Lords Sitting of 12 November 1996

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

Lord Paul
Swraj Paul, Esquire, having been created Baron Paul, of Marylebone in the City of Westminster, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Haskel and the Baroness Smith of Gilmorehill.
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale
Miss Meta Ramsay, having been created Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale, of Langside in the City of Glasgow, for life—Was, in her robes, introduced between the Baroness Lockwood and the Lord Haskel.

Modern Language Teachers: Recruitment
2.58 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington Lord Dormand of Easington asked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they are taking to increase the number of modern language teachers.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Lord Henley): My Lords, we established the Teacher Training Agency to bring together work on teacher recruitment with other functions designed to improve the quality of teaching. Last week the agency published a strategy paper on teacher recruitment. The paper contains specific proposals to increase the recruitment of modern language teachers alongside more general measures to increase teacher recruitment.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, as the Government have been trying for some three years without success to increase the number of trainee teachers in modern foreign languages and have even failed to meet their own targets by 14 per cent., is it not time to introduce new incentives? I was glad to hear the Minister say that modern foreign languages are included in the recently announced scheme. Do the Government believe that the scrapping of the bursaries which were available to trainees in subjects where there are shortages has had any effect?
Lord Henley: My Lords, obviously, that is a matter that we should examine; but I do not believe that we have in any way reached crisis point. We are moving towards a future shortage but I understand that throughout the entire country at present there are a mere
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72 vacancies in modern language teaching. We should like to do more, and that is why last week we announced the publication of the teacher training consultation document. I shall ensure that a copy is sent to the noble Lord because he might wish to make a number of comments on it.
We replaced the bursary scheme with almost £8 million-worth of support for locally focused recruitment activity through the priority subject recruitment scheme. We shall have to examine that scheme to see how well it works. However, I welcome any suggestions from the noble Lord, and I shall send him a copy of the consultation document.
Baroness Brigstocke: My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that the affiliation to the Technical Colleges Trust of 30 language colleges will help to boost the number of modern language teachers? These new language colleges have special responsibilities for developing good modern language teaching practice which can be followed by other schools.
Lord Henley: My Lords, my noble friend is right to draw the attention of the House to the success of the language college initiative. It will not immediately increase the number of modern language teachers but I hope that over the years it will increase the number of those emerging from the schools with skills in modern languages. One hopes that in due course that will lead to an increase in the number of teachers. I hope that those who are interested will take the opportunity to visit a language college near them in order to see how well it is doing in delivering the national curriculum with an extra focus on modern language teaching.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, what is being done to encourage more part-time assistants from our European partners? Is the noble Lord aware that it is much better for a foreign language to be taught by a national of the country concerned?
Lord Henley: My Lords, that is true. The Teacher Training Agency will examine the possibility of recruiting native speakers within this country to teach foreign languages and overseas-trained teachers who could be trained on the job. It is a matter which the Teacher Training Agency can and will address.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, it is a fact (is it not?) that the DfEE's target initial training intake—which is an ugly term with an even worse acronym—for modern languages for 1996–97 is 2,250. Can the Minister tell the House how many of those places have been taken up; and if the figure is under 2,250, why is that and what is being done about it?
Lord Henley: My Lords, as I and I believe the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, made clear, we are not meeting our recruitment targets, but we have not yet reached a crisis point. I can assure the noble Lord that last year applications for post-graduate training courses in modern languages rose by some 7 per cent. As there is

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a possibility of future shortages, the Teacher Training Agency made its recent announcement, and as I promised to send a copy of the consultation document to the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, I shall send exactly the same document to the noble Lord, Lord Morris.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, what I asked about and what I should like to know is the exact number that have been recruited so far against that target. If the Minister would care to write to me with a reply, I should be very much obliged.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I shall be delighted to write to the noble Lord on that particular point.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, the Minister has twice mentioned the word "crisis". Perhaps he will tell the House what he would describe as a crisis as regards the shortage of modern language teachers. I hope that the Minister and the Government will agree that French, German and Russian are of supreme importance in the present world. In January of this year, the number of vacancies was 82, if I remember rightly, or 86; and, if I understood what the Minister said correctly, that has increased by two. If it is not yet a crisis, it must be getting close to it.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I should not wish to follow the noble Lord as regards his suggestions of what are the priority languages. The reason that I said there is not a crisis is that nationwide, we have 72 vacancies. That is a fairly small number. It is 0.5 per cent. However, I have announced a number of measures which the Teacher Training Agency is taking. I hope that in time those measures will yield results. But I do not believe that one can describe a shortage of 0.5 per cent. as a crisis situation.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, will my noble friend tell the House whether modern languages include the languages of Asia?
Lord Henley: My Lords, all modern languages include all languages which are spoken at the moment. Earlier, my noble friend Lady Brigstocke mentioned the language colleges. I believe that the Dartmouth Grammar School, which is a language school, teaches not only the European languages but three or four different Asiatic languages: Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, one language from the Indian sub-continent and I believe one other.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the second most widely spoken international language in the world is Spanish, and that there is no shortage of people with an ability to teach that language in this country?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for bringing his expertise in Spanish, and particularly in South American matters, to the attention of the House.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that for every Spanish teacher in
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this country, we have 12 people teaching French? Could we not cancel a lot of those speakers and get down to speaking Russian, Chinese, Japanese and even Spanish?
Lord Henley: My Lords, different arguments have been put forward for a number of different languages. Traditionally in this country we have focused more on the teaching of French, but I understand my noble friend's concern about the teaching of Spanish and a whole array of different languages. However, I suspect that I could waste the time of the House in arguing about the merits of all the different modern languages which it may be advisable to teach in our schools.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, is the Minister aware that it used to be said that the language of optimists was Russian, but if you were a pessimist, you should learn Chinese?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am not sure that I would necessarily follow what the noble Lord says about those two particular languages. However, perhaps the noble Lord remembers the comments of Emperor Charles V about the different languages he used in speaking to women, men, his lovers and his horses.

Birmingham Northern Relief Road and Western Orbital Route
3.7 p.m.
The Earl of Bradford The Earl of Bradford asked Her Majesty's Government, further to their answers of 1st March 1995 (H.L. Deb., WA 99) what progress has been made in the construction of the Birmingham northern relief road and the western orbital route.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (Viscount Goschen): My Lords, the public inquiry into the proposals for the Birmingham northern relief road ended in October last year. The Secretaries of State for the Environment and Transport are awaiting the inspector's report. The western orbital route was transferred to the longer-term programme in November 1995 and work on it was stopped at that time.
The Earl of Bradford: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that fractionally encouraging response. However, is he aware of how much the timescale has slipped further since my Written Question of March 1995? Estimates of the continual traffic jams through the middle of Birmingham amount to an annual cost of between £200 million and £400 million. Is he aware also of the loss of credibility to the whole of the West Midlands area caused by those continual traffic jams at a time when many people are trying hard to create new jobs to replace those lost in the last two recessions?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the public inquiry took longer than was expected but it was particularly complex. I am well aware, however, of the great importance that is attached to the BNRR project both

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in the West Midlands and in the north west. Of course I recognise the severe traffic problems which the M.6 is currently experiencing. Those matters were taken fully into account during the course of the public inquiry. It is not appropriate for me to comment further on that in view of the role of the Secretaries of State for Transport and the Environment ultimately in determining the application.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the congestion on the M.6 is not unconnected with the poor state of the west coast main line? Will the Minister assure the House that, when considering investment in transport, public transport by rail and trams in Birmingham will be considered as well as the building of roads?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the noble Lord will be fully aware of the Government's commitment to public transport and, indeed, to the success of the rail privatisation programme, which is aimed at encouraging people onto the railways.

Blood Donations
3.10 p.m.
Lord Marlesford Lord Marlesford asked the Chairman of Committees whether he will consult with the appropriate authorities with a view to arranging for the National Blood Transfusion Service to hold a blood donor session in the Palace of Westminster.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Boston of Faversham): My Lords, I have made inquiries with the appropriate authorities as to the practicalities of the request made by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford. I am happy to say that they would be happy to facilitate a special blood donor session if approached by the National Blood Service. However, I draw the attention of your Lordships to the fact that the service holds—and has done so for many years—twice-yearly donor sessions in the Treasury which noble Lords, Members of another place and parliamentary staff are encouraged to attend.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees for that helpful answer. Will he agree with me that there are many people working in the Palace of Westminster who, in this fiftieth anniversary year of the National Blood Service, would wish to join the many citizens of this country who already give 2.3 million pints of good red blood in return for nothing but a cup of tea and a biscuit? That is unlike the French who, I am told, require a beefsteak and a plate of pommes frites.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I wholly agree with the first part of the noble Lord's supplementary question. There are many noble Lords, Members of another place, staff of your Lordships' House and of another place and, indeed, people generally who would wish to give blood. However, the
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point on which I might venture to differ slightly from the noble Lord is that I was informed by a very senior officer of your Lordships' House this morning that in Coke's Commentaries it is stated:
"People's blood runs blue when they become Peers".
I am not sure, therefore, whether your Lordships' House is best placed to assist in these matters. However, I am sure we can try to do so.
I should just add that I am most grateful to Sir Colin Walker, chairman of the National Blood Service, who has been in touch with me, for the background information he has provided. He makes the point that blood donation in the United Kingdom is voluntary, unpaid and, indeed, depends totally on the altruism of people. That is true and it is laudatory.
I must declare an interest. When I joined the Royal Air Force around Christmas 1950 we were offered an extra day's Christmas leave if we gave blood. I duly volunteered, but my blood was not taken because, as a child, I had suffered a mild attack of what we used to call in those days yellow jaundice. Nonetheless, as I had volunteered, I was given the extra day's leave at Christmas. That is the closest I have come in the whole of my life to an award for bravery. If your Lordships will forgive me, I have not quite finished; indeed, there is worse to come. Your Lordships will have appreciated from those circumstances that I have not even been put to the test.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: My Lords, is not what the noble Lord has just said very sound evidence of the good that can arise from an attack of yellow jaundice? I say that because not many people in this country who have suffered from yellow jaundice finish up being the Lord Chairman of Committees in this House. However, I turn now to the question of blue and red blood. If the requested session can be arranged, will the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees ensure that the reception area is organised in the same manner as Customs and Excise areas at airports? In that case, those with blue blood flowing through their veins would go through the blue channel. Those of us—admittedly a much smaller number—with red blood rushing through our veins would willing go through the red channel.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for the very kind words he used at the beginning of his intervention. However, I think that he probably exaggerates the powers of the Chairman of Committees. I shall of course look into the suggestion that the noble Lord made. Perhaps I may make one practical point that arises out of the noble Lord's questions. If in fact a special session can be arranged here as a result of any consultations which may take place—that is, if we receive an approach from the National Blood Service—I should point out to your Lordships that, especially bearing in mind the facilities already available at the Treasury, it would not be practicable to provide such facilities within the buildings of the Palace itself. Your Lordships are only too familiar with the shortage of space within the Palace of Westminster. It might be possible to provide facilities in the vicinity of Black Rod's garden. I do not know

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whether the extra facilities that the noble Lord would like to see could be accommodated there; I have my doubts.
Viscount Tonypandy: My Lords, will the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees bear in mind that a good word from that Dispatch Box to those wonderful people who give blood to save the lives of total strangers is something for which we are all deeply grateful? It is a tribute to our country that so many are willing to step forward and help people whom they never see.
The Chairman of Committees: Indeed, my Lords; I completely agree with the remarks made by the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy. Those people are indeed providing a great service to this country. The National Blood Service has carried out splendid work over the years. However, I know that the service is concerned to continue and, if possible, build up the flow of blood. While people generally respond very well indeed whenever a special appeal is made, it is the regular donations which are so much relied upon. If the number of such donations could be boosted, I am sure, as the noble Viscount suggests, it would be very desirable.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, is there not an age limit above which blood is not readily accepted, which makes this House rather unsuitable? Can the noble Lord tell us what that age limit is?
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, in the first place, I am advised sotto voce that hereditary Peers can make up for any shortcomings there may be. I pass that on as a matter of information. As your Lordships will appreciate, I do not enter into arguments of any kind. However, in answer to the noble Lord's question, I am, mercifully, able to help in that respect having been briefed on the subject. The age limits are 18 to 60, but, provided that it is medically acceptable for you to do so, you can donate up to the age of 65. I have already made one confession this afternoon. I have to tell your Lordships now that I am already passed my "gift-by date".
There is one additional piece of information that I should give your Lordships for the sake of accuracy. As the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will know, the law is different in Scotland. There the age limit is 17 to 60, but I understand that some consultations are taking place and it is possible that the age limit will be lowered to 17 in England and Wales. Whether the Scots are hardier than we are, I would not venture to suggest.

Business
3.18 p.m.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble and learned friend Lord Fraser of Carmyllie will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on the EU Working Time Directive.

Business of the House: Debate, 18th November
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 38 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with on Monday, 18th November, to allow the Motion in the name of the Lord Hunt of Tanworth to be taken before the Second Reading of the Land Registration Bill [H.L.].— (Viscount Cranborne.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

European Communities: Select Committee
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, on behalf of the Committee of Selection, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Lord Elis-Thomas be appointed a Member of the Select Committee.—(The Chairman of Committees.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Transfer of Crofting Estates (Scotland) Bill [H.L.]
3.19 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Scottish Office (The Earl of Lindsay): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
This Bill is an enabling measure to give the Secretary of State for Scotland the power to dispose of his crofting estates to bodies which he believes are representative of the crofters on the estates. Such organisations are commonly referred to as "crofting or community trusts" and although I shall refer to them as such noble Lords will wish to note that there will be no requirement that the bodies be trusts in the legal sense.
Before going into the details of the various provisions contained in the Bill, it may be helpful if I give a brief explanation of the background to these proposals. This, in turn, requires some delving into the history of crofting and, in particular, the origins of the Secretary of State's ownership of an extensive crofting estate.
The 19th century was a period of turmoil and hardship for many people in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. The collapse of the kelp industry, the potato famine and periodic recessions formed the background to what is now known as the Highland Clearances when many agricultural tenants left or were forcibly removed from their land. The Napier Commission was appointed by Parliament in 1883 to inquire into conditions in the Highlands and Islands. Its recommendations formed the basis for the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886. It introduced a unique form of land tenure, now known as crofting tenure. This gave crofters—agricultural tenants with smallholdings in the crofting counties of Argyll, Inverness, Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland, Caithness,

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Orkney and Shetland—certain fundamental rights and protections. These included security of tenure; the right to a fair rent; the right to compensation for permanent improvements on the termination of the tenancy; and the right to assign their crofts to certain members of their family.
Although the 1886 Act was an important milestone and the basis of crofting tenure as we know it today, it did nothing to reverse the effects of the Clearances. Successive Parliaments responded to pressure from crofting interests to provide land for those who had been dispossessed. They passed a series of Acts giving powers to acquire land for purposes of land settlement and to arrange for the creation and letting of new croft holdings and townships. The principal Acts were the Congested Districts (Scotland) Act 1897, the Smallholdings Colonies (Scotland) Act 1916 and the Land Settlement (Scotland) Act 1919. The 1919 Act, the most important of the various pieces of legislation, sought, in particular, to provide crofts for returning servicemen. It gave powers to acquire land by agreement or compulsory purchase. The necessary work of acquiring the land and creating new holdings was overseen initially by the Congested Districts Board and subsequently by the Board of Agriculture. Most of the Secretary of State's current estate was obtained in this way in the 20 years following the 1919 Act.
The Secretary of State's crofting estate now includes over 50 separate crofting estates with a total area of over 105,000 hectares. The estate contains over 150 townships with almost 1,400 separate crofts. The bulk of the land is in the West Highlands and the Western Isles, where the typical crofting estate includes both common grazings to which crofters in townships have agreed grazing rights and individual crofts with their inbye land. For almost all crofters on these estates, the size of the crofts and the quality of the land means that agricultural activities are now undertaken on a part-time or spare-time basis. Some of the Secretary of State's crofting estates, mostly in the Eastern Highlands in Caithness and Easter Ross, are on better quality land. Common grazings are not a feature of these estates and the typical croft is more like a smallholding elsewhere. Only 2 per cent. of the total land is, however, to be found on estates of this type.
In the early years of this century, the establishment of state owned and run estates was undoubtedly a significant benefit. The land itself is still the cornerstone of the culture and way of life of these crofting communities. But as we move towards the closing years of the century, it is surely legitimate to ask whether state ownership and management is still the most appropriate way forward. With the best will in the world, officials employed by a government department cannot be as sensitive to local needs and priorities as those who actually live there.
This is the fundamental premise which underpins the crofting trusts initiative which gave rise to the proposals on which the Bill before the House is based. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland suggested in the autumn of last year that he would be willing to transfer ownership of his crofting estates to crofting trusts. His aim was to give crofters greater
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control of the management and future of the land on which they live and work. Most of the tenants acknowledge that the Secretary of State is, indeed, a good landlord, but the success of the trusts at Assynt and at Borve and Annishadder has shown what can be achieved by local trusts serving local communities.
In February my right honourable friend published a consultation paper, Crofting Trusts, which set out his proposals in more detail. The Government made it absolutely clear in that consultation paper that any transfers of land would be on a voluntary basis and that there was no question of the Government selling the estates to other third parties. The proposals in the consultation paper were widely welcomed. The measures in the Bill before you are based on the consultation paper and the representations which we received during consultation and subsequently.
The Bill is necessary because there is no general power in the original legislation which allows the Government to dispose of their land to third parties. Noble Lords with knowledge of crofting matters may ask why the crofters concerned cannot simply use the powers provided in the Crofting Reform (Scotland) Act 1976 which allow crofters the right to seek to buy their land at an agreed price. These powers do indeed allow individual crofters to buy their crofts, irrespective of their landlord, but they cannot be used to acquire the common grazings which form a substantial proportion of the land in crofting tenure. Moreover, under crofting law, tenants who acquire their crofts may lose some of the benefits afforded to crofting tenants. Properly constituted, a crofting or community trust can avoid these limitations and ensure that land is available for any development initiatives which the local community might wish to promote. It is important to note that tenants of a crofting or community trust would still retain the right to buy their individual croft if they so wished.
We have sought a solution which would be flexible enough to address the differing circumstances of individual crofting communities. This is because we are aware that there is no one type of trust which will address the needs of all the communities involved. The Bill gives the Secretary of State the flexibility to transfer land to different types and sizes of trusts that might be proposed by the crofters. In short, the provisions of the Bill would allow for trusts based on a single township or estate, or a group of estates in a particular area.
Clause 1 of the Bill gives the Secretary of State power to dispose of his crofting property. This is, of course, a discretionary power. The definition of "property" includes all the land held under crofting tenure. It also includes the so-called fishermen's holdings in Lewis which were initially established under the Congested Districts (Scotland) Act 1897, and certain other small pockets of land such as areas of grazing land which, while not held under crofting tenure, have traditionally formed part of the Secretary of State's crofting estate. The clause also provides the power for the Secretary of State to dispose of any interest which he has in the property including mineral, sporting or other rights. This clause also gives the Secretary of State the right to transfer the land, with the consent of the Treasury, on

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such terms as may be agreed with the body concerned. There is a need for flexibility to strike the right balance in individual cases between the interests of the local crofters and those of the taxpayer. Each application will be looked at on its merits but my right honourable friend has made it clear that the Government are prepared to consider transfer at no consideration where this is necessary to make sure that the trust gets off to a good start.
Clause 2 restricts the Secretary of State's discretion in disposing of the estate. It requires him to consult with the Crofters Commission before disposal, and requires that the disposal should only be made to bodies which are representative of the crofting interests in the property to be disposed of, and which have the promotion of the interests of the crofting community in the district as a primary objective. The commission, in preparing advice for the Secretary of State, will be required to consider the general interests of the crofting community and the views of crofters in the district.
These provisions are necessary to ensure that the scope of the Bill is limited, in line with our objective, to transfer to crofting or community trusts rather than other third parties. The Crofters Commission is the Government's statutory adviser on crofting matters and it is only right and proper that it should be given an opportunity to offer its views before a decision is made in any particular case. The commission is well placed to offer objective and dispassionate advice on the merits of any specific proposal and in particular where it properly reflects the views of crofters in the district in question.
Clause 3 provides the Secretary of State with the power to provide financial assistance towards the costs of establishing the body. Those might include, for example, costs involved in obtaining advice, necessary equipment or training for trust board members. The clause also allows assistance to be given to defray expenditure incurred in effecting the transfer of property to a trust.
Clause 4 is linked to Clause 3. For the avoidance of doubt, it disapplies a provision contained in the 1897 Act which could have required the Scottish Office to undertake all conveyancing and other work involved in preparing titles and deeds in respect of the transfer. Instead, the trusts will commission this work with assistance, where this is agreed, under the provisions of Clause 3.
Clause 5 deals with any rights of pre-emption which may exist over the property. These may arise from statute or from provisions contained in title deeds. It is important that the existence of such rights should not be a barrier to the establishment of trusts, but, at the same time, any persons who may hold such rights must be treated fairly.
The Bill seeks to achieve those twin objectives by removing for all time any right of pre-emption over any property in the estate while providing for compensation to be paid to those who have lost a right of pre-emption.
We are proposing that claims for compensation should be made when the Secretary of State has disposed of any property. This is the point at which
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those with rights of pre-emption would have been able to exercise them if they had not been removed. Claims would be made to the Secretary of State, who would, in the first instance, decide on the validity of the claim and the amount of compensation to be offered. Where agreement cannot be reached between the claimant and the Secretary of State on either of those questions, provision has been made for appeal by either party to the Scottish Land Court which has considerable experience in crofting matters.
Clause 6 deals with a right to buy which arises from the 1919 Act and applies to tenants who have been on the holding for more than six years. This applies only to tenants on land which is not subject to crofting tenure and the effect of the clause is to ensure that such rights are protected if the land is transferred to a crofting trust. It is important to note that this clause does not affect the right of crofters to seek to buy their crofts, which, as I explained earlier, is not affected by the Bill.
I trust that I have given a sufficient explanation of the content of the Bill and the policies which underlie it. The Government propose that the Bill will be referred to a Scottish Select Committee to take evidence from interested bodies. It is clearly a matter for that committee to make its own arrangements and to decide on a venue. However, I do not think that noble Lords will object if I remark that Inverness would have the advantage of being the recognised administrative centre for the crofting counties. It also has good communication links and is, therefore, readily acceptable to most organisations from whom the committee may wish to take evidence.
The Government see the Bill as a logical extension of the development of crofting since the Napier Commission was appointed in 1883. The initiative will offer crofters on the Secretary of State's estate a chance to follow the example of those trusts which have been set up on land previously owned by private landlords. This is a vital piece of legislation. It offers a unique opportunity to the crofting tenants and will allow a significant and far-reaching initiative to be progressed. I commend it to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.— (The Earl of Lindsay.)
3.34 p.m.
Lord Sewel: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his clear explanation of the contents and objectives underlying the Bill and for his historic commentary, although some particulars may be open to challenge, in particular when he dealt with the causes of the Clearances.
It is a short Bill but it is not as simple as it may appear at first sight. I fear that the measure may become even more complex the more we look into it. However, it is a significant Bill. It is significant because at last, within seven months of a general election and after 17 years of Conservative government, there is a recognition by the Secretary of State for Scotland that the land question, the issue of land ownership and the pattern of land tenure are important factors affecting the

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development of the crofting areas of Scotland. There is clear agreement on both sides of the House on the importance and centrality of land and land ownership.
Over recent years many of us have been impressed in particular by the success of the Assynt crofting community trust which may provide the model behind the Bill. Clearly Assynt has seen a new sense of dynamism develop very much as a result of local control and external support. Such innovations are to be welcomed, although we should recognise—I take to heart very much what the Minister said—the need for different solutions to different problems in different areas. There must be no fear—I believe that the Minister has removed this fear—of there being a centrally imposed solution. That simply would not work. I also wonder, if crofting trusts become widespread, whether the level of external support on the scale available to Assynt would be generally available. That is an issue of some importance.
Let me make it clear that we on this side of the House are strongly supportive of community based development. We further believe that the community ownership of the land is a necessary underpinning for successful community development. To the extent that the Bill enables progress to be made in that direction, we support it. However, I should make clear that there are a number of points of detail, some coming close to points of substance, where we should like to see modifications made, and some areas where we shall wish to seek clarification.
I welcome the proposal that the Bill will be subject to what is still the relatively new Select Committee procedure which will enable us, as a committee, to collect evidence from those whom the Bill will most directly affect. It is entirely right that the proposals contained in the Bill should be subject to detailed scrutiny within the crofting areas. Given the definition of a croft as a small piece of land surrounded by a great deal of legislation giving rise to a lot of litigation, we should approach our task with a degree of caution.
However, having urged caution, there are two areas where I believe the Government are being over-cautious, especially in the wider context of the relationship between land ownership and local development. First, the Bill relates only to the Secretary of State's crofting estate. Secondly, the Bill gives powers to the Secretary of State rather than confers rights on the people. The present Bill is a modest and limited proposal. A more comprehensive and necessary review of land reform is likely to be a high priority of a Scottish parliament. As it is, the Bill has the potential both to provide us with a first step on that road and to set an interesting precedent.
I now turn to more specific points and matters of detail. If the scheme is to succeed, it is important that it should enjoy the support, confidence and agreement of those affected by it. Anyone who has been concerned with policy innovation in the Highlands and Islands will know that support, confidence and agreement do not come easily. It is vitally important that the Bill contains a trigger mechanism that ensures that a transfer will take place only where there is demonstrable local support for such a transfer. I recognise that the Government have
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attempted to deal with the matter of local interests in Clause 2. However, the clause as it stands is deficient. It fails to recognise that not all those who are resident on crofting estates, and sometimes not even the majority, are crofters. As they are as likely to be affected by a transfer of ownership, their views and interests matter and should be taken into account.
Rather than requiring the Crofters Commission to gauge the views of crofters and then advise the Secretary of State, there is a strong case for having a straightforward democratic trigger which would include all residents, crofters and non-crofters. Anything less runs the risk of the transfer taking place in conditions of suspicion and resulting in resentment and distrust. Clearly that is something that we all seek to avoid.
The Bill is less than clear on the approach that the Secretary of State would take on the financial basis of transfer. Although the Minister gave some clarification this afternoon, there is still a lack of clarity both with respect to the land itself and, more importantly, with respect to the sporting, mineral and other rights. We are concerned with the apparent lack of balance that appears to have been taken towards the rights that the Secretary of State may transfer and the burdens which, as I understand it, would automatically transfer with the land.
On rights, Clause 5 is purely permissive. It raises the possibility that the land would be transferred and the rights retained. Quite frankly, such a situation would be unacceptable. In many cases the mineral and sporting rights represent the only actual or potential route to economic viability; as importantly, the lack of such rights would seriously constrain the potential for future local development.
The burdens that would transfer with the land are in some cases on such a wide scale—covering, I understand, bridges, drainage systems and indeed the public water supply—that they would most effectively deter anyone from taking on the land in the first place and lead to possible bankruptcy in the face of major repair costs. I appreciate that this is a difficult area; however, I wish to explore with the Minister the possibility of ameliorating the transfer of burdens. We are certainly uncomfortable with the situation presently capable of being contained within the Bill whereby the onerous burdens would transfer, while the rights, representing a source of local income, may not.
One of our other major concerns is the problem of on-selling. The Bill creates a situation whereby the Secretary of State may transfer his estates to a limited number of individuals, it is to be hoped in the form of a crofting trust. But, as the Minister made clear, even that is not required by the Bill. Following that initial transfer, those individuals or the trust will be in a position immediately to sell on to a third party and even to seek to decroft some or all of the land. The implications, especially for those areas where there are strong residential development pressures, are far-reaching, affecting the whole social structure of the local community. Under the Bill there is a possibility of the land initially being transferred to a minority of local residents who, in turn, sell on to a third party, while the

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majority of local residents are powerless as the nature of the land use changes irrevocably. Such a state of affairs would be wrong and we will seek to ensure that even the possibility does not arise.
Finally, I take up the remark made by the Minister about pre-emption rights. It is perhaps ironic that the one group who stand to benefit immediately and directly as a result of the Bill are those who are entitled to exercise a right of pre-emption. They will be compensated. The Bill may very well have the effect of giving value to land that was previously of little or no value before. It is the landed interest that will benefit.
I have dealt with our concerns in some detail. I very much hope that we can proceed on the basis of a broadly based agreement. However, I return to my remarks at the beginning. If a proposal such as this is to succeed, it has to have the enthusiastic support of those who will be affected. For our part, we look forward to the Select Committee taking evidence and our view at later stages will be informed by what we hear in Scotland.
3.45 p.m.
Viscount Thurso: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Earl the Minister for his clear and very lucid explanation of the Bill. I am not entirely sure whether I have an interest to declare. I own a number of the crofts to which he referred—I believe included in the 2 per cent. of more valuable land that was mentioned. If that represents an interest, then I declare it.
The last time I spoke in this House was in the debate on the Address. I observed that consensus in politics was rather out of fashion, particularly given the current bout of election fever that is doing the rounds. We on these Benches, and I myself, have always believed that a little dose of consensus rather than conflict would be a very healthy thing for our body politic. I am therefore delighted to be able, on behalf of all of us on these Benches, to welcome the Bill warmly. I fully expect it to receive a broad consensus in this House.
Clearly, the objective of the Bill is sound. The Government own a great deal of crofting land in the Highlands. I think it is correct to say that they are rather reluctant owners and the crofters are probably rather reluctant tenants. Provided that all those affected by the legislation, and most particularly the crofters themselves, are properly looked after by the bodies that will take over from the Government, I believe that this Bill will be warmly welcomed by both crofters and those others within the communities who are affected by the success of crofting in the community.
At first glance the Bill seemed rather like my wife, small but beautifully put together. However, when I came to read it in more detail, like the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, I managed to find one or two little mines hidden away in it. Although there is a broad consensus on the principle of the Bill, I foresee problems with a number of technical areas which will need to be examined in some detail to ensure that unlooked for consequences are avoided. In that regard the system of evidence gathering will be of the utmost importance. I am delighted that the Minister was able to confirm that that
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will take place. I have in my notes a little plea that this might take place in Inverness, the geographical centre of the crofting world. I am delighted that he was also able to confirm that.
The key to making the scheme work will be in the nature of the bodies that will take over the ownership of estates from the Secretary of State. Having been involved with a number of trusts in both England and Scotland, and having been on one occasion the tenants' representative in a business where a major landowning trust was the landowner, I have to say that there are just as many difficulties with a corporate or trust type of landowner.
It is quite a challenge to find the right vehicle for ownership. That is dealt with in Clause 2, which states that,
"The Secretary of State may dispose of crofting property … only to a body … which has been approved by him, after consultation with the Commission … a body which … is representative of the crofting interests … and … has the promotion of the interests of the crofting community … as its primary objective".
Those laudable objectives are fine so far as they go. However, if the bodies to which the Secretary of State may dispose of the crofting properties are to be truly representative of their communities and the crofters within them and, most importantly, if they are to be successful landowners, considerable work will need to be done in fashioning the correct entity and ensuring their viability for the future. Again I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Sewel. Estates are both costly and complex to run. It is therefore most important that these acquiring bodies are financially sound. Can the Minister tell me what the profit or loss on the estate is at the present time and whether what will be transferred will in fact be a burden or a boon?
A point which does not seem to be covered by the Bill—though I believe the noble Earl, the Minister, has clarified it in his remarks—is the status of the crofts in respect of the crofters' right to purchase after the estates have been sold by the Secretary of State to an approved body. I believe I understood the Minister to confirm that the ultimate sanction for any crofter who fell out with the acquiring body would remain that he himself would have the right under the law as it currently stands to purchase his croft.
Another small area which gave me cause for some concern, and which I should be most grateful if the Minister will look into, is in relation to paragraph 5 of Clause 1 at line 27, which states:
"The disposal may include the disposal of any interest he has in the mineral, sporting or other rights effeiring to the property."
I have found one peculiar example where this may cause problems. It serves to illustrate the little mines that are peppered about in this Bill. It relates to a crofting estate in the north west of Sutherland where the Secretary of State, as part of his estate, owns the salmon fishing rights at Strathy Point. These rights have been let to a tenant netsman for a number of years. The rumour on the north coast is that the crofters will acquire the salmon netting rights as part of their acquisition and exploit these rights for themselves. It seems to me that this would not be at all in the spirit of this legislation, which I believe is to enable a more appropriate vehicle

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for the traditional exploitation of agricultural use in the Highlands, i.e. for the crofters. I do not suppose for a minute that it is intended that the effect of the Bill should be to deprive other equally traditional forms of commercial exploitation of their livelihood, namely the tenant netsman. I note that this clause uses the word "may" and I assume that that denotes a degree of flexibility. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, that it is important that the land-based sporting rights, mineral rights and other such rights should be transferred, but I believe that the particular instance to which I have drawn attention should be given serious consideration.
I was particularly glad to note in Clause 3 of the Bill that the Secretary of State may provide such financial assistance as he considers appropriate, particularly to help defray expenditure incurred by the acquiring body by way of legal fees, since I have much personal experience of how costly legal fees can be in these matters. I hope that instinctive Scottish generosity will not be curtailed by the traditional tight-fistedness of the English Treasury.
I was also particularly pleased to hear the Minister mention that the cost of training would be eligible for aid. I believe it is very important that crofters should receive help of this kind.
There is a provision in Clause 5 of the Bill in relation to compensation which provides for the Secretary of State to agree a claim in the first instance. If the claim is rejected the claimant will then have the right to appeal to the Scottish Land Court. Clearly, a successful claim, following all the steps described in the Bill, will involve considerable cost. Will the Secretary of State consider compensation for that cost? Many of the people who have rights of pre-emption are no longer members of what the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, described as the landowning classes since the properties are in many cases now owned by smaller landowners.
The points I have raised, although important, are relatively small and of a technical nature and I believe they will be resolved as the Bill is examined by your Lordships. I return to my opening remarks. I compliment the Government on bringing forward this measure and hope it will receive a warm welcome on all sides of your Lordships' House.
3.55 p.m.

Working Time Directive
Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Fraser of Carmyllie): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement on the Working Time Directive which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Madam Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on the Working Time Directive.
"The Court of Justice of the European Communities has today given its judgment in the proceedings we brought to have Council Directive
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93/104/EC, the Working Time Directive, annulled. That directive derives its origins and impetus from the 1989 Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers, to which the United Kingdom did not subscribe then and does not subscribe now.
"The directive was adopted by the Council at a meeting on 23rd November 1993 and was forced on the United Kingdom through the use of the qualified majority voting procedure by being adopted by the European Council under Article 118a of the Treaty Establishing the European Community, which relates to the health and safety of workers. It is due to be implemented on the 23rd of this month.
"A common position on the proposals for the directive had been reached by Ministers of Social and Labour Affairs at a meeting on 1st June 1993. At that meeting, the United Kingdom announced its intention to challenge the directive's legal base. Our legal challenge was mounted in March 1994.
"The directive's main provisions include limiting the working week to an average of 48 hours; putting various restrictions on the length of night work; giving employees entitlements to minimum daily and weekly rest periods and to a period of paid annual leave. Our case before the Court was essentially that these are matters relating to terms and conditions of employment which should be settled by employers and employees and not truly health and safety at work matters.
"The Court has now delivered its judgment and I am arranging for the text of the judgment to be placed in the Library.
"The Court has in essence confirmed the Advocate General's earlier opinion that the directive was properly adopted under Article 118a of the Treaty. This is not what was envisaged when we agreed to Article 118a as a health and safety provision. We shall therefore insist that the intergovernmental conference (IGC) addresses the issues which this ECJ judgment raises. That means both ensuring that the Working Time Directive no longer affects the United Kingdom and securing measures to prevent any other social engineering directives being forced on the United Kingdom by similar manoeuvres. The use of Article 118a in this fashion wholly undermines the spirit of our opt-out from the social chapter agreed at Maastricht. As he has already told the House, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has today written to President Jacques Santer making clear in the most unequivocal terms our proposals to correct the position. A copy of the letter has been placed in the Library.
"In his letter, my right honourable friend makes clear that the broad interpretation of Article 118a implied by the ECJ judgment, 'goes directly counter to the spirit of what we agreed at Maastricht. It is unacceptable and must be remedied'.
"My right honourable friend has made clear that the Government will, therefore, be tabling amendments at the IGC aimed at ensuring that Article 118a cannot in

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future be used as it has been on this occasion and dealing with the specific problem of the Working Time Directive.
"The Government have made clear that, as my right honourable friend also said in his letter, we attach, `the utmost importance to these amendments, and [will] insist that they form part of the outcome of the Intergovernmental Conference'.
"In the meantime of course we have no option but to obey the law until we secure the necessary treaty changes. But we will legislate to implement the directive only after carrying out proper and necessary public consultation on the issues and options. In doing so, we will aim to take advantage of the valuable derogations already secured during our negotiation on the directive. We are determined to preserve the flexibility in labour matters that has been such an important element in the revival of our economy over recent years. British industry would expect us to do no less.
"The use of qualified majority voting was agreed by member states before the Maastricht negotiations for genuine matters concerning health and safety at work. Never for a moment was it envisaged that those arrangements could properly be applied to what we would always regard as social measures—including the general regulation of working time, rest periods and holidays.
"We have always been fully committed to protections needed to ensure good health and safety standards for British and other European workers. But employers and employees should also be free to agree terms and conditions, including arrangements for working time, rest breaks and holidays, that meet their particular circumstances and needs. We reject the imposition on industry of unnecessary requirements which can only damage competitiveness and jobs and we consider that this directive would be the thin end of a wedge that would lead to more such burdens.
"Because the Working Time Directive is incompatible with these principles, and because of what appeared to be the improper use of procedures to force it through, we had no option but to bring these proceedings to have it annulled. Avoiding unnecessary burdens on British businesses remains at the top of the Government's agenda. So we firmly intend to close the loophole which allowed the Working Time Directive through and to restore the rights of British companies and their employees to reach agreement on such matters, reflecting the requirements of their particular circumstances.
"The competitiveness of our industry is the key to economic success, employment and prosperity. We are not prepared to have it unnecessarily trammelled in the way this judgment would do".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
4.1 p.m.
Lord Peston: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made by his right honourable friend in another place. I start by saying that the
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language of the Statement is strange, to put it mildly. It uses expressions that I am not convinced are suitable in a Statement made by a senior government Minister, especially if such Statements are in danger at least of being misleading. I refer, for example, to the beginning of the Statement and the expression that the directive was "forced" on the United Kingdom. That is a very strange way to put a matter that was fully negotiated by government Ministers and was carried on correctly within all the procedures of the Community and on which others took a different view. I find it very strange that the Statement should use such a word.
I also find it very strange that the Statement summarises the directive's main provision but leaves out something in which I would have thought everybody would be interested; namely, that almost every provision is optional. Would it not at least have been worth while for whoever drafted the Statement—being anxious to help your Lordships or Members in another place to understand what it said—to have put in its central tenet? That is not the way to issue Statements.
Having said that, let me lean over backwards to be helpful to the Government. It is arguable that the Working Time Directive is about employment rather than about health. That is certainly arguable, though it does not necessarily mean that it is correct. The Government believed that it was correct that it was about employment and Ministers and officials put the case as well as they could. There is no doubt about that and I do not doubt it. In fact, I understand that Ministers and officials did not do too badly. From its original proposal, the directive was watered down in the directions in which we wanted, in almost every way. So much so that Mr. Hunt, the Minister, said that it was toothless. I believe he said, but I do not have the quotation to hand, that it was a victory for us at the time. Certainly—I return to the use of the word "forced"—our country did not vote against it. That is worth bearing in mind.
However, now suddenly the Prime Minister, for reasons that I dare not think about, has decided that the directive is extremely important and dangerous to the interests of the country. He has decided that it was devised solely to undermine our opt-out from the provisions of the social chapter and therefore the question was put as a legal challenge to the Court of Justice of the European Communities, a body which we are solemnly committed to respect and which we do respect in general. It examined the case and found against us. The Court has confirmed that the directive was properly set out and arrived at.
The Prime Minister and his friends may be sad about that. The Prime Minister may not care for that decision or that adjudication. But that is the decision and that is the adjudication. In my judgment, if one belongs to such bodies, when they make adjudications and decisions one responds to them in a proper way. So the question that we must ask ourselves is what is the rational response to this Statement on the directive and the European Court's adjudication.

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My judgment is that the initial correct response is not to exaggerate the importance of the directive. The propositions in the Statement are simply mistaken—propositions such as:
"The use of Article 118a in this fashion wholly undermines the spirit of our opt-out from the social chapter".
It is absolute nonsense to say that it:
"wholly undermines the spirit of our opt-out from the social chapter";
or that it:
"goes directly counter to the spirit of what we agreed at Maastricht";
or is:
"unacceptable and must be remedied".
For such a minor, trivial directive we use that language. Finally, it is said that we attach:
"the utmost importance to these amendments"—
that is what we are proposing—
"and we [will] insist"—
a very good word to use in Europe—
"that they form part of the outcome of the intergovernmental conference".
I find it extraordinary, in a matter on which the Government feel that they have a good case, that they should use language of such kind on a matter which I should regard as not of overwhelming importance. I happen to favour it but there are many things I favour which are not of overwhelming importance.
I strongly believe that the attempt to threaten the European Union is mistaken. We all agree, and the Statement confirms, that we must of course obey the law. We also agree—here I do not disagree with the Minister—that we must continue to argue our case and convince our friends (assuming that we have some friends) that we have a case and that we are right in general. I also agree with the Prime Minister—much as I favour the social chapter and noble Lords opposite do not—that we have an opt-out and I recognise that the Prime Minister wishes to exercise it.
Let me lean over backwards again and say that he is right to scrutinise what the Community does, if it is the case that it seeks to undermine our actions. But he must not do it by misunderstanding what has happened. He must not do it by bluster and he must certainly not do it by empty threats.
I return to what I believe is the central question anyway. I asked whether this is a health related matter or employment related social legislation and therefore pertinent to the opt-out. At least one of the distinguished figures in this matter, Professor Harrington, says categorically, having examined the evidence, that excessive working time is a health matter. Others who have looked at this field say that it is a health matter. I must admit that, using my common sense, it seems to me to be a health matter. I do not say that those gentlemen are necessarily right. I do not say, to quote another of the papers that we all read, that we may not need more research. I do say that it is reasonable to argue on the basis of available evidence that it is a health
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matter and therefore that the Community in no way is being disreputable or in any way undermining us by saying that it is.
That seems to me to be the central question. In other words, if we examine the question and obviously it is a health matter and we find that many experts tell us that it is a health matter, it seems to me that the Government's whole position is undermined right from the beginning. It is also further damaging to us in the future when we have to confront matters of this kind and wish to argue with the Community. In order words, to put it as correctly as I can, I believe that it is better to fight a battle on territory that one can win, with a cause that one can win and not this.
Nearly in conclusion, let me refer to the last paragraph, again to put this matter into perspective, where the Statement refers to the importance of competitiveness and all that. I suppose that I have bored your Lordships as much as any noble Lord with the importance of competitiveness, productivity, efficiency and all that kind of thing. I never hesitate to argue that our future depends on that and nothing else. But, again, that only brings out the triviality of the Government's position and the way they exaggerate the importance of the matter before us.
Our economic future depends on competitiveness. In the context of the real and monetary forces that determine that competitiveness, this working time directive is of no significance whatever. Its effects could not fall within our ability to measure. And despite the arguments of noble Lords opposite, I would take a similar view in regard to the social chapter; that it will not determine whether or not this country is rich or poor in the future. Quite other forces do that. For example, as I pointed out to the Minister yesterday, the rise by 10 per cent. in the value of sterling over the past two or three days has a much more powerful effect on the ability of British industry to compete overseas than the working time directive, as does the seeming rise in the price of raw materials that go into our industry. Those are the important matters.
I conclude by asking myself and other noble Lords to reflect on what this is all about. It is certainly not about economics as I understand the subject; it is not even about social policy. It is surely only about politics and especially the internal politics of the party of noble Lords opposite.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, from these Benches I join in thanking the noble and learned Lord, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, for repeating the Statement. My noble friends and I take a view that is different from that of the Government as expressed in the Statement with regard to the directive.
The matter has a long history. It is not, as is sometimes claimed, to be seen as a way of getting round the social chapter and our opt-out from it. It stems from the Treaty of Rome as amended by the Single European Act, subscribed to by the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, when she was Prime Minister.
The Statement refers to the valuable derogations already secured in the Government's negotiation on the directive. It was in fact Mr. David Hunt, the then

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Secretary of State for Employment, who, three years ago—as the noble Lord, Lord Peston, said—claimed that the teeth of the directive had been drawn. And he did not vote against it when he had the opportunity to do so at the European Council in its amended form.
I acknowledge that there are conflicting views as to whether the length of the working week should be regarded as a health and safety issue. That was plain enough from the evidence given in 1990 to Sub-Committee C of your Lordships' European Communities Committee (of which I was privileged to be a member) in its inquiry into the draft directive as it then was. The European Court of Justice has now ruled that working time is a health and safety issue. I am glad at least that the Government do not propose to go so far as to refuse to act on that judgment. However, I see from the Financial Times today—again the noble Lord, Lord Peston, has already mentioned this—that the Government's use of a confidential medical report in their appeal to the Court has now been heavily criticised by its author, Professor Harrington of Birmingham University. He said that his conclusions did not support the Government's claims and he believes that working hours are a health and safety issue. When the noble and learned Lord replies, perhaps he will comment on that report.
I do not pretend that implementation of the directive will necessarily be altogether without cost. I used to work in the chemical industry, and in the debate on the Maastricht agreement five years ago I expressed some anxiety about the provisions in the directive concerning night work and shift work because of their possible effect on continuous process work. Nor do I forget that the United Kingdom has to compete not just in Europe, but also with the United States and Japan, for example.
There are many groups who are exempt from the provisions of the directive. People who do not wish to work more than 48 hours in a week on average need not do so, and there is plenty of scope for those who are prepared to work longer hours, including continuous shift workers, to whom I have just referred, to negotiate appropriate arrangements with their employers. After all, it is the vulnerable, low paid groups who most need protection from unscrupulous employers and whom the directive will rightly most benefit.
The directive refers to amendments that are to be tabled at the intergovernmental conference dealing with the specific problem, among other things, of the working time directive. The Statement says that the Government attach,
"the utmost importance to these amendments, and [will] insist that they form part of the outcome of the intergovernmental conference".
Again, the noble Lord, Lord Peston, made some mention of that.
I wish to ask the Minister this question: is it not in our own long-term interests that, rather than threatening to impede our future developments in Europe unless there are treaty changes—as the Prime Minister has already done and as the Statement implies—the Government should now take the advice of the director
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general of the CBI and adopt a constructive attitude in implementing the directive, taking account of the significant degree of flexibility that lies within it?
In relation to the suggestion that the directive may be the thin end of the wedge that would lead to "more such burdens", would not the approach I have advocated afford the best possible means of influencing their formulation to suit UK conditions?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, perhaps I may respond to the two contributions from the Front Benches. First, the noble Lord, Lord Peston, said that it was strange language for a Statement and he took particular exception to the words,
"forced on the United Kingdom".
That language was deliberately chosen, just as the Commission deliberately chose a route towards this directive which it knew meant that it could be implemented using qualified majority voting when it was believed by all at the time that it would be included within the social chapter from which the United Kingdom had an opt-out. It was for that reason that the language was undoubtedly strongly worded.
The noble Lord went on to say that he was surprised that we took exception to the directive, seeming to believe, as I understood him, that all that was contained within it was essentially optional in nature. I invite the noble Lord to look carefully at what is included within the directive, particularly with regard to night work which, on my reading of it, certainly does not allow for a wholly optional approach to that matter. It is exceedingly complicated and I say this: where there are optional provisions within the directive, the approach of the Government will be that so long as we have to implement it we will take the best advantage of what derogations there are and seek to ensure the maximum flexibility.
The noble Lord said that he considered this simply a political matter and that there had been a recent change of heart by the Government. With respect to him, I spelt out in the Statement that as far back as June 1993—some five months before the directive was implemented—the United Kingdom Government signalled that they would challenge the legality of the basis for the directive. So it is simply not true that a late challenge has been mounted.
Nor do we regard what is contained in the directive as being minor or trivial. I agree that optional arrangements are allowed for. They are extremely complicated and we shall have to look at them very carefully. For that reason—in view of the fact that the noble Lord did not raise it—I take it that he considers it acceptable that we want to consult on the matter. Indeed, the directive itself makes specific provision for consultation. We shall certainly want to consult. These are not minor or trivial matters.
Even if the noble Lord does not accept that view of what is already within the directive, what I am surprised he does not grasp is that Commissioner Flynn has already made it clear that he will be publishing a White Paper in which he will be looking at further action that might be taken to limit very much more the

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exceptions and derogations provided for in the directive. Once the legality of the directive is there, as we have to accept it is following the European Court ruling, it would be a very serious matter for the United Kingdom if all the hard-won derogations secured back in 1993 were at risk of being lost and the United Kingdom's position could be voted down because qualified majority voting would be the arrangement required. Some very complicated matters would then arise. For example, I understand that one of the issues the Commission now wishes to consider is the regime affecting offshore workers. That is a difficult matter because, in the interests of health and certainly safety, one would have thought that what one wanted to secure on offshore rigs was the minimum number of people and the minimum number of helicopter journeys made to and from them. If these provisions were to be imposed upon the offshore industry, far from bringing about an improvement in safety there would be a very real risk of safety being harmed yet further.
The inconsistency of the position seems to lie with the Opposition. At the time of the social chapter and the opt-out that was secured by the Prime Minister the Opposition objected to the opt-out because they believed that these very matters were included within the social chapter and would be thus excluded from consideration within the United Kingdom. If there has been a change of position, it has been by the Opposition. What has caused the Prime Minister and the Government real concern is not a matter of internal party politics; it is, as the Prime Minister said in his letter to Mr. Santer, because it goes directly contrary to the spirit of what was agreed at Maastricht. It is an issue of good faith. I believe that we are entirely within our rights to insist that where we thought we had dealt in good faith on a particular measure we should now go back and get that corrected.
I turn to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester. I agree with him. Although we might not wish to do so, we must obey the rule of law. For that reason we will implement the directive if we have not managed to bring about a change beforehand. There is little prospect of bringing about implementation before 23rd November. Indeed, I think that probably at least three other countries within the European Union will not achieve implementation by that date. But, as I indicated earlier, probably the more important feature is that we must engage now, as the directive itself enjoins us to do, in widespread consultation on some extremely complicated matters and on some parts of the drafting of the directive which I personally consider to be extremely obscure. It will take some considerable time for many to understand what it is all about.
The noble Lord referred to the comment by Professor Harrington which appears in today's Financial Times. It is correct that Professor Harrington provided a study and that it formed part of the Government's legal challenge to the working time directive. We always made clear, in accordance with established practice, that it could be published only once the case had been concluded. I have read, as the noble Lord has, what was said in the article but I have not yet read his report. I am led to understand that the report states that the scientific basis for
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establishing optimal hours of work is in doubt from the beginning and that it is impossible to be dogmatic on scientific grounds concerning the maximum number of hours to be worked each week. Professor Harrington says that there is no firm scientific basis for setting a specific numerical lower limit. In the article in the Financial Times he certainly offers the opinion that 48 hours is a sensible limit. But the study which he was asked to carry out was more to do with the scientific basis on which such a limitation might be set.
Finally, the noble Lord asked whether it was not now in our own interests not to threaten to impede. I come back to this point. We are concerned that this is indeed the thin end of the wedge, and with some real cause. The Prime Minister negotiated long and hard to secure the opt-out from the social chapter. The noble Lord and his party may not have agreed with him but it was perfectly clear that that was a major part of his negotiating position. It was clearly understood by most people for a considerable time that the opt-out would secure exclusion from just this type of directive. It was a deliberate act by the Commission to avoid the opt-out that the route under Article 118a was taken. It is our firm intention that in the negotiations at the IGC the position on Article 118a should not only be reversed but that we should not be tricked like this in future.
4.28 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble and learned friend aware that, contrary to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Peston, many of us have great respect for the Prime Minister's Statement? It was fully justified by the circumstances of the case and sets out the position of this country very well and very clearly. Is he also aware that some of us have had for some time a considerable disregard for the European so-called Court of Justice? Certainly its latest effort gives us confirmation of the view that it is not a body to be treated with any respect or with very much attention. Is he further aware that it is extremely important that the British Government should maintain the position they have always maintained and that this decision should be overruled?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, there are varying views on the value of the European Court of Justice. In fact, from time to time, we are more successful before it than is widely believed. I have had little time to study the judgment of the Court in its entirety, but from the parts I have looked at it seems a remarkably terse judgment and does not really provide any full explanation of the view to which it eventually comes. At the risk of repeating myself, it was because of the position taken up by the United Kingdom during the Maastricht Treaty negotiations that the Government have, in our view, the right to feel sore that this was exactly the type of directive from which we thought we would be freed. In the event, a route has been found to include us. We shall want to ensure that in the future we are excluded from it. As the Prime Minister has been saying in another place, that will be an important part of his negotiations at the IGC.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I put down a Question earlier on this subject but withdrew it because I knew that there was going to be a Statement? I am sure that he is not surprised to learn that I accept wholeheartedly, and without any equivocation at all, that this is a health and safety matter. That is also the position of the TUC, which has undertaken its own survey of health and safety representatives. That survey points out clearly that working longer hours puts workers under stress and that is a health and safety matter.
I draw the attention of the Minister to the World Health Organisation's definition, which I believe has been of some guidance to the Commission. It states:
"Health is a state of complete psychic, mental and social well-being and does not merely consist of an absence of disease or infirmity".
Quite frankly, I believe that the Government are making an enormous fuss over an issue which they cannot expect ultimately to win. As regards the argument in Europe, there is an acceptance of this issue as being totally one of health and safety.
As my noble friend Lord Peston pointed out, this is not a very strong directive: in fact, some of us would like to see a much stronger directive. It is a weak directive. It has provision for voluntary arrangements so that people can come to arrangements with their employer or there can be collective agreements between unions and employers which provide for exemption. An enormous fuss is being made about what is a relatively minor matter.
As regards the threat to employment, there is no evidence at all that implementation of the directive will mean a reduction in employment possibilities. It can probably be argued that the converse is true. If employers have to employ a few more people in order to meet the requirements of the directive, perhaps the taxpayer will benefit because there will not then be quite so much paid out in unemployment benefits, jobseeker's allowance and so forth.
The Government will have to put this directive into operation almost immediately for public service employees. They have until 23rd November. As I understand it, employees are immediately covered by the directive. The Government should stop wasting taxpayers' time and money on a futile quest to try to get this directive overturned. I hope that they will not proceed with their intention to raise this matter at the intergovernmental conference.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, in answer to a final point which the noble Baroness made, there is probably a difference in the position between those who are employed in the private and public sectors, but whether it is quite as straightforward as she suggests is open to question. There is undoubtedly something of a difference.
I cannot agree with her—as I indicated in answer to her noble friend Lord Peston—that this is a minor or trivial matter. In December 1993 we put before Parliament the compliance cost estimate if this directive were to be implemented in the United Kingdom. The
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figure at 1992 prices was about £1.7 billion, rising to about £2.4 billion. I consider that to be a considerable compliance cost, particularly when the vast majority will fall on those companies that we are trying desperately to ensure not only become competitive but remain so. If they have to bear that sort of burden I cannot see how in any respect whatsoever it will help their position.
The noble Baroness made the point that parts of this directive were optional. I accept that. I also accept that there are a number of companies within the United Kingdom which already achieve for their employees what is included in the directive. Some of them will have terms and conditions of employment which go beyond the requirements of the directive.
Therefore, I say this to the noble Baroness: why is it necessary to impose this measure? We believe that the right way forward is that if employers wish and can afford these provisions, that is a matter for them. It is a matter for negotiation between them and their employees. To impose this inflexibility would deprive all British companies of the choice that they should be allowed to have in coming to decisions and arrangements with their workforce.
Lord Clark of Kempston: My Lords, does my noble and learned friend agree—
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, does my noble and learned friend agree that, far from this being an unimportant matter, the Statement shows quite clearly a case where supposed partners have attempted to get round their own previous agreement by subterfuge? That is what it is. It is wrong to allow this measure to pass without comment, or by merely passing it off, as the noble Lord, Lord Peston, did, as arguable and a quibble. He did not say clearly whether he thought that, with these quibbles, we were right or wrong. He left it as an argument. The Government cannot afford to and must not do that. How can we enter into further negotiations and agreements with people who have used this kind of unfounded and almost illegal method to secure an alteration of their previous official intention?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, as I hope I made clear to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, in my initial answer, we considered and believed—it was not just the Government, but all political parties within the United Kingdom—at the time of the Maastricht Treaty that we had secured an opt-out from the social chapter and that this matter would be included within it. They might not have agreed that that was the right course to take, but they nevertheless thought at the time that we had secured exclusion from just this type of directive.
I cannot agree entirely with my noble friend, because that would be inconsistent with something I said earlier. I cannot agree that this directive was brought about by means of subterfuge, because as early as 1st June 1993 we were arguing that there was a legal invalidity in the basis on which this directive proceeded. However, he is absolutely right to say that we all believed that we would be excluded from this measure. But by means of a devious route, as we have unhappily found out today,

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it has been possible for the Commission and the rest of the European Union to impose this directive on the United Kingdom.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord aware that I have been a trade unionist at local, regional and national level for 44 years and during the whole of that period I was taught that matters concerning wages and conditions were best settled at the workplace, through collective bargaining? I still believe that to be the case. Indeed, throughout my time in another place, particularly in 1972, the Labour Whips instructed me to vote against the Industrial Relations Act 1972 because it imposed court decisions on trade unions and collective bargaining. Noble Lords opposite voted for the courts to be involved, but I voted against. I still believe what I believed then: the best way of settling these matters is through collective bargaining. The 48-hour week has now been reduced in most cases to 39 or 38 hours. That proves the efficacy of collective bargaining.
I am very upset, as are most of the British people, at the humiliation which has been piled on this nation by the spectacle of Mr. Flynn instructing the British Government to do something which they do not want to do. Will he confirm that if the Government and this Parliament do not enact the provisions of the Court ruling, any employer or anybody else at all can ignore them? In the light of what the Minister has been saying about getting these provisions annulled, will he further confirm that there is no way in the IGC, without unanimity, for these proposals to be annulled? Therefore, these proposals cannot be annulled.
Will the noble and learned Lord give an assurance that there will be no backstage horse-trading to give away some other right which undermines our sovereignty in order to make progress on this particular issue? It is a bad day for Britain, the British people and, in the long term, trade unionism and trade unionists.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, there is a great deal in what the noble Lord says with which I agree. However, regrettably there are some matters about which I must disabuse him. The Government believe in the rule of law. Faced with this decision of the European Court of Justice, however much we dislike the ruling we will implement it unless we manage to get it reversed before implementation. We will go forward towards implementation having carried out careful and detailed consultations. As I have indicated previously, there are matters within it which will require very detailed analysis. It may be that without implementation by the United Kingdom Government, either by primary legislation or under Section 2(2) of the 1972 Act, some employees in the United Kingdom who are employed within the public sector will have direct rights against the Government. However, this is a complicated matter on which I do not want to offer a concluded opinion immediately following the decision.
The noble Lord is absolutely right. The best manner in which to deal with these issues is to leave employers and employees to get on with it as a matter of choice without imposition. Many firms in the United Kingdom
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already offer better terms and conditions than can be found in this directive. If we are to continue to prosper and to be flexible it is necessary that we give just those companies and those with whom they negotiate flexibility to come to the best arrangements.
Lord Clark of Kempston: My Lords, does my noble and learned friend agree that this directive is a misinterpretation of the opt-out clause? Consequently, it means that this is not a health and safety directive but a directive about unemployment, as the noble Lord, Lord Peston, has said.
Lord Peston: My Lords, the noble Lord may wish to get his facts right. I merely tried to be reasonable by suggesting that both sides could argue that point. I did not say that it was a matter of employment but said that that argument could be made.
Lord Clark of Kempston: My Lords, I was merely endorsing what the noble Lord had said. Does my noble and learned friend agree that the voluntary aspect of the directive will be considerably diluted because of trade union interference in the matter? Further, does he agree that there is bound to be a loss of jobs? Some small businesses cannot possibly survive if they have to take on extra workers. Does he agree that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister is quite correct in saying that the Government will do all they can to reverse this decision? Finally, does he agree that this court ruling places an additional burden on business and industry and affects our competitive position? Is it not better that the Court of Auditors should concentrate on looking at the profligate waste of money in the Common Market?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for the powerful support that he offers the Prime Minister in the position that he has adopted. If he cares to look at the judgment of the European Court of Justice he will find, as I do, that it is very difficult to discover what is not included within the term "safety and health". As the noble Baroness indicated earlier, a definition has been adopted from the World Health Organisation which appears to be all-embracing. The only curiosity about the judgment is that religious belief is excluded from the term "safety and health" because Sunday cannot be singled out as a particular day for rest according to the European Court of Justice.
My noble friend is absolutely right when he speaks of the possible consequences for the United Kingdom economy if this matter carries on indefinitely and we are not able to reverse it, as we are determined to do. Although he is absolutely right to single out the possible effects on small firms, those are not the only ones to be affected. Today I saw on television, and I have also met around the country, workers who dearly enjoy the opportunity to work night shifts because they wish to pursue such innocent interests as fishing during daytime hours. The noble Lord opposite may shake his head. What he did not appear to appreciate

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earlier was that the night working provisions within the directive were not wholly optional but would have a measure of compulsion about them.
Beyond the issue of the small firms to which my noble friend has referred, what troubles me as much as anything is that some of the major inward investment successes that the United Kingdom has had recently have been achieved because it has been able to construct semi-conductor factories, for instance, at a speed far greater than is achievable anywhere else in Europe. If an investment of, say, £1 .5 billion can be brought to the point of production seven or eight months faster than anywhere else in Europe because these provisions do not apply in this country, it is not surprising that the United Kingdom is more attractive than many others. Nor is it surprising that there is concern that if these matters have to be implemented in full there will be a real effect on employment.
Lord Gladwin of Clee: My Lords, I should like to press the Minister on the effect on the public sector. My understanding is that emanations of the state are directly affected by the directive. Can the Minister indicate the timetable for the consultative process to which the Statement refers? Will he also give an indication as to when he anticipates that legislation will be introduced into Parliament? Finally, I am a little puzzled by the Statement. Is it the intention that at the same time as legislation is introduced—because it has to be—the Government will seek to repeal that very legislation?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, dealing with the first technical point raised by the noble Lord, in broad terms employees of emanations of the state (which I believe is the language that the court likes to use) can claim from their employers rights and protection within the directive providing they are sufficiently clear, precise and unconditional in the directive itself. I hazard to guess whether they will find that any of those qualities are met when they look to the directive itself. There may be a requirement for legislation, but we need to reserve judgment on whether primary legislation will be necessary if it is to be implemented or whether it can be achieved under Section 2(2) of the 1972 Act. That remains to be seen. In part, it will depend on the outcome of the consultative process, on which we shall begin work as soon as we can. Clearly, in a matter as complicated as this it will take some time to achieve that.
I make it absolutely clear to all noble Lords that even if we do go forward with consultation and legislation to ensure that we obey the law the Government are determined to do everything at the intergovernmental conference to ensure not only that this decision is reversed to exclude the United Kingdom but that in future there is no risk of any other social engineering activity being imposed upon the United Kingdom.

Transfer of Crofting Estates (Scotland) Bill [H.L.]
4.49 p.m.
Second Reading debate resumed.
The Earl of Kintore: My Lords, I also thank the noble Earl for introducing this Bill so clearly. What is proposed is certainly a way forward for the crofting estates, but there can be no universal solution. Each area, possibly broken down as in Annex A of the Scottish Office consultation paper, will require its own solution. I note that if the Bill receives a Second Reading it will be committed to a Scottish Select Committee. That committee will be required, among other matters, to look into the viability of each transfer; the relationship of each crofter to the crofting trust and whether all crofters in an area will have to become members of the crofting trust. I see that at Assynt 130 of a potential 140 crofters are members of that trust. It would interesting to know the status of the other 10 crofters.
Crofters must be no worse off after transfer to a trust than they were before. It would be interesting to know what protection an individual crofter has if his trust fails for, say, financial reasons. Are the trusts to provide annual accounts for any period when they continue to receive financial support from the Scottish Office? Is there a time limit for the transfer? What is to happen if a whole area rather than an individual crofter does not want to be transferred into a trust? I imagine that the Secretary of State for Scotland is regarded as a pretty good landlord.
It is right that mineral rights follow the land that they are on or under, but as any mining would probably be opencast there would be a vast hole somewhere on the land, and noise and dust, before any great wealth was produced. Some sporting rights are probably under current leases which will need to be honoured or renegotiated but then should revert to the land they are on. Sporting rights, if properly managed, are a valuable asset. The Scottish Secretary at present receives almost half as much rent again from the sporting rights on 18 estates as he receives for the crofting lets on 55 estates.
The crofters in three townships on the Armadale estate in Sutherland are to pilot a government scheme to transfer state-owned crofting estates into community-led trusts to see whether the trusts can go it alone. I hope that they can. I hope that we give the Bill a Second Reading this evening.
4.53 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lindsay for his clear introduction of the Bill. The intentions in the Bill are highly commendable. I wish it well. I hope that it will lead to a substantial transfer of the Secretary of State's estate. I venture to speak (briefly) because I have been associated with some of the past proposals and changes in the crofting system. The most recent was the piloting

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through this House in 1991 of a Private Member's Bill which became the Crofter Forestry (Scotland) Act. It enabled crofters to plant and manage trees on their land.
My home is 10 miles from Inverness but is not in the crofting area of the Highlands. I would remind your Lordships that crofting tenure is unique and operates only in what were the crofting counties in the Highlands. In areas where land is not fertile or easy to cultivate, small communities can, and have for years, had their special arrangements. The crofters are usually engaged in more than one occupation, dividing their time between them. One man, for example, may be a part-time farmer, with a few sheep or cattle, and a part-time sea fisherman, probably fishing for lobsters, other crustaceans or shellfish with a small boat in one of the firths or sea inlets.
In recent years the crofter has also often offered tourist accommodation facilities and sold the products of local crafts and materials. As a versatile all-rounder, the crofter can make a living, though not a rich one, from land which would not support normal agriculture or the same number of people otherwise engaged.
Twenty five years ago, during the four years when I was Secretary of State for Scotland, I made what I think were the first moves in planning to transfer crofting land owned by the Government to the crofters themselves. I learnt that, as Secretary of State, I was the largest landowner (in area of land) in the whole of the UK. I was very ready to part with some of it in a manner which would be acceptable to all concerned and beneficial to the public interest. Of course, I must make it clear that in my private capacity I am only a small landowner in northern Scotland—the land around my home.
My recollection is that it was difficult to produce a scheme about which crofters' representatives felt happy. Crofting tenure had traditionally become familiar to them and ingrained in their way of life. They seemed to sense insecurity and uncertainty in any proposed major changes or in a new system. That is why I congratulate my noble friend Lord Lindsay and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr. Michael Forsyth.
What I was able to do in 1972 and 1973 was to reach general agreement on reforms to the crofting system. I introduced in the other place a Bill which had a Second Reading just before the February 1974 general election. At least one Scottish Labour MP, now a Liberal Democrat, made an intemperate, polemical speech, claiming that that Bill would be grossly damaging to the crofting communities. That surprised everyone, including his colleagues and the Scottish Office.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: Names!
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I shall spare his blushes, but it would be fairly easy to guess and Hansard can be looked up. He had to eat his words later when my successor, the late Lord Ross of Marnock, sensibly reintroduced the Bill unchanged. It went through Parliament with general support and became the
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Crofting Reform (Scotland) Act 1976. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, will remember that even before 1974 that Act was introduced as a Bill by me from the Conservative Front Bench in the other place.
I should like to make a comment or two about some strange and, at times misleading, terms used in crofting tenure. For example, there is "congested areas". They are not congested in the modern understanding of that word, in very underpopulated areas. There is then the word "township". That can mislead. A township may be no more than half a dozen scattered habitations and their simple farm buildings.
I applaud what the Government propose. I support the Bill, subject to safeguards, to some of which the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, referred. I applaud also the fact that the crofters' representatives seem prepared to consider the proposals. I understand fully their past reluctance and hesitation. Their families have been used to the system of crofting tenure for generations. They include a number of Campbells—fellow clansmen. I urge them to consider positively the advantages and responsibilities of the ownership now on offer, and to take up the chance of having more of a stake in the land upon which they and their families have lived and worked for countless years.
5 p.m.
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend the Minister in moving the Second Reading of the Bill. I strongly approve of the Select Committee procedure that is to follow; I believe that it is the right procedure for this Bill.
The measure is an important initiative on the part of the Government and follows much debate on the subject, particularly in recent years when the Government have sought views on devolving to the crofters themselves through trusts or any other suitable arrangements their own lands which are at present held by the Secretary of State for Scotland.
In the late 1980s I was involved in many discussions on the subject, particularly with the Scottish Crofters Union. At that time a discussion paper was produced relating to the experiment of moving the Skye and Raasay estates from the powers of the Secretary of State into the hands of the crofters. Sadly, that did not meet with crofter approval. I am glad to see that times have moved on and those land holdings in the crofting counties are now the subject of the Bill. They are very extensive.
The Secretary of State is the biggest landlord in the crofting counties by a long way. I must say straight away that their administration by the Scottish Agriculture Department has been exemplary. Nevertheless, if one studies the extent of this land holding it is right to bring about now true devolution and see these estates owned and run by those who live and work in Skye or Harris, in Barra or Caithness. The crofters themselves must take the responsibility, and I believe that they are now able and willing so to do.
The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, made an important point when he asked for details of profitability of the estates. The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, indicated that

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different solutions for different estates was the right way to go about it. My recollection is that, as economic units, the estates vary tremendously. The key to success must be to treat each individual estate on its merits. It is absolutely vital that on transfer nothing should stand in the way of the new bodies achieving the best results for an estate. This means that in no way should rights—be they sporting, fishing or mineral—be withheld from incoming crofter trusts unless a very special case is made.
In commenting on the remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, about passing on an estate—that is, getting a quick buck for the selling of an estate—I am sure that that must be covered by Clause 2(1)(b). If it is not, it certainly should be.
I do not wish to be unkind to the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, or to his party, but Dr. Jim Hunter, the expert in crofting affairs, in his book The Making of the Crofting Community published in 1976, was not all that complimentary about Labour Governments of the 20th century and their failure to deal with issues such as the one we are debating today. Perhaps I may remind the noble Lord that there is all the difference in the world between a willing seller and confiscation. I am content that this Conservative administration is bringing forward this Bill today.
For a moment I should like to look at the scene now and the importance of understanding the real world of living in the crofting counties. It is not an easy life. If through BSE or some other agricultural crisis mainland Scotland or England catches a cold, crofting communities get flu or worse. If some environmental policy is pursued in the United Kingdom in general, we have to beware of its effects on the crofting counties. Brigadoon was a theatrical performance; it is not what I and many others want to see for the crofting communities. The new Scottish Environmental Protection Agency and Scottish Natural Heritage must be aware of the fragile balance that must be struck to enable the quality of life there to be really worth while—hence, I believe, the demise of the Nature Conservancy Council in Scotland.
To sum up, no crofting legislation was ever easy. But that does not mean that we should not act. There is a desire, particularly among the younger generation, to move to owner occupation. Yes, there will be different solutions, but I now see how crofters, through these new arrangements, can provide the security which banks require. It will thus do something to give them the initiative which is denied them by being solely crofting tenants. If this Bill helps to achieve the goal of owner occupation, I for one will be delighted.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, with the leave of the House, perhaps I may ask my noble friend a question. I should be grateful if he would reply in winding up the debate. The Long Title refers to the Secretary of State disposing,
"of his crofting estates and certain other property of his in the crofting counties".
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Clause 1(3)(c) appears to include non-crofting property. Will my noble friend clarify why it is appropriate for the Bill to refer to non-crofting property when its purpose is to dispose of land to a body representative of the crofting community with an interest in the land?
That question has been put to me, and may have been put to other noble Lords, by the Law Society of Scotland and it would be helpful if at this stage my noble friend could clarify the point.
5.6 p.m.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, the Bill has already been welcomed from these Benches and continues to be so. There is no doubt that it has caused a great deal of insecurity among the Secretary of State's crofting and other tenants. That was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, and I wish to reflect upon it.
It is unusual that a landlord should want to divest himself of estates, particularly without prompting from his tenants or other purchasers. The laird wants out and the tenants do not believe that they have done anything wrong to deserve it. My analogy goes on. During the Clearances the crofters became an endangered species. The Napier Commission led to their becoming protected species. Now the Secretary of State is preparing to release them back into the wild. As the Secretary of State has been a popular, kindly and not too pro-active laird, his tenants are surprised by his new found boldness and concerned about how all this will work out. Certainly, their rights as crofting tenants will be maintained and protected but the estate management, whether within local crofting trusts or perhaps a pan-Highland trust, will have a substantially reduced income by comparison with that of the Secretary of State.
The likelihood of long-term success—and, indeed, the likelihood of a successful transfer of these lands—will depend upon the willingness of the Secretary of State and the Treasury to transfer not just the croft land and the other lands mentioned but also the assets of the sporting, mineral and foreshore rights, and then to show a further willingness to retain or to transfer elsewhere the burdens upon the estates. Public road bridges and coastal erosion work could be retained. Drainage and march fencing could be invested in before transfer. A commitment to sort out all outstanding estate problems prior to transfer would be beneficial.
While debating the principle of the Bill, it must be recognised that the measure is designed to save a considerable amount of taxpayers' money. It fits into an agenda of privatisation and, concurrently, into an agenda of devolving the ownership of land to local level. I suspect that after a protracted period of supporting start-up costs for trusts and the associated fees it will show a reduction in government expenditure. But is it really helpful? No one pretends that crofting constitutes the highest level of UK farm production, but probably it is not meant to. It has become a population measure—part of the policy to keep the remoter parts of Scotland inhabited—and in consequence of its part-time nature always looking for something extra to do. Certainly,

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croft incomes rely heavily on the auxiliary occupations permitted by the crofting Acts and on part-time jobs secured locally.
I should like to ask about the complete inventory of the Secretary of State's estate. While the Bill is specific about the croft land held under the 1993 Act and about the fishermen's dwellings and holdings held under the 1897 Act, it is not clear what is the extent of the lands referred to under Clause 1(3)(c). The noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, has already mentioned the matter. I presume that some of the land was acquired under the 1919 Act. I wonder whether there is any other land which may have been acquired by the MoD, the old Post Office and other central government agencies. I hope that the noble Earl can tell us about them, if they exist, as they may hold the key to the successful funding of local or pan-Highland trusts.
It is ironic, when reading Section 1 of the Land Settlement (Scotland) Act 1919, to think of apoplectic landowners learning to live with the words,
"with the consent of the Secretary for Scotland and the Treasury, land may be compulsorily acquired by the Board of Agriculture for Scotland".
Today's Bill is not phrased in those terms but it reverses the thrust of the 1919 Act. I suppose that I should ask whether the Secretary of State retains any land outwith the seven crofting counties and, if so, whether he has any plans for that land.
The existing crofting trusts of Assynt, Borve and Annishader may act as lighthouses in this storm. Comparisons of their viability with the other estates will be useful. We must recognise the difficulty in the leadership of a crofting trust being mainly in volunteer time. The income of a local crofting trust is unlikely to support anything other than expenses unless there are hidden assets or special management grants planned for those trusts.
I should also like to ask about the nature of the bodies to which those estates may be transferred. The Bill reads quite tightly in Clause 2 but I ask how much dilution of the criteria will be allowed, particularly if commendable bodies are not forthcoming? What happens in the event of no body coming forward? The speed of transfer is a question which is causing mild panic in the form of the question, "Who will come in as laird if a local crofting trust does not emerge immediately?" I look forward to reassurance that it will be a long-term process and that agencies such as the Crofting Trusts Advisory Service and the Scottish Crofters Union will be allowed time to do the necessary development work, with willing rather than panicking volunteers. I hope that the noble Earl can confirm that this matter will be approached in a manner likely to be sustainable. The failure of a crofting trust due to over-hasty establishment will be quite counter-productive.
In conclusion, my financial appraisal is that the Secretary of State will save £200,000 a year eventually and that the new landowning bodies will generally have inadequate income to invest in and develop their estates. My economic appraisal is that a few estates will do well due to inherent assets currently under-exploited but that most will be struggling. I believe also that there will be an increase in owner-occupation of crofts.
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My social appraisal is that local leadership will emerge where there is a good chance of some real benefit but that most estates will have no "interesting project" for volunteer managers to develop on an altruistic basis. Where owner-occupation increases, so the sense of community will decrease. Conversely, where positive leadership emerges, the benefit of increased community participation may be forthcoming. As the demand for crofting property and tenancies is already high, few extra people will be attracted to the more remote areas. I am sure that the noble Earl has the answer to all those points. I look forward to hearing from him.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Macaulay of Bragar: My Lords, I was told that this was a very simple Bill and that there would be no problems. I asked a Member from the other side of your Lordships' House whether he was coming in to debate this Bill and he said, "No, it is quite a simple Bill". Having listened to the contributions of noble Lords, it is quite clear that the Bill is a legal minefield.
Crofting is simple. Perhaps I may ask one question: what is a croft? Nobody seems to tell us what a croft is within the terms of the Bill. It talks about "crofting communities" and "crofting" this and "crofting" that. A croft is something which belongs to a family and has belonged to it over many years. Over the years, the croft passes as a piece of land which belongs to the oldest son of the family. That has never changed over the years.
What is this Bill trying to do? It is the Transfer of Crofting Estates (Scotland) Bill. I have no doubt that if the Secretary of State fell over a croft, he would not recognise it. What is a croft?
I know from experience that when a European grant was given to the outer islands and the islanders had to produce a programme to justify the European input, I saw places where people were out hammering in fences to enclose nothing and that was called a croft. They were doing that because they were getting a gift from the European Community.
In terms of this Bill, we must look at where we are going in relation to crofting because there are no cows and very few sheep in the islands and I presume that the object of this Bill is to establish some sort of community behind the crofting counties. Indeed, the Long Title of the Bill states that it is:
"An Act to enable the Secretary of State to dispose of his crofting estates and certain other property of his in the crofting counties to approved crofting bodies".
We have heard various contributions from Members of your Lordships' House and I have no doubt that they will be taken into account in due course. I do not intend to go through them at all. But this is not a simple Bill. I believe that the Members of the Select Committee are to go to Inverness and Skye, but that may not be right. However, I give notice to your Lordships that in Committee we shall have quite a fight about this Bill. At this stage, I merely thank those noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. We cannot talk sensibly about the Bill until we have been to see what a croft is, and in Committee we shall be able to discuss the whole

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matter in depth. On this side of the House we accept the Bill in principle, but we shall await its later stages to examine the various qualities of the legislation.
5.20 p.m.
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, we have had a most interesting and constructive debate. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part for the positive approach that they have taken and, indeed, for the welcome they have given to the general principles of the Bill. I also welcome the fact that this House will be able to apply its close and expert scrutiny not only within the Chamber itself but also through the evidence-taking in Scotland. The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, my noble friend Lord Sanderson, and other speakers have welcomed the fact that we shall be in the right part of Scotland. We shall be in one of the crofting counties, taking evidence from those crofters and crofting organisations who want to submit evidence. That can only help the general scrutiny and enhance any of the improvements which may be engineered into the Bill.
I shall address some of the concerns that have been expressed and see to what extent I can reassure those noble Lords who have raised queries. The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, mocked the amount of time that it has taken to get to the point where we now find ourselves. However, I believe that the contributions from my noble friends Lord Campbell of Croy and Lord Sanderson indicate just how far Scottish Office Ministers of all parties have worked over the years to bring forward reforms relevant to the Secretary of State's crofting estates. The pace of progress may have disappointed some. That has rarely been because Ministers were not enthusiastic to press ahead; it has been the need for consensus with the crofters which has been the vital determinant of the speed that has been set.
We especially welcome the Second Reading of this Bill because it indicates the extent to which consultation has begun to build consensus around the general principles which lie behind the Bill. Only a lawyer would call the Bill a legal minefield. To a lawyer, a legal minefield is, of course, a dream. Therefore, I was not surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Macaulay, rush to give the Bill such a label. No doubt his profession will be looking forward, if his description is true, to a vastly more prosperous future. I do not believe that there is any justice in that remark whatever.
A better analysis was given by the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, and other noble Lords when they described the challenge which the Bill addresses full in the face. We cannot achieve a single blueprint—nor should we try to—through the Bill. We are seeking to address circumstances which differ from township to township, from district to district and from estate to estate. The Bill will enable a mechanism to be sensitive to those varying circumstances. I, for one, can assure the House that we are not setting out to devise a legal minefield. I hope that that does not come as a disappointment to the noble Lord, Lord Macaulay.
Various general points have been made with which I shall deal before addressing the exact text that has attracted attention. The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, was
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perhaps disappointed that the powers vested in the Bill only relate to the Secretary of State. I remind the noble Lord that all crofters already have the right to buy. Therefore, they already have the right to exercise voluntarily a change over their own land tenure status. I also remind the noble Lord that there are private landlords who have worked with their crofting communities to allow them either to buy or simply to take, at no consideration at all, the freehold of their own areas. In addition, the local rural partnerships, of which the noble Lord is aware, are part of another initiative we have in those areas which is available to crofters and which can deliver a level of enhanced opportunity. It should always be pointed out—I am sure all noble Lords are aware of this—that not all crofters are anxious to take on or to seize their own freeholds. Indeed, some are most content with the status quo. We fully respect that fact.
The contribution made by my noble fried Lord Campbell of Croy was especially important because of his involvement over the years in crofting legislation. My noble friend described the energies that he put into the crofters' forestry Act in this House. I was delighted that my noble friend drew attention to that fact, because I was involved last year in the launch of one of the initiatives which that Act enabled with crofters on Lewis. The Act has led to an interesting range of opportunities for crofters working with forestry. The efforts which were made in the 1970s, first, by my noble friend and then by the party opposite, helped bring forward improvements at that time. However, we now realise that we must go much further.
As regards Clause 1, my noble friend Lady Carnegy and the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, queried the reference to other properties and other lands. I remind them of the reference I made in my opening remarks to those non-crofting holdings of the Secretary of State which have come about through various land holdings Acts. They are managed in a similar way to crofting estates and can, in many ways, be treated in a similar fashion to crofting holdings. As I said, the land in question was acquired under the various land holdings Acts. In a sense, it is only historical accident that it is not, strictly speaking, labelled as crofting land. Therefore, we believe that it makes sense to have the necessary power to transfer those lands to community trusts or to crofting trusts. I mentioned specifically the fishermen's holdings in Lewis. In addition, I mentioned the other small areas of grazing which are connected with townships or communities but which may not have earned the label of "crofting grazing".
The noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, asked about land outside crofting counties which belongs to the Secretary of State. Those holdings were acquired under the same land holdings Acts. Most have already been sold to sitting tenants. The rest are available for sale at discounted prices to those sitting tenants if they wish to purchase.
Clause 1 also deals with the sporting and mineral rights. The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, and other speakers alluded to that part of the Bill. The noble Viscount is correct to say that the flexibility available with regard to the disposal of rights would allow the

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Secretary of State to be fair to all parties in dealing with sporting rights and other rights, such as mineral rights. It would enable circumstances, such as those which relate to Strathy Point, to be carefully considered. There is no wisdom or sense in imposing a single solution on all such differing rights across the various estates. Each will be dealt with according to the circumstances of the case in which it arises.
The most interesting part of our debate revolved around Clause 2. I echo what the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, said about the importance of the work that is done in fashioning the trusts that come forward and about how important it is that they should have a real prospect of achieving viability. Much advice has already been taken and advice remains available to all such townships, all crofters and all districts through the Crofting Trusts Advisory Service. The crofters who have approached the service have, I believe, considered matters most carefully. The CTAS allows potential trusts to gain advice from the best experts available, including those, for example, who were involved in the Assynt project. Therefore, just to take one example, both experience and formal advice are available through the CTAS.
The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, posed the interesting point about whether a specific level of local support should be demonstrated or proven before a transfer can take place. As with all other aspects of the detail of transfers, we want to retain flexibility for the sake of the crofters themselves as much as for anyone else. We do not feel it right that a specific percentage—be it 51 per cent. or 75 per cent.—should be laid down on the face of the legislation. It is better that the Crofters Commission studies an application put forward by any group, and that the Secretary of State then has the power to consider both the evidence that has been provided with the application and the advice of the Crofters Commission. He should then be able to make a judgment as to whether or not the interests of the crofters concerned will be best represented by a transfer to a particular trust. We see no merit—and we do not consider that there would be any incentive—in forcing trusts on to unwilling crofters. We believe that the power to object about a proposal to the Crofters Commission and the Secretary of State will enable the Secretary of State and the commission to take fully into consideration the feelings of those who consider that a proposal will not properly represent the interests of those involved.
The noble Earl, Lord Kintore, asked about the fate of a crofter in a crofting area which elects to become a trust who does not want to be a member of the trust. We believe that individual crofters cannot simply opt out, but they can always elect to buy their crofting freeholds. Therefore they have other options available to them if, for instance, they are unhappy with a change of landlord from the Secretary of State to a crofting trust. In a sense that matter relates to a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sewel. We would happily leave such matters to be finalised on a case by case basis by the Crofters Commission and the Secretary of State when he exercises his judgment.
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The noble Earls, Lord Mar and Kellie and Lord Kintore, also asked if there was a time limit on transfers. That is not the case. Once this Bill becomes an Act a transfer will be able to take place at any time. A number of years may pass before a group of crofters decides on their application. They will receive help on establishment, as I made clear in my opening remarks. Certainly we do not seek to hurry them nor do we seek to force them down this route. The noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, asked what would happen if no trust came forward. As I have said, there is no compulsion on crofters on the estates of the Secretary of State to opt for trust status. They may continue as they were hitherto.
The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, suggested that the Secretary of State had been a reluctant landlord and that the crofters may have been reluctant tenants. That is not so in either case. It is because the Secretary of State has been a good landlord that efforts to empower crofters on his estates in the past have come to nought. The Secretary of State supports crofting both within and beyond his estates with a range of initiatives and a range of grant schemes. The extent of that support is hardly indicative of reluctance on his part as a landlord. I believe it was my noble friend Lord Sanderson who said that the Secretary of State had in general been a good landlord. I refer, of course, to successive Secretaries of State.
I believe my noble friend Lord Sanderson also referred to the interesting point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, as regards what would happen if trusts proceeded to sell off the assets that they had gained through taking over the freehold from the Secretary of State. Essentially that would be a matter for the trusts themselves. Trusts will no doubt consider carefully the effect of selling or leasing land. The loss of land will need to be weighed against the possible benefits, for example the benefits of providing a source of money to undertake development projects in the interests of a local community, or to create new employment prospects for that local community. However, crofting legislation provides protection for the crofting interest as the land remains in crofting tenure unless the landowner—in this case that is the trust itself—successfully applies to the Scottish Land Court to have it resumed. That is an important safety net. In considering applications for resumption, the Scottish Land Court must be persuaded that the resumption is required for some reasonable purpose in relation to the good of a particular croft, the estate as a whole, or the public interest. There is already in existence a strong counterbalance which may well be sufficient to prevent foolish development being pursued.
The noble Earl, Lord Kintore, and the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, both asked about the circumstances which would ensue if a trust became bankrupt. First, we do not expect that to be a problem, certainly not immediately, because we and the Crofters Commission will seek to ensure that a proposed trust has a sound financial base before any land is transferred. We are not in the business of seeking to sell dodgy goods on the doorstep. We are anxious that any crofting community that seeks to exploit the opportunities of this legislation does so on the basis that the proposed trust

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will be a viable trust. We and other advisers would seek to dissuade a community from pursuing a proposal which does not appear to be financially viable.
The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, was interested in the imbalance that he perceived between rights, such as sporting rights and mineral rights, which may be transferred and burdens, such as the maintenance of the fabric of certain estates, that will be transferred. The conditions of transfer of trusts and the transfer of rights and burdens will be negotiated and agreed in each individual instance. We have made clear that we wish to ensure that trusts are able to take advantage of the sources of income that are relevant to those areas. Similarly, in negotiating or agreeing a trust, we would not wish to impose burdens on any trust which would render it less than viable, or bankrupt, from the very start. We have given assurance after assurance that we do not want to see a trust becoming established and then heading straight for financial ruin. That is not the purpose of this policy. Each case will be considered individually and we hope that will ensure that viability will ensue.
I believe it was the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, who asked about the costs that might arise from a claimant seeking compensation in the Scottish Land Court against the Secretary of State on, for example, the rights of pre-emption. I remind the noble Viscount that the Scottish Land Court has the power to award costs as it sees fit. In addition, as the noble Viscount knows, the Scottish Land Court is a low cost route to justice. Therefore I hope that the concern the noble Viscount may have on that matter will not be realised. The noble Viscount also asked about specific expenses accruing to the Secretary of State against the income of these estates. In general terms the Secretary of State's crofting estate costs something in excess of £200,000 per annum to maintain. There is a total expenditure of around £370,000 per annum and a total income of approximately £165,000 per annum.
As my noble friend Lord Sanderson stressed, the best way to approach the initiative is to see the estate broken down into separate townships or districts and to treat the viability of those townships or districts individually. That is the viability that we shall seek; it is the viability that the trusts will seek.
The noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, said that one of the objectives is to save a considerable amount of taxpayers' money. The noble Earl is absolutely wrong. First, we are not saving a considerable sum of taxpayers' money. The funds required to help the trust become established will outweigh any savings in the early years. Secondly, public expenditure being what it is, a net cost of £200,000 is not a sufficient sum on which to build a policy to achieve substantial savings.
I hope that the concerns expressed have been met by some of the reassurances that I have given. I hope that the thinking underlying the Bill is somewhat clearer to those noble Lords who were uncertain prior to Second Reading. Following the debate, I shall make available notes on clauses. They will give further clarification on the details of the Bill. I look forward to the discussions that we shall have in Scotland, on taking
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evidence, and in the House through the various stages of the Bill, in clarifying what will be best for the crofters. We wish to give the Scottish Office's crofting tenants an opportunity to take advantage of the benefits which ownership of land can bring. The Bill is designed to achieve that.
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time.
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be committed to a Scottish Select Committee.
Moved, That the Bill be committed to a Scottish Select Committee.—(The Earl of Lindsay.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Moral Education
5.42 p.m.
The Earl of Longford The Earl of Longford rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for moral education in schools.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I have put down this Question as a small contribution to the historic initiative which the right reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury launched in this House in July of this year. Since then a good deal has happened, as we all know. There have been other admirable initiatives. I have in mind the hour long speech of the Leader of the Labour Party at the party conference; the manifesto of the noble widow of the murdered headmaster; and the document produced by the Catholic Bishops. Recently, the Prime Minister explained in the most unmistakable way that he is and always has been a lifelong Christian.
Bearing in mind that last point, I hope and believe that when the noble Lord, Lord Henley, replies he will be happy to inform us that in the view of the Government Christianity must play a leading part in the attempt to improve or even maintain the moral life of this country and of our children in particular. The noble Lord will find himself in good Christian company. I notice that a number of Christians are to follow me in speaking in the debate. They are all better Christians than myself, I am sure; I should be sorry to hear that they were not. We shall hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Young, the right reverend Prelate and what Winston Churchill would call other paradigms. On this side of the House we have the noble Lord, Lord Morris, who possesses perhaps the clearest and certainly the loudest voice in favour of Christianity in this House. I am sure that the noble Lord will be happy to lead such a concourse forward.
The noble Lord is as aware as I am that this is a country in which the vast, overwhelming majority of people when asked state that they are Christian. We have been told recently by one of our most admired humanists that 10 per cent. of the population do not believe in any religion. I have remarked previously, upon expert information, that 3.7 per cent. of the population belong to other religions. Good luck to them,

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of course, my Lords. But the fact is that this is an overwhelmingly Christian country. When the noble Lord, Lord Henley, replies, I am sure that he will speak in a way which expresses that most capably.
We shall all have to speak in a hurry and rather dogmatically in the few minutes allowed. I turn to the report of the moral forum. I find myself in some difficulty. I admire the purpose underlying the forum. I admire the chairman, a very good Christian as I well know; and I am sure that there are many other Christians in that forum. However, when all is said and done, the forum has failed to give any clear moral lead. It has failed to pay any attention to Christianity or even to religious values. So I am bound to say that if I were seeking to bring up children on the basis of the Gospels or of the moral forum I should not choose the moral forum. I should much prefer the Gospels.
Let us take one aspect of the forum. Out of those 150 people, only five supported an amendment which would have stressed the need for family values and successful marriage. In a rather patronising conclusion in the report, the majority states that while not necessarily dissenting it cannot see its way at the moment to come out clearly on behalf of the family and marriage.
I must speak rather more plainly than the bold spirits who supported the amendment. Even the supporters of the amendment do not refer to fidelity in marriage, although that is clearly implied in the amendment. However, I shall be even more outspoken and say that the great enemy of a successful marriage and of good family life is adultery. Adultery has become almost an obscene word. It is almost pornographic to mention adultery. It is like homosexuality—the sin that cannot give its name. But I am bound to say plainly—it is well known to all Christians present—that adultery is, and always has been, one of the cardinal sins not only in Christian but Jewish ethics. Unless our political and religious leaders denounce adultery more boldly than hitherto, we shall not make much moral progress.
I am bound to face the fact—it may have worried the majority of the forum—that if you tell children that adultery is wrong you may receive the answer, "But that is just what my parents are up to". And there it is. In this day and age it is no good pretending that that is not a great difficulty. But if one succumbs to that point of view, one has to say that one will never make the children better than their parents. In other words, the hope of a moral renewal becomes nonsensical.
I say these things easily enough as an elderly Back-Bencher. I know that it is harder for people in responsible positions—rulers and political or religious representatives. They have to consider the amount of popular support that can be obtained at any specific moment. It is tempting for them to seek a consensus which is the lowest common denominator to which everyone can agree, and then to go along with it. That is what the moral forum seemed to do. But at its best this House has risen above that consideration. At its best this House has been ready to give a moral lead to the nation—not only in finding a consensus, but in leading it. I hope and believe that this House will do that very thing tonight.
5.50 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I too, thank the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for introducing this short debate. As he said, it is both important and topical. When he asked me quite particularly to take part, I told him how glad I was to do so. Often in recent years he and I have stood, as it were, shoulder to shoulder on some of these issues on public platforms. I have greatly admired the stand that he has taken on moral issues during the period I have known him in this House. I think back particularly to the great debates on pornography some 25 years ago. The noble Earl's courage in these matters is very great. His is a very good example of the value of the work of an hereditary Peer.
In introducing this debate we must make it quite clear that there are no short answers to the very big questions that are raised and that it will take years before we can reverse the current climate of opinion on relative values into something more substantial. However, that does not mean that we should not try to formulate a set of principles by which we should all live. That is what we are talking about. It is not that we all live up to them every minute of our lives—as Christians, we all know that we fall, and fail to live up to the standards that we should like to achieve—but we need those standards set out before us.
In this debate we have before us the SCAA consultation document. I accept immediately that it is not a statement of government policy. It is, however, a necessary subject for debate. Before turning to the document, I should like to comment on the extraordinary event of the two minutes silence yesterday. That, after all, was a moral statement. It was accepted by some 80 per cent. of the population. Particularly impressive were the numbers of young people who took part. I asked myself why that was so. I believe that the young people took the example from their elders, who told them what it was about, and also learnt what it was about through the national curriculum, which now includes teaching on the First and Second World Wars. That tells us something about how we should proceed on the issue before us.
What is eventually included in the SCAA document is important. It will become part of the national curriculum, and once that happens it must be taught. It would be helpful if my noble friend the Minister would tell us in his reply whether some such document is to be included in regulations.
It is quite helpful to read the background notes before turning to the document itself. The findings are that there is much good practice. It seems a pity that we have not had some examples so that we may know what is meant by good practice. Secondly, it indicates that a clear statement of values has been agreed and that the forum expects all members of the community to live by those values. How important that is in schools. Whatever is agreed should be agreed by teachers, by governors, by the local education authority and, it is to be hoped, by parents as well if we wish to achieve anything at all.

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That said, I am inclined to agree with the noble Earl, Lord Longford, that the document is incredibly anodyne and, I should have thought, most unhelpful to children. I was astonished, for example, to see, at the end of the set of values relating to society:
"make truth and integrity priorities in public life".
That may be true, but surely we make them priorities in the home and in the whole of our life. We do not decide to keep to the truth on Tuesday morning. I find that an extraordinary statement.
To explain why I believe the report is anodyne, I turn to three moral issues which confront all schoolchildren and on which I believe we would all agree. Bullying is one. Everybody believes that it is wrong and a lot of schools manage to eliminate it altogether. Cheating is another. We all agree that that is wrong. Given that so much course work for GCSE and A-levels is now internally assessed, cheating is a very serious matter. Stealing is another such issue. It is wrong to help yourself to somebody else's sweets. These are common issues faced by children. I am simply at a loss to understand why the document cannot state what we think about such matters.
Leaving all that aside, I was very pleased indeed that my right honourable friend Mrs. Shephard called for the need to rethink the point about leaving out marriage altogether. I find the omission quite astonishing at this particular time. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has set up his interdepartmental working party on marriage; he is intending to give money to support marriage or organisations that promote marriage. We have just had endless debates in this House on the Family Law Bill; everybody agreed that marriage was the most important matter. All the evidence goes to show that children require two parents, particularly fathers, who are so often absent now, and that one of the major causes of the breakdown of law and order is the fact that so many children are growing up without families and where there is not a stable two-parent relationship. I cannot see why we should not state that marriage is the right outcome; that it is not the same as cohabitation in any form. Although it is not at all politically correct to say so, I believe it is wrong for single women deliberately to have babies. To bring a baby into the world without a father is a very wrong thing to do. The child will suffer all its days. (Of course, some single mothers manage well).
There are many positive points to be stated and on which we can agree. We very much look forward to hearing the remarks of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield. I see that there were Ministers on the working party. I am bound to say that I am slightly surprised that they do not seem to have put in a minority report.
There are people who are anxious to help. I draw my noble friend's attention to the work of Sister Judith Russi, who produced a very interesting document on how moral education might be taken right across the curriculum. I am unable to describe the document in the limited time available to me. This is an important issue. I hope that the debate will be a major contribution to the discussion on the SCAA document.
5.58 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Lichfield: My Lords, those of us who live close to communities where the question of moral education is a very live issue would like to remind the House that moral education cannot be easily or completely separated from wider questions beyond the classroom. I trust that whatever plans are in hand to take serious account of moral education will not ignore those wider issues.
The Midlands diocese where I serve has over 20,000 children in its Church schools. Very many of those children live in areas where families are experiencing second or third generation unemployment. That must have a very adverse effect on the motivation of families and children to commit themselves to education. My diocese funds truancy workers to bring young people back into education as such, let alone moral education.
The question therefore of the future of employment in the large post-industrial communities of the West Midlands cannot be separated from that of moral education. When people, especially in former industrial areas, no longer go to work together, an important social glue is lost. That must have significance for the matter before us. Noble Lords should not misunderstand me. I believe that there remains on each family and on individuals living in such communities the responsibility to choose. The moral responsibility to choose is still there but regard must be paid to the context and the weekly and yearly pressure of the context.
A second point arises out of this Unstarred Question. There is a significant number of disturbed children in many of the classes of our church schools. Many classes are too large for the teachers to be able to cope with the excellent emphasis placed by the Government on higher standards in basic skills and the need to pay special attention to children to whom the question of moral education is especially applicable. I welcome the emphasis on higher standards in basic skills but I know more than one teacher who, in a too large class, is torn between trying to teach a child to read and disciplining and bringing some appropriate relational moral influence to bear on a disturbed child. I trust that those making plans for moral education are aware of those two wider factors.
I should like to mention a third point. If we are to include specific moral education in schools, I plead that the moral education lessons should be related to the other subjects in a syllabus. The Archbishop of Canterbury pleaded against the "ghetto-ising" of the subject. He pleaded that moral education should be related to the teaching of history and the sciences and not be hived off on its own.
The noble Baroness mentioned the importance of moral development being caught as well as taught. That is particularly clear in a school community—a primary school or a secondary school. I adduce as an example of good practice one of our priests who works in an area of the West Midlands where employment has fallen from 20,000 to 1,000. When he went as a new teacher to the primary school, one of the topics he had to address with staff was: is rudeness, courtesy or truth

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speaking? That school has improved its moral and academic performance because it has seen community as a very important agent in moral education.
Finally, I want to touch lightly but with great feeling and emphasis on the question of the relationship between moral values and religious belief. I do not wish to over-state or over-clarify this very complex relationship. All of us know people of admirable moral force who are agnostic. Let us never forget that. The other night I saw at a theatre very near to this House "Uncle Vanya", a play by Chekhov, who was a humanist agnostic of enormous nobility and courage. I noticed that the moment of greatest attention by the audience was when, in the very closing lines of the play, a heroine draws attention to such things as faith, reconciliation and rest.
In 1988 your Lordships' House was very concerned to bring worship into the whole area of the moral and educational development of children. The Archbishop of Canterbury has therefore invited SCAA to include in its discussions the vital relationship between worship and moral education.
I conclude with a quotation from the Psalms. The psalmist writes:
"Thy statutes [of morality and law] become songs in the house of my pilgrimage".
In other words, worship can make moral education joyful and interesting. I wonder if the reason why people have not taken part in the forum is because we make this subject so boring. True religious belief, deeply wedded to moral behaviour, makes the subject fun. May the Lord preserve us from making the great, rich, human question of how to live boring. One way to ensure that we do not is to link it with the great mysteries of prayer and worship.
6.5 p.m.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I too should like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for reminding us in his inimitable way of the responsibility we all have to give guidance and support to schools in this all-important area.
I speak as a Christian, but I hope that the noble Earl and my noble friend Lady Young will forgive me if I take a rather different line to that which they have taken. Of course the problem of how to develop young people's moral sense is not new. It has always been about older people handing on values to younger people. Centuries ago the Chinese had a saying:
"Handsome boy—O for a thread to haul you over to my side!".
It has never been easy, but in this country it is probably more difficult now than it has ever been for teachers in our state schools—notably those that are not Church schools—to know what the nation expects of them, let alone how to meet the expectations.
In our multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society our structures of law and parliamentary thinking continue to reflect Christian assumptions. Of course they do. We have heard some of those assumptions in the speeches so far. Yet children come from families adhering to a variety of religions or no religion at all. While most
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parents do their best to teach their children moral values at home according to their lights, too many stand back from involvement in what the school is doing.
Given this scene, how should schools proceed in practice? Having read some of the material so far published, it seems to me that the two responsible bodies, the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority, which speaks by way of the moral forum to which the noble Earl referred, and the Scottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum, are very much on the right lines. Their ideas are realistic and practical and do not conflict with the aspirations of those who have spoken so far. Both bodies propose to produce material to help schools—pupils, staff, parents and governing bodies, as groups and collectively—to agree a list of values which everyone in the school can share, which all, whatever their home background and religious beliefs, consider important, so that those things can be put at the heart of what the school is about. Such a list might include, for example, such things as—my noble friend Lady Young mentioned some of them—truthfulness, honesty, keeping the law, fairness, respect for others, loyalty, family life as where one receives love and support, and respect for the environment.
It is proposed that there would also be material to help the school go on from this to think through how in practice those values which everybody shares could be put into practice in the school: how people would behave towards one another—bullying, of course, is part of that; how they would treat visitors to the school; school dress; school rules; sanctions; and how teachers can link those values across the formal curriculum. My experience not just of how successful schools in practice handle these issues but also of similar work in the past in the multi-cultural and international guide movement makes me feel that the approach which is proposed is realistic and will work.
The secret is twofold. First, it lies in agreeing values which everyone understands and shares. For that purpose there is no need to find agreement on the source of those values from an individual's point of view. Some will believe that the values come from God, from the Bible or from the Koran; others that they originate in the human mind or wherever. The right reverend Prelate made the distinction that one can share values without having to share the source of those values. He made that point using other words—the linking of shared values with individuals, families and religious beliefs. Their views on marriage and on abortion or whatever it may be are extremely important. But they can be dealt with additionally. It does not mean that they have to be separate in people's minds. But they are not the shared values of schools because people are not in a position to share them.
The other part of the secret of the proposals is that a moral sense, a sense of right and wrong behaviour, is indeed caught and not taught. Everyone taking part in deciding what they want the climate of the school to be and then collectively trying to achieve that climate is far more likely to work than all the lectures, assemblies and high minded discussions that may take place in the school or in Parliament.

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It has been said that the quality and training of head teachers is the most important of all. Of course it is, together with the training of staff. When last we legislated, the Association of Head Teachers warned that the somewhat airy-fairy aspirations of Parliament in that area would be very difficult to achieve in many schools.
I hope that this approach and training in this approach will be put at the disposal of those head teachers and their staff. They deserve no less, and I believe it will work for them.
6.12 p.m.
Lord Birkett: My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Earl for introducing this subject, which he framed as a very deliberate question to the Government; namely, what plans do they have for moral education? I hope that the Government will encourage a constant debate on morals in every part of schools and in every subject.
I took a great deal of comfort from the right reverend Prelate's remarks. There is a moral dimension to almost every subject that one can think of, certainly in the sciences, the arts and in politics; nowadays too in sport and in business. History is as much a history of moral debate on an international or national scale as it is about anything else. Nowadays, geography and natural history have a huge moral element attached to them because of our concern for the environment.
If that sounds like a list of GCSE subjects or a list of career opportunities, it is not an accident. I believe that unless the morality of our behaviour is argued in all those forums, we miss the point of moral education.
I hope the Government will not introduce an inflexible and fixed code or charter, mostly because I do not believe that it is possible but also because I believe very strongly in the famous dictum of Francis Bacon: If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
Despite everything that the noble Earl said about marriage and what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, which is absolutely incontrovertible, about bullying, stealing and cheating, I do not believe that from any religion or any social chapter one can find a fixed and final set of precepts. It is difficult to know how to define morality in the first place but it is interesting that Jeremy Bentham, when he produced the famous phrase, "The greatest happiness of the greatest number", meant it not only as the foundation of legislation but as the foundation of morals.
I do not believe that the longest consultation in living memory will produce consensus. I know that the noble Earl is not fond of consensus as the only way forward, but I do not believe that trying to find consensus means that morals have to be swept under the carpet; nor do I believe that they have to be set upon it as tablets of stone. I believe that they should be daily invoked, daily discussed and daily debated. What that will do in schools is teach our schoolchildren what other people think and feel. I believe that that is a genuine moral dimension in education.
6.16 p.m.
Lord Ashbourne: My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Earl, Lord Longford, secured this debate this evening on a topic which is of crucial importance to the future well-being of our society. Perhaps we used to take it for granted that schools were all about moral as well as intellectual, social and physical education. But recent events where disruptive pupils have almost held schools to ransom have shown us that times have changed.
Years ago, too, I do not believe that there would have been much debate about what moral values should be taught in schools. But in our diverse society today we have had to have a national forum, drawing people from all corners of education and beyond, to draw up a statement of those values.
I have looked at the statement of values published two weeks ago by the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority and it is hard to disagree with what it contains. Are we not all in favour of valuing truth and human rights, valuing other people for themselves and valuing the natural world as a source of wonder and inspiration? But the questions that I should like to pose are these: does the statement go far enough and what specifically should Church schools be doing in the realm of moral education?
We have to recognise that schools will only ever be part of the jigsaw in the education of young people in moral values. Perhaps much more important is the home and the family and the message that they convey. I am therefore disappointed that the statement itself seems to me to be very weak in its comments on marriage and family life. It is as though the authors were anxious not to offend people. But surely we must give children values and ideals towards which to aspire. I therefore support the addition to the statement, proposed by five members of the forum, which is much more specific about the commitment to marriage and the dangers of sexual relationships outside marriage.
My second concern is the role of Church schools in promoting moral education. While a national statement of values may be somewhat bland because of the range of interests involved, there is no excuse for the Churches to be bland. The Lord Jesus was never vague or woolly. He was both clear and compassionate. Unfortunately, clarity and compassion are sometimes lacking today. Many Church schools are a shining light in upholding Christian values and being very specific about them, but others, sadly, are not. I urge all Church schools to maintain an unflinching but compassionate biblical approach. They do not need to be embarrassed by this; it is their role as Church schools.
There is one other topic I should like to mention: that is, the relationship between "belief" and "behaviour". In short, what we believe determines how we behave. That was mentioned effectively by the right reverend Prelate in his interesting speech. He talked about moral values and their relationship to religious beliefs. I believe that what he was trying to convey was exactly what I am talking about now.
What we believe is of the utmost importance and that is well illustrated by the Welsh revival at the beginning of this century. In the last three months of 1904,

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80,000 souls were converted to Christianity. There were also astonishing results in terms of society; drunkenness was almost non-existent; crime largely ceased; debts were paid back; houses were blessed; children were clothed and fed; bitterness at work turned into praise; football matches turned into prayer meetings and the police force in one town, having no work to do because there was no crime anywhere to be found, gathered themselves together into a famous male voice choir and went wherever they were invited.
My message is simple. We should have as clear a statement of values as possible, especially on marriage and family life. And Church schools should not be afraid to go further and be specifically Christian in their approach.
6.21 p.m.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I should like to say something in relation to the reference by the noble Lord, Lord Ashbourne, to Church schools in the context of Christ Church, Spitalfields, in which there is not one single Christian child; it is entirely peopled by practising Bangladeshi Moslems. I suspect the Church of England may have a problem in that regard.
We have no alternative but to transmit moral values; all education transmits values. We can therefore transfer what we believe to be good values or random values. The question is what values we transfer and how we can effectively transfer them.
I was privileged to have a long talk at lunchtime today with Dr. Nicholas Tate—the poor man responsible for generating this statement of values. A number of misunderstandings have been promulgated by the popular press. First, it is only a consultation document; secondly, it is a consensus which only contains the issues unanimously agreed by the entire group of 150 people. It is now open to consultation. It will be revised and be subject to a further discussion both with the group and with others and it will then be brought back to Parliament.
The Jewish faith gave us the Ten Commandments. Those were things we should not do. Christianity gave us just two things that we should do; that is, we should love God and love one another, complemented by attitudes which again are entirely positive. It is therefore extremely encouraging that the values which Dr. Nicholas Tate and his merry men produced are expressed in positive terms. Each statement starts with the words, "We value".
Having said that, I agree that it is a pretty weak collection of objectives. It says virtually nothing about love, beauty, courage, self-discipline and self-sacrifice. I hope that those values will be included at a later stage and it may interest the House if I mention three or four amendments which I intend to propose. I was not discouraged from proposing them during my lunchtime meeting today.
I shall suggest that we learn to show courage in adversity; to be thankful for all that is good and beautiful; to try to recognise and appreciate beauty in all its forms and create beauty so far as we are able; and to learn to give and receive unselfish love appropriate
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to each relationship. In another area I shall suggest that forgiveness should be brought in. Any code of values which does not include the possibility of forgiveness is a terrible and frightening thing.
I turn now to how we should deliver those values in the classroom. Again, I must defend the School Curriculum Assessment Authority. It is my understanding that it is not the authority's intention that there should be lessons in morality and it is certainly not the intention that children should learn those values by heart. That was one of the dotty ideas proposed in some of the tabloids. If they were presented as just chalk and talk, it would be a total disaster. It would lead to yawning all the way home or a mobbing of the teacher.
Those values can permeate through every subject in the curriculum if teachers are encouraged and shown how to do it, even maths and football. Sister Judith, to whom the noble Baroness, Lady Young, referred, told us how a football coach said to her, "It's nothing to do with me". She said, "Wait a minute, what are you there for?". "I am there to teach them how to win football games", said the teacher. Sister Janet said, "Are you sure that's all you're there for?". Then he began to think about all the tremendously important lessons that could be taught in competitive team games.
The teachers need help and training. Can the Minister say whether the Teacher Training Agency will ensure that there is sufficient training in these areas of competence, both in terms of initial training and in-service training? There are elements in the moral curriculum which will have to be delivered in a more specific way rather than being part of the normal curriculum. I refer, for example, to sex and drugs education, education in relationships and communication, preparation for parenthood and the needs of children, citizenship and other knowledge and skills that young people need to prepare them for adult life.
The moral code will need the kind of interactive delivery to be found in discussion groups, videos, groups of specialists going into schools—perhaps in some cases medical professionals—and sometimes young people one or two years older than the pupils in the class going in to tell them of their experiences as single mothers or whatever it may be. Can the Minister say whether the Teacher Training Agency is gearing itself up to ensure that specialist teachers who deliver that kind of interactive teaching will be available in the future?
6.27 p.m.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, I too, congratulate the noble Earl on allowing us to debate this important topic. Most of us who have taught in schools believe that we have a duty to impart moral values; but we need considerable help. The reason is that the roots of our present moral problems lie deep in the past. Since the turn of the century—some would say before that—it has increasingly been felt that individualism combined with the removal of restrictions on an individual's self-realisation should govern the thinking of all society. So far as possible each person should be judged by his own values and not be restricted by objective standards. That has been the philosophy of the past 100 years.

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Many areas of creativity in art, music, literature and other fields flourished in this climate; a climate which emphasised individual self-expression rather than subordination to the accepted patterns of the past. But we are debating this matter tonight because the picture is much less happy in the sphere of morality. Traditional morality—that is, the morality followed for centuries in the past—required that for the best working of society restrictions should be placed on people's freedom to express themselves as they wished. Hence the traditional emphasis on stable marriages, restrictions on divorce and much more. Many of these restrictions were relaxed as the move for individual freedom grew ever stronger. Paradoxically, we demanded and received more freedom just as more effective methods of contraception demanded more responsibility than had ever been demanded of our ancestors. The ideal now was that self-discipline rather than fear should govern human behaviour.
The problem is that most of us are neither naturally good nor very responsible. I would dare to suggest that even those of us who are debating moral values so enthusiastically are often reluctant to restrict ourselves when we desire some end. We human beings have a fatal faculty that we can always convince ourselves that what we want is best for everyone else. Hence the expansion of divorce and the break-up of the family.
It is in this atmosphere that schools and teachers have to do their work. Their capacity to do this is further reduced by the weakening of religion and the fact that there has never been in English schools a tradition of civic morality, apart from religion, such as existed in America and France and still has some roots there today. This is the dilemma that faced those people in the National Forum for Values in Education and the Community. I share the view of the noble Earl and of my noble friend Lady Young that what is proposed is rather bland and vague—a tonic but lacking much gin. It represents a start but has a long way to go.
The real issue is what we can do to help. Let me first say as a Christian priest what role I think the Churches can play, even though only a minority attend their services. While I accept that the essence of the gospel is concerned with compassion and forgiveness, I feel it is crucial that the Churches place stronger emphasis on the traditional morality put forward in scripture and tradition, a point eloquently expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, and the noble Lord, Lord Ashbourne. This can be of great assistance to teachers trying to support moral values in the classroom.
I speak as a person who was a teacher for 40 years. Sometimes I feel that compassion for the sinner has taken precedence over traditional moral teaching. Jesus forgave the woman taken in adultery but told her to sin no more. The Churches must remember that they are not just the leaven in the lump but the light on the hill. I say with some trepidation to the right reverend Prelate—we were at the same college, so we learnt the same creed—that, while I share his deep hatred of poverty and unemployment and think that they are evils which should be eliminated from our society, we tread on very dangerous ground when we emphasise the sociological
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grounds for the collapse of morality. My experience on the Parole Board for five years showed me that it was not poverty—though the people I saw were often very poor—but most definitely the break-up of the family that caused the situation in which they found themselves.
Finally, we as legislators have a duty when we make laws. We have to draw the balance between the award of greater freedom and the needs of social cohesion. That is particularly true of any laws concerning the family. Over the past two or three decades the aim for greater freedom has tended to prevail. Morality and social structures are very easily broken and very hard to rebuild. We have a lot of rebuilding to do. This document is a start, but much more needs to be done.
6.35 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, in the four minutes which convention allows me there is no time for courtesies and only sufficient to pursue one point. The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, in a notable contribution, urged the Teacher Training Agency to expedite the production of specialist teachers. I would ask that that urgency be extended wider, because morality is not taught by specialists; it is given in example by generalists.
The way of inculcating good behaviour in schools is to get a good behaviour policy adopted by the whole school. That means not only the academic staff but the domestic staff, the janitor and so on; and not only the teachers but the pupils. I shall not bore the House on a subject on which I wrote a report for the Government in 1988 but I would point out that such a policy works dramatically. However, it depends on being done by people who know how to do it and know what they believe. That brings me to the teacher training colleges and their recruitment and training policies.
If one is to ask teachers to teach something that requires moral fibre, one has to recruit to the teaching profession people who have moral fibre. One has to inquire what they believe and what they stand for and ensure that this shows through in every lesson, in the playground and in the bus queue; indeed, in the pub, talking to the children's parents. That calls not merely for dedication but vocation. The framework which one gives to the school must be good. Goodness consists of love. Everything we have said focuses down onto the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you, which is very close to loving your neighbour as yourself. There is not a great gap between the Christian and the Moslem faiths in this. I believe that dedicated Christian teachers will infect Moslems as good Moslems will infect Christians—with a recognition that love is central to the proper conduct of human life on this troubled planet.
I conclude by thanking my noble friend Lady Young for pointing out that good behaviour is simple. It is about easy things. The choice may be difficult but the distinction is easy. Stealing is wrong; lying is wrong; telling the truth is right. One can build off these little blocks—which all start with the simple block: love your neighbour as yourself—into a great cloud of sophistry. I believe the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, was thinking of

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the sixth form and how it might be developed there. But throughout a school career children should be taught the difference between right and wrong by people who act it out in their lives and believe in it. That is what I would address to the Teacher Training Agency.
6.38 p.m.
Lord Addington: My Lords, when we discuss a subject such as morality I am always astounded by the fact that we manage to be so close together but still have such fundamental differences in the way we approach it. Often it is the case that what I would regard as the smaller personifications of a moral code are what we find ourselves arguing about. Indeed, the emphasis that has been placed on marriage is something by which I am always a little frightened, for the simple reason that it seems to imply that a marriage ceremony makes a person better at raising children.
In the past women often stayed with men because they were financially tied to them. They endured domestic violence and other forms of abuse inside the home because of an economic restriction. That is a fact. It often took place within marriage. Indeed, it was the norm. If we take that kind of activity into account, we should look twice at bringing down any one part of our social code as an iron rule. We must always look at what went with it.
The ideal of two parents in a loving relationship, giving support to a child, is probably as good as it is going to be for bringing up a child. But it does not always work. When one emphasizes this approach in a society where large numbers of the population do not go in for that kind of relationship, one is immediately alienating the audience. If someone is told, "This is the way you should live" and they do not, one has immediately said to that person, "You are wrong". If someone said that in this Chamber, we would immediately feel our hackles rise. We would want to know why we were being challenged and criticised in that manner. If a child is placed in the kind of situation where its home environment is being attacked fundamentally one is creating a position of resistance, not just to that message but to all messages within schools. In all education one must try to open up the child's mind. Indeed, to learn anything everybody's mind must be open to receive information and ideas. I do not believe that many people disagree with that. I hope that there are none. Unless one can attract people to listen, one is not going to succeed.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, made one of the most practical and sensible contributions I have heard in this Chamber for a good while in saying that one has to make things relevant to the people involved and to address the problems which have to be faced. It is also true that moral choice colours virtually every type of lesson. The historical process is probably the best example. Every time a decision is made, a war fought or social change introduced in our system, it is generally justified in moral terms. Often, according to my standpoint, it has been necessary to dig very hard to find a moral standpoint to justify the decisions taken. People morally justified slavery for thousands of years. Very few of us would do that now.
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The SCAA document was almost bound to deal with such situations in general terms because if one does not want to alienate people by giving them absolutes, which may conflict with their views, one is bound to deal in general terms. It is virtually impossible to suggest otherwise. Recently, one society did go in for preaching moral absolutes. In the Soviet Union and its satellite states everyone at school and university was taught and examined in various works of Marx. The universities regarded it as a fudged exam. One was taught certain things and asked certain questions to which certain answers were given. A pass mark was then given. That extreme example is still a long way off. However, we should remember it because the moment one writes down something that has to be there it is written in stone. It will either be ignored or got round because it does not move with you. It is just left behind. Beliefs put in a moral context through examinations are not taken on and will always be left behind.
This is a subject where one needs either a couple of weeks to talk about it properly or a few minutes to make a couple of points. I hope that we can agree that we have far more ground for agreement than we have for disagreement on this subject. We must try to avoid building up disagreement leading to insurmountable obstacles because if we do we merely create a great deal of noise and achieve absolutely nothing.
6.44 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, your Lordships may recall the actress Joyce Grenfell and her cabaret sketch in which she played an infant schoolteacher with an imaginary class of schoolchildren in front of her. In the middle of talking to them she would suddenly stop and say, "George, … don't do that". We never learnt what it was that George was doing, but we could make a pretty educated guess.
Teachers, every day, in every school, are teaching moral behaviour just like that. They make clear what is acceptable to them and what is not; children learn how far they can go; the teacher establishes control. So I am glad we have heard no nonsense tonight about "the nationwide breakdown of discipline in our schools" and we have had no rabid slavering about bringing back the cane and the taws. All over the civilised world those days are gone.
In a small percentage of British schools there are serious problems of discipline. Flogging will not solve them; nor does the perpetual presence of cameras at the school gates do very much good. The one thing you can say for the cameramen is that they are never late for school.
I will admit one exception to that. Your Lordships may have seen on television last week a film surreptitiously shot of one class at The Ridings School, Halifax, when the teacher and children had no idea they were being filmed. The class was utterly out of control and the teacher powerless. Things should never have been allowed to get like that, of course. But once they have, there is nothing you can do. Exclusions of children, changes of staff and a new start are the only solution possible and that is probably true for Lincoln Cathedral as well.

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One thing I believe we may confidently say and we have said it: morality cannot be taught as a school subject. It must be the acceptable, pervasive ethos of a school and not a discrete part of any syllabus. If that be so, it seems logical that if the Christian moral code, based on the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount and Christ's command that thou shalt love the Lord thy God and thy neighbour as thyself, is unfortunately no longer universally conceded in this country as the rock on which moral behaviour in school should be founded, then an attempt should be made to find what moral values command the greatest consensus and could act as some sort of alternative.
So we have the first report of the national forum. It fell on pretty stony ground when the Secretary of State found it wanting on the matter of marriage and the media in general gave it a pretty hostile reception. Even such a serious and distinguished journalist as Simon Jenkins found much of it meaningless and preferred the light on our path to be provided by the Ten Commandments, the Boy Scout's Honour and the Highway Code. Children, he said, need practical guidance: they want to be told what to do.
The national forum report fails because it does not even attempt to tell anyone what to do. You cannot learn it; you cannot teach it; and you cannot apply it in any meaningful way. It is not relevant to school life. It is easy and sad to say that and difficult to suggest better solutions. There are no easy answers, but there is much good practice available.
For example, in one primary school it is the practice to declare from time to time that this is one pupil's special day. Every child gets one. The teacher writes on the board, "Today is Clare's day, Mohammed's day or Charlie's day. "We like Clare because … " Then the children write down one reason why they like Clare. "She knows good games" or "She doesn't bully me" or whatever. These are collected up and given to Clare as a positive contribution to her self-esteem and an assertion of her value to others. That is a practical application of what the national forum says on page 3 of its report:
"Tell others they are valued".
But that is a special way of doing it. It has been going on all over the place for ages and ages.
Similarly, the same school has made a significant alteration to conventional school sports. There is a team race in which the children are divided into teams, but each team includes some children who are physically or mentally handicapped or otherwise likely to come in last, if at all, in any ordinary race. The winner of the new race is the team which gets all its members over the winning line first. So you have to work together, with the strongest helping the weakest, if your group is to succeed and win. Again, that is no isolated example.
I want to propose to Her Majesty's Government that they should take two simple initiatives. First, the DfEE should ask schools to submit examples of just how they instil moral values and commendable behaviour along the lines of the two examples I have just given. These could be collated in the department and a code of best
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practice created from them to be distributed to all schools with the instruction, "Go and do thou likewise". Secondly, the DfEE could suggest that schools should appoint, wherever possible, some unpaid person to be called "the visitor", "the patron", "the president" or "the chancellor" whose sole concern shall be to promote the moral health of the school. In a church school he or she might be called the chaplain but in a "sink" school one might prefer the title "visitor" and invite an appropriately qualified footballer or manager to take the job, although Mr. Glenn Hoddle might be felt to be a better role model than, say, Mr. Vinnie Jones. Similarly, since morality spans religious divisions, I see no reason why an Imam or Rabbi should not act in this capacity for any state school. After all, the nation listens to Rabbi Lionel Blue and Indarjit Singh on Radio 4 week by week. They seem to have no difficulty in establishing morality there.
Finally, moral education depends upon morally motivated teachers. I began with one George and I end with another. Your Lordships will be aware that George Thomas, the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy, was my teacher when I was eight. A morally motivated man if ever there was one. Once in the playground I saw the school bully beating up my friend who was half his size. Very stupidly, in blind fury I pitched in and was hitting hell out of that bully when Mr. Thomas stepped in and prised us apart. "Sir", I explained tearfully, "he was hitting my friend—and he's bigger than him". "Who do you think you are, boy", said Mr. Thomas sternly to me, "the British Empire?" Suddenly, I felt very proud. I have never forgotten it. That was moral education.
6.52 p.m.
Lord Henley: My Lords, in the presence of the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy, we on this side of the House feel that he did a very good job some years ago on his pupil, the noble Lord, Lord Morris.
I also start in the spirit of consensus—a spirit which has gone through much of this debate—by saying how much I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Morris, on two points that he made at the beginning of his speech. First, it is only a minority of schools that have the problems which have been highlighted at The Ridings school in Yorkshire and at Manton junior school in Nottingham. It is important to remember that most schools do a good job both educationally and morally and do well for their pupils. Secondly, I echo the noble Lord's words about the problems caused by unwarranted press and media intrusions, particularly in the case of The Ridings. I do not believe that they have assisted one iota in resolving the problems. Obviously, I shall look at the two ideas that the noble Lord put to me at the end of his speech. They are certainly worth some thought.
I begin by thanking the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for initiating the debate. It is one which, as he himself said, follows on from the debate introduced by the right reverend Prelate in the summer which was wound up by my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal. I also thank the noble Earl for giving me notice in advance of the kind of ideas that he would be putting before us this evening.

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I believe that there is broad consensus on a number of key points. First, we all believe that the health of society depends crucially on its moral well-being. We share that view despite very different convictions and beliefs in what is broadly a Christian country, as we must all remember. Secondly, it is clear that parents have prime responsibility for bringing up their children. We recognise that many parents feel ill-equipped to take on that task. Thirdly, we acknowledge the importance of education and the education system in that role. But schools can do only so much to help parents, as I believe the right reverend Prelate and my noble friend Lord Ashbourne made clear. However, schools and governments have a clear role to play, but governments themselves cannot do everything. We must never believe that governments can do everything. My noble friend referred to the Temperance Movement some 50 years ago. I believe that that probably did far more to rid society of some of the worst evils of drink than any action by government either here or anywhere else.
Schools can help to ensure that children develop the moral and spiritual knowledge, the skills, understanding and attitudes that they will need, whether as adults, members of families or members of the wider community. In taking forward this work, schools should be able to bank on the support of parents and the wider community. That consensus was and remains the context for the work recently undertaken by SCAA's National Forum on Values for Education and the Community which has been referred to a good deal this evening. I stress to my noble friend Lady Carnegy that a similar review was conducted by the Scottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum. That is a matter which the Scottish Office will address.
However, tonight I speak in part as an English Minister on behalf of the Department for Education but in a wider role as a member of Her Majesty's Government. The publication of the forum's recommendations last month could not have been more timely, following on from the debate initiated by the most reverend Primate and chiming with the launch of Mrs. Lawrence's manifesto. I should make clear that the work began under Dr. Tate's initiative as early as last January.
I believe that the initial focus on pupils' moral development has been lost in some of the coverage in the press. A whole range of issues has been swept up into the media debate. We are in danger of losing sight of the wood for the trees. I should like to go back to the beginning and the role of the schools themselves. Essentially, there are three ways—I give them in no particular order—in which schools can engage in the moral development of their pupils: first, through the individual school ethos; secondly, through its curriculum; and, thirdly, through collective worship which, according to the statutory requirements, should be of a broadly Christian nature.
All schools are required to include in their prospectus a clear statement of their ethos and values. Parents can use this to help to decide which schools they wish their children to attend. They can also hold schools accountable if they do not live up to those statements. There is evidence that the most effective schools are characterised by a positive and purposeful ethos, built upon clear,
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shared values. The development of a statement of shared values within the school can be a valuable learning experience for that school. I believe that the discussion of those values helps children to understand them and give their own commitment to them.
SCAA's forum has proposed a draft framework of core values that schools may use as a basis for developing their own values statement. The framework is intended to give schools a starting point. I make clear that it is not a moral code as set out by SCAA. Too many commentators have wrongly assumed that the framework is an attempt to define the content of moral education and have proceeded to criticise it, as some have done this evening, as being woolly and insubstantial. I do not believe that a more prescriptive framework would meet the intended purpose.
Incidentally, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State did not insist on the changes to the consultation document, as some in the press have alleged, to give greater prominence to family values. A small number of forum members called for a stronger statement than that which appeared in the draft framework. The consultation document referred to both statements, and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State was content with that.
On behalf of both Her Majesty's Government and myself, I stress the great commitment to the importance of married life. I speak as one who has been married for only 12 years. I am aware that the noble Earl, Lord Longford, can outdo me by a factor of five or more.
: Fifty-three!
Lord Henley: My Lords, mathematics was never my strong point. Let us agree upon four-and-a-half. I agree very much with what the noble Earl and my noble friend Lady Young said about the importance of the family in society.
I turn now to the curriculum. The 1988 Act set out as the central aim for the school curriculum that it should promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils and of society and prepare pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life. All schools should ensure that the moral dimension is clearly mapped out across the curriculum. I am grateful to all noble Lords who stressed that that should go the whole way across the curriculum and it was not just a matter for subjects such as science, geography or history. It should cover all matters, even sport—a subject which I spent most of my time attempting to avoid.
Like my noble friend Lord Elton, I believe that all teachers have a responsibility regardless of specialism, in the same way as all teachers should be concerned with children's reading and writing, for example. The two major vehicles for moral education within the curriculum are religious education and the range of topics embraced by personal, social and health education.
The Government remain committed to the statutory requirement for RE and the statutory provisions governing its content, which give due emphasis to Christianity while offering—this was something with

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which most noble Lords agreed—the flexibility to meet local circumstances. That matter has been debated frequently in this House, and was raised by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, at Question Time as recently as last week.
The 1994 circular on RE and collective worship says that, in its view, locally agreed syllabuses should extend in a religious context to wider areas of morality. Those would include the way in which people's religious beliefs and practices affect their understanding of moral issues and the consequences that their behaviour has on family and society.
There is personal, social and health education, of which there are two particular elements—sex education and drugs education. They have an important focus on the moral debate. I can give an assurance that we have issued guidance on both matters, emphasising in the case of sex education the requirement that schools must have due regard to moral considerations and the value of family life.
The Government have also supported work under the badge of citizenship, designed to promote personal and social responsibility. That means respect for oneself, for others and for the law. It means playing a constructive role in the various groups and communities to which parents belong.
SCAA is not consulting just on the draft framework of core values; it is also seeking views on a range of other work intended to bring greater coherence to the moral, spiritual and cultural dimensions of the curriculum. That includes a full audit of existing provision and practice, and the preparation of guidance, including a programme of study setting out the essential elements which schools should teach. I must stress that in the end it will be Ministers who will take the final decisions in the light of SCAA's recommendations, taking full account of the outcome of that consultation.
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We will not pursue consensus merely for the sake of consensus. I have always believed that a false consensus leading to some form of moral relativism is not always the right approach. The mere fact that only one soldier is in step does not necessarily always mean that he is the one who is out of step. It might be the others who are wrong. Whatever the outcome of that consultation and process, SCAA will ensure that it builds on existing best practice in our schools. I say again to my noble friend Lord Elton and the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, that that is a matter that we believe the Teacher Training Agency must address, although not particularly for the specialist teacher, but, as I believe my noble friend Lord Elton said, for all teachers teaching across the curriculum. As I said earlier, many schools already do excellent work both within the curriculum and through their wider ethos and values. In the very best schools, each reinforces the other.
The daily act of collective worship—the third element I mentioned earlier—can often provide the occasion when curriculum and ethos are wedded most closely together. I give the assurance to the noble Earl, because I know of his concern following his Question last week, that the Government remain committed to that daily collective act of worship in our schools.
For the Government at least this is most certainly not a knee-jerk reaction. The consultation exercise launched earlier this year by Dr. Tate is a first step, but we should remember that the former National Curriculum Council issued guidance on moral and spiritual development as long ago as 1993. We look forward to receiving SCAA's considered advice in February. I know that many of your Lordships will wish to seize your own opportunities to register your views not only through this debate but through other means as part of that process. I hope that the debate initiated this evening by the noble Earl can be seen as part of that process, and for that I thank him.
House adjourned at four minutes past seven o'clock.