Lords Sitting of 3 March 1999

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

Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
Miss Onora Sylvia O'Neill, CBE, having been created Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve, of The Braid in the County of Antrim, for life—Was, in her robes, introduced between the Baroness David and the Lord Flowers.
Lord Patel
Sir Narendra Babubhai Patel, Knight, having been created Baron Patel, of Dunkeld in Perth and Kinross, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Fraser of Carmyllie and the Baroness Hayman.

Human Rights Act 1998 and the Judiciary
2.48 p.m.
Lord Waddington Lord Waddington asked Her Majesty's Government:
What they consider to be the likely effect of the Human Rights Act 1998 on the public's perception of the impartiality of judges.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Irvine of Lairg): My Lords, the Government's decision to promote a Human Rights Act in their first legislative programme was strongly welcomed. The noble Lord is and was opposed to that, as he is entitled to be. The public will think that the judges, in deciding cases under the Act, are carrying out their traditional function of upholding the rights of individuals in a democratic society under the rule of law. The high public standing of our judiciary for impartiality will remain unchanged.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for his very full reply. Was not the noble and learned Lord right when in an interview with The Times in December he said that increased public scrutiny of the background of judicial candidates was inevitable when the Human Rights Act came into effect and that media comment about judges' political and social values was bound to increase? Does the noble and learned Lord agree that if we do not move to some kind of parliamentary scrutiny of judicial appointments—which I certainly do not advocate—the press will carry out that scrutiny itself and begin to examine with minute care the political and social
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background of every candidate, perhaps forcing the Government eventually to a more open system of appointment?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I believe that I accurately predicted the interest that the media and some sections of the public might have in the background of judges. But the country does not want judges to be appointed on political grounds. The country wants impartial judges and would be opposed to political hearings prior to appointment to subject judges' judicial track records or attitudes to appraisal by politicians in terms of the changing fashion for political correctness. I have no doubt at all that our higher courts should not be sculpted to conform to some notion of social gender or political balance.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, perhaps I may ask the noble and learned Lord about his remarks on 8th February about the impartiality of judges and one particular case to which he referred. Certainly, I cast no aspersions on any Member of this House and do not intend to enter into matters that are sub judice. First, is it really possible to distinguish between an appearance of bias and a reality of bias? Surely, no third party can judge that. Secondly, on reflection, does the noble and learned Lord agree that his remarks would have been wiser had they been made after the Law Lords had concluded their hearing in the case relating to the extradition of a former head of state rather than making a judgment about an earlier decision relating to that same case? Does the noble and learned Lord agree that his remarks are in danger of possibly being interpreted as steering in one particular direction?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I believe that they are incapable of being interpreted in that way. At the time that I spoke the House of Lords in its judicial capacity had come to a concluded view that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, should not have sat. That matter was therefore concluded. I believe that I was both free and right to answer questions on that subject. The Law Lords made plain that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, was not affected by any actual bias. Anyone who knows that noble and learned Lord would not contemplate that he could be. There was, however, an appearance of want of impartiality because of an association, not financial but voluntary, with Amnesty. There is a clear and well-known distinction between actual bias and the appearance of it. The latter entails that justice must not only be done but must be manifestly and clearly seen to be done.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, can my noble and learned friend assure me that the European Convention on Human Rights has been incorporated for several years in most western European countries? Has there been any indication of their judiciary being adversely affected in any way?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely correct. The European convention has been incorporated into the laws of the majority of our western

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European friends. There is no thought or public perception there that the reputation of their judiciaries for impartiality has been in any way impaired.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor agree that it is of great importance to the British people that British courts should have the power to enforce their rights under the European convention? Does he agree that British judges have a high international reputation for impartiality? Does he also agree that there is no reason to suppose that that reputation is likely to be damaged by giving them the power to decide questions under the convention?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I agree with all that, and I believe it to be consistent with what I have already said.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord aware that cases before the European Court of Human Rights often involve delay and considerable expense, and that much of the delay and expense will now be reduced by the power of the people of this country to go before our own courts?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I emphatically agree with that too. A powerful argument for the Human Rights Act was to bring those rights home so that they could be enjoyed by our citizens in our own domestic courts without having to engage in delay on the long road to Strasbourg.
Lord Craig of Radley: My Lords, can the noble and learned Lord confirm that it is the intention of the Government that one court, the Courts Martial Appeal Court, should hear all human rights cases brought by servicemen of all three services in order to ensure parity of treatment?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, that is rather wide of the Question. I shall write to the noble and gallant Lord specifically upon it.

Teaching Assistants
2.56 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington Lord Dormand of Easington asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many extra teaching assistants have been appointed since May 1997; whether there is a target for the number to be appointed; and what provision there is for the training of such assistants.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, this information is not collected centrally. However, between January 1997 and January 1998 the number of teaching assistants in schools increased by about 6,500. There is no target for the number of teaching assistants appointed. The employment and training of these staff are determined by schools and local education
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authorities. However, funding for the recruitment of an additional 20,000 teaching assistants will be provided over the next three years.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that at present, when there is much understandable concern about the shortage of teachers, the importance of teaching assistants tends to be forgotten? I am somewhat disappointed by my noble friend's reply although it is better than responses from the last administration. I welcome what has been achieved. However, since much more needs to be done, have the Government any objective or formula to achieve their aim?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I cannot tell my noble friend that the Government have any formula. But we recognise the importance of teaching assistants, in particular supporting teachers in the teaching function in schools. The value of teaching assistants is their contribution in its own right; they are not substitutes for teachers or a response to problems of teacher recruitment. The Government have measures in place to deal with that issue. I acknowledge the value of teaching assistants and the work they do.
Lord Tope: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the extent to which this welcome funding initiative is likely to be undermined by the cost of implementing the single status agreement which harmonises working conditions between manual and non-manual staff, not a penny of which is being funded by central government. For instance, my honourable friend Phil Willis tells me that for his local education authority in North Yorkshire the £2.25 million cost of implementing the single status agreement is being met by a 24 per cent. pay cut for non-teaching staff, a loss of holiday entitlement and loss of other benefits for staff who are already among the lowest paid. Does the department monitor the effects of implementing the single status agreement? If so, can the Minister tell us about that? If it does not, does the noble Lord think that it should?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the noble Lord asks rather a lot of questions. The context in which this must be taken is both in relation to the extra resources which the Government are putting into education and also, I acknowledge, the single status agreement—the harmonisation of terms and conditions between manual and non-manual workers—which is having an impact on teaching assistants in some parts of the country. The department is aware of that issue and officials will shortly be meeting with the local government management board to discuss it further.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: My Lords, will the noble Lord assure the House that in the drive to recruit more teaching assistants, the Government will not replace teachers in schools where there is a shortage of teachers? In particular will he tell the House what the

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Government are doing to try to reverse the shortage of teachers and to recruit more bright young people into the teaching profession?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I have referred to that. I am absolutely clear that teaching assistants are not to be seen as substitute teachers. They are there to support teachers in the important function of teaching in the classroom. As regards teacher recruitment, the Government announced a short-term package of measures in October of last year to deal with recruitment difficulties. Our Green Paper on the future of the teaching profession is designed to deal with many of those issues and to attract high-quality people into the profession.
Baroness Uddin: My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister tell the House how many teaching assistants recruited in the past year have been bilingual? How many of these assistants are in place in areas like Tower Hamlets, Newham, Manchester. Oldham and so on?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I cannot give my noble friend that information although I shall inquire to see whether the figures are available. I take on board the import of what she puts forward; namely, that particularly in the areas she mentions such people have an important contribution to make.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, will the noble Lord kindly confirm that teaching assistants have no qualifications? If that is right, what sort of assistance do they give besides carrying books, making the tea, or whatever?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I do not believe that the noble Lord is right. Many teaching assistants have qualifications. If one takes nursery nurses as an example, at least 80 per cent. have the relevant qualification. Many other teaching assistants have qualifications. However, a more general issue is that some do not have those qualifications. At present, there is a lack of co-ordination in terms of qualification requirements for teaching assistants. Certainly, the Government believe that we need to develop a national framework to ensure that we have the right training and qualifications for teaching assistants. I should say that notwithstanding some limitations in that area we owe an enormous debt of gratitude for the work that teaching assistants do at present.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, perhaps my noble friend will have a closer look at the need for statistics in this regard. He and other noble Lords today have stressed the importance of assistants. There is no doubt about that. In those circumstances the Government should examine what LEAs are doing in relation to this matter. Some may not be appointing many, or any. If these people are so important, we should know what is happening.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. It is important that all local education
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authorities recognise the value of teaching assistants. I shall see whether there are any statistics which can be made available to noble Lords. We believe there is much to be gained from looking at the experience of both LEAs and individual schools which have developed very effective systems for the training and support of teaching assistants. Over the coming year, we hope to publish good practice guidance designed to encourage all schools and LEAs to take account of the work being done in the best schools.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the Minister said that information is not held centrally but gave a specific figure of 6,500. That seems rather odd. How is it known there are 6,500 if there are no central statistics? Will the noble Lord say also what is the pupil-teacher ratio so we can work out the ratio of assistants to full-time teachers?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I said that I did not have the statistics available to answer my noble friend's question about bilingual teaching assistants. In relation to the collection of statistics there is an annual census; it is from that census that the figure of an increase of 6,500 teaching assistants was made available. It is my understanding that at present there are 103,800 full-time equivalent teaching assistants in schools.

Israel/Palestinians: EU Peace Policies
3.5 p.m.
Lord Hylton Lord Hylton asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will urge use of the European Union's foreign, trade and development policies in support of the achievement of sustainable peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean): My Lords, the EU has consistently worked to promote a negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinians based on the Oslo Principles and subsequent agreements. It continues to do so with active British support. The EU welcomed the Wye Agreement and has called on both parties to implement the agreement fully and without the introduction of new conditions. The EU is the largest aid donor to the Palestinians and plays an important role in pressing for action on the development of the Palestinian economic infrastructure. We and other partners are continuing to do all that we can.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her very full reply. Does she agree that a comprehensive EU approach would include the creation of a Palestinian state, the removal of some Israeli settlements from the West Bank and Gaza, an equitable division of water resources and some international control over the old city of Jerusalem and the principal Holy places?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the noble Lord is extremely skilful in putting a lot of questions in one short supplementary question. I shall try to deal with the four issues which he raised.

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At the moment, it is important to ensure the implementation of the Wye Agreement. It is vital that both sides refrain from unilateral acts and provocative statements which undermine confidence and which jeopardise the progress which we are trying to make in putting Wye back on track. We support the Palestinian right to self-determination and that does not exclude the option of a state. But we look for that to be achieved through negotiation.
On the question of the settlements, the EU continues to monitor closely the developments on the ground, including the building and expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and the actions in east Jerusalem. We recently published a summary of that settlement activity and the presidency undertook a demarche to the Israeli Government as recently as 15th February.
On the question of water, we are playing an active role through the EU in the multi-lateral water resources working group and DfID continues to assist the Palestinians on water issues.
I believe that I have dealt previously with the issue of Jerusalem. The Government have made their views well known on that to the Israeli Government.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, does my noble friend agree with a conclusion that I reached during a ministerial visit to Israel and Gaza last year that, given the opportunity that peace would provide, there is an overwhelming desire on the part of the business communities in both Israel and Palestine to engage together to tackle major infrastructure problems, trade problems and, indeed, to deal with the issue to which she has particularly adverted; namely, the difficult issues affecting water. If my noble friend agrees with that conclusion, is she encouraged by the fact that there is this community of interest between the two business communities?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: Yes, my Lords. I do believe there is that community of interest. The EU is promoting the development of regional trade through the support for regional cumulation of origin between Israel, the occupied territories, Egypt and Jordan. We believe that encourages partners to trade with each other and helps to develop the sort of industrial base to which my noble friend refers, and which is so important. That is in addition to the work that the EU is doing on the infrastructure questions, which my noble friend raised, particularly in relation to the Gaza airport, the seaport and the industrial estates. That should all help to add to the economic stability of the area.
Lord Beloff: My Lords—
Lord Redesdale: My Lords—
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Jay of Paddington): My Lords, I think it is for the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, to speak. I am sure that there will then be an opportunity for the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the poverty of many of the Palestinians is one of the
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main problems because it provides opportunities for recruitment into terrorism, which is, after all, the main obstacle to peace? As the Minister stated, the EU is the major donor of aid to the Palestinians. Is there machinery in place to ensure that the aid goes to the poor masses of the Palestinians and is not syphoned off for luxury living by Mr. Arafat and his associates?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the decline in Palestinian living conditions has been a matter of major concern. I hope I have outlined to your Lordships the action being taken by the EU to ensure that aid gets to where it is needed. There is a continuing and important role for the European Union to play in that respect. The recent ad hoc liaison committee and consultative group meetings in Frankfurt focused on how the international donor community can support the Palestinians directly and through the NGOs with advice, aid allocation and project implementation.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, considering the recent fall in the living standards of those living in the camps and the standard of services being provided in the camps, can the Minister say whether Britain and her EU partners are considering an increase in the UNRWA budget?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the EU is already the largest donor to the area. I believe that it was a United Kingdom initiative. However, as a result of that, the European Union has engaged Israel in a dialogue to find practical ways to ensure that the money gets through to the Palestinians, to the economy, in ways that Israel will find compatible with its security. Obviously that takes a certain amount of application and work. However, we and the EU believe that the existing initiatives I have described as regards what happened recently in Frankfurt will deliver tangible benefits to the Palestinians.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, would the Minister invite the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, to use some of his wide-ranging foreign energies to put pressure on the oil-rich Gulf states to make a contribution to the Palestinian economy to strengthen the peace process?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am sure that all people of goodwill, both within the immediate region of Palestine and Israel, and indeed elsewhere, should be persuaded to do what they can to support the Palestinian economy. There are a number of ways in which that can be done, through the trading alliances—which I have already described, and which the EU is trying to promote between Egypt and Jordan who are, in fact, engaging in that process—by directly supporting the infrastructure and, most important of all, in supporting the peace process. Unless we get the peace process right, there will be no prosperity for the Palestinians.

West Wales and the Valleys: EU Funding Status
3.14 p.m.
Lord Islwyn Lord Islwyn asked Her Majesty's Government:
What progress has been made towards securing Objective 1 status for areas of Wales suffering from high levels of unemployment, poverty and lack of investment.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Williams of Mostyn): My Lords, the European Union has confirmed that the gross domestic product of the West Wales and the Valleys NUTS II area for the period 1994–96 is around 71 per cent. of the European Union average. If the Commission's current proposals for NUTS II eligibility are approved by member states, this area will qualify for Objective 1 status. The subsequent approval of an Objective 1 programme for the area will be subject to the satisfactory conclusion of further negotiations with the Commission.
Lord Islwyn: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that most helpful reply. Can he confirm that Objective 1 status is only given to areas suffering considerable deprivation and that West Wales and the Valleys fall into that category? Can he give the up-to-date position regarding matching Treasury funding, bearing in mind that without that funding there will be no Objective 1 status? That would be a tragedy.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Islwyn is quite right in his description of the Objective 1 categorisation. Matching funds will be required at present. The question of funds on a matching basis after the year 2000 remains for negotiation. I can tell your Lordships that the timetable looks promising. The European Council should come to a conclusion this month, and the European Parliament should do so by the end of June.
Baroness Ludford: My Lords, can the Minister assure the House that the claims made by London to EU structural funds are not disadvantaged by the recent statistical exercise? That exercise gave a distorted picture of inner London as the wealthiest area in Europe by attributing the entire wealth of the City of London to the citizens of some of the poorest boroughs in the country such as Hackney, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, and so on. The income of a City trader living in Surrey, at £1 million, was attributed to council tenants living in one of those deprived boroughs. Can the Minister ensure that that exercise, which pictured inner London as the wealthiest area in London, despite the deprivation, does not prejudice London's claims to EU structural funds?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, such question as I could disentangle does not seem entirely focused on Objective 1 status for West Wales and the Valleys. I see that the noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids, is about to ask
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a most helpful question. He will be able to confirm that some people who live in inner London are extremely well off!
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, pace! Will the Minister go further and give the House an assurance that the Government's financial contribution to Objective 1 status will be met in full by the Treasury and not deducted from the Welsh block grant?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I cannot give that assurance. I am sure that the noble Viscount did not expect me to fall into that particularly well-laid trap. We are adamantly determined to secure the very best possible advantage for a deprived area, as the noble Lord, Lord Islwyn, described it. The area suffered very intensive, historic consequences of the rundown of heavy industry. It is in need of, and a worthy candidate for, such funds as are available from our friends and donors in Europe.
Lord Elis-Thomas: My Lords—
Lord Brookman: My Lords
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, if we do not all confine ourselves to asking short questions and watching the clock, no one will get in. I suggest it is the turn of my noble friend.
Lord Brookman: My Lords, maybe that is because I am Welsh. I was assured by the Minister's reply. However, can he confirm that massive job losses resulting from mining and steel industry closures in Wales have had a dramatic effect upon unemployment and, therefore, the old subject of Objective 1 status is extremely vital as of now?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, yes. That is one of the bases for the conclusion, an unhappy one, that the GDP of the West Wales and Valleys NUTS area is only 71 per cent. That is part of the necessary qualification for Objective 1 status. The recent history of Wales, with job losses, contributed to that. I do not know why everyone gets so excited about Questions on Wales.

Business of the House: Debates this Day
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the debate on the Motion in the name of the Lord Bragg set down for today shall be limited to three-and-a-half hours and that in the name of the Lord Kennet set down for the same day to one-and-a-half hours.—(Baroness Jay of Paddington.)
On Question, Motion agreed to

Public Service Broadcasting
3.20 p.m.
Lord Bragg Lord Bragg rose to call attention to the future of public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, first I must declare an interest. I was trained by the BBC and worked there for many years in the World Service, the Third Programme and Huw Wheldon's "Monitor" programme. For more than 20 years I worked in ITV, currently making arts programmes for LWT and I work on Radio 4. I am engaged with two media and two organisations I greatly respect.
What distinguishes public service broadcasting in this country is that over decades it has been so successful; massively and uniquely well-funded and heavily protected. As a consequence, for many years it has been able to call on and pay for the finest talent across the board. "Public service broadcasting" still, just, defines public broadcasting in Britain today. My hope is that it will continue to do so, despite great turbulence in the airwaves. My fear is that the BBC, its chief guardian, may be set on an unnecessarily dangerous path at the moment. My intention is, as George Orwell put it, "to tell it how it is".
I believe that strong public service broadcasting is essential to ensure that those two powerful media—radio and television—remain vital, democratic and a full reflection of this country's variety. As I want to devote most of my time to the BBC I should like to begin by stressing that, though the BBC is the cornerstone of public service broadcasting, it is by no means the only block in the edifice. Let me take television as an example and choose not the content of Channel 4 which is so very like the content of BBC2, but rather the more unlikely comparison of ITV—a big established commercial channel—with BBC1, the BBC's flagship channel.
I should like to note, first, that of all public service UK TV broadcasters, the BBC is the only one not to have positive programme obligations placed upon it. Each of the ITV companies has such an obligation, as have Channels 4 and 5. According to information published recently by the BBC itself, in 1997–98 ITV produced more than twice as much arts and music programming as BBC1 and 20 per cent. more than BBC2. ITV produced more home-grown, home-produced, home-written drama than BBC1 and BBC2 combined. ITV showed more documentaries and features than BBC1. ITV, on that snapshot count, is at least an equal public service broadcaster with BBC1. Frankly, it is rather worrying when the BBC continues to assert that everything in the public service broadcasting garden is wonderful and theirs. It is not true and it does not help.
Where does that leave us? It suggests that it would do no harm for the BBC to institute a table of genre obligations such as exists in ITV and publish a defined percentage of programmes meeting that definition. Yet, despite the figures, I would argue that public service
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content in all terrestrial channels is, or ought to be, underpinned by the BBC because that is its prime purpose and should continue to be so—more so.
An even more brutal question is: do we need to go to BBC television for anything specific at all? Sports, movies, soaps, drama, comedy, news, documentary, arts, local programming—it is possible almost everywhere to find adequate or preferred alternatives to BBC television. Given that it is television that drives on the licence fee, that must raise serious questions. And with the proliferation of channels, the arrival of the Internet and the convergence of television and the Internet, there will inevitably be a fragmentation of audiences— the view most cogently expressed by Gerald Kaufman. As to a large extent the public service remit presupposes a mass audience, where does that leave the licence fee after 2006? "Why pay it if you don't watch it"? is a question which must be answered before it is used to wound.
At present for about £100, by any comparison, the BBC offers outstanding and remarkable value. There are many, including myself, who would pay more. There are many to whom the sum is a burden, particularly if they can live without the BBC. And even for the majority which calmly accepts it, the licence fee is still an imposition and as such it must justify and be seen to justify its existence.
So what is it about the BBC which merits its monopoly of almost £2 billion a year of public money? Is it its fine record and traditional character and reliability? Yes. But the loss of the cricket, to take but one example from a general haemorrhaging of sport, is a small but definite indicator that traditions can be lost and therefore character can be changed. Its particular, its especial programme skills; is that what makes the BBC worth the licence fee? Yes again. Yet none nowadays would deny that other outfits are every bit as skilled and, more to the argument, the same independent production companies such as Hat-Trick, or the same writers such as Jimmy McGovern and the same directors and skilled crafts move from channel to channel as freely or as expensively as footballers move from club to club. The hard edges are beginning to blur. Whose channel is it?
Radio here provides an almost wholly different platform. Apart from Radio 1 it is an exemplary case; and, of course, I can understand that BBC1 and Radio I must reach out for the wider audience. "Most people shall watch or listen some of the time" is an old and tested BBC mantra—I hope the charm keeps working. But if it looks and sounds just like its competitors, then a feeling of unease will grow, legitimately.
The twin worries that commentators have expressed are the size of the BBC bureaucracy and, more importantly, the nature of the BBC's commercialism. Both stem, critics say, from the BBC's expansionist tendencies—tendencies which even friends of the BBC believe are doing harm to its fundamental remit and its justification for state funding. Perhaps one clear way of expressing the remit is that the BBC must concentrate on that which the commercial market cannot fill. This is not all it should do of course, as I have said by

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reference to the purposes of BBC1 and Radio 1. But if it fails to do that core job it will be vulnerable to serious challenges, especially when the going gets tough.
For instance, I wonder whether the BBC really needs to spend £30 million a year—at least—on a 24-hour rolling news service when Sky and CNN already cover that market. And does the licence fee payer really have to pay for BBC On Line when the FT, Microsoft, NBC and BT are already providing that service in a commercial market? And does the BBC need to invest public money to the extent of £200 million a year for the next 10 years on loss-making digital channels which will lose money for years and which the commercial sector will, and does, produce? Given the general unhappiness among BBC producers at the slashing of their budgets and given the strains that that puts on BBC's resources and performance, I am reminded of the late Sir Huw Wheldon's remark that,
"the BBC is the sum of its programmes, and no more, and no less".
The widening range of commercial activities means that the BBC has grown a gigantic corporate centre noted with amazement by, among others, Ray Snoddy in The Times recently. That costs the BBC at least £80 million a year and we must ask: is it all necessary? Think what even half of that would do for programmes! And surely, more importantly, this leaves the BBC with a split mission. What sort of organisation does it want to be? Is it becoming a commercial company maximising its assets or is it there to use the British licence fee for the British public at the highest programme level? One might say both. But that may be too easy an answer.
The BBC cannot be a little bit pregnant. If it is going to play on the global commercial market field, then its competitors have every right to demand and get a level playing field. Otherwise they will always be at a disadvantage against a body backed by a massive and fixed flow of state support. That could become an inflammatory issue. Other broadcasters could bite back in many ways—one way might be in the demand for some percentage of public funds for their public service broadcasting commitments.
I am going to suggest a way to steer the BBC from a collision course which seems to me to be facing them in the market. No one is asking the BBC to give up commercial life. Its name adds money to the programme-making pot. BBC Worldwide does that. But it is wholly owned and run by the BBC at the moment and so bound to raise questions, cause problems, cross lines, get into battles with others in the competitive field, which will confuse and, I believe, could ultimately damage the BBC.
Why not set up a wholly independent commercial structure which would house all UK television programmes? They would include the BBC, ITV, Channels 4 and 5—all of them. At present we have one of the world's most successful television industries, but we do not punch anything like our weight on the world market. It is ludicrous that in the USA buyers simply play off British companies one against the other and drive our prices down. Despite our massive industry and all the
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compliments we and others pay ourselves on it, from the world market in 1997 we collected the accolade of a record balance of trade deficit—£272 million.
One of the principal reasons for this is that there are far too many organisations selling British programmes. We have no critical mass so we have no clout. We should be selling whole channels, not competing with each other to sell programmes. I suggest that one "UK International Programme Distribution plc" could sort that out. It would build us up on the market, compete world wide and pour money back into the BBC and other companies for better programmes. A new broadcasting Bill could examine this and other matters. It would be useful to know when it is considered appropriate to introduce such a Bill.
Going back to its roots, the BBC could show a clean pair of heels to all of us in the large and growing market of public intelligent broadcasting. The BBC is perfectly placed to command this territory and dominate a growing English-speaking world market.
As I have concentrated on television, I would point to Radios 2, 3, 4 and 5 as an example, performing outstandingly in the fields that they occupy. Personally, I wish for more discussions on Radios 3 and 4 and about as much time devoted to lectures and seminars and arguments as to music. But that is a personal and a marginal point.
By concentrating wholly on programmes of quality—as happens largely in radio—think what the BBC could achieve in television. At a time when leisure and life expectancy are increasing, the British population is revealing a growing enthusiasm for continuing education and an appetite for knowledge and culture. Could not the BBC seriously address this in science, history, education, the arts, archaeology, drama and documentary and put extra resources there, bringing in much more talent as it has done so successfully with the natural history area in the past and as it has done in its time with new drama and comedy? No one else anywhere could move in here on the scale of the BBC; it could be an inspiration.
Instead of becoming more and more like other channels and competing in a global market which will make it more and more like other institutions, it should surely aim to be different from them and with profit to its viewers and to its listeners. It could be so successfully different.
Clearly, some years ago the BBC had a fright when it feared that in the last phase of the Thatcher government it would be asset-stripped and deprived of much of its inheritance. To fight against that and to turn that tide was a great achievement and there have been other achievements since. But now, as one who is a strong supporter of the BBC and who wishes it nothing but well, I say to it—look out and look at what you can uniquely do. The remit is the way forward.
Public service is enough of a responsibility and an opportunity. For over 75 years the BBC has stood for something singular and been seen to be singular. If that goes the BBC will eventually go and a great chapter in our social and cultural history would have come to an

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end. It need not be like that. But the dangers are clear and the time to act is now. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.33 p.m.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, I begin by congratulating my fellow Cumbrian, the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, on moving this Motion. One of the endearing characteristics of Cumbria is that things are done differently there and down here he is not allowed to be "my friend". I, too, look forward to hearing the Minister wind up and I hope that I am allowed to ask him not to be too wordy as I have a train to catch and the timetable will be tight.
I have a number of interests in the general area of media and broadcasting, which I hope and believe I have fully declared in the Register.
The topography of the broadcasting landscape in this country has evolved in a very ad hoc and typically British way, but I do not believe that it has served the country any the worse for that. I suppose that if one were designing it from a blueprint, one would not necessarily start from here.
As the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, pointed out, it is important to understand that public service broadcasting in this country covers both radio and television. I believe that radio does not get the attention that it deserves, least of all from me because I shall make my few comments about television. As the noble Lord said, the television sector covers not only the two BBC channels, but also Channels 3 and 4, S4C and Channel 5. These channels collectively provide the so-called bouquet of television offerings, which comprise public service broadcasting in this country.
They owe their very being to spectrum scarcity which dominated broadcasting until the dawn of the multi-channel world brought about by satellite and cable, which has been accelerated in particular by digital technology and various on-line services, not to speak of general convergence with telecoms.
The circumstances which gave birth to the core bouquet of public service channels are now disappearing before us. That poses a real challenge for policy makers and politicians which needs to be addressed.
Since the BBC first began broadcasting, the rationale for public service broadcasting has changed and the practical manifestation of the rationale has also changed. Given the abundance of potential transmission systems, there is no longer any real spectrum scarcity. Indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, pointed out, credible content may well become the main constraint on broadcasters. Certainly, its value has soared over recent years, as can be seen from the market price of the broadcasting rights of major and popular sporting events.
Against that background I believe that the time has come for a careful reappraisal of the purpose of public service broadcasting and where it belongs in the digital world into which we are now going. I wish to put on record that public service broadcasting has served the country well in the past and that the concept, as it has
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become known in this country, albeit changed by changed circumstances, has a real and important role for the future.
In this context it is interesting to note that attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam there is a protocol which recognises the place of public service broadcasting and the legitimacy of what the European Community would define as state aid to support it. While in my view these are unequivocally issues for member states, the international nature of broadcasting, especially satellite broadcasting, in a language which is either shared by more than one member state or is used very widely across the Community as a whole, gives the contemporary broadcasting industry a pan-national character which in turn requires a pan-national framework of rules within which it must operate.
It is very likely that many of the issues which are at the heart of this debate will come before the committee which is inquiring into the future funding of the BBC under the chairmanship of Gavyn Davies. It is the case that its terms of reference are narrowly set, but I cannot see how one can take a view about the right way to fund the BBC without knowing what the BBC should be doing. In the middle of a revolution—for that is where we are, in broadcasting terms—that is a little unclear. It is particularly so if, as I suspect, it might be unrealistic to think of providing enough money for the BBC to do everything that it has been doing for some time and to take on new activities, for example, on-line and 24-hour news services. It may well be that there will be a need to clarify and to think through very clearly exactly what the BBC should be doing in the context of contemporary circumstances.
Against that background, I believe there is a need for a re-definition of public service broadcasting for the next millennium because only then can one identify, for example, what the BBC might do, how it might do it and how in turn that will be paid for. What is true for the BBC is also true for Channels 3, 4, S4C and Channel 5 because a change on one part of the public service broadcasting waterfront reads across to, and has implications for, all the others.
When I had the great privilege to be the Minister for broadcasting between 1995 and 1997, I was responsible for the passage through Parliament of the Broadcasting Act 1996. We were very clear that the changes that we were bringing about—or, to be strictly accurate, we were helping to bring about—were not an answer in themselves. They were not a destination on a journey, rather they were merely a stopping point on the way to the future. I am quite clear that we were right to look at it in that way.
I believe that the next resting place on that particular journey, which is propelled by technology and not, I believe, by politicians, is a consideration of precisely what public service broadcasting should be doing in the multi-media, digital world of the next millennium.
In answering that, I believe it is important that the topic is canvassed widely and generates continuing controversy and dispute within and without political and broadcasting circles. As the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, pointed out, getting this right will matter a very great deal to everyone in this country.

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I am not actually sure that at this stage there is any need for the Government to do anything. Like all Members of your Lordships' House who have been Ministers, I know that governments like doing things: it gives the appearance of being in control, which my experience in the Department of National Heritage suggests is not necessarily so in the context of the broadcasting industry, because the Government set the framework within which others operate. I believe that that is how it should be.
However, I hope that the Government will make it clear that there are some very serious questions which need answering about the future purpose and form of public service broadcasting which government, of whatever political persuasion, will have to address in the reasonably near future. I hope that they will give a lead and encourage academics, broadcasters, journalists and—dare I say it?—even politicians, to start debating the matter.
3.41 p.m.
Lord McNally: My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the well-informed introduction of the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, and equally well-informed comment from the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood. I should first declare an interest. I am president of the British Radio and Electronic Equipment Manufacturers' Association—saying it takes up almost the seven minutes of my time. I have received a large number of briefings from ITV, Channel 4, the BBC, commercial radio and others which could form the basis of a good hour-long speech. However, we have seven minutes each—or a little under.
Therefore, perhaps I may begin by saying that my real interest in the debate is that I believe that the media, and broadcasting within the media, form part of the essential cement of a democratic society. Like the European Commission in its report on the digital age, I believe that,
"a society which restricts access to information or freedom of expression to a privileged few is no longer a democratic one".
The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, says that we are in the midst of a revolution. That is an often overworked word, but in this case it is true. New technologies and converging technologies will change in a way probably not experienced since the BBC was founded over 75 years ago; in other words, broadcasting is undergoing a fundamental change.
I differ from the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, in my belief that the Government cannot be passive in the face of this revolution. I say that because there are powerful commercial interests at work. If the Government are passive, we may find that it is those who are looking for shareholder value rather than the public interest who set the pace and the direction of change. So we look to the Government—I am sure that Ministers from the previous administration recognise the terms—for quality, diversity and choice. Those words formed the title of the 1989 White Paper which preceded the subsequent Broadcasting Act. Quality, diversity and choice are not the same as proliferation.
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The noble Lord, Lord Bragg, was interesting and persuasive in what he had to say about the BBC. However, I shall have to read Hansard before I decide just how close a friend he is of the corporation. We on these Benches see ourselves as friends of the BBC. But I hope we are candid friends. We see the licence fee as the iron pole around which public service broadcasting must be built. We shall have to be persuaded a very great deal about alternatives before we see the argument for letting go the licence fee even after 2006. The problem is that the licence fee creates a Catch-22 situation for the BBC. It needs audience to justify the licence fee, but if it chases audience too hard in the direction of populism it may then start losing the justification for its privileged position.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, in one respect; namely, that the future for the BBC is not in chasing its commercial rivals but in making a virtue of the special position that we as a society grant to it. It should also stand firm and look for allies to defend its position against those who not only take the rather lofty view of the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, but who may also look at the 40 per cent. of the audience that the BBC commands as rather juicy territory to occupy as commercial entrepreneurs.
Last night, Will Wyatt said to the all-party media group that,
"behind the gossip, the noise around celebrities, the occasional alarums and excursions, … the BBC is not so quietly fulfilling the public service promises of information, entertainment and education which have been its Holy Trinity since John Reith took over the British Broadcasting Company as it first was".
Those are extremely fine words. If the BBC keeps to that commitment to educate and inform as well as entertain, it will find many supporters, allies and defenders. However, as a number of my noble friends will say, the problem is that alongside those fine words are suspicions of dumbing-down and of the BBC moving away from Reithian commitments.
I shall not dwell too long on it but the marginalisation of politics and current affairs within the BBC's schedule is, I believe, a disgrace. It is no use the BBC referring to the Parliamentary Channel as some kind of convenient dustbin for that commitment. If the BBC is to play its role within a democracy, it must educate and inform within its main channels and at peak times. I seek some evidence that the BBC is looking in that direction.
I have one short comment to make on technology. There is much debate about the switch to digital television. There are now six different delivery systems for digital television on the market. That is because the providers will not reach agreement about interoperability. Here is one good example of where Ministers can bang heads together to the advantage of the consumer. Most Ministers are in office for only a short time. To have been the Minister responsible for the BBC becoming a public corporation, the Minister who introduced ITV or, indeed, the noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw, who introduced Channel 4—all Ministers who left a mark on broadcasting policy—must be a source of greater satisfaction than to be thought of as someone who sat there passively while entrepreneurs and bean counters destroyed an impressive national

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heritage; namely, our public service broadcasting system. I point out to the Minister that the decisions that he and his colleagues make during the next three years will determine whether we retain that public service in our broadcasting or lose it forever.
3.48 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Bristol: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, for introducing this issue to your Lordships' House. I want to associate myself with the very positive affirmation that he made of the BBC, but I also want to pick up the challenge which he laid down. The challenge for the BBC is to sustain its reputation and its special place in the life of the nation by producing programmes of quality and skill; that is to say, programmes which attract and extend audiences by helping to stimulate and expand the horizons and interests of viewers and listeners.
The noble Lord, Lord McNally, has already spoken of a trinity of aims: to entertain—that clearly is to be seen as an important part of any scheduling at the present time—to inform and to educate. Neither the reputation of the BBC nor its future will be secured by heading relentlessly downmarket as the route to maximum market share. We need to remember that there is an independence given to the BBC by the paying of the fee, which is a significant amount of money. That freedom ought to be used positively, not just to entertain but also to inform and to educate.
It will not surprise your Lordships' House to hear that I wish to concentrate on religious broadcasting. I need to declare an interest as I come from a city which depends greatly upon film, television, radio and the media, having both BBC Bristol on its north side and HTV on its south side. There is no doubt that the BBC remains capable of producing religious broadcasting of the highest standards and that, on occasions, it continues to do so. What is less clear is a commitment to offering such work on a regular basis, or to giving the material the promise it deserves. If your Lordships think that perhaps religion is a minority interest, a kind of sidelined activity for those who like it, I remind your Lordships' House that every Sunday in this land over 6 million people attend places of worship. We are not talking about the wider membership but the weekly attendance. The membership of the main political parties is 850,000.
There seems to be a growing tendency to reduce the quantity of religious programming, to dilute the content, and to push it to the margins of the schedules. Last Christmas was a case in point. We were offered "Noel's Christmas Festival", but not a single act of televised worship on Christmas Day—an omission which produced considerable comment and protest, not only in the postbags of bishops and archbishops, but also in the media. What is worse, we were offered "Christmas Disney" and "Christmas Bloomers" but not one moment of reflection on the true meaning of the word "Christmas".
That is just one example and there are many others. On Radio 4, the "Sunday Programme" is shorter and earlier, and "The Moral Maze" has been moved to the
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evening. On television, series like "Heart of the Matter" and "Everyman" now have reduced runs. On the World Service, "Pause for Thought" has disappeared altogether. If noble Lords think that I am trying to concentrate on some general ideas, I mention last Sunday's programming. The BBC offered us at 9.30 a. m. "The Heaven and Earth Show" but nothing again until "Heart of the Matter" at 11.30 in the evening, whereas HTV offered us "Sunday Morning" worship and "My Favourite Hymns", which comprised an interview with a member of your Lordships' House, the noble Marquess, Lord Bath. It also offered "The Jesus File" in the evening. HTV offered more religious broadcasting than the BBC.
Measured against religious programming in earlier years, there has been a decline. Measured against the substantial increase in BBC output, the decline has been considerable. Marginalisation can produce a vicious circle in which audiences may fall as a result of unfavourable scheduling, the commitment and available skill base of programme makers and broadcasters is eroded, and so the marginalisation accelerates. If this gives us cause for concern, it is not encouraging to note that the strategy document entitled The BBC Beyond 2000 makes no mention of religion whatsoever.
Faced with the challenge of meeting its clear public service duty to provide both acts of worship and serious coverage of religious and spiritual issues, the BBC seems to be facing a crisis of confidence. I believe there is no need for that to be the case. Polls show that 70 per cent. of the population of this land believe in God. They may not actively pursue that Sunday by Sunday, but it is part of what it is to be a human being, and they recognise it as such. Research indicates that religious programming appeals to many non-believers, but it also provides a service to the handicapped, the elderly, and those who are shut in. If we remember how many of our population are now over the age of 60, and who have been members of churches for the whole of their lives, religious broadcasting takes on a quite different aspect. As I said, more people go to church than we imagine. On a Sunday many more people go to church than watch football on a Saturday. It is a 6:1 ratio. "Songs of Praise" can rival the audience figures of "Match of the Day", but that is just an aside. Religion continues to be very much part of the life of the nation; a public service broadcaster should not be deluded into seeing it as an optional extra.
It has given me no pleasure to make this speech because I have been a great admirer of the BBC. With the approach of the millennium the BBC has, I believe, an opportunity to address these concerns in a positive and resounding manner. It can take the risk, the audience is there. It has an opportunity to demonstrate through the quantity, quality and prominence of the religious programming it offers listeners and viewers that it continues to deserve the reputation it has established during the past seven decades.
I have one final point to make. Religious broadcasting helps a community to understand itself. Living in a multicultural community, that has even more importance than it had during the past seven decades.
3.56 p.m.
Viscount Tenby: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, for introducing this debate today and setting it on its way with a compelling and thought provoking speech, with which I agreed in almost every respect. Looking at the list of speakers today, I have come to the conclusion that I am possibly the only participant who has not been either a past, present or—dare I say it?—future governor of the BBC, or programme or film maker of distinction. Best Boy or Gofer is probably the best I can hope for now and, frankly, time is against me for obtaining either of those exacting and important roles. I have, however, one distinction of which I am not particularly proud. I probably look at more television and listen to more radio than most politicians who tend only to look at reruns of programmes in which they have been prominently featured.
We are now entering a formative period in broadcasting as significant as any since the early Reithian days. The digital revolution has profound implications in transmission, control, creativity and standards. It is particularly unfortunate that the terminal stage of analogue broadcasting, which should be unambiguously setting the targets to be met by the new technology, should in my view be marked instead by a steady decline in the nurturing of creative talent, coupled with an eagerness to go for the easier and cheaper options, hence the current dearth of new comedy writing of merit and new plays of distinction, and a reliance in their place on undemanding quiz shows, fly-on-the-wall documentaries of the "Britain's worst" type and a seemingly endless obsession with sick animals and humans.
There is also an increasing preoccupation with sex and violence, to which the Broadcasting Standards Commission has referred in recent days, revealing an increase of 70 per cent. in the number of complaints received in the past four months. This is worrying in the extreme. The increase in the "shockability factor" is defended because it is claimed it attracts the young, and the young hold the purse strings nowadays so far as advertisers are concerned. I should have thought this displays a patronising and distorted view of the younger generation, apart from being economically flawed. The middle aged and older generations have plenty of spending power and they on the whole tend to be the viewing audience on any particular night.
Some may feel it is unfortunate that the BBC too often joins in this dangerous ratings game. I am aware that within the corporation it is driven by fear, in what is surely a hangover from the Thatcher years, that a fall—any fall—in ratings may sooner rather than later put the licence at risk. That is one reason, and I hope that it is a misguided one now. The other, I fear, is the hubris of individual producers and directors. What better way to gain one's spurs than to go even further than the previous man in breaking down social taboos? This increasingly speedy drop in standards cries out for effective regulation, not censorship, and certainly not a straitjacket on true creative activity, but effective
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regulation, and, when things go badly wrong, retribution too. There is no point in having regulation without having retribution.
For years, along with others, I have argued strongly for one powerful, overarching regulatory authority, embracing both public sector broadcasting as well as the commercial world. Despite the welcome tidying up in recent months, I would be grateful if the noble Lord the Minister would give an assurance that this is still being actively considered. In the interests of eventual agreement and—dare I say it—harmony, I would gladly waive my earlier suggestion that such an authority should be called "OFFAIR". With all the problems that digital broadcasting will bring in its train, it may well be that an additional body to regulate gateway access should be established as well.
What of the corporation, halfway through its charter renewal period? In past years—years, many would say, when its creative talents truly flourished and programme makers were treated as gods—the organisation was inefficient in its control of departmental budgets and general costs. The present director-general deserves great credit for turning this situation round so that the BBC has been able to live in a world of increased cost and still have enough to invest in new projects, even if I am not as enamoured as some about 24 Hour News, which seems to me to provide the temptation to create news rather than report it. The BBC Worldwide has also been an important success and holds the key to much of the corporation's future. It may be that the corporation's commercial activities will have to be carefully ring-fenced as they grow in importance in the years to come.
However, all this has not been without cost. Bureaucracy has become endemic and morale in recent years would seem to have declined sharply. Anecdotally, personnel skills were never much in evidence at Broadcasting House, but nowadays seem to have got worse. One is almost tempted to say that they are to man management what Genghis Khan was to the peace movement.
I am sure that we all welcome wholeheartedly the recent appointment of the BBC funding review panel and will eagerly await its findings in July, particularly with regard to alternative and additional sources of revenue in what are bound to be income-stretching times. The preservation and enhancement of the public broadcasting ethic in this country is essential for anyone who cares about literacy, intelligence and the stretching of personal horizons. Whether the BBC should have to carry this burden alone after 2006 is a matter for the panel. It seems that a digital surcharge would not command universal support, and it is doubtful whether, despite Herculean effort, the corporation's commercial endeavours could make up any shortfall. A licence on all sets in a household might be difficult to enforce and would have the political appeal of a temperance campaign on New Year's Eve in Scotland.
It may be that breaking new ground would provide an answer and that commercial TV companies could make a contribution by way of an annual levy. After all, we are all shortly entering a new world and all the old

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borders are there to be crossed. Whatever the solution, public broadcasting must be made safe. It is far too precious an asset in our democracy to be left to wither. I, for one, do not begrudge one penny of the licence fee to help to preserve it. but I do begrudge giving that money if it is used to drive down standards in order to compete with the demands of advertisers on commercial channels. The battle over the BBC was fought and, thankfully, won in the 1980s. Let us use the new century to strengthen it and with it the concept of public service broadcasting in this country.
4.3 p.m.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, I join in the congratulations to my noble friend Lord Bragg. I always knew that he would make an excellent Member of your Lordships' House and he has proved it again today. He certainly was not afraid to bite the hand that feeds him, even if only a little bit.
Like others, I have to declare a past interest as a former vice-chairman of the BBC. To some extent my noble friend Lord Hussey and I were responsible for ensuring the appointment of John Birt as DG. Speaking for myself, I have no regrets about that decision, either then or now. It was the right decision.
In my brief remarks I want to concentrate on the BBC, although I recognise, as has been said, that there are good public service programmes elsewhere. I share the concern of others about the "dumbing down", as it is called, of some of the programmes. I concede that like most politicians—certainly those in another place—I see and hear very little of those programmes. That does not prevent politicians saying that they are awful; they do that all the time, both here and in another place. I see and hear little other than news and sports programmes—and of course my noble friend Lord Bragg from time to time. I enjoy them and him.
The crucial question in this debate, as has been mentioned by many, is the balance between public service broadcasting, however defined, and the need if we want it—and I do—for audience share. That does not mean that the BBC has to compete with everything that goes out on Sky, on ITV and perhaps—I am less sure—on digital. That is for the future and, unlike what has been said by some in the debate so far, I do not see how the BBC can opt out of the future, which is very much to do with digital.
How the BBC should be financed is clearly an important matter. As has been said, there is now a committee again looking into it. It has been looked at quite frequently in the past and I am not sure what the committee will come up with this time.
I agree with Sir Christopher Bland, the present chairman, that there is a need for a strong BBC, with a significant audience share, to set a benchmark for quality. The growth of television and radio stations will make it very difficult, but it will be all the more vital that the BBC competes in many, not all, of the areas of programmes put out by other channels. It will be equally important, if not vital, to balance quality with the seeking of popularity and audience share.
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I have a serious concern that without a substantial licence fee the real danger to the BBC would be its decline to a type of station such as PBS in America and many other countries around the world. That could also happen if we took the advice being offered today and cut out large numbers of our so-called popular programmes. The BBC must compete, and compete with programmes that many of us might find not so popular.
I understand that the BBC feels a constant need to tell us how good it is. It might be as well if, from time to time—and perhaps more often—it responded to criticism by saying that that criticism is perfectly valid and it will do something about it. On the other hand, constant criticism can be bad for morale. The chairman, the DG and the governors of the BBC are right to defend criticism, good or bad, as appropriate.
The real danger—and it is a danger in the nation as a whole—is that we are becoming a nation of critics. In many areas of business and of the country success has become a kind of dirty word. The BBC is a public institution, and one that is criticised probably more than most: not more than governments, but more than most. The more successful the BBC is with the majority of its programmes, the more its critics and its enemies—and there are many—will seek to show that a lot of its programmes, or at least a minority of them, are very, very bad and that something should be done about it. The BBC has had to live with that for a long time and it will continue to do so.
I shall conclude by reverting to the main question: the quality of public service broadcasting. Criticism is fine, and often just, but what does the BBC do about it? One cannot get quality on the cheap. The chairman recently said that the total commercial television revenue in 1992 was double that of the BBC; in 1999 it is four times the revenue of the BBC; and in 2006, at the time of the renewal of the charter, it will be eight times that of the BBC. The BBC cannot compete financially. That is why it has lost, sadly, all the sports programmes. That is why tonight I shall have to watch Manchester United on ITV. I very much regret that. I would have liked to have seen it on BBC. But despite the, at times, well-deserved criticism I hope that it will not deflect Parliament from maintaining a decent licence fee. I look forward to hearing what the committee considering the matter has to say.
I recognise that other broadcasters—ITV, Sky News, Sky Sports, which has so much more money, and digital TV—can and do provide news and popular programmes as good as, and at times better than, the BBC. But the BBC is unique in the world for, despite all its faults, it sets vital standards. That is the justification for the licence fee. We in Parliament must ensure that the finance is made available so that the BBC can continue with quality programmes in all areas and can improve the quality of those programmes while retaining a decent audience share.
4.10 p.m.
Baroness James of Holland Park: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, for initiating this debate. The number of noble Lords who have put

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down their names to speak is an indication of its importance. We have listened to some distinguished, knowledgeable and compelling speeches.
But, first, I must declare a past and present interest. From 1986 to 1993 I was privileged to serve as a governor of the BBC under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Hussey, and the vice-chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Barnett. The BBC owes them both a debt of gratitude, as, indeed, do I. I also from time to time take part in BBC programmes on literature and the arts, one of which I recorded this morning.
I was three years old when the BBC began and I can say with truth that I have listened to its programmes every day of my life. It has provided me with trustworthy news, information, education, stimulus, entertainment and laughter, in the darkest days of the war and in the turbulent years of peace. I feel for the BBC that mixture of loyalty, affection and occasional indulgent irritation that we feel for institutions which we most revere. I am grateful to the BBC for what it has given me over the years and what it still gives me. But I have serious concerns. In the short time available, I shall concentrate on three of them.
My first concern is about programmes. The BBC has always been in something of a dilemma about its market share, and perhaps understandably so. The fear has been that if the share falls below a certain percentage—30 per cent. is often quoted—the public will ask why they should pay for a service they rarely use and the licence fee will be in danger. So there is the insidious temptation to concentrate on numbers rather than on quality. That way lies disaster.
Some BBC programmes are superb. Too often they are peaks of excellence in an arid plateau of undistinguished pabulum. Unless the BBC stays faithful to its mission of providing wider choice and of setting standards, it will become just one more broadcaster and will lose both public respect and the right to public funding.
I am glad that consideration is once again being given to funding. The licence fee has always been stoutly defended on the grounds that it ensures the independence of the BBC from government control. It has the virtue of certainty. Once the licence fee is set, the BBC can know with some accuracy what its income will be. But I am increasingly worried about its unfairness. Is it really just that people of vastly different incomes should pay the same? Would it not be possible, and indeed administratively simple, to have income bands based on the property values established for the council tax? The rich would pay more—perhaps considerably more—and the poor considerably less. Is it true that only a licence fee can guarantee the independence of the BBC? It is, after all, the Government who set the level of the fee.
I see from the BBC accounts for 1997–98 that the cost of licence fee collection and enforcement is £109.5 million. Presumably this covers detection vans and court proceedings, but it seems extraordinarily high. I hope that we will be able to find a system which will be simpler and fairer while still safeguarding the essential independence of the BBC.
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Perhaps my greatest concern at the moment is the managerial ethos of the BBC. I see it as increasingly too rigidly controlled, too bureaucratic, too secretive and too arrogant. The product of the BBC is not a commodity; it is creativity in sound and vision. Creativity does not flourish in an atmosphere of despotism, coercion or fear. It is not nourished by the shibboleths of fashionable managerial theories, by the filling in of innumerable forms or by directives issued in that curious bureaucratic jargon which bears little relation to the English language. And at the heart of creativity we have not a system, but people, men and women, on whose dedication, loyalty and talents the corporation depends. Systems exist to serve them. They do not exist to serve the systems. I wish that the BBC today was a happier place in which creative people could work and flourish.
I have two further points to make on management. The BBC is not managed by the director-general and his colleagues without outside assistance. It would be interesting to know how many millions of licence payers' money has been spent in the past five years on the professional and highly expensive consultants and advisers who have apparently become essential to the running of our national institutions. I suspect that the figure is somewhere in the annual accounts but I have never been able to find it.
Then there is what I would describe as the mystery of the disappearing executives. People of talent who are appointed, often with éclat and in a blaze of publicity, are suddenly no longer there: Liz Forgan from radio; Bob Phillis, deputy director-general; Sam Younger from the World Service; and Rodney Baker-Bates, financial director. They disappear into a total and interesting silence, a silence which is hardly compatible with an organisation dedicated to openness and funded from a compulsory levy on virtually every home in the country. The BBC is not a private company and it is never appropriate for it to behave like one.
We are constantly reminded that we live in a rapidly changing world and that we must adapt to and indeed welcome its vagaries. Technology advances almost by the week; institutions are reformed, often with more haste than wisdom; nothing, however revered or long-established, is sacrosanct; global communications, particularly the Internet, mean that the world seems to shrink before our eyes. It is possible to feel that the ground is no longer firm under our feet. The BBC is not the BBC of my childhood; nor can it be; nor should it be. But in the midst of this maelstrom of change, much inevitable and some necessary, surely, my Lords, principles should remain firm.
The BBC should stand for three things: integrity, independence, excellence. If it fails even in one of these it will lose the confidence of the country and will no longer retain or indeed deserve its long-standing reputation as the world's most trusted and most admired public service broadcaster. I hope—indeed, in my more optimistic moments, I am confident—that it will not fail.
4.18 p.m.
Lord Peston: My Lords, in talking about public service in the context of broadcasting we have in mind several things. We have in mind the raising of the quality of all programmes. Programmes that are not to one's taste can still be good of their kind. We have in mind programmes aimed at breaking new ground and setting new standards. Obviously we have in mind providing what the majority of people want, but equally we have in mind programmes catering for minority interests and preferences. Above all, we have in mind programmes which are educational in the broad sense and which enhance the quality of life.
On television and radio today there are programmes as good as any that have been put out since broadcasting began. But at the bottom end—and it is a long tail—the material is worse than it has ever been, and it continues to deteriorate. If noble Lords will allow me the paradox, my objection is not to the vast quantity of dross that is transmitted every day but to the fact that the dross is second-rate. I have sacrificed myself in your Lordships' interest over the past couple of weeks and have watched some of those programmes. I could not believe how bad they were. Television at the bottom end is less literate and more damaging to the education of young people than are the worst of the tabloids. There are those who spend their lives attacking our teachers. I am not one of them. When I think what teachers are up against, with pupils spending more time in front of the television set, dominated by illiteracy and illogicality, than they do in the classroom, I find the achievements of our teachers astonishing.
One also thinks ruefully about the contradictions in the broadcast media. On the one hand, a beautifully produced classic serial raises appreciation of a great novel, and causes some people to buy it, and even to read it. It may even cause them to try some other work by the same author. On the other hand, much of television implies that most of our literary heritage is passé and that serious reading is not for the young and up to date.
The problem is a more general one, for which the broadcasters are not solely, or mainly, to blame. I refer to a demand for instant gratification. We can all agree that in order to be appreciated the best of the arts require a great deal of work. Most of the music that I love was well beyond me the first time I heard it. But broadcasters today, who seek mass audiences, find that quite unpalatable.
As an example, the other day I noted that a rare serious drama on ITV was watched by what the broadcasters called a "disappointing" 4 million people—implying presumably that they will not do such a production again. In the heyday of the legitimate London theatre a great play would be regarded as a triumph if it ran for a year and was seen by a quarter of a million people, let alone 4 million.
The position in relation to science is worse still. I hope that we can debate the subject at length on another day. The failure of the broadcasting media to take science seriously is a disaster for our country. The headline approach in terms of discoveries, Frankenstein
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monsters, eccentric scientists and continuous confusion between science and engineering does endless harm, as does the implication that a civilised person can boast that he or she knows no physics and does not understand mathematics.
My noble friend Lord Bragg was too modest to mention a superb series for which he was responsible and which has also led to an excellent publication. I should like to persuade him to try another such series based on mathematics. But the point is that even in this case we are talking about exceptions, when serious science ought to be a normal part of broadcasting output.
I have taken a broad view of public service broadcasting. It can be agreed that there are public service elements on all channels, including satellite channels. However, one does not need to be a major researcher to contrast the BBC with the commercial channels. Whatever the faults of the BBC—there are many; they have already been mentioned and will receive further mention in today's debate—it faces up to its responsibilities, which the commercial channels neglect and would neglect more were they not subject to external pressures. I shall not dwell on that topic at great length. However, I believe that in the next phase of thinking about broadcasting something must be done to raise the quality of the commercial sector.
I agreed with an enormous amount of what the noble Baroness, Lady James, said. To Echo her remarks, there are clearly tensions at the BBC between the audience maximisers and the standard setters, between the accountants and the creative artists. But the forces of good prevail occasionally. They prevail even more when people outside the BBC, such as your Lordships, remind the BBC of its Charter and traditions.
That is not to say that I am opposed to efficiency and do not take the problem seriously. On the contrary, I have always argued that those of us who believe in public service and the public sector, whether it be health, education or broadcasting, must be more committed to the efficient use of resources than anyone. Efficiency, cost control and the like are a means to a end; namely, the raising of the quality of service that is provided.
I turn now to the World Service. That, too, is one of the great contributions that the BBC has made to informing and educating people overseas, not least in learning our language—and learning it from us rather than, say, the Americans. But the World Service seems to be constantly under threat, especially from those whose dominant criterion is audience maximisation. They refer to the rest of the world as "free riders". But that is the whole point. We want those people to listen to these programmes and to see our country represented by the BBC as a source of objective news, fair comment and high quality entertainment.
Finally, I make the same point about the BBC's website. It is of outstanding quality. It would be a tragedy if those who regard it merely in accounting terms ask what we earn from it, find that the answer is nought, and then want to end it. It is a marvellous website. It is seen all over the world and is an enormous credit to the BBC.
4.26 p.m.
Lord Monro of Langholm: My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Peston. I shall follow up his remarks about the World Service. First, I wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, for initiating the debate. Some of the programmes that he has produced for Border Television are among the finest that I have seen in my lifetime. I hope that he will produce more in the future.
The World Service presently has an excellent exhibition in the other place. It gives Members of both Houses a chance to see its achievements. The presentation and the many brochures that are available indicate that the World Service is doing extremely well.
I travel frequently to the eastern seaboard of United States and try desperately hard, on a high-powered short wave radio, to hear World Service programmes on the eight bands and umpteen frequencies. But one always ends up with poor reception and it is very difficult to hear what is being said; and the programmes are usually broadcast at the most inconvenient times, at 2 a. m. or 3 a. m. local time. I know that short wave transmission is attuned to the atmosphere. However, I wish we could do better in relaying the World Service in the United States and other countries where transmission is poor, so that we could actually hear the service's output from London, which I know to be excellent. I wish, also, that the service would add a further five minutes in the hour of United Kingdom news, so that people abroad can hear what is going on in this country.
There is now a growing alternative in the United States of local radio stations broadcasting an hour or so of programmes on FM. That is particularly the case in Washington, and the programme originates in London. But again, more time is spent on other continental countries than on the United Kingdom. Scheduling is in the early hours of the morning when it is singularly inconvenient to listen—although it is a change from hearing four chat shows a month on Clinton for the past six months.
I wish to turn more critically to the attitude of the BBC to Scotland. I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, is present. She has a direct involvement with the BBC. Scotland is presently aflame with criticism on two major fronts: first, in relation to what has now become known as the "Scottish Six". The news goes out on United Kingdom television from 6 to 6.30, and it takes an earthquake or the transfer of a Rangers player to get a story on that bulletin at all. From 6.30 to 7 there is the regional news. BBC Scotland is desperately keen to run the whole of the news programme from 6 to 7 o'clock and put in appropriate comment on events in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It feels that it ought to be able to decide what the Scottish people would like to hear. It is incredible that the BBC governors have declined to allow this to occur. I quote from an editorial last week in The Scotsman, which is one of our great national dailies:
"The BBC appears to have decided that it must take every possible opportunity to irritate and offend Scottish viewers and listeners. Not content with its patronising dismissal of the case for a Scottish Six o'Clock News, the corporation has now concluded that there is no reason to provide live coverage of proceedings in the Scottish parliament".
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That is indeed extremely disappointing for Scotland when we are being treated as we are by the BBC based here in London.
The Scottish Parliament issue is particularly provocative. After all, I can see cable television with continuous broadcasting of the House of Commons, and now and again they put on the much better debates from the House of Lords. It takes time to build up confidence and enthusiasm to listen to and watch these programmes, but if we are to make a go of the Scottish Parliament (and now that it is in being I hope we will) it is right that the people of Scotland should be allowed to see and hear what is going on day by day in the Scottish Parliament itself. When the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, winds up the debate I hope that he will be able to give us some good news about what the BBC intends to do in Scotland this year because the Scottish Parliament will be up and running in July and we want to be able to see and hear what is going on. This is over and above what I said earlier about requesting the governors of the BBC to think again about the Scottish Six. After all, the Broadcasting Council of Scotland, which set out to advise the BBC as far as we know, was strongly in favour of having the Scottish News at Six. The noble Baroness, Lady James, mentioned that the BBC is being totally arrogant about this and is obsessed with ratings rather than thinking of its duty as a public service.
I conclude on two quick points. Like all of us here who are interested in the countryside—I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, will support me here—I ask: why on earth do the BBC want to scrap "One Man and his Dog"? It shows a beautiful part of the north of England, mostly the Lake District, with something exciting and unpredictable happening every week; but it is being scrapped because someone at the BBC thinks we are bored with it. That is not so. Again, the BBC seems to be convinced that ratings are more important than appreciation.
Finally, I hope that the Broadcasting Standards Commission will take things a little more seriously. We do not all want to be Mary Whitehouse, who has done wonderful things in the past, but some of the language that is creeping into television now after 9 o'clock is, in my view, quite unacceptable. This is very noticeable in America on films and on television but, for heaven's sake, do not let it develop here. Surely one can make a good play with a good story without bringing in four-letter words on every other page of the script. It is high time that the Broadcasting Standards Commission took this seriously and put a stop to it because it will spoil television in the long run.
I am not quite so critical of the BBC in the general programmes. I know it seems to be on a deteriorating slope with some of its productions, particularly sport. It is desperately sad how sport is slipping out of the BBC programmes and being taken over by Sky. By and large there is much that could be continued if the spirit were there and if the BBC would only listen to the people and find out what they wanted to have.
4.34 p.m.
Lord Hussey of North Bradley: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, for introducing this debate on an important topic. In doing so I also declare a past interest, having been Chairman of the BBC for 10 years.
The future of public service broadcasting lies first in the hands of Parliament but also in the conduct of the BBC by its governors and managers. In my first week I was challenged to define my objective. I replied that it was to leave the BBC complete with its channels and its licence fee intact. At the time that was thought to be a very unlikely prospect. The general view was that we would lose several channels. In the event we retained them all and the licence fee and at the same time strengthened the power of the governors, though you might not have noticed it.
There is a built-in frisson between governors and management. The management want the plaudits of their fellow broadcasters, judged by the industry's benchmarks. The Governors are concerned with independence, quality, high standards and the traditional ethos of a public service organisation. There was a political threat. I hope there is not one now.
The BBC is the biggest influence in the media. Rows with politicians are inevitable. So what? I do not blame politicians for trying to influence the BBC. I only blame people like myself if they give way to it. Incidentally, I discussed the BBC with politicians only in their offices. There should be clear space between the two. Too much propinquity leads to too many compromises. It weakens the resolve of editors down the line if they think their bosses are lunching with their critics.
The BBC is still a marvellous organisation. It still puts out great programmes on radio and television, but I do not think that it has got its strategy right. We face the prospect of 200 or perhaps 500 competitive channels and the onset of digital. I firmly believe that the BBC's response should be not to expand its empire at the licence payers' expense but to concentrate on its mainstream channels and invest in them.
When I joined the BBC the noble Lord, Lord Annan, told me that the BBC's problem was not that they wanted to do what everyone else did but that they wanted to do more of what everyone else did, and the situation does not seem much to have changed.
Michael Checkland and John Birt, under pressure from the governors, made great administrative reforms, saved large sums of money and radically improved efficiency, for which they both deserve great credit. But there is still a lot of money about. The licence fee brings in £2 billion a year. When I left the BBC (and I have just checked this) there was £250 million in cash from savings unspent, £200 million was given as an uplift to the licence fee for the introduction of digital television and a further £240 million from the sale of transmission. That totals £690 million pounds, which is a lot of money. What has happened to it?
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If there is a shortage of money it is not difficult to see what should be done. There is too much bureaucracy, over-bloated policy units, and too much spent on expansion and management. Ray Snoddy of The Times had it all. In his words:
"The BBC is drowning in policy options and perpetual revolution. Less money should be spent on all those areas not directly connected with programme making, and there are many of them."
The money should go on what the licence payer can see or hear, on those mainstream channels which won for the BBC its acknowledged reputation as the finest broadcaster in the world.
It is alleged that "News 24" costs £30 million. That is an enormous amount of money, yet no one could find £4 million for the Test Matches, now lost, together with the cup final, the grand prix and England at Twickenham. The BBC is a national broadcaster, where people expect to see and hear the big events. That should be the priority. It would be a great mistake to ask for a licence fee higher than the cost of living and might incur considerable resentment. So far as I can see the people have accepted the current system without complaint.
Equally, I do not believe in the amalgamation of radio and television. They are not the same; they are different art forms. I fear for the future of radio against the monster television. Much of it is of very high standard supported by a dedicated and articulate audience. Anyone seriously interested in the news would listen to Radio 4, "The World at One" and "The World Tonight". BBC television news is excellent but it has neither the time nor the space to give the coverage that radio does.
The BBC was founded by an engineer; an unusual engineer with moral and social vision. It has always been at the front of technology and must go digital both on radio and on television. It gives much better reception. But digital broadcasting is not the message; it is only the messenger.
The moral, economic and intellectual argument for a national broadcasting service funded by a poll tax lies in its absolute independence, the quality of its programmes, the breadth of its output and the manner in which it extends the choice of programmes for its audience. If it does not do that, it is a "con".
Currently the BBC is wading into a ratings battle with the toughest, roughest, richest companies in the broadcasting world. That is not a battle it will win. It does not have the money or the ruthless competitive streak that the opposition has.
The BBC is dedicated to setting high standards for the industry and widening the people's choice and is staffed by dedicated men and women who share that motivation but many of whom are now sorely depressed. The future of the BBC lies in the minds and skills of those programme-makers whose budgets are now being dangerously squeezed. When I arrived at the BBC I thought it had too much influence; I now think it has too little. I believe that it is time for a change of emphasis and appeal to uplift the hearts and enliven the minds.

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If I may add a personal note, I told the Prime Minister two years before I left the BBC that I would retire as soon as the charter had been signed. I also made up my mind that I would take no decision in my last six months that might bind the hands of my successor, otherwise I would have taken a much stronger line on moving BBC Radio and Television into a huge building which still does not work.
The future of public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom will flourish as long as the BBC remembers that people and programmes are much more important than policies and processes. That is what I have said to the BBC previously. I have made my views quite clear to the BBC, and it knows them, but never before have I stated them in public.
4.41 p.m.
Lord Addington: My Lords, the only interest I have to declare in this debate is as a consumer of public service broadcasting. I have been described by a former flatmate as an habitual user of Radio 4 and I shall concentrate my comments initially on that channel.
When the rescheduling of that broadcast channel took place recently there was a great cry that it was being dumbed down. I did not feel that. Apparently the BBC got its research right because, as someone in his thirties, I was probably the target audience it was aiming for. But it has failed in one area in particular. It is not giving me enough reasons to switch off. It is not paying enough attention to certain specialist areas and is not dealing with matters that I am not interested in or am not totally in agreement with. If someone agrees with everything one says he or she is either a sycophant or has nothing worthwhile to say. One should try to encourage disagreement and to encourage people to go into areas where one does not want to follow. That applies particularly to a publicly-funded organisation which must deal with the whole of our society.
That is a rather round-the-houses way of criticising the BBC for the lack of coverage it gives to Parliament, or the way it has sidelined it. I say frankly that I hated "Yesterday in Parliament". I hated the idea that I would very occasionally hear my own voice coming out of the radio. I found it a total shock. On one occasion, in company, I managed to pour an entire pot of coffee over my own groin when that happened. It was not something I enjoyed. However, the programme has been moved to another waveband. If one has to retune a conventional radio, by the time one has found the correct waveband the programme will be over. It is as the right reverend Prelate said about religious programmes: if programmes, especially short ones, are moved to other channels, people will miss them.
If people do not like particular programmes they can switch off. We should not be frightened of using the "off' button. In a publicly-funded broadcasting medium, losing some of the audience now and again is surely a price well worth paying in order to serve a cross-section of interests.
The BBC strikes me as being overly obsessed by the idea that it has to compete all the time with commercial sections, even the commercial sections of the other
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public broadcasters. It does not; it should not have to. I hope the Minister will be able to assure us that the BBC is not expected to compete at all times. It does not need to follow the programmes of other broadcasters—for instance, the American "confession" programmes which seek to shock such as "The Jerry Springer Show". How many more such programmes do we need? How many times do we have to hear that somebody's father's brother's sister is having an affair with her father's brother's sister's aunt? We do not need to know any more. I must admit that there is a certain fascination and by the third time they hit each other you say, "Either show boxing or stop". If we have to have these revelations, there should be a soft-porn slot for them. There is only so much we can take.
It is the same with low-quality soap operas, most of which seem to consist of only five plot lines, usually concerning a brother by some adulterous relationship, whose existence was formerly unknown, who turns up on someone's doorstep, is taken in as a member of the family firm and causes a row. The character then disappears and returns to the programme three years later, played by a different actor. There are certain types of programme which the BBC certainly should not aim to do.
The noble Lord, Lord Bragg, said that in certain areas of quality other providers of public service broadcasting are outperforming the BBC. That another public service broadcaster which is commercially funded is producing quality programmes is probably the most heartening comment we shall hear in this debate. I do not believe that that situation could have occurred if it had not been for the standards set by the BBC in the first place. Without those standards, how could we have said, "You must match this"?
We must encourage the BBC to be brave and to take risks occasionally. We must allow it to fail now and again without jumping down its throat. We must allow it to continue to set standards. As long as we do that, we shall have probably the best public service broadcasting in the world—certainly in the English-speaking world. If we tell the BBC to chase viewing ratings at all costs, we shall drive it into an unwinnable contest with the giants who, for instance, cover only sport.
I have not mentioned that point before because it has already been done to death. A broadcaster with a good budget who produces only sports programmes will always be able to outbid a broadcaster who tries to cover everything. The BBC should not be in that position. I should like to see encouragement given to ensure that we have in our country the world's best highlights of sporting activities, at the very least, even if we cannot have the live events. That is surely something we can guarantee from Parliament to our public service sector.
Ultimately, unless we are prepared to allow the BBC to cover minority interests, and to cover them properly, we shall be failing to polish the jewel in the broadcasting crown.
4.48 p.m.
Lord Puttnam: My Lords, I, too, thank and congratulate my noble friend, Lord Bragg, for making this debate possible and for the way in which he opened it. I find myself in agreement with almost everything that I have heard, from all parts of the House, this afternoon and I shall find it difficult to add to it.
I should at the outset declare an interest in that for the past 17 years I have been a director of Anglia Television. More to the point, I should also declare, or at least confess to, a passionate interest in the health and vitality of public service broadcasting generally.
In an increasingly digital age, the vitality and security of public service broadcasting is likely to be seriously threatened by those who believe that it has a diminished role to play in the brave new world of the millennium. There will continue to be fairly simplistic attacks on the licence fee as a primarily regressive tax and an unwelcome imposition. Much of this debate reminds me of a remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Runcie, who characterised such a discussion as a "swimming pool debate"—one in which most of the noise tended to come from the shallow end!
In this particular case if one looks closely not a single country has come up with anything that resembles a compelling alternative form of funding. Every attempt to create a hybrid or mixed economy—for example, by introducing advertising support, as has been attempted in Spain and Germany—has seriously damaged the public service commitment. In this new world of the information society no broadcaster can hope to be involved in every single aspect of the digital economy. Each must play to its strengths: in the case of the BBC some very specific and well-honed strengths. That is why we should applaud the success of BBC Online, while recognising that the BBC's efforts in new media must be designed to build on its traditional assets, not dilute them. Surely, it is the social purpose of public broadcasting that needs to be justified, not its profitability. In an increasingly expensive and fragmented media environment a well-led and well-motivated BBC must, once and for all, re-establish the argument for the universal licence fee as one of the most equitable and truly sustainable forms of social justice of our modern era.
I suggest that instead of debating the funding mechanism we would be better advised to focus on the BBC's core role, its mission if you will. This needs to be defined as tightly as possible. To use a metaphor of which I have become increasingly fond, the BBC can usefully think of itself more as a "keep" than a "castle"; that is, possibly a smaller organisation but one with higher walls that guard a unique treasurehouse of innovative talent, critical standards and, most important of all, truth—the keeper of our national conscience as it were.
The Government's role in all of this is to endow the corporation with creative security and independence and ensure that it remains a benchmark for quality across the whole of our broadcasting system.
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What might this mean at an operational level? In the few minutes remaining to me I can do little more than sketch out a couple of examples that the BBC and perhaps the Minister might choose to consider. First, there is an overwhelming need for a strategic recognition at the centre that the BBC could, and should, be doing much more to reach out to regional, even local, audiences and to drive its roots deep into the under-nourished soul of urban and rural localities. Surely, the principal social purpose of any public service broadcaster must be constantly to inform and refresh our sense of community. BBC local radio in particular can encourage and deepen that sense of community in a way that no commercial broadcaster is ever likely consistently to manage. This is one means by which the BBC can remain intimately identified with our national life, just as over the past 75 years or so it has established itself as an essential element in the fabric of our imagination in all its diversity, creative richness and complexity—three phrases that precisely describe the corporation as they do the nation.
It is equally worth emphasising the vital role public service broadcasting plays in nurturing and developing our educational system. It is a truth, more or less universally acknowledged, that moving images, in one form or another, now represent the primary form of leisure for most people in this country. As a result, an increasingly close relationship is developing between the audio-visual communications industry, at the heart of which lies television, and our appetite for learning. It is a matter of the greatest possible public interest that the experience of our broadcasting institutions is brought to the service of education with as much energy, imagination and integrity as possible. It is my belief that we have as yet only scratched the surface of television's educational potential, but perhaps that is a debate for another time.
Likewise, we must ensure that training remains at the heart of the BBC's remit. One of the fundamental principles of a guaranteed licence fee must be an obligation to uphold production values right across the broadcast system. This must not become a negotiable obligation. There also needs to be serious consideration of the way in which the BBC is governed. In particular, there is a need to ensure that the appointment of the governors is entirely free from the pressures and temptations of the electoral cycle.
One might have hoped that the dawning of the digital age would have offered access to a new era of enlightened and informed debate. Instead, a torrent of opinion, of "spin", swirls through almost every channel of communication, threatening to obscure that bedrock of truth and fact on which the principles of any democracy ultimately rest. Surely, the role of public broadcasting is to enrich our great national debates and enable us to move forward as an informed and thoughtful nation, rather than being swamped in a tidal wave of pressures and prejudice.
It will come as little surprise to your Lordships to be reminded that trash, trivia and sensation can be brought to the marketplace at surprisingly low cost. Truth, responsibility and quality have always taken longer and, for the most part, carry a far higher price—and thereby,

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necessarily, a far higher social value. It is not, and should never have been, the BBC's function to compete with the market on the market's terms. Our public broadcasting system is financed and structured in such a way as not to replicate the market but to challenge and, it is hoped, inspire it. It is absolutely vital that it remains so.
4.56 p.m.
Lord Chadlington: My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, on initiating this important and stimulating debate and thanking him. In particular, I congratulate him on the excellence of his introductory speech. I wish to examine in some detail the relationship between the lottery and public service broadcasting. I shall address in particular the responsibility for public access that I believe falls on the shoulders of successful applicants and the public service role within that that public service broadcasting must now play.
To do this I must first declare a number of interests. I served for several years as an independent member of the Arts Council of Great Britain and latterly the Arts Council of England, when I chaired the first Arts Council Lottery Panel. I also serve, or have served, on the board of a number of arts organisations, including the Royal Opera House. Although I shall limit my comments to lottery funding of the arts, many of the opportunities that public service broadcasting presents—I emphasise this—would apply equally to other distributing bodies, such as the Sports Council and the National Heritage Memorial Fund.
It is a tribute to all at the Arts Council that the lottery has been such a success. According to the latest figures there have been nearly 8,000 awards, with over £1 billion invested in projects with a total value nearly two-and-a-half times that sum. Quite properly, the vast majority of these by number are below £100,000. However, more than 700 organisations receive grants of over £100,000, many of them over £1 million and a few £10 million or more.
There are those who may argue that it is the people of Britain who have made this huge investment possible and therefore have a right to share in this vast bonus for the cultural life of Britain. Whether or not this is true, I suspect that the Saturday and Wednesday punter is more interested in whether he wins £1 million than anything else. I suspect that good causes are not uppermost in his or her mind. But it seems to me that the way these arts organisations have been funded places upon them at least a moral imperative to bring to the attention of the largest possible number the work that they can undertake as a result of lottery funding.
Indeed, as I hope to show in a moment, it is also in their enlightened self-interest so to do. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, who generously accepted my invitation to join the Arts Council Lottery Panel in those early days, made much of the need for successful applicants to interpret access in the broadest sense. I remember that he argued on a number of occasions that access was not just about the disabled—important though that was—but about sharing artistic experience with as many people as possible up and down the land.
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He evangelised that larger capital projects, particularly in our great national companies, must have the most up-to-date technological and broadcasting facilities and the most flexible union practices. That may seem obvious today. But even five years ago such an undertaking from applicants often proved remarkably difficult to obtain. And it is strange that that should have been the case, for two principal reasons. First, one of the key problems faced by arts organisations is audience development—expanding the market—particularly for new work. It is clear that enjoying a significant capital injection to build or extend a theatre or a concert hall clearly puts the problem of audience development into even sharper relief. These capital developments nearly always demand more people to fill more seats more often.
Secondly, the need to improve returns in larger venues funded by the lottery is also intensified by the agendas of partnership funders. On average, taken over the past five years, for every £1 a project costs, the Arts Council puts in 40p and other funders 60p. An analysis of the funding pipeline suggests that this funding split is likely to continue to be the norm. But those partners are themselves looking for a return of some sort, often through publicity or, indeed, interest payments on sums provided.
The only way to build audiences is to appeal to a wider and wider market in a broader and broader catchment area. Publicity attracts that audience, often keeps it and encourages it to try new experiences. Public service broadcasting provides just that opportunity. If the prospect of a lottery channel—of which I was much in favour—no longer proves feasible, it surely should be incumbent on the public service broadcasters to bring those lottery funded projects into the homes of those people who paid for them. The benefits which would accrue to the arts community are incalculable. Would it not be possible to seek agreement between those organisations to whom lottery funding is given and public service broadcasters that so many hours would be devoted annually to successful applicants? Could it not be a condition of both the granting or the continuing of Arts Council funding and other distribution bodies, on the one hand, and licences, on the other? Even if that were limited to the national companies which received awards, the impact on arts awareness and arts education would be immense.
Let us consider the numbers. So far the Arts Council has provided £388 million to over 400 national projects. What a shot in the arm it would be to the profile of those outstanding organisations to know that such publicity opportunities existed. Publicity attracts and makes stars. Attracting better performers in turn increases audience numbers, creating a virtuous circle. Similarly, young performers are given a much wider audience than would ever be the case without broadcasting support.
The development of archive, educational and outreach programmes will clearly add far more to the status of the national companies. And of course such an initiative need not be limited to national bodies. The Arts Council, like other distributing bodies, has an overwhelming percentage of its investments in small local organisations, all doing exciting innovative projects and

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hungry to expand and develop markets. Here is a rich vein of programming funded in large part by the people of Britain. We must find ways to exploit it to the benefit of all parties involved.
I believe that any consideration of the future of public service broadcasting and its public service role must take into account the effect that the lottery has had throughout our national life, the contribution made by the people of Britain to its success and that the distribution bodies have been excellent and worthy custodians of lottery funds. But above all else the conjunction of successful lottery applicants and enlightened public service broadcasting policy would bring into all our homes the vibrance and variety of our cultural and sporting life, both nationally and locally, to the benefit of us all.
5.6 p.m.
Lord Currie of Marylebone: My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Bragg on introducing the debate. His introductory speech was every bit as entertaining and informative as his programmes. But I fear that it may not reach such a significant market share. I. too, have to declare an interest. I have been one of those who has acted on occasions as a consultant to the BBC.
I wish to emphasise a point which has been raised previously. In this country we broadcast programmes exceedingly well. If one looks around the world, Europe and the United States have much poorer systems, with less popular support and far less consumer satisfaction. It is clear that the key reason for that is the unique role of the BBC. It has acted as a benchmark for standards, a setting of quality, throughout the industry over many decades and has therefore helped to shape the broadcasting industry to the benefit of the public. It is undoubtedly the case that commercial broadcasters fulfil the public service role. But I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Addington, who asked: would that be the case if the BBC had not existed? I rather doubt it.
It is one of those areas where the public corporation, with a positive mission to fulfil the objective of augmenting social and cultural life, has worked exceedingly well. We have given it up in other areas but not this one; and we should work hard to sustain it. There are those who argue, although not in this debate, that the digital age will change all that: that the BBC may have been a force for good in the past but it will be marginalised in the digital world, with the proliferation of channels and technologies. I think that that view is incorrect. In fact, if anything, the need for public service broadcasting is augmented in the digital age. The digital revolution may have got rid of spectrum scarcity, one important source of monopoly in this business, but it brings the largely costless reproduction of content across many different formats. That means enormous economies of scale and the likelihood therefore that large players, large monopolies, will thrive in the industry as never before. For that reason, it is vital that the public service role continues and remains significant.
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The digital age also means fragmentation of consumers. It makes people's identification of community more difficult. It will make finding one's way round the proliferation of offerings much harder. We shall be looking for navigators and guides; and the BBC has a crucial role to play in that.
The mission of the BBC to educate, inform and entertain is crucial to the fostering of community at all levels—national, regional and local, as well as ethnic and other minorities. That mission requires market share. There have been criticisms that the BBC has gone too far in that direction. Perhaps that is true in certain areas. But if the BBC is marginalised in terms of its viewing, it will not be able to fulfil that key public service role to the benefit of our society.
In the commercial world there are companies which pursue market share through the pursuit of quality. That is what the BBC should be urged to do. It is well placed to do so. It is worth recalling that the BBC is one of the top brands globally. It is among the top handful of brands recognised instantly by many people around the world—to a greater extent than any company in the UK; greater than any organisation and much greater, I suspect, than even our Government. That is an inheritance that we should not lose or squander. I believe that it will be the key in the digital age because among the diversity and proliferation we shall be looking for navigators and those brands will be the key to success. We need to use the BBC brand for quality to ensure that the public service role is continued into the next decade and beyond.
That will not be easy. If one considers graphs for industry revenue, they are growing at a rapid rate, whereas the licence fee income is largely flat. Looking to the future for an organisation with that projected revenue stream, one would predict that it was going to be marginalised, taken over and sidelined fairly quickly. Therefore, the vital question is: what other resources are available to the BBC to ensure that it continues to play the vital role that it can and should play in the future.
One area which is controversial is the BBC's commercial activities. The BBC must be focused on its key objective of public service broadcasting, but it is right also that it should take advantage of its productions in the commercial world, particularly overseas, by selling its products around the world in the best possible way. It should exploit its assets internationally and derive value domestically from the secondary exploitation of its productions. That is one way to generate revenue which can be used to good effect to augment the public service objectives of broadcasting which the BBC has as its core activity.
In so doing, it must avoid unfair competition. It is subject to UK competition law, which has become tougher. It is subject also to European law. The Commission has made many interventions in the area of broadcasting under merger and competition law. Therefore, the BBC must ensure that it behaves fairly in its commercial activities in securing extra revenue from this source.
But I doubt whether that will be enough because the BBC must expand into the new developing areas. It will be marginalised if it does not go into digital television.

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It will lose important opportunities if it does not go into the Internet. The Internet offers an extremely effective way of delivering the World Service objectives through a new medium which in many countries is more effective than the old medium. I urge the Government to think about whether the grant-in-aid that the BBC receives in that respect could be more flexible in the way that it is interpreted so as to allow for such innovation.
If we are to maintain the BBC in its valuable and unique role we shall need extra resources. Some may come from the commercial aspect, but it may be that we shall have to think about the difficult areas of the licence fee, a digital supplement and so on. If we do not augment the BBC's resources, in 10 years' time we may find that we have squandered the unique asset that it represents.
5.11 p.m.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I too must declare an interest because I am a director of British Digital Broadcasting, otherwise known as On-Digital. Digital broadcasting is a means of delivery which all broadcasters are using. That includes the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.
As regards the BBC, perhaps I may begin by saying a few words about the licence fee. I believe that that remains the best method of funding for the BBC. However, the licence fee must be seen as providing value for money. And what money that is. What a wonderful job it must be to be chairman of the BBC, as the noble Lord, Lord Hussey, was. One does not have to worry about banks or shareholders. Whatever happens, whatever one does, on 1st January each year, one is guaranteed an income of nearly £2 billion per year. What other business has a guaranteed cash flow like that?
The licence fee provides the BBC with an opportunity to be innovative and distinctive. It allows the corporation a freedom from commercial pressures. That freedom allows it to experiment and to challenge. To be blunt, it allows it the opportunity to fail, which is difficult for commercial broadcasters. The stability and certainty of the licence fee takes the pressure off achieving audience share. That is a huge advantage as it allows the BBC to deliver what the commercial market does not.
I am against any change in funding as any commercial or sponsorship income would compromise that unique situation. The BBC is a public service broadcaster; it is an alternative to the commercially-funded channels; and long may it last.
I do not say that the BBC should not be popular but I am saying it should be distinctive and, extremely important, it should set industry standards. In my view the BBC has become too focused on audience share and not sufficiently focused on audience reach. It seems to have a strategy that it is vitally important for the BBC to have a one-third market share to legitimise, as it were, the licence fee. That aim is misguided and unrealistic. As satellite and cable grow, the share of all broadcasters will decline.
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The market is now huge. Gone are the days of spectrum and channel scarcity. I agree with Sir Christopher Bland when he said that the BBC could reduce the gap between those who are information-rich and those who are information-poor. For example, the BBC should cover sporting rights that are part of our national identity—events that are on the "list". But I do not believe that the BBC should use public money to compete against pay-to-view for premium sporting rights on the general assumption that they should be broadcast on the BBC. There are plenty of sports that do not get a look-in at the moment.
I am concerned, as are others in your Lordships' House, about the mix of commercial services operated by the BBC in conjunction with its public service remit. I have nothing against the BBC being commercial but the core of BBC public services should be more clearly separated from its commercial side. At present, the Royal Charter and Agreement allows for an audit to differentiate between the two. The present arrangement is opaque. Parliament, let alone the public, does not understand where one starts and the other ends.
The core services of the BBC should offer what the market does not. It should he distinctive and should not emulate the commercial sector. It should provide something for everybody for at least some of the week. Those objectives could apply equally to radio. BBC's commercial activities are undertaken by Worldwide and BBC resources. They exploit the brands, programme rights, intellectual property rights, books and magazines. The BBC believes that those activities enhance the brand and any separation would risk the integrity of the brand and the strategic purpose of BBC Worldwide.
Some have argued for privatisation of the commercial activities, saying that privatisation would raise cash for the BBC, improve efficiency, improve Britain's programme exports and, perhaps more important, remove the criticism by commercial parties of unfair trading. That case has not yet been made but it perhaps could be made in future if the Government and the BBC do not act to ensure a clear separation of the public service remit from the Worldwide commercial activities.
I said earlier that the separation is opaque. That is a major understatement. For the benefit of all, Parliament and the public should be able to see where one starts and the other ends. I do not want the BBC to be like ITV. The BBC must be distinctive. It must reach the parts that other broadcasters do not.
5.17 p.m.
Lord Ahmed: My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord Bragg for allowing me the opportunity to contribute to this important debate. I declare my interest in that I buy a licence for £97.50.
The debate on the future of public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom must go beyond the mainstream white Christian community and include ethnic minorities and other religious communities. I appreciate that we live in a changing world, and therefore, through new technology, we must expect to increase the number of television channels and radio stations available to us. But I cannot accept the changing of ethical and moral values.

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The term "sexy" is becoming increasingly popular and the British modern culture is rapidly dumbing down to a level based on consumerism and materialism rather than the long-term intellectual and spiritual debate. It is important that public service broadcasting should have freedom of expression and freedom from commercial and political pressures. However, it must be accountable and provide value for money with the highest ethical standards and impartiality.
I cannot resist mentioning the BBC and the excellent news service that it provides in the UK and abroad. The BBC is the world's best-known and most-respected broadcaster. Similarly, radio stations across the country generally reflect the need of local communities, provide entertainment and debate issues and concerns of local people. Perhaps I may make a little plug for BBC Radio Sheffield, which provides an excellent service for the South Yorkshire communities.
However, I am concerned with the BBC Asian programmes' department, based in Birmingham, which is dominated by a particular social group of people. I have to say that there is also the same problem in the mainstream. My concern is the apparent lack of staff from the Pakistani and Bengali communities and that programmes do not cater for the Moslem community. The religious programmes mainly concentrate on Christian worship, and the Asian programmes with Bollywood. It seems that two million British Moslems have no category or department to go to. The BBC has abdicated its responsibility to British Moslems by including a broader category of "Asians" who seem to concentrate on cheap and superficial programmes related to fashion, Balti and Bollywood.
What has happened to serious journalism? What has happened to the intellectual debate? I have written to the director-general and the secretary of the BBC on behalf of the Moslem community. I am still waiting for information I asked for 10 weeks ago.
The BBC marketing report 100 Tribes looks at the viewer make-up of Britain and identifies the Asian community with music, fashion, Bollywood, Bangla and mega mella. The report completely ignores the needs of two million Moslem licence payers. The only programmes made about Moslems are not for Moslems, and that is the problem.
The new identity of "Asians" by the BBC ignores all the traditional cultures of the subcontinent. Languages such as Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu are not always pronounced properly. Art and culture represent a completely new identity of the "Asians" and are not relevant to the majority of British ethnic minorities.
Finally, the commercial radio and independent television companies have to take note of the fact that Asians have large families with over £2 billion buying power. By ignoring us, advertising is not meeting the needs of our communities. This week the Prime Minister said,
"The Government's role is to give sensible leadership, and I have no doubt whatever that it is towards a more tolerant Britain, a more inclusive Britain, a Britain of all the talents that the vast majority of black and white people wish to be led".
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I call upon the independent television companies and the BBC to look into their institutions, and fight prejudice; to ensure that their staff reflect their viewers and to develop, adapt and change to meet the needs of many, not just the vocal few.
5.25 p.m.
Baroness Flather: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, for allowing us the opportunity of this debate. As so many of us have put our names down, clearly we are happy to have the opportunity to speak about our favourite whipping boy.
After hearing the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, I wondered whether I should speak at all. So much of what I intended to say he had already said, including some of the figures I intended to quote. However, I decided to make my speech because I have one or two other points to make.
First, I declare an interest—a substantial one—as director of an ITV regional cable television broadcaster. I was also chairman of a local independent radio station for five years, and it is with radio that I shall start. Very little has been said about radio. What has been said has been more or less a throw-away approach. especially from the noble Lord. Lord Puttnam, who wrote off independent local radio in about one sentence.
I wonder how many noble Lords know that there are 200 radio stations, both local and regional, and three national stations? Forty per cent. of listeners listen to local commercial radio as opposed to 9 per cent. who listen to BBC local radio. Indeed, 50 per cent. of all listeners listen to local independent radio.
There seems to be some confusion about the responsibilities of local independent radio to the local community. I should like to quote what the Minister for tourism said about the commercial radio industry, which might give some idea of those responsibilities:
"The commercial radio industry recognises the importance of establishing firm links with the community to benefit both that community and to strengthen the radio station's profile and audience … The commitment of commercial radio to the local community is demonstrated by the extent of stations' involvement in community projects beyond traditional on-air public service announcements".
As I have said, for five years I was chairman of a radio station which served Windsor, Maidenhead and Slough. I can assure noble Lords that our most important approach was to keep the links with the community. We had focus groups and three local committees for three towns. We did our very best to keep in touch with everything. We were present at every major community fund-raising effort for charity. It is important to realise that local commercial radio is answerable to the licensing authority for what it will provide. Who monitors what the BBC provides? Local independent radio cannot afford any arrogance nor any separation from the local community.
Perhaps I may now turn to television. The noble Lord. Lord Rees-Mogg, was rather scathing about television. However, if he had looked carefully at the Radio Times, he would have found a very good oceanic drama called, "Hornblower" which extolled the virtues of honesty and decency. He might also have come across the outstanding drama produced by Granada on the murder

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of Stephen Lawrence. So, there are peaks and troughs on ITV. However, it is clear that ITV's peaks match anything produced by the BBC. It is also true that the BBC's troughs press standards below what ITV produces. The real problem is that too much of the time, when we turn on to BBC—BBC1 particularly—it is no different from ITV. That is the nub of the matter. We need the BBC to be different from ITV.
Two recent publications, Public Purposes in Broadcasting and an ITV survey, The BBC's Public Service Obligations & Commercial Activities, have been quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Bragg. They clearly demonstrate that the obligations are not necessarily being met.
No speech can be complete without mentioning "Vanessa". There is no way that we can say that "Vanessa" is a suitable programme for a public service broadcaster, particularly with all the complications that have arisen.
Perhaps I may mention, briefly, the ethnic minority programmes. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed said. but there are some other points I should like to make. I do not think that any permeation of minority programming into the mainstream has taken place. If we are to reflect the multi-cultural nature of Great Britain, it is important that we should be part of the mainstream. We are still in a ghetto, mainly in Birmingham, and are very poorly funded. Programme production is poor and would never be acceptable in mainstream programming.
The BBC needs an independent regulator. I was deeply distressed when it showed a party political broadcast by the British National Party in its entirety. I complained to ITV, but at least LWT had edited the programme to take out the worst offending parts and Channel 4 had not shown it at all. However, when I complained to the BBC about showing it in its entirety, I got back nothing but "flannel". At least ITV did some research. If I am going to be fobbed off, I would rather be fobbed off by an external regulator than a BBC apparatchik.
The BBC made a fundamental error in partnering BSkyB for its digital technology. There is now no competition for BSkyB; it already controls Cable and has virtually destroyed it. In around five or six years we will see BSkyB putting pressure on all the digital television providers. BBC should have partnered another consortium to provide competition for BSkyB. No other company could do that.
My time is almost up, but I hope that today's broadcast has shown that the BBC cannot treat itself as a sacred cow and feel totally protected. And I am pleased about that.
5.31 p.m.
Lord Birkett: My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, not only on introducing this important debate, but also on the wisdom and common sense with which he launched it. I thought I would confine my remarks this afternoon to radio, partly because I like it so much and, though I have been a film-maker all my life, because I suspect that it
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stimulates the imagination more than do the movies and television; but also for another reason. That is, when we are talking about "public service" we can distinguish the qualities of public service more easily in radio than in television. Of course, we can channel-hop on the radio as easily as we can on the television, but if we channel-hop blindly on television we find it extremely difficult to know which channel we have reached. If we do it on the radio, however, we can be sure within a very few moments which channel we are listening to.
If I listen to BBC Radio 3 more than others, it is simply because I love music so much. I love the fact that it still has its great orchestras—I pray that they never get abolished or diminished. I like them because, not only are they fine orchestras, but they do exactly as the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, suggested—they reach the repertoire that other, more commercially-minded orchestras cannot or dare not reach.
All the same, much though I love music and much though I love Radio 3, I wonder, with the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, whether classical music needs to be continuous. Does it do classical music any service for it to be continuous? There is no need for BBC Radio 3 to fear that because Classic FM is continuous it should be also. Classic FM was greeted in its initial stages with great enthusiasm because everybody said that its listeners would go on to other music—perhaps to BBC Radio 3—that they would frequent the concert halls and become classical devotees. But sometimes I have a nasty suspicion that not all Classic FM listeners do that; that some of them just buy more and more records of favourite excerpts.
The whole business of classical music as an enormous, if quality, wallpaper in our lives is perhaps mistaken. If one listens to Classic FM or indeed Radio 3 in the mornings or afternoons, one listens to programmes called "Morning Choice", or "Morning Concert", or "Morning Masterworks", or "Morning Requests", or "Morning Miscellany", unless of course they are the afternoon equivalent. One never knows what they are because all the programmes are identical; they are all wonderful records of wonderful classical music. Like the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, I miss the other elements of radio. I can remember, not just from Radio 3 but from the good old Third Programme days, extraordinary experiences like the strange stories of Heinrich Boll, lectures by Sir Isaiah Berlin, talks by Max Beerbohm, no less, W. B. Yeats, the poetry of James Stevens and the amazing surreal contributions of Sir Ivor Cutler. We do not find them any more; we do not find the mixture that once we found.
Perhaps I should stop there because I have a strong feeling that the BBC has had enough advice on what it should do from all of your Lordships this afternoon to last it a lifetime. Instead I shall finish by asking what the nature of public service actually is. It is a phrase we have all used this afternoon. What distinguishes it from any other service? The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, said that he did not think the Government had anything to do. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, regards that as a matter of relief or of

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disappointment. But I have a suggestion not of something the Government should do but of a principle I hope they will accept. It is this.
What distinguishes a public service is that the quality and variety of the service come first; commerce, rivalry, profit, economy, organisation, all come second. Nobody wants a public service organisation not to be properly organised; not to have budgets; not to keep to them; and to be absolutely blind in the face of competition. But so many noble Lords this afternoon emphasised that it should not go for ratings alone. They can be dazzling. I have a stepson who works as an actor in Hollywood on one of the most popular series. When I asked him casually, "How many people watch you each week'?", he said, "Oh, 65 million". That is a figure so staggering that one cannot comprehend it in terms of an audience, but public service broadcasting should not be seduced by that. I believe that the BBC should do exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, said—concentrate on what it can do best and what it can do uniquely. That is the definition of public service.
5.37 p.m.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: My Lords, perhaps I can add my welcome to the opportunity my noble friend Lord Bragg has given us to debate this important subject of public service broadcasting. I should beg forgiveness for yet another declaration of interest; I am privileged to be the current BBC Vice-Chairman. The Addison Rules mean that I am not going to be able to comment at all on some of the issues raised, particularly about the BBC, and this will be one of the most frustrating seven minutes of my life. However, I hope the Minister will rise to the defence of the BBC in some areas.
Others spoke about the vibrant broadcasting environment of the United Kingdom. Broadcasting is a British success story and we are seeing existing strong networks being joined rapidly by fast-growing new services, including digital, the Internet and broadcasting on demand. Public service broadcasters must be in those new technologies and delivery mechanisms because they are the technologies and delivery mechanisms of the future; otherwise, public service broadcasting will face an absolute decline.
Some people have been predicting that, with more in the way of variety in broadcasting, it will mean a worse service with competition fragmenting audiences, investment with tabloid values growing and a nation divided between those who can benefit from the new services and those who cannot afford to. I am more buoyant about the future of public service broadcasting in this new and fast-developing world.
I am probably personally privileged in standing at this watershed in UK broadcasting to be just at the right age. I am old enough to remember the potter's wheel, but young enough not to go into the foetal position when faced with the Internet. I agree very much with my noble friend Lord Currie of Marylebone that we need high quality public service broadcasting rather more as a result of market fragmentation.
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Several matters have already been pointed out by my noble friend Lord Puttnam which we need to bear in mind as important ingredients of public service broadcasting in this new world. The first is that we need to carry forward the principles of informing, educating and entertaining when the market itself will not necessarily assure them. That does not mean that we in public service broadcasting should be relegated to carrying the boring, but worthy, kind of material that I might typify as being watched only by one man and his dog.
The second key feature of public service broadcasting was indicated by my noble friend Lord Barnett; namely, the role that it has in helping to improve standards for broadcasting. Regulation is a very poor mechanism for setting standards. A thriving public service broadcasting sector needs to be large enough to influence standards across the market as a whole. I shall speak more about that when I touch on the issue of funding.
The third role for public service broadcasting which is vital for the future is inclusiveness to ensure that through news and factual programmes all groups in society actively join in the debate on national, regional and local issues. We need to ensure that we can provide ways in which those who might otherwise be socially excluded are embraced within society, and therefore overcome the risks of division within our society into those who are information rich and those who are information poor.
Last but not least public service broadcasting needs to be glue for the nation, as it were, to provide an opportunity for shared experiences for all of us. That will become even more acute in a new, devolved United Kingdom with our very diverse society, but with a fragmented broadcasting market.
I wish to tackle in more detail two issues which have already been raised today. One is quality. I would like to debunk the term "dumbing down" once and for all. If I ever find the person who invented it I might address a few well chosen words to them. It is an incredibly glib phrase, which misrepresents entirely an important objective of public service broadcasting. We need to find a new word. Someone suggested "wising up" rather than "dumbing down". I have been trying to popularise the word "widebrowing" which describes the need for us to engage a wide range of audiences if the public purposes of public broadcasting are to be fulfilled. That requires new ways of making important issues accessible and relevant to a wide range of audiences.
If I dare, perhaps I may touch on the vexed question of programmes like "Vanessa". I could very well put money on the fact that probably not many noble Lords watch that programme. With due respect to your Lordships' House neither we, nor the chattering classes generally, can for the most part call ourselves normal or average. I suggest that if noble Lords come across programmes that do not suit them they should ponder for a moment. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, it may be that a programme was meant for an age and a stage far removed from noble Lords. One should judge whether the programme is good of its kind and effective in bringing issues or content in a relevant way to more

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normal people than noble Lords or myself. One must judge the programme because public sector broadcasting does not always get it right. Public sector broadcasters must guard against popularisation for its own sake.
The programme "Vanessa" at its best is trying to bring issues in a relevant way to wide audiences for the sake of the public service broadcasting objective of informing and educating and not simply for popularity.
As has already been highlighted, some elements of quality need comparative freedom from market pressures, such as investment in the arts and taking risks. As the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, stressed, comparative freedom from market pressures gives an ability to take risks with new approaches and new talent. I doubt whether we would see commercial broadcasting in a competitive market giving an early chance to people such as Dennis Potter or Harold Pinter in the future.
I pray the indulgence of noble Lords for a moment. The licence fee is an imperfect mechanism for funding public service broadcasting. Every other mechanism is poorer. We need to defend the licence fee because it gives public service broadcasting space to carry out the very important roles that I have outlined: to develop its role in providing services that inform, educate and entertain in ways which the market alone will not. It should be done in an inclusive way for the whole of the United Kingdom's diverse society and indeed for the world.
5.45 p.m.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, for giving us the opportunity to have this debate. I have often found his broadcasting extremely infuriating. I have never been to sleep during one of his broadcasts. I enjoyed his speech enormously and I find myself in agreement with most of it.
I shall concentrate my remarks on the BBC. It is suffering from a lack of focus and direction, typified by the material that it sent to us before this debate. The front of the document The BBC Beyond 2000 contains a mission statement which is an example to everybody of what a mission statement should not be. It is a lot of guff, motherhood and apple pie. There is almost nothing in it which can be a day-to-day guide to the people within the corporation on how they should make programmes and conduct their lives. What is needed is a much more hard-edged understanding of what public service broadcasting should be and how it should be governed.
To my mind there are two fundamental things that should form the BBC. The first is a set of values which belong to public service broadcasting and which are not founded in the commercial world but set on their own. Secondly, and just as important, the BBC should be different, as other speakers have said. If it is not different, there is no function at all in having it. It must be different in everything that it does. Imitating ITV and doing as well as some other commercial broadcaster does nothing to justify the existence of a particular programme.
As regards values, I pick out three. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, said, there is truth. It should be in everything that the BBC does, from such obvious
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features as news broadcasting and the dramatic programmes it makes to the slightest and most ordinary part of its programming. Truth should be the fundamental principle which all of its producers and programmers bear in mind every day.
Secondly, there should be a mission to inform. That is an old BBC icon but increasingly neglected. It is important that when we see a BBC programme, with any luck we should learn something from it. It should not be just bland and intellectually without content.
Although it is much paraded by the BBC at the moment, I do not believe it has achieved as much quality as it should. It aims at quality but it should do better to achieve good quality programmes. I take as an example something which the BBC does well in all three aspects. "EastEnders" is a programme which is true to the life that it depicts in as much as any soap opera can be. I do not think that the type of people it depicts would take offence at anything representative of themselves. It is informative and tells those of us who are not part of that community a great deal about the lives and concerns of such people, as well as being extremely entertaining. It is also a programme of high quality which is well produced and well acted.
But there is a great deal of the work of the BBC that is not at that level. I am a great listener to the "Today" programme. But its news agenda has become tabloid. The stories on which it chooses to lead are generally found in the Sun and the Daily Mirror, often also in the Daily Mail and the Daily Express but have no resemblance at all to the priorities contained in the great broadsheet newspapers. The main morning Radio 4 lead programme should not be like that.
As has been said by many other speakers and frequently in this House, the broadcasting of Parliament is a total disgrace. It has become a mixture of soundbites and pundits. It contains absolutely nothing of what has been said and done in Parliament. If you are reporting Parliament and are governed by a desire for truth and to provide infonnation, then Parliament should be reported on Parliament's terms. We make speeches which are generally about seven to 10 minutes long. That is the sort of aspect which ought to be fitted into broadcasting if you want to give a clear view of what Parliament is.
I turn now to the differences. As the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, and others have said, ratings should not count. If you are trying to be different from ITV, it must be remembered that ITV has to be governed by ratings. Indeed, that is what its revenues are generated by. However, the BBC is not so governed. It has to be different and it should look at things in a different way. I do not wish to see the BBC crowing about, or being governed by, ratings.
The BBC has to try new approaches. It is one of the great successes of the subsidised theatre that it takes on new ventures and does things that the commercial theatre does not do. I do not like to see the BBC paying hundreds of thousands of pounds a year to second-rate presenters merely because they are known faces. There should be hundreds of people within the BBC who have the capability to take over from these people. When they become so expensive, they ought to be spun out into the

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commercial world. The noble Lord, Lord Alli, who I am sorry to say is not present in the Chamber today, has followed that process in commercial television to great success. Every time he loses a producer from the "The Big Breakfast" programme he produces a new one who is cheaper and better. But, having our money to spend, the BBC ought to be doing that even better. To pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to second-rate talent, or to be kind to them, very much run-of-the-mill talent, should never be considered by the BBC.
As other noble Lords have said, the addiction to difference should certainly be carried into the question of sport. It does not matter whether premiership football is shown on ITV or the BBC. If it is there and broadcast on ITV, the BBC has no reason to wish to compete with that because it would be providing nothing different by doing so. Many sports and other activities are not featured on commercial television; the corporation should seek to cover them.
In combining both values and difference, the BBC needs a sense of importance. It needs to understand that democracy is important in this country and that it should give it good coverage and good understanding. But it has been walking away from that for many years. It needs to understand that we are part of Europe and that it must cover Europe, even to the extent perhaps of showing a few foreign films, and perhaps especially including programmes which give us an understanding of foreign cultures and of our partners in Europe. That is important to us. It is not being done by commercial channels and it should be done by the BBC.
Moreover, as the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, and others have said, minority programming is important. It is important not just to those minorities themselves; it is also important to us, so that we have a window onto what other parts of our society are like and can learn from that.
I hope that the BBC will pay attention to what has been said in this debate. I do not see its presence here. The BBC has provided us with a great deal of information and has spent much time in trying to tell us what to say in this debate, but those concerned do not appear to wish to listen to us. When I have written to the BBC commenting on material that it has sent to me, I have never received an answer. The BBC appears to be heading in entirely the wrong direction. I hope that those concerned take a look at themselves soon.
5.53 p.m.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, when I saw my noble friend's Motion on the Order Paper, I had a little prick of conscience. Yes, conscience. The source of this unusual emotion was purely my enjoyment of public service broadcasting for many years; but I have never actually spoken up for it. I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Bragg for giving me this opportunity to do so.
I have absolutely no interest at all to declare. I have enjoyed the quality of the entertainment, the excellence of the music, the authoritative news and information and the creativity of public service broadcasting. However,
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I have enjoyed commercial benefit too. Some 18 years ago, when the BBC did a series on computers and introduced the BBC Micro, my company bought a Micro for any employee who agreed to follow the course. That turned us into a computer literate company some two or three years ahead of our competitors. It certainly contributed towards the growth and success of the business. So I am a real beneficiary of public service broadcasting in many ways.
However, my noble friend quite rightly talks about the future of public service broadcasting. Does it have one? Like many noble Lords, I think that it does because the Thatcherite idea that public services are inherently bad and that private services are good has been demonstrated to be completely wrong. Public services are not better or worse; they are different. Some 15 years ago 70 per cent. of the public thought that large private companies served the public well and 30 per cent. thought that they did not. Today the position is reversed. As a result, companies now spend millions of pounds reinforcing their reputation because they know that a good reputation brings real benefits to their business. It is called branding.
Nevertheless, people still remain sceptical. As a result, public service institutions are becoming an improving brand. I agree with my noble friend Lord Currie that public service broadcasters need to capitalise on this and enjoy the benefits, especially the BBC. However, public service is no excuse for poor management. So I wonder why the BBC sometimes compounds the errors of other businesses. For example, it operates an internal market. But I believe that internal markets were discredited and discarded years ago by other businesses. I agree with my noble friend Lord Bragg who drew our attention to the over-large headquarters. which again most companies have discarded. The BBC really can invest in skills and training for its workforce without then having to sack large numbers to produce "shareholder value", as the noble Lord. Lord McNally, put it.
Public service broadcasters do not have to produce shareholder value. They should not compete with markets on market terms, as my noble friend Lord Puttnam put it. They have other measures of performance. For them, excellent public service is as legitimate a measure of success and satisfaction as increasing shareholder value or ratings.
Normal business accounting is inadequate and misleading where public service is involved. That is why public service broadcasters should not ape their commercial competitors. If they do, they will be forced—and I say this with apologies to my noble friend Lady Young—to dumb down. Markets find it difficult to measure social values and markets always grossly undervalue benefits to society. That is why we have regulators. They are there to correct this. But I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Rather, that regulation will not stop dumbing down. Market forces are much stronger than regulatory forces. We have seen proof of this in some of the most strongly regulated sectors of our society. as regards the food we eat, the trains we travel on and the financial services that we use.

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We should loudly proclaim the values of public service as an alternative to markets. Public service organisations can just as well move with the times and be truly inclusive yet be free of the strait-jacket of producing shareholder value for the market. The public service ethos provides information for minority interests and cultures. It requires suitable programming for our children who, as other noble Lords have said, learn an enormous amount from radio and television. Indeed, what an influence public service broadcasting has on them! I hope that the Social Exclusion Unit is looking closely at how it, too, can benefit from public service broadcasting and that it will take note of some of the comments that have been made in this debate.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Puttnam. Broadcasting funded by advertising, by sponsorship or by subscription cannot afford to deal with these matters. Moreover, as the nanny state shrinks, more than ever we need an informed population: informed to make the right decisions and, as my noble friend Lord Peston said, informed about science. Increasing competition and choice will not achieve this. Quality and reliability will. News has to come from a reliable source and there has to be an easy access to quality information so that people can make informed choices as citizens and as consumers.
This then is my argument for public service broadcasting. What can the Government do? First, they could foster public service broadcasting yet give it independence. Secondly, as my noble friends Lord Barnett and Lord Currie have said, they must ensure that it has sufficient finance to maintain the critical mass it needs to be an effective service and not become marginalised, as it has been elsewhere in the world. Public service broadcasting has been a wonderful ambassador, providing a showcase for our many talented actors, musicians, producers, designers and writers. Much of its authority comes from a public service ethos. Long may it continue.
6 p.m.
Viscount Falkland: My Lords, this is an extremely difficult debate to wind up because of the quality of the speeches. I have made copious notes but I am afraid that I shall have to abandon them because I cannot read them as I have written so much. This has been an excellent debate. As one would expect, it was ably introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Bragg. I have never been irritated by the noble Lord. I have always found his performances on radio and television to be extremely good. He set an example for us all in that he made a speech and gave some practical suggestions at the end of his speech as to how the BBC should move forward. He suggested setting up an independent commercial structure for all UK television so that the quality product we obtain from the BBC and other broadcasters would be protected in the USA. Buyers there could not drive down prices for programmes, as at present. That is an excellent suggestion.
Like most people of my age, I started listening to radio at an early age. I had a fairly peripatetic childhood. Fortunately, I had learnt to read and write fairly competently before war broke out. I found myself as an
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only child in various abodes during the following five years. I was grateful for the number of cheap children's books that were available. The classics were available, sometimes in abridged versions. My gratitude to the BBC remains intact. Like the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, I believe that if you want to know what true public service broadcasting is about you should listen to BBC radio rather than watch BBC television. Although there are many excellent programmes on television, there are many peaks and troughs, as other noble Lords have said.
In one of the rented homes to which my mother took me during the war I had a crystal set which was given to me by a Belgian refugee. I remember clearly to this day that one of my greatest achievements was to obtain a clear and consistent reception of BBC broadcasts with an irritating piece of wire and a tiny handle. Presumably my Belgian friend had received interesting broadcasts from his home country throughout the war. While I was at a boring public school I graduated to building a one-valve set. On Saturday nights I listened clandestinely to "Saturday Night Theatre" which stimulated my interest in playwrights and poets. I listened to readings from Hardy, Lorca and Oscar Wilde. Those were wonderful years of the radio broadcasting of drama. Much of the music I listened to went over my head—like the noble Lord, Lord Peston—but my interest in music was stimulated at that time. The Belgian refugee also gave me a mandolin as well as the crystal set, but I gave up on the mandolin. However, I became a competent operator of the crystal set.
The tradition of serious broadcasting on radio has been maintained in a praiseworthy manner, which probably has not been the case with television. Fortunately, I did not see a television broadcast until I was just over 17. That was the coronation of Her Majesty the Queen which I watched in France in black and white. I have never felt that television matched radio for sheer dramatic effect, even with an event such as that.
I mentioned my next point to my noble friend Lord Perry of Walton, who was the Chancellor of the Open University. If one is periodically an insomniac, one may think that a television programme will send one to sleep. One can tune in to a programme of the Open University at an early hour in the morning. That is an enormous revelation as there is no packaging. The programmes comprise expert, fairly anonymous presenters giving viewers purely the facts. My great quarrel with television is that it is too obsessed with packaging and presentation, which is expensive. That is not to say that there are not expert talented and usually young people involved in developing better ways of presenting graphics and improving presentation. However, I believe the BBC would do well to steer away from that aspect. I wish it would steer a course half-way between the Open University broadcasts and its present approach. That would be cheaper and I believe it would regain its constituency in terms of television broadcasts.
Noble Lords have made various valid points. The noble Lord, Lord Peston, spoke about dross. I absolutely agree with him. I wonder what length of time he has spent watching television. I know that he is a great

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expert at surfing the Net. I was puzzled to hear several noble Lords mention the excellence of the Internet. That does not square with an article in one of the broadsheets yesterday which stated that 90 per cent. of the material on the Internet comprises pornography. Even if the figure is 75 per cent., it is rather worrying. How is one not sidetracked by pornography when using the excellent BBC Internet? I have maintained for some time that pornography and sport are the only things that one can sell on subscription with any certainty, to the delight of accountants. I am rather concerned about this matter. I shall have to read Hansard and talk further to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, about that.
Unfortunately, I missed much of what the noble Lord, Lord Chadlington, said. However, I have been well briefed on it by my noble friend Lord McNally. Music is a subject close to my heart. There is an excellent article in The Times today by Andre Previn in which he harks back nostalgically to the time when he gave many concerts on television. He said that those concerts did an enormous amount to stimulate the interest of audiences in music. At that time people were keener to attend concerts of the London Symphony Orchestra than to attend many West End shows. It is noticeable that BBC television has dropped its concentration on serious music. Last night Mr. Will Wyatt addressed the all-party media group. He pointed out that there are remarkable BBC radio broadcasts of serious music from all over the world which comprise concerts, opera and other such events. There is a great difference between radio and television, as has been said.
As I have said, sport and pornography are probably the only areas in which the accountants of those who sell subscriptions are really interested. However, I am quite sure that their creative colleagues have much higher ambitions. The BBC must stop spending money on competing with the satellite channels with regard to broadcasting sport. I am afraid that is a lost cause. Broadcasters have concentrated on that and produced an excellent product because they know that is where money is made. If we can retain the broadcasting of certain sports through statute I think that is all one can hope for. The BBC will just have to rely on highlights as regards other sports.
As I have said, I owe a great deal to the educational function of radio. However, children's programming on television is dreadful. It is the dross. It is politically correct, boring and strident. I have a small child and I protect him from terrible cartoons. However, I cannot do so when he has a small friend to stay. It is obvious that when that child is restive or bored at home, he watches a cartoon. The BBC should stop broadcasting cartoons. Let others get on with that.
It has been an interesting debate. I agree that the high standards of the BBC over the years have upheld its great central role as a benchmark of quality. I agree absolutely with the noble Lord, Lord Hussey, who made a remarkable speech for someone who has been in such a prominent position. He was frank with us about his attitudes to public service broadcasting. His definition that it should uplift the hearts and enlighten the minds is the very best standard to which the BBC should
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adhere, not only for children but for all of us. It should stop trying to compete with those who are better furnished financially. The BBC has the licence fee. Everyone has tried to examine a better way of funding; it has not been found. The licence fee appears to be the only way. Let us give the public the confidence to support the funding of the BBC. Let us see whether the Government can persuade the BBC to get back to its natural constituency of average, normal, seriously-minded people who want quality rather than modern and politically correct programming.
6.11 p.m.
Baroness Anelay of St. Johns: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, for introducing this debate. He brings to it his long-term professionalism in broadcasting. Unlike others, I have no interest to declare. I bring to the debate my interest as a consumer and somebody who has been involved at the sharp end of enforcing the public's payment of a licence fee. As a magistrate I have adjudicated on cases of licence fee non-payment and evasion—as indeed has the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, who is in his place. Evasion is a criminal offence.
The experience of adjudicating in that way concentrates one's mind very carefully upon the implications of broadcasting funded by a licence fee. It is right that noble Lords have posed questions this afternoon about public service broadcasting in general. Should it exist at all? Is it sustainable in the multi-channel digital future? Is it merely an anachronism? Will markets on their own give us the media and the society that we want? Is it an optional add-on or is it essential to the health of all broadcasting?
This is indeed a timely debate. First, as noble Lords have mentioned, the Davies Committee has been appointed to consider the future of the licence fee and the balance between the BBC's public service and its commercial activities. As my noble friend Lord Inglewood remarked, that is a narrow remit. I look forward to the publication of the committee's report this summer and the opportunity then to debate its recommendations.
The second reason why this is a timely debate is that we are experiencing a fascinating time of change in technology—that of the digital age and the multimedia revolution. Yet, at the same time as we face change, there are constants, such as the public expectation of a quality service that is easy to access. As my noble friend Lady James of Holland Park pointed out, we demand quality of both delivery and programming.
The Davies report and the new director-general, whoever that may be, must have a vision of the future which will serve the BBC for decades and not just until 2006. Although the public service broadcasting debate will quicken at the time of renegotiating the charter, I, like my noble friend Lord Inglewood, suspect that we need now to begin to debate what should be the ground rules of public service broadcasting into the next century.
As noble Lords have pointed out, there are two contrasting ways of looking at this debate, with some overlapping views in between. One version suggests that

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the duty of public broadcasting is only to provide programmes that no commercial broadcaster would touch. If one takes this idea to its logical conclusion, as some in the European Commission would do, governments would explicitly commission hours of programmes perceived by the government to be "good" for us, for which the mass market would not pay and for which therefore advertisers would not pay. The second version is that in the new, vastly expanded broadcasting environment, the market will provide and there will be no need for public service broadcasting. It is tempting in that world to believe that television is just another consumer commodity, best left entirely to market forces and global trends.
So is it right to argue that broadcasting is too important to be left at the mercy of the market or too important to be left in the broadcasters' hands? As world audiences fragment under the competitive pressure from satellite and cable, is there a risk that diminishing audiences will reduce the ability of mainstream broadcasters to afford original, expensive and innovative productions? Is there a widening gap between the information rich and the information poor, one that is accelerated by the growth of subscription and pay-per-view? Without public service broadcasting, does the global media market risk homogenisation? That is a lovely bureaucratic word but, as noble Lords have pointed out, one which perhaps means the dawn of the Murdoch world. From what noble Lords have argued today, the answer to all three questions may be "yes".
We talk a great deal about the impact of the digital age on public service broadcasting, but the underlying issues remain the same. How do broadcasters balance commercial activity with their public service broadcasting remit? How do broadcasters maintain the quality of their programming? And, as noble Lords have mentioned, what form should regulation take?
The BBC has recently faced many an accusation, one of which is that the public service dog is being wagged by the tail of its ambitions to become a global broadcaster. Much attention has been paid to that accusation in the debate. Even Sir Christopher Bland admitted that the BBC is treading an increasingly delicate line by setting up an assortment of new public service and commercial channels while at the same time trying to preserve its traditional strengths on public service television channels and radio stations. Fears that it was compromising its core television and radio service erupted last year when it lost rights to live TV test match cricket to Channel 4. I was very much aware of that eruption in my home environment. My husband made me aware of it very painfully—not painfully to me, painfully to the television.
The BBC's opponents claimed it was stretching itself too thin with ventures such as its loss-making international news channel, BBC World. Last month I visited the "Where's Q" digital project, an exciting and innovative project, one in which the BBC could lead the world. I hope that it does. I hope that it has that opportunity. But, at the same time as wishing it well on that project, I appreciate that the project underlines questions about the role of public service broadcasters in a digital age.
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Many noble Lords have mentioned the BBC's Internet services. I have to confess that I have something in common with the noble Lord, Lord Peston: I, too, am an Internet groupie. I have not accessed the pornographic sections—and indeed the noble Lord is indicating that he has not either. Other noble Lords may well indeed give us some education on this, although I am not too sure whether it would be educational.
There is a free-rider problem with regard to the BBC's Internet services. Licence payers are funding an excellent Internet news service to the citizens of the world. There are of course many advantages to that, but I am concerned that the Internet may become the successor to the World Service. Does it or can it really ever offer the access that radio does to those who are the poorest users in the third world? Could it be a Trojan horse destroying the World Service from within? I note that BBC Online recently decamped to Bush House, the home of the World Service.
Mention has been made of chat shows. In the United Kingdom we will all be watching and listening to discover how the BBC will respond to the charge that it is "dumbing down" or "widebrowing", a new term I have learnt tonight. Playing up to the ratings war, I believe, is what it is all about. As my noble friend Lord Monro of Langholm pointed out, there is an underlying feeling among the public that the BBC and other public service broadcasters should not be driven by that need to play up to the ratings war.
I would question the role of chat shows for a public service broadcaster. After all, TV shows like the "Vanessa" show, which has been mentioned, have given a whole new meaning to the term "faking it". Perhaps the only certainty in all of this is that the licence fee payer expects the BBC to produce good quality programming as its public service responsibility, a point my noble friend Lord Lucas argued so well today.
Recently I attended the launch of the essays Public Purposes in Broadcasting—funding the BBC and found the presentation, including one by the noble Lord, Lord Currie of Marylebone, who spoke earlier in the debate, and the book itself a stimulating introduction to the work of the Davies review. Public service broadcasters should continue to have a clear responsibility to provide a wide range of programmes that challenge but without causing offence. I believe that the public will expect of public service broadcasters in the digital age exactly what they expect of them in the analogue age—quality, diversity, innovation and independence. On a personal note, if I am persuaded in favour of public service broadcasting by any argument, it is quite simply this: that without it we could lose the opportunity of being surprised by programmes that we did not know we wanted.
6.20 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, in thanking my noble friend Lord Bragg and all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate, I can start from a point of agreement with everyone who has spoken. By that I mean an acknowledgement of the strength of public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom. But

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beyond that I have to say that I will not be able to follow a large number of the contributions because the debate has been very personal—it has been very attractive for that reason—and has concerned people's feelings about particular BBC programmes.
My noble friend Lady Young said that she expects me to rise to the defence of the BBC. That is not the job of the Government. I cannot do that. I am certainly not going to find myself defending or attacking "Vanessa", "One Man and his Dog" and "Jerry Springer". I am tempted when the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, refers to Radio 3 and Classic FM. I shall break my rule for a moment to say that the reason one wants continuous music is that some of us are not continuous listeners; and when we switch on, we want to find music. That is the answer to the noble Lord's question. I shall not break my rule again.
In that way the debate has been remarkable. Time after time noble Lords have expressed undying devotion to the BBC and then they have gone in for stinging criticism of the way in which it operates. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, asked whether the BBC will be listening. It will be listening; he can be sure of that. The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, managed to describe the BBC as a whipping boy and a sacred cow in the course of a single speech. That is quite an achievement.
I have to move on from that not only because it would be improper for me to respond as if I were speaking on behalf of the BBC, which I cannot, but also because the subject of the debate is the future of public service broadcasting in this country. That is what I want to talk about. Public service broadcasting, however one defines it, is not just the BBC but other television and radio channels which have had a degree of regulation that will no longer be possible.
The noble Lord, Lord Birkett, proffered definitions and a number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Young, offered definitions of public service broadcasting. I do not want to do that. I have an agreement with the lexicographers. They do not determine government policy and I do not write dictionaries; and we are better off that way. We must recognise that the future of regulation, which has been a contributory factor, if not the only factor, in the success of public service broadcasting in this country, has to change. It is changing and it has to change more. Spectrum scarcity, which has been the basis of regulation, has been undermined already by cable and satellite and it will certainly be undermined a great deal more by the advent of digital radio and television. I shall argue that these changes in technology will not only continue the need for public service broadcasting, as the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, said, but will actually increase it. In doing so, I shall acknowledge straightaway my debt to the thinking and writing of Andrew Graham, an economist and Master of Balliol College, Oxford, who I think is the most creative and logical of all thinkers on this subject.
It seems to me that there are three essential elements in public service broadcasting. The first is: who produces it; what is its origin; what is the industry structure behind broadcasting? The second—this has
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taken up 90 per cent. of the time in the debate—is: what is in the programme; in other words, what we in industry would call the design and manufacture function. The third is: how do people get to see the programmes; access; what we would call marketing and distribution. Unless we look at all three of them, I do not think we will understand the nature of the problems and opportunities that we will face. The first thing we have to recognise is that new technology in itself does not ensure that there will be new players. In a valuable publication, to which reference has been made, my noble friend Lord Currie said that changes will come about from the smaller players. I am sure he is right. The problem is to ensure that there will be smaller players rather than concentration. The problem is that, on the contrary, new technology pushes towards concentration of ownership and fragmentation of audience. A quality product. which is the essence of what we are discussing here, is inevitably expensive to produce and it will not become cheaper to produce. Indeed, it may become more expensive because of the shortage of first class talent. That is particularly true of the example of sports rights, to which reference has been made.
Broadcasting has high fixed costs which encourage larger players. But it is also cheap to disseminate. We can move from television to film, to video, to radio and to press. The feature here is of low marginal costs. That is a move from one kind of monopoly or oligopoly of spectrum scarcity to a different kind of monopoly, a natural monopoly, of economies of scale—that is, the high fixed costs—and of economies of scope—that is, those who have the product can make more money by selling it on. That was acknowledged by my noble friend Lord Currie. This is what we are talking about when we face convergence between print, telecommunications, computing, broadcasting and other means of communication.
The noble Lord, Lord McNally, referred to shareholder value. What I say to him is that in general terms monopoly is bad; private monopoly is worse; media monopoly is worse; and private media monopoly is worst of all. That is the threat we have to face. So what should be the public's policy objectives under those circumstances? First, we have to be clear that public service does not mean public service broadcasters only; it has to be public service as made available by the commercial sector. But we can be certain that public service will not be produced by the commercial sector or the market only. In other words, the need for the preservation of a non-commercial sector in media ownership and in broadcasting ownership is critical.
The Broadcasting Act 1996 allocated digital spectrum; it gave more scope to the BBC and to the existing channels; and it ensured that those with a public service remit would be allocated space and that those with space would be required to carry public service broadcasting. In addition, there are cross-media rules enforceable by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, which will be a strengthened competition commission when the Competition Act comes into force. I do not have answers to these problems. However, I want the House to know that the

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Government recognise the difficulties that exist and the inadequacies of some of the solutions that have been found in the past.
I shall say rather less about programmes, even though other noble Lords have said more. I wish to set out what public service broadcasting is not. It is not merely what the commercial sector does not offer. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, who made a most thoughtful and constructive speech. It is not just a safety net. It is not just a niche. Nor is it just particular kinds of programmes, however valuable they may be—it is not merely news and current affairs or religious broadcasting. I say to the right reverend Prelate that I believe the advisory panel on religious broadcasting has been making representations to the BBC on the points that he raised. It is not merely education, important and all-pervading as that is, and ought to be. It is not just such things as costume drama. It is not just minority programming. I am sure that my noble friends Lord Ahmed and Lady Flather, among others, would not wish minority programming to be in the ghetto of public service broadcasters. It should be everywhere, in all kinds of offerings.
Like my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone, I take the view that public service broadcasting has to be defined in terms of the whole spectrum of quality programming. My noble friend Lord Peston made the same point. The noble Baroness said that it has to be good of its kind. That is the proper criterion.
Public service programming is an approach to broadcasting rather than a particular kind of broadcasting: an approach that has the objectives of seeking to entertain, inform, educate and challenge people into new thinking. It should pervade both the BBC and commercial broadcasting.
What are the public policy objectives? It is certainly the Government's wish that the BBC should survive and adapt to the new conditions. I recognise the fears expressed on this matter by my noble friend Lord Barnett but do not entirely accept them.
There are five key principles that should apply to the BBC. It should act as a benchmark for quality, driving up standards across the board—my noble friend referred to "vital standards". It should provide something for everybody, making the good popular and the popular good. It should inform, educate and entertain, expanding people's horizons with new and innovative programming. It should operate efficiently and effectively and provide value for money for licence fee payers. I shall return to some of these points as they were raised in the debate. And it should stimulate, support and reflect the diversity of cultural activity in the United Kingdom, acting as a cultural voice for the nation.
I shall not say anything more about the BBC at this time as I must respond to particular points about the BBC which are issues of public policy. I wish to move on the third element of public service broadcasting; namely, the question of access—what I termed marketing and distribution.
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Many years ago, Lady Plowden said: "Broadcasting is democratic. There are no reserved seats". It was true when she said it. I wonder whether it is true now. I wonder whether, with the development of pay-per-view and subscription television, we can still say the same. It may be democratic in the same way as we are all free to go and eat at the Ritz, but some of us cannot afford to do that. I wonder, also, with the proliferation of channels, whether we still have the universal geographical coverage which we have built up so painfully over the years. More than that, when we move further into multiple-channel offerings, whether digital, on-digital or cable and satellite, the question of how we find what we want to listen to or watch will be increasingly important. We shall need what is called the electronic programme guide, which is the equivalent of an operating system on a computer. Here again, we are in difficulty.
The cable and satellite operators have said that they will provide interoperability between their set-top boxes. Indeed they have set a date-15th March. Oftel and the ITC are supervising the process. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, invites me to "bang heads together". I do not know whether at some stage that may be necessary—or at least, it may be necessary for Oftel and the ITC to bang heads together. Certainly, it is absolutely critical, if we are to have public service broadcasting that works, that people know where to find what they want to watch.
So far as geographical coverage is concerned, the 1996 Act regulated it and set priorities for the best, most available multiplexes. Subscription and pay-per-view will continue as a funding mechanism—it must do. It will be moderated, as it has been to some extent by the listed events provisions. But there are enormous difficulties in the way of the continuation of public service broadcasting as it has been viewed during the course of this debate. So let us return to the fundamental principle behind public service broadcasting: quality and diversity free-to-air.
Perhaps I may now turn to the public policy issues raised in relation to the BBC. I cannot spend very much time on the issue of the licence fee, much as I should like to. The Davies working group is in place. It will report by the end of July. It is not covering the wider issues of governance. Those are matters for the Charter review which will take place closer to the time when the Charter is up for renewal. I am sure that Gavyn Davies and his colleagues will read carefully what has been said in this debate.
A number of number Lords spoke about the need for new channels, which are possible in the digital world. In a most interesting speech, the noble Lord, Lord Chadlington, talked about a channel which provided access to lottery funded arts and sports. That is a thought which deserves serious consideration.
In his maiden speech, my noble friend Lord Bragg referred to the need for an opportunity channel which would provide a showcase for newly trained people coming into the media. That is another suggestion that deserves further consideration.
There was much less reference than I should have wished to education in the debate. Noble Lords will wish to know that the BBC is proposing BBC

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Knowledge, a purely educational channel. We must make sure that the opportunities that are available through the increased spectrum provide not just high quality education for children, and above all for adults, but that we can find a way of making the output accessible and making sure that people know where to find it.
A number of noble Lords referred to the BBC's investment in digital programming—my noble friend Lord Bragg in a less friendly way, some noble Lords in a more friendly way. Yes, it is the case that the BBC is spending £200 million, 9 per cent. of the licence fee, on digital provision. It has been allowed to keep the £250 million which it received from the sale of its transmission services facilities. That is contributing towards that expenditure.
The vexed question of audience share and market share took up a great deal of time. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, thought that it was an unwinnable contest. But others, more closely reflecting the view of the Government, thought that there must be a critical mass of audience achieved by providing what is good of its kind in a wide range of programming types in order to ensure that the BBC continues to have the respect of its audiences and continue legitimately to claim the licence fee. My noble friend Lord Currie put it correctly when he said that the BBC cannot be marginalised in terms of viewing. I was grateful for what my noble friend Lord Puttnam said about the training role of the BBC and I hope that that will be taken very seriously.
There was considerable debate about the commercial activities of the BBC. They were applauded by Lord Currie and deplored by some others. My noble friend Lord Bragg made a very interesting and worthwhile suggestion about an independent collective marketing arm for all UK television and radio. That may go against what other noble Lords were saying about the value of the BBC brand. That again deserves further discussion.
The noble Viscount Lord Astor queried whether BBC Worldwide was adequately distinct. I can assure him that the BBC publishes separate accounts for BBC Worldwide and these are publicly available. In any case Gavyn Davies is looking at the balance between the commercial activities and the non-commercial activities of the BBC.
Reference was made to the European Commission competition law. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, for reminding us that there is a protocol to the Amsterdam Treaty which legitimises state aid to public service broadcasting. My noble friend Lord Currie referred to this as well. There is of course a problem with mixed state funding and advertising funding but that will have to continue to be fought out between the different directorates general of the European Commission.
I close by re-emphasising the Government's view of the importance of public service broadcasting. This is a matter of the highest social and political importance. We see this as an essential element of citizenship. Broadcasting is part of the democratic process, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said. Research has shown
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that television and radio have become a prime source for the way in which we see the world, the way in which we take in information, and the way in which we see ourselves as a community and as individuals. It must be asserted that we have the right to this information, and that assertion in turn means that we must defend public service broadcasting to the end. Information must be an essential part of our society like public safety, health and education. All the issues which have been debated this afternoon are public policy issues. We need to continue to debate them. I am grateful to noble Lords for the contributions they have made to that essential debate.
Lord Bragg: My Lords, I hope you read that this has been a debate of very high standard and I look forward to reading the speeches in Hansard tomorrow. I should like to make one very brief point. I should like to reassure the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that I am a full hearted supporter of the BBC licence fee and of the BBC as an unabashed, unqualified public service broadcaster. I hope the BBC will examine the fair criticisms made here, although the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, of BBC indifference is rather worrying.
I am sure my noble friend Lady Young will agree that if you cannot take concerned criticism, especially in such a uniquely privileged position, then you are in trouble. Most of us here support the BBC at its best and will work for it. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

NATO
6.42 p.m.
Lord Kennet Lord Kennet rose to call attention to the role of NATO in international peace and security, with particular reference to the new strategic concept and to crisis management; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am old enough—many noble Lords are—to remember when NATO was set up. There was quite a bit of ceremony; there was even a hymn written, presumably "I vow to thee my NATO all earthly things above". It was recommended for use in schools.
There was no doubt then what NATO was for. Stalin thoroughly scared us. It was as easy to say what NATO was for then as it is hard now. The old strategic concept was simple indeed: NATO was a mutual security treaty. The European members were a compact and contiguous group and we joined together, as the Charter of the United Nations permitted, for our common defence. The adversary was one only, and was obvious to all.
Ten years ago history unkindly deprived us of this simple situation, and now we are left with the richest and most powerful military alliance the world has ever seen, led by the most powerful military country now present in the world, with no conceivable adversary. It is said that drugs and smuggling could be an adversary for NATO. For Interpol of course; but to suggest that they can be hunted and destroyed by intercontinental or medium range ballistic missiles, nuclear or not, or

1719
battlefield missiles, or bombers, or fighters, or carriers or submarines, or by tanks or by divisions on the ground, is either disingenuous or idiotic. I repeat: NATO as it now is has no conceivable adversary.
NATO is the creature of the United States. But just how much American foreign and defence policy today is controlled by the American people? Fewer and fewer of them vote—36 per cent. turn-out for the last congressional elections—and it is the lobbies: the military-industrial lobby, the American-Israeli lobby, the genetic modification lobby, who today control Congress. President Clinton's Secretary of Defense is a Reagan Republican, who believes in American military "intervention" and in scrapping the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which is the linchpin of all the Strategic Arms Limitation agreements. And on her appointment, Mrs. Albright said, "What's the point of having this wonderful military if we don't use it?". So that tends to be that.
As far as the United Nations and the expansion of NATO are concerned—and Star Wars again, and Full Spectrum Dominance, and Space Dominance and God knows what other Dominance—Senator Helms has got the Administration on a short lead. The US owes the UN a billion-and-a-half dollars. It has signed 52 treaties which the Senate will not ratify. Among those it has not even signed are the Anti-Personnel Landmines Convention and the convention setting up the International Criminal Court, both rightly dear to our Government's heart. Meanwhile, President Clinton's Presidential Decision Directive No. 60 allows him to launch pre-emptive nuclear war against "proliferators".
The New NATO Strategic Concept which we are debating today is to be our answer to the question: what are our young men and women now to be ready to die for? The Government have decided to find the answer in secret and then spring it on us. Though there is a Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Commons, it has not been informed. In this House, we do not have one at all. I am among those who over the years have proposed that we should have one. This debate is not, to put it mildly, in Government time.
Our own Strategic Defence Review was supposed to be "foreign policy led", but I do not think we actually have a foreign policy. There is talk about better Brit-pop and fewer cocktail parties, but foreign policy is about political, social, economic and environmental justice in the world.
There are, I suppose, four possible futures for NATO. One would be to phase it out and use the money and the skill to build up the UN, remove injustice at home, and crush disease, poverty, exploitation and waste in the world. That would be to find adversaries where Confucius, Jesus and the Prophet Mahomet found them, and where the vast majority of humankind still find them. But we say to our children and grandchildren, "Ah, well, hmm, perhaps that should be your task".
A second future would be to leave things as they are: keep NATO at about its present level, perhaps adding two or three contiguous friends in spite of the absence of any threat to guard against. This would be a large continuing waste of wealth, but otherwise would not do much harm.
A third would be to expand NATO to include all European countries that want to join, and somehow to meet the cost of bringing them up to interoperability. That would create an adversary all right, though at first a shattered and humiliated one, Russia. This and any other imaginable Russian Government would perceive such a NATO as a threat, as their elected Parliament never ceases telling us. We are already having to spend a lot of money on a new missile because of some new Russian weapon. Of course; and they say they would find some way to keep the weapons they have and to rearm, and that way would obviously be nuclear or chemical, because for them that is now cheaper.
A fourth future would be to expand NATO as far as possible around the world, starting from eastern Europe, taking in all willing countries in the Middle East, central Asia and in due course south and south-east Asia, until we reach Japan, Australasia and the lands of the former SEATO and greet the Hawaiian shore of the US. This would produce not one but countless adversaries as NATO power and bases were set up in region after region of the world. But there are takers. Azerbaijan already wants a NATO base against Armenia, and there are NATO exercises in Albania, whose president is swearing unconditional loyalty to the United States in the hope that NATO will bomb the Serbs. When asked what his troops were doing exercising in Kazakhstan, an American general answered: "I guess it's to show there's nowhere we can't get to".
Such a future would cause China to devote everything to military effort, thus becoming in its turn the most powerful nation on earth and gathering under its sway all those countries which have chosen, and been able, to resist the expansion of NATO. They would be numerous because of the current US and British insistence on the rights of foreign "investors", which in ordinary language includes speculators, to override the decisions of local governments.
I do not know whether any Member of this House still doubts which of those four futures has the wind in its sails—perhaps not. It can be felt and seen most clearly in the American and French press. I feel it most clearly in the North Atlantic Assembly, to which my colleagues the Labour Peers were kind enough to elect me. The American wind is blowing strongly there towards the fourth alternative, with little assistant puffs from this country.
The argument has come to rest for the moment on the relative position to be given in international law and politics to NATO and to the United Nations. Hitherto the supremacy of the United Nations as global parliament and law-giver has never been doubted: the UN, even if it was not always our salvation, was always our hope. All countries find it slow and faltering. A very few—above all Israel, who owes her very existence to it—see it as a permanent hostile presence. But to the enormous majority of mankind the United Nations, and the rule of international law of which it is the symbol, is already the shield and help which it could one day be for all. The American people also incline that way, when anyone takes the trouble to ask them.
These realities have long been reflected in our basic documents in the West. Until now, if one were starting an international organisation of any kind, and often even a national one, one built a reference to the UN into paragraph 1 of its constitution. The Labour Party did that, and still does. But at the recent plenary meeting of the North Atlantic Assembly in Edinburgh there was a draft resolution on the new strategic concept. It was not controversial. Where it dealt with out-of-area NATO actions, it contained the traditional phrase that such actions should be,
"properly mandated by UN authority or OSCE responsibility and agreed with the highest cohesion".
An amendment was moved to delete the word "properly" and replace it with the words "whenever possible". Among the signatories to the amendment was the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons. The amendment was put to the vote and passed.
Another resolution, from the chairman of the House of Commons Defence Committee, referred to,
"non-Article 5 missions, which the revised Strategic Concept should identify as a new NATO fundamental task"—
that was fine—for which NATO members should be,
"ready to act should the Security Council be prevented from discharging its purpose of maintaining international peace and security".
That, too, was passed and thus the North Atlantic Assembly now endorses the US view that NATO may arrogate to itself the right to confer legality on its own actions, whatever and wherever they may be.
It would be hard to put the European view more clearly than it was put by the French Foreign Minister, Mr. Vedrine, in September at the United Nations:
"Nothing should permit a state, a group of states or an organisation, however powerful it may be, to have recourse to force without having received prior authorisation from the Security Council, except in the case of legitimate self-defence".
Now I realise that it must be pleasant to coast along in the warmth of American friendship and protection, but it has its price, which is the consequent loss of warmth from other quarters. Do we care about good relations with the Arab states, with all Islam, even with the two Koreas?
Trouble only arises when we—or, rather, the United States—wish to act other than lawfully. Our current undeclared war on Iraq has nothing to do with Security Council resolutions, self-defence or anything in the least "humanitarian". We are now operating under American command to "topple Saddam", which is unlawful. Despite our own law, we allow American officials to do their plotting here in London and claim that we have no "evidence". We supported President Clinton's entirely self-serving attack on the factory in Sudan, where we had no evidence, either. Do Foreign Office officials report to Ministers how all this plays in the rest of the world? Do they show them the cartoons?
Perhaps we should now detach ourselves a bit. The way to do that is to take the law as our guide. What we—and perhaps only we—could do would be to talk
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to the United States. Without our support it just might see its legal nakedness. As it is, we are feeding the junkie his drug.
At present NATO is strong in armed might but weak in legitimacy and the UN is strong in legitimacy but weak in armed might. A useful common purpose for NATO might be this. Let all the European countries who want, including Russia, join together in this organisation of ours, self-defensive as it always was, but with the capacity to go to the help of those who are attacked or are being maltreated outside its area, provided that it does so with the clear and recent approval of the UN or the OSCE. It should become the military arm of the UN for Europe and adjacent territories. This would imply the growth of corresponding organisations in other parts of the world, which is in fact already beginning. The essence is that there should be no self-appointed, self-legitimating world policeman, but several regional or continental policemen at the service of the UN—
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the noble Lord is over his time.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, I crave the indulgence of the House for ten seconds more. There should be no self-appointed, self- legitimating world policeman but several regional or continental policemen at the service of the UN, all internally as democratic as possible and all expressly subordinate to the authority of a UN which we must also strive to make inclusive and democratic.
6.57 p.m.
Lord Carver: My Lords, the House should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for giving us the opportunity to discuss a subject which was not fully covered by the debate on 8th December on the Strategic Defence Review. That review said remarkably little about what strategy the North Atlantic Alliance should have, although it made a few remarks about it. It seems to me that the Government have done little to persuade their allies within the alliance to reconsider fundamentally what is the best way to try to ensure the future security of Europe and of its interests, and therefore of our interests, in the light of the statement in the Strategic Defence Review that:
"The strategic environment we face today is very different to that of the previous 50 years".
I suggest that the first priority in the search for a secure and peaceful Europe is a sentiment which is included in the same chapter of the Strategic Defence Review on the subject of enlargement; namely, that policies and institutional arrangements should not lead to new divisions within Europe. My fear is that overemphasis on NATO as the principal means of assuring this is tending to do just that. By NATO I mean what that acronym correctly designates: the military organisation, dominated by the Americans, which is primarily still designed to meet a threat from the east, which the Strategic Defence Review dismisses as non-existent. What is more, that organisation is dedicated to the use—the first use, in some circumstances—of nuclear weapons. Therefore, it does

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not surprise me at all that many Russians in and out of government view the enlargement of NATO in its present pattern with concern. That is accentuated by steps to re-arm and reorganise the armed forces of the new members on the model of those of the United States.
I remind noble Lords that the celebrations to take place in Washington next month mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the North Atlantic Alliance, not NATO as a military organisation. It was the outbreak of the Korean war in June 1950 and the alarm that it raised that the Russians were drawing American forces into that part of the world in preparation for overrunning western Europe, greatly reinforced by a dramatic speech by Winston Churchill to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg calling for a strong European army, that led to American agreement at a NATO meeting on 12th September 1950 to the establishment,
"at the earliest possible date of an integrated force under centralised command in Europe—"
something for which, ironically, the French had been pressing for some time. Up until that time the American perception of the alliance was that the European members should get together to organise their own defence and build up their forces with US military aid, buttressed by economic aid under the Marshall Plan.
I believe that we should move back towards the original American perception of the alliance. More than once I have explained in this House my proposed reorganisation of NATO—I mean NATO—which is, briefly, that the military structure should be radically transformed so that it consists of three elements: first, the United States forces assigned to the alliance straightforwardly under their own national command, as they are in reality; and, secondly, a more or less integrated European military command, training and perhaps procurement organisation within the alliance, not separate like the Western European Union. Britain, France and Germany must be members of it. Any other members of the alliance that wished to join could do so. That organisation could operate under either American overall command or independently.
The third element would comprise the forces of those members of the Alliance that did not wish to assign forces permanently to this organisation but could do so for any operation in which they wished to participate. I suggest that the adoption of that proposal will remove many of the objections that have been expressed from time to time to the involvement of the alliance in peacekeeping or peace enforcement. It would also remove many of my objections to enlargement. It would have other advantages. It would make possible the abolition of NATO's huge bureaucratic headquarter staffs, which are bound to grow as the alliance is enlarged on NATO's present pattern; and it would be possible to wind up the WEU.
The principal problem would then be the relationship between the North Atlantic Alliance—I do not want to do away with that for a moment—and OSCE. I believe it is essential for the future peace of Europe and the security of its interests elsewhere in the world to incorporate Russia and the European former members
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of the Soviet Union closely with all the arrangements, political and military, designed to provide security, prevent armed conflict and promote peace in Europe.
At present there appear to be too many different and ill-organised bodies and methods. The Contact Group for Yugoslavia may point in a sensible direction. The choice appears to be between, on the one hand, strengthening OSCE and devising better ways by which, under the aegis of the United Nations—it must take place under the aegis of the UN—the North Atlantic Alliance can provide it with support, including if necessary armed forces, and, on the other hand, enlarging the North Atlantic Alliance itself, revised as I have suggested to include Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine. That would have the further advantage that one could include the Baltic states without controversy. Certainly what is now going on in the Balkans is not satisfactory.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, this is a timed debate. I would be grateful if noble Lords would keep to the six-minute time limit.
Lord Carver: My Lords, I do not want the Americans to lose their interest in Europe, but I believe that we can have better arrangements. I do not know what will emerge from the Strategic Defence Review, but I am afraid that it will be much the same as it was before.
7.4 p.m.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, I begin by thanking my noble friend Lord Kennet for initiating this extremely important debate. Noble Lords may have noticed that I have been sandwiched between two former Chiefs of the Defence Staff. I regard that as my great good fortune because it means that when people read Hansard tomorrow they will at least be forced to scan my speech.
This is a big subject with many consequences for our Armed Forces. In a sense, it is the other half of the debate that we had last week which was concerned with overstretch in the Armed Forces. It is to the credit of our Armed Forces and their lobbying abilities that last week there were more speakers about overstretch than there are this week about NATO's response to meet that overstretch.
The strategic concept along with the Washington Treaty itself is one of the fundamental texts of the Alliance. We know that the new strategic concept will address the circumstances in which the Alliance now finds itself: the new risks in central Europe, the CFSP, enlargement, crisis management and reform of the command structure. All of these have combined to prompt the United States of America to call for a re-defined role for NATO as a major player on the world stage. For the Americans this is the main aim of the summit. However, for Europeans the summit provides an opportunity to address the huge shortcomings in European action exposed during the 1990s. At the same time as European leaders signed the Treaty of Maastricht, which for the first time mentioned a CFSP, their response to the outbreak of war in the former

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Yugoslavia exposed a lack of policy and an inability to act. Bosnia, Iraq and Kosovo have underlined that fact. The Washington Summit is of major importance for European defence. I hope it will show that we have moved a long way since the Treaty of Maastricht.
I believe that there is good news on European defence. Finally we are moving away from our historic ambivalence as to what European defence actually means. I believe that European defence is now accepted by everyone, including France, to be the business of NATO. It is also accepted by everyone, perhaps especially France, that real defence works only on the basis of mutual guarantees, and as long as four members of the European Union do not share such guarantees the EU can neither become NATO's rival nor its successor. I believe that that is now common ground and represents real progress.
Therefore, the real debate at Washington will be about European defence action within NATO that may be European-led in defence of European values and interests. It is to the credit of the Prime Minister that his initiative at Põrtschach followed by the St. Malo agreement have given real momentum to addressing European defence action without getting bogged down in endless debates about European defence structures.
However, the bad news starts as soon as one addresses the methods for European action. George Robertson's famous question is: What happens when one presses the button? The button is wired to the European capitals and that is where the system fails. France believes in strong action and Europeanisation but not multinationalism; Britain believes in strong action and multinationalism but not Europeanisation; and Germany believes in multinationalism and Europeanisation. Noble Lords can guess the rest. It is to address this problem that we look to the Washington Summit.
Based on my understanding, the United States quite reasonably does not want to establish a European Union bloc within the Alliance. It would rather see the WEU maintain its decision-making autonomy within NATO. The American attitude above all shows a desire to see Europe assume greater responsibilities within the Alliance without in any way undermining the Alliance itself. In practice the debate today is how to establish a European chain of command within NATO to enable Europeans to act on their own initiative using NATO forces and assets. Surely that is a reasonable aspiration. I hope that the Minister can give some reassurance on that point.
I hope that my noble friend can offer some reassurance on two further points. The first has been alluded to by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver. It is the position of members of the Western European Union who are not in NATO or the EU. My noble friend will be aware that there are some 28 members of the WEU in differing categories of membership. I would argue that that has been the WEU's greatest strength and has reinvigorated that institution since it was pretty much moribund in years past. I hope that my noble friend can reassure me that the contribution made by those countries is properly recognised in whatever
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institutional arrangements are agreed, and that institutional relationships can be built on, as has been achieved by the WEU in the past few years.
Secondly, I hope that my noble friend can reassure me on the position of the assemblies: the NAA, the WEU and the OSCE. Those assemblies are poodles and lapdogs. They roll over and Ministers tickle their tummies. They have no real power. Surely the time has now come to have fewer assemblies but with more real powers. Can the Minister reassure me that she believes in parliamentary assemblies with real powers?
7.10 p.m.
Lord Bramall: My Lords, I do not think that any noble Lord would question the value of NATO over the past close on 50 years. It has provided an effective framework for Western defence and deterrent in the face of a formidable Warsaw Pact capability and periodical belligerent diplomatic and sometimes military moves, all of which could not be ignored. It bound Western Europe together and healed internal wounds before the European Community had taken hold. It kept the United States fully involved in underwriting the defence of Europe and away from any dark thoughts of isolationism. More recently, it has provided a formidable military agency to carry out peace-keeping and even peace enforcement operations on its borders and on behalf of the UN. Its contribution to half a century of peace, historically quite an achievement, and the bringing about of the collapse of militant communism have been quite outstanding.
But what of the future? American involvement is, I believe, as important as ever, because without American forces and money Europe cannot be defended and aggression cannot be properly deterred should a threat there ever reoccur. Nor can Europeans engage in any military operations worthy of the name without some American support and in some cases its lead role. With the United Nations lacking any proper military staff or standing military forces, there is also, I suggest, an ongoing requirement for some European-based, US-backed reaction force which can produce teeth for the UN Security Council decisions in areas directly affecting the present NATO area.
Those reasons alone call for the continuation of NATO in some form. At the same time, with the frontiers of NATO now being extended out to the borders of Belarus and the Ukraine—here I agree with my noble and gallant friend Lord Carver that it is possible that we followed the US initiative too rapidly over this, but I think that it is probably too late to go back; and the concerns of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have to be met somehow—now that the deed has been done it is more important than ever to alter the image and character of NATO if we are not to return to the language and posturing of the Cold War, and in areas far less advantageous to ourselves.
NATO, I suggest, would be a better stabilising influence if it became more of a European Security Pact, as has already been said, which not only looked for exchange of information, harmony and non-aggression agreements within its own borders but also tried to

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establish good mutual relations and non-aggression pacts with its neighbours as well. That will give us a long overdue opportunity to run down and reduce the NATO top heavy command organisation designed for war fighting on three fronts and controlling Army group corps and divisions in fast moving operations. That is no longer necessary, as has been said repeatedly by my noble and gallant friend Lord Carver; and I entirely agree and support his views.
In this new-look NATO, it would do no harm—indeed, it would be enormously helpful—if there were to be a marked European Community pillar of NATO which could, if required, provide the decision-making and command machinery to take on smaller humanitarian and peace-keeping operations in the European area which do not necessarily require or cannot get US involvement. This would invariably require a common European defence policy. I greatly support the Government's efforts to achieve that.
The Russian Federation and some of the other former Soviet Republics no longer have, in military terms, the international clout which they had in the Cold War, nor the capability to transform the balance of power at a stroke. But they want to get back into the international action and to continue to be considered a world power. Indeed, their co-operation could prove valuable, as to some extent it already has, in places like the Balkans and the Middle East.
So NATO's challenge for the future is how to work with Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine (whose interrelation is obscure) in the international arena so as to spread peace and stability and not friction and conflict, and without of course restarting the Cold War.
Perhaps I may conclude with a bit of a fairy story, albeit a true one. Thirty years ago I was commanding a brigade of our strategic reserve which was carrying out a big exercise on Salisbury Plain. It was being watched by a Russian military attachã, a major general. In the course of the exercise, a battalion was dug in on the reverse slope preparing to beat off an attack by Fantasia tanks. As I looked at the position, two riflemen signalled me over. One of them said, "Excuse me, sir. My mate and I are having a bet. Is there a Russian general out on this exercise?", to which I replied, "Yes, I will get him to come and talk to you". As I walked away, the other said to me, "My mate and I have got another bet, sir. Could you tell us: is Russia in NATO?" When I told the Russian general, 30 years ago, to come and talk to two soldiers who wanted to know whether Russia was in NATO he was somewhat nonplussed. But perhaps those two soldiers were more prophetic than they realised.
7.17 p.m.
Lord Hardy of Wath: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Kennet for his introduction. His constructive comments were followed by those of the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Carver and Lord Bramall, whose soldier colleagues were, I hope, prophetic. I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Ponsonby for the fact that in recent times he has brought in a note of optimism. Many of us had soldiered along for a long time in the WEU where the mood of pessimism seemed entirely justified.
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It is now more than a decade since the transformation of central and eastern Europe became inevitable and yet western Europe may still not have come fully to terms with it. The umbrella of mutually assured destruction may not be required. Unfortunately, western Europe failed to understand that it still could rain rather heavily. The difficulty has been that the failure is an historic one. The previous strategy began after the Second World War and certainly after the Berlin airlift. It lasted a long time and brought about a considerable degree of stability. However, we have to understand that during part of that period conflict was regarded as almost inevitable. Study of government papers in the early 1950s leads one to realise that the Ministers in key positions in Cabinet regarded a conflict with Russia as unavoidable before the end of the 1950s.
It was right that the start of that strategy Britain should make an enormous contribution. The remainder of western Europe was ravaged by the war and incapable of contributing properly to its own defence. From the very start, the United Kingdom accepted extremely heavy commitments. Looking at the position in the late 1940s, one can read how the United States was pressing the Labour government most vigorously to increase their expenditure on defence. They wished the Labour government to increase their spending in cash terms in the late 1940s to £6,000 million per year, which was an enormous amount then. The government were able to increase it to £4,500 million. That made sure that they lost the next general election but one because they had to introduce such things as prescription charges.
No one could sensibly argue other than that the commitments Britain made at that time, when Europe was incapable of contributing to its own defence, were right. But we have continued to bear an inequitable burden since then. All right, our spending has been restrained by a transfer from conscription to professional forces, and no one can doubt the capacity of our Armed Forces today. But, unfortunately, Europe has done very well without making up for the inadequacies of the first part of the period during which the strategy applied. The result has been that failure to come to terms with modern reality that has led to the horrors of Yugoslavia, despite the fact that there was a very long lead time during which warnings of such horror were manifest.
I am not at all happy that those in Europe who still believe that they can ignore the United States and that they can adopt the posture of the powerful without providing the capacity to match it are being entirely reasonable. That is why it is essential for the Government to maintain the view that NATO must continue; that there should be a proper parliamentary structure in Europe. Unfortunately, that has not been so.
I shall not bore the House by repeating some points I have made before. But I recall the time when the Royal Navy was steadfastly maintaining the blockade on the maritime movement of armaments into the former Yugoslavia. The Council of Ministers of the WEU was proclaiming that it had all the information about the land movement of such weapons and yet proposed to do nothing about it. That must have read very badly to any

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sailor maintaining that blockade to find that our colleagues in Europe were not prepared to match on land that which the British forces were doing at sea.
For that reason, we should press for the approach which my noble friend has urged us in his brief but important contribution, because we must secure not merely a realistic approach from Europe but also one in which it accepts responsibility as well as some power. We accept the right for Europe to have a real degree of independence, but there must also be a capacity for Europe not only to defend itself but to contribute to that stability, which is certainly needed even if it is delegated to the regional organisations to which the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, quite properly referred.
7.23 p.m.
The Earl of Carlisle: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for introducing this timely debate. I thank him also for his provocative and challenging remarks to which we can respond.
I begin by wishing a month in advance a very happy birthday to the North Atlantic Alliance. I also wish it many more successful and fruitful years. If it dies or needs to die, I hope that it has a peaceful and painless demise. But I believe and hope that it has much more to do before it passes away since the world is a very dangerous place and people, as well as organisations, at the age of 50 must begin to transform themselves for the better.
I hope I may be permitted a personal observation. I celebrated my 50th birthday last month thanks to NATO, I believe. I held my birthday party in the Apsley House of Estonia, the General Johan Laidoner Museum; General Laidoner being the Estonian equivalent of the Duke of Wellington. He was removed in 1940 with 10 per cent. of his compatriots to concentration camps in Siberia and elsewhere. The Estonians, like their neighbours, have not forgotten that and never will.
My speech in Estonia was televised. I noticed that the two minutes shown on television did not show the British-Estonian parliamentary group handing over a cheque but showed me saying:
"The path of enlargement upon which NATO has embarked with its partners and aspirant members should, in the case of the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, be carried to its logical conclusions as soon as is sensibly possible".
I very much hope that in Washington next month the leaders of the nations which form part of NATO will be able to demonstrate not only positive support but also to lay down a timetable since anything less may damage the still fragile process of democratisation of those nations which are emerging from half a century of tyranny. Also, we do not wish to send the wrong signal to the Russian Federation.
We are told by some—the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for one—that we must do nothing to irritate the Russian Federation. I have heard it said that the Duma will not countenance enlargement which will, one day, bring in the Baltic states. Let us be careful when we use those sentences. I suggest that it is the conservative and reactionary forces rather than liberal forces within the
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Russian Government and the Duma who are shouting the loudest and who do not want the enlargement of NATO. We must be careful not to listen to the wrong voices and we must encourage those Russian deputies who bravely strive to turn their nation towards liberal democratic situations and priorities. Otherwise, we shall do them and the Russian people a gross disservice.
Apart from enlargement, what do we want to achieve at the Washington summit at a time when the air, land and naval forces of the NATO alliance have decreased since 1990 by 37 per cent. and defence expenditure has decreased by 22 per cent.? First, we must welcome the three new nations into NATO; secondly. as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, said with clarity, we need to agree to an enhanced European role within NATO; thirdly, to continue to search for ways to reduce nuclear weapons; and fourthly to continue the process of transforming NATO so that simultaneously, when required, it is able to act proactively in crisis management organisation with the ability to act quickly, as was not apparent in Bosnia and Kosovo. It must also form the defensive security for all member nations, as it has done over the past 50 years with startling success.
But whether we like it or not—and I do—the Washington summit will be remembered as the occasion when Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic came out of the cold. There is an irony here. They are the nations in central Europe which see themselves as the least threatened. But they will be the first to become members.
I solve jigsaw puzzles. I tend to start with the corners and the edges and I wish that the NATO organisation had done that in respect of enlargement. Last month saw the publication of a report by the International Defence Advisory Board to the Baltic states whose chairman is General Sir Garry Johnson, that distinguished former Gurkha and rifleman, our last NATO commander of NATO's northern flank. The work of his team of distinguished ex-servicemen and diplomats from eight nations from America, Scandinavia and Europe has been outstanding in assisting the Baltic states and others.
In its conclusion, the report draws attention to the commitment of the Baltic states which share western values, and which are on the threshold of NATO, to the general concept of the Euro-Atlantic alliance and the giant strides which have been made by creating—they had to start from scratch—democratically controlled defence forces on the NATO model. There is a need for that to be recognised at Washington. Has the Minister read that report; does she agree with its conclusions; and will she please draw it to the attention of her right honourable friend the Prime Minister before he travels to Washington?
7.28 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, six minutes allows only one or two bullet points to be made in this debate. As all noble Lords know, NATO was created as, and remains, a defensive alliance. During the Cold War, that did not make it any less of a perceived threat by the USSR, however false that perception may have been. Its continued existence, now with three additional

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countries, does not make the Russians feel comfortable, despite the NATO-Russia Founding Act, and Partnership for Peace and the other liaison that NATO has with Russia.
As my noble friend Lord Kennet and others have often warned, the unstable economic and political situation in today's Russia is a breeding ground for political extremism, with not only the tirades of Zhirinovsky, but more recently Duma deputy, General Maslyukov mouthing flagrant anti-Semitic hatred, fanning the flames of smouldering nationalism and militarism. The slow pace of progress towards the signing and implementation by Russia of the SALT II Treaty and conventional forces reduction in Europe is in part a measure of residual Russian resentment at the West's actions in maintaining and enlarging NATO, but excluding them, in effect, despite the placatory declarations.
However, as several noble Lords have pointed out, NATO can be a force for good in peacekeeping and conflict resolution. The Dayton Agreement, imperfect though it is, could not have been reached without NATO, and particularly US, muscle behind it. And now, in Kosovo, the possible air strikes against Serbia would, again, be under NATO command. But, like some other noble Lords, I feel that Europe needs to ask why it is not possible to contain problems, such as those in former Yugoslavia, without transatlantic help, through the United Nations Security Council and European organisations such as the OSCE, possibly with the participation of the WEU. Serious military strategists doubt whether the WEU could ever form an effective force. As Senator Helms said, in his speech to the Senate on NATO enlargement last April,
"With all respect to our friends in Europe, the EU could not fight its way out of a wet paper bag".
It could be held that there is a germ of truth in that withering remark, though I would suggest that careful extraction from a wet paper bag rather than fighting out of it might be a more effective and less messy process.
The nations of Western Europe collectively are many times richer and more populous than Yugoslavia and have, even now, a far greater military capacity; yet decisive action seems to have required the participation of the United States. Is that inevitable? I suggest that Europe needs to look very carefully at the wisdom of its apparent military dependence on the United States and strengthen its collective security arrangements.
As my noble friend Lord Kennet has warned us, the United States and Europe have different agendas. The "New World Order", US-style, is not something we should accept as a fait accompli. In its pursuit of military and economic ascendancy, the United States downplays the role of the United Nations, disregards international law and cultivates some very doubtful allies. One of its most stalwart supporters in NATO is Turkey, which incidentally is over 2000 miles away from the North Atlantic. Originally, of course, it was brought into the organisation to buttress the southern flank of the former Iron Curtain. It is as a member of NATO that it has been able comprehensively to equip its armed forces which have been deployed for its own purposes to invade Cyprus and hold down its Kurdish
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population. The CIA, as described openly in the International Herald Tribune two weeks ago, was largely responsible for the capture of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdish resistance movement in Turkey. That was, perhaps, in gratitude for Turkish help in the continuing Gulf conflict with Iraq.
My plea to the Government is that, while acknowledging the power and potentially beneficial role of NATO, we should be very watchful that it is not used as a vehicle to promote the interests of its most powerful member. At the same time, we should rapidly increase the effectiveness of the OSCE, possibly with the WEU, in conflict resolution so that eventually the United Kingdom and Europe are no longer so dependent on US military strength and can adopt a more independent role.
7.34 p.m.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, perhaps I may say to my noble and gallant friend Lord Bramall that NATO's Partnership for Peace has already done a good deal to change the image. Communication, co-operation and transparency are now principles which sovereign states are learning to apply. The Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, which has been mentioned, now brings together 44 states, including four traditional neutrals, for regular meetings.
This work for stability has offshoots; for example, the NATO-Ukraine Commission, or the Mediterranean Co-operation Group, linking Egypt, Israel, Jordan and countries in North Africa. Another example is the Partnership Co-operation Cell at Mons in Belgium.
I turn specifically to Russia. I am glad that the Foreign Secretary is currently visiting Murmansk. The imaginative and generous thing to have done would have been to offer full NATO membership to Russia immediately after the break-up of the old Soviet Union. That was not done, but the progress since June 1994 when Russia signed to join the Partnership for Peace, has been remarkable. There is now, for example, a bilateral, permanent joint council. Russian units have taken part in both IFOR and SFOR in Bosnia, and only last May joined in NATO exercises in Denmark. Mutual military missions will soon be established in Brussels and Moscow. I understand that there have been discussions on the vital subject of the conversion of defence industries to peaceful production. A start has been made on the re-training of retired and redundant military personnel, particularly officers. All of that is especially important in view of the demoralisation which exists in the Russian armed forces, made worse by the current economic blizzard.
I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government one specific and one or two general questions. Will they raise, in the permanent joint council with Russia, the matter of the vast store of arms and munitions of the former Soviet 14th Army located in the east of the Republic of Moldavia? Some of the explosives are known to be so old that they cannot safely be transported. It is also essential to ensure that none of that material falls into irresponsible hands.
Will the Government pay particular attention, within the partnership, to arms control, not only over weapons of mass destruction, but also over small arms? Those

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have been proliferating worldwide and can so easily destabilise small and poor countries. I understand that this matter is topic one of the long-term programme for consultations.
Will the Government use the conference of national armaments directors to address arms exports to the third world and the issue of the licensing of arms production outside Europe and North America? Under the heading of arms control, will they question whether it is necessary or desirable for every small country to equip itself with supersonic fighters and other high-technology weaponry? Will they also use the political and military steering committee, which comes under the partnership arrangements, to strengthen democratic, civilian control over military and security matters?
7.38 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I hope my voice, which is not very strong, will last out for my allowed short time. I regret that we are having only a one-and-a-half hour debate on an issue which is, after all, providing the framework for British defence policy.
It has always seemed to me to be extraordinary that Britain's commitment to the European Union should be a matter of so much domestic controversy in terms of its limitations on our sovereignty, with committees of both Houses poring over each document in draft; but that within NATO—which represents, after all, very much a limitation on British sovereignty—common documents should be discussed in great detail in the US Congress but not presented to the British Parliament on a similar basis.
This should have been discussed. After all, we have the elements of a common defence policy through NATO. I just want to flag some elements which seem to me to be important in the new concept. First, we need a new European-American relationship. I was interested to see that, in his speech in Rome on 25th January, Mr. Solana talked about the need for a new transatlantic bargain to be part of the new NATO strategic concept. That is why, he said, our alliance must have a stronger European personality. It is not a particularly new theme. I remember when I was a student John F. Kennedy making his great speech in July 1962 in which he called for a new transatlantic partnership with a stronger European component. The United States has always been deeply ambivalent about that, with Bartholomew telegrams and all sorts of things passing to and fro every time the Europeans started to get back together, resisting the idea that there could be a European caucus within NATO. I hope that we now have a sufficiently mature relationship with the United States for it to accept that a European partner within NATO means a coherent European grouping.
That brings me to my second point; that is, the importance of the St. Malo declaration and the extent to which that feeds into the definition of a new strategic concept. My party made itself a little unpopular with the Government by criticising the Strategic Defence Review on its publication for not including a European dimension. For that reason we strongly support them in
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the St. Malo initiative and hope that they will take it a great deal further. A more effective use of limited resources, training together and sharing equipment, is exactly the right way forward. I know that the St. Malo declaration also referred to greater European autonomy in operations. Perhaps the Minister will say a little about what is meant by that interesting phrase "greater autonomy" in the St. Malo declaration and how that will feed back into the NATO concept.
Thirdly, I should like to ask about future enlargement, which is a matter of much controversy in the United States. I share entirely the views of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, that now NATO has started to enlarge, it should logically enlarge to include as many of the states of central and eastern Europe as possible. We are talking about the transformation of NATO into something which will not be fundamentally dissimilar from OSCE, with an integrated military structure providing, through Partnership for Peace, the ability to train forces together and to retrain forces that were not used to civilian operation—civilian control or peacekeeping operations—and so to build a broader European security organisation.
We know also that there was much resistance in the United States, particularly in the US Congress, to the idea of further enlargement. I hope that the Minister will say something about our continuing commitment for Romania, Slovenia and others eventually to come in. The NATO working paper of three years ago on NATO enlargement included the phrase that, in the long run, NATO and EU enlargement should come to include the same number of European countries. Again, that seems to me to be the ideal. Relations with Russia and the Ukraine need to move either to eventual full membership or to an extremely close partnership. The NATO-Russia council has not yet been an easy relationship, but clearly we need to take that as far forward as we can.
I have two further points. The first concerns NATO beyond Europe. The Secretary-General, in a number of recent speeches, said clearly that NATO should not aim to be a global policeman. We know that there are many in the United States who want NATO to become in effect something like a global policeman. There were even those within the British military establishment who were arguing that, if there were problems in the South China Sea, the SDR should ensure that the British had some possibility of being there.
This is the most difficult area for the new strategic concept. Most Europeans, including the British, are not entirely happy with American policy in the Gulf; with American attitudes towards the Arab-Israeli conflict; and some of us are not entirely happy with the different nuances between American policy towards Turkey and those of European policy towards Turkey. Those are the most difficult areas on which to compromise. The ideas of people like Zbigniew Brzezinski, who sees NATO as the means through which the United States projects power across Eurasia into the greater Middle East, are very different from the European security organisation that most of us here wish to see. I hope that the new strategic concept will clearly explore those differences.

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Finally, I turn to the question of the balance between regional and global organisations. In Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, we have been struggling with the question of who authorises international forces. The Chinese veto of the renewal of the Macedonia extraction force because Macedonia recognises Taiwan seems to recognise the difficulty of relying on UN organisation for regional peacekeeping operations. I hope that the new strategic concept will also recognise that the OSCE, NATO and the EU all have a role to play in that.
The role of the United Kingdom is as a leading European member of NATO, explaining our shared values, but also our different priorities to our American partners. I hope therefore that the new strategic concept will spell out the form of a new European-American partnership in security in which Britain will become one of the leading European members.
7.46 p.m.
Lord Moynihan: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for securing this important debate. Just before Christmas the noble Lord again provided an equally valuable opportunity for the House to discuss the appropriate legal basis under which NATO should take action under our changing geopolitical landscape, which increasingly poses various security and stability challenges.
NATO's last strategic concept was introduced at the Rome summit of November 1991 and reflected the need for a new framework to enable the alliance to respond effectively to a world of increasingly diverse and multi-directional risks. The aim was to equip NATO with the capability to undertake crisis management and crisis prevention operations, including peacekeeping, while continuing its core mission of collective defence. The geopolitical sands have shifted yet again in the eight years since that concept was drawn up and the tasks for the alliance are now more, rather than less, varied. But, though the nature of the threats faced by alliance members today may be different, the stark dangers posed by those threats remain the same.
During the debate in December, I quoted the US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, who said that a ballistic missile attack using a weapon of mass destruction from a rogue state is every bit as much an Article V threat to our borders now as a Warsaw Pact tank was two decades ago.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, that underlying any new strategic concept for NATO will be the fact that threats to our security are no longer likely to be the result of calculated aggression against the territory of the NATO allies; instead the serious economic, social and political difficulties, including ethnic rivalries and territorial disputes and issues of sovereignty faced by many countries in central and eastern Europe have the potential to undermine European stability and to lead to armed conflicts, as we have seen in Bosnia. That is why NATO must be prepared to act in Kosovo.
In this short contribution, I seek to explore the strategic concept and the European defence debate in particular. As the 21st century dawns, NATO's future role is being discussed, debated and agreed by its
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members. The emerging debate on European defence capabilities has a key part to play in this process and has been much commented on this evening. The Minister has given an assurance in the past that, as the embodiment of the transatlantic partnership between the European members of the alliance, the United States and Canada, NATO remains the cornerstone of our defence policy, linking as it does the security interests of North America and the security interests of Europe.
Will the Minister assure the House that there are no contradictions between the Government's proposals at Põrtschach for a more integrated EU defence identity and the St. Malo declaration on the one hand, and the principle of the primacy of NATO in European defence, strongly supported by the Government in the Treaty of Amsterdam, on the other, especially given the absence of details on those proposals provided to the House. Perhaps the Minister can take this opportunity to clarify the strategy and objectives of the St. Malo declaration in the context of NATO.
Is she in a position to provide details on how the Government intend to take forward the principles on which they believe any new European defence arrangements should be based in the run-up to the WEU ministerial meeting in Bremen on 10th-11th May and the European Council meeting in Cologne on 4th June? For it is important that the St. Malo declaration is not the first step towards the road of an unrealistic, potentially damaging European common defence identity, since any new European defence policy must respect the centrality of NATO to the transatlantic link and to our common defence.
Central to this question is whether the Minister accepts that a common European Union defence policy on the one hand and a European defence policy underpinned by the primacy of NATO on the other, are or are not mutually exclusive. Is she satisfied that our French partners in the St. Malo declaration share that view?
Perhaps I may make it absolutely clear from these Benches that we fully support enhanced defence co-operation with our European Union partners. The member states of the European Union naturally have many interests in common. There is a role for a common foreign and security policy in safeguarding and advancing those interests. That is a role in which this country can plan a prominent part. In many areas such as intelligence gathering there is much mutual benefit to be gained from greater co-operation. However, does the Minister agree that closer co-operation between European sovereign nations does not need to be institutionalised through the establishment of independent decision-making structures for a European defence initiative?
I hear what the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, has said about small scale humanitarian projects. However, in my view, it is critical to appreciate that to seek the creation of a new alliance within an alliance could fatally undermine the very institution that we have relied on for our peace and security for the past five decades, especially since the European Union does not have any of the operational expertise or the working

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understanding with NATO. I agree with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, that the European allies alone lack the air and sea capacity, the missile defence policies, the advanced communication satellites and the military computers provided by the United States. From these Benches, we firmly believe in the overriding importance of the Atlantic alliance as the bedrock of our future security. Sustaining a strong US component to European security is an essential part of that.
We seek an assurance that the Government's commitment to NATO and the preservation of its prerogatives is equally respected by our French partners in the St. Malo declaration, particularly given their difference of opinion with the United States over the mandate under which NATO should be able to act out of area. Equally, it will be useful to have an update on the contacts at both official and ministerial level with our NATO allies, in particular with the United States, through which the Government have said that the detailed work arising from the St. Malo declaration is being pursued. From these Benches, we appreciate the difficulties in defining "out of area" in today's world of weapons of mass destruction. How will that be addressed in the updated strategic concept? What discussions have the Government held with the Russian Government concerning the Government's policy on the legal basis under which NATO may take action outside its borders?
The question facing NATO today is how it can fine tune its political and military structures to be able to defend alliance interests in the future as effectively as it has defended alliance territory in the past. With the co-operation and unity of existing and new members and with NATO's partners, the answer to that question can be found and NATO will continue to be the ultimate guardian of peace and security in Europe.
7.53 p.m.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I too, thank my noble friend Lord Kennet for initiating this debate this evening and, indeed, thank all noble Lords who have taken part.
In 1949 the founding members of NATO affirmed their faith in the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter; their determination to safeguard the freedom of their peoples, based on democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law; and their resolve to unite their efforts for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security.
As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, reminded us, without any doubt NATO has been tremendously successful in securing these goals. NATO has kept war away from the territory of its members and has created conditions in which the likelihood of aggression against any of its members has been greatly reduced.
My noble friend Lord Kennet drew our attention in particular to the new strategic concept that is being developed for adoption at the Washington summit and which will reaffirm the alliance's Article 5 commitment to collective defence of allied territory. This
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commitment, and the integrated military structure that underpins it, are the foundations on which the success of the alliance has been built, as the noble Lord. Lord Moynihan, told us. The guarantee of security within the alliance provides the basis for NATO and individual allies to contribute to wider international stability. I assure the noble Lord. Lord Moynihan, and all noble Lords, that this is a principle which must not be compromised.
But NATO has always been far more than just a collective defence organisation. I argue with my noble friend Lord Kennet. The raison d'etre of NATO is not to identify enemies, but rather, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, suggested, to promote peace and stability throughout the whole of the Euro-Atlantic region. That is the reason for its involvement in operations outside its territory. NATO's non-Article 5 operations and activities with partners are sometimes called "new missions". Yet they are not new at all. NATO has been conducting a crisis management mission in Bosnia for the past five years. They embody the principles set out 50 years ago in NATO's Washington Treaty. So the so-called "new missions" are among the means by which NATO fulfils its purpose in the post-Cold War security environment, just as planning to defend against a strategic attack preoccupied NATO in the past. They show that NATO is continuing to adapt to the security situation in Europe and to shape it.
I assure the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, that part of this ongoing adaptation of NATO's work is to develop the European pillar within the alliance, building on agreement reached at the Berlin Summit in 1996. Subsequent efforts to build a specific European security and defence identity within NATO, which will enable all European allies to make a more coherent and effective contribution to the missions and activities of the alliance, have been given new impetus by the Prime Minister's call for Europe to take greater responsibility for its own defence and security, as emphasised by my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall. The Franco-British declaration at St. Malo of 4th December sets out our objective of ensuring that the European Union will be able to back its common foreign and security policy by credible military forces in order to respond, where appropriate, to international crises. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, that the cornerstone of European security remains the main source of European defence capabilities and NATO, which will have a central role to play as we continue to develop our ideas on this with allies and partners. I hope that that is a sufficiently unequivocal response to the point that the noble Lord raised.
I turn to the points raised by my noble friend Lord Kennet who rightly drew our attention to the question of the locality of NATO action. Of course, it is right and proper to discuss these issues. But I believe that the conclusions that the noble Lord drew were essentially wrong. I shall try to explain why. All NATO operations, like any British operation, must be in accordance with international law. The legal basis of any operation will depend on the precise circumstances

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of the case. The legal basis for an Article 5 collective defence operation would be the right to self-defence recognised in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, gave examples of that. For many non-Article 5 operations, a United Nations Security Council resolution would be needed to authorise the use of force. But force may also be used to defend a non-NATO state at its invitation or, in exceptional circumstances, to avert an immediate and overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe. In such cases a United Nations Security Council resolution may not be necessary. NATO's role in non-Article 5 missions can be seen in practice on the ground in the former Yugoslavia, where NATO forces in Bosnia, and now in their involvement in the Kosovo crisis, have been vital in improving the prospects for peace. NATO-led forces have seen their role in the Balkans develop towards ever-increasing co-operation with other international organisations and greater involvement with partner countries. As my noble friend Lord Rea reminded us, the NATO Stabilisation Force in Bosnia is working to enforce the military provisions of the Dayton Peace Agreement. SFOR now comprises troops from 20 partner countries as well as all NATO member states. The UK acts as one of the three "lead nations", with around 4,800 troops currently in Bosnia and a further 350 based in headquarters and in Italy.
Similarly, as my noble friend Lord Rea also said, the difficulties of the current situation in Kosovo demonstrate the enormous complexity of managing crises in the former Yugoslavia. But experience shows that NATO's military resolve, the credible threat of force, and the commitment of allies and partners, can contribute to the possibility of successful political outcomes. In Kosovo, NATO is assisting the OSCE in verifying Belgrade's compliance with relevant Security Council resolutions and its agreements with NATO and the OSCE. A NATO force has been established in Skopje to extract OSCE monitors if necessary.
So called "out-of-area" operations, or non-Article 5 operations, in Bosnia, and potentially Kosovo, are a key part of NATO's developing role. The Government believe that it is neither morally acceptable nor politically prudent for us to stand back from this sort of conflict prevention in the Balkans. An escalation of violence there would have grave security implications for us, for our European partners; and, indeed, beyond that. It would also carry a high risk of deepening humanitarian suffering in the region. NATO has the capacity to influence political developments beyond its borders. The important point is to use that power as a real force for good. I should like to take this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for his support on that point.
My noble friend Lord Ponsonby raised some points about the new strategic concept, as indeed did many other noble Lords. The new strategic concept will be agreed at the forthcoming Washington Summit and will take account of the sort of role that NATO is playing in the former Yugoslavia. As the noble Earl, Lord Carlisle, said, it will be a clear statement of NATO's purpose and will serve a number of vital functions. It will be a statement of NATO's policy. The noble Lord,
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Lord Moynihan, asked for information in that respect. The statement itself will be a tool of information. It will explain to the various publics within NATO what NATO is doing to safeguard their security and it will present NATO to non-NATO audiences. It will also provide high level guidance to NATO military planners and outline what NATO needs to do to ensure that its military forces can perform the demanding tasks that it will need to undertake in a strategic and changing environment.
The development of European defence capabilities and the response to the risks posed by the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and their means of delivery, are examples of the way that NATO is reviewing its strategic outlook to ensure that it remains effective. Our own Strategic Defence Review last year, to which many noble Lords referred this evening, identified new priorities for UK military planners. Likewise, NATO needs to update its posture to continue to perform effectively. The new Strategic Concept will identify the priorities for NATO action to ensure that NATO troops become more mobile and can be more flexibly deployed.
As my noble friend Lord Kennet reminded us, NATO is entering a new phase in its history this month. We shall be welcoming Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into the Alliance on 12th March. I take this opportunity to extend a warm welcome to those new members. Their membership will strengthen both the Alliance and European security as a whole. Their accession is a practical reminder of NATO's commitment to enlargement. I assure the noble Earl, Lord Carlisle, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, that NATO's "Open Door" policy will be unequivocally reaffirmed at the forthcoming summit.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, my noble friend Lord Rea and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, raised concerns about NATO's relationship with Russia. We have spoken often in this House about the importance of the NATO/Russia Founding Act of May 1997. However, I should point out to noble Lords that this is not just an Act which has been signed and left on one side. Ambassadors meet monthly and Ministers meet at least twice a year. Indeed, either side can call extra meetings as required. In fact, there have been many extra meetings over the Kosovo crisis in recent months. So it is not just a piece of paper; it is a real working partnership that we have tried to set up. I do not think that I need remind your Lordships of the important role that Russia has played in the Contact Group on Kosovo.
In answer to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, our priority is to deepen and broaden the co-operation that we have within the framework of Partnership for Peace and to include the military sphere in that concept. We want to continue to build opportunities for partners to deepen their links within NATO and ensure that the North Atlantic Council remains the real authority, while also extending our hand—that is, the hand of friendship—to others elsewhere, in the way that I hope I have been able to indicate.

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The noble Lord asked some very specific questions about the former Soviet 14th Army in Eastern Moldavia. The UK and our European partners have been active in attempting to resolve the situation. The European Union and the OSCE have consistently called for, and offered to assist in, the removal of Russian armaments and military equipment from that region. NATO has not been involved but Moldavia could, if it wished, raise the issue in the Euro Atlantic Partnership Council. I hope that that answers the noble Lord's specific point.
The noble Lord also asked about ways in which we might tackle small arms proliferation. The problem with the latter will be discussed at a meeting between NATO and its partners next week. We think that the Euro Atlantic Partnership Council could exchange more information on small arms policy, looking at things like stock-piling and the destruction of surplus arms. I hope that the noble Lord is encouraged by that response. There is a forthcoming meeting and those concerned will be considering the specific point that he made.
I agree with a great deal of what my noble friend Lord Hardy of Wath said about the importance of our relationships not only with NATO but also with the WEU. We want to enhance the ability of the EU to act through the CFSP. We want further to develop the European dimension of NATO in a way that I hope I have been able to indicate. We want to link those two more effectively together to ensure that there is no unnecessary duplication of effort. We believe that this will be good for the transatlantic relationship within NATO and, indeed, good for our relationships within Europe.
I should tell my noble friend Lord Ponsonby that we are committed to making the arrangements associating non-NATO, non-EU countries within the future European defence operation function as well as we possibly can. We give strong backing to the work of the WEU and the NATO parliamentary assemblies. Indeed, to answer the particular points raised by my noble friends, that strikes me as being a very good model for parliamentary oversight.
NATO has succeeded in promoting peace and stability in Europe for 50 years. I do not believe that there has been any dissent among noble Lords on that crucial point. Her Majesty's Government are absolutely committed to ensuring that NATO maintains these standards of success. This will entail an unflagging commitment to collective defence, the stability of the wider international environment and, of course, the rule of law. NATO's new strategic concept will reaffirm these commitments. In doing so, it will set out the way forward for NATO so that Europe and North America enjoy the best possible chance of ensuring that peace and stability remain the norm for our own people, for our neighbours and, indeed, for many other countries in the world where we are able to exert our influence.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, it only remains for me to thank noble Lords who have spoken and perhaps to express two minor regrets about this otherwise admirable debate: first, that the Government were not
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able to give us any more information about the document we were discussing—we shall have to wait until the summit next month for that, and perhaps we can then talk about it again—and, secondly, that there was no contribution from the Conservative Back Benches. However, with those two minor exceptions, we had a most useful discussion and I applaud all that was said. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Scottish Parliament (Disqualification) Order 1999
8.10 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Scottish Office (Lord Sewel)The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Scottish Office (Lord Sewel) rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 16th February be approved [10th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Sewel.)
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with the leave of the House I intend to discuss these three orders together. If the House is content, I intend to begin with the second and third of the orders and turn finally to the disqualification order.
I am pleased to present to the House these three orders which mark a significant stage in preparing for the first meeting of the Parliament and elections to the Scottish Parliament. I threatened Members of your Lordships' House at the end of our discussions on the Scotland Act that we would shortly return to devolution matters through discussion on the orders. I have lived up to that promise and I now present the orders to this House. The orders have already been debated and agreed in another place.
The first of the orders to which I wish to refer is made under Section 2(1) of the Scotland Act and is called the Scottish Parliament (First Ordinary General Election and First Meeting) Order 1999. The purpose of this order is quite simple but extremely important. It sets the date of the first election to the Scottish Parliament. This will be 6th May of this year. The order also provides that the first meeting of the Parliament will take place on 12th May at 9.30 in the morning in the Church of Scotland General Assembly Hall on The Mound in Edinburgh. Provision already exists in the Scotland Act concerning the dates of future elections and meetings. In the case of ordinary general elections, Section 2(2) provides that they are held on the first Thursday in May every four years. Under Section 2(3) of the Act, the first meeting of the Parliament following election will be within seven days of the day after the day of the poll.
The Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 1999 makes detailed provisions for the conduct of the elections to the Scottish Parliament and covers a wide range of provisions, including, for example, absent voting, nomination procedures, ballot papers and the count procedures. The order also makes provision for those occasions when the Scottish Parliament elections are combined with local government elections. This will be the case this year on 6th May. This order is made under Section 12(1) of the Scotland Act.
Members of your Lordships' House will no doubt recall with a degree of affection and pleasure the late nights which we spent debating the election provisions during the passage of the Scotland Act. Thanks have already been offered in the other place to the representatives of the political parties and electoral administrators with whom we have consulted over the past few months on this order. I add my own gratitude for the input by all concerned which has resulted in this order which I am confident will provide comprehensive rules and procedures for the forthcoming Scottish parliamentary elections.
Election law as it stands is sometimes, perhaps inevitably, criticised for being arcane. However, it is also a well tested basis on which elections have been held successfully over the years. That is not to say that we can stand still. Your Lordships may be aware that the Home Office is currently looking in general terms at the way elections in the United Kingdom are run. I am sure this review will make comprehensive recommendations which may be applied at some future point to the elections to the Scottish Parliament. I make no excuses therefore that the order before us reflects to a great extent existing UK electoral law covered by the representation of the people legislation.
The order has, however, also had to take account of some recent changes to electoral law and of course recognises the use for the first time of the additional member system. Account has also had to be taken of the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998. This controls the descriptions political parties and candidates may use at elections in order to reduce the scope for confusion. Following that Act the order also provides for the use of official party emblems on ballot papers. I shall return to the question of ballot papers in a moment.
While the Government are still considering the full implications of the report prepared by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neill, and his committee, we have taken the opportunity in this order to include provision dealing with the expenses which may be incurred by political parties during an election campaign. I shall come to that later.
I shall now explain briefly how this order makes provision for this May's elections, and some of the changes which are being made to existing practice. The order mirrors to a considerable extent the provisions of the Representation of the People Acts 1983 and 1985. It covers such general issues as the provision of staff for returning officers, the people who are on the ground and who have to put these provisions into practice and the loan of equipment for use at the Scottish Parliament elections. Importantly, from the point of view of the returning officers, it also applies Section 29 of the 1983 Act, which covers payments by and to returning officers.
The main part of the order also covers the election campaign and expenses. This covers the appointment of election agents and as at present each constituency candidate and each individual candidate at regional level will be entitled to an election agent. Each party which puts forward a list will also be entitled to an election agent in respect of that list. As I mentioned earlier, we
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have also taken into account the proposals of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neill, and his committee to the extent that the powers under the Scotland Act will allow.
The order therefore imposes expenses limits and penalties for constituency candidates which are on the same basis as apply for elections to the other place. It also imposes expenses limits for those individuals who are standing as independent candidates in a regional ballot. These limits will be structured in a similar way to those for constituency candidates. The limits for such an individual candidate will be the aggregate of the constituency limits in a region for which he or she is standing. The order also sets a limit of £1.5 million on political party expenditure. This limit on party expenditure is intended to cover all a party's campaign expenditure which is not normally incurred in respect of a particular constituency candidate. I should say that it has been extremely helpful to have had the voluntary agreement reached by the main political parties in Scotland on the national limit on party expenditure and on some other matters covered by the noble and learned Lord's committee which are not provided for in the order.
In the expectation that I shall be asked further about these limits, in particular, I suspect, about the absence of limits at a regional level, I should say that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neill, did not recommend attempting to subdivide party expenditure between national and regional elements. However, as regards the form of return for these expenses, the expenses incurred by each regional election agent will require to be shown separately. We think that transparency is as effective a safeguard as we need against parties targeting expenditure on a particular region.
On broadcasting, we have decided not to apply the existing Section 93 of the Representation of the People Act 1983. Section 93 required broadcasters to seek the agreement of all candidates to certain types of broadcast reports. This of course does not absolve the broadcasters of the requirement to be impartial. This mirrors the provision for the elections to the Welsh Assembly.
The order also has eight schedules and an appendix containing prescribed forms. Schedule 1 deals with the election lists and registers and the sale of such registers. Schedule 2 contains the rules for the conduct of the elections. These rules, in effect, set out the practical arrangements that must be in place at any election. I shall say a little more about these rules in a moment.
Schedule 3 of the order deals with absent voting. Your Lordships will, I hope, agree that by allowing for those who already hold an indefinite absent vote automatically to qualify for an absent vote at the forthcoming Scottish parliamentary election, we have gone a great way towards ensuring that those people are not disenfranchised. Other electors will be able to apply for an absent vote either by post or by proxy in the normal manner.
Schedule 4 of the order is technical and deals with how a returning officer issues postal ballot papers to electors and how the papers are then dealt with when they are completed and returned. It also covers, among other issues, who is eligible to be in attendance at such proceedings.
The combination of polls is dealt with in Schedule 5. We have concentrated in the order on the combination of the Scottish parliamentary and local government elections. A number of the provisions in this schedule are, again, of a technical nature, and alter as necessary the rules contained in Schedule 2 and the local government rules where the functions can be combined for both elections. For example, each elector will receive only one poll card for both elections. In addition, no elector will have to visit more than one polling station to vote at both the Scottish parliamentary election and local government elections in May. Voters will visit the one polling station and automatically receive three ballot papers. Other issues include the detailed arrangements for counting the ballot papers at both elections and making provision for the local government ballot papers to be counted at any time after 10 a. m. on the day after the poll. By this time we hope that the ballot papers for the Scottish parliamentary elections will have been counted and the results known.
Schedule 6 deals with various legal proceedings which can arise from an election. Schedule 7 of the order deals with the use for election meetings of rooms in school premises, and mirrors as far as practical the existing arrangements. Finally, Schedule 8 of the order deals with modification of enactments arising as a consequence of this order.
Turning back to the rules contained in Schedule 2, these introduce, among a vast array of other issues, the timetable to be used. We have decided that the timetable should be, as far as possible, the same as that for local government elections, with some slight necessary adaptations. This will allow a longer period than the timetable for Westminster general elections allows for some of the processes. We consider that using such a timetable will, in particular, have its advantage when the elections are combined with local government elections and should make the administering of the main processes, such as nominations, that much easier. Based on this timetable, all candidates and parties must submit their nominations before the final deadline of the 13th April, an auspicious date.
The nomination process for prospective candidates has been somewhat changed. At present a candidate must have his nomination proposed, seconded and attested. We consider that this is not appropriate for the Scottish parliamentary elections, particularly with the introduction of regional lists. All registered political parties will have to be registered, which will involve a separate process under the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998. It seems illogical, having gone through that registration process, for a party also to have to seek subscribers for its list. To ensure that there is a level playing field between prospective regional candidates and political parties, we decided further to remove the need for attestation of nominations for individual candidates. For further consistency, candidates standing as constituency members will also be released from this requirement. This means that at Scottish parliamentary elections the nomination form will simply be signed by the candidate and witnessed by one other signature.
We believe that the real safeguard against frivolous candidacies will continue to be deposits. During the debate on the Scotland Act your Lordships' House was informed that the deposit level for constituency candidates had been set at £500. For regional seats it will also be £500 for each individual candidate who wants to stand as an independent, and £500 for each political party that puts forward a list for a particular region. These levels are now confirmed in rule 10. The deposit will of course, as at present, be returnable if a party or a candidate receives more than 5 per cent. of the vote in the respective constituency or region.
Noble Lords will be more than aware of the lengthy discussions we had during the Committee stages of the Scotland Bill about the design of ballot papers. There are a variety of views on how the ballot papers should look. To assist us in this difficult area we commissioned research involving a cross-section of the public to offer their views on the papers. The constituency ballot paper will be similar in design to those already in use at general elections. In respect of the regional ballot paper, we have had to give particular care to produce a form of ballot paper which will be clear and straightforward for the voter to understand. In the appendix, the forms at the back of the order constitute the form of paper which, having undertaken research and consulted with returning officers and political parties, we consider to be the most appropriate. This ballot paper will list each registered political party followed by the names of any independent candidates in alphabetical order.
During the debate on the election provisions in the Scotland Act, it was apparent that your Lordships wished to see the names of candidates for each list on the face of the ballot paper. These names now appear under the names of each registered political party. The names will be printed in the order in which the party wishes them to be elected. This should provide the public with sufficient information about each party which is standing for election. I should add that 80 per cent. of those who took part in the research found a paper in this form to be very or fairly easy to understand. A poster will also be on display in each polling station. This will provide guidance for electors on the procedure for voting, the rules set and the text at form AD. We are preparing a layout for this text which will be recommended to returning officers.
Turning to the ballot paper colours, rule 28 specifies that the colour of each type of ballot paper must be different. For the elections on the 6th May, we have guided returning officers that the ballot paper for the constituency candidates will be purple and that the regional ballot paper will be peach. There was considerable difficulty deciding which particular colour should be associated with any particular voting slip. The ballot paper for local government elections will be white as normal.
Some noble Lords will be aware that a detailed publicity campaign—which has been agreed by political parties from all sides—has started in Scotland. This includes television and press advertisements, as well as a leaflet which will be sent to each household in Scotland over the next few weeks. We consider that this

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will go a great way towards informing voters what to expect when they enter a polling station and what the ballot papers will look like.
The voting procedure at the elections will be similar to that as present. On each ballot paper the elector will be asked to place an "X" against the preferred choice of candidate or party. There will be three ballot boxes at each station: one for the constituency election, one for the regional member papers and one for the local government elections. Each ballot paper will then be placed in the respective ballot box. We have suggested to returning officers that the ballot boxes should be colour coded as an additional aid to voters. Returning officers have the capacity to have additional staff on hand at polling stations to assist voters, if needed.
Counting of the Scottish Parliament elections will begin as soon as practicable after the polls have shut at 10 p.m. We therefore have every reason to hope that an overnight count will enable the results to be known during the course of the night. That will be the expectation of the public. As I mentioned earlier, the count for the local government elections will be delayed until the following day and the legislation provides that the counting should not start before 10 a. m. the following morning. This will give some discretion to the local returning officer to set the exact time in the light of local circumstances.
Schedule 2 to the order also covers the issue of recounts. The counts for both the constituency and regional parts of this election will, of course, be a matter for each constituency returning officer. For the constituency element, the rules governing recounts will follow those existing for general elections. Where a recount is required for a regional poll, then the legislation similarly makes provision for a recount to be asked for at a constituency level. But a further recount cannot be demanded across an entire region once all the constituency level results of the regional poll have been passed to the regional returning officer. This is the same approach as will be taken in Wales and also for the European elections. It is the only practical option in our view, given the size of the regions and the impossibility of being absolutely sure that the count will be able to proceed at the same speed, or at approximately the same speed, in every place.
I acknowledge, however, that the question of regional recounts is a difficult one. We face it for the first time. We face a situation where the winners of the election will not be immediately apparent from the result of the count at each individual counting centre. In reaching a view, we have looked at how a similar situation is already handled in the proportional system used for the Northern Ireland Assembly where the same issues also arise. In elections to that assembly there is, as there will be in Scotland, provision for a recount to be requested at each count centre but no provision for a recount for the whole vote once the results from each centre have been collated nationally. It has been accepted in that context that recounts can work on such a basis.
However, I do recognise the concerns that have been expressed about how this may work in the Scottish context. It is important that the House appreciates that
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for a recount to take place there is no requirement for the vote to be close. Existing electoral law, repeated here, simply allows candidates as a matter of right to request one or more recounts. The only limit on when a recount may take place is that the returning officer may refuse a request which he believes to be unreasonable. Clearly, therefore, if candidates are concerned that any aspect of the count process at a particular centre has not been properly conducted, or if there are other issues at hand, they will be able to seek a recount even though the final result is still unknown.
I appreciate that some noble Lords would prefer the further option of a region-wide recount. I understand that. However, the order leaves ample scope for any concerns about the count process to be pursued at the point of the original count. We think that that is the preferable way forward. Given what I recognise is a difficult problem—I say in all fairness that it is a problem we have not faced before and we are all, to an extent, learning—I am happy to ask officials to explore further with returning officers ways in which the detail of the count process might be arranged to minimise the scope after the event for any questioning of the outcome, which I am sure returning officers themselves will be only too pleased and too keen to avoid.
This is a very bulky document, and rightly so, as it covers a huge number of important issues. I have covered some of these issues only briefly. I would be happy to comment on other points as necessary. We have consulted widely with returning officers who are the experts on the ground in the conduct of elections. We believe that the order is a sound basis for future elections to come.
I should now like to turn to the order that is made under Section 15 of the Scotland Act which disqualifies a number of office holders from membership of the Scottish Parliament. We intend that the Scottish Parliament should represent the widest possible range of interests. We have made no secret of that. However, we also recognise that it would not be appropriate for certain office holders, because of their position, to sit in the Parliament. Put quite simply, those who are eligible to be Members of the other place will also be able to be MSPs. In addition, ordained members or ministers of any religious denomination, and Commonwealth and Irish Republic citizens, as well as EU citizens resident in the United Kingdom, will be able to stand. I do not need to labour the point that Members of your Lordships' House will also be able to stand as MSPs.
As your Lordships know, it is felt to be inappropriate for certain officer holders to be Members of the other place. Similar considerations evidently apply to the Scottish Parliament. Section 15 of the Scotland Act therefore makes provision about who should be disqualified from membership of the parliament. The provisions of Section 15 cover civil servants, members of the Armed Forces, members of police forces and judges. Section 15 also gives Her Majesty power, by Order in Council, to specify office holders who should be disqualified from being members of the parliament. That is the order before us today.
In considering which office holders should be disqualified from the Scottish Parliament, we have paid particular heed to the established and well-understood precedent set by the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975. Quite rightly, in my view, we have decided that it would not be appropriate to depart radically from that approach at this stage. This order makes provision for the first elections on 6th May and will remain in force until such time as the Scottish Parliament makes its own provision. I am quite sure your Lordships would agree that it is right for the Scottish Parliament to be able to decide the scope of the disqualification provisions for its own membership. But we have to start with something, and this is the order we are starting with.
We think that the list of disqualified office holders before us today strikes the right balance between ensuring that the Parliament is open to a wide range of talented people but is properly independent and able to hold the Executive to account. In deciding who should be disqualified under the order, we applied the criteria used to determine whether an office holder should be disqualified from the other place. Our aim has been to maintain the independence of the Scottish Parliament and safeguard the MSPs from undue influence by the Executive through the existence of patronage. We have also recognised that certain office holders must be seen to be politically impartial.
The disqualification order therefore disqualifies those office holders who would be disqualified from being an MP wherever we thought that the same arguments applied in relation to the Scottish Parliament. For example, if office holders are operating in devolved matters or in areas where Scottish Ministers have an interest, such office holders will be accountable to the Parliament and it would be clearly wrong if they could also be MSPs. Office holders who fall into that category include members of Scottish water authorities or members of Scottish Enterprise.
However, it would not be right to limit this order to office holders in Scottish bodies. There are various bodies based outwith Scotland or operating in reserved areas which are properly within the scope of this order. For example, there are certain office holders outwith Scotland who must be politically impartial in order to carry out their role. For example, those in certain broadcasting organisations are disqualified. In a similar vein, we concluded that members of tribunals should also be disqualified from membership of the Scottish Parliament to ensure judicial impartiality.
However, the order does not disqualify everyone holding public office. Noble Lords may be interested to know how many people are disqualified from being members of the Scottish Parliament. We estimated the figure at under a million across the United Kingdom. Of those, the vast majority are civil servants: just over half a million; members of the Armed Forces, a quarter of a million; and members of the police force, about 140,000. The order adds under a further 100,000 across the United Kingdom. However, that figure alone gives a misleading impression.
Of the 100,000 disqualified by the order the vast majority are politically restricted local government employees. There are about 52,000 in England and Wales and about 5,900 in Scotland, which represents about 2 per cent. of the total number employed in local government. If we remove those, members of the Metropolitan Police Force and Northern Ireland prison staff, the order disqualifies about 10,000 office holders across the United Kingdom. Of those, 3000 are members of various social security tribunals and 2,500 are members of employment tribunals, leaving in the region of only 4,800 specified office holders across the United Kingdom.
It is difficult to break this down further into those bodies which could be described as Scottish. But rough calculations suggest that between 700 and 800 office holders would fall into this category, of whom around a quarter will be staff at the Scottish parliament, who themselves will be quite properly disqualified. Indeed, there are in all under 330 entries in the order which range to cover all members of certain bodies as various as Scottish Homes and the Crofters Commission to specified office holders such as the chairmen of other bodies, for example, the Gas Consumers Council.
Those who are disqualified under the order would be required to resign that office before making their formal consent to nomination. That provision is contained in the Conduct of Elections Order, which I have already mentioned. The consent to nomination must be given by the last day for the delivery of nomination papers and may be submitted up to one month before that. For the Scottish Parliament elections, consent to nomination must be submitted by 13th April. That would mean that people holding disqualifying offices would be required to resign by that date at the latest, as is the case for Westminster elections.
I realise that I have spent some considerable time explaining these matters in detail to the House. When it comes to disqualifying anybody from standing in a parliamentary election, it is necessary to make absolutely clear the basis upon which we have acted. I therefore ask the House's indulgence for having taken so much time. However, I hope that I have been able to deal with the issues as fully as possible. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 16th February be approved [10th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Sewel.)
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Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, we are doubly grateful to the noble Lord for that explanation. We are grateful, first, for the detail that he has gone into on a number of issues; we are also grateful for the fact that he did not go into detail on all the issues on these very large orders.
I shall approach matters as quickly as I can, in a slightly different order, but beginning with the noble Lord's announcement that election day is to be 6th May. That fact will come as a huge surprise to the Scottish population—it is interesting to note that everyone has assumed it but it is not quite legal yet. It would have

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been quite a shock had it been decided not to hold the election on 6th May. I do not think I shall subject anyone to the dangers of that shock.
My only point in relation to the first page of the order arises from the reference to 12th May. I begin to wonder what kind of ceremony will surround what is a very important day. I hope that it will not merely be a case of people sidling up and down the high street and popping in, almost unbeknown. I hope that there will be at least some of the pomp and circumstance that surround the opening of Parliament and that some of the historic Scottish traditions can be observed at that time.
Perhaps I may briefly examine the Scottish Parliament (Disqualification) Order. I wish to make a number of points, without going through the whole order. Taking an example from the first page, officials ought to have, as it were, cleaned the copy before they decided to copy the House of Commons. Looking at the first page, I am not entirely sure whether the aircraft and shipbuilding industries arbitration tribunal still exists. There is a question mark over that. I certainly do not think that British Shipbuilders still exists. And, having checked, I do not think that the British Coal Corporation still exists. I am told by no less an expert than Dod that it ceased to exist on 1st January 1998 and that its functions were transferred to various departments of the Department of Trade and Industry. Dod may be wrong; I may be wrong. However, I do think that a little cleaning might have been done to remove those bodies that have ceased to exist.
My second point is one that the Minister attempted to answer. There are many bodies—the social security tribunals mentioned by the Minister are a case in point—where the Scottish Parliament has absolutely no locus. They are entirely reserved to Westminster. They are rightly on the "banned" list for the House of Commons. I am not entirely convinced that one should argue that they should also be on the banned list for the Scottish Parliament, when that Parliament will have absolutely no say.
If the principle is one of ministerial accountability and of non-involvement in politics, I can understand that. However, I do not think that it is always that. Perhaps the first time round is not the occasion to question that principle. However, for the future, we ought to look carefully at the banned list, especially when it covers reserved matters. Perhaps the Scottish Parliament will do that.
The third point is that, although we have the banned list, members of those bodies listed are not banned from Westminster in total, only from the House of Commons. There are Members of this House who sit on some of these bodies. When I arrived in this House I was a member of the Seafish Industry Authority. It is perfectly right that that body should be on the banned list for the Scottish Parliament because it will be answerable to the Scottish Parliament. However, there are other bodies that are answerable to the United Kingdom Parliament. For example, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, is the chairman of the British Council. I do not think that the British Council will have anything to do with the Scottish Parliament. So I wonder why the
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British Council should be added to the list for the Scottish Parliament when it is seen as perfectly proper for a Member of this House to be on the British Council.
There are other Members who might be mentioned. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell, is a member of the Council on Tribunals; the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, is chairman of NESTA; the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, is chairman of the New Opportunities Fund; the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, is a BBC Governor—that would probably not knock her out from the list for the Scottish Parliament. I really cannot see the point of English Nature being a proscribed organisation. I am wondering about my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane. I may have missed it, but I cannot find a reference to the Scottish Tourist Board on the banned list. I suspect that it should be there. That may be worth examination. It probably ought to be on the list on the same principle as the other bodies.
I now turn to the bulk of the business. I wish to put a number of minor points. I am happy to say that the Minister dealt with one or two of them in his speech and that will save time. I shall put two major points at the end of my remarks. My first point regarding those of us who have absent vote rights constantly was dealt with by the Minister. Those absent vote rights will carry on into the Scottish Parliament.
I turn to the next point, on paragraph 42 of the main document, concerning the 1.5 million which I understand has been agreed between the parties. If I understood the Minister correctly, the amount of money spent by each party on its regional list is not included in the £1.5 million. The £1.5 million is the over-arching general expenditure of the political parties and does not include the eight separate regional expenditures. I should be grateful if the Minister could clarify that. I have not done a calculation. I imagine that if it were to be included then the parties centrally would have a pretty tight budget for the normal mega-advertising that goes on. If it is not included, that is fine. I also heard what the noble Lord said about the importance of the regional expenditure being properly accounted for and being returned in some way so that the public can inspect it. That is absolutely right and proper.
The next point is the modification of Section 10 of the 1998 Act which is, if one likes to look at it this way, Henry VIII in operation. The Minister and I had quite a lot of discussion about the question of what happens at what I may call by-elections on the regional list, although these are not actually going to be by-elections; in other words, what one does if a member retires or dies and it is necessary to find somebody to fill the vacancy.
I notice that the Minister has made some changes to what we agreed after some quite detailed discussion in your Lordships' House. It would be fair to say that it was your Lordships' House that brought in the improvements in the Bill. The Minister was very reasonable in his approach to this and accepted some of the points made in the debate.
I am a little concerned at leaving the amount of time which can be taken between a member dying or retiring and the procedure to find out who is next, whether they

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agree to being members and whether they are still, so to speak, in good standing with their registered party. I notice that the time is within such period as the regional returning officer considers reasonable. Given that everything else in electoral law is pretty tightly timed in the number of days, and so on, I was struck by the fact that that was a little open-ended and I wondered why we did not just say 28 days, or even longer. I would accept that, but there should be some kind of time constraint on it. Perhaps the regional returning officer will want to put a time constraint on the people who respond to his letters; in other words, if he sends a letter to the person who is next on the list he will expect a reply within a certain amount of time and not allow the matter to drag on.
On the next point, may I say out of appreciation that I am glad to see the point about the parties' emblems. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, for changing the Registration of Political Parties Bill when it was pointed out to him the problems this would cause in Scotland and Wales if there were to be only one party symbol for the whole of the United Kingdom.
My next point concerns the ballot paper. I had not actually picked it up, which shows the complexity of this document. I was interested in the Minister's statement that there would be three ballot boxes and that we would separate them. I imagine that that would help to speed the count on the evening. It is something I am deeply interested in because I have been volunteered—I think that is the right word—to do the radio and television commentary during the night. Frankly, if it were necessary first to sort out all the ballot papers from one ballot box, it would be a pretty long night. I am therefore quite relieved to see that.
It may not have been in this Bill but the Minister may recall that I raised the question of the official mark. I continue to be fairly obsessed by the official mark. I do think it is something from yesteryear. In the case of these elections the people sitting at the table are going to have to make three official marks for every person who comes up. I prophesy that the number of papers without official marks will increase simply because of that, especially if there is a queue of people and perhaps some explanations having to be made about the new system. I am sorry to see that we are still sticking with the official marks because I am not in the least convinced that they do any good.
The next thing I noticed was the existence of a presiding officer. That was a different presiding officer from the presiding officer who was going to preside over the parliament. Your Lordships will remember that I tried to call him the speaker. I have only put this in because I was interested to show that perhaps I was right after all. On Monday the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, was being interviewed on the radio about a tourist conference. He was talking about whether or not there should be a tourist Minister and he described the tourist Minister as being "in the Scottish Cabinet". I thought to myself, "Oh dear, you will get
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reprimanded". As I say, I do not think they are supposed to use "Minister", "Cabinet", or "Speaker", but it indicates what is going to happen.
I next have a general election point. I see that we are continuing to suggest that if the person who is presiding at the poll is doubtful about somebody, he asks him or her a question: "Are you the person registered in the register of government electors for this election as follows?" It has always seemed to me that if one is intent on voting on behalf of somebody else, one is not going to own up to that question. It is a totally pointless question in order to stop people impersonating others. If we want to do that we have to go down to saying, "Have you any evidence to show me that you are who you say you are?" When I raised that I did not make much progress, but I still see that pretty pointless question in the papers.
My last minor point, if I may call it that, is once again to welcome the fact that the names are on the regional list ballot paper. Your Lordships will remember that the Government were intransigent on the Welsh Bill. They would not entertain it. Happily, the Minister was much more forthcoming and understood the point that was being made, as did his noble friend Lord Williams of Mostyn when we came to the European Elections Bill. I am certainly very pleased and I thank the Minister for putting the names on the ballot paper. I think it would have been ludicrous if they had not been on the paper. Perhaps I may say on behalf of Wales that I gather a bit of back-filling has been going on, despite the fact that it is not in the Act, and the names are going to be on the Welsh ballot paper as well, but we are going to come to that later.
My two major points are these. The first one has not been covered by the Minister, the second one has. The first is about the whole question of registered political parties, the nomination of the candidates on the regional list and the registered political parties. Those of your Lordships who heard me on the Registration of Political Parties Bill will know that I considered it profoundly undemocratic and absolutely wrong that somebody had to adjudicate over whether or not the political party could stand at an election. My worst fears have already been confirmed. Last weekend in the Glasgow Herald and the Scotsman there were reports that the registrar had refused to accept the registration of the Green Party in Scotland. The Green Party in Scotland is totally different from the Green Parties in the rest of the country, but he had already got a registration from the Green Party which covered England and, I presume, Wales, and he declined the registration from the Scottish Green Party. I do not believe that is right.
In today's Herald there is a report that the Scottish Socialist Party led by Mr. Tommy Sheridan—and I find it odd that I am standing as a flag-bearer for its right to stand, although it is not odd because it is a fundamental democratic right—which is a minor irritant to the governing party but a considerable force in the City of Glasgow, has also been refused on the basis of the fact that the Socialist Party of Great Britain, which put up far fewer candidates than the Scottish Socialist Party at the last election, has registered. Therefore, he is not allowing the Scottish Socialist Party to register.

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I presume that also means that the party will not be able to describe itself as the Scottish Socialist Party on the local election ballot paper. Its members hold local council seats in the City of Glasgow. I really do think that we are going to have to find a way round this because, while I do not agree with Mr. Tommy Sheridan on much or perhaps anything that he does or says, I think he has an absolute right to continue with the party which he and his friends created and to be able to stand under that party banner, which is clearly understood in the City of Glasgow. I think it would be quite wrong if he were not able to do that. I suspect that it might even be contravening his human rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. If he reads those rights, he might be led to consider whether there is a challenge to be mounted on that basis. I know that the Minister is not answerable for the registrar, but this is a very serious issue. It is not only to do with the Scottish Parliament or the regional list seats.
I understand why the Government needed registration for regional lists, although I should have preferred not to have the registration Act. I understand the argument on regional lists. But there is absolutely no argument when it comes to local government seats, especially when these people are already elected under the flag of the Scottish Socialist Party. There is no political advantage to my party in my advocating either the Green Party or the Scottish Socialist Party being allowed to stand. but I believe that it would be iniquitous if neither of those parties could fly under the name by which everyone in Scotland knows them. I hope that the Minister can indicate that the Government are looking seriously at that matter.
My last point concerns recounts on the regional list. I listened with care to the Minister's explanation, but I still believe there is a major problem. I accept that when the counts are finished someone could ask for a recount on the regional list at that point. But at that point there may not be any obvious reason why a recount should be called. The Minister might confirm a point for me in order to help me with my night on television explaining the great triumphs of the Scottish Conservative Party.
Lord Sewel: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I have to tell him that, if he is to receive a fee for that appearance, my advice is also subject to a fee.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I have not yet negotiated my fee. I am happy to tell the BBC that I shall be looking for one, but I shall probably do so in vain.
I presume that, when the first-past-the-post count is completed, there will be an announcement in the normal way about who has been elected. After that, the regional list count having been completed for that constituency, the result will be transmitted to the regional returning officer. Once he has the results in from all the seats in his patch, he will add them together, everyone will agree the totals and he will then perform d'Hondt on them. It is not even at that point that it becomes obvious that
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there may be a problem with a very close result but only when the d'Hondt calculator is used down the list, especially when the last seat of the seven is reached.
Perhaps I may give an example using the results in central Scotland at the last general election. The last seat was between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. The Conservatives had already gained one seat, so they were left on the last line with 20,791.5 votes. The Liberal Democrats, who had by that time gained no seats, were left with 20,624. The Conservatives won that seat by 137 votes. On any normal first-past-the-post count, that is recount territory. I believe that, if I were a Liberal Democrat in those circumstances, I would feel peeved that I had not the right to ask for a recount. A hundred and thirty-seven votes of a total of over 40,000 is pretty minuscule. One bundle placed on the wrong pile could make all the difference between the Liberal Democrats gaining that seat and the Conservatives gaining it.
I am extremely glad that it is against my party that I can make this mathematical argument because it shows that I am trying to look at it from a fairness point of view; but, of course, it could happen any way round. That is what would happen in central Scotland. I believe that at that stage a recount ought to be called if, in that case, the Liberal Democrats wanted it. I hear what the Minister says about the difficulty, but I do not think that the difficulty is sufficient answer. In my view, they would have to abandon getting a result there, call in all the boxes and do a full recount of all the constituencies. I understand the logistics, the difficulties and the delay that would be caused, but we are talking about a delay of a few hours in order to ensure that a political party is not deprived of its right to call a recount in a very close call.
It is that seventh seat in all cases that would make the close call. None of the other seats were as close as that one, but one could devise arithmetic by which they could be even closer and one or two votes could make all the difference. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, who is to follow me, would make the same point. I appreciate the Minister's difficulty but it is a difficulty which we ought to have overcome so that, in the unlikely event that we get into this situation, the count would be extended into the next day and one seat would be left to be decided the next day after all the votes had been recounted.
I am sorry to have spoken at length, but these are long pieces of secondary legislation, the last two of which, in particular, raise serious issues.
9.5 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, perhaps I may be permitted to wear my "McThomas of Glenshee" hat for the purposes of these regulations. The noble Lord, Lord Mackay, said that the date of the election was unlikely to be a huge surprise in Scotland. I think that it will be a huge surprise in England to find that on that day a new legislative body, the Scottish Parliament, is elected in Scotland. We are all looking forward to the reaction.

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The noble Lord also referred to his hope that the beginning of the Scottish Parliament would be greeted with pomp and circumstance. According to the Welsh press today, the Welsh have already taken that on hoard. For the opening of the Welsh Assembly we are relying upon our cultural icons, the Manic Street Preachers, Tom Jones and, it is hoped, the whole of the Welsh rugby team—but only provided they beat England on 11 th April. Remembering Harold Wilson in 1966, I respectfully suggest to the Government that it might be in their interests to have a word with the England team to make sure that the Welsh team are victorious at that time.
I note with interest that the disqualification order is 32 pages long compared to four pages for the Welsh disqualification order. I also note, as did the noble Lord, Lord Mackay, references to certain bodies that I know no longer to exist. A certain degree of pruning and rethinking of that order may be required. I am also very interested that no member of Sianel Pedwar Cymru is entitled to be a member of the Scottish Parliament. It is interesting to consider who might have that desire.
Perhaps it indicates that Scottish television has taken over Welsh television. For some reason I pay my electricity to Renfrew in Ayrshire. Things appears to have come to a pretty pass.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, has the noble Lord forgotten Emyrs Hughes and Keir Hardie?
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, we attempted to take over Scotland in those days. I continue to do so.
The serious point that I raise on this particular order is whether it is necessary to follow the Westminster model and require a candidate to stand down from office on consent to nomination. I believe that difficulties arise in employment if the holders of the offices set out in the order must resign those offices just to become candidates. I can understand that if they are elected they should immediately resign the posts that they hold, but there is no certainty that if they resign to be candidates they will ever recover those positions at a later time. I have always regarded that as a bit of a difficulty with Westminster elections. I respectfully urge the Government to consider whether in the context of Scotland, where there is an attempt to make the opportunity for a person to become a member as wide as possible, it is necessary to have a provision of that kind.
I turn to the meat of the matter: the elections order. I make three points, all of which have been referred to by those who have already spoken. First, I welcome the list of names that appears on the ballot paper. As the noble Lord, Lord Mackay, pointed out, we had such trouble with these issues on the debates on the Welsh Bill. We were told that it was impossible and nothing could be designed to put before electors. Here we have in the schedule to the order an example of just such a scheme that the focus groups, who today advise the Government, describe as fairly easy to understand. That was the kind of comment that we made throughout.
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I am a little perturbed by the fact that the colours of the ballot papers are blue and peach which, certainly in my part of the world, have been Conservative colours for as long as I can remember. That may not be so in Scotland. The noble Lord indicates that the colour is mauve.
I turn to the question of regional expenses. Reading this document, I do not understand how the political parties can divide their expenses between regional elections and a national campaign. As it reads at the moment, it suggests to me that the constituency candidate has an expenses limit that is similar to the Westminster limit; that the individual candidate who stands in the region has a limit which is the sum total of the constituency limit in that particular region. and that the £1.5 million limit applies to all expenditure—indeed, the noble Lord said so in his speech—not usually covered in a constituency. That means that it should cover the whole of the regional elections and not, as the noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, indicated. I see that the noble Lord is nodding.
To have regional limits for those who are party candidates as opposed to individual candidates cannot cause a difficulty. If an individual candidate has a regional limit that is limited to the sum total of the constituency limits, why cannot the same be applied to the party so that the national expenditure of that party is the sum total of the eight regions in Scotland? That would appear to be the proper way to go about it.
Obviously, the noble Lord together with those who advise him, has considered this. He tells us that he believes that the publication of expenses on a regional basis afterwards will ensure transparency. Transparency is all very well if it occurs before an election but it is not much use after the members have been elected to the Parliament. It leaves open the possibility of abuse to which the noble Lord, Lord Mackay. referred whereby a party—for example the Labour Party—decides to abandon any regional expenses in central Scotland, where it expects to win constituency seats, and dumps one third of that expenditure in the Highlands and Islands, one third in the Borders and another third perhaps in the North East in areas where they are a little more likely to end up relying upon the regional list to provide that party with representation. That abuse is open to the political parties. I am not so naïve as to believe that a political party such as the Labour Party in Scotland will not take advantage of it. That is a matter that the Government should reconsider before the order is finally passed.
I turn to the issue of nominations, at Schedule 2, Rule 4. The Liberal Democrat Party has always been concerned to ensure that candidates can stand as freely as possible and are not limited by excessive deposits. For example, if a deposit for a parliamentary election had been placed as high as £5,000, in some elections 20 years ago my party would have been completely bankrupted. The financial limits are therefore one way of controlling candidates, but not a very fair way. The alternative is to ensure that a candidate who stands can say, "I have the backing and support of a significant number of people from the constituency". We have

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always said that 10 people assenting were too few: that if one cannot get 100 people behind one in a constituency election one ought not to stand.
The position now outlined in the schedule is that any individual can nominate himself. For the sum of £5,000 that he deposits, and will undoubtedly lose, he then has access to the free post; if he is a regional candidate he can have it over a huge area, and he can have easy advertising at a cheap price for whatever cause he chooses. That is the kind of abuse that I am sure the Government would wish to avoid. It is an issue to which they should give further consideration. Making it easy for a candidate to stand is one thing; but to open it up for anyone to gain £500 worth of massive publicity is somewhat different.
I turn finally to the question of recounts. Although the Minister fairly acknowledges the problem, I do not think that he has yet found the solution. It is interesting that there is a significant difference between the Scottish and the Welsh provisions. The Welsh provisions were originally drafted like the Scottish provisions. Rule 55 provides that an objection can be taken at constituency level by a regional candidate or by his election agent provided that he is present when the counting or the recounting of votes takes place. If there are 10 constituencies a regional candidate and his agent cannot cover the lot. The provision cannot work.
For that reason, there has been an amendment in the Welsh provisions. It provides for a party to nominate counting agents for an individual candidate or a group of party list candidates so that objection can be taken at a constituency count by a regional candidate, his agent, a party list candidate or the counting agent—this refers to Wales—who has been specifically appointed for that purpose. The Scottish machinery cannot work. The Welsh machinery could but—perhaps I anticipate what I may say later—it should not. It is not satisfactory that a recount should be requested in each individual constituency.
Let us consider the position. There are 10 constituencies. The constituency count is held in the first small constituency, and everyone goes home. The second constituency count is held an hour later. The third count, a rural constituency, is four hours later. But it is only when all the 10 constituency regional votes come in that the need for a recount can be ascertained. It is only at that point that the agent for the party for the regional list can phone up the people in each individual constituency and say, "The vote is so close on the seventh candidate that we must have a recount". Everyone has gone home. If that is so, from a practical point of view the boxes have to be brought out the next day in each individual constituency and counted. There will be a delay anyway. So why not do as the noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, suggested? Why not bring all the boxes sealed from the various constituencies to a central point on the following day or the day after? After all, there are only 10 constituencies on average to each region. What is a day or two compared with an election petition which may last months? The recount could then be done in one centre for a final figure to emerge. I say that against my own
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party because as the Conservative Party stands at the bottom of the opinion polls in Scotland, it is probably a Conservative who will be at the bottom of the list.
Having said that, I believe that the recount provisions require to be looked at again. The Welsh have provided a solution. I do not believe that that is satisfactory but, although it is inconvenient, it is workable.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, noble Lords will be glad to hear that I shall be brief. My first question is about the ballot boxes. The Minister said that there will be three ballot boxes in each polling station, colour-coded to match the ballot papers. What will happen if a vote for the Scottish Parliament goes into the local government box? Are voters to be warned that if that happens their vote will not be counted because that box will not be opened until the next day. That may cause a great deal of feeling and a candidate may lose a vote because of it. I should like to know whether people will be warned about that.
Secondly, have the Government made sure that the colours that they have selected are those least likely to be mistaken by people who are colour blind? That is not a lighthearted question. A great many people, particularly men, are colour blind. For example, when they are picking red strawberries against green leaves, they cannot see the strawberries even though they want them. I do not know a great deal about that. If the colour chosen is mauve, the intensity of the colours is very much the same. Will the colours be easily discernible and, most important, will they be discernible from white, because if the coloured ballot paper is mistaken for white, the vote will he lost. That seems to me to be a snag.
I read—and the Minister has doubtless read it too—that in Grampian region there is anxiety about the combination of a high turn-out and the fact that the process will be rather slower because people will be learning the system of voting in three ballot boxes. That may mean that there is a delay, particularly at the rush hour, at the end of election day, which we all know takes place. Therefore, in that region there will be extra ballot boxes. Has that decision been taken in other parts of the country? Has consideration been given to the fact that extra ballot boxes may be needed?
My other question is about the opening. During the passage of the Bill we understood that it was not constitutionally necessary for Her Majesty or her representative to open the Parliament. Has Her Majesty been invited to open the Parliament and, if so, has she accepted? The public want to know that.
Lord Sewel: My Lords, I now have a pile of paper almost equal to the number of pages in the order. I am grateful to noble Lords who have raised a number of interesting and important points. It is right that we should look at them.
Perhaps I may deal with them in reverse order and deal first with the issues raised by the noble Baroness. As regards the colour of the papers, we have indeed taken the problem of colour blindness into account in selecting the colours.

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As regards ballot papers going into the wrong boxes, we must accept that there is a significant risk that a number of ballot papers will go in the wrong box. It is the count for the local government elections which takes place the following day. The practice on the evening will be that the ballot boxes will be opened and mis-allocated papers will be allocated properly at that point. Therefore, if somebody's ballot paper is put into the wrong box, that would not end up as a wasted vote.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, does that mean that the local government ballot boxes will be opened the previous evening?
Lord Sewel: My Lords, they will be opened and then resealed.
Perhaps I may deal with some of the other points raised. I can confirm to the noble Baroness that Her Majesty will attend the opening ceremony on 1st July. That will be the official opening ceremony of the Parliament. The first meeting, on 12th May, will be very much a low-key event.
I turn to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish. I am pleased that he recognises the importance of due ceremony to mark the formal opening of the Parliament. It was only a few months ago that the noble Lord was putting all his effort into ensuring that that day would never dawn. It is nice to know that he now wishes to see that it is properly marked. Indeed, we are having, and have had, consultations to ensure that that takes place.
The noble Lord mentioned a number of bodies which he thought may be defunct. That point was also latched onto by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. I say to both noble Lords that British Shipbuilders continues to exist, in a very reduced way. There are three office holders. The chairman is paid in the region of £17,000. The two members each receive £5,000. Therefore, it is a little too early to write off British Shipbuilders. I spent most of last week in Brussels. At one stage we were talking about virtual cows. In this order we may be talking about virtual organisations. However I think it is better, even if such bodies are defunct, or have recently become defunct, to include them. There is no harm in including defunct bodies, because nobody will be excluded on that basis.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, perhaps I may say to the Minister that it is a good job that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, is not in his place to hear his remarks.
Lord Sewel: My Lords, we have a "belt-and-braces" attitude on this matter. The noble Lord also mentioned social security tribunals. The basis of disqualification there comes from the line of judicial independence, ensuring that people who perform that function are seen to be politically independent.
I turn to the £1.5 million. During the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, I indicated by nodding that he was correct and that the noble Lord,
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Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, was wrong. As I have said, the £1.5 million covers everything not normally covered in a constituency campaign, and that means both the national and regional element. It is difficult. when one thinks of it, to distinguish between the regional and the national. If someone puts up a "Vote Labour" sign, what the dickens is it? Is it an exhortation to vote Labour nationally or regionally? The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, made the point that a party would somehow concentrate "a third, a third, a third" in their best regional areas. I do not believe that that stands up in reality. What would happen if they did that? They would have no national campaign at all. Clearly the parties are going to put quite a lot of that £1.5 million into an across-the-board national campaign. I suspect that we shall see very little dedicated regional expenditure and regional campaigning. There will be the amounts spent in the individual constituencies and I suspect that we shall find that the £1.5 million is virtually taken up by national activities and a national campaign. Therefore I do not have the fears of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford.
The noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, raised the point of registration of political parties. As a Minister I can have no locus in that. Whether or not to accept a registration of a political party, a name, rests with the registrar, though there is an appeal to a committee established by Madam Speaker in another place. I am sure that that is the route that will be taken in relation to the specific cases instanced by the noble Lord, Lord Mackay. It would be quite wrong for a Member of the Government to have any say in whether or not a party name should be accepted by the registrar. A quite correct division exists. I also make the point that the party name used at a local election is decided by the returning officer and not the registrar. So the decisions are taken by two very different people. The sort of tension identified by the noble Lord. Lord Mackay, can therefore occur.
We come to the business of recounts. As I said in my opening speech. it is a difficult area; I acknowledge that. It is one about which we have no previous experience. All our elections at the moment are based on first-past-the-post, and when the count is done we know who has won. That will not be the case when we move into proportional additional member territory. There is a fall-back position. If the situation arises illustrated by the noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, and we are down to a couple of hundred votes out of several tens of thousands, then the decision is clearly by recourse to the courts. The papers are still extant and the recount would be possible if a candidate thought that there was something wrong with the way in which they had been counted in the first place.
9.30 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, will the Minister accept that an election petition is hugely expensive and will rest upon the individual candidate?
Lord Sewel: My Lords, it is a course of action that is not to be undertaken lightly; I accept that. The difficulty with the alternatives is, to take an area like the

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Highlands and Islands where counting will take place in a number of different constituencies with vast geographical spreads, how long will the counting stations have to be kept open? We get into the practical mechanisms of what will be required. However, I recognise the anxiety. We should go forward on the basis of the procedures described in the orders and learn from experience. We can then see what adjustments may be appropriate and may command widespread support in the future. If a real difficulty arises, I am sure that it will be in the interests of all of us to look again at these provisions in the future.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I am not sure that I am imagining the scene correctly. Will the results of the regional vote be read out in such a way that people know that the collation has been done correctly or will that be done on paper and simply the ultimate result read out?
Lord Sewel: My Lords, the regional returning officer has to announce the additional regional result. To achieve that he will have to go through a process of calculation. That is published as part of the proceedings of declaration. As my noble and very helpful friend, Lord McIntosh of Haringey has indicated to me, it can be recalculated on demand as well. That is an open and explicit part of the process so that people know where they stand and make a subsequent judgment on whether they are content with how the process has been applied.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for indicating that the calculation can be done again if someone asks for it. The calculation will be very easy. If the returning officer is not too quick, other people will probably obtain the result quicker than he will. It is a fairly straightforward calculation to use the D'Hondt calculator. I still believe that the problem remains that when one gets to the seventh seat there could be a severe difficulty.
I hear what the Minister says about the counts. Like the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, I am not convinced that there is not a way round it which is far superior to going to court, which is both expensive and lengthy. I appreciate that the problem with orders is that, even if the Minister were to agree with us, there is probably not much that can be done at this stage.
I fear that there has been an oversight, which perhaps indicates that if these orders had come before us sooner we might well have picked up this matter. Albeit hedged about with qualifications as to when somebody could call for a recount, the ability to call in all the papers the following day and have a general recount would certainly seem to be by far the fairer and better option.
Lord Sewel: My Lords, I take note of what the noble Lord has said on that matter. I believe that we have a way forward for these elections. We are in unknown territory to a significant extent. We can reflect on the basis of experience. I am sure that no party represented here, or likely to be represented in the Scottish Parliament, would wish to see its representation
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enhanced on some dubious basis. There will be ample opportunity to bring forward new provisions, if that is felt necessary, for subsequent elections.
I believe that I have dealt with all the new issues. I realise some arose from the procedures which have already been adopted for election to the other place. Quite understandably, noble Lords were using this debate to rework some arguments heard there. I do not believe that they are particularly appropriate to these orders. I believe that I have dealt with the particular new issues which relate to the new orders before us today.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Scottish Parliament (First Ordinary General Election and First Meeting) Order 1999
Lord Sewel: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 16th February be approved [10th Report from the Joint Committed—(Lord Sewel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 1999
Lord Sewel: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, I beg to move.
Moved, that the draft order laid before the House on 25th February be approved [11th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Sewel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

National Assembly for Wales (Disqualification) Order 1999
9.39 p.m.
Lord McIntoshof Haringey rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 10th February be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Government of Wales Act set the framework for devolution to the National Assembly for Wales, but it left some major tasks to be dealt with in subsequent secondary legislation. Before us tonight are three orders which, taken together—although they are not being taken together—fill in much of the remaining picture. The elections order sets out comprehensively the regulatory framework needed to conduct the Assembly's first election under the additional member system; the disqualification order clarifies who is and who is not eligible to stand in that election; and the transfer of functions order prescribes the comprehensive list of powers and duties which are to be handed over from the Secretary of State and vested in the Assembly.
The purpose of the draft disqualification order is to set out clearly those offices and employments which are incompatible with membership of the Assembly. The

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order has been considered and approved by the other place. There are well-established rules on disqualification relating to membership of the House of Commons, the European Parliament and local authorities. Comparable rules need to apply to the Assembly. This is dealt with under Section 12 of the Government of Wales Act 1998, which specifies a number of persons and classes of person who will be disqualified from membership of the Assembly. In addition, Section 12 enables the Secretary of State to recommend in an Order in Council further offices and employments, the holders of which would also be disqualified from becoming Members of the Assembly. The draft of such an order is now before the House. Subject to the assent of this House, the order will be put to Her Majesty in Council.
In preparing the order the Secretary of State has had to recognise that there are no direct parallels in the national Assembly within the United Kingdom. He has decided that it would not be appropriate to put in place for the Assembly disqualification provisions that mirror those which apply under the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975. The Assembly will not be a comparable body to the House of Commons. The listing under the 1975 Act is an extensive one, running to several hundred bodies and post-holders. That listing would not fit the circumstances of the Assembly.
The draft order before your Lordships takes account of responses to a consultative exercise which invited views on the range of disqualification and the need to avoid conflicts of interest and to preserve the impartiality of these bodies. In addition, disqualification is to extend to the broadcast interests, given the role which they would have in reporting on the Assembly. In identifying the offices and employments subject to disqualification, the Secretary of State has decided that it would not be appropriate to apply disqualification to all employees of the listed bodies. Therefore, the order proposes only a limited application to employees, mainly civil servants.
Part I of the order lists 28 bodies where all members are disqualified from membership of the Assembly. Part II identifies a further 43 bodies and offices, the members of which (or post-holders) are not able also to be members of the assembly. In Part II the distinction proposed is for those employees who by virtue of their employment are ex officio members of the board.
Many of the Welsh public sector bodies listed in Part I and Part II will have a direct link with the Assembly and the funding dependency will be a clear one. There are then bodies which operate in a quasi-judicial manner.
Impartiality is the reason for disqualifying members of the Audit Commission, the Commission for Local Administration in Wales, the Health Service Commissioner for Wales and the Commissioner or Assistant Commissioner of the Boundary Commission for Wales.
I should also outline why it is necessary to extend disqualification to the listed social security bodies. Although the Assembly will not exercise functions in the field of social security, these bodies have a duty to decide appeals in Wales on matters which can directly or indirectly affect the Assembly's activities or expenditure;
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or, indeed, affect Assembly Members directly. For example, the bodies could be dealing with child support maintenance appeals or decisions which influence the respective responsibilities of local authority social services departments and the Department of Social Security.
The Social Security Commissioner and the Child Support Commissioner, who are analogous to High Court judges, are disqualified by the provisions of Section 12 of the Government of Wales Act, which apply to the House of Commons Disqualification Act. Therefore, it would be consistent to ensure that disqualification from Assembly membership was extended to the social security appeal and tribunal structures, which are responsible for precedent-setting decisions or have a deciding influence over the way that a particular tribunal carries out its business. Similar considerations apply to the pensions bodies listed in the order where we wish to avoid actual or potential conflicts of interest and compromising impartially.
Outside of the draft order the Secretary of State will rely on his contractual relationship with the Training and Enterprise Councils and the career service companies in Wales to disqualify their board members. For the Welsh European programme executive he will enter into an agreement with the company to preclude Assembly Members from serving on its board. Under the Assembly elections procedure order which I have already described to your Lordships, those in a disqualifying office or employment who intend to stand as a candidate for election to the Assembly would be required to resign before making their formal consent to nomination. The final date for the formal submission of nomination papers will be 8th April. That would mean that people holding a disqualifying office would need to resign by that date at the latest. Where a person resigns their membership to stand for election to the Assembly and is unsuccessful in that election, there is discretion to decide whether to reinstate that person to the body concerned. For an employee, reinstatement would depend on the terms and conditions of employment that apply. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 10th February be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord McIntosh of Haringey.)
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of this order. Unfortunately, my noble friend Lord Roberts of Conwy is unable to be here tonight and we shall not have the benefit of his knowledge and experience in these matters. However, we have the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, and I am sure that he will be extremely helpful to the House.
Bearing in mind the important matters to which these orders relate, the attendance in the Chamber tonight is disappointing to say the least. My noble friend Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish spoke earlier to the Scottish orders. He identified that many of the organisations listed in the Scottish schedule did not exist or that there were inappropriate exclusions. It is also interesting to note that with the bicameral system that will still apply in England, this House will still have the benefit of Members who are involved in many of the organisations mentioned in both of the schedules. It is of course a two-way process as the

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organisations benefit from the input into Parliament as well. However, I accept the reasons given by the Minister for these disqualifications.
The list in the Welsh order before us tonight is much shorter for the reasons given by the Minister. With my limited knowledge I can see no difficulties here but no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, will have some interesting observations to make. I look forward to hearing them.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, I cannot wait to hear myself after that introduction! I have only the same point to make that I made in relation to the Scottish legislation. I see no reason why people should be required to resign their positions until they are elected. In the past it has been difficult to find candidates who are members of public bodies or who are employed in certain occupations because they cannot he assured that they can return to their jobs if they are unsuccessful in their candidatures. It is a huge burden to place on anyone, particularly the kind of people we want to serve in the Welsh Assembly—that is young, active people—to ask them to abandon a job or a career at the beginning and to take a step into the unknown on becoming a candidate for the Assembly.
As regards Westminster elections, there may be some good reason for this—although I do not know what it is—that is hallowed by tradition. But one would have hoped that in coming afresh to this particular subject in the context of the Welsh Assembly a different approach could have been taken. I have no objection to the various offices that are described in Parts I and II and I have listened to the explanation that has been given by the Minister. I conclude by congratulating the Welsh Office on producing such a succinct document.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for his comments. I hope that he will pass on to the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy, our best wishes for his speedy recovery.
On the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, he raised it on the Scottish Order and I was here to hear him. I am afraid the answer is the same: this mirrors the rules which apply to parliamentary elections. Section 14(1) of the Government of Wales Act provides that a person who is disqualified from being a member of the assembly by virtue of Section 12, which includes the draft Order in Council, would be unable to take up the seat if elected, as the effect of disqualification would mean that the election was null and void. That is the technical difficulty.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, he would be unable to take up the seat. That is what we were discussing under the Bill. That does not say that he would be unable to be a candidate. There is power for the Government to change their mind on this issue and permit people to stand without having to resign their positions.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I can see the rationale behind that point, but because of the way that the Act has been drafted—and this is not in the order—the election would be null and void and there
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would have to be a new election. A resignation at that stage would not do the trick. That is the problem we have. The consent to nomination in the assembly election process will require each candidate to confirm that they are not disqualified from membership of the assembly. Of course we are talking about only a relatively small number of those who would be disqualified. As I said in my opening remarks, employees will be able to ensure, and should ensure—and employers should agree—that they will be reinstated if they fail in the elections. But that is a matter for their contract of employment rather than for this order. I understand the noble Lord's point, but it relates to the Act and not to the order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) Order 1999
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 22nd February be approved [11th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, your Lordships will be interested to note that the version of the order we are considering today is that which was laid on the 22nd February, not the version laid on the 15th February, which has been withdrawn. In the original version, a clerical error deleted almost half of paragraph 53 of Schedule 5, making it defective. We have re-laid the order to correct the error and have also taken the opportunity to amend the drafting slightly to make clear the rules under which an assembly regional ballot paper may be accepted. I apologise to your Lordships for any inconvenience that this may have caused.
The first elections to the Assembly will be on 6th May 1999. Section 11(1) of the Government of Wales Act 1998 allows the Secretary of State by order to make provision for the conduct of the assembly elections. That dispensation includes provision for setting limits to election expenses of candidates and registered political parties, and procedures for election petitions. The draft order draws heavily on provisions from the Representation of the People Acts 1983 and 1985 and includes material from statutory instruments made up under those Acts and other legislation on the same basis.
We have also had to take account of two other developments which affect elections in the United Kingdom—the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998 and the recommendations of the Neill Committee on the funding of political parties. I shall spell out in more detail what we have done and why in respect of those issues.
The order has been the subject of detailed discussion and consultation from the very start. In December 1997 we set up an elections working group of senior returning officers and elections administrators to advise officials on the content of the order. Group members have reported regularly to their colleagues in Wales and have fed back their views. We issued a draft of the order to the political parties and returning officers, to other

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organisations such as the Wales TUC and the CBI Wales, and a copy was placed on the Welsh Office website.
Most of the order does no more than apply provision equivalent to the rules for parliamentary or, occasionally, local government election orders, with modifications for the two-vote system. Articles 1 to 13 deal mainly with voting, registration, polling places and absent voting. Polling places for assembly elections will be the same as those for the parliamentary elections and the absent vote criteria are the same as those for local government elections. This is because the assembly electorate is that for local government elections.
Article 14 provides for the combination of polls when assembly elections take place on the same day as local government elections, as will be the case on 6th May this year. Articles 15 to 22 deal with the administration of elections, including the appointment of a returning officer for each assembly constituency and for each assembly electoral region. Articles 23 to 31 provide for the local government franchise to apply for the assembly elections, defines various voting offences, such as personation, and imposes the requirement of secrecy on specified officials and at specified stages of the election process.
Articles 32 to 36 define the arrangements for the appointment of election agents and sub-agents. There will be one election agent only for each party list. Articles 37 to 65 deal with election expenses. These articles lay down election expenses limits for constituency candidates, independent candidates at regional elections and registered political parties at assembly general elections. Our proposals draw on two sources: the existing provisions in the 1983 Act for candidates at parliamentary elections and the recommendations submitted last autumn by the Neill Committee in its report on the funding of political parties. In case the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, wants to raise the issue of national limits, I should remind him that the Neill Committee specifically, both for Wales and for Scotland, set national limits rather than regional limits. There would have had to be some very good reason for us to go against the recommendations of the Neill Committee. The committee was clear that there should be national limits, including for the assembly elections. The proposed limits are in Articles 46 to 48.
We followed without exception the Neill recommendations for constituency candidates. The same limits apply as for elections to the House of Commons except that the figures have been uprated in line with inflation. Independent candidates at regional elections will have limits equivalent to the sum of the limits in all the constituencies in the electoral region. There will be no regional limit for registered political parties but there will be a national limit for such parties of £600,000 at a general election. Expenses incurred on the election campaign of a constituency candidate of a registered political party will be ring-fenced and will not count towards the national total. The national expenses limit for a party will be made up of all expenses incurred by that party which are not specific to an individual
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constituency campaign. The national total will include expenses on the regional campaigns and any expenditure of a general nature.
Article 66 makes provision for free mail-shots. We will provide for one free mail-shot per constituency candidate, one for each independent candidate and one for each party list at a regional election. Parties standing at the constituency and regional elections will be allowed to send a single leaflet to electors presenting their list candidates and their constituency candidates in that region. The Royal Mail is amending its regulations accordingly. Articles 67 to 158 deal with broadcasting at assembly elections, election meetings, disturbances, bribery, treating, election performances, forms and notices, and election advertisements.
I shall deal only with the most important of the schedules. Schedule 5 lays down the main body of rules for the conduct of an assembly election. The provisions are based largely on the parliamentary election rules of 1983. Paragraphs 1 to 23 set out the election timetable and deal with nominations, deposits, withdrawals, disqualification and so on. The nomination procedure takes account of the provisions of the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998. Deposits will be £500 for a constituency candidate, an independent candidate in a regional election and a regional list.
Paragraphs 23 and 24 and associated parts of the appendix set down the rules for the lay-out of ballot papers. The constituency ballot paper is very similar to that used for parliamentary elections but will include emblems. The regional ballot paper is the result of detailed research. Voters had a very strong preference for the names of the list candidates to appear on the ballot papers in this lay-out. They wanted to know precisely for whom they were voting and they did not like ballot papers which bore only the names of the parties. Specimen ballot papers have been made available and placed in the Library of the House. For the first elections, the constituency ballot paper will be coloured pale lilac—what I called mauve in an earlier intervention—and the regional ballot paper will be peach. White is being used for the ballot papers for the local government election.
Paragraphs 26 to 36 deal with matters such as the official mark, appointment of election staff, and poll cards. It is based on the standard procedure, adapted as necessary for a two-vote system. Paragraphs 37 to 48 apply the standard parliamentary rules for procedures in the polling station, adapted as necessary for the two-vote system.
Paragraphs 49 to 64 deal with the count declarations and procedures after the count. Counting will take place on the Friday. These paragraphs provide for the constituency returning officer to count the ballot papers for his constituency election and those cast for the regional election in his constituency. On completion of the regional count, the constituency returning officer will relay the totals to the regional returning officer. Once he or she has agreed the totals, the constituency returning officer may give a local announcement of those figures. The constituency returning officer will declare the constituency result and relay it also to the

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regional returning officer for the latter to calculate the allocation of the regional seats. The regional returning officer will declare the regional result.
The provisions for the rejected ballot papers will make clear to returning officers that they can accept regional ballot papers where the voter has placed a mark or marks in the voting box for a party and against the name of a candidate on the party's list. He would also be able to accept a ballot paper where the voter had not marked the voting box but placed marks against the name of one or more candidates in the same list. A ballot paper where marks have been placed for one party and beside the names of candidates for another party would not be accepted since the voter's intention would not be clear.
Paragraphs 66 to 68 provide for vacancies in the constituency to be filled by by-election unless the vacancy occurred three months or less from the next ordinary election. There is no provision for regional by-elections. In the case of a list member dying or vacating his seat, the next candidate on the list would normally fill the seat. If the regional member was an independent, the seat would have to remain vacant until the next election. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 22nd February be approved [11th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord McIntosh of Haringey.)
10 p.m.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of the order. His briefing from the Welsh Office appears to have made for a more comprehensible explanation of the expenses limit. Even I understood the provisions.
I am convinced that there is a major difficulty regarding the recount. I believe that Ministers recognise that. My noble friend Lord Mackay and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, raised this point during debate on the Scottish order but it bears repetition.
At the constituency count both the candidate and, if applicable, the party list candidates or their agents may instigate a recount. The problem is that it would not be until the regional result was known, after the d'Hondt calculation is announced, that the desirability of a recount may become apparent. Therefore, the candidates or their agents may routinely demand a recount at the constituency count even if there is a clear majority.
In the previous debate the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, suggested recourse to the courts. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, pointed out the cost of that. It is not desirable routinely to have recourse to the courts.
The noble Lords, Lord Sewel and Lord McIntosh, seemed to imply that there would be no problem if a recount was requested even if a large majority was declared by the returning officer. Will the Minister confirm that that applies to the Welsh elections as well as the Scottish elections?
There are only four top-up seats in Wales. I now understand that the Minister's right honourable friend Mr. Michael aspires to one of them. He has another
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problem in that, although he is his party's choice as First Secretary, the Assembly may decide to elect someone else.
But I digress. The regional count could clearly be very contentious. The Minister said that he thought that a recount at regional level would not be practical, or words to that effect. I merely point out that we on these Benches promoted the advantages of a first-past-the-post system.
The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, suggested a centralised count. I have come very late to these matters, but his suggestion seems to have merit. His party, as we know, is very pro-PR. The problem is that his solution may be effective for Wales, but what about a national general election? The noble Lord may want to correct me on that point when he replies.
The order is, of necessity, voluminous and detailed. As the Government enjoy the support of only 25 per cent. of the electorate, the people of Wales will be very disappointed if the election process is flawed. I should therefore like to ask the Minister whether the process defined in the order has been tested by means of an exercise. I am thinking of an exercise that would test the robustness of the rules against those who would like to explore the limits of them. Such an exercise would test for what could go wrong. I appreciate that we have had elections by PR in Northern Ireland, but these are new and different rules. Have they been tested in the manner which I have described?
I have looked to see what would happen if an elected member were to die after being elected. Paragraph 65 of Schedule 5 makes provision in the event of the death of a candidate during the election process, as explained by the Minister. I am sure I have missed the provisions in the order, or perhaps it is provided for elsewhere, but can the Minister help me on this point?
The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, replied to questions from my noble friend, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish. The only problem is that I cannot remember what he asked for. Perhaps we will leave that point. My noble friend also raised many points of detail in a far more lucid manner than I could. In view of the sparse attendance in the House, I can see very little point in worrying your Lordships by repeating these questions as they apply to Wales, but again I look forward to hearing the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, and of course the Minister's reply to the debate.
10.7 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, may I first of all congratulate the Welsh Office once again for producing a very much more readable document than their Scottish counterparts, and in particular the clarity that has been achieved by placing much of the detail of the election in Schedule 5. That has really helped to follow and to understand the way in which this document is put together.
I come immediately to the recount problem. I remember being at the count in North Wales for the Euro elections. That is a substantial area. It covers six or seven parliamentary constituencies. Nevertheless, it was possible to bring all the votes to a centre in Mold

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and to count them quite quickly and produce a result without any difficulty. That is now to be the North Wales Region for the purposes of the regional seat.
If the proposals that are set out in this document are to be followed, I can envisage that on election night the constituency count will take place, the constituency members will be declared and there are bound to be disparities in time. Each constituency is separate. The Wrexham constituency is very close, five or six miles across. The constituencies in the far west, in Anglesey and in Caernarvon, are very much larger. If there is to be a recount of the regional vote the same night the counting staff in every constituency will have to remain in position until all the regional results are finally in and a declaration is made, presumably at some central point. Just as in the Euro elections, I would imagine that there would be a returning officer who would declare at a central point—it could be Cardiff or, if we are dealing with the North Wales Region, it could be somewhere like Mold in North Wales—where the election result is known for the first time. It is at that point that the agent may wish to ask (reasonably) for a recount in every constituency. Hours may have passed. Staff may have been kept hanging around at various centres from Wrexham through to Caernarvon. Wrexham strives in general elections to be first in the whole of the United Kingdom to produce a result and usually is about second, third, or possibly fourth. I know this to my chagrin on many occasions. The practical point I seek to make is that the counting staff will be hanging around to see whether there is a possibility that when the last result is in from the most remote constituency a recount of the regional vote will be required. To my mind, that is nonsense. If a recount is required, there is no reason why it should not take place by the collection of all the boxes together on the following day in a central point within the region and for the matter to be dealt with by a counting staff for that regional centre rather than take place across the whole of the district. I speak for north Wales, but the same could apply to any region. There is an improvement in the machinery, as I said when debating the Scottish order, but it is by no means a successful solution for the problem which arises.
At the risk of wearying your Lordships, perhaps I may return to other points that I made in relation to the Scottish order. It may well be that the Neill Committee recommended that there be a national maximum limit on election expenses. We welcome the concept of a maximum limit. The Liberal Democrats have always suffered at the hands of the other two parties, which spend astronomic sums which seem to come, in some instances, from all over the world and from all kinds of pockets. We do not have access to such funds, so we welcome the principle of a maximum. Whether the Neill Committee took into account the tactical uses to which that maximum can be put I venture to doubt. In the case of Wales, it is perhaps even more obvious that the Labour Party, which will not expect to win regional list seats, for example, in the valleys of south-east Wales and possibly in north-east Wales, will be much more concerned to ensure the return of a regional list candidate in mid-Wales. It is no coincidence that at the
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top of that list is Mr. Alun Michael, who is nominated as First Secretary of the Assembly, so they have every incentive to place their eggs in that particular basket and to use the money in a concentrated way.
In discussing the Scottish situation, the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, said that surely much of this expenditure would go on a national campaign to every part of the country. What I believe he overlooked was the posters and increased leafleting which could take place in a particular area and even the targeting of local radio stations and the use of other forms of advertising. I appreciate that with local radio stations no advertising is possible, so I withdraw that suggestion. The possibility of targeting an area arises as a result of this position.
Finally, I repeat the point that nominations under Article 4 can be made without anyone backing the particular candidate. That system is open to abuse. Any individual can put his name forward for a regional seat. He can, by lodging a deposit of £500, have free post under Article 66 and he can send out whatever form of advertising he wishes. It is a very simple form of advertising. There is nothing in the order that would stop him from doing that. I respectfully suggest that that provision should be looked at again and that there should be indications of public support from people entitled to vote before the nomination of a particular candidate is accepted.
10.15 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their observations on this order. I acknowledge that the most important and difficult point that has been raised is the lack of provision for recounts on a regional basis. As my noble friend Lord Sewel said in response to the debate on the Scottish order, the costs of such a recount would be enormous. For that reason, on balance we felt that it was desirable to adopt the procedure set out in the order.
Despite the invitation of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, I shall not be tempted to debate issues concerned with national general elections or the position of the present Secretary of State for Wales. While I have nothing positive to add to what my noble friend Lord Sewel said, it is important to point out that even at constituency level recounts are not a right; rather, they take place at the discretion of the returning officer. This is not a procedure that parties can use as a tactic in fighting an election. In any case the primary purpose of a recount is not to check a close result but to ensure that there is no discrepancy in the counting procedures. That would arise, as provided for here, when the ballot papers were counted at local constituency level, hence the provision that the facility for a recount of regional ballot papers should take place at that level. I acknowledge that the noble Lord has a point about the convenience of counting staff at constituency level and that they should not be kept waiting for a long time. However, there are conflicting interests here and we must come down on one side or the other. We have come down on the side of a system that is consistent with the discretionary nature of recounts in elections generally in this country. We recognise that we are dealing with a new situation.

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As my noble friend Lord Sewel said, if any difficulty is experienced on 6th and 7th May we shall look at the matter again. There is the undesirable but long stop possibility of an appeal to the courts.
The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, made a suggestion about the testing of procedures which involved a dry run with no voters. I thought that that was an excellent suggestion. I shall draw that to the attention of the returning officers who will be responsible for organising these matters at local level. Perhaps the Attlee command post exercise may become a feature of Welsh Assembly elections. The noble Earl also referred to the possibility of the death of or the vacation of office by a representative after the election. I thought that I had referred to that in my introductory speech. In case I have not, perhaps I may set out the position. For a constituency representative, if there is a death or a vacation of office there will be a by-election. For a regional representative the presumption is that the next person down on the same party's list will take the place of the regional representative. If for some reason that person does not want to do it, one goes further down the list. If the next person on the list has left the party there is provision whereby the party organisation can say that it does not want that person because he or she is no longer "one of us". The replacement of regional party members will take place without great political significance. The only exception to that is that an independent member elected on a regional list will not be able to be replaced and the seat will remain vacant until the next election.
The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, made reference to the national maximum limit of expenditure. He made some quite machiavellian suggestions about the way in which (I noted) the Labour Party, not the Liberal Democrat Party, might behave in the allocation of posters, leafleting and so on. The noble Lord may be right. It may be that the Liberal Democrat Party would behave in that way. It may be that all sorts of sinister things would go on. But I think he would recognise that if we had departed from the Neill recommendations a howl of protest would have gone up from the press and media and the risk of obloquy would be very much greater than the rather remote risk to which the noble Lord referred.
I wrote down the noble Lord's point but I cannot read my writing.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, it relates to nominations.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Lord has stood for election, as I have done. Having 10 names on the ballot paper was always a farce. It was easy to achieve. I do not think that there is any real difference. We recognise reality.
I hope that I have dealt with the points raised. I commend the order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

National Assembly for Wales (Transfer of Functions) Order 1999
10.21 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 16th February be approved [11th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the basic principle is straightforward. Every statutory function my right honourable friend the Secretary of State exercises, with a small handful of exceptions, is to pass to the Assembly. What we are considering today is in essence a list of those functions. They constitute an important and extensive set of powers for the Assembly which would deliver the promise set out in the White Paper, A Voice for Wales. The order meets the duty and lays on the Secretary of State by Section 22 of the Government of Wales Act a duty to lay a draft transfer order before the first Assembly elections, including such functions in the fields of responsibility listed in Schedule 2 to the Act as he considers appropriate.
It might assist your Lordships if I outlined how the order works. For the most part, the transfer is straightforward. Where the Secretary of State is able to exercise a function now, the Assembly will be able to do so in the future. So an unqualified entry in the order means that the Assembly will, after 1st July, be solely responsible for the functions concerned in Wales.
In many cases legislation requires the Secretary of State to act jointly with his right honourable friends in exercising functions. In very many others he has to seek the consent of the Treasury before acting. We do not believe that the Assembly should generally be bound in this way. It should be accountable to the people of Wales, not to UK Ministers. So in most cases we have removed the requirements for joint action and for Treasury consent.
There are, however, a few instances where it would not be prudent to do that. For example, the Assembly could not sensibly make separate decisions about bodies that serve the whole of Great Britain. In those cases, the order transfers to the Assembly only the share of the Secretary of State for Wales of a joint function, leaving the Assembly to act jointly with the other Minister concerned. That will require the Assembly and the relevant Secretary of State to act in a sensible and co-operative manner.
The UK Government will still need to act in Wales on many matters which are not transferred to the Assembly: social security, broadcasting and prisons, for example. They are examples of powers under which UK Ministers exercise some functions now while the Secretary of State for Wales exercises others. In those cases, the order makes the functions concurrent so that both the Assembly and Ministers may use them. Indeed, if we did not do so, Wales would be deprived of programmes operated there by other Ministers now.
I should say something at this point about probably the most complex provisions in the order, those relating to water. As we recognise in the White Paper A Voice for Wales, water policy requires special treatment under devolution. Rivers do not respect the border between

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England and Wales and water companies do not do so either. There are many functions in the Water Industry Act 1991 about which the order makes special provisions. The Water Industry Act contains the great majority of powers regulating the water industry. The order gives the Assembly those powers as regards DŴr Cymru and allows the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions to retain them as regards Severn Trent. That reflects the respective roles of the Welsh Office and the DETR now. It means that the Assembly will have jurisdiction over the operation of Dwr Cymru in Herefordshire and Cheshire, while the DETR oversees Severn Trent's activities in Montgomeryshire. That is the only sensible way to proceed. It would be a nonsense for one undertaker to be subject to oversight from two different authorities.
The construction of reservoirs is a matter of great sensitivity in Wales. We believe that the Assembly should have sole control over such decisions in all circumstances. My honourable friend the Member for Bridgend, Win Griffiths, assured the other place on 22nd July last year that that would be so. The order fully discharges that assurance. In no circumstances will a UK Minister be able to authorise such works. That will be a matter for the Assembly alone.
The transfer order is at the heart of the new government of Wales. It gives the Assembly comprehensive powers to improve public services, the economy and the environment and to do so solely on the basis of its democratic mandate. I commend the draft order to the House.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 16th February be approved [11th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord McIntosh of Haringey.)
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister's explanation of the order. During the passage of the Government of Wales Act, on these Benches we tabled amendments to restrict the Government's ability to transfer further matters by means of orders. Noble Lords will need no reminding that it is not normally the practice of this House to fail to approve such orders when presented before your Lordships.
I have one concern regarding the lack of collective responsibility of the Welsh Assembly. That may have the undesirable effect of the Assembly deciding to spend money that should properly be under the control of the local councils. I understand that that is termed to be "top-slicing". That would result in the councils having to raise council taxes in order to maintain their services. I recognise that I may be covering old ground but I am advised that that is an important matter. Does the Minister regard that as a problem, or will he explain why it is not?
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, I wholly welcome this order. It is the raw meat for which I have been waiting for a very long time, even though it is in somewhat indigestible form.
In looking through some of the ancient Acts that are referred to in the schedule, it is like the history of the struggle of the Liberal Party in Wales for the people of
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Wales in the 19th and early 20th century, from the public health Acts to local government Acts, the great Lloyd George Budget of 1908 through to the disestablishment of the Church of Wales by the Welsh Church Act of 1914. All those past pieces of our colours are floating in front of my eyes. I have no criticisms and I thank the Government for getting on with it.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I particularly express my appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. What he described as the "raw meat" is, of course, served off the bone.
Looking at the Acts contained in the order, I question some of what the noble Lord says about the historical role of Liberal governments. There have not been many Liberal governments and they are not terribly proud of the Inclosure Acts of 1845 or the Burial Act of 1853. If the noble Lord looks further on, he will find many more from the Labour government of 1945 than from any preceding legislation. That is no doubt because much of the preceding legislation had been repealed or consolidated. I do not wish to make too much of a political point of that.
The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is concerned about top-slicing. The Secretary of State for Wales already has full freedom to allocate the Welsh block between his responsibilities. There really is no reason to change that as a result of devolution. It is important that a single Assembly should be able to set spending priorities to reflect its electorate's wishes. The Assembly will be under a statutory duty to work in partnership with Welsh local authorities. The Welsh Local Government Association, which represents the local authorities, fully supports the proposals and I see no reason to doubt the ability of the Assembly to work closely with the local authorities in Wales. Indeed, my instinct would be to think that they would work a good deal more closely than the Secretary of State or the UK Parliament is able to do. I hope and believe that the noble Earl need have no fears about the relationship between the Assembly and its local authorities. I commend the order to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Cervical Cancer Screening
10.30 p.m.
Lord Clement-Jones Lord Clement-Jones rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what progress the Department of Health's cervical cancer screening programme is making in implementing the proposals in its 1998 review, in response to the criticisms contained in the December 1998 report of the House of Commons' Public Accounts Committee, and in response to the recent legal cases brought against the NHS.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, after a gruelling week for the health team, I am sorry that this Unstarred Question comes on at this time of night. I know that health teams on all Benches have been working extremely hard over the past week. Perhaps it is getting to be a habit to debate into the early hours of the morning.
Many of us, even a relatively new Member such as myself, remember the late Lord Dean of Beswick with considerable admiration. While battling with cancer he fought as a doughty advocate for cancer treatment in this country, particularly for institutions such as The Christie Hospital. I am particularly grateful to him because a Starred Question in December about cervical cancer aroused my interest in this subject and in the state of the cancer screening programme. I should like to emphasise that this Unstarred Question is put down in a spirit of inquiry, not adversarial criticism.
Cervical cancer is the most common cause of cancer in women under 35 in the western world, and overall the second biggest killer of women in the developing world. We have one of the most effective screening programmes in Western Europe. However, over the years a number of cases have demonstrated grave problems in that programme. I need only recite the names of hospitals without mentioning the number of smear tests which have had to be rechecked as a result—The Inverclyde Royal Hospital, 1993; Gateshead, 1993; Blackpool, 1994, Gorleston, Norfolk, 1996; Merthyr Tydfil, 1994 and Hospital of St. Cross, Rugby, 1998—to produce a roll call of some of the cytology laboratories where problems have been encountered.
The worst case of all has been the Kent and Canterbury hospitals NHS Trust where an independent review reported last year that problems in the trust's former screening services may have contributed to eight deaths, with 30 women needing hysterectomies and over 300 found to be in need of urgent treatment. Around 91,000 smear tests needed to be rechecked. As your Lordships will be fully aware, just a fortnight ago three women—Lesley Cannon, Sandra Penney and Helen Palmer, each of whom developed adenocarcinoma and had to have hysterectomies as a result—won a test case. That case will be followed by others. The damages in that case are yet to be assessed.
To its credit, the Department of Health has taken energetic action since the report of that independent inquiry. In December 1997 the department launched an action programme with an action team to monitor it and to consider such matters as staff resource. The programme included mandatory accreditation requirements by cytology labs, refresher training for staff who were not up to standard, a review of smaller laboratories and regional reviews of screening services.
The action team reported in August last year. It recommended much improved public information, especially about what screening is and its level of accuracy. In April last year, Sir John Bourn, the Comptroller and Auditor General, conducted his own review of the programme. He confirmed that progress had been made on the programme since his last report of 1992—in particular, achievement of the overall coverage target of 80 per cent. adopted in 1993. However, he described a situation where implementation of laboratory guidance and achievements of regional targets was patchy; certain groups were not being reached by the screening programme, in particular ethnic minorities, and, although falling, the number of unscheduled smear tests of 450,000 in 1996–1997 was unjustified. In addition.
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many women were waiting too long for their smear test results and follow-up with colposcopy clinics, and there was inadequate understanding of what was involved.
Sir John made a number of recommendations designed to remedy those deficiencies. They included: screening at three year intervals, not five; better smear taking, mainly taken by practice nurses in GP surgeries, and, above all, improved quality assurance in the screening labs and colposcopy clinics. When reviewing the NAO Report, the Public Accounts Committee which reported last December—I know this was controversial in many circles—said,
"The NHS Cervical Screening Programme affects the lives of millions of women each year and despite recent improvements there are still worrying failures at every stage of the screening process".
The Public Accounts Committee went on to say,
"The NHS Executive need to set firm national and local timescales for fully achieving quality standards and take robust action where standards slip".
Subsequently, the screening programme's report was published in the autumn of 1998. It was clearly designed to maintain or restore public confidence and it is a user-friendly, upbeat document, perhaps a little too upbeat in the current circumstances. Having said that, it is hardly surprising that most recent public opinion poll evidence—an NOP survey was published recently—is that public confidence in the screening programme has fallen significantly. Half of those polled are less confident in the service than they had been previously. It has given rise to some rather upsetting and disagreeable headlines such as,
"This cancer screening is a lottery and women are paying with their lives".
That is a deeply worrying and inaccurate headline which appeared only two weeks ago in the Sun. In addition, there have been other articles which have appeared in the broadsheets which, in their own way, have been as undermining of the screening programme.
In the face of all that we must not forget that the generality of laboratories do an excellent job, nor the success that the national screening programme, which was introduced in 1998—the first in the European Union—has had in reducing the incidence of cervical cancer; from 14 per 1,000 in the 1950s to below six nowadays. Over 4.5 million smear tests are carried out each year and in fact they reach 85 per cent. of eligible women, which makes it one of the most comprehensive in the world. It is estimated that it prevents up to 3,900 cases each year.
In fact, the same NOP survey said that seven out of 10 of those who knew of recent failures were still happy with the quality of the service. Only one-in-eight are less likely to have a smear test than they were two years ago, while one-in-four claim to be more likely to do so. Nevertheless, it must clearly now be a major government priority to get the programme right in the way it is executed. That is doubly so now that controversy is extending into the area of colposcopy— the examination of cervical tissue following abnormal smear test results.
Many questions remain about the national screening programme before we can be sure that there is a programme on which all women can rely. What further

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action, for instance, is the department taking to improve detection of cervical cancer? What action is being taken in the light of the recently decided Kent and Canterbury court cases? They were regarded as borderline by the hospital and they disputed negligence, yet the judge disagreed. However, it seems as though the standard Bolam test has been changed as a result of that case. What is the position on the programme in relation to the accreditation of laboratories? Are the low-volume laboratories to be closed? How will the department ensure that the 13 health authorities which failed to come up to coverage targets meet the 80 per cent. target in the coming year? Have the regional directors of public health now firmly grasped the reins of accountability? Is it the case that there is a major recruitment crisis? Noble Lords will have seen some of the articles on that score in the press.
Despite all the management improvements—I know that the Minister will be telling us about some of those—both in train and those suggested by the Public Accounts Committee, the cervical cancer screening programme cannot guarantee detection. One thousand three hundred women a year still die from cervical cancer. We still have one of the highest recorded incidences of cervical cancer in the European Community at 12.1 per 100,000; 50 per cent. of invasive cancers occur in women who have been adequately screened, which means that there are inefficiencies in the test. According to Government sources, the current screening success rate is 80 to 90 per cent., but many people dispute that. There are issues of inadequate smears and false positives and 20 to 30 per cent. of diagnoses are falsely declared negatives, which can lead, as we know, to tragedy.
Cervical cancer is recognised by all major global medical authorities to be the first identified virally induced cancer in women. There are more than 70 types of HPV (papillomavirus), of which 13 high risk types have been identified as determinants in causing 95 per cent. of cervical cancers. Is there not a very good case for introducing the new HPV/DNA test as a supplement to the current pap test? That has many advantages. It can detect all the high-risk types of HPV. In combination with a smear test it can raise detection rates to 97 per cent. It is automated; it reduces the number of inadequate smears and the need for repeat smears. As a result, the recommended recall period is actually five years and not three years. That could lead to savings of something like £30 million by the National Health Service, as a recent BMJ article illustrated. It can also detect difficult adenocarcinoma cases, which constitute 20 per cent. of all cancers and which the three women in the Kent and Canterbury case had.
The FDA in the United States has already undertaken extensive trials. The test is in use in the United States for borderline cases. There are trials in a number of other EU countries. Here in the United Kingdom, the ICRF has a trial involving 12,000 women due to be completed next year. It is already in use here in Marie Stopes clinics, yet the official trials seem to be destined to take for ever. The Health Technology Assessment Programme is undertaking a fast-track systematic
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review of the role of DNA testing within the NHS cervical screening programme. That will not be completed for some considerable time. The so-called TOMBOLA trial is expected to last eight or nine years and has not even started.
Yet this is a diagnostic tool to supplement an existing test, not a major new treatment. Why cannot we rely on the ICRF trials when they are complete? That does not seem to be displaying the same sense of urgency as the Dutch Government, for instance, who are pressing for interim results.
I mentioned various aspects of the BMJ article and the test with regard to saving resources. The test itself could cost as little as £20. That should be set against all the litigation costs for the NHS which may be incurred by a test which is now known not to be completely accurate. Recently a Californian doctor said:
"Paps comprise 2% of laboratory activity but 98% of lab losses in terms of litigation".
In a recent Parliamentary Answer, John Hutton, the Minister of State, in answer to a question about DNA testing said:
"The Advisory Committee on Cervical Screening are currently considering the potential role of new technologies in the cervical screening programme".
Is not this an important task? Is not the solicitor for the plaintiffs against the Kent and Canterbury Hospital Trust, Sara Harman, correct when she says:
"We have been using this method to screen cervical cancer for years and we are still getting these mistakes. We have to develop new techniques for reading smear results".
The Secretary of State has personally promoted the research on the so-called Campaign Test unveiled in December last year which is being developed in CRC research in Cambridge, which is an improved, computerised way of improving the pap test. But that looks as though it is still some way off being introduced in the programme.
Beyond the issue of management and testing, the issue of communication also needs to be addressed. There have been worrying studies about what women understand about the possibility of having to attend a colposcopy clinic in the event of an abnormal smear. There are a number of issues regarding information which I do not have time to go into today. I hope that we can hear from the department tonight what it is doing to allay current public fears and anxieties about the screening process.
Personally, I am very optimistic about the screening programme in the future. There are many exciting developments in medicine, including both vaccines and cures for HPV. Has the department taken a view on the news of the potential new chemotherapy treatment for cervical cancer shortly due to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine? It is a fast-moving area.
Whatever the criticisms, those who claim a screening programme of this nature is unnecessary are still in a small minority. The development of a totally reliable screening programme, however, is of crucial importance. If we do not get it right there will be a major effect on the quality of life and worry for hundreds, if not thousands, of women.
Finally, I quote from Dr. McGoogan, who is a clinical director of pathology at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. In the programme review published in December, she said:
"We've never been in a better position to be confident and enthusiastic about the future because so many things are coming together now".
I ask the Minister to help underpin that optimism and assure us that the issues I have raised tonight will be dealt with urgently.
10.45 p.m.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, very much for bringing this subject to our attention this evening. There have clearly been some spectacular failures in the cervical cancer screening programme. However, as the noble Lord said, it is important to put this in the overall context that the service is having a most desirable clinical effect. It is one of the biggest cervical screening programmes in the world and it is saving lives. Following its introduction, there has, over the past five years, been a 7 per cent. reduction per year in cervical cancer deaths. That is really very good news.
The Chief Medical Officer set up a review of the screening programme and, following its recommendations published in August of last year, practically all laboratories undertaking screening have now applied for accreditation. Those which have not applied are likely to be merged with larger laboratories. It is unlikely that the actual accreditation will be completed before the end of the year, because this does take some time. Those laboratories which undertake fewer than 15,000 specimens per year are being merged with other laboratories. On the quality assurance side, I can tell noble Lords that a number of programmes have now been developed and there are regionally appointed quality assurance directors for cytology now in place with appropriate budgets, which is good news. A national committee for quality standards in colposcopy has also been established.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has been actively involved in training. It has developed a joint accreditation of colposcopy training programmes with the British Society of Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology. This began just over 12 months ago. The college is just about to circulate its working party report entitled, Recommendations for Service Provision and Standards in Colposcopy. So it is quite clear that much has been achieved.
The Cervical Screening Programme Review 1998, which has some beautiful flowers on its front cover and is known as "The Flower Report", has a foreword written by another flower—the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Health in the House of Lords. This has been a very useful report because it has given the public the true picture about cervical screening programmes, emphasising that they do not give an "All Clear" to the patient but provide what has been described as a safety belt. I think that the report should be compulsory reading for all people involved in medical litigation in this sphere.
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Reference has been made to the Kent and Canterbury Hospital case. I can tell the House that the reason why this case was defended was that it was quite different to the large number of other cases which were settled out of court. The three patients concerned had a cancer involving glandular cells called an adeno-carcinoma, whereas the cervical screening programme is for the detection of a different kind of cancer called a squamous cell cancer. Detecting border-line abnormalities in glandular cells would be fortuitous in such an exercise. All three patients had smears which could easily have been overlooked in any laboratory, even if they had been checked by other experts. In fact, in one of the three cases, the smears were passed as normal in a teaching hospital laboratory in the Midlands.
The two expert witnesses for the plaintiffs maintain that they should not have been overlooked, while the three expert witnesses for the defence said they could. It is clear that the defence expert witnesses see far more cervical smears every year than the other witnesses and certainly undergo the annual cervical cytology performance test, which is a kind of annual driving test.
As I am sure noble Lords are aware, in medical research we try to reduce bias which could readily distort our findings. There are two kinds of bias to which I should like to draw attention. There is outcome bias, which will occur when one looks at a smear knowing that the patient subsequently developed a cancer. It would be a thoroughly biased eye that would scrutinise every cell at great length, which is quite a different technique to that of screening. The other bias is context bias, and that obtains where one looks at a smear knowing that it is not a routine smear but is involved in litigation, especially when the slide has written on it some comment such as, "Query abnormality. Query glandular".
If the court wishes to obtain unbiased opinions, I suggest that rigorous scientific methods should be used. Each expert witness should be required on his own to examine a doubtful smear, together with 10 negative smears. It is imperative that all the smears should look alike and that their only distinguishing feature should be the number inscribed. Each witness should be required to record his opinion without discussing it with anyone. That gets rid of the problem of a "retrospectoscope" which people find so useful. If that were done, it would simulate to some extent the circumstances under which those in the cervical screening scheme actually work. Had that been done in the Kent and Canterbury case, I suspect there would have been many surprises.
This case has serious implications for the cervical screening service. The conflicting evidence of the five expert witnesses demonstrates just how difficult it can be to interpret whether a cell is abnormal. The court seemed to take the view that anything short of absolute confidence that the smears were in the normal range required the screener to pass the slide on, which would have meant that a more senior member of the staff would have checked it. The court was also of the opinion that the sensitivity of the test is of supreme importance and much more important than the distress of women who have repeat smears or referrals for borderline abnormalities. The rationale for screening

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depends on population based data and not necessarily on outcomes for individuals within the population. Screening tests are not perfect: 100 per cent. sensitivity and 100 per cent. specificity, which of course would be the ideal, cannot be achieved. A good cervical smear may contain more than 200,000 cells. Human observation is notoriously fallible and if the abnormal cells in the smear are scanty they may not be reliably detected by a human screener. Misreporting of such smears could surely be defended, in Boland terms, as not amounting to negligence.
The implication of the judgment could be that one cannot have false negatives and therefore 100 per cent. accuracy is required. This is simply not achievable with the present technology. The result of all this is that there will be an increased reporting of smears as borderline and this will lead to excessive demands on the service which simply cannot be met. The other likely long-term effect, of course, is that it will become even more difficult to recruit those who do the screening. The Secretary of State recently expressed concern that some regions in England had not attained the 80 per cent. screening coverage of eligible women because of the present difficulty in recruiting staff. It will become increasingly difficult to recruit as the pressure on those in the service reaches breaking point. They put up with inadequate pay because they know that they are doing a worthwhile job of a very high standard. But altruism has its limits. If the unrealistic public expectations develop into hostility and litigation continues to increase at its present rate, and if they continue to be paid inadequately, they will simply leave. I believe that the screening programme is in jeopardy. I hope that the Minister will be able to give some reassurance, especially to those who have done such excellent work in this difficult sphere.
10.56 p.m.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for his kind remarks concerning the late Lord Dean of Beswick. As his Whip, I particularly appreciated his comments and I know that his wise counsel will be much missed by many noble Lords.
As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, we have enjoyed—and I think that is the word—many happy hours of debate on NHS subjects in the past few days. Although we discussed NICE and CHIMP, much of the debate was focused on funding, management and structures. It is very important that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has brought us to focus on the prevention of illness, an area which so clearly needs attention. I thank the noble Lord for enabling us to debate this important matter and for the constructive approach which he and the noble Lord, Lord McColl, have brought to the debate. They have made many comments with which I agree and which I much appreciate. The lack of speakers in the debate is certainly no reflection on the importance of the issue.
I will try to respond to as many as I can of the issues raised—there are quite a number—but I would like to start by making a few points. There is no doubt that the
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identified failures in the programme in the past few years have caused considerable concern. I believe that the Government have taken the right action to try to deal with the problems identified through systematic reviews, identification of weaknesses and the introduction of accreditation for laboratories, by taking a keen interest in new technologies, and in an endeavour to educate women in both the benefits and limitations of screening.
I acknowledge that there can never be room for complacency in this area. Clearly we have to be ever watchful in monitoring the quality of the programme. The Government are determined to do that. The NHS cervical screening programme is a very important part of the Government's drive to reduce the number of deaths from cancer, and it has proved to be a success. More than 5 million women per year are screened in the UK and experts estimate that the programme prevents up to 3,900 cases of cervical cancer each year. As the noble Lord, Lord McColl pointed out, the number of deaths from cervical cancer in England and Wales has been falling by around 7 per cent. a year. This success—and it is success—owes much to the hard work and dedication of all the staff involved in the programme. I believe that they should be proud of what has been achieved. The noble Lord, Lord McColl, made some very important points about those achievements.
As we knew, despite those successes there have been some problems which have attracted a great deal of adverse media coverage. The failings in Kent and Canterbury caused many women and their families a great deal of distress. I would like on behalf of the Government to offer them my continued sympathy. The health authority and the trust concerned have been making every effort to settle the claims for compensation as quickly and as fairly as possible in order to minimise further distress to the women affected.
As has been pointed out by the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord McColl, in three test cases the High Court has recently ruled in favour of the women making the claim. I am not in a position to comment further on this matter. The NHS Executive is currently considering the judgment and the implications for the NHS cervical screening programme as a whole. But I shall ensure that the points made by both noble Lords are drawn to the attention of the relevant officials.
Following the failures in Kent and Canterbury and elsewhere, the Government took swift action to address shortcomings in the cervical screening programme. Over the past year the programme has undergone the biggest shake-up in its 10-year history. We have implemented a wide-ranging programme of action—I acknowledge the kind comments of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, on this matter—to improve the quality of the programme, and the changes we have introduced will be closely monitored to ensure that they happen.
Regional directors of public health were required to carry out detailed regional reviews of the cervical screening programmes and draw up action plans to deal with areas of weakness. From this year they will be making formal annual reports to the NHS Executive on the performance of the programme in their region. Improvements have been made to the

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way the programme is managed. Responsibility for commissioning quality assurance for the cervical screening programme is being transferred to the regional office and all regions have now appointed a quality assurance director.
Both noble Lords commented on laboratories and on the fact that those which read smear tests have been required to apply for accreditation by June 1998. All bar one, which is shortly to merge with another laboratory, have now done so. Laboratories which read fewer than 15,000 smear tests and which were not meeting national standards have been reviewed and the majority have now stopped reading smears or have merged with other laboratories. In all cases their performance will be closely monitored.
Where needed, refresher training is being provided for staff in laboratories and in September a Resource Pack for the Training of Smear Takers was published, which has proved to be so popular that a reprint has had to be ordered.
We acknowledge that improvements still need to be made to the programme and we are working hard to ensure that the momentum is not lost. For example, the Department of Health is working with regional offices to improve colposcopy services, building on the action plans drawn up by regional directors of public health last year.
In order for the screening programme to be successful, it is important to screen as many women as possible. A national working group has been established to identify and disseminate cost-effective measures to improve screening coverage in inner city areas. I hope that that answers the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, about the position of women from minority ethnic groups. Most health authorities are making steady progress in increasing coverage by ensuring that the screening programme they offer is acceptable to women and that their invitation systems are accurate. We recognise the efforts they are making but we know that more needs to he done.
The Secretary of State has set a new requirement that all health authorities should achieve 80 per cent. coverage by March 2002. The 13 health authorities that are not currently doing so provided action plans at the end of February setting out the measures they will take to achieve this. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health will shortly be meeting the chairs of the health authorities concerned to emphasise the priority they must give to running a fully effective screening service. He expects all health authorities to give their closest attention to this matter and the chief executives will be held accountable for their health authorities' performance.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, mentioned the development of new technologies. New methods of taking smears and new methods for reading them in laboratories are being developed which could improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the cervical screening programme. We are keeping this matter under close review. But before any new methods are introduced, we must be sure that they are both safe and effective.
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The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, also mentioned the question of HPV testing. We are taking a keen interest in developments in HPV testing. While there is a substantial body of evidence on the influence of HPV on the development of cervical cancer, the exact mechanisms are not known and it is not yet possible to tell which women with the HP virus will go on to develop cervical abnormalities and which will not.
Less evidence is available on the significance of HPV testing, and the NHS cervical screening programme has therefore advised that the role of HPV testing has not been established and it should not be used in routine practice within the NHS. However, research is under way to clarify the potential and limitations of HPV testing.
As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, pointed out, the Medical Research Council is funding a large study (known as the TOMBOLA study) of the management of women with borderline or mildly abnormal smears. HPV testing is an integral part of that study. It is true that the results will not be known until 2005. A number of other research projects are under way in Amsterdam and elsewhere and we await the results of those studies with interest.
In January last year the NHS Technology Assessment Programme was commissioned to undertake a systematic review of research into the role of HPV testing. The report is due to be published later this year.
I turn to the benefits and limitations of screening. We want women, and the general public, to have confidence in the screening programme. But we acknowledge that we must be more open about both the benefits and the limitations of cervical screening. We understand that women would like a guarantee that the results they receive are correct. But even with perfect management and 100 per cent. coverage, no screening programme could be 100 per cent. accurate, as the noble Lord, Lord McColl, pointed out.
A common misconception is that cervical screening is a test for cancer. It is not. It is a test for abnormalities which, if left undetected and untreated, might lead to cancer. Cervical cancer is generally a very slowly developing disease. By having smear tests every three to five years women can reduce their risk of developing cancer by 80 to 90 per cent. That is why it is so important for women to have regular tests. But women should still report any abnormal bleeding to their doctors.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, mentioned the report of the Public Accounts Committee which was published on 6th December. It followed the publication of the NAO report in April 1998. The PAC report was largely retrospective, but a formal government response will be made in due course. In responding, we can indicate that considerable progress has been made.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, mentioned the issue of whether the screening interval should be three years or five. As I have said, cervical cancer is a very slowly developing condition. In terms of saving as many lives as possible it is far more important to screen as many eligible women as possible than to offer more frequent screening. So the priorities are to ensure that as

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many women as possible have access to and attend for screening and to improve the quality of the service. But once the coverage target has been met, it is then for health authorities to decide whether they want to recall women more frequently than every five years.
The noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord McColl, raised the very important issue of the shortage of cytology screeners. I acknowledge that in some areas there are difficulties with the recruitment and retention of screeners. That has been attributed partly to low morale and partly to pay issues. I very much appreciate the hard work of all staff in the programme, particularly over the past 18 months, when morale has clearly not been helped by adverse publicity. I very much take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McColl. I have never believed that morale is simply down to an issue of pay. But clearly that is a consideration.
The Government recently announced detailed proposals for modernising the NHS pay system. We shall begin consultation with NHS health professionals and NHS staff soon. We clearly want a system that pays staff fairly for what they do, rewarding them for developing new skills and taking on responsibilities. It is equally clear that we cannot make all the changes overnight. In the short term, cytology screeners' pay will be considered in the current pay round. I am afraid, though, that I cannot anticipate the outcome of those negotiations.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, also asked a question concerning public information. Perhaps I may say to him that plans for a national publicity campaign
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are being drawn up. We are also looking at the provision—and I think this is very important—of better information for health professionals.
In the few seconds left to me, I again acknowledge the contribution made by both noble Lords. I hope they will agree that the Government have taken important steps to deal with the problems identified and to ensure a very high quality service in the future. I end by giving an assurance that the changes we have introduced will be closely monitored to ensure that they happen. We shall continue to work to improve the programmes further. This shows our commitment to achieving what the noble Lord wishes to see.
Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I appreciate much of what he has said today, but could he elucidate for me the relationship between the MRC's TOMBOLA research and the HTA research? He was almost implying that if the HTA review was favourable, taken together with other aspects such as the Dutch research, it might be possible not to have to wait until that full 2005 project of the TOMBOLA research was complete, which was one of the points I was trying to make.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, it would be difficult for me to go further on that matter. I was simply trying to say that various research projects and assessments are taking place and that we shall look at each one on its merits. I should prefer to write to the noble Lord in more detail to explain the different approaches in relation to research and how we shall tackle them.
House adjourned at eleven minutes past eleven o'clock.