Lords Sitting of 26 May 1999

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Hereford.
Viscount Rothermere Viscount Rothermere—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.
The Earl of Cromer The Earl of Cromer—Took the Oath.

Royal Assent
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Irvine of Lairg): My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Scottish Enterprise Act,

Rating (Valuation) Act,

Northern Ireland (Location of Victims' Remains) Act.

Organophosphates: Licensing Policy
The Countess of Mar The Countess of Mar asked Her Majesty's Government:
What co-operation there is between the Veterinary Medicines Directorate and the Pesticides Safety Directorate on licensing policies.
Lord Carter: My Lords, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) and the Pesticides Safety Directorate (PSD) regularly keep one another informed and consult where appropriate on policy issues and safety matters. Both these government agencies are represented on the official group on OPs. This high-level group of officials was set up by the Government in 1997 with the primary aim of ensuring effective co-ordination among government departments and agencies.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. It would seem that what he says is not entirely what is carried out. Is he aware that when the OP information network became aware that the Pesticides Safety Directorate was looking at particular groups of OPs, it asked whether the Veterinary Medicines Directorate's evidence on diazinon, which is a major constituent of organophosphate sheep dips, cat and dog flea collars and various pesticides used in domestic situations, could be made available and was told that because of commercial confidentiality and Section 118 of the Medicines Act no information held by the VMD could he passed to the PSD? Does not the noble Lord think it extraordinary that in these days of joined-up government, and supposedly joined-up
916
thinking, these two organisations, whose scientific committees are looking at the same organophosphate, cannot talk to each other?
Lord Carter: My Lords, the issue of providing data for the PSD on diazinon did not arise because the pesticide approval holder chose not to support the products in question. The bulk of data on the safety of diazinon held by the VMD is from published sources and there would have been no difficulty in providing it to the PSD. In the event that the PSD had asked for data provided to the VMD on a confidential basis and by a company, which is controlled by Section 118 of the Medicines Act, it would still have been provided if there were a safety concern relating to human health which the data would assist in resolving. As I said, there are regular exchanges of views between the VMD and the PSD on particular issues. Each agency routinely copies to the other reports of meetings and information on safety evaluation.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, how will the situation be affected by the new transparency under the access to information Bill?
Lord Carter: My Lords, it is already in a sense transparent. The official group on OPs meets regularly. All its reports are published; indeed, its latest report is in the Library. In respect of this matter, there was no need for a freedom of information agenda because the information was already in the public domain. I repeat that if human safety is involved, the information is made available as a matter of course, despite the requirements of the Medicines Act.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will not think me in any way offensive when I ask whether he agrees that his original Answer was foggy in the extreme, had the fingerprints of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food all over it, and therefore would stand a great deal of improvement?
Lord Carter: My Lords, I do not find the noble Lord in the least offensive. What other noble Lords think, I do not know! The situation is as I explained it. It was not foggy; it was quite clear. The product, diazinon, was removed from the approved list by the PSD because the manufacturer had chosen not to support the application. The market for the product was small. It was used for the making of compost and in mushroom production. Obviously, because of the size of the market the manufacturer decided that it was not worth the cost of seeking approval.
The use of diazinon in a sheep dip is completely different and is rigorously controlled. Yes, MAFF drafted the Answer. I read it and approved it.
Lord Richard: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that his first Answer to the Question was not in the least foggy? It is the only one I understood!
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, now follow that one! The noble Lord said that there was full

917
communication between the two organisations. Could he explain why it was that the OP information network was therefore misinformed? Concern about the matter was expressed to me some 18 months ago and I was waiting for the results of the inquiry before I raised it. Could the noble Lord say when the OP group will report again? It published one report late last year, but will it report again soon?
Lord Carter: My Lords, I am not sure of the date of the issue of the next report. The departments involved in that group are the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food; the Department of Health; the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; the Ministry of Defence; the Health and Safety Executive; the Veterinary Medicines Directorate; the Pesticides Safety Directorate; the Medicines Control Agency and the territorial departments. That is an excellent example of joined-up government.

International Sport: Television Coverage
2.44 p.m.
Lord Barnett Lord Barnett asked Her Majesty's Government:
What plans they have to ensure that major international sports can be seen on television by all those who have paid a licence fee.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, a number of major sports events are included on the list maintained under Part IV of the Broadcasting Act 1996. Television coverage of listed events must be offered to the free-to-air channels which are available to all licence-fee payers. The list was reviewed and extended last year. The significance of sports events changes over time and the broadcasting market is evolving rapidly. So the Government will continue to monitor the need for another review.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that reply, which is much appreciated. How would he answer a question put to me by a personal friend? He said that he fought in the war for his country for six years. Although there has been an improvement since last year, he now finds, despite paying the TV licence fee, that there are many games in which the team of his country plays but which he is not able to see. Is the real answer a matter of money; namely, that the Group B events, which are classed as secondary events, are sometimes not available to terrestrial TV and therefore not available to my friend?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not know in which sports my noble friend's friend is interested. In almost every sport, the amount of free-to-air universal coverage of sport is, as my noble friend acknowledges, increasing. On free-to-air universally available television, there were eight hours of sport per day in 1998 compared with seven hours in 1997. Some people may think that that is excessive, rather than the other way round.
918
It is true that the group B secondary events may have exclusive live coverage on subscription channels provided that adequate arrangements are made for delayed coverage or highlights on free-to-air terrestrial channels. Many people prefer highlights or delayed coverage to live coverage which may sometimes be in the middle of the night.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the list works well for the rights of television viewers? But will he agree also that the very fact that sports bodies are on the list amounts to a diminution of their rights which may lead to a financial penalty if they are not able to attract the largest amount of money available? Does he agree further that to extend the list would affect sports which have been able to benefit from the vast royalties which they have been able to collect?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I hope I heard the noble Viscount right. I hope he referred to the "rights of television viewers" rather than the "right sort of television viewers" which is what I first thought he said. Yes, there is a trade-off between the amount of money available for the sports themselves from selling their broadcasting rights and the opportunities for viewers who do not have access to subscription channels to see them. But even so, the BBC, whose coverage is always free-to-air, spends 10 per cent of its licence fee revenue—£20 million—per year on the rights to sports coverage. That is a great deal of money.
Viscount Falkland: My Lords, while we may all agree with the sentiments behind the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, is not the reality that for many years the major public service broadcaster in this country—and the same situation prevailed in other countries—had a virtual monopoly and sports bodies were almost having to pay to be on television? The boot is now on the other foot and so we are all to blame—broadcasters and Parliament—for not having the foresight to see that that situation would arise. It will be extremely difficult to return to a position of equity in relation to sports coverage provided by public service broadcasters.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am not sure that I agree that we are to blame for what is an almost inevitable development, as the noble Viscount acknowledges. It is still the case that the BBC covers 50 sports. In addition to the listed events which it covers, it covers in football the World Cup and the European championships, the Olympic Games, the Grand National, in golf the Open. There is a tremendous amount of free-to-air terrestrial coverage of sport in this country. Clearly people want it and that is why it is so popular.
Lord Hoyle: My Lords, is not my noble friend concerned that the BBC recently lost the right to show Test match cricket? Also, it is now almost impossible to see live football on BBC. Matters will be worse even for those who have gone over to cable TV because

919
pay-as-you-view is now coming in. In future, people will have to pay not only for a licence, but also a fee to Sky for many of the most important TV sporting events.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, my noble friend referred to cricket. In the cricket World Cup, which is taking place at the moment, three out of the four England matches are on BBC, three out of the four Scotland matches are on BBC as is one of the two semi-finals and the BBC also has a share in the broadcasting of the final. That is quite a lot of coverage. When my noble friend talks about other sports, I have to remind him that this is the first occasion on which both Rugby Union and Rugby League have been among the listed events.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, perhaps I can make a plea for the noble Lord to put forward a case for sport for the disabled. When the basketball World Cup for the disabled was being played, there was absolutely no coverage at all. It is extremely good viewing and the players are very brave people. Will the noble Lord put forward a case for at least some disabled sports to be televised in the future?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a persuasive case, with which I am happy to agree. It is, of course, a matter for the broadcasters to decide what they put on air, but I am sure they will listen to what the noble Baroness says.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton: My Lords, in the list of sports outlined by my noble friend there seemed to be very little, if any, coverage of women's sports. Are the Government making representations to ensure that women's sports feature on television?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have the greatest sympathy with what my noble friend says, as I had with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington. One of the features of popular spectator sports is that most of them are for men. With the exception of athletics, tennis and some other sports, it is difficult to find the same enthusiasm for sports played by women. I find that utterly deplorable and would like to see far more sport in which women participate on television.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, is the Minister aware that one way in which television viewers can defend their interests is by not subscribing to Sky TV?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, that is a personal decision for the noble Lord.
Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, I understood my noble friend to say how much money was being spent by the BBC in order to secure sport on television. Can he tell the House how that compares with the amount paid by Sky and ITV?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, offhand I cannot. I am not even sure that the figures are available. If they are I shall certainly write to my noble friend.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is the Minister aware that a problem arises when there is a great deal of international cricket taking place and simultaneously a great deal of interesting football? It would be much better, as digital television develops, for those of us who are keen on cricket to be able to watch as much cricket as possible all the time and not have our viewing disturbed by football, which does not interest us quite so much. Therefore, will the noble Lord prevail upon the broadcasting authorities to develop digital television in a specialised sporting way?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not feel that I should intervene in a debate on preferences for individual sports. I see the noble Lord, Lord Cowdrey of Tonbridge, is amused by the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Renton. In fact there has been a huge amount of coverage recently of sporting events; for example, European Champions' League football, Formula One, the US Masters golf, the Davis Cup, as well as all the listed events. I seem to remember that both last summer and the summer before the media were talking as though it were an entire summer of sport. If that is to be the case, there has to be some sort of balance between cricket and other sports. Those who, like me, prefer music on Radio 3 have been offended to find it supplanted by cricket.
Lord Rowallan: My Lords, I was a little concerned to hear that the majority of the sports mentioned by the Minister are on ITV, which is funded by advertising, rather than the BBC. Is the Minister aware that a sport in which I am particularly interested—equestrianism—is very much female oriented, I am glad to say? Will the Minister therefore encourage more equestrian sports in which we are world leaders?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the original Question referred to sports being seen on television by all those who paid a licence fee. That applies equally to ITV as to the BBC and I do not believe there is any distinction in availability between them. The fact that one is supported by advertising does not affect the situation very much. I am glad to add equestrianism to the list of sports advocated so powerfully by my noble friend Lady Gould of Potternewton.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, how do the Government decide whether or not a sport is a major sport? Are they not likely to offend many people just to please a few?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, with great difficulty. The announcement of the new listed events in June of last year was achieved only after many months of negotiation between sports bodies and broadcasting organisations and having taken account of the substantial public debate which took place on the subject. There is no one good answer to listing events

921
for free-to-air terrestrial television. It will always be a compromise and some people will always be dissatisfied.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, is it not the case that many of our fellow citizens will only be able to watch tonight's important game in which Manchester United will win the European Cup because sensitive legislation interfered with market forces? Should we not rejoice, therefore, that the Government are keeping this developing situation under very close review?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I shall not be drawn into speculation about anything that may be happening this evening, particularly as I shall be on duty at this Dispatch Box throughout the period when it takes place—to my great relief, as my noble friend Lady Hollis reminds me.
There is and always has been a case for intervention by the Government in the interests of those who are not able, for many reasons, to have access to any television other than free-to-air terrestrial television.

Incapacity Benefit
2.58 p.m.
Lord Morris of Manchester Lord Morris of Manchester asked Her Majesty's Government:
What recent representations they have had about their proposal to change the rules of entitlement to incapacity benefit, and what action they are taking.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Baroness Hollis of Heigham): My Lords, the Government received a number of representations about the proposals to restore incapacity benefit to its proper role as a benefit for people who have had to cease work because of illness or disability and to extend it to those severely disabled young people who have never been able to work. We responded positively to a number of points made to us and will continue to listen to representations.
Lord Morris of Manchester: My Lords, my noble friend is aware that my interest in this benefit derives from much involvement in creating it. Did not the Benefit Integrity Project, now abandoned after finding not one case of proven fraud, explode the myth that disabled people are benefit cheats as a crude and cruel insult? Is not the truth that £5 billion to £6 billion goes unclaimed in disability living allowance alone? When will improving the take-up of disability benefits be prioritised? And are Ministers publicising the Government Actuary's highly expert advice to them that, due to relatively low benefits here:
"future costs of social security in the UK look much more manageable than in other European countries"?
922
Would it not be wise now to think more deeply, to distinguish between reform and retreat, and to do so in consultation, not conflict, with disabled people?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I entirely agree with most of what my noble friend said. Like others in your Lordships' House, he has a very long experience of disability issues. Indeed, he has devoted his life to disability issues. He was obviously responsible for the major stepping stone of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. My noble friend is absolutely right to say that what BIP showed was, as we have always said, that disabled people do not seek to cheat the system. Although a handful of people were referred for prosecution, no established cases of fraud have been determined.
BIP showed that there was something like a 15 per cent level of error—for the most part overpayment—because people became better, which is good. Alas, sometimes they became worse, and their benefit did not always adjust to reflect what was happening to them. So it is right and proper to check entitlement. But, as my noble friend said, we also have the problem that within DLA and attendance allowance something like 50 per cent of those who are entitled to the benefit are not claiming. We are certainly working with the disability organisations, as my noble friend suggests, to seek to ensure that those who are entitled to the benefit do claim it.
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, is it not the case that, under the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill, those with incomes of over £10,000 per annum will lose their incapacity benefit, while the Tax Credits Bill will make payments to those with incomes of over £25,000 per annum with no means test? Is that not absurdly inconsistent?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I am not sure that I would agree with the noble Lord's description of either of those Bills. First, in terms of the proposals for incapacity benefit, if, for example, an individual was on long-term incapacity benefit and had dependent children and, therefore, a dependent partner, that person would have to have an income of nearly £16,000 a year through an occupational pension before losing any entitlement to the benefit.
Secondly, as regards the comparison with DPTC and the noble Lord's suggestion that someone would not lose money until he was earning £25,000 a year with no means test, I should point out that DPTC has a double test. I refer to the disabled persons' tax credit which will be replacing the disability working allowance from October. It has a double test, both of disability and of low income. Therefore, there is indeed a means test. It is an income-related benefit and only where there are children and the disabled person is claiming a children's tax credit for them, together with child care allowance, will it take people up into the kind of figures mentioned by the noble Lord. We believe that these changes are right and proper. We believe that the changes in the working families' tax credit are right and proper.

923
They do what disabled people ask us to do; namely, to encourage and help them to return to work. I am sure that that is what your Lordships would wish.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware that my postbag and my many contacts with disabled people clearly indicate to me that there is alarm, anger and fear about the Government's proposals on incapacity benefits? I have with me today 21 letters which came in just one post this morning. Every single one of them indicates passionate opposition to the Government's proposals. Will Ministers accept that it is totally unacceptable to break a moral contract between the Government and people who have paid their national insurance contributions in good faith? Is it not also unacceptable to begin to means test disabled people who have incomes as low as £5,000 a year?
Does my noble friend agree that what is happening is as follows? This Government are a generous government, but they are being widely perceived as a mean government because of these two proposals. Surely the only way to stop this nonsense is for the Government to withdraw them and begin again.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, my noble friend referred to "alarm, anger and fear". I should point out to him that, as he knows—and, indeed, as noble Lords know—these proposals will not affect any existing claimants. Any existing holders of these benefits will be unaffected by the proposals.
My noble friend also referred to a moral contract. Yes, that is right. However, incapacity benefit is presently designed to be an earnings replacement for someone who becomes disabled in work. It was meant to replace the wages. However, over the past 20 years, it has become an unemployment benefit for many people. In fact, four in 10 of those who receive IB have been previously unemployed. Alternatively, it has become a pension top-up for those taking early retirement. We are saying that the contributory contract—the moral contract—to which my noble friend referred is the contract which establishes the entitlement to benefit, based on recent work. That is what our Bill will do.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, while reform is necessary, would not the way forward for this benefit be an efficient and effective change or adjustment to the gateway, rather than means testing being introduced in this case? Did the Government listen carefully to those disability organisations which recently felt obliged to resign from the Government's advisory group; or did they listen to the former Minister for welfare reform, Mr. Frank Field?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, we certainly listened to the Disability Benefits Forum. I was the Minister who was responsible at the time for establishing it. We found its advice, views and information to be invaluable, and continue to do so. Although the forum has wound up, and was due to do so at any rate during the month of May, we are continuing the working parties with the forum. We value that expertise.
924
The noble Lord also asked why we are not concentrating on gateways rather than income. We are looking at gateways. That is why we shall also propose in the Bill a personal capacity test to ensure that disabled people who wish to return to work are helped to do so by the adviser. The noble Lord is absolutely right to suggest that we do that, and we shall be doing so as a way of helping disabled people back to work.
However, there is a point about incomes. Disability benefits were introduced immediately after the Second World War. They were then revised in 1971 by way of the invalidity benefit and ultimately replaced by incapacity benefit. When they were introduced very few people had occupational pensions. Those benefits were going to people who were injured or who became disabled at work. Now something like 80 per cent of men and 70 per cent of women have occupational pensions. Our proposals will not affect four people in five who will become eligible for an incapacity benefit on financial grounds. But, of that one-fifth, half have occupational pensions which take them into the top 40 per cent of the earnings hand. Therefore, is it reasonable that one should be paying quite high pensions to people who already have high pensions, while other disability needs are not being met?
Lord Addington: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the arguments and the discussions that we are having today point to the fact that people feel that, at the very least, we are moving away from an entitlement derived from an insurance-based system towards a means-tested system? Further, does the Minister agree that that means that the Government have failed to communicate, if that is not indeed their intention?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I take any criticism about communication; indeed, that may well be right. However, let us take, for example, the case of someone in their early 20s who works for six months only and then is unemployed for 20 years. He develops stress and seeks incapacity benefit on the grounds of a moral contract. Is that reasonable? I think not.
Baroness Thornton: My Lords, as my noble friend the Minister mentioned them once or twice in her remarks, can she tell us what the implications of the Government's reform will be for disabled children?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, one of the groups of people for which the Government are most anxious to strengthen support is indeed that comprising disabled children. As noble Lords may well know, we are not only improving disability living allowance and bringing it down for younger children; we are not only ensuring that young people who have never had the opportunity to work get higher rates of benefit—indeed, in future, they will now receive another £30 a week—but, also, as of about a month ago, I am delighted to report that my honourable friend the Paymaster General announced that disabled children in low-earning families, which presently receive a tax credit of £15 a week or £20 a week, will receive double that premium in future if they are disabled. So another £25 million

925
will go to disabled children from low-earning families. We think it is right to support children, particularly children from poor and vulnerable families. We are delighted to do that.

Business
Lord Carter: My Lords, after the first debate today my noble friend Lord Gilbert will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on Kosovo.

Greater London Authority Bill
3.9 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Whitty I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the Greater London Authority Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:

Clauses 1 and 2,

Schedule 1,

Clauses 3 and 4,

Schedule 2,

Clauses 5 to 17,

Schedule 3,

Clauses 18 to 30,

Schedule 4,

Clauses 31 to 72,

Schedule 5,

Clauses 73 to 83,

Schedule 6,

Clauses 84 to 118,

Schedule 7,

Clauses 119 to 133,

Schedule 8,

Clauses 134 to 136,

Schedule 9,

Clauses 137 to 176,

Schedules 10 and 11,

Clauses 177 to 194,

Schedule 12,

Clauses 195 to 197,

Schedule 13,

Clauses 198 and 199,

Schedule 14,

Clauses 200 to 202,

Schedule 15,

Clause 203,

Schedule 16,

Clause 204,

Schedule 17,

Clauses 205 to 228,

Schedule 18,

Clause 229,

Schedule 19,

Clauses 230 to 242,

Schedule 20,

926

Clause 243,

Schedule 21,

Clauses 244 to 257,

Schedule 22,

Clause 258,

Schedules 23 and 24,

Clauses 259 to 300,

Schedule 25,

Clauses 301 to 320,

Schedule 26,

Clauses 321 to 328,

Schedule 27,

Clauses 329 and 330. —(Lord Carter.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Employment Relations Bill
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Simon of Highbury I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:

Clause 1,

Schedule 1,

Clause 2,

Schedule 2,

Clauses 3 and 4,

Schedule 3,

Clauses 5 to 9,

Schedule 4,

Clauses 10 to 14,

Schedule 5,

Clauses 15 to 25,

Schedule 6,

Clauses 26 and 27,

Schedule 7,

Clauses 28 to 35,

Schedule 8,

Clauses 36 to 38. —(Lord McIntosh of Haringey.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Middle East
3.10 p.m.
Lord Kennet Lord Kennet rose to call attention to the developments in the greater Middle East; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, our attention has concentrated for the past couple of months on the north-western edge of what one can usefully think of as the greater Middle East. For this reason, all of us—media, people and Parliament—have been losing the bigger picture. That is why I put down this Motion for discussion today on which I speak with some trepidation in the usual knowledge that in this House there are people present who know a great deal more about it than I do.
In the greater Middle East we see today's policies interacting with hugely powerful historical forces, several world religions among them, and the detritus of several empires; with the facts of geography—oil, growing water shortages; with an accumulation of weapons, including weapons of mass destruction, for which we ourselves are responsible; and with the vast and perennial fabric of lies, ranging from "forgivable" exaggerations to carefully crafted and many-layered misinformation uttered by governments.
The Middle East is where monotheism was—if you ignore the Pharaoh Akhnaton—first invented, and then twice more re-invented, and whence it was exported. A distinguishing mark of monotheism was, and often still is, intolerance, and the intolerance was exported too. The imperial polytheism of the West, Rome, drove the Jews out of their own land of Palestine. Islam then invaded and conquered not only the Levant and Arabia but north Africa, Sicily and southern Italy, Spain, and France as far as Tours. Roman Christendom responded, driving Islam out of Europe, and with the Crusades carried the war with pillage and dominion into the Levant, sacking Orthodox Christian Constantinople on the way.
Then the newly Moslemised Turkic peoples burst out of central Asia and conquered and sacked Constantinople, and Christianity split again. Turkey was the long-term gainer, settling and ruling the whole of south east Europe. No people which was ever in the Balkans does not have descendants there now. We think of the inherited hatreds of Ireland. In the Balkans, the history is longer. There are more peoples, and more religions. We have a government chief scientist and a government medical adviser. I think it is time we had a government historian, and perhaps also a government geographer, if only to remind Ministers where the North Atlantic occurs—not on the slopes of the Caucasus, not in central Asia where, in the name of NATO, the US is now sounding out the possibilities.
So much for the setting. In the heart of the Middle East we have another war still pounding along, the exploitation of superior technology in the almost nightly bombing and strafing of Iraq by two Protestant Christian powers from the further edge of the western world, against the judgment of the rest of the world. Here in Iraq we see, added to unresolved religious torments, the effects of our becoming—above all the United States becoming—addicted to the oil long hidden and unvalued beneath Moslem sand and sea. Thus a practical, bread-and-butter interest has joined the palaeo-endemic religious and imperial rivalries, the forceful incursions of foreign would-be exploiters of indigenous resources. The interest is an American one; their consumption of oil per head is many times ours. They even contemplate the break-up of Iraq, which they appear to be planning in London.
Now we, the West, are trying to get our hands on another oil province, the Caspian. Of all things, we—or rather the United States—are trying to use our good old defensive North Atlantic Treaty to do so. The ex-Soviet republics of Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and even Kyrgystan, are all being given the once over and the glad eye, garnished with plenteous
928
carrots, by a succession of American officials and generals. Sometimes it is the government being courted, sometimes the opposition. All have plans of their own. They want their own oil wealth, and, if they can, control of the pipelines through which their neighbours' oil wealth is exported.
In all this, the Americans give the impression that they are out to "do down" the Russians. And that is how the Russians see it. How could they not? These are destabilisations which can only seem directly engineered to furnish reasons for a later NATO presence. Azerbaijan is asking for a NATO base and accusing Armenia of obtaining missiles from China—today's fashionable demon in the US.
The whole Moslem world is watching Kosovo: the western Christians of NATO protecting Albanian Moslems against the eastern Christians of Serbia, and vowing to return them to their homes. No wonder Ariel Sharon deplored what he saw. Might NATO riot think to return the Palestinians from the refugee camps to the homes from which they have been expelled? Israeli governments—we have to face this fact—have behaved precisely like the "rogue states" we claim to deplore: weapons of mass destruction, unlawful occupation of neighbours' territory; ill treatment of minorities, including "ethnic cleansing", and the removal of personal documents, state terrorism abroad, torture licensed by the supreme court, and multiple breaches of international law and conventions.
We all know that these things have been excused because there is no provision in US law or constitution to protect the Congress from lobbyists whose prepotency is hard for us in Europe to credit. Along with the tobacco lobby and the guns and arms lobbies, the Jewish lobby is hugely powerful, as President Bush discovered when he tried to stand up to it. Thus it is good news indeed today—if it is true—that AIPAC has decided to drop its opposition to a Palestinian state. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister can give us some reliable news on that.
It is quite understandable that Israel should have decided to develop nuclear weapons. Milosevic must be wishing he had some, and others will read the lesson. Of course Israel's neighbours study how to balance Israel's nuclear weapons and establish "stable deterrence." How could they not? Proliferation may be deplorable in general, but in detail, as we ourselves found in 1945 and still believe, it may be a highly responsible national reaction to the threats others' nuclear weapons pose. That is not a mystery. But if we—the international community—want to curb proliferation in the Middle East we must deal with Israel's nuclear weapons, or we must get Israel to deal with her own nuclear weapons, and soon.
Everything will depend in this, as in general relations between Jews and Arabs, on Mr. Barak. On his election he used the words,
"not the victory of One Israel as a movement, but of One. Israel as an idea".
In those words there is much hope. But he also said:
"We will move quickly towards separation from the Palestinians: a united Jerusalem under our sovereignty. Jerusalem as the capital of Israel for ever, period: under no circumstances will we return to

929
the 1967 borders. No foreign army west of the Jordan River, and most of the settlers in Judea and Samaria will live in settlement blocks under our sovereignty".
Government maps have been showing plain "apartheid" plans: great bypass roads linking settlements and industrial estates, all on confiscated lands. The Palestinian state is to be a platter of little Bantustans.
Should not we, Europe, be taking an altogether more definite line towards those aspects of Israeli policy which cannot succeed? The European Union could do a great deal more, and, in the light of United States incapacity in the run-up to presidential and other elections, I am sure we should.
I come now to something that is a mystery. Why do Her Majesty's Government claim to know nothing about Israel's nuclear weapons? The Middle East disarmament body set up after Madrid died, and more recently the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference nearly came apart, with the effective refusal of the US to make any effort to deal with Israel's nuclear weapons. Her Majesty's Government must be alone in doubting their existence. Here are double standards with a vengeance.
Today the Arab world sees us bombing Iraq for doing what we have not objected to Israel's doing. As to Iran. the United States stopped short only at an actual attack to prevent its developing a lawful, NPT-guaranteed, International Atomic Energy Agency-certified civil nuclear programme.
In all of this we come upon the hand-washing of our Government. Her Majesty's Government have no clear peer-reviewed evidence of the damage we are, by our sanctions, allowing Saddam Hussein to inflict on a generation of Iraqi children. "Peer review" is the language of peaceful laboratories. Who ever heard of a peer review of the effects of bombing during an armed conflict? Was there peer review of the evidence concerning the A1 Shifa factory in Khartoum?
What is the news of the continuing low-level war in Iraq? How often have American British forces now flown? The doctrine under which these dubiously lawful attacks go on and on is the one recently introduced to the world by NATO: "averting overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe". Her Majesty's Government claim that the Gulf Arabs are not against our bombing Iraq. They have regularly stated that they are, most recently on 18th May, when the Arab League called on the US and the UK to stop all military operations.
Our Government claim also not to know that UNSCOM was penetrated by US and Israeli intelligence. The damage to international verification as an institution everywhere has been done. How can we deal with that inconvenient fact if we deny its existence? And the Government claimed not to know about the powerfully attractive US enticements offered to the KLA at Rambouillet. So much that is true thus becomes undiscussable, and that is a loss. For the future, we must try to achieve greater truth-telling all round. I mean truth-telling as opposed to silence, or ignorance, which must sometimes be faked.
Much will depend on Mr. Barak, though his first remarks were a mixture of good and bad: much peace, but more hard-nosed determination to keep the
930
Palestinians in their place. The very next day, incidentally, the army was back in Har Homa, and was elsewhere destroying some rain-catching reservoirs that the Palestinians were building without planning permission against the current drought. But there is good news from the United States in that apparently AIPAC is now reconciled to a Palestinian state.
Even more will depend on the United States, which should learn, and we may pray will learn, to have one single foreign policy, and that a good one. And much will fall on us, too, as usual, because we can speak to the United States without interpreters.
My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.24 p.m.
Lord Quinton: My Lords, I am grateful, as I am sure we all are, or should be, to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for raising this subject for debate. It seems to me a particularly apt moment for it, because we seem to see the beginnings of what might be called a changing of the guard in the Middle East.
First, there was the death, after 44 years of considerable ups and downs, of King Hussein. The end of his reign showed Jordan in a comparatively "up" position as compared with the state it had been in quite often during his tenure of the kingship. Anyone who travels from Jordan to Syria sees the merits of the Jordanian Government's way of going about things, as contrasted with the rigid police state of President Assad.
Then just recently there was the replacement of Mr. Netanyahu by Mr. Barak, which was alluded to by the noble Lord. That was the result, of course, of a free, open, fair, democratic election, a unique institutional occurrence in the Middle East, not found in any other part of that difficult area of the world. This is obviously some ground for optimism, as the noble Lord suggested, though I am not sure that my optimism would be couched in quite the same terms.
It seems to me that Mr. Netanyahu had a problem. only in a slightly different form, that he shared with many other Middle Eastern rulers. He was in some way under pressure from—in fact, he was seriously beholden to—religious fanatics, fundamentalists. His hold on power depended on the support of ultra-Orthodox parties in the Knesset. It may be that he was not anyway very willing to be non-provocative, but he was encouraged to be more than usually provocative by the fact of that dependence.
Mr. Barak has no such dependence, and we may hope that on the whole and in the long run he will prove to be less provocative, to be a little more emollient, to the Arab population within Israel and surrounding it.
But there are two other people whom we ought to take into account: the President of Syria and the President of Egypt. These, curiously enough when one reflects on what they both look like, are the same age: they are both 71. That is quite a normal age for the handing on of power to a successor, even if natural causes do not bring it about so that a successor has to be found in a hurry.
President Assad does not look very strong. It was alleged some time ago that he was seriously ill, and his plans for his succession by his son were defeated by the

931
death of that son. Exactly what will happen in Syria when he goes is a puzzle. It could be a disturbing one. At the moment he seems to be making relatively pacific noises in the direction of the new government of Israel.
In the case of Egypt, the figure of President Mubarak is of course enormously robust. He looks like nothing so much as a back-row rugby forward at the summit of his career. I rather wondered whether he might be induced to replace the hapless Dallaglio on the England team. In other words, he does not look like fading away from physical causes. He would appear to be in greater danger from a possible fundamentalist assassin than President Assad would. Those, at any rate, would seem to be the most likely, but by no means certain in that part of the world or perhaps anywhere else, changes that will occur there.
Fundamentalism is a menace all over the Middle East, but it is also a menace in Israel, where the ultra-Orthodox refuse to perform military service, do not pay taxes and, I think I am right in supposing, do not really recognise the legitimacy of the state of Israel—that is, they are anti-Zionist. This huge lump of people, afforced by excited and zealous students from the United States, are a serious danger. They led Prime Minister Netanyahu into all kinds of provocative action. It is to be hoped that the Jewish communities of the United States—the main ones to pick up the bill—and also of this country will exercise some pressure towards rendering Israeli policy towards Arabs more emollient. It is a serious problem. The decision of the people of Israel in the recent election gives grounds for reasonable hope in this field.
My time is nearly up but I wish to make one final point. In former Yugoslavia we see NATO efforts—not perhaps very successful ones—being made to protect Moslem populations from the brutal atrocities of that militant and zealous orthodox Christian, President Milosevic. I have not noticed, on the part of the Moslem communities of the rest of the world, any great enthusiasm for that. There has been not a squeak of moral support or a parcel of material support for what, if Moslem cohesion and sense of fraternity mean anything, must surely appeal to them. They do not do so. One wonders whether their indurated anti-Westernism is not so great that it applies even to the Moslems of former Yugoslavia, because they are, after all, Western.
3.31 p.m.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Quinton, in congratulating my noble friend Lord Kennet both on securing the debate and on his comprehensive and succinct review of the problems of the Middle East. Fifteen minutes is a brief time to offer solutions to so many long standing problems; five minutes, of course, is even briefer. I propose to confine myself to one topic. Like the noble Lord, Lord Quinton, I believe that the new Government of Israel, pledged to renewing the peace process, which I believe is urgently desired by the vast majority of the peoples of the Middle East, have brought renewed hope where previously there were so many repeated disappointments.
932
How, then, can we help? Not, I believe, by judgmental strictures and not by seeking to dictate to the parties the terms of the final peace accord. It is they who have everything to gain from a peaceful future. It is each of them who must make concessions if there is to be a meeting of minds. The whole purpose of entering into negotiations is frustrated if anyone seeks to prescribe in advance what the outcome should be. I believe that that applies to the parties, too, and that if, as we can now reasonably hope, they bring the interim process to an early conclusion, neither side should impose constraints on the final negotiations before they begin.
It will not be easy. The new government clearly appreciate that any agreement must be one which the people of Israel in general, and the Jewish part of the population in particular, are prepared to accept. That is part of the price for democracy. The other part we have already seen. In order to secure election, they have had to indicate something of what they have in mind as a bottom line. A democratic government have, perforce, to play much of their hand with their cards facing upwards. But the good news is that each side knows the value of peace, for security, for economic prosperity and for the quality of life.
I share with my noble friend Lord Kennet the hope that Israel will in time feel able to renounce its nuclear capability. He and I have long looked forward to a time when there will be an end to nuclear proliferation and when the world may turn to general nuclear disarmament. But we need to be realistic and begin the journey from where we are. At the moment there are those whom Israel is justified in perceiving as its potential enemies, with populations far larger than its own. Unless and until it can be satisfied that none of them seeks to possess weapons of mass destruction, it would be fanciful to suggest that Israel should renounce the weapons which it already has. In this situation, peace must precede disarmament. While Syria and Iraq lend support to Hezbollah rocket launchers, the confidence building process which might lead to peace is bound to be frustrated.
I believe that Europe can encourage the process by the role which the EU is playing with its very substantial contribution to the development of the Palestinian territories. Seven hundred million ecus is a fair amount of money to put where your mouth is. It is to be hoped that the new government will show greater enthusiasm for the opportunities of peaceful co-operation which those resources offer. The Britech Scheme shows how much Britain and Israel can contribute to each other's prosperity.
History dealt a rough hand to both sides in the Middle East. Both the Israeli and the Palestinian nations were born of tragedy. The irony is that each side has behaved precisely as we might have behaved in their place. I suspect that what we here have to say will count for less than their own recognition that they have more to gain from co-operation than from conflict. But if we cannot mend the divisions, at least we can ensure that nothing we say will make them wider. May the message which goes out from this Chamber today be that we wish the process well.
3.36 p.m.
Lord Jacobs: My Lords, this is a significant moment to have a debate on the Middle East. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for introducing it. I must here declare an interest. I have been a strong, almost virulent supporter of Israel since its foundation in 1948. Nevertheless, I believe that there have been very good arguments on two sides for the past few years and I shall try to give my own balanced assessment of the situation.
Most of the countries in the Middle East have inter-related problems connected with Israel. These include Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and the Palestinians themselves. Following the Wye agreement, progress was rather slow. In my opinion that owes more to the internal difficulties with Israel than the problems posed by the other Middle Eastern countries. Indeed, for the Palestinians and for Chairman Arafat, the Wye agreement was a great success and they gained immense self-respect from it. Chairman Arafat also accepted the absolute necessity for him to control the internal security of his country. Everyone recognised that if Hamas continued as before, no peace agreement in the Middle East would be possible.
Prime Minister Ehud Barak has achieved a mandate of landslide proportions. But, faced with a window of power, he must not delay the peace negotiations for as we all know, in politics, windows fade very quickly. Fortunately, the attitude of the Israeli people themselves towards the peace process has undergone a significant change. Two recent polls are most illuminating. First, 65 per cent of the population said they believe that one day there will be an independent Palestinian state. What is surprising, however, is that the second poll showed that 55 per cent believe that there should be an independent Palestinian state. That is an increase from 30 per cent in the past three years. I think we can now hope that the Israeli people as a whole are firmly behind the peace process.
Today the difficulties within Israel are much more inward looking and relate to the divide between the religious orthodox Jewry and those who believe that Israel should be a secular state. The chances for peace in the Middle East have never been greater but many commentators greatly under-estimate the difficulties. Prime Minister Barak has already stated that he wants to withdraw his troops from Lebanon within 12 months, which is a simple and clear statement. To achieve that, he must have the agreement of President Assad of Syria, so that President Assad will be able to ensure that Hezbollah, who frequently launch Katyusha rockets across the northern borders of Israel, have their power curbed. President Assad will in turn insist on an agreement about the Golan Heights, which in practical terms means Israel giving up the entire Golan Heights, removing Israeli settlements and perhaps having a small demilitarised zone. I strongly support that principle, and the overwhelming majority of Israelis support that agreement.
I am sure none of your Lordships doubts that any agreement with the Palestinians must include full recognition of and full agreement to an independent Palestinian state. I have been led to believe that before
934
the death of Yitzak Rabin, there was an informal outline agreement that would have enabled 80 per cent of Israeli settlers to remain on the West Bank, with the Palestinians giving up land to Israel on the West Bank in exchange for the addition of a significant amount of land—at least of equal amount—by Israel to Gaza.
The most critical issue would be Jerusalem. I do not see any possibility of Israel agreeing to give up part of Jerusalem unless perhaps to create something like the Vatican City within the city of Jerusalem. The reality is that if the new peace-minded government of Israel were to divide Jerusalem, the government would be brought down quickly and we would all be back to square one.
Can we be optimistic of the outcome of all the negotiations? Is it easier to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians than between the IRA and the Ulster Protestants? The answer must surely be yes, for at least there can be a physical exchange of land and statehood in return for peace. Both sides have something to trade. Israel needs peace with security and the Palestinians need and deserve statehood.
The peace bonus for all those countries in the Middle East would be significant investment and economic development in all those countries surrounding Israel. Growing prosperity is undoubtedly the greatest guarantee of continued peace in the Middle East.
3.42 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, in five minutes it is sensible to concentrate on one point. In my case, it will be the humanitarian situation in Iraq. But first, I will break this principle and ask my noble friend the Minister two questions, of which I have given notice, relating to Turkey—the south-east corner of which at least forms part of the Middle East.
The trial of Abdullah Ocalan, the captured PKK leader, is shortly to begin. The Turkish authorities are only allowing a limited number of observers to attend the trial. Can my noble friend say whether the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been successful in its efforts, through our ambassador, to have a presence at the trial? If not, have suitably strong representations been made? An international presence at that trial is the only hope that it will at least have the semblance of justice as we know it.
On a different topic, can my noble friend the Minister say whether Export Credits Guarantee Department support will be given to British firms involved in the design and construction of the proposed dam and hydroelectric scheme at Ilisu on the River Tigris in Eastern Anatolia? That is mainly a Swiss-financed project. The criticism has been made that the criteria adopted for the design and construction of that dam have not met World Bank standards. The 20,000 or more mainly Kurdish people who will be displaced by the reservoir have not been consulted. Neither has attention been paid to the historic towns that will be inundated. There is strong opposition to the dam from Syria and Jordan, which are downstream and whose economy could be held to ransom by Turkey.

935
Turning to my main topic, my noble friend the Minister will be aware of the report of the Humanitarian Panel of the Security Council, No. S/1999/356, which was published on 30th March. Among the many points that it makes is this:
"The gravity of the humanitarian situation of the Iraqi people is indisputable and cannot be overstated … Data from different sources, as well as qualitative assessments by many bona fide observers and analysis of economic variables, converge and corroborate this evaluation".
Gross domestic product per capita in Iraq has fallen from 3,416 dollars in 1984 to 1,500 dollars in 1991 and only 1,036 dollars in 1998. Infant mortality rates have trebled since 1990 and now are among the highest in the world. Chronic malnutrition affects every fourth child. Only 41 per cent of the population have access to clean water. The catalogue goes on. I could quote more disastrous figures.
It is possible to blame the Iraqi Government for at least part of that disastrous situation but the destruction brought about by the Gulf War followed by the sanctions are the main causes. It is clear that more is needed than lifting the cap on oil sales for the oil-for-food programme, as the Anglo-Dutch proposal in the Security Council has suggested. The whole infrastructure needs to be repaired and restored. A large programme of inward investment is required, especially to allow the oil industry to generate the funds that could support economic recovery.
The humanitarian panel report makes a number of constructive proposals—too many to go through as my time is nearly at an end—that would help to alleviate the current disastrous situation while retaining some of the sanctions. Can my noble friend the Minister say whether the Government are studying those proposals closely and will respond positively? We already have plans for postwar reconstruction in the Balkans while the war there is still going on. The war in the Gulf has been over for more than nine years. Surely it is time that the suffering people of Iraq got a little attention.
I will conclude by quoting the final paragraph of the humanitarian report:
"In presenting the above recommendations to the Security Council, the Panel reiterates its understanding that the humanitarian situation in Iraq will continue to be a dire one in the absence of a sustained revival of the Iraqi economy, which in turn cannot be achieved solely through remedial humanitarian efforts".
3.47 p.m.
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, for more than 25 years I have listened with great interest to the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, on diverse issues and regions. It seems to me that when the noble Lord speaks on the Middle East, his remarks have a slight flavour of redemptionist oratory, with the sermon on hell reserved for the state of Israel.
There is little doubt that the election of General Barak, who has a freer hand and a clearer mandate than any of his predecessors, ushers in a definite change in tone, new vigour and a genuine reaffirmation of a will for peacemaking. However, it is not only his own public that he must gather around him for peace. General Barak must be able to count on a greater willingness among
936
his Arab neighbours to take his overtures seriously and meet him at least part of the way. He needs the compassionate understanding of third parties—especially the European Union—who have an important role to play if their willingness to help is matched by tact and sensitivity.
There are still some grim realities in the Middle East. Fear and hate are still rampant. Twice in the past 12 months an Israeli Cabinet had to meet in an emergency session to review possible doomsday scenarios in the event of Saddam Hussein, reacting to American air strikes, launching missiles with conventional or even unconventional warheads against the conurbation of Tel Aviv. Now that UNSCOM no longer functions in Iraq, that country's unpredictable dictator could still wreak unimaginable havoc.
A wall of hate still exists not only in the rogue states of the Arab world but even in those countries that are at peace and whose political establishment avowedly and sincerely wishes to co-operate with the Jewish State. Not so long ago, when attending a conference sponsored by the Jordanian authorities in Amman, I went into a leading bookshop next door to my hotel and looked at the main counter of current books. I saw brand new editions of Hitler's Mein Kampf, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and rows of books on current affairs displayed with garish and ghoulish covers depicting caricatures of perceived Jewish archetypes, of a stridency and odiousness which took me back to Julius Streicher's racist rag, Der Sturmer, in Hitler's Nuremberg. And that was in Amman.. in Jordan, a country which has been the friendliest of Israel's neighbours with by far the longest and safest of all her frontiers.
It is said that Iran sincerely wishes to mend fences with the West. President Khatami stands for a policy of a "thaw". Is he the Kruschev or the Gorbachev of the Islamic revolution? If he were the fonner let us not forget that Kruschev's idea of "thaw" also included the dispatch of tanks to Hungary and missiles to Cuba. A few days ago, President Khatami was in Damascus addressing leaders of Hezbollah and 12 other terrorist organisations which have their headquarters in the Syrian capital. We do not know what he told them.
It must be acknowledged that Chairman Yasser Arafat has greatly improved control of terrorism and security arrangements in his territory. That should augur well for Mr. Barak's new initiatives.
There is a tacit consensus that eventually the Palestinians will have their state. But the limits of its defence capabilities as well as its borders must be contractually agreed upon first. The right of the Palestinians to such a state is indisputable, but it must not become a base for other hostile powers and drastically impede and subvert Israel's security. It must not become, as Lebanon did, a staging post for terrorist organisations. Opponents of statehood in the past have claimed that if Israel were to retaliate against transgressions originating on Palestinian soil any operation would instantly become an act of aggression under international law. But that can all be sorted out contractually with goodwill. There are many precedents.

937
Let us take, for instance, the Federal Republic of Germany after the Second World War: its limitations in the field of defence did not prevent it from evolving, sanely, successfully, economically and politically into a major power.
The question of Syria is very important. The noble Lord, Lord Quinton, mentioned President Assad and also the inevitable probable dynastic successions in various parts of the Gulf and the Middle East. The degree and pace of the return of the Golan Heights is clearly linked to the degree and depth of the peaceful intentions of Syria's leaders. For President Assad that decision is extremely difficult, and especially so for domestic reasons. It is not merely a question of coming to terms with a hated opponent but of opening a closed window, letting fresh air into a country that is tightly controlled. The future of his regime and his succession are at stake. It will be interesting to see what happens if, as Mr. Barak promises, Israeli troops withdraw from Southern Lebanon. Would Syria continue to be the occupying power of a country that, once the security issues seemed resolved, would yearn for the recovery of independence?
The most important and difficult problem relates to Jerusalem, and should be left to the last in negotiations. For nowhere else is imaginative vision and goodwill more needed than in a city which Palestinians claim as their capital and Jews the world over regard, in the words of a distinguished Protestant theologian, not just as a holy shrine of Judaism but as Judaism itself. Moreover, the modern city of Jerusalem has three-quarters of a million souls, over 70 per cent of them Jews. Thus, on purely statistical grounds, Israel considers it to be the undivided capital of the state. There are many imaginative models for a solution. There have been unofficial negotiations between members of Likud, members of the Israeli labour party as it was then called, and important Arab leaders. There have been denials about the agreements that might have been reached, but there are working models. Paradoxical as it may sound, I believe that the problem is capable of solution if there is good will, and an assured atmosphere of surrounding peace.
Perhaps I may briefly mention the important, heightened role of Turkey in the region. Turkey is destined to play a very important part. Secular and western in outlook, it stands for stability and is a solid counterpoise against adventurist policies from the rogue states in the region. It firmly supports the independence of Jordan—
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale: My Lords, I apologise, but I really must draw attention to the fact that there is a five-minute limit for speakers.
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, perhaps I may say in conclusion that I hope that we shall not repeat the lesson of Yugoslavia so far as concerns the wider Middle East. We must not only address ourselves to the crisis in hand but also deal with the wider problems.
3.55 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, 13 months ago I had the honour of visiting Israel and Gaza. During that visit I had the great privilege of meeting business communities of both areas. Notwithstanding some mutuality of suspicion, there was an overwhelming desire on the part of both to be able to get on with the job of promoting business opportunities, often in partnership. That has been taking place, notwithstanding the discomfiture they felt at the hands of the outgoing Israeli government. That is important; but it needs to be built on. In the light of recent developments there are certainly grounds for optimism.
There can be no doubt that in order to build up the Gaza Strip and other areas it is necessary to attract a good deal of foreign investment, notably from the European Union. That requires a much more pacific situation in order that the necessary confidence is derived for the building that must go on. An enormous amount is at stake. There are now great opportunities, with the new Prime Minister of Israel, Mr. Ehud Barak, taking office. Notwithstanding all the problems that he faces internally, he is a courageous man. He has served with great distinction in the Israeli army, and he is now promoting in his speeches a clear movement towards a comprehensive peace settlement.
I view the outcome of the election with great satisfaction. However, I do not underestimate the problems that will confront the new government. First, who will be in it? There are some who are so strongly at variance that they rule themselves out—most, if not all, of Likud, and indeed the Shas party which has to show a good deal more goodwill towards the promotion of peace and building Israel in a comprehensive way.
The new Prime Minister is buttressed by great personal success and courage. Of that there can be no doubt. He is widely read. He has been educated at university in the United States. But he faces huge internal problems in Israel. We ought not to underrate that fact. There are problems of how to reconcile the secular and ultra-orthodox communities. That may be beyond him. I do not know. I wish him well. Certainly, he enjoys huge personal renown as a result of the election campaign that he undertook. I suppose that Mr. Netanyahu, whose leaving has not caused much regret in Israel and elsewhere, did at least leave with a certain amount of personal dignity given the statement that he made. That is about all he left behind.
Israel today is undoubtedly in a stronger position to pursue peace initiatives. I am convinced that it will try. There is no question that in relation to Syria the new Prime Minister has held out the opportunities for a comprehensive peace settlement. Egypt and Syria have expressed some measured optimism about that prospect. In calling for an exchange of ambassadors with Syria, for full trade relations, for free movement of tourists, to be monitored, it is true, by Israeli and Syrian military forces holding key points on the Golan Heights, he has provided a first-class initiative at the very beginning of his government.

939
Of course, Syria would be expected to join the fight against terrorism and in consideration of certain Israeli withdrawals the military wing of Hezbollah would have to be dismantled and Lebanon and Syria would have to play their part in suppressing terrorist activity.
But who could have said, just a few weeks ago, maybe even a few days ago, that the prospects for peace are now moving, I believe inexorably, in favour of a permanent settlement? There will be huge problems internally and externally facing the new government. But in Mr. Barak, born and bred in a kibbutz, Israel has an outstanding political leader, a general of great distinction, perhaps the most outstanding of his generation. He was not only a brilliant soldier; he was a student of great competence. He has faced internal problems, unjustified allegations of perfidy, to which he has stood up bravely, as one might expect of this man. Yes, I view the prospects with some degree of optimism which I did not think possible just a month ago.
4.1 p.m.
Lord Janner of Braunstone: My Lords, perhaps I may follow my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis in his thoughtful review of the Middle East by adding one tribute. Surely this House would wish to salute the efforts of the late King Hussein in the peace which we all hope is coming in the Middle East. We wish his son, King Abdullah, the best of good fortune in continuing that effort. I once heard King Hussein use an Arab term. If any of my noble friends wish to have a problem, I suggest they try to learn the Arabic language—even in the cause of peace it is difficult. There is a marvellous proverb: one hand alone cannot clap. Both sides must want peace, both must clap.
On the one hand I have believed for some time that there has to be a Palestinian state. On the other hand, it can only survive and be accepted if it accepts the fears of its Israeli neighbours and their wish to live in security and without danger. On the one hand, Barak is of course quite right in expressing the view of the vast majority of his people in wanting to get Israeli troops out of Lebanon. On the other hand, whatever his wishes, they can only do it if the other side is prepared to leave the border in peace and not create war because troops are moved out.
On the one hand, Jerusalem is the great centre of all the mighty religions of this world and all wish it to be a peaceful and good place. On the other hand, I had the honour of seeing President Sadat shortly before he was murdered. He told me that it should be left till last. That is the most difficult of all issues: settle the rest and then turn to Jerusalem and you may succeed; otherwise you will not. If you want to succeed, if both sides wish to, if both hands are prepared to clap, there are ways of organising it so that the right flags fly over the right buildings. In his view it is possible to come to some arrangement if, and only if, both sides want it and both sides are clapping.
When considering this clapping process I was reminded of one of the classic jokes of my late father, who came from Wales and whom many noble Lords knew. It was about the fellow who went to a firm of
940
solicitors in Cardiff and asked for a one-armed lawyer. When asked why, he said, "I'm sick of lawyers saying 'On the one hand this, and on the other hand that'".
If you are going to make peace, you must have two hands and they both have to clap. If you do not, you will not get it. I believe, as every noble Lord has said, that hope comes with the election of Barak. It would be wrong for the House not to recognise the vibrant, difficult, vociferous democracy which is the state of Israel. Yes, there are internal problems; yes, they are the problems of a new state. They are in many ways more difficult than our own but some of us learnt to live for 18 years with a government whom we did not care for but with whom we had to combine. The Israelis now have a new government, which we must all hope will produce a coalition which will work for peace together. The best contribution we in this country can make is by helping both sides to clap, by working with both sides to help them come to terms.
I have had the pleasure of visiting most of the Arab countries, which are prepared to accept me as a Zionist Jew, and I have been received with great kindness and courtesy everywhere from the Yemen, Tunisia and Morocco to Jordan, Syria and Saudi. I know that the vast majority of the peoples of those countries wish to live in peace. They do not want war, they do not want their troops to go to the borders, they do not want their sons, and often daughters, to be armed and suffering. Therefore, if the governments can bring them together, there will be peace. I never forget that I learnt that when serving in the British Army in Germany as a war crimes investigator. I learnt from my visits each weekend to the displaced persons camp at Bergen-Belsen of the honors that people were suffering because they had nowhere to go and because Ernest Bevin and the Attlee Government were refusing them the right to go to a Jewish state, because no country wished to accept them and because they were left to rot. Well, that will not happen again.
The gathering in of the exiles is at the heart of Israel's approach to every problem. Its Jewish Agency and other organisations work to bring in people who are suffering, even today, from anti-Semitism. It is a great democracy; it wishes to live in peace; it has a new leader. I am sure that in this House we would all wish to do what we can to make both hands clap.
4.6 p.m.
Viscount Torrington: My Lords, last Tuesday I missed the rebuke which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor administered to these Benches because, far from being bussed to Westminster, I was in a bus between Amman and Baghdad. I spent the latter half of last week in Iraq and saw at first hand some of the effects of sanctions on that country.
At the outset I must declare an interest. I work in the oil industry and most of that industry would today like to see UK sanctions withdrawn. That was not always the case as it has actually suited the world's oil industry to see Iraq's oil bottled up in that country for some time.
But the message which any visitor to Baghdad quickly learns is that sanctioned countries always learn to live with sanctions. As a relatively regular visitor—

941
once a year—I have noticed that this year the shops in Baghdad are better supplied and that virtually anything is obtainable at a price. Unfortunately, it is only those with access to foreign exchange who can afford the prices. The official classes, which are presumably the intended target of sanctions suffer least; the middle classes struggle; and the poor suffer real deprivation. In effect, sanctions bite hardest on those we least want to hurt.
If the argument runs that sanctions will persuade the masses to rise up against the government, then at least in Iraq that is a very flawed argument. Iraq has totally controlled media and an efficient security apparatus. Government propaganda blames the UN and the Western alliance for all the country's ills and the masses have no opinion of their own and hear no other opinion. They are not organised and cannot organise. Revolutions in any case are usually started by the middle classes—and in Iraq the middle classes are too busy trying to survive.
There is another old Arab proverb which says, "I against my brother; I and my brother against my cousin; I, my brother and my cousin against the world". In a society where it is unsafe to trust your cousin and certainly not your father-in-law, resistance is a seed difficult to germinate. It is my belief that there is more to be achieved by trying to integrate Iraq into the 21st century, to bring it back into the world, than by continuing sanctions. I have said time and time again to any Iraqi and anyone else who will listen to me that Iraq's problem has been its own policy of isolationism. If all the usual suspects, the big multinational companies, had had investments in plant, machinery, distribution, retailing and agriculture—not just in the oil industry but in other fields—it would have been almost impossible for the world, as it has done, simply to close the door on Iraq and lock it for eight years. As it is, no one has significant frozen and non-performing assets in that country, and no one really cares.
The message of the future must be for Iraq to embrace interdependence, to privatise business and commerce and to sell, say, 30 per cent of its industry to foreigners. Such a policy would revolutionise outside perception of the country and greatly increase its economic activity and security. The saddest aspect of sanctions is that a very large proportion of educated Iraqis—those over 30—have received at least a portion of their education in this country and look to Britain almost as a second home. That still represents an enormous store of good will, but if sanctions remain in place much longer a younger, more hardline generation who see Britain only as an enemy will take over. British companies lost out to US business in the rebuilding of Kuwait, the very country that Iraq destroyed. Perversely, we British could still get the lion's share of rebuilding the now weakened Iraq if we pursued the right policies.
Britain must carefully consider whether unstinting support for the Albright line on Iraq is in its best interests. After eight years with no concrete results, surely sanctions are a failed policy. Baghdad is full of Russians, Chinese, French, Canadians and others whose
942
governments take a more liberal, and ultimately more realistic, view. They are poised to act and grab the plums the day that sanctions end.
As the noble Lord, Lord Rea, noted, there is an Anglo-Dutch initiative to vary the sanctions regime to allow the limited development of new or refurbished oil fields so that Iraq can produce sufficient oil to meet its UN permitted export quota. I hope that when the noble Baroness replies she will tell the House about this and say what steps are to be taken to ensure that British companies get their fair share of any such work either if that initiative is successful or sanctions are withdrawn in the future.
4.12 p.m.
Lord Judd: My Lords, like others I wish to thank my noble friend Lord Kennet for having secured this debate. I must also declare an interest. I work with Safer World, an independent charitable think tank which has just published a paper by Valerie Yorke that advocates a stronger lead by the European Union in pursuing a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. That lasting peace is central to a stable future for the greater Middle East.
We all wish Ehud Barak well as he assumes his immense responsibilities as Prime Minister. He will have no greater challenge than peace. His candid, no nonsense commitment, coupled with his integrity, auger well for the future negotiations, even if some of his opening language has been tough. The European Union was clearly right at the Berlin summit on 25th March to declare its readiness to consider the recognition of a Palestinian state. Such a state is essential if there is to be any hope of removing the festering sore which has for so long threatened the Israeli people.
Some have argued that the Oslo peace process has been discredited. I do not share that view. It is significant that independent agencies on the ground, for example World Vision, hold that important achievements have been secured. These include political dialogue; greater international recognition of the Palestinian cause; withdrawal of Israeli troops from some land at least; the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority and civil service, even if public administration not least on human rights leaves a great deal to be desired; control by the Palestinians of their own education, health, tourism, culture and direct taxation; and the attraction of aid and investment to the West Bank and Gaza, although, unforgivably, too much of this has not been well administered or effectively monitored.
Despite all this the past three years of Likud rule have seen a lamentable deterioration in relations between Israel and the Palestinians. My noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis has referred to the huge problems. It is undeniable that the deliberate flexibility of the Oslo agreement provided Benyamin Netanyahu with the opportunity cynically to frustrate the return of Palestinian land while creating facts on the ground by the acceleration of new settlement building and the construction of roads and infrastructure which amounted to de facto annexation of disputed territory.

943
There are still the political prisoners—some suggest as many as 2,500—and the allegations of torture. World Vision, with its field experience, has produced a report which puts it well. While the Palestinian community as a body may have gained new political rights, rights for the individual have seen a serious decline as a result of continued divisions of land, encroachment by settlers—there have been 19 new settlements since last October alone—and draconian security provisions. The Palestinian community has been weakened economically, socially and politically by the restriction of communication between the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Israeli non-compliance with trade agreements, which has denied Palestinian business direct access to its own domestic market, let alone external markets, house demolitions, land confiscation—too often without proper compensation—withdrawal of identity cards, under-employment, unemployment and the acute stress involved in necessary daily travel.
In addition, the new Government of Israel inherit explosive issues such as the lack of equity in access to water resources and the systematic removal of the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem. There are, no less importantly, the grave weaknesses in the Palestinian National Authority itself: corruption, human rights abuses and inefficiency. All of these will have to be addressed if the peace process is to be regenerated. Peace cannot be imposed from outside. As my noble and learned friend Lord Archer reminded us, peace must be built and owned by the Israelis and Palestinians themselves.
But the outside world, not least our own Government and the European Union, can encourage both the new Israeli Government and the Palestinians in their peace endeavours by ensuring that all trade, aid and other relationships are geared towards furthering social justice and the action which is needed. The new Government in Israel and the public good will that they enjoy provide an exciting opportunity.
Palestinian statehood is vital for a lasting solution, but such statehood must not be merely symbolic. That would prove dangerously counter-productive. It will require defined borders and also freedom of movement and action both for those who govern Palestine and those they govern.
4.17 p.m.
Lord Stone of Blackheath: My Lords, I too am grateful to my noble friend Lord Kennet for introducing this debate with his global view of the history of the causes of conflict there. Noble Lords will be aware that I also have interests in the Middle East. I first visited that region 40 years ago and since then have spent time there every year. I lived there for a period and have done business continually across the region in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian entity, Jordan, Turkey and the Gulf. In the Middle East I have watched ethnic conflicts, religious intolerance and nationalism leading to war.
I am pleased that I have only five minutes because I shall suggest something briefly that I would not presume to propose in a longer speech. For decades
944
some of us have attempted in the Middle East through dialogue across borders and the use of trade and commerce as a common language to deepen understanding and to find practical win-win solutions. Our aim is to appeal to the moderate peoples on all sides to gather sufficient consensus with determination to oppose destructive extremists.
Through that interest in the Middle East and North Africa I have been alerted to conflicts around the world: in Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Kashmir and Central America. It appears to me that a new pattern and pace of events that erupt into violence, murder and war are occurring. There is a view that ethnicity will supersede ideology as the single most important source of conflict in the next century. This has to do with a new internationalism, the formation of huge trading blocs, and the scale, speed and growth of electronic communication. As a reaction, while smaller nations and republics demand the right to self-determination, people's passionate sense of their own ethnicity resurges and ferments to the point of conflict. Ethnic groups develop hatred for one another.
We can all see this happening at present. The only international action we take to resolve these disputes is to wait until the killing is at a level which justifies sending in the riot squad: radical violent surgery to effect a remission; killing to stop the killing. That is akin to invasive medical surgery and amputation as a cure of last resort. In the same way as in medicine we have developed more holistic and preventive approaches, I am convinced that earlier detection and more palliative intervention could be utilised if the world community could agree on international conventions to address racial hatred.
My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has embarked upon an ambitious global project to deal with financial turbulence before a crisis develops. Can we develop something similar for dealing with this global ethnic turbulence?
I return to the Middle East as an example. The peace process, however difficult, slow, imperfect and infuriating, seems to be making an important contribution to the subject of resolving ethnic conflict. If Barak and Arafat can be encouraged and helped to set a paradigm for settling these deep rifts (which for generations were considered too complex and too entrenched for resolution) we must look to them to learn lessons. I believe that there could be devised intervention, with legislation, designed to deal more with the governance issues of the conflict at art economic and human level before the police force and the military are used. Perhaps we could encourage the United Nations, or the new European Commission to consider a bold initiative.
I realise that the scale and complexity of the suggestion is huge, but where else can I make it but in this place? First, international models for resolving ethnic conflict should be adopted. Secondly, to inform this, extensive pragmatic research into the causes and consequences of ethnic conflict is needed. Thirdly, internationally accepted protocols for dealing with ethnic conflicts should be devised, with a policy of

945
earlier intervention. I shall be pleased to hear what the Minister believes. Does she feel that stronger international structures to deal earlier in the gestation of these conflicts could be put in place? Is it timely for a debate on these issues? Would it be worthwhile?
Finally, I should like to note that it is pleasing that after only three years of understandable traumatic reaction to Yitzhak Rabin's murder, the Israeli electorate has returned a Prime Minister in Ehud Barak who, like Rabin, links three policy issues in sequence: economic health; internal equal opportunity and religious tolerance; and, externally, peace with her neighbours. I know that he has the support already of the business community for this task; and I hope that the Israeli community leaders and the international bodies will play a positive role.
4.22 p.m.
The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, we are all rightly starting on an optimistic note because of the election victory of Ehud Barak. We all hope for an end to the diplomatic impasse and renewed commitment to the peace process. But the Palestinians displayed incredible endurance during Likud and right up to the elections. Their leadership wisely postponed declaration of a Palestinian state on 4th May, which had been a highly symbolic date under the Oslo agreement. Now they know they will have to wait again. We could easily spend time berating the former Prime Minister for hideous pre-election gambits such as last minute illegal settlements or the macho attack on the Palestinian headquarters. But that chapter is closed. It is now for Barak to fulfil his promises. He owes it—Israel owes it—to the memory of Yitzhak Rabin.
But it is also for European governments to show their cards. Are we giving adequate support to President Clinton, King Abdullah and President Mubarak, who have been quick to coax Mr. Barak back into the peace process while recognising the difficulties he still has in establishing his political position. Any delay now will fuel the resentment of both Palestinians and the growing numbers within Israel who favour the peace process. Barak needs to take immediate steps to make good what Netanyahu has undone. As the noble Lord, Lord Gilmour of Craigmillar, reminded us last year, it does not matter who is in power: it is Israel which needs to fulfil its obligations.
As a board member of Christian Aid, I have seen numerous reports from church and voluntary sources which testify to the continuing illegal and discriminatory policies of the Israeli Government on basic human rights such as land, water and agriculture. As I said in our last debate in January 1998, if we could not tolerate this inequality and oppression in South Africa, why should we tolerate it in Israel?
We hear that Har Homa will be stopped, but what will really change? The Palestinians in Jerusalem are being gradually squeezed out by Jewish expansion and new housing settlements. In 1993–97 there were twice as many demolitions of houses in the Palestinian sector even though Palestinians comprise only 30 per cent of the population and suffer twice the housing density.
946
The confiscation or expropriation of land for bypass roads linking Jewish settlements in the West Bank has been stepped up since the signing of the Wye accord. I have seen the details of structural plans of new roads and tunnels around Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and Nablus. I have horrifying accounts of land grabbing, the uprooting of trees and the arbitrary building of new hilltop settlements, sometimes with the full support of the Israeli army.
For individual families in the path of bulldozers, it is a nightmare on the scale of an apocalypse and yet because of Kosovo, or because it is Israel, the world manages to let it happen. It contravenes UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and is in clear breach of the Wye accord which states that,
"neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank".
Indeed, Ministers such as Ariel Sharon have even incited settlers to flout international law and agreements signed by his government. The issue of residency in Jerusalem is and remains critical. Over 2,000 Palestinians were evicted in 1996–98 after their IDs had been confiscated. Children brought up in Jerusalem on their parents' IDs have lost their right to residency overnight. Last month the Israeli High Court postponed a decision on residency until September, so the case is still pending.
There is the case of closures—restrictions so inhuman that even ambulances with patients from Gaza have to wait four hours at the border on their way to hospital. Human rights and legal aid organisations are pointing out that for all these reasons Israel is ignoring the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention. They are calling on the high contracting parties to this convention to adopt concrete and specific measures to implement it.
Our Foreign Office has reasserted under the Dublin declaration that an interstate duty to enforce the convention exists. But the Minister may like to confirm that Article 1 establishes a "right to take specific action" and leaves open a way for the parties to act in common.
It is not enough for Her Majesty's Government to join the call for a special conference. There is an imperative to respond to the escalation of violations against the rights of Palestinians and to protect them from any further illegal settlements and attacks on personal property. Now that they have shown such political restraint, they surely deserve a new international initiative to require Israel to end its discrimination and re-enter the peace process as soon as possible.
4.27 p.m.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for this opportunity to speak about the greater Middle East. If there had been more time I should have liked to deal with the problem of religious persecution, in particular that of Christian minorities which was recently highlighted by the US State Department report on religious freedom. The Assistant Secretary for Democracy and Human Rights, John Shattuck, stated:
"The issue of persecution is a serious one, affecting many religions. The issue has not previously received much attention with respect to Christians".

947
The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, recently raised yet again in the House the problems of slavery, and there are instances of that in this area. But I wish to concentrate on one aspect in view of the shortage of time.
The noble Lord, Lord Weidenfeld, was a little hard on the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, because it was a full six minutes before he got on to the subject of Israel. So we must acknowledge the noble Lord's tour d'horizon before that. If we debate Israel and security, we have to remind ourselves each time of the behaviour of the Germans before and during the war, and even now the behaviour of the French. The recent trial of Maurice Papon has exposed a very sordid and grubby story about the behaviour of a large number of French during the last war. Those are the very countries which now try and read us penny lectures on human rights.
We must always bear the background in mind. When Menachem Begin came here as Prime Minister, he said, "Never again". We have to respect that and the influence it has on Israeli thinking. Mention has been made of the possibility of nuclear weapons. If the Israelis had not attacked the Iraqi nuclear reactor installation, goodness knows what might have happened during the course of the Gulf War. That has not been properly recognised.
The hopes raised by the recent election of Mr. Barak have already been mentioned substantially, and it is to be hoped that the start of the political process will lead to solutions emerging. We ought to begin to think about the stage after that.
The early Fabians were known as the "gas and water" socialists. They did not declaim in Hyde Park, like people such as H. M. Hyndman, but they got their name because they realised that until people had heat and light in their homes, were able to cook their food and to have clean water which they could drink without going down with appalling diseases, nothing much mattered to them.
If we look at this region, we know that the Middle East has very substantial oil resources—some 40 per cent of the world's known reserves. It also has very substantial natural gas resources—some 30 to 40 per cent. However, there is a great problem with water and the problem is such that it really has to be solved by international co-operation between states.
Given this background, we know that the Israelis have a very great amount of technical knowledge, and I believe that if we can make progress on the political problems of the area there will be a real peace dividend and the whole area will benefit from inter-state co-operation on these very fundamental problems of everyday living. That was a concept which was very dear to the heart of Shimon Peres, arid I think that his contribution to the process and those ideas should not be overlooked. I believe that this is the way forward for the Middle East now. We have to appreciate just what can be done. Perhaps I may recall the words of the Prime Minister on the 15th January 1998, when he said:
"The Israeli people have proven their dedication, their abilities, their ingenuity. Those assets in the service of peace could transform the whole region…nothing would entrench peace more firmly."
948
The peace dividend will be international co-operation to solve the region's problem of resources. We all know the saying about giving a man a fish and you will feed him for a day but if you give him a fishing rod he can feed himself for life.
4.32 p.m.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, I too would like to speak about the recent Israeli election, and I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Kennet for giving us the opportunity. Surprisingly, one thing Israelis may miss now the election is over is the fun of the party "commercials" on television. All the parties had their television commercials in a 30-minute slot each evening. According to many Israelis, it was the funniest 30 minutes on television for some years. One particularly good computer-generated cartoon showed a party's opponents dancing to the music of their disreputable supporters. The Green Leaf Party had a dreamy commercial, which I can only describe as reflecting the lifestyle of legalised cannabis. The Pernina Rosenbloom Party had all the right rhetoric, but the commercials tended to concentrate on her cosmetics and fashion business. One commercial of interest to my noble friend Lord Kennet was the image of a very pregnant Chairman Arafat lying on the floor ready to give birth at any moment to the Palestinian state. Surrounding him were politicians in medical gowns, urging him to hold on until after the election.
So on television the election was fun. But what was it about? The peace process? I am not sure that it really was about the peace process. Suddenly there were differences in rhetoric and tone about peace, but there is a consensus in Israel that Oslo and Wye are the only way to go.
The noble Lord, Lord Jacobs, spoke about the polls and said that 65 per cent of Israelis recognised that there would be a Palestinian state. At the same time another poll showed that 80 per cent of Israelis were ready to give up land for peace. Those figures indicate that most Israelis think there is no other game in town. The difference is speed and strategy.
So if the election was not about peace, what was it about? I think it was about identity. Israelis take their politics very seriously. Many were dismayed to find that they are living in a seriously divided country. They are particularly disturbed by the secular and religious divide. The excessive power of the ultra-Orthodox, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Quinton, and my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis, causes both disgust and disquiet. But that is not the only division. There are divisions between the immigrant groups: the Russians and the north Africans, the Sephardi and Ashkanazi, the east Europeans and the west Europeans—and this in spite of the wonderful job that Israel does in absorbing immigrants. What Israelis have learnt is that absorbing immigrants is not enough: they have to be integrated.
This was pointed out a couple of years ago in an important study of Ethiopian immigrants into Israel. The study was carried out by Jewish Policy Research, which is a Jewish think-tank based here in London. I have to declare an interest as the deputy chairman of that body.

949
The study showed that while a tremendous national effort was made to bring the Ethiopian immigrants into Israel and absorb them, there were problems about integrating them into Israeli society.
According to the study, the difficulty of integration was caused by classic race relations problems. There is something quite shocking about a people who have suffered from anti-Semitism for many, many generations showing racial bigotry in their own country. This disturbed many Israelis. So ending these divisions is not just a matter of reining back the power of the ultra-Orthodox religious groups. It is also a matter of integrating into Israeli society the different ethical and cultural groups through education and employment, together with building the legal, social and institutional framework which is necessary for achieving that.
We in Britain have much to contribute. We have faced up to these problems, and we have experience of how to deal with them. I believe that Israel is anxious to benefit from Britain's and Europe's experience and understanding of the problem. Indeed, Jewish Policy Research has already been approached by the Democracy Institute in Jerusalem to frame some ideas about how to develop Israel's democratic institutions so as to avoid problems of polarisation and division.
I think it is important that the Minister should be aware of what is going on. In his election speech, Mr. Barak said:
"The time has come to end divisions".
Those of us with good will towards Israel all share that vision, and I have tried to show how we can perhaps help to achieve it.
4.38 p.m.
Viscount Brentford: My Lords, I wish first to touch on humanitarian needs. Throughout the Middle East there is a great need for economic development. I endorse the work of the European Union and of the Arab states in contributing a great deal. I hope that the Government will continue to support European Union economic development there.
Secondly, I wish to mention Iraq where, as my noble friend Lord Torrington, said, perhaps the greatest humanitarian need in the greater Middle East exists. I express my gratitude to the noble Baroness the Minister for having put the UN panel reports in the Library. I found them very interesting reading.
The extent of malnutrition in Iraq has stabilised in the south and central areas and has improved in the north, but the problem is still great. Is food actually being distributed to those most in need? I wonder if the monitors are satisfied.
At col. 292 of Hansard of 13th May, the noble Baroness referred to the 275 million dollars-worth of medical supplies languishing in warehouses. Why is it languishing there? Is it the Iraqi Government's lack of vehicles which does not enable them to distribute the supplies? Is any action being proposed by our Government?
950
The "oil for food" scheme uses up all the available Iraqi oil, but that is insufficient to feed the nation. Should oil industry spare parts and equipment, a point raised by my noble friend Lord Torrington, be authorised to improve the supply of oil? Secondly, should frozen Iraqi assets be released to provide additional funds for the purchase of food and medicine? Thirdly, because it seems that agriculture and the local economy suffer from the effect of imports, is there any way in which the humanitarian monitors can be permitted to buy food locally?
Leaving humanitarian needs, I wish to say a few words on government and democracy in the Middle East. I shall not mention the Israeli democracy; that is clear democracy. Turkey and Iran have elections, although perhaps it is arguable that in Turkey the army is more powerful than the government and can dispose of the government if it so wishes.
Of course, other countries have elections. The Syrian president was re-elected by 99.9 per cent of the vote, which tells us something about the Syrian election. But it is worth noting that the Syrian president permits the Orthodox Patriarch in Damascus to criticise the government and he does so. So there is good in all these different countries.
I turn to religious and ethnic persecution. I believe that religion and ethnicity are totally inseparable in this respect. The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, talked about the Crusades. It is worth reminding noble Lords that reconciliation work has been going on for three years, apologising for the evil of the Crusades. It reaches its zenith in Jerusalem this year, a thousand years after the Crusade arrived in 999. Many countries have good inter-faith relations. Syria does with the Christians but not with Jews. In some countries there is murder and abduction.
Finally, I wish to touch on one particular aspect and ask the noble Baroness about the plight of the Syrian orthodox in south-east Turkey, in Tur Abdin. The FCO has received a memorandum about that in the past few months and British diplomats visited the area recently. These Syrian orthodox Christians are squeezed between Turks and Kurds and are harassed by both, as Christians in Israel are harassed by both Moslems and Jews. The governor of this part of Turkey has forbidden any education to take place in the monasteries, particularly of the Christian faith and the Syrian language; has forbidden the receiving of visitors; and has forbidden building work on the monasteries. The situation is very difficult. It appears that an attempt is being made completely to remove the Syrian orthodox in that area of Tur Abdin. What steps are the Government taking to enable those people to enjoy basic human rights?
4.43 p.m.
Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to my noble friend Lord Kennet for introducing the debate. I am also grateful for his historical résumé of the conflicts over the ages in the greater Middle East.
The title of the debate refers to the greater Middle East, but it is not surprising that the debate has largely focused on Israeli and Arab relationships, particularly

951
the relationship between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Little can be said in a two-and-a-half-hour debate on the complex problems involved in the extremely difficult negotiations required in the search for peaceful and harmonious solutions between Israel and its neighbours.
Furthermore, it is not surprising that there will be considerable tension in Israel. There are 6 million people in the state of Israel, in a region of 100 million Arabs. Therefore, I suggest that understanding and tolerance must be displayed by all those interested in peace. We must all do what we can to encourage greater trust and confidence to try to remove, or reduce as far as possible, the fear and insecurity which exists. Only in that way will the negotiations for a peaceful settlement succeed.
The objective must be peace in the Middle East—not revenge or reprisal, but peace—to secure a peaceful settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. That must be encouraged and helped by everyone. Israelis living in peace in Israel and the Palestinians living in peace in their old state of Palestine must eventually take place.
I have mentioned trust and confidence. I believe that Mr. Rabin did so much to encourage that. Regrettably, during the past four years Mr. Netanyahu did much to reverse the process. The election of Mr. Barak renews much hope for continuing peaceful negotiations. It is important to see that the recent election result was welcomed by Mr. Arafat and, perhaps more importantly, by Syria which now wishes to re-open the peace negotiations suspended when Mr. Netanyahu was elected four years ago.
Peaceful negotiations are never easy, as we all know too well from the discussions in Northern Ireland. With Israel's ultra-democratic structure, the Labour Party there does not have an overall majority, and obvious difficulties will arise in the Knesset. Nevertheless, I believe that the election result reflects a genuine wish on the part of the Israeli people to achieve a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians and their Arab neighbours throughout the Middle East. I know that the British Government will do all in their power to assist—not interfere, which often breeds unnecessary suspicion—in every way possible to bring about a lasting peace and settlement in the Middle East.
4.47 p.m.
Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Kennet on giving us the opportunity to debate this subject today. Any discussion of the Middle East peace process usually reflects American domination of the peace process and in brokering agreements such as the Wye River memorandum. In almost inverse proportion to that knowledge of the American role is any proper appreciation of the role of the European Union; and yet the European Union is the largest single donor and its budgetary contributions are the linchpin of the Middle East peace process strategy, providing some 52 cents in the dollar of external financial assistance to underpin the peace process.
However, the diversity of the EU's financial instrument prevents its programmes having the visibility that their volume deserves. That is especially
952
unfortunate when the ground is now being prepared for the next stage of the peace process, Palestinian statehood. I believe that that stage has been greatly assisted by the election result in Israel, referred to by so many noble Lords. Following the election, it is imperative that the European Union continues its three main objectives for regional help and regional action in the context of the peace process.
First, the European Union must continue to help the people-to-people networks between the civil societies of Israel and its neighbours as an essential foundation for creating both a climate for peace and for future economic and social co-operation.
Secondly, the European Union process must develop and promote cross-border infrastructure projects serving both to foster regional economic development and to integrate the physical infrastructure on all sides. Thirdly, and very important, the European Union must help to facilitate the continuation and development of back-channels of communication between the parties to help prepare the ground for efficient negotiations, which will undoubtedly have to take place, on permanent status.
To focus effectively on those three objectives and to ensure a more cohesive approach requires several immediate steps to be undertaken in relation to European Union financial assistance. There must be an immediate increase in the size of the people-to-people budget as an essential confidence-building measure in the region. But, additionally, the various European Union programmes need to be more specifically and explicitly allocated to Mashraq Israel issues, whether the micro actions already there in the spirit of the Barcelona declaration to encourage such actions as inter-faith dialogue or the Med programmes for decentralised co-operation which exist currently, creating regional networks between the Israelis, their Middle East peace process neighbours and European Union partners.
Other programmes, such as the Meda democracy programme, a human rights programme with a specific budget line, need to be increased and need to be able to assist in a number of specific ways; for example, policies to deal with infringements of human rights, whether by Israelis or Palestinians, and a fuller integration in Israel of Israeli Arabs.
But perhaps the most important part of the programme is in relation to the Meda regional budget. There are already in the pipeline specific allocations for projects which have been identified and studied. It is the bringing of such programmes to fruition which could have a very significant effect in the region—the Jenin-Haifa cross-border programme, which involves Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the Jordan Valley water projects, which involve Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan, or the economic development on the south-eastern coast of the Mediterranean or the northern coast of the Red Sea, involving Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt. Such programmes will make a distinctive contribution.
For those whose European vision goes no further than incantations about whether they can have their money back, the European Union record in the Middle East is

953
valued and valuable. The EP and national governments must join hands in ensuring that the objectives remain; that the resources remain available and are used effectively; and that our citizens know of our collective pivotal role through our membership of the European Union.
4.53 p.m.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, the title of this debate as well as the introductory remarks of my noble friend Lord Kennet have given us the latitude, which has barely been exploited, to range over a wide geographical area. Today, I should like to draw attention to the region of the Transcaucasus and the countries which surround the great inland ocean which is the Caspian Sea.
That is the region which supplied most of the world's oil at the end of the last century, at a time when Arabia's major export was palm dates. If some recent predictions are to be believed, the region is set to regain some of its former importance to the West. It has never ceased to produce oil in large quantities but until the early 1990s, the oil was wholly pre-empted by the Soviet Union.
Now, instead of flowing northwards, the oil is set to flow westwards through a newly constructed pipeline which will pass through Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Black Sea port of Suspa. A further pipeline is mooted which would carry the oil through Turkey to the eastern Mediterranean where it would be shipped from the small port of Ceyhan, not far from Cyprus and the Turkish border with Syria.
The West seems intent on gathering the spoils from the defeat of the Russian empire, but there are other motives driving that enterprise. Just when the demise of the Soviet Union made Caspian oil accessible to the West, Iraqi oil was embargoed during the Gulf crisis of 1990. Simultaneously, the US sought to restrain the development of Iranian oil exports to punish that nation for its involvement in anti-western terrorism. Therefore, it seemed logical to seek to replace the lost production of Iraq and Iran by Caspian oil.
At present, the global demand for oil is no longer pushing against the limits of productive capacity and some of the initial enthusiasm of the western oil companies has been dissipated. Nevertheless, it seems certain that the Caspian is set to play a major role in the petro-politics of the 21st century. Therefore, at this juncture, we should reflect upon the woeful history of western oil exploitation in the Middle East. We should recognise the dangers of a short-sighted pursuit of our own economic and commercial interests.
We might ask ourselves how we have reached a position where some of the major oilfields in the Middle East are inaccessible to us and where we are constrained to look for alternative supplies. We should also question the wisdom of seeking wholly to divert to the West the oil which was once a Russian monopoly.
To illustrate the nature of the exploitation of Caspian oil by western companies, I should like to describe the oilfield installations at Tengis on the north-eastern shore
954
of the Caspian in Kazakhstan. That represents a joint venture by Chevron, Mobil and the Government of Kazakhstan.
Situated in the midst of the debris of a previous Soviet oil exploitation, the installation looks neat and clean. The western expatriates and their Kazakh partners work in prefabricated metal buildings which were shipped in when the installation was under construction. The plant relies upon the surrounding area for almost nothing. Even the food for the thousands of employees is trucked in by suppliers based in western Europe.
Admittedly, a good proportion of the profit from that joint enterprise will flow into the state treasury of Kazakhstan, but whether any of that will give rise to local economic development or will percolate down to the local population is, seemingly, a matter of no concern to the western partners in the joint enterprise.
To illustrate the political dangers which so often attend the exploitation of oil reserves in the Middle East, we might try to answer the question as to why the West no longer has access to the plentiful oilfields in Iran. The story is too long to recount in detail but we might begin by going back 50 years to a time when the Anglo-Iranian oil company was threatened with expropriation by the nationalist President Muhammad Mossadek. That man had a history of opposing foreign interests. For example, he had resisted the granting of an oil concession to the USSR in northern Iran. In 1953, he was deposed by a coup mounted by the Royalist Pahlavi faction with the considerable assistance of the CIA and British intelligence services. The rest, as they say, is history.
Western governments no longer intervene in that manner, so we believe. Usually they seek to minimise their engagement in middle-eastern politics. Nowadays they prefer to leave oil exploitation to international companies. However, it seems clear that such a policy of disengagement is equally hazardous. We have the Gulf War and all its consequences to substantiate that fact.
I wish to propose that the exploitation of oil, wherever it be found, should be governed by international pacts compelling the exploiting countries to invest in the local economies in support of their economic development. Such a compulsion might reduce the direct profits of the oil companies but, to the extent that it would avert the trouble and turmoil which has attended exploitation in the past, it would pay handsome economic dividends.
The hidden costs of the West's exploitation of oil in the past 50 years, which are attributable to political instability and warfare, are incalculable. It is surely in the interests of the exploiting nations to do all that is practical to ensure the economic development and the political stability of the countries in which they find the resources.
4.58 p.m.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I too add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for introducing the debate. I add something more than just a conventional set of thanks. The noble Lord,

955
Lord Kennet, has a way of making us all think, sometimes even about the unthinkable. For that, we should be extremely grateful.
In the course of our remarks, I would like to say also that I am delighted to see that the Minister has recovered from what I understand was a rather disagreeable bout of food poisoning. It is delightful to see her, phoenix-like, already on the Front Benches.
Finally, in these preliminary remarks, I wish to add to the excellent and well-chosen remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Janner, on the subject of King Hussein. Many noble Lords, in particular the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Clinton-Davis, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer, referred to the new phase which is opening in the Middle East as a moment of great opportunity. Many of us recognise that it would have been a moment upon which King Hussein would have seized, and we all hope that his successor will also find it a great opportunity for Jordan. Unquestionably, time and again, Jordan has been a zone of stability in a deeply unstable region and it is right and proper for us to pay tribute to what it has done to try to maintain peace in the region now over many stormy years.
Let me, too, start with the subject of Israel, because it is the elections in that country that make this a great opportunity. It was wonderful to hear the new Prime Minister, Mr. Barak, talk of the possibility of withdrawal from southern Lebanon in the relatively short period of a year, and also about the possibility of a partial withdrawal from the Golan Heights. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer, and the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, and my noble friend Lord Jacobs, pointed out that those things were related to one another; that Israel could not concede one without the certainty of security that might be offered to it from another part of what is likely to be a complicated and difficult deal.
It is also important to recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, and others did, that there is still some way to go before the new prime minister can establish a stable coalition committed to peace in the Middle East. I understand that in the past couple of days there have been literally tens of thousands of e-mails reaching the One Israel Party from its own supporters, begging it not to make a coalition with Shas, because Shas is seen by some as too orthodox and too committed to orthodox religion to be an appropriate partner for the One Israel Party. On the other side there are those who says that a coalition that includes Likud after its recent history would not be able to carry conviction in pursuing peace in the Middle East.
I say that because all of us in this House wish the prime minister well. We respect and admire him and hope very much that he is able to proceed. But we would be foolish not to recognise the extreme difficulty he is up against in carrying his own complicated and diverse public opinion with him. That is why a number of noble Lords pointed out that the one function we can perform is to help in every possible way we can. In that respect what the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, said about some of the programmes for regional development which have been financed by and are now proposed by the European Union, could he of great importance.
956
Let me say one other word about the Israeli situation. It is clear that beyond southern Lebanon and beyond the Golan Heights lie the difficult issues of resettlement and Jerusalem. It may be possible, as noble Lords suggested, for the settlements to be dealt with by some exchange of land, but one should be very clear that further settlements will put a great strain on the possibilities of a lasting peace. In relation to Jerusalem. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Jacobs for what he said in passing about the possibility of what he called a "Vatican solution", which we did not further discuss. Last year I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Arafat and he himself said at that point that possibly a Vatican solution might be the answer to a problem not just of a city, but a city that is, for many of the religions of the world and above all for Judaism, a symbol and a vision arid therefore very much more than simply a piece of territory. That may be one area where there could be some movement forward. I accept what many noble Lords said; that is, that it must be the end of the process and not the beginning.
I want to say something about the wider Middle Eastern situation, for what can be done by Israel depends upon the stability of the region as a whole. In that context I want to say a word or two about Iran and a word or two about Iraq. On 19th May—I am delighted that the Foreign Office agreed to this—there was an exchange of full diplomatic representation with Iran. We have for the first time in many years a full Ambassador here and not just a chargé d'affaires.
Iran is slowly beginning to make progress. There have been relatively democratic elections to Islamic councils throughout the country. This weekend 107,000 councillors will be either assembled or approached and reached by other means of communication to help them in establishing democratic structures at the lowest level, which is where democracy has to start. Even more unusual and interesting is that the Government of Iran recently approached the Government of Saudi Arabia with a view to establishing more close and friendly relations. We would be well repaid in encouraging President Khamenei and those around him to feel that he would get a response from the West if he continued to pursue the admittedly difficult and painful road towards some degree of greater accountability, openness and democracy in Iran.
It is appropriate and right that we should remember that this is a state that has lived through some of the most traumatic events of the 20th century in respect of the nationalism to which the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, referred, followed by the so-called "white revolution", which for many peasants meant their disowning, followed by the Khomeini return and, not least at the end of the day, by the problems and huge losses of the desperate war with Iraq.
That brings me to Iraq. We may have to ask ourselves whether, after nine years, the policy of sanctions is not reaching the point of futility. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, and the noble Viscount, Lord Torrington, both referred to the humanitarian crisis, which is undoubted—it is one of the most serious in the world—and to the gradual deterioration of the infrastructure of the oil industry in that country. I understand that the United States is now

957
talking about raising the cap of 10.5 million dollars on the permitted production of oil by Iraq. Of course, the fall in the oil price has meant that Iraq is even less able than she was before to ensure that her people are fed.
The most desperate news in the past 24 hours is that there is an extremely serious drought in Iraq which has brought with it as much as a two-thirds drop in the barley crop and a one-third drop in the wheat crop. I do not suggest that we take a sentimental approach to Iraq. But we should consider carefully whether some new trade-off between the gradual lifting of sanctions in return only for UNSCOM in a new and stronger form coming back might at least be considered after what appears to have been an increasingly futile policy.
Finally, let me refer to the imaginative contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Stone, who talked a little bit about the wider issues that now arise in the globalised world. He said that it looked as though ethnicity and ethnic hatreds were beginning to replace ideology as the source of war. He is right. Also as the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, said, the growing sense among many of the losers in a globalised world that they wish to assert their belonging to a religion, a community or a social group is one of the most difficult issues that the world now confronts. We know it ourselves in a small form from Quebec, for example, in a highly developed and well governed state. But in a poor, desperate and relatively hopeless state, belonging becomes the only thing onto which human beings can hold.
I therefore conclude these short remarks on my part by saying that we need to look at how to create some hope for the marginalised countries in the globalised world; for some kind of future that will make them feel that peace and the conclusion of conflict is the way forward and not simply, as we have seen, alas, in the Balkans, Africa and elsewhere, the destruction by one people of another which can only bring us destruction and despair.
5.9 p.m.
Lord Moynihan: My Lords, as other noble Lords have done, I, too, should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, on securing this debate. It is timely to have this opportunity to discuss developments in the greater Middle East, so soon after the stalled Middle East peace process has, as other noble Lords have mentioned, been imbued with fresh hope and optimism in the wake of last week's elections in Israel.
The untimely death of King Hussein of Jordan, truly the father of his nation, has emphasised the fact that the winds of change and of uncertainty are blowing through the region. A process of succession is now under way after decades of unchanging rule in most of the Arab countries of the Middle East. To date, the transitions in Jordan and Bahrain have been encouragingly smooth, but only the days ahead will tell whether these are the exceptions rather than the rule. In formulating its policies towards the Middle East, the international community must take into account that, over the next decade, regional leaders who have built up credibility and legitimacy over many years will be replaced by a
958
younger generation. We must be prepared for a potential power vacuum as these leaders take time to establish themselves; but, equally, the new rulers may be freer from the ideological chains of the past that shackled their predecessors.
The rulers of the Middle East, both new and established, must make a choice of direction. One choice of direction leads backwards, to a continuation of the region's turbulent, conflict-ridden past, a path of poverty, inequality and hostility to near neighbours. That, as noted by the noble Lord, Lord Quinton, is the path where extremist movements will find fertile ground to nurture the seeds of discontent and to exploit religion for their own political ends.
The other choice of direction leads ahead to a future of peace, a future of greater stability, a future of prosperity and of democratic participation. That choice of direction has still to be made. The international community has a critical role to play in influencing it, with all to gain and much to lose. Many speakers this afternoon have agreed that the indicators for the future are mixed. There are hopeful signs that the next century will see the countries of the Middle East committed to the path of peace, prosperity, respect for human rights and the rule of law. Life may be about to be breathed back into the Arab-Israeli peace process, stalled on all tracks over the past two and a half years.
Indeed, after years of bloody confrontation, other optimistic signs can be found. Islamic extremism has increasingly retreated in Algeria and Egypt, and across the Arab world a gradual process of political liberalisation and economic reform, referred to by a number of noble Lords as being so important—and rightly so—is taking place.
In Morocco, the opposition have become the government; in Qatar, women have voted for the first time in a Gulf Co-operation Council state, while last week, the Emir Sheikh Jaber in Kuwait announced the enfranchisement of women in elections. The Palestinian Authority is being held to account by an elected Palestinian legislative council and in Yemen and Kuwait democratic, multi-party elections have been held. Moreover, North Africa, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco have all implemented significant and far-reaching economic reforms.
A number of noble Lords also referred to developments in Iran. I believe that there is guarded optimism that President Khatami's election and the recent local elections will continue to usher in a new era of political liberalisation and much hope for tolerance. There is hope that Iran will increasingly play a constructive role in regional and international affairs. However, as some noble Lords have pointed out, other indicators in the region are not positive. Saddam Hussein's continued defiance of the UN Security Council threatens to destabilise the Gulf, while exacting a very heavy price from the Iraqi people. The region cannot take its rightful place in the international community and fully realise its global aspirations while such pariah regimes operate within it; while certain of its governments turn a blind eye to terrorism or, in some cases, actively support it and provide havens for

959
terrorists; and while the single-minded pursuit of the acquisition and development of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and Iran still offers the spectre of the region's backsliding into another era of extremism and conflict, marked by a new arms race in WMDs and the ballistic missiles necessary to deliver them. As alluded to by the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, the Middle East would be a region of vital interest to this country and to Europe, if for no other reason than it continues to account for 35 per cent of the world's oil production and nearly 70 per cent of its proven reserves.
On the question of the Middle East peace process, we on these Benches join other noble Lords in congratulating Prime Minister-elect Barak on his election victory and on the strong mandate that he has won from the Israeli electorate. We welcome his stated desire to seek a broad-based coalition government. We look forward to the emergence of such a government, willing to play its full part in realising the historic goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting Arab-Israeli peace, on the basis of security for the Israelis and prosperity, justice and self-determination for the Palestinian people, with statehood as an option. The people of Israel have spoken and they have made their wishes very clear indeed. While, as always, I deeply respect the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, I believe from my position that it was also possible to read their vote as a wish to break the stalemate on the peace process.
As this House is well aware, there has long been consensus in British policy on the route to the goal of peace—a route based on respect for the principles of international law. These principles enshrined in UN Security Council resolutions held the key to unlocking peace first between Egypt and Israel and then between Jordan and Israel. They will ultimately unlock peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The stalling of the Arab-Israeli peace process on all tracks over the past two and a half years has, in my view, obscured the fact that, in the six years since the historic signing of the Oslo peace accords, much has been achieved.
Despite the renewed hope, this is certainly not a time for euphoria. The road to peace is only half travelled. Some of those treading its path have lost their way before, and may do so again. The obstacles are formidable and have been alluded to by noble Lords throughout the debate, ranging from hurdles which are placed by those who would use the tactics of terror to seek their own extreme goals to the simple truth that without prosperity peace cannot take root, and without peace prosperity cannot grow.
The international community has always sought to help the region to nurture the shoots of peace and to move the region away from open warfare, intractable hostility and suffering towards the fruits of peace and prosperity. In this environment, and having listened most carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Janner, had to say, it is critical that neither side establishes hard-line conditions which might make a settlement—for example, including one on Jerusalem—not just more difficult but impossible. We have a real opportunity at
960
the moment. That is an important point and one upon which I hope the noble Lord, Lord Janner, will agree with me.
Finally, I have a few words to say about Jordan. Successive British governments have had long-standing and close relationships with Jordan. One of Israel's key Arab partners in the peace process and a voice of calm in a turbulent region, Jordan, nevertheless, faces daunting economic challenges and has yet to receive the peace dividend due to it. Therefore, it is all the more incumbent on the Government—and, indeed, on this House—to send a strong signal of support for King Abdullah in the transition period following the death of King Hussein, as he follows in the footsteps of his father and continues Jordan's critically important role as mediator through this period of ongoing regional tension, especially in Iraq. I hope that the Minister will send such a signal when she concludes the debate in a few moments.
Standing as we do in the shadow of the 21st century, from these Benches we will support the Government in the action that they take to encourage the creation of momentum towards positive change and a comprehensive peace, so that the new millennium ushers in a new era of co-existence and regional co-operation for Israel and its Arab neighbours.
5.19 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean): My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord Kennet for bringing forward the debate this evening. My noble friend is right to draw our attention to this region at a time when such important changes are taking place, as many noble Lords have remarked during the course of our debate. My noble friend introduced the debate in his characteristic forthright way. I am sure that many noble Lords were interested in the points that he made. This is a time of real opportunity. It is a time for us to look at the developing links we have with some of the new governments in the area and it is a time for strengthening our links with our friends of old.
Most of your Lordships have concentrated on Israel and Iraq, although other countries and other parts of the area have attracted some attention. In summing up the debate I shall concentrate on the areas on which your Lordships have concentrated. I join with the noble Lord, Lord Jacobs, in congratulating Mr. Barak on his victory in Israel's recent general election. I am sure that the whole House wishes him well in forming his new government. We look forward to working with Mr. Barak both on the peace process and on strengthening the strong ties that exist between our two countries.
On the peace process, noble Lords will be familiar with the problems that have held up progress over the past two years, and most recently the protracted negotiations leading up to Wye; the frustration as Israel ceased implementing Wye; and the stalemate on the Syrian and Lebanese tracks of the peace process. Like many noble Lords—notably the noble Lords,

961
Lord Quinton and Lord Weidenfeld—Her Majesty's Government believe that Mr. Barak's victory in the Israeli elections brings a new opportunity for progress in the Middle East peace process. We hope that all parties to the process will seize this opportunity. Once the new government are in place, we hope to see engagement on all tracks of the peace process. In particular, we expect the new government to press ahead with implementation of the Wye River Memorandum and to resume final status talks on an accelerated basis.
Real final status talks on Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security, borders and water—on all these matters—are essential if we are to achieve a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement in the region. The United States, whose involvement is essential, has made clear that it is willing to relaunch the negotiations soon and to call a summit later this year. That is a welcome development. But, of course, the United Kingdom and the European Union also have important roles to play. We have helped to bring the parties this far through diplomatic contacts and pressure on both sides, substantial aid for the Palestinian Authority, and most recently through the Berlin European Council Declaration which helped provide the Palestinians with the reassurance they needed not to declare unilateral independence.
We are concerned that tensions remain high in south Lebanon after recent violent exchanges between Israel and Hezbullah. We urge restraint on all sides and respect for the April 1996 understanding. We are heartened by the reaffirmation by Ehud Barak of his pre-election pledge to withdraw Israeli troops from Lebanon within a year of taking office. We greatly welcomed Mr. Barak saying that after the election.
My noble friend Lord Kennet asked why the European Union does not do more. I hope that he felt that my noble friend Lord Tomlinson gave a fairly comprehensive description of what the European Union has done so far. I remind my noble friend that the Berlin European Council Declaration calls for an early resumption of negotiations on the Syrian and Lebanese tracks, leading to the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242, 338 and 425. We support efforts to revive activity on these tracks as the best way to achieve a truly comprehensive peace settlement. We shall certainly do all we can to support progress towards that. Like my noble friends Lord Clinton-Davis, Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe and Lord Davies of Coity, Her Majesty's Government believe that we must now renew our efforts on this front and that we are justified in feeling a renewed hope for peace. Of course we recognise that there is much hard work ahead too.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell, talked about the preferential trade agreements of the EU/Israel Association Agreement. The United Kingdom ratified the agreement in April 1998—France and Belgium still have to do so—and once the ratification procedures have been completed in all European member states, the Council of Ministers will need to take a decision to conclude on the basis of a proposal from the Commission. This is an important
962
matter. This decision must be considered carefully in the light of progress on the peace process. It is important that we consider these preferential trade arrangements. I remind your Lordships that the United Kingdom supported the donor ministerial conference in Washington on 30th November 1998 and that we announced a bilateral three-year package of aid which will provide £50 million worth of assistance to bring the United Kingdom's total contribution, including through the European Union and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, to over £100 million.
My noble friend Lord Judd drew our attention to the allegations about corruption in the Palestinian Authority. Of course we are concerned about those allegations and we continue to monitor the issue closely. However, we are satisfied that the United Kingdom bilateral aid is not affected. At the donors' conference the United Kingdom urged the Palestinian Authority to improve transparency and effective financial control. I hope that that gives my noble friend some assurances on that point.
The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, was understandably concerned about the illegal settlements. We continue to regard the settlements as illegal under international law and as an obstacle to peace. I have said that to the noble Earl before and I reiterate that assurance now. The Berlin Declaration urges all parties to refrain from all unilateral acts, including unilateral settlement activity. The Prime Minister included a recommendation for a freeze on settlement activity in his message of congratulation to Mr. Barak at the time of the election.
The noble Earl also drew our attention to the problems regarding water in the area. Through the European Union we are playing an active role in the multilateral Water Resources Working Group. The Department for International Development also continues to assist the Palestinians on water issues. My honourable friend George Foulkes in the DfID pledged £7 million in November 1998 for water and sanitation projects which will be aimed at improving supplies and also, of course, environmental health.
My noble friend Lord Kennet reiterated a view that he has expressed to your Lordships before; namely, that of double standards as between Israel and Iraq. I genuinely believe that he is wrong on that issue. We insist that each country should comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions in accordance with their obligations under the United Nations Charter. Beyond that, the situations are entirely different. As regards Israel, despite the difficulties, the Security Council resolutions provide the basis for negotiations which we believe offer the best prospect of realising the interests of the people of the region in securing the comprehensive peace which we all hope for. However, in the case of Iraq, there are no such negotiations.
I thank my noble friend Lord Stone of Blackheath for his ideas. I will pass them on to my colleagues with frontline responsibilities for our relationship with Israel. These are issues that fall within the remit of the United Nations Security Council, but they are important in looking at ways, imaginative and innovative ways, in which we can try to rebuild the confidence that will be so badly needed if peace is to settle in the Middle East.

963
I too would like to say something, as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, did, about our relationship with Jordan and to associate Her Majesty's Government with the sentiments expressed by my noble friend Lord Janner in everything that he said about King Hussein and King Abdullah.
We were delighted to receive King Abdullah and Queen Rania when they visited the UK from 11th to 12th May. During their successful visit the King had talks with Her Majesty the Queen and my right honourable friend the Prime Minister among others. We have an excellent, long-standing relationship with Jordan, which remains a key player in regional matters ranging from the peace process to the situation over Iraq. We welcome King Abdullah's assurances of continuing Jordanian commitment to the peace process. That commitment on the part of Jordan has been extremely important in the past.
Perhaps I may also say a few words about Iran, where we have seen some very positive developments in the recent past. As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, said, the Iranian Government under President Khatami have undertaken a programme of significant change: proper enforcement of the rule of law; full facilitation of freedom of expression; and a more open and co-operative foreign policy aimed at enhancing regional stability. We too have been very pleased to see the improving relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi defence and foreign Ministers have visited Tehran, as I am sure the noble Baroness knows, and President Khatami has just completed an equally successful visit to Saudi Arabia. There has been very successful co-operation between the two countries within OPEC.
We believe that these are developments much to be welcomed, as is our improving relationship, which the noble Baroness also mentioned, with our exchange of ambassadors, which we believe will be a boost to the relationship. Not everything is right; we still have our concerns, as the House will know from our previous discussions on these issues, on the human rights front, but we believe that it is a relationship that is moving in the right way.
I must now turn to the issue of Iraq. No one suffers more at the hands of Saddam Hussein than the Iraqi people themselves. Your Lordships will know his methods well. Recent weeks have seen brutal repression of the Shia communities in Baghdad and in the south of Iraq in the wake of the murder of a leading Shia cleric, presumably a murder which had the sanction of the Iraqi Government. Sadly, such brutality in Iraq is all too commonplace because the regime simply does not care about its people. If it did, it would meet its international obligations. Then sanctions could be lifted. Iraq's record of aggression under Saddam Hussein's leadership—eight years of war against Iran, the brutal invasion of Kuwait, the savage repression of his own people—suggests that his priorities remain elsewhere.
I would have felt more reassured about the remarks of my noble friend Lord Kennet if he had mentioned any of those points. The regime's brutality and its insensitivity to the needs of its own people cannot be an
964
excuse for the rest of us to turn a blind eye. We have consistently been at the forefront of efforts both nationally and through the EU and the UN to improve the position. Since the end of the Gulf War we have donated £100 million in bilateral and multilateral aid, making us one of the largest donors to that country. We have also used our permanent membership of the Security Council to devise—we have been one of the authors—push through and improve the oil-for-food programme.
My noble friend mentioned none of that in asking your Lordships to look at the effect that sanctions were having. Of course, we would be glad to see sanctions lifted provided the requirements laid down by the international community were met. Given the political will in Baghdad, that could happen, and it could happen quickly. But while the Iraqi regime pursues its present course we must continue to contain its aggressive instincts and to do all that we can for the Iraqi people through the humanitarian provisions of Security Council resolutions.
It was in that spirit that we put forward a new draft resolution at the United Nations, drawing on the results of the three expert panels to which the noble Viscount, Lord Torrington, referred, dealing with disarmament, humanitarian and Kuwaiti issues. We hope that these will provide the basis for a resolution for the Security Council to re-engage with Iraq and, if Iraq chooses, as it should in its own interests, to find a way out of the present stalemate.
Our suggestions include the possibility of teams of experts looking further at how Iraq's available oil infrastructure can best be rehabilitated. That picks up particularly the points made by the noble Viscounts, Lord Brentford and Lord Torrington. This is an important matter because we want specifically to look at the option of the involvement of foreign oil companies and increasing the number of outlets—of course, with proper controls and proper monitoring. Both noble Viscounts made a point of directing our attention to the oil issue. I assure them that this is covered by what we are trying to negotiate in the United Nations.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, does the UK-Dutch proposal before the Security Council deal with the issue of how we can bring pressure to bear on Iraq soon to reconsider its rejection of UNSCOM and perhaps to accept a newly created UNSCOM?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: It is a matter of negotiation, my Lords. I cannot give the noble Baroness any assurances on what will be the final outcome of the Security Council draft resolution. She will understand that. But of course we wish to see such provisions in the matters we are discussing at present. It is a comprehensive draft Security Council resolution which picks up points from all three panels. It deals not only with weapons of mass destruction and the humanitarian issues but also with the issue of the Kuwaiti "disappeared".
Lord Kennet: My Lords, before we leave Iraq, can my noble friend provide any answer to the questions

965
I asked about the pattern of the American and British military flights—how often they happen, how much bombing and so on?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I assure my noble friend that I have not yet left Iraq. I have a great deal more to say and shall try to do so in the short time available. If I do not cover all his points I shall write to him.
I was asked specifically about how food was getting through. I assure your Lordships that where the Iraqi Government want food to get through it gets through. Where the Iraqi Government are much less keen on food getting to the Iraqi people it does not get through. Your Lordships have to concentrate on some of the points we have made in the House before about the food and the medicines that are held up and about the fact that Iraq is trying to sell food to some of its neighbours while its own people starve. It is selling food to Syria; it would sell food to Jordan if it could.
My noble friend asked me particularly about no-fly zones. As he knows, they were established in 1991 and 1992. The coalition initiative was in support of Security Council Resolution 688. I remind my noble friend of what it is there for. It is to end the brutal repression of the Kurds and the Shias. We are trying under international law to protect those people, who have been persecuted by the Government of Iraq. There have been some engagements recently, as my noble friend will know. I was able to assure the House the other day that such engagements take place only when our aircraft are challenged. I shall be happy to write to my noble friend on this specific issue if that will be of any help to him.
I must now turn to some of the other countries in the Middle East. I want to say a few words about the Gulf. It is natural that we focus on Israel and Iraq, given recent events. But it would be wrong to ignore our allies in the Gulf and the wider perspective. It would also be wrong, as the noble Baroness said, to see one part of the region in isolation from another.
Nobody can realistically deny the significance of the region to the global economy. The region contains over 50 per cent of the world's remaining hydrocarbon reserves. Production of oil and gas from the Gulf will make an increasing contribution to meeting world demand as production elsewhere declines. But that is not the complete contemporary picture. The Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, have developed a political importance and capacity in their own right, and, of course, we respect that. We have been encouraged by recent moves towards more representative government in the Gulf. I mention in particular Qatar, with its first ever municipal elections in March in which women participated both as candidates and as voters. We are also pleased at Oman's efforts to introduce political reform and a new "basic law". We are particularly pleased that the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have also provided welcome political support for NATO's actions in Kosovo and material assistance to the humanitarian efforts going on there.
966
The noble Lord, Lord Rea, asked questions on Turkey. We have asked that embassy officials be allowed to attend the proceedings concerning Mr. Ocalan. We have made clear as well—I am sure the noble Lord will be pleased with this—our opposition to the death penalty. We have still to gain access to the trial. I shall write to the noble Lord on the points that he raised about the Ilisu dam project.
The noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, asked about the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities in Syria. I shall write to him on that. My noble friend Lord Hanworth made an interesting contribution on the historic and continuing importance of the oil industry in this part of the world. I shall write to him on the points he raised.
Recent developments in the wider Middle East are of course significant but they are also encouraging. We look forward to working even more closely with the governments of the Gulf states and of Israel, Jordan and Iran. We look forward to working with them to establish strong foundations for security and stability in the region and we look forward to the day when they can all take their rightful place in the international community. I trust that your Lordships will agree that the people deserve nothing less than our strongest efforts to help them achieve those goals.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, perhaps I may—
The Deputy Speaker (The Viscount of Oxfuird): My Lords, the time allotted for this debate has now elapsed. Does the noble Lord wish to withdraw his Motion?
Lord Kennet: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Kosovo
5.41 p.m.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Gilbert): My Lords, with permission, I shall repeat a Statement recently made in another place. The Statement is as follows:
"Two months into NATO's campaign, I think that it is appropriate that I should report to the House before it rises on the Kosovo crisis. Before I do so, I should like to place on record the huge debt that we owe to all the men and women of all three services and their civilian support for their bravery, commitment and sheer hard work in support of NATO's efforts to help the refugees from Kosovo and to end the horror being inflicted by the Belgrade regime in Kosovo. The men and women of our Armed Forces have seen with their own eyes the results of the horrific ethnic cleansing carried out by Milosevic's troops, special police and paramilitaries; the torture, the systematic rape, the murders and the eviction of more than 1 million people. They know

967
that they are engaged in pursuit of a just cause—the return of the evicted people of Kosovo to their homes in safety and security.
"At the Washington Summit at the end of April, NATO's political leaders took two important decisions for the future direction of the alliance's military strategy in Kosovo. First, they agreed to step up and intensify the air campaign. The results of that decision are daily becoming more evident as NATO planes steadily weaken and progressively destroy the capability of Milosevic's forces and increase the pressure on him to accept a peace settlement based on NATO's conditions. NATO's air campaign is working.
"During last week's debate I gave some statistics about the amount of damage which we have already done to Yugoslav forces in Kosovo. Each day we add more to the tally. Yesterday alone, in one day, NATO aircraft destroyed at least 15 artillery pieces, five tanks, a surface-to-air missile launcher and several artillery and mortar positions. On 22nd May the tally included at least 12 tanks and 11 armoured vehicles.
"The overall losses inflicted on the Yugoslav forces are now estimated to include more than 110 combat aircraft. NATO estimates that this includes about 70 per cent of the MiG-29s and about a quarter of the MiG-21s. These are the most combat-effective of the Yugoslav aircraft and they represent a very significant loss.
"We have struck around 600 individual pieces of military equipment, more than half of them tanks, artillery and armoured personnel carriers. That constitutes about one-third of the Serb heavy forces inside Kosovo. We have destroyed 75 per cent of Serbia's fixed surface-to-air missile sites and more than 12 per cent of the mobile systems. We have struck more than a dozen command posts.
"Those are the effects of the air campaign on the forces on the ground, which present the most challenging targets. The strategic targets include most of the primary road and rail bridges over which supplies must pass. We have attacked more than a third of all the fixed telecommunications sites, we have repeatedly attacked airfields and hangars and numerous ammunition and fuel storage sites and barracks.
"All of this represents a very effective air campaign which is achieving the military objectives which we set at the outset of the campaign. The demonstrations, desertions and dissent we have witnessed in recent days are evidence that ordinary Serbs are now questioning the policies of Milosevic and the damaging and unwinnable conflict with NATO into which he has led them.
"The second Washington Summit decision was to update NATO's plans for the deployment of ground forces. Air and ground options are sometimes described as if they are separate and different. This has never been the case. NATO has always planned for a ground force to ensure the safe return home of the refugees once the air campaign had achieved its objective. We have already assembled a Kosovo
968
Force of about 14,000 in Macedonia, including substantial contributions from France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.
"However, the massive destruction wrought by Milosevic's forces in Kosovo means that the original planned total of 28,000 will no longer be adequate. On top of the task of creating a secure environment for the returning refugees, it is now necessary to plan on a much increased scale to assist with the re-establishment of the civil infrastructure, with the provision of humanitarian aid and with the clearance of landmines laid by Milosevic's forces. We are working with our partners to ensure that civil structures are in place to take on these tasks, but inevitably much of the early burden will fall to military forces.
"The North Atlantic Council yesterday took note of a revised plan drawn up by NATO's military authorities which, subject to more detailed planning, identifies a requirement for a force of around 45.000 to deal with the full range of tasks now envisaged. This figure excludes any additional forces which may be needed to provide essential national logistic support, which may raise the overall number to nearer 55,000 to 60,000. Further work to develop this military planning is going ahead within NATO.
"The Kosovo Force plans will still need to be adapted as the situation on the ground changes and to take account of wider developments in the context of a political settlement. Discussions are taking place about the contributions which allies can make to such a force.
"The British Government have made it clear that, as in Bosnia, we are keen to work with other nations which are prepared to provide military forces for KFOR. Given the need for NATO to be ready to react quickly to deploy into Kosovo in support of a peace settlement, the United Kingdom is today taking a number of steps on a national basis to ensure that we can move as soon as it is possible to get the refugees back home.
"We have decided that the United Kingdom will make a substantial contribution to the planned force. This is consistent with the role we have taken so far in the campaign and with our determination to see it brought to a quick and successful conclusion. We are determined that as many refugees as possible can return home before the winter closes in.
"The United Kingdom, because of the capability and deployability of its forces, is well-placed to contribute to that operation. Moreover, as the framework nation for the Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps, our initial contribution will inevitably be high. However, we envisage that the UK contribution to the force will reduce markedly after an initial deployment period of six months.
"I am now reducing the notice to move of the three infantry battalion groups that, as previously announced, are undergoing training for possible operations in Kosovo. The units concerned are 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment, 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment and Battalion Royal Gurkha

969
Rifles. In addition, we are reducing the notice of 3 Commando Brigade and the Amphibious Ready Group, a number of combat support units, two brigade headquarters, elements of a divisional headquarters and a number of RAF support helicopters and support units. I am placing a full list of the units involved in the Library.
"Precisely how many of those earmarked forces will be needed by NATO will depend on a number of factors—most importantly, what forces other allies are able to provide in the time required. Given the importance that NATO attaches to the early identification, training, commitment and deployment of additional forces, we judge it prudent to take those steps now to keep options open and be ready to respond once firm requests are received from NATO. The geographical distance of the United Kingdom from the theatre of operations means that deployment times are inevitably longer for us than for most other allies.
"In all, we are reducing the notice to move of more than 12,000 personnel, in addition to the 5,400 already deployed in Macedonia as part of the Kosovo implementation force and 1,600 others committed to Kosovo operations. We are also taking steps to provide the equipment and material needed to support a force of that size and are making preparations to deploy the heavy equipment of the three infantry battalion groups and some combat support to the region next month.
"Those are serious steps and they will place great demands upon all three services, individual service men and their families. But they are steps that measure up to the seriousness of the situation that confronts us in Kosovo. Let us remember that 1.4 million people—more than three-quarters of the population of Kosovo—have been driven in terror from their homes. Our objective is to allow them to return home and to rebuild their shattered lives in conditions that are secure and civilised; and in doing so, to show that the cruelty and brutality that we have seen in Kosovo over the last year will not be tolerated. That is a major and momentous undertaking which in the coming months and years will require a major investment of diplomatic, financial, humanitarian and military effort. The measures that I have announced today are a further demonstration of this Government's determination to play a full part in that historic effort."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
5.53 p.m.
Lord Burnham: My Lords, before anything else, I am sure that I should emphasise the tribute paid by the Minister to the work that our armed forces are doing in the area and to that which they may be expected to do. They have been faultless in their performance and I have little doubt that they will continue to be faultless.
The House will be grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement by his right honourable friend in another place. The noble Lord was kind enough to
970
warn me on Monday that the Statement would be made today. I surmised from that distant early warning that there would probably not be anything sensational in it. I do not think that there is, although we are most grateful for the news that the Minister has given the House as to the speeding of the preparation of units and the units that are to be sent. The noble Lord has made an important contribution to our knowledge, which is particularly important before Parliament breaks for the Whitsun Recess.
I am most interested in the news that the Minister has given the House on the effect of air bombardment on Serbian armed forces. I hope that I am not being cynical, but the figures remind me just a fraction of the figures for the number of German aircraft that the Royal Air Force claimed to have shot down in September 1940. The Statement talks about destroying 75 per cent of fixed surface-to-air missiles and 12 per cent of mobile systems. That seems impressive, except that the mobile systems are the modern ones and the fixed weapons are outdated. I totally accept that it is difficult to make an accurate statement of the scale of destruction, but is there any tangible evidence of that scale of destruction of Serbian armed forces and their equipment?
The Minister gave a list of the battalions being sent to Macedonia. It has been clear from what we have seen recently that a number of the units—specifically 1 Para—can only be brought up to strength by borrowing from their fellows. That has ever been the case when the Army goes to war. But it is increasingly serious when the Army's total strength is so depleted. What will happen if 3 Para is required to go into action? Has it got any men?
The Statement makes it clear also that the original figure of 28,000 for the Kosovo Force will not be adequate and refers to a figure of 60,000. It also makes it clear that the United Kingdom is the framework nation for the Rapid Reaction Corps, so that it may be expected that this country will help to provide a sizeable proportion of the forces required. Where will they come from?
In passing, the Minister spoke about 3 Commando Brigade. It has not been made clear of what that will consist.
Where will the forces come from? We may be confident that in this country politicians see the campaign through the eyes of their professional military advisers. Is the same true of the other NATO countries? Will political and military advisers be able to play their part? Have even now adequate plans been made for the future six months, year and years?
The Statement confirms that the UK contribution to the land force will reduce markedly after an initial deployment period of six months. I do not expect the Minister to comment on plans for the future, but from all we know of the Serbians, Kosovars and Albanians, that statement seems somewhat unrealistic. However, I accept that that is the Government's policy and it is one of which we totally approve—but one to which we will hold the Government.

971
The Statement refers to the United Kingdom working with its partners to put the "civil structures" in place. It is riot primarily civil structures that are needed but houses and homes. What underpinning will NATO forces give the Kosovars when they return to their homes because they are said to be safe and they then find them razed to the ground? Will NATO not only hell: them to rebuild but have the power and influence to ensure that the Serbs do not come back and raze those homes to the ground all over again?
In the context of preparations being made for refugees outside Kosovo's borders, it is reported that UNHCR was forbidden to prepare for more than a certain number. I accept the danger that being too ready would have given comfort to Milosevic, but can the Minister enlighten the House on that policy?
I hope that my remarks do not appear too condemnatory of the Government's actions. We on these Benches entirely support what has been going on. It is in no way my intention to be hyper-critical. But the noble Lord and the Secretary of State must accept the major concern that exists throughout the country about the way the war is going. Grateful as we are to receive this Statement today, those who read the serious newspapers get a great deal more than the noble Lord has been able to give. That is in no way intended as a criticism of the noble Lord; it is a feature of the time and space that have been available.
The trouble with what we read in the newspapers is that: it cannot all be true. Without a vestige of sarcasm I say that I would rather listen to what the Government tell us than what I read in the newspapers. The trouble is that, even then, we have to read between the lines.
In conclusion, perhaps I may again emphasise the debt that this country owes to all members of the Armed Forces for their current work and for the work that they may be expected to do in the future. Will the Government remember that they have homes and families? In this modern age we should not expect them to be separated for too long—we can, of course: they have enlisted, and it is their duty to go where and do what their political and military masters tell them. But the Army is seriously depleted in numbers already, and such treatment is desperately bad for recruitment and retention.
I have talked about the Minister's statement that the British effort will be downscaled. Given the confidence that one way or another Milosevic can be totally defeated, can the Government now say what will happen then: to the Serbians, the Kosovars, the refugees and, not least, to our own Armed Forces?
6.1 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, we on these Benches welcome the Government's announcement. We had indeed been pressing for some weeks for the sending of further troops to the region. It seemed to us entirely correct in these very difficult circumstances to provide more troops in Macedonia arid Albania, either for use if a semi-permissive environment has to be taken, or for help in occupying, after an agreement, for what will now have to be a major process of reconstruction.
972
We also appreciate that what the Government have announced is a force that may have to be used under different circumstances which we cannot yet foresee. There is therefore a short-term immediate need for this action. However, we also emphasise that, in everything that is done, we must think about the long term. How far are plans now moving ahead in terms of thinking beyond next winter? An international protectorate for Kosovo clearly has to be the next stage, whatever happens to the Serbian government, and assistance for rebuilding and consideration in regard to rebuilding the region as a whole. In one of his speeches, the Prime Minister referred to a Marshall Plan for south-eastern Europe beyond the immediate needs of this summer. That is the kind of thinking that now needs to be under way.
As regards the announcement, we note that on the current projections of figures potentially some 20,000 out of the 60,000 troops committed to the region may be British. Is that the scale of contribution that we think may be necessary? Does it imply that the British are likely to be the largest single contingent—larger than the American as well as the French? If that is necessary, so be it. However, it would be helpful to have further information as to what scale of contribution the other major contributors are likely to provide.
With regard to 3 Commando Brigade, will the. Dutch contingent, as part of the British-Dutch amphibious group, be part of 3 Commando Brigade? Are we therefore sending a combined force as part of our contribution?
In terms of links between the parallel discussions on European defence co-operation, now well under way, and this immediate initiative, will the Minister tell the House how he sees the two relating? Will he say whether so far there have had to be national contributions under a NATO element; or are the moves, with which the Government are also concerned, to promote closer European defence co-operation taking place on the ground as we move forward in Kosovo? Are the costs likely to be borne by each contributing nation, or has there yet been any consideration about how the immediate, as well as the long-term, costs might be shared out?
We are conscious that this will require a heavy commitment of British troops. It is likely that it will mean some recall of reserves. We welcome the statement that after the first six months it is likely drat the British contribution will be scaled down in comparison to others. But, as I said, we welcome the statement that Britain is prepared to take action now to make a major contribution to what is needed in these very difficult circumstances.
6.6 p.m.
Lord Gilbert: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for the tributes that they have paid to Her Majesty's forces in Macedonia and Albania and those operating in the Adriatic and out of bases in Italy and Germany.
The noble Lord, Lord Burnham, said that there was nothing sensational in the Statement. Nothing was intended to be sensational. It was intended to be a

973
demonstration of a series of prudent precautionary steps that Her Majesty's Government are taking in order to be properly placed should the situation in Kosovo develop rapidly.
The noble Lord talked about the effects of the air bombardment. I must confess that I am not enthusiastic about shopping lists of pieces of equipment that have been knocked out. I am far more interested in the state of morale of the forces to whom we are opposed. From time to time we receive highly sensitive reports on the state of morale in the bunkers of Belgrade. There is no question that some hairline cracks are showing. Equally important are the reports that we receive regarding publicly reported cracks in the morale of civilians and armed forces in Yugoslavia. Those are even more encouraging than the effects of the air bombardment.
The noble Lord asked whether there was tangible evidence of the lists of items that I gave being hit. Yes, there is, in the sense that there are photo images of almost all of them. We also receive reports from various sources on the ground.
The noble Lord asked about 1 Para. He was gracious enough to acknowledge that they would always have been back-filled and that was a perfectly normal state of affairs. He asked some hypothetical questions about 3 Para. I do not want to be seduced into answering questions of that kind; they are thoroughly hypothetical at this time. I understand that 3 Commando Brigade will be coming from Taunton, Chivenor and Arbroath.
As regards reductions after six months, which were welcomed by both noble Lords, one of the reasons that we expect that to be possible is that eventually we hope to involve more and more non-NATO forces in any occupation force in Kosovo. NATO has always been open on that matter. We should, for example, be happy to have Russian forces there if Russia wanted to send some. But we are insisting that any force that goes into Kosovo will have NATO as its core, not least for the reason that NATO is the only organisation that can provide proper logistics and a proper command function.
With regard to over-stretch of the Armed Forces, which we all acknowledge, the noble Lords may like to know that we have already begun roulement with respect to the land forces in Macedonia. To take up another point made by the noble Lord, Lord Burnham, we are extremely concerned about the importance of family support to the forces engaged in these operations. It may be of interest to the House to know that there has been a round of ministerial visits to the families of the units serving abroad. I have been to Royal Air Force units in Lincolnshire and also to Portsmouth. My ministerial colleagues have visited several other groups of families. I found their morale quite high.
The noble Lord, Lord Burnham, asked me a series of impossible questions, as he often does. He asked what will happen when Milosevic is finally defeated. My first question is: who knows whether Mr. Milosevic will still be alive? Secondly, who knows who will be running Serbia? Will Serbia convert itself into a democratic state? Will it be run by a military oligarchy?
974
The noble Lord asked what will happen to the refugees. We hope they will all go home. One of the interesting points about the present situation is the tenacity with which the refugees have so far clung to remaining as close to the border of Kosovo as they possibly can. They are showing a great reluctance to be moved to often safer, more hygienic camps away from the immediate border. There are reasons for that. They feel that they will lose the chance of finding members of their family whom they have not seen for some time. They feel that it will reduce their chances of getting back to their land. They may even have come across in tractors and feel that they are losing their own agricultural equipment. For whatever reason, they show a quite remarkable intensity of desire to go back, knowing full well that the villages to which they will return have been ransacked, looted and often burnt almost to the ground.
The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, asked how far plans were looking ahead beyond next winter. First, I ought to tell your Lordships that we are looking ahead to next winter and trying to make our contribution towards ensuring that there will be adequate warm shelter for any refugees who are still outside Kosovo when the winter snows come, which is usually about October in that part of the world.
The noble Lord was good enough to mention the Prime Minister's reference to a Marshall Plan for the region as a whole. There is a general feeling throughout Europe that we must do something for the region as a whole. We have made it clear that we wish to accelerate the admission to the European Union and NATO of the various frontline states that might want to join those institutions. But membership is not within the gift of this country. Discussions on the matter are not at the top of the list of priorities because we have more urgent matters to discuss with our allies at the moment.
The noble Lord speculated about what proportion of an eventual KFOR might be British. He suggested possibly 20,000 out of 60,000. There is no point in my playing with figures at the Dispatch Box this afternoon, if noble Lords will forgive me. It depends very much on the contributions of our allies. I remind noble Lords that there are about 3,500 German troops in Macedonia at the moment. There are over 2,000 Italian troops in Macedonia and Albania and over 2,000 French troops also in Macedonia. No fewer than 13 air forces have been involved in flying NATO missions in current operations. It is a remarkable state of affairs.
The noble Lord asked me about the Dutch element in 3 Commando Brigade. Off the top of my head I cannot give the answer, but I will certainly write to him with it. The Dutch are present in Macedonia and have 155 mm guns with them as part of their heavy equipment, if I am correctly informed.
Nothing going on in Macedonia is impeding moves towards future European co-ordination in defence matters, and in the Ministry of Defence we are engaged from day to day in discussing various European procurement matters which I am sure the noble Lord would applaud.
That has probably answered all the points noble Lords have asked so far.
6.13 p.m.
Lord Shore of Stepney: My Lords, I am sure my noble friend shares my feeling of anger and frustration that despite deploying the full might of NATO and inflicting that great list of damage on the Serbian armed forces and, in addition, the Serbian economy, nevertheless we have been unable to give any practical assistance to prevent the expulsion of the people of Kosovo from their own land. The figure of three-quarters of the population expelled gives clear evidence of the magnitude of the catastrophe and the tragedy in which we are inevitably now a player. Along with others, we must try to extricate ourselves from it.
I have no doubt that we will prevail. Even with bombing from 15,000 feet, there will come a point when the Serbs give up and we shall be able to deploy the troops. But I must say to my noble friend that, as he is well aware, the timescale must now be uncertain. The Serbs have survived two months and in a few months' time it will be winter. The preparations in two months' time will have to take full account of the approach of winter. With that in mind we must now make substantial provision for refugees who will remain, even though many will desire to go back, when they will have no homes to go to and no communities to connect with. Many will have to be looked after in Macedonia. I hope that preparations on a serious scale are now being made.
My last question to my noble friend is this. I was glad to hear what he said about bringing the Russians into an occupying force. That is important. I wish to know whether he has anything further to say about the progress of diplomacy, which must surely still be that we have a two-pronged approach. It must help to bring this ghastly tragedy to an end.
Lord Gilbert: My Lords, it is true that air power has not succeeded in bringing an end to some of the cruelty and expulsions from Kosovo. That is obvious. On the other hand, I can tell my noble friend that we have noted a distinct reduction in the activity of the Serbian armed forces and MUP in the last couple of weeks. It is clear that the KLA have benefited from NATO air attacks and have not been eliminated, as many people thought they would be within the first couple of weeks of the campaign.
I am sure my noble friend will forgive me when I take him up on his use of the word, he said that it is necessary for us to "extricate" ourselves from the situation. We will find ourselves carrying a share of responsibility for that part of the world for many months and possibly years to come. I am sure my noble friend's meaning was that we must bring an end to the cruelty and bloodshed as soon as we can. That is NATO's objective and one of the reasons we are stepping up the air campaign.
The number of missions flown every day produces a new record number—I think I am right in saying it is of the order of 700—missions every 24 hours. The proportion of strike missions in that 700 is increasing, and as the weather inexorably improves so the accuracy of the bombing and the ability of our planes to attack targets rather than fly home with munitions undelivered increases.
976
In two months' time it will be not even the end of July and I should be surprised if we were facing the same situation with respect to Kosovo and Serbia as we face today. I can assure my noble friend that great preparations are being made because we recognise that many of the refugees cannot possibly be re-housed before winter comes. We are making preparations now through DFID, through UNHCR and non-governmental organisations to ensure that they get through the winter in as good shape as we can manage.
As for the operation of diplomacy, again I can assure my noble friend that a great deal of activity is going on which is concealed from the public view. It gives me hope that these problems will not be with us much longer.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, does the Minister recognise that many of us who supported and still support the need for NATO action against Milosevic are now worried that we are in danger of losing the propaganda war and failing to win the military war? Does the Minister regard it as satisfactory that, after two months of all-out air assault, on his figures we have only succeeded in removing one-third of Serbia's heavy forces in Kosovo and destroying only 12 per cent of the mobile surface-to-air missile systems?
The Minister has announced that Britain is to make a contribution of 19,000 troops—I added up the figures—out of a possible maximum of 60,000. As one country among 18 why are we expected to provide one third of the entire force? Who is to pay the disproportionate cost of this? Finally, does the noble Lord accept that what we really need are clear aims, one of which must be an independent Kosovo and the other is a peace-keeping force that may have to be there for 50 years?
Lord Gilbert: My Lords, in the first place the noble Lord's fundamental assumption is misplaced. NATO has not been waging an all-out air war for the past two months. It has been very fastidious in its choice of targets and weapons. Its airmen have exercised great professionalism in returning to base time after time without releasing their munitions. We have not been waging all-out war in Yugoslavia, and I hope that the noble Lord recognises that. I am satisfied with the effects of the campaign so far and that we shall see great changes in the weeks ahead as the weather improves.
The noble Lord said that we were in danger of losing both the propaganda war and the military war. It is up to him to judge the propaganda war. I say to his face that I do not believe his remarks to be very helpful. As to the military war, I am quite sure that Mr. Milosevic is not winning it, even if he believes that we are not winning it. As to whether NATO has clear aims, I and my noble friend have said from this Dispatch l3ox several times—it has been said by the Prime Minister and every other Minister—that the aim is quite simple: his troops out, our troops in and the refugees back.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, first, can the Minister say whether any steps have been taken to ensure that Macedonia and Albanian, both of which are under very heavy strain, will be compensated for the

977
inevitable extra costs of housing a substantially increased military force? Secondly, can the Minister say anything—I appreciate that it may be too soon—about the necessity to ensure that in relation to any non-NATO involvement in the ground force that moves into Kosovo a distinction will not be made that puts Russian and related troops into Serbian areas and NATO core troops into Albanian areas, thereby making it easier to suggest a partition of Kosovo as part of the negotiation?
Lord Gilbert: My Lords, to deal first with the final question, I do not recall having seen any piece of paper on which any such suggestion is made. I would be very surprised if, when all this is over, there was a Serb area of Kosovo. Speaking personally, I have a strong suspicion that in the end Mr. Milosevic's policy on ethnic cleansing will be very successful except that Kosovo will be ethnically cleansed of Serbs. I tell the House that, frankly, I would not want to be a Serb living in Kosovo when all this is over.
As to compensation, the noble Baroness is probably aware—I do not carry the exact figures in my head—that the EU has already made a contribution to Macedonia. I believe I am right in saying that the Prime Minister has announced two tranches of £10 million each separately from this country. We are going out of our way to procure support for British troops in Macedonia from Macedonian suppliers.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, my question is based on press reports this morning, notably in the Guardian, to the effect that NATO has plans and proposals that are intended to bring this tragic war to an end. I therefore found the Statement deeply disappointing in that it appeared to be concerned with digging ourselves further in rather than extracting ourselves. Of course, we can extract ourselves only on honourable and satisfactory terms. But is it not time that we thought more seriously about how to bring this wretched business to an end rather than concentrate on digging ourselves in further?
Lord Gilbert: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. I am aware that he does not agree with me on many aspects of our policy with respect to Kosovo. But I am grateful to him for acknowledging that we must bring this matter to an end on honourable terms, which is what we are determined to do. It will come to an end just as soon as Mr Milosevic submits to the opinion of decent people in the civilised world. There are 19 countries now lined up against him. They include all the frontline states that are his neighbours, a good number of whom are not members of NATO. It is up to Mr. Milosevic to bring this to an end. He can do it tomorrow if he wants to; it is perfectly simple. In my view, his actions have passed all rationality.
Lord Blaker: My Lords, the Minister referred to civilian reconstruction. Will it not be an enormous task given the scale of destruction and the number of refugees? I note his comment about the desire of refugees to return as soon as possible, but before any
978
more than a small number can return will it not be necessary to create a new and impartial police force, massive new housing developments, hospitals, schools, water supplies and electricity, not to mention a system of local government? Can we be optimistic about the time that must elapse before it is possible for the refugees to return in significant numbers?
Lord Gilbert: My Lords, the noble Lord puts his finger on some extremely important points. The realisation of the scale of these tasks is one of the factors that underpins the Statement made today by my right honourable friend. That is also one of the reasons for the North Atlantic Council's realisation that more ground troops will be needed to take part in the implementation force very early on, because inevitably that task will initially—I emphasise "initially"—fall to service personnel. I very much agree with what the noble Lord said.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, can my noble friend indicate whether, following reports over the past few days of substantial disaffection among Serb forces, that is becoming an increasing or diminishing factor? What steps have been taken by the NATO alliance to take advantage of that situation?
Lord Gilbert: My Lords, I do not wish to give the House an exaggerated view that the discipline of the Serbian armed forces will collapse in the next few days. But we have seen men returning to their villages, which was something that we did not witness four, five or six weeks ago. There are perceptible shifts in the morale of Serbian armed forces at squaddie level (if I may put it like that). There is nothing that NATO can do to encourage it. We do what we can by dropping leaflets, broadcasts and other methods to try to encourage developments of this kind, which can only be in our favour.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, following the obvious great success of high-level bombing and the accuracy achieved, despite mistakes, can the Minister say whether it is possible at this stage at reasonable risk to our forces to back up the KLA and attack the forces in Kosovo from a low level, which is always more effective? Have we reached a stage of superiority when we can do that?
Lord Gilbert: My Lords, I understand what the noble Lord says. I am afraid that I am not prepared to discuss operational matters of that kind in your Lordships' House.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, has it not always been the case that any ground force engagement of whatever character within Kosovo is bound to take substantial time to mount? Is it not clear from the Statement that there has been a very substantial diminution and weakening of the ability of Serbia to resist any such ground force initiative, if and when it comes, to say nothing of its ability to go into Macedonia and Albania? Further, is it not the case that there is absolutely no

979
means apart from bombing of achieving that diminution, weakening and softening up? Is that not the answer to those who have, very damagingly in my opinion, sniped at the policy of aerial bombardment? Surely, it would be self-defeating folly for NATO to lose its nerve now.
Lord Gilbert: My Lords, I am extremely obliged to the noble and learned Lord for his remarks. I do not think that I can say anything other than that I totally agree with him.
Lord Monro of Langholm: My Lords, as the noble Lord knows our reserves are much involved in theatre. Does he wish to pay tribute to the Territorial Army and the Royal Auxiliary Air Force which have significant numbers there? In view of their high standards of efficiency and enthusiasm, is it likely that more will be sent to theatre in the future?
Lord Gilbert: My Lords, I am happy to pay tribute to the reserves, in particular the Royal Air Force Reserves. While not discriminating in their favour, I know the noble Lord's longstanding interest in them.
Yes, it is possible that more will be asked to be sent to theatre, but I would not wish to specify at this stage whether individuals or formed-up units.
Lord Hacking: My Lords, before we conclude questions to the Minister, may I remind my noble friend of the substantial support from these Benches given to the Government and to the men and women of our Armed Forces in the current policies? It was heartening to hear the support of the Opposition from the noble Lord, Lord Burnham. Regrettably, I was unable to hear such support when I heard the Statement a few moments ago in another place.
I turn to the situation in Yugoslavia. Can my noble friend help us about steps being taken to isolate Milosevic politically in his own country? Coupled with that, what is the level of information that we are currently able to supply to the people of Yugoslavia over the atrocities being committed in Kosovo and the rightness of the NATO campaign?
Lord Gilbert: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his remarks. There has been a great increase in the amount of broadcasting out of this country directed at Serbia. I do not have the figures at my fingertips. I am happy to write to the noble Lord on the number of hours a week which are being broadcast in the different languages. We are not the only people broadcasting into that unhappy country. We are pointing out to the citizens that Mr. Milosevic's family still live in some comfort; that the sons of the privileged classes are evading the draft very successfully; and that is a matter which I think lay behind some of the recent civil disturbances which we saw.
My noble friend alluded to public support. The issue arose when the noble Lord, Lord Burnham, was on his feet. He said that there was concern throughout the country about the way the war was going. I should point
980
out to the noble Lord that all opinion polls show that support in the country is higher now, I am glad to say, than it was when the bombing started.
The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his noble friend's Written Answer which I have received today. It confirms that we are strengthening the UNHCR very considerably with convoys of vehicles in Albania. However, does he think that we have given too little credit to the UNHCR, perhaps because of its past performance, and that our own Armed Forces are reinforcing what is becoming a United Nations humanitarian effort?
Lord Gilbert: My Lords, I am happy to pay tribute to the work of the UNHCR and to the work of many NGOs which have been extremely active and very brave in taking aid on the ground into Kosovo, in addition to the work of our own forces.
If present plans come to fruition, there will shortly be some aid flights over Kosovo by arrangement with NATO. However, to keep your Lordships fully informed, I should point out that some of those aid convoys can be of considerable embarrassment to the conduct of air operations. I am told that there are some 15 or so convoys operating in Kosovo at the moment. They do not always give notice of where and when they are going. When they do, they do not always follow their initial indications. The result is that it becomes extremely difficult for NATO at present to conduct air activities against any major highway, and sometimes off highways.

Regional Museums and Galleries
6.34 p.m.
The Earl of Clancartyrose to call attention to the role of the regional museums and galleries (particularly local authority museums) within the United Kingdom; and to move for Papers.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I should like to say how grateful I am that we have a chance to debate the role of regional museums and galleries today. I look forward to the contributions of those noble Lords who are taking part in the debate.
The Motion suggests a focus on local authority museums, but it is important that the role of other kinds of museums, including university-owned collections and the independent museums, is discussed, and the national museums in terms of their relationship to the regions including their own.
We are a fairly select band this evening. There are clearly always many people willing to speak in debates specifically on the national museums and galleries, and not just because of a London bias. But a discussion of regional museums and galleries is also a discussion of individuals whose work in the field of culture is connected to or bound by particular localities or regions within the UK, and perhaps there need to be more people in this House who can or are willing to talk of that experience.

981
This is a large and complex subject and I shall not pretend to give a comprehensive overview. I shall look at the importance of good statistics, certain funding problems and connections between regions.
One of the first and perhaps most important factors one discovers in researching for a debate of this type is the scarcity of meaningful statistics on museums. That view is backed up by many museum professionals and experts including Stuart Davies and Sara Selwood in their recent comprehensive report for Cultural Trends. David Fleming, director at Tyne and Wear, complained in last month's Museums Journal of what he called a knowledge deficit. It is far too easy, for instance, to take an approach which gives only examples of what we might perceive as best practice. The Government give 10 such examples in their new access standards document, Museums for the Many. They tell us clearly what they think the museums should be doing—and all the examples are deserving of citation—but what that approach does not give us is a sense of the whole picture including, importantly, I think, the historical context for particular implementations by museums which is absolutely necessary if there is to be a coherent national museums policy.
We need to know in what direction things are moving. I believe that this should be one of the main concerns of the new Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, MLAC. Urgently required are detailed data, which are as complete as possible, in order, for instance, to elicit long-term regional and nationwide trends, and geographic distributions. Those have to be properly analysed and wedded to policy. The Digest of Museum Statistics (DOMUS), volunteered annually from registered museums, is the obvious basis for that. The information contained in last year's document, Museums in Focus, produced by the Museums and Galleries Commission, is no more than a start. Only about 80 per cent of respondents returned the questionnaire this year. The figure needs to be 100 per cent.
I suggest to the Government that the annual provision of statistics to MLAC by individual museums should be a condition of registration and/or funding agreements. I think also that it would not be too difficult a project for such a survey to be extended back much further in time, perhaps to the 19th century, so that real long-term trends can be deduced. Many museums will have detailed records which go back many years. It is important, too, that such a project is not tendered out, for instance, as an academic project. It should be conducted by an inhouse team, including museum experts and statisticians, since its implementation needs to be closely aligned to the policy making of the new body. There should be a wider consultation on the content of the questionnaire than exists currently. For instance, small local museums may have their own ideas about what characteristics need to be drawn out of such a survey.
The Government, being in the best position to do so, should be carrying out what they are currently asking various groups to do separately, thereby—without spurning those contributions—making the whole undertaking more efficient.
982
It is clear that the cultural map, like the political map, is beginning to shift rapidly. The changes that are taking place mean that this is in many ways an exciting time for regional museums. There are, for example, across the United Kingdom numerous large-scale capital projects such as the New Art Gallery in Walsall, which is due to open in February next year.
Certain initiatives at local authority museums are clearly due not just to strong individual curatorship, which is important in itself, but also to the right level of support from the relavent local authorities. Bristol Museums and Art Gallery was able last September to drop the admission charge which it had had for six years. Its attendance rose by 72 per cent for the last financial year. Its current major exhibition on slavery is winning considerable praise from national newspapers, all of this being achieved on public money with very little sponsorship.
Specific initiatives include the schools loan service at Reading, which is rightly applauded, although here the Government should consider the fact that the widest coverage in the United Kingdom of such services, including the nationwide service by the National Museum of Wales, probably existed in the early 1970s. Central government too have directly signalled their interest in certain of the regional museums with 15 million spread over three years for the 43 designated museums' services. This is a modest amount but a precedent in terms of its commitment to non-national museums with significant collections.
Yet with all the examples of specific funding and "good practice" that can be given, it is clear that the particular situation of regional and local museums varies tremendously throughout the United Kingdom. The Secretary of State should be fully aware that the over-riding situation of local authority museums is one of uncertainty and of diminishing funds from the local authorities themselves. The Government need to look at the issue closely and, I reiterate, demonstrate not only that they are aware of the more detailed picture but that they are able to map it out and formulate a national policy to deal with it.
Ceredigion Museum in Aberystwyth, which I understand puts on a significant programme of contemporary Welsh art, is symptomatic of the position of many museums, particularly in Wales but throughout the United Kingdom, which are suffering from the reorganisation of local authorities. Ceredigion was formerly part of Dyfed. For the past 10 years the museum has had an average of 35,000 visitors but, through no fault of its own, recent cuts in funding have meant the introduction of charges, effecting an immediate drop in visitor numbers of 66 per cent. Ceredigion is unable to employ an education officer and, most frustratingly, is unable to take up grant opportunities, including lottery funding.
Another reason for poor funding is the low priority which museums and galleries are often given by local authorities in the wake of government policy concerning education and social exclusion. For example. MGC's new visitor survey shows that museums score more highly than most other so-called "leisure activities".

983
Thirty-five per cent of the population have visited a museum in the last 12 months. Only the cinema, at 59 per cent, and parks and gardens score more. There is, for instance, considerable concern about the effect the new scheme, Fair Funding, will have on education in museums, which of course includes the effective access which schools will have. The MGC stops short of criticising the delegation of funds to schools per se but is clearly worried about the loss of the central education advisory services. I understand that its report is due out in the summer. One can also add the fear that education posts will be lost, as well as the more general concern over the loss of economies of scale; in other words, the dispersal of expertise. I understand that DfEE and DCMS are currently holding discussions on this, and I would welcome a report from the Minister as to how matters are proceeding.
Over three-quarters of the museums which are open today have been founded since 1970. Many of these independent museums now call for a level playing field for all museums. However, there is something quite unique about local authority museums; for instance, the way they have developed their own catchment areas—some areas, it has to be said, better covered than others. Everyone in the country deserves their own good free local museum. I believe an idea of public space as might exist in these museums provides a key to our thinking about the meaning of "access", something that needs to be much more widely discussed.
The Government's use of the term in a qualitative abstract sense—for example, in the sense of widening access—ignores the significance of the public space of which the collections are the focal point where access is something that may happen—access as a concrete contemporary event. If the Government are to protect local authority museums with their special unique qualities, as they should pledge to do, in part through a promise to introduce a statutory requirement, then they need to protect that public space as well. That public space is not just the physical space. It includes, or should include, scholarship, conservation, education and IT, management, and much else and, of course, the visitors: everything that is held in orbit around the collection itself.
The problem with tendering out any parts of this space—the Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust has been considering this in relation to conservation—is that the space is reduced and becomes closed off. The Government wish museums to be "user-friendly", but there is nothing quite so opaque or unaccountable in a direct sense to the public as private business. A public collection without a public space in which to show it is not a public collection.
Access that is about public space has to be about a living culture. It is in that spirit that the Heritage Lottery Access Fund should, I think, be flexible about the guideline which excludes art of the last 20 years. The HLF ought to be overlapping with the Arts Council of England. What is needed, I think, is greater dialogue between past and present. Perhaps the HLF should consider employing one or two people on their access fund steering group with an interest in contemporary art.
984
One might say that beyond the problems which devolution and regional autonomy will initially bring, many regional museums are beginning to talk to each other and exchange ideas on a different scale than previously. For example, partly for lobbying reasons but also to exchange information, a new group of 21 of the local authority city museums, Group for Large Local Authority Museums (GLLAM), has been set up. The Tate Gallery is currently considering extending a scheme of creative partnerships beyond the pilot scheme it has been running with Norwich Castle Museum. The regional museums now have a strongly-held view that such relationships have to be two-way. Also, so that less well-financed and perhaps more isolated museums can benefit from such schemes, the Heritage Lottery Fund may be an appropriate source of such funding. And it is for such reasons—to allow the necessary context of the nationals within the nationwide picture—that it is crucial that all the national museums are included in the remit of MLAC.
For a coherent museums policy, the nationals cannot be perceived as being independent of the rest of the museums sector. Last year an exhibition called artranspennine98, which I did not actually see, was organised by the Tate Gallery Liverpool, stretching between Liverpool, Leeds and Hull, predicated on a view that we need to be sensitive about the connections that may or may not exist between one region and another.
As important, at a more grass-roots level, is the need for all individuals entering the cultural field of a museum, particularly those resident within the museum's own region, to have an opportunity of exploring beyond the museum itself. The museum should not be the final stop but should be there also to act as a conduit, a facilitator for people, including artists and others on low incomes, within their regions to interact with cultures outside them, including abroad and vice versa. For example, regional museums could have much closer links with the British Council. I understand that in Scotland some close associations between institutions have been forged over a long period. Perhaps the rest of the United Kingdom could learn from these developments.
Within this context I would also seriously suggest that Visiting Arts, an efficient organisation, deserves dramatically increased funding to help to properly finance a much greater array of exchange projects.
I want to say a word about the relationship between access and the principle of "best value", and conclude with an irony directed to both the Government and the regional museums. Best value is now being forcibly applied in the museum sector so that one tends to hear the phrase, "jumping through hoops". For the Government, access in the abstract sense is always access to something—the "hidden treasures", so called:, of the collections perhaps, as in the recent DCMS press release. I believe that the Government tend to "blackbox" art. On the other hand they have a very definite idea (much more than I do) of what culture—pop culture, football culture and so forth—is. But if one believes, as I do, that the public space which museums set up is the space where cultural discussion is to take

985
place, the irony becomes that in order to sustain that space museums have to fulfil the criteria of a known funding policy, which itself should be critiqued within that space. Perhaps the Minister may have something to say about that in relation to local, regional and future national strategies. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
6.50 p.m.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for tabling this Motion. The noble Earl is assiduous in raising matters concerning the arts in your Lordships' House, and long may he be enabled to do so.
There is a wealth of art treasures in many of the regional museums throughout the United Kingdom. The exhibition entitled "Art Treasures of England" last year at Burlington House will have come as a revelation to many people. It certainly came as a revelation to me.
The question is: are we doing enough to help these institutions to preserve and increase access to the works of art in their keeping? The Government are doing a great deal to encourage access, as their recent paper, Museums for the Many, makes clear and as mentioned by the noble Earl. But, as he also mentioned, finance remains a problem.
Much help is given by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the National Art Collections Fund, supported by the subscriptions of its members. But the financial pressure continues to increase. I understand that the HLF received more than 4,500 applications last year, requesting in total four times the available funding. The policy appears to have changed as the bulk of the large grants go to urban parks and historic city areas, as well as to wildlife and nature conservation, rather than to the purchase of works of art. The sum allocated to museums for acquisitions is just £5 million. As the Financial Times put it, "Wetlands before Watteaus".
On the other hand, this policy seems to me to be the right one as once a heritage site, or historic building, has gone it has gone for ever. But the painting or sculpture goes to other owners or institutions, usually in the United States, where it is just as fully appreciated, well preserved and seen probably by even more people.
The National Heritage Memorial Fund was established as a memorial to those who have given their lives for the United Kingdom and as a fund of last resort to save important art treasures for the nation. During recent years, its funds have been whittled away from £12 million in 1993–94 to only £2 million last year. I am glad that the present Government have agreed to increase the grant in aid over the next three years to a level of £5 million. This is most welcome. I hope that it will not be considered a ceiling and that the original level will be restored.
I trust that the Government will continue to bear in mind the importance of a regional museum to the people of the locality. They cannot always travel to London, nor should they be obliged to do so. The regional and university museums, which are often of national importance, are a lifeline for many people who depend
986
on them for their study, continuing appreciation and pleasure. The Government were obliged to finance and to be responsible for Liverpool's five museums during the local government reorganisation. Those museums have become the National Museums on Merseyside and are, as we know, a great success story, showing the difference between museums funded by central government and those, unhappily, which are not.
Non-formula funding for some 21 university museums from the DCMS is of course some help and I believe that one day central government will have to take on more financial responsibility for many of our regional museums rather than leaving them to hard-pressed local authorities.
Cheltenham Borough Council has been obliged to close two local museums; a costume museum and that devoted to the composer, Gustav Holst, who was born there. The splendid Bowes Museum is in difficulties, despite the good intentions of Durham County Council. I believe that there should be a more equal funding relationship between the regional and the national museums so that the regions get more of the funds available and local people, including our young people, are not deprived of their cultural heritage.
We need an integrated national policy for all our museums, as the noble Earl mentioned. The Government have already given much support to the arts in general and I hope that they will consider what can be done to give more help and encouragement to this hard-pressed sector.
6.56 p.m.
Lord Montagu of Beaulieu: My Lords, I too, congratulate the noble Earl on initiating this timely debate. Having spent almost a lifetime in the museum world, I must declare an interest as former president of the Museums Association, patron of the Association of Independent Museums and, of course, founder and chairman of the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu.
Inevitably, over the years I have taken part in many museum debates in your Lordships' House, but in the circumstances of the Bill going through the House, this will probably be my last intervention. Perhaps in another debate on this subject your Lordships will not be able to discuss Scotland and Wales. We shall see. However, I have never known a time when such unfortunate paradoxes faced our museums. As we near the end of the 20th century, there is a transformation in the museum world. Thanks to the National Lottery, and not to governments more money has been allocated to new museums and the refurbishment of old ones than in the past 100 years. Undreamed of clouds of new money have been showered on places such as the British Museum, the new Tate, new millennium museums up and down the country—for instance, the New Hampshire Transport Museum at Basingstoke—not forgetting major refurbishment and renewals. So noble Lords can be forgiven for wondering why there is so much concern about the future.
The fact is that new buildings are fine, but eventually they have to be administered expertly and viably, and a very large percentage have to earn their keep or be

987
subsidised by local council tax payers. For most museums, the main source of income is visitors and the sad fact is that at the moment they are in diminishing supply. There are reports from all over the country of diminishing admissions.
The overall number of visitors to museums is static at about 80 million, but the number of new museums sharing that cake is increasing year by year. Therefore, each individual museum is getting a smaller part of the cake. The decrease, or lack of increase, is an unfortunate result of Sunday shopping, which had a major effect on attendance figures all over the country. Sunday shopping is now a major recreational activity for the family and, quite frankly, museums cannot compete with major shopping centres such as Bluewater, Lakeside, Tesco and Sainsbury's. Every new museum will be in competition not only with established museums and galleries but also with other tourist attractions.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, will not agree with me, but I can tell them that as regards regional museums the situation has not been helped by the Governments announcements on free entry to national museums and providing money to them, which the directors would much prefer to spend on new acquisitions, to compensate them for lack of admission money and VAT offset. Since all the national museums already catered for free entry for children and old-age pensioners and other needy people, the only beneficiaries are the millions of overseas visitors who are more than willing to pay and are accustomed to do so; for example, at the Louvre and the Hermitage where the queues are often longer than we see at our own museums. There is no evidence whatever that the British people think that we should provide free access to our national museums for overseas visitors who, when surveyed a few years ago, stated that they were more than delighted to pay.
After all, there is much experience in museums where there are admission charges enabling children, old-age pensioners and other deserving people to enter free. But in the new century, surely those who can afford to pay should pay and contribute to the future of the museum.
The fact is that most regional and independent museums have no choice other than to adopt a charging policy or close down. The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, gave examples of those national museums which are in trouble. Basically, I feel that the Government have confused their very laudable desire for greater access with that of admission fees. The Museums Association tells me that the general query now from people in the provinces is about that very subject. They assume that entry to all museums is now free of charge.
The other great uncertainty in the regions is how the new body being set up as a result of the merger between the Museums and Galleries Commission and the libraries is going to work. Incidentally, that merger was opposed by almost all concerned. For years the Museums and Galleries Commission has admirably administered the funds allocated through the Museums Area Services. No such funds existed for libraries. If one assumes that, as usual, no new money will be
988
available, does that mean that museum funds will be robbed to finance library projects? An explanation of how the Government see the future in that area is eagerly awaited.
I must point out that there are also nearly 1,000 independent museums which play a considerable part in conserving and displaying our heritage. Some may he lucky, and have been lucky, in receiving lottery support but they cannot expect any government or local government funding. Nevertheless, regionally, they have a very important role to play in relation to the social infrastructure of our local communities. That is not solely educating children but also giving local people a sense of belonging to an area the roots of which go back in history.
Therefore, we all agree that regional museums play a vital part in the life of the nation. The regional district authorities and the Cultural Council have a major task in laying down standards and evolving a policy for the next two years. Otherwise, I foresee more and more museums, both large and small, closing down, It will be difficult to rehouse those artefacts in our already crowded museums so inevitably they will be sold and lost overseas.
However, I pay tribute to the Government and I thank the Secretary of State for finding the money over a three-year period for designated museums. That will be of great assistance, especially in the field of conservation.
The future stability of regional museums is dependent on well-structured partnerships by all concerned. I appreciate that it will be some time before the new regional structures are working as the Government propose. At the moment, the lack of information is breeding worry and uncertainty. The more the Government can do in future months to assure the regional museums of their support and confidence in their future, the better.
7.3 p.m.
Lord Addington: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for initiating this debate. Museums are a very important part of our cultural heritage. Indeed, they should be at the very centre of all forms of local activity for the simple reason that everything about us, everything we do, has a history. Every locality has an individual history. Museums are probably the easiest way to get people interested in that history.
I was attracted to this debate because as a child I grew up in Norwich, which is a city well served by its museums. It has one major advantage—it has a castle in the middle of the city which has a museum inside it. It is probably about as good a building as there can be for housing a museum. There is a main medieval hall and keep and you are told about its history when you go in there. Another museum was one of the old town houses which was reconstructed and preserved in a historically pristine style. The rooms were decorated in the style of certain periods. As a child I remember looking at the strange toys and wondering how I could obtain a set of the lead soldiers there. I was told that they would rather exceed my pocket money. It was many years before I believed what my mother told me about that.

989
There was a museum which dealt with local industry, and in East Anglia that meant agriculture. Hayricks and farm implements were on display. They were usually accompanied by descriptions of the gruesome injuries they caused. The Roald Dahl theory about how to get children interested in such matters holds good. Tell them how a threshing machine can take your arm off and then tell them that it was used to gather in crops. That usually works quite well.
Those museums attracted the interest of the local people, and at that time, I believe, entry was free. If people visit such institutions they will become interested in the history involved. As I said, there is a history to everything we deal with. There is an historical aspect to every subject in education. This Government said—which I believe they borrowed from us from a previous election campaign—"education, education, education". Museums must surely be a part of that. Education is not just about textbooks and statistics and so on. It is about trying to engage people and get them involved. Museums and galleries are probably the best way to engage the interest of the population. If they can be made more relevant to the population through local connections, that is even better. They are a vital part of our society.
The political side is a question of money and funding. As has been said, you can construct a building or repair its roof, but you also have to run it. The National Lottery has helped with repairs and even new buildings on occasion, but the real problem facing those museums is the running costs. Anyone involved with voluntary sector work will know that it is fairly easy to construct something but very difficult to get it running. Unless prohibitive charges are imposed, which undoubtedly keeps down the numbers—there are no two ways about that—funding must be found from somewhere.
If I suggested that local authorities should fund those buildings willy-nilly and put money into them I should probably be ripped limb from limb as I signed on in the foyer at my next party conference. But the Government could take a step forward to give those educational units a chance; that is, by making sure that all local authorities which have responsibility for museums must publish a clear statement of what they are spending. We all know that in any organisation, there is a competition for funds. If you have some information, you can start to build an argument. Surely that would be a way forward.
We must also try to achieve more co-ordination in relation to our local museums and galleries. At lunch-time, I was speaking to some people from, I believe, the University of Newcastle who said, "Oh yes, we run a local museum from the university. We have a local remit. Unfortunately, the local authority does not include us in its tourist guide". It was not regarded as being part of that set-up. There must be integration of education and tourism policies. If people do not know that those places exist they will not visit them. It is as simple as that. Those aspects must be brought together.
That is a challenge for joined-up government. At a very low political temperature, it typifies much of what the Government have said they want to do. Education,
990
culture and tourism are all involved. Are we making a case for bringing culture, media and sport into the remit of the Department for Education? Most of those have been part of it at some time. Most of those aspects have been part of its remit at some time. Unless we take a coherent, across-the-board view, we will have trouble. At local level we must try and make sure that at least the educational service for the very young is provided on a free entry basis and make sure that people know about this. If people are being educated and deriving cultural benefit, it does not matter if the museum was founded by a local magnate 30 years ago.
Ultimately, unless we invest time and effort as well as cash in letting people know what is going on, we will, first, under-utilise the museum facilities and, secondly, lose them. We must keep public interest high and that will only come about if we involve people in every phase of the process. I believe the Government can do that without annoying the Treasury too much.
7.10 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford: My Lords, I too welcome this debate and thank the noble Earl for introducing it.
I am glad that there has been a remarkable change in the role of museums, especially in the regions, both in the way that they are being run and, above all, in the way that they relate to their local communities—a point just mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Addington. I believe that this has been a universal museum renaissance, though I speak for the West Midlands and especially for Hereford and Shropshire. This is part of a large area in which there are 150 museums linked together with other organisations in an informal "cultural consortium". Those bodies are not simply the obvious partners like the library and archive services, but West Midlands Arts, the Heart of England Tourist Board, the Countryside Agency, English Heritage and sports interests.
Certainly in the West Midlands there is a warm appreciation for this co-operative approach. While the museum service quite clearly wishes to remain autonomous and is differently structured from some of its partner bodies, it welcomes these increasing links and better channels of communication.
I could sing the praises of the wonderful new building we have in Hereford by the cathedral, designed by Sir William Whitfield, to house our uniquely important chained library and Mappa Mundi, and the interpretative exhibition that goes with it. Or I could speak about the Avoncroft Museum of Buildings at Bromsgrove, a wonderful collection of local buildings from many different periods—a smaller version of the magnificent folk museum at St. Fagans on the outskirts of Cardiff.
But I want to speak particularly and very appreciatively of three extremely modest initiatives of which I am aware and which form part of this museum revolution. Alongside the museum's traditional role of guardianship, we have seen growing up a remarkable increase in interpretation. Objects are preserved but they are also explained in ways which are interactive and user-friendly, and draw in the public in new ways. That

991
includes people who would previously have found it impossible to use or to enjoy the museum services and who would never have darkened the door of a museum building.
Hereford City Museum recently won the Gulbenkian Award taking first prize in the section for work with the disabled with its "Get in Touch" exhibition for the visually handicapped. It was a hands-on exhibition which ran for a year in Hereford and has now been dispersed to three smaller local museums, enabling blind and visually impaired people to enjoy the museum in a totally new way.
The second important local initiative in involving the public—the "stakeholders" in the current, unlovely jargon—has been in the encouragement of collectors. An amazing number of people are collectors of an extraordinary range of objects, only a tiny fraction of which could be included in a modest museum's own collection. Under the theme, "Carry on Collecting" Hereford museum has been encouraging individuals to share information and knowledge about their collections, whatever they are of, and people are passionate and expert collectors. The museum's role is to co-ordinate, advise and stimulate, and from time to time to gather together and display some of the private collections; to keep records of who has what and to set up networks of enthusiasts.
Let me give one specific example. I do not know how many Members of your Lordships' House will be familiar with the remarkable private collection now displayed in a former warehouse in Gloucester Docks—the Opie Museum of Packaging. When I first heard about it my reaction, I am ashamed to say, was one of incredulity; it sounded terminally tedious—"A museum of packaging? You must be joking!" In reality, of course, it is one of the most enjoyable and instructive museums I have ever visited. It is an astonishing, three-dimensional textbook of social history—what we have eaten, what we have drunk, the clothes we have worn, the furniture we have lived with, and the advertising to which we have been subjected over the past 60 years or so. Practically every exhibit brings back memories, many of them for me intensely nostalgic. What transformations of public taste there have been. How simply we lived in those austere post-war years, and so on.
This museum started life as the collection of one enthusiast. It now serves the public with distinction giving pleasure and instruction to vast numbers of people. If museums regionally and locally can stimulate, catalogue and make use of similar collections, I believe they will be performing a worthwhile service alongside their traditional task of guardianship of mainstream archaeological, historical, scientific and cultural collections.
Let me mention one final important innovation: the mobile museum sponsored jointly by Hereford, Shropshire and Worcestershire. It is simply a large van, appropriately fitted out, which can take a changing, thematic collection of artefacts and interpretative material to local schools, agricultural shows, public events and into the furthest corners of these three rural
992
counties. This is an excellent, imaginative, co-operative venture which is adding again to the number of people who can be involved with the work of the regional museums, enjoy their collections, be informed and stimulated by them alongside the increasing numbers who actually visit them—a 40 per cent increase last year in Hereford city alone.
Despite the funding problems to which many noble Lords referred, regional museums are in very good heart. I should like to recognise the enthusiasm and hard work of curators and museum staff, and urge the Government also to be appreciative of this and generous in their funding of this important part of our cultural life.
7.16 p.m.
Baroness Rendell of Babergh: My Lords, I too should like to express my gratitude to the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for initiating this debate.
When I was a child I thought museums were for children, designed for children like a bigger or more exciting school. The adults were only there to accompany the children, not for their own pleasure or edification. It would be no bad thing if we were to bear that illusion of mine in mind when considering the function, role and future of museums. Their principal function must be to educate and to do so whether their visitors are 10 years old or 60. We go to them to look, to appreciate and to learn.
Yet there are people who find our big museums formidable, most of their exhibits being housed in vast buildings designed in the 19th century to look like palaces, temples or seats of government,. In the case of the Victoria and Albert Museum, it is spread over 11 acres with over seven miles of corridors and contains 4 million exhibits. In later life people are often intimidated by the scale of such buildings and fear being "shown up" for their ignorance of where to go and what to look for.
The "24-hour Museum" on the Internet should be of help here, as a new website will give information on around 3,000 museums and galleries as well as giving access to 150 museum websites. The project, "Museums for the Many", as mentioned by the noble Earl and my noble friend Lord Strabolgi, should open up many of the country's collections and show users what is available to them: that museums are for all and not for a select few, an elite or solely for tourists.
Technology is a boon. But a huge cultural breakthrough such as the Internet has been—a source of enlightenment to many—must also, as noble Lords will know, have its downside. Websites on the net, of inestimable value as they will be, must not be allowed to become an end in themselves and deflect potential visitors away from attending museums in person.
With 80 million visitors a year, the public demand has never been higher, for local museums are a very different matter from the huge showplaces in city centres. The 2,000 and more in the United Kingdom are well distributed and increasingly popular. A particular appeal is made by local collections, enabling people to

993
grasp what their heritage is about, to understand their links with the past and to feel part of their communities in a cultural as well as a commercial and social way.
An example of success in difficult circumstances would be Gainsborough's House in Sudbury, Suffolk. Sudbury is Gainsborough. He was born in the town in 1727, a street is named after him, as are many local commercial ventures and institutions and a statue of him stands in the market-place where, holding brush and palette, he seems to be painting the town he surveys. Gainsborough's House is one of a very few independent galleries. Most are local authority museums. However, it does receive grants from Suffolk County Council and from the small parish-type authority, Sudbury Town Council. Three years ago it received £60,000 from the National Heritage Lottery Fund, enabling it to buy, among other works of art, a small Gainsborough painting. But its continued existence is a struggle.
As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, pointed out, education is a prime function of museums. This is the reason, apart from those opened merely to display vulgar curiosities, why most of them were established. With the Government's new drive to open up "hidden treasures" and free entry for children to 32 major national institutions, museums should develop their educational role and strengthen their links with schools. Inspiring children is of prime importance, that and offering them the opportunity to take pride in the area in which they live and the achievements of some writer, painter, musician, engineer or scientist particularly and essentially associated with their neighbourhood. That children should grow up, as many have in the past, bored if awe-inspired by a school visit to some vast and towering depository of ancient artefacts, is a tragedy. Nothing is more easily dismissed from the human mind than that which has not been understood. Special training for teachers in the explanation of museum exhibits will be of enormous use here.
If local cultural strategies are to be based on the needs of the community, it must be clear what those are. Needs are often not clearly known until information has been given and options offered. Local priorities should be identified and local people set the cultural agenda. Perhaps the worst thing that could happen would be for local councils to become self-satisfied with what is provided and sink into apathy. With the new websites, sensibly used, a real opportunity has appeared, offering everyone a chance to know what is locally and nationally on offer and what is expanding and being enhanced. It is to be hoped that the 24-hour Museum on the internet will be a gateway—but principally a gateway—to library users nationwide and, of course, available in schools.
"Design", as Bryan Appleyard wrote in last Sunday's Sunday Times,
"in the context of the V&A's glorious collection, is much better than shopping".
The difficulty here is that you cannot buy the exhibits, but you can often buy facsimiles or representations of the exhibits. Shopping, we are told, is the consuming passion of the times in which we live. Therefore, the museum's shop, whether it may be attached to a small
994
railway museum out in the country or to the National Gallery is another gateway and its expansion or, in some cases, installation, should be encouraged. The child who buys the plastic cat wearing gold earrings has been introduced to Egyptology and another pathway of his or her education has been entered.
A shop may also be a useful source of funding. In 1998–99, for instance, retailing income in the Wolverhampton Art Gallery shop doubled. Wolverhampton Art and Museums has attracted £6 million from the National Lottery for capital development, commissioning and temporary projects. A measure of the success of these programmes is the enormous increase in the number of visitors. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport is spreading its financial support to museums beyond those it directly funds by means of a £15 million challenge fund for designated museums. Of the 43 designated museums eligible to apply, 17 are local authority managed. Unfortunately, Gainsborough's House failed to gain inclusion among designated museums, although Gainsborough is a nationally, even internationally, famous painter.
A museum may enjoy charitable status. The rules and regulations of a "friends" or voluntary supporters club, can be organised within a simple constitution. Gainsborough's House is presently considering the possibilities of establishing a friends' group. There are a number of financial benefits to be derived from charitable status including 80 per cent mandatory relief on business rates, exemption from certain taxes and enhanced opportunities to receive funds from private individuals. The disadvantages are that the museum, by having to stand alone, will be unable to fall back on local authority resources, financial and otherwise. But since local authorities can and do administer charities, a council may be able to initiate a charitable company to focus on museum operations. Unfortunately, as the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu pointed out, a great many people have now taught themselves to believe that entrance to all museums is, or should be, free.
Finally, the new museum that Somerset House will become, needs a mention in this debate. At present, one of its wings houses the Courtauld Collection on the Strand. When the ambitious and splendid conversions are complete, Mr. and the late Mrs. Gilbert's collection of gold and silver, micro mosaics and snuff boxes will be housed in the Gilbert Galleries. Public access will be from the Victoria Embankment and a glass bridge will span the entrance. The great arch that was a feature of the original 200 year-old building will be re-established. The new museum will be a marvellous marriage of the ancient and the modern and a magnet to art lovers from all over the world.
7.25 p.m.
Lord Freyberg: I, too, should like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for initiating this timely debate on the role of regional museums and galleries.
In particular, I should like to focus on a much-neglected type; namely, those museums attached to universities and other higher education institutes. They

995
have, with some justice, been referred to as the Cinderellas of the museum world in that they have much to offer yet are little known and appreciated. For various historical reasons, many possess specialist collections, a good number of which are not on display nor catalogued nor curated—indeed, their very existence is only gradually coming to light.
According to the MGC's museums registration scheme, the number of university museums in the United Kingdom stood at 90 on 21st May 1999—5 per cent of the total number of museums. In addition, universities possess a large number of less documented collections, and recent research by Kate Arnold-Foster indicates that the total number of museums and collections amounts to more than 400, suggesting that the issue is a far larger one than had previously been recognised.
They range from major museums such as the Ashmolean in Oxford and the Museum of English Rural Life at Reading to unusual teaching collections of laboratory equipment. Most were put together with a specific educational or research purpose that is far narrower than that of the average public museum. The physical study of objects was seen as fundamental to the teaching and research of subjects such as geology, archaeology, anatomy and pathology.
However, as teaching methods changed, the relevance of the collections decreased dramatically, particularly in the sciences. Important study collections became historical rather than working collections—though some have recently found new uses in contemporary scientific studies; for example, in assessing changing levels of pollution in the atmosphere. As they have become redundant, collections have also become more interesting historically, making new uses for them appropriate. It is neither possible nor desirable to re-invent all these collections as local authority-style public museums. What should be done is to enhance those features that make university museums and collections different. Increased access is important, but so, too, is preserving distinctness.
University museums and collections have the potential to fulfil a number of objectives: supporting teaching and research, enhancing the quality of life of students and staff, raising the academic profile of the institution, enhancing the quality of life of the wider community, raising the local, regional or national profile of the institution and even earning income for it. To do all, or any of these things well, however, they need resources.
Higher education museums have traditionally been funded by their parent bodies. However, in the past decade, with funding under increased pressure and greater accountability demanded, there has been greater resistance to spending money on such "luxuries" as research collections. Perhaps future funding for museum collections could be ring-fenced? Today, university collections are no longer at the forefront of best practices in display or educational techniques. Heads of departments are often unaware or too busy to apply for additional funding, such as challenge funding, which would improve the running of their collection. The Museums and Galleries Access Fund can help.
996
In the past universities had a good record for caring for works of art and other objects entrusted to them. However, unused collections are vulnerable to being disposed of or consigned to unsuitable storage conditions, while some institutes will be tempted to exchange their collections for cash. For example, Royal Holloway College recently sold off some of its most valuable Victorian paintings, thus breaking up a previously intact collection. This would not be acceptable in any public collection. Understandably, universities regard collections as their own property to dispose of as they wish, rather than as objects presented to them in trust for the public, as is the case in local authority museums. The Government should urgently examine whether universities are still the best custodians of their share of our heritage. If not, should the Government act to limit their powers of disposal?
Up until 1998 all higher education museums and galleries relied on the Department for Education for their upkeep. At present the total sum available to HE funding councils is barely adequate and does not allow for building maintenance or capital development. The funding of the major, or non-formula, university museums—some 21 museums of undoubted national distinction—is now in the hands of the Arts and Humanities Research Board, which expends some £9 million on them out of a budget of £17 million. Although there is little possibility of works being sold off, it is worrying to note that the board has little experience in this field.
Is it not therefore worth considering whether such funding would be better managed by an organisation with experience of museums, such as the Department of Culture, Media and Sport? While this would create great unease in universities as it would sever the bonds between university and museum, it is necessary to ask the question: if universities do not see their collections as core to their educational needs, how do they intend to fund their upkeep? Perhaps this is an area that the new Museums, Libraries and Archives Council should investigate when it starts operating in April 2000.
What is needed is a complete rethink of the ways universities fund their museums and collections alongside a radical re-examination of their changing role and the possibilities for sharing them with others. The most likely future for many small collections is on The Internet for wider dissemination among scholars and other interested parties. Clearly this in itself will cost money. It would, I think, be an investment well worth making. For, if treated imaginatively, there is every sign that universities' historic collections should have a useful and glorious future as well as a past.
7.32 p.m.
Viscount Knutsford: My Lords, I too would like to applaud the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for promoting this debate to call attention to the role of regional museums at a time when the nationals are more in the public eye.
I speak from experience over many years of a local authority museum; namely, the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter—which the right reverend Prelate

997
knows well—which is a large and lively regional museum with many and varied collections, owned by the Exeter City Council, a small, second-tier local authority. An analogy is of a large demanding cuckoo sitting rather uncomfortably in a small local authority nest. This leads to two difficulties which in this day and age are repeated in almost every walk of life; namely, financial and staff shortages.
In terms of financial resources, local authority museums do not compare favourably with the nationals which are funded by the DCMS. Considering the size of its huge Victorian building and the size of its collections, Exeter Museum's revenue budget is very small compared to museums of similar size funded centrally. One reason is that there is no legal obligation on a local authority to provide a museum service, and a small restricted local authority finds it hard to give priority to cultural activities when the alternative is having to cut other budgets. But a more disappointing reason is another cuckoo-in-the-nest situation. Over the past nine years the annual visitor figure has risen from 80,000 to 217,000. However, this number of visitors is over twice the population of Exeter which provide the city council's revenue. Such a large increase cannot be sustained without spending more money, but Exeter City Council is reluctant to find it. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, said; namely, that it may be necessary for central government to relieve hard-pressed local authorities of their financial pressures.
I suppose one can argue that such restriction of local authority support should inspire the director and her staff to be enterprising in earning more income from the already profitable museum shop and café and to be energetic in securing external funding. However, these initiatives lead me to the next difficulty of staff shortages. Considering the extent and historic importance of its collections—for example, its world cultures collection has earned designated status—Exeter Museum is short of (it could be said desperately short of) curators. It is unrealistic to expect the owners to employ specialist curators. A solution therefore might be to make meaningful and formal arrangements between nationals and regionals for experienced curators from the former to be seconded to or to assume a pastoral role towards the regional museums.
However, there are excellent adaptable curators in regional museums who juggle sound curatorship with innovative and communicative skills for the benefit of their visitors. But they may not be specialists in the subject matter of their pre-eminent collections. There is also an adverse disparity of salaries in the provinces which impedes career movement of curators from nationals to regionals. There are no "fat cats" purring along the corridors of regional museums.
These staff shortages—and they do not apply only to curators—exacerbate the difficulties of securing external capital funding which is so essential for the refurbishment and modernisation of galleries or the purchase of works of art for collections, to give only two examples. Over the past few months the small staff at Exeter has prepared six extensive and time-consuming applications or feasibility studies—
998
I venture to say with favourable success—and at the same time has helped with a local authority development appeal, as well as keeping in close touch with its friends' organisation, whose good will, vigour and financial support are so vital to the prosperity of any museum.
I will not only draw attention to the negative and assertive problems suffered by regional museums owned by local authorities, as there are many positive factors. The previous and present governments deserve praise for their designated scheme which is perhaps the first time that central government have recognised with financial resources that the regionals care for a significant part of our cultural heritage. Furthermore, the Heritage Lottery Capital and Access Funds, the Designated Collections Challenge Fund, the DfEE fund for museum education and several others are designed to inject capital into regional museums to the relief of local authority budgets.
Conservation, care and access are the purposes and functions of a museum, and they should go together as balanced priorities. With good will and a harmonious relationship between owner and operator, there is no reason why regional museums should not continue to respond to the challenges caused by global activities, such as the 24-hour museum on a website, the growing interest in world culture, the rising standard of artistic work and craftsmanship and cultural education.
7.40 p.m.
The Earl of Carlisle: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Viscount, Lord Knutsford. He drew our attention to the problems which over the last two decades regional museums have faced, and are still facing. I believe the situation could be summed up in the words, "Death by a thousand cuts", or indeed be described as greater demoralisation of the staff, leading to closures which are not only unnecessary but also debilitating to the regional areas, some of which are suffering from great poverty. I therefore thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for introducing this timely debate. We are all in his debt, not only in this House but way afield, in the regions.
I spent the last 24 hours at the Britannia Royal Naval College. It was my first visit, which I made as a member of your Lordships' defence group. I was delighted to learn from the new commodore, Commodore Clare, RN, that there is a plan to have a museum at the Royal Naval College. I noted on the walls of the poop deck, where he briefed us when we arrived, portraits of our Second World War admirals, which I had last seen in the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. I asked whether they were on loan and he replied that they were not; when the Royal Naval College was disbanded as such the portraits and other artefacts were sent for display at the Britannia Royal Naval College. I was delighted to see the Royal Navy in the forefront of the policy of distributing works of art to the regions.
Those admirals and junior officers who served us with such distinction in the First World War and the Second World War were trained from 1905 at the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. What better setting to display

999
these works of art? We learnt that there is an idea to raise £2 million—a measly £2 million, we might say, out of a £16 million annual budget which the Royal Naval College exists on—by selling off the hospital for private accommodation, when, in my opinion, it would be better to have a museum of our Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. That would not only enable more of us to understand what a great debt we owe to the Royal Navy but would also improve and enhance that area of Devon and create a bonus for the local community. I hope that the Minister will discuss that with the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, the Defence Minister in your Lordships' House, to see whether that could be arranged.
What is the motive for having museums? It is to bring together objects and people. The role of regional museums surely is to preserve, to acquire, to exhibit, to display objects so as to instruct, inform, inspire, educate, amuse, entertain and enable people to enjoy at all times, wherever possible at little or no cost and with no harm to anyone else, their regional history and identity.
Noble Lords have told us of their own experiences. My noble friend Lord Addington told us about the Norwich Museum. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford told us of the inspiration that he gets from the museums in his great diocese. I also declare an interest. I have walked the Hadrianic frontier, where I am privileged to own some land. I have done so four or five times, and I have taken cadets and others along the main sights of the Hadrianic frontier. I have also walked the Antonine frontier.
I am greatly indebted, as are many others both at home and abroad, to the work done at Tullie House, Carlisle, and the Museums of Antiquities at Glasgow and at Newcastle, part of the universities. But they are not well known. People who go and enjoy the wall would do better if they went to those museums first, so that they would learn where they can and cannot go, where they should and should not go, and where they can see the whole wall and not just, say, the Fort of Housesteads, which too many people visit, thus damaging the area.
There have been recent developments in Merseyside, a great area in Liverpool which had riots recently. It is the museums that have inspired and led the way out of that depression. There are a million visitors a year and it receives £24 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund. We have much to learn from the work of Mr. Richard Foster and others who have worked so hard at creating a new Merseyside.
I expect the Minister to trumpet the cause of the Tate Gallery's partnership scheme. Good, indeed, it will be, but I understand that there is a problem with funding and costs. Regional museums can join the scheme at £15,000 a year, with costs for loans at £7,000 to £10,000. They will rely on the Heritage Lottery Fund to provide grants through the Museums and Galleries Areas Fund, but that funding is for three years only: £4 million for 1999–2000, decreasing to £2.5 million for 2000–2001 and nil in the year 2001–2002. How can a regional museum enter a scheme with no funding in the third year? I ask the Minister to explain that discrepancy when he winds up, if he has time. If not, perhaps he will write to me.
1000
We had a debate on the Lindisfarne Gospels. We wanted the Government to hand them back to their rightful place. That did not occur. The east area of Durham has another museum called the Bowes. Museum, which needs support.
Does the Minister agree that, with the new Museums, Libraries and Archives Commission replacing the Museums and Galleries Commission next April, a grant regime should be included in the new body's powers, to enable, where circumstances argue strongly for it, funding to be made available to a willing partnership between a regional and a national museum where the governance of the regional museum needs to be re-engineered? That is one practical way in which the present gulf between our great national and regional museums could be bridged, with huge benefits to the public and to the staff employed by those museums in their training and career development.
The failure to send the Lindisfarne Gospels back to Durham caused injury. Failure to support the Bowes Museum would be a lasting insult.
7.49 p.m.
Viscount Eccles: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for introducing this debate. My subject is the Josephine and John Bowes Museum, to which the noble Lords, Lord Strabolgi and Lard Montagu, and most recently the noble Earl, Lord Carlisle, made reference. I shall echo many of the points made by my noble friend Lord Knutsford.
I am a life member of the Friends of the Bowes and I have been discussing its future with Durham County Council in a personal capacity. I want to draw attention to the dilemma facing Durham County as the sole trustee of the Bowes and to suggest one way forward and also that the Government take a fair share of responsibility for the Bowes' future.
A brief history will serve to illustrate the county 's dilemma. The Bowes has large—some would say very large—and fine collections made in the great majority by its founders, Josephine and John Bowes, in the second half of the last century. Josephine was French and John spent much of his time in France. Durham coal financed their purchases which have a strong bias towards continental Europe. For example, the Bowes has textiles, including 40 major tapestries which are third in importance to the V&A and the Burrell. The continental ceramics are many and comprehensive—a collection much admired by both the Wallace and, again, the V&A—not to mention the pictures. In addition to El Greco, Goya and Tiepolo, the many small 19th century French landscapes are outstanding: Courbet, Corot and Boudin, for example. And then there is the furniture, the toys, the mechanical swan—Bowes' emblem—the list goes on and on.
These collections are housed in a large French-designed Durham-built chateau within 20 acres of formal grounds, in the market town of Barnard Castle in Teesdale. The Bowes is by far the largest designated fine art museum—many of its collections being designated—in a semi-rural setting, with the nearest population centres, Tyne and Wear and Teesside, being

1001
30 to 40 miles distant. The impact of the building and its collections is both amazing and unexpected. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, might even find it intimidating. Most regrettably, this major resource of undoubted national importance is seriously under-funded.
The Bowes has had two previous financial crises, one at its inception in the 1890s. Josephine Bowes died unexpectedly before John. He married again—a lady who lived mostly in Paris while he spent time at Streatlam near Barnard Castle. At the time of John Bowes' death the museum was unfinished, he was in the middle of divorce proceedings and the price of coal was low. The newly formed management committee of the trustees had a very difficult time and thereafter, with hindsight, funding was never adequate.
Fifty years on the trustees gave up the unequal struggle and a scheme fathered by the then Minister of Education made Durham County Council the sole trustee in 1956. For 40 years Durham has kept the Bowes going—much credit to the county. However, Durham County has undergone change and the climate affecting public expenditure has radically altered. From a population of 1.2 million, Durham has shrunk through time and local government reforms to half a million. As authorities have left the county—for example, Darlington recently—they have taken with them no continuing obligation to fund the Bowes.
Eventually, the county council responded with a proposal to closed the museum for the winter, a matter referred to in this House 14 months ago. Closure was averted by moneys found by the Friends—all credit to them also—and by a charitable gift made by the Hedley Trust through the Friends. Nevertheless, financial crisis number three is still impending, as is confirmed by the 1998 Richard Foster report. This report, which is DCMS-sponsored, said that core revenue funding, now £600,000, needs to be £1 million plus per annum. And Durham looks forward to reducing its present commitment. As it argues, "Which is the more important: the library in an ex-pit village or money for the Bowes?" Unfortunately, the DCMS Vote does not include core funding for the Bowes—a local authority museum by definition—nor is there any substantial support from within the present budget of the Museums and Galleries Commission.
The new Designated Museums Challenge Fund may afford some relief. Durham County has applied. The commission says that grants over three years which total more than £500,000 will be very exceptional. The Bowes is certainly very exceptional and, ironically, it is the size and excellence of its collections and the size and Grade I status of the building and its location which reinforce the dilemma. The Bowes is a national resource entirely dependent on local funding—not even on regional funding, as with Tyne and Wear and the North West.
If no way forward were to be found, the Bowes would stagnate without the funds to curate, research, conserve and display its collections to anywhere near modern
1002
standards. Indeed, to discuss access and education in the absence of core funding is to deceive the public—and no one feels this more strongly than the 1,400 Friends.
There is a possible way forward which is in harmony with Richard Foster's recommendation that the governance of the museum be widened, a recommendation which has been accepted in principle by both the DCMS and the county. It is possible to move, at some risk, to the modern equivalent of the pre-1956 trust along the lines of 1983 Heritage Act institutions. A charitable company limited by guarantee could be formed, with Durham included and remaining a grant-aiding body but not the sole source of finance. Independent trustees would be appointed whose task would be to gain national and international recognition for the Bowes. They would wish to work closely with such institutions as the V&A and they would need to fund-raise. This is, I believe, a tried and tested solution, not an uncharted path.
If this way forward meets with approval, it leads to two questions. Would the Government find a way to provide substantial transitional finance way beyond the current support for advice and feasibility studies? Secondly, the Minister said last August on a visit to the Bowes:
"I will he taking a keen personal interest over the next few months in the development of plans to secure the Bowes Museum's long term future".
Will therefore the Government make a statement on their policy at an early date?
If it is said that detailed business plans need to come first, I can only say that in the present circumstances they are very difficult to make. Much depends on future governance. What is certain is that Durham County and the museum, and not least its staff, need to see a clear way forward. Surely the Government can act as the enabler.
7.57 p.m.
Lord Congleton: My Lords, I want first to add my thanks to those already expressed by others this evening to the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for initiating this debate. Museums, an important element in the cultural life of this country, are too often bypassed and overlooked. It is good that, in the words of the Motion,
"the role of the regional museums and galleries (particularly local authority museums) within the United Kingdom",
should be brought forward for public attention in this way. At this point I wish to say to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, who has just spoken, that his father was a friend of mine and a friend to the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. His encouragement and enthusiasm for the causes that I espoused some time ago were greatly appreciated. I wish to pay tribute to his memory when talking about museums.
If, in offering my remarks to your Lordships this evening, I dwell upon the recent history of one museum in particular—the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum—it is because I want to use that story to underline what I believe is a fundamental point in organising support for our smaller museums; and, secondly, because I was closely associated with that museum for the period of 15 years from 1970 to 1985,

1003
during which time I was its chairman for five years and for a further three was charged with finding the funds necessary to ensure that it was re-established in a new and splendid location within the City of Salisbury and to make certain that its fine collections were well displayed in a manner which their distinction deserved. It is in effect the only museum of which I have a reasonably thorough knowledge and it is the only one I can talk about with any authority. I have no formal or official position and it follows that my remarks represent the views of no one but myself. I do not seek to represent in any way the views of others. What I say this evening has in no way been dictated by the trustees or the professional curatorial staff of that institution.
When I became acquainted with the museum in the early 1970s, it was located in a seldom-visited side-street in Salisbury—one not without charm but off the beaten track, especially that trodden by tourists—where it had been since its foundation in 1860. During the years of which I speak, a number of significant things have happened to the Salisbury Museum, which is independent, and I shall refer to those matters to illustrate what can be done given a modicum of vision and ambition, a first-rate collection and, most important, enduring enthusiasm and support from the local public.
Although the collections in St. Ann Street were highly regarded—especially the archaeological material—they were not housed or displayed in a manner that matched that regard. A new location with up-to-date display facilities was needed if the museum were to prosper. The search for new premises took several years but ended when the 99-year lease of a Grade I listed building in Cathedral Close became available and was successfully negotiated.
Earlier, I mentioned a modicum of ambition. During the search for more appropriate premises it became known that material in the Pitt-Rivers Museum in Farnham, North Dorset—General Pitt-Rivers' private treasure house—might become available once more for inspection if certain complex issues of ownership could be resolved. The collection had not been seen for 15 or 20 years while the museum had been closed.
With help from the holder of the Chair of Archaeology at the University of Southampton at that time, better known to your Lordships now as Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn; the late Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who was then closely connected with the British Academy; and wise counsel offered by the then Director of the British Museum, Sir John, later Lord Wolfenden, a transfer of the Wessex-derived material from private to public ownership was effected. After discussions with Dorset and Wiltshire archaeological societies, Salisbury Museum was named as the new steward of that archaeological material, most of which was excavated by the general himself along the borders of South Wiltshire and North Dorset.
Other items apparently purchased at auction were also included. Virtually the entirety of the pieces from the Farnham Museum thus transferred have been on public display in Salisbury since 1983. Also held at Salisbury are the general's papers and some letters. If I give the impression that the new Salisbury and South Wiltshire
1004
Museum is only about archaeology, I would mislead your Lordships. There are fine collections of ceramics occupying two galleries, collections of costume and English glassware, and two galleries are devoted to displays illustrating the history of the city of Salisbury, including the buildings of the cathedral.
I am daring to take up your Lordships' time relating all this because to realise all the good things that are now available for inspection by scholars and the public at Salisbury Museum, a move from one building to another was involved, the sale of the old and the purchase of the new had to be negotiated, and the new building had to be adapted. All that cost money. There had to be a public appeal and no one was certain how that would go. In the event, at the end of three years' endeavour starting in 1981, and having set a notional target of £280,000—which was calculated as being sufficient to set the re-established institution on its feet—that figure was exceeded by about £50,000 and the battle was won.
That achievement would never have been brought about without the enduring support and enthusiasm of the local, albeit scattered, community. The Salisbury Museum is an independent institution supported by a subscription-paying membership of about 800, with helpful financial input from Salisbury District Council and Wiltshire County Council. It is registered as a company limited by guarantee and is also a charity. It is fair to say that the annual grants from those two local authorities would not be made were it not for the realisation of the excellence of the museum collections and the strength of local support from independent non-local authority sources. Many years ago, I was for 10 years a councillor. It seems that local support comes first, then the local authorities will step in.
At the time of the public appeal, for the required capital sum to set up the establishment, Salisbury District Council came forward with a generous one-off contribution. At the time, the county council felt unable to do that but neither authority has ceased its annual support, which is so necessary to help maintain the fabric of the historic building in which the museum is housed. Wiltshire County Council cut its grant for a year or two by 33 per cent and that was painful.
The work of the Museums and Galleries Commission is influential for the good health of our smaller museums. Your Lordships should understand that I am out of date with all of this. I am talking about the years 1970 to 1985. If I say something that is clearly out of date, your Lordships will understand and think accordingly. In the commission's annual report for 1997–98 its chairman, Mr. Joll, correctly emphasised the fundamental importance of the quality of any collection as the core of a museum's reputation—ahead of conservation, education, scholarly research and entertainment. That idea is sound but the question arises of how collections are put together. In Wiltshire, a clear written statement sets out the agreed policy of Wiltshire Archaeological Society, the other significant museum in the county, with the Salisbury Museum as to which institution will accept responsibility for material excavated in those parts of the county nearest to the geographical location of the museums. Devizes Museum

1005
is to the north and Salisbury Museum to the south. Ordnance Survey references are noted and the system works well.
That raises the question of whether there is or should be a similar set of agreements organised and monitored by the Museums and Galleries Commission to cover the whole country. At present, there seems to be no clear indication as to which museum institution has responsibility for guardianship of excavated material. A smash-and-grab situation seems to operate. If so that is a pity, as it will tend to act against local public support for smaller museums—consequently against local authority support and so on.
I have exceeded my time so I must conclude. I am leaving out an important part of what I had to say. I will end with a letter that I received only last week from Cheshire. It contained the excellent news that the 723 year-old Borough of Congleton, from which my family came centuries ago, is setting up a museum at the town's assembly rooms, to record with appropriate displays the history and pre-history of that part of England. I wish it well. I hope that the kind of local enthusiasm and support as was forthcoming for Salisbury Museum's new location in the 1970s will attend the enterprise of Congleton's current ambition.
8.8 p.m.
Viscount Falkland: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, on yet again bringing to your Lordships' Chamber the opportunity to debate cultural subjects. The noble Earl has a deep commitment to museums and galleries, and has shown that in the past with his impassioned campaign against admission charges. I share that enthusiasm with him.
Within the greater part of the 2,500 museums and galleries in the United Kingdom there is enormous difficulty in funding because of local government pressures on finance and all that springs from them. However, there are many bright spots to be found. This debate has been fairly upbeat. Various speakers referred to areas of the United Kingdom which have museums and galleries which offer admirable examples of energy, innovation and success. Within the pressures that are placed upon the museums and galleries movement, one feels that there is a momentum building up.
Glasgow was one of the first examples of a United Kingdom city which demonstrated an enormous cultural rebirth. It impressed people not only in this country but abroad and attracted many visitors, not only to the city's museums and galleries but to its other cultural attractions. That example has been followed by other great cities such as Liverpool. Merseyside has eight museums, which I am glad to say have recently received a great deal of funding and attract large numbers of visitors. Two notable examples are the Bob Ballard underwater excavations, and in particular those related to the "Titanic", which have created a great deal of interest; and the natural history centre.
Liverpool is a city that I used to know well. I used to go there on business. I always tried to find time, at the end of my business affairs there, to visit the Walker
1006
Gallery. I always found it an enormous relief, if not a shelter from the inevitably bad weather. I found the gallery itself, and the never-failing good humour of the inhabitants of Liverpool, a very rewarding part of my visit to the area. There was not a great deal of culture there in the mid-1960s, but since then there has been a transformation, as with so many cities and towns in the United Kingdom.
Manchester is another example of a city that has seen a great decline in the industrial and commercial activities upon which it built its wealth and is now becoming a great cultural centre. The Imperial War Museum North had for a long time to deal with the difficult problem of whether to employ the great architect Daniel Liebeskind to build that great structure. To my immense relief, it did not do what the Cardiff Opera House did; namely, invite the remarkable Iraqi woman architect whose plans for the opera house were so imaginative and extraordinary that they drew visitors from abroad even before there was any hint that the building would be started, as, sadly, it was not. The project was simply too bold. Our loss was Cincinnati's gain. She immediately acquired the commission for the Cincinnati Museum of Contemporary Art. That is an example of the kind of boldness that is required for the buildings that house museums and galleries. In this country there has always been a tendency to play safe. I am sure that the opera house in Cardiff will be extremely effective, but it will be a workmanlike affair compared with the imaginative project of Zaha Hadid. That kind of boldness in the employment of world-famous creative and energetic people, if it is possible, should be pursued. All credit goes to Manchester for achieving that success.
The social and cultural role of museums now runs alongside their academic and educational role. That is seen more and more in all kinds of museums; for example, the Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh, and even the Brooklands Motoring Museum, which I visited recently as a member of the all party motor cycle group, is showing enormous imagination in creating a period atmosphere of the great days of Brooklands and attracting large numbers of visitors. The same is true of the Thackeray Medical Museum in Leeds.
I congratulate the Government on their excellent paper, Museums for the many, which I studied in preparation for this debate. They have done a great job in setting out the kind of criteria that are required for the future and how access can be improved. There are one or two rather strange passages in the document, as one would expect. One does not want to carp. They emphasise the need for carrying out research about visitors and users. That is normal marketing procedure, and clever marketing will be needed.
The section headed "Meeting Audience Needs" states that,
"charging is regarded by some as a barrier to access",
and continues:
"museums which charge should have a clear strategy for attracting people on low incomes".
I find that a curious reference. Although people on low incomes may have to prioritise, which is one of the reasons why one does not like the idea of charging, they

1007
are not always uneducated. Often they are educated people, but may be inhibited from visiting museums and galleries if they charge because they have other urgent calls on their income. Education is needed above all.
There is another curious statement later in the document; namely:
"Museums should … ensure that their shops and cafes sell items which those on low incomes can afford".
I have always found the food in museums and galleries to be excellent and cheap. I do not know where the department has found smoked salmon and caviar on the menu, but possibly its researchers have had a different experience to mine.
The future is good. That is borne out by the excellent speech of the right reverend Prelate regarding what is happening in Bromsgrove and his own city of Hereford. It was also borne out by the excellent speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Knutsford. There is an example of a city that is penalised by its own success. The noble Viscount made an excellent suggestion; namely, that if museums and galleries begin to draw large numbers of visitors, they have a problem finding curators and staff. His suggestion that there should be a relationship with the larger, national museums and galleries regarding some kind of exchange was interesting and productive.
I shall spend the week of the Recess visiting one or two of the places that were mentioned. But the first on my list has to be the Museum of Packaging in Gloucester.
8.18 p.m.
Baroness Anelay of St. Johns: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for providing this opportunity to discuss the valuable role played by regional museums and galleries. They are indeed able to reflect local history and culture, and local needs. They give local people an opportunity to view themselves and their existence within the wider context of their nation, and in such a way that they do not remain parochial but are able to maintain a sense of pride in their own locality. Museums and galleries are not only vital to our culture and our education system; they are important to society. The problem lies in getting the balance between all those functions right. It is a task for all of us, including government. This debate is indeed timely. Last week was Museums Week, when 863 museums took part in offering a host of special events, as well as providing free or reduced admission and tours of stores and areas that are normally closed to the public because of the cost of arranging access—the costs associated with security, preservation and staffing. Like many noble Lords, I took the opportunity to visit my local museums and to learn from their experiences about how one can try to put good practice into effect. I went to Guildford Museum on the opening day of Museums Week. I am grateful to its curator and assistant curator, Matthew and Mary Alexander, for the time they spent with me and for putting together a helpful information pack. Here I associate myself with the remarks made by the right reverend Prelate about the dedication shown by curators. We owe a great deal to them for it.
1008
The museum at Guildford was founded over 100 years ago. It is in a listed building, it is now part of the Leisure Services Department of the local authority. It houses the largest collection of archaeology, local history and needlework in Surrey and provides a range of services. The objects in store can always be seen by appointment; it has a voluntary excavation unit which it can turn to at short notice. It has a young archaeologists' club for people between the ages of eight and 18. There they learn about archaeology and local history, using the museum's resources. They have practical sessions and visits to places of interest.
The museum has an excellent loan system for schools which includes objects that the children can handle themselves. I am not sure whether they follow the words of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and whether it is a Roald Dahl scenario. Certainly, they are able to handle stone age axes, Roman pottery and medieval pottery among other things.
The pièce de résistance for Museums Week in Guildford was a special exhibition. I am not too sure that it has anything to do with the knowledge of the noble or less noble burghers of Guildford in my area, but they entitled it: "Greed, Avarice and Wanderlust in 17th Century Guildford". It was an exhibition on international trade and its influence on the daily life of the period. It was not only attention-grabbing—it certainly brought me there—but it was also informative.
At the end of Museums Week, I visited an even more local museum, the new Surrey History Centre which was opened only seven months ago, half a mile from my house. I am grateful to the county archivist, David Robinson, for the time he spent there with me explaining how the centre strives to achieve its objective of preserving the past for the future.
The centre collects and preserves archives and printed material relating to all aspects of the history of Surrey and makes them available for reference. It also houses the county's archaeological unit and the museum development office. Surrey County Council provided the site and the Heritage Lottery Fund provided nearly £3 million for building it. There, Surrey's heritage is depicted in stunning and imaginative public works of art which are on permanent display at the centre.
I believe that both Guildford Museum and the Surrey Heritage Centre do their utmost to adopt good practice as advocated by the recent DCMS publication to which noble Lords have referred, Museums for the Many.
Like the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, I have read the document fairly closely and note that paragraph 4.1 states that:
"These standards seek to encourage all museums to offer wide access. However, in the first instance they are aimed primarily at all the museums and galleries funded directly by DCMS".
What exactly is meant by "in the first instance"? When does the second instance come along? Which institutions would be targeted then? I was also intrigued to read at paragraph 7.3 that the Government accept that:
"some museums have to charge and the income raised can be used to enhance the quality of the experience through longer opening hours and better displays".

1009
As my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu pointed out, museum directors have repeatedly stated that entry fees provide a reliable income stream and allow them to deliver quality services that are central to their economy. Free admission means that one loses more than just the income receipts. One also loses the VAT recovery, perhaps sponsors who get benefits under the existing system or go elsewhere and corporate sponsors who leave because they would rather not have their donations returned to the Government in the form of VAT.
I remain concerned that the effect of the Government pressing national museums to abolish entry fees could well cause knock-on effects to those regional and local museums that cannot readily adapt and yet, as the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, commented earlier, they will be expected to do so by the public.
The danger remains that the Government's allocation of £30 million will not be enough to compensate museums and galleries for their loss of revenue at a national level and it will thereby reduce their ability to lend items to regional and local museums.
In addition, how will loans to regional museums be affected if there are changes to national museums and galleries in the way in which they are funded and administered? What are the implications for regional and local museums of the Answers given by the Minister in this House on 17th May? He was very informative, but he whetted my appetite and I hope for more. He spoke of a review, of trying to free the museums from the present structure. Today a Written Answer in another place from the Secretary of State to my honourable friend Peter Ainsworth states that:
"Options might include … public sector management, public/private partnerships or a change of legal status".—[Official Report, Commons, 25/5/99; col. WA 97.]
What would be the impact of any changes on the operation of the regional and local museums and galleries? That is something we need to examine carefully.
The Minister will be aware of the concerns voiced by the Visual Arts and Galleries Association about the funding crisis facing many museums. That crisis was referred to by my noble friend Lord Knutsford. The VAGA's brief for this debate states that,
"large parts of the Local Authority funded museum and art gallery sector are facing death by a thousand cuts, as core funding is being eroded".
The VAGA states that the Nottingham City Museum's,
"service is on the verge of becoming dysfunctional".
It also states that the Wolverhampton Arts and Museums Service, mentioned earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell of Babergh, is in danger of collapse unless there is an increase in core support.
Tonight, my noble friend Lord Eccles referred eloquently to the problems faced by the Bowes Museum. When we met last night, I had to admit to him that I had not yet visited the museum, although I know the area well, and it is my fault. Today I have tried to make partial amends by making a virtual reality visit by logging on to the 24-hour museum website launched recently at the beginning of Museums Week. I visited
1010
the Bowes Museum website via that gateway and it is excellent. The 3D Swan is certainly different! I welcome the development of the site, but, as I mentioned to the Minister, I am puzzled by one aspect of it. The home page displays a real time clock, except that the clock is permanently one hour fast. Is it the Government's attempt to make us harmonise with central European time? Or is it a subtle reminder to us all that the future will always need to know about the past?
8.27 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the wide terms of the Motion which was moved so ably by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, has attracted a wide range of well informed contributions from your Lordships this evening. The noble Earl should feel able to congratulate himself on it. Although he originally spoke of regional museums, the debate has been about regional, local authority, independent and university museums and galleries. The debate has been outstanding for the contributions from those who have close connections with particular museums. I have leant a great deal from the contributions this evening. They have been about the Bowes Museum, to which I shall have to return, Hereford, Salisbury, Exeter, Guildford, Norwich and no doubt others which I have overlooked. It has shown how important it is for our cultural life that we should have this vast range of museums, many quite newly-opened. to complement our national collections.
The Department for Culture has just completed a research project about visitors to museums and galleries, and noble Lords may be interested in the headline results. A sample of the total population was asked which of a number of activities they had taken part in during the previous 12 months. The most popular of all was the cinema at 59 per cent, but museums and galleries came third. Thirty-five per cent of the population had visited one in the past 12 months. That compared with 33 per cent who visited zoos or wildlife parks; 32 per cent who visited historic buildings or churches; 30 per cent who went to the theatre, opera or ballet; 26 per cent who attended live sporting events; 16 per cent who went to pop or rock concerts; and 12 per cent who attended classical concerts. Clearly, one is talking about something that has a very wide range of visitors. If your Lordships are interested in the detail of the research it will be possible to place a copy of the report in the Library of the House.
What I have to say about local and regional museums must be set in the context of the national museums. Your Lordships make it clear, as always, that what you expect from government is more money. I shall seek to defend and promote our position. Against the background of the museums' baseline under the previous government, last year the Culture Secretary was able to announce an extra £99 million for the museums sector over the next three years. I am grateful in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, for his thanks for that increase. That is in line with our aim to preserve our cultural heritage, encourage the widest possible access to it and ensure that the

1011
greatest possible public benefit flows from our cultural assets in areas such as education and combating social exclusion.
I face head on the issue of access. I deal first with what we consider to be only one part—but not necessarily the most important part—of access: free admission. There is clear conflict between the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and others on the one hand and the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, on the other Yes, we have a policy to increase free admission to national museums and galleries. That was begun this year with free admission for children, and we intend to continue it next year with free admission for pensioners. For the following year we shall provide funds so that the trustees of the national museums, if they think fit—it is their decision—will have support to provide free admission.
But as the document Museums for the Many (to which I shall return later) makes clear, access in our terms is very much wider than free admission. We see that in context and recognise that under certain circumstances national, local and regional museums will find it necessary or desirable to charge. They must make their own decisions. We have made our position clear on that. I am aware that some believe that national museums attract a predominance of government support to the exclusion of the remainder of the sector.
Without in any way undervaluing what we do for the national museums—our three-year funding agreements established this year are, we believe, of enormous importance—I should like to consider our support for museums on a wider basis. I state at the outset that there is no intention that government funding should be extended from the national museums to all other museums in this country. That would not be possible or right. It is right to have a plurality of funding from local authorities, charities, public appeals, private sources and many other sources to sustain the incredible range of museums and galleries in this country. Before I leave the subject of national museums, I have nothing to add to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, about the status of those museums. I believe that it falls slightly outside the subject of this debate.
Although we do not propose to take over the funding of other than national museums we recognise the links between them. A number of noble Lords have made points in that regard. I shall deal first with the Museums and Galleries Commission, the designated museums scheme and the Challenge Fund. I shall deal next with information technology and education and refer to some of the links that appear to be appropriate.
The noble Viscount, Lord Knutsford, referred to curatorial problems. He spoke of the possibility of sharing curatorial resources between national and local museums. That suggestion has been made in the past by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. We take it very seriously and are looking into it. The noble Earl, Lord Carlisle, also spoke about the possibility of further collaboration between national and local museums in the context of the Bowes Museum. The latter was referred to with great authority by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles.
1012
I have a very lengthy brief about the Bowes Museum. I would take up far too much time if I went into it in detail. It is clear from the fact that we appointed Mr. Foster to report on the museum last year that we are very conscious of the problems of the Bowes Museum. I have before me a submission from Durham County Council. I do not know that we have any easy solutions to those problems. It is true that Durham County Council, having lost its unitary authorities, has a council tax base that is a good deal less than before.
There are one or two encouraging signs. The museum is now registered with the Charity Commissioners, and there is talk, which I believe is reciprocated, about a working relationship with the Victoria & Albert Museum. There may be other hopeful factors that affect the Bowes Museum. We hope that it will be successful in its Challenge Fund application to the Museums and Galleries Commission, and it is for the commission to advise the Government on the allocation of those funds. I shall keep the House informed about the future of the Bowes Museum as and when an opportunity arises. The Challenge Fund and designated museums scheme are enormously important. Forty-three flagship collections have been identified: some are local authority, some are independent and others are university museums. They can apply for a fund that is worth £15 million over the next three years to raise standards and access to those collections.
I say a brief word about information technology. We have also provided £1 million to set up two smaller challenge funds, one for information technology and one for museum education, which are open to all museums registered with the Museums and Galleries Commission. An educational challenge fund will be distributed to the seven English area museum councils to help raise standards of education provision in institutions where there is scope for an enhancement of the current service. I hope that that gives the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, an indication of the co-operation that he seeks between the DCMS and the Department for Education and Employment.
The DfEE recognises the importance of museums to education and has prepared a £2.5 million programme to enable museums to provide curriculum support for schools, and there has been a good number of applications for that. That follows a pilot programme funding 17 pilot museum education projects at institutions providing out of school study reports. I was amused by the reference of my noble friend Lady Rendell to museums being only for children—unless accompanied by an adult, I assume she was saying. Recently when the Secretary of State 'was proposing a promotional launch in Coram's Fields in Bloomsbury in London I had to say that you cannot go into Coram's Fields in Bloomsbury unless you are accompanied by a child. I do not know the effect on Chris Smith's plans.
While on the educational point, the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, referred to university museums. Yes, we take seriously the difficulties which some of them have. We are perfectly prepared to talk to university museums about their problems. But I think that the noble Lord

1013
will find that some of them are proud and independent and would not welcome intervention from central government.
A number of noble Lords have referred to the lottery and other financial support to museums. That is enormously important. It is part of the range of things we can do with digitising educational learning materials and providing centres for community lifelong learning in which museums should be able to play a part. In addition to National Lottery funding, there is a lot of charitable funding. The Clore Foundation has established a million pound museum education programme which will be focused towards non-national and regional museums. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford referred to the Gulbenkian award for the Hereford City Museum. I was privileged to be present at those awards. I well remember the presentation which Hereford City Museum made. I was impressed by what the noble Lord, Lord Congleton, said about Salisbury and south Wiltshire and what can be done with a well planned and well directed public appeal. I thought that that was an encouraging story.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, referred to the problems—they are true of lottery funding—of funding bricks and mortar without providing adequate onward funding of people. In other words, capital is provided without being sure of revenue. We shall have to take a grip of the business plans of some of those who apply for lottery funding and look critically at their forecasts of visitor figures to ensure that we do not lose out by funding buildings which are not viable in the longer term. There is a halfway house of endowment funding but that has to be limited and it is not always the most cost-effective way of spending lottery money.
A number of noble Lords referred to the work of the Heritage Lottery Fund and the £7 million Heritage Access Fund which supports museum projects which build existing or develop new audiences, encourage the involvement of friends or volunteers, and facilitate the touring of works from national or designated museums. There have been some outstanding and substantial grants.
We are aware of the difficulties which local museums have—a number of noble Lords referred to them—as regards funding from local authorities. We realise that some of them—I have a list; I shall not read it out—are living a hand to mouth existence. That is a great shame. It is not a statutory obligation on local authorities to provide a museum or gallery service, although a number of local authorities recognise that it is valuable to local communities, just as, let us say, the British Museum or the Tate Gallery is valuable to the country as a whole. We think that local authorities have a major role in delivering government objectives. But it is for them to decide on the level of support they give to their museums.
We could not take over the running of something like 2,000 institutions. I am sorry to say that to my noble friend Lord Strabolgi and the noble Viscount, Lord Knutsford, who seemed to suggest that we could. What we can and will do is to strive to create the right
1014
conditions for all types of museums so that they can thrive, and stress to all who will listen the importance and value of museums.
Clearly one of the institutional ways in which we shall be reforming our provision is by setting up the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council which will have a very much wider remit than the Museums and Galleries Commission. Archives have not been represented at a national level and libraries are, if anything, more widely used by the general public than museums and galleries.
In response to the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, I recognise the need to improve statistics about museums and galleries. He is right to say that that should be one of the activities of MLAC when it is established.
I said that I would return to the point—I have a brief moment to do so—on the wider definition of access which is referred to in Museums for the Many. We think about access as overcoming a wide range of barriers: physical and sensory barriers—in other words, access for people with disabilities, for older people and children—and intellectual barriers where there is inadequate display and interpretation; and cultural barriers where museums are not welcoming to people from different cultural backgrounds. Reference was made to Bristol City Museum and the very successful exhibition about slavery which not only increased visitors to the museum but also had over 200 people participating in putting together the collection. There may be attitudinal barriers. In other words, museums should be welcoming and should value their visitors. As regards financial barriers, yes, admission charges, but consideration should also be given to transport costs, and the costs of catering. The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, did not seem to think it appropriate that we should talk about catering for people on lower incomes. I think that it is. When we talk about removing financial barriers in those museums which charge, we are talking about wide and generous concessions for those most in need.
All that adds up to a deep respect for local and regional initiatives. We are talking about cultural strategies on a local and regional basis. As the regional development agencies are coming into action, we shall have culture, media and sport representatives on them. We take seriously the need for public involvement to which my noble friend Lady Rendell referred and we welcome such initiatives as the West Midlands regional consortium to which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford referred.
Without taking over the funding, there are many things we can do. I think that I have referred to some of them. I hope that I have demonstrated that the Government are determined to have a role in providing leadership and encouraging conditions in which all museums can thrive.
8.48 p.m.
The Earl of Clancarty: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I thank the

1015
Minister for his many interesting and important comments. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

European Convergence Criteria
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That this House approves, for the purposes of Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993, Her Majesty's Government's assessment as set out in the Financial Statement and Budget Report 1999–2000 and the Economic and Fiscal Strategy Report 1999–2000—(Lord McIntosh of Haringey.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Inheritance Tax
8.50 p.m.
Lord Chesham: My Lords, I wonder if I can congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, on having been able to introduce something between the two debates in which I know he is involved. I would have thought he might have found someone else to do that: a minor thing.
In introducing this Question I should declare an interest. I am the owner of a number of items which were conditionally exempted from inheritance tax on my father's death in 1989, and indeed on my grandfather's death in 1952. My great-grandfather died in 1907, and I have no knowledge of the situation as it was then. I have discussed my position with the Clerks of this House who could not advise me not to speak on this issue as it is a matter of public policy. I also had discussions with the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, prior to the debate.
This debate, as I stated, is about public policy. If it concerned pecuniary matters I would not be speaking, as I have already advised the House of my interest. However, as the purpose of the debate is to attempt to be co-operative with the Government, I feel fully entitled to ask the Question.
The existing exemptions have long been given in return for an undertaking, the specific terms of which are agreed in writing between the Treasury and the inheriting owner, to secure reasonable access to the public. The specific terms agreed, in the majority of cases since 1976, have been that access shall be given by prior appointment. This seemed appropriate to the Treasury then, and on that basis the agreements were made. We are now being told that such agreements, retrospectively, were not appropriate. The new rules will be applied and new agreements are required. Such agreements can, if agreement cannot be reached between the parties, be made unilaterally by the Inland Revenue with the approval of a Special Commissioner.
1016
I am sure that many decisions to seek conditional exemption would not have been taken in the past had the open access provisions been threatened at some time in the future. I believe that we all share an abhorrence of retrospective legislation, and I wonder it was deemed appropriate to apply retrospectivity in this situation.
Schedule 25 to the Finance Act 1998 introduced new rules. I wish only to consider two of them. First, under Section 8 a previous undertaking agreed by both parties may be varied either by agreement between the parties or by the Board of Inland Revenue imposing a variation, subject to approval by a Special Commissioner, without the consent of the person bound by this undertaking.
The Inland Revenue wrote to the owners of conditionally exempt chattels on 31st March 1999, requiring the owner to advise the Inland Revenue by 30th June on which 25 days the property would he open to the public without prior appointment. This is called "open access." The notes on the changes made by the Finance Act 1998 issued by the Inland Revenue state that under Section 5.11 the minimum period for open access should be for buildings which are not themselves tax exempt 5 to 100 days a year. It appears that a mandatory period of 25 days had subsequently been determined.
I understand that the Inland Revenue is to issue, or has issued, a second letter to heritage owners, indicating a degree of flexibility as far as open access is concerned. I welcome this concept of flexibility, which may assist in certain cases. I believe there is also an extension of time in which replies to the original letter may be made. I am slightly surprised that in the discussions that I had with the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, last night he did not advise me that this letter was going out.
The second new rule requires that owners will be required to publicise their undertakings. The form attached to the Revenue letter contains the wording:
"I/we shall give appropriate publicity to the public access arrangements, namely by agreeing that the Inland Revenue may:

(1) publicise the availability of this access via the internet or other appropriate means, and

(2) provide anyone who requests it with a copy of the undertaking".

These new rules have created an impossible situation for owners who do not live in a house which is normally open to the public, on the grounds of security apart from anything else. Many people are not set up to open their houses to the public without prior appointment and the chattels may not all be displayed in one room, but may well be scattered throughout the house. This new requirement equates to a right to roam through private property, and I have been advised that either insurance premiums would leap (possibly to even more unaffordable levels) or insurance may not be available at all. This is hardly protecting the Government's interest in the chattels—because that is what exists. The exemption is only conditional: the Government have an interest in the chattels. Any open access is liable to create a security problem.
The second security problem is created by listing on the Internet. These two requirements surely comprise a "burglars' charter" which could endanger life and limb,

1017
to say nothing of the contents of the houses themselves. I understand that the second letter from the Inland Revenue makes no mention of the Internet problem.
The other point is that while there may be a number of exempt chattels in a house, there will be a considerable number of other chattels, all of which are put at risk by advertising on the Internet. I am sure that the Minister is aware of the words spoken in another place by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on 30th June 1998. I quote:
"We are not saying that appointments to view objects should be abolished; we are saying that there should be a review of a system where there is appointment-only access to a certain category of object".
She went on to say:
"There will still be cases, however, where an appointment will be necessary for the very reasons that the hon. Gentleman has outlined: security, sensitivity and an object's fragility".—[Official Report Commons, 30/6/98; cols. 238–39.]
Your Lordships will note the use of the word "security".
On a slightly different tack, I wonder whether the Minister can confirm that Article 1 of the first protocol of the Human Rights Act would not apply to this potential invasion of private property. The protocol states:
"Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions".
I would also cite Article 8 of the convention, which states:
"Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence".
Does this equate with listing on the Internet?
I am sure that the Minister will advise us that these concerns are not real: all one has to do is to lend the objects to a museum or gallery. However, it is not that simple. Quite apart from the difficulty of finding a suitable location—and I understand that the noble Lord will have something to say on that—there are also problems of damage during transit and of insurance. If these problems were addressed, this could certainly be a solution worthy of serious consideration.
I fear that the consequences of this legislation will be totally opposite to those intended. I am convinced that a number of heritage owners will either pay the deferred inheritance tax, where they have the wherewithal, or will sell all or part of their collections. The result will be to take them out of the public domain, and quite possibly overseas. That would be a great shame and, surely, contrary to the intention of the legislation.
I am sure that most heritage owners are proud of their objects and wish to co-operate with the Government in this matter. They would appreciate the opportunity of discussions as to how these problems can be overcome. I look forward to hearing the speeches of those following me and the answers of the Minister. The debate is intended to be helpful and I hope that it is accepted with that intention in mind.
9 p.m.
Lord Bridges: My Lords, I am glad to be able to take part in this debate. Like some other noble Lords, I am
1018
personally affected. But the reason for raising the Question in this forum is that the main issue concerns a matter of public policy; namely, access to significant works of art and their maintenance in this country. It is, in other words, a heritage or cultural matter. The articles in question are those considered by the authorities to be sufficiently significant to warrant deferral of taxes due to the Inland Revenue based on the proviso that the articles are accessible for the general public to inspect them. What is at issue here for me and others is the nature of public access.
There is a wide variety in the articles themselves and in the places where they are kept. This is a large part of the difficulty. If we are talking about a painting in a large country house which is already open to the public, it may not be difficulty for the owner/custodian to agree to access for a minimum number of days each year. If a picture is hung in a room not normally open to the public, it may be moved or an extra room added to the circuit of the house. But not all custodians are like that. He or she may be an elderly person living alone, perhaps in a flat in London, with a single precious possession—a picture, a piece of fine furniture or porcelain—and circumstances may be such that the owner is wary of having the front door open to all-comers for a stated period each year. I do not believe that that is an uncommon state of affairs.
My own position is somewhat in between those two extremes. I and my three siblings share ownership of an interesting collection of books belonging to our grandfather, Robert Bridges, the poet laureate who died in 1930. Two successive deferrals of tax have been granted on the death of our parents. The books, perhaps 3,500 in all, were either written by the poet, many of them having been beautifully printed by Provost Daniel on his private press, or were written and presented to him by his friends, who included Hopkins, Yeats, Masefield and J.C. Smuts, or were books of personal interest to him, such as the miniature edition of Virgil which he carried on his person for much of his life. The value and interest of this collection does not lie in individually precious bibliographical items so much as the illustration of the wide range of his intellectual interests and friendships. In other words, it is the totality of the collection.
It is also interesting to see evidence of his wide reading in other European languages; for example, his heavily annotated copy of Dante. The books are housed in a handsome glass-fronted bookcase and looked after by a member of the family. This person happens to live in an isolated place with no close neighbours. For these security reasons, the house is not open to casual visitors.
We have however a contact in central London who can arrange for individual items to be brought to his office within 36 hours for inspection. So far as we know, this system, which has been agreed with the Inland Revenue, works well. It has not given rise to any complaint. In fact, the only people who have made use of it are journalists who have no apparent interest in the items themselves: they seek to look at the books on a random basis so that they can test the system. The scholars who are interested in these books know who we are and approach us direct. There is no difficulty.

1019
The problem we face is this. We believe that the present system works and fully meets our earlier obligations to the Inland Revenue. We acknowledge our responsibilities over access and if the Revenue tells us, as it does, that its obligations have been changed which obliges it to alter the terms of an earlier agreement (because of the retrospective legislation already referred to) we will do what we can to help. But we feel unable to agree to access on demand. That would endanger the security of the collection, the other possessions in the house and the people living there.
We are also amazed by the news that the locations may be publicly advertised by the Government on the Internet. This amounts to an invitation to burglars on an international scale and hardly seems to accord with the terms of the European Convention on Human Rights. Why should the Government publish a catalogue for international burglars? It seems very unacceptable.
So what can we do in this situation? There is the legal route which would mean taking a case to a special commissioner. That would apparently involve the employment of counsel and I am given to understand that such services are very expensive. I am told that the cost is a minimum of £15,000 a time. Presumably that would be outside the scope of the access to justice legislation. Why should we have to bear this burden? Furthermore, it would be a difficult contest as the commissioner would address just the "reasonableness" of the Inland Revenue's proposals and not our own. This looks to me like a very expensive and uncertain kind of justice. I am not litigious by nature and would prefer a different approach if we could find one.
What are the alternatives? We could sell the collection. We could give it away to a public library or learned body. But we would find it difficult to pay the tax without seriously depleting assets set aside for years of retirement, and not all of us could do that anyway. We have thought of entrusting it to a university or college and feel that it might be accepted in good faith for a period of years. But if major repairs to the college roof were necessary, that asset would be at risk.
Furthermore, big libraries do not like to keep a donated collection intact, preferring to distribute the books among their various classified sections. I suspect that many donors will end up selling some of their articles in order to retain others. That will lead to many sales and the export of items which this arrangement was designed to prevent in the first place.
So the Revenue's action is presenting us with an apparently insoluble set of problems. I am happy to work out a solution if we can find one, but I have to say that a commitment to open access for a fixed number of days annually would be very difficult for us and probably impossible. I suggest that that arises from a false perception by the Revenue of the very various circumstances of custody and the articles in question. Indeed, it looks as though someone in the Revenue or Treasury has the wrong image of who we are and how we live. They apparently see us in the image of Trollope's Duke of Omnium, living in Gatherum Castle with a suite of liveried servants having nothing much to do. That certainly does not apply to me.
1020
I come back to where I began. This is, or should be, a policy issue regarding our cultural heritage. In my case, I want to maintain the totality of the collection. It is quite difficult to find a collection of books belonging to some person of past literary status in this country. I remember only Macaulay's collection of books which were entrusted to the Trevelyan family in Wallington in Northumberland, now in the care of the National Trust. That is a remarkable but unusual exception. When I take from the shelf the Pickering edition of Surrey's poems inscribed to my grandfather by Hopkins in his unmistakable hand, I feel an immediate link with that remarkable friendship which has left its mark on our literature.
That collection is worth preserving. If we can work out some system with the Revenue to enable that to happen, I shall be delighted. I trust that the Treasury will allow the Revenue sufficient flexibility to arrive at a means of access acceptable to all concerned.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, I note the remarks made by the Financial Secretary of 30th June of last year in another place. When I read the latest letter from the Inland Revenue dated 25th May, which arrived, perhaps not entirely by chance, today, it expressed its views in more emollient language but it follows quite a different line from that of Dawn Primarolo and shows little real flexibility of principle in relation to access on demand. For my part, that is still the sticking point.
9.8 p.m.
Lord Montagu of Beaulieu: My Lords, the whole House and the whole country should be grateful to my noble friend Lord Chesham for raising this important issue which is so vital to the future of our heritage.
I take part in this debate specifically as the founding president of the Historic Houses Association whose views I express; and beyond that, as the owner of a property which has for nearly 50 years provided access and enjoyment for many millions of visitors who can see what conditionally exempt objects I own every day of the year.
I speak not only as an individual but also as former chairman of English Heritage whose philosophy has always been to advocate the policy of the quid pro quo of tax concessions in exchange for public access as being fundamental to the future survival of Britain's heritage—both for historic houses and gardens arid their contents.
There are elements of the new legislation that the Government have introduced to improve access to conditionally exempt works of art that the Historic Houses Association welcomes. The functioning of the old V&Amp;A list system had become increasingly unsatisfactory, despite the efforts of the last government to improve it. In only a very few instances was the malfunctioning the fault of the owner. The fault was the system, which needed improvement—improvement rather than wholesale change. I fully accept the need to ensure that tax deferred is balanced by an appropriate degree of public benefit. However, there are elements of the new measures which will cause concern. It is all a question of balance and what is appropriate. It would be

1021
extremely counter-productive if the measures which the Government intend to introduce were to deny the nation the treasures that the legislation was set up to protect and to deny the public the present access that they currently enjoy.
To make an appointment to see an object can in some cases be a long-winded and frustrating process. That should not be so. Equally, there are elements of the by-appointment system which have suited everyone very well. The thousands who do so by appointment enjoy access at times to suit both the visitor and the owner. They appreciate the personal element involved. For example, several thousand visitors went to Hovingham Hall in Yorkshire by appointment last year. At another house, more than 80 days' access were provided, which is far more than some houses which are open regularly to the public. Scholars are invariably made most welcome by those owners with similar interests who are delighted to share access to their objects, particularly those of academic interest.
All that advantage may be lost if the by-appointment system is removed entirely, as a matter of principle. The Government must realise not only the advantages of the by-appointment system but also why the alternative of open public access which they are proposing will in many cases simply not work.
First, to set up the whole infrastructure of opening to the public, as I know only too well—the car parks, the lavatories, security, guides, regulations and disabled access—is a complex and expensive business. Those who live in urban areas in either small houses or flats or who are at work all day simply could not contemplate that. They have no alternative but to sell.
The overwhelming concern, as has been said by other noble Lords, is criminal activities, invariably mentioned by those faced with providing open access for the first time. The fear of burglary is real. I could tell your Lordships horrific stories of owners tied up and beaten by thieves who had already targeted their treasures and knew where to find them. A chilling fact is that in 1997 alone items valued at £1.8 million were stolen from 259 historic houses.
Under the new regulations, once you provide open public access to your house, you have to advertise the fact that in that house are kept particularly valuable objects. Many owners feel, quite rightly, that their first priority is to protect their families and treasures. Therefore, they are reluctant to undertake such advertising. The most dangerous suggestion is that those objects should be advertised on the Internet. However, advertising would certainly increase the insurance premiums which will be necessary.
There is a good suggestion that some major objects should be loaned to local or national museums for a period, say in the winter months. The truth is however that their storerooms are already full and in my experience they like to lend objects out rather than receive more in.
Next there is the subject of retrospection. I shall not dwell on this; my noble friend Lord Chesham covered it very well. It strikes at the heart of legal essentials and
1022
I suspect that lawyers are bound to resist it fiercely. While most owners will have little problem in accepting variations to future agreements, many would not have agreed to the arrangements that are now being proposed if they had known about them in advance.
I confirm that much good will exists among owners who recognise their obligations to preserve our heritage, but even with that good will the new arrangements could make it hard for many to comply in simple practical terms. But I am sure that a solution to all this does exist, and I am greatly heartened to hear of a growing realisation within the Government of the dangers within this new legislation, introduced, I have to say, with insufficient consideration and forethought of its consequences.
HHA has held constructive discussions with the Inland Revenue and I understand that it is to meet the Paymaster General. It is comforting to know that consideration is being given to the need for individual agreements according to circumstances on a house-to-house basis to ensure that they are just and reasonable and that the rigid maximum of 25 days is negotiable, subject to the type of object and its situation.
For the past 100 years generations of owners have acted as unpaid curators of important parts of our national heritage. Pictures and other objects have been cleaned and restored and furniture repaired; increased insurance premiums have been paid. There has been absolutely no financial reward or profit for the owner and when they have been forced sometimes to sell, taxes are assessed at the old rates of duty, sometimes going as high as 80 or 90 per cent.
The sensible concessions recently proposed by the Revenue will certainly help. But there may be a need to go further before a stable and worthwhile solution can be found to resolve this potentially damaging situation. The HHA welcomes dialogue but urges the Government to continue to consider how best to introduce measures that are sufficiently flexible to retain the best elements of the old system, rather than discarding it, and agree a new regime for the benefit of all, especially for future generations. After all, the system was set up in the 1890s to preserve our heritage objects. It has up to now worked extremely well; without it the country would have been much poorer instead of being enriched. So I say—to use an old expression—"Don't throw the baby out with the bath water".
9.18 p.m.
Earl Haig: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank my noble friend Lord Chesham for putting this Question to the Government.
The policy of conditional exemption was established by the Inland Revenue many years ago. So far as I am aware, it has been managed with success by the Capital Taxes Office. It has been suggested that some owners are taking advantage of the scheme without carrying out their obligations, and so defrauding the taxpayer. If there are cases of infringement, then those cases need greater supervision.
By and large the scheme is, as my noble friend Lord Montagu said, working well. Owners resent the implication by the Government that they are trying to

1023
defraud the taxpayer. In my view the public have benefited greatly from the arrangements that are in place. Many of the owners, like my noble friend Lord Montagu, have rendered service as trustees of museums and galleries and taken part in the scheme in a spirit of wanting to let like-minded people enjoy their possessions.
Like my noble friend Lord Chesham I must declare an interest as the acquirer of a modern collection, now owned by my son. It is largely of the British school with some Euston Road paintings, many of which were made by my friends between 1940 and 1960. It is a painter's collection which has expanded into abstraction. One early inspiration came from Jackson Pollock whose work is being exhibited in the Tate at the moment. The value of my collection is not for its individual works, but for its value as a whole. It may be studied and enjoyed by those people who make a plan to visit my home. The paintings are housed and shown in a historic house, part of which was redesigned in 1960 for the purpose of a modern gallery.
Some 60 years ago the opportunity arose to preserve the collection intact for a future generation, when I entered into an agreement with the Government whereby those paintings which were judged by the National Gallery of Scotland to be of national importance, some 170 modern paintings, would be donated to my son and heir, and would be housed, heated, secured and insured at Bemersyde. I undertook to show them to members of the public who applied for appointments to visit, with good warning. My son undertook not to sell any of the works with the proviso that, if anything was sold, tax would be liable on the income which would have arisen from the capital difference between the 1983 valuation and the valuation of the work when sold. In my son's case, such a sale would be unlikely.
Like other noble Lords, I wonder whether the Government are within their rights to break a legal agreement. Are they entitled to amend legislation, which will come into force retrospectively, thus cancelling legal agreements made in good faith in the past? In my view, the legislation which underpinned our agreement has been changed. These changes are unworkable and unacceptable. If an owner is unable to embark on a system which is impossible to carry out, he has no alternative but to withdraw, but at what appears to be considerable cost. This amounts to expropriation.
In my case the open access requirements are impractical, as I believe they are for many others also. We live in an isolated area and are vulnerable to break-ins. All the houses which are open to the public in our area have been burgled. Extended access would encourage reconnaissance by potential thieves and add to our security risks. I would not be able to ensure the safety of the collection, and the cost of my insurance would rise steeply. When the public wish to see items which are stored in a public collection, they have to apply and their credentials are checked before authority is given. To have open access would not only be a problem from a security point of view, but it would also destroy privacy.
1024
My own experience of past years relates to the time when I opened the house to the public to show my father's memorabilia. I found that the house was not large enough to be lived in and used as a museum at the same time. So I presented my father's collection to Edinburgh City Council for exhibition at Huntly House. As we are on the Walter Scott tourist route, the number of visitors escalated because of the historic interest rather than because of interest in the paintings. So I decided that our privacy had to be protected and I stopped the regular opening of the house.
The present system of opening the collection to members of the National Art Collections Fund, to NADFAS, friends of museums and galleries and various groups all over the country is working very well. Many of the visitors are painters themselves. Any regular opening would require additional guides and increased security arrangements, both of which are outwith my slender pocket.
I am particularly worried by the publication by the Victoria and Albert Museum of details of my collection on the Internet. Publication of those lists offers an invitation to burglars. Recently I have been pressurised by people in television and by journalists who ring me up pretending to be genuine students of art. On one occasion, the telephone conversation was taped and used for a comedy programme in which I was portrayed as a Colonel Blimp, much more so than I might appear in reality, with my mind totally focused on the loos and facilities available for a children's play area. The matter was raised with the television complaints commission and an apology was offered by Channel 4.
Part of the public resentment in the matter has been whipped up by a few art critics and journalists who fail to acknowledge the advantages to the public. They ring me up pretending to be potential visitors, but with no intention of making a visit. They ask whether I have such and such a picture, which they have spotted in the V&A catalogue, to sound me out as to whether or not I have a welcoming attitude and whether or not I am a good egalitarian. There is no sharing of the love of painting during the conversations. We might just as well be discussing the marketing of a sack of coal.
As a result of these variations of tax exemptions, art lovers will be denied the opportunity to see works of art in a domestic setting. The chance of using smaller historic houses for a good purpose will be ruled out. I hope that my noble friend's Question will encourage the Government to think again.
9.24 p.m.
The Earl of Kintore: My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, for asking this important Question. I have a number of interests to declare. I am the custodian and 60 per cent owner of a small collection of exempt pictures and a few other small chattels. I am responsible for the maintenance of a small listed house. I am a member of the Historic Houses Association, and the house, because of its size, is on its "not generally open to the public" list. Finally, I am an associate by examination of the Chartered Insurance Institute.

1025
I wish to speak mainly to the second part of the Question and only in respect of pictures and small chattels. I say at the outset that I entirely understand what the Government are trying to achieve but I see some real practical problems and dangers. I suppose the most alarming proposal is at paragraph 5.32 on page 20 of the Revenue's January 1999 booklet which states,
"In general, we will expect you to agree to provide through the Inland Revenue's Internet website the following basic information about the exempt assets and public access to them".
There follows a heading,
"Chattels excluding historically associated chattels."
The document continues,
"A description of each object"
and,
"If they are located in a building open to the public, the full address of the building and the opening times".
If someone invited me to design a burglar's charter I could not have done it better. The Internet is a wonderful source of information but it is totally uncontrolled and information is available to those of good intent and of bad.
The Times of 25th May reported that two new Internet websites had opened the previous day. With the help of the Library I visited both sites. The first was a database posted by the Mormon Church to help us trace our ancestors and contained as much detail as possible. I shall not be able to post as much detail—enough detail to attract a member of the public to come to see an exempt picture certainly, but not enough to attract a burglary.
The second website I visited was a website of the Prison Service to help prisoners' families. That is a commendable intention but I can see another group of people that access to the site could help. I have not given the Minister notice of my next point but perhaps he can write to me with an assurance that if it is intended that prisons are to have Internet access, governors will be instructed to programme their equipment so that there is no possibility of accessing the Inland Revenue's Internet website of exempt chattels.
I turn to insurance. I hope that the Minister will not say that the Government have consulted the insurance industry and been advised that no increase in premium will be necessary. I have spoken with a fine art underwriter who considers that what is proposed will certainly lead him to rate the risk differently, possibly increasing the premium and certainly requiring extra security precautions. I hope I may put in a plea to the Government to instruct the planning and listed building authorities that if the owner of a listed building has to install security lights, window bars, window locks and double glazing as a direct result of complying with the insurer's requirements to cover the new risks that increased public access entails, permission will be given immediately without the normal hassle.
I understand that there is a proposal for those of us whose houses are too small for realistic public access to lend exempt items to larger houses which could show the items properly. That is an interesting idea, but
1026
I would counsel about too much movement. Good furniture and pictures hate being moved. Although damage and subsequent loss of value may not be immediately apparent, that will occur over time. Some of the evidence given to the inquiry into the Burrell collection is particularly relevant and possibly should be studied before this proposal is too far advanced.
An answer for small houses would seem to be to try again to make the "by appointment system" work. Having a lawyer as an agent can be problem. Why not use the excellent network of local galleries as agents holding the exempt list, with the directors of the galleries empowered to report us to the Inland Revenue if we are not fulfilling our obligations?
There is a serious problem here. It can be resolved by flexibility and good will on all sides, but if it is not resolved the only art available to the public to see will be in galleries and museums and the large, flagship, great houses.
9.31 p.m.
Lord Luke: My Lords, I shall not keep your Lordships long. Unfortunately, I have no interest to declare in this matter.
It appears that the reason why the rules are being changed and the goalposts moved is that a very few people took advantage; they have not been playing the game and making their heritable property available to managed access. That is a shame because, by and large, the scheme has worked very well, not only keeping together collections, keeping items in the country, but also making a large number of works of art available to view by scholars and members of the public, works which would not have been seen under other circumstances.
Many medium to small scale owners of heritable items have been upset by the retrospective nature of the new arrangements. Retrospective legislation is always bad, as other noble Lords have said this evening, and in this case it could be disastrous.
Many of the people concerned have had completely to reorganise their commitments. In some cases major items are being sold to pay outstanding tax. They will not be seen again unless they have been bought by museums—and they may be bought by museums abroad. In other cases, particularly where a person, perhaps a bachelor or an old lady, is living alone, whole collections are being sold up, or maybe, depending on circumstances, the person is selling the one treasure which he or she cannot possibly keep at the expense of allowing unrestricted access to his or her home, possibly a flat or small house. Security and comfort would be comprehensively destroyed.
I ask the Government to think again before it is too late. To my certain knowledge, certain dispositions have already been made in some cases, so if action is to be taken it must be soon.
It has been suggested that items could be displayed at museums and galleries for the requisite 25 days. The consideration raised by the noble Earl, Lord Kintore, about the movement of some of the items is real.

1027
Paintings, particularly old ones, do not like being moved, and certainly furniture and priceless porcelain would be very much at risk.
What evidence do the Government have that museums, particularly local museums, would be both willing and able to fulfil the function of a peripatetic warehouse, as it were?
One sensible way to solve the whole problem, and one that I strongly commend to the Minister, is to abolish inheritance tax.
9.34 p.m.
Lord Hamilton of Dalzell: My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Chesham for initiating this debate and I declare an interest in having received a letter from the Revenue. I therefore share the anxieties expressed by noble Lords and have a question to ask the Minister. Why, when public service broadcasts and the police advise citizens never to open their doors to strangers and not to invite people in without first ascertaining that they are genuine tradesmen by asking for identification, are those who have valuable works of art in their houses compelled by law to overlook these sensible precautions?
When the Minister comes to reply, no doubt he will repeat the pledge made by the Labour Party before the election that it would take steps to stop the widespread avoidance of tax. This is one of the rackets that it has had in mind. I agree that this arrangement is questionable in law, or at least in one interpretation of it, but I maintain that it is not one which has up until now been allowed in order to protect the wealth of that section of the community who are neither too rich nor too poor to avoid being caught by inheritance tax. It was to save governments from the odium of being accused of taxing away that priceless and uniquely British heritage represented by houses and their contents.
When death duty was introduced at a very low rate at the end of the 19th century, there were those who said that this would mark the end of the country house and its estate. The forecast was premature, although the number of houses which have been pulled down or converted into flats, conference centres or golf clubs or have simply been allowed to become derelict bear witness to a steady attrition and the very high rates of tax extracted from their owners up to 1980—"until the pips, squeaked", so to speak. It has always appeared to be politically unacceptable to abolish a tax which by its very name and nature is a tax on our heritage. But what is the heritage if it is not what we inherit?
That any of our great houses and estates survive at all is due to the unwillingness of owners to abandon their responsibilities. They have given their properties to the National Trust when they could have cashed in by selling their contents, they have opened them to the public, given them to their children, lived in acute discomfort and cold and used every conceivable means at their disposal to ensure their preservation for posterity. To a considerable extent, their efforts have been connived at by every government since the war because they recognised the value of what was being done and did not want to lose the support of the
1028
powerful lobby representing the arts. The exemption of works of art from inheritance tax is just one instance of this connivance.
I do not believe that the majority of us who own exempted works have ever objected to people who could prove their bona fides seeing things that they have wanted to see. My noble friend Lord Haig made exactly that point. Objects go to exhibitions, even when they are not on the exempted list. Scholarship in art is to be encouraged and I find it interesting as an owner to hear what experts think.
There has been a campaign to make the general public feel hard done by because, hitherto, they have not for practical reasons been allowed free access to people's private homes to see things on the list. But true art lovers might be gratified that they can still see things in this country which might otherwise have been taxed away to the USA or Japan or some other more prosperous country.
In espousing what they would like to think of as the public cause, the Government might also like to reflect on the good deal they get as tax collectors on behalf of the general public. Tax on exempted works of art is not forgone; it is postponed, as my noble friend Lord Chesham said. If the exemption took place before inheritance tax was reduced to 40 per cent, this rate can be as high as 80 per cent. The astronomical rise in the art market in recent years means that when on a death 20 or 30 years ago they might have collected tens of thousands of pounds, now they stand to make hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pounds on a sale.
The threat of inheritance taxes to the heritage arises because works of art must be regarded by the Revenue as financial assets for tax purposes. Because they earn no income but rather incur costs, they are in reality liabilities until they are sold. It is quite possible to inherit millions of such liabilities but to have no income because all the income-earning assets have been taxed away.
Attrition caused by taxing the passing of the generations, keeping ancient buildings in repair and a general decline in income from estates are bound to bring a perpetual flow of exempted items on to the market. The Finance Act 1998 will accelerate that process. The illusion that there was a sort of partnership between owners and government for the preservation of our heritage has been broken by New Labour. The Goths are at the gate—or is it the Scots?
9.41 p.m.
Lord Palmer: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, for asking this vitally important Question. I, too, must declare several interests. I am a director of the Historic Houses Association and chairman of its Scottish region, and almost everything that I own—objects and masonry—are conditionally exempt from inheritance tax.
My home was one of the last major historic houses to be built and has been described as the swan-song of the great classical house. If they were not exempt, there is no way that I could have inherited this marvellous property intact. Neither could I have considered passing

1029
it on to one of my children. Our only alternative would have been to sell the house and to disperse the contents—which of course are historically linked to the house. If that had happened the access enjoyed by the one quarter of a million people who have over the past 15 years visited and enjoyed the house, its remarkable contents and grounds would have been lost. As important, so too would the 20 jobs that are associated with providing public access.
Mercifully, however, I am not personally troubled by the new legislation. At home, our obligation is to open the house and grounds for 25 days a year, and to date that system has worked well. But I have great sympathy with those owners whose exempt objects are housed in smaller properties, for all the reasons so eloquently described by the noble Lord, Lord Montagu. Here, I pay enormous tribute to the noble Lord for all his efforts for the country's heritage and for the role that he played in founding the Historic Houses Association. There is one point from his speech that I would like to take up and leading on from this, one positive suggestion that I hope the Government might consider.
The noble Lord, Lord Montagu, and others described the very real practical difficulties that owners face in opening their houses to the public. I know only too well what many of them are. The noble Lord also draws attention to the horrendous security implications created by the publication of the exact location of their exempt objects, some of which will be very valuable, on the Internet. That will, I am afraid, dissuade many from agreeing to the Revenue's new proposals, much as they would wish to do so, even for a minimal number of days.
The alternative to displaying the objects at home, the Government would suggest, is to show them in a museum. For many, that is simply not an option. We all know that many museums are already filled to capacity and/or insufficiently funded to contemplate the extra curatorial burden. Moreover, it has long been the policy of successive governments to maintain as much as possible of Britain's "secondary collection" in private ownership, for practical and economic reasons. That sensible policy will undoubtedly be adversely affected by the new measures.
Where do owners who cannot show their objects at home or in a museum put them on display? The suggestion that I propose is that other historic houses, be they privately or publicly owned, that already have existing facilities such as car parks, guides, security and so on be encouraged to create display facilities to show exempt objects drawn from their immediate and surrounding localities.
Not only would such a scheme greatly assist the implementation of the new measures; but also it would create a series of displays of real interest. Objects would be shown in their proper setting rather than seen in the front room of a gloomy office shown by a grumpy solicitor who would rather be doing something else. The scheme would also extend the attractions on offer at those houses that already are open to the public.
1030
The HHA has discussed this idea with Historic Scotland and the National Trust for Scotland. They are interested in it. English Heritage and others, however, remain to be convinced. There are, I admit, practical difficulties to be considered—transport, insurance and so on. But none of these need be insurmountable.
Endorsement of this scheme and, in particular, allowing a government indemnity, would go some way to encouraging what could become a beneficial aspect of what could otherwise be unhelpful legislation. There could be favourable consideration by the Revenue in allowing owners to accumulate credit for, say, three or four years by displaying their objects for a longer period in any single year.
I urge the Government positively to support what I believe to be a most practical proposal and thus to help safeguard the great heritage of this country.
9.46 p.m.
Viscount Falkland: My Lords, I shall be brief, as I have no personal interest to declare.
I have a great deal of sympathy with the case put by the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, who asked this Question. There are two principles involved that are not easily compatible. There is the principle that seems easy to support: if valuable works of art, furniture and other chattels which are part of the heritage of the nation are in private hands, and if tax can be deferred and they can be kept in the place where they have been for many years rather than being sold and dispersed, there is a strong reason for making sure that they are kept in situ. However, I do not understand the other, rigid principle of the Inland Revenue's 25 days' access. Perhaps the Minister can explain that.
Where is the public demand for such access? I can understand that there is a demand from scholarly bodies whose representatives come to see such chattels by appointment. I can understand that if it is possible for the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, in the physical surroundings, to make access available to those bodies by arrangement, and even members of the public who apply to join them, there is good reason, in order that he may continue to enjoy his own chattels and the tax deferment, for him to make a contract to allow that access. But to allow 25 days a year access across the board seems extraordinary.
I also take the noble Lord's point that advertising on the Internet seems crazy and can hardly have been thought through. It is an invitation to criminals—probably more so than having one's house displayed in all its glory in Hello magazine. I wonder whether the Inland Revenue has considered that. No doubt the noble Lord who will reply has thought about it carefully and will give it his full attention.
This approach is extremely rigid. If there is a principle of access of which he can persuade me, surely a more reasonable and flexible way of making it work can be found. At present, it seems to me that the complaint of the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, and other noble Lords is well-founded. The matter needs some thought and sensitivity. I look forward to the noble Lord's reply.
9.49 p.m.
Baroness Anelay of St. Johns: My Lords, I am in some difficulty because it is the normal courtesy of the House that I should begin by thanking my noble friend Lord Chesham for asking the Question of the Government. However, he put me in difficulty because by asking the Question tonight he has prevented me from being elsewhere—that is, in front of the television set watching a football match that I would rather have seen. I know that earlier today the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh—he is "tut-tutting" now—made clear that he would rather be elsewhere, but not watching the match.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I was invited by the noble Baroness to tell the House the result. We have just passed a message to her with it.
Baroness Anelay of St. Johns: I am glad he did so. I am extremely grateful not only to the Minister but also his officials for making it possible for the House to know the result: Manchester United won, 2:1. We are delighted.
Returning to the debate tonight, on this occasion I have no personal interest to declare, but I am interested in the implications of the issue for the heritage of our country. I am interested in ensuring that whatever system is in place is fair to both the owner of the historic items and to the taxpayer. The rules should be fair in their composition and in their application. It would not be in the public interest if the rules were applied in such a way that collections were broken up or works of art sold and lost to an overseas buyer.
Tonight noble Lords have examined the implications of the changes introduced by the Finance Act 1998. First, there is the requirement that those who have already obtained exemption from tax on their works of art in exchange for an undertaking to make them available to the public by appointment should renegotiate those undertakings so that they will in future have to allow access without prior appointments. Secondly, there is the requirement that in future the standard of the work of art, in order to qualify for exemption from tax, will have to be of pre-eminent instead of museum quality.
The first change is the one that has attracted most of the publicity. It is possible that many people will pay the tax rather than allow open access to the work of art and that those who cannot afford the tax will sell their work of art. But the second change, of definition, is also a serious threat to the retention of works of art in collections in this country.
Like my noble friend Lord Luke., I intend to be relatively brief so I do not propose to rehearse again all the arguments which have been adduced so effectively this evening. I listened with interest to the points argued so effectively by my noble friend Lord Montagu. I wish to associate myself with them. I also wish to thank the HHA for the time it has taken to provide me with most helpful briefing material and for meeting Lord Luke and myself to discuss the issues in some detail. I also endorse the remarks made by my noble friend with
1032
regard to the invidious position in which the changes put those individuals who may live alone in modest circumstances but who have always been prepared to offer access to their work of art by appointment. They may feel that their personal security is compromised by these changes.
I also wish to ask what evidence exists to prove that museums are ready, willing and able to give room to those works of art which are currently open to view in homes, but which owners may wish to show outside their home under the operation of the changed rules.
In preparation for this debate I was made aware that there had been extensive and constructive discussions on the matter between the Inland Revenue, interested representative organisations and the Government. I have of course not been party to those discussions, but believe that they have made significant progress. I would be grateful if the Minister could give the House such information as is not confidential about the progress of those discussions and their likely outcome.
9.53 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, this debate can take place only on the basis that it is about public policy. The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, made that clear and I respect him for it. Your Lordships will therefore understand that although a considerable number of contributions have been about noble Lords' own personal circumstances, it would be quite improper for me to attempt to reply to that part of the debate. What I shall seek to do is to talk about the public policy issues which are raised by the Question.
First, I shall say something about the changes which have taken place to the inheritance tax rules for conditionally exempt chattels. I understand that we are not talking about land and buildings. I shall then say something about the nature of the problem that gave rise to the change in the law. I shall explain what the Inland Revenue has done and is doing. Finally. I shall make some suggestions—perhaps modest and inadequate—about possible solutions to the problem that has been identified.
Two changes were made to the inheritance tax rules by the 1998 Budget. The first related to the quality of the items. It was made clear that in order to qualify for conditional exemption in future, items should be of pre-eminent quality rather than, as under the past vile, of a quality sufficient for them to be shown in a local authority collection. There has not been any debate on that side of the issue tonight and I shall not go into it any further.
The second change in rule which has been the subject of debate is that there should be improved access. I shall deal with how that is intended to be achieved. It is proposed that there should be improved access only where there is already in the agreement a requirement for reasonable public access. That makes it clear that this is not retrospective legislation as claimed by the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, and a number of other noble Lords.
How is it proposed under the legislation that this should be achieved? If possible, it should be done by agreement. I shall come to the letters which the Inland

1033
Revenue has sent out. I suspect that in a very large number of cases there will be agreement. That is not even required in the case of those noble Lords and others whose houses are already open to the public for at least 25 days a year, of which there is a substantial number. If agreement cannot be reached arrangements will have to be made which will be endorsed on review by the Special Commissioners of Income Tax who are the tax judges. As in all Revenue matters the arrangements would have to be,
"just and reasonable in all the circumstances".
This means that in law it should be just and reasonable in all the circumstances relating to the asset, not the owner. Otherwise, one would have a situation in which different judgments were made by the Special Commissioners, not according to the nature of the original deal under which tax was foregone or postponed, depending on how noble Lords wish to describe it—some have used one word or the other—but according to the nature of the circumstances of the present owner and where he lived. That is not what the law says.
The Revenue has the intention as far as possible to proceed by case-by-case negotiations, but if there is no agreement arrangements must be made which are subject to legal process by the Special Commissioners. But the Revenue concedes, rightly I believe, that it has a duty under the Finance Act 1998 to review access to existing exempt chattels, to seek open access to them where appropriate and to require special access on conditions which the Special Commissioners must approve.
Before I leave the question of what the law says, I should like to respond to the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, that this may be in breach of Article 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. There is a very simple solution for those who fear that their human rights are being infringed by the access proposals: they can remove the chattels from their houses for the amount of time that is proposed or, in an extreme case, sell them and pay the tax. Under those circumstances, I cannot conceive that there is any infringement of the European Convention on Human Rights.
I now turn to the scale of the problem. From the public point of view, this is costing the taxpayer £25 million to £30 million a year. There are 900 owners of conditionally exempt chattels and there are approximately 20,000 chattels concerned. When the system was set up it was intended that the prior appointment system should be the last resort. The basis was that there should be reasonable public access, and clearly prior appointment is not reasonable public access. Now in all too many cases it is the first resort. I know that noble Lords will not wish to hear the name of Mark Thomas and Channel 4. The three-tier mahogany buffet with partially reeded slender balustrade upright supports was a theme of his television programme.
It is not a question of access for scholars but for the general public—those who can go into our museums and galleries. It is the general public who are paying, in
1034
effect, through the tax that they have forgone. It is the general public, not scholars or researchers, who have to have access to these chattels. The plain fact is that in many cases that does not happen: they do not have access. Of course it occurs in the stately homes, the homes which are open to the public. But in far too many other cases it is simply not happening. The original intention of the legislation is not being achieved.
I appreciate the difficulties which have been described in public policy terms. I shall turn to possible solutions in a moment. In the meantime, I have to assert implacably that some public access is essential.
I turn to what the Inland Revenue has been doing. In January of this year, the Capital Taxes Office produced a booklet. It has been inadequately quoted today by the noble Earl, Lord Kintore. He quoted the full address and the opening times of a building open to the public. The Capital Taxes Office pamphlet states:
"If they are not located in such a building [it has to declare] period(s) when open access will be available; for example. 12 days from May to July [and the] name, address and telephone number of the person, yourself or your agent, who will give details (where necessary) of the actual opening days and the venue(s)".
So neither the Internet nor any list produced by the Inland Revenue will give the address at which these chattels are held.
Paragraph 5.33 is quite clear. In answer to the question,
"Will the Internet entry identify the previous or the current owner of the exempt assets?",
the answer is,
"No".
As has been stated, the Inland Revenue wrote to all owners of exempt chattels on 31st March. It sought a measure of public access on terms which do not require a public appointment. It suggested—the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, said that it was mandatory; it is not—a preferred access period of 25 days and asked for an answer by 30th June. This was a question which in Latin would begin with nonne: a question expecting the answer, yes. It expects people to answer as constructively as they can to suggest ways in which the law could be complied with. The Historic Houses Association—I pay tribute to it for that—is helpfully collating the responses.
A letter which has gone out today or yesterday—I do not know the date; I saw only the final draft—goes rather further. It invites people to telephone for further help and advice. It gives an extension to 31st July for a reply. It invites owners of conditionally exempt chattels to make their own suggestion in the hope that there can be an agreement. If not, it repeats that there have to be Inland Revenue proposals to these Special Commissioners.
As far as the 25-day period is concerned, it describes this as a fair starting period for currently exempt heritage objects of the highest quality; in other words, those which have been displayed or would be suitable to be displayed in a national collection. Where the quality standard does not apply, a lower level may be appropriate. But still, except where there are conservation problems, it would expect at least five days' access.

1035
What are the solutions? I do not know that there are complete solutions and I cannot suggest that there are. The helpful suggestion was made by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, that there could be access in larger houses which are already open to the public. The suggestion has also been made that objects could be on loan to a public collection. There is at the moment in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge a display, which I am told is very attractive, of conditionally exempt items from eastern England.
I recognise that the supply and demand are not meshed together. There is a market failure, one might say, between the museums and galleries that might show these items and owners who would wish to have them shown in order not to be required to show them without appointment in their houses. Digitised images on the register may be appropriate; it would be valuable if it could be done, but it could not be suggested that this would be an alternative to actually showing the items themselves.
What I should like to suggest, and I have discussed this with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, is that we seek to set up a clearing-house, a way in which those who might show the items could be put in touch with those who might wish to have the items
1036
shown. Clearly I am not committing public expenditure to this: if it happened, it would save the owners money of the sort which has been described on insurance and other costs. In any case, what the Inland Revenue is doing is seeking agreement and case-by-case negotiations; and that will continue.
In the end, however, the result must be more public access, wider public enjoyment of the heritage and public support for the inheritance tax relief which is in existence and for which I suggest there is inadequate public support. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, asked: what is the heritage if it is not what we inherit? I take the heritage as being what we collectively inherit in this country: the public heritage of this country, rather than what individuals inherit. That is how I think the public see it and that is how I think the public will see the issue before the House this evening.
Lord Bridges: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down I wonder—
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am sorry, I cannot reply to questions.
House adjourned at eight minutes past ten o'clock.