Lords Sitting of 10 May 1999

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwark

Gas Supply: Marketing Practices
Viscount Hanworth Viscount Hanworth asked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps they are taking to regulate competition among salesmen in the domestic gas supply market.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville): My Lords, the Government believe that misleading selling practices are unacceptable. Last year the Office of Gas Supply introduced a licence condition for gas suppliers concerning marketing practices. This includes rules on the selection and training of sales staff and puts an obligation on the supplier to contact the customer within 14 days of the contract being signed to ensure that they are content with the sales approach. This is helping to curb abuses in the marketplace. We are, however, keeping the situation under review.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that enlightening and partially reassuring reply. The Minister has indicated that he is aware of the many complaints from customers who have unwittingly signed contracts with new suppliers when they had imagined that they were simply extending their contract with an existing supplier. Are the salesmen of gas supply companies who are liable to be working on commission subject to the regulations governing doorstep trading? Are those adequate to restrain them?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, yes, they are covered by the doorstep selling regulations. Those have been tightened up. The new regulations came into force on 31st December 1998. They require a seven-day cooling off period. They require the trader to give the consumer details in writing of the right to cancel. It is now a criminal offence not to inform consumers of the right to a cooling off period. The maximum penalty is a fine of £2, 500 which we believe will make unscrupulous traders think twice. Finally, we have tightened up the definition of an unsolicited visit so that it is less easy to get round.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, does the Minister agree that, under the present competitive arrangements for gas, the prime objectives of suppliers and their salesmen must be to increase market share and sell as much gas as possible, with much less attention paid to providing services, improving efficiency and the reduction of emissions? Do the Government, through the regulator, or in other ways, aim to correct that imbalance?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, in any competitive situation there will always be the danger
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that the sole goal of the salesmen becomes that of selling their product and increasing market share. In the long term I hope that most companies in the market economy realise that their best interest is served long term not only by increasing market share but also by gaining the goodwill of their customers. It is part of the regulatory process that we seek to control the situation where, as a short-term goal, people focus on increasing market share.
Lord Peston: My Lords, surely it is to the advantage of the consumer that the gas market is opened up to broader competition? Although there may be excesses, do we not agree that that at least was a good step forward?
In this market is there not a complication relating to the nature of contracts? People seem to be making verbal contracts without understanding that they are contracts; and not knowing that the cooling off period applies?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I agree very much that some real benefits have come from competition. Out of some 20 million domestic customers, over 4 million have switched gas supplier, some of whom are saving up to 20 per cent of their annual gas bills. For many people that is clearly highly desirable.
I believe that verbal contracts take place but they would be covered by the same regulations concerning the cooling off period.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I speak from personal experience. We are being approached on the doorstep with a hard sell from people from an electricity company asking us to take their gas. I understood that the electricity system was not meant to start for a while. However, on the doorstep I have been pressed to sign agreements for an electricity company to supply me with gas.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, doorstep selling by Ofgas has been watched carefully by Offer on the electricity side. Similar licence conditions have been introduced. The appointment of Callum McCarthy as both electricity and gas regulator pending legislation is in order to make certain that there is no abuse of a similar kind on the electricity side.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes: My Lords, does the Minister accept that there will be tremendous confusion among consumers as to their rights and the best course for them to take. Most of all, they wish to be reassured that all the safety regulations and codes of practice are being adhered to.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, there are dangers that the situation will be abused. That is why we have introduced tightened-up regulations on doorstep selling and the licence condition. In addition. we recognise the need to ensure that consumers are properly protected. That is why as part of the parcel of proposals announced following the review of the utility

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regulation, we intend to put in place an independent energy consumer council. That council will champion consumers' interests and act as a one-stop shop for consumers' inquiries. The new council will have responsibility for seeking to resolve complaints which have not been resolved by the company concerned. Where further measures, such as enforcement action, are required, the council will pass on the complaint to the regulator. Therefore, we have taken stringent action in terms of the regulations and the representation of the consumers.
Lord Clarke of Hampstead: My Lords, do similar regulations govern "cold" telephone sales people who establish or seek to establish a contract without the person being fully aware of the situation and feeling pressurised by the salesman on the other end of the telephone? Do the regulations to which my noble friend earlier referred apply to cold telephone sales?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, the regulations on doorstep selling cover all those markets. However, I need to write to my noble friend on the situation which applies to cold telephone selling.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, does the Minister agree that competition is of benefit to consumers? It is very easy to confuse that sort of competition, as, indeed, the Question does, with talking about undesirable sales pressures and tactics. Does the noble Lord agree that it would be helpful if both the gas and electricity regulators were to require fuel suppliers to publish unified tariff systems so that customers can decide pricing issues on a like-to-like basis?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, the issue of consumers being able to make comparisons is something that we have in mind. An agreement has been reached with the Association of Energy Suppliers that a consumer will be provided with a written tariff of the options for that customer. One cannot have a situation where everything is published on a common basis because tariffs will vary. But that point has been taken on board and the Association of Energy Suppliers has agreed to do that.

European Single Currency
2.45 p.m.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil Lord Peyton of Yeovil asked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Answer by the Lord McIntosh of Haringey on 14th April (HL Deb, col.767) concerning the question of the United Kingdom joining the single European currency, whether they will publish a White Paper setting out the political and economic arguments, as they now see them, both for and against joining.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, government policy on membership of the single currency was set out
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clearly by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in a Statement to the House of Commons in October 1997 and was restated by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons on 23rd February 1999.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, will the Minister kindly read the Question and consider what he is now being asked? He is not being asked for a statement of government policy. We have hints galore as to what government policy is and we are not looking for any more. The issue is one of the most complicated and important that this country has ever faced. Do the Government not realise that in a referendum, which they have promised, it is very important indeed that the public should be familiar with the economic and political arguments for and against and that, based on those arguments, they can begin to form a proper judgment? I remind the noble Lord that this is the second time that he has been asked the same Question without bothering even to read it.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, if the noble Lord asks me the same Question again, he will receive the same Answer. I was entirely satisfied with the Answer that I gave him and with the subsequent exchanges. Of course I read the Question with great care, as I always do.
The noble Lord posits a situation in the future when we have a referendum and a decision as to whether to enter the single currency. Such a referendum would be meaningless if it were carried out long before a decision had to be taken and if it were long after the necessary informed consent of the British people had been obtained. I assure the noble Lord that the Government take very seriously their responsibilities for informing the British public, but it would not be meaningful to do it a long time in advance of the referendum and the decision.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, does the noble Lord not accept that when the referendum comes, the Government will be, quite rightly, partisan in that? The Government's policy is very clear and it will be stated, as they are perfectly entitled to state it. But there is a case that can be made on both sides. Given the £7 million or so which has been spent so far on the softening-up process, what conceivable argument can there be against engaging a group of people to produce an authoritative statement of the arguments on both sides? Nobody will believe that the Government can be independent when the referendum comes.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I reject entirely the noble Lord's statement that £7 million has been spent on a softening-up process. What is happening is that we are seeking to ensure that when the time comes, British industry and commerce and, indeed, the British people as a whole, have made such preparations as are necessary in order to make a serious choice.
Of course, the Government accept that there will be arguments on both sides and those arguments will have to be put to the British people. Indeed, we already did so by publishing last year an excellent volume entitled

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The Pros and Cons of EMU by my noble friend Lord Currie, which I commend to the noble Lord and the House.
Lord Shore of Stepney: My Lords, I share the disappointment of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, regarding the reply he has received. That is tempered a little by the fact that I do not believe, given the Government's commitment to the euro, that they can present a genuinely objective assessment of the case for and against economical and political membership. However, things are moving on. Is it not now sensible to ask the Government to produce a White Paper outlining the pros and cons of the case for accepting the proposals of Senor Prodi for a European army and discussing the German Government's scheme for a European Union military and defence union? We should hear something about that also.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, as my noble friend stated, things are moving on and will continue to do so. However, they are not moving on so far as to put the question of a European army within the scope of this Question.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, in his loveable, if somewhat mischievous, usual way, perhaps has a serious point. Does my noble friend accept that while it would not be possible to convince people such as the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, and my noble friend Lord Shore of Stepney, it might be possible to convince genuinely open-minded people—I deliberately exclude my noble friend—because the facts clearly show the advantages of our joining a single currency?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Prime Minister has made the issues absolutely clear. As he stated in February, it is essential that convergence is settled and sustainable. We cannot say that yet. Under those circumstances, of course things will continue to move on, as stated by my noble friend Lord Shore, and we will continue to sustain our responsibility for informing the British people as and when appropriate.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that as a Minister in this House no one would possibly accuse him of arrogance, but that the Answer drafted for him, and which he read, reeked of the arrogance of this Government? Noble Lords are entitled to ask this Question. They will probably ask it again and again. It is about time Her Majesty's Government got it into their heads that there is a desire on the part of the people of this country to have the information set out as fairly as possible by an authoritative source on which they can begin to make up their minds on this issue. Why are the Government afraid to let them have the facts?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Government have never been afraid to let anybody have the facts, nor indeed have they been afraid to do more than just hint, as we were accused of doing, about our attitude. We have set out the economic convergence
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criteria and the basis upon which a decision will ultimately be made. Perhaps I may say that we have gone a great deal further than the noble Lord's government in setting out our position on the European single currency, and we will continue to do so.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, does the Minister accept that the debate about the single currency has been going on for some years? Does he not accept that the objective of the Government, and, I suspect, of every corner of this House, would be to extend the scope of that debate to embrace a much greater proportion of the population than currently feels equipped to take any part in it? Does he not also agree that the recent election results, the turn-out in the local elections and in the Welsh Assembly and Scottish elections have proved that there is a serious disillusionment in the country with the extent to which Parliament legislates and deliberates above the heads of the electorate?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I agree with the first point raised by the noble Lord. As regards the second point, he is entitled to his opinion.
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, does the Minister accept that the changeover plan makes little reference to the cost of entry? Does he also accept that he owes it to the British public to have early indications of that cost, which has been estimated at five times that of putting right the millennium bug?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Viscount compares two "unknowable" statistics. I do not believe there is any point in making such a comparison.

House of Lords: Report on Smoking
2.54 p.m.
Lord Janner of Braunstone Lord Janner of Braunstone asked the Chairman of Committees:
What steps he proposes to take following the publication of the survey into smoking in the House of Lords.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Boston of FavershamMy Lords, at its meeting last week the Administration and Works Sub-Committee approved the recommendations set out in the report of the Informal Group on Smoking. The report will now go to the Offices Committee, and the recommendations will come before the House in the report of that committee. Meanwhile, Black Rod has undertaken to investigate the possibility of identifying a room for smokers. Once a room has been identified, smoking could be reduced elsewhere.
Lord Janner of Braunstone: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply and for the action he is taking. When he refers the matter of smoking in eating places in this House to the Refreshment Sub-Committee, will he draw to their attention the excellent, sensible and compromise arrangement in the Churchill Dining Room

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in the other place? I refer to the fact that smoking is permitted in the bar but not in the eating area. Surely the time has come to prohibit smoking in eating areas in this House.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I shall certainly ensure that the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Janner, is drawn to the attention of the appropriate quarters. However, as the noble Lord will have seen from the report of the informal group, I should point out that no changes are made to the smoking arrangements at present in force in your Lordships' Refreshment Department.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, does the Minister appreciate that some of us resent being told how to lead our lives? Does he agree that the Palace of Westminster is large enough for people such as the noble Lords, Lord Janner and Lord Avebury, to avoid being polluted by people like me? After all, they can always buzz off to the Commons.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, are, to an extent, correct. Those who are entitled, as she put it, to "buzz off to the Commons", in particular quarters of the premises of another place, may do so having been Members of another place. Because of the job I do, I hesitate to take sides so far as smoking is concerned, but I always find everything said by the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, absolutely irresistible!
Lord Peston: My Lords, as former chairman of the Refreshment Committee, I am grievously disappointed that the Chairman of Committees does not feel that he should take sides. This is a disgraceful state of affairs. I believe that almost the only occasion I was roundly defeated each time was when I tried to deal with the matter of smoking in areas where ordinary people try to eat and drink in a decent atmosphere and are terrorised—I use that word advisedly—by a small minority. Is it not time that your Lordships' House showed leadership on this matter? We must be one of the most reactionary institutions. I know that is a badge of pride with some, but on this subject it is a disgraceful state of affairs. Before the end of this year, when we move to our reformed House, is it not about time that we dealt with the problem which, in my view, is more important than that of the hereditary Peers?
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I shall not be tempted or drawn into commenting on the last point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Peston. I am sorry to have disappointed him so greatly. As some of your Lordships will be aware, this is the wont of a politician. However, there is one point which should not escape the attention of your Lordships' House; that is, the outcome of the inquiries made into the views of your Lordships as a result of the questionnaire. Perhaps I may say that I am extremely grateful, as I am sure your Lordships will be, to the informal group for its work, and in particular to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of
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Haringey, the Deputy Chief Whip. Among his other demanding occupations, he very kindly undertook to draw up the questionnaire which, because of his extensive professional experience as a former market researcher, was of particular benefit to those of us in your Lordships' committees.
The point which we cannot ignore is simply this. As a result of the responses to the questionnaire, which were extensive—over 400 Members of your Lordships' House responded—the House was formed of two pretty-well equal groups. In fact, those in favour of the status quo or more smoking amounted to 53 per cent and those in favour of less smoking amounted to 52 per cent. To introduce a more radical tightening of restrictions would be to ignore that fact.
Lord Burnham: My Lords, as a member of the committee on smoking, in which context I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, on the way in which he chaired that committee, can the Chairman of Committees confirm that the fact that his figures amount to more than 100 per cent makes sense in the context of what the questions were? Is it not the case also that there was scarcely anywhere where there was anything like a majority for a reduction in smoking?
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Burnham, is correct in relation to the figures adding up to more than 100 per cent. It was open to respondents to the questionnaire to opt for more than one of the questions being asked and to refer to more than one of the options. That is not uncommon in answering questionnaires, but I should add that I am always full of admiration at the ingenuity of your Lordships.
Baroness David: My Lords, can the Chairman of Committees confirm that the Commons is a good deal more strict than we are? The idea that people like the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, can escape there means that they are not going to escape to a very happy atmosphere.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, without going into detail on the Commons restrictions, so as not to take up too much of your Lordships' time, I will make them available to those noble Lords who are interested in what another place does. To some extent, though not to a very great extent, there are more restrictions in another place.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords—
Noble Lords: Next Question!
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Jay of Paddington): My Lords, we have allowed extra time on this Question, as there was obvious interest in it throughout the Chamber and we felt perhaps more time should be spent on it. However, we have now reached within five minutes of the time allotted for Questions and we should move on.

Peers' Guests: Parking Facilities
3.2 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley Lord Beaumont of Whitley asked the Chairman of Committees:
What facilities are available for the parking of bicycles ridden by Peers' guests arriving at the Peers' Entrance.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, the House does not provide parking facilities of any kind for Peers' guests. However, the House authorities are aware of the problem of bicycle parking near the Palace of Westminster. Some years ago representations were made to Westminster City Council. As a result, there are now 15 bicycle parking spaces in the Abingdon Street car park which are available for anyone to use free of charge.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply, though it is not entirely satisfactory. Should not there be facilities for bicycles seeing that the Government are trying to encourage their use instead of cars aid that Peers' guests who arrive are not, unlike those who arrive by car, taking up an enormous amount of space? Is the noble Lord aware that a fortnight ago a guest of mine arrived and when she asked where she could park her bicycle was told "Nowhere"? When she asked what she should do if she came as the guest of a Peer, she was told that she should not come by bicycle. I am sure that the noble Lord is aware that that is against government policy. Should we not show that we support government policy and encourage as many bicycles as possible to be parked in front of your Lordships' House?
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, while many noble Lords will be sympathetic to the general point of the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, I do not feel that I should be drawn into questions of government policy on these matters; nor are they matters for your Lordships' committees. I am sorry to hear of the experience which the noble Lord's guest suffered. I shall ensure that that point is brought to the attention of those concerned and that, where there is a query of this kind, the 15 spaces available—very few of which are ever taken up—will be drawn to the person's attention. Abingdon Street is very conveniently placed of course.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in April 1988 expenses were introduced for Peers who wished to ride their bicycle to this House? Since then only two Peers have claimed those expenses and the reason for that is that they have to originate their journey outside Greater London. Will the noble Lord undertake to look into the expenses system for Peers who wish to ride their bicycle to this House so that all Peers, both those inside and those outside Greater London, are entitled to claim bicycle expenses?
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I am advised, though I shall need to write to the noble Lord,
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Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, with the details, that what he said is not entirely accurate. However, I can confirm that there has recently been an increase in the bicycle mileage allowance along with other annual increases. I cannot promise that a vast amount of money is being saved by those who kindly and generously fail to claim their allowance.
Lord Rotherwick: My Lords, does the Chairman of Committees agree with me that, as we are making available bicycle spaces in the Abingdon Street car park, it would be right also to make spaces available for powered two-wheelers as well?
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I understand that some accommodation is available. I shall look into the point. If anything needs to be done, I shall seek to ensure that it is done.

Business
3.7 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 4.30 p.m. my noble friend Lady Symons of Vernham Dean will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement being made in another place on Kosovo.

Breeding and Sale of Dogs (Welfare) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Company and Business Names (Chamber of Commerce, etc) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Employment Relations Bill
3.8 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Simon of Highbury): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
I am delighted to move this important Bill. It is a balanced series of proposals. It sets out a radical, forward-looking package of measures which will create a modern framework for employment relations fit for the next century. It delivers the Government's manifesto pledge to provide decent minimum standards for treatment at work and to develop family-friendly employment policies. It also modernises employment law in response to changes in working patterns; for example, more women than ever are working, the number of part-timers is increasing and more families are dependent on two earners.
The Bill will promote the best of modern employment practices in all our companies, encouraging a culture of fairness and trust in the workplace, coupled with clearer

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definitions of rights and responsibilities. To achieve the prosperity we all want to see, the Government believe that there must be decent minimum rights for people at work, and the Bill will achieve those.
As noble Lords will be aware, the provisions of the Bill were foreshadowed in the White Paper, Fairness at Work, which was published in May last year. That White Paper was drawn up following consultations with the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress on trade union recognition. All of the 29 proposals in the White Paper were subject thereafter to thorough consultation with both employer and worker organisations. Since the publication of the White Paper, the Government have been vigilant in consulting all interested parties. We believe that to improve the culture of employment relations for the next century it is important that we carry employers, employees, and their representatives with us when developing proposals.
Our objective is to create an understanding between employers and employees, managers and managed, that the value that people can add at their workplace is vital for all stakeholders. The ability to produce goods and services at low cost does not in itself guarantee industrial success, especially in our knowledge-based economy. Value-added and productivity are better tests of success in such an economy. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister stated in the foreword to last year's Competitiveness White Paper, our success depends on how well we exploit our valuable assets of knowledge, skills and creativity.
Before considering the Bill in more detail, I remind noble Lords that the Government's economic policy is geared towards achieving sustainable prosperity. We see the implementation of the Bill as a major contribution towards achieving that policy. The Bill covers a variety of employment relations issues, individual rights, trade union recognition and family-friendly rights.
I hope that noble Lords have read the explanatory notes which give the purpose behind each of the provisions in the Bill. I intend today to explain the major elements of the Bill. They can be grouped into three themes: decent minimum standards for people at work; a new climate of co-operation in the workplace; and family-friendly employment rights.
The Government believe that all employees should be treated fairly so that they feel more trusted and valued. This will benefit the organisation through increased commitment and enhanced productivity.
Many good employers already provide decent employment standards for their employees. However, some do not, and the Government believe that fair minimum standards must be backed up by the law. We have done this already for working time and the national minimum wage. The Bill complements those measures and completes the package of reforms designed to restore an acceptable balance to the workplace.
The Bill contains a number of measures to ensure fair treatment in recruitment and employment. Clause 2 and Schedule 2 plug the loophole which currently permits employers to discriminate by omission on grounds of trade union membership, non-membership or activities.
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For example, the denial of promotion to an individual on grounds of his trade union membership or activities, where a colleague is promoted who has agreed to give up union membership, could constitute an omission to act.
Clause 17 will ensure that part-time workers are treated no less favourably in respect of their terms and conditions of employment than their colleagues. This clause implements the European Part-Time Work Directive (Council Directive 97/81/EC) which covers employment conditions excluding pay. However, the Government believe that discrimination in respect of pay should be covered in the same way as other employment conditions. The clause therefore also covers pay.
We will also, through Clause 3, prohibit the compilation and use of blacklists recording individuals' trade union membership and activities with a view to use in recruitment. We will seek to ensure that employees do not suffer from detriment and dismissal arising from a refusal to accept a contract on terms which differ from those applicable to them under a collective agreement. Clause 15 will bring that into effect.
Secondly, we have sought a fair balance of rights and responsibilities in the workplace. Employers should not dismiss employees unfairly. We are not preventing employers from dismissing people where they have good reason and act reasonably in doing so, but we need to send a powerful message to employers that unfair dismissal is a serious matter. The Government's principle behind Clauses 28 to 32 is that people who have been unfairly dismissed should be entitled to receive adequate compensation to compensate for their economic loss.
Noble Lords will not have missed the media attention to the increase in the maximum limit for unfair dismissal compensatory awards to £50,000. However, these clauses will also simplify the existing system of additional and special awards and will link the limits on these awards to changes in the retail prices index. We will also remove the compensatory award limit in certain cases for those dismissed for "whistle-blowing"; that is, for drawing attention to health and safety problems or wrongdoings as set out in the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998.
There are four more provisions. Through Clauses 10 to 13, we will be creating a statutory right for individual workers to be accompanied either by a fellow employee or a trade union official during disciplinary and grievance hearings. We will further protect the interests of those using either employment agencies or employment businesses by amending the 1973 Employment Agencies Act. A consultation document proposing revised regulations under the Act will be issued soon. I hope to make copies available to noble Lords before the Bill is considered in Committee.
Clause 16 will prohibit the waiving of unfair dismissal rights in fixed term contracts.
The Government will, through Clause 20, empower the Secretary of State to rationalise and update the coverage of the existing body of employment rights by

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conferring, by order, some or all of those rights on specified categories of individuals who may not or clearly cannot benefit from them at present but who are not genuinely self-employed. There will be full consultation on the draft regulations.
In business, co-operation and teamwork at all levels are conducive to success. My five years at the head of British Petroleum in a period of some pressure and change convinced me of the extraordinary power of the team. An organisation which does not encourage such co-operation between management and workers or their representatives risks missing out on the real prize, that is, enhanced employee commitment to the organisation, working towards shared goals—in the words of management consultants,"alignment".
The Government have always upheld the right of people to choose whether or not to join a union and, consequently, whether they wish to be represented by a union at the workplace. Clause 1 and Schedule 1 establish a new statutory procedure for the recognition of trade unions, if teat is the wish of a majority of the workforce, in organisations employing 21 or more workers. The procedure seeks to encourage voluntary agreements where possible but provides for the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) to decide on applications for recognition if no agreement is reached.
If an employer agrees to recognise a union but a method for collective bargaining cannot be agreed, the CAC may impose a method. Schedule 1 includes procedures for changing the bargaining unit; that is, the group of workers who are covered by a recognition agreement. It also outlines procedures for derecognition of unions, including non-independent unions. It protects workers against detriment, financial or otherwise, or dismissal resulting from their supporting or failing to support recognition or derecognition.
The Bill also maces provisions in Clauses 22 to 25 to reflect changes necessary to the industrial relations institutions, in particular, the CAC and ACAS.
The Bill also simplifies and clarifies the existing law on industrial action, for example, by making clear that unions need not disclose to employers the names of their members they are balloting or calling on to take industrial action. Clause 4 and Schedule 3 will bring that into effect.
Clause 5 applies to workplaces where there is statutory union recognition and a bargaining procedure has been imposed by the CAC. It requires employers in those circumstances to consult recognised unions on training policy and practice relating to the workers represented by the union.
Clause 14 and Schedule 5 allow employees who take or have taken lawfully organised industrial action to complain of unfair dismissal if dismissed within the first eight weeks of such action. It will also be unfair to dismiss them thereafter if the employer has not taken reasonable procedural steps to resolve the dispute.
To underline the Government's commitment to improving co-operation in the workplace, Clause 26 authorises the Secretary of State to make funding
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available to promote partnerships at work. The partnership fund will support innovative projects which develop the partnership approach in the workplace.
Finally, I turn to the support for family-friendly employment. The world of work is changing and, as I said, changing rapidly. For example, the number of mothers in work is increasing. Some employees have trouble combining their work and family responsibilities. The Bill therefore proposes new rights to parental leave. We believe organisations will benefit once these policies are in place. For example, there should be increased employee commitment and productivity and cost savings from reduced staff turnover and absenteeism.
The Bill, through Clauses 7 and 8 and Schedule 4, contains provisions dealing with leave for family and domestic reasons. It provides rights and regulation-making powers for the Secretary of State to replace most of the existing statutory provisions on maternity leave with simpler, clearer rights and to provide new rights to parental leave and to time off for domestic incidents in order to implement EU directives. I give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the Minister. However, on reading the Bill, I was not quite certain about a few aspects in this respect. As the Minister has rightly said, this provision will make it more possible, for example, for women to be at work because of the extra rights. Do those extra rights apply also to the nanny who is looking after the child of the woman who is at work?
Lord Simon of Highbury: No, my Lords. The rights of nannies are covered under that part of the Bill which I have already mentioned which sets out the changes in employment agency terms and the status of nannies in those circumstances, I give way to the noble Lord again.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, with great respect to the Minister, I am not talking about an agency nanny. I have in mind a nanny who is employed full-time by the lady at work and who perhaps becomes pregnant or sees that there is some domestic crisis involved in her work. Does that nanny have the benefit of those rights as well as her employer?
Lord Simon of Highbury: My Lords, I believe that it depends entirely on the status of the nanny's contract. That is one of the issues we shall have to debate during the course of the proceedings on the Bill. Nevertheless, I take note of the noble Lord's question.
The new rights will include: a minimum of 18 weeks' maternity leave for all women in line with statutory maternity pay; the right to extended maternity leave of up to 40 weeks for women after one year's service, rather than two, as at present; three months' parental leave for mothers and fathers, including adoptive parents; guaranteed job back—or its equivalent—at the end of parental leave; clarification of the status of employment contracts during periods of family leave; time off to deal with family emergencies; and protection from victimisation for exercising any of these rights. My

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department will ensure that there is full and thorough consultation with employer and worker organisations on the draft regulations.
Much has been said about the costs of the Bill. That is an important question. In drafting the Bill, we have taken great care to avoid imposing unnecessary burdens on business. But we should be clear about the costs and benefits.
The Bill gives statutory backing to rights which many workers already enjoy. By doing so, it gives greater certainty to the majority of workers and enhanced protection to those who do not currently enjoy these rights. It will make it easier for employees with family and other domestic commitments to continue to contribute productively in the workplace, making use of their training and experience.
Employers and society at large will benefit enormously from greater participation in the labour market, reduced staff turnover and a climate of greater commitment and trust in the workplace. Against that, our departmental economists estimate that, across the whole of British business, the Bill will cost some £60 million a year, mainly due to the new parental leave rights and the wider entitlement to additional maternity leave. On top of that, there will be some £1.7 million a year in one-off costs, mainly for the new recognition procedures. So the cost is about 5p a week per employee.
The Bill will not, as has been suggested in certain elements of the media, damage employment. If employers accept these measures and the spirit which underlies them, they will get more out of their employees. More productive businesses mean better paid, safer jobs, and, incidentally, higher tax revenues and sounder public finances.
In conclusion, the Bill is something to which the Government are wholeheartedly committed. There is now widespread recognition of the need for updating the existing framework of employment legislation to take account of new developments in working practices and the needs of a modern economy. Therefore, it is important that we get this piece of vital legislation right. We greatly respect the experience which some noble Lords have had in the field of industrial relations. The Government look forward to their contribution to this debate. I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.
(Lord Simon of Highbury.)
3.27 p.m.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, I should like, first, to thank the Minister for his explanation of this important Bill in his normal, very careful manner. I shall look forward to debating with him the points where we will most certainly take issue with the Government as the Bill progresses through your Lordships' House.
It is not difficult to see why the title of the Bill, the Employment Relations Bill, changed from the White Paper on which it is based—entitled, Fairness at Work —because, when you examine the provisions in the
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Bill, there is nothing in it which is fair to employers. There is also certainly nothing fair to those employees who simply want to get on with their jobs without industrial unrest caused by trade unions seeking to reassert themselves in a way that they have not been able to do for the past 15 years or so. Indeed, there is nothing fair to those employers and employees alike who, together, want to get on with keeping going the businesses in which they are both interested, rather than being sunk by the stream of socialist theory which is making Europe increasingly uncompetitive—
Noble Lords: Oh!
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, noble Lords opposite may well laugh, but the truth is that our unemployment record has been very much better than that of many countries in Europe, with, as I said, their socialist policies.
In his speech in the other place on Second Reading of the Bill, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry spoke about,
"measures for partnership based on rights matched by responsibilities". —[Official Report, Commons, 9/2/99; col.130.]
I invite noble Lords to look at all 38 clauses and eight schedules on all of the 94 pages of the Bill and show me one responsibility imposed either on employees or on the trade unions which this Bill can foist on the majority of employees by the wishes of a minority.
As to the so-called partnership, I believe there is just one item. I shall refer to Clause 26. The Minister referred to it, but he put an entirely different complexion on it to that which I shall put on it, based on what the clause actually says. To paraphrase, it permits the Secretary of State to provide money, taxpayers' money, on any terms that he thinks fit, including gift or loan, for the purpose of encouraging and helping employers and their representatives, and employees' and their representatives, in order to improve the way they work together, whatever that may mean.
The words "their representatives" are code words for trade unions. The clause is nothing less than a licence for the Government to hand out taxpayers' money to the trade unions, on the pretext that they are encouraging improvements in industrial relations. What can the employers expect in return? Perhaps a lollipop, in the form of a grant towards a day's outing to the seaside for the employees of one of the Prime Minister's industrialist chums.
In the other place the Government could offer no explanation of how the clause would operate, despite the fact that they were asked. The Under-Secretary of State for Small Firms, Trade and Industry claimed that the reason was, first, that it would be constraining and, secondly, that they were consulting the key parties. I must advise the noble Lord the Minister that the clause will need a great deal of attention when it reaches the Committee.
Even the present Title of the Bill,"Employment Relations", is misleading, because the Bill resembles a relationship based on a shotgun marriage. The Bill does nothing to foster good relations between employers and

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employees. Rather, it revives the old Labour environment of "them and us" that pervaded until the reform of the unions that took place in the 1980s:
"steps were needed to correct the worst of trade union excesses". —[Official Report, Commons, 9/2/99; col.130.]
Those are not my words, but are a direct quotation of what the Secretary of State admitted within the first two minutes of his speech on the Second Reading in the other place. At last there is an admission that the bitter rearguard action that the party opposite fought on every single trade union re form measure was mistaken, and this is just another Conservative policy that New Labour has now adopted.
The first and major problem that the Bill causes is the disruption and expense that will be inflicted on small businesses. It will bake them less competitive in the market alongside the major industrial concerns. I am not talking about the very small business with fewer than 21 employees, which is exempted from one of the worst excesses in the Bill—compulsory union recognition—although the fact is that in the next 10 years most new jobs will be created in companies with fewer than 21 employees. No, I am talking about all small businesses: ones that are struggling to start up; ones that are struggling to keep going, especially in the retail trades in the face of the mammoth out-of-town shopping parks; and small manufacturing businesses struggling to compete with the multinationals.
The Secretary of State regaled the other place with the story of what he described as a leading supermarket chain which has introduced maternity leave, paternity leave, child-care leave, adoption leave, shift-swap and bereavement leave. Despite all of this, the Minister says that the company is enjoying all sorts of commercial benefits. Needless to say, the chain is Asda, chaired by my honourable friend he Member for Tunbridge Wells. I trust that noble Loris opposite will as a reward patronise those shops instead of the Co-op, to which the Secretary of State was unable to give such a plug. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, will not mind my having made that comment.
Just as there is no such thing as a free lunch, there is no such thing as a free social benefit. The fact is that all of the major supermarkets, not just Asda, can indulge in such generosity to their staff because probably all they have to do is to add an unnoticed penny on, say, a bag of sugar or forgo their profit on bottles of tomato ketchup for a couple of weeks. The same probably applies equally to the large department stores, DIY stores and the other chain stores and the suppliers of services in near-monopoly conditions.
The trouble is that this Government—and, I admit, perhaps all governments—fail to recognise that there is a vast difference between Sainsbury's and the Coronation Street corner shop. Only a few weeks ago the Prime Minister in a speech in Bristol complained to businessmen that many of the regulations coming out of Brussels were out of date and should be reviewed, and yet here are the Government piling on new ones in the Bill.
The Government are not just putting in new regulations, but, as ray honourable friend the Member for Daventry pointed out in Committee in the other place, are
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going above and beyond even what the EC directives demand. This is gold-plating the directives as part of their pay off to the unions.
Before I turn to some of the specific matters in the Bill, I have one other general observation: once again the Government have produced a half-baked piece of legislation. It is an enabling Bill, a mere skeleton, with the details to be filled in by statutory instrument, rather like the ministerial decrees that pass for law-making in Russia. For, make no mistake, statutory instruments are no substitute for an Act of Parliament, which receives the scrutiny of the two Houses on three separate occasions, whereas a statutory instrument is considered only once and cannot be amended: take it or leave it. Parliament has to accept the bad provisions or throw the good ones out with them.
This is just another example of the present Government's marginalising Parliament and stealthily removing as many of its functions as possible. We have already seen the mess that the Government got into over the national minimum wage, because of the cases of au pairs, and the working time directive over the position of paper boys.
If that is not bad enough, in the Bill before us the Government have taken large matters of substance out of the body of the text and buried them in the schedules, all printed, as my honourable friend the Member for Daventry pointed out, in smaller print. A classic case in point arises under Clause 8, the substance of which is to be found in Part II of Schedule 4, 63 pages further on. It provides for time off for what are called "domestic incidents". The problem is that even the schedule does not define what is a domestic incident. That is to be left to the Secretary of State to announce when he gets round to it.
The Government have been in office for two years and have conducted 10 months of consultation, yet they cannot tell us what they mean by this provision. Perhaps the noble Lord the Minister will when he replies to this Second Reading debate at least give your Lordships an idea of the sort of events that might be regarded as "domestic incidents"—not a final list, but at least tell us what the Government currently have in mind. The Minister in the other place admitted that he could not offer a definition.
That is no basis for asking Parliament for permission to make statutory regulations that could cost employers tens of millions of pounds a year. If we are given some inkling, then when we reach the Committee stage at least we shall have an idea of what we and, more important, the Minister are talking about—that is assuming, of course, that the Government themselves know.
I suggest that in formulating their shopping list of domestic incidents the Government pay heed to the excellent advertising slogan of the Legal & General Assurance Company, and not make a drama out of a crisis.
Although the Bill is euphemistically described as the "Employment Relations Bill", what kind of relationship can there be if, when an employee asks for half a day off, he and his employer have to consult Part II of Schedule 4, containing a page and a half of gobbledegook? Part II is to be found on pages 67 and 68. Then one has to plough through four pages of consequential amendments to other

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Acts in Part III. That is without our having seen a single syllable of the regulations which the Secretary of State is to unveil at some unspecified time in the future. I was very pleased to hear from the noble Lord the Minister that he was very hopeful that Members on this side of the House would have sight of those regulations before the Committee stage.
Of course, I have a certain sympathy with the Secretary of State over this. I have held my present brief a great deal longer than he has. He is the third Secretary of State in the short life of this Government. The first was moved after the first reshuffle, presumably without her department having worked out what a domestic crisis is. The second honourably felt obliged to resign, following a domestic crisis of his own about his house, without having produced his own minimum ideas on the subject. Now we find Secretary of State No.3 having to come to Parliament to ask for all sorts of blank cheques in this Bill, because, having been dropped in at the deep end, he has had to use his legislative slot, by doing something, however ill-prepared. Act first and think about it later!
Another example is Clause 27, which is just five words long. It states:
"Schedule 7 shall have effect".
What does Schedule 7 say? It states that the Secretary of State can make regulations that can control employment agencies by restricting the services they perform, the way they do it and what they can charge: not the slightest indication of what the Government have in mind or why they think that these rigid regulations are needed. We shall expect the Minister to give us the courtesy of a full explanation of this clause before he asks this House to pass it.
Backtracking just a little, I should like to refer to Clause 1 on collective bargaining recognition. That is a coy euphemism for foisting compulsory trade recognition on unwilling employers and a possible unwilling majority of the workforce. It is contained in 40 pages of the unindexed Schedule 1: roughly one-half of the Bill if you take into account that the print is especially small.
That schedule was a mere 25 pages long when it was published in the other place, which seems to suggest that this Bill, which is to redeem one of the Labour Party's many IOUs to the unions, is making law on the hoof. It is now 40 pages long. It also explains why so much of it is to be the subject of secondary legislation. That is because the Government do not know how the Bill will work in practice or do not want Parliament to know until they have been given a blank cheque.
What a confusing mish-mash Schedule 1 is. Paragraph 6 of the schedule explains how to calculate the number of employees:

"(a) take the number of workers employed in each of the 13 weeks (including workers not employed for the whole of the week);

"(b) aggregate the 13 numbers;

"(c) divide the aggregate by 13".

All that is missing is the instruction to take away the number you first thought of!
On the subject of union recognition, the department has kindly (on page 7 of the Explanatory Notes) produced a diagram with arrows pointing in all different
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directions. It is perhaps significant that the general direction of the arrows is downward. The chart resembles a cross between a demented game of snakes and ladders and a design by Heath Robinson. Having studied it carefully, I must confess I am none the wiser; and neither will be the employers and employees of a small business which is misguided enough to give work to 22 people, and which will then be affected by the provisions.
No doubt experts in the trade unions, and the lawyers employed by the larger companies will manage the paragraph, but I can see plenty of work for lawyers and a vastly expanded quango, the Central Arbitration Committee, which seems to be the son of ACAS. I wonder what ACAS thinks of its new child.
I shall not dwell further on this clause and schedule at the present moment. They occupy, as I have pointed out, over one-third of the Bill and we shall need to examine their provisions in some detail at the next stage.
We will also need to examine the provisions about maternity and paternity leave. Apart from the extra burden of expense that they place on an employer of whatever size, they are particularly harmful to smaller businesses. Not only has the employer to keep open the employee's job, possibly through a series of pregnancies—these things happen—but if the absence goes on for long enough, the ability to dispose of the locum because of the length of her or his supposedly temporary employment is lost.
Once again the Secretary of State demands the powers to make regulations as to the length of such maternity or paternity leave. In a process of what I consider to be disinformation, the Government have told us that the length is increased to 18 weeks. I do not think that that is correct, because what will be the new Section 71 (3)(a) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 provides that the regulations shall secure that,
"no ordinary maternity leave period is less than 18 weeks".
So, the Secretary of State could make it 20 weeks, 26 weeks or whatever the unions demand; and that is even without the extensions that the Secretary of State can arbitrarily order under what will be new Section 73 of the 1996 Act. The same applies to parental leave, including when it may be taken. What about by the time the child reaches the age of 18?
Some of these arbitrary and far-reaching powers must be restricted, even before the regulations get the cursory examination that parliamentary procedures permit.
At the end of his Second Reading speech in the other place, the Secretary of State gave a catalogue of almost 13 million people whom he claims will benefit from the provisions of this Act. This is a figure arrived at by double and even treble-counting that even the Secretary of State's right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer might have hesitated from trying.
What the figures do not show is how many jobs will be lost by firms being driven out of business, or not even starting up because of the airy-fairy devices of dreamland socialist economics provided for in this Bill.
What these figures do not show is how many of the 6.5 million part-timers (who the Secretary of State claims will be protected from his idea of exploitation)

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will not get a job at all, because if it is as expensive to employ a part-timer as a full-timer, many employers may well decide to employ a full-timer. So much for helping mothers on benefit get out of the poverty trap!
The Secretary of State also made extravagant claims about the so-called Benefits of this Bill. He said:
"it is a balanced package with a clear emphasis on partnership, not confrontation; fairness and trust, not insecurity and maltreatment; and rights coupled with responsibilities". —[Official Report, Commons, 9/2/99; col.141.]
That stream of clichés and platitudes could have been taken straight from the "Old Comrades' Book of Speeches".
The fact is that, we believe that employers and employees should be left free to settle relationships between themselves, including, if that is what the employee desires, his union, but without outside complicated regulation from the Government—a government who reached the apogee of the nanny state by publishing earlier last month a pamphlet on how to employ a nanny.
What we do not want is to copy the German laws and regulations, which result in it having twice the unemployment rate of the UK. One of the reasons for BMW's heavy investment in the UK, according to its chairman, is that we do not have the legislation which is causing it and Mercedes Benz the trouble that is making them export so many of their jobs. Sony is transferring production from Germany to South Wales precisely because of Germany's oppressive and restrictive labour laws. They can just as easily transfer them back again.
What the Government have done, and are steadily continuing to do, is to push up the cost of employing people. The minimum wage, as the Deputy Prime Minister admitted, is going to cost jobs, as we shall soon see. The working time directive and all the additional costs that this is going to involve will add to industry's burden.
British Steel recently warned:
"The rate of job losses will accelerate given the extremely difficult trading conditions …it is imperative that the Government should do nothing to add to our costs and to undermine our competitiveness".
I fear that that is a plea falling on deaf ears; and a rude awakening for those industrialists who were lulled into a sense of false security by the siren song of the Labour Party just prior to the last election when its spin doctors assured them that they were "business friendly".
In April 1997 the Chancellor of the Exchequer (then the Shadow Chancellor) said:
"we will not impose burdensome relations on business because we understand that successful businesses must bring costs down".
On 25th November 1998, before his abrupt departure from the office of Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the right honourable Member for Hartlepool told the other place:
"we have no intention of introducing any legislation that presents a burden on business and reduces the competitiveness of British firms". —[Official Report Commons.25/11/98; col.214.]
Well, we all know what "we have no intention " means in government-speak; it means "not this week".
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This Bill is designed to increase employment rights and will unquestionably raise costs and reduce competitiveness, and will fall particularly hard on small and medium-sized businesses.
In his speech on the Second Reading in the other place, the Secretary of State announced that,
"There will not be a continuous drip, drip of employment legislation throughout this Parliament". —[Official Report, Commons 9/2/99; col.134.]
Thank goodness for that, because we have had more than enough already, and we have yet to be subjected to the regulations under this Bill, which are themselves legislation.
The Secretary of State then went on to say (also at col.134):
"We have no plans to bring forward further measures … for the remainder of this Parliament"—
again the coded phrase,"We have no plans". Well, so long as that is that for this Parliament, then there is some hope that the damage caused by the Government's legislation to date may be limited, because I and my colleagues on this side of the House will do our very best to ensure that there is no second term during which the Labour Party can re-infect the country with what our competitors derisively called "the British disease", which the last Conservative government decisively cured.
3.50 p.m.
Lord Razzall: My Lords, it will come as no surprise to the Minister and your Lordships that the Liberal Democrats broadly support the principles and purpose of this modest Bill. We support the increase in the rights of the individual enshrined in certain clauses of the Bill. We support the general principles of the improvements in collective rights and the family-friendly policies contained in it.
Having listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, I stress that we regard this as a modest Bill. To those of us on this side of your Lordships' House it does not appear to have a great deal to do with socialism, red in tooth and claw Kremlin policies, the British disease or any of the other phrases which the noble Baroness used to warn us as regards all the pillars of government policy concerning the national minimum wage and the working time directive. It is a modest Bill in the sense that it simply brings best commercial practice into our legislative framework, as the noble Baroness recognised. As regards the position of the current chairman of Asda, that is likely to be the company which people will choose. That company is obviously an example of the best commercial practice. Whether it is able to pass on the cost to the unwitting consumer will be a matter for the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to consider in its review of the pricing of supermarkets.
It is also a modest Bill in the sense that it brings this country into line with our European competitors almost all of whom had much more successful economies over the 20 to 25-year period when most of them were run by right-wing governments. That is contrary to the idea that they were mostly Left-wing and imposing socialism

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from Europe. Almost all the European countries which had protection for the workforce, as set out in this Bill, had been run by Right-wing parties for the past 15 to 20 years. I dissociate this Opposition party from the remarks made by the Conservative Party.
However, that is not to say that we regard the Bill as perfect. We shall need to probe a number of its provisions. As the Minister indicated, the Bill was preceded by the White Paper Fairness at Work There was inevitable publicity and debate in the public arena as regards the rights of trades unions and their recognition. As the Bill passes through this House I do not believe that we shall wish on this side to intrude in Labour Party private grief concerning the 40 per cent mechanisms. All the evidence was touched on by the Minister; namely, that such issues are best resolved by voluntary agreement. Under the previous Tory government when similar provisions were in place, I believe that ACAS indicated quite strongly at the time that the formal rules of recognition did not work and that almost all disputes of that kind had to be resolved by voluntary agreement. We hope that the complex schedule in the Bill will be put on to the back burner of most industrial disputes and that voluntary recognition and agreement will be the norm. If it is not, then no legislation will solve the problems.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that in anticipation of the Bill there is quite a strong body of evidence that on a voluntary basis employers are engaged in positive discussions with trades unions and that recognition is taking place in advance of the Bill itself?
Lord Razzall: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord is correct. I shall be delighted if that is the case. As the noble Lord will be aware, the tenet of my argument is that voluntary agreement and not legislative agreement' will solve the problems. But, as I say, I do not believe that from these Benches we shall intrude in the private grief of the Labour Party.
We shall probe the Government as regards a number of areas where we believe the Bill does not go far enough. I choose two major areas. One of them is likely to find favour in your Lordships' House; the other, less likely. The area which I anticipate will find favour is that of discrimination on grounds of age. The debate in the other place touched significantly on whether there is a gap in legislation of this nature to give legal rights to argue and claim discrimination on the grounds of age. In a Second Reading debate I do not need to give examples that many people have raised on the issue. As I understand it, the Government's position is that discrimination about age should not be dealt with by legislation but by a voluntary code of practice. I would not wish to embarrass the Government by indicating that when in opposition they took the opposite view. The then Tory government believed that age discrimination should be dealt with by a voluntary code of practice. The Labour Party at the time thought that unacceptable and considered that it should be dealt with by legislation. When we reach the Committee stage we
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shall wish to push the point to ascertain whether or not issues concerning age discrimination should be covered by the Bill.
The area which is less likely to find favour with your Lordships is whether the Bill goes far enough as regards sexual discrimination. A number of examples of discrimination against employees on the grounds of sexual orientation have been well documented in the press. When the Bill reaches Committee stage we shall bring forward amendments. Whatever the view taken by your Lordships, the age of consent should be regarded as a separate issue. Hiring, firing and employment practice where there is evidence of discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation is quite different from the issue of lowering the age of consent.
In another place, the Government, although sympathetic, felt that there should be a different approach. Age discrimination, they indicated, should be dealt with through a voluntary code of practice. On the subject of sexual orientation they took the somewhat surprising view that it was not a matter for the Department of Trade and Industry, but for the Department for Education and Employment. In these days of "joined up" government, if we are considering legislation which affects employment practices in the workplace it is not an excuse to say that it is not a matter for the Department of Trade and Industry but for another department. When we reach the Committee stage I hope that that is a matter on which the Government will be able to adapt.
There are some areas of detail in the Bill on which we shall wish to probe the Government. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, touched on one which has caused some considerable concern; namely, the "gold plating" of certain provisions which come from European directives. The obvious one is rights being given for time off in relation to a domestic incident. That has been fairly well documented. Those of your Lordships who have studied the Bill in detail will realise that the definition of such an incident will be left to regulation. If it is left to regulation by the Minister, undoubtedly time off for his son to watch Arsenal on a Tuesday afternoon is unlikely to be a domestic incident; it will be a domestic normality. There is clearly concern as to the exact meaning of "domestic incident". It is a gold plating of the European directive that goes further than many would have anticipated.
That leads me to the fundamental concern that we on these Benches have. From her remarks, I think our concern is shared by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. Much of the Bill is left to be dealt with by regulation. There are very significant items in the Bill which the Government say will be the subject of consultation—we accept that—but the nuts and bolts will be implemented by regulation which, under the way our parliamentary democracy currently works, will never really be subject to proper parliamentary scrutiny. It is regrettable that the legislation has been drafted in that way. I hope that the Minister who responds will give strong undertakings to the House that, because the regulations will not be subjected to effective parliamentary scrutiny, there will

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be an adequate consultation period during which the input of all sides of industry and of the House can be considered.
Finally, I wish to make a point which has not so far featured in the debate. All the surveys seem to indicate that there is considerable confusion among medium and small-sized companies as to the current status of the regulations and provisions to which they are subject. I know that the Department of Trade and Industry has spent time and money trying to give effective notice and information to businesses. However, businesses without significant corporate legal teams or central functional teams that can advise management are, according to the latest surveys, in considerable difficulty as to the impact of the national minimum wage regulations, the working time directive and the regulations that will flow from the Bill. To be fair to the Government, those regulations are constantly changing in the process of consultation. The national minimum wage regulations have been amended as we have gone along lo try to reflect consultations with the public.
The Minister says that this is the third and final pillar of the Government's employment legislation. It is absolutely paramount that an effective, proper and extensive information operation is mounted to ensure that particularly medium and small-sized companies know their obligations. I hope that the Minister can assure us that that will be done.
4.3 p.m.
Lord Walker of Doncaster: My Lords, Westminster must be the only place where one can experience a second maidenhood. If I might muddle my metaphor, looking around the Chamber I feel that I am revisiting an old battlefield. 'When I first came to your Lordships' House I thought it sensible to follow the wise advice of the Procedure Committee to study the form before making one's first speech. Perhaps I have hesitated too long, but I must admit that I have been inhibited, if not intimidated, by my inability to rise to the standard of erudition and eloquence that often illuminates your Lordships' debates. However. I feel that I may have the credentials to make a brief contribution to our proceedings today.
One way or another, most of my adult life has been linked with the stuff of industrial relations. I am proud to declare an interest: for more than 50 years I have been a member, and I am still a member, of the engineering union—the AEU and now the AEEU, in common with some of my noble friends. I remember the long-gone days when I was a youthful shop steward, the days when almost the only way to seek remedy for a grievance at work was to take, or threaten to take, some form of militant industrial action. If a worker was sacked, otherwise victimised, or was ordered to carry out some excessively dangerous task, and if an employer behaved unreasonably, all too often the response was a collective action which damaged the interests of both employers and workers alike: loss of production for one; loss of earnings for the other.
It seemed so obvious then, all those years ago, that the sensible thing was to seek to provide some acceptable, reasonable method of resolving disputes or,
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alternatively, to remove the underlying causes of the grievances that had caused the dispute in the first place. I rejoice that, despite some setbacks in recent years, that is the road that has been followed in these matters. During the past decade or so the number of days' production lost due to industrial action has greatly diminished and the number of industrial disputes has greatly declined.
No doubt there are many reasons for the decline—the restraints on the unions imposed by the previous government, as has been referred to, and the persistently high level of unemployment—but I am sure that a significant factor has been the beneficial influence of the legislation passed by Parliament over the past decades. I think particularly of the Equal Pay Act 1970, which was introduced by my noble friend Lady Castle of Blackburn and was one of her many achievements. On the other side, the noble Lord, Lord Can of Hadley, introduced the first statutory remedy for unfair dismissal. Those are the kind of measures that have not only contributed to a very great improvement in the statistics of industrial relations but have beneficially transformed relations in the workplace.
It seems to me that the Bill before us today marks a further step along that road. It is yet another move away from the old master and servant relationship to one where employees can feel that they are partners in the provision of goods and services. Promoting the rights and protections of workers is about not only modifying the social relationships of employment but also to do with industrial efficiency and productivity. Before I entered Parliament I spent part of my career in industrial management; I was for a period a work study engineer. I was convinced then, and I am convinced now, that one of the most significant contributions to high productivity is that the workforce should be confident and free of anxiety. If the workforce performs better, we as a country gain from it.
Finally, I wish to make reference to the welcome provisions in the Bill for the updating of the regulations relating to employment agencies. It fell to me in 1974 to produce the first regulations to give effect to the Employment Agencies Act, which was introduced by the late Kenneth Lewis. At that time the Federation of Personnel Services, the collective body representing the leading employment agencies, was the most fervent advocate of regulation, not least because it was being prejudiced by the activities of the cowboy agencies operating in that field. I am delighted with the success of the regulations over the years in eliminating some of the abuses and malpractice that were endemic in the employment agency field 25 years, a quarter of a century, ago. The time is ripe now to update those regulations, and I am pleased that there is provision in the Bill for that to be done.
I thank your Lordships for your forbearance and courtesy. I very much hope that the House will give the Bill the fair wind it deserves.
4.8 p.m.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: My Lords, there can be no more suitable subject than this for the noble Lord,

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Lord Walker of Doncaster, to choose for his maiden speech. He is a deeply respected specialist in these matters. He has referred to revisiting an old battlefield. He will recall that he and I over several years in the 1970s were brought together on the Standing Committees of several Bills concerned with industrial relations and employment law in one way or another. We were brought together as opponents, but I like to think that we were turned into lasting friends. I know that the House will look forward to further contributions from him which will always have the acute approach, but also the genial and fair approach, that he demonstrated in his speech to us today. It is a great privilege for me to be the first to congratulate him on it. For his part, he will look forward to no longer having to be uncontroversial.
Perhaps I may be permitted a further personal reflection. The Bill generates for me a feeling of déjávu. My early years in the other place seemed to be dominated by industrial relations and the decline thereof, as well as the consequential and parallel decline of this country's economy between 1974 and 1979.
As the noble Lord, Lord Walker, will well remember, the flagship of the then Labour Government was the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill, and perhaps the Employment Protection Bill. I watched in fascinated horror as immunities from legal process were conferred upon trade union leaders and massive privileges and undemocratic powers, as I thought, over their trade union members were conferred upon them, under the gleeful but ultimately catastrophic leadership of Mr. Michael Foot.
All that was done in the name of better industrial relations—a cause upon which all were agreed who were ranged against each other in the Standing Committees and on either side of the Chamber in the other place—but strikes became endemic. By 1979, when lost working days were running at nearly 27 million annually, the social and economic consequences brought the government down. Additionally, such burdens had been imposed on employers, particularly small employers, that many were prevented from remaining competitive and were obliged to throw their workforce out of employment.
I am afraid that—I do not doubt with the best intentions—the present Bill suggests to me that the Government are in some respects starting to return to their predecessors' thraldom to the trade union leaders. That thraldom had been progressively dispelled by and with the insistent support of working people on the shop floor. Otherwise it could not have been done in the years of Conservative government that followed. The shop-floor workers showed themselves, to an enormously impressive extent, sick of their enforced so-called representation by many of their trade union leaders. It was representation that they showed they did not want. Against their wishes, their leaders had exploited the ability to secure strike action, even by workforces that had no dispute with their employers.
In our Employment Bill 1980, during the passage of which I had the privilege to serve Jim Prior, now the noble Lord, Lord Prior, we set about, step by step—a phrase which had some significance in those days—
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restoring democratic principles and resurrecting the rule of law in industrial relations. We did it by putting the effective provisions of our Bills on the face of the Bill, not—as is such a painful feature of the present Bill, already much remarked upon—leaving it to be worked out or at least specified in regulation after regulation.
Then and thereafter it was the shop-floor people who most clamantly told us,"Go on. You haven't gone far enough". So we took another step. The Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Prior, was followed by that of my noble friend Lord Tebbit. So it went on until, at the end of that lengthy process, not only had the annual toll of working days lost been reduced from about 27 million to under 1 million, but also unemployment had fallen markedly and British industry was restored to competitiveness. That was why we did it.
Towards the end of that period, or even long before it, strikes had come to seem as old-fashioned in the context of industrial relations as the application of leeches to a fevered patient had become old-fashioned and just about as unhelpful in the field of medicine.
Strangely, throughout that period—and this is why dèjávu afflicts me—step after step that we took at the demands of the shop floor was opposed by several noble Lords whose names appear on the list of speakers, and I look forward to their speeches: the noble Lords, Lord Wedderburn of Charlton, Lord McCarthy, Lord Clinton-Davis. Time and time again they were opponents of the measures. For some of them, it must have been a long winter.
I believe that towards the end of that period we got the balance about right. I speak of balance because we never wished to be against trade unions; we wished to be against the unreasonable imbalance of the powers of certain trade union leaders.
Now the clock is in part to be nudged back: compulsory recognition of trade unions is to be reintroduced. We had it from 1975 to 1980 and even if those who desire recognition in what is called an "agreed bargaining unit" fall short of a majority by 10 per cent, recognition will be enforced. Dismissing an employee within eight weeks of taking part in a strike in violation of a contract of employment is to be made unlawful, and so on. That will apply to all firms employing more than 20 employees. Virtually every business organisation that has been consulted on the question of the threshold—the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses, the Institute of Directors—pressed for the threshold to be markedly increased. Here I should declare an interest in that I am patron of the chamber of commerce for West Kent.
One of the representations made to the Government stated:
"Firms with fewer than 40 staff rarely have the resources to deal regularly with trade union representatives and this legislation will serve only as a further constraint on business growth and competitiveness".
That makes a lot of sense. But more important, the business community thinks it makes a lot of sense.

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I conclude with a very important point: legislative principle. Central to the operation of statutory trade union recognition will be the operation of the central arbitration committee. Yet we know nothing about how it will look, we know nothing about its procedures, we know nothing about how it will be composed. None of that is in the Bill. It will all be found in the secondary legislation. That point and the consequences flowing from it have already been powerfully made.
The object of the committee—though by whom it is committed I am not clear—is said to be:
"encouraging and promoting fair and efficient practices and arrangements in the workplace".
One beneficiary of the Bill will be legal employment. Jobs for life will certainly increase. I hope that we shall see the damaging provisions of the Bill at least mitigated through debate in this House and that we shall see far more precision and more specific provisions on the face of the Bill when we finish with it.
4.19 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, perhaps not surprisingly I dissent from some of the propositions advanced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden—although I strongly agree with his opening remarks about my noble friend Lord Walker of Doncaster. I gather that eulogies are not permitted these days but he was a fine example of a Deputy Speaker of distinction in the other place. Occasionally, he even called on both of us to speak. Rarely, but occasionally.
I declare my interest as president of the British Airline Pilots Association, which is a trade union of airline pilots of which the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, is not unfamiliar. I was vastly entertained by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon. We are all very fond of the noble Baroness but her suggestion that the present government is a collection of the militant faction resurrected is somewhat far from the truth. I remind the noble Baroness that it is New Labour.
The extraordinary prejudice that was imported into the noble Baroness's speech and that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, as to the current role of trade unions is rather mind boggling. I know that many of us are rather ancient but it is never too late to overcome prejudice. It is time to consider the present state of the trade unions.
I personally believe that there was a case for reform and that the role undertaken by trade unions during the winter of discontent was arrogant. It brought down the Labour government of which I was proud to be a member and that situation was intolerable. However, the Thatcher government went too far. The balance became unacceptable as well. For them, balance is a chip on both shoulders. It was manifestly plain at the last general election that the country had come to recognise that the last government had gone too far and that the power of irresponsible employers had replaced the irresponsibility of some trade unions.
One of the problems is not trade unions but unofficial action, which was often provoked by the very thing that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, spoke about—the rigidity of statutory provision and the inability to modify a position in light of experience. As
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the noble and learned Lord well knows, it is not easy to gain parliamentary time to introduce yet another Bill—although it is true that the Conservatives had three employment Bills in their 18 years.
My noble friend Lord Simon of Highbury said that we are facing huge challenges in the demands that will be made of industry and hence of industrial relations as we move into the next millennium. We are still far behind France and Germany in terms of productivity, and that has something to do with building up a better, more harmonious relationship at work—where there is greater co-operation and each side seeks to understand the position of the other. It is enormously important that we are prepared to recognise the need to change the environment at the workplace. That is the purpose of the Bill and of a number of other measures. I was privileged to help the National Minimum Wage Bill through this House. Other measures include the possibility of enhancing employee share ownership. All such measures are designed to secure a better environment in the workplace.
I have no doubt that we will learn as we go along. That will not be easy. Attitudes must be changed. Hence the importance of the government provision in the Bill for training facilities for employers and employees alike, to be better able to face the challenges.
I do not imagine for one moment that we will be able to dispense with traditional dispute resolution. It would be folly to think that. But creating a better, more co-operative sense of partnership in industry will invade that area as well. True partnership involves a keener appreciation of the role of each other and the support that each side of industry can afford each other because their ambitions are the same.
The noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, will not share the argument that one of the great benefits of the European Union is that considerable action has been taken to achieve that end. The EU has decisively rejected the antediluvian view that there always has to be conflict between the two sides of industry. Bitterness, rancour and conflict were the hallmarks of so much of our late industrial past, including the period of Conservative government.
The Bill's provisions provide for dignity at the workplace, and that is the relevance of helping to promote family friendly employment practices. Those, together with the other measures, mirror the Government's ambition to proclaim an interdependent combination of laws and practices because each area of the Bill is dependent upon the other. The establishment of a fair, just and strong society is clearly to be preferred to the ideological approach taken by our predecessors and by some trade unionists in the past.
Frankly, I do not understand the Conservative case, but if the Opposition are saying that paternity leave, extended maternity leave and all the other things criticised by the noble Baroness are dangerous and damaging to industrial relations, is it the Conservatives' intention—if they return to power in 15 or 20 years—to repeal those provisions?
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, our complaint is that too much is not on the face of the Bill.

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We do not know what it means. In many respects, we are not even sure that the Government know. We hope that the Government will clarify many points.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I am sure that clarification will emerge. It always does in Committee and on Report. My noble friend has already alluded to that. Further consultation is required and it would be wrong to be too prescriptive at this stage.
It is essential to recognise—and the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, did not do service to this point—that the Bill has been the subject of intensive consultation. At the end of the day a package has been arrived at between the TUC and the CBI and there is broad agreement in principle. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, shakes his head, but what I have just said is completely accurate. He can shake his head as much as he likes.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, is the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, aware that not all of us in manufacturing industry regard the CBI as the last word in consultation?
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, that is another point. The noble Lord has his disagreements with the CBI. I mentioned the CBI specifically.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, does the noble Lord suggest that if the Opposition table any amendments that the CBI should like to see made to this Bill the Government will accept them? Surely, that is the message that he gives.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I have not been in a position to give any messages to the Government since the previous July. My views on that matter are hardly helpful. It is a matter for the Government to decide. However, the most extensive consultation took place, and I believe that it was right to undertake it. Consultation must go on, particularly in relation to the corpus of regulations that must be introduced. But the course that the Government have taken indicates an absence of the rigidity that marked the approach of their predecessors.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, spoke about the generosity of the previous government's views on trade unions. He forgot the appalling events at GCHQ and the scarring of industrial relationships on a far wider scale than simply the workers at that establishment. I am proud that as one of their first acts the Government have decided to put that right. The previous government did not favour trade unions. One hears from the lips of the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, that the Conservative Party is still visibly—sometimes eloquently—opposed to the very principle of trade unions. Trade unions do not exist simply to negotiate wages or conditions but to provide a major supportive role. They look after their members at times of accidents, provide legal support and give help when
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their members are unwell and become old. I never hear members of the Conservative Party mention those important factors.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, I am not sure that the noble Lord read my lips correctly. My lips did not say anything at that stage. As a matter of fact, the trade union legislation introduced by the previous Conservative government made the trade unions much easier to live with. We are talking here about the position of trade unions when this Bill and the regulations are brought into effect. One important point that the noble Lord has not answered is that made by my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew. I believe my noble and learned friend said that in 1979, 27 million days—my brief makes reference to 29 million days—were lost through industrial action, and in 1996 only 1.3 million days were lost. That is the result of Conservative legislation.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, for one moment I thought that to read the lips of the noble Baroness would be a pleasurable experience. However, she now descends into the kind of speech that she made before. I shall not give way again.
I find it a little odd that a government who decimated manufacturing industry should claim responsibility for the benefits that have accrued to industry in this country. That government burdened industry with a massive number of regulations and now claim to be business-friendly. That is simply not in accord with reality.
I should like to raise two particular points relating to the Bill that have been brought to my attention. First, the use by employers of waiver clauses that remove their employees' rights to redundancy payments is a matter that gives rise to some concern. Under current employment law it is possible for employers to arrange for employees to sign away their rights relating to unfair dismissal and redundancy. I understand that while the Government have moved to prohibit the use of unfair dismissal waiver clauses, redundancy waiver clauses, remain untouched under the Bill. Perhaps my noble friend will allude to that when he comes to wind up.
Secondly, I refer to the draft proposal for a fixed term work directive from the European Commission. Its intention is to end differences in employment rights between fixed term and permanent employees. This matter has been the subject of widespread consultation by the social partners and has also been adopted by the European Parliament in both committee and plenary session. Do the Government have any objection to that proposal? If so, on what basis is that disagreement ventilated? I believe that this proposal is one that does and should enjoy widespread support. I do not believe that the Conservative Party speaks for the people of this country on this issue. The Conservative Party simply utters prejudices that it has held for years and years and shows no sign of reform whatever.
Lord Burlison: My Lords, before we move to the Statement on Kosovo, I should like to take the opportunity to remind the House that the Companion

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indicates that discussion on a Statement should be confined to brief comments and questions for clarification. Peers who speak at length do so at the expense of other noble Lords.

Kosovo
4.36 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean): My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall now repeat a Statement on Kosovo which has been riade in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The Statement is as follows:
"Before I begin the Statement, the House would expect me to say a few words on the tragic death of Derek Fatchett. I and all who worked with him at the Foreign Office are shocked at his sudden loss and our thoughts today are with his wife and family. I spoke earlier this morning to Anita who told me how proud she had been of what Derek had done. She and their sons had every right to be proud of him. Over the past two years he had proved himself an effective and creative Minister, from the early days when he helped broker a ceasefire to provide relief for the famine in Sudan to last month when he paid a brave visit to East Timor. His early death cruelly deprives the House of a Member who had so much more to give and robs many of us of a friend whom we will remember as always cheerful, whatever the difficulties.
"Last Thursday I attended the meeting of the G8 Foreign Ministers in Bonn. That meeting reached agreement with Russia on the principles on which any settlement of the Kosovo conflict must be based. They parallel the objectives which NATO requires to be met as the condition of ending the military campaign: withdrawal of Serb military, police and paramilitary forces from Kosovo; an international interim administration for Kosovo; a political process on the basis of the Rambouillet peace accords; and the free return of all refugees under the protection of an international security presence capable of achieving our common objectives. From the start of the conflict we have maintained regular dialogue with Russia and made sure that the door was kept open to Russia. This agreement on our common ground exposes as a lie the repeated promises of Milosevic to his people that one day Russia would come to their rescue. Work will now be proceeding this week between officials of our countries to turn these principles into the draft text of a Security Council resolution.
"On Friday night the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was destroyed during a NATO attack on sites in the city. It appears that the missiles hit the building on which they had been targeted. However, the building had been wrongly identified in the targeting plans as the Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement for the Yugoslav Army. The review continues into how this error could have occurred, and the procedures that gave rise to it.
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"My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has written to Zhu Rhongji, the Chinese Premier, expressing our deep regret at the error and assuring him that there was no deliberate intent on the part of the allies to attack the Chinese Embassy.
"Yesterday I spoke to our ambassador in Beijing who confirms that the embassy has been blockaded by demonstrators who have hurled stones though the front windows of the embassy building. I am pleased to report that no member of the embassy staff has been injured, and we are not aware of any other British citizen in China having been attacked. We have amended our travel advice in respect of China to recommend against all non-essential visits to China at the present time.
"My noble friend Lady Symons saw the chargé d'affaires of the Chinese Embassy this afternoon and recorded our concern about the safety of our officials and other nationals in China. We welcome the appeal by the Vice-President of China, Hu Jin Tao, for the demonstrators to behave peacefully, and the apparent increase in the efforts by the Chinese police to protect the embassy.
"On Saturday after the news broke, I spoke to the Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, who confirmed that Russia was firmly committed to the principles that we had agreed in the G8 and that there would be no let-up in the search for a settlement.
"We continue vigorously to pursue any opportunity for progress on the diplomatic track. After this Statement I will meet with Carl Bildt, who has been appointed by the Secretary-General of the UN as his special envoy. This afternoon Victor Chernomyrdin, the special representative of President Yeltsin, is meeting with Mr. Talbott, the US Deputy Secretary of State.
"Our best hope of success on the diplomatic track is by keeping up the military pressure. If Milosevic felt any reduction in our air campaign, or sensed any weakening of our resolve, there would be no prospect of his agreeing to meet our demands.
"On the ground in Kosovo over recent days we have destroyed tanks, heavy artillery, military convoys and command posts. In total we have eliminated within Kosovo the equivalent of the weapons and equipment of an entire brigade. But we cannot ignore the fact that the Serb forces in Kosovo are controlled and co-ordinated from Belgrade. Striking at their command headquarters in Belgrade is vital to breaking their military capability in Kosovo. On Friday night we destroyed in central Belgrade the Hotel Yugoslavia, which had been taken over as the war room for Arkan's paramilitaries who have killed, burned and raped their way across Kosovo. By any test, that war room was a legitimate military target and could not be ignored if we are serious about reversing the ethnic cleansing which was planned from there.
"We want a settlement, and we would welcome a diplomatic solution. But we will not accept a settlement at any price. It must meet our objectives—in particular, it must provide for the Kosovar refugees

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to go home under our protection. Anything less would condemn the refugees to a life in exile in refugee camps. And it would reward President Milosevic for the butchery and brutality with which he has evicted them from Kosovo. Fresh evidence continues to pour in of that brutality. In one single day last week we received reports from refugees of three further atrocities. At Djakovica, 19 people, mainly women and children, were found by the Serb forces hiding in a basement. They were all shot in the basement, and the house burned over them. At Kotlina, Serb police threw 20 villagers down a well, and then threw hand grenades down after them. At Suva Reka, around a hundred residents were herded into the shopping centre and shot. None of these people was killed as a result of tragic error. Every single one of them was murdered at close range, deliberately and callously.
"I understand and share the concern of honourable Members on both sides at the loss of civilian life when there is an error in our bombing campaign. But I cannot understand those who focus on the tens who have been casualties of NATO's military campaign to the exclusion of the tens of thousands who have been butchered by Milosevic in Kosovo.
"I invite honourable Members to visit the exhibition space at the Foreign Office where they can see on display drawings by the children in the refugee camps. I defy any Member not to be moved to discover that the children have often drawn the guns bigger than the people, and the tanks bigger than the many burning houses. It is not just the dead who are the victims of the ethnic cleansing, but the living also who are traumatised by what they have had to see. The least we can do is to enable them to return and to rebuild their homes in safety. And we will continue and intensify both military and diplomatic campaigns until we succeed in doing so."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
4.45 p.m.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, first, I endorse the words concerning the tragic and untimely death of the Minister of State. He is a great loss to the Government and Parliament alike. I ask the Minister to convey our deepest sympathies to his wife and family.
I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made in another place and for attempting to provide an explanation for the tragic error which led NATO to target the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade on Friday. From these Benches we offer our heartfelt condolences to the people of China and in particular to the families of the victims.
The Official Opposition support the objectives which underline the NATO action in Serbia. We have continued to support the Government in their twin track approach of maintaining military pressure on President Milosevic while pursuing a vigorous diplomatic initiative. But we reserve our right as Opposition to scrutinise, question and, where appropriate, criticise the actions of the Government.
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The attack on the wrong building was a tragic mistake for which NATO governments may yet pay dearly. It has caused grave disquiet for a number of reasons. First, there are the wider implications it may have for our diplomatic relations with China and Russia. Secondly, there is the damage which may have been done to the prospects for agreeing a UN-endorsed peace plan for Kosovo in line with NATO's objectives. Thirdly, there is the air of incompetence with which this incident has caused the whole NATO operation to be suffused. What response does the Minister have to General Naumann, the retiring chairman of NATO's Military Committee, who says that the campaign has undoubtedly been prolonged by NATO's failure to find a way to reconcile the conditions of a coalition war with the principle of military operations such as surprise and the use of overwhelming force?
The attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade indicates a serious failure of intelligence. Can the Minister confirm that a street map of Belgrade clearly indicates the location of the Chinese Embassy? Can the Minister also confirm whether NATO has drawn up a list of targets to be avoided at all costs, and whether the Chinese Embassy was included on that list? If such a list has not been drawn up, can the Minister explain why not?
The US Defense Department has said that an anomaly led to the wrongful targeting of the Chinese Embassy. Is the Minister confident that such an anomaly is unlikely to occur again. Can she give an assurance that NATO procedures on intelligence will be improved as a matter of urgency so that in future all possible safeguards are in place to prevent such a wrongful targeting?
Can the Minister say why it took until the fifth week of the campaign to task the military planners of NATO to look at the options for a maritime operation to implement an oil embargo and why, in the sixth week of the campaign, NATO's proposals were still in the planning stage, given the importance of the destruction of Serbia's fuel resources in this campaign where, in the words of the noble Baroness the Leader of the House,
"Day and night, our pilots are risking their lives to inflict defeat on Milosevic"?—[Official Report, 13/4/99; col.635.]
Will the Minister say whether it is indeed the case that the oil embargo would be legal under international law only if it were introduced on an essentially voluntary basis? In that case, can the Minister clarify what would happen if the ships declined to be boarded?
As the scenes of public protest surrounding both the British and US embassy compounds in Peking continue, what implications does the Minister believe that this tragic error will have for our long-term relations with China and our ability to influence the Chinese Government on key issues such as human rights? In the light of the Government's up-dated advice advising against non-essential travel to China, will the Minister say what action has been taken to protect the lives of British citizens and property in China?
From these Benches, we believe that Russia is necessary in securing a solution to the crisis in Kosovo. The Russian Foreign Minister, Mr. Ivanov, postponed

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his visit to the United Kingdom, due to take place over the weekend. When does the Minister expect that visit to be rescheduled?
The description of the incident as "NATO's own goal" is not unjust. It comes at the very time when, following last Thursday's G8 meeting, a glimmer of light and hope lad been breathed back into the diplomatic proces What concern does the Minister have that the diplomatic efforts may now stall and that progress towards resolving the Kosovo crisis may be derailed, particularly in the light of President Jiang Zemin's insistence that the UN Security Council cannot discuss a settlement to the crisis in Kosovo unless NATO stops its bombing campaign?
The Minister described the original objectives of NATO set out at the meeting on 12th April by NATO Foreign Ministers as "basic and unalterable" demands which would not be compromised. Will she reconcile those objectives with the principles for the settlement of the Kosovo crisis set out in the G8 Foreign Ministers communiqué last Thursday which failed to clarify the role of NATO in an international military presence?
It was a tragic error on Friday but, as Kenneth Bacon, the Pentagon spokesman, said, there is no such thing as clean combat. As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, reminded us so rightly on Thursday, President Milosevic's revolting behaviour goes back to events in Croatia in 1990, Bosnia two years later and then Srebrenica. NATO is fighting a war with no more front-line censorship, daily news conference with a right-to-know from the big boys and films of what the people making them want to show versus a dictator who censors everything, who manipulates the news and who shows what he wants to show on television.
Seven weeks into the military action, we appear to be no nearer to achieving the Government's original primary objective; namely, the avoidance of another humanitarian crisis. The humanitarian catastrophe, the responsibility for which rests firmly on the shoulders of President Milosevic, worsens with every day that passes. From these Benches, we shall continue to support the Government in taking the action necessary to bring so much suffering to an end. But we seek an assurance from the Minister that clarity and consistency in objectives do indeed guide the Government's policy.
4.53 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, on these Benches we wish to associate ourselves with the references to the sad death of Derek Fatchett. My colleagues have just been reminding me of how good he was on a number of Middle East issues. I have heard from many friends within the Foreign Office how well-respected he was for all the work he did there. He will be missed as a very good Minister.
I welcome the Statement about the G8 agreement with Russia. It was important to keep the Russians on board. I hope that we now have the Russians again on board in this conflict which is about restoring stability and security to south-eastern Europe. Will the Minister assure us, if possible, that the language of the G8 statement represents no weakening of the language of
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the Washington statement on Kosovo? There were some interesting minor differences—references to settlements in the G8 statement which had not been present in the Washington communiqué.
We express our concern about relations with China. European governments have had looser, weaker relations with China than the United States in recent years. The US-China relationship was already fraught and has now become more fraught. It seems to us that, as European governments, we need a stronger and more active relationship with China regardless of the current immediate crisis.
The Statement refers to maintaining military pressure and goes straight on to talk about the continuation of the air war. On the last occasion we discussed Kosovo, we said from these Benches that there was an unfortunate logic in any bombing campaign, particularly one that talks about restricting bombing to legitimate military targets, which is the phrase used in the Statement. When one is talking about legitimate military targets, after a while they become in rather short supply. As bombing is increased and continues, so it becomes more likely that one bombs targets either by mistake or that one bombs marginal targets which turn out to be not as military as one had thought.
Many references have been made in prime ministerial statements to this being a just war as well as a limited war. Proportional force requires us to be very careful in our selection of targets. We suggest—and have argued from these Benches throughout—that that requires the question of the commitment of troops to the region, and eventually to Kosovo, to be moved further up the agenda. As the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, said, there is no such thing as clean combat. NATO looks to be fighting this war on the basis that it should at least be clean from our side with no casualties whatever. That is not proportionate use of force. From these Benches, we should like to see more land forces moved into the region ready to move on to the ground in Kosovo.
We were interested to see the article by the Defence Secretary, George Robertson, in the Daily Telegraph this morning in which he refers to the KLA as a "new KLA". It has changed. He states:
"It is increasingly made up of young men armed with the most powerful weapon of all: the sense that they have nothing to lose".
He refers also to the KLA beginning to reoccupy the ground. I ask the Minister whether that represents a shift in our attitude to the KLA as, perhaps, part of the solution as well as, originally, part of the problem.
Finally, from these Benches we query the references at the end of the Statement to the pursuit of a settlement, a diplomatic solution. We must be concerned to find a settlement which does not entirely let down those who have been betrayed; those against whom atrocities have been committed, to which the Statement refers so powerfully in its final paragraphs. There have been some indications from Washington in the past few days that we are now looking for a compromise, even for a fudge. We remind your Lordships that this is a conflict about the stability, security and future prosperity of south eastern Europe. A fudge in Kosovo would put the Bosnian settlement at risk and would put Montenegro at

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risk, and possibly, even, Vojvodina at risk. Therefore, I ask the Minister to re-emphasise that the settlement must be absolutely in line with the five principles and not a fudge with Mr. Milosevic.
4.58 p.m.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thank both the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, for their kind words about my colleague, Derek Fatchett. Derek was a wonderfully wise, able and supportive colleague. He had a tremendous sense of humour and that other quality so very much needed in the Foreign Office given the sort of issues with which we are faced—an unfailing sense of proportion. Speaking personally, I shall miss him very much, as I know too will my other colleagues in the Foreign Office. I thank the noble Baroness and shall of course convey the sympathies of her party to Derek's widow, Anita, and their sons. I thank both for their very kind words.
I am sure there will be a measure of comfort to his family in knowing how well Derek was respected.
I turn to the subject of Kosovo. This was, indeed, a tragic error. I hope that all noble Lords, in contacts they may have, will stress that fact to those who take an interest in such matters. This afternoon I have been able to express the shock and regret we feel over the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. We recognise the shock and very great distress this has occasioned to the Chinese people and to the families of those who died and those who were injured. The fact is that Her Majesty's Government believe that the military pressure must be maintained on Mr. Milosevic if we are to see an outcome through the diplomatic channels that we wish to see.
This was a tragic mistake. That is what is important, that it was a mistake. One or two people have used the word "attack" as though this was some part of a deliberate strategy. I stress that nothing could be further from the truth.
The noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, asked about the position of our colleagues in Russia. The Statement that I was able to repeat to your Lordships made clear that after the news had broken on Saturday, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary spoke to the Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, who confirmed that Russia was firmly committed to the principles agreed at the G8.
Noble Lords will also recall that during our debate on Kosovo last week, I briefed the House about the outcome of the G8 meeting in Bonn. I was able to tell your Lordships that the G8 presidency would be taking forward that outcome with the Chinese. That is still on track. We hope that further progress will be made on that front this week.
The noble Baroness mentioned the quote from General Naumann. I think it is also fair to say that to complete the quote one would have to say that he also said that he could not think of any change that he would make in the present NATO strategy. I urge the noble Baroness in making that quote—I know that several of
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her colleagues in another place have been tempted so to do this afternoon—to ensure that the complete quote is used. General Naumann did not leave any real doubt about being on board over the NATO strategy: he did not want to see any changes in it.
The noble Baroness referred to the failure of intelligence which led to the tragic bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. As the Statement made by my right honourable friend in another place made clear, that matter is being considered. The review continues as to how this error occurred and of the procedures which gave rise to such an error. It would be premature, at this stage, for us to enter into discussion on the various bits of information we have about what may or may not have occurred over this incident. We need to have a full picture before we can give that to your Lordships, and, indeed, to others. Of course, the Chinese will be interested to know as much as they can. I refer not only to exactly what happened but to why it happened.
The noble Baroness also raised the question of the maritime operation and the oil embargo. Perhaps I may remind her that the proposals for the maritime operation are still in the planning stages. It is important to remember that there are two operations overall: the EU embargo, which was agreed, and the maritime operation which arose as a result of the Washington Summit. It is the latter which we are considering here. We will, of course, take into account the legal implications of any operation before agreeing to it. I assure the noble Baroness, as I have had occasion to assure the House before, that any such operation would be in strict accordance with the law.
As regards travel advice, we have stated that we are advising against unnecessary travel to China at present. We believe that the situation as regards our own nationals is difficult. I remind the noble Baroness and your Lordships that the travel advice we give is not based on diplomatic pressure, commercial pressure, or anything else. When the Foreign Office issues our travel advice we are concerned with the safety of British nationals abroad. That is our primary responsibility in issuing such advice. Tragic as these events are, that makes no difference to the responsibility of Her Majesty's Government to ensure that they are as accurate as can be when advising British citizens on where they should travel.
As your Lordships know, the visit of Mr Ivanov is postponed but, as I was able to repeat a moment or two ago, that does not mean to say that the Foreign Secretary has not been speaking to Mr. Ivanov. He did so over the weekend. This afternoon he is meeting Carl Bildt, special envoy to the UN Secretary-General. Also this afternoon, Mr. Chernomyrdin, special representative to President Yeltsin, will be meeting the Deputy Secretary of State, Mr. Talbot. So, there are a number of diplomatic initiatives taking place this afternoon.
I also stress that, as a result of the Bonn meeting last week, the German initiative is still going ahead with the Chinese. As the Statement made by my right honourable friend made clear, discussions are going forward at the UN. I hope and believe that the positive outcome to

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diplomatic initiatives built up and launched as a result of the G8 meeting last week—they were the culmination of many other diplomatic initiatives and did not all start last week—will be built on this week.
The noble Baroness was concerned that the five demands expressed to your Lordships on a number of occasions were somehow inconsistent with what came out of the G8 last Thursday. I believe the two sets of proposals are entirely consistent. As I said to your Lordships last Thursday, we simply would not have agreed to them had we not thought that they were consistent. Planners are taking work forward this week on how we can build on what came out of the G8 at Bonn, and Foreign Ministers have agreed to meet again.
I take issue with the comments of the noble Baroness about being no nearer resolving this issue. The situation in Kosovo is terrible, but we do know that we are undermining the military capability there. My noble friend Lord Gilbert tells me there has been some reduction in the Serb military action. Let us hope that such reduction will he sustained. However, we do not believe that the noble Baroness is correct in saying that we are simply not making any impression at all. Perhaps I may remind the noble Baroness that in opening our debate last Thursday, my noble friend Lord Gilbert gave your Lordships a detailed description of exactly what has been achieved. I believe we have been entirely clear and consistent in the objectives we have stated in this military action.
I turn to one or two specific points made by the noble Lord. Lord Wallace. which were not made by the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings. NATO action is in accordance with the rules of international law applicable in armed conflicts. It is strictly limited to what is necessary to achieve our humanitarian objective. I say in all humility to your Lordships that when one considers the number of military sorties there have been, very few bombs have gone astray. That is not in any way to underestimate the tragedy when they do, but is an important point we need to keep within our sights.
I very much hope that, tragic as these events are, they will not deflect us from our course of action and, in particular, from the more hopeful signs that emerged last week with the possibility of further diplomatic progress being made.
5.10 p.m.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I have supported the government action up to now and continue to do so. I was pleased to hear about the effect of the G8 agreement last week. It is an extraordinarily significant and important development. However, if ever there was a mistake that was going to make the diplomatic task more difficult, it was the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy. We are entitled to ask the Government—and if we are entitled to ask, the Chinese are certainly entitled to ask—for as explicit an assurance as they can give that this sort of mistargeting will not occur again and that steps are being taken to put right whatever is revealed in the various inquiries.
We are now moving into a new phase in relation to Kosovo. The question we must ask ourselves is where we go from here. Increasingly there is talk of using the
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United Nations. Those of us with some knowledge of that organisation over the past quarter of a century or so regard those statements with a certain wry, if not amused, scepticism. Unfortunately, the UN tends to be used in circumstances when countries cannot solve problems themselves. They then decide to involve the United Nations to solve it and complain bitterly when the UN finds, perhaps not surprisingly, that it cannot solve the problem either.
I shall be extremely unhappy if the UN is used in this dispute as some kind of fig leaf to cover up what may or may not have gone wrong. If we need a peacekeeping force in Kosovo it will have to be done through the United Nations. If we need some kind of administrative body in parts of Kosovo, that will have to he done through the United Nations. I hope my noble friend can assure me and the House that in seeking UN action we have the full support of the Russians. In a sense they are now the crucial players in producing a settlement in the Kosovan crises. If we do not have the Russians with us, we will have a difficult time when the matter goes to New York, made more difficult by the tragic bombing of the Chinese Embassy.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Richard for his broad support. Of course this was a terrible mistake: it was entirely an accident. I was able this afternoon to assure the Chinese chargé d'affaires quite explicitly on that point, emphasising also the importance that Her Majesty's Government attach to the improving bilateral relationship we have with China. Last year there was the exchange of visits of Prime Ministers and we look forward to the visit of the President of China in October of this year.
My noble friend asked for an explicit undertaking that such mistargeting would not occur again. I can only assure the House that NATO will do its best to ensure that that is the case. I cannot give an explicit assurance. As we have seen, tragic mistakes occur. The Statement makes clear that the event is being investigated, not only in relation to what happened, but also in relation to the procedures leading up to what happened. With the greatest respect to my noble friend, I am sure he feels that such assurances would not be particularly realistic. War is a nasty and terrible business. We can only express our deepest regret when tragedies occur. Everything will be done to ensure that such mistakes do not occur, but we cannot give explicit assurances.
There is no question of the United Nations being a fig leaf. Work is going ahead at the moment to try to secure the Security Council resolution. Our friends in Russia are working with us on this. They were an important part of the agreement reached in Bonn last week. We hope that we will be able to impress upon our friends in China the importance that they should attach to getting a UNSCR through this week.
Baroness Ludford: My Lords, I want to ask about the results of the military action in the context of broad general support for the Government and for NATO action, as I expressed last Thursday in our debate,

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subject only to concern about the blunders that have been made and the consistently-held view on these Benches about the need to deploy ground troops.
I am puzzled about the apparently modest success of our attack on the Serb forces in Kosovo. Can the Minister enlarge on what she said? She said we had destroyed the equivalent of a brigade. Can she say what proportion that is of the total forces we estimate to be in Kosovo? The figures do not have to be exact. Also, will she explain why more destruction of tanks and artillery in Kosovo cannot be achieved, even if it is for the time being through air power rather than with ground troops?
Baroness Symons of Vernham DeanMy Lords, we cannot have it both ways in this argument. If we were to have unrestrained bombing in Kosovo, much more damage would have been done and your Lordships would rightly be expressing concern about the unintended civilian damage incurred as a result. Last week my noble friend Lord Gilbert explained to your Lordships how the military action got off to something of a slow start because of the weather and because we were inhibited about a bombing campaign which might not have hit the entirely military targets we were looking at to undermine the Milosevic regime.
It is difficult on the one hand to say that we have been able to hit a whole range of targets, and on the other to say that there cannot be any unintended casualties. The Statement is clear in saying that the equivalent of an entire brigade has been destroyed over recent days. That includes tanks, heavy artillery, military convoys and command posts. I am unable to tell the noble Baroness what proportion that represents of the entire military force that the Serbs are deploying in Kosovo. I doubt that that is a figure our military experts would be happy to have broadcast at the moment. If there is anything further we are able to say on that front when I have consulted my noble friend Lord Gilbert and colleagues in the Ministry of Defence, I shall write to the noble Baroness. However, I do not promise a letter because I doubt that we will be able to give much more information at the moment.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that not only is the mistake to which she referred a tragedy, but the whole affair of this bombing is a tragic mistake?
Is my noble friend aware that it was to try to reduce, as far as possible, such mistakes that the Geneva Conventions (Amendment) Act 1995 was drawn up in British law? It specifically prohibits the type of operation which brings about these tragic mistakes. We are not allowed to bomb targets such as television centres, for example. We have to select targets which are exclusively military and which are not near any civilian targets in order not to break the law. NATO has consistently broken the law as laid down in the Geneva Convention, a law which is designed to prevent such tragic mistakes. It is being totally ignored in this operation. You are not allowed to destroy bridges because they are not regarded as being exclusively
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military targets; you are not allowed to attack anything unless it is exclusively military. If there is any doubt the law states that it shall be regarded as civilian and shall be sacrosanct. The law is being completely broken. The Government have not got a leg to stand on, and they should stop immediately.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I know that my noble friend holds these views passionately and emphatically. I say to him with equal passion and emphasis that the Government do not agree with him, and neither do 19 nations of NATO—19 democracies with independent judiciaries.
Every means, short of force, was tried to avert this situation. The noble Lord knows that force is being used as an exceptional measure on grounds of overwhelming humanitarian necessity. The military intervention is fully justified. Not only do the 19 countries of NATO think that we are doing the right thing; so do the Kosovar refugees and those poor people who have been treated in an outrageous and brutal way by the Serbian authorities.
What else would the noble Lord have us do? We are obeying the law. We have to look at the tragedy that is being played out on the ground. I remind my noble friend of the three incidents that I described. I shall not repeat them because they are too gruesome and too terrible. But those three incidents took place in only one day last week. We owe it to those people to continue our action.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, last Thursday I asked the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, to assure noble Lords that there was no substance in the suggestion which I read in an article in The Daily Telegraph, and subsequent similar suggestions, that nuclear weapons would be used in Serbia. I would be most grateful if the noble Baroness would answer me today. I have written to her about the subject, but if she answers me now she need not answer my letter.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am tempted to say that you cannot believe everything you read in the Daily Telegraph. I apologise if I did not give the noble Lord the assurance that he sought last week. I give it to him now.
Lord Craig of Radley: My Lords, one of the articles in today's Daily Telegraph, which perhaps we might be allowed to believe, was written by Mr. George Robertson. In the final paragraph he states:
"Milosevic is trying to find a way out but the only exit strategy NATO will accept is one that gets him and his forces out of Kosovo."
I have asked the noble Baroness previously what the future status of Kosovo is likely to be. Will it be autonomous under a Belgrade government and under Milosevic? Or will it have some other status?
In the article Mr. Robertson talks about the KLA rising like a phoenix and coming back all over Kosovo. Are the Government confident that when the Kosovars return to their homes, with the KLA rising like a phoenix, those Kosovars will not seek their own bloody

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revenge on Serbs and other nationals who may still be living in Kosovo? I am sure that this thought will have occurred to Her Majesty's Government, but it would be helpful to have an assurance that the peacekeeping force will ensure that ell those in Kosovo are subject to regulation and rules.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am sure that the noble and gallant Lord can believe what my right honourable friend has written in the Daily Telegraph. When he wrote about Milosevic and his forces being turned out of Kosovo, I believe that he was referring to a settlement which will be made on the basis of the Rambouillet accord. Such a settlement will have to be a matter of negotiation. Since the Rambouillet accord was reached, a great deal has happened. Although it is Her Majesty's Government's view that any further settlement should be on that basis, the details will have to be worked out in due course.
We all very much hope that people who have been turned out of their homes, whether they are internally displaced within Kosovo or whether they are refugees beyond the borders of Kosovo, will return in peace to their homes. An international security force will be there to keep the peace in Kosovo generally, having ensured the safe return of those people. They will be there to ensure the safety of all the citizens in Kosovo thereafter.
Lord Shore of Stepney: My Lords, can I assure my noble friend that no one in their senses for a moment thinks that there was anything deliberate in the attack on the Chinese Embassy? It was a great mistake and I am sure that the Government genuinely regret it. I do not think for a moment that the Chinese themselves seriously believe that it was a deliberate attack. That is not how the world works, whatever the relations with different states. The Chinese are obviously going to make the most of it, but I am sure that that is not the heart of the matter at all.
In regard to what the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said, I am sure that the country we have got to watch in all of this is Russia, not China. China does not have the long-term interest in this part of the world that Russia has. Involving Russia in finding a solution is essential if we are to have permanent peace in the Balkans.
I agree with a two-track policy and go along with both, but on the second, diplomatic, tack, is it just simply a matter of Chernomyrdin and Talbott meeting, or is there an initiative? The noble Baroness spoke of diplomatic initiatives. If it is an initiative, not just a formal meeting, can she give any indication as to what such an initiative might involve and what reception it has been given?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his assurance that he believes that it is widely accepted that this was a terrible mistake and involved no deliberate action.
We all agree that Russia's involvement in any eventual solution is absolutely vital. I was able to detail to noble Lords last Thursday evening the consistent involvement of Russia from the contact group last summer and subsequent developments—the problems
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that President Yeltsin had and the assurances he received from Mr. Milosevic; the later meetings of the contact group; and the importance of continuing to keep the Russians involved in the negotiation. That is very much in the forefront of my right honourable friend's mind. He was able to speak to his opposite number on Saturday afternoon.
The noble Lord mentioned the meeting taking place today between Mr. Chernomyrdin and Mr. Talbott. I believe that a number of different issues are involved, not least the outcome of the G8 meeting last week in Bonn and the way in which that can be taken forward. All the Foreign Ministers there, including the Russian and United States Foreign Ministers, charged planners to take forward the outline plan by putting flesh on the plan and engaging the presidency of the G8, which is Germany, in talks with the Chinese with a view to getting an agreed position on the United Nations Security Council resolution. Any of the diplomatic discussions taking place at the moment is bound to touch upon these growing and important issues.
The Earl of Carlisle: My Lords—
Lord Eden of Winton: My Lords-
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Williams of Mostyn): My Lords, I think it is the turn of the noble Lord, Lord Eden, as he has attempted to intervene on a number of occasions.
Lord Eden of Winton: My Lords, perhaps I may, first, be allowed to pay a brief personal tribute to the memory of Derek Fatchett, whose death at such a young age is greatly to be regretted. Indeed, he was of considerable assistance to me when, as chairman of the Royal Armouries, I sought to establish the new museum at Leeds. Subsequently, as is well known, he served as a Minister of State in the Foreign Office with great distinction and was most impressive in that role.
I turn now to the situation in Kosovo. As we have embarked upon this course and as some of the horrors to which the Statement refers are still clearly being perpetrated under the direction and authority of Mr. Milosevic, can we have the assurance of the Government that the bombing of his centres of command will be maintained with the utmost vigour? Moreover, looking to the future, can the Minister confirm that it is still the Government's intention that the guarantee force, which may come into existence to ensure the safety of the people of Kosovo in the future, will comprise a major NATO military element? Indeed, only by that means, and under direct NATO command, will there be any certainty of security for those people.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his kind words about my late colleague, Derek Fatchett. He was indeed an extraordinarily talented and able man. It is a tragedy that he will no longer have the opportunity to deploy those talents, either for the Government or for the people of this country.

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I assure the noble Lord that the military campaign will be maintained until the conditions which NATO has specified for the cessation of such a campaign are met. That was the position when we discussed the matter in your Lordships' House last Thursday and nothing has occurred over the course of the past few days to change it.
The noble Lord also asked about a NATO component in any eventual security force. It is the position of Her Majesty's Government that any such security force should contain a considerable NATO component, expressed in this House last week as a NATO core.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords—
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I believe that the 20-minute limit for Back-Bench questions following a Statement is mandatory.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, I feel—
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I am so sorry. I mistook what the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, was trying to do. I realise now that he was attempting to make his speech on the Second Reading of the Employment Relations Bill. I apologise to the noble Lord personally, as well as to the House.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, no apology is necessary. I realise that the House has to settle itself down for a moment and resume wondering not so much where the Government's bombs are going but where their industrial relations policy is going. I must say that I am somewhat relieved to have heard that at least the Government and NATO understand the distinction between Belgrade and Belgravia. One simply hopes that they will have the right A-Z in future.

Employment Relations Bill
5.33 p.m.
Second Reading debate resumed.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Simon, said that this Bill was designed to improve industrial relations. But, of course, all industrial relations and employment Bills are designed to do so. It was my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew who referred to another one of the Bills to improve industrial relations; namely, the Employment Protection Act. Indeed, it was designed to improve the prospects for employment and it damaged them.
I must say that former gun owners whose weapons were expropriated and who are still awaiting payment of the compensation which Parliament decreed should be paid, must be thinking that trades unions get rather better treatment. During Labour's 18 years of opposition, the unions gave the Labour Party over £100 million at today's prices. That is apart from the money which they spent on propaganda on their own behalf.
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Here is another part of the payback. Of course paying debts is not to be decried, but this £100 million debt of the Labour Party is to be paid not by the Labour Party and not even by the taxpayers, oddly enough: it is to be paid by businesses, by shareholders, by pension funds, by pensioners, by consumers and, ironically, in the end it will be paid by employees, including trades unionists whose pay and prospects of employment will be diminished by this Bill just as they were by the employment protection legislation.
Noble Lords may detect that I do not like this Bill. There are many of us in this House who remember the events of the 1960s and the 1970s—the Wilson government brought down by their inability to control trades unions; the Heath Government brought down by their inability to control trades unions—and that, despite the skilful drafting by my noble and learned friend Lord Howe, of the Industrial Relations Act, which turned out to be unworkable, unenforceable and unusable, although undoubtedly well intended. Then the government of the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, were also brought down by the trades unions.
It was a great relief to me, all these years later—in fact, 20 years—to hear the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, saying that something should have been done to cut the unions down to size and to stop them from doing it. But when I did do something to stop them from doing it again, the noble Lord and his friends were not with me in the Division Lobbies at that time. Perhaps I may point out to the noble Lord that 20 years is a long time to spend thinking about it before coming to the conclusion that my legislation was right. No wonder—
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, the noble Lord sought some reforms of the trades unions, but he really went overboard; his prejudices dominated his thinking.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, it is a matter of opinion as to whether or not I went too far. The point is that the noble Lord did not come a single inch of the way with me; indeed, not one. He stalwartly defended the closed shop and every abuse of power. He defended Red Robbo and the lads at British Leyland. The noble Lord shakes his head now, but that is 20 years too late. It is no wonder that, by 1979, the world thought Britain was a basket case. The English disease, so the world thought, had become incurable.
I wonder whether noble Lords remember those days. They were the days of prices and incomes policy. We do not hear much about that these days. Back then it was held that no government could possibly govern without a prices and incomes policy. Of course, the fact of the matter is that a government with a prices and incomes policy could not possibly govern. Indeed, prices and incomes policies, both statutory and voluntary, were tried but neither worked. The law did not work for statutory control and there were no volunteers for voluntary control. So, in 1979, the Government, led by my noble friend Lady Thatcher, threw away income policies—to a chorus of "Oohs and Ahs" from all the wiseacres; indeed, I can see that a few

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of them are about now and can even remember their names—and left the resolution of wages to employers and employees and prices to suppliers and purchasers.
Of course, for such a market system to work, the market must be open and fair—not rigged—and, above all, those who fix prices or wages must take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. That is the key to the whole of my legislation. It forced people to take responsibility for what they did, whereas the legislation which had been in place gave immunity to trades unions for the damage which they did to other people's interests; and, indeed, inadvertently to their own.
The Labour market had been rigged by the trades unions. They could pass on the unpleasant consequences in the short term to taxpayers and consumers, or to other workers. That called for reform of trades union law. My noble friend Lord Prior started on what was to be a step-by-step approach. I continued that work, as did my Conservative successors.
The Bill does not begin the undoing of that work. Oh, no, that has begun already, not least through Brussels. But the Bill is a great step towards destroying what was achieved in turning a country with the worst industrial relations in the free world into one with just about the best in the free world.
Lord Simon remembers. He remembers those days when the power was switched off periodically to the business which he was responsible for. Nothing could be done about it. He remembers the days of sympathy strikes. Nothing could be done about them. Nothing would have been done, but for the change of government and change of pace. Days lost through strikes fell in consequence of that legislation by probably about 90 per cent. My noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew said that he thought the number of days lost in 1979 was 27 million. I think it was 29 million; I think the figure of 27 was the 27 per cent inflation, which brought the IMF in here to take over management of the economy from the then government.
The year 1994 was a very good year: 278,000 days lost. The year 1996 was not so good, with 1.3 million, but still a long way from 29 million or even, if I am wrong and my noble and learned friend is right, 27 million. Where was the Labour Party during that transformation?
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, will the noble Lord take it from me that all over Europe working days lost per thousand workers involved in strikes were falling at much the same rate, without any legislation?
Lord Tebbit: Come, come, my Lords. If they were falling at that rate, they would be negative in most of the rest of Europe. We are not going to fall for that one from the noble Lord. Experiments into industrial relations have never brought very much, except profit for lawyers.
The Labour Party was opposing this transformation from a basket-case economy, from which overseas investors were struggling to get out, to a success story, with overseas investors struggling to get in—indeed,
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very often away from those continental countries that the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, says were doing so well. Labour opposed every reform every inch of the way, despite the regrets now of the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, that he did not come with me at least part of the way.
Lord Clinton-Davis: No!
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, I misunderstand the noble Lord; he does not have any regrets that he did not come with me even an inch of the way.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, the noble Lord has never fostered any degree of accuracy in comments that he makes. He is wrong about many of the things he has attributed to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew. All I would say about the legislation that the noble Lord introduced is that it certainly had some benefits, but what an over-reaction!
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, we are getting there gradually. In another 20 years perhaps the noble Lord will be a little more generous about the matter. After all, in those days the noble Lord, like his colleagues, defended the car-park strike motions, the "Hands-up; out we go again, brothers" motions. I see the noble Lord, Lord Simon smiling. He can remember them too. He was probably a victim at some time. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, opposed secret ballots for strikes. The Labour Party resisted ballots for the governing bodies of trade unions. It preferred the old cronyism for fixing top jobs, and still does. It is part of its culture, as we see today in the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament.
As for the Liberal Democrats, I remember them very well on the night of the Third Reading of the 1983 Act. They split four ways, and it takes a great deal of ingenuity for a party so small to split four ways. Some supported me, some opposed me, some stayed away to abstain and some abstained in person. However, I pay a personal tribute here to Mr. Smith, who was an absolute pillar of support to me on the Liberal Benches as I took that legislation through. That was very much against the wishes of most of his colleagues.
Then we went through the coal strike. Who was the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, supporting then? I think he was out of politics in this country at the time, but I do not recollect him declaiming against Scargill and supporting the working miners. But in the end, as my 1983 Act became operative during that strike it made the attempted national rail and dock strikes which were being called in support of Mr. Scargill unlawful, and it was Mr. Scargill, not the country, who was defeated.
Now we have this Bill—to improve the situation, to get back towards where we were. It is not very far at this stage, but if enacted in its present form, what a pig in a poke of a Bill it is. I look back at my own legislation. As my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew said, just about everything in it was on the face

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of the Bill. There were not whole pages of schedules permitting the Minister to do things by order. Too much is to be decided in that way.
If "a domestic incident" were defined in the Bill, Parliament would have a chance to discuss and amend that definition, and surely that would be right, because what a domestic incident is will be crucial to the operation of part of the Bill. The Government will not define it. What is it? The Minister will define it at some time and bring forward an order, which cannot be amended.
But some things are clear. The Bill will make striking easier. It will increase the power of the trade unions. It will place an unfair obligation upon employers to recognise unions even when they do not wish to do so. That is called "partnership". But one party to an agreement is compelled to agree to what the other wants, whether it wishes to or not.
Then employers will have to accept further burdens arising from maternity rights and rights to time off for domestic incidents. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Simon, will now have the answer to the question which I asked him during his speech, because he had an opportunity to be briefed by his officials while the House was discussing Kosovo. Therefore, I give him the opportunity to intervene, if he wishes, to explain. Do all these extended rights apply to sole employees? Do they apply to the nanny of the lady who has gone to work and left her baby in the care of the nanny? I am sure the noble Lord is not sitting there thinking that it is a smart thing to do not to answer that question.
Will it be unfair to dismiss a worker who consistently and persistently attempts to foment strikes in a business? Do we know, do the Government know? Would Michael Edwardes still be able to fire Red Robbo under this Bill, unless the strike had gone on uninterrupted for eight weeks?
There is talk of team-building, but the Bill is full of powers for outsiders to come into the employer/employee relationship. How does that help to build a team, to have outsiders coming in and throwing in their fourpennyworth?
Clause 24 proposes to abolish the office of the Commissioner for the Rights of Trade Union Members. What does that do for the trades unionist who is at odds with his union? It does precious little; there is no team-building there.
I turn to Clause 26, and I will end at this point, but there is so much to be taken up later in Committee. Clause 26 is one of the most amazing clauses I have ever seen. The exact wording of the Bill is:
"Money may be provided in such a way as the Secretary of State thinks fit (whether as grants or otherwise) and on such terms as he thinks fit (whether as to repayment or otherwise)".
What is that wording about? Is it an attempt to "judge-proof" that part of the legislation? Is it an attempt to ensure that not even judicial review can apply to the Secretary of State's decisions? If it is, it is highly likely to fail. If that is the tone of this Bill; if that is what consensus and partnership are about in the view of
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this Government; if the Secretary of State can do as he thinks fit and on such terms as he thinks fit, this Bill will do little to promote good industrial relations.
Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may ask him one question. His remarks today are much the same as those he made when introducing his legislation and reflect an enormous amount of vindictiveness. I must advise the noble Lord that this Bill has been framed after full consultation with both sides of industry: with representatives from the CBI and employers in this country, and with the trade unions who represent the workers. However, the noble Lord has not said one word about all that.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, just because a couple of Green Papers have been floated around the countryside under the guise of consultation does not mean that both sides of industry agree with this Bill. Indeed, I made that point earlier. I must advise the noble Lord that there is no element of vindictiveness either in what I have said today or in what I did in the past; but I do think that there is an element of vindictiveness in the abolition of the office of the Commissioner for the Rights of Trade Union Members. I consulted widely on my Bill—not only in advance of it, but again in the general elections of 1985 and of 1987, both of which the noble Lord's party lost.
5.51 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I rise to welcome the Bill and to thank my noble friend the Minister for the clarity with which he introduced it. I should like also to express my appreciation of the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Walker of Doncaster.
Before the last general election, I spent a number of years on the Opposition Front Bench, dealing with a series of employment Bills, all of them directed, so far as I could see, to undermining trade unions and making it as difficult as possible for employees to organise together to protect their interests, and to removing all protection from vulnerable people.
In those days, unions were "the enemy within", according to a previous Conservative Prime Minister. That feeling was echoed in the address of the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, today. The present Bill makes it clear that that era is at an end. Unions are now "social partners". That is, of course, what they were always called in the countries of the EU. Perhaps I may advise noble Lords opposite who have referred to unemployment problems in the EU that for many years the West German economy was regarded as a model and that there has been a rise in unemployment there only since the economic problems caused by reunification. That model economy also had well organised trade unions, which were regarded as social partners within a framework which itself was largely regarded as a model. It was only in Britain that the opportunity to develop successful working partnerships with employees through their unions was decisively rejected. I am glad that those days are now over.

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Employers will no longer be able to resist the democratic right of a workforce that wants union representation. As my noble friend explained, the Bill sets out the procedures whereby unions may obtain recognition from employers. If the employer refuses, the union may then apply to the Central Arbitration Committee. Incidentally, I welcome the fact that the CAC has been given that task. For a number of years I was a member of the CAC and I believe that we did extremely good work, mainly in the area of arbitration. The previous administration practically wrote the CAC out of legislation by leaving it hardly anything to do. Incidentally, the employer from whom recognition is claimed must employ more than 20 people, so the Government have attempted to come to terms with those who would otherwise have grumbled about more burdens on business, particularly small businesses.
The procedures envisaged are set out in the very long Schedule 1. It is clear that emphasis is put on conciliation and voluntary agreement. However, if those prove impossible, further steps are envisaged in regard to establishing the bargaining unit. If the union can show that more than half the workers in the bargaining unit are union members, the CAC will then grant recognition. If automatic recognition is not granted, the CAC will then order a ballot.
Furthermore, if the employer wishes to derecognise the union where recognition has come about through a statutory procedure, he must go through a formal derecognition procedure. I particularly welcome that provision. There have been so many instances in recent years where employers, without any consultation whatsoever, have simply torn up procedure and collective bargaining agreements with unions. This provision is very good news indeed.
I well remember the last time round when there was legislative provision for union recognition. I seem to recall that the procedures we had then were rather more complicated than those proposed here. I think that the Government have learned a lot from the last time round. What we have here are relatively easily understood procedures. I believe that most sensible employers will find them quite acceptable.
Certainly, it s quite untrue that trade union recognition is in any way "bad for business", as the previous administration seemed to believe. Some of our most successful companies have long had good working arrangements with their trade unions. That was certainly my experience when I was a trade union official. Where such good relationships have existed, it has often been found that technological innovation, including the retraining of staff which is often so necessary, can be more fairly and more effectively accomplished. The good employer has nothing to fear and everything to gain from measures such as these.
There are other aspects of the Bill that I particularly welcome. There is a new range of rights for individual employees. In a dispute or grievance procedure, an individual employee will be able to call on a fellow employee or trade union official to represent him or her at any hearings and will be protected against any detriment if wishing to exercise that right.
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The Bill is particularly supportive of women employees. The Government are to make regulations under Clauses 17 to 19 to make discrimination against part-time workers illegal. A very large section of the part-time workforce is female and they have often been exploited in the past by unscrupulous employers because of their need to do that kind of work and their inability, through domestic circumstances, to work a normal full-time week.
Then there is the family-friendly part of the Bill. There are to be new rights to parental leave, with a minimum of 18 weeks' maternity leave for all women, in line with pay. I remember how several of us tried to obtain that by amendment when maternity rights were debated under the previous government. I particularly remember the impassioned advocacy of the formidable and much missed Lady Seear who was very vocal on that issue. This time round, such a provision is in the Bill.
Time off for domestic problems will also be available in line with EU directives. There is to be consultation about the draft regulations which will make provision for all of this. That is all very good news and surely should be welcomed by everyone.
Another aspect of individual rights which I think of as particularly important is the prohibition against discriminating because of trade union membership. I well remember having an argument in this House in opposition when the previous government sought at a late stage in the passage of the 1992 Act to introduce an amendment allowing an employer to discriminate against an employee who refused to leave his union when it was derecognised. The discrimination involved paying him less than those who left the union. The government of the time succeeded, despite our opposition, in getting that provision into the 1992 Act. As I understand this Bill, that would now be illegal.
Another argument that I remember well relates to the balloting provisions as regards industrial action. There was a requirement in the legislation proposed by the previous government that could compel unions to disclose to employers the names of their members it was balloting on industrial action. I thought this was an outrageous requirement at the time and, to their credit, so did several noble Lords on the government side. Nevertheless, the Government persisted and went ahead. That will not now be a legal requirement. This is a very good Bill. There is much more in it of very great value to employees, whether in unions or not. I hope that it will speedily pass your Lordships' House.
There is one aspect of individual employment rights which occurred to me when reading the Bill. It relates to discrimination against some employees on grounds of sexual orientation. Reference has already been made to that by the noble Lord, Lord Razzall. Your Lordships will perhaps remember that I have been very active on this issue in the past. I twice introduced a Private Member's Bill designed to prevent such discrimination in employment. It does take place. There is no law at present which protects employees against such discrimination.

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I was reminded of this again in the light of the recent horrific bombing incidents affecting minorities, in particular the recent bombing in Soho when so many people were either killed or horribly injured. It is clear that bigotry does exist and these dreadful incidents are the most extreme demonstration of it.
I therefore thought of putting down a suitable amendment to the Bill since it relates to employment rights. However, more recently there seems to have been a government announcement to the effect that it is intended to strengthen existing discrimination legislation. It would appear that that is probably the best way to deal with that particular issue.
I listened very carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. I came to the conclusion that we are not speaking about the same Bill. Knowing her as I do, I cannot really believe that she wants the situation to continue in which unscrupulous employers may exploit vulnerable people. I am sure that that is not her view at all. I welcome the Bill and look forward to its speedy passage through this House.
6.1 p.m.
Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, I apologise for missing the first few minutes of the Minister's speech. I was trying to be polite to a visitor. I heard the greater part of it and particularly his reference to new developments in working practices and the modern economy. I shall return to that subject.
I have to declare two interests. I am chairman of ITNET, plc, which is leading out-sourcing supplier of combined IT and business process management. I recently retired as a director of Associated British Ports Holdings plc, with which company I still hold a consultancy contract. Those interests give me reason on their own for wanting to ensure the maintenance of first-class industrial relations. But that interest grows wider.
My active involvement in British politics covers almost exactly the period of transformation from the time of In Place of Strife, through the Winter of Discontent that helped to make me a Minister; through the step-by-step approach that my noble friend Lord Mayhew of Twysden referred to and all the changes of the Thatcher era to the present time, when good industrial relations have helped to transform our competitive position as an industrial nation. Therefore, it seems to me to be of the first importance that nothing should be done to prejudice the progress that is being made referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Walker of Doncaster, in his very impressive maiden speech.
The company of which I am chairman, namely, ITNET, operates in the high technology sector. Above all we depend on the skill and motivation of our workforce, training and flexibility. The workforce is growing rapidly. But not all of our employees come from the high-tech sector. About half of our business comes from local government and with it many of its former employees under TUPE arrangements. At the outset of a new contract we offer employment contracts that attract many employees to transfer to the group's
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terms and conditions. But if they prefer it, the balance remain on their previous terms and conditions under TUPE regulations. Good relations with the trades unions are of first rate importance to us.
When I still worked in the City—it seems a very long time ago—my boss was my noble friend Lord Aldington who was sitting in front of me earlier this afternoon. I remember waiting for a very long time outside his office in Fenchurch Street while he, in his role as chairman of the Port of London Authority, held a crucial meeting with Jack Jones. The negotiations about employment relations in the docks are part of the bad period in the history of British industrial relations.
When I joined the board of Associated British Ports in 1987, the Dock Labour Scheme was still with us. I remember very well my first visit to the port of Hull. It was a deeply depressing scene. That once great port had almost committed suicide. There were acres of emptiness and dereliction. Today the port is thriving. There has been massive investment in the most up-to-date facilities and, like its sister ports on the Humber, its future is assured. The business grows year by year. The storm clouds have lifted and it is in everyone's interest that they do not return.
In the early 1980s, as the Minister encouraging inward investment, I was accompanied on one mission to Japan by the chairman of the Wales TUC. Together we made it clear that it was up to the company considering investing in this country to choose whether it wanted to be unionised or not. But if it decided to be unionised, we pressed the case for a single union agreement. I am neutral as to whether it is right for an individual company to choose, as many American companies do, to be non-union or, as most Japanese companies prefer, to start from the outset with union agreement. That above all is a matter for individual decision by the companies, taking account of their own individual circumstances. The choice is for the management and the workforce and not for government. Therefore, I welcome the fact that the Government have recognised the need for flexibility in such matters. Again, I take up the phrase used by the Minister concerning new developments in working practices and the modern economy, which have to be properly catered for.
So I particularly welcome the statement in the White Paper Fairness in Work which referred to individual contracts and stated that since the current law allows flexibility and works well, the Government see no reason to change it. I also very much welcome what the Minster said in Standing Committee E in the House of Commons on 18th March at col.477. He confirmed that the Government remained of that view. But he perfectly fairly made the point that he had received representations about the need to protect employees from any abuse and being forced to accept conditions which most of us would consider unreasonable. I welcome that.
During the same debate it was made clear that although the Government favoured regulation for dealing with many aspects of the Bill—I share my noble friend's concern about the way in which regulation is being so freely used as the way to proceed—they

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recognised the fact ':hat the matter was relatively simple and that there was considerable anxiety among employers if the question was left in any doubt. Therefore, there was a welcome among CBI members and others for the Government's declared intention to introduce a revised clause at Report stage which would move from a clause dependent on regulation to one which set out the position very clearly in the Bill.
Clearly the Government have had some difficulty in drafting the clause because no amended clause was introduced in the House of Commons and we now have the clause as Clause 15 in the Bill. Therefore I shall return and press the Government about their intentions in respect of this matter: whether they intend to bring forward a revised clause; and whether we can have some assurances that the matter will be dealt with in a way that removes the concerns of employers.
The redrafted clause will be very important. It is vital that it should not be drafted in such a way that perfectly reasonable offers made by individual companies to employees are excluded. As I understand it, the issue that causes most concern to employers is the possibility that offers made to employees which encourage them to enter into individual contracts might be deemed to come under the term "detriment by omission", the phrase currently used in Clause 15. If the matter was interpreted in such a way it would make nonsense of the statement made by the Government in the White Paper and the assurances given by the Minister. It is vital that we should deal adequately with that point.
The noble Lord. Lord Clinton-Davis, referred to the importance of trade union membership and the other benefits that it often provides. I entirely share his view about that. Certain] y in ABP it was our practice to offer employees benefits for entering into personal contracts—as the overwhelming majority of our workforce did—but, in offering personal contracts, we always made it clear that anyone accepting such a contract could, if he wished, remain a member of a trade union in order to obtain whatever other benefits a trade union was able to offer, apart from collective bargaining. That option still remains even when individual contracts are commonly used in a company.
There have been repeated references to "consultation by Government". No doubt there has been widespread consultation by Government—of course I welcome that—but it is curious that if the consultation has been so widespread and so prolonged, it remains so difficult to tell us what the end product will be. We still have to depend on a Bill which leaves everything to be announced in future regulations.
As to the idea that the CBI is solidly behind the outcome of this consultation, I have received a parliamentary brief" dated 10th May, from the CBI. That says, among other things, that the CBI remains concerned about the following aspects of the Bill: what appears to be the gold plating of the EU directive on parental leave; the lack of clarity in some of the Bill's key provisions, exactly the kind of point that has been made by a number of my noble friends; and the effect on businesses of adding to a regulatory burden already increased recently as a result of recent legislation. I hope
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that we will not be told again and again that the Bill we are considering at the moment is agreed by the CBI and the trade unions as a result of consultation.
The reality is that huge chunks of the Bill are still invisible; they cannot have been agreed. We do not know what the outcome is; the Minister, I suspect, does not know what the results of some of those consultations are likely to be. Indeed, from the question raised by my noble friend Lord Tebbit, it would appear that the Minister may not at the moment have the answers to some specific points. I do not find that surprising. This is a complicated Bill which covers a vast area. There will be plenty of opportunity to probe during the Committee stage. I am not criticising the Minister for not having an immediate response, but we are dealing with an extraordinary Bill; we are dealing with a Bill in which we have to trust the actions of future Ministers. If we are to proceed with a Bill of that kind it is right that we should probe the Government very hard indeed during the Committee stage.
6.16 p.m.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Walker of Doncaster. It is good to see him, as usual it is good to hear him, and I hope we have the opportunity to do so more often.
I of course join him in congratulating the Government on bringing forward the Bill. After 20 wearisome years we have a Bill which regards trade unions and collective bargaining in a positive light and which shows an understanding of the contribution they make to a modern society. This is not a time when noble Lords can rehearse their speeches of the 1980s with any pleasure. As the General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress said only three years ago,
"A large majority of people are saying that the problem is no longer one of the over-mighty union but of the over-mighty boss".
There have been some extraordinary remarks about the Bill. I wish to refer to Sidney and Beatrice Webb who, just over a century ago, took time off from founding the London School of Economics and Political Science to write their remarkable work on industrial democracy. They suggested that social advance would be achieved by, first, the method of legal enactment and, secondly, the method of collective bargaining. If one considers the history since then until now, one sees. first, how right they were and, secondly, how the mix fluctuates as between collective bargaining and statute. In terms not of theory but of straight, practical common sense between employers and employees, this Bill changes the mix to which we have been accustomed.
I did not understand the noble Baroness when she spoke of the Bill being an advance of socialist policies. I will draft her a Bill with socialist policies if she likes, but that would be inappropriate. Nor did I understand the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew—we have met before on these matters—when he rehearsed his attack on the Trade Disputes Act 1906. That is what I expect to find with regard to the immunities when I read Hansard.
Not to be outdone, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit—in what I hope will be the last movement of the Hayek concerto—came at us with guns blazing to

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tell us that every Labour government, every statute on trade unions, everything that had ever been done had been disastrous. My noble friend Lord McCarthy suggested that he look at the figures for the loss of days in industrial disputes. I think one will find that he is correct.
Over the past 100 years British trade unions have emphasised, for good historical reasons, the role of collective bargaining in place of the inequalities of the individual employment relationship. But there has always been a place in Britain for legal enactment—one can think of safety at work and working hours in the mines—and Beatrice Webb urged the Government in 1919 that,
"The case"—
for what she called—
"the National Minimum" (is) now fully demonstrated (and) integral to a decent society".
I do not wish to launch an attack upon the Opposition about their understanding of "a decent society", but it is an issue which divides the speeches. There has been very little talk from the Opposition about what role trade unions might have in a decent society. Oddly enough, there was also little talk about minimum rights, a floor of rights. That floor was taken up in the 1960s and became more evident in the developments in Britain. It is a floor of rights for the individual employee, which one finds in the Bill, as against collective bargaining, which was the main target of the Conservative governments. One finds the right to time off for domestic and family reasons—an individual matter—trade union presence in plans for training and, perhaps the most practically important innovation in the Bill, a right to be accompanied in grievance and disciplinary procedures at work. In Committee we could consider whether more could be done to ensure that there is a procedure at work for that to bite on.
In passing, I do not disagree with noble Lords who say that they prefer to have matters on the face of the Bill rather than by regulation as a general proposition. But we see Bill after Bill where it is impossible to deal with the matter on the face of the Bill and there needs to be a regulation. It seems to me that it is a Committee point, that we should consider each requirement to be dealt with by regulation and ask whether it is the best we can do. I doubt whether anyone on these Benches would disagree with that idea.
It is important not to overlook the international dimension. The creation of the International Labour Organisation in 1919 was a measure largely undertaken by France and Britain. Today, the ILO is a uniquely tripartite agency of the United Nations. It is a powerhouse of international labour standards from child labour to freedom of association, holding fast to its central tenet that labour power is not a commodity.
The dismissal of a worker for taking lawful strike action is an affront to international human rights and ILO principles. We in this country have been criticised for our law in that respect. I wish to say clearly, first, that I welcome the provisions in the Bill to get us nearer to the domestic laws of all western European states,
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except Denmark and Britain; to get us to the point where a lawful strike or lawful industrial action is not a breach of the employment contract, only a suspension of the employment relationship until the end of a dispute. I am aware that some people in this country find that bizarre. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, would find it a rather outrageous notion, but he must accept from me that—although I suspect he knows it already because he remembers everything from when he was a Minister—we must say that all the others are out of step except Denmark.
That is something we could consider in Committee. That stage will be important to the Bill. A first class Bill deserves first class scrutiny. A Bill affecting the rights and duties of 26 million working people is entitled to as careful a scrutiny as other Bills, even those that affect the privileges of some 700 noble and unhappy souls in this House. There is no need to delay the Bill. The Committee stage will be important for its selection of key points. I suggest that the industrial action point is one.
Finally, in all systems of obligatory recognition in the world there is a certain duty. I interject that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, suggested that we could not stomach any system where the employer came under a legal obligation to recognise the trade union, it was thought we would collapse. There has been such a strong duty—the duty to recognise and bargain—in the United States since 1935. If the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, were right, the United States would have collapsed and fallen into the Gulf of Mexico because of the abominable provision at the centre of its labour relations law.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, the noble Lord's memory goes back to the debates of the early 1980s, as mine does. He will recollect that I resisted all efforts made by people on both sides of the House in the other place to import lumps of foreign union law into the British context. It was said always that you cannot just import one bit of a culture. The American culture may allow for legalised recognition of trade unions, but with that go many other matters which the noble Lord would not like to see imported here. I had to find a British way and I found one which has worked.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord because I, too, have often written that it is no good taking a few scraps of laws from some other jurisdiction. It is a British empirical question whether, in so far as empiricism can ever determine the future, we think that getting employers and unions together with a system such as Schedule 1 contains of putting a premium on agreements would be better for our industry than, as we had before in 1978, a system for union recognition but with the ability for just a few firms, such as Grunwick, to destroy the system altogether. We are not far apart, but we should take it further in Committee.
I now return to the two points I wish to make. First, what is the nature of the obligation that we impose upon an employer and union in Schedule 1? I say that to the Minister because we still have a problem. The

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Government's answer was given by my honourable friend the Minister for trade, industry and small firms, Mr. Wills, on 16th March:
"If the CAC has to impose a bargaining procedure…because the parties cannot agree, it will be legally binding. However it will be a procedure for holding talks only; the parties will not be required to reach agreement for the simple reason that people cannot be forced to agree". —[Official Report, Commons, Standing Committee E, 16/3/99; col.348.]
Few of us would disagree with the last sentiment, but there are other levels of duty. There is a duty in the United States and France to bargain, a duty to consult or, nearer the mark, a duty in two European directives—but nothing turns on it—to consult with a view to reaching agreement. There is the duty to submit to arbitration and a whole string of ranges of duty.
I do not believe that we are trying to put on the statute book merely a duty to talk in one sense. It is not a duty which would be satisfied by Mr. Boulwar, vice president of General Electric in the United States in the 1950s. When he met the union, he used to bring his research people and their figures. He would say: "It's very nice to meet you for a talk, but on the table is an offer devised by my research people. That's the best the corporation can do and it cannot be changed, no matter how long we talk." That may sound an absurd example, but it went on happening, with revised Boulwarism and so on.
Perhaps we mean. a duty to talk with some glimmer at least of intention to agree or with a view to agreement. Similarly, where there has been an agreement or specified method, as it is called by the CAC, it can be enforced as a legally binding contract but only by the remedy of specific performance. Unhappily,"specific performance" is a concept properly understood only by the finely attuned Chancery mind of property relationships and it carries collateral legal principles such as the maxim,"He who comes to equity must come with clean hands". I am not sure what the shop floor will make of that. I am trying to be helpful because this point has not exercised the other place. We might look at the words and give an explanation of what is meant by the remedy of specific performance and its collateral problems
That may sound critical. I have deliberately touched on some critical points because we should look at all of them in Committee. As far as concerns the Bill as a whole, it is one that in a decade will be seen as a realistic and sensible development in the history of employment legislation.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Birkett: My Lords, I draw attention to one particular, even singular, problem to which the Bill may give rise. Before I do so, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Walker of Doncaster. How pleasing it was to hear a maiden speech that carried not only conviction but real authority. I hope that we hear a lot more from the noble Lord.
The problem to which I refer concerns the theatre and the West End in particular. I need hardly remind your Lordships of the importance of the theatre to this country, not merely as a matter of pride and prestige—
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although goodness knows, that is important. Thank goodness the world still regards the British theatre with some awe and comes from a long way off to see it. I refer also to the economy. The Wyndham Report from the Society of London Theatre last year pointed out that in one year the West End contributed about £1 billion of benefit to the economy—including £225 million surplus to the balance of payments and £200 million of tax revenue. So, economically, the theatre is of huge importance.
The West End has a number of extremely long-running, popular shows."Cats" has been running 18 years; "Starlight Express", 15 years; "Les Misérables", 13 years; "Miss Saigon", nine years; and "Grease", five years. I wish that the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd-Webber, were here so that he could blush at how many of those shows he is concerned with. It is tempting to think how lucky he is to have written such brilliant musicals that everyone wants to see. One thinks that once such a production is a success it stays a success—that it runs for 13 years and the income comes rolling in. In fact, it is difficult to keep such shows fresh and exciting so that people will want to come to see them as if they were new shows. If a production gets tired, old and rundown, people will not come to see it.
Sometimes it is simply a matter of age on the part of the cast. Someone who, in 1952, joined the cast of "The Mousetrap" as a bright young thing of 23 would now be a bright young thing of 70. There comes a moment when there has to be a cast change. Funnily enough, it is not really about age but about freshness.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I believe that I am right in saying that the orchestra of "Starlight Express" has remained unchanged over the 18 years since the production first opened.
Lord Birkett: My Lords, I defer to the noble Lord's knowledge. How musicians keep themselves fresh in the way that actors cannot, I would not dream of trying to explain. In fact, I am not sure that I know.
It is nice that London is regarded now as the home of great musicals, more so than Broadway. Someone appearing in such a production will appear in eight shows a week—Monday to Saturday and two matinées. In a year or 50 weeks, one will have appeared 400 times. This is nothing to do with the talent and energy of the actors. It applies as much to the chorus as to the principal performers. It is difficult to go on for more than a year and continue to be fresh. People have coped in the past by making fixed-term contracts of one year, at the end of which the contract may be renewed for a further year but most often is not. The initial contract contains a clause whereby the cast member promises not to claim unfair dismissal at the end of the contract because its termination is perfectly foreseeable. Under Clause 16 of the Bill, such a contract would no longer be legal. That will cause considerable problems. Such contracts have not been a matter of dispute in the past but have represented an amicable arrangement that has continued happily. If the waiver concerning unfair dismissal is not allowed in future, that will have a damaging effect on the West End theatre in particular.

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I am sure that the Bill was not designed to do that and that the Government have no intention of damaging the West End theatre or the theatre in general. However, I foresee a technical problem. I hope that some time before Committee a way can be worked out of ensuring that the theatre is not damaged.
6.36 p.m.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, I welcome and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Walker of Doncaster, on his maiden speech. He was largely the person who wrote and put through the Employment Protection Act 1975, so it is appropriate that he should be here to see the introduction of another of the Employment Relations Bills.
I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, is as against the 1975 Act as he thinks. Most of the time that he was attacking that legislation, he was talking about the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974, which was the one with all the strikes in it. That does not help the noble Lord, Lord Walker, because he was responsible for that legislation as well. Anyway, we are glad to welcome someone who had so much to do with employment protection in the past.
I share with others an expression of joy. I say to you rejoice, rejoice, rejoice. We are beginning to reverse the nine weary Bills that we had between 1980 and 1993. We have not got there yet but the journey has begun. So I say rejoice, rejoice, rejoice.
As to the Opposition's case against the Bill, I took as the statement of that case the Second Reading speech in another place by the right honourable Member for Wokingham, Mr. Redwood. I did not recognise that case for a long time when the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon. began speaking because she was making all sorts of other points, more or less at random. Then towards the middle of her speech, the noble Baroness said much the same as the Opposition's case. I am talking about the Opposition's case, not the noble Baroness's personal case. If I am wrong, I hope that she will tell me.
As I understand it, the Opposition say three things. First, Mr. Redwood would say that he is not against better maternity leave or the granting of parental or family leave. He says there is nothing wrong with someone being accompanied over a grievance or a claim for compensation, or with bigger and wider coverage in respect of unfair dismissal. He says that such things—certainly on the individual side—are not wrong in themselves but are rather good, provided that they come from employers. That is the important thing. Mr. Redwood is not even saying that it is wrong for an employer to recognise a trade union if it represents the majority of the workers, but it is all a matter for the employer. He says such things are rather good and that most good employers do them already.
The second thing that the right honourable Member for Wokingham said is that it is all wrong for such provisions to be made by law; none of this stuff must be done by law. If the employer can afford it he or she will do it. The only reason the employer does not do it is because he or she cannot afford to do it.
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We come to the third point. In his Second Reading speech Mr. Redwood said the real problem was that the Bill would result in employers
"shedding jobs and getting into grave financial difficulties". —[Official Report, Commons, 9/2/9; col.142]
It would also undermine the competitive position of British industry. These are the things that are wrong. The employer knows best. Good employers do it. The only reason bad employers do not do it is that if they did so they would go bankrupt.
One can make several comments on that argument. The first comment that is particularly appropriate in this House, which has a long memory, is that there is nothing new in this argument. The argument was most persuasively advanced in this House in 1833 when Lord Shaftesbury pursued the Factories Bill. Noble Lords said at that time that it was ridiculous to have a Bill to provide that young girls could not work for more than 10 hours in the textile factories of Lancashire because all the money that they made and kept them, including everybody else in Lancashire, was earned in the last two hours of their work.
Cobbett commented on the suggestion that the industrial welfare of England depended on 30,000 little girls working for more than 12 hours a day. That idea was put forward in all seriousness by a very distinguished theoretical economist who was the first person to be a professor of economics at the University of Oxford. He was one of a long line of distinguished people to speak about the labour market who had no idea what they were talking about. He said that all the money was made in the last two hours.
But that was not the only comment. The argument that only the employer knew about these matters emerged again in 1909 with the beginning of the Trade Boards Acts when an attempt was made to introduce minimum wage legislation. The same argument was trotted out in this House and in another place. More recently, before the coming into power of the Thatcher government, the best known example of that argument was the first Bill promoted by my noble friend Lady Castle, the Equal Pay Bill of 1970. We were then told that there were 8.4 million women in the labour force and if equal pay for women was introduced that figure would inexorably fall to 7.6 million in two years, 6.3 million in four years and so on. Employers could not afford to pay equal pay and, if they were forced to do so, they would rather employ men than women. That argument has been made consistently. Most recently it has been put forward by the present Opposition. They say that 89 per cent of quoted employers in a survey believe that the Bill will cause an abuse of employment rights and difficulties for small firms.
Given that long historical account, the trouble with all these extreme statements is that none has turned out to be even remotely true. By 1860 employers in cotton, wool and other areas, not just textiles, were in favour of restrictions on working hours. They came to the House of Commons and House of Lords to ask for this legislation to be passed. Why? They said that if working hours were reduced from 12 to 10 hours, or even to nine-and-a-half hours, productivity would rise. They were better off with some restrictions on hours than they

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had been before. The same applied to the Trade Boards Acts. In 1945 the then Labour government extended the Trade Boards Acts and introduced the wages council system. That was supported by the Conservatives at the time. It was accepted that all the extreme arguments about the effect of minimum wage legislation had turned out to be absolute nonsense.
As to equal pay, when the Equal Pay Bill was introduced in 1970 there were 8.5 million women in the labour force. We now have 12 million women in the labour force, slightly more than men. It is men who have gone down in the labour force, not women. None of these extreme statements has ever had the slightest effect.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, I hesitate to intervene when the noble Lord gives the House such an interesting historical perspective. However, he indicated that if I believed what he said was not accurate I should stand up. I take advantage of that opportunity and thank the noble Lord for his courtesy in giving way. The noble Lord said at the beginning of his speech that he thought the Opposition were against trade unions. He went on to mention maternity leave and parental leave. As to trade unions, my noble friend Lord Tebbit has clearly indicated that, following the legislation that he brought in, the present situation works well. We have no objection to that. We are concerned about what this Bill will do to the very fine relationship that has been created in many cases.
As to maternity leave, we have never been against it. My record in working for women's rights is very well known. However, this Bill will introduce the possibility of extending to 40 weeks maternity rights for women after one year's employment, which means 52 weeks. There can be many further pregnancies when the job must be given to a locum. After a certain period that locum cannot be removed. We believe that that will be a disincentive, not an incentive. As to parental leave, many noble Lords this evening have said that it is gold-plated. We know not what "domestic incidents" means. Those are the points that we shall probe in much more detail in Committee. I cannot allow the noble Lord to suggest for a moment that we are against all of those matters.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, I did not suggest that. The Opposition are against the imposition of these matters by law. I believe that that will be found in the speech of the honourable Member for Wokingham. It is said that these are excellent things but at this point one should not introduce parental leave, increase maternity benefit and so on—all the matters referred to in the Bill—by fiat or legal enactment. That is the position which, generally speaking, the Conservatives have adopted over the years and now take in another place.
There are times when the Conservative Party is more far-sighted and support the idea of minimum wage legislation. It supported, pioneered and, if it had been in office, would have introduced the Redundancy
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Payments Bill. In 1971, at the same time as the IRA, the Conservatives introduced employment protection legislation which was one of the most important advances in worker rights ever seen. But after 1979—as I was about to go on to say—it became much more reactionary. It now appears to suggest that this modest advance in employment protection should not be introduced by law because only the employers know what they can afford and if it is introduced we shall have unemployment and disaster. That has been said many times in the past in this House and another place and it turns out to be untrue.
Of course it is not suggested that one can never have employment protection that puts people out of work. There have been examples of it. If one suddenly escalates minimum wages particularly for young people one will have a differential consequence. Employers will turn from the employment of young people to the employment of older people. There have been examples of that in France and elsewhere. In principle and practice one may have a level of minimum wage in particular legislation that has a negative employment effect. For that reason the present Government have been very careful to select the figure at which to go in. They do not want a negative employment effect. If there is a negative employment effect, I suspect that the Government will not raise the level of the minimum wage until there is no negative employment effect.
But this is different. We are not talking about minimum wages but about the way in which people are treated at places of work. I find most irritating the present attitude of the Opposition because it is so unfair to many good employers who do not find it impossible to pay decent wages, or grant maternity leave, and have had parental leave for years. It is not because they are big, prosperous employers in protected labour markets, but because they are decent employers. They know that benefits come from treating people decently. Some of my best friends are small employers; and they are good employers. They provide all the rights in the Bill. They are not in protected labour markets. They provide them because they believe that it is good for the workforce, productivity and commitment, and that is the way they want to run a business.
Many other employers do not take that attitude, but they respect the law. They do not want to fall out with the law. They got into employment protection, minimum wage legislation, and discrimination and non-discrimination legislation because it was lawful and they respect and practise the law. In the overwhelming majority of cases, having practised it, employers find that they rather like it because it helps to run the labour force in that way.
The real criticism that I have of the Opposition is that by this time they should know that. I suspect that in their own businesses where they are employers many of them know that. They pretend not to admit it because for ideological reasons or political practices they have decided to pretend that things are as they were in 1833.
6.51 p.m.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, like the Minister, I come from business. I spent 30 years building up my own business, and, rather earlier than the Minister, I, too, learned that partnership, co-operation and balancing interests are the catalyst for success. What was achieved in those circumstances surprised and delighted. Divisions and self-interest sometimes brought short-term benefit, but in the end there was only trouble, disappointment and failure.
In his excellent maiden speech, my noble friend Lord Walker reminded us that there is nothing new about that. When I first started in business there was already concern to avoid strikes. We had joint consultations. Wilfred Brown urged us to have works' committees with unanimous voting. Barbara Castle produced her paper, In Place of Strife. Even the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, when she became Prime Minister, misquoted that early proponent of peaceful relations, St. Francis of Assisi. She said,
"Where there is discord, let me bring harmony; where there is despair, let me bring hope".
However, her actions were the opposite of those fine words. We moved into an era of confrontation which many noble Lords opposite seem to relish. However, I believe that that era of confrontation cost us dear. That was confirmed when a recent OECD report found that confrontation had little beneficial impact on our economic performance and served only to trap people into low paid jobs and encourage insecurity.
It also cost us dear because that was a time when those of us in management began to realise that competitiveness was not just a matter of clever accountancy and good technology. Competitiveness also required speed, service, quick response and close attention to customers' needs. That was not achieved by confrontation and arbitrary hire and fire. It was achieved by identifying those common interests and working together to achieve them. That is as important now as it was then. The Bill recognises that, and that is why I welcome it.
The Bill seeks to establish a culture of fairness and respect for people's rights at work. Of course, that requires a balance between employer and employee rights. The Bill identifies three routes to union recognition: voluntary, automatic or by ballot. By doing so it seeks to facilitate union recognition but not necessarily to force it. I believe that my noble friend Lord Wedderburn discussed that. The Bill lays out rights and responsibilities during the process. It is right that employees should be protected against victimisation, discrimination or dismissal, and there has to be good faith on both sides.
Quite rightly, the Bill seeks to protect individual workers against overbearing or unscrupulous employers. It protects union members against blacklisting and discrimination. As my noble friend Lord Simon explained, it closes loopholes used by unscrupulous employers employing agency workers, part-time workers or workers forced to sign away their rights against unfair dismissal. What fair-minded person can object to that?
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I agree that one of the most important aspects of the Bill is the family-friendly policies it seeks to encourage. As we all know, parenthood is not just having a new baby to look after in the home. It is also all about the ongoing responsibilities. The family-friendly regulations acknowledge this. The right to extended maternity absence, to the parental leave that may become necessary and to protection against unfair dismissal during that time is only reasonable. However, it is also fair that there is no obligation to pay for extended parental leave. Employers can deal with the question of pay according to the circumstances. We all have family emergencies which require time off work. How much healthier it is to bring that out into the open and systemise it rather than force people to conceal the emergency and perhaps lie about it to their employers.
Many of the family-friendly policies are tied up with European social regulations. When regulations are drafted it would be helpful if the Government clarified employers' responsibilities under the European regulations and the responsibilities under the Bill. There seems to be some confusion. Clarification is important because each European country has its own view as to where the balance between fairness and market forces lie. It is important that what works here should be incorporated into the Bill.
The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, drew our attention to Clause 26. I note that the Government are willing to create a fund to help train managers and employee representatives in promoting and developing partnership at work. It is important to encourage that. Perhaps the Minister can give us some details about how the scheme will work.
I believe that the objectives laid down in the Bill are beneficial to any business, large or small, because they benefit society. The regulations are not designed just to stop people doing things; they try to make people do things better by adopting best practice. That helps markets and competition work better and so speed up change and improves productivity and competitiveness. Perhaps the same objectives could be achieved by voluntary codes of practice. The Bill crystallises a probable code.
I know all about the dangers of forecasting. I believe, however, that the Bill will very soon cease to be a matter for discussion. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Razzall: it is a modest Bill. The basic, decent, minimum standards it lays down are already carried out by most reasonably run companies, large, medium or small. The Bill will hardly affect those companies. It will affect poorly run businesses and bad employers. But business is so competitive and fast moving nowadays that those people will disappear if they do not improve their performance— and improve it pretty quickly, whether or not they can afford it. It is important not to exaggerate the importance of regulations or the regulatory burdens on industry generally.
The success or failure of any business, large or small, does not depend on regulation or industrial relations. Far more important for success or failure is quality, service, technology, management, skills, initiative and investment. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell,

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reminded us of that. All those elements must be right. That is far more important. Reliving old battles in Parliament gets us nowhere.
The world has moved on. Modern unions do not want adversarial relations with employers and modern employers want to work in partnership and co-operation with modern unions. Both realise that they have different roles to fulfil. But beyond that comes their joint interest in the success of the enterprise. Thankfully, the Bill recognises that.
7 p.m.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in than king the noble Lord, Lord Simon of Highbury, for introducing this Second Reading debate. I thank him also for staying with the debate because, in the weeks ahead, he may find it invaluable to have heard the contributions.
It does not diminish my thanks to say that I was disappointed by one aspect of his speech. He reiterated the words which appear in Fairness at Work and in various speeches; that is, those words "rights and responsibilities". The rights were enumerated but there was a strange coyness about the responsibilities.
While I have been trying to follow the passage of this Bill in another place, I have been brooding about the nature of a modern government. If I understand it and if MPs made full and proper disclosure of interest, the committee member. who debated issues of fairness at work and employment relations between them mustered a pay roll of one fall-time person. I begin to wonder whether there will ever again be a time when, in another place, there will he a Member of Parliament or a Minister who has that incredible anxiety which we have all experienced in business, of wondering whether we can pay the wages on Friday; whether we can keep our labour force intact. Those are real, heartfelt anxieties and it seems to me extremely sad that Parliament is no longer recruiting such people.
It is self-evident that that is not a partisan point but I cannot but be struck by the distance that today's political class has put between itself and the nation's wealth-creating heartland. Fewer and fewer entrepreneurs and manufacturers find their way into the political process. The noble Lord, Lord Simon, is a notable exception. My noble friend Lady Miller and the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, are both involved with business. Thank goodness for the House of Lords!
Consultation is often a selective and hurried affair. I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis. I do not believe that this was a particularly good consultation process. It is an easy cloak to hide behind. Governments, not only this Government, have done that before. I marvel at the readiness with which today's politicians rush to order people's lives on the basis of such slender collective experience.
By contrast, if my research is correct, 100 per cent of this Bill's Labour supporters are trade union members. Speaking as they do for only one-third of the labour force, I have no doubt that as this Bill goes through the
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House, they will adopt a position of appropriate restraint. But it is nice to see the trade union enthusiasts once more having their time in the sun.
I have been in trouble in your Lordships' House, with a certain amount of mischief, for not declaring adequately a personal interest. In consequence, my declaration today is rather long-winded. First, to the best of my knowledge, my entries in the Register of Peers' Interests is up to date. Specifically, I declare the following interests: I am a government-nominated director of United Kingdom Nirex Limited; in the voluntary sector, I serve on a charitable trust to help children of horticultural employees who have encountered misfortune; in addition, I hold positions in a foundation concerned with medical research and a hospice for the terminally ill.
While the Bill could impact on all those concerns, a more significant personal interest lies with the family companies of which I am chairman and in which I hold a beneficial interest. That is the Holker Estate group of companies and its activities include property, agriculture, forestry, construction, aggregate extraction, leisure, horse-racing and slate quarries. That latter industry, which exports about 50 per cent of its product, employs about 130 people and for the purposes of wage negotiations and other matters, the workforce is represented by a trade union.
If I had a choice simply to continue with a trade union or not, the balance of advantage lies with continuing with a trade union. During great crises in a cyclical market, the trade union representative has been of immense help in communicating with the labour force.
There are a number of provisions in the Bill with which it is difficult to quarrel. For example, I support the principle of outlawing blacklisting. Likewise, I sympathise with the clauses which seek to prevent discrimination by employers against workers because they are members of a trade union.
There are some sensible measures, some nuggets, in the Bill which is otherwise, I am afraid, rather flawed. They are nuggets which reflect the changing pattern of the British labour market. That needs to be continually reviewed. So far, so good.
It is where the Government seek to make compulsory what most of us do anyway that I start to part company with them. It is as though they believe that they can legislate to eliminate bad employers. I am sad to say that that is to enter the world of make-believe. There will always be bad employers as there will always he sin. It gets worse because as we study the Bill, it emerges that it is not the measure that it pretends to be.
Since its inception, there has been no shortage of simpering ministerial pronouncements ahead of the Bill's publication. We are told that as much as anything, it is about partnership and competitiveness. We were reassured that there would be no burdensome regulation. In the foreword to the White Paper, the Prime Minister writes:
"It matches rights and responsibilities".

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That was echoed by the Minister. I find nothing in the Bill to encourage partnership and nothing which will make my business more competitive. I find the reverse. I find no responsibilities to match the privileges on offer. I find a pile of burdensome regulation.
The Prime Minister's promises about workers' rights are, in his words,
"a matter of course elsewhere".
However, the Prime Minister did not say that unemployment, which is "a matter of course elsewhere" is double that in Britain.
There is nothing in this Bill for employers or the British economy. It is pay-day for the unions and pay-up day for the employers. I hope that when he winds up, the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, with his innate sense of honesty, will acknowledge as much.
The truth is that we are being sent a clutch of Bills which have come quickly after legislation dealing with the Working Time Directive, the Social Chapter and the family tax credit scheme, to mention just a few. In a spirit of non-partisanship, I should say that it is not only this Government who have a monopoly of sending Bills to business. If Ministers seriously believe that they can continue to precept the wealth-creating sector without impacting on investment and employment, then I do not know where they have been living.
Employers do not need lecturing on the merits of having good industrial relations; they know it. When this Bill had its Second Reading on 9th February in another place, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Mr Stephen Byers, said:
"It will replace policies supported by the Conservative Party, which were based on the notion of conflict between employers and employees, with measures for partnership based on rights matched by responsibilities". —[Official Report. Commons, 9/2/99; col.130.]
Having already disposed of the myth of that particular match, it is time to examine the Secretary of State's premise and compare it with the known facts.
Your Lordships have heard again about the 29 million lost days through strikes in 1979 and I shall not repeat those statistics. But, to some extent, we have moved on to the sunny uplands of industrial relations. That was a point made eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Walker of Doncaster, in an optimistic and notable maiden speech.
This state of affairs did not happen by chance. Over the past 15 years greatly reduced regulations have accompanied a huge surge in living standards and a national performance which has been the envy of our European partners. I believe this to be an unnecessary Bill. Industrial relations is a continuous and seamless process, or so it should be. Legislation cannot foster trust, as the Government claim.
The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy—who is no longer in his place—spoke, with his huge experience of these matters, of compulsion. My feeling as regards industrial relations, certainly in the size of enterprise with which I am involved, is that one has to develop trust. If I am a good, fair, generous-minded, generous-spirited employer because I choose to be, there is trust. If I am
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a good employer because I should be by law, there is a nil relationship between the two. I should be interested to talk to the noble Lord about that. If one does not have a choice between being virtuous and evil, it is hardly virtuous when one does the right thing because one is compelled to do so. It is the old argument about freedom.
I was once faced with a strike in my works. That came about because I neglected industrial relations in my business through spending too much time in your Lordships' House. The strike resulted not just in lost revenues but in great misery and distrust. I recount the incident for two reasons: first, I am firmly of the view that this kind of legislation would not have alleviated matters or prevented me from making the mistakes I did at that time; secondly, I made one sensible decision, which was to call in ACAS. Although it was over the Christmas period, ACAS responded immediately and with huge energy. Through their good offices the process of rebuilding trust began, which continues several years later.
It was a humbling episode but one that I feel had to be experienced. There is a pulse in human affairs which teaches that even the best relationships need more investment of time, dialogue and understanding and—this is my point—less in the way of regulations, rules and law.
I cannot speak too highly of the skill, wisdom, sympathy and commitment with which the ACAS team helped our small enterprise through the problems of that winter. I raise that because they receive a mention in the Bill. I shall listen with great care to see that the Government, with their passion for meddling with things that are working—as have all governments—will not upset that extremely special organisation.
As regards some of the individual provisions, I see a plain objection in principle to the notion of compulsion in the matter of recognising trades unions. I do not share the Government's obsession with introducing democracy into every human activity. Because democracy is rightly regarded as a bastion against tyranny, I do not see that more democracy necessarily makes life better. If one thinks of the sheer ineptitude of government actions, the anomalies, unfairness, and time consuming expense of government, surely a lesson might be learnt that we do not want to democratise everything. Also, the trades unions experts must have known that the bogus democratisation of the trades unions did not serve them well in the long term. More accountability is needed, not more democracy.
The Government's own dislike of accountability is seen by their habit of bypassing Parliament. As has been said again and again, huge tracts of the Bill are subject to secondary legislation. That point will obviously arise again. Perhaps I may say to the Minister that if he looks carefully at this and listens to the anxieties we have expressed about secondary legislation, the Bill will have a much easier ride through Parliament.
The hostility to compulsory trades union recognition goes beyond the principle. I very much fear that there will a souring of industrial relations on the road to it.

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Already there are reports of trades unions drawing up hit lists of companies to target. That is hardly conducive to fostering a spirit of partnership.
The famous Clause 26 has been mentioned. I believe that it is a dreadful, really iniquitous clause. It would send a wonderful signal to your Lordships' House if the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said in his winding-up speech that that clause should be looked at again. I sometimes tell my children that one of the most frightening phrases in the English language is,"A Minister may from time to time decide". That is a sort of prelude to a total loss of freedom. I hope that will be challenged, and challenged successfully.
Like other noble Lords, I am concerned at the provisions in the Bill which are alleged to be no more than complying with EC directives. Where the Government are trying to gold plate directives, that should be discussed. I am not against gold plating in principle. I do not see why one should not sometimes improve on what has been done by the European Community on such matters. I should like to see a little more originality in the way in which we deal with our labour forces. However, I believe such matters need challenging and explanation. We shall certainly need a definition of "the domestic incident".
I conclude by saying that as there are good and bad employers, so there are good and bad employees. Every workforce with a score or more people will have somebody who will seek to exploit their company for their own gain. That is human nature. We cannot change it or legislate against it. The Bill offers no protection against such abuse. It is not only the employer who needs protection. Ai often as not it is the fellow worker who needs protection from the unscrupulous worker. This is especially so when we introduce, as many of us do, profit sharing schemes. It occurred to me during the debate that I should compile a list so that, in this new spirit of openness, I can tell my workforce of the Bills the Government are sending them. They can then write to the Government and ask for explanations when their profits are reduced and their shares of the profits go down.
An ancestor of mine in the last century was a Minister in numerous administrations in this country, three times declining the office of Prime Minister. He was well known in the Cabinet for the expression,"Far better not". He understood what little good governments had in their gift and what great harm they were capable of through gratuitous intervention. Of this ill-drafted, disingenuous, snivelling little Bill, designed to puff up trades unions and debilitate the wealth-creating sector, I echo my ancestor,"Far better not".
7.17 p.m.
Lord Brookman: My Lords, I shall try to be brief. Much has been said, and, I am sure, will be said in Committee. I only hope that talk is of the future and not of the past.
First, I wish to declare an interest, maybe a vested interest. I currently sit as a member of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, so criticised by the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, who is riot in his place.
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I work, I believe, on behalf of working people up and down the country. Therefore, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, I am extremely pleased that this legislation, promised in the Labour Party's manifesto, is before the House. The Government said that it would be a priority and they are honouring that commitment. At first hand and at close quarters, so to speak, I observed John Monks's team and senior officials of the TUC skilfully applying themselves in a constructive and practical manner to what I believe will prove an extremely important and historic piece of legislation, if not for Members opposite, most certainly for working people. I can do no more than praise their efforts, as I do those of the Government in honouring their commitment.
The legislation is about fairness at work. It is designed for employers who listen as against those who deny a voice at work. It encourages a genuine partnership between employers and employees, and I am all for that. It is my belief that no one—employee or employer—has anything to fear from the Bill. As my noble friend Lady Turner of Camden so rightly said, there is nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Of course, there are minor areas of concern to both the trade union movement and employers' organisations. But they pale into insignificance when one sees the benefits for employers and employees. Only a small minority of employers are adopting a negative approach. Responsible businesses know that they will not be required to make any substantial changes to their employment practices as a result of the Bill. Some of my colleagues say that the proposed legislation does not go as far as they would wish in some areas. But the TUC and the overwhelming majority of trade unions and their membership give the Bill a warm welcome. Why? Because it is the biggest advance in employee rights for some time. Also, it represents the start of a new era in British industrial relations—looking forward and not backwards. I, for one, welcome that.
As a former general secretary of a trade union at the heart of manufacturing, I know the difficulties that ordinary working people faced at their place of work over many years under the Conservative government: derecognition; denial of the right to be a member of a trade union; and the introduction of personal contracts where collective agreements existed. Those were but a few of the negative effects faced by ordinary working people.
This Bill sensibly addresses those and other vitally important issues such as one year rather than two for unfair dismissal—an extremely important move—and prohibiting the blacklisting of people as a consequence of trade union membership or activities. What is wrong with that? And there are the family-friendly policies about which so many noble Lords, and especially the Minister, spoke.
As I said, I have a declared interest. But from what we have heard today I am sure we all have a vested interest in making sure that the legislation is passed as quickly as possible.
7.22 p.m.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: My Lords, I rise to add my voice to most of those who have spoken today to welcome this legislation. I, too, declare an interest as a former trade union official and the former general secretary of a couple of Civil Service trade unions. But it is important that we recognise that the legislation before us today is not solely about trade unions; it is about the conditions that apply to all workers; it is about their rights and their responsibilities.
I was one of those who was around in the 1970s and saw the problems we had at that time. I had been involved in the trade union movement, like many of my colleagues, for nearly 20 years when a whole series of pieces of legislation was adopted by the Conservative governments when they were in power—nine in total. Being a reasonable-minded person, I recognised that there were problems with some of the things that were happening in the trade union movement, particularly in the 1970s. The public at large were certainly aware of them. That is one of the reasons we had a change of government, and the new government attempted to remedy some of those problems.
Some of the legislation adopted in the early 1980s was appropriate. Indeed, many of us have come to that view and do not want to turn the clock back completely. But what was particularly important was that, as the Tory Party stayed in power and introduced more legislation—we all acknowledge that abuses were taking place in the trade union movement, particularly among the more powerful unions—they not only took corrective measures against the powerful trade unions, but increasingly they started to abuse power themselves at the expense of the weaker workers.
I find it difficult to understand when I hear the noble Baroness opposite protest on behalf of women, in respect of their interests in maternity legislation and presumably also on behalf of the low paid, when those Benches, when in government, increasingly introduced legislation such as that which abolished the wages councils. That took away a very low level of support for the 2 million people in our society on low pay who are most disadvantaged.
So the Conservatives went too far, as my noble friend said. What is pleasing today, as those who come from the trade union movement have our day in the sun, is that we see the balance is swinging back a little bit in the other direction. This legislation goes some way towards redressing the imbalance which not just politicians and trade union officials, but increasingly the public at large, recognise was prevalent in our society, particularly in relation to conditions at work.
What is before us is not entirely to the full satisfaction of the trade union movement; far from it. There are many changes we would have liked to see introduced. But they are not coming, so we get on with dealing with what we have before us. Neither is this legislation perfect from the employers' point of view. Reference has already been made to the CBI briefing which was received by many of us today; it says that it goes too far in a number of respects.
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So I guess the Government have just about struck the right balance after their extensive consultations with a wide range of interests which will be affected by this Bill. I feel that they produced a fair and balanced package. They broadly stuck to the principles contained in the White Paper, most suitably entitled Fairness at Work. What we had before was increasingly unfair as the Tories were in power, and this legislation now seeks to redress the balance. I trust that, having seen the deal done, the Government will now stick with it and there will not be cause for complaints from any of the parties who have been involved so far in the consultation, negotiation and discussion process.
Many of the new provisions will be introduced by regulations. I understand the unease about that, and many of us tend to share those feelings about regulatory changes. But I hope that they will be dealt with as expeditiously as possible, and also that the Government will ensure that all the appropriate consultations take place over the widest area before the regulations are presented.
I want to join with a number of my noble friends who have expressed concern to our Front Bench about possible delays with the timetabling of the later stages of this Bill. Can my noble friend, when he replies, try to give us a clearer indication of when we are likely to move into Committee stage? He shakes his head rather like the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch. I hope we can get a little more from him later.
I remind my noble friend that some of us will want to explore other ways in which time can be found to accommodate this legislation. After all, we have waited an extremely long time for it. As we said, it does not satisfy all that we would have liked to see in it. We must seek to find time to deal with this important piece of legislation which affects so many people throughout the country. After all, we find within this House that there is plenty of time available to discuss a whole range of issues, many of which are not quite so productive for the people outside the House as those inside might think. We must find the time in whatever way we can.
There are thousands of people out there, waiting for the benefits that will come from the three main sections of the Bill. These are people who do not have good or reasonably fair employers and, having waited so long, they should not be denied any longer. They need protection from over-mighty bosses. There is undoubtedly exploitation and abuse at a minority of workplaces in the UK today, and the Bill seeks to eradicate that. We need, for their sakes, to move forward quickly.
There is plenty of evidence to show that people are being treated badly. Innumerable references are made to industrial tribunals and to ACAS, and these are likely to increase when the legislation is in place and the period in which appeals against unfair dismissal can be accepted is reduced from two years to 12 months. Can the Minister assure me that there will be adequate staffing to deal with those issues at tribunal and CAC level, and that there will not be a long list of people waiting to get justice from such appeal mechanisms?

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I can understand why the Government have acted on representations to limit the industrial tribunal awards to £50,000, and I welcome their decision to index-link any revision of that figure. I hope they will reflect on whether it is appropriate to link with the RPI because I think it should be linked with movements in average wages and salaries.
For many people at work, their experience is quite different: many people have good employers and very reasonable employers. Those employers will not have to make any substantial changes in their employment practices as a result of the measures proposed in the Bill.
Most of Britain's top companies already recognise unions. Forty-six out of the top fifty FTSE companies recognise unions, and 42 out of the 45 companies in this country which employ more than 25,000 employees recognise and work with unions.
Britain's biggest private sector employer, Tesco, is the most heavily unionised of all the large supermarket chains. The presence of unions has in no way stopped that company making progress because we now see that it has overtaken Sainsbury to take the top spot in the retailing arena.
Most unions these days are not solely seeking to protect and promote their members' interests in the old-fashioned way of twenty or thirty years ago that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, spoke of. Modern unions are looking to add value to an employer's enterprise, whether it be in the private or public sector. Even in the public sector they know that if their activity is not as effective or efficient as it could be, it will either come to an end or be replaced or transferred into the private sector. Workers everywhere nowadays recognise that they have a mutual interest with their employers in ensuring that they maximise the efficiency of operations, both public and private.
We all work to raise competitiveness. One of my regrets today is that there has been little discussion about the core purpose of the Bill, which is to bring people together to promote competitiveness, something that is still lacking in many areas of our operations even when compared with some of our much-maligned competitors elsewhere in Europe.
Partnership and co-operation are the key; they are at the heart of the Bill. I hope that it will soon be on the statute book so that workers, whether or not they are members of unions, can move forward quickly.
7.35 p.m.
Lord Burnham: My Lords, I should like to emphasise that I am speaking for myself, and it may well be that my noble friend Lady Seccombe will disapprove of what I have to say.
I caused some confusion in the Printed Paper Office last week by asking for a copy of the Industrial Relations Bill. When we eventually worked out what I wanted I realised that I believed there to be some minor difference between industrial relations and employment relations. I believe the Bill to be more about industrial relations than employment relations,
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much of which is concerned with the other things that trade unions do for their members apart from engaging in negotiation.
I am a little concerned, having listened to some of the speeches, particularly from very distinguished former Ministers on these Benches and current union leaders on the other Benches, that we have not, with the exception of my noble friend Lord Cavendish, heard much from people who have been engaged in dealings with employers and trade unions round the table. My noble friend Lord Cavendish has been involved in different parts of industrial relations, as I have.
I was very disappointed that the noble Baroness, Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, did not speak in the debate because she and I, over a period of about 10 years, had many confrontations in which we both realised that some fairly tough trade union legislation was necessary for satisfactory working relationships. I remember on one occasion at the Waldorf Hotel that the noble Baroness was accompanied, to her horror and distress, by 30 of her members, chihiking behind her and preventing any satisfactory negotiations over a big deal. We broke up fairly shortly thereafter and did much better together over a drink a bit later.
The noble Lord, Lord Walker of Doncaster, in his maiden speech (I looked at the list of speakers and thought for one incredible moment that the sky had fallen in and that my noble friend Lord Walker of Worcester was making his maiden speech—but that was very unlikely) emphasised the improvement in industrial relations in recent years. That is absolutely right. When the last Conservative Government came into power in 1979, that was the nadir of industrial relations. I remember shortly before that time—and 1 have absolutely no pride in saying this—going to the offices in the Haymarket of the noble Baroness, Lady Castle, and working out how we and the unions together could bust the wage restraint legislation. I say I have no pride in saying that, but if we had not done that, we would not have had a newspaper at all.
The union problems with which we had to deal in those days were really terrifying. I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, used the word "old-fashioned" in that respect, but at least I am not reluctantly leaving 1833 like the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy. Indeed, things have improved but it is not true, as the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, said, that there has been an over-reaction to what was happening in those days. I do not believe that my noble friend Lady Thatcher was unbalanced in her approach to trades union legislation.
There were so many things which were wrong at that time and which have been cured. Indeed, whistle-blowing has been mentioned and the use of health and safety legislation as an industrial relations weapon; in other words, the frequent practice of using the most spurious health and safety argument to stop work. Again, it has been said that this legislation would prevent discrimination against trades union members, but it is necessary to ensure that trades union members do not discriminate against non-trades union members. In my time it was virtually impossible to give anyone a rise in salary because the dread word "differential" came

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out immediately. You could not give anyone a rise because that would spoil the differential. I believe it was the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, who talked about "hire or fire". In those days you could not possibly hire or fire anyone without the permission of the unions, which was very seldom given.
It has also been said that this legislation will protect against black listing. Of course, the latter is not something of which one could even remotely approve. Nevertheless, employers must have some right to find out from previous employers not the nature of the trades union activities of potential employees but who those people are and how they worked. At that time in the newspaper industry, I seem to remember a few members of the union of the noble Baroness, Lady Dean; namely, a father and five brothers who worked in the machine rooms of a number of different publications. For obvious reasons I shall not name them, save to say that the father was known for good and sufficient reason as,"Burglar Bill". Up to a very late stage of negotiations they successfully did everything to prevent newspapers being produced, except under the most expensive conditions, which were totally in the interests of the trades unions and not of the readers or the newspaper concerned.
The situation has changed as a result of the legislation that we have seen introduced over the past 20 years. However, it is now being suggested that we should go back at least some way. Perhaps I may mention the subject of time off—that is to say, time off for parenting. No one argues against the fact that mothers must have a considerable time off in that respect. But in the words frequently used during the course of my short military career, I ask: "Who's to pay?" You have to pay to employ someone, especially in smaller businesses. You cannot absorb the loss of a worker who, because the wife is having a baby, gets a very long time off work in order to look after her. As has been said, you have to employ a locum and when you reach the end of the period and the person returns to work, you cannot get rid of the locum because he has every right to be retained as a worker.
Another reason for time off is domestic incidents. Anyone who has had any dealings with a workforce, although they vary enormously, would know only too well of the dangers which can arise in that respect. We had enough trouble under legislation introduced by the Conservative government with self-certification for sickness. The ability of people to certify themselves as sick for as long as eight days was very expensive and extremely difficult to deal with. There are many such attitudes which exist within many, though not all, workforces. If we did not have the trades union workforce legislation in place today, we would find ourselves in as much trouble as we were 20 years ago, with as many unemployed and as many days lost through industrial action.
We have the introduction of the CAC in this Bill. However, I do not believe that a full explanation has been given as to what it is. For example, is it a hotted-up ACAS? Reference has already been made to the excellence of ACAS and I would agree with that as
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regards its role as an advisory body. However, I never found that ACAS was able to solve anything. Goodness me, it tried. The one thing it did buy was time, but it could never actually make an agreement. Indeed, most agreements that I made involved sitting for long hours until about 3 or 4 in the morning in the TUC offices—and the TUC sandwiches were not really very good. Nevertheless, we did get some sort of a deal.
As a result of the latter, I am profoundly unhappy about the Bill. It seems to have far too many holes in it. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, asked whether we would repeal this legislation when we have the next Conservative government. I do not know the answer; but I doubt it. When the Bill returns to your Lordships' House, I hope that it will be a far better piece of legislation than the Bill we now have before us. I sincerely hope that it will not be so full of holes and clauses like "Clause 26", which I really think should go into a museum. I suppose that we have the skeleton of a Bill at present, some of which is undesirable all the way through and some of which merely needs improvement. Of course we shall give the Bill a Second Reading tonight; but, by God! we shall be at it both in Committee and on Report.
7.47 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, as tail-end Charlie in this debate, I want to raise two minor specific issues. However, before I do so, it is probably worth while putting in a few general remarks. I have not held any illustrious position in the trades union movement. I was a branch chairman for 15 years and a shop steward for a few years. My impression of the Bill is that, yes, there is a deal being done. However, the concern expressed to me by trade unionists in my own branch is that it will not go far enough. It will not resolve all the problems with which we are faced and there will be need for further legislation in future years. Of course, we shall obviously learn from experience.
Noble Lords on the other side of the House talk about the vast improvement in industrial relations which has occurred over the past 20 years. I believe that reference has been made to 27 million or 29 million working days lost in a year. When the Conservative government came to office, I believe that unemployment was running at about a million. In every year since 1979 the average figure has been around 2 million. Therefore, as a country we have had to pay a price for the apparent glorious revolution of improvement in industrial relations. On a quick calculation I estimate 5,000 million working days lost a year. That is a hefty price to pay.
Lord Burnham: My Lords, the noble Lord rightly talks about the unemployment figures in this country. Can he give the unemployment figures at the same time in the rest of Europe?
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, my noble friend Lord McCarthy pointed out earlier, in an exchange with the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, that the unemployment rate in the rest of Europe over the last few years has been about the same as in this country. So there is not that great a distinction. But that was not Europe's experience

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over the last 20 years. Our record is absolutely horrific, not just for men and women who have suffered the result of mass unemployment, but for every one of us, citizens of this country, in lost economic performance and lower living standards. That is a heavy price to pay for the apparent improvement.
However, enough of that. Time is getting on, and I said that I did not want to speak for too long. I wish to concentrate on some specific issues. Before doing so, I must declare an interest as the chair of the Campaign against Bullying at Work. It is worth looking at why we have had a vast increase in the number of complaints of bullying at work. I shall not go into some of the horrific cases that we are all aware of through media reports, but it is instructive to examine what has happened over the last 20 years.
We need to recognise that there have been changes in employment practice. Twenty-odd years ago we had virtually full employment. We had very large firms, in the main, with dedicated, specialist, trained and experienced personnel in industrial relations departments. Now we have, unfortunately, continuing mass unemployment, although we hope that the figure will go down over the next few years, and we have many more small firms. That is partly due to new firms rising, partially due to downsizing of the larger firms, partly due to outsourcing by the larger firms. We cannot expect small firms to have at their disposal the skilled, experienced, highly trained personnel in industrial relations departments that used to exist in the large firms.
How do we tackle that? The Government are setting off in the right direction. We are trying to change that relationship from conflict in industry, commerce and employment to one of co-operation, to get people working together, workers and management.
We must also try to ensure that professional expertise is available. It is worth pointing out that there is a vast reservoir of professional expertise in the shape of trade union officials, whether local branch officers, full-time officials, officers at local level or national officers. There is a tremendous body of professional experience available. Small firms would do well to recognise that that expertise, if properly utilised and harnessed, could he beneficial to them.
The parts of the Bill that will bite most effectively, I believe, are Clauses 10, 11, 12 and 13, which confer the right to be accompanied by a fellow worker or an official of a trade union at disciplinary or grievance hearings. The Employment Rights Act 1996 provides in Section 3(1)(b)(ii) for an employee to be advised of,
"a person to whom the employee can apply for the purpose of seeking redress of any grievance relating to his employment".
It appears that that section applies to all firms, and not just those with over 20 in employment. Clause 10(1) of the Bill says that,
"where a worker—
(a) is required or invited by his employer to attend a disciplinary or grievance hearing"
he may be accompanied. I ask my noble friend on the Front Bench: does the combination of those two provisions confer on the employee the right to have a grievance hearing. and then, if he or she has a right to
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that hearing, does the Bill confer the right to have a fellow employee or trade union official present? My understanding from reading the Act and the Bill is that all firms would be covered by that provision, not just firms of 20 and above. If so, we have a very positive, worthwhile provision and I am sure that we all welcome it. If not, we shall need to look at the situation in Committee and see whether we can ensure that that sort of provision is included.
Clause 26 was not quoted in full by Members opposite. Subsection (1) states:
"The Secretary of State may spend money … for the purpose of encouraging and helping employers …. and employees … to improve the way they work together".
Would it be possible to use that provision to provide funds for joint work between employers' organisations and trade unions to develop policies and practices to deal with the scourge of bullying at work? That would be very beneficial and useful.
The Bill will, I hope, provide support and assistance in dealing with the problems of bullying at work. I am not sure, however, that it provides all the facilities we shall need. I am sure that we shall be in discussion with the Government, examining specialist legislation to ensure the right of dignity at work for all employees in this United Kingdom.
7.58 p.m.
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, the Bill claims good intentions. It claims to promote better relations between employers and employees. It claims to promote more family-friendly employment practices. How could anyone disagree with such admirable intentions?
As my noble friend Lady Miller of Hendon stated with great clarity, the Conservative Party promotes measures that are fair and promote industrial harmony. We support higher standards for workers and we support more flexible working relations to allow people to balance family and work responsibilities better.
However, we oppose the Bill, because we do not believe that it can live up to its claims. In fact, it is likely to send us backwards. Many of the Bill's provisions take us back to the 1970s when things were worse, not better. In fact, they were much worse, as was so graphically described by my noble friend Lord Tebbit.
I support the points made by my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew about the shop-floor wishes at that time. I serve on a magistrate's Bench with employees of what was British Leyland and I can assure noble Lords that their life was pure hell. They had no idea whether they should be working, striking, staying at home or attending a carpark meeting. We should never forget that situation. Our reputation around the world in 1979 was that we were considered ungovernable and the "sick man" of Europe.
The first time in this debate that we heard mention of the 29 million working days lost to industrial disputes in 1979 was in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Walker of Doncaster. I congratulate him on his maiden speech and am glad that he highlighted that figure. By the Conservative government's last full year in power, in 1996, that figure was down to 1.3 million. That was

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not brought about by confrontation and it made life much more harmonious for my magistrate friends at British Leyland. It reflected sensible Conservative policies which curbed excessive trade union power.
This Bill seeks to claw back that power. The first part of the Bill relates to statutory union recognition. The Government claim that it is about creating partnership in the workplace, but it is a strange kind of partnership where one side could be unwilling. Compulsory trade union recognition is inherently based on coercion, not co-operation. When one side is not willing, surely it is a recipe for conflict. Adair Turner of the CBI put the point most clearly when he said:
"Good employee relations should be built on trust and this is not fostered if collective bargaining has been imposed on an employer by a trade union. Collective bargaining can only work where it has two willing partners, but not where there is only one. No real improvements in industrial relations occurred last time we had compulsion in the 1970s and indeed the legislation proved to be unworkable".
As an aside, quoting the CBI prompts me to ask whether noble Lords opposite have received the CBI briefing. In the briefing that I received, the CBI expresses concerns and reservations. I am glad to note that the Minister has a copy. He will therefore be aware of the CBI's concerns, which were outlined by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell.
The result is that industrial disputes are likely to rise as a result of statutory trade union recognition. In addition, it will prove very costly for businesses to administer. Although that may not be a problem for some large enterprises which already have personnel departments, it will prove a significant burden for small businesses.
Many noble Lords hold or have held very senior positions in large international businesses, but let us not forget that those large companies were once small and growing. The proposed regulations must not be allowed to stunt the growth of small firms.
The new law will apply to firms with as few as 20 employees. It is difficult to see how a small business with that number of staff requires union representation and collective bargaining arrangements. Most small firms simply do not have the capacity to administer such arrangements. Labour's failure to recognise that illustrates its near total lack of understanding of how businesses work. Virtually every business organisation, including the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses, and the Institute of Directors, supported raising the exemption for small firms. They said that it should be greater than 20 yet the Government have ignored those calls and the result will be a tough time ahead for small businesses.
The latest bankruptcy survey from Dunn & Bradstreet shows that liquidations are rising far more quickly among small businesses than larger companies. The Bill simply adds another burden at a time of difficulty. In the words of the British Chambers of Commerce in a January press release:
"Firms with fewer than 50 staff rarely have the resource to deal regularly with trade unions and this legislation will serve only as a further constraint on business growth and competitiveness".
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The Bill also ignores the fact that small businesses already enjoy close contact with employees. In the words of Brian Prime of the Federation of Small Businesses:
"There may be a need for union representation in large businesses where employees have no face to face contact with management, but in a small firm each employee has direct access to the owner-manager. We are concerned that the presence of union representatives during grievance procedures could result in workplace disputes being taken further than is necessary rather than being resolved internally".
I turn now to individual rights in the Bill. Unfortunately, we cannot debate this part of the Bill in detail because specific measures are yet to be published. In an apparent attempt to avoid parliamentary scrutiny, many of the individual rights are to be passed by regulation—a favourite ploy of this Government. We are extremely concerned that the Government are falling into the same trap as they did with the working time directive. The lack of scrutiny helped to create extremely unclear and complicated working time regulations which the DTI has now been forced to redraft. What guarantee is there that the working time debocle is not repeated with the parental leave issue? The parental leave measures in the Bill allow three months' unpaid parental leave. Beyond that, we have little knowledge of how they will be implemented. How old will the child be when parental leave is available? Will evidential proof be required? Will notice to employers be required, and, if so, how much? I hope that the Minister can enlighten us.
In the words of the Chemical Industries Association:
"Every employer in the chemical industry will be hit by the proposals on parental leave. It is worrying that with Parental Leave due to be implemented by the end of the year, we have seen no detailed proposals from the Government indicating to employers just what they will have to do … a consultation period of at least three months would be needed to assess the likely impact of the regulations and respond accordingly".
Although all businesses, big and small, are hit by ever-increasing taxes and onerous social burdens, it is small businesses that are the least prepared for the cumulative effect of the Government's burdens. They do not have the bureaucratic back-up required to cope with record-keeping, or the access to lawyers that is necessary to interpret complicated and unclear regulations. I am sure that all noble Lords would agree that such advice would be very costly. It is all very well if a company has a vast human resources department to cope with complicated and costly regulations, but whether such regulations come from Brussels or Westminster, small businesses tend to survive on much tighter margins. A small businessman or woman is much more likely to be forced to let workers go when faced with extra burdens. Is that a family-friendly practice?
Labour's burdens provide virtually no exemptions for small businesses. Their concerns have gone unheeded. That is why in another place we proposed an exemption for all measures in this Bill for companies with fewer than 50 employees. As the Bill proceeds through its stages, we urge the Government to consider those and other important amendments carefully. As my noble friend Lord Burnham said, it is our intention to do all

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that we can to ensure that this Bill leaves this House with much improved and more realistic measures than when it left another place.
8.8 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in this interesting debate and in particular to my noble friend Lord Walker of Doncaster who brought his ministerial and other experience to bear on the subject. We are fortunate to have a number of Members of your Lordships' House who bring with them varied experience of industrial relations. Some are former Ministers who dealt with industrial relations matters. Inevitably. they are entirely on the Conservative side of the House. A number of distinguished trade unionists and experts in trade union law are represented on the Government Benches. There are some who have met the cost of a payroll. I pay tribute to the noble Lords, Lord Cavendish and Lord Burnham. But our Front Bench contains a number of people who have also met the costs of a payroll. We know very well what it is like on the other side of the fence.
Before I go into further detail about the Bill, perhaps I may say a word about the use of delegated powers, which was a constant theme throughout the debate. It was spoken to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, and the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. The noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, began with that subject and eventually spoke about the Bill when he reached the 13th minute of his speech. I enjoyed his diatribe on the history of industrial relations—which had nothing to do with the Bill in front of us. He spoke about the Bill close to the end of his speech. The noble Lords, Lord Crickhowell and Lord Cavendish, my noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe and the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, also referred to it. It is true that the Bill will enable various provisions to be enacted by secondary legislation. particularly the family-friendly provisions. There is still a great deal of work to be done to get the detail right. It is right that the draft regulations should be, as they have been until now, subject to full consultation with the interested parties, the employer and worker organisations, before parliamentary approval is sought.
The report of the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee is available to your Lordships. In a fairly thorough report, the points where it considered that things were not being done correctly are quite limited. Its comments are in heavy type, which is the distinction that one has to draw. They are confined to Clause 3 on black lists; Clause 5 on training; Clause 15 as regards dismissal; Clause 17 dealing with part-time workers and penalties; and Schedule 7 dealing with employment agencies.
My noble friend Lord Simon of Highbury, in accordance with the procedures recommended by the Liaison Committee, has written today to the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, the Chairman of the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee. If it has not already been done, a copy of the response will be placed in the Library of the House. The noble Lord, Lord Razzall, was right to say that the regulations need
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to be read and understood especially by those concerned with small businesses. We shall certainly pay attention to that.
Before I leave the regulations, I refer to my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis. He asked about their consolidation. We shall not be combining regulations on trade union recognition with those on family-friendly practices. There will be a single set of regulations on those practices. We will try to rationalise the regulations as we go along.
I return to the principles behind the Bill—
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, does the Minister recognise that our concern is not merely about the first wave of regulations, but that under this Bill, if it becomes an Act, Ministers will subsequently be able to issue new regulations? Therefore, this Bill is a pig in a poke. We do not know what the first, second, third or fourth waves of regulations will be.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, we know a great deal about the first wave of regulations. A number of them are already available. As regards subsequent regulations, the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee will consider the extent to which it is proper to have delegated legislation and the extent to which it should be subject to the negative or affirmative procedures. We have responded to its recommendations on these issues.
I return to the principle behind the Bill. With the wealth of his experience at BP, my noble friend Lord Simon of Highbury put it best. The issue here is, above all, that of partnership. That is the difference between us and the previous government. They abolished almost every institution which brought employers and unions together. They abolished the Manpower Services Commission, the national NEDC and all the little Neddies and tried to keep trade unions out of the TECs. They were banished along with the famous beer and sandwiches at No.10. I was never involved in that. However, bearing in mind what the noble Lord, Lord Burnham, said about the quality of the sandwiches at the TUC, I hope that they were better at No.10 with Mr. Harold Wilson.
One has to be fair. There were times during the 1980s when the CBI was not welcome at No.10. The Government did not appear to like either of the social partners at that time. We want to work with both business and the unions. We do not want to impose our ideology on them. That is why we set up the Low Pay Commission to advise us on the level of the national minimum wage, which is an example of a successful partnership at national level.
We followed the same procedure with Fairness at Work. Soon after the election the Prime Minister asked the CBI and the TUC to try to narrow their differences on trade union recognition. Several months of talks were held, with a constructive joint statement being made in December 1997. That formed the basis of the proposals

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in the Fairness at Work White Paper in May last year. In turn that was the consultative document to which we received nearly 480 responses
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, can the Minister say whether the press reports were entirely wrong in saying that the negotiations between the CBI and the TUC broke up in acrimony?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not believe that they did. I believe that the differences between them were considerably reduced by the amount of negotiation that took place. We listened to the responses and held talks with the TUC and CBI. So when the final decisions were taken they were based on open consultation.
There is a certain symbolism in this. We are trying to build a culture of partnership at national level and we are doing so in order to build a partnership at the individual workplace. As regards the work being done on regulations, we are still involving employers and trade union organisations in the legal framework.
We recognise, as a number of noble Lords on this side of the House have said, that the world has changed. Managers have to earn respect. The people who do the job, meet the customers and shift the products want to make their views heard. The best employers already do that. They involve and consult their employees through their unions, works committees and staff councils. They offer good conditions and training and reap the rewards. They get the best staff, who stay with the business and give it their commitment. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, asked me to pay tribute to Asda and Archie Norman. I certainly do that. That company is among the outstanding employers for the reason that it does what is provided for in this Bill. When a company such as Nissan creates new jobs there are dozens of applicants for each new post. Many of them wish to move from other employers. I believe that my noble friend Lord Haskel is right. Those companies which do not act as good employers will disappear. We want every business to be of a similar nature. The noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, said that we cannot legislate to eliminate bad employers. Can we not? Let us see. That is our objective. The noble Lord, Lord Razzall, called this Bill a modest measure. He is entitled to his opinion. I believe that the mission of turning bad employers into good employers by persuasion, as far as possible, is worth pursuing.
Lord Razzall: My Lords, my comment about this Bill being a modest measure was a reaction to the vitriol coming from the Conservative Opposition.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am grateful for that clarification. I did not doubt it. I was only teasing. I do not need to say much more about costs. In his opening speech, my noble friend Lord Simon of Highbury made it clear that we are speaking about 0.01 per cent of the total wage bill, which is about 5p per week per employee. That is relevant to the contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew.
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My noble friend Lord McCarthy has had to leave us because his wife is ill. He gave us a very interesting exposition of the "last two hours" theory. We heard a number of modern variants on that in the course of this afternoon and evening.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister will allow a member of the party which changed the conspiracy laws so as to legalise trade unions to ask a question. Does he believe that the contributions we have made—diffidently as always from this side when in Opposition, as we are—to this debate are really motivated by a desire to do down trade unionism and to foster bad employers, or does he credit us with something a little better? Can he tell me why, for example, it is the mark of a bad employer to resist a demand for recognition of a trade union when 60 per cent of his workforce are against it but 40 per cent—which is the threshold in the Bill—are for it?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not accuse all noble Lords opposite of trying to bring down trade unions. I do not think they know how best to foster the partnership which trade unions can bring. I speak as one who, with a workforce of about 35, had the only trade unionised market research company in the country. That caused me some grief because people from the United States who tried to take over the company turned away in horror. But it gave me enormous advantages—free advice on the formulation of my pension fund, quite apart from others. Of course I am not attacking the motives of noble Lords; I am attacking their recollection of history and the way in which they appear to have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing.
As to trade union recognition, the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, said that voluntary agreement was the ideal. Of course he is right. I hope that the 42 pages of Schedule 1 to the Bill will be used as little as possible. That is the Government's position; we want voluntary agreements. This comes back to the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew. We want voluntary agreements wherever possible. We learned from the legislation of the 1970s that if one does not cover the waterfront and close off the loopholes there are employers who will seek to overturn the regulations. From that point of view it is essential to go into the horrifying detail in Schedule 1. I do not claim to have read all of it; when I asked around I found that not many other people have read it either. But the regulations are necessary and I apologise only for their length.
Beyond that, even if we achieve recognition, it must be recognition with a requirement to negotiate in good faith. If we simply had an obligation, we would simply have legal wrangles. The Bill sets out methods—very complicated methods, I admit—for resolving disputes, with incentives at every stage for a voluntary agreement. When noble Lords opposite talk about small firms they should recognise that nearly all of the smallish firms that are brought within the scope of the Bill will achieve agreements by voluntary means, or by recognition, or by recognition without necessarily having collective bargaining. There are many other virtues of trade union agreements.

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The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, asked me about the detriment and dismissal provisions in Clause 15. I can best answer him by reading out the relevant part of the letter which my noble friend Lord Simon has sent to the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee:
"The Government continues to consider whether it would he possible notwithstanding the detailed nature of the proposed legislation to make substantive provision on the face of the Bill. However, informed consultation has revealed complications which the Government is still examining. If these can be resolved within the time scale of the Bill the Government will seek to amend the Bill to replace its present power with a substantive provision".
Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, the Minister has made an important statement. As the matter may be left uncertain, can he at least give an assurance that every effort will be made to clarify the Government's intentions and the nature of their solution before we get out of Committee?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, yes. I will give the assurance that we will do everything we can. It is in our interests to do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, asked about individual contracts. I welcome his acknowledgement that employers and employees will remain free, as they are now, to conclude individual contracts if they wish to, even where collective bargaining arrangements exist. We have no intention of changing that and the Bill does not do so. We recognise that some employers might put pressure on employees to accept individual contracts; that is why the Bill includes protection for employees from being forced to sign contracts with terms that differ from applicable collective agreements.
Perhaps I may now turn to the issue of family friendly policies. Reference has properly been made to maternity leave and parental leave. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, made the point that employers cannot dismiss replacement staff taken on to cover for maternity or parental leave, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe. In most cases staff taken on to cover for staff on maternity or parental leave will not have been employed long enough to claim unfair dismissal, even when the qualifying period has been reduced to the reasonable period of one year. In any event, Section 106 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 specifically provides that when an employee is taken on to cover for maternity leave, the return of the woman concerned is a fair reason for dismissal provided the employee was informed of the situation when he or she was taken on. I hope that the noble Baronesses will agree that that is a complete answer to that point.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, raised the question of the potential cost to employers of workers on parental leave. We will be consulting fully on the regulations to ensure that we give full protection for workers with families while minimising the costs and burdens on employers, including small firms. There are benefits that flow from an improved loyalty commitment and there is evidence that family-friendly policies such as parental leave can pay dividends in terms of reduced sickness and staff turnover.
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I must express amazement at what the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, said about taxes on business and particularly on small business. If she looks at the record on corporation tax, small business rates. lower profit rates and advanced corporation tax she will find that taxes, particularly on small businesses, are lower in this country than they have ever been.
I was asked by my noble friend Lord Haskel about European legislation and I was asked by a number of noble Lords about gold plating. We are keenly aware of the importance of ensuring that regulation is kept to a minimum. We take the view that the Bill represents minimum standards. The increase from 14 to 18 weeks goes beyond the strict requirements of Europe, but it has been almost universally welcomed by all sides as a means of reducing enormous confusion.
There was very little criticism in respect of employment agencies. Indeed, I have passed over many aspects of the Bill where I expected criticism and there was not any. That was rather nice. I wish to recognise the contribution of my noble friend Lord Walker of Doncaster in giving effect to Kenneth Lewis's Employment Agencies Act 1973. I am grateful for his recognition that after 25 years more legislation is required.
As to the issue of employment status, some of the most vulnerable members of the workforce are unsure whether they qualify for most employment rights because employment rights are available only to those who work under a contract of employment. The existence of such a contract can often be unclear and in the last resort only determined by a court or tribunal. In the Bill we are taking the power to act on that and to rationalise and update the coverage. However, we cannot do it without further detailed analysis and consultation.
Perhaps I may take this opportunity to reply to the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, about nannies. If they are employees on a contract, in other words with the same rights as other employees, they will be entitled to maternity leave like any other employee. There is no discrimination against nannies in the Bill.
As regards waiver clauses against unfair dismissal, my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis pointed out that we have chosen not to outlaw waivers of redundancy rights. Employees on fixed-term contracts know that they will be employed only for a limited period. They do not expect the job security for which redundancy payments are intended to compensate. If they carry on after the agreed date of the contract, they will be entitled to the same rights as any others.
The noble Lord, Lord Birkett, has loyally stayed around for an answer to the question he asked a number of hours ago. He asked me about actors, particularly in the West End, but it applies also to film employees. The abolition of unfair dismissal waivers will restore a fundamental right to fixed-term employees. It is a right to which all such employees are entitled, regardless of the sector of the labour market in which they work. In my view there is no case for creating exemptions. However, I do not believe the noble Lord's interpretation of Clause 16 is right. Abolition will not

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prevent employers from offering fixed-term contracts to employees. If they have genuine reasons such as those which the noble Lord described for fixing the term of the contract and not renewing it when the term expires, dismissal at the end of it will not be unfair. If the noble Lord wishes to discuss the matter between now and Committee stage, we shall be happy to do so.
On grievance and disciplinary procedures, I was grateful for the support of my noble friend Lord Wedderburn on what is proposed. I was interested in the point made by my noble friend Lord Monkswell about whether accompaniment in grievance procedures could be used to tackle the problem of bullying at work. We can certainly consider that because we strongly condemn workplace bullying. The Health and Safety Executive has issued guidance on help on work-related stress and will launch a campaign to promote better management of workplace stress.
I was taken aback by the criticisms of Clause 26 on partnership at work. We did not need legislation for that; it could well have been done as an administrative act. But we wanted to make it clear on the face of the Bill that we were prepared to support projects at the workplace based on employers and employee representatives working together to support innovative projects to develop the partnership approach in the workplace. We are not asking for extra money; it comes from the DTI's existing provision. How that can be described, as the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, described it, as "iniquitous" is beyond me. We are working on the detailed proposals for the fund. We need to because we want the first call for proposals to be launched as soon as the Bill has received Royal Assent. I hope we shall be able to make our position clear before the Committee stage.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. Despite what he said, does he not believe that Clause 26(2) is drawn just a little widely?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, it is drawn with the intention of giving more detail while the House is considering the Bill. If the noble Lord does not like the further details which we give, then he is perfectly at liberty to oppose them. We did not need legislation for this in the first place. If any criticism could be made, it is that we are over-egging the pudding rather than the other way round.
The noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, argued against the abolition of the commissioners. The Commissioner for Protection Against Unlawful Industrial Action, whom he lauded, has only supported one single application since 1993. So we are not abolishing an active body. Similarly, the Commissioner for the Rights of Trade Union Members is not being abolished, except in a formal sense, because some of the powers are being given to the Certification Officer.
If more details are required about the role of the central arbitration committee, I summarise by drawing noble Lords' attention, particularly that of the noble Lord, Lord Burnham, to paragraphs 216 to 221 of the Explanatory Notes which make the position clear. I
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assure my noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe that we shall devote all the necessary effort and resources to finding suitable candidates for the work of the CAC and supporting its work.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for giving way. I raised the issue of the draft directive on fixed-term work. Will he write to me, if he does not have time to deal with the point now?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Yes, my Lords. I am trying the patience of the House, but I am being interrupted quite a lot. Of course I am sympathetic to the point made by my noble friend Lady Turner and the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, regarding sexual orientation. It is right that we said in our manifesto that we would seek to end unjustifiable discrimination where it exists. I hope that noble Lords will agree that it is not a cop-out if I say that the Equal Opportunities Commission has reported on those issues, but it reported to the Department for Education and Employment. It is better that we should leave it with the department at present.
The House will understand that if I have missed any points I shall try to write to noble Lords.
In summary, employers and society will benefit enormously from greater participation in the labour market, reduced staff turnover and a climate of greater commitment and trust in the workplace which the Bill can and will bring. The Government are putting into place the last major piece in our framework of reforms to create a fairer modern labour market in Britain. The Bill honours our manifesto commitments on trade union recognition and protection from dismissal for taking part in a properly balloted strike. It honours our commitment to strengthen family life; it is a contribution to a more inclusive society; it will benefit millions of people in their everyday lives. The Bill encourages responsible behaviour and will encourage employers and employees to resolve their differences by discussion rather than by conflict. It is a privilege to be able to commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

General Teaching Council for England (Constitution) Regulations 1999

  General Teaching Council for Wales (Constitution) Regulations 1999
  8.37 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone)The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone) rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 22nd March be approved [14th Report from the Joint Committee.]
  The noble Baroness said: My Lords, from September 2000, the GTCs for England and Wales will provide an independent and authoritative voice for teachers,

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  working with the Government and others to raise standards. For the first time, teachers will have a major role in regulating their own profession.
  The GTCs will advise the Secretary of State and the National Assembly for Wales on a wide range of teaching issues, including recruitment, supply, initial training, induction, professional development and conduct. As with other professional bodies, the GTCs will develop and consult on a code of professional conduct and practice expected of registered teachers. The GTCs will also maintain a register of qualified teachers and will have powers to strike off teachers for serious professional] misconduct or incompetence.
  The regulations we are to consider today deal exclusively with the composition of the general teaching councils, not their functions. During consideration of the Bill that became the Teaching and Higher Education Act last year, concern was expressed that not enough detail was known about the composition of the GTCs. The regulations we are considering today provide that detail.
  I should add at this point that I am also speaking on behalf of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales to present regulations which will govern the composition of the General Teaching Council for Wales.
  Briefly, I should like to draw attention to the main provisions of the regulations as they apply to the GTC for England. Regulation 3 provides for the composition of the council and is based largely on the consultation paper we published last year. I am pleased that the proposals received a good measure of support. However, inevitably some changes were needed. The main change is to increase the size of the council to 63 members, compared to our original proposal for 55. That is necessary to accommodate important additional interests not in the original proposals—including chief education officers and equal opportunities groups. We intend to add to the equal opportunities groups able to appoint a member to the Disability Rights Commission, once it has been established. We cannot do so until such time as the commission is established but will amend the regulations in future for that purpose—which will take the number of members to 64.
  Regulation 3 shows an increase in the number of elected teachers originally proposed, which compensates for the additional appointed members and meets our commitment to retain a majority of teachers on the GTC. Regulation 9 requires the Secretary of State to ensure that at least two of his appointees can represent the interests of parents. It provides also that he has regard to the desirability of the council's membership reflecting the interests of the general public, and of teachers of pupils with special educational needs, when deciding who to appoint.
  The regulations deal a with a number of constitutional issues. The proposed arrangements are modest and in keeping with our view that, wherever possible, the GTCs will be best placed to decide their own arrangements. Regulations 4, 5 and 6 provide for electing teachers on to the council, including eligibility criteria for appointments, voting and standing in
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  elections. Regulation 10 deals with the terms of office; Regulation 11 with the filling of casual vacancies; and Regulation 12 with the appointment of the chairman.
  We have been thinking again about the latter. We did not propose as part of the consultation to exercise the Secretary of State's power to appoint the first chairman but intended to leave that to the council when it first meets. In retrospect, we think that time will be rather short. The membership of the full council may not be known until May or June next year, and it will have many pressing tasks during its early days. We believe that the council may need the chairman in place later this year—to speak with authority on behalf of and as a member of the council. We will look at that again, consult a range of bodies and plan to amend the regulations so that the Secretary of State can appoint the first chairman from one of his 13 appointments before the end of the year.
  I make it clear that we intend to make that appointment on a short-term basis, so that within the first year the council will be able to elect its own chairman.
  The regulations for the General Teaching Council for Wales already provide for the Secretary of State to appoint the first chairman.
  Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, why is it that in England, the bodies appear to be appointing their own representatives, whereas in Wales, the appointments will be made by the Secretary of State? Where does the National Assembly for Wales, which was elected last Thursday, figure in all this? It does not appear to be mentioned at all.
  Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, when the regulations were drawn up, the National Assembly for Wales had not been elected. The GTC will be answerable to the assembly. The Secretary of State for England will be making a number of appointments. With respect to Wales, where there is a wish to have a much smaller GTC because of the lesser number of teachers, it has been decided to have other arrangements because a larger number of appointments is not thought to be necessary.
  The regulations for Wales cover the same issues as for England but there are some differences in the detail. The smaller GTC for Wales reflects the relative size of the teaching profession there, and that difference in numbers means that it is not possible for interested bodies directly to appoint members in the same way. Instead, a wide range of organisations will be asked to submit nominations for membership of the GTC for Wales.
  The proposals for Wales also received a broad measure of support. The main changes made following the consultation exercise are that explicit provision is made to secure the continued teacher member majority; and four of the nine members to be appointed from nominations by relevant organisations will be from teacher unions and associations.
  In finalising the arrangements, we have sought to build on the widespread consensus on the composition of the councils. We cannot satisfy everyone's demand

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  for a seat on the councils, because to do so would make them unwieldy and cumbersome. However, we believe that we have got the balance about right. I commend the regulations to the House, and I beg to move.
  Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 22nd March be approved [14th Report from the Joint Committee]—(Baroness Blackstone.)
  8.45 p.m.
  Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the Government's thinking. Before I talk about the detail, I welcome my noble friend Lord Roberts of Conwy back to the Front Bench. He had a fairly long period of illness and it is good to see him back in his place and to hear him intervene so soon after his reappearance.
  Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
  Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the Minister referred to the council's planned composition, but there are anomalies. It would be helpful if the noble Baroness could help. I find it extraordinary that consultation was on the basis of the chairman being appointed by the council; that there has been a change of heart; and that the chairman shall be appointed only from among those members appointed by the Secretary of State. Why should not the whole membership be eligible for the chairmanship? If the appointment is to be only short term, is it to be for a matter of weeks or months? Will it be only until the whole body is appointed—in which case, all members will not only have the opportunity to influence the choice of chairman but be eligible for the chairmanship.
  I understand that the appointments will be for four years. I am sorry that the Government have not seen fit to stagger the appointments because it will be a case of all in, all out on the same day. I am not sure that will be good for continuity. I am sorry that aspect was not given some consideration.
  The Minister's response to my noble friend Lord Roberts was highly unsatisfactory. The Secretary of State will be central to the appointments in Wales. Paragraph 6(1) states:
  "The election of elected members…shall be conducted in accordance with an electoral scheme made by the Secretary of State".
  It states also that the rules will be made by the Secretary of State and that the electoral scheme
  "may be amended or revoked by a subsequent scheme of the Secretary of State and an electoral scheme under paragraph (2) may be amended or revoked by a subsequent scheme…with the approval of the Secretary of State".
  Paragraph 7 states that nine members shall be appointed from a list of nominated persons. What on earth is the distinction in that list? It is a large number of bodies. All will go through the machinations of consulting and deciding who they would like to nominate. I understand that only nine members will come from that long list, so the disappointment factor will be two to one, which would be unfortunate.
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  Secondly, how will one know the balance? Are there any bodies on the list that are absolutely key and will receive any kind of priority? One concern is that no mention is made in the Welsh regulations about parents, those with special needs or even the general public interest. That is an interesting point in the context of the English body.
  When these bodies go through the appointment procedures the Secretary of State decides. The Secretary of State for Wales ultimately decides on membership of half the council. That makes a real distinction between Wales and England. On the day when people are registering as Members of the Welsh Assembly it is extraordinary that we should be considering secondary legislation that cuts out the Welsh Assembly and gives the Secretary of State for Wales, a Westminster appointment for the UK, a key role in all of these appointments. There is nothing in the regulations to the effect that for "Secretary of State" one should read subsequently "First Minister in Wales". It would be very helpful to know what is to happen.
  These appointments are for four years. During that period the General Teaching Council will not be influential. This takes place on a day when Members are taking their place in Wales and are cut out of the process. Is it really true that the Secretary of State for Wales will approve these appointments when the First Minister is in place in the Assembly in Wales? It would be interesting to hear the response of the Minister.
  Does the additional Disability Rights Commission appointee—I have no quarrel with that at all—mean that the body will be 64 strong or that that appointee will take the place of one of the other appointees on the council? The noble Baroness appears to be telling the House today that some secondary thinking is still taking place. I deem that pretty unfortunate on a day when Parliament is being asked to approve these two orders. With those questions, I await the Minister's response with interest.
  8.52 p.m.
  Baroness Maddock: My Lords, it is extraordinary that we began to debate this matter late at night a long time ago and it seems that we are destined always to discuss this particular piece of legislation at the same time.
  I welcome the move by the Government to strengthen the role of the council. With others I spoke quite forcefully at all stages of the Teaching and Higher Education Bill. We should like to see the Government place even more trust in teachers to regulate their own profession. The General Teaching Council should be a body of and for the teaching profession and, like other professional bodies, the guardian and upholder of professional standards.
  These regulations recognise the Government's acceptance of the views on these Benches that professional teachers need to be in the majority on the General Teaching Council. We welcome Regulation 6(2) which also gives that majority power to devise its own electoral system for the election of the 25 serving teachers. We on these Benches welcome the inclusion

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  of a nominee from the National Children's Bureau. That body has a very good record in defending children from all kinds of pressure and abuse, but it also has a particular commitment to developing education for citizenship. In passing, I congratulate the Government on their announcement today that they intend to include citizenship in the curriculum, which is a matter that we have discussed in this House in the past.
  Referring to the 25 elected members and nine appointed by various bodies, I should like to put two questions to the Minister. One is to do with the definition of junior pupils. There will be 11 teachers of junior pupils. Can the Minister clarify where pre-school children come into it? There is a definition of "junior pupil" in Regulation 2(1) which appears to include three and four year-olds, but the Minister will be aware that we on these Benches are particularly concerned about pre-school education. I seek clarification as to that.
  I am aware from debates in another place that there is one area about which concern remains: representation of the interests of Jewish, and now Moslem, voluntary-aided schools on the General Teaching Council. Can the Minister explain further how she sees that happening?
  I turn to the appointments by the Secretary of State. All of my comments refer to the English regulations. My noble friend Lord Thomas will deal with Wales. The Secretary of State is to appoint 13 directly appointed members. Two or more must represent the interests of the parents of pupils. Can the Minister indicate where the Minister will be looking? I am aware from debates here and in another place that the Government are a little wary as to how to achieve parent representation and whether that person should come from a parent-teacher association. There are other parent bodies; for example, the Campaign for the Advancement of State Education. Quite a number of the people on that body are parents. Perhaps the Minister can clarify that further.
  We welcome the fact that following debates on the Bill the Government consulted fairly widely on the make-up of the General Teaching Council and have made changes as a result. But the Association of Teachers and Lecturers in particular wonders why, when the number of people appointed to represent major bodies was increased from 13 to 17, thereby being a bit more specific, the Government did not believe that there was a possibility of reducing the number to be directly appointed by the Minister, given that they had changed the other numbers. Did the Government consider reducing the number from 13 and, if not, why not?
  I am particularly pleased about two other areas. First, people who have experience in relation to teaching those with special needs will be involved. Has the Minister also looked at the position of gifted and highly able pupils? Will that feature in the Minister's nominees? I listened with interest to the noble Baroness's comments on whether the chairman would be elected from within the body or he or she would be appointed by the Minister at the beginning. The position is not clear.
  In conclusion, it appears that the Government still find it difficult to believe that teachers can take control of the General Teaching Council. In previous debates
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  we heard a lot about the fact that it needed to be evolutionary. I had hoped that under the English regulations the Government would allow the General Teaching Council to appoint its own chairman, but perhaps tonight the Government are going back on that. I believe that that would be a retrograde step even if the Government give the commitment that it will be for only a short time. It is important that this body is controlled by teachers. Only time will tell whether the Government really believe that and in the end let them do it.
  8.59 p.m.
  Baroness David: My Lords, I associate myself with most of the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock. It is particularly important that this should be a professional council of teachers. That is what we have wanted for a very long time. I hope that the council will be given a few more powers than it was given under the Bill. It must be an important body if it is to be successful.
  I am somewhat alarmed by the size of the council; 63 seems an enormously unwieldy body. I approve that chief education officers, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Disability Rights Commission should have representation. But it will be an enormous body. I should not like to chair it; I cannot imagine many people who would be adept at that. I look forward to hearing more about the chairman and the change of view that has occurred.
  I congratulate the Government on having set up this body. I wish it the best of luck and hope that it will he enormously successful. It must be given sufficient powers; and it must be professional.
  9 p.m.
  Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, like my noble friend Lady Maddock I welcome the principle of the General Teaching Council for Wales. It would be churlish of me not to welcome also the provision of separate regulations for Wales since this afternoon I complained that the Local Government Bill mixes up Wales and England in a way that confuses and will confuse the new Members of the Welsh Assembly.
  However, these regulations appear to be somewhat premature. The point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy—I am delighted to see him back in his place—about the role of the Secretary of State and the National Assembly was not answered by the Minister in her reply. Does the National Assembly for Wales take over from the Secretary of State the appointment of the people to this council when it comes into existence on 1st July? If not, why not? Why should this remain a Westminster matter by a Westminster appointed Secretary of State when the whole of the education provision for Wales has been devolved to the Welsh Assembly?
  Furthermore, if it is to remain with the Secretary of State for Wales, a Westminster appointed Minister with only a month or two to go, why do we have a council which consists of 12 elected members but a majority, 13, nominated members? It is true that of those who are to be nominated some are to come from the

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  organisations set out in Part I of the schedule; that is to say, four out of eight. But the other five can come from something like 26 organisations. The Secretary of State can pick and choose among those whose names are put forward.
  One notes in particular the lack of any consideration for the position of Welsh schools. Someone who represents the interests of pupils who attend Welsh schools may be nominated by one or other of the teaching organisations. But it does not follow that that person will be appointed to the council. I also note the absence of a specific person to deal with special educational needs, although that is fully dealt with in the English regulations.
  Finally, there is a complete absence of any representation of parents. Parents exist in Wales. I should have thought that traditionally parents in Wales take a greater interest in the education of their children than parents elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
  These regulations lack sensitivity at this time. The regulations should be withdrawn at this stage. It should be left as one of the first tasks of the Assembly to set the body up in the way that accords with the special needs of Welsh education.
  Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, perhaps I may begin by talking about Wales. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, was perhaps a little unfair. I felt it right to wait until we got to the end of the debate, and allow people to put questions about the position in Wales, before getting into too much detail. However, as I believe I made clear, the functions of the GTC will be taken over by the National Assembly for Wales. The GTC will be responsible to the First Minister in Wales and to the National Assembly. But we have to wait until the transfer of functions order which will take place, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, intimated, from 1st July of this year. When that happens, the Secretary of State will no longer be involved. It will be for the First Minister. I believe that the appointments would be made by him. I hope that that clarifies the situation.
  We need to move forward on the setting up of the GTC. It would be wrong to have delayed introducing the regulations until after that date. The regulations will be covered when the transfer takes place; and the National Assembly and the First Minister will take this on.
  The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, also raised the issue of membership from those who will be nominated in Wales. I am sure that the National Assembly and the First Minister will want to take on some of the suggestions he made. It will be important that those with special educational needs and their teachers are represented, just as they will be in England. The same goes for parents.
  Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. First, why is it deemed necessary to make it explicit for the English council to have someone with special educational needs experience and someone representing the interests of parents on the council, but not for the Welsh council?
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  Secondly, although it will be some weeks before the assembly receives its devolved powers, the composition of the body will be important to the Assembly. Why can it not be left to the Assembly?
  Thirdly, whether the First Minister and/or the Secretary of State is involved, why cannot the bodies in Wales be trusted, whereas those in England can?
  Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I thought that I covered the last point in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Roberts. I had not been aware that he had been ill. I wish to add my welcome to him. It is good to see him back in the Chamber.
  I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, has forgotten that there has been widespread consultation on this matter, not just in England but also in Wales. The responses that we have received there have been extremely positive. The wish to get on with establishing the GTC is as strong there as it is in England. In the responses that have been received, there has been no suggestion that the number of people to be nominated is either too many or too few. It has been accepted that the number is about right and that there should be some flexibility for the balancing which must be done to make sure that the range of those who are represented is reasonable and one with which teachers and others in Wales can be happy.
  I turn now to some other issues which have been raised. The noble Baronesses, Lady Blatch and Lady Maddock, asked about the appointment of the chairman. When saying that the chairman was to be appointed from one of the 13 allocated at present to the Secretary of State, I was not suggesting—and I hope that I can explain this—that the chairman would be taken from one of the 13 who had been nominated. That appointment will be made in advance of any other appointments made to the GTC. The idea is that we shall consult about the issue but the Government's current thinking is that it would be right to try to appoint the chairman before other members of the council are appointed for approximately a year before the council is able to select its own chairman. That is in order that the preliminary work should be done and that somebody should be in place to represent the council and its interests.
  The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, asked also about the Disability Rights Commission and the numbers to which that would give rise with an additional appointment in that regard. It will be 64 strong with that appointment. She questioned whether it would not be a good idea to stagger some of the appointments. Indeed, those appointments made by the Secretary of State will be staggered over a two to five year period in order to ensure that not everybody leaves the council at the same time.
  The noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, asked about the definition of junior pupils and whether that would include three and four year-olds—those in nursery and pre-school education. Yes, they will be covered by the elections made for teachers in junior schools.
  The noble Baroness also raised the question of specific representation for parents. We looked carefully at that issue but we were not able to find a suitable body

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  through which such representation could properly be expressed. However, there are proposals to establish a more general structure. We have not yet reached a stage at which we can name a specific appointing body. That is why the regulations specify that the Secretary of State must include in his appointments a representative for parents. As and when different channels emerge that are able to command the respect of those interests, we shall be open to consider how best to take account of them.
  My noble friend Lady David asked about the number of people on the council. I accept entirely that it is a large group the working of which will require considerable skill on the part of the chairman. But there are other public bodies of this sort of a similar size. I once chaired the General Advisory Council of the BBC which, when I took it over, had more than 60 members. We had to increase the size of the GTC to accommodate the commitment which we rightly made—and I believe my noble friend strongly supported it, as did other Members of your Lordships' House—that there should be a majority of teachers on the council. That means that it has become slightly bigger.
  The noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, asked about gifted pupils. She commented on the importance of having representation for those with special educational needs. Again, that is something which the Secretary of State may wish to consider when making his appointments. But it may well be that one or more of the teachers elected will have a particular interest in gifted children. It is important that we do not neglect their needs in any way.
  I think I have covered all the questions raised. However, I shall, of course, write to noble Lords who raise questions en any points I have not managed to cover. I believe that we must all welcome the General Teaching Council. The arguments for establishing the council have been very well rehearsed. At all stages we have tried to proceed through dialogue and consultation. Without this, I believe that the GTCs would fail to command the respect of both teachers and the wider educational world. We all want the GTCs to succeed. They have a key role to play in revitalising the profession. These regulations are a vital stage in giving councils the best possible start. I hope that the House will join me in approving them. I commend the regulations to the House.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

Tibet
9.14 p.m.
The Earl of Carrick The Earl of Carrick rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what they are doing to assist the Tibetans to have meaningful dialogue with the People's Republic of China leading to a negotiated settlement of the Tibetan issue.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I start by saying how deeply sort' I was to learn today of the very untimely death of Derek Fatchett, who was such a sympathetic Minister towards the Tibetan issue. My every sympathy goes to his family and colleagues.
Turning to my Unstarred Question, it is pertinent to remind your Lordships that while the world now regards Tibet as part of China, that was not the case when the communist government used their military might to achieve their territorial aim. The invaders themselves deemed the country utterly foreign in culture and language and found a populace united in its hostility towards them. As the International Panel of Jurists concluded, Tibet was a de facto, if not de jure, independent nation and Britain never accorded sovereignty to China in the years we were the only nation other than China to have relations with Tibet.
Whatever the political realities of the present, we are dealing with a nation that has been annexed by force and which, ever since, the communist regime has ruled as a colonial outpost, often refusing its citizens basic freedoms. The Tibetans' need for our assistance and that of the world has never been greater. The country faces yet another crackdown which Amnesty International calls one of the most disturbing of the past decade in its attempt to crush the very identity of this ancient and unique nation.
Let us be clear about the current situation. China's so-called benevolent liberation resulted in the loss of over 1 million lives. Even after 40 years, refugees are still taking terrible risks to escape the oppression under which they live, despite Chinese insistence that all has never been better. Now matters have reached a nadir. The Tibetan language has been marginalized, and the people urged, and government workers ordered, to be atheist in a society defined by its belief in a remarkable form of Buddhism. We have official insistence that Tibet was never a British culture and a dismal record of intensifying racist bullying.
The trouble is, and always has been, that Tibet is of zero economic interest to anyone whereas China is vital to the whole world in the next millennium. Although the Government insist that there is no play-off between commerce and human rights, I am afraid that the current position of the Tibetans tells a very different story.
In an article in the Independent, Chris Patten wrote:
"It is difficult to be against engagement: you cannot ignore more than a fifth of humanity. But I see no reason why engagement should involve fooling ourselves about what's happening in China. They have turned Europe and America inside out on human rights, cynically signing international covenants that they have no intention of ratifying or keeping".
So what chance for Tibet? All we have is a sense that something is horribly wrong, a sense perfectly expressed on "Newsnight" last month by Defence Minister, George Robertson, talking about the Kosovo crisis when he said:
"If the international community doesn't take a stand, what future do we have?"
I know that the Government are sympathetic to the plight of the Tibetan people. I know that the Prime Minister is personally sympathetic. But this is simply not converting into anything useful for the Tibetans. It is like sitting on a beach being sympathetic about a person drowning. The analogy is apt as the Chinese sanction and encourage, despite earlier promises to the contrary,

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the continuing influx of Han Chinese, which is drowning the cultural and ethnic characteristics of the indigenous nation, creating a new national identity.
The trouble right now is that time really is running out and greater determination must be shown by all governments who care. Our Government should be aware not only of our historical duty but also of the fact that potentially we still have great influence. Europe looks to us for a lead. We could yet be instrumental in bringing a peaceful solution to one of the great humanitarian tragedies of this century.
Britain's change from recognising China's relationship with Tibet as one of sovereignty rather than suzerainty was done on the basis of genuine autonomy for the country, which has never manifested. A genuine autonomy is at the heart of Tibetan needs.
A senior Tibetan once said to me that while charity was deeply needed, it was fundamentally a small matter in the wider issue. Human rights, he continued, was obviously of far greater importance and the subject upon which most of the world concentrates. But even this was a side issue compared to the central point, which is nationhood, not independent of China but freedom from thought-control, freedom from repression and freedom to make decisions that accord with the special needs of the people and environment.
This is endlessly portrayed as "splitism" by the communist leadership where any attempt to assert aspects of Tibetan culture or religion is irrationally regarded as threatening to the vast motherland. But the truth is—this does not take a great turning of the mind from the leadership—the motherland would be stronger and better integrated if minorities such as the Tibetans and the poor Uighurs, who also face persecution, were willing rather than dissenting partners. Perhaps the Government could help Beijing to understand that simple truth.
Recently, China, with its customary utter disregard for world, let alone Tibetan, opinion, had the temerity to declare that as Tibet was already autonomous, what was the purpose of negotiating with the Dalai Lama? Here I come to one of the central dynamics of the situation. The Dalai Lama and the government in exile represent the means to an autonomy both democratic and ready to accord to the wishes of the Tibetan people. Here is an historically legitimate leader, yet one who has repeatedly affirmed that he would cede any temporal influence the moment democratic elections, by his wish under UN auspices, had taken place.
I return to the point we are talking about; that is, real autonomy, enshrining basic human rights and allowing a due degree of self-determination which does nothing to detract from China's strategic or commercial interests. Every single utterance by the Dalai Lama and the National Democratic Party of Tibet on the subject would be considered fundamentally reasonable, responsible and desirable in this House and by any other democratic government.
But the Chinese do not accept such concepts. Nowhere is that better demonstrated than by their attempt to suggest that the standards of human rights
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laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are those advocated by the West and do not apply to Asia and other parts of the third world, as though the latter belonged to some sub-species of the human family. The Dalai Lama gently and firmly refutes such a patently absurd notion by observing that whatever our station in life, whatever our beliefs or nationhood, ultimately each of us is a human being like everyone else, and we all desire happiness and want to avoid suffering.
The Chinese are fond of extolling the benevolent transformations they have wrought in Tibet. Yet the country is almost unique in the degree to which access is controlled. I was part of a small parliamentary group that asked if an all-party delegation could go and see the wonders China was claiming for Tibet, pointing out that such high-level confirmation would vindicate the People's Republic from worldwide criticism. We asked to go on a more independent basis than the previously stage-managed visits by delegations or individuals. Of course the request was refused categorically. The Red Cross? No. Amnesty? No. Other charities or NGOs? No. Anyone remotely capable of monitoring the situation on the ground is just not tolerated. Such actions go beyond raising suspicions; they confirm our worst.
The latest example of double-speak and an unco-operative and rigid attitude, which is very serious and germane to this debate and the whole solution of the Tibet issue, again concerns the Dalai Lama. After giving every indication towards the end of last year that negotiations with His Holiness were at last a real possibility, not only did this hope vanish but it was replaced by a virulent anti-Dalai Lama campaign. He is now being described as wanting to lead Tibetans back to poverty, backwardness, ignorance and even advocating serfdom. In fact, the Dalai Lama's position has been consistent and seeks to address the fundamental points that would save Tibet as a nation and, as he is at pains to emphasise, draw Tibet willingly into an association with the People's Republic working with a spirit of respect for ethnic differences.
It is crucial for the Chinese to understand that if the problem of Tibet is not solved by negotiated settlement, it could cause long-term instability, violence and suffering to the region. As David Lambton, director of China studies at John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies recently noted:
"If the Dalai Lama dies. the movement can fracture and there could be guerrilla and terrorist groups".
As we know, not even the sharpest security forces in the world can prevent terrorism, and particularly when the majority of the population supports it. China might consider what happened to the might of the Soviet military machine in Afghanistan.
If the Dalai Lama had sanctioned a policy like the PLO, ANC or even the IRA, then he would have been listened to and given the profile accorded to the likes of Yasser Arafat, Nelson Mandela or Gerry Adams. Instead, His Holiness has been steadfast in pursuing a non-violent path which, while gaining international admiration, has not achieved the political support it is due. That is so wrong. Western governments will be culpable of a dereliction of sense, let alone duty, if

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greater action is not taken. It is high time Beijing adopted a less belligerent attitude and instead showed greater vision, and it is up to western governments to encourage positive changes without fretting about economic consequences the whole time.
The Chinese bridle at any interference in their internal affairs. Yet they would do well to heed the words of our Prime Minister who. when speaking about the situation in Kosovo, declared that acts of genocide can never be purely internal matters. The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, voiced the same sentiments to the Commission for Human Rights, saying:
"No Government has the right to hide behind national sovereignty in order to violate the human rights and fundamental freedoms of its peoples."
There are many things the Government can do for the Tibet issue. Undoubtedly, the most important would be to encourage dialogue between Beijing and the Dalai Lama. Furthermore, we could raise in the European Council the resolutions passed by the EU Parliament about a special co-ordinator for Tibet. We could promote Tibet's cause with the UN and encourage an opportunity for His Holiness to address the General Assembly. Also, greater financial support for the Tibetan refugees from the DfID would be a positive step.
Most of all, simply approaching the issue with an abiding determination to find a solution and to urge our friends to do the same would be of the greatest assistance. For the sake of stability in the region, for justice and for China's own standing in the world, Beijing must stop fearing the Dalai Lama: he is not the problem, he is the solution.
9.27 p.m.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, the noble Lord, the Earl of Carrick, h as given noble Lords the opportunity to raise the continuing problems surrounding the former autonomy of the people of Tibet and the ever-increasing control by the People's Republic of China over Tibetan territory. We are most grateful to the noble Earl for what he has said and the background he has given for this short debate.
We should look back over the last century and remember that the series of agreements between Tibet and China throughout the twentieth century had confirmed Tibetan autonomy, but was overridden by the Chinese invasion in October 1950, leading to the present critical situation and resulting in recent years in the deaths of over a million Tibetans.
Any hope of change in the situation of the Tibetans, which has weakened over the years, can only be improved by international action. As we have heard, negotiations wit China, even with considerable renunciation of specific areas of control which have been offered by the Dalai Lama recently, do not give cause for optimism. Each time he has studied the situation and gore one step further down the road of reducing the autonomy of Tibet, China has rejected these offers and has consistently refused to come to any agreement or to afford any opportunity of discussion with the Dalai Lama about the situation in his country.
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During the 1980s the Dalai Lama visited the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where he received a massive reception from widely differing political parties throughout Europe. He spoke of his hopes and objectives for his country. All the political parties were represented there. It was a vast meeting of over 300 Members of the European Parliament. I very much regretted that the then president of the European Parliament refused to take part because of the pressure from China on the presidency of the Parliament. We should always be aware of the background of pressure by the Chinese Republic and its emissaries throughout the world and its objections to any action, activity or discussion on the subject of Tibet throughout the world. In the free world we do not have to take any notice of this pressure, but we should be aware of it nevertheless and take action where necessary.
The Dalai Lama, since that visit to the European Parliament, has taken his message throughout Europe and specifically to America where there is strong support for the Tibetan people. It is well known that attempts to speak with the Chinese political leaders have led to failure on each occasion and have been followed by the strengthening of Chinese forces, as well as forcing vast numbers of civilians to pile through into Tibet, causing ever-increasing individual and collective suffering of the Tibetan people.
In contrast to the political and economic development of Western Europe, where non-members of the EU seek to become members and to join the existing 15 member states, the political developments in China are characterised by total abolition of the individual political regime of Tibet, with the gradual elimination of any national political system, language, religion and culture.
What are the chances of the Chinese ever leaving Tibet, or some of them, or relaxing their control over its people? There is little or no chance, it would seem, at the present time.
Having left his country in 1959, the Dalai Lama has established his base in Dharmsala in North India, together with his government-in-exile. World recognition of the strong desire for peace for his people and the actions that he has taken, which won him the Nobel prize, have not so far been proved enough to ensure the liberation of the Tibetan people. Of course, that is to be greatly regretted. Even acceptance of Chinese control over spheres of defence and foreign affairs would, with difficulty, lead to constructive discussions with the Chinese, especially, if I may say so, at the present time. Recent events in Belgrade would make it very difficult for the West to take any immediate part in such discussions in the hope of some peaceful and satisfactory conclusion. However, it is hoped that Her Majesty's Government will be able to contribute to and support the international attempt of the Dalai Lama, and his followers, to achieve his long-term aims based on non-violence for his country and his people.
9.30 p.m.
Lord Weatherill: My Lords, when the noble Earl, Lord Carrick, an active member of the All-Party Group on Tibet, applied for this debate, it was our hope that it

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would help to highlight the present very unhappy situation in Tibet and that it would be an encouragement to the Chinese Government to open up a dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with a view to bringing about a fair and peaceful solution. Alas, as the noble Baroness has just said, the events of last weekend in Belgrade and also the sad loss of Mr. Derek Fatchett, who was always so supportive of the all-party group when we visited him in the Foreign Office, do not auger well for our pleas to the Chinese Government this evening. However, I hope that our suggestions will be heeded by the Minister, who has kindly agreed to come here this evening in order to respond to this debate. Further, as we all know, this is a short debate, and we are all constrained by a time limit. Nevertheless, the noble Earl, Lord Carrick, spoke extremely well and put the case very well for the all-party group. I warmly congratulate him on that.
Some 18 months ago, as patron of the all-party group, I led a small delegation to Dharmsala with Members of Parliament and members of the Tibet Society. Apart from the privilege of in-depth discussions with His Holiness, we were also able to visit the parliament which he had established. We met Ministers and members of parliament who had been democratically elected by Tibetans in exile to represent the districts in Tibet from which they, their parents or, in many cases, their grandparents had originally come. For me, it was a particular pleasure to meet their distinguished speaker, Samdhong Rinpoche. I have to say that he did not need much guidance or help from me as a former Speaker. However, in truth, I can say that the Tibetan parliament in exile, based on our Westminster system, is highly professional. Its debates were very well informed and well conducted. Ministers were genuinely held to account rather more than is often the case in our own Parliament at present.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama repeated on a radio programme this morning in an interview with Mr. Jeremy Paxman what he had told me in Dharmsala; namely, that he wished to relinquish his temporal responsibilities to a democratically-elected parliament; and this he has done. Furthermore, he told Mr. Paxman that if the Chinese allowed him to return to Lhasa he would do so on the basis that Tibet would be considered a part of China, and that he was seeking not independence, but, as the noble Earl said, a form of autonomy—genuine autonomy. Surely this is a pattern which in our own way we are seeking to achieve for ourselves in Northern Ireland, in Scotland and also in Wales. His Holiness concluded his interview with Mr. Paxman this morning by saying,"This is my ambition".
The present situation in Tibet, as the noble Earl, Lord Carrick, explained, parallels very closely the situation in Kosovo. The difference is that we do not see it on our television sets. The refugees from Tibet come over the Himalayas, frequently in very bad weather, because that is when the Chinese guards are less likely to apprehend them. Many of them, as I saw for myself, arrive with frostbite, many children having had limbs amputated as a result.
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We are involved in Kosovo to stop the abuse of human rights and to allow the people of that province to return, not to an independent state, but to a measure of autonomy. In my talks with the Dalai Lama he told me that many young Tibetans in exile were telling him that his non-violent approach had failed and that the world would not take notice of the plight of the Tibetan people until they could return to Tibet with guns—and there are plenty of those around.
We in our country are rightly proud of our tradition of settling our disputes by a parley rather than by the gun. We regularly encourage others to follow our example. Surely we should practice what we preach. Surely His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who steadfastly espouses the path of non-violence in Tibet, deserves our support in all the ways that are open to us in achieving a peaceful, and above all a fair, resolution of the impasse faced by his people. As the noble Earl movingly said, he is, far from being a problem, in truth the solution to the problem, and he deserves our encouragement and our support.
9.37 p.m.
Lord Thurlow: My Lords, may I start by associating myself very sincerely with the expressions of sympathy at the loss of Mr. Derek Fatchett. He was a great friend and supporter of the interests of Tibet. Before the change of government he took the trouble to go all the way up to St. Andrews to join in a briefing to inform himself more on the problems and questions of Tibet. His death is a very great loss to his colleagues in the Foreign Office, with whom I sympathise, and to us all.
We should not be too much put off from the right aims and objects by the present very unfortunate situation that has blown up in Belgrade. We cannot deny its seriousness nor the fact that for the time being it will affect every other aspect of relations with China. But these things will pass. A time will come when it will again be expedient and possible to make firm representations to China against its enormities. I express my thanks to the noble Earl, Lord Carrick, for his clear and very moving statement of the terrible situation Tibet now finds itself in.
The international community can do little to help, except by making known its views on the rights of Tibet, supporting His Holiness with his very modest requests, as the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, impressively said, and by pressing human rights issues in every possible international forum.
As the noble Earl said, political statements have been regrettably muted in recent years in the competition for contracts. That will pass. Nevertheless, an ethical foreign policy implies some readiness to sacrifice interests in support of wider aims. China has signed the human rights convention and is flouting its provisions in the most cynical way. It is up to us to maintain a firm line and to continue, as I am glad to say we have been doing, our efforts to stiffen the spines of our European Union partners.
I believe that a powerful factor in the international reluctance to take a firmer stance is the background of confusion about Tibet's international legal status. Other

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countries have historically taken their lead from Britain because of our responsibility for the defence of India until 1947. However, in the past 50 years, our view has not been expressed consistently and clearly. Indeed, at times the Foreign Office seemed to accept that Tibet had always been part of China. It could certainly be excused some uncertainty because in the days of the India Office it did not handle Tibetan issues directly and, after 1947, everybody agreed that it was for the Government of India to take a lead. In this country, the Commonwealth Office played that hand.
Unfortunately, in 1950, with the invasion, the Indian Government, after an initial protest, refrained from anything that might offend the Chinese. Despite the readiness of the US Government to help, Nehru simply trusted the lies of the Chinese at Bandung and onwards. In retrospect, I believe that India considers that to have been a critical mistake. I was involved on the margins because I had to discuss the situation in Delhi with the Government of India at the time.
It would help our European partners and perhaps the United States if the Government would now put the record straight after 50 years of some confusion about status. The late Sir Algernon Rumbold, the old India Office expert, put it clearly. Denying the claim that Tibet had been part of China, he said:
"This is geographically, racially, culturally and politically false. Historically Chinese Governments exercised some influence in Tibet only occasionally and for brief periods".
As the noble Earl mentioned, in 1997 the International Commission of Jurists, manned by a distinguished group of international lawyers, concluded that Tibet is entitled under international law to self determination. It declared the present alleged autonomy fictitious, as we all know it is. It is totally fictitious.
I respectfully ask the Minister to consider, with her colleagues, undertaking a review to remove all the old legal confusions on status. Internal self-government is all that the Dalai Lama is demanding. We should support it as Tibet's legal international right. We should seek to get the agreement of our European partners to this as the basis of a common position under the foreign and security policy.
9.45 p.m.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Carrick, for introducing this debate. I have spoken before about Tibet and the Dalai Lama. Indeed, I believe that this is my fifth speech. Curiously, all our debates on that sad country follow the same course. Noble Lords on the Back Benches from all quarters of the House recite Tibetan atrocities, praise His Holiness and call for a measure of independence. The Government in reply say that they recognise the Dalai Lama solely as the spiritual head of Tibet and that the Chinese have suzerainty over Tibet in all other fields. Of course, the Government condemn obvious things like the torture of monks, but in a somewhat qualified way. Tae Government also meet the Dalai Lama, but again in a slightly qualified way. For instance, when His Holiness came to Committee Room 14 on the last occasion, the then Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, chaired the
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meeting but he said that he was not doing so in his capacity as Lord Chancellor. His Holiness also went to Downing Street. The then Prime Minister, John Major, met him, but not in his capacity as Prime Minister. There was always something slightly unofficial about the Dalai Lama's visits here.
I note that this time he is to be greeted by Madam Speaker. I hope that New Labour means a new attitude towards His Holiness. We shall be quite delighted if we get anything other than the standard government response—perhaps I should say the standard Whitehall response—because this matter is quite beyond party politics. As noble Lords have said, it is an international problem.
I must also say, sadly, that our debates in this Chamber have not made any difference to Tibet over the years. Each time we hold them, the situation is a little worse. The ethnic cleansing is more widespread. There is also the raping of nuns, the pulling down of monasteries and forcing children to shoot their parents.
The position of the Panchen Lama is a little worse than it was. What has happened to the boy who is the true Panchen Lama? What has happened to the monk who discovered him? Of course, the Chinese say that he is not the Panchen Lama and that he is perfectly all right. But has any Westerner actually seen the child? It is surely on the cards that both he and the monk are dead; but who knows?
This is a purely spiritual matter. If the Government accept that the Dalai Lama is the spiritual head of his country, I hope that they will try to explain what efforts they are making to persuade the Chinese to install the true spiritual Panchen Lama in post and to oust what I call the Chinese placement Panchen, who is of course an impostor.
I used the phrase "ethnic cleansing". As many noble Lords have said, we are engaged in stopping that in Kosovo. Why Kosovo and not Tibet? That is simple. Tibet poses no threat to us but Kosovo and the Balkans do. They also pose a threat to the stability of NATO.
Noble Lords may have heard His Holiness talking to Jeremy Paxman this morning about Kosovo. He said that we should oppose Milosevic but not use force. That has amazing relevance. He said that force can have unpredictable consequences. However, we have used force when our own interests and security are threatened. Thus it has always been and always will be. We used it in the Falklands to protect British sovereign territory; we fought in the Gulf to protect oil interests, and in Tibet. We invaded it when the Chinese empire collapsed at the start of this century. That was in our interest. We sent a force under Younghusband and then we made a treaty. It is this treaty that the Tibetans quote to us as proof of their autonomy and why they say they have a special relationship with the United Kingdom. Of course there can be no question of sending a military force to free Tibet from China now; I certainly recognise that. It would be the last thing that His Holiness would want.
Tomorrow His Holiness comes to Westminster. He will address parliamentarians in the Grand Committee Room; he will meet the press; we will give him lunch;

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and he will tell us that he does not wish to be the secular leader of his country, merely the spiritual one. The noble Earl, Lord Carrick, and the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, have said that if Tibet can shake off Chinese rule His Holiness has said that he will hand over power to a local regional assembly, I suppose—perhaps something like the new Scottish Parliament—and he will return to becoming a celibate monk. The Government have a duty to restrain China in what I call its spiritual dealings with Tibet; that is, to recognise the true Panchen Lama, to stop the humanitarian atrocities, to stop the destroying of the monasteries and to stop the torturing and murdering of monks.
I shall end by reminding your Lordships of two small parts of the Dalai Lama's teaching that I heard on the radio this morning: first, that it is not right to impose the Buddhist faith on others. Faith is a matter of individual freedom, otherwise, he says,"There will be a clash". Secondly, we should all behave as the humblest beggar because at the end of our lives we all become equally lowly.
More practically, I ask the new Government to succeed where earlier governments have failed and to find a way to give Tibet some measure of the autonomy we recognised in the Younghusband treaty, and, above all, to guarantee spiritual freedom to all Tibetans.
9.51 p.m.
The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, I warmly thank the noble Earl, Lord Carrick, for giving us this opportunity. It is unfortunate that the debate tonight and relations with China as a whole are overshadowed by the shocking incident over the weekend. However unpredictable warfare is, we must all regret the appalling mistake of NATO intelligence which led a pilot to bomb the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. But it does however raise the question of propaganda, at which the Chinese are adept. As one would expect, they are using the incident to the very best advantage, just as they have already criticised NATO for playing up ethnic cleansing as a pretext for invading Kosovo and extending its influence eastwards. I am sure that the Government will hold up their heads and refuse to kow-tow to China on this issue.
The same propaganda game is being played with the Dalai Lama, whose achievements in the West, surprisingly, I believe, have won considerable respect in China. An intelligent article in the Beijing newspaper Management and Strategy on 2nd January, monitored by the BBC and reprinted in Hong Kong, asks why westerners are so sentimental about Tibet. It concludes that it is the last refuge of western mysticism and idealism, embodied by the Dalai Lama himself. While complimenting the Dalai Lama on his success, the article accuses him of exploiting Tibetan history and philosophy to mislead the West, saying that his inability to control his pro-independence followers will be a cause of future unrest. It says:
"In the worst case, forces such as the Tibetan Youth Congress…will sharply increase the violence and destruction, to put Tibet in danger of becoming a Palestine or even a Chechnya".
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Those are legitimate fears. Tibet is not an independent state but an autonomous region of China de facto if not de jure and, whatever the history, it is important for our Government to understand the modern Chinese viewpoint. But we should equally remind China that support for the Dalai Lama, muted as it is in Whitehall, is not just an official western government position. It comes from a worldwide movement of people who believe in the personal integrity of the Dalai Lama as a spiritual as well as political leader. This support is based not on a romantic ideal, as the Chinese newspaper suggests, but on the justice, human rights and self-determination demanded by the Tibetan people over 40 years.
The Dalai Lama's determination to defend a just cause, coupled with his patient willingness to compromise, deserves greater respect from China and continuing support from western governments through and beyond the present crisis.
Our successful trade with China should not inhibit us from countering China's propaganda and pursuing our independent policy of steady diplomacy. It is easy to see why it might. FDI rose from 42 billion dollars in 1996 to 52 billion dollars in 1997. It rose again in 1998. Foreign exchange reserves in China have soared throughout the 1990s. Foreign trade is very important to China, representing one-fifth of its gross national product. Britain is one of China's main trading partners within the EU and its share of China's exports continued to rise in 1997 and last year.
Sichuan province is the latest to open a UK office only a fortnight ago and has just sent a large delegation of its officials here. Tibet does not, however, benefit much from Britain's trade or aid. In the China Statistical Yearbook, Tibet is listed as one of the very poorest regions. Its annual GDP per head in 1997 was only 371 dollars, compared with 2, 772 dollars in Shanghai, where most foreign investment is directed. Illiteracy in Tibet is still as high as 52 per cent. Tibetan language teaching has been in decline because of accusations of "splittism" which has left teachers as well as monks in detention.
The UN agencies have been working in Tibet for many years, with varying success. The World Food Programme has attempted to improve the income and food security of rural Tibetans in the Lhasa Valley for nearly a decade, but the programme was ill-conceived and helped the government more than poor Tibetans. The European Union ran into similar trouble, although the current Pa Nam rural development project benefits indigenous Tibetans.
The World Bank has been associated with another dubious scheme, resettling over 60,000 poor farmers in Dulan county, Qinghai Province, traditionally a home for Tibetan pastoralists. Two-fifths of the beneficiaries, it turns out, are Han Chinese settlers and none are Tibetans. The Minister may be able to tell us how much UK aid is going into these large international schemes. Among the bilateral aid donors, New Zealand, Australia and Canada have a good record of small-scale projects which serve people in Tibet. The UK does not have an active bilateral programme—perhaps the Minister could

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explain why, considering our historical obligations—but it is helping a well-established Save the Children Fund programme of health education and pre-school and primary level teacher training. Save the Children has a good record of working in mainland China for many years, in specialised fields such as disability and AIDS education. It is a credit to it and the Chinese and the Tibetans that it is still expanding its programme in Tibet.
China should value the support which the West gives to Tibet, not use it for propaganda. It should seize the opportunity to come to terms with the Dalai Lama, as has been suggested, as soon as possible, before it is too late and while he has earned the respect of his own people as well as of the outside world. European governments should continue to coax China towards these concessions and resist any temptation to enter trade partnerships without a regular dialogue on human rights.
Two-and-a-half years ago, when we last debated Tibet, I remember the inhibition of the Hong Kong handover, the fear that China might be displeased and turn on Hong Kong, if the West made too much of Tibet and human rights in China. The period since then has seen remarkable progress—the European Union-WTO talks are the latest example—and has shown how misplaced that fear would have been. The same is true of the embassy bombing. It is essential to keep reminding China, as we are now, of the strength of feeling both on Tibet and on human rights in China itself.
In our last debate, I spoke of tyranny and ethnic cleansing in Tibet. I cannot support an ANC-style struggle, favoured by some exiled Tibetans who are understandably desperate. Nor can I see China recognising Tibet as an independent country. But I am sure that if Chine. negotiates more seriously with the Dalai Lama, it could see the end to repression and offer more genuine autonomy.
A new generation is growing up in Chinese cities, nurtured on a common awareness of the world and international relations—well aware of the rights of individuals and minorities. It is true that young Chinese will not have learnt anything about human rights from Europe this week, but, generally, they are more and more exposed to European culture and many of the advantages of western technology. Given time and diplomacy, China will move gradually towards greater understanding of the cultural identity and social needs of the Tibetans.
Finally, I add my own tribute to Derek Fatchett, whose personal commitment to human rights and minority peoples is well known. I went to see him recently about Burma. He had great concern for the minority peoples there too. In a debate in another place on 19th March, he made a clear statement of the Government's position on Tibet, of which I am sure we will hear something from the Minister tonight. It will be hard for Downing Street to find someone of similar quality.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear.
10.2 p.m.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, this year there have been many demonstrations and vigils to mark the fortieth anniversary of Tibetan resistance to the Chinese invasion of Tibet. We are all grateful to my noble friend Lord Carrick for raising this issue so well and comprehensively tonight.
Earlier this year, some of us, wearing Tibetan ribbons—I borrowed that of the noble Viscount, Lord Mersey—watched the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, place a wreath in Tibetan colours outside Westminster Abbey. We were all given white silk Tibetan scarves of friendship, which we tied to the railings—where they fluttered in the wind like Tibetan prayer flags. It was a small and rather moving ceremony, as we watched the blustery March wind catch the ends of the silk scarves.
Forty thousand Chinese troops first invaded Tibet in 1950. Since that time, more and more Chinese have poured in. In the past 59 years, an estimated 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed by the Chinese. During the uprising of 1959, approximately 430,000 were killed and His Holiness the Dalai Lama escaped into exile in India.
During the past 40 years, thousands of Chinese poured into Tibet and settled there. The two regions of Amdo and Kham were totally taken over by the Chinese, whose population in Tibet now outnumbers by many times that of Tibetans. Those two regions have been given new Chinese names and are not even counted as part of Tibet—which they are. Even in U'Sang—now called by the Chinese the Tibet Autonomous Region—there are more than 5 million Chinese, compared with 4.5 million Tibetans.
During the early 1960s, hundreds of thousands of nomadic Tibetans died or starvation. Many more have been tortured and imprisoned. Thousands of monasteries have been destroyed; monks and nuns turned out; and sacred texts annihilated. The Tibetans were a good and peaceful people—tending their gardens, growing vegetables and flowers, loving children and dogs. We gave a lunch for Professor Samdhong Rinpoche of Varanasi University in October 1997. When he arrived, we walked together through the late summer garden with our dogs bounding at his heels. He picked an apple from a tree and ate it. He said,"It is so long since I was at home in Tibet, in my own garden, able to pick fruit and walk among the flowers with my dog."
The Chinese have also cut down the vast natural forests north of Tibet, which has caused much erosion among the rivers. All the soil has been released because there are no tree roots to hold it back. That action has not only increased the floods in Bangladesh but the soil has swept down into China and clogged up the new dams there. Tibet is also rich in mineral resources, which are now being mined and being taken away by the Chinese.
On Thursday of this week His Holiness the Dalai Lama is to open a new peace garden beside the Imperial War Museum. That is a place of peace and meditation, symbolically under the huge guns of the museum. I have brought down to plant in it a cutting of a single white

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Banksian rose taken from the very first one imported by my ancestor Captain Robert Drummond in the sailing ship "General Elliot". He obtained this from the Botanic Garden in Canton in 1793. This rose is a cutting from the original stock which still grows and flourishes in our garden in Scotland, having come from China—or perhaps even more distantly from Tibet—and sailed across the seas of the world to take root and grow in Scotland. I hope that this white rose of peace will grow and flourish in the garden of peace and, with its sharp, sweet scent, will like the white prayer flags on the railings of Westminster Abbey, blow the wise words of the Dalai Lama into the hearts of the Chinese people.
10.6 p.m.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, we are all shocked and saddened to hear of the tragic and sudden death of the Minister, Derek Fatchett, who was in China only last month and also in Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia and East Timor. I pay tribute to him from these Benches as an immensely hard working and effective member of the Government. His contribution will be very hard to match. Mr. Fatchett was doing the work shared by two Ministers in the previous administration but he was always on top of the job. Only last week he answered a Written Question from my honourable friend Dr. Jenny Tonge, reaffirming that we considered the best way to make progress on the question of Tibet was by direct dialogue rather than through the United Nations. But I believe that he had not yet given a full report on his discussions with the Chinese, and we may hear something of the results of his visit later. We send our deepest sympathy to his widow and family.
With the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama this week, and the scheduled visit of President Jiang Zemin in the autumn, Britain has a chance to help revive the proposals for a dialogue between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese authorities which all British governments have espoused over the years. That has been a theme of many speeches this evening. I also share the hope that has been expressed that we can repair the damage done to Anglo-Chinese relations by the horrendous mistake of NATO in attacking the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade certainly well before President Jiang comes here in, I believe, October.
We have to decide whether to continue with the EU policy of bilateral dialogue with China on human rights or to admit frankly that it has failed and therefore, presumably, confine ourselves to one-way criticism, forfeiting the chance that may arise for personal contacts such as the EU troika ambassadors' visit of May 1998 and the forthcoming repetition of that visit next month. The Dalai Lama himself believes that we should persevere with the dialogue both on the constitutional status of Tibet and the individual human rights violations of the Tibetan peoples. The question is whether any other policy would secure better results. I have not heard of any convincing alternatives.
However, the engagement with the Chinese should not mean that we avoid all public mention of the issues at stake or that we conduct the dialogue in accordance with rules laid down by Beijing. This should be a
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reciprocal process. We know that there are many things with which the Chinese find fault in western society. They have every right to say what they think about us and we have a duty to respond frankly to their criticisms, just as we expect them to respond to ours.
On this reasoning, the Prime Minister should receive the Dalai Lama without having a Church dignitary present to imply that the discussion is concerned solely with matters of faith, as the noble Viscount, Lord Mersey, pointed out. Obviously, one of the important questions in this discussion is whether, and if so how, we can help to promote the negotiations between the Chinese and the Dalai Lama that the Government would like to see. That is a political matter. The Dalai Lama would be giving his opinion as the political leader of the Tibetan people widely respected in Lhasa, as the EU troika saw for themselves when they went there. Meeting him in that capacity would not imply a commitment on the part of the Prime Minister to the independence of Tibet. But it would underline our firm belief that His Holiness must be involved in discussions on the future of Tibet.
Two of the advances said to have been achieved through the policy of constructive dialogue were China's signature of the ICCPR in October 1998 and the visit by the High Commissioner, Mary Robinson, in September last year. But the European Union, in its statement before the Commission of Human Rights on 31st March, recognised the mismatch between,
"the positive signals sent out by the Chinese Government mostly concerning co-operation with the human rights mechanisms of the United Nations".
and what it called the "grave setback" on the ground with a crackdown on political dissidents, detentions and harsh court sentences, to which noble Lords have referred.
In the case of Tibet in particular, two monks from Drepung monastery near Lhasa were arrested under suspicion of attempting to contact the commissioner when she was there, hoping to deliver a letter expressing their concern over the detention of the child chosen by the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, whose case has been referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Mersey. The Panchen Lama is 10 years old and the world's youngest political prisoner. We have repeatedly asked to see him and check on his welfare and have been repeatedly refused, thus raising suspicions as to his welfare and health, or fears that he may have been harmed or even brainwashed by the Chinese. The letter from those monks was also said to have referred to the May 1998 Drapchi prison protests which resulted in the deaths of at least 10 Tibetan prisoners, under the noses of the EU troika delegation who were completely unaware of the incident and did not refer to it in their June report.
Do we have any further information about the tragedy of Drapchi and the continuing ill-treatment of prisoners there, in particular the surviving nuns? What information have we about the health of the nun, Ngawang Sandrol, since she was beaten and, we understand, severely injured? In the further EU

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delegation to Tibet, which is to take place either later this month or early next month, I hope that they will raise these issues which have not yet been resolved.
When these matters are raised with the Chinese, do we give them an aide-memoire of our concerns, and do we ask for detailed replies in writing? Of course we have no means of compelling them to give the information for which we ask if they choose not to do so, but if, whenever we spoke to them, we published these aide-memoires and any replies that we receive from Beijing, readers would be able to form their own impression as to whether China is,
"signing bits of paper but changing nothing". —[Official Report, Commons, 19/3/99: col.1466.]
as my honourable friend Mr Norman. Baker put it in his adjournment debate on 19th March. In two different contributions noble Lords referred to the cynical attitude of the Chinese in signing these instruments with no intention of doing anything about them. Alternatively, is there any real improvement in China's human rights performance, as Ministers imply when they speak of the 12 developments since we embarked on the policy of constructive engagement? An exchange of aide-memoires and replies from both sides would not imply that we laid claim to judge China or vice versa, but that we would provide the materials on which the international community could form a collective judgment. In this way, I believe that Europe could supplement the work of the Commission on Human Rights, and help to ensure that in the medium to longer term the people of Tibet could largely take charge of their own affairs.
10.13 p.m.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Carrick, on initiating this important and interesting debate on Tibet. The outstanding contributions from your Lordships' House have again demonstrated something of which the Minister is already well aware: that the situation in Tibet is rightly of genuine great concern both to this House and to the public in general.
Tibet's history over the past 50 years has been turbulent indeed. From the day that the People's Liberation Army entered Tibet in 1951, and through the years of the Cultural Revolution, deeply damaging and perhaps irreversible inroads have been made into the traditional Tibetan way of life. The Chinese Government's invidious official policy to produce a future Tibet which is predominantly Han Chinese has been described as one of the worst crimes in the second half of this century.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the exile from Tibet of the Dalai Lama following the failure of the Tibetan national uprising in 1959 when Tibetans rebelled against nine years of cruelty by the Communist Chinese occupation. According to one estimate, more than 400,000 Tibetans were killed by Chinese troops, while in the 20 years which followed 150,000 Tibetans were executed and 170,000 more were tortured.
With the end of the Cultural Revolution, there were glimmers of hope for Tibet's future as dialogue was initiated between the Chinese authorities and the Dalai
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Lama, with Peking indicating a willingness to accept the return to Tibet of the Dalai Lama and his followers under certain conditions. But those hopes were dashed when, in 1987, there was a major change in Chinese policy towards Tibet.
The status of Tibet is clearly one of the key issues in any future settlement. Together with the rest of the international community, successive British governments have regarded Tibet as autonomous while recognising the special position of China there. We believe now, as we did in government, that the Tibetans should have a greater say in running their own affairs in Tibet. Although Britain has never recognised the Dalai Lama as the head of the Tibetan government in exile, he has always been acknowledged as a highly respected spiritual leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner and an influential force in Tibet.
The debate this evening, appropriately, takes place during the visit of the Dalai Lama to London. In March, the Minister of State said that he would be met at an appropriate level by members of the Government. Will the Minister say which members of the Government have taken the opportunity to meet the Dalai Lama and what progress was made as a result of the meeting?
The gap between the stated position of the two sides—the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government—would appear to be bridgeable given that no Chinese government for centuries have been prepared to accept the idea of an independent Tibet. There is no reason to believe that that will change in the foreseeable future. The Dalai Lama has shown great courage and wisdom in accepting the impracticality of insisting on independence. Instead in His Holiness's speech in Strasbourg 11 years ago, to which I had the privilege of listening, as did my noble friend Lady Elles, he outlined the concept of "two families under one roof'. He has called for an autonomous Tibet within China, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill.
Chinese spokesmen have responded by stating their willingness to engage in a dialogue with the Dalai Lama if he renounces independence and pro-independence activities. The problem appears to be one of will, especially on the part of Peking. That becomes acutely apparent when the Dalai Lama's response and the Chinese authorities' response to the 40th anniversary of the Dalai Lama's exile are contrasted. The Dalai Lama used the occasion to appeal for an end to what he called the deep distrust between Tibetans and the Chinese and called for face-to-face meetings and sincere dialogue to dissipate that distrust; while the Chinese Communist newspaper, the People's Daily, described the past four decades as a golden chapter in the history of human rights in Tibet and called the Dalai Lama,
"a tool in the hands of western forces",
who has,
"done nothing good for the Tibetan people in his 40 years of fugitive life".
There is consensus in this House that the human rights situation in China as a whole, including Tibet, remains an issue of key importance in our relations with the Chinese authorities. The major and social economic change that China—a geographically vast developing

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nation with more than 1.2 billion people—is undergoing has led and will continue to lead to increased domestic pressures for human rights reforms. It was for that reason that under the previous administration we did not believe in a policy of isolating China during this critical period of change and reform.
Nevertheless, it was one of the critical elements of our engagement with China that we made clear, without a shadow of a doubt, the depth and scale of our concern in respect of fundamental political, ethnic and religious freedoms. We did not shirk from criticising Chinese policies and actions if and when events warranted it, as demonstrated by our willingness to co-sponsor the resolutions which drew attention to China's record on human rights, introduced in 1989 after the Tiananman Square massacre, at the annual United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
However, there was amazement and scepticism among human rights campaigners when in 1998, for the first time in nine years, the United Kingdom Government did not support such a resolution, particularly in view of the Government's much publicised ethical dimension to their foreign policy. When asked why, for the second year in a row, the Government had failed to table or to co-sponsor a resolution on human rights in China at the 55th United Nations Commission for Human Rights, the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, cited the merits of a dialogue-based approach.
The Minister described the results of this policy as,
"limited progress in some areas".
However, the decision of the United States Government to introduce a resolution on China's human rights practices at the most recent UN Commission on Human Rights was based on their belief that,
"the Government of China's human rights record has deteriorated sharply since over the past year".
Can the noble Baroness reconcile what she has described as "limited progress" with what the US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, described as,
"a sharp deterioration in the human rights situation in China"?
Can she say what effect the Government's policy has had on improving the human rights situation in Tibet and in what way it has illustrated that Tibet forms an essential and central part of what we are trying to do on human rights? Finally, can the Minister tell the House to what extent the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade on Friday night has damaged our diplomatic relationship with China, including the extent to which any influence the Government may have brought to bear on the question of Tibet has been impaired?
There is no doubt that the treatment of Tibetans by the Chinese Government in the five decades since the founding of the People's Republic of China has been inconsistent with international standards on human rights, and therefore is unacceptable. There have been moments in the 1950s and the 1980s when it seemed possible that a more enlightened policy from Peking might prevail, but these moments have proved to be short-lived.
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There is also no doubt that the world needs a strong and stable China. The whole House looks forward to the day when China can take her rightful place in the international community and can assume the role of leadership to which China's past entitles her, her future should assure her but her present denies her. China can only play a full part in global affairs when she conforms to the international rules by which the rest of the world has agreed to abide. Until human rights problems are solved and while Tibet is treated as it is, China can never be completely accepted internationally.
A leap of political will and faith is needed on the part of the Chinese leadership. From these Benches I assure the Minister that we will continue to support the Government when they use every opportunity available to enable Peking to make that leap of faith. The preservation of Tibet's unique cultural and religious traditions and the very future of thousands of Tibetans depend upon it.
10.25 p.m.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Carrick, for raising the issue of Tibet, for providing us with an opportunity to discuss it this evening and Her Majesty's Government with an opportunity to set out our views on this matter.
Before I turn to the detailed questions raised by your Lordships, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, sometimes very movingly, about the sad death of my colleague Derek Fatchett. Many Members of the House had the opportunity earlier this afternoon to express their great sadness at his passing and I will convey the words of sympathy from your Lordships this evening, and indeed my heartfelt sadness for a supportive, gifted and much admired colleague.
I should like to begin with some general comments. Obviously we are deeply concerned about reports of human rights violations, not only in Tibet but elsewhere in China and wherever they occur. Your Lordships are aware of this Government's commitment to the promotion of human rights; it is a centrepiece of our foreign as well as our domestic policy.
The noble Earl expressed his understandable worries about the situation in Tibet. I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, that Tibet is rightly an issue of special concern to both the public and Parliament, as my department's weekly postbag of correspondence testifies. It was brought sharply into focus this March, which marked the 40th anniversary of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's exile from Tibet.
The Government share the deep concerns expressed by many in this House, particularly the noble Earl, and are actively addressing them with the Chinese both through our bilateral human rights dialogue and the EU/China human rights dialogue. The situation in Tibet and the plight of individual Tibetans features prominently in both.
But I must remind your Lordships that successive British governments have regarded Tibet as autonomous, while recognising the special position of China there. That continues to be the Government's

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view. Tibet has never been internationally recognised as independent and this Government do not recognise the Dalai Lama's "government-in-exile". However, I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, that we believe that the Tibetans should have a greater say in the running of their own affairs in Tibet, and have urged the Chinese authorities to respect the distinct cultural, religious and ethnic identity of the Tibetans.
We welcome the present visit to the UK of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who is a highly respected spiritual leader. In that capacity my right honourable friend the Prime Minister had a meeting with him this afternoon and my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary looks forward to seeing him during his visit. So to answer the points raised specifically by the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, His Holiness is being seen in that capacity at the highest levels in government. I must make clear that we do not recognise the Dalai Lama as the head of the Tibetan government in exile. It is in his spiritual capacity that he is being received by my right honourable friends.
Her Majesty's Government believe that the best way to achieve a lasting solution to the situation in Tibet is through dialogue between the Chinese Government and the Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, without preconditions. I hope that that is the kind of view expressed by the noble Earl earlier this evening. We will continue to urge China to enter into such a dialogue. My right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary did so with Chinese leaders last year. Only last month my right honourable friend the Minister of State, Mr. Fatchett, did so again when he visited China, as remarked upon by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury.
Through the human rights dialogues with China to which I referred, we have made clear our many deep concerns about Chinese policy in Tibet. The noble Baroness, Lady Strange, said that those include the re-education of monks and nuns in Tibet under which some are reported to be required to renounce their loyalty to the Dalai Lama and the reported restrictions on the display of the Dalai Lama's picture. China's recent campaign to promote atheism in Tibet gives further cause for concern. We believe that the Chinese should see religion as fulfilling a basic human right, not as some sort of threat.
We are also concerned about the impact of Han Chinese migration into Tibet on its special ethnic, cultural and religious characteristics—a point raised by a number of noble Lords in our debate this evening.
We have raised the individual cases of many Tibetans, including the detention in 1995 of the child Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who is recognised by the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of the 11th Panchen Lama. The Government do not hold a view on the child's candidacy as the Panchen Lama, which they believe is a matter for the Tibetans alone to decide. However, he is just a child, and we are very concerned about his welfare. I can assure the noble Viscount, Lord Mersey, that we have repeatedly asked the Chinese to be able to visit him in order to check on his wellbeing. We will continue to raise his case and those of other Tibetans with the Chinese at every opportunity.
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The noble Earl, Lord Carrick, told us of those who have been denied access to Tibet for the purpose of monitoring the human rights situation there. In view of the special nature of the situation in Tibet, a delegation of EU Troika Ambassadors in Beijing made a week-long visit to Tibet in May 1998 in order to assess the situation there. The delegation was led by the British Ambassador, supported by a British Tibetan speaker, which was itself a very important precedent. As a result of that visit, the EU agreed some common guidelines for addressing the issue of Tibet. They are that the EU should urge China to respect human rights in Tibet; that we should encourage China to begin talks with the Dalai Lama; that development assistance for ethnic Tibetans should be targeted in order to help them compete in the economy; and that we should seek to preserve the Tibetan language and culture.
We are also supporting our human rights dialogue with practical co-operation. While in Tibet, the EU Troika Ambassadors visited Pa Nam, the site of a £5.1 million EU rural development project. This will directly benefit indigenous Tibetan people in terms of employment, training and access to land. Britain will contribute about 15 per cent of these costs. The Government are also providing development assistance to Tibet through the Save the Children Fund for projects in the field of education and health.
This year, in view of China's willingness to discuss human rights in a frank and constructive manner and the positive steps taken by China in some areas, EU foreign ministers decided that the EU would not change the position it took at the 1998 United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which meant that the EU did not table or co-sponsor a specific resolution on China at the Commission in Geneva last month. That decision should not be interpreted as in any way reducing our commitment to bring about real improvements in the observance of human rights in China, including Tibet. We made our views on this matter explicit in our national and EU statements in Geneva when we were very critical of China's record, including the situation in Tibet.
We believe that this dialogue-based approach is more likely to bring about positive changes in China than the failed resolutions at the UNHCR.
The noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, and the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, particularly raised the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy, a point also taken up by the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings. I stated to your Lordship's House earlier this afternoon that, in a letter to the Chinese premier, the Prime Minister has personally expressed his profound shock at the bombing and the loss of life that resulted. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is very anxious to speak to his counterpart, and I have spoken to the Chinese chargé today, expressing our shock and dismay at this terrible accident. We deeply regret that the attempt to hit a legitimate military target should have resulted, tragically, in the death of Chinese citizens, and serious damage to the embassy in Belgrade.
We greatly value the improved relationship between Britain and China. We are committed to that relationship and to the continuing strengthening of the ties between

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us. We very much hope that the dialogue which I referred to last Thursday evening in respect of what emerged from the meeting in Bonn of the G8 foreign ministers will go ahead, and my right honourable friend was able to assure members in another place this afternoon that he believed that the German presidency of G8 was still on track for those meetings.
The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, thought that our trading interests might possibly inhibit our being explicit in our criticisms of some of the human rights aspects of China's relationship with Tibet. I must point out to the noble Earl that human rights remain at the centre of our foreign policy; but, at the same time, we do not believe that business partnerships and human rights are mutually exclusive issues because the opening up of China's economy has brought greater freedom of choice to many people in that country. We want to work with China to consolidate and expand development which will bring about real improvements in the lives of ordinary people. By doing so, we believe that this exposes the Chinese to practices, standards and expectations of individuals and governments from other countries. The increasing importance that China attaches to promoting the rule of law throughout China is, in part, because of the need to enhance trade and investment from other countries. Therefore, we do not see these as mutually exclusive issues, but ones which can reinforce each other.
The noble Earl, Lord Carrick, raised questions about aid. I spoke earlier about the EU project. The DfID presently supports projects for Tibetan communities both inside the area referred to as the "Tibetan autonomous region", and elsewhere. That aid amounts to some £2.2 million.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, raised questions about the Drapchi prison protests. The EU Troika Ambassadors did not witness any demonstrations or
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disturbances at the prison during their visit in May of last year. However, strong concerns have been expressed to the Chinese. We are very concerned about the well-being of Ngawang Sangdrol, and others, imprisoned in Tibet. Her name is on a list of individual cases which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister raised with Chinese leaders in October of last year, and on the EU list of individual cases which was presented to the Chinese authorities on 7th May 1999.
I believe that recent developments in China may have been disappointing, but we really did not expect the dialogue to bring significant, short-term political change. The dialogue has produced some results. Indeed, if the noble Baroness wishes me to do so, I can write to her about the results that we believe have been secured. However, dialogue is something which develops as time goes on. While we cannot expect those changes overnight, we believe that there have been significant improvements upon which we will wish to work. We believe that we must work with China to encourage it to meet the international human rights standards that we expect, and we will continue to do so. We will do so privately and publicly, including, where appropriate, at the UN. We will continue to work to achieve progress through constructive dialogue with the authorities in China and through supporting programmes of practical co-operation, such as legal and judicial training. As argued by the noble Lord. Lord Weatherill, in his very impressive and, if I may say so, typically statesman-like intervention, we will continue to urge the Chinese authorities and the Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, to enter into dialogue, without pre-conditions, at the earliest possible opportunity to resolve this outstanding issue.
House adjourned at twenty-two minutes before eleven o'clock.