We are not playing the old game of "Let us spend some more"; we simply say that within that budget our judgment is that one gets extremely good value for money for approximately £750 a year.
That is my position. I have heard nothing from the ODA to dissuade me from that view. If one reflects on it, it is clear that for £750 one places in the hands of the eventual leaders of the societies about which we are speaking books in English written by people in this country. I can assure noble Lords that I have no great hope that in these few minutes we shall persuade the
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Minister to change her mind. But I can assure her that in three or four years' time we shall be in this Chamber and some noble Lord will rise and ask, "Why, in all these countries, are all the textbooks written by Americans? Why did no one do anything to make sure that they were written by British people?" In the noble Lord's own field, does he want all the books on veterinary science to come from the United States? I must tell him that, when this scheme goes, should the noble Lord, Lord Walton, and I not have the success for which we are hoping, that is what will happen. Interestingly, however, someone will then say, "We shall have to find some funds to get the scheme started again."
That is certainly my position. Books matter and IT will matter one day but we are nowhere yet near that point, and I believe that this is an amazingly good way of doing things to help those countries. Again, I do not move back from the point that I believe that it also helps our own country. I know that in under-developed countries we are concerned with altruism and all that and I stand second to none in my desire to be a caring person in world terms. But what I deeply care about is British influence throughout the world and I do not want to see that diminished.
As I said, I do not want to go again over the ground. But I must echo other noble Lords in asking, where are the ODA's new proposals? Essentially the scheme will die in what is not a very long period of time. I must tell the noble Baroness that the noble Lord, Lord Walton, and I and colleagues have not had enormous success in raising additional money. I also say to her, slightly tartly, that the fact that she has been unable to support us has not exactly made life easy for us in trying to persuade anyone else to support her. I wrote to her and she wrote back to me about as disobliging a letter as she possibly could have done in terms of my having asked for some help. I was told—to paraphrase her reply—that there was very little on offer from her department to help us get started.
I would at least hope that if the noble Baroness feels that her department can do nothing more, we may get more support from her department in what we are trying to do. I do not hold out a great deal of hope that we can do much. It is not easy, in such a short period of time, to raise that kind of money. We are trying, but it is not easy.
One point that puzzles me about the ODA position is that anybody who knows anything about tertiary and higher education knows that in any society the people involved are above average. Whether we are discussing our own or anybody else's universities, we are not discussing the poorest of people but those a little further on. If one's desire is to help in that area, naturally one will end up helping a few better-off people.
When I was a student, though I thought I was incredibly poor, it turned out that even then I was one of the better off. I had no idea what real poverty was. But nobody suggested that grants should be abolished. If we want to help students in other countries, we must accept that some of the help will go towards the elite. However, we shall also be helping a number of

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extremely poor people. I do not understand the argument that the money is wasted; it is based on a view that we can target or fine-tune so brilliantly that the money goes only to the most deserving. There is no experience of policy-making in any country in the world that says it can be done that accurately. A broad range must be helped in order to help anybody at all. I do not accept the argument that, because richer people gain as well as the poor, that is a reason for stopping the help.
I feel passionately about books. I came from a house that did not have any books. I bought the first book ever bought in my family and can still remember the book I bought and the excitement of the beauty of a brand new book. I have wasted enormous sums of money over my life and probably owned more books than I will ever read because I find them irresistible. I want people in the third world to have that kind of attitude to books. Above all, I want them to have that attitude to books written by our people, coming from our country.
8.12 p.m.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, for raising this issue again and to all noble Lords for the useful points made. I was going to report, early in the new year, on what had been happening. There was no wish to keep anyone in the dark. If questions are asked, I shall always answer them, as all Members of your Lordships' House know. I am therefore glad to have this opportunity to respond and to inform your Lordships of the work undertaken to find the most effective ways we can of ensuring that the poorer students in the poorer countries have access to the books they need.
We heard some interesting ideas from the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, tonight. While I cannot respond at the Box to those ideas, we will investigate them. I believe also that where we can we should be encouraging local publishing. I, for one, was delighted when Macmillans set up headquarters in Swaziland. I was proud to open the new big warehouse there. That enables distribution to be carried out much more effectively and efficiently than from anywhere else.
Before I reply to the questions asked in the debate I should remind your Lordships of one point. In May last year when we had our debate I explained that we had to work under 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".
I went on to say,
"Those are important words. The primary purpose of British aid is development".—[Official Report, 17/5/95; col. 656.]
We are required by law to make sure that that is done. Therefore, when we investigated (not once, but twice) the ELB scheme—the first investigation was as long ago as 1988, as the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, mentioned—the reviewers concluded both then and in the subsequent review that the impact and effectiveness of technical assistance for education would be enhanced if we managed a book scheme at country level. It was
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also realised that the ELB scheme could not operate in that way. What we will do if the pilots prove to be as successful as we hope is to put books provision back into the individual country programmes so that we can target them on those poorest people whom we should be helping under the Act.
In 1995 the chairman of the booksellers wrote to me about the book scheme saying:
"Global schemes [of the type now being phased out] are not the most effective way of targeting aid".
I agree. We are trying to be more effective, not less.
Eighteen months ago I said that there were flaws in the ELB scheme and that those had to be set right because the educational low-priced books were not reaching the poorest students as they could not afford to buy them. I am firmly committed—as this House knows—to increasing access to books in developing countries where they will remain the main source of information. However, the noble Lord, Lord Peston, should not be too doubtful about the speed with which youngsters in developing countries learn. If they can get their hands on a single computer in a village or a town, they manage to learn from computer technology extremely quickly. My noble friend Lord Soulsby, and the noble Lord, Lord Walton, were absolutely right when they pointed that out. Those children in developing countries are probably learning much faster than we did at the same stage of development.
We are examining not only how we increase the access to books in developing countries but how we can use ODA funds to improve the current situation. What have we been doing? We heard a little about that, but only snatches, in some of the contributions tonight. As we know, ELBS has continued to receive funding—it is in its last financial year—of £700,000. At the same time it has enabled us to begin other work.
ODA set up and hosted the working group with publishers and other interested parties. The noble Baroness, Lady David, said that they had not met since February. That is because, by the end of February, we had a sufficient idea of the way we should go and could start consultation in the developing countries about the suggestions which had come from the working party. Members of the working party jointly identified three priority areas. Those were to be the commissioning of a bibliography of low-priced editions; the targeted library support via pilot projects, which I will go into in a moment; and guidelines for books provision in bilateral projects, to which I referred a moment ago. But it was by consulting the ministries of education in some of the poorest developing countries that we were able to devise plans to test out the direct provision to schools and libraries of the sorts of books they need.
Let me follow up on the three ideas. The bibliography has been commissioned and, as the noble Baroness, Lady David, said, is being done by a well-known Scottish bookseller, John Smith and Son. We shall pay for that bibliography of low-priced editions. It will be available later this month and will include a list of titles of cheap student text-books in subject headings previously identified under the ELBS with additional headings for medicine. I believe that it will include

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veterinary medicine. I hope noble Lords realise that I have taken to heart the comments made about the importance of medical books and that they remain important.
Twelve publishers have so far agreed to contribute their list to the bibliography and I am grateful to those British publishers who have, as we knew some would, found ways of getting their products into developing markets without subsidy. That is to help us do what we want to do without making us go against the 1980 Act, and that is important. These publishers form a broader base than those who participated in the ELBS. The prices for the text books are generally in the price range of £2.40 to £10 and they compare favourably with the prices charged by the publishers under ELBS. The bibliography will contain about 300 titles to begin with. We do not regard that as final, but that is the basis on which we will build.
I am confident that the bibliography will continue to develop and will meet the real needs of students who need text books. We plan to distribute the bibliography early next year. We shall monitor its usefulness to suppliers, institutions and libraries. We shall also encourage the wider development of it.
The noble Lords, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, Lord Walton of Detchant, and Lord St. John of Bletso, raised a query about tertiary education, and some belief in the department that it might be considered elitist. I can assure noble Lords that that is not so. We have to emphasise the urgent necessity of tackling primary education as part of education for all. We are tackling tertiary education support through specific projects with universities like Lesotho's national university and through specific scholarships; in other words, closely targeting where we can be most effective and through specific academic links, which is a new project that we agreed only in July this year.
It is essential to have tertiary education. It is essential higher-level education, and it will be necessary for teaching the teachers for the future, but it must be built upon sound educational levels in the lower age groups. That is why there has been a slight shift towards primary education. It is not because we are giving up helping at tertiary levels, but because of the urgent need at primary levels. That is why our bilateral programmes have turned more towards carrying out, on a country basis in India, Pakistan, Malawi, Zambia and other countries, quite a lot more in that particular field.
I have said that I am glad that we have this bibliography stage one—and I only call it stage one—with 300 titles coming off the stocks now.
Secondly, we looked at library support through a number of pilot projects. In order to make progress we first sought the views of key senior individuals in a number of ministries of education. That resulted in the development of a list of pilot projects, based on local knowledge, of the areas of greatest need for the students. These projects will start in this financial year, and I hope literally in weeks rather than months. They have been selected to cover the needs of education, not only at tertiary level but also at primary and secondary levels,
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to see whether we can get books through, because there is a book shortage in the developing world, as we all know.
We have allocated £160,000 to fund the starting up of that set of initiatives this year, so that will be before the end of March. There will be more available in the year 1997-98 for these and other initiatives as we bring them on stream. An amount of half a million pounds has been allocated to the direct provision of books to these projects for the next financial year.
I must stress that these are pilot projects. Areas of need have been identified by the recipients themselves, and not by my officials nor by publishers. We shall begin the evaluation of the effectiveness of each of the pilot projects from next year onward.
The third matter that we agreed was to produce, for our country programme managers, guidelines to ensure that books and information provision is made in all projects where it is appropriate. Draft guidelines have been developed with the help of the British Council. We shall consider those once we have had the opportunity to evaluate the pilot projects, and we shall consider them with education people from the developing countries themselves.
In addition to all this, there is a large number of bilateral projects and new ones coming up through the pipeline, and each of them will include significant elements of book provision. One example is that we shall spend some £7 million on books in the new primary education project that has begun in Kenya. We have continued to support other book programmes and a number of noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, spoke of Book Aid International, for which I have absolutely unbounded respect because it has done such a good job. It continues to get our support to the tune of £300,000 over the three-year period, 1994-97, but we have given it an additional project grant for particular work with books in Africa of some £97,000. That was in the last financial year.
One of the reasons that Book Aid International is so good is that it places the books among students who most need them. We anticipate continuing our grant to Book Aid International at similar levels, if not even better levels, in the next three years.
Carrying out work for Book Aid International leads us to work with another association, that for the development of education in Africa. We have provided it with £120,000 for book work. We are the lead funding agency for the organisation's group on books and learning materials. Our aim is to influence more appropriate and sustainable book policies in Africa. We played a significant role in July this year at the Zimbabwe book fair because the debate needs to be carried on, not just here or in donor countries, but in the countries which will use the materials that we are pleased to be able to fund.
Next year's topic at the book fair will be access to books. We are heavily involved in the Indaba (discussion seminars) at the book fair. All those

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activities will inform our books and information project as well as informing the African countries' longer-term books policy development.
The Eastern Europe Low Price British Books Scheme has operated since 1991 at a cost of £1.88 million. We have made an allocation of £100,000 per annum for low cost medical books schemes. There are many other examples I could go into, but I assure your Lordships that educational books are alive and well in the ODA. It is, however, important that we apply them in the way that I described in our earlier debate and again tonight. That is to make sure that the books reach the poorest students in the poorest countries. In this financial year some 9,000 scholarship trainees and award holders will come to the United Kingdom. They will each have received an allowance for books at an average value of £300. We shall continue that. That is right. We shall also continue, wherever we find a need that can be answered by local production, to help local producers and thereby the local economy to grow.
I have made it quite clear that I want something better. My officials have been working to produce that. When we were asked for a second ELB scheme my chief education adviser was quite right to say that we were not going to have a second ELB scheme for the reasons of the 1980 Act, which I explained at the beginning. It was not to undermine the whole question of books for students; it was to be factual about the situation we face in law.
We are looking at a number of new ideas. My noble friend Lord Soulsby and the noble Lord, Lord Walton, both mentioned the electronic media. For our programme managers we have included in our guidelines for books the whole question of periodicals—these may be available by some photocopying system or CD-ROMs—and how to use the Internet connection and electronic data bases.
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As the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, said, we are looking at this pilot project of an electronic library network in Ghana. We find that there is much more scope for this than we had imagined, even though we are perhaps a little more in touch with it than the noble Lord, Lord Peston, may have been. We are providing short-term scholarships for intermediate technology under our present scholarship schemes where the overseas government concerned is identifying IT as a priority subject for study. More and more see that as an important point.
We are working away at this. If we spent all our time talking about all the things we are working away at, we would never get the work done. However, I am always willing to answer questions from noble Lords or, for that matter, anyone else, because I believe that what we are seeking to do is to ensure that the books are the right books and they get to the poorest students who have hitherto been having great difficulty in getting access to them. I would just say to the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, that ELBS does not distribute books at the moment; it puts them into bookshops for sale. So it is a rather different scheme from the one people sometimes think goes on.
I could say many more things but I have already overrun my time. I hope I have been able to convince your Lordships that there is nothing negative about what we are doing. We are making the very best use of funds in the best interests of, in particular, recipients, but also in the interests of British taxpayers. That is my job; that is what I shall do; and I shall make very sure indeed that the books get to the people who most need them.

Transfer of Crofting Estates (Scotland) Bill [H.L.]
Recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at twenty-eight minutes before nine o'clock.