Lords Sitting of 19 November 1997

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwark.

Lord Smith of Clifton
Sir Trevor Arthur Smith, Knight, having been created Baron Smith of Clifton, of Mountsandel in the County of Londonderry, for life—was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Razzall and the Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
Michael Goodall Watson, Esquire, having been created Baron Watson of Invergowrie, of Invergowrie in Perth and Kinross, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Baroness Smith of Gilmorehill and the Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale.
Lord Thomas of Macclesfield
Terence James Thomas, Esquire, CBE, having been created Baron Thomas of Macclesfield, of Prestbury in the County of Cheshire, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Graham of Edmonton and the Lord Carter.

Higher Education Tuition Fees
2.49 p.m.
Baroness Williams of Crosbyasked Her Majesty's Government:
What consideration they have given to introducing a national system of scholarships based on merit to help meet the new fees for higher education.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, we have no plans to introduce a national scholarship scheme. Under our plans for funding higher education, students from lower income groups will continue to receive free tuition. This will help to ensure that access to higher education will be on the basis of academic merit rather than ability to pay. It will of course be open to individual institutions and others to consider whether to offer scholarships of various types.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Is he aware that one in eight students are now dropping out of degree courses for reasons of poverty and that parental means testing for young people just above the poverty line is a major disincentive? Will he reconsider his Answer in view of the fact that in a country which also has fees and no proper maintenance arrangements, namely, the United States, 60 per cent. of young people have some form of scholarship, and many of those scholarships have been
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gained through national merit awards? Will he consider how we prevent children of real merit being forced out of higher education through their inability to pay for it?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I am aware that the noble Baroness has written to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State about the position in America. She will receive a full assessment of that situation. However, at first sight it would appear that America is in a different position from ourselves. There is no national loan scheme in the sense that we have one; nor is there the grant scheme that we had previously. The average size of scholarship within the United States comprises a lower sum than the loan system would provide here. I repeat what other spokespeople for the party have said; namely, that students from low income groups will not have to pay fees. That accounts for about 30 per cent. of students. Therefore those from the lowest income groups should not face the problem of poverty that has been described.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, will my noble friend say when we shall see the small print of this appalling scheme for which the Government have no mandate either electoral or party?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I hesitate to cross swords with my noble friend. However, we were committed to looking at the mess left by the previous administration's loan scheme. It was a clear manifesto commitment resulting from the experience of thousands of students. We also had cross-party support for the establishment of the Dearing Committee, most of whose recommendations appear in our proposals. In due course a Bill will be presented in this House.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, on 14th April, in the run-up to the election, the Prime Minister stated, and penned his name to an article saying, that he had no plans to introduce tuition fees for students' education. It would be helpful to know at what point that changed. Is the Minister comfortable, as we learn more details of the proposals for tuition fees, with the widening gap between Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom and the disparate treatment of students north and south of the Border?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, we have had several Questions and a debate on the Scottish system arising from the fact that most degree courses in Scotland are for four rather than three years. Anomalies are necessarily created by that situation.
On tuition fees, having examined the proposals from the Dearing Committee we brought forward a package which is fairer to lower income groups than the system of loans which we inherited from the previous government; it is fairer too than the system that would have applied had we taken the straight Dearing recommendations.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that the purpose of the Government's proposals is to ensure that, contrary to what happened in the past, all students have adequate resources to sustain

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themselves in higher education, and that they will be asked to repay a limited loan over a lifetime?
Lord Whitty: Indeed, my Lords, that is precisely our objective. We are concerned that the welcome increase in higher education take-up over recent years has seen growth among the higher income groups at twice the rate of those in lower income groups. It is our intention to level up that position. The lowest income families will pay no tuition fees. A further one in three families will pay less than £1,000. It is important to say that no parent, no spouse, nor any student will have to pay a higher up-front contribution than has been the case under previous arrangements.
The loan will not start to be repaid until a level of income, triggered at £10,000, is reached, and will go up, recognising that graduates who achieve a qualification on average receive income 20 per cent. higher than those who do not.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, can the Government confirm a report in today's Scotsman newspaper that the income threshold for Scottish students below which they will not have to pay tuition fees will be lower than the threshold for English students? That may reflect the fact that the threshold for maintenance grants is lower in Scotland. However, in Scotland the costs of maintenance are probably lower on average. I suggest that that is not the case as regards tuition fees. If this chaos is to continue, is not the Question of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, highly relevant?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, as we have debated on several occasions, the situation in Scotland is slightly different. For English schools the repayment threshold will be £10,000. The different balance between maintenance and fees in Scotland has to be taken into account in that system. As I said, we shall look at details of the American system. I do not believe that a national scholarship system, as proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, would resolve any of those anomalies.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, is the Minister aware that a number of higher education institutions have sketched out top-up schemes with a substantial redistributive element? If the Government are not prepared to use public redistributive taxation help for a student, will they at least relax the ceiling on fees and enable higher education institutions to undertake such a system themselves?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, no, because we believe that the net effect would be to increase the maldistribution of admissions in favour of higher income groups.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, has the Minister considered the position of a student with a loan of £12,000 who begins work as a teacher in London earning £16,000? How can he sustain a rent or a mortgage? How do the Government envisage working
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class families, as mine was, preparing their children to carry that sort of burden?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, the repayment of such a teacher will be fairer, lower and over a longer timescale than under the scheme we inherited from the previous administration.
Lord Walton of Detchant: My Lords, if the principle of students paying a contribution towards their tuition fees and having to take out a loan to cover their maintenance during higher education is accepted, do the Government accept the proposal made by the National Commission on Education that once the threshold of income is reached the repayment should be through the tax or national insurance systems rather than by writing out a cheque?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, no. We have accepted the principle that the sum is a loan which should be dealt with separately and not integrated into the tax system.
Lord Carter: Next Question.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, will the Minister, whom I respect—
Noble Lords: Order!
Baroness Williams of Crosby: The first issue is that of contributions.
Noble Lords: Order!
Baroness Williams of Crosby: The second of those issues—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Carter: My Lords, the noble Baroness is completely outwith the conventions of this House. It is now the ninth minute of Question Time. I suggest we move to the next Question.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: In this situation—
Lord Carter: My Lords, the Chief Whip is on his feet at the Dispatch Box. I suggest that we move to the next Question.

Rail Services: Government Objectives
3 P.M.
Lord Inglewood Lord Inglewood asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have any plans to renationalise any parts of the railway system privatised by the previous government.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Baroness Hayman): My Lords, the Government believe that rail privatisation damaged

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the interests of both passengers and taxpayers. However, wholesale renationalisation of the industry would be extremely costly. We have made clear that our main task is to improve the railway as we find it, not as we would wish it to be. We are committed to creating a new strategic rail authority and to introducing more effective and accountable regulation of the railway in the public interest.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that reply. Is it inherent within it, although she says that she is opposed to wholesale renationalisation, that some renationalisation may take place?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I believe I made it quite clear that, at a cost of £4.5 billion, renationalisation simply cannot be a priority, considering the other pressures on public expenditure. There are major problems in the current system of regulation. Those are the problems we are addressing, both in the short term by the measures announced on 6th November by my right honourable friend the Minister for Transport, and in the longer term through an integrated transport policy.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware of the dramatic improvement in the train service on the Edinburgh line since privatisation? Is she further aware that the 15-year franchise awarded to the privatised companies is not long enough to enable them to re-equip with rolling-stock? Will the Minister consider whether the franchise should be increased in order to encourage investment in new and better rolling-stock?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, on the second point, we are certainly interested in encouraging proper investment in the rail network and improvements in service quality. 1 am sure that local authorities, for example, will welcome the new emphasis on the need for the franchising director to build a constructive partnership with them. When franchises come up for renewal, we shall be examining those questions very carefully.
I am interested in the noble Lord's anecdotal experiences of improvements in rail services since privatisation. I suspect that they are not echoed everywhere in the Chamber, nor everywhere in the country.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, if my noble friend agrees that the present system of privatised rail services is not so efficient and not delivering a proper service, and that British Rail delivered a much better service, would not £4.5 billion be a small price to pay to have efficient railways?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, even after six months in government, I cannot say that I think £4.5 billion is a small price to pay for anything. It is important to set the priorities that we said we would set when in government. Those priorities are expenditure on education—we have just heard how strongly the House
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feels in relation to many areas of education—and the health service. Our priority is not spending a vast sum of money on rail renationalisation; it is on using the mechanisms and levers that we have to improve the quality of service available to the public.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, I join with the Minister in her implied comment that not everywhere in this kingdom is everyone 100 per cent. satisfied with their current rail services. Do I need to mention South West Trains, Connex South Central or trains serving East Anglia? Does the Minister agree that one of the problems with the new system is that it is very difficult to place the public interest in a sufficiently, dominant or powerful position in the complex of interests that currently rule the network? Can she give any further indication of how the Government propose, through the new regulatory system, to achieve that aim?
Baroness Hayman: Yes, my Lords. The Government's aim is to introduce a strategic rail authority which would allow some co-ordination of exactly the sorts of issues of investment and improving the quality of service to which the noble Baroness refers. As I said, on 6th November the Minister for Transport announced new objectives, instructions and guidance for the franchising director. He announced the publication of OPRAF planning criteria, and a concordat with the rail regulator containing a statement of the Government's objectives for the rail industry, the regulator's aims and objectives and a framework of communication between Ministers, the franchising director and the regulator. That is an attempt to introduce some integration into what is at present a very disintegrated system of regulation.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that if the Welsh lines were renationalised, the service in Wales would be infinitely better than it is now?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I know of my noble friend's long-standing concerns about rail services in Wales. I understand that Virgin is committed to exploring with Railtrack the case for electrifying the line between Crewe and Chester. It remains to be seen whether that electrification project will represent good value for money. It is an area that I know they will explore.
Baroness Platt of Writtle: My Lords is the noble Baroness aware that on the East Anglian line we have a greatly improved service; and on Chelmsford station there is a helpdesk—
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: That is not the case in Norfolk.
Baroness Platt of Writtle: I am sorry that it is not true of Norfolk, but it is certainly the case in Essex. Those who run the service are extremely helpful. That was not the case previously.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I am always glad to hear of improvements. However, it should be said that

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there really ought to be improvements, considering that subsidies to train operators have risen from £1 billion to £1.8 billion since privatisation.

Charity Cases and the Attorney-General: Costs
3.6 p.m.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil Lord Peyton of Yeovil asked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps they will take to ensure that, when a charity is obliged to seek the guidance of the court and the Attorney-General intervenes, the costs are kept to a minimum and the case is disposed of with the least possible delay.
The Solicitor-General (Lord Falconer of Thoroton): My Lords, the Attorney-General is generally a necessary party in charity cases and represents the Crown as protector of charity. The Attorney-General aims always to keep down costs and eliminate delay by helping the court and the parties to address the relevant issues in a case, and he shares the noble Lord's objectives in that regard. The duties of charity trustees are important and often onerous and I would pay tribute to those, like the noble Lord, who give their time to such causes.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for that Answer. Is he aware that the Question stems not so much from personal interest as from experience as a trustee in one case where the costs involved and time spent seemed to be far more than was reasonable. Is the noble and learned Lord prepared to examine matters and so to arrange them that much of the ground can be covered effectively before the case ever comes to court, without the involvement of counsel, so that the high costs and long duration of time are avoided?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I am aware of the case to which the noble Lord refers. I have looked into the case and have discussed it with him. As I said, I share his concerns. In the Attorney-General's office we are particularly acute to avoid both time and costs being wasted because we are aware that all costs spent in relation to these matters are costs effectively taken away from the charity. However, the use of counsel by the Attorney-General's chambers will often reduce the time spent in court, because counsel will be able to reduce the issues, thereby reducing the time. That is our aim.
Lord Clark of Kempston: My Lords, does the Minister agree that charities depend on voluntary contributions, which saves the Exchequer a certain amount of money? Would it not be a good idea to consider extending legal aid to charities, rather than
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wasting taxpayers' money on bogus asylum seekers and foreigners who come over here and exploit the legal aid system?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I should not dream of suggesting that we extend the legal aid system to anything at the moment, particularly in the presence of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. As regards inappropriate applications and grants for legal aid, I am confident that the Lord Chancellor has that in mind.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord aware that when the Attorney-General appears in charity cases he is what lawyers would call amicus curiae—a friend of the court—and that therefore he frequently does not charge for his services? Should he not always decide not to charge for his services, bearing in mind the capacity in which he appears?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, when the Attorney-General appears in charity cases he normally appears on behalf of the beneficial interests of the charity. It would be quite wrong for the Attorney-General in relation to what he does not to receive some payment out of the charitable funds, I am afraid. However, as I said in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, the Attorney-General is concerned as much as possible to ensure that he is not in court spending money when it is inappropriate as regards the charity.

BSE: Statistics
3.9 p.m.
The Earl of Clanwilliamasked Her Majesty's Government:
Why BSE records of United Kingdom herds are available to the European Commission but not to United Kingdom farmers buying livestock.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Donoughue): My Lords, each week the numbers of cases of BSE confirmed by county are made available to the European Community in accordance with Council Directive 82/894. This does not include information about individual herds. Cumulative statistics of cases of BSE confirmed by county in Great Britain are placed in the Library of the House once per month.
The Earl of Clanwilliam: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, will he accept that, when a farmer buys a beast from a herd, he requires to know that the herd is certified as being free of BSE? If that were not the case it would be impossible for organic farmers in particular to maintain the standard of their herds. In addition, is it not true that the government-sponsored body, UKROFS—the regulatory organisation for organic farms—is unable to regulate herds unless it knows that the beasts have been bought from BSE-free farms? Will the Minister make

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arrangements to re-instate the procedures that were available, according to the letter from Mr. Rooker to Mr. Woodward of 18th August? I believe that the Minister is aware of the letter, which states that:
"Arrangements to re-instate the procedures for computer checks for BSE history against the pre-ban export criteria… to make this information available to, or by permission of, occupiers of holdings or registered owners of herd marks are now being put in hand in Animal Health Offices".
Can the Minister say whether that procedure has been put in hand yet and, if it has not, why not?
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, we are aware of the problems faced by organic farmers. However, the information on disease control available to Europe and previously often accessed by organic farmers was obtained under a different heading or under a different Act. I am legally advised that information obtained under one heading cannot be provided under another. There are also constraints of commercial confidentiality. If it helps the noble Earl, I can tell him that we have instructed our officers to make available the relevant information with the permission of the owner or the seller. That will take place quite shortly.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, in connection with the provision to the European Commission of particulars relating to BSE, will the Minister give the House an undertaking that the recent report of the Court of Auditors on the scandalous expenditure—much of it fraudulent—under that head will be given specific attention by the Government? Will he also ensure that a copy of that report, which I understand is now available in this country, will be made available to Members at the earliest possible opportunity?
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, we normally try to meet my noble friend's gentle requests. I can assure him that it is the Government's policy to root out fraud, wherever it exists.
Baroness Anelay of St. Johns: My Lords, can the Minister guarantee the accuracy of the BSE records of UK herds which are held at the Commission? What progress has he made in persuading his colleagues in Europe that the records of BSE in continental herds which are held at the Commission should be accurate and not under-reported, as is the case at present?
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, yes. I have to say that our records are not perfect. We provide to the European Union and the Commission the records at the time of notification in a location, which is a county. As time passes, animals move and the records are not totally reliable.
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As regards European Union records, I am sure that they are as perfect as ours. The noble Baroness will he aware that in some European countries where there have been cases of BSE whole herds have been destroyed. That is the state of play on the records.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, can my noble friend tell me exactly how much has so far been expended in relation to matters of BSE and how many cases of CJD related to BSE there have been so far?
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, the costs so far are running at about £3.4 billion, and they will rise towards £4 billion. There have been 22 cases of CJD in the United Kingdom: 21 certain and one probable. There is one case on the continent, in France.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, in his original Answer the Minister said that the relevant statistics were available in the Library of the House. Can he tell me what good that is to the average farmer?
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, those statistics are also available, if the average farmer—as he has often done in the past—contacts the Ministry of Agriculture. He can also obtain the statistics through the National Farmers Union.

Business
Lord Carter: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lady Jay of Paddington will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on the Utting Report.

Constitutional Change: Cross-party Co-operation
3.15 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Hillheadrose to call attention to the value of cross-party co-operation on major national issues such as constitutional change and Britain's relations with Europe; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we all look forward to the almost unprecedented number of maiden speeches which will occur in this debate—four out of a total of 13 speeches. But that large number in no way diminishes the enthusiasm with which we look forward to them. I am glad that I have at least chosen a subject for debate which invites debuts.
I believe that I have introduced 12 Wednesday debates in the course of an almost too long leadership of the Liberal Democrat Party in this House. It may, however, be of some comfort to the House to know that this is the last time, following the election yesterday of my noble friend Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, that I shall lead in a "call attention" debate from this Bench. I shall, however, continue to discharge the general duties of party leader until the Christmas Recess. So let there be no premature obsequies.

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The exact import of some of the subjects raised in the 12 Wednesday debates I have initiated escapes me with the passage of time. It is a little cryptic to find that in January 1989 I called attention to Her Majesty's Government's method of conducting relations with foreign countries. I suspect that the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, must have been engaging in a particularly notable piece of handbag-swinging diplomacy at that time.
However, there have been two main themes running through the debates raised by myself and some of my noble friends: first, the need for us to play a more constructive and effective role in Europe; and, secondly, the need for constitutional reform, pointing consistently in a more decentralised direction. Thus, right at the beginning came a Motion to call attention to the excessive concentration of power in the executive branch of government. I have never seen any contradiction between those two themes. It is just as sensible that what cannot be effectively handled at national level—which, in the global economy, includes interest rates, monetary policy and currency matters—should be dealt with on a co-operative basis higher up; as it is for what can be handled lower down, closer to the people, to be devolved to Edinburgh or Cardiff or to local authorities.
I always felt that there was something absurd about the previous government presiding over the most centralised state in western Europe and making it more centralised by their actions towards local government but at the same time drawing up their skirts in horror at any suggestion of further development in the European institutions; for instance, the single market. That is sometimes claimed to be one of the most proud creations of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, and one to which the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, who is to speak later in the debate, made a mighty contribution. He went out as her legate for that purpose, but proved to be a somewhat rebellious legate when he got there. He made a considerable contribution. I see a contradiction between that and the view that the single market would work better if it were not hobbled by frequent and often violent currency fluctuations.
In March 1992 we had a compendious Motion to call attention to the case for constitutional reform, including a fair voting system, fixed term parliaments, a bill of rights and control over their own affairs satisfactory to the peoples of Scotland and Wales. There has been a lot of progress in those directions in the past six months. I am not sure that fixed term parliaments is currently a lively issue, though there is a lot to be said for it. But for the rest, the issues are very much on the boil, including voting reform.
In the case of human rights and Scotland and Wales, much has already been accomplished. In the case of the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights, I must draw attention to the Motion of my noble friend Lord Holme of Cheltenham in December 1990 calling for precisely that, and also to the dedicated and persistent efforts of my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill on the issue.
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The noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, and members of his party have been recently inclined to complain that the Liberal Democrats are showing a certain preference for the present over the previous government, as though it were some sort of toadying, quisling-like behaviour on our part. Much though I like him, I do not feel like a toady towards the noble Lord, Lord Richard.
Is it surprising, given our great and persistent attachment to constitutional issues, that we prefer a government which at least show signs of open-mindedness on these issues to the complete immobilism, like a sort of rigor mortis, which overtook the government of the last Prime Minister. Any suggestion of more say for Scotland or change in your Lordships' House, let alone electoral reform, was treated not merely as unwise but as a betrayal of the whole spirit and history of England. I was shocked by that. I felt that it was alien to the best traditions of Conservatism—from Peel, to Baldwin, to Macmillan. For instance, recent history is littered with Conservative schemes for the reform of this House, several emanating from the forebears of the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, himself, and a Home/Heath attitude to Scottish devolution which was much more constructive than anything we have seen recently.
This Motion seeks to bring parties together rather than tear them further apart. I hope to see the present Conservative Party return to those earlier and more constructive traditions. Before I turn to that point, I must mention three other Motions during the 10-year period. In March 1990 we moved to call attention to the inspector's report on House of Fraser Holdings plc. In June 1995 we called for an independent inquiry into the arrangements for the funding of political parties and in February of this year we returned to the latter subject with greater urgency, actually moving to resolve, and therefore voting upon the issue, that this House calls upon HMG to refer the issue of the funding of political parties to the Committee on Standards in Public Life. If those three Motions had been acted upon at the time they were moved, a great deal of trouble might well have been avoided.
I turn to the cross-party aspects of today's Motion, and Europe in particular. British policy towards the European Community or Union has been bedevilled by not being handled on a more cross-party basis. Europe has been a dangerous issue for British parties and British politicians for around a quarter of a century. It gravely damaged the Labour Party in the 1970s and nearly destroyed the Conservative Party in the 1990s. The individual leaders have suffered even more. The failure in 1963 of the first British application, with de Gaulle's veto, effectively destroyed the end of Harold MacMillan's premiership, and Harold Wilson's shift of position in the early 1970s took a great deal of the zest off the latter part of his leadership.
Mrs. Thatcher fell on this issue and much of Mr. Major's premiership was rendered a nullity by it. None of those governments managed to pursue a consistent policy which commanded either success or respect in Europe. That was partly due to a lack of confidence of successive Prime Ministers that they could carry their parliamentary parties with them along

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a more constructive line. Yet from the 1960s, through the 1970s and the 1980s, there was always a substantial pro-European majority in the House of Commons. Only in the last Parliament did it somewhat fade away. But it was always a cross-party majority. Party managers and party whips hate cross-party majorities. They upset the simple rules of adversarial politics. But when cross-party majorities can be achieved, they settle issues a good deal more satisfactorily because they are more broadly based and are less liable to be reversed later by crude party votes.
No doubt in the near future—perhaps a little earlier than is commonly assumed—we will face another referendum on Europe. That will inevitably be fought on a cross-party basis. There are many powerful Conservatives who are just waiting to break ranks and no doubt there are some—some present today—members of the Labour Party and maybe even one or two Liberal Democrats who will do so too.
I welcome the cross-party basis. As 1975 showed, there is something exhilarating about people previously kept apart by the rigidities of party politics working together when the issue is one on which they spontaneously agree. Those who are enthusiastic about national referendums should not doubt the loosening effects which they have upon the structures of party politics. When Mr. Benn propounded the "wheeze", as it then was, of the referendum in 1971-72, he saw it as a great device for doing down the Conservatives. But, in fact, in the context of that decade, it had the reverse effect. Not only did it produce a great majority for, rather than against, Europe, but it was, I think, a necessary condition for the creation of the SDP—I doubt whether it would have happened without the referendum campaign—and therefore for the Liberal Democrats in their present form.
Just as with Europe, constitutional questions are much better settled, if they can be, with at least some cross-party element in them. God knows, we move slowly enough on constitutional change, so no one could say we should only proceed by unanimity, which would be a recipe for total immobilism. But the firm acceptance of irreversibility in constitutional change is also desirable.
Franchise extensions over nearly two centuries provide a very good example of party intermingling. The Whigs did the Great Reform Act of 1832, but the Tories did the 1867 one. The Liberals, as the Whigs had become, did the 1885 one. The Conservative-dominated but Liberal-led coalition did the big 1918 extension of the female franchise and the Conservative ended the process with the "flapper" vote in 1928.
On our relations with Ireland, historically the most traumatic British constitutional issue, the Conservatives bitterly opposed three Liberal Home Rule Bills but then participated fully in the 1921 settlement. It settled relations with southern Ireland. Had they, as they half veered towards in 1885-86, done a Home Rule Bill themselves then, they might have settled the Northern Ireland question at that stage as well.
Even on the question of the powers of your Lordships' House, quite a lot of Conservatives voted in the last resort for the Parliament Bill of 1911. No one
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has remotely talked of reversing that. If a semi-consensual solution to present issues could be found in relation to your Lordships' House, I would rather welcome it. But much Labour tolerance and much abandonment of Conservative rigidities would he needed for that.
After nearly 50 years in one House of Parliament or the other, 50 years which will be up at the end of April next year, and having led with great pleasure one party in this House and one of its tributaries in another place before that, and having 15 years before that been fairly near at times—I shall not put it higher than that in the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan of Cardiff—to leading a different and a bigger party, my conclusion is that parties are necessary instruments of state: sometimes good servants but almost never good masters in politics or in the service of the state. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.34 p.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Richard): My Lords, I should like to begin my remarks by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, on his speech and on his choice of subject for today's debate. It is timely, it is challenging, and, if I may say so, the noble Lord moved it, as we would expect him to, with a historical sweep and a penetrating political analysis. I shall have some more to say in just a few minutes on the substance of what he said.
However, before I move on, I hope the House will think it appropriate that I should mark a recent sad event. Lady Llewelyn-Davies, the former Government and Opposition Chief Whip, died recently after a long illness. There are, inevitably and rightly, strict rules in this House as to when formal tributes should be paid. I thought, however, that I might be permitted to pay a personal word of regret and of sympathy to my noble friend's family and to her many personal friends. She was the first, and so far the only, woman to have occupied either of those posts or indeed to have run a Whips' Office in either House. She did so with great distinction. Her grace and her charm will be warmly remembered by all of us who knew her. It is a sad loss and we shall all miss her greatly.
Perhaps I may say, too, in advance of dealing with the Motion, how much I am looking forward to the maiden speeches of my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, a title with a somewhat Braveheart ring about it, and of the noble Lords, Lord Goodhart, Lord Razzall and Lord Blackwell. I hope that I will be in a position to hear them all, but perhaps I may, in advance, apologise to them and to the House as I shall have to be away from the Chamber briefly to attend the meeting of the Procedure Committee which takes place this afternoon.
As many Peers know, and indeed as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, has just retold us, the noble Lord has just announced his intention to stand down as leader of the Liberal Democrat Peers with effect from the end of this year. We learnt yesterday that the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, is to be the new leader of his party. I take this opportunity to welcome him warmly to his new

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post. This is, as the noble Lord again said, very probably the last major debate in which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, will lead his Benches in this House. We naturally look forward to hearing a great deal from him in the future but it would be right for me to spend just a few minutes saying one or two words about his truly remarkable career.
For the past nine years he has led his Peers with authority, with wisdom and always, if I may say so, with elegance. The whole House has benefited from his long and distinguished experience. He has achieved the highest distinction in letters as well as in politics. As a historian and biographer—not least in matters connected with this House and with this Palace—he is essential reading. By my count he so far holds no fewer than 26 honorary degrees and doctorates from institutions of learning in Britain, Europe and America. He is, of course, Chancellor of the University of Oxford.
As a politician, his parliamentary career so far has spanned very nearly half a century since he first became a Member of another place in 1948. In what might be called his "early period", he was twice one of the most distinguished Home Secretaries of modern times, a formidable Chancellor of the Exchequer and a distinguished Deputy Leader of my party. In his "middle period", as President of the European Commission from 1977 to 1981, he made an enormous contribution both inside that body—not always an easy task, as I can myself attest—and he made an enormous contribution to the growing warmth in this country towards the European Union. Since then, in his "later period", he has been on a political odyssey, sadly no longer as a member of my party. He has since been a leading member of no fewer than three political parties: the Social Democrats, the Social and Liberal Democrats and the Liberal Democrats. In fact, if I may say so to him, I am told that the nameplate on his door in this House tells us that he still leads the second of those parties rather than the third. Now, in his latest phase, we find him charting a friendly course of good counsel and constructive engagement with his former party. On behalf of the House, may I say to the noble Lord how much we have appreciated his contribution. We look forward to very much more of it.
Turning to the noble Lord's Motion, the case that he has put has lessons for members of all parties and of none. His fundamental contention is that, where those in public life have similar objectives, they should concert wherever possible to achieve those objectives. I agree. The first draft of his Motion spoke of the benefits of "non-confrontational politics". I agree with that, too. Politics can be a rough trade, but it has an objective—to do better, as we see it, for the people we represent and for the country as a whole. Without that aim, politics would simply be a scramble for power for its own sake. But quite often the differences between the parties are relatively small and the dispute is often about means rather than ends. Wherever that is the case I believe that it behoves those of us who practise this trade to seek common ground when we can in the interests of good and durable government. If I may say so, this House and the way that it operates without rigid
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rules is perhaps a good example of how that approach can work in practice. Since the new Government were elected in May we have sought to work within that approach and to preserve the spirit of co-operation in this House and we shall, of course, continue to do so.
The noble Lord's Motion points us towards two key areas of government policy, and if I may I shall deal with Europe first. There is no more important single long-term issue facing this country than that of the nature and the extent of our relationship with Europe. The aims which drove the original Common Market to prevent any repetition of the two world wars which began on our continent are still inspiring ones—certainly, they still are for me.
Europe poses for us enormous and significant choices—on employment, the environment, transport and agriculture. Following the Chancellor's announcement on European monetary union, the electorate may be invited to make perhaps the most important decision for a generation in a referendum. For all these reasons I am delighted that we have been able to discuss with the Liberal Democrats our priorities for Britain's forthcoming presidency of the European Union. We were able to find broad support for our plans. We were able to establish a shared determination to shape a national consensus around our joint view that the United Kingdom should seek to play a leading role in Europe. It is already clear that a great deal of important business will be done during our presidency.
This country has a strong and immediate interest in a successful start to the process of economic and monetary union. We want to see a process which starts on time and with as wide a participation as is consistent with a strong and sustainable currency. On economic reform the Government wish to promote agreement in the European Union on the basic principles necessary to make Europe more competitive for the future. We shall take forward in our presidency work on the next round of enlargement of the European Union together with reform of the common agricultural policy and of the structural and cohesion funds. We shall take practical steps in the war against crime and drugs. We shall pursue a heavy agenda on environmental matters and work for effective and substantive co-ordination of European Union foreign policy on the major current issues.
In seeking a consensus in the country on Britain's role, it is extremely important to us that the Liberal Democrats have given their substantive support. Would that the Conservative Party had been as constructive, though I do begin to detect dangerous signs of what I believe some in the Conservative Party seem to regard as the virus of consensus in Mr. Clarke, Mr. Heseltine, Mr. Temple-Morris, and like-minded Back-Benchers. I hope that the virus spreads and that others become similarly affected.
I turn now to constitutional matters. As the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, reminded us, a Cabinet Committee chaired by the Prime Minister was established on 22nd July to consider issues of joint interest to the Government and to the Liberal Democrats. Such inter-party co-operation is not unique. It has happened

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before. But it is important to see it as it is: Ministers remain the only decision makers, and thus are properly and solely accountable for those decisions. This is not a pact, nor is it a coalition. It is a committee which enables the Government to explore with a party with which it shares many common aims, how those aims might be achieved in what we perceive, jointly, to be the national interest. The aim was expressly to move away from old-style confrontational politics. The early focus of that committee has inevitably been on the government's programme of constitutional reform, as set out in our manifesto put before the country at the last election, and based on agreements reached in opposition with the Liberal Democrat party.
Our agenda is a substantial one and it was partly referred to by the noble Lord in his speech: first, incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights so that British people no longer have to go to Strasbourg to enforce their rights; secondly, a referendum Bill and White Paper on a strategic authority for London consisting of an elected mayor and an assembly; thirdly, regional development agencies on which legislation and a White Paper will be announced this Session; fourthly, freedom of information on which a consultative White Paper will set out proposals for legislation, putting an end, we hope, to secrecy for secrecy's sake; fifthly, an independent commission on the Westminster voting system to consider the best alternative to the first-past-the-post system to be followed by a referendum; sixthly, proportional representation for the European elections—a Bill is already before the House of Commons; seventhly, reforming the procedures in another place. The modernisation of how the other place deals with legislation and holds Ministers to account has been the subject of a report from my right honourable friend the President of the Council and may have consequential implications for this House. It is a matter on which I am this afternoon asking the Procedure Committee to take a view. The eighth issue is devolution. Following the referendums on 11th and 18th September, the Government will introduce two devolution Bills, which will doubtless receive close and proper scrutiny in your Lordships' House.
So it is a substantial agenda but it is one on which we believe that it has been right and profitable to the country to consult closely with the Liberal Democrats. The Government have benefited considerably from their involvement and not just in thrashing out policy details. Discussions such as these signify an understanding, on our part at least, that there are issues which transcend party considerations.
There is one issue which, as noble Lords may perhaps have noted, I have so far omitted from the list of the Government's comprehensive constitutional programme. I have done so deliberately because I wish to underline the lesson of this debate in relation to it. That issue is, of course, the reform of this House, a policy overwhelmingly endorsed by the electorate and discussed in opposition with the Liberal Democrats. In the spirit of the terms of this Motion I believe that the Opposition needs to answer one straightforward question. Does it support the removal of the rights of
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hereditary Peers to sit and vote in a reformed House? It seems to me that that is the fundamental issue. It seems also that the leader of the Opposition, Mr. Hague, has grasped it. He floated the idea that fundamental opposition to our plans should be dropped. He was promptly attacked by his chairman, the noble Lord. Lord Parkinson. I believe that the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, has argued publicly in the opposite direction.
From this confusion it emerges that the policy is "under review". I hope that the Opposition can soon resolve where it stands. I say this to them, and I hope very clearly. If they are prepared to accept that accident of birth should no longer give a right to sit and vote in this House, then we can have a sensible discussion about reforming our Chamber. If they are not prepared to accept that, then it seems to me that they have little to bring to that discussion. If the noble Viscount will allow me to pull his leg for a change, he needs to make his mind up on one other issue. On the "Today" programme on BBC Radio 4 on 9th October, he claimed that our proposals would "emasculate" the House. A little later he said that they would "give it more authority". That is a difficult dual concept for a brain as naïve as mine to understand. I do not see how the noble Viscount can have it both ways. If the House is emasculated it seems unlikely to have more authority in the future.
Wherever those of goodwill wish to work with us to achieve common aims, we welcome their contribution. Constitutional reform and our approach to Europe are only two examples of the areas in which we seek a new approach to party politics. After barely six months in office this Government are making great strides in forging a national consensus on our society's aims for the future, and I say again that we welcome the contribution that the Liberal Democrats are making to that process. We look forward to more of it. We invite parliamentarians and others of all parties or indeed of none to join us in this great project of taking this country forward as a leading nation into the millennium to come.
3.50 p.m.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, before I begin, I should like very much to echo the sentiments expressed by the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal in respect of the late and very much lamented Lady Llewelyn-Davies. I know that the noble Lord, as so often in matters appertaining to this House, is entirely correct when he says that we do not want to devalue the currency of paying tribute. However, although I was not fortunate enough to know Lady Llewelyn-Davies as well as I would have liked, it is perfectly plain from the extraordinary affection in which she was held in all parts of this House irrespective of party allegiance that some rules at least are only good when it is clear that they should occasionally be broken—and this is one of them. I should like to echo the tribute which the Lord Privy Seal so eloquently paid to Lady Llewelyn-Davies. I was only fortunate enough to meet her twice and I have to confess that within about five seconds I was utterly seduced not only by her charm but by her extraordinary beauty. I can well understand how the noble Lord, Lord Carter, as the present Captain of the

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Gentlemen-at-Arms, might find himself at a serious disadvantage because, although we know that he is a man thoroughly imbued with charm and skill, I think that he and I would agree that he is not nearly as beautiful as his predecessor—
Lord Carter: Predecessor?
Viscount Cranborne:—as any of his predecessors.
I echo what the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal said. Lady Llewelyn-Davies will be sadly missed and I only wish that I had been fortunate enough to have shared more time with her in this House while she was still active in it.
Like the Lord Privy Seal, I should also say how much I am looking forward to the very large number of maiden speeches that we are to hear later—some from our side of the House and some from the other. Again, like the Lord Privy Seal, I hope, in spite of commitments elsewhere in this House later today, to be able to listen to all of them.
I turn now to the Motion that we are discussing. As always, I was hugely impressed by the high-mindedness of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, which was so eloquently echoed by the high-minded attitude of the Lord Privy Seal. I cannot in any way hope to emulate such high-flown rhetoric or such admirable sentiments. I fear that I am only a hereditary machine politician and, as a result, I have no option but to say what is in my mind. I can only apologise to both noble Lords for what they may feel may be something of a come-down after the extraordinary virtuosity that we heard earlier.
I have to confess that I have been much interested by the history of the Motion now before us. The Lord Privy Seal mentioned that it had another incarnation. Unless I am much mistaken, it began its existence on the Order Paper in somewhat different terms from those that we see today. In the Minute of 11th November, for instance, the Motion for today in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, read as follows:
"To call attention to the value of non-confrontational politics and cross-party co-operation".
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, as a noted scholar who has experience of tricky textual analysis, will agree that the Motion that he introduced today with his customary style and brio, is drafted in rather more restrictive and somewhat less sweeping terms than that. Today we are invited to support a Motion only when parties co-operate "on major national issues". The noble Lord even helped us by citing a couple of examples in relation to Europe and constitutional change.
I have to ask the House in all seriousness why the noble Lord modified the terms of his Motion. After all—again, I say this in all sincerity—someone of his political experience and proven mastery of the English language in both its spoken and written forms will undoubtedly have considered extremely carefully what he meant to convey before he sent an emissary to the House authorities bearing the terms of his Motion for inclusion in the Minute. So, we can perhaps dismiss at once the unworthy thought that I have to confess had
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occurred to me that a Peer of the noble Lord's distinction in both parliamentary and academic fields had made a drafting error. No, I fear that the explanation that appeals to me for this uncharacteristically hurried adjustment to the terms of the Motion arises from rather lower politics than the noble Lord led us to believe. Like so much that is low in politics, I fear that for that explanation we must look to another place.
Your Lordships may have noticed that on Monday 17th November the Liberal Party had a half-day debate in another place, introduced by Mr. Simon Hughes. The subject of that debate was Britain's key public services. The terms of the Motion, while taking a ritual side-swipe at the last government, which is something that we take entirely as a compliment, were not complimentary about the present Government. I am sorry to have to add—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, will be doubly sorry to hear this—that neither was Mr. Simon Hughes.
I assume that some channel of communication exists between the Liberals in your Lordships' House and those in another place. I imagine that it is some sort of super high-minded highway, if I may put it like that. Would it be too fanciful of me to imagine an exchange between those channels of communication, the burden of which might be as follows, although I am sure that the actual language used would have been more stately and perhaps more polysyllabic than my imagination, poor as it is, can muster? The Liberal from the other place might have said something like this, "We have half a Supply Day on Monday. After all, it suits the Labour Party to give us one because they can't win Winchester and want us to have a go at it. If we attack the Government, we don't look to the Winchester voters as though we are Labour stooges any more. After all, this Ecclestone business means that they are not walking on water any longer and it might suit us to put a bit of distance between us and them. As we still present ourselves to the public as being whiter than white, we don't want to get splashed with Labour mud, do we?". I imagine to myself that the Liberal in your Lordships' House might have said something like this in response, "That sounds perfectly reasonable. There is one small difficulty though. We have been pretty big on cross-party co-operation with the Government in our House and our Leader is already closely associated with it, as is our Chief Whip. In fact, not only is Roy Tony's guru on PR and Europe, but he has a Motion down next week saying what a good thing it all is". The House of Commons Liberal might have said, "Well, that's a bit awkward, but no one notices very much what happens in your House so perhaps you can get away with it". The reply might have come, "Well, I'll tell you what, we could modify the Motion a bit and say that co-operation only really works for the great issues like Europe and the constitution". The reply might have come back, "Do what you think best. I have to run now because there is an idiot here I have to hose down who wants to say something about site value ratings although that's all a bit out of date nowadays".

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I am sure that something like that exchange must have occurred—without my imaginative bells and whistles. The rewording of the Motion has all the hallmarks of a hurried Whip's solution which inevitably will have to be made to do—
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, I hope that it will not disappoint your Lordships or insult my honourable colleague in the other House if I say that I was totally unaware of the Motion tabled by Mr. Simon Hughes. I changed my Motion entirely on my own initiative because I thought that noble Lords needed to be directed to slightly more concrete images. I thought that mentioning Europe and constitutional issues might attract one or two more Peers to speak.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, as so often I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, for putting me right on these matters. Obviously, my imagination has run more riot than it should have done, but I am deeply shocked to find that there is so little communication between the Liberal Party in both Houses. We very much look forward to the resulting dropped catches, particularly when the noble Lord has dropped the reins of leadership of his party in this House.
Be that as it may, when the revised Motion is considered—however it was reworded and for whatever motives—particularly in conjunction with the speech of Mr. Simon Hughes, which unlike the noble Lord I have had the advantage of reading, it begs a number of questions. For instance, what constitutes a major national issue in the eyes of the Liberal Party? Clearly, Europe and constitutional matters do—the noble Lord has told us that for himself—but not by implication key public services. From his speech Mr. Simon Hughes believes that key public services are an extremely important issue, but assuming that he had compared notes with the noble Lord—which I had assumed until corrected—it did not appear to be sufficiently important to indulge in cross-party co-operation, at least in the House of Commons, although it might be so in your Lordships' House.
Put like that, the Motion of the noble Lord does not really seem to stand up. All of us, including I imagine the Liberal Party, believe that key public services constitute an important issue. We are in no doubt that the electorate also believes that. The difference between us and the Liberals is how best they can be delivered. Incidentally, it appears to us that the Liberals are still in the dark ages of tax and spend, and we have moved on. Even the Labour Party has moved on a bit. Therefore, the Liberals have ended cross-party co-operation on this issue, at least in the other House, however important that issue may appear to them to be.
The truth of the matter is that the noble Lord is playing the oldest game in the political book. As he has reminded us, he has been writing that book for a number of decades so he ought to know it. It is called monopoly politics and it has exactly the same stultifying effect on the political market as commercial monopolies have on the commercial market. In this House, graced as we are
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by the presence of both the noble Lord and the Lord Privy Seal, we are in this instance dancing the commissioners' quadrille of consensus in Europe.
The noble Lord and his friends in the Labour Party are convinced that this country should become part of western European political union. It must therefore be in their interests to emasculate Parliament, which is the only institution that is still able to hold them to account. In order to do that it is necessary to develop a rhetoric that is powerful enough to achieve their objective, just as it is essential to undermine the party system in order to do so.
Like all effective rhetoric, it relies on a few simple and emotive words. Some of the words that are used in the service of this cause are "modernisation", "inevitable" and "chauvinism". Like much effective rhetoric, more often than not it does not deign to answer detailed arguments that support another view; rather, the tactic is to build a consensus that is designed to appear so powerful that any opposition appears puny and marginal. The result is a political monopoly that, on great questions like Europe, the constitution and perhaps even key public services, is able to brush aside any genuine debate. In the end, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, implied in the course of his remarks this afternoon, politics is indeed about great issues. As he rightly pointed out, they can and often have split parties, including my own.
I maintain nevertheless that parties form and reform and flourish around great issues. The only real danger of any living polity arises if those issues are smuggled though undiscussed. One of the best ways of doing that is by the establishment of the monopoly that I have described. In the commercial world the great nationalised industries produced a similar effect which resulted in bankrupt enterprises across the British industrial landscape. The noble Lord's tactic will produce exactly the same effect across our political landscape. If he doubts me, he has only to look at the favourite subject of his honourable friend Simon Hughes: key public services. I submit that for far too long the political parties have not dared to break the political consensus on public services. The result is that we have saddled ourselves with a dependency culture—to do justice to the Labour Party, it has recognised it particularly in the person of the admirable Mr. Frank Field—that risks destroying society, and we pay nearly £100 billion a year for the privilege.
One reads with interest that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, writes on page 336 of his autobiography:
"There is no doubt that standing out against the apparent chauvinism"—
one sees that word again—
"of one's own party is a good recipe for attracting international acclaim".
I do not begrudge the noble Lord one jot or tittle of the international acclaim that he has garnered. I know him well enough to realise that that is certainly not the reason that he takes the view he does on Europe and the constitution. Indeed, on page 617 of the very same volume he states that he believes sovereignty to be an almost total illusion in the modern world. Therefore, his

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beliefs and the acclaim come to exactly the same thing. I know that the noble Lord holds that view sincerely. Nevertheless, it must be comforting to find that all bureaucrats in Europe agree when many who believe in parliamentary government take exactly the opposite view. The difficulty for those who disagree with him is that he wants to impose a political monopoly to get his own way. It is therefore surely significant that when it does suit his party its passion for cross-party co-operation goes the way of all flesh, as it did with Mr. Simon Hughes last Monday in his debate on key public services; in others words, the Liberals will co-operate with other parties when it suits them and their political interests to do so. The victim is rigorous debate and parliamentary government. I am tempted to suggest, with the greatest respect to the noble Lord, that he would do well to resign from the other club at once because he is in serious breach of the rules of that institution if he persists in what he has said this afternoon.
I end my remarks on a slightly different note. I apologise to the noble Lord for being late for reasons that I hope he well understands. I apologised to him beforehand. Before I came in I understand that he enjoined noble Lords to eschew tributes to him. I shall do so. However, on this last great occasion of his parliamentary career as Leader I should like to make a few remarks. I welcome and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, who is entirely suited to his new task. In particular, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, for the extreme good humour, tolerance and kindness that he has shown me personally not only across the Floor of the House but in our private relations which I have always found extraordinarily agreeable during the three years or so that I have had something to do with the management of your Lordships' House. I have enjoyed our relationship even more than I have enjoyed the noble Lord's books, and that says quite a lot. Your Lordships may have noticed that we disagree politically in terms of policy and in visceral political instinct, if I may put it in that way, but I hope that the noble Lord will feel that our personal relations have nevertheless always remained of the warmest and will continue. Certainly, they do on my part. Perhaps a little prematurely, I wish him the most agreeable of retirements. Like the Lord Privy Seal, I express the hope that he will continue to make regular and distinguished, if constantly misguided, contributions to our debates.

The Utting Report
4.9 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Baroness Jay of Paddington): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should now like to repeat a Statement on the Utting Report which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health. The Statement is as follows:
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"The House will know that last year, after the conviction of people in North Wales for sexual and other crimes against children in their care over a long period, the previous government commissioned from Sir William Utting a review of the adequacy of safeguards against the abuse of children living away from home. They also set up a judicial tribunal of inquiry under the Tribunal of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 into the events which led to those convictions. The North Wales judicial inquiry, chaired by Sir Ronald Waterhouse, continues and is expected to report next summer.
"Sir William Utting has now reported to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales and myself. We are publishing his report today. There is a comparable review for Scotland, which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is also publishing today.
"Sir William's review was necessary because of continuing revelations of widespread sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children living away from home, and in particular in children's homes over the preceding 20 years. In addition to the convictions in North Wales, there are investigations or prosecutions in progress in the North West, the North East, South Wales and some home counties.
"The report presents a woeful tale of failure at all levels to provide a secure and decent childhood for some of the most vulnerable children. It covers the lives of children whose home circumstances were so bad that those in authority, to use the jargon, took them into care. The report reveals that in far too many cases not enough care was taken. Elementary safeguards were not in place or not enforced. Many children were harmed rather than helped. The review reveals that these failings were not just the fault of individuals—though individuals were at fault. It reveals the failures of a whole system.
"The review team found evidence of good work done by many children's homes despite adverse circumstances. It believes that residential care remains an important option for looking after children, but that staffing is a chronic problem.
"The report makes clear the following major faults: many children are placed in homes unsuited to their particular needs, because there is too little choice and too little planning. Some children go through a damaging succession of placements. Children are at risk in small unregistered homes. Over a third of children in residential care are not receiving an education. Children in foster care can be at risk of abuse. Safeguards intended in the Children Act are not being uniformly implemented. There is no requirement for residential maintained special schools to be inspected for welfare regularly. Some children abscond from residential care and become homeless. Some remain untraced. Children who ran away and were traced, have been in the past often returned to the care of their abusers. Disabled children, children with emotional and behavioural difficulties and young children are at higher risk of abuse or harm. Bullying and sexual abuse by other foster children was

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encountered. Bullying appeared to be ignored in some children's homes. The mix of fearsome children and vulnerable children amounts to abuse by the system which was supposed to give protection.
"Vetting of child care staff and foster parents must be improved. Unacceptable delays arise in checking criminal records. Staff who suspect child abuse can be deterred from coming forward for fear of victimisation by other staff or managers. Some directors of social services say they are reluctant to dismiss staff as their decisions can be overturned on appeal. The criminal justice system is ineffective in deterring offences against children and in securing convictions. Its failures are most marked where the victims are most vulnerable—the very young and the disabled. Prison Service policy to keep children in separate accommodation is not being achieved. Suicide, self-harm and endemic bullying occur. Boys aged 15 to 16 are still being remanded to prison because there is still not enough secure accommodation.
"The report concludes that, although there are no grounds for complacency, the repetition of abuse in children's homes on the scale of the past is unlikely. It makes 20 principal recommendations designed to: improve safeguards in foster and residential care, in schools and in the penal system; provide more effective safeguards and checks to deter abusers from working with children; provide more effective avenues of complaint and independent advocates to whom children should have access; provide more vigilant management; effective disciplinary and criminal procedures; and effective systems of communication between agencies about known abusers.
"The report calls also for changes to ensure that the criminal justice system provides children with better protection from abusers.
"I would like to thank those who produced this report. The situation it describes cannot be allowed to recur or continue. It must provide a spur to all concerned to make sure that in future children living away from home for long periods get a safe, decent and positive upbringing.
"This is a most serious report and the Government are taking it most seriously. We have set in train the following action: the Chief Inspector of Prisons has today published a report on young prisoners which reaches many of the same conclusions as Sir William Utting. The Home Office is making sure that standards to safeguard young people in prison currently being developed by the Prison Service incorporate the welfare aims recommended in the report. The Secretaries of State for Education and Wales will be making improvements to the welfare safeguards for children in boarding schools and will be working with the education service to achieve this. The Chief Social Services Inspector in England is assessing local authorities' compliance with essential management and staffing safeguards which are supposed to be in place already. The Welsh Office is implementing with determination the Adrienne Jones report on child care and protection.
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"We will be consulting widely and carefully with all the public and voluntary agencies concerned before giving a detailed and comprehensive response. The report acknowledges that the review panel was not able to assess the costs of implementing the recommendations or what the spending levels on children's services should be. It also emphasises that any extra resources must be matched by managerial and professional effort to improve performance.
"The recommendations made in the report will be considered as part of the comprehensive spending review covering the whole range of services for children, including social services, juvenile and criminal justice, and education.
"After careful consideration and consultation the Government will put forward a full programme of policy and management changes to deliver the safer environment to which children living away from home are entitled. This programme will be clear, affordable and enforceable. It will ensure that high standards are set and that whatever standards are set are met. The Department of Health and the Welsh Office are already committed to two important structural changes endorsed by the report—the creation of a statutory general social care council to regulate standards of conduct and practice by social services personnel, and the statutory regulation and inspection of small children's homes.
"We are actively reviewing the way in which the courts treat children and other vulnerable witnesses to allegations of abuse. We are preparing a White Paper on social services which will set out detailed proposals for improvements in the regulation of social services. We are setting up a ministerial task force led by me, involving Ministers from all the relevant departments and a small number of expert advisers from outside government. Its first job will be to prepare the full government response to this report.
"Finally, I should make it clear that many dedicated people are doing a good job looking after vulnerable children living away from home. This is never an easy task and they deserve our thanks. We owe it to them and to the children they look after to root out and punish the wrongdoers and also to put into place a system which helps rather than hinders their efforts.
"These vulnerable children living away from home are the responsibility of us all. Many have been let down. We will make sure that in future they are looked after better".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
4.19 p.m.
Earl Howe: My Lords, I express my gratitude to the Minister for repeating the Statement. There can be no one in your Lordships' House who does not feel the utmost revulsion at the thought of children suffering abuse in residential care homes, and the deepest sadness for those children whom the state system has let down so badly.
Sir William Utting's report, from my brief scrutiny of it, appears to be a cogent and thorough piece of work. The need for it is now, regrettably, even more evident

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than it was when the previous government commissioned it in June 1996. We join Her Majesty's Government in thanking Sir William for the effort and care that he has devoted to his task.
Although on these Benches we have clearly not had an opportunity to read the report or digest its implications fully, we stand ready to encourage and support Ministers in any fair and workable proposals that they may choose to bring forward to address the shortcomings in the system which Sir William has identified. I hope that the Government will act will all due speed to respond to the report's recommendations.
One of the report's findings is that over the past few years there have been fewer and fewer residential care places available to local authorities, as homes around the country have been progressively closed. The natural consequence of that is that fewer and fewer people have the relevant managerial experience of looking after residential care homes and the children in them. Unfortunately, it is a vicious circle in that in some areas caring for children in residential homes is regarded as a low status activity. Therefore, it is all too easy to see how paedophiles might have been able to infiltrate the staff of such homes.
Equally, a number of local authorities have no residential care facilities; they are obliged to purchase the service from outside. The inspection of homes is less straightforward; there is an increasing lack of choice of homes, which leads to unsuitable placements; and the risk of abuse and children experiencing bullying and intimidation from other children is accentuated further.
We should look seriously at Sir William's recommendation for a national child care strategy. Tighter standards, better supervision and better training will be a part of that strategy. Does the Minister agree that the possibility of an independent, nationally based system of inspection should be examined on a principle similar to the inspection of schools?
Since 1985 there have been three national inquiries into serious misconduct and abuse in children's homes. We should recognise that some progress has been made, although not enough, and, as the Minister emphasised, many good and caring people look after children in residential homes with skill and dedication. But the question which always arises when such a major report is published—and I put it to the Minister—is: how can we do better in identifying those individuals who pose a risk to children in care?
I am aware that there are blacklists. I understand that the Department for Education and Employment maintains such a list and that a similar list is maintained by the Department of Health. Are those lists co-ordinated? Is the system for collecting and disseminating information satisfactory? Can we examine ways of including other names on those lists; for example, an individual who is suspected of misconduct but who resigns from his post before being dismissed and being charged with an offence? Are the provisions of the Data Protection Act an insuperable problem to widening the scope of those lists to include the category of individual to which I have referred?
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If the Data Protection Act is one of the obstacles, do the Government agree that the delicate balance between safeguarding the rights of children who need protecting and safeguarding the civil rights of individuals needs to be examined with care in order to ensure that vulnerable children are shielded from risk to the maximum extent?
I welcome the report and its recommendations. I wholly support the action which the Government have taken. I look forward to their detailed response and to the forthcoming White Paper on social services. We on these Benches undertake to adopt a constructive approach to both.
Lord Alderdice: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made in another place. We welcome the report. It is serious in substance and deals with a frightening issue. The abuse of people is reprehensible, but when it is the abuse of vulnerable people, in particular children, it is worse again. When that happens in the context of a trusting relationship iniquity is piled upon iniquity. But the greatest nightmare of all is when children are removed from one abusive situation and put into another—trapped into further abuse at a time when they should have been able to put their trust in protection by the law and by others.
We have not had time to study the report in detail. However, the matter to which it refers, and the litany of failure and abuse referred to in the Statement, ensures that it is not merely major and significant but that it carries with it a moral imperative. There have been previous such reports dealing with one important aspect of the problem; that is, how to protect young people from the malevolent. I refer, for example, to the Warner Report published in 1992. Yet it appears that some of the recommendations—for example, the extensive vetting of those who seek to work with young people—have not been fully carried forward. The report needs to be fully considered and a great deal of work will be required. However, we seek the Government's assurance that those needs will not be used as an excuse for further delay and lack of implementation. We seek an assurance that the report will be implemented without delay in order to protect vulnerable young people from the malevolent.
There is another side to the matter, which is the protection of the vulnerable. Such young people, aside from the abuse they might suffer, are vulnerable in all kinds of ways. They are vulnerable, for example, educationally. We know that such young people are not performing at anything like the level of other young people. Some 75 per cent. of this group are leaving school without qualifications and are 10 times more likely to be excluded from school. We know, too, that their personalities are likely to be affected by the abuse that they have sustained. In their relationships with others it is not infrequent that the abuse is repeated. It is not easy to work with such young people.
That leads me to another group of vulnerable individuals, mentioned briefly in the Statement. I refer to the staff who work with those young people. There has been a movement to have more young people dealt with in the community. Out of 60,000, approximately 40,000 are dealt with in the institutional context, but

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one-third are dealt with in foster care. As we move towards those young people being dealt with out of the institutional environment, the concentration of disturbance within that environment becomes all the greater. The pressures on staff are greatly increased. If there are resource difficulties, staff under pressure, increasingly disturbed young people and heavier requirements and regulations, then the vulnerability of the staff in dealing with those young people is also greatly increased.
It is not sufficient merely to demand more professionalism and better management. We must also ensure real support and sufficient resources so that the staff do not become increasingly vulnerable and that the work is attractive to those who want to do what is best for the children. I seek the Minister's assurance that issues such as the educational vulnerability of the children and the vulnerability of the staff as regards supervision and treatment will receive urgent attention.
Finally, will the Government attend to the wise words of the NSPCC, which has so much experience of these affairs? It states that the standards and quality in different parts of the country are varied and that great attention should be given to ensuring equality across the country so that there are no pockets in which such incidents recur. The noble Earl pointed to one way in which that can be achieved. I look forward to the Government's response with eagerness.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am grateful to both the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, for their constructive response to the Statement. Both noble Lords indicated the seriousness of the subject under discussion and reflected what I think the noble Earl described as the general revulsion at some of the material revealed in the report. I am extremely grateful to both noble Lords for indicating that any constructive and forward-looking response by the Government, once we have gone through the consultation process which I described in repeating the Statement, will be supported on different sides of the House. I know that the Government will value that greatly.
The noble Earl referred to the general necessity to both underline and encourage the better training and screening of people involved in a professional way in looking after children living away from home. That is probably the crux of the matter and it is something to which the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, also referred. We shall of course give great emphasis to looking at that both in relation to the better training facilities which are needed and the better support to which the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, referred. Of course, it must be looked at also in the context of resources. As I said in repeating the Statement, the matter will be given attention in the cross-departmental discussions on the comprehensive spending review.
The noble Earl referred to the question of whether one should look to a national strategy to try to implement some of the report's findings and whether some issues should be approached on a broader basis. The chief of the social services inspectorate in England is now assessing local authorities' compliance with essential management and staffing safeguards and, it is hoped, will be reporting to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for
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Health shortly after Christmas in terms of the national review of present practice and making some national recommendations for future activity.
We feel also that it will be possible to examine the whole problem in the context of a national strategy by the creation of the general social care council which will be able to regulate standards of conduct and practice by social services personnel throughout the country. We hope that it will provide some gold standards on that. I trust that that reassures the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, that we take seriously the need to maintain national standards and have a consistency of practising policy which I endorse entirely.
The noble Earl referred also to the need to exchange more information about the selection, vetting and management of care staff. We agree that that needs to be looked at again, particularly in the context of some of the original recommendations of the Warner Report, to which the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, referred. One problem which arises from making those procedures compulsory is that that may take more time and may make appointments more bureaucratic and expensive to fulfil. But we understand that that is a very important issue and we shall consult those affected professionally in every other way before we reach a decision.
We accept that it is important to look at the possibilities of making it easier to exchange information both between departments at national and local level and between different groups of people involved professionally in looking after those children. It is likely that we shall be able to take that forward but legislation will be needed. There will need to be particular statutory reference to the exchange of information between departments because of the issues raised by the Data Protection Act and related matters.
We are encouraged by the thought that the Private Member's Bill on public interest disclosure, which the Government have said they will support, may address some of the issues but it may not cover all of the points which the noble Lord raised and additional legislation may well be needed.
On the more general point about the seriousness with which the Government take this report and the need to implement it quickly, I want absolutely to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, that we shall take that forward as quickly as we can. The ministerial taskforce, which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is to lead, will be established and will be up and running very quickly. It involves cross-departmental liaison but from the initial response to my right honourable friend's inquiries of other departments, everyone in Whitehall takes this as seriously as they should do. I hope that it will be taken forward very quickly at that level and that that will then be translated into both national and local action.
4.35 p.m.
Lord Merlyn-Rees: My Lords, my noble friend has explained the report, its 20 recommendations and the setting up of the ministerial taskforce. In my 35 years in Parliament I have heard many statements dealing with these problems and they seem to go on and on. Something should be done immediately. Are all the

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police forces aware of their responsibility in checking on, for example, teachers and people working in childcare establishments and other such fields? Is that being carried out properly? I know from my contacts with the NSPCC that it works with police forces in child abuse cases. Will the Minister check immediately to ensure that all police forces are aware of their responsibilities?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. I share his concern that we seem to hear about these terrible events occurring time after time. It is almost as though there is a vicious cycle in terms of reports, as well as the actual activities which produce them.
As regards police responsibility, I shall check on that for my noble friend and write to him on the subject. He will be aware that there is a continuing discussion among the various departments responsible for those matters, both on the social services side and on the law enforcement side. There is continuing tension on the question of safeguarding the rights of individuals—the civil liberties problem—and the rights involved in safeguarding particularly vulnerable children. Those are extremely difficult matters. But I assure my noble friend that this report is a spur to looking at those problems yet again and perhaps reinforcing the legislation and some of the requirements of local police forces in the way that my noble friend described.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, in the course of the Statement the Minister mentioned that one of the points that Sir William Utting made was that a principal problem in this whole saga is the difficulty that members of staff have in reporting on one another and the difficulty that children have in complaining. That is an intractable problem on which I believe there has been some research fairly recently. It would be interesting to know whether the Government have looked at that, or, indeed, whether there is mention of it in the report, which I have not had time to examine.
I wonder whether it would be helpful to the Government if we had a debate, perhaps not a very long debate, in this House. We could then make sure that we do not just wring our hands, which we are inclined to do over this subject because it makes us feel absolutely sick. There is a good deal that can be said of a positive nature. We know that in this House there is a good deal of understanding and expertise in relation to the problem, and it may be that the Government would find it helpful to have a short debate.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for rightly suggesting that there is a good deal of authoritative evidence and opinion in this House from people with long experience in the field. The question of a debate would be for the usual channels. But I agree with the noble Baroness that an ability to tap in to the great expertise and authority of Members of your Lordships' House would be very helpful.
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As regards research, the noble Baroness may be referring to research being conducted by Bristol University as to why there are so few convictions in this area and so few child witnesses involved in prosecutions. That research is expected to be completed early next year. The Government are aware of it and hope that it will be useful in leading to a path which helps us to understand ways in which we can better protect whistle-blowers on the staff side and protect children who may, in the jargon, wish to disclose experiences but not have the ability to do so or feel sufficiently safe with those adults around them to make any statement.
Baroness Ludford: My Lords, I too thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. As she says, it is a shocking report which describes a woeful situation. I listened to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, who asked how we can do better. I feel extremely reassured by the fact that the Minister, in describing the work which is about to take place, committed herself—I am aware of her reputation—to setting up the formal mechanisms which can tackle the problem.
Does the Minister agree with me that there is a need also to be free of both dogma and complacency? I speak as a member of the local authority of the London Borough of Islington, which was the subject of allegations leading to an independent investigation into allegations of child abuse in our children's homes. That has taught me that we must be free of dogma and all join in the search for high standards of child protection without falling prey to rigid views.
Moreover, there is no room for complacency. Indeed, none of us can afford to think that it will not happen on our patch. It is dreadful to imagine the struggle that children have had to he listened to and awful to think that officials, and some politicians, have not wanted to know or hear. It would be inconceivable today to have a repetition of what happened in Islington five years ago when the then leader of the council accused the newspaper which first published the allegations of gutter journalism. I say that not for party political reasons but because it is a lesson to all of us: we cannot be complacent. I hope that the Minister agrees with me.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I certainly agree with the noble Baroness that this is not an area of complacency. The Government's initial response to the report makes it clear that certain actions are being taken immediately. As regards the point the noble Baroness made about the concerns of people who have a particular interest in the matter, whether they be from local authorities, local health authorities, from local education departments or others working at the national level, it is clearly important that the widest possible consultation is undertaken and that those views are taken into consideration. It is important that we listen to what people who have practical experience say. Moreover, as the noble Baroness rightly said, it is important that we do not proceed on the basis of any kind of dogmatic assumptions of what people's positions may be.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her kind words. However, I should point out to her that I only repeated the Statement. I did say that the ministerial

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taskforce would be set up by "me", but I was of course referring to my right honourable friend in the other place. I was merely repeating a reported speech. My honourable friend Mr. Boateng is the Minister directly responsible for this area in the departmental context. I know that he will take the lead.
Lord Murray of Epping Forest: My Lords, we are all indebted to Sir William Utting and his committee for the report. I am also grateful to my noble friend the Minister for the positive attitude which she and her colleagues in government are taking not only in redressing the wrongs of the past but also, more importantly, in ensuring that they do not happen again. I have three quick points to make in that context.
First, as has been said, this is sadly not news in many ways. Sir William Utting has drawn together information about a range of activities which, regrettably. have been known to childcare charities for many years. Much of that has been addressed by many of the major charities such as Barnardos and NCH Action for Children. Will my noble friend ensure that, in drawing up the programme, full account will be taken of the work that has been done to introduce new systems of training, supervision, management, complaints procedures, and so on, which, incidentally, are very expensive? If the Government will the end of improvement in that respect, we hope that they will will the means.
Secondly, when drawing up the programme, will my noble friend and her colleagues consider the possibility of the provision of more residential facilities? The rate of reduction in the provision of residential care facilities has been too fast in recent years. I accept that many of the old homes should have been closed and indeed needed to be closed, but we have seen the alternative of keeping children in the community—often finding them in young offenders' institutions rather than in properly secluded care, whether it be of the residential or educational sort. In that context, will my noble friend address her mind to the fact that one of the main reasons for the reduction has been the inability of local authorities to fund placements? As they have withdrawn young people from those homes, so the unit costs of keeping other young people there have escalated out of this world. That is just one consequence of the appalling financial situation in which local authorities find themselves. Will my noble friend look at the possibility of providing more facilities of the smaller and more specialist sort?
Finally, will my noble friend examine the implications of the sharp increase in private children's care homes, the number of which increased by about 30 per cent. in 1996 alone? That conceivably might be the Achilles' heel in the future of further instances of abuse. Will my noble friend ensure in her legislation for such homes that, irrespective of their size, there is adequate provision for inspection and monitoring and that regulations are made in that respect?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am particularly grateful to my noble friend for highlighting the valuable work which the children's voluntary sector
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has done, both in drawing attention to some of the problems which are reflected in this sad report and also in its active involvement in translating its findings into practice and policy in the area. Of course we will very much want to take the views and the authoritative opinions that those in the sector have on the subject when we come to consider the consultation which will precede our considered response to the report.
My noble friend is right to say that many of the recommendations have been made before, especially in the Warner Report (published some years ago), to which reference has already been made, as regards the vetting and supervision of recruiting staff to residential homes. As I understand it, many local authorities now have other systems in place, but, as was said earlier, there is a discrepancy between the practices of local authorities. One of the things that we hope will emerge from some of the actions that we are taking as a result of the report is greater national consistency. We also hope that the recommendations of several previous authoritative reports will now be translated into national positions.
I find what my noble friend said about the question of extending residential care most interesting. As he noted, that has been in decline in the conventional sense in recent years. One of the areas at which we need to look—and this is certainly something which is addressed by Sir William Utting in his report—is the extension and the regulation of more foster care and more foster places, rather than the re-establishment of the traditional type of home.
I agree with my noble friend that we need to look carefully at the extension of private care in the area, both in terms of foster care where children are living with, so to speak, surrogate parents and also in the more conventional homes. My noble friend will know that one of the recommendations of Sir William is that there should be inspection of the recruitment and support of foster carers and that the Government should establish a code of practice on foster care. We agree that there is a need for a code of practice. As part of the chief inspector's review of children's services, to which I referred earlier, he will be considering current practice on the recruitment of foster carers, and will identify any needs for further development with the statutory and voluntary sectors. We expect a code of practice on foster care to follow this report.

Constitutional Change: Cross-party Co-operation
4.48 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord Alderdice: My Lords, I should like, first, to applaud the initiative of my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Hillhead and to thank him for having given us the opportunity to review the matter. As he said, the Motion has provoked sufficient interest to attract a significant number of maiden speakers. I am sure that we all look forward to hearing those maiden speeches.

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However, my noble friend's own speech was significant and worth remarking upon. He is a more than noted chronicler of the achievements of progressive politicians of a previous time. In himself, my noble friend is a towering figure in the politics of his own generation and time. As a somewhat younger man, despite the increasing number of grey hairs in my beard, I and many of my generation find the vision that was expressed in the analysis in his speech today an inspiration as we continue to build our politics, our future and our relationships not only within domestic politics but also further afield.
However, this Chamber is no stranger to great speeches; indeed, not even to those that we have already heard today. As noble Lords will know much better than I do, if one makes one's way down from the Prince's Chamber towards the Library, one sees two major works of art, one on either side of the corridor, commemorating a great historic and political occasion in this House and a period of debate redolent of the great speech.
I was reminded of this when I heard the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, speak. On one side of the corridor there is a picture of the Lord Chancellor about to put the Question in the debate on home rule and on the other side there is a picture of the Marquess of Salisbury clearly objecting to the matter in hand. I found myself reflecting on that as I listened to what the noble Viscount had to say, because my part of the world, Northern Ireland, and indeed Ireland as a whole, has continued to suffer from the results of that debate and its outcome, and not least from the stance that was taken by the great-great-grandfather of the present Viscount; for it was his view at the time that, rather than there being co-operation in addressing the problems of Ireland, it would become a matter of enormous debate, division and disagreement.
As your Lordships well know, home rule was defeated on that occasion. Despite being brought back on a number of occasions, it did not finally achieve anything other than a partial completion in the early part of this century. I remind your Lordships that one of the costs was not only the reality for people like me many generations later but also what happened to your Lordships' House. I had cause to reflect upon this because I and my colleagues have been struggling to deal with some of the damage that I believe was wrought at that time; for I am firmly of the conviction—although it is not a particularly well educated one—that, had it been possible for the people of Ireland to have more responsibility and control of their own affairs at that time, the pressure cooker of militant republicanism and nationalism may never have reached the strength that it did and the people of Ireland would have been content to remain with the rest of the people of these islands, and we would all have had a much more fruitful and positive relationship with the rest of our common European home area.
I have been fascinated as I have observed how the party that the noble Viscount represents changed its attitude when it was in power and had responsibility for dealing with all the difficulties that had been created
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over so many years. A century ago the party led by Lord Salisbury was insisting on no devolution—home rule was the name given to it in those days. The party insisted that it was a matter of sovereignty, that there could be no movement upon it and that electoral systems and governmental arrangements should change absolutely as little as possible. A little later it became apparent that this was not merely a question of a fundamental conviction in debate but was, in the words of another Tory, an orange card that could be played to advantage. But when many years later a Tory government became responsible for dealing with the difficulties of Northern Ireland, what did we find? On electoral systems they decided it was crucial to ensure that there was proportional representation in Northern Ireland at local government level and in any assembly. Why was that? It was considered crucial to ensure that the community was not split, divided and fighting among itself.
As regards the European election, the previous government were quite prepared to accept that proportional representation might be appropriate for Northern Ireland even though the rest of the United Kingdom would be blighted with another system. They said that should be the case because a consensual system was so important in a divided community. I found it extraordinary to listen to the Secretary of State in the previous government and his colleagues argue with energy and emotional conviction that home rule or devolution was critical to the health of Northern Ireland and to its welfare but anathema for the rest of the United Kingdom. They argued that it was the way of ensuring that Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom but the recipe for fracturing the whole kingdom if it were applied to the people of Scotland or the people of Wales.
As regards human rights, after considerable debate and after the discussions of 1991 and 1992 the Secretary of State began to make it clear that a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland would be important and appropriate while at the same time the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights for the rest of the people of the United Kingdom would be an aberration and an appalling business altogether, likely to wreak havoc with our administration of justice.
It seems to me that when one has responsibility for dealing with big questions or divisive questions, somehow or other there is an appreciation that we must work together in the face of these difficulties because they are so strong and because they are so critical. In that regard the Conservative Government realised the importance of Europe and of working together with our closest European neighbour, the only one with whom we have a land frontier, Ireland. We joined the European Community on the same day in 1973. We must work together with them in a special Anglo-Irish Agreement, establishing intergovernmental arrangements and making sure that Ministers are meeting together. Why is this done? Is it done in order to sell ourselves out to people who had rebelled and left, and in order to dilute national sovereignty and to tear our United Kingdom apart? Not at all. It is done in order to build peace and prosperity with our closest European neighbour.

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Yet, somehow, it appears that to work in the same fashion with the rest of our European neighbours is a profound threat to all that we hold good. I find that an extraordinary proposition.
Perhaps I might be permitted a wry comment. When we look at the difficulties in Northern Ireland and those battles which are celebrated every summer, we find that it is not an Irish prince, nor even an English prince, who seems to be at the bottom of it, but a Dutch prince who was persuaded to take upon himself the throne of England in order to struggle against some of his European enemies at the time. The truth is that on these big issues that involve our history and our future, our peace and our prosperity, there is something bigger than party advantage. In Northern Ireland we have tried to work at this. We have made it clear that difference should not be pushed to division; that power sharing does not mean giving up one's party, its commitments and its principles: but rather finding ways of working together with those with whom one differs for the greater good of all and the achievement of what is best in the community.
I know that your Lordships may well find that I come back again and again to the difficulties of Northern Ireland and to its history. I trust that it will not be a plague on your Lordships' House. In times past others kept coming back to this matter to disrupt the affairs of this House. I trust your Lordships will understand that I return to this matter because I believe that sometimes as regards our most difficult problems we can see most clearly the way not only of resolving them but also some of the problems that have caused less dismay. In that context I am not only persuaded of the critical importance of power sharing in Northern Ireland but also of sharing power in the whole of our United Kingdom and in our increasingly united European home.
4.58 p.m.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity of participating in a debate in your Lordships' House. I hope that some day I shall be able to match the fine oratory of my noble friend Lord Alderdice. I was advised, as I suppose have been many other noble Lords, that a maiden speech should be short and uncontroversial. As an advocate at the Criminal Bar I have always understood the effectiveness of brevity. However, I had more trouble with the ordinance about controversy. My granny used to say that a kiss from a man without a moustache was like meat without salt. I have to say that I feel much the same way about a speech without just a frisson of provocation. However, I shall do my utmost to keep to the injunction.
On the topic of kisses, I was introduced into this House a fortnight ago and have been met with kindness itself. I think it started well with a misunderstanding on my part of the initiation rite. After the elaborate doffing, the oathtaking and much bowing, I followed the procession out of the Chamber, where I was met by the noble Lords, Lord Hollick and Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, who kissed me warmly. There was a queue of noble Lords waiting to enter the House and I enthusiastically kissed each of them in turn, thinking this was part of the ritual. It has made me very popular
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with noble Lords on all sides of the House and I look forward to building on that good will. Indeed, perhaps your Lordships have been too inhibited in the past and this could be the way to greater cross-party co-operation on many issues.
I chose to launch my participation in this House in this debate because the idea of cross-party co-operation on major national issues seems so incontrovertible. Having chaired for four years—between the last two elections—the constitutional reform organisation, Charter 88, I am only too aware that support for change crosses party loyalties. On many issues people do not divide along the old political fault lines and the public would welcome greater honesty and openness where agreement exists in particular on areas of policy which will have such a profound impact upon our institutions and our lives. I also believe that many other areas of policy could benefit from a consensual approach. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, spoke about Northern Ireland. Both as regards Northern Ireland and many other issues such as drugs, the environment and crime, about which I know rather a lot, it is clear that we need not have a particular party angle in seeking a proper and helpful debate.
A worrying feature of modern democracy has been the increasing cynicism among the public about governments and politicians. The issue of trust was very much at the heart of the last election. Clearly many factors contribute to the erosion of public trust. Sometimes it can be the failure of governments to keep promises; it can be the questionable behaviour of Members of Parliament; it can be the inability of politicians to say "We got it wrong"; and it can also be the feeling that perhaps the Government were no longer listening. However, public disenchantment was in no small part due to mindless adversarialism. It was that mindless adversarialism which in many ways blighted fruitful political discourse for many years.
In the politics of the brawl, whatever is said by the other side has to be opposed or ridiculed. The sides square up and are quick to exploit opportunities to embarrass each other. While that may score points in the short term, it does not make for thoughtful or reflective debate and I am sure it reduces public confidence in politicians. Happily, such posturing has never been characteristic of this House.
However, lack of trust and public cynicism have already taken their toll upon policy choices. For example, opinion polls show that people are privately willing to pay more taxes but in the ballot box do not vote for tax raising parties. The reason is that they are not confident that the increase will find its way effectively into health or education and they are not confident that the tax raising will stop where it was promised. Lack of trust limits policy choices, as parties who wish to govern have to tie themselves into a straitjacket.
This Government's programme of constitutional change is not about change for change's sake. It is precisely about rebuilding trust, reconnecting people and institutions and renewing our democracy. I recently led a commission which looked at ways of drawing more

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people into further education. In the course of gathering evidence I visited some of our most deprived and despairing communities. When you do that, you see just how little our formal democracy can mean to people in some parts of the country.
What has become clear to so many is that we must decentralise power and bring decision-making closer to the people affected by those decisions. We have to give rights to our citizens, look again at our voting system and find ways of making it reflect the way people actually vote. These changes will remove the "Winner takes all" mentality from our political culture. Westminster will have to learn to share power with Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. Laws will have to be framed and interpreted to be consistent with fundamental human rights values. Members of that other place will no longer just be voting fodder but partners in framing legislation. These changes will not be additional frills but pre-conditions of a wider social renewal.
Rebuilding trust is never easy, but more consensual policy-making could undoubtedly contribute to that end. And cross-party collaboration or co-operation on matters which go to the very underpinnings of our democracy must be not just welcome but essential.
It may seem strange that someone who has spent the whole of her professional life in the English legal system should seek an amelioration of the adversarial mode of debate. All my colleagues at the Bar—a number of them are here today—will confirm that I do not shrink from the fray. Indeed, I chose to practise in the most adversarial part of the system as a jury trial lawyer, and I like the battle. I like the taste of blood. I believe strongly that our adversarial process is the most effective way of trying criminal issues. However, the legal system has begun to recognise that pure adversarialism does not always produce justice, and more effort is now going into establishing areas of consensus between prosecution and defence. For example, judges are reining in needless, destructive cross-examination which puts people such as rape victims on trial, and procedures are being invented to prevent ambush tactics which involve one side taking the other completely by surprise.
What we are seeing both in law and in politics are significant incremental shifts which are making our systems more appropriate to the modern world. Unmitigated adversarialism has had its day. As a woman, I see it as the bringing of some of the strategies of the domestic or private sphere into the public domain. It is a modern way of managing conflict. It is the future, and it works.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, I value cross-party co-operation. But may I respectfully offer some words of warning about consensus politics? Consensus can mask difference. It can offer the pretence that no real differences exist when there are some very real differences in our society. While there are people who gain from policy, there will often be those who lose. Let us not pretend that there are not honest disagreements. Even nuances of difference should be given expression. I am sure we all believe in the power of creative argument as the lubricant of democracy.
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We should also recognise that consensus can favour the powerful. Consensus can often most easily be reached around the interests of the most influential groups in our society. It is they who decide what is the "sensible" course on which we can all agree. When that happens the interests of the more marginal groups in our country—the poor, the dispossessed and minorities of various kinds—can easily be neglected or ignored. That is not healthy politics; and it is not a form of politics which interests me.
What is essential to consensus is a culture of openness, access and dialogue. When the grandees of the political parties agree behind the scenes, people feel excluded rather than included. They can easily feel that a political elite is making the decisions. What I urge upon noble Lords is that where there is an effort to seek honest agreement between the parties, it must be conducted, not sub rosa between men in grey suits, but openly and with public involvement.
We must all be mindful that if the public are not properly informed and really engaged in this dialogue about constitutional change and our involvement in Europe, the consequences could be very serious indeed. We could hand democracy to chauvinism. So what one needs is an agreed set of rules for this new politics of consensus.
I thank noble Lords for their indulgence. I greatly look forward to participating in the work of this House. Your Lordships can expect me to be both co-operative and controversial.
5.9 p.m.
Lord Alexander of Weedon: My Lords, there will be a total cross-party consensus in the House that that was a splendid maiden speech. It is a great joy for me to have the opportunity of congratulating the noble Baroness on her speech. She is a fellow barrister; she is a star of our profession; and she has, as we all see, great wit—indeed, the proposal she made for the change to the Introduction ceremony to this House might add to its time, but in her case would win total support. She has long supported causes which were sometimes minority causes. She has always been brave, always a batailleur. Of her it can truly be said, as Judge Tapping-Reeve, who founded the first law school in the United States, at Litchfield, Connecticut, said was his ambition for his students—that they would go out as advocates, burning to uphold the right and avenge the wrong. That is true of the noble Baroness. We very much look forward to her taking part in the work of this House.
Co-operation in many spheres of life is admirable. However, it is not a panacea. The career of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, is an illustration of a career that gained its strengths from battles fought, from ideas courageously developed and from ideas that were often ahead of their time.
There is one striking illustration in the life of our country today. Looking back over the past 20 years—and it is an often under-appreciated part of the record of the Government led by Mrs. Thatcher and her successor—the framework for the economic success of this country was hammered out on the anvil of strife.

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It was reluctantly accepted by some other parties. This country would not have the opportunity for economic progress that it has today had that battle not been won. It is encouraging that there is now a consensus that we need a sound economy and low inflation; that there is no trade-off between high inflation and unemployment; and that we need to curtail public spending and reform the welfare and social security system. That is a very encouraging consensus. But it would not have been won simply by an attempt at cross-party co-operation. A striking example of the growth and development that can take place across parties in terms of controversial ideas is the building on what was done by the previous government through the present Government very wisely deciding that the Bank of England should have operational independence. In a curious way, I should not expect to find total consensus for that on the Benches on which I sit. However, I believe it was a right decision.
It would be highly desirable if we could secure the maximum consensus on constitutional change. There has been precious little constitutional change in this country since 1928, when the universal franchise was complete. That was a time when, as A. J. P. Taylor said, "government was little intrusive". He said that you could walk the length and breadth of England and, if you did not commit a crime, the only representative of government you might meet would be the postman. If we add to that the fact that over that period our people have developed educational skills, more leisure and more opportunities for information, it is high time that they were offered a greater part in government.
The previous government rightly stressed subsidiarity in Europe. Subsidiarity (which is curious "Euro-jargon") is actually a matter of common sense. It means that decisions should be taken as close to the people as possible. In terms of the strengthening of local government, in terms of devolution and the judicious use of referendums, that is a guiding principle which I hope will be more and more respected on a cross-party basis. It was the present Leader of the Conservative Party who, when Secretary of State for Wales, said:
"People everywhere want more say in decisions which affect them".
However, it does not follow that, just because one supports the aim of co-operation and consensus, it can necessarily be easily achieved. I listened with interest and encouragement to the speech of the noble Lord the Leader of the House. Successful constitutional reform must start with Parliament. It was, after all, a Conservative, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, who described our government as an elective dictatorship. The fact that three out of the last four elections produced governments of different complexions with a minority of the votes but elected with vast majorities bears that out.
We talk easily of parliamentary sovereignty. What do we mean? We mean that we elect a government every five years and, if they have a decent majority, they can put through what measures they like; and the Back-Benchers, far from fulfilling Burke's splendid tradition, are all too often the tame footsoldiers of democracy.
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I mention that point because personally I am not against changing the composition of this House. Having had the enormous privilege of being here for some nine years, I have often felt that this House lacked the courage to exercise all its powers. I believe it lacks that courage in part because it feels that it lacks—in the purest sense of the word, I hasten to say—legitimacy. It is reluctant to use the delaying power. It did not even use it in relation to the poll tax, and has very rarely used it. In the previous Parliament, for example, it did not delay the change to the Bill of Rights, passed in a single afternoon in this House, to the potential benefit, as it was then believed, of a Member of the other place. This House needs the opportunity to exercise the powers that it has. That can come about only as the result of some change.
However—here I part company with the noble Lord the Leader of the House—I do not believe that it is as simple as saying: do you support a change in the hereditary principle? Parliament has to be looked at as a whole. I believe that the House of Commons needs proportional representation. The type of proportional representation needs to be considered. But we need to avoid what happened in, I believe, 1918 when there was agreement on the need for proportional representation but no agreement on the method. So in a typically British compromise, we decided to stick to the existing first-past-the-post system for the next 80 years.
Any examination of reform in this House needs to be undertaken together with an examination of reform in the other place. It is not as simple as saying that we should eliminate the right of hereditary Peers to vote. We have to look at the way in which this House should be composed as a whole: what electoral means there should be—perhaps bringing in people from the regions; what percentage should be appointed, if indeed a percentage should be appointed; and how one can avoid the tyranny of the party list. I hope it will be realised that any change on a cross-party, co-operative basis is precious to us all and must be properly thought through. It is not desirable that, every time this House votes against a government proposal, the mantra goes out that the House of Lords is undemocratic, in an apparent attempt to undermine the validity of the decisions taken by this House. So long as the composition remains as it is now, it should be properly respected on all sides.
I wish to address one other issue—that of Europe. It is very important that this country should have what it has lacked for far too long—a policy "for" Europe. All too often we have a policy "on" Europe for domestic consumption. There is a vast difference. The leading Singapore statesman, that formidable but very able man, Lee Kuan Yew, recently said to me that there was only one stance that the United Kingdom should take on Europe, and that was, "In there, pitching".
However, even if we agree that that is right, it does not take all the difficult issues away. I think that European monetary union is one of the great and difficult issues of our time. I respect the sceptics. I do not believe that anyone who read Milton Friedman in The Times this morning, with his powerful argument,

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could possibly do otherwise. There are risks to monetary union. Business is to a considerable measure unsure about it; the City is still sceptical.
The plain fact remains that 11 of our partners are determined to have a monetary union on 1st January 1999. But if they do it will affect us. I believe that we should preserve our flexibility, and I would be disappointed at any firm decision in any party that we should not contemplate going in for a particular number of years. We should keep the flexibility, in the economic interests of this country, to decide to join if the single currency is successful and if we think that our economy has converged so as to make it possible.
But that said, I recognise that it is one of the most important issues of our generation. A single currency, even if successful, will not be easy. I am convinced that, whenever it comes, the decision can be taken only with the support of all our people. I look forward to a referendum, in which I have the feeling that the people I most admire in each party will, when it comes to the moment, be on the yes side, as they were in that most decisive, interesting and determinative of referendums in 1975.
I have spoken long enough; there are others still to speak. I am encouraged to sit down because I look forward with keen interest to all the other maiden speeches and to the speech of my noble friend Lord Blackwell, who served the previous government with distinction. I am privileged to have him now as a valued and senior colleague at NatWest. I also look forward with great and immediate pleasure to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. I know him through the work we do together on Justice, the all-party law reform group. He is our representative on the International Commission of Jurists, and he, like the noble Baroness opposite, is passionate about human rights. How marvellous it is that so many barristers are coming to this House. Perhaps that is the clue to reform. I look forward to the noble Lord's speech.
5.22 p.m.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am one of those who became involved in politics initially to a large extent as a result of listening to the magnificent Dimbleby Lecture delivered by my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Hillhead in November 1979, 18 years ago. It is therefore a source of great pride to me to be able to make my maiden speech in the last debate which he will be initiating in his capacity as Leader of the Liberal Democrats in your Lordships' House.
I am also pleased, though somewhat overawed, to be speaking immediately after the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon. I regret that the traditions of this House do not allow me to describe him as "my noble friend", which he is. He is a profound thinker on constitutional issues and I must say that there is considerable cross-party agreement between the two of us on the subject.
I rise with some trepidation because I have already, in my time as a Member of your Lordships' House, listened to two debates of an alarmingly high standard.
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The first was on the day of my introduction, a week ago, on the funding of Oxford and Cambridge colleges. The other to which I had been able to listen from the steps of the Throne a few days earlier, was the debate on the Second Reading of the Human Rights Bill. I have had a long commitment to the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into the domestic laws of the United Kingdom. I would have chosen to make my maiden speech in that debate, had I been able to obtain a somewhat higher place in the queue for introductions. I had hoped that that process might have been speeded up by having mass introductions somewhat like the Reverend Mr. Moon's mass weddings. Indeed, I may say that the process of being introduced seemed to me to be rather like a wedding in the sense that one gets dressed up in rather peculiar clothes—I am sure it would be out of order to describe it as "fancy dress"—and one then processes slowly between two groups of people who look at each other with a certain amount of mutual suspicion and hostility. One then signs the register. The critical difference is that on this occasion I had two best men but no bride.
The Human Rights Bill is very relevant, however, to today's debate because it is a Bill of profound constitutional importance. It is perhaps the most important constitutional Bill to have come before your Lordships' House since the European Communities Act 25 years ago. As such, I believe that it requires cross-party support, not all-party support, but the support of more than a single party. It is clearly right that it should have the support not just of a party with a majority, however large, in the other place, but the support of parties that together have been elected by a majority of the voters who have taken part in the last general election. That principle applies not only to the Human Rights Bill, which imposes important curbs on the powers of the Executive, but it also applies to the Scotland Bill which transfers important powers of legislation from Westminster to Edinburgh; and it applies, to a lesser extent, to the Wales Bill. It applies to the Bill to alter the system of voting for members of the European Parliament and it applies to—though I hardly dare mention it in a maiden speech—the proposed Bill for changing the composition of your Lordships' House.
Sometimes, of course, cross-party co-operation is not a matter of co-operation between parties but of co-operation between groups within parties. As my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Hillhead pointed out, that was particularly the case in the debates on Europe in 1971 and 1972 and again at the time of the referendum campaign in 1975. Something very similar could happen again, no doubt on the same subject.
However, let me make it clear that cross-party co-operation is not, in my view, the same thing as cross-party consensus. Very few of the major constitutional changes which have occurred in this country have been achieved as a matter of all-party consensus. Perhaps at the end of the day the extension of the vote to women in 1918 and 1928 was an example of that, but only after years when there had been something that was clearly not a consensus at all.

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So I believe that constitutional changes do not require a consensus but they require clear majority support among the voters—the support of parties backed by a majority of the voters. That is why I warmly welcome the co-operation between Her Majesty's Government and my party, the Liberal Democrats, on the Human Rights Bill and on other proposals for constitutional reform. The programme of constitutional reform now being implemented is the most far-reaching programme of its kind for decades. Most of it, once implemented, will be irreversible. Therefore, it needs legitimacy, and that legitimacy can be obtained only through cross-party co-operation. I thank your Lordships.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, it is my great pleasure on behalf of the whole House to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, on an interesting and distinguished maiden speech. He is a distinguished lawyer with wide experience and has much to contribute to debates in your Lordships' House. He will greatly strengthen the Benches of the Liberal Democrat Party. We wish him well and look forward to hearing from him again on many an occasion.
When I first read the list of speakers it occurred to me that there must be more in this than the standard Liberal Democrat debate. To find that it was being opened by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, and that the noble Lord the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition were also participating, made me realise, if I may be forgiven such a phrase, that "something must be up". The following day we saw in the press that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, was giving up the leadership of the Liberal Democrat Party and was being succeeded by the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank. This therefore gives me the opportunity of paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, who has been one of the great statesmen of this part of the present century. He has brought great talent to both Houses of Parliament and also to the European Commission and the European Union. He is one of those people of whom it may truly be said that he has not only ability, but wisdom as well.
I turn briefly to the substance of the debate. There are clearly some issues on which not only cross-party co-operation but also a national consensus is desirable or, indeed, essential. That is obviously true on certain major issues of foreign policy; it is certainly true on issues of war and peace; but it is also true on other issues as well.
There are major issues which divide the parties, and Europe is one. In my view—other people take a different view but I express my view, not theirs—there is a consensus in the country as a whole which crosses party boundaries in favour of close involvement in the European Union and in its future. It may well be that when it comes to a referendum it will have to be fought on cross-party lines.
If one listens carefully at Question Time, one finds great concern in this House about what is regarded as a lack of democracy on the part of other countries. But little is ever said in relation to the lack of democracy in
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our own country. Over the years, particularly in the past few years, there has been a growing rift between the politicians and the public; between the government and the people. In fact we are a long-suffering people—at least the English are; I doubt whether the Welsh or the Scots are quite as long suffering. But the English are long suffering and put up with bad government for long periods of time. At the end of the day, however, the plebs revolt, as they did in 1979 and as they did again in May of this year. We then find the politicians abasing themselves and saying how much they got it wrong and how right they are to say how much they got it wrong.
However, there is obviously a divide. One of the reasons for it is the tendency, particularly where there is a strong party division, for people to look at the party interest rather than at the overall national interest. It is also the case—one must be careful how one puts this—that from time to time politicians seem to be more interested in their own position as politicians rather than the interests of the public they are supposed to be serving. I shall not go into any great detail now.
I want to make one comment on the speech of the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal. I took great exception to some of the things he said, particularly when he talked about men of "goodwill"—they being the people no doubt who are prepared to co-operate with him on his terms—dismissing the rest of us as being below the salt and barely capable of recognition. Let me make two points, in case there is any misunderstanding on his part or on the part of anybody else, about my own position.
I do not support the hereditary principle either in politics or in business. I firmly believe in what the original drafters of the American constitution said—that it is self-evident that all men are born equal. But at the same time I do not buy a pig in a poke; still less do I buy half a pig in a poke. What the noble Lord the Leader of the House is currently offering the House, having dismissed everybody who disagrees with him as people not of goodwill, is half a pig. And we do not even know what that half a pig looks like. If this matter is pressed to a Division, I shall take great pleasure in voting against the Government's proposal. I do so not on the basis that I support the hereditary principle but because I support good government and because I support knowing what one is setting out to do, however unfashionable those concepts may be in the political world.
I also want to take up the question of proportional representation, with particular reference to what the Government propose doing in the case of the European Parliament. We see politics at its worst in the European Parliament with the decision by the governance of the Labour Party (the party machine) that four of its members—one would otherwise have thought of them as being rather insignificant people—should be put on the rack and cast out because they had the temerity to express some dissent from the party line. I do not know any of those gentlemen; I probably would not support anything that they say. On the other hand, it is an abuse of power to behave in the way that the Government are behaving towards them.

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Therefore, with that rift between the Government and the people, we must look at the situation also in the light of the way that the party system has developed in recent years; where the machine has become too powerful and is riding roughshod, not only over the public interest, but also over its own people. Why should I object if the Labour Party machine rides roughshod over supporters of the Labour Party? A few less of them might well be in the public interest. Nevertheless, I do not regard that as proper or acceptable behaviour.
The Government are not proposing in the case of the elections to the European Parliament to introduce a proper proportional representation system. I am not saying that I support proportional representation. They are introducing a closed list system which strengthens the party machine at the very time when what we need to do is strengthen the hand of the people—the foot soldiers, the people out on the front fighting the battle, not those in the offices of Whips or in party headquarters. Therefore when, as I may be tempted to do, I vote against the Labour Party proposals on this matter, it does not mean that I do not support some measure of reform in the "first-past-the-post" system.
There is little more that I want to say. This has been a valuable debate. It has brought to the fore a number of important issues which need to be addressed. But I make one final point about your Lordships' House. In many respects it is a more democratic body than the other place. That may be a strange thing to say, but the fact of the matter is that if the whip is cracked in another place, the troops have to toe the line. The sanction is that if they do not toe the line they end up being deselected and lose their livelihood. That, presumably, is what is meant by "democracy" as we understand it these days. But that sanction is not available against your Lordships. Apart from the golden characters on the Front Bench the rest of your Lordships are not paid and therefore there is fortunately no sanction open to the party machine against the occasional free spirit that may emerge on both sides of the House.
5.39 p.m.
Lord Razzall: My Lords, I should like to start my first speech to the House by thanking noble Lords on all sides for the friendship with which I have been received here. I fear that I have not yet received the kiss of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws; no doubt an omission that we can soon rectify. I should like also to thank all the staff of the House for the grace and civility with which they have greeted me, a grace and civility that I must say I did not know existed outside the great 19th century hotels.
As the Liberal Democrat treasurer for the past 10 years, I am somewhat nervous to stand before the House in the week of Mr. Ecclestone. Of course, Liberal Democrat treasurers, in particular at the beginning of this century, had a close affinity with the House, an affinity that I was worried was being taken too far when today I had the privilege of introducing the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, only two weeks after I had been introduced myself. When I discovered that not only was
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I introducing him but that I had become the senior supporter, I wondered whether the procedures of the House were in some way being abused.
I am delighted this evening to support in my first speech the Motion of my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Hillhead. I am particularly delighted to do so because I do not come from what could be described as the co-operative political wing of politics. I was first elected to a London borough in 1974. Those noble Lords who are or have been members of London boroughs will realise that confrontation, not co-operation, has been the hallmark of London town hall politics in the past 24 years. In supporting my noble friend's Motion despite my background, I take comfort from the fact that, in what the noble Lord, Lord Richard, described as the first period of my noble friend's life he must have had an early experience of Labour Cabinets that could from time to time have been akin to taking tea with the Borgias.
Now I believe—and I believe with my noble friends on this side of the House—that it is time for a change of approach from confrontational politics to the politics of co-operation. I believe that many of us who have just come into the House are lucky to do so in 1997. It is arguable that there have been certainly two watershed elections in the 20th century—the 1906 election and the 1945 election—and possibly the 1979 election, although it may be that we are too close to that to know. But it is certainly possible and quite likely probable that the 1997 election created a climate for constitutional and political change for which many of my noble friends have fought all their lives.
It was not only the creation of the Social Democrat Party which started this process—I think that three members of the so-called "Gang of Four" are present today—it was also Lord Grimond before that, who marched, in his phrase, "his red guards towards the sound of gunfire", in order to attempt to break the mould of British politics. Certainly, the signs in the first six months are good that the 1997 election has created one of the great reforming Parliaments.
I shall list the things that are to happen or are already in train. We have the measures put in place to create a Scottish parliament and a Welsh assembly; we have the decision on independence for the Bank of England on monetary policy; we have the decision to grant trade union rights at GCHQ; we have signed the social chapter; and we are taking steps to introduce proportional representation for the European elections. For me and like-minded Lords, that is an excellent start. How could a Liberal Democrat of my persuasion not support and co-operate in the development of this agenda?
However, we have heard this afternoon some siren voices. There seem to be two strands of complaint about the co-operative style of politics proposed by my noble friend. First, people say that we, as a party, will lose our independence and will be swallowed up and destroyed by the Labour Party. Secondly—the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, expressed this view earlier in the debate—whenever we appear not to agree with what the Government are doing, we are treated as though in some

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way we have been caught out like naughty schoolboys making signs behind teacher's back. That argument fails to understand what we mean by constructive opposition.
What it means—it is quite obvious to members of the public—is that as a party we would intend to co-operate where we agree and oppose where we disagree. There are many areas where we agree with the Government. We agree with the Government on much of the agenda for constitutional reform. We agree with the Government on much of their European policy. From this side of the House we shall clearly support the Government and co-operate with them to bring in the legislation necessary to implement those policies. There are many other areas where we believe the Government share our instincts but are somewhat too timid. Indeed. there is a suggestion that many new Labour Members elected to the other place wish that they had been elected on our manifesto.
In what the noble Viscount described as key public services, we believe—as Mr. Simon Hughes demonstrated in the debate in the other place—that the Government are not going far enough. In those areas we shall act as their scourge. But in many areas, we, as a party, oppose what the Government are doing. We oppose the Government's position on university fees. We oppose the Government's policy with regard to the tobacco sponsorship of Formula One. In those areas we will oppose. But there is nothing inconsistent with co-operative politics in saying that where we disagree we will oppose and where we agree we will support.
I am grateful for the reception that I have been given in the House and today. I am grateful, too, for the opportunity given by this Motion to set out to the House the principles which I believe should guide our words and actions in the coming years.
5.49 p.m.
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, it is my privilege to welcome to our counsels another recruit with a distinguished legal background; indeed, one who was nominated in 1994 as European lawyer of the year. However, he is no narrow lawyer, as noble Lords may have judged from his splendid address. He has experience in teaching, in business, and even in retailing; and, as he revealed, he has experience in local government. In the reference books he gives his recreations as sport, food and wine. I hope he feels among friends on both sides of the Chamber who share at least two of his three absorbing activities. We all hope that he will find time to drag himself away from the Bar and take part in many of our debates in the future.
When I first saw the terms of the original Motion—the real thoughts of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins—at first glance they seemed so reasonable and innocuous that even a paid-up member of the awkward squad on the Cross-Benches had to think hard and ask himself, "What is the catch; where is the snag?". Like the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, we would all like a great deal less of the crude party political slanging match. But as the noble Baroness said, consensus can mask important differences. What is wrong with
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political parties vigorously confronting one another—challenging one another? Should not democrats revel in the open clash of rival beliefs and concepts?
Before challenging the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, I should like to associate myself with the graceful tributes paid to him by others and offer him one of my own. After all, the noble Lord has not always been so fastidious or so squeamish in disdaining confrontation. As other noble Lords have remarked, he was not above a spot of what the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal called "the rough trade" of politics. We recall his courageous confrontation with former Labour colleagues in 1981 which led to the breakaway SDP. At that time there were plenty of Labour Members of Parliament and others who shared his anxieties to the full, but they preferred a quiet, non-confrontational life. It was certainly, for a time, a bloody battle. but the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, emerged unbowed and victorious.
In 1981 we saw an historic triumph. I would go further and say that next to my noble friend Lady Thatcher and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Owen, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, deserves most political credit for confronting and purging what had then become the natural party of opposition of its more self-destructive shibboleths.
I do not find much to support in this great call for cross-party co-operation. As other speakers have said, it sounds very reasonable despite a slight whiff of moral superiority. But it can smack of a contrived consensus, based on backstairs compromise, to serve short-term convenience or party advantage. My worry is that consensus and compromise are precisely the follies that cost us so dear in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
I am an economist and not a lawyer so perhaps I may invite noble Lords to sit back comfortably and reflect on the fashionable panaceas to which the leaders of all three parties paid almost abject deference in the post-war years until 1979. I give noble Lords a preliminary list of the sacred cows, all of which finished up in the intellectual abattoir. The pride of place among consensual policies that all reasonable and good men upheld was the universal, self-sufficient, state monopoly of welfare, now acknowledged by its well-meaning progenitors to be unsustainable and urgently undergoing radical reform.
Not far behind in cross-party favour was the famous mixed economy based on subsidised state industries, which have since been privatised, making profits and contributing to the Exchequer. Then there was the all-party incantation of growthmanship leading directly to stop-go instability of the economy and inflation. Not far behind that was the cross-party enthusiasm for naïve Keynesianism as a substitute for monetary discipline of which, by the way, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, as Chancellor, was far less guilty than most of the people who occupied the Treasury in the post-war years.
During the same period all patriots were required to pay lip service to fixed exchange rates until that was punctured by periodic devaluations and abandoned altogether in 1972. Nor must we forget the cross-party enthusiasm for the National Economic Development Office in 1961 which led to George Brown's national

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plan in 1965. That collapsed within a year. The national plan had a shorter vogue than the Spice Girls and it was a whole lot less fun.
Let us remember the way in which both the main parties, Conservative and Labour, but with the Liberals not far behind, whored after the phantom of bigger, better and more draconian incomes policies. That is what we all had to believe in the 1960s and early 1970s. They were all doomed to fail ignominiously. In a way, most shaming of all until 1979, is that all parties accepted the legally entrenched trade union monopoly as a fact of life. It was inevitable and had to be accepted.
Have we not suffered enough over these years from cross-party co-operation, from Churchill's Butskellism; Macmillan's middle way and Wilson's white heat of technology? I have a different view. Indeed, for the whole of these 30 years what we needed was a straightforward, open confrontation between rival conceptions of government and society. We needed a straightforward shoot-out, if one might put it that way, between creeping collectivism and competitive capitalism. But the craven consensus fobbed us off with trivial party sniping and phoney polarisation.
I must declare an interest. For 30 years I was general director of the Institute of Economic Affairs. During those years it was left to independent economists outside government and business to warn that central planning, like incomes policy, NEDDY, growthmanship and the rest, provided no enduring substitute for a radical reconstruction of a competitive market economy. I can vouch that throughout that time the great party swells took little or no interest in our musings until the emergence—I would almost say the eruption—of the then Keith Joseph, followed by the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher.
The noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, has spoken eloquently about the economic and political transformation wrought by the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, after 1979. That was the pure fruit of confrontational politics, which now frightens the life out of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead. Yet that confrontation was necessary to break the mould and eventually to make possible the emergence of Mr. Blair's new Labour Party.
In conclusion I suggest three lessons from this potted history. The first is that the avoidance of confrontation should never be a high priority for a party based upon principles. Too often it is a pretext for dodging hard choices which have to be made in the longer run. It is the perennial lure of the soft option or the easy life. The second lesson—and I particularly address the noble Lord. Lord Jenkins, and his colleagues—is that the Liberal Party leaders, famed for their independence, with the honourable exception in my experience of the then Jo Grimond, proved far from immune to the novelty of sweeping panaceas however illusory they proved to be.
That brings me to my third lesson, which may not altogether surprise the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, whom I am glad to see has now joined us having missed my eloquent tributes earlier to his achievements. The third
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lesson is the current attempt, which is now out in the open, by the political establishment in Westminster and Brussels to stitch up a cross-party consensus in favour of a single European currency. On my consistent market analysis, this project exemplifies precisely the same wishful thinking as did the incomes policy, the national plan, growthmanship and the rest. It is equally doomed because it subordinates objective economic realities to short-term political expediency. It was the cross-party co-operation, backed up the Whips of all three parties, that deprived our people of democratic choice on Maastricht. The result was simply to store up trouble for the future and it has dogged the Tory Party in particular.
Frankly, I welcome the signs of a full frontal confrontation between the main parties on the fateful question of whether Britain should join the European Monetary Union. For me, the death knell of the euro was sounded this very day in a brief and persuasive essay by Milton Friedman in today's edition of The Times. I commend it to your Lordships. I look forward to seeing one of the exponents of the euro set out an equally analytical and persuasive line of argument. I have some confidence that if those rival arguments can be fully deployed and confront one another, we shall avoid involvement in yet another doomed experiment.
6.1 p.m.
Lord Blackwell: My Lords, it is a great privilege to be able to make my maiden speech in your Lordships' House in such a distinguished debate which has so many distinguished contributors. It is particularly a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, whose distinctive free market economics have been such an inspiration to so many of us for so long. I must also thank the noble Lord for having used many of my best lines!
The injunction to be brief and non-controversial could lead to the conclusion that I should sit down now while I am ahead, but I concluded that my objective should be to make all my contributions in your Lordships' House brief and non-controversial on the grounds that they would be wrapped up in such impeccable logic and common sense that nobody could ever disagree. The fact that I suspect that that is unlikely points me towards what I see as the first fallacy of the Motion; namely, that all men of good will, whatever their party or background, can be brought to a consensus on great issues of moment.
Like everyone else, I bring my own views to this House and we are all likely to interpret the same facts and the same arguments differently. I believe that that is fortunate because I suggest that the second fallacy of the Motion is the notion that consensus—cross-party or otherwise—can be trusted to be right. I have always had sympathy for the minority view and I suggest that history shows that the minority view is often right. The fashionable consensus of the time held that the world was flat. The fashionable consensus held that witches should be ducked and, in his lifetime, that Schubert's music was not worth listening to. That was certainly the fashionable consensus some centuries ago. The fashionable consensus just before the war was that Churchill was an extremist who should not be listened

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to. More recently, the fashionable consensus before what turned out to be an ill-fated entry into the exchange rate mechanism was that Britain had no choice but to join.
I grew up in a period of political consensus—of Butskellism. That consensus held, among other things, that state services such as telecommunications, water and electricity had to be publicly owned. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, set out a long list of some of the other elements of that consensus which were held to be fashionable and right at that time. I remember that it was long believed that governments should intervene in prices and wages and in what the noble Lord referred to as the "mixed economy". Despite my great respect for both leaders who gave their names to Butskellism, I believe that, as my noble friend Lord Alexander of Weedon said, Britain's current success has depended on breaking that cross-party consensus.
I think it critical that a strong voice of opposition is raised to the political fashions of the day. Even where the Government view is right, opposition is essential to sharpen decision-making in government. I know that many noble Lords have had direct experience of holding high government office. Having had the privilege of working at No. 10 under two distinguished and, I believe, highly principled Prime Ministers, I am no less conscious that the demands of having to face critical opposition across the Dispatch Box are in reality highly valuable—even if at times Ministers may wish that away—in forcing discussion and debate within government and the Civil Service and in avoiding the lazy adoption of easy solutions. It is no accident that the word "consensus" is often coupled with the word "cosy".
So, I am not a great believer in the great issues of our time, such as constitutional change and Europe, always benefiting from cross-party consensus; nor do I believe—I am not yet convinced—that fashions such as proportional representation, which attempt to force a consensus on government, necessarily lead to better government. I see no evidence of that when I look around the governments of the world.
However, that does not imply mindless confrontation. There is a difference between opposition based on principled argument and opposition based on opportunistic confrontation or on bigotry. Opposition based on principled argument and belief must surely be our aim for the relationship between the Government and the Opposition. I hope that this House will continue to value and respect those who hold the counter point of view to the fashionable cross-party consensus of the time. I thank noble Lords for their indulgence.
6.7 p.m.
Viscount Thurso: My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, on his most interesting maiden speech. The noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, has already referred to the noble Lord's political service at No. 10 as head of the Prime Minister's Policy Unit and to his current position at NatWest. I was particularly interested to read in his biography that the noble Lord spent time with McKinsey
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& Co., ending up as a partner in that great consulting business, and that he had worked previously for Plessey, having had an academic career and gained an MBA at Wharton in the United States. I look forward to hearing many contributions from the noble Lord in future, particularly on the subject of business, about which I have a great passion, and possibly on the quality of British management. On behalf of all of us, I wish the noble Lord well in your Lordships' House.
I congratulate also my two noble friends on their maiden speeches, my noble friends Lord Goodhart and Lord Razzall. Not surprisingly, I concurred with a great deal, if not all, of what they said.
I congratulate also the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. The phrase that she used regarding her grandmother and kisses from men without moustaches was, I believe, "meat without salt". As there is some "meat and salt" right here, I look forward to taking part in that new introductory ceremony at a later stage!
I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Hillhead for introducing this subject, which raises two issues which I believe, and have always believed, to be fundamental requirements for the future of our modern democracy; namely, constitutional reform and the requirement of a broad consensus for achieving that.
I am also grateful to my noble friend for introducing this Motion today because this is the last time that we shall have the opportunity of being led by him. In this respect, I have to say that my noble friend was possibly guilty of one small political misjudgment. Although he asked for no premature obsequies, virtually every noble Lord has paid tribute to my noble friend and I do not think that he could ever have got away without any tributes being paid. With your Lordships' indulgence, I should like to add a very small one. In the short time that I have been in your Lordships' House I have come to have a great respect and admiration for his leadership. I hope he will take it in the spirit in which I intend it if I say that this is one young Turk who has greatly enjoyed and appreciated being at the feet of an old master.
There are many important matters facing the Government and Parliament such as education and health where it is vital that we make the right decisions. Important though those subjects are, I have long believed that the single most important issue before us is that of constitutional reform. When I was campaigning before the last election I was shocked to discover how cynical and apathetic the vast majority of our people seemed to be towards politicians and the political process. Rightly or wrongly, a great number of people viewed Parliament with distrust and cynicism. This is confirmed today by an article that I read in The Times headed "Riddell on Politics". That article refers to a report entitled British Social Attitudes" and says:
"The survey confirms earlier findings about a decline in public confidence in democracy. Fewer than one in four people trust government to put the interests of the nation above party".
I find that truly shocking.
At the other end of the power spectrum, it is extraordinary that barely 30 per cent. of those entitled to vote in local elections take part in those elections.

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When talking on doorsteps one is struck by the fact that most people probably do not know who are their local councillors. Even if they do, they do not really believe that they will do anything for them. That combination of distrust, apathy and frustration is a terrible cancer which has eaten away the trust that the people once placed in the political process and in their politicians. It is therefore essential that we embrace constitutional reform at all levels and as a matter of urgency. This does not mean simply tinkering with your Lordships' House, but looking further at the relationship of power at each level of government to ensure that in every case maximum power is devolved to the lowest level. That process has already begun with devolution for Scotland and Wales. But it is equally important that we look not simply at your Lordships' House but also another place and at local and regional government.
As part of this process, I believe it to be imperative that power be returned to local government so that it may properly be held accountable to its own electorate for its actions. The centralising process that has gone on for the past 20 years or so must be halted and reversed. The time has come to trust local people to take local decisions for which they can be held accountable. When in the previous Parliament we debated the excellent report of my noble friend Lord Dahrendorf on wealth creation and social cohesion I posed the following question: if the doctrine of subsidiarity was so good for this country in Europe, why was it so bad for local government in this country? Inclusion and citizenship must be founded on participation, which in turn must begin with local democracy. That statement remains the core of my belief in respect of constitutional reform, but the key element is to understand that sovereignty rests with the people and that power should be exercised as close to the people as practically possible.
When I entered the Chamber today I noticed something rather curious. When I looked at the list of speakers I noted that, apart from the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, I was the only other hereditary Peer taking part in this debate. It is clear that someone must put the other side of the coin, so here comes the turkey that wants to vote for Christmas. It is unthinkable that we should enter the 21st century with a legislative chamber composed of accidents of birth, on the one hand, and perhaps accidents of patronage, on the other. We should all go. Emotionally, I am extremely fond of your Lordships' House; indeed, I am extremely fond of most of your Lordships. In many ways my heart might like us to remain the happy band that we are, but my head tells me that it is utterly illogical.
More importantly, it is now abundantly clear that we have lost our legitimacy. Every time a controversial measure comes before your Lordships' House, particularly if there has been a media campaign behind it, we are confronted with the twin barrels of media pressure and public opinion, on the one hand, and our lack of legitimacy in the face of another place, on the other hand. In the face of these two large-calibre weapons we have failed to carry out our duty. The only argument that I can conceive for maintaining your Lordships' House in its current form is that it works;
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but I am afraid that recent events have demonstrated quite categorically that when it really counts it does not work.
Since anything which is done to your Lordships' House will automatically increase its legitimacy, so it will increase the power which the Upper House requires, and this in turn will automatically challenge the relationship between this House and another place. I do not see that as bad for one moment. I see it as one of the main reasons in favour of reform. But it brings me back to my point of departure. Once you have embarked on the route of reform, as we already have with devolution, all aspects of it have to be considered together in order to reach an overall constitutional arrangement that delivers a participative political system with power as close to the people as possible.
It would be unthinkable for any one political party to embark on such levels of reform without first having secured a very wide measure of cross-party co-operation. There are occasions when 51 per cent. is an inadequate majority. It is extremely difficult to pick the wheat of tradition from the chaff of history or to select real progress from the many great changes which may be proposed. To do this requires the contribution of many opinions of all hues. For such changes to last and carry the weight that they deserve, it is essential that they are founded on a broad national consensus.
I am genuinely sorry that the Conservative Party should in this, as so many other things, choose the ostrich position. Doubtless in 1832 the argument in favour of rotten boroughs was much as it is today in favour of the current arrangements. I hope that they will change their minds. With regard to my own party, I am delighted that it has had the courage of its convictions and that on this all important issue has accepted the Government's invitation to find consensus. Our two parties' combined share of the popular vote at the last election contributes greatly to the required legitimacy.
I believe that there are moments in the development of our constitution when the system can no longer simply be tinkered with. Like the pressure of great tectonic plates, an earthquake is required. I believe that we have reached one of those seminal moments when we must go for complete change. Now is such a time. Let us get to the task before the people lose faith entirely.
6.18 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, I join in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, on her most excellent maiden speech. I first met the noble Baroness when I was informed that I was to lead a young lady who was the queen of the radical Bar. Indeed, the noble Baroness was said to be so far left of the Labour Party that she could have qualified for one of Lord Grimond's red guards, to which my noble friend Lord Razzall referred. Together we formed a team in those days. I may have been the first of your Lordships to have the Kennedy kiss implanted on my forehead after one famous result. My noble friend Lord Hooson and I welcomed her into our chambers until she left to be a doughty fighter elsewhere. We on these Benches

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hope that we shall work with her as a team against the opposition that we face. I know that she will maintain the radical tradition for which she has always stood. I hope that my noble friends Lord Razzall and Lord Goodhart, who have also made excellent speeches today, will forgive me if I go a little further in my personal reminiscences of the noble Baroness.
My noble friend Lord Alderdice referred to Ireland in the most moving terms. I am fresh from the combat, bloodied but certainly unbowed, of the latest co-operation between the parties; namely, the referendum in Wales. At one time during that campaign, I was a little worried at the seeming lack of Labour Party activity in my part of North-East Wales. I was pushing out leaflets with a picture of Neil Jenkins in a town devoted to Association Football. I did not see much support from the Labour Party, but eventually my fears were allayed when an MP who came from a neighbouring constituency assured me that the whole might of the Labour Party and the trade union machine were dedicated to producing mass apathy in his constituency.
The value of co-operation is illustrated by the two referendum campaigns in Scotland and Wales. In Scotland, co-operation between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party had produced the Scottish convention. For years arguments had gone on in the Scottish press and on Scottish television in which the issues were rehearsed; everyone knew what they were voting about, and there was overwhelming support for reform. Even the Labour Party itself was dragged into a form of consensus. However, in Wales on three occasions we Liberal Democrats called for co-operation with the Labour Party and, indeed, with Plaid Cymru on the proposals for devolution. That was not forthcoming. So when we came to the referendum campaign the need to give information to the people of Wales was paramount.
I recall that in the devolution referendum debate in your Lordships' House I suggested that the rationale for having a separate day for voting in the Welsh referendum was so that there could be some concentration upon Welsh issues. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, called that an insult to the Welsh people. "Patronising", said the noble Earl, Lord Onslow. The result in Wales depended upon information. To which part of the country were the television aerials turned, and what sort of press was being read in Wales? If we look at the results, the eastern part of Wales, whose aerials were turned to Granada, the Midlands and Bristol, and where no hint of the Western Mail can ever be found, was the area which was uninformed about what was happening and what the issues were.
There is a lesson for the future that where referendums are suggested on issues such as EMU there must be long discussions; there must be an ironing out of problems within and between parties; and, above all, there must be an attempt to gain the support of the people, as the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, said, by projecting information and ensuring that everyone knows what is at stake. One wonders whether one of the major contributing factors for the postponement of any commitment for entry into EMU
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was the Welsh result, where the Government realised that they had not gone through that long, educative process that was so necessary.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords. I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Does he agree also that it is important, in the case of referendums, for the electorate to see that those referendums are conducted fairly? Therefore does he also agree with me and his noble friend Lord Holme of Cheltenham that it would be sensible to encourage the Government to introduce, as soon as possible, a mechanism by which rules could be drawn up under which referendums in future could be held?
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords. on that issue I have the greatest pleasure in agreeing with the noble Viscount, that rules for referendums, if they are to be held, should be drawn up and applied consistently whenever that issue arises. However, I disagree with the noble Viscount when he talks about monopoly politics, and that the result of co-operation between the parties is monopoly politics. That reminds me of what the Earl of Derby said in 1841:
"The duty of an Opposition is … to oppose everything, and propose nothing".
That has always struck me as an empty mantra, and yet it is so often chanted at us on these Benches when we endeavour to reach a degree of agreement and co-operation with the government of the day.
The adversarial system may be all very well in the law. Everyone understands that lawyers are paid to put forward a particular point of view. No one would ever suggest that politicians should be paid to put forward any particular point of view. The price that is paid for that is that lawyers are not the most highly regarded people; they are not thought to be sincere. That is the price of adversarial politics, where one opposes merely for the sake of it.
I recall the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, once saying to me, as she likes the taste of battle and blood, that it was all very well to be a commercial lawyer, like the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, and my noble friend Lord Goodhart, but that what we were doing was fun. I have always borne that in mind.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, listed the failures of consensus politics over a period of time. It seems to me that there was the greatest possible confrontation between rival conceptions of government in the 1960s and 1970s. I thought that the confrontation in those days was between socialism and capitalism; and that there were indeed two distinct strands of opinion. Yet those two strands produced what the noble Lord described as consensus politics, which he denigrated for that reason.
Consensus does not last forever. There are always minority views which eventually make their way into the mainstream. Thatcherism was not a concept in 1979; Thatcherism was a minority view which became a majority view in the early 1980s. In the later 1980s it reached its full flow. There are other minority views. I recall my adoption speech in West Flint in 1964.

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There were four key issues: the first, devolution for Wales; the second, proportional representation; the third, closer ties with Europe by joining the Common Market; and the fourth, I regret to say, was reform of the House of Lords.
Those issues in those days represented minority views, but one has seen, over the decades that have passed since then, that those minority views have grown to a consensus, and are now becoming the type of consensus of which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, does not approve. It is events which cause minority views to come forward in that way.
When we have a situation where we on these Benches have put forward issues, values and principles over many years, and we find suddenly that the Labour Party has been moving towards our point of view, that it is adopting devolution, proportional representation and talking about reform of the House of Lords, what are we to do? Are we just to oppose for the sake of opposing, or are we to co-operate to try to improve the detail of the plans it is putting forward? That is what co-operation is and should be about.
I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Hillhead for introducing this debate. I pay my own small tribute as a foot soldier in his army over the past 12 months or so to the magnificent leadership that he has given us. May I speak for the wider Liberal Democrat Party and say that in his position as our leader he will be greatly missed.
6.28 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, I shall make just a brief response. I have never much believed in second bites, certainly not large second bites, of the cherry in these debates. I should like to begin by repairing an omission in my opening speech which is to follow the tribute which the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal and the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, paid to the late Lady Llewelyn-Davies. I should not like that to be an omission, because it so happens that I probably knew her long before either of them did. I first put my foot on the humblest rung of the ministerial ladder when I became parliamentary private secretary to Philip Noel-Baker who was Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and she was then his trusted and invaluable personal assistant. If noble Lords rightly thought that she was dazzling when she was Captain of the Gentlemen at Arms I can assure you that she was even more dazzling in the Commonwealth Relations Office in 1949. She will be greatly missed.
I wish to congratulate the four maiden speakers. I begin with the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell. We must look forward to hearing him again, particularly when he is freed from the restraints of being non-controversial, under which he was obviously labouring heavily during his speech today. It was a notable speech. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, added a phrase to our parliamentary language. "Kennedy's kiss" will become like "Angela's ashes", that cult novel of the present time. It was a great comfort to me on my departure to
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hear the successful speeches made by my noble friends Lord Goodhart and Lord Razzall. They are an asset to our Benches.
Clearly, I am in danger of making a speech like the grandfather of a familiar Member of this House, whom I will not identify. It was said that his speeches were remembered only for the compliments which he paid in particular to his opponents. I thank all noble Lords—I said no obsequies but I did not say no tributes! I assure your Lordships that they have saved time because there need be no tributes when I leave.
The noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, courteously informed me that he would be a little late. I am not sure when he slipped in, but he obviously thought that he would arrive later. I am reminded of an incident relating to his forebears—in this case a lateral one—who paid what I have always regarded as the best feline compliment I have ever heard. He chaired a meeting of a singularly dull lecture. He complimented the lecturer saying that, unfortunately, due to increasing deafness—which did not apply in his case—he had missed certain parts of the lecture which, clearly, were more significant.
The noble Viscount was obviously afraid that he would miss the more significant parts of my speech as a result of lateness, so he wisely provided himself with the alternative of replying to a speech given by Mr. Simon Hughes in another place. I hope that that was very satisfactory for Mr. Simon Hughes. However, he redeemed the situation by the warmth of his tribute—I also thank the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal for his tribute—and I reciprocate his remarks about the pleasure of working together and the assurance that I hope that our personal relations will continue on this basis. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Organ Donation
6.33 p.m.
Lord Norrierose to ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to improve the care of patients awaiting an organ transplant and what steps they are taking to encourage an increase in organ donation.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in tabling this Question, my intention is to debate an emotive issue that is of great importance to thousands of patients awaiting transplants, be they cornea, kidney, heart, lung or liver. First, I wish to hear from the Minister what steps the Government are taking to improve the care which there patients receive. Secondly, I wish to hear what steps the Government are taking to increase the rate of organ transplantation.
I have deliberately cast the net widely so that issues relating to the broader transplant community can be raised. While I intend to set out some of the concerns relevant to all branches of transplant medicine, I shall refer in particular to renal services and will identify areas where I believe progress is necessary. Tonight I speak not only as president of the National Kidney Federation, the only organisation run by kidney patients

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for kidney patients, but also as the parent of a son who has kidney failure. Happily, after four and a half years of dialysis, my son has had a successful transplant.
I am conscious of the pressures on kidney patients and their immediate family. I am also knowledgeable about another important aspect; that is, when the next of kin of a potential donor is faced not only with bereavement but with a decision on whether the organs of the deceased can be used for transplantation.
I wish this to be a purely constructive debate which will produce for the Minister a range of ideas that her department can investigate and can report back in detail. I look forward to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hughes of Woodside, whose experience in medical matters I am sure will be a positive asset to this House. I am grateful to the Minister who, during the summer months, gave me time to put across some of my ideas and I thank her for her encouragement in tabling the Question tonight.
At the outset, it might be helpful to identify the large number of patients awaiting a transplant. I wish to acknowledge the help of the UK Transplant Support Service Authority in compiling the figures. Substantially more transplant operations are carried out today than 10 years ago and I pay tribute to the NHS and its staff for that. However, I must express concern that the number of kidney transplants plateaued in 1990 and would now seem to be in decline. I shall deal later with some possible causes for that decline and propose some solutions.
Currently, more than 5,500 people are awaiting a kidney transplant, which is an increase of 5 per cent. on this time last year; 677 people are awaiting a heart or lung transplant, an increase of 9 per cent.; and about 200 people are awaiting a liver transplant, a 6 per cent. increase on last year. In 1996, the total number of kidney transplants was 1,600, which was down by more than 8 per cent. on the previous year. The number of heart transplants totalled 290 and there were 651 liver transplants.
Currently, patients are waiting on average well over two years for a kidney and the number of patients on the waiting list is growing. Patients on dialysis have a poorer quality of life than those who receive a transplant and the cost of renal services to the NHS is increasing because dialysis is more expensive than transplantation. The problem boils down to a shortage of donor organs. There is no one solution to the problem, but I wish to set out some areas where progress may be possible.
The first and most obvious step is to encourage more members of the public to carry organ donor cards. That scheme is backed by the Organ Donor Register, a centrally held list of those willing to donate their organs in the event of their death. I am heartened to see that the register has recently topped 4 million members. I trust that the Government will continue actively to promote the organ donor scheme and encourage the public to make that most precious of donations, the gift of life. Will the Minister tonight pledge to increase the number of people carrying a donor card to 5 million by the end of the century?
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Currently in the UK we opt in to organ donation by carrying a donor card. In other countries, such as Austria and Sweden, consent is presumed. In those countries, an individual who does not wish to donate his or her organs must opt out. A register is set up to record that preference. The BMA does not support a donor scheme where people would have to opt out of the system. I have received representations in favour of a change in our system and I am sure that that is an issue which will continue to arouse lively debate.
I wish to refer to my noble friend the late Lord Finsberg. Lord Finsberg identified the fact that as the law stands the next of kin may overturn the wishes of a deceased relative to donate his or her organs, even when the deceased carries an organ donor card. Lord Finsberg introduced a Bill to back the wishes of the would-be donor in law. Following, I suspect, considerable arm twisting by the Department of Health, that measure did not become law and it was withdrawn. I believe that the measure would command public support and I urge the Government to take a lead in the debate, perhaps through the publication of a draft Bill for consultation.
I should now like to commend to this House the work of the Manningford Trust, a charitable organisation which exists to advance organ transplantation. The trust makes a number of important recommendations in a report published last month on organ transplantation, including the establishment of a national transplant commission. The commission would work to break down barriers to organ donation and consider whether there are lessons we can learn from approaches adopted in other countries.
A national transplant organisation has already been established in Spain resulting in a doubling in the number of organ donors between 1989 and 1995. The Spanish transplant organisation also oversees the recruitment of trained transplant co-ordinators in every hospital and the training of medical staff in counselling for relatives. Those measures have improved the availability of organs and therefore the number of transplant operations conducted.
The waiting list for a kidney transplant went down by almost 20 per cent. in Spain in the five years to 1995 and Spain has the highest rate of liver transplants in the world. That is impressive progress and is a credit to the Spanish transplant organisation. I accept that there is a higher rate of road accidents in Spain which affects the availability of suitable organs. In this country we have been extremely successful in cutting the number of road deaths through seat belt and crash helmet legislation and, indeed, drink-drive campaigns. However, I recommend the Spanish system to the Government. Would the Minister consider arranging a fact-finding mission to identify what we can learn from the progress that has been made there to increase organ donation?
The National Kidney Federation recommends that a thorough examination of elective ventilation should take place in the UK. Elective ventilation is the process whereby, with the consent of relatives, selected patients considered suitable for organ donation are kept breathing temporarily by artificial means when natural

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breathing ceases. In that way, the organs are preserved in a state fit for transplantation following certification of death. That has proved to be an effective means of increasing the number of organs available for transplant in hospitals where it has been practised.
In the Exeter kidney unit at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, notable increases in the number of organs for transplant were achieved through the application of elective ventilation. Indeed. Exeter managed to keep the number of patients on dialysis stable for four years at a time when numbers were increasing everywhere else in the country. It was able to carry out more kidney transplants because it achieved the highest rate of organ donation in the UK through that system of elective ventilation. I regret that on the advice of the Department of Health, that procedure has been discontinued and the transplant rate in Exeter has fallen dramatically.
There are a number of ethical concerns associated with elective ventilation. Exeter worked to a protocol endorsed by the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Nursing, the British Transplantation Society and the BMA. The BMA Ethics Committee addressed the subject and is satisfied that the procedure is acceptable, subject to the enforcement of strict protocols. The National Kidney Federation is also in favour of the procedure. With that in mind, will the Minister not agree that constructive progress is possible? With the co-operation of the Department of Health and the resolution of moral and legal arguments, there are considerable savings to be made through elective ventilation due to the difference in cost between dialysis and transplantation; and more patients will receive a transplant, which of course is the best quality treatment for kidney failure.
Therefore, I urge the Government to be brave and stand up to their official advisers and take a lead in bringing together interested parties to seek a consensus. The medical profession, those concerned with ethics and the law, and the public must be encouraged to participate in that debate. Ministers may be surprised at the public's enthusiasm for organ donation.
I turn now to xenotransplantation. There has been much speculation in this House and elsewhere about the use of animal organs in transplantation. Having persuaded your Lordships, I hope, of the shortage of organs for transplants, this would seem to offer a panacea. However, there are many issues that we need to tackle before transplantation of animal organs into humans becomes a reality. This is at the cutting edge of health technology and there are naturally concerns such as the risk of cross-infection and the moral arguments about using animals in this way. I consider it important that we should move forward with all speed to tackle the ethical and regulatory issues surrounding xenotransplantation, and I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Wharton, intends to refer to these issues in more detail.
It is of paramount importance that the science should develop within a framework that satisfies the concerns of the public with regard to the use of this new technology. But, equally, it would be regrettable were
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progress towards the use of animal organs in human transplantation to be held back by the failure of politicians to agree an appropriate framework. Can the Minister give us any information about the establishment of a statutory body for the regulation of xenotransplantation as proposed in the Kennedy Report? In my view, xenotransplantation is a very exciting development and I wish the scientists well in their research. However, this technology may still be some way over the horizon. That is not an excuse for inaction in addressing the issue of organ shortages now.
I now turn to the care of patients with renal failure. There are an estimated 23,115 patients being treated for kidney failure in England alone. With long waiting lists for a kidney transplant and a shortage of organs for transplant, it is important that patients receive top quality care. There has been progress in that direction, but I want to draw attention to some national and international comparisons to highlight where I believe further progress is required.
An organisation known as the European Dialysis and Transplant Association has been set up to collect information about patients accepted for dialysis. That is one indicator of how effectively countries are providing for patients with kidney failure. Their data shows that the United Kingdom is 21st in the list of countries ranked according to the number of new patients per million of the population per year accepted for dialysis. We come just ahead of Bulgaria and lag behind a majority of our European partners. Greece, Belgium, Italy and the Czech Republic all accept more new patients for dialysis each year than we do.
I shall put some figures to this analysis. The Renal Association has recommended that a minimum of 80 new patients per million of the population will require dialysis each year. This is a conservative estimate as it does not take account of variations in ethnic mix, to which I shall refer shortly.
The take-on rate of new patients in Greece is 118 patients per million of the population; in Belgium it is 103; in Italy it is 91. These figures refer to 1993, the latest year for which international comparisons are available. At that time the UK total was 60 patients per million.
I sought to shame the previous government into action and I am pleased to report that there has been some progress. A recent Renal Association report estimates the figure in 1995 to be 82 patients per million in England and Wales. This still leaves us some way behind the Czech Republic, with a rate of 92 patients per million of the population.
I shall continue to harry the new Government because the figures as they stand are, still, unacceptably low. There is no such thing as a waiting list for renal replacement therapy—if people with kidney failure do not receive dialysis. they die.
I should now like to focus on what is going on in different parts of the United Kingdom. We see that, just as on a European level, large variations in the take-on rate of new patients exist in different parts of the UK.

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At the laudable end of the scale, the take-on rate of new patients per million per year in Wales is 108. In Merseyside it is fewer than 40. Of course, a majority of regions lie somewhere in the middle. But as the example I have just given shows, there are stark contrasts between regions which lie in close proximity. A patient's access to renal services varies substantially with his postcode. That is fundamentally unfair and unacceptable. I believe that it has been referred to in a different context as the lottery of NHS care.
I should just like to refer to the experience of patients in Lancashire. I have in my possession a letter to Mr. Austin Donohoe, the chairman of the National Kidney Federation, from a consultant nephrologist in Preston. I am pleased to say that in this part of the country there is a very constructive relationship between the department of renal medicine and kidney patients. The unit covers a large population of some 1.6 million people. Of the four purchasers of renal services in the area, it is not really putting in sufficient funds to pay for a take-on rate of 43 patients per million of the population. Let us remember that the Renal Association recommended a minimum take-on rate of 80 patients per million. According to the Preston consultant there is,
"a lack of commitment from the Purchasers to invest sufficient additional funding into renal medicine … adequate money is not forthcoming to increase access rates".
The publication today by the Audit Commission of a report recommending improvements in the way in which specialised services ought to be commissioned is a timely contribution to our debate. I know that the Government are committed to tackling these inequalities and I look forward to very early progress.
As I have run over my time, I move on now to my conclusions. I consider that health authorities have a critical responsibility for commissioning high quality renal services. I have already mentioned the Audit Commission's contribution to the debate. I should also point out that Parliament is currently updating the purchasing guidelines for renal services. I hope that they will be promoted by the Minister when they are published.
I should like to come to some conclusions about how we might increase the availability of organs for donation. First, I would strongly urge swift and positive action by the Government to seek a consensus on elective ventilation. Secondly, I would ask the Government to lead the debate on xenotransplantation. The public has yet to form a view on these matters—the Government should be active in this and not leave it to the more sensational branches of the media to shape public opinion. And, finally, I have asked the Government to investigate the Spanish system to see whether we can apply any of their protocols in this country.
6.52 p.m.
Lord Hughes of Woodside: My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to take part in such a debate. I did not expect the transition from the other end of the building to this part to be easy. The transition is far from complete, and. indeed, I have much to learn. However, the generous welcome that I have received from noble
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Lords of all parties and of none and the courtesy and helpfulness of the staff have certainly meant that the transition has been painless so far. I am grateful for that. I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, on introducing this debate on the vital subject of those awaiting transplants and the need for more organs to be available. As President of the National Kidney Federation, the noble Lord brings a wealth and depth of knowledge to the debate with which I fear I cannot compete.
I believe the facts are reasonably well known. Currently waiting lists, especially for kidney transplants—the most usual surgery—are increasing. In 1994, 4,851 people were on waiting lists: the current figure is over 5,500. At present, some 30 children under the age of 10 are awaiting kidney transplantation. There are 147 between 10 and 20 years old. If one takes the middle age, if you like, from 30 to 50 years of age, there are 2,400 people waiting. Indeed, there are even four people aged 80 and over waiting for transplants.
The numbers of those waiting for heart, lung and liver transplants, although they are much smaller, are also increasing. It is only in the case of heart-lung transplants that there is some stabilisation and perhaps a smaller reduction in the waiting list. The reason is the immense shortage of donor organs. There are two things which bring that about. First, there is the increase in medical technology which keeps people alive longer; and, secondly there is, ironically, the growth of legislation as regards wearing seat belts and the increased attention by car manufacturers to safety, both of which have brought about a decrease in the number of deaths. Of course, we applaud that immense saving of life. Nevertheless, it is a little like the old engineering principle that,
"for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction'.
What are we to do? I have to say that I reject immediately the proposition that xenotransplants—that is, animal to human transplants—are a solution, although there is much experimentation going on in that respect. The committee under Professor Kennedy of King's College into the ethical and scientific issues approved the procedure on ethical grounds but was unsure about proceeding given current scientific knowledge. There are problems about the transfer of viruses, and so on. Therefore, future generations may well take a different view, but at this moment I believe that it is a bridge too far to cross.
So the question remains: what can we do? The most obvious' answer would seem to be to increase the amount of advertising so that more people carry a donor card. That certainly would be worth doing, but it will not solve the problem by itself. I recently learned, much to my astonishment, that the carrying of a donor card does not automatically mean that organs can be used. In any event, as far as I am concerned, I do carry a donor card, but I suspect that the only service which my organs could provide would be as a demonstration to medical students of what happens if you do not follow medical advice about living a healthy lifestyle.
However, the terms of the Human Tissue Act 1961 require that it has to be established that the deceased has not changed his or her mind since signing the card.

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In the case of sudden death, or even an expected death, the next of kin and relatives are undoubtedly traumatised. It is perhaps understandable that relatives are often reluctant to give consent. Figures vary as to how large that consent is. In the case of intensive care patients, the figure varies according to one survey or another between 25 and 50 per cent. That is even more so when the deceased has not exercised the right to carry a donor card.
It must be dreadful to be told one minute that your son, daughter, husband, wife, partner or whomsoever has been killed in an accident and then, moments later, be asked whether you will make the organs available. The wonder perhaps is not that so few people refuse but that so many actually give their consent. Our system is, of course, a "contracting in" system; in other words, you have to carry a card. In the early 1970s, my colleague Tam Dalyell and I canvassed the idea that we should have a contracting out donor card. The outrage at this hugely contentious issue was such that we dropped the idea fairly quickly. Fortunately, the idea has not gone away.
I would certainly wish to join the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, in paying tribute to the late Lord Finsberg, who, I understand, successfully piloted a Private Member's Bill through this House in 1995, only for it to fall in the other place. I should also like to add a tribute to John Marshall, the former Member of Parliament for Hendon South, who attempted an identical Private Member's Bill in February of this year which, unfortunately, failed due to lack of time. The issue remains contentious, but I believe that recent comment in press reports and elsewhere suggests that the time may be right to move towards this solution.
The trauma of waiting for a transplant—the trauma for the relatives—is immense but there are other issues which we should bear in mind. In addition, there is the anguish of patients and their relatives who are told that a transplant is not an option. The issues that arise there can be very delicate. Of course, such decisions must be taken on purely medical grounds. Some have suggested that lifestyle should be taken into account in bringing about a prognosis on whether someone will survive if given a transplant. Members of the medical profession have immense duties placed upon them as regards who shall and who shall not have a transplant. In fact, it is who shall live and who shall die.
Being on a waiting list in itself is not a guarantee of a transplant. The number of transplants of kidneys, for example, in 1996 in the UK as a whole was only 1,700, made up of 1,416 in England, 136 in Scotland, 90 in Wales and 58 in Northern Ireland. When one thinks of a waiting list of over 5,500 one realises the difficulty that we are in.
There are issues of lifestyle. I once had a constituent whose daughter had an adverse reaction to an Ecstasy tablet and she was not offered a transplant. The parents believe to this day that a judgment was made that she should not have a transplant on ethical grounds rather than on medical/ethical grounds. A public inquiry revealed that that was not the case. However, there are
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clearly fine lines of distinction on these issues. I certainly do not wish to proceed down that particular contentious road this evening.
In conclusion, there are three things that we can do. First, we could certainly have a significant advertising campaign to increase the carrying of donor cards. Secondly, we must clarify the Human Tissue Act of 1961 to allow the automatic use of organs of those who carry a donor card without further reference to relatives. Thirdly, I believe the Government must have the widest possible consultation with a view to moving speedily to a contracting out system of donor cards as soon as possible. We have debated this evening—sadly, shortly—one of the most vital things that we have to give to people: the possibility of prolonged life. I hope this debate will bring some clarity to the issue. I thank your Lordships for your courtesy in listening to my remarks.

7.1 p.m.
Earl Howe: My Lords, it is my pleasure to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hughes of Woodside, on his excellent, well informed and well argued maiden speech. The noble Lord comes to your Lordships' House with a wealth of experience in the other place as a former Minister and Front Bench spokesman for his party and with the reputation of one who has acquired in his long political career a depth of knowledge on Scottish affairs, transport and agriculture, to name but a handful of his political interests, which few can match. It is our privilege to have heard him speak this evening on yet another of his areas of expertise, that of health. I am sure all of your Lordships will have found what the noble Lord said both wise and persuasive, as well as elegantly put, and will, like me, look forward to many contributions from him in our debates in the future.
I join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Norrie for introducing this important topic. I congratulate him on the clear way he did so. It seems to me that he highlighted the key issues which bear upon his Question. I should like to explore some of them further and elaborate somewhat on his conclusions. My noble friend, not unnaturally, focused particularly on kidney patients. As many kidney transplants are performed in the UK as of all other solid organ transplants combined, and while demand outstrips supply for all transplantable organs, and the need for more donors is self-evidently acute across the board, it is the lack of kidney donors which affects the greatest number of patients in clinical need. At the most recent count the active national transplant waiting list for kidneys—as my noble friend mentioned—stood at some 5,500 people, compared to the number of kidney transplants performed in a year of some 1,600 to 1,700. That gap between demand and supply has been growing steadily for at least 10 years due in part to the progressive decline in the number of deaths from road accidents and, it must be added, the scarce supply of intensive care beds in hospitals.
Unlike the patient awaiting a liver or a heart transplant, the kidney patient has an alternative treatment available; namely, dialysis. But dialysis, although life-saving, is, as my noble friend pointed out,

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a second best option. It does not enable the patient to lead a normal life and it involves considerable physical discomfort. Compared to a transplant it is also much more expensive. A patient on dialysis costs the NHS approximately £20,000 to £25,000 a year. By contrast, a transplant operation costs around £20,000, followed by recurring annual costs of between £1,000 and £3,000.
Therefore, from the taxpayer's perspective, as well as that of the patient, a renal transplant is infinitely the preferred form of treatment for kidney failure. Yet, as we heard from my noble friend, the UK lags behind many of our European Union partners in the percentage of kidney patients who receive a transplant. How might it be possible to increase the number of kidneys available for donation? Raising public awareness of the issues is, I think, essential, and should be a continuous process, but it is not enough. The sad fact is that over the years such efforts have simply failed to make an impact. Public attitude surveys show that about 25 per cent. of the population is actively opposed to organ donation compared, for example, to 5 to 10 per cent. of people in Belgium. Persuading even a quarter of that 25 per cent. would make a huge difference to the available supply of organs.
In parallel with this come the options for legislative change. It does not perhaps need pointing out that any debate to modify the law is necessarily suffused and overlaid with questions of medical ethics. At the moment in the UK, doctors are required to obtain the confirmation of the next of kin that they have no objection to the removal of an organ and that they do not believe the donor would have objected. Frequently. this procedure leads to consent being withheld or, if not withheld, being obtained too late for an organ to be used in a transplant.
Are these requirements too strict? I shall not dwell too long on the arguments for introducing a system of presumed consent for organ donation or "opting out", as it is known. Such a system would cause grave ethical difficulties for the medical profession. But even setting those aside for one moment it seems to me highly doubtful, for a variety of reasons, that it would gain public approval, not least because people would feel that improper pressure was being put on them. A system of opting out has been adopted in both Belgium and Austria, and donor rates are higher in those countries than they are here. But it is far from clear whether one is the cause of the other. Of much more significance, some argue. is the clear difference to be found in those countries in public attitudes towards organ donation.
A more fruitful area for discussion, as my noble friend indicated, is elective ventilation. To permit a protocol of ventilatory support for patients who stop breathing after an untreatable stroke, solely to allow that patient, when brain dead, to become a donor is an idea which many surgeons see as ethically acceptable. For most, if not all, those surgeons, the procedure could take place only if all concerned, including the patient's relatives, had given their informed consent. But there are other practitioners who entertain the most profound doubts about the ethical acceptability of a procedure which does not respect the patient's own autonomy, which carries a risk of that patient being placed into a
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persistent vegetative state, and which is inherently distasteful and undignified in that it manipulates the manner of a patient's death.
Elective ventilation also falls foul of legal difficulties. Here again, the issue of consent is central. Unless the patient himself has previously given specific, unambiguous consent to artificial ventilation for organ donation, that ventilation may not be permitted. No consent from any other source will do. The patient is alive; if a doctor is to administer treatment without consent, that treatment must be for the patient's direct benefit. Anything that falls outside this definition could constitute common law assault. These are the reasons which led the Department of Health to suspend the procedure some time ago.
In fact the difficulties do not stop there. I believe there are important practical issues relating to the capacity of intensive care units to devote resources to a type of treatment which is unrelated to a patient's recovery. However, I shall be interested to hear from the Minister whether she thinks that the legal difficulties are capable of satisfactory resolution. Does she think that the answer simply lies in a system of more detailed and informed consent by prospective donors? Or would she seek to go further and look for ways of permitting elective ventilation without such consent provided that certain conditions were met?
I wonder, too, whether the Minister could comment on another type of procedure where the law is at present unclear, at least to me. This relates to a technique for preserving in situ the kidneys of potential donors who are dead. As the noble Baroness will know, kidneys which have been taken from a patient who has suffered respiratory and cardiac arrest can be transplanted successfully provided they are removed within 60 minutes of the heart stopping. In those circumstances, the best way of protecting the kidneys prior to removal is to cool them by inserting a catheter. This procedure is of greatest use in cases of sudden or unexpected death where the next of kin are not on hand to give consent to the immediate removal of an organ: it buys time. The issue it raises, however, is the legality and ethical propriety of carrying out a procedure on a dead body without permission.
The technique I have described is one which has been adopted successfully in Leicester with, I understand, the approval of the local coroner and with no objections raised elsewhere. If taken up nationwide, it has the potential to increase the supply of organs for donation by a very substantial percentage. Can the Minister add her own perspective to this issue? Can she say whether health authorities might be encouraged by the Government to promote kidney cooling in non-heart-beating donors as part of a wider campaign to raise public awareness?
On a similarly practical level, I mention the role of transplant co-ordinators. This specialist discipline has grown up on a somewhat ad hoc basis over the past 15 to 20 years but is a key component in a hospital's ability to arrange organ transplants successfully. It is felt by many people that there should be a proper managerial structure for supervising and training transplant

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co-ordinators and that this could usefully take the form of a national umbrella body to promote consistency across the country. Can the Minister say how far the Department of Health has progressed in its examination of this issue?
I wish for a moment to revert to the issue of dialysis facilities. For all this country's expertise in the care of patients with renal failure, we lag behind many of our European neighbours in the number of renal units and the number of new patients starting dialysis each year. The sobering conclusion from that is that some individuals needing treatment are not receiving it, or are not receiving it soon enough.
The need for dialysis can vary considerably by region. For example, I understand that renal failure is more common among the Asian community than in other ethnic groups, necessitating greater provision of renal facilities in Asian centres of population. More generally, many patients have to travel a long way in order to attend a renal unit. Indeed, I should like to share with the House some advice well known among patients with kidney failure in the West Country. Do not live in Wiltshire! The health authority there has turned down overtures from patients in the area to fund a renal unit in Swindon. As it is, patients are required to travel to Portsmouth, Oxford or Bristol for their dialysis. Has the Minister any news about the PH hospital project proposed for Swindon and can she provide any reassurance to kidney patients there that when the hospital is built there will be a dialysis unit in it?
On a separate but related point, will the Minister undertake to look at Wiltshire health authority's purchasing policy for renal services? Concern has been expressed to me that renal care is effectively being rationed in Wiltshire on cost grounds and that elderly patients in particular are being denied the care they need.
As my noble friend mentioned, the publication today of the Audit Commission report, Higher Purchase: Commissioning Specialised Services in the NHS is timely in this context because it identifies a number of ways in which health authorities could improve the manner in which specialised services including renal care are commissioned. I look forward to the Government's response to that report in due course.
The issues raised by my noble friend are of fundamental importance for many thousands of men and women. I hope that the Government will take on board the very real concerns that have been expressed and will confirm their determination to see more resources devoted to this key area of patient care. I look forward very much to hearing what the Minister has to say.
7.15 p.m.
Baroness Wharton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, for raising this issue tonight. My noble friend Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior would have taken part in the debate tonight were it not for the fact that he is on business of the House in Atlanta.
We have spoken many times about the ethical, moral and animal welfare issues involved in xenotransplantation. As an honorary associate of the
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British Veterinary Association, I should like to put forward a view which covers the veterinary aspects as well as the animal welfare of the pig donors.
The first animal-to-human transplant was in 1906 when a French surgeon implanted a pig's kidney into one woman and a goat's liver into another. Needless to say, neither survived. But here we are, 91 years later and on the threshold of a break-through some few years hence. Previous speakers have already mentioned the acute shortage of donor organs and the waiting lists. Therefore I shall not go into that.
The long-term possibility of producing human organs or tissues in vitro, coupled with significant advances in mechanical devices, may eventually provide sources of replacement organs. The immediate need could be solved by the science of xenotransplantation, although some may not agree. The pig is the ideal animal for such work, having a relatively short gestation period (approximately 112 days) and producing an average of eight offspring per litter.
Progress to date in xenotransplantation has been to modify by 0.0001 per cent. the genetic make-up of the pig with human genetic material, so that when it is transplanted into humans it is not immediately rejected. In other words, the pigs are genetically engineered to carry human proteins on the surface of their cells. This will allow pig organs to be used as a temporary bridge for patients awaiting a human organ or, as has happened in the USA in the case of human liver failure, to use pig livers kept alive in a sterile container and perfuse them with the patient's blood, rather like kidney dialysis.
The ethical aspects of xenotransplantation have exercised the collective minds of several committees. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics concluded that the routine supply of pig organs was ethically acceptable and the report also identified the possible transmission of infectious disease as an important consideration. The Kennedy Advisory Committee set up by the Department of Health last year came to similar conclusions and recommended the establishment of the UK xenotransplantation interim regulatory authority to oversee developments in this field.
The British Veterinary Association's ethics committee has recently considered the issue of transplantation between species. The committee considers that it is not unethical to use, to modify genetically and to breed pigs so that their organs may be used in transplants into humans. Xenotransplantation is seen by the committee as an effective means of countering the current organ shortfall, since present and future needs for organs seem unlikely to be met by other means. However, and I stress this, the use of primate organs for transplantation into humans is considered unethical and totally unacceptable. The BVA also considers that the welfare of animals bred for transplantation should be carefully safeguarded and commercial pressures should not he allowed to jeopardise animal welfare standards.
Provided that the very real benefits in terms of the relief of human suffering can be achieved without causing unnecessary suffering to or adversely affect the

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welfare of the pigs concerned, the committee does not object to the practice of xenotransplantation on ethical grounds.
Perhaps the most worrying aspect of xenotransplantation is the presence of viruses, particularly retroviruses, in donor pig organs which are capable of infecting human cell lines. Although it is not known whether such viruses can become established and cause disease in the recipient, the fact that recipients are immuno-suppressed adds a measure of caution. It may be possible to breed pigs free of retroviruses, though that is considered extremely difficult. An alternative would be to try to genetically engineer pigs so that they lack the ability to harbour retroviruses.
It is right that great caution is necessary in the introduction of that technology to human medicine and it is important that animal-to-human transplants are offered to patients only when there is a good chance that they will work. Obviously the patients themselves will have to be fully informed so that they can make an informed decision before accepting an organ from a non-human donor. I am sure that many committed animal welfarists might find this technology both ethically and morally unacceptable; but we must remember that pigs are already farmed for meat.
The welfare of these animals is paramount. The genetically engineered piglets will be born into a controlled environment. At that stage the unmodified sow will be lost; but it is to be hoped that in the future, when the herd has been built up, the by now genetically altered sow will be able to survive to suckle her young. They will be able to do all the things that pigs normally do and their quality of life will be carefully monitored. The RSPCA is concerned that animals might be reared in a sterile and barren environment; and the society's concerns also relate specifically to the consequences of xenotransplantation for animals.
I have talked to the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, about this problem. He has observed the piglets and assures me that they are happy and well cared for. The RSPCA would also want to ensure that the five freedoms recommended for farm animals by the Farm Animal Welfare Council would be applied as a minimum basis for animal husbandry standards. They are freedom from fear and stress; freedom from pain and injury; freedom from hunger, thirst and disease; freedom from discomfort; and, finally, freedom to express normal behaviour.
The RSPCA's position as a charity would in any case not allow the society to oppose a use of animals that is considered by majority view to be of human benefit, but would ask that every attempt be made to find alternative solutions to the shortage of human organs before resorting further to taking the lives of our fellow creatures. Finally, we must also be sure that pigs do not suffer during organ removal.
7.23 p.m.
Baroness Sharples: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Norrie for initiating this debate. Noble Lords may recall a long time ago a determined campaign by Elizabeth Ward on kidney transplants,
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because her young son, Timothy, had to endure years of dialysis. As a result of knowing the Wards over many years, I decided to change my will in order to donate my organs. My family are all aware of my wishes. I can understand that many people will not see things in the same way. However, I hope that this evening's debate will persuade some noble Lords seriously to consider doing as I have done. I have been told that I am too old for anyone to benefit from my decision! However, there are many young Members in this House who no doubt could, and should, follow my example.
7.25 p.m.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, for introducing the debate. I congratulate the noble Lord. Lord Hughes of Woodside, on his maiden speech. Being the final speaker before the Minister, I have listened to all the speeches. They have been very well-informed and I agree with most of the arguments advanced. I wish to concentrate purely on kidney transplants. I do not intend to talk about the transplantation of other organs.
It is a tragedy that there is such a shortage of donor kidneys. I wonder whether there is a thought in the back of people's minds that the matter is not all that urgent because, after all, people can live on dialysis. That might to some extent account for the lack of people coming forward.
There are, after all, nearly 4 million people carrying donor cards, who are listed on the NHS donor register. That is 7.6 per cent. of the population. It is quite a large number of people. But despite that large number, there have been only 15 donors per million of the population. The number has been more or less constant for the past seven to eight years. So there is something wrong in the way we approach this subject.
As the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, mentioned, the donor rate in Spain is much higher; it is 26.8 per cent. In this country approximately 1,700 kidney transplants take place per annum, of which 10 per cent. of the organs donated come from members of the family. That is a tremendous sacrifice for a family member, but something to which I believe the family member quite happily agrees. In other countries, such as Norway, 40 per cent. of donations are from the family. Noble Lords will realise that when a kidney comes from a member of the same family, the danger of rejection is very much smaller.
Every speaker has mentioned the Human Tissue Act 1961, which created the "contracting in" system. It required written consent by the person who wanted to contract in. However, when, 10 years later, we introduced the donor card, we failed to clarify and resolve whether the card constituted an authorised form of consent. I should have thought that that would be so. I should not personally carry a donor card unless I meant it to apply if anything happened to me. But that has not always been the case.
The problem has been made more difficult because the law has allowed relatives to countermand the wishes indicated by the would be donor. That is rather like allowing relatives to reverse a dead man's will in any

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other form. We must respect the wishes of the donor. It is high time that the Government clarified the position of the donor and, I hope, make it the final arbiter in any decision as to whether an organ can be transplanted.
Those difficulties, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, have given rise to some surgeons advocating the introduction of a contracting out system to improve the supply of organs. I would not be prepared to go that far. However, I should like to see a strengthening of the law so that where a person has indicated his wish to become a donor his wish may be carried out without interference.
Apart from the shortage of donors, we have the problem which was mentioned by most speakers of the care of people awaiting transplants in the National Health Service. The waiting list was quoted by some speakers. The number of people living on dialysis is highest in the age groups 30, 40 and 50. Only one in three of the people on the waiting list will receive a transplant in any one year.
According to the medical opinion which I have obtained, it is claimed that there is now no shortage of machines, but there is a great and growing shortage of staff, both nurses and technicians. Therefore, it is important that we ensure that the existing centres are fully staffed so that we can make the maximum use of the machinery we have at our disposal. The cost of dialysis was also mentioned. It is very great, much greater than the long-term cost of a transplant operation.
However, quite apart from whether it costs a lot of money, we must achieve a higher output of organ transplants because not only is there the hardship for the patient of having to attend a hospital, sometimes every day or for long periods during the week, but the illness also prevents the patient from living a full life and often from working.
Of course, not all hospitals perform transplants, but it may be that we have too many. The UK transplant audit shows that the relative performance of those hospitals varies by as much as 20 per cent. Iyy do not believe that that is acceptable. The standard should be level over the country. We need proper national standards and larger centres where the staff—both doctors and nurses—get enough experience to be able to achieve the highest standards attainable. We should not accept anything less.
What we also need above all, as was mentioned, in order to counteract the resistance to being a donor, is a nationally organised system of education for the public, emphasising that out of one tragedy there is the chance of giving a new life to someone who needs it desperately. We should be able to persuade the nation that that is what we should all consider. If you resist the thought of someone removing your organs when you are dead, you should turn your mind to the happiness it might give to someone else.
7.33 p.m.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, first I wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, for giving the House the opportunity to debate these important issues
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by asking his Question this evening. I also wish to pay tribute to the noble Lord's energetic leadership as President of the National Kidney Federation. As I am sure noble Lords are aware, the voluntary sector plays an important part in transplantation and organ donation. I am grateful to the noble Lord and others involved in the voluntary sector for the time they have taken to give me useful personal briefings since I became a Minister. I am also grateful for their important work in the field.
I also wish to congratulate my noble friend Lord Hughes of Woodside on a distinguished maiden speech, in which he revealed an authoritative and long-standing interest in the issues we are discussing tonight. Although he said that his translation from another place had not always been easy, in the context of this evening's discussion we could describe him as a very successful transplant. We look forward to hearing him a great deal in the future.
As is so often the case in your Lordships' House on issues of this kind, all the speeches have been extremely well informed and wise. But even in this brief debate we have seen revealed the variety of strongly held views on the subject which reflect the controversy not only about the ethics but the practice involved in transplant policy.
Perhaps I may begin by replying to the first part of the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, about the care of patients waiting for organ transplants. I believe that things are getting better. Significant progress has been made in improving the treatment of people waiting for organ transplants and the way that they are looked after, particularly in the area of renal dialysis. When the national review of renal services was first published last year, it was clear that there were marked differences in the provision of services which patients could and should expect. Compared with other European countries, as the noble Lord said, the number of new patients taken on in England for renal dialysis was comparatively low, but much has been done to address that in the recent past.
The NHS Executive has issued guidelines on commissioning renal replacement therapy which include a model to enable health authorities to project the number of people requiring treatment. Taken together with the health needs assessment review that is currently being updated, health authorities and clinicians will be able to work together to ensure that all patients with renal problems receive specialist assessment and, we hope, specialist treatment.
The good progress that has been made recently is evident in the preliminary information from a national survey which we will publish shortly and to which the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, referred. The survey was commissioned by the NHS Executive as a follow-up to the national renal review. I am pleased to report that it shows a significant increase in the numbers of patients receiving dialysis during the past few years since the original review was carried out and a significant reduction in the variation in new patients taken on for dialysis which was a feature of the previous survey.
There are as well increases in the numbers being prescribed important specialised drugs, in those using the modern disconnect system and those receiving

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dialysis three times a week. As noble Lords will know, there is considerable variation in the proportion of patients using the disconnect system, but it is beneficial to many. For the benefit of anyone unfamiliar with it, as I was before I was well briefed by the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, and others working in the field, I should explain briefly that it is an enhanced system of continuous dialysis which enables the patient to be more mobile, to have more control and therefore to have a better quality of life.
The variations in the provisions of the system are not viewed with any complacency by the Government, and I hope that it will be feasible for all patients to have access to this higher quality, though it has to be said more costly, system as soon as local resources permit. However, inevitably it will take some time to achieve, given the pressure on renal services in some parts of the country, to which noble Lords have drawn attention. That is largely due to the increased numbers being taken on for treatment and the overriding need to ensure that patients are offered dialysis as soon as they need it. That has to take priority.
I am pleased to say that the new report also shows that since 1992 there has been a marked rise in the number of renal satellite units and a significant rise in the number of consultant nephrologists. Both the national renal review and the local report of the London Implementation Group a few years ago made recommendations for the future configuration of renal services which suggested that people adopt what is known colloquially as the "hub and spoke" approach, which included the use of more satellite units. That should reduce the distance which patients have to travel for treatment. As we know, that can place an unacceptable burden on the elderly and infirm and it can bring with it considerable costs.
The noble Earl, Lord Howe, raised the question in relation to Wiltshire of whether there was specific discrimination on the grounds of age in regard to kidney dialysis. I wish to make it clear that nationally we firmly adhere to the principle that NHS treatments should be open to all on the basis of clinical need. We would regard it as unacceptable for appropriate treatment to be denied on grounds of a patient's age alone. However, there are clearly issues like the general health of the patient that are taken into account when discussing with a patient and carers whether to embark on renal replacement therapy. But I can assure the House that there are many patients over the age of 70 who are currently receiving renal dialysis.
The noble Earl, Lord Howe, raised that question specifically in relation to the PFI undertaking in regard to the new hospital in Swindon. All I can say at the moment is that there are threatening matters which seem to suggest that a successful conclusion of the PFI arrangement may not be reached as quickly as we had hoped. It was one of the arrangements which was prioritised by the new Government in the summer. We hope that it will meet its deadlines and milestones by financial close, which should happen by the end of the year. If the PFI deal does reach a successful conclusion, it is expected that there will be adequate renal services included in it.
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Perhaps I may return briefly to other national initiatives which we think will be helpful. They include the National Renal Registry, funded in part by the NHS Executive, which will provide an up-to-date clinical audit covering several aspects of treatment. The NHS Executive is also funding an update of guidance on how to conduct an epidemiological needs assessment of renal failure. We hope that that will help health authorities in assessing a likely level of need in their population.
In addition, the NHS Executive funded a health technology assessment of renal dialysis based on a comprehensive review. That will be widely disseminated. Finally, a report on standards of renal dialysis will be published shortly by the Renal Association and the Royal College of Physicians. The executive intends to help with the cost of disseminating that to the NHS.
In connection with those national initiatives on service standards and clinical effectiveness, I emphasise that it is this Government's clear intention to pursue a policy of national benchmarking for all types of complex therapies and treatments. I hope that when our White Paper on the NHS is published, which will be shortly, noble Lords will see that among its primary objectives is the establishment of monitoring methods for measuring the quality of care and the outcomes for patients. Those will be the touchstones of success by which the NHS will be judged in the future, and I expect them to produce greater consistencies of treatment across the country for all types of therapies.
I turn to the second part of the noble Lord's question in relation to the donation of organs for transplant. Each year in the UK some 1,500 kidneys, 300 hearts, 150 lungs and 600 livers are transplanted from fewer than 900 donors. Sadly, in 1996, for the first time there was a fall in all of those kinds of transplants. The main constraints for all transplants is on the pool of potential donors, and that is something to which noble Lords referred this evening. That pool has been shrinking for some years due to the reduction in the number of road accidents and the improvement in the treatment of stroke and other sudden brain injuries. What is clearly a great improvement in the well-being of one section of the population, for one set of patients, has paradoxically been a major disadvantage for another—for those waiting for transplants.
As all noble Lords who spoke in the debate emphasised, we all want to see donations increase. We shall therefore continue to encourage organ donation through national and local publicity campaigns aimed at persuading people to join the NHS donor register, to carry a donor card at all times and, very importantly, as noble Lords emphasised this evening, to tell their families of their wishes. Already, as the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, said in introducing the debate, 4.5 million people joined the organ donor register and applications are coming in at the rate of 20,000 a week. I do not believe it is a rash pledge to make: I am pretty confident that we will reach 5 million by the year 2000, as the noble Lord asked me to project.
People can register as donors at their family doctor surgery when applying for a driving licence or passport or they can obtain a form by ringing a freephone

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number. I have no shame in your Lordships' House in giving a commercial for that freephone number. It is 0800 555 777. Perhaps if it is recorded in Hansard we shall reach 5 million tomorrow.
I have had a series of meetings over the past few months with representatives of the medical profession and organisations involved with organ donation, including, as I said at the beginning, the noble Lord, Lord Norrie. They have been helpful in producing different views on the ways in which donations could be increased. I commend the actions of those organisations; I was greatly assisted by my discussions with them. But I draw attention also, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Sharples, to the work of the British Kidney Patient Association and its president, Mrs. Elizabeth Ward. The BKPA is supporting the work of the organ donor register by carrying out an intensive recruitment drive in one area. I shall be interested to see the results of that exercise, which may prove to be a pilot for a wider programme.
In some parts of England programmes of training are being held to help clinicians deal with grieving families and to try to find the best ways of discussing donation with them—a subject raised by several contributors to tonight's debate. That has the aim of securing their agreement that organs may be taken. In other programmes some hospitals are looking into ways in which they might identify and maintain more potential donors and so increase the number of organs. Again, I am keen to learn the outcome of those different methods of approaching the problem. Several of them may produce models for national programmes.
As the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, suggested, we will continue to examine information received in relation to donation and transplantation programmes abroad. We need to learn all the lessons that we can from them. The noble Lord, Lord Norrie, specifically requested that people should visit Spain. I can say to him that consultants working for the UK Transplant Support Service Authority have already visited that country and prepared a report on their findings. We are also in touch with the Spanish transplant community through the Council of Europe. If more information is needed, we shall certainly consider another visit to Spain.
As several noble Lords emphasised, the law in this country allows organs to be taken from a person who has died and left instructions to that effect. It also allows organs to be taken if the deceased person left no such instruction, provided that the family does not object. Unfortunately—I was surprised to learn this—relatives object in around one-quarter of all cases. My noble friend Lord Hughes of Woodside drew attention to some of the reasons why there may be concern among families.
As several noble Lords suggested, it could be that the loss is overcome by introducing an opt-out system whereby organs may be taken from any person unless that person had expressed objection. However, on the other side, it has also been said that relatives would be just as likely to object if such a scheme were introduced. Some people would like to see relatives prevented from objecting to the donation, and several noble Lords
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referred this evening to the attempts of Lord Finsberg to bring that into law. As my noble friend mentioned, a further unsuccessful attempt was made in another place.
Common sense suggests that it is difficult to imagine doctors asserting a right to remove organs against the wishes of a grieving family. In any case, refusal by the patient's family is almost unknown when the relatives know that their loved one wished to donate. That is why our publicity stresses and will continue to emphasise, "Let your family know your wishes". That point was eloquently reinforced by the noble Baroness, Lady Robson.
The problem in regard to elective ventilation is one that has—if I may mix my metaphors—been well aired this evening. The noble Lord, Lord Norrie, gave us an eloquent explanation of the case for that. I fully understand the motivation for looking at the potential means of increasing organ donation through that route. However, it is a controversial and difficult subject and we would need to take both the legal and moral issues carefully into consideration. Addressing the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, there are anxieties in relation to the legal situation which may be resolved if more clever brains than mine were put to it. But it is not easy to respond to that point in a debate such as this.
What does elective ventilation involve? The process is that patients on ordinary wards who are expected to die shortly would be, with the permission of their families of course, taken to intensive care and placed on life support systems so that once death was pronounced their organs could be maintained until they could be removed for transplantation. At the moment—this is where we enter the legal minefield—as the law stands the practice is illegal. As the noble Earl, Lord Howe, made clear, any intervention made without the patient's consent must be in the patient's best interests or it will be judged as an assault. Clearly, elective ventilation in the circumstances I have outlined cannot be described as of benefit to the patient being treated. The procedures involved are not minor and could clearly be interpreted, in the legal niceties, as assault.
Elective ventilation is illegal at the moment, so why not change the law to overcome that obstacle? Again, as I said just now, this is not simple. A change in the law would hinge around consent to treatment. As one who sat for nearly two years on the Committee on Medical Ethics of the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, I know how difficult and how long drawn-out these discussions can be. The general principle that a person may not, without consent, be given treatment which is not in his or her own interests is an important one. It would be very difficult to modify it, as we have discussed in many different contexts.
On the other hand, my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor is reviewing the recommendations of the Law Commission on mental incapacity and consent. There will, I am sure, be further opportunities to look at all of these issues, but I would emphasise that, even in the broadest terms as described under the Law Commission's recommendations, an advance directive, as it is called, cannot direct doctors to do what is illegal. I suspect that we would very soon enter into the

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problematic area of definitions of what constitutes death. We all remember the controversies of a decade and a half ago when disputes about the definition of death as being brain-stem death led to a collapse in organs being offered for transplantation. It was thought that they might be taken at a time when brain-stem death had been agreed but that was not publicly or culturally accepted.
To attempt any such change in the law we would also have to be sure that elective ventilation was the best way forward in terms of practice. Can we be certain about that? The noble Earl, Lord Howe, made the point that many people both inside and outside the medical profession have grave reservations about the possibility of subjecting a patient to invasive procedures which would be of no benefit to that patient but were aimed solely at maintaining organs for eventual transplantation into others. Indeed, a report by the British Transplantation Society found that, of 97 intensive care units which had considered elective ventilation, almost 60 per cent. were opposed to the practice. That is not surprising because, as I have tried to describe in a very short time, the issues are difficult and the questions surrounding anticipated death are worrying for many people. Any move forward in this direction must have the confidence of the general public in order to be sure that we do not raise difficulties and scares which might lead to a worsening of the situation rather than the improvement which we all want to see.
The noble Earl, Lord Howe, referred to the question of cooling kidneys and the possible potential for taking that forward. He referred in particular to the practice that has been occurring in several local areas. As he will know, this is known as non-heart beating donors. We are aware that some protocols are in operation in different parts of the United Kingdom. But, again, the issue is not clear-cut. To decide on a legal change, it would be necessary to look at each protocol and see what was proposed. I would be very interested to hear what the outcomes of this practice are. But we need to emphasise again that public confidence must be maintained. This could be another area where bad publicity could arise, which, I believe, is what happened in the United States when non-heart beating donations in some areas resulted in a fall in organ donation.
We are talking here about general cultural attitudes, a point raised very eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, at the end of her contribution. It is difficult to foresee how we make changes to the law which in a sense run ahead of changes in cultural attitudes to transplants. My belief is that we need to work more firmly and directly on the kinds of considerations that the noble Baroness raised about the need for gifts of life before we can seek to change the law in an area where many people may feel threatened.
Several noble Lords who spoke, notably the noble Lord, Lord Morrie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wharton, raised the possibility of transplanting animal
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organs into humans—the process known as xenotransplantation. I would say to the noble Baroness, Lady Wharton, that the questions of animal welfare are being taken very much into account in the protocols surrounding the interim authority which is looking after these issues.
Several noble Lords raised the question of the Kennedy Report about transplanting animal tissue into humans. The report concluded that the potential benefits of xenotransplantation made it an important avenue to explore, but there is insufficient evidence to justify an immediate move to clinical trials involving humans. We are all concerned not just about the possible infection risks but about the likely efficacy as well as the ethics of any such procedure. We must be as sure as we can be, for the good of both the individual patient and for our wider population, that the procedure may work, that the organ will not be rejected and that infection will not be transmitted to the patient and thence to a wider population.
Having said that, we clearly see the potential of xenotransplantation. Recently, I visited Imutran, a British firm which is at the leading edge of developing this technology. I was extremely interested to hear about its work and to see the transgenic pigs it is breeding. The United Kingdom Xenotransplantation Interim Regulatory Authority, very wisely chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Habgood, is charged with advising the Government on these important developments. I am very grateful to it. The authority has worked hard during its first six months. We are now looking at its proposals to take its work forward and considering whether or not it is appropriate for it to become a statutory commission.
I have covered much ground today. I am aware that time is running on and that, although the debate is not timed, I should now conclude. I simply want to say that further management as well as medical developments need to be considered before we take any further decisions about the reorganisation of the transplant system. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, raised the question of an umbrella body to look after transplantation policy. Certainly, a review of the Transplant Special Health Authority is being looked at. That is something I shall want to consider.
On the general question of organ transplantation, we are looking at all the different issues raised by various noble Lords today which have been expressed in ways which reveal, as I said at the beginning, both their authority and their wisdom on the subject. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Morrie, that I hope he will accept that we have an open mind, that I do not think we are afraid of being brave in this area, but that any action the Government take must be based both on widespread consultation, as my noble friend Lord Hughes suggested, and also on the basis that the public will come with us and will not be frightened by any measures we take.
House adjourned at three minutes before eight o'clock.