Sitting of 28 July 1971

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  ENVIRONMENT

    European Economic Community
    Mr. Montgomeryasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will describe the principal effects of the European Economic Community membership on the United Kingdom's transport industries.
    The Minister for Transport Industries (Mr. John Peyton): Measures already adopted by the Community will apply. Much of the common transport policy is still under discussion among member countries: its main principles are fair competition and no discrimination. British transport will share in opportunities to carry increased trade.
    Mr. Montgomery: Does my right hon. Friend consider that the measures so far adopted by the Community to limit Government intervention and to establish competition between the different forms of transport are consistent with the free market conditions under which United Kingdom transport operates?
    Mr. Peyton: One of the points which emerge in considering this problem is that the Community has not gone very far along the road to establishing a common transport policy. It would be an advantage if we could have some influence on the formation of such a policy.
    Mr. Spearing: If, in concert with any Government's national policy for the regions, British Railways should decide to give preferential rates for Channel Tunnel
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    traffic to the development regions, would that be allowable under the terms of the Treaty of Rome, or not?
    Mr. Peyton: I can only describe that question as magnificently hypothetical.
    Mr. Fryasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what aspects of transport policy have been included in Great Britain's negotiations for membership of the European Economic Community.
    Mr. Peyton: The major issue has been that of driving hours in road transport. We are seeking an adequate transitional period.
    Acceptable arrangements have been agreed on the manner and the times at which a number of other Community rules concerning transport should apply here after accession.
    Mr. Fry: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Would he give an assurance that if we join the Community we shall still be able to refuse entry to those extra large commercial vehicles which at the moment are allowed in parts of the Continent but are not allowed here?
    Mr. Peyton: At present I have no powers to stop vehicles from coming here. I have already said that I shall be obliged to come to Parliament to seek those powers. At present, the most that the law can do is to summon a driver who is in breach of United Kingdom laws, an exercise which does not seem to be very valuable or very useful when it has to be carried out several hundred miles away, involving proceedings against a person who is not coming back here anyhow.
    Mr. Carter: On the subject of transport policy and our possible entry into the E.E.C., does the right hon. Gentleman think that the prospects for the Channel Tunnel will be advanced or retarded if we enter?
    Mr. Peyton: It is very difficult for anybody to assess human responses to such a challenge. All I can say is that it would appear that the Channel Tunnel is a project of such merit that it will commend itself even to those who presently oppose it.
    Mr. Mulley: Reverting to the question of the size of vehicles and drivers' hours, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will find himself able

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    to make a clear statement on the Government's position on these issues? It is causing concern, both to the trade unions and to road haulage concerns, not knowing, first whether the Minister will seek powers to prohibit the entry of large vehicles and, second, what his policy is about drivers' hours.
    Mr. Peyton: I have already said that I am going to seek powers in respect of larger vehicles. As regards drivers' hours, the right hon. Gentleman is in a good position to understand how difficult a problem this is. Some anomalies have been created, and consultations are taking place between my Department, the unions and operators.

    Railways and Motorways (Costs)
    Mr. Cockeramasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he makes, when considering applications from British Rail for additional public finance, of the length of motorway which could be built for equivalent sums.
    Mr. Peyton: Notional comparisons of this kind are not a practical way of getting the right balance between road and rail investment. Decisions are based on assessments of the benefits to be achieved by specific projects which are seldom straightforward alternatives.
    Mr. Cockeram: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Would he agree that it is wrong to state, as was recently claimed by British Rail in an advertisement, that motorways cost 92 times as much to build as do comparable railways?
    Mr. Peyton: The House would probably agree that pure truth is not always enshrined in every advertisement. Perhaps in this case there was something in those advertisements that did not commend itself to my hon. Friend. I am sorry that this should be so, but I do not think that one should interfere.

    Council House Rents
    Mr. Rostasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many contracts for the sale of council houses to sitting tenants were completed in 1970 and what is the estimated number of sales for 1971 and the target for 1972.
    The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. Julian Amery): Local
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    authorities sold 6,231 council dwellings in 1970 and 2,729 in the first quarter of 1971. I have made no estimate of future sales, nor set any target.
    Mr. Rost: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. Would he not agree that it will not be very encouraging to the many thousands of occupants of council houses who are hoping to buy their homes now that Labour-controlled councils are deliberately frustrating the efforts of those who wish to buy—particularly in those cases in which they have already started negotiating to purchase but the councils have defaulted on the contracts? Would he not consider a special study to see whether financial aid could not be given as an incentive to those councils prepared to proceed with sales and also to tenants prepared to proceed with purchase?
    Mr. Amery: I would think it wholly wrong if any local authority were to interrupt a contract which was already in the pipeline. I would think it very regrettable if any local authority were to suspend the policy of selling council houses. For the time being, I would rather leave it to the judgment of the local authority. I find it very difficult to interfere in their local judgments—[HON. MEMBERS: "School milk?"] Local authorities must be careful about this. Public opinion is getting very worried about it.
    Mr. Wellbeloved: What is the Minister's estimate of the number of tenants of the G.L.C. Thamesmead estate who are likely to want to buy their damp-ridden new houses? Does he not think it would be better for the Conservative G.L.C. to concentrate on making these new houses fit for decent families to live in, rather than wasting his energy selling council houses elsewhere?
    Mr. Amery: I shall, of course, want notice of the particular estimate of the number of families who would be prepared to buy in Thamesmead, but I regret that the hon. Member should try to decry that estate, which will be a very fine housing estate.

    Rent Rebate Scheme
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many tenants out of the 2½ million in the

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    private sector he expects to derive direct benefit from the proposed rent rebate scheme; and what will be the total cost of this particular scheme to the Exchequer.
    Mr. Tebbitasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the number of tenants in the private and public sectors, respectively, who will live rent free in the first full year following the implementation of his proposed rent rebate scheme.
    Mr. Ashtonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment to what extent he estimates, as a result of his White Paper, that tenants at present drawing their full rent from social security will have part of their rent paid by local authorities out of their rates; and how many of these cases are included in his figure of 2½ million tenants who will benefit.
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Secretary of State for the Environment approximately how many tenants will incur rent increases, and by what average amount, as a result of his housing finance proposals; how many will benefit; and by what amount.
    Mr. Meacherasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the total number of council tenants and private tenants, respectively, who will be entitled to a rent allowance under the "Fair Deal for Housing" proposals; what is the estimated national cost of rent allowances by the time the scheme is fully implemented; and how many council and private tenants, respectively, are expected to benefit from rent allowances in each local housing authority area.
    Mr. Amery: I have not made these estimates. There will be so many variations in both rents and tenants' circumstances that national calculations of this kind would not be meaningful.
    Mr. Skinner: Is the Minister aware that we are getting accustomed to this Government issuing White Papers that contain no real estimates of the cost? Does he also realise that the net effect of this scheme is to transfer money out of the council tenant housewife's purse, straight into the landlord's pocket? When he brings forward his legislation next Session, will he bear in mind what the
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    C.B.I, has said about 5 per cent. increases and compel local authorities not to increase rents by more than 5 per cent.?
    Mr. Amery: The net effect will be to take the money from those who can afford it to help people and areas in need. This is the basis of the reform. The increases in rents which are suggested are only marginally above those authorised by the previous Government.
    Mr. Tebbit: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that, however many people come into the net of the help which will be offered to enable them to live rent-free, this will be the first time that any Government, despite all the conscience-stricken protestations, have gone that far in offering that sort of aid to the people that hon. Members opposite pretend they care for?
    Mr. Amery: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for denouncing in those words the hypocrisy of hon. Members opposite who protest against the White Paper.
    Mr. Allaun: But have not the Government several times declared that they will reduce subsidies by up to £200 million a year compared with what they would be in 1975? So will the right hon. Gentleman admit that this inevitably means huge rent increases for millions of families? If he is saying, as his hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Tebbit) says, that some of them will get a rebate, why is it that only one in four of those expected by the Government to apply for F.I.S. relief have done so?
    Mr. Amery: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not wish to misrepresent the Government. We have said "between £100 million and £200 million", and I am not at all sure that we shall save more than £100 million by the middle of the decade——
    Hon. Members: Oh!
    Mr. Amery: The Chancellor of the Exchequer said between £100 million and £200 million. We do not know, because we do not know how many people will apply for the rebate. [An HON. MEMBER: "Then why say it?"] He said between £100 and £200 million. I shall take every step possible to publicise to the tenants in both private and public sector the opportunities which are open to them for claiming rebates.
    Mr. Crosland: The net effect of this will be a doubling of council rents on average, an increase of council rents for three or four years ahead of virtually 25 per cent. a year, means-testing on a mass scale for the first time and a large saving in Government subsidies. The right hon. Gentleman must be able to estimate—[HON. MEMBERS: "Question."]—these actual effects. Will he not give some of the figures which have been asked for? If he can estimate the likely saving in Government subsidies, is he not also able to estimate the amount by which rents will rise?
    Mr. Amery: The right hon. Gentleman has given us his estimate. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor said that it would be between £100 million and £200 million savings by the middle of the decade. We do not know within £100 million what it will be—[Laughter.]—nor do we pretend to know. We are not putting forward this reform as a means of saving money. [Interruption.] We are putting it forward as a means of helping people and areas in need. This is the point which the Labour Party has not yet cottoned on to. It is to help people and areas in need.

    Housing Costs
    Mr. Costainasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he is aware of the continuing concern amongst local authorities at the level of the housing cost yardstick; and whether he will introduce a more regular system of monitoring costs than exists at present.
    Mr. Amery: I appreciate that local authorities are concerned that the yardstick should be kept at a reasonable level. The yardstick is already under continuous review.
    Mr. Costain: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that the fact that he is asking for a two-year fixed price contract may be adding to the costs which builders are putting in? Now that the C.B.I, has agreed to a 5 per cent. limit, would it not be more sensible, and result in more reasonable prices, if he adopted the same procedure?
    Mr. Amery: I am inclined to think that the measures announced by the Chancellor and the recommendations of the C.B.I. will make firm price tendering as
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    a policy a little more acceptable to the industry than it has been hitherto—and that only time will tell.
    Mr. Cant: While everybody wants to see price restraint in this area as elsewhere, would the Minister not accept that the housing cost yardstick plus the two-year firm price tendering regulations might have a very serious effect on the quality especially of council houses? As these have been leaders in house building, will he keep this under review?
    Mr. Amery: This matter will certainly be kept under review and will be watched carefully. So far I see no signs of deterioration in quality or any reluctance to tender.
    Mr. Allason: As there is distinct disquiet in the G.L.C. on this matter, may I ask my right hon. Friend to look at the differentials that exist between London and various other areas and try to help at least London?
    Mr. Amery: Official discussions are at present going on with the G.L.C.

    Housing
    Mr. Carterasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if, in view of his White Paper, "A Fair Deal for Housing", he will reconsider his refusal to have a target figure for housebuilding.
    Mr. Amery: No, Sir.
    Mr. Carter: That is a disappointing reply. Bearing in mind the title of his Department, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the best contribution that could be made to the environment of any family or individual is a decent home? Does he appreciate that none of the wretched measures that the Conservatives have so far introduced in housing has added one new unit of accommodation to the existing total? Does he not agree, therefore, that he should reconsider his answer.
    Mr. Amery: If the hon. Gentleman will consult his right hon. Friends who had responsibility for housing in the Labour Government and who set targets and failed to meet them, he will understand that targeting is not the best way to approach this problem. From the point of view of having a national overall target, while there are certain areas of

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    acute stress where targeting might have a rôle to play, I would personally hesitate to adopt targeting as a policy.
    Mr. Denis Howell: As the right hon. Gentleman has accepted a target in relation to costs and is requesting everybody to keep price increases down to 5 per cent., may I ask him to say whether rents will be exempted from that national target?
    Mr. Amery: Our proposals about rents have been announced in the White Paper.
    Mr. McCrindle: Would my right hon Friend agree that, as achievements are far more important than targets, no matter how badly this Government may do they are bound to do better than the Labour Government?
    Mr. Amery: I think my hon. Friend will be able to give us even better commendation at the end of the day.
    Mr. Fowlerasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the number of houses started in the private sector to the latest date in 1971 for which figures are available; and what relation this bears to the number of starts in the corresponding period of 1970.
    Mr. Amery: In Great Britain 73,700 houses were started in the private sector up to the end of May, 1971, as against 60,000 in the corresponding period in 1970, an increase of 23 per cent.
    Mr. Fowler: I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Will he confirm that private starts have been greater in every month this year than they were in the equivalent month last year, and does not this show the success of the Government's policy of encouraging home ownership?
    Mr. Amery: Yes, Sir; I think we can claim that our policy will restore confidence in the private sector.
    Mr. Frank Allaun: Is it not true that unless a breadwinner has an income of over £30 a week he cannot get a mortgage? Will the Minister, therefore, halt the decline in the number of council houses being built, because council houses are what the majority of the population require, since they cannot afford to buy their own houses, however desirable that may be?
    Mr. Amery: The majority of the population are already owner-occupiers. I have the hon. Gentleman's point very much in mind. The problem varies from area to area. We shall encourage public sector building, especially under our new reforms, where there is a need for slum clearance or where there is stress. We shall also encourage owner-occupation.
    Mr. Fry: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that, although the private sector figures are very encouraging, some local authorities have held up contracts in the public sector and have even put them out for re-tender, and that this is causing disquiet to certain suppliers to the building industry?
    Mr. Amery: It has caused some anxiety to me, but it was the inevitable consequence of the decision to reform the basis of housing finance. Until our White Paper proposals were announced, a number of local authorities held back. Those particularly concerned with a big slum problem or with overcrowding will now move forward faster than ever before.
    Mr. Freeson: Will the Minister give the figures for the first three months of this year and the first three months of last year of public sector starts? He has been asked this question on several previous occasions and has so far failed to give an answer. Will he do so now?
    Mr. Amery: If the hon. Gentleman will put down a Question, of course I will answer it.

    Trees (Preservation)
    Mr. Chapmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has for discouraging the destruction of trees, particularly in urban areas.
    The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Peter Walker): I am concerned at the low number of tree preservation orders in some towns and I am consulting the local authority associations about this.
    Mr. Chapman: Is my right hon. Friend aware that trees are being chopped down and mutilated at a dramatically increasing rate in towns and cities, where they are most needed, and that this is causing concern and bitterness to many hundreds

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    of thousands of people? Will he consider making it obligatory for local planning authorities to carry out surveys on trees of amenity value and, where necessary, to put tree preservation orders on them? On the positive side, would he be prepared to sponsor a national tree planting year in 1973?
    Mr. Walker: I will give careful consideration to the latter part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, which is interesting. The answer to the first part is that I wish to discuss the matter with local authorities. A considerable amount of tree planting is going on in n number of improvement areas.
    Mr. Loughlin: Will the right hon. Gentleman consult his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to see what can be done to deal with the scourge of Dutch elm disease, which is decimating elm trees in urban and rural areas?
    Mr. Walker: I am well aware of this problem and I am consulting my right hon. Friend to see that everything possible is done. I gather that this is a difficult problem to overcome; but we are well aware of the situation.
    Mr. Rees-Davies: Will my right hon. Friend consider giving local authorities, through country planning authorities, some guidance about the destruction of amenities in our towns? Is he aware that, in addition to the need to preserve trees, we need to preserve flint and stone walls and other beautiful things that go with trees, and that there appears to be depressingly little real emphasis coming from the centre to local authorities about this?
    Mr. Walker: Considerable conservation powers are available, but I will look into the point raised by my hon. Friend.

    Advanced Passenger Train and Hovertrain
    Mr. Michael Robertsasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he is satisfied that there is a requirement for the complementary development of both the advanced passenger train and the National Research Development Corporation hovertrain; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Peyton: Yes, Sir. The time-scales and applications of the two projects are different.
    Mr. Roberts: In any decision taken by my right hon. Friend, will he take into account the export potential of both these projects, particularly to the E.E.C. countries?
    Mr. Peyton: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Whitehead: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the two projects are in no way comparable, in that the advanced passenger train now being developed at Derby uses existing track and, therefore, does not destroy any more of the environment, that it has proved export potential and is being developed within the original cost estimate?
    Mr. Peyton: Nothing in my answer contained any reflection on the advanced passenger train.

    Docks (Transport Drivers' Hours)
    Mr. Foxasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he is satisfied that the limitations on road haulage operators imposed by the Drivers' Hours Regulations are not inhibiting the achievement of increased productivity in the docks; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Peyton: The difficulties which arose initially from the Drivers' Hours Regulations appear to have diminished. The search for better productivity in the ports is a continuing process.
    Mr. Fox: Bearing in mind the exemptions that have already been made to the 1968 Act, would my right hon. Friend consider discounting waiting time at the docks as part of the 10-hour working day, and thereby at a stroke—[Interruption.]—help to achieve speedier deliveries to customers and avoid massive frustration to road hauliers and drivers?
    Mr. Peyton: I will consider what my hon. Friend said. He will appreciate that it is not easy to assess waiting time.
    Mr. Mulley: Does the Minister agree that the Government could play some part in increasing productivity at the docks? Are we to get before the Summer Recess a statement of Government policy

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    following the review which we understand has been going on for a year?
    Mr. Peyton: I shall hope to satisfy the right hon. Gentleman before very long.

    House Purchase (Professional Costs)
    Mr. John Hannamasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will institute an examination, in co-operation with the various professional bodies involved, of how legal and other professional costs incurred in the course of house purchase might be reduced.
    Mr. Amery: I have no departmental responsibility for the charges made by professional bodies.
    My right hon. Friends the Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, however, have received the Report of the Monopolies Commission on professional services. They are, respectively, considering the report's comments about charges made by solicitors and surveyors.
    The Law Commission is also currently examining the system of conveying land with a view to its modernisation and simplification.
    Charges by estate agents have already been dealt with by Statutory Instrument.
    Mr. Hannam: I thank my right hon. Friend for that information about investigations into the question of house purchase. Will he urge his right hon. Friends to treat this as a matter of urgency, as I believe that many prospective house purchasers, especially the young, are being deterred by the high initial cost of legal and other charges from purchasing their own homes?
    Mr. Amery: I am keeping in close touch with my right hon. Friends on this subject. My hon. Friend will have seen in the White Paper "A Fair Deal for Housing" that we have accepted that local authorities should carry the conveyancing charges of the sale of houses to sitting tenants.
    Mr. Kaufman: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he could, to use the elegant phraseology of his hon. Friend
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    the Member for Shipley (Mr. Fox), at a stroke satisfy his hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. John Hannam) by persuading the Attorney-General to implement the Report of the Prices and Incomes Board on solicitors' conveyancing fees which he has had for four months and about which he has done nothing whatever?
    Mr. Amery: That question should be addressed to my right hon. and learned Friend.

    National Building Agency
    Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has received the report of the inquiry into the National Building Agency; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Amery: The Department has completed its examination of the current work of the National Building Agency. I am now studying its report.
    Mrs. Short: In view of the valuable work which the National Building Agency has done in developing new house designs and helping both the industry and local authorities, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman for an undertaking not to reduce the grant in aid which the N.B.A. receives, but instead to encourage it to develop its work for, in particular, local authorities?
    Mr. Amery: I agree that the N.B.A. has done very valuable work in the past. What I am concerned with now is to discover what work it can and should do in future, both on its private account and for the Government; and I am not yet in a position to make a statement about this.

    Keep Britain Tidy Campaign
    Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secreary of State for the Environmnt whether he will make a statement on his recent official action taken to publicise the Keep Britain Tidy campaign.
    Mr. Peter Walker: I am encouraged by the interest which the hon. Member is showing in the Keep Britain Tidy campaign. I am grateful, too, for this further opportunity of commending to all hon. Members of the House the work of this enthusiastic national campaign body.
    Mr. Lewis: I pay tribute to the Minister for dancing around the city with the dolly girls, without in any way being jealous of him, but would he not be able to fulfil his intentions if his enforcement officers carried out the law, which already enables them to keep Britain tidy, instead of dodging their responsibilities?
    Mr. Walker: I am very much in favour of law enforcement. Penalties have recently been increased. I have advised the campaign that if it wants someone else who is light of foot the hon. Member would be a suitable candidate.
    Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: Since such industries as the can, bottle and paper manufacturers create the raw material for litter, is my right hon. Friend satisfied that they are making an adequate contribution to the Keep Britain Tidy campaign?
    Mr. Walker: I should like them to make a greater contribution. I should also like housewives to discriminate more against buying goods which are heavily packaged.

    Crops (Contamination by Poisonous Metals)
    Mr. Hornbyasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what evidence he has of contamination of crops by poisonous metals close to industrial areas.
    Mr. Peter Walker: The evidence available to date has given no indication of any significant contamination of crops by heavy metals. I am, however, very much aware of the potential dangers and am keeping the situation under continual review.
    Mr. Hornby: Has my right hon. Friend studied the reports last month in The Guardian of investigations carried out in South Wales, which give cause for concern about the considerable fall-out from heavy industrial development?
    Mr. Walker: Yes, Sir. Various Departments, including my own, are co-operating in preparing for the further research which these results show may be necessary.

    Derelict Land Clearance
    Mr. Kenneth Clarkeasked the Secretary of State for the Environment
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    which industrial cities have indicated to him that they are making efforts to clear their stock of derelict land in the next decade.
    Mr. Peter Walker: The general target for the priority areas is 10 years. The individual local authorities concerned, including the industrial cities, have been asked to prepare and submit appropriate programmes. These are now awaited.
    Mr. Clarke: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. In the light of the investigations he has made, is he satisfied that his declared aim of the clearance of derelict land within the next decade remains a realistic target, and will he continue to press local authorities to submit their plans and to make such a target their own so as to get rid of this blight?
    Mr. Walker: On Friday I am going to Cumberland to discuss this matter. Next year we shall be spending twice as much on clearing derelict land as we did last year, and I believe that the 10-year target is attainable.
    Mr. Bagier: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that some areas have bigger problems than others, particularly old coal mining areas where pit heaps have to be shifted, and that if the local authorities go in for large-scale plans, the 15 per cent. payable by them in development areas such as mine is still a fairly heavy drain on their finances?
    Mr. Walker: Yes, I agree, but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, County Durham is doing extremely well on this and is ambitious. Because of the rate support grant, the 85 per cent. frequently comes up to 91 per cent.
    Mr. Crosland: I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman has taken over the 10-year target set by the previous Government. Will he tell the House whether the difficulties which were raised by Circular 2/70 in respect of clearing dereliction have now been resolved?
    Mr. Walker: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point. The difficulties have certainly been resolved, and I have undertaken that next year clearance of derelict land will be in the key sector. There is no reason why

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    local authorities should not go ahead with the most ambitious programme.
    Mr. Dormandasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has further to expedite the clearing of derelict land in England and Wales.
    Mr. Peter Walker: I have organised conferences in the six counties most affected by derelict land and I have given local authorities in the priority areas the assurance that expenditure this year on expanding derelict land reclamation programmes will not be restricted by other demands on their resources. The response by the local authorities has been very encouraging.
    Mr. Dormand: Although I believe that the Secretary of State has a general interest in this matter which is so important to those of us who live in the North-East, does he not agree, in spite of what he has said, that in the last 13 months there has been more talk than action? Does he not further agree that the new financial arrangements which the Government have introduced are tending to slow down the rate of clearance rather than accelerate it?
    Mr. Walker: No, Sir; I do not agree with either point. The speed with which derelict land is being cleared is fast accelerating. There will be a substantial increase next year compared with this year, and this year there has been a substantial increase over last year. As to the effect of Circular 2/70, I am immediately informing the authorities concerned that if they are in any difficulties with derelict land as a result of it they should contact my Department. Many of them have done so and arrangements have been made, and as a result there has been no hold-up.
    Mr. J. H. Osborn: Is it not a fact that much of this land is still in private hands? What steps can the Minister take to persuade others to develop assets which for too long have been written off?
    Mr. Walker: We are happy to cooperate with local authorities on this problem. I see no reason why scheduled derelict land should not be cleared within this period.

    Trunk Roads and Motorways (Lighting)
    Mr. Benyonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his policy concerning the lighting of trunk roads and motorways which pass through rural areas.
    Mr. Peter Walker: Present policy is to light only those lengths which present special problems for drivers at night.
    Mr. Benyon: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, but does he accept that there have been strong rumours that, given the money, his Department would like to light every mile of motorway, and would not this be extremely detrimental in areas of high landscape value?
    Mr. Walker: Like most strong rumours, this one is entirely ill-founded.
    Mr. Jopling: Does my right hon. Friend remember that last November he gave me figures of the enormous initial and maintenance cost of lighting a rural stretch of the Al north of Doncaster? Does he realise that this is an extravagance, and that he would be far better spending the money on central crash barriers to prevent loss of life?
    Mr. Walker: The policy is to light only those areas where the figures show a high incidence of night accidents. I will take note of what my hon. Friend has said.
    Mr. Bradley: To help us to form a judgment on this matter, will the right hon. Gentleman give an estimate of the installation cost per mile and the maintenance charges per annum of this proposal?
    Mr. Walker: I will drop a note to the hon. Gentleman giving him details.

    Allotments (Thorpe Report)
    Mr. Maddanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he is now in a position to make a statement on the Thorpe Report and on his proposals for the future of allotments.
    The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page): I must apologise to you, Mr. Speaker, and the House for the length of my reply.
    Yes, Sir, we welcome the concept of giving allotment gardens a new look.

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    Local authorities can do much to tidy up existing sites and improve their facilities, and some local authorities are already taking action to promote schemes for leisure gardens on the lines recommended in the report.
    We have concluded that the extent of allotment gardens for which provisions should be made should, in the future, be for local authorities, including parish authorities, to decide in the light of local needs. The detailed Ministerial controls over allotment authorities, which were introduced nearly 50 years ago, are not consonant with our policy of leaving local affairs to be decided by local authorities. We intend in due course to introduce legislation to remove these controls. We consider that the arrangements under which some local authorities, mainly in the rural areas, provide allotments for commercial purposes should be maintained broadly as at present.
    Mr. Maddan: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply, the details of which will require careful consideration. Will he comment on the view that many areas of allotments contain land that is going to seed, is a blight to the neighbourhood and could be better used for other purposes?
    Mr. Page: Yes, I think that is so in many districts, and local authorities are looking into that at our request.
    Mr. Rost: Whilst declaring an interest as having been one of Professor Harry Thorpe's students at Birmingham University, may I add my thanks to the Minister for having given this report such favourable consideration and urge him to implement it as speedily as possible?

    Historic Buildings
    Mr. Geoffrey Finsbergasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if, in his review of the need for additional powers in regard to the preservation of buildings, he will consider streamlining the listing of buildings of historic and architectural interest.
    Mr. Peter Walker: A new system for issuing statutory lists has already been adopted and further improvements are being pursued. I am pleased to say that this has been particularly helpful as far as emergency listing of threatened build-
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    ings
    is concerned and several hundred such buildings have been listed in the last quarter.
    Mr. Finsberg: I thank my right hon. Friend for his helpful reply. Is he aware that there is disquiet at the procedure not working as well as it might in a few cases, and will he issue a circular to local authorities impressing on them the need to take action?
    Mr. Walker: Yes, I will. Further improvements are being pursued, and the whole system of listing will by the end of this year be far better than ever before.
    Sir E. Bullusasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he is taking to safeguard historic buildings threatened by demolition in conservation areas.
    Mr. Graham Page: Consent is already required before any building on the statutory list of buildings of special architectural or historic interest may be demolished. My right hon. Friend has undertaken to introduce legislation in due course enabling other buildings which are important to conservation areas to be safeguarded.
    Sir E. Bullus: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, but will he give an undertaking that he will keep a watchful eye on those buildings which are not already on the list and are of historic or other interest?
    Mr. Page: This is the purpose of the legislation which my right hon. Friend undertook to bring into operation. I assure my hon. and gallant Friend that the listing of historic buildings is going on very well. In the last quarter, ending 30th June, 2,055 buildings were added to the list.
    Mr. Selwyn Gummer: Will my hon. Friend agree that it is not enough to limit this control to conservation areas and that it might be a good idea to extend it to people's homes which might otherwise be destroyed? For example, the semidetached house next door to a person's home can at the moment be pulled down without any notice whatever. Ought we not to be concerned not only about preserving the past but about preserving the homes of the people of Britain?
    Mr. Page: That is a rather different problem. On this Question I am dealing with buildings of historic or architectural value.
    Mr. Stokesasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how the percentage increase in funds made available for the repair of buildings of outstanding historic and architectural interest this year compares with percentage increases over the past five years.
    Mr. Graham Page: The £300,000 increase my right hon. Friend recently announced is more than the total of all the increases made in the last five years, and greater than the percentage increase for any other year.
    Mr. Stokes: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply, which I am sure will give general satisfaction throughout the country.

    Building Land
    Mr. Evelyn Kingasked the Secretary of State for the Environment in his attempts to obtain the release of additional building land, what investigation he has made of the surplus holdings of municipal authorities and nationalised industries; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Graham Page: The decision on whether land is surplus is a matter for the individual local authority or nationalised industry. Local authorities have been asked in Circular 10/70 to re-assess the needs in their areas and their land holdings and to dispose of land for private housing development wherever possible. Since 1966 all the nationalised industries have been offering their surplus land to local authorities.
    Mr. King: How much longer will it be before we can be given some firm figure of the additional amount of building land which has been released for that purpose and, above all, a figure—which should follow from that earlier information—of the amount by which the price of building land has been reduced?
    Mr. Page: So far as local authorities are concerned, the follow-up to the circular is still being assessed. I hope it will not be long before I can report on the results. On nationalised industries,
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    the figure I have before me is that in 1970 British Railways land sales totalled £14 million. This is encouraging.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I must draw the attention of the House to a phenomenon which does not often happen. It would appear that, perhaps because of the all-night sitting, the electric clock has stopped.
    Mr. Freeson: Will the Minister bear in mind the statement made in this House a few weeks ago by his right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction, that he was consulting his colleagues in the Department to investigate the possibility that surplus land held by nationalised industries, in particular by British Railways, could be used by his Department for housing purposes, particularly where a local authority was experiencing difficulties in meeting housing demands? What investigations have been made to establish the availability of land in the major conurbations?
    Mr. Page: May I say in parenthesis that I have never before succeeded in stopping the clock! If I may answer the question, the investigations are proceeding in detail with both local authorities and nationalised industries.

    West Midlands Region
    Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on his planning policy for the West Midlands Region in relation to the introduction of new industry as an insurance against obsolescence.
    Mr. Graham Page: I am at present considering the economic appraisal by a working party set up by the West Midlands Economic Planning Council. This expressed views on the need for further industrial development in the region, and I shall not be ready to make a statement on planning policy until our examination of the various factors involved is complete.
    Mr. Ashley: Is the Minister aware that the West Midlands is at present dependent on the old traditional industries, and that the present I.D.C. policy is discouraging the growth of new industries in major regions such as this? Will he consider doing what he can to attract new industry to the West Midlands

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    by some policy or other different from the I.D.C. policy?
    Mr. Page: I.D.C. policy is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, but we are indebted to the economic appraisal by the West Midlands Working Party set up by the West Midlands Economic Planning Council for proposals on this matter. The measures announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 19th July should strengthen demand and encourage industry to invest in new plant and machinery.
    Sir Harmar Nicholls: Bearing in mind the original decision as to the areas which should have I.D.C. priority, which applies not only to the West Midlands, does not my hon. Friend consider that in view of the new town expansion in Peterborough we ought to be up-graded for consideration for the granting of I.D.Cs?
    Mr. Page: I would ask my hon. Friend to put that question to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

    British Railways (Ticket and Reservation Centres)
    Mr. J. H. Osbornasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has now received from the Chairman of the British Rail Board to set up ticket and reservation shops or centres to sell air, sea and rail tickets; and what submissions have been made to him relating to the capital cost.
    Mr. Peyton: None, Sir.
    Mr. Osborn: Although I accept that British Railways must promote sales of railway tickets, will my right hon. Friend make clear to the Board that the policies which have been announced are inconsistent with Government policy?
    Mr. Peyton: So far as I am aware, no policy has been announced. There may have been various speculations in the newspapers, but I am not responsible for them.
    Mr. Bradley: Will the Minister confirm that this matter comes within the managerial competence of the British Railways Board and is not a matter for his interference?
    Mr. Peyton: The hon. Gentleman puts his question in such a challenging way that if it were to come up I might be tempted out of my normal rôle and character of being very reasonable.

    British Railways (Ancillary Activities)
    Mr. Redmondasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will issue a general direction to British Rail to ensure that all its subsidiaries include in their annual reports particulars of the profit or loss made on their trading with outside persons.
    Mr. Peyton: No, Sir. The British Railways Board already publishes very full information about the profit and loss of its ancillary activities.
    Mr. Redmond: I thank the Minister for that statement. Would he look at the 1970 accounts of British Rail Engineering Ltd., which appears to have made only a small marginal profit on container manufacturing activities in so far as they concern sales to outside bodies? Would he confirm this and investigate the matter with a view possibly to introducing fair competition by hiving off these activities to private enterprise?
    Mr. Peyton: I looked at the particular contract to which my hon. Friend refers. I considered that it would be wrong to interfere with something which was a commercial enterprise already in operation and on which money had been spent. It is a little too early to make a judgment on this point.

    Transport Assets (Disposal)
    Sir G. Nabarroasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will make a further statement on disposal of assets such as Thos. Cook and Son, railway hotels and other similar transport enterprises, and the sum that he anticipates realising in total, for replenishment of public funds in 1971–72 from disposal of such State assets.
    Mr. Peyton: I have nothing to add to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson) on 7th July about the disposal of the Transport Holding Company's subsidiaries. The National

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    Freight Corporation is continuing negotiations for the sale of its shipping interests. I cannot forecast how much is likely to be realised from disposals this year.—[Vol. 820, c. 374–5.]
    Sir G. Nabarro: While warmly embracing my right hon. Friend and his denationalisation policies, may I reproach him for his inordinate slowness and lethargy in this matter? In case he is tempted to plead legislative indigestion in the forthcoming Session with Common Market Bills, will he consider allowing me to bring in a Private Member's Bill to denationalise these assets and give it his Ministerial respectability and support?
    Mr. Peyton: Although I am most grateful for my hon. Friend's embraces, I hope that they can be allowed to remain metaphorical. As regards the disposal of Thomas Cook and Son, I can only tell him that I am very ready to take action as soon as the legislative programme allows——
    Sir G. Nabarro: What about my Private Member's Bill?
    Mr. Peyton: —and I am sure that my hon. Friend will be the first to realise the immense amount of good works to which this Government have put their hand during the Session, which have constituted some obstacle to what he has in mind.
    Mr. Milne: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that the British travel trade has troubles enough of its own at the moment without his adding to them, and will this not make him and his Department look again at the policy of hiving off publicly-owned travel agents at this stage, realising that they have already put the clock back enough, without making matters even worse?
    Mr. Peyton: I wish that the hon. Gentleman would not tempt me into giving answers which are only too easy. One of the reasons determining the Government's policy in getting rid of Thomas Cook and Son was that in public hands it has not been doing well enough.
    Mr. Jopling: Will my right hon. Friend tell any prospective purchaser of Thomas Cook and Son that he need not expect to have a monopoly of travel business in this Palace?
    Mr. Peyton: I very much doubt that anyone will aspire to a monopoly of travel business here; the responsibility is altogether too great.
    Mr. Bradley: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's earlier rebuke to me, I ask him as calmly as I can to take this opportunity to confirm that it is not the Government's intention to hive off the British Rail hotels, which also are mentioned in the Question.
    Sir G. Nabarro: Of course it is.
    Mr. Peyton: I am only too anxious to reciprocate the hon. Gentleman's calmness. If the Government came to the conclusion that it was in the national interest to hive off British Transport Hotels, they would do that. At this moment, we have not reached that decision, although the hon. Gentleman could well push up into it.

    Public Paths (Signposting)
    Mr. Boothasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will consider seeking powers to impose a time limit within which county councils must carry out their statutory obligations under the Countryside Act to signpost public paths at their junctions with metalled roads.
    Mr. Graham Page: No, Sir.
    Mr. Booth: Is it not the case that those county councils which do not signpost footpaths are not complying with their legal obligation under the Countryside Act, and will the Minister accept that, in the absence of such signposts and definitive footpath maps, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for certain citizens to exercise their rights of access to our countryside?
    Mr. Page: This is a responsibility which Parliament allotted to the local authorities, and it is for the local authorities to decide what action they should take in the light of the resources available to them. I have no power to intervene.

    Public Buildings, London (Cleaning)
    Mr. Spenceasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he is ready to announce the cleaning of further public buildings in London.
    Mr. Iremongerasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will take steps to clean the classical facades in Horse Guards Parade and St. James's Park.
    Mr. Amery: I have arranged for the cleaning of the facades looking on to Horse Guards Parade. This will be followed by completion of the cleaning of the facades overlooking St. James's Park.
    My immediate programme in London also includes further work on Buckingham Palace, cleaning the rest of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Home Office, the former Ministry of Housing and Local Government office facade in Whitehall, the Government buildings overlooking Great George Street, the rest of the old War Office building, the Tower of London, the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and Burlington House.
    Mr. Spence: I thank my right hon. Friend for that excellent list, and I ask him to say whether it represents an improvement on the past. Second, will he accept that there is such an improvement to be gained by the urban environment from the cleaning of public buildings that he should set himself a time target to clean the lot within the next year or two?
    Mr. Amery: We have set ourselves a timetable of about 18 months. The effort represents four times the expenditure previously incurred.
    Mr. John Silkin: Will the Minister consider either cleaning Richmond Terrace and New Scotland Yard or pulling them down?
    Mr. Amery: The right hon. Gentleman anticipates my right hon. Friend's statement on the Willis Report.
    Sir J. Rodgers: Is there any chance of this building in which we are sitting today being cleaned in the near future?
    Mr. Amery: There are particular problems associated with the Palace of Westminster. I am having an experimental feasibility study made, and the first report will be available in the autumn.

    Government Offices, Stanley (Design)
    Mr. David Watkinsasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what
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    representations have been made to him by the Royal Fine Art Commission on the design of the Government offices now being built at Stanley, County Durham.
    Mr. Amery: None, Sir.
    Mr. Watkins: Is that because they have been rendered speechless by the sheer ugliness of the building? It is a concrete box to end all concrete boxes. Is it not thoroughly depressing that the first building taking shape in what is to be a rebuilt town centre should be so singularly unattractive?
    Mr. Amery: I am advised that it is a characteristic example of what might be called the Mellish-Silkin period. [Laughter.] I hasten to assure the hon. Gentleman that as it has not been completed it has not yet been listed for preservation.
    Mr. John Silkin: Is not beauty in the eye of the beholder?
    Mr. Amery; And, no doubt, in the eye of the creator.

    Rural Bus Services
    Mr. Longdenasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he has yet received the results of the pilot surveys into the provision of bus services in rural areas; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Peyton: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Sir E. Brown) yesterday.—[Vol. 822, c. 65–6.]
    Mr. Longden: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in some parts of the country public transport is not able to do the job, and will he remove some of the obstacles in the way of private enterprise, for example, by revising the licensing system, and let private enterprise get on with it?
    Mr. Peyton: I hope to make a statement of the licensing system in the near future, and I hope to go some way to satisfy my hon. Friend.

    Building Contracts
    Mr. Trewasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will now permit some provision in fixed-price building contracts to compensate

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    contractors for unforeseeable and disproportionate increases in the costs of key materials.
    Mr. Amery: No, Sir.
    Mr. Trew: Would my right hon. Friend consider that if he were to relieve builders of the more extreme risks of firm price tendering in the limited way which I suggest he would almost certainly get keener tender prices and save the Exchequer money?
    Mr. Amery: I have been carefully studying my hon. Friend's suggestions and several others which have been put to us. We still see no reason to vary our present policy, but, as I have assured my hon. Friend previously, we are keeping this matter constantly under review.

NORTHERN IRELAND
Mr. Fitt: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the deteriorating political situation in Northern Ireland, and in particular the rôle of the security forces and the danger of increased violence."
As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, I sat through the hours of last night and early this morning in the House in the hope that the subject I had sought to debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill would be reached. That was not to be, but I believe the House will agree that there is a very dangerous situation in Northern Ireland at present. There is an almost total and tragic polarisation between the communities in Northern Ireland. We have recently heard of the threat to create private armies, and we are all too well aware that there is a Right-wing Unionist campaign, ably supported by the Daily Telegraph and some of its leader writers, calling for the removal from office of no less a person than the Home
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Secretary. There is also the ever-increasing danger and possibility that throughout the coming days and weeks there will be an escalation of violence, bringing with it loss of life.
As we have only a few sitting days left before the recess, I urgently ask you and plead with you, Mr. Speaker, to grant this Standing Order No. 9 debate so that the House may be able to bring some pressure to bear and ensure that the tragedy which I see facing Northern Ireland does not occur.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the deteriorating political situation in Northern Ireland, and in particular the rôle of the security forces and the danger of increased violence."
The hon. Gentleman was kind enough to give me considerable notice that he would make this application. I have considerable sympathy with him, because it was only due to the selfishness of certain Members who made speeches of inordinate length during the night that he did not reach his item in the Consolidated Fund debate. But I am afraid that I cannot give the present application precedence, although I have indicated another possibility for ventilating the subject.

STANDING ORDER No. 9
Mr. Milne: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I had intended to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9, but in view of the urgent and important business that is about to come before the House, and as I may have the opportunity to raise the subject of the plight of British holiday-makers on a Private Notice Question at a later stage, I withdraw my application.

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS BILL (ALLOCATION OF TIME)
3.33 p.m.
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw): I beg to move,
That the Order [25th January] be supplemented as follows:—
1. The proceedings on Consideration of the Lords Amendments shall be completed in five allotted days, and shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at midnight on the fifth of those days.
2. In accordance with the Order [25th January], paragraph 6 of that Order (which relates to dilatory motions), paragraph 7 of that Order (which relates to extra time on allotted days), paragraph 8 of that Order (which relates to motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at the commencement of public business), paragraph 9 of that Order (which relates to private business), and so much of paragraph 14 of that Order as relates to Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) shall have effect in relation to the Proceedings mentioned in paragraph 1 of this Order.
3.—(1) For the purpose of bringing to a conclusion any Proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion at a time appointed by this Order, if those Proceedings have not previously been brought to a conclusion, Mr. Speaker shall proceed forthwith to put the following Questions (but no others), that is to say,—

(a) Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has been already proposed from the Chair and not yet decided, and, if that Question is for the amendment of a Lords Amendment, shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Lords Amendment or, as the case may be, in the said Lords Amendment as amended;

(b) Mr. Speaker shall designate such (if any) of the remaining Lords Amendments as appear to him to involve questions of Privilege and shall then forthwith—

(i) put the Question on any Motion, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments except those designated by Mr. Speaker or, if none of the remaining Lords Amendments have been so designated, in all the remaining Lords Amendments, and

(ii) if any of the remaining Lords Amendments have been so designated, put separately, with respect to each of those Amendments so designated, the Question on any Motion, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

(2) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
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(3) If, on the fifth of the allotted days mentioned in paragraph 1 of this Order, a Motion is made under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration), the bringing to a conclusion of the Proceedings on the Bill shall be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the Proceedings on that Motion.
4. In paragraph 11 of the Order [25th January] (which relates to Supplemental Orders) any reference to that Order shall be construed as including a reference to this Order.
5. In this Order 'the Bill' means the Industrial Relations Bill and 'allotted day' means any day (not being a Friday, but including the day on which this Order is made) on which the Bill is put down as the first Government Order of the Day.
The Motion supplements the original Allocation of Time Order for the Bill, which the House approved on 25th January. I think it will be for the convenience of the House if I mention briefly the procedure which is proposed.
The original Order provided for a timetable at this stage of the Bill. Under the supplemental Order now proposed, discussion of the Lords Amendments would take up to a maximum of five days of debate, each day's proceedings ending at midnight. There would not be a day-today timetable providing for Divisions at midnight. Instead, all the remaining Amendments, except where privilege is involved, would be subject to a single vote taken at the end of the fifth day. This procedure is in accordance with sound precedent on the consideration of Lords Amendments.
The exceptions would be the Amendments which you, Mr. Speaker, have selected as raising questions of privilege. I understand that there are nine such Amendments. Some or all of them may be reached and voted upon before the end of proceedings on the fifth day. If they have not been so dealt with, they will fall to be voted upon separately at the end of the fifth day. The House will note, therefore, that the number of possible Divisions at the end of the proceedings under the Motion is strictly limited.
I proposed five days for consideration of this stage of the Bill because I accept that there are a number of Amendments, 343 in all, many of them Amendments proposed by the Government—[Interruption.] Just wait a moment; there is more to come. It is right that there should be a generous allocation of time

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for this important and valuable Bill. The House will find if it studies the precedents that the amount of time allotted compares very well with that on some previous Bills. Let me give some examples.
In the case of the Town and Country Planning Bill, 1947, the 309 Lords Amendments were taken in 7½ hours on a single day. There were 240 Lords Amendments to the Transport Bill of the same year. They were taken in under 12 hours, spread over two days. The 272 Lords Amendments to the London Government Bill, 1963, occupied under seven hours on a single day. On the Transport Bill, 1968, of the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), there were 258 Lords Amendments. They were taken in 22 hours, spread over three days.
As I have said on a previous occasion, the allocation of five days for this Bill is, so far as I have been able to discover, the longest time provided for the consideration of Lords Amendments in the whole history of Parliament.
Mrs. Barbara Castle: Before the right hon. Gentleman moves on, will he explain in a little more detail what the arrangements are for voting on outstanding Amendments, apart from the privileged Amendments, at the end of the fifth day, and tell us the precedents for the procedure suggested?
Mr. Whitelaw: I thought I had made that clear. In the first instance, all those Amendments, except those where privilege is involved, which are outstanding at the end of the fifth day will be taken in one single vote.
Mr. James Wellbeloved: Steamroller.
Mr. Whitelaw: The precedents are the London Government Bill, 1963——
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: One of yours.
Mr. Whitelaw: Certainly, but it is a perfectly good precedent none the less. There was also the Transport Bill, 953——
Mr. Heffer: Another one of yours.
Mr. Whitelaw Mr. Whitelaw Certainly, but they are perectly good precedents for what I have done.
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In view of all that was said inside and outside the House, I am surprised to find hon. Members objecting to a sensible procedure for voting and Divisions. [Interruption.] Perhaps I might continue with what I was saying.
I have conceded that the number of Amendments is large. It is equally fair to point out that many of them, some 135 out of the 343, are either non-Government Amendments which the Government have accepted or Amendments which they have themselves put down to meet Opposition points. Some 32 other Amendments seem to be of a purely drafting nature, and no fewer than 137 are Amendments which are consequential on others.
It is also worth pointing out that in this House alone the Bill has had 200 hours of discussion—21 days, all of them on the Floor of the House, in addition to the five now proposed for the consideration of the Lords Amendments. It certainly makes it a very generous allocation of time, as Labour Members seem to concede.
When the original timetable Motion was tabled in January, the House went over the general arguments for and against this course, and I do not propose to repeat those arguments now. I only re-emphasise that the amount of time now allocated is the longest for Lords Amendments in the whole history of Parliament. This is a generous allocation of time, and I challenge any fair-minded person to say otherwise. On that basis, I commend the Motion to the House.
Mr. Speaker: Before I call the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), may I point out that although the clocks have started again, it is still P.A.N.S. time—post all-night sitting time? The clocks are about 25 minutes slow.
3.41 p.m.
Mrs. Barbara Castle: The Leader of the House is in a self-congratulatory mood this afternoon and has clearly been working very hard to try to dazzle the House with a whole flood of precedents to prove that he is the most generous man living today, though I noticed that he was a little coy about the exact precedents for the new procedure that we shall be facing at the end of the fifth day.
The most endearing quality about the right hon. Gentleman is that he loves to be loved. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about you?"] Perhaps I succeed more easily than the right hon. Gentleman does. It is a very appropriate quality for the Leader of the House, because if the Leader of the House arouses animosity and antagonism and mistrust in any part of the House, he fails in his job. The right hon. Gentleman has obviously worked hard this afternoon to retrieve the affections which he realises he has forfeited in recent weeks on this side of the House, and this allocation of five days is a desperate exercise to try to win back the trust of the Opposition in him as an impartial Leader of the House.
But, for reasons which I shall explain, this exercise will not be sufficient to restore him to the high opinion which we once had of him, because, apart from anything else, that will not happen until the right hon. Gentleman has the honesty to stop shielding the Government over their abuse of public funds by the free distribution of their propaganda material through the Post Office. I warn the right hon. Gentleman that that is a serious blot on his reputation and it will mean that our high opinion of him will not be restored until it is removed.
The right hon. Gentleman is not clearing his good name by giving us five days to consider the Amendments from another place. The allocation of time which he has just announced is a confession of guilt, because it is a tacit admission that the right hon. Gentleman and the Government has mishandled this whole matter from the very moment the Bill first came before the House. They mishandled it by rushing the Bill through in the first place as the overriding priority in their legislative timetable, and they have mishandled it by giving us a grossly disproportionate allocation of time between the two Houses of Parliament.
The Bill was a monstrous growth in the first place—150 Clauses and eight Schedules. That was its size when it first came, but by the time it left the Commons it had already been expanded to 160 Clauses. Now it has come back to us from another place 170 Clauses and nine Schedules long. The right hon. Gentleman cannot find any comfort for his argument by calling in aid my own
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Transport Bill. There are two profound differences between that Bill at this stage and this Bill at this stage. First, my Transport Bill actually shrank during its process through Parliament. It ended up three Clauses shorter than when it started, not 20 Clauses longer. Secondly, and I return the challenge to the right hon. Gentleman when he quotes the amount of time spent on that Bill, he knows perfectly well that the Lords Amendments to the Transport Bill of 1968 were never timetabled by the Labour Government.
Mr. Whitelaw: That is a very fair point and I do not seek to disguise it for a moment. Has it occurred to the right hon. Lady that the reason for that—and it may be the position at the moment—was that the Chief Whip of the time was very reasonable in the matter? If the right hon. Lady and her hon. Friends do not want a full five days on the Bill, it is perfectly possible for them not to have the full five days but just as much time as is needed.
Mrs. Castle: The right hon. Gentleman knows that what we are objecting to is the time table Motion. I repeat what I have said before during our discussions—at no time have the Government approached the Opposition about this important constitutional Bill to try to reach a voluntary timetable. That was our complaint in the earlier stages of the Bill, and our complaint this afternoon is that this timetable Motion, which hon. Members opposite are being asked to support so lightheartedly, is in fact a derogation of some of the basic rights of Parliament, as I will proceed to show.
It is in the interests of every hon. Member who cares about the rights of the Commons in our constitution to note that we have suffered from a treatment amounting to contempt of the rights of the House of Commons itself. Under the guillotine Motion which the right hon. Gentleman introduced almost at the beginning of our proceedings, the House was allowed a total of 170 hours to discuss what by common consent was a highly complex, highly legalistic and deeply constitutional Bill. We were allowed 170 hours for all the stages through the House of Commons. About 1,300 Amendments were tabled. Only a fraction, thanks to

581
the guillotine, were ever discussed, let alone accepted.
At the end of our proceedings, only 100 Amendments had been made. That was not because the Bill was so perfect that the Government had admitted that it needed no altering. On the contrary, a lot of our time was spent discussing Government Amendments and hundreds of Amendments we wanted to press were never reached. When the Bill went to another place it was largely undiscussed because of the guillotine. In addition, in Committee a succession of new Government Clauses came pouring in. We have had this imbalance in the use of Parliament to debate something like over two-thirds of the Bill. Over 100 Clauses of the original Bill were not discussed at all by Parliament. Their Lordships had to take up the task. Because they do not have to suffer what we have to suffer—restrictive orders on their discussion by the Government—they spent, not 170 hours as we did, but 237 hours discussing 1,113 Amendments compared with the limited number which we were allowed to discuss.
The Bill did not leave this House in a state fit to enable it to go on the Statute Book, because of the 351 Amendments made in another place. Of those, 294 were Government Amendments introduced either to tighten the net still further or to remedy the drafting and policy muddle into which the Government had got themselves by imposing on us an intolerable, restrictive guillotine.
We now have before us a Bill which was longer in Committee and on Report in the Lords than any Bill since before the war; a Bill to which more Lords Amendments have been made than to any Bill since the war; a Bill in which one line in three has been amended in another place; a Bill to which whole new sections have been added so that this House now receives virtually a new, additional Bill.
It is a Bill which, since it left us, has acquired new and even more iniquitous principles, such as the contemptible new provision slipped into Schedule 2 to amend the redundancy pay scheme. It is something that ought to have been contained in a Redundancy Pay Bill. It has nothing to do with the Industrial Relations Bill. It is a contemptible scheme, with advantage taken of another place to slip
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this change into the law under which an employee who is off sick when a redundancy notice is served on him will no longer be able to draw the sick pay due to him under the firm's sick pay scheme because the employer will be able to deduct it from his redundancy pay.
I do not suppose that half the hon. Members opposite who were cheering on the Leader of the House have any idea what has happened to the Bill in another place or what new principles have been added while our backs were turned, and how it has been extended even further into a petty little "Employers' Benefit Bill".
Take another vital matter of principle and policy. Consider whether the Government will take their petty revenge against unions which refuse to register to the point of robbing them of tax relief on their provident funds. This was a matter which—I was going to say we debated it at length, but we did not get the chance—we had to debate hurriedly under the guillotine Motion. We told the Secretary of State that what his Bill meant was that if a union did not register it would be fined, probably to the tune of some millions of pounds in toto. The right hon. Gentleman staked his honour on assuring us that this was not——
Sir Harmer Nicholls: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is the right hon. Lady not cheating? I thought we were discussing the guillotine, not the Bill. It is taking time away from the House to discuss the Bill and she knows that she is taking an unfair advantage.
Mr. Speaker: If the right hon. Lady is out of order I shall call her to order.
Mrs. Castle: I am trying to discuss whether the timetable Motion is inadequate for us to discuss and supervise changes in the Bill as it comes from another place. When we discussed this we received an assurance from the Secretary of State that this was the last thing he intended. He assured the House that had he thought it necessary to set up a special register, for example, for those trade unions which did not wish to register in an industrial sense but wanted to keep their provident fund tax relief he would have done it. But he said, "I am assured that it is not necessary." He had gone into it most carefully and

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had been told that there were no technical, constitutional or legal difficulties.
This matter was re-ventilated in another place because in the meantime the T.U.C. also had been taking advice which was that the tax relief on such funds would be forfeited, that there were legal, technical and constitutional difficulties. After all, the T.U.C. is not exactly anxious to exaggerate the disabilities of not registering. The T.U.C. is concerned with the protection of its members' funds. There were long discussions in another place and an Amendment was moved to clarify the position and negatived on the assurance of the Lord Chancellor that he did not see any reason to believe that the Solicitor-General was wrong in this case.
Are millions of pounds of trade union money to rest on that frail barque, or shall we have the opportunity in these five days to discuss vital new developments such as this? The right hon. Gentleman retorts that he is giving five days and that it is more than has been given during such a stage to any equivalent Measure. This House has not discussed a Bill of such far-reaching implications or such constitutional importance as this for many a long year, and none of the right hon. Gentlemen precedents covers a similar Bill. Moreover, it is five days not just for drafting Amendments dealing with Government second thoughts about their own phraseology but five days for dealing with all the stages of important new Clauses and vital matters of principle. There are 351 Amendments to start with and this House has a right to amend Lords Amendments if it pleases. The number of Amendments could rise much higher. Most serious of all, we know why this apparently generous allocation of five days is being given. It is to cloak the surreptitious introduction of an undemocratic principle, a principle of preventing this House from voting on Amendments individually. This is really the key to this Motion.
Mr. Ian Lloyd Mr. Ian Lloyd (Portsmouth, Langstone) rose——
Mrs. Castle: I cannot give way. The hon. Gentleman may be able to intervene later. This is what the Motion means. At the end of the fifth day all the Lords Amendments which are not privileged, that is to say which do not involve
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money, are to be put en bloc, and the rights of this House of Commons to amend the Bill adequately already denied us are taken away from us yet again. Some of the Lords Amendments are, naturally enough, concessions to points raised during our debates either by the Opposition or by back-bench Members opposite. Therefore, we would not wish to vote against them. But we would want to go into the Lobby against other Amendments, such as the iniquitous Amendment No. 301 about sick pay.
Suppose that we are asked on the fifth night to accept a whole block of Amendments, some of which we wanted, some of which were as repugnant to us as Amendment No. 301? Where will the rights of the Opposition have gone then? Are we not reducing Parliamentary activity, at least in this place, to a farce which makes us the subject of ridicule in another place?
The Leader of the House has said a lot about precedents. There are no precedents, except Conservative precedents, for this procedure. From time to time the House has agreed to adopt a compressed procedure for hurrying Measures on to the Statute Book. For example, it adopted such procedures during the war when the Germans were at our gates. We had emergency procedures then for voting in globo and we adopted them voluntary. In fact, they were not necessary, because Parliament was united in its anxiety to clear the decks to prosecute the war. What war do the Government think they are prosecuting now? As Erskine May says in the Fourteenth Edition,
"ߪ such procedure is clearly inapplicable beyond the end of the war ߪ"
Erskine May reckoned without the present Government.
It was two Conservative Measures which were earlier treated in this way by a Conservative Government—the Transport Bill of 1952 and the London Government Bill of 1962. The Minister has not been able to produce a single other precedent. But I say advisedly that there is no precedent for the mutilation of the rights of this House on the proposed scale. The right hon. Gentleman knows why he has done it, just as we know. There were no protests from right hon. and hon. Members opposite against the earlier guillotine on our debates. They

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were only too ready to acquiesce in restricting the House's freedom of action. But then they found with a shock that, although they had suppressed debate, they had not been able to suppress the voting. That soon woke them up. They were only too ready to support the counter-revolution as long as they personally did not have to man the barricades as we voted night after night, exercising our democratic right to vote on Amendments which were to be embodied in the law.
When that stage was over, the murmurs began. I heard them from a number of hon. Members opposite. It was said, "What is all this old-fashioned nonsense about proposals not becoming law unless Parliament has had a chance to vote on them? We have stopped them debating. Do you mean to say that we cannot stop them voting, too?" [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes. I heard it in the House only last Thursday, when the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) challenged the Leader of the House about his timetable Motion, asking whether the right hon. Gentleman would produce a Motion which made it absolutely clear that when the debating had been silenced at midnight the voting could be silenced too. The right hon. Gentleman, who has forfeited the high opinion which we once held of him, has been only too happy to acquiesce.
This apparently generous allocation of five days is just a smokescreen for the further entrenchment of a dangerous new principle. Why does not the Leader of the House say, "Remove this bauble and have done with it"? We oppose the Motion, first, because we object to this miserable, shambling Bill. We object to it in globo as being malicious and irrelevant. We object to the wasted time in the last 13 months which this House has had to spend on the Bill while other urgent matters piled up. Secondly, we object to the Motion because—and I say this advisedly—it erodes the freedom of all of us on both sides of the House. We should stop and think rather more carefully before we create this additional, massive precedent for Governments claiming the right, because they have a majority, not only to restrict debates but to stop hon. Members voting.
The Government have proved that they can get their Measures through only by
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perverting the procedures and rights of Parliament. That is why we shall vote against the Motion.
4.5 p.m.
Sir Harmar Nicholls: The right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) has fooled nobody. She has used her histrionics but has produced no facts which are contrary to the statement that the Motion proposes a very generous allocation of time if the House decides to use it properly. It is completely within the power of the House to use the proposed five Parliamentary days to ensure that the Amendments are properly examined or to waste time. The right hon. Lady's histrionics have done no more than give a hint that the Opposition intend to waste time purely for propaganda purposes, as they did during earlier stages of the Bill.
Mrs. Castle: Has the hon. Gentleman made any calculation of how much time was taken in Committee by hon. Members opposite compared with the time taken by the Opposition? Does he agree that it was equivalent and in some cases more? If so, does he think that his hon. Friends were wasting time?
Sir H. Nicholls: It is well within my recollection that many excellent, constructive speeches were made by the right hon. Lady's colleagues and by my hon. Friends. But it is also within my recollection that for sheer propaganda purposes others wasted time in order to delay the passage of the Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "Name them."]
This is an important Bill. It concerns a fundamental matter. It is right that the House should give it detailed and careful consideration. I ask for co-operation to ensure that that happens. If Members follow the line taken during the earlier stages of the Bill, Parliament will not be doing its duty. Five full parliamentary days will allow detailed examination to be made even of the number of Amendments on the Notice Paper. If Members are genuine in their belief that Amendments should be made and that other provisions should be thrown out, and if they are prepared to spend the time allocated wisely and properly and according to their duty. But if the Opposition continue to make this a great national propaganda exercise in order to keep the

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friendship of their trade union paymasters, the time will be wasted. The responsibility for ensuring that we do our duty is in the Opposition's hands.
I make this appeal to the Opposition. I ask them to ignore the histrionics, exaggeration and venom of the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn. I ask them to act as responsible Members dealing with a responsible Bill. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) always does that. He is not one of the time-wasters. I suggest to the House that it should do its duty and should spend the five days allocated to the Bill properly. If it does so, the Bill will be examined in the sort of detail upon which Parliament should always insist. But if the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Russell Kerr), who is an acknowledged and self-confessed disrupter, has his way, that will not happen.
Mr. Heffer: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in order to examine the Bill in detail over five days we would have to examine 60 Amendments per day? Does he think that that is possible and that at the same time we can examine the Amendments in the detailed way he suggests?
Sir H. Nicholls: I compliment the hon. Gentleman because his reputation soared during the earlier discussions on the Bill. He was a worthy occupant of the Opposition Front Bench.
As for the hon. Gentleman's intervention now, his right hon. Friend admitted that quite a number of Amendments included in the calculation were needed in any case and should take no time. The right hon. Lady made that perfectly clear.
I have had some experience of this House, and I would say that if these five days are properly used by both sides we can do our duty and do it properly, and my appeal to hon. Members opposite is to see that they do just that.
4.10 p.m.
Mr. James Tinn: I had not intended to speak at this moment, but the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) has certainly provoked me and I want to rebut the allegations he has made about time wasting by this side.
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I cannot imagine any task more difficult than that which confronted the Opposition during the Committee on the Bill, faced as we were with a whole range of Amendments, most of them Government Amendments—and only an hour and a half before a sitting of the Committee. The Opposition tried desperately to allocated the time so that those aspects which we felt most vitally concerned our constituents and our members could be discussed. We were faced with an utterly impossible task, but we did our utmost to deal with it. Indeed, a very strong restraining influence was exerted on back-bench Members on this side, and I can tell the hon. Member that there was considerable resentment among many back-bench Members on this side, because they were constantly restrained by our Front Bench and asked not to speak on some Amendments, because, while the Front Bench realised that those Amendments were of importance, there were others which were thought to be even more important and it was hoped they could be reached and debated. That was the dilemma which we faced throughout, and with which we did our utmost to grapple. It presented us with a problem which it was entirely impossible to resolve and it is entirely wrong for hon. Members opposite to accuse us on this side of wasting time.
There was no need to waste time even had we been so disposed, because the Government themselves felt required to introduce regularly a wealth of Amendments of their own to so many of the contentious and damaging Clauses. So there was no need to waste time.
Indeed, if we on this side had confined ourselves to speeches of no more than two or three minutes' duration each on each Amendment we still could not have concluded proper discussion of the Bill in the period which was allocated to it. That proper discussion has been denied not only to the Opposition but to the House as a whole, and that on a complex Bill, because of the narrow restrictions of the procedural Motion so that we had no opportunity to deal with the Bill at all constructively.
I speak now as one who has spoken only infrequently during the debates on the Bill, and I hope that on those occasions when I did speak I did so constructively, even though there were times

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when I felt it almost impossible to be constructive because the Bill was so inherently bad in its drafting and in its intentions and would be so inefficient in its application.
I will end on a cautionary note. My right hon. Friend has pointed to the absence, with one or two exceptions, of Members on the opposite side. Remembering the votes which they were called upon to make and their reluctance to register their votes we should bear in mind that the Government are now setting a precedent of which a future Labour Government might want to take advantage. No Labour Government have ever confronted the House of Commons in this manner; we have always had our parliamentary conventions; but we must reserve our right likewise to act should at some future time a Labour Government be faced with obstruction from the other side.
4.15 p.m.
Mr. Ian Lloyd: Like the hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. Tinn) I had not intended to intervene, and had the right hon. Lady given way when I rose to interrupt perhaps 1 should not be on my feet now, but it seems to me that there is nothing more difficult for hon. Members on such occasions as this than to distinguish between two things, the one, the genuine indignation which we all know, acknowledge and respect, and the other, synthetic indignation with which in this House we are all familiar because we know that both parties at times have shown synthetic indignation. Sometimes back benchers expect it and sometimes Governments expect it.
There are occasions when we ought to deal with the facts as they are, and one of the facts, especially apparent when we have a complex Bill of this type, is simply this, that in the last two or three years the Government have put more legislation before the House than our procedure is really equipped to deal with. It is a fact, clear and unequivocal, that many of our procedures appear obsolete. Alternatively, when matters of high principle are involved—and no one would dispute that this Bill is a matter of high principle—we are forced, because of our procedure, and because, in some sense, of the generosity of our procedure, to behave in a
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fashion which the country regards as ludicrous.
The right hon. Lady said she was defending the reputation of Parliament, but the reputation of Parliament does not reside only in this Chamber and is not contingent only on the respect held for it by Members of Parliament but also upon the respect in which Parliament is held in the country as a whole. It is not only respect in this House of Parliament. If we are honest with ourselves, we here all know, and the country is beginning to know, that the majority which a Government have is required systematically and automatically time after time to go through the process of walking through the Lobbies, and that that automatic majority is conferred upon the Government of the day at a General Election; and that majority, as the right hon. Lady knows, and most hon. Members know, with a few exceptions which, I would concede, may be significant and important, and perhaps adjusted by such devices as pairing, will lead on every single occasion to a predictable result, and we know it.
The essence of the matter is quite simple. Are we to regard our procedure, and its effects in relation to legislation, as the sole, dominating criterion? Or are we to pay some attention to the fact that the country looks at what it regards as our antics—and I would share that view, that hundreds of Members walking round the Lobbies between midnight and 4 a.m. is nothing more than our antics—and wonders whether they are the only way of governing the country?
4.18 p.m.
Mr. Robert Hughes: I speak as one who has not generally spoken during the previous stages of the Bill, not because I had no desire to speak but because many of my trade union colleagues and others of my hon. Friends wished to speak in the limited time available and I exercised a sort of self-denial to allow them to get on with the job. I hope that the Leader of the House is not leaving us, because it is a most important matter. I am glad that he has come back again. What concerns me most is that, if I understand the Motion correctly, there is in it a very significant point which the right hon. Gentleman did not mention and which, I believe, derogates from respect for the

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House in a most significant and sinister manner. As I understand the Motion it is not possible for hon. Members to raise Standing Order No. 9 Motions on four of the five days of discussion of these Lords Amendments.
Mr. Whitelaw: That would be perfectly in order. Perhaps I had better explain. It is perfectly in order for anyone to raise a Standing Order No. 9 Motion and perfectly in order for Mr. Speaker to grant it if he wishes, but, of course, the three hours would come out of the total time allocated to the Bill. But it is perfectly possible for such a Motion to be raised.
Mr. Hughes: In a sense, that is an answer to the point I had intended originally to make, that I thought that the Motion entirely denied hon. Members the right to move Standing Order No. 9 Motions and took away from hon. Members the right to raise important matters, but, in a sense, it makes the matter worse.
Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman correct in what he is saying? I am advised, following discussions through the usual channels, that the Motion means that there can be an emergency debate under Standing Order No. 9 on the fifth day only. That is the child's guide to the right hon. Gentleman's Motion which was given to me by a source whom I understood had had it explained to him by the right hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Whitelaw: I understand that that is not so. I will check it at once. My understanding is that an Adjournment under Standing Order No. 9 can be moved on any one of the days during the passage of the Bill and not on only the fifth day. That is my understanding, but I will check the facts.
Mrs. Castle: Will the right hon. Gentleman intervene to inform the House of what the position actually is?
Mr. Whitelaw: Either I or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment will at the end.
Mr. Hughes Mr. Hughes rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. If I may just give a hint, it might be different if the
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Motion were granted for the same day rather than for the next day.
Mr. Hughes: As a comparatively new Member, and after that multiple intervention, I am not quite sure if I remember exactly where I was. Whichever is the case, and it has been suggested by my hon. Friends who have considerably more experience in the House than I have that my interpretation of the Motion is correct, it would be a serious matter; because I do not believe that the House has a right, whether it wishes to or not, to take from Mr. Speaker his duty as the servant of the House to decide whether an hon. Member's application for an emergency debate on matters of extreme public importance should be granted. I should be very pleased if I am wrong on this matter.
I hope that the Leader of the House will tell us the result of the advice which he is so urgently taking. It is a very serious matter. We come here to represent our constituents. We believe that we have the right at various times to raise matters which are beyond the planning stage. We are all subject to the disciplines of the rules of order, and to the procedures of the House. We must try to plan our work ahead. We have to put our Questions in at fortnightly intervals. I interpret the Motion as meaning that Private Notice Questions will be out of order on these days. We should not allow these two things to pass without serious discussion and, if I am right, serious dissent.
On the other hand, if my interpretation and that of others is wrong and it is possible for the Adjournment of the House to be moved under Standing Order No. 9 or for a Private Notice Question to be asked, in a sense it puts the individual Member in an intolerable position, because he will have to judge whether the matter he seeks to raise is of such importance that it should hold up the discussion on this very important Bill.
We have made our protests that the five days which are being allocated are not sufficient time to enable us to give all the Amendments serious consideration. If a Private Notice Question were to be asked or an Adjournment under Standing Order No. 9 granted, from the five days we should be taking the three hours, the six hours, or the nine hours, as the case may be.

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I accept that it is a good thing that hon. Members should not apply for a Private Notice Question or for a debate under Standing Order No. 9 without the case being very urgent and compelling. It is a good thing that this fact is brought to the attention of hon. Members. What this will also do is place on Mr. Speaker the intolerable burden, not only of having to decide whether to grant a debate under Standing Order No. 9, but also to weigh in the balance how far he will be the servant of the House in allowing a debate under Standing Order No. 9. It places Mr. Speaker and hon. Members in an invidious position.
I hope that the matter can be cleared up by the Leader of the House. It is impossible to go further than the Motion, which allows us on the fifth day only the possibility of a debate under Standing Order No. 9, but then the proceedings would be pushed forward by three hours. Some of my hon. Friends may be able to enlighten me as to whether there can be more than one Standing Order No. 9 debate on any one day. If it is possible for there to be two or three debates under Standing Order No. 9 on one day, on the fifth allotted day the debate on the Bill could be postponed for as long as nine hours which would mean that we would be discussing all through the night the Bill the important points of which we are only now beginning to see. I hope that the House will reject the Motion.
4.26 p.m.
Mr. Cranley Onslow: Two things are clear. First, the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) arrived at the House today with a lengthy speech, carefully written out, which she was determined to read. She read it. The whole House must now hope that she feels better for having read it. I do not believe that it was a contribution to a debate. It was immensely predictable and largely repetitive, and we have heard batches of it before.
Second, she had the mortification of delivering her speech to benches on her side which were almost totally silent, except for one dutiful "Hear, hear" uttered by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer). She had the extra mortification of having to listen to an additional point
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raised by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes), which had apparently been overlooked by her.
The right hon. Lady's speech today cannot be counted as one of the greatest triumphs of her parliamentary career, and it is best forgotten on that account. When my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House commended the Motion to the House as one which would be supported by all fair-minded hon. Members, he was right. No one who before she spoke would have judged the right hon. Lady to be fair-minded would have put her in that category when she sat down. By these criteria, it is clear that this is a Motion which the House should support.
4.27 p.m.
Mr. John Golding: During the course of this year, many of my hon. Friends and I have had to argue with our trade union colleagues in the country that they should not take industrial action in opposition to a political matter. We have told them that the importance in this issue Is that of letting Parliament discuss the issue democratically. We have dissuaded them from taking industrial action on the ground that elected representatives would have the opportunity of discussing the Bill and expressing their opinions of it and of voting on the provisions of the Bill.
Neither of those conditions can prevail. We shall not be able to vote on each of the Lords Amendments, nor will it be possible for us to speak on all of them. I do not share the cynicism of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Ian Lloyd), who discounts the voting procedure in the House entirely by saying that, because of pairing arrangements, the result is always known in advance. If that attitude were to prevail, we might as well, after a General Election, forget voting in the House until the next General Election. This is a nonsensical argument. We on this side think that we owe it to our trade union colleagues, whose feelings are so high, to have the right to vote on the Clauses in the Bill. But this Motion will deprive us of the opportunity.
Mr. Ian Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman has misinterpreted my view of the rubber-stamp philosophy. It is not my idea that the House should not vote between one

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election and another but that it should vote a substantial number of times on a substantial number of issues, and that is all.
Mr. Golding: A number of my hon. Friends want to pursue that point but I think that the hon. Gentleman himself has seen the absurdity of his argument and that is why he has made this qualification, for which I thank him.
If there are no speeches on the Government side, we on this side of the House will have four minutes per Amendment and we do not, in these circumstances, believe that we can go back to our trade union rank and file and tell them honestly that we have debated the Bill as thoroughly as we should have done. For these reasons, I oppose the Motion very strongly.
4.31 p.m.
Mr. Tom King: We seem to be embarking on a self-elongating exercise in that every speaker provokes two from the other side into replying.
I can only endorse what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls). [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"] Those of us who spent so many hours on the Bill earlier in this House can see the same process evolving again. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) quotes yet again the statistic of four minutes per Lords Amendment. We all know perfectly well that many of the Lords Amendments are the fruits of our own earlier efforts in this House, while another batch are consequential. It is bogus for hon. Members opposite to approach the subject in that way.
I believe that if we were making proper use of our time, we would not be spending so long on the Lords Amendments but would be debating the Code of Industrial Practice, and I am disappointed that there has not been more information from the Opposition about the possibility of debating the code. The best use of our time would be by genuinely attempting to create the best possible Act out of these provisions. I appreciate that a number of hon. Members still wish to speak on the Motion, but I hope that we can now get down to debating the Lords Amendments and constructively applying ourselves to creating the best possible final result.
4.33 p.m.
Mr. Stanley Orme: It is interesting to note that some of the lectures by hon. Members opposite to which we have been subjected have been brief and that the lecturers, having made their points, have left the Chamber. The question of how many hon. Members have been in attendance in the House has been raised. The table is now reversed in the light of the number of hon. Members opposite compared with the number of hon. Members present on this side of the House. It is somewhat odd that the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) should lecture us about the Bill, since one does not remember him taking part in the debates earlier, apart from the equity debates. The hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Tom King) knows that this is true because he took part in the Committee and Report stages in a serious manner.
We regard this Bill as very serious indeed. We reject its philosophy. We have opposed it as strongly as we could and will continue to oppose it. No one can level charges at us that debate has not been carried on in a parliamentary way. I believe that it has, indeed, been a credit to Parliament itself—almost too creditable in view of the manner in which the Government have introduced and forced the Bill through.
We in this House were unable to discuss very many important Clauses in detail. Indeed, it was left to a non-elected Chamber to discuss the basic points about agency shops and so forth. The Lords Amendments are now back here, but we still cannot discuss in detail many of the basic facts. We shall have to attach our arguments to some of the Amendments and not have the frontal debates that we wanted. The result is that when the Bill finally reaches the Statute Book large sections of it will not have been debated properly by the elected assembly of the country, and that is a disgrace.
The hon. Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Ian Lloyd) and the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow)—who has also left the Chamber—have criticised the voting procedure. When we were deprived of the right of discussing this Bill properly, many of us felt that we had to register every form of constitutional opposition, and we exercised

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our right of voting. If the truth were only known—and perhaps the Leader of the House and the Government Chief Whip could tell us—the restriction to voting only on the Amendments involving privilege has been brought about because back-benchers opposite revolted and insisted that there shall be no voting during these five days.
Mr. Whitelaw: Perhaps I can correct the hon. Gentleman. The suggestion that there will be no voting during these five days is not correct. Whenever an Amendment is reached and a Division is desired on it, there will be a vote.
Mr. Orme: I accept that point. We shall be able to vote seriatum as we go through the Amendments, but nevertheless we shall be debarred from voting on a very large number of them.
Mr. Tom King: I specifically exclude the hon. Gentleman from the comment that I am about to make. He feels strongly about the right to exercise his vote, but do not the voting figures of the last day of the Bill in this House before it went to the Lords show that an awful lot of hon. Members opposite do not feel as strongly as he does?
Mr. Orme: We registered our votes, but whether the voting be one or 630 no one has the right to deny the opportunity to vote to hon. Members. It is an antidemocratic proposal. It says, in effect, "Do not let us vote because we want to get on with business." We see this sort of tendency under all Governments. Hon. Members opposite should guard their constitutional rights a little more carefully. I would point out to them that, assuming the proposal to join the Common Market is carried in the substantive vote on 28th October, we shall then have a year of legislation to implement that decision. What if the Leader of the House introduces legislation to curtail the democratic rights of the House? What will some hon. Members opposite do then? They know very well that voting habits are not fixed from the time one enters this House until the next election. Indeed, many hon. Members opposite abstained on certain Amendments during the Committee and Report stages of the Bill in this House. One or two hon. Gentlemen opposite told me that for cer-
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tain reasons they had not supported certain Amendments. The hon. Gentleman is trying to deprive us of the opportunity of expressing our opinions and upholding parliamentary democracy.
Mr. Ian Lloyd: What the hon. Gentleman is saying is that if we are to have what is virtually an infinity of legislation we must have an infinity of time. That is not possible. All I am saying is that we have to choose between a maximum of discussion and a maximum of voting. Surely the House and the country want a maximum of discussion?
Mr. Orme: Certainly we want a maximum of discussion. That is what we are trying to get on this controversial Measure. When the Bill was introduced we pointed out that the 1906 Act, which contains only five Sections, took the best part of a parliamentary year to get through Parliament. This Measure involves vital constitutional matters. That is why it has been taken on the Floor of the House. It is creating a new high court. It is creating precedents and new laws, and the House has not been able properly to debate the issues involved. One cannot get round that fact.
It is not a question of wasting time on pinpricks or small matters of detail. Every word of the Bill, when it becomes law, may well have to be tested in the courts. These matters will have to be discussed outside the House. When the trade union movement sees the whole issue reduced to a farce in the House, why should its members take notice of legislation to which they are bitterly opposed? They know that their opinions have not been properly presented in the House.
The hon. Member for Bridgwater need not exclude me from his criticisms. All my hon. Friends who have taken part in the debate on the Bill are a credit to the Labour Party, and the fight that we have put up is one of the best parliamentary fights that has ever been seen in the House.
Mr. Tom King: The hon. Gentleman knows why I excluded him. I think he felt the strength of his principles so strongly that he wished to vote on every occasion, as did many of my hon. Friends, but he will note from a study of the

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majorities that he was not adequately supported by many of his hon. Friends.
Mr. Orme: I am satisfied with the action taken by my hon. Friends who voted throughout the night and the morning. I am satisfied, too, that those of my hon. Friends who were not here were absent on the direct instructions of the Labour Party. I am convinced that those who stayed here to carry on the fight did so out of a sense of conviction. I am satisfied with the fight that my Parliamentary colleagues put up before, and I know that they will continue it.
What worries me is a remark that I heard during the Committee stage of the Bill. During one of the all-night sittings I heard a Conservative Member say to a group of his hon. Friends, "This situation is intolerable. We are the boss party, why are we putting up with it?". That is the attitude to which we are opposed. That is what we are going to fight.
I took part in the struggle against the Parliament (No. 2) Bill, which my Government introduced. I should take just as strong action again if I were on that side of the House and thought that parliamentary democracy and institutions were being removed. I am not expressing the view that I am today merely because I am on this side of the House. I expressed much the same view when I was on the benches opposite, and I shall express that kind of view again if once more I find myself on the benches opposite and it is necessary to do so.
This is not just a fiddling debate about an unimportant matter. This Motion is the final act of a guillotine procedure that has operated in the House since the Bill was first introduced. We are opposed to this Measure in principle. We shall discuss the Amendments as far as we can, and as economically as we can. We are determined to fight to the very end for what we consider to be our rights.
I said in the absence of the Patronage Secretary that it was the pressure from his hon. Friends behind him that had brought about this change in voting procedure. If we cannot speak and we cannot vote, we are in the position of being a rubber-stamp Parliament, and it is that to which I am opposed. Those who are
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showing indignation about this issue this afternoon are doing so because they regard this matter as extremely important. The Bill will affect millions of working people. It will affect their working lives. It will affect democratic institutions which have been fought for, created and nurtured over the last century and a half. My hon. Friends and I are not going to allow to go through this House this sort of Measure, this sort of guillotine Motion, this sort of farce. That is why we are opposing it this afternoon, and we shall continue to oppose it until the Measure is removed from the Statute Book.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): I think that perhaps I should acquaint the House with the fact that, as far as I know, both the time-pieces of the House are right now.
4.47 p.m.
Mr. John Nott (St. Ives): As a member of what the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) calls the boss party, I can understand the hon. Gentleman getting very heated on this issue because these are, after all,
"matters of great importance to the vested interests which are financing the campaign which is currently being launched in the country against the Bill."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th March, 1968; Vol. 760, c. 1748.]
I am quoting the words of the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) during the debate on the Allocation of Time Motion on the Transport Bill. I would not myself cast such aspersions across the Floor of the House.
As an hon. Member who foddered the Lobby throughout the course of the Bill, and as this is the first occasion on which I have spoken on it, I thought it might be appropriate if I were to say a few words in its concluding stages.
I think that it has been a very worthwhile political exercise. Why hon. Gentlemen opposite should complain when they are given five days by the Government in which to re-create unanimity in the Labour Party, I fail to understand. There is evidence enough from the short debate that we have had already that five days will be more than enough to re-create happiness and harmony in the Labour Party on this and other important issues. Also, if I may say so, the right hon. Lady will have further opportunities during these five days on which once again to

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stand on her head and thereby give further precedents and examples to her leader, the Leader of the Opposition.
I cannot understand why hon. Gentlemen opposite should complain after my right hon. Friend has given the noble Lords plenty to do to occupy their time at night by considering Government Amendments. What would the noble Lords have been doing during the long summer nights had they not had more than 300 Amendments to debate in the other place?
The hon. Member for Salford, West mentioned the Parliament (No. 2) Bill. Perhaps I may be allowed to quote one passage from the speech of the former Member for the Cities of London and Wesminster during that debate. Mr. John Smith said of the House of Lords:
"It is an illusion that it will have any power.ߪ It is much betterߪ to settle down to the ideaߪ that it is a highgrade debating society, or Press Conference.ߪ It is in a way a high-class version of Speakers' Corner."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st April, 1969; Vol. 781, c. 262–3.]
Perhaps the hon. Member for Salford, West is right. Perhaps this is what the House of Commons could become should we enter the E.E.C. We shall be watching the Government on this matter. But I am sure that the Leader of the House does not need to be lectured by the hon. Member about the problems which he will have when the long Bill to ratify the regulations comes before the House. We are all conscious of the parliamentary and procedural difficulties which that will create. So I am sure that my right hon. Friends need no warnings on that score.
Five full days is plenty of time in which to debate the Lords Amendments; the Government have been very generous.
Mr. Heffer: Has the hon. Gentleman actually looked, for example, at Amendment No. 301, which raises the whole question of redundancy payments? This is a Bill within a Bill and would require at least two days debate and Amendment itself.
Mr. Nott: The right hon. Lady also mentioned Amendment No. 301, which is certainly interesting and important. But I am sure that my hon. Friends will not interfere if right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite wish to have practically the whole of one day on a particular Clause
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within the guillotine Motion. [Interruption.] That is reasonable: right hon. and hon. Gentlemen can do that. He will have a whole day, if he so wishes, to debate Amendment No. 301.
The Opposition are
"… panting for a martydom in a great cause, demanding to sit all night."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 14th March, 1968; Vol. 760, c. 1746.]
Again I quote the right hon. Lady in her allocation of time Motion on the Transport Bill. We have been around this course on several ocasions——
Mr. Harold Walker: Was the Transport Bill guillotined on Lords Amendments?
Mr. Nott: I was merely quoting from the right hon. Lady's words.
We have been round this course on several occasions. We are all convinced of the sincerity of hon. Members opposite, just as we are convinced of the intellecutal integrity and sincerity of the Shadow Foreign Secretary and the Leader of the Opposition on the Common Market. I am convinced of it, of course, but I do not believe that hon. Gentlemen opposite wish to debate Lords Amendment for more than five days. They do not wish to be here all summer. In the circumstances, five days is perfectly adequate for the Amendments to be properly discussed.
4.53 p.m.
Mr. James Sillars: We have had three flippant and superficial speeches from the party opposite. We had one from the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls), who is clever enough to know exactly what he was doing and to know that he was evading the central core of my right hon. Friend's argument with the Leader of the House. We had the speech of the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow), who said that the performances of my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) today was not one of her greatest parliamentary triumphs. His own performance was hardly a glittering success. And we have just heard the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott), who again has evaded our central argument.
The hon. Member for Peterborough gave us a lecture, and then left the classroom—and we have not seen him since. He accused us first of histrionics this

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afternoon and, more important, of wasting time in Committee. It is a fault of all of us—we all think that all other hon. Members waste time but never ourselves. It is certainly a fault inherent in the hon. Member for Peterborough.
I remember the Equity debate. I said that I did not object to the House spending a considerable time arguing about roughly 20,000 people, but I was most concerned that, having argued about 20,000, we should have no time to argue about another 10 or 20 million people. The hon. Member for Peterborough took up at least 30 minutes in that debate and would have been prepared to argue over and over again on something which he was most concerned. We have disciplined our speeches very well, which is more than can be said about some hon. Members opposite.
There are arguments about guillotines. I have only been here a year and a half, and I have experienced one or two guillotine debates. There are always arguments. I do not believe that they are synthetic, because the Opposition, whatever their political complexion, are bound to argue that they are not getting enough time. Any Opposition will argue that genuinely. But that is not my concern. I want to bring the Leader of the House back to the central point—the important issue of the massive new precedent that the House of Commons is not allowed to vote individually if it so chooses.
Mr. Whitelaw: I accept the hon. Member's point. When he says that this is a new precedent, he is wrong. It has been done on two occasions before, and I gave the precedents. I admit, as I did at the start, that both were under Conservative Governments, but it is not right to say that this is a new precedent.
Mr. Sillars: I accept that factual correction and would point out that we have had these dangerous precedents only under a Conservative Government. I notice that the Labour Party Chief Whip is in the Chamber now. I would say to him and to anyone else who is in the next Labour Government that, no matter what precedents are settled this afternoon, the next Labour Government should not be tempted to operate this provision.
I give my right hon. Friend notice that it, at any time, we attempt to introduce
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a Motion of this sort, I will vote against it. I regard it as very important—[Laughter.] I am not making a joke: this is very important. Governments can be of different complexions and have different majorities. If we give any Government the right to present the House of Commons and their supporters with a package deal of this sort, we would be giving an administration far too much power.
Mr. Tom King: I speak with all the extra wisdom and seniority of having been one week longer in this place than the hon. Member. I was intrigued that, in his right hon. Friend's great denunciation, there was no equally firm announcement that this procedure would never ever be invoked by a possible future Labour Administration.
Mr. Sillars: However unhappy it may make me, I cannot commit a Labour Government on this or a number of other things. I can only say what I believe. We are all politicians of varying experience, and not many politicians would commit to themselves as categorically as I have done on this issue. I repeat—if a Labour Government tried to do what the Tories are trying to do today, I would vote against them on a democratic principle.
I urge hon. Gentlemen oposite to bear in mind what I said about Governments sometimes having small majorities. I urge them to think twice about the way they vote tonight because the time may come when they will have to vote on a package of decisions taken by their Government when they may not approve of the entire package. The Government are set on a dangerous course and this is why I will vote against them.
I noticed that when my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn was speaking about the danger of these precedents the Leader of the House showed concern. It has been said in the Press that the right hon. Gentleman has the most expressive face in politics. I am not being discourteous in saying that. We have found it to be one of his most helpful and endearing features.
When his Cabinet colleagues sit stone-faced—when we were not sure whether the Prime Minister bankrupt Rolls-Royce as a matter of policy—we are able to look at the face of the Leader of the

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House and know current feeling in the Cabinet. We want an assurance that the Conservatives will never again be tempted to use this undemocratic procedure.
5.2 p.m.
Mr. J. R. Kinsey: It is clear that the central core of this discussion is the desire of hon. Gentlemen opposite to vote. I, too, am jealous of my right to vote, and my record in this matter is there for all to see.
On the last night of the Committee stage of the Industrial Relations Bill I voted on every Amendment. I walked through the Lobby throughout the night and during the following morning. We should bear in mind the tactics of hon. Gentlemen opposite on that occasion. It was a propaganda and disruptive exercise on which they were engaged—[Interruption.]—because half their number were off duty.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite have a peculiar sense of democracy. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) admitted that only 50 per cent. of her colleagues were voting. That is the sort of part-time democracy we get from the Labour Party. Fifty per cent. of them voted for 50 per cent. of the time, whereas, with many of my hon. Friends, I was here the whole time while they called the tune.
Mr. Kenneth Lewis: I was under the impression that we were working double time.
Mr. Kinsey: We were, but even when we are working one-quarter of the time, that looks like double time compared with hon. Gentlemen opposite. [HON. MEMBERS: "Get on."]
We were told that hon. Gentlemen opposite would oppose the Bill line by line. What a miserable job they made of doing that. If the unions contributed to their party by results, they would get part-time contributions.
Mr. Paul B. Rose: As we were given no alternative but to vote in that way, may I ask the hon. Gentleman how else we could have made our opposition to the Bill manifest? Is he aware, therefore, that the Government, rather than the Opposition were calling the tune?
Mr. Kinsey: We are now giving the hon. Gentleman a different opportunity, and he should grasp it with both hands. He and his hon. Friends were embarrassed sufficiently on that occasion. We had large majorities and won hands down every time, showing up the sleepy Opposition.
5.6 p.m.
Mr. J. D. Concannon: That was one of the most frivolous speeches I have heard since coming to Parliament. It is clear that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Kinsey) does not understand the position. I urge him to read a few books or consult some of his senior hon. Friends.
Mr. Kinsey Mr. Kinsey rose——
Mr. Concannon: Sit down. I have not started yet.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that my hon. Friends were extremely genuine that night. Indeed, I had quite a job calling a halt to the voting. Many of my hon. Friends would have gladly gone on for much longer in an effort to prevent the Bill going through. I had to order quite a lot of them to call it a day. The question of majorities aside, we simply must have the chance to register our disapproval and objection to Government policy, if that is the step we wish to take.
One might get the impression from the remarks of the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls), the hon. Member for Perry Barr and others that we were filibustering. I recall the unique occasion when I had to move the Closure because it was only too obvious that hon. Gentlemen opposite were filibustering. If I had moved it five minutes earlier we would have won because the Government majority on that occasion was down to two. In other words, what matters is the opportunity for individual hon. Members to register their votes and not the size of the majority.
I have had some responsibility in handling the Bill on this side. There have been many occasions when I should have liked to have spoken. I spoke once and left it at that because I wanted to allow more time for my hon. Friends. In view of the guillotine, I wished to set a good example.
I have been asked why the Prime Minister did not guillotine the Bill in

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the House of Lords—from where, incidentally, this new proposal undoubtedly comes—and the answer is simple. The right hon. Gentleman could not find a way to do it. The Prime Minister has set his masculinity on getting this Measure through Parliament within a certain time, come hell or high water, no matter the democratic needs of Parliament.
I wish to be brief and I give no secrets away in saying that there is a guillotine on my speech. I am anxious that my hon. Friends should have an opportunity to speak. I recall that when we were in power the Conservatives were continually telling us to be fair. In endeavouring to be fair, we often leaned over backwards and hammered our own supporters. I am now beginning to learn a few things from hon. Gentlemen opposite. They are teaching me some bitter lessons. I am taking them in. Some day we on the Opposition Benches will be on the Government Benches, and my right hon. Friends will be on the Government Front Bench. I hope that they are all taking in these lessons. I shall not be as soft as my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars)——
Mr. Sillars: I assure my hon. Friend that I have no intention of being soft on policy, but if one is a democrat one sticks to democratic principles on procedure as well.
Mr. Concannon: That is fair enough, but I do not like running my head against a brick wall. I do not complain about guillotines, because the Executive at times must use them, but only sparingly and wisely. The Government are not using the guillotine wisely today by setting this precedent of voting in globo. We shall remember this precedent, as we shall many other precedents set by this Administration. When we are in Government hon. Gentlemen must not come crying to us with synthetic indignation. Our indignation on this Bill is not synthetic.
Amendment No. 301 was slipped into the Bill at 2.30 one morning in another place. The right hon. Gentleman has had a fast one worked on him by the Department of Social Security. The Amendment has no business in the Bill and the Department of Social Security has done as much damage as it can. It
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is disgraceful, but I will have my say on that when the Amendment is discussed. In case it is not discussed, I will get in my main point now. The only argument used for the Amendment was that it was at the request of the National Coal Board. The Government do not realise what they are doing to 65-year-old miners, and if this is the last act of Alf Robens at the National Coal Board I shall make sure it goes on his tombstone.
5.13 p.m.
Mr. Harold Walker: My hon. Friends have chastised and rebuked quite properly, the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls), who I regret after an intemperate speech has left the Chamber, and the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Tom King). I will not cover the same ground, except to identify the Front Bench with the condemnation the hon. Gentlemen deserve, particularly the hon. Member for Peterborough for his splenetic outburst. It is deeply offensive to my hon. Friends and to me, with our clear recollection of the events in Committee and on Report, that we of all people should be accused of time-wasting and filibustering. When my right hon. Friend was Chief Whip, to the great irritation of my hon. Friends he went round telling them to shut up, and was to be seen leaning across to the Solicitor-General saying "Get up", so that we could wind up the debates. The entire Report stage was occupied with the Government's new Clauses and it ill lies in the mouths of hon. Gentlemen opposite to condemn us.
One of the crucial Amendment debates was on Clause 5, which deals with the closed shop. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) said to me, "Harold, you do it". I said that I would take 15 minutes on it, and she said, "No you will not, you will do it in 12 minutes", and I took no more than 12 minutes. That is in sharp contrast to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the night before, which lasted for 50 minutes. When we contrast the length of the speeches which alternated between the two sides of the House, we see that we behaved with great restraint.
This is the first guillotine debate in which I have participated and I sincerely hope it will be the last. It is a sad and sorry business that discredits Parliament.

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In Committee and on Report parliamentary democracy was reduced to mere head-counting, but now, when we consider the Lords Amendments, there will not even be head-counting. No wonder parliamentary democracy is discredited.
The need to introduce a guillotine Motion to enable the House to deal with the enormous number of Lords Amendments proves two things. It proves, first, that the Bill was conceived in haste and was dedicated to the proposition that all trade unionists should be clobbered and, secondly, that the Bill is far too long. I know this point always arises when guillotine Motions are introduced, but the Bill could have been sub-divided into separate Bills running parallel through the House, so that Parliament could have dealt with them properly. If we were to allow this monstrous steamroller to go through without massive protest, it would be a clear indicator to every Minister that the way to get through the House a controversial Bill would be to make it as long as possible by padding it out. Ministers could then say to the House that because of the enormous length of the Bill and the need to get it through during the Parliamentary Session they would have to introduce a guillotine Motion. This is an affront to parliamentary democracy.
I wonder how many right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have studied the Bill itself, apart from the Amendments. I spent two years at the Department of Employment and Productivity and for the whole of my adult life before then I was involved with industrial relations, but the enoromus complexities of the Bill demand of me hours and hours of study. Adequate time is needed to get to grips with what is involved but, instead, discussion of far-reaching and fundamental issues is to be crammed into five days. There are Amendments which raise issues of greater consequence than some of the matters which have recently been allocated a whole day's debate.
Reference has been made to Amendment No. 301, but what about the monstrous constitutional issue of the proscription of political strikes? In the ordinary way that would be the subject of a Bill on its own, which would be a source of major controversy and pro-
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longed debate, but we are expected to let this proposal go through at the snap of our fingers, perhaps on the nod late at night, and never debated.
It has been pointed out that only on three occasions since the war have Lords Amendments been subject to a guillotine Motion and that on each occasion they were Tory Government Bills. What distinguishes this occasion from the two precedents is the far-reaching, fundamental and biased transformation that the Bill makes in our industrial relations system. Because it is biased, because it reflects the hostility of the State towards one section of the community, those who are on the receiving end, and their representatives in Parliament have a right to protest. But the Government want to stifle even the screams of protest. The Government must not underrate the strength and depth of feeling on this side of the House about the denial of the right to vote on these issues. By voting we should declare our opposition to our friends outside and to the community at large and our view would be on record.
At earlier stages of the Bill it was doubly insulting for some of us to be told, "You did not oppose the matter at the time", when all that happened was that we did not oppose for the sake of making progress. We merely decided not to move certain Amendments, and it will be remembered how many times we did that.
We repeatedly pointed out during earlier stages that if this Bill were passed we would be paving the way to the creation of a corporate state. This view has been more than confirmed by the fears which have been expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn. I believe that the approach of the Government, which has led to a stifling of discussion and denial of free expression in the House, is the sort of philosophy which led to the eventual destruction of the German and Italian corporate states. Therefore, we shall vote against this Motion tonight.
5.22 p.m.
The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Robert Carr): I hope that it will be convenient for the House if I deal first with what would be the situation following a Standing Order No. 9 debate, which was a matter raised by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes)

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and also by the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle). I can confirm that there is nothing in this procedure to prevent a Standing Order No. 9 debate on any of the five allotted days. A Standing Order No. 9 debate could take place on any of those days.
However, there is a difference between what could happen in the first four days and on the fifth day. On the first four of the five allotted days, if Mr. Speaker were to allow a Standing Order No. 9 debate on the day on which the subject was raised, that is to say at 7 o'clock in the evening—which Mr. Speaker normally does only in regard to matters of gravity and immediate importance—the time taken up by such a Standing Order No. 9 debate would be added after midnight for our debates on the Bill.
If, however, Mr. Speaker were to follow the more normal practice nowadays of granting time for a Standing Oder No. 9 debate on the following day at the beginning of business, the time taken by that debate would not be allowed after midnight. However, if a Standing Order No. 9 debate were to take place on the fifth day, whether at the beginning of the proceedings or at 7 o'clock, the extra time would be added after midnight.
Mrs. Castle: Does not this mean that if on three of the five allotted days any hon. Member wants to exert his normal rights and seek to obtain a Standing Order No. 9 debate, which is taken in the usual way the following day, he will be able to do so only by robbing other hon. Members of the right to discuss this Bill in the time which the Government say is appropriate for it?
Mr. Carr: The right hon. Lady is quite right. On the other hand, if Mr. Speaker regarded the matter as sufficiently urgent and important, he could grant the debate the same evening and in those circumstances the debate on the Lords Amendments would carry on after midnight. The House must look at that provision in the context of the number of days which have been given to Lords Amendments to this Bill. I feel that by any standards the time allowed is reasonable.
Mr. Robert Hughes: What is the situation in regard to time taken by Private Notice Questions?
Mr. Carr: They are not affected by this Motion in any way.
Mrs. Castle: May we be clear as to the net time likely to be taken by Private Notice Questions and statements? We are now in the last few days of the parliamentary Session when all sorts of issues tend to be raised as matters of urgency, since this is the last chance to do so. If such matters are raised, then the amount of time allotted by the Government to this Bill will be reduced by that amount. Is that not a fact?
Mr. Carr: The right hon. Lady is right that the time taken by a Private Notice Question or statements would not be added after midnight—any more than they have ever been in any other guillotine Motion introduced by the Labour Party when in Government and by the Conservative Party when we were previously in power. We are therefore following a perfectly normal procedure.
I come to one of the main issues in the debate, the denial of the right to vote on individual Amendments after the guillotine falls. I notice that the Opposition has taken great care to avoid giving any commitment that they themselves would not follow this precedent if they were ever in power. If the right hon. Lady would like to give such a binding commitment for her Party for the future, I should be delighted to give way to her.
Mrs. Castle: If we were to give such an undertaking, would the right hon. Gentleman withdraw this timetable Motion?
Mr. Carr: Certainly not. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] I am answering the question, which is more than the right hon. Lady did. We have tabled this Motion and are standing by it. Since the right hon. Lady and her hon. Friends seem to take such objection to this feature, I am giving her the opportunity to say that the Labour Government will never do this in future.
Mrs. Castle: This is a matter of great seriousness to Parliament. The Labour Government have never introduced such a procedure to gag Parliament and prevent voting. Can we not make a bargain on both sides of the House? We think that this is bad for Parliament and that neither of us should do this. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to respond.
Mr. Carr: This has never been done, except in regard to Lords Amendments. But it has been done before on Lords Amendments, and we are doing it again. I notice that the right hon. Lady is wriggling away. [Interruption.] She is refusing to say that the Labour Government would not do the same thing. We must leave it there.
I should like the House to consider the time allowed for the number and nature of the Amendments we have before us. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House in moving this Motion gave examples of other Lords Amendments on various Bills produced by both parties when in power. These showed that in comparison with those Bills the time allowed on this Bill is generous by any standards. My right hon. Friend gave chapter and verse on the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, of the first postwar Labour Government and the Transport Act, 1968, introduced by the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn. Both these examples show that the amount of time we are providing for consideration of Lords Amendments is more generous than has ever been the case in parliamentary history.
I have only three minutes to make my final remarks—[HON. MEMBERS: "Four minutes."] I understand that the clock is a minute slow. I should like to consider the Amendments which we have before us. There were 343 Amendments made to the Bill when it left the other place. Of these 44 were either proposed or supported by the Opposition in the other place. Again, 91 were Government Amendments specifically put forward to meet points coming from the Opposition and the cross-benches in another place. So there we have nearly 150 of the Amendments—not far short of half of them—designed to meet points put to the Government by the Opposition in both Houses.
Of the remaining half, or thereabouts, 32 are really nothing more than drafting Amendments. Another 18 are Government Amendments which, though significant
are not controversial. Only 21 basic Amendments are of a major controversial nature. There are 137 consequential Amendments, but only 21 are basic Amendments of a controversial nature.
We have five days in which to discuss these Amendments. The timetable Motion has been designed to allow maximum flexibility for debate, to give the right hon. Lady leading for the Opposition maximum opportunity to lead the debate and take the time which she, in the name of the Opposition, would wish to have in those five days.
We have here a period of time allocated which, in relation to the number of Amendments, is more generous than ever before, and also a form of timetable Motion which gives the maximum freedom to the Opposition to use the time as they think best. I believe that the House as a whole, and those who study our affairs outside, will regard this as a most reasonable time for the business before us. If we use that time constructively, we can in the coming five days, I believe, cover in a proper manner all the major points which the Opposition wish to discuss.
It must be remembered that, when this stage is concluded, the Bill will have had 56 days of parliamentary debate, occupying no less than 481 hours. In addition, we had a full one-day debate on the Consultative Document. I do not believe that in the history of our Parliament—certainly not in the history of any other Parliament—this can be said to be any sort of denial of democracy or be objected to in the kind of claptrap which we have heard from the Opposition this afternoon. By any standards, the Bill will have had adequate time for constructive and detailed debate, and it is without any doubt or lack of confidence that I commend the Motion to the House.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 308, Noes 263.

Division No. 439.]

AYES

[5.33 p.m.

Adley, Robert

Awdry, Daniel

Bell, Ronald

Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

Balniel, Lord

Benyon, W.

Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

Berry, Hn. Anthony

Astor, John

Batsford, Brian

Biffen, John

Atkins, Humphrey

Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

Biggs-Davison, John

Blaker, Peter

Green, Alan

Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

Grieve, Percy

Miscampbell, Norman

Body, Richard

Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

Mitchell, Lt.-Col.C. (Aberdeenshire, W)

Boscawen, Robert

Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

Bossom, Sir Clive

Grylls, Michael

Moate, Roger

Bowden, Andrew

Gummer, Selwyn

Molyneaux, James

Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John

Gurden, Harold

Money, Ernle

Braine, Bernard

Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

Monro, Hector

Bray, Ronald

Hall, John (Wycombe)

Montgomery, Fergus

Brewis, John

Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

Brinton, Sir Tatton

Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

Hannam, John (Exeter)

Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

Mudd, David

Bruce-Cardyne, J.

Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

Murton, Oscar

Bryan, Paul

Hastings, Stephen

Nabarro, Sir Gerald

Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&M)

Havers, Michael

Neave, Airey

Buck, Antony

Hawkins, Paul

Nicholls, Sir Harmar

Bullus, Sir Eric

Hay, John

Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

Burden, F. A.

Hayhoe, Barney

Normanton, Tom

Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

Nott, John

Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray&Nairn)

Hicks, Robert

Onslow, Cranley

Carlisle, Mark

Higgins, Terence L.

Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

Hiley, Joseph

Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

Cary, Sir Robert

Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)

Osborn, John

Channon, Paul

Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

Chapman, Sydney

Holland, Philip

Page, John (Harrow, W.)

Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

Holt, Miss Mary

Parkinson, Cecil (Enfield, W.)

Chichester-Clark, R.

Hordern, Peter

Peel, John

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Hornby, Richard

Percival, lan

Clegg, Walter

Hornsby-Smith, Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia

Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

Cockeram, Eric

Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)

Pike, Miss Mervyn

Cooke, Robert

Howell, David (Guildford)

Pink, R. Bonner

Coombs, Derek

Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

Pounder, Rafton

Cooper, A. E.

Hunt, John

Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

Cordle, John

Hutchison, Michael Clark

Price, David (Eastleigh)

Corfield, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Iremonger, T. L.

Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

Cormack, Patrick

James, David

Proudfoot, Wilfred

Costain, A. P.

Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

Critchley, Julian

Jessel, Toby

Quennell, Miss J. M.

Crouch, David

Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

Raison, Timothy

Crowder, F. P.

Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

Curran, Charles

Jopling, Michael

Redmond, Robert

Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

Kaberry, Sir Donald

Rees, Peter (Dover)

d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen.James

Kershaw, Anthony

Rees-Davies, W. R.

Dean, Paul

Kilfedder, James

Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

Kimball, Marcus

Rhvs Williams, Sir Brandon

Digby, Simon Wingfield

King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

Dixon, Piers

King, Tom (Bridgwater)

Ridsdaie, Julian

Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

Kinsey, J. R.

Rinpon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrev

Drayson, G. B.

Kirk, Peter

Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

Kitson, Timothy

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Dykes, Hugh

Knox, David

Rodgers. Sir John (Sevenoaks)

Eden, Sir John

Lane, David

Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Langford-Holt, Sir John

Russell, Sir Ronald

Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

Rost, Peter

Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

Le Marchant, Spencer

Royle, Anthony

Emery, Peter

Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

St. John-Stevas, Norman

Farr, John

Lloyd, Rt.Hn.Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)

Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.

Fell, Anthony

Lloyd, lan (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

Scott, Nicholas

Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

Longden, Gilbert

Scott-Hopkins, James

Fidler, Michael

Longden, Gilbert

Sharples, Richard

Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)

Loveridge, John

Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh ߪ Whitby)

Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

Luce, R. N.

Shelton, William (Clapham)

Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

McAdden, Sir Stephen

Simeons, Charles

Fookes, Miss Janet

MacArthur, lan

Sinclair. Sir George

Fortescue, Tim

McCrindle, R. A.

Skeet, T. H. H.

Foster, Sir John

McLaren, Martin

Smith, Dudley (W'wick ߪ L'mington)

Fowler, Norman

Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

Soref, Harold

Fox, Marcus

McMaster, Stanley

Speed, Keith

Fraser, Rt.Hn.Hugh (St'fford ߪ Stone)

Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)

Spence, John

Fry, Peter

McNair-Wilson, Michael

Sproat, lain

Galbraith, Hn. T. G.

McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

Stanbrook, Ivor

Gardner, Edward

Maddan, Martin

Steel, David

Gibson-Watt, David

Madel, David

Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

Gilmour, lan (Norfolk, C.)

Maginnis, John E.

Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

Glyn, Dr. Alan

Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

Marten, Neil

Stokes, John

Goodhart, Philip

Mather, Carol

Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

Goodhew, Victor

Maude, Angus

Sutcliffe, John

Gorst, John

Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

Tapsell, Peter

Gower, Raymond

Mawby, Ray

Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow, Cathcart)

Gray, Hamish

Mills, Peter (Torrington)

Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

616

617

Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

Tebbit, Norman

Viewers, Dame Joan

Wiggin, Jerry

Temple, John M.

Waddington, David

Wilkinson, John

Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

Walder, David (Clitheroe)

Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)

Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

Woodnutt, Mark

Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

Wall, Patrick

Worsley, Marcus

Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

Walters, Dennis

Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

Tilney, John

Ward, Dame Irene

Younger, Hn. George

Trafford, Dr. Anthony

Warren, Kenneth

Trew, Peter

Weatherill, Bernard

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Tugendhat, Christopher

Wells, John (Maidstone)

Mr. Reginald Eyre and

Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

White, Roger (Gravesend)

Mr. Jasper More.

van Straubenzee, W. R.

NOES

Abse, Leo

Eadie, Alex

Kerr, Russell

Albu, Austen

Edelman, Maurice

Kinnock, Neil

Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

Lambie, David

Allen, Scholefield

Edwards, William (Merioneth)

Lamond, James

Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

Ellis, Tom

Latham, Arthur

Ashley, Jack

English, Michael

Lawson, George

Ashton, Joe

Evans, Fred

Leadbitter, Ted

Atkinson, Norman

Faulds, Andrew

Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

Leonard, Dick

Barnes, Michael

Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

Lestor, Miss Joan

Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)

Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold

Barnett, Joel

Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

Beaney, Alan

Foot, Michael

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

Ford, Ben

Lipton, Marcus

Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

Forrester, John

Lomas, Kenneth

Bidwell, Sydney

Fraser, John (Norwood)

Loughlin, Charles

Bishop, E. S.

Freeson, Reginald

Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

Blenkinsop, Arthur

Galpern, Sir Myer

Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

Boardman, H. (Leigh)

Garrett, W. E.

Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

Booth, Albert

Gilbert, Dr. John

McBride, Neil

Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

Ginsburg, David

McCann, John

Bradley, Tom

Golding, John

McCartney, Hugh

Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)

Gourlay, Harry

McElhone, Frank

Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

Grant, George (Morpeth)

McGuire, Michael

Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch ߪ F'bury)

Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

Mackenzie, Gregor

Buchan, Norman

Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

Mackie, John

Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

Mackintosh, John P.

Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Maclennan, Robert

Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)

Hamling, William

McNamara, J. Kevin

Cant, R. B.

Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

Carmichael, Neil

Hardy, Peter

Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield. E)

Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfietd)

Harper, Joseph

Marks, Kenneth

Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

Marquand, David

Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

Marsden, F.

Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

Hattersley, Roy

Marshall, Dr. Edmund

Cohen, Stanley

Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

Coleman, Donald

Heffer, Eric S.

Mayhew, Christopher

Concannon, J, D.

Hilton, W. S.

Meacher, Michael

Conlan, Bernard

Horam, John

Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

Corbet, Mrs. Freda

Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

Mendelson, John

Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)

Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

Mikardo, Ian

Crawshaw, Richard

Huckfield, Leslie

Millan, Bruce

Cronin, John

Hushes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

Miller, Dr. M. S.

Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

Hughes, Mark (Durham)

Milne, Edward (Blyth)

Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)

Dalyell, Tam

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Molloy, William

Darling, Rt Hn. George

Hunter, Adam

Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

Davidson, Arthur

lrvine, Rt.Hn.SirArthur (Edge Hill)

Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

Janner, Greville

Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Davits, Ifor (Gower)

Jeger, Mrs.Lena (H' b'n & St.P'cras, S.)

Murray, Ronald King

Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

Ogden, Eric

Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

O'Halloran, Michael

Deakins, Eric

John, Brynmor

O'Mallcy, Brian

de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

Oram, Bert

Delargy, H. J.

Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

Orme, Stanley

Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)

Dempsey, James

Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

Padley, Walter

Doig, Peter

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Paget, R. T.

Dormand, J. D.

Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir EIwyn (W.Ham, S.)

Palmer, Arthur

Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

Douglas-Mann, Bruce

Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

Parker, John (Dagenham)

Driberg, Tom

Judd, Frank

Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

Duffy, A. E. P.

Kaufman, Gerald

Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

Dunnett, Jack

Kelley, Richard

Pendry, Tom

618

619

Pentland, Norman

Sillars, James

Wainwright, Edwin

Perry, Ernest G.

Silverman, Julius

Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg

Skinner, Dermis

Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

Prescott, John

Small, William

Wallace, George

Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

Spearing, Nigel

Watkins, David

Probert, Arthur

Spriggs, Leslie

Weitzman, David

Rankin, John

Stallard, A. W.

Wellbeloved, James

Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

Stoddart, David (Swindon)

White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

Rhodes, Geoffrey

Storehouse, Rt. Hn. John

Whitehead, Phillip

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

Strang, Gavin

Whitlock, William

Robertson, John (Paisley)

Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Br'c'n & R'dnor)

Swain, Thomas

Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

Taverne, Dick

Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

Roper, John

Thomas, Rt.Hn.George (Cardiff, W.)

Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

Rose, Paul B.

Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)

Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

Sandelson, Neville

Tinn, James

Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

Tomney, Frank

Woof, Robert

Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

Torney, Tom

Short, Mrs. Reneé (W'hampton, N.E.)

Tuck, Raphael

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

Urwin, T. W.

Mr. Ernest Armstrong and

Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

Varley, Eric G.

Mr. James A. Dunn.

Ordered,
That the Order [25th January] be supplemented as follows:—
1. The Proceedings on Consideration of the Lords Amendments shall be completed in five allotted days, and shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at midnight on the fifth of those days.
2. In accordance with the Order [25th January], paragraph 6 of that Order (which relates to dilatory motions), paragraph 7 of that Order (which relates to extra time on allotted days), paragraph 8 of that Order (which relates to motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at the commencement of public business), paragraph 9 of that Order (which relates to private business), and so much of paragraph 14 of that Order as relates to Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) shall have effect in relation to the Proceedings mentioned in paragraph 1 of this Order.
3.—(1) For the purpose of bringing to a conclusion any Proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion at a time appointed by this Order, if those Proceedings have not previously been brought to a conclusion, Mr. Speaker shall proceed forthwith to put the following Questions (but no others), that is to say,—

(a) Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has been already proposed from the Chair and not yet decided, and, if that Question is for the amendment of a Lords Amendment, shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion. That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Lords Amendment or, as the case may be, in the said Lords Amendment as amended;

620

(b) Mr. Speaker shall designate such (if any) of the remaining Lords Amendments as appear to him to involve questions of Privilege and shall then forthwith—

(i) put the Question on any Motion, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments except those designated by Mr. Speaker or, if none of the remaining Lords Amendments have been so designated, in all the remaining Lords Amendments, and

(ii) if any of the remaining Lords Amendments have been so designated, put separately, with respect to each of those Amendments so designated, the Question on any Motion, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

(2) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
(3) If, on the fifth of the allotted days mentioned in paragraph 1 of this Order, a Motion is made under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration), the bringing to a conclusion of the Proceedings on the Bill shall be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the Proceedings on that Motion.
4. In paragraph 11 of the Order [25th January] (which relates to Supplemental Orders) any reference to that Order shall be construed as including a reference to this Order.
5. In this Order 'the Bill' means the Industrial Relations Bill and 'allotted day' means any day (not being a Friday, but including the day on which this Order is made) on which the Bill is put down as the first Government Order of the Day.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS BILL
  [1ST ALLOTTED DAY]
  Lords Amendments considered.

  INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS BILL
    Clause 1

      GENERAL PRINCIPLES
      Lords Amendment: No. 1, in page 1, line 10, leave out "and responsibly conducted" and insert:
      "conducted on behalf of workers and employers and with due regard to the general interests of the community."
      5.45 p.m.
      The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Robert Carr): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      I need scarcely say anything in explanation of the Amendment. In Committee a number of points were raised by Opposition speakers who objected to the words
      "responsibly conducted".
      In another place the Opposition moved the Amendment to meet the point, and the Government were happy to accept that Amendment. It certainly met our requirements, and appeared also to meet the Opposition's objections. I therefore hope that without more ado the House will be able to accept the Amendment.
      Mr. Eric S. Heffer: We do not wish to take up too much time on the Amendment. As the right hon. Gentleman said, it was put forward by the Opposition in another place and accepted by the Government. But I should like to make one or two brief points, because we are reaching the closing stages of the Bill. It has been a long haul. Before we plunge into the detail of all the Amendments, we want to make it absolutely clear, as we have throughout, that we are totally opposed to the Bill. We shall continue to be opposed to it when it becomes an Act, and we shall want to get it off the Statute Book at the earliest possible moment.
      I should also like to say something about the Prime Minister's speech last Saturday at Gloucester, in which he claimed a great deal for the Bill. He amazingly claimed that it has been very
      622
      successful—before it has passed through all its stages here. That is not instant Government; it would be miraculous Government. He says that the Bill has already led to a reduction in the number of strikes. He also says that the reflation of the economy has come about as a result of a Bill which has not yet passed through the House. That would be miraculous Government, and we do not accept it. It is a fallacy, and we believe that the right hon. Gentleman knows it. The Bill has had no real effect on industrial relations, except in a negative sense, because workers opposed to it have been involved in industrial action in which they would not otherwise have been involved.
      We are considering an Opposition Amendment which was supported by the Liberals and accepted by the Government. But I want to make it absolutely clear, because of something the Secretary of State said in the previous debate on the guillotine Motion, that whilst we put forward certain Amendments in the other place, some of which were accepted, that did not mean that we accepted the Bill in principle. In other words, we were getting the best we could from the situation as it stood, and it is important that that should be absolutely clear. We shall not divide against the Amendment, but we accept it in the spirit which I have described—that it is not basically in line with what we want, but is the best that we can get in the circumstances.
      It must be understood that the trade union movement is part and parcel of the community as a whole. It represents 10 million working people out of the total population of just over 50 million, so it is one-fifth of the community. The general interests of the community are therefore very much in line with those of the trade union movement. We emphasise that, because too often it is suggested that the interests of the community and those of the trade union movement are different. The community is the trade union movement and when we are talking about the general interests of the community we are equally talking about the general interests of trade unionists as a whole.
      Mr. Stanley Orme: It is interesting to observe that the Amendment deletes the words "responsibly conducted" about which we had a long

      623
      philosophical debate at an early stage of the Bill. The Secretary of State then stoutly rejected our arguments. The debate ran for about eight or nine hours and was the forerunner of the guillotine which was introduced shortly afterwards. It is interesting to note that although concessions have been made on minor points, they were made in another place and the Secretary of State did not have the courtesy to make them here and to accept our arguments. We felt that we were addressing a blank wall because of his cavalier attitude to our suggestions.
      Mr. R. Carr: Did the hon. Gentleman or any of his hon. Friends move an Amendment remotely like that to which we have now agreed?
      Mr. Orme: We debated this principle and we debated the words "responsibly conducted", and one after another three eminent lawyers from both sides of the House gave different interpretations of the meaning of the words.
      Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that a different form of words had to be found to replace the word "responsibly"? The Opposition did not suggest an Amendment at the time—that is not a matter of complaint; they just did not. None of us at the time was able to find the correct legal formula to provide the meaning. This has now been done by saying that the workers and employers must pay due regard to the general interests of the community, which is another way of saying, "responsibly".
      Mr Orme: That is a lawyer's interpretation. I accept that these words say much the same thing.
      Mr. Harold Walker Mr. Harold Walker (Doncaster) I recall the debate very clearly, because I participated in it. It was not that we were seeking to find a synonym. While accepting in principle, as a matter of common sense and everyday behaviour, the need to behave responsibly and with due regard to the general interests of the community, we pointed out that such a pejorative word had no place in legislation, because it threw the onus to decide what was responsible behaviour on to a judicial body. Even in this case a court will still have to determine what is
      624
      in the general interests of the community. We said that it was wrong of the Government to do that. We said that the responsibility for determining what was in the general interests of the community rested with the Government and with Parliament.
      Mr. Orme: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The Secretary of State asked whether we had sought to amend those words; we sought to delete them, as he will remember. We had a long debate on Clause 1, which contains much of the philosophy of the Bill to which we still completely object.
      I know that this Amendment was suggested in another place by supporters of my party, but one is entitled to ask what the Government mean by the interests of the community and who will define those interests. I remember the Wilber-force Committee throwing almost this definition in the face of the Government and saying that it was not for it to decide.
      Are the trade unions to take as a starting point in this exercise of determining what is in the general interests of the community the Government's actions in the last 12 months, actions which have sorted out the pay claims of workers in the public sector for special treatment, and the claim by the Post Office workers is a classic example?
      Mr. Kenneth Lewis: And the engineers today?
      Mr. Orme: There was a U.P.W. strike which resulted in an award of 9 per cent., but the Post Office engineers are now awarded 13 per cent. In the U.P.W. now in a position to argue that there should be due regard to the general interests of the community? As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) said, the trade unionists are members of the community. The Government's actions on wage awards have been directly against the interests of members of the community.
      For instance, the Social Security Bill will abolish the three waiting days for unemployment benefit and industrial injury and sickness benefit, and that will affect millions of trade unionists. We shall later reach Amendment No. 301, which is one of the most pernicious to be inserted in another place. Are the general interests of the community duly

      625
      regarded when certain sections are singled out for special treatment, for the unfair treatment displayed by the Government in their attitude to public service employees and to social security benefits?
      6.0 p.m.
      It is all very well sending a Bill like this to the trade unions and using in Clause 1 words saying that the negotiations shall be
      "… conducted on behalf of workers and employers and with due regard to the general interests of the community."
      If that is so this Government are not setting a very good example. We have got to take this into account and I hope that the Minister does not think that this loss of words and the acceptance of the Amendment in another place absolves the Government from the responsibility for this pernicous legislation, this anti-social legislation which discriminates against sections of workers. This does not take into account the general interests of the community but gives preferential treatment to some and discriminates against others.
      Clause 1 is the philosophical base of the Bill. The Amendment has not improved the Bill because the Government's policies are so wrong. If the Government think they can get away with such phraseology and climb on to the band-wagon they are mistaken.
      Mr. David Mitchell: I did not intend to intervene in the debate at this point but I feel that I must say a word of rejection of what the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) has said about the Minister being like a brick wall. In Committee no Minister was more careful in the consideration he gave to the cases made by the Opposition as well as by his own back benchers. The very length of the number of Amendments accepted by the Government is a sign of this. The right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) drew attention, in another context, to the very large number of Amendments. This is a vindication of the way in which the Minister has kept a receptive ear and it is a total rejection of the comments by the hon. Member.
      Mr. Kevin McNamara: I apologise to the Secretary of State for being a few minutes late when
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      he opened the debate. Having heard what the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell) has said I must confess that whatever consideration the right hon. Gentleman gave to our Amendment, that consideration always ended up with a flat "No". The only Amendment we wanted was that the Bill should be taken out completely. With regard to this new phrase
      "… with due regard to the general interests of the community"
      I take issue with my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme). He said that the Government had paid no attention to the interests of the community recently. They have. They have just conducted negotiations with the Six and capitulated to them. Apart from the community if we look at this term
      "… the general interests of the community"
      who I ask is to distinguish between the person as a member of society and say that his desire to improve his living standards and those of his family is against the general interests of the community? Who will be the arbiter of the general interests of the community?
      It should not be the trade unions or the employer. The person who decides what is in the general interests of the community must be the government of the day and not a person who is introducing the negotiations. He looks to what is in the interests of his members and identifies his members with the community as a whole and negotiates in their interests.
      This Amendment is no better than what we had before. To say that the negotiations must be conducted responsibly or in the proper interests of the community is all very well. Every trade union negotiator who knows his business presents his claim responsibly. Everyone goes in with the interests of the community at heart, because they see the interests of their members as part and parcel of the community. These words neither improve nor help the Bill. They are a nonsense.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: I too, did not intend to intervene but I wish to say this briefly, once and for all. We have listened to two more Second Reading speeches, one from the Opposition Front Bench by the hon.

      627
      Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) and the other by the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme). If they continue to abuse the processes of the Lords Amendments instead of getting on with the argument attendant on each Amendment I for one will speak in other debates. If we are going to have this used as a stalking-horse with all the old arguments, all the old claptrap about whether it is good for certain unions, all the speaking to the general public outside once more instead of getting on with the job, then we on this side will mark our opponents opposite. I will not sit here and hear a lot of general argument like the speech from the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara).
      It was a wholly unnecessary speech from beginning to end. It said nothing. We have an Amendment here for which the Opposition asked. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) was perfectly justified in saying that he may not accept the Clause. This was an improved Amendment. It could have been taken on the nod. It was no more and no less than a different use of the word "responsible" by the words set out. It is to do with the principle of collective bargaining; it is nothing to do with the general argument as to who does and who does not decide it. The question is whether the Amendment is acceptable. It is acceptable to all parties. We could have by now been dealing with the fifth or sixth Amendment.
      There are over 300 Amendments and it will be to the advantage of the country if as many of them as possible are properly debated. I appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite not to waste the time of the House on Amendments which are wholly unexceptionable—[Interruption.] Wasting time on Amendments which are entirely acceptable and because of that we do not get on with matters—[Interruption.] It is an Amendment well known to be acceptable on behalf of the Opposition and regarded as a substantial improvement.
      Mr. Heffer: We are entitled to speak.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: Yes, entitled to say "We accept it", but not to deliver a great diatribe about the generalities of the Bill and then go on, when my light hon. Friend does his best to find a for-
      628
      mula which is acceptable, to make it a launching pad for an attack upon the Bill as a whole. What is the effect? My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell) gets up and says that he has to put the record straight and having heard this I too get up. As a result this Amendment which ought to have been and should have been disposed of in one minute and a half to two minutes has taken half an hour.
      I merely say this. We have five days to do good business. I am certain that we on this side will not interrupt and will not speak more than is necessary. If hon. Members really want to make certain that the whole of this gets into a turmoil and ends up with a lot of party warfare instead of what is for the benefit of the community, then let them start this game on the first Amendment by making unnecessary speeches. It will merely mean that those on our side will take their full share of the time.
      On this first Amendment there would have been no speakers at all. It could have been passed in two minutes. Hon. Gentlemen know in their heart of hearts that this is true. Let us try to get on with those Amendments that are acceptable so that we can talk briefly about these important matters. Where there is controversy on an issue let the contest be decided as quickly as possible.
      Mr. Harold Walker: It is not for the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) to make decisions on behalf of the House, as he presumes to do. It is for hon. Members to judge what is or what is not important. He suggests that all we are talking about is a general principle. I remind him that our objection, powerfully expressed in Committee and in another place, has been to the fact that the National Industrial Relations Court might well have to take this matter into account. This is one of the obligations imposed on it by the Bill.
      We have said before, and we say now, that, while we accept the general principle, our objection is to this being written into the legislation as something to be determined by the National Industrial Relations Court. Hon. Members have a sense of obligation to constituents, and if they have views on this matter they should express them. That is what they have been sent here to do.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: The hon. Gentleman must be deliberately missing the point. This is not the occasion on which we should again debate the general principles of the Bill. The question before us is whether we agree with the Lords in the said Amendment. We all agree with the Lords. Hon. Members are merely dealing with the minutiae of a legal formula as to whether the terms are sufficient. It is agreed that they are sufficient. Therefore, let us get on with the debate.
      Mr. Ronald King Murray: I regret the remarks of the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies), because he has tried to curtail a debate which has already been curtailed by the guillotine and to introduce a free enterprise guillotine on his own judgment and responsibility. I do not intend to let his remarks distract me from making any comments I am entitled to make in probing the Government's thinking behind the Amendment.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Sal-ford, West (Mr. Orme), in his pertinent remarks, pointed out that the National Industrial Relations Court might have to adjudicate about the general interests of the Community and decide to what extent parties to industrial negotiations should have them taken into account. Clause 1 deals with a much wider sphere of industrial relations than simply the question of the National Industrial Relations Court.
      I ask the Secretary of State—and I hope that he will do me the courtesy of replying—whether the Government contemplate any institutional arrangement before matters reach the National Industrial Relations Court to ensure that the general interests of the community are protected. Will the Government wait until a case is referred to the Court, or do they contemplate that steps may be taken by a third party at an earlier stage in the general interests of the community if they are thought to require representation?
      Mr. David Stoddart: It is absolutely intolerable that hon. Members opposite should be so mealy-mouthed and hypocritical in their remarks about Opposition speeches on this Amendment. The
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      answer was in the Government's hands when they drafted the Bill. The verbiage in the Clause has caused all the argument about it.
      This is a matter of some importance because the National Industrial Relations Court will have to pronounce on whether something is in the interests of the community. As one who has negotiated at national level, I see in the Clause another argument to be used by the employers in negotiations. Not only will figures have to be produced making comparisons with other industries, but we shall have to answer the criticisms——
      Mr. Raymond Gower: The hon. Gentleman is under a misapprehension. Does he not appreciate that we are not here concerned with the Government's thinking? We are concerned with the thinking of Lord Diamond, who moved the Amendment in another place. The Government have simply moved to accept it. It is the hon. Gentleman's party's thinking which is embodied in the Amendment.
      6.15 p.m.
      Mr. Stoddart: I am speaking as a backbench Member, and as a trade union member and representative.
      I see real dangers in the Clause for the reasons which I have given. It represents another argument which will have to be answered by trade unionists when they negotiate at national level and local level, because the employers will say, "We should love to give you an increase, but it would be against the general interests". I worked in the electricity supply industry and subsidised low-cost electricity for many years. Electricity supply workers will be told by the employers that it is not in the general interests of the community that electricity prices should increase although perhaps they should have as great an increase as car workers.
      I am not happy about the Clause. I was not happy about it before. I say, with apologies to my colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench, that I am less happy with the Amendment than I was with what was proposed originally.
      Question put and agreed to.

    Clause 3

      APPROVAL BY PARLIAMENT OF CODE OF PRACTICE AND REVISIONS OF CODE
      Lords Amendment: No. 2, in page 3, line 1, after "shall" insert:
      "after consultation with the Trades Union Congress and the Confederation of British Industry".
      The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Dudley Smith): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      The Amendment will oblige the Secretary of State to consult the Trades Union Congress and the Confederation of British Industry before preparing a draft revision of the Code of Industrial Relations Practice or of any part of it. The Amendment was made in another place at the suggestion of an Opposition Peer. It does not mean that only the two bodies I have mentioned will be consulted by the Secretary of State. It has always been my right hon. Friend's intention to consult as widely and fully as possible those concerned with industrial relations over the preparation of the draft code and the subsequent revisions which are bound to be made from time to time.
      That has been made clear many times, and nothing makes the point better than the Consultative Document which was published not long ago. My right hon. Friend said in the foreword:
      "I hope these proposals will be most carefully studied by management, trade unions and all others concerned with relations between employers and employees. I shall welcome the fullest possible discussion and consultation. In the light of this discussion and of the comments received, I shall be preparing a further version of the code which 1 hope to submit to Parliament for approval before the end of this year."
      Mr. Ronald King Murray: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that this House is to have no opportunity to debate the code until the Bill is enacted?
      Mr. Smith: The hon. and learned Gentleman knows that that is not a matter for me. It is for the Leader of the House, and no doubt the hon. and learned Member will wish to ask my right hon. Friend about it. It would be wrong or me to pass an opinion on it. My right hon. Friend is having the widest consultation before evolving the code
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      which will be debated in the House. I am sorry that the Trades Union Congress has not agreed to give its comments on the code. I hope very much that it will do so, because we want it to have the widest possible currency before the Government finally pronounce on it.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: On a point of order. The question of the code of conduct has been raised by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray) in a question he put to my hon. Friend. It would seem that this matter is now being pursued. I respectfully submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that it must be out of order to consider on this Amendment anything other than consultation with the T.U.C. and the C.B.I. The establishment of the code and the question whether it is debatable do not arise on this Amendment.
      Mr. Paul B. Rose: Further to that point of order. Is it not bad enough to be guillotined without being gagged before being guillotined? The hon. Gentleman seems to have set himself up as a temporary Mr. Speaker. Is it not right that the Minister was dealing with the Lords Amendment perfectly properly and right to introduce this matter of the code so that the Lords Amendment might be properly debated?
      Mr. Speaker: I think it much better that Mr. Speaker should be left to decide what is in order.
      Mr. Dudley Smith: I was only endeavouring to be helpful. I was about to give way to the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin).
      Mr. Loughlin: I wanted information about consultation. The hon. Gentleman said that it is the intention to consult the T.U.C. and the C.B.I, as far as possible. He then made play with the fact that he would consult other people, other bodies, other organisations. Will he tell us who are those people?
      Mr. Dudley Smith: They are a very wide range of many interested parties. Already my right hon. Friend has had quite a number of submissions on the draft of the code of industrial practice and there will probably be many more.

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      We are prepared to accept advice and opinions from anybody, from hon. Members, from trade unions, from professional organisations, or indeed anyone who in any way may be affected by the code. I do not want to go too far about it or go out of order, because obviously that would upset certain hon. Gentlemen.
      Mr. McNamara: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but I think I have an important point, and I am not seeking to curtail his argument. Under the Bill the T.U.C. cannot register till all the affiliates are registered. Does he mean that he will consult the Trades Union Congress and Congress will be consulted about conditions of work as contained in the code and that, therefore, they will be negotiating about work practices to be employed by unions not affiliated? That would seem to make nonsense of the situation.
      Mr. Dudley Smith: I do not think it would. We cannot see the future and what exactly will happen over registration. That is another question to be debated, but my right hon. Friend intends, before deciding to revise this code of practice, to have consultation with the two main bodies which have always been associated with industry in this country, the T.U.C. on the workers 'side and the C.B.I, on the employers' side. I think that any reasonable person would accept that this would be worth while. I thought that, with the Bill as it was before originally, it was pretty plain that my right hon. Friend would have very wide consultations indeed, but to put the matter entirely beyond doubt we have accepted the Amendment moved in another place, and that is why I recommend the House to accept it now.
      Mr. Rose: I should like to preface my remarks by saying, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) did, that I do not accept the premises of this Bill and totally reject them. Anything I say will be addressed to the Lords Amendment, and is not to be understood as suggesting in any way that the premises of the Bill are to be acceptable.
      I would also say in rebuttal of the suggestion made by the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies), who is now, happily, leaving the Chamber,
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      that the matters raised by the Minister were quite properly raised, and that it would be quite wrong to try to deal with this Lords Amendment in a vacuum or in a purely legalistic way divorced from the problems of industrial relations which is what the Bill is all about.
      By accepting the need for consultation with both the C.B.I, and the T.U.C. the Government are giving effect to an Amendment which was first tabled during Committee on the Bill in this House by my hon. and right hon. Friends in respect of two matters where we think consultation to be necessary for good industrial relations.
      We think that repentance is good for the soul and we on this side will always be happy to welcome converts, even on their death beds. What we are astonished at in this case is that repentance has come, as it were, after death, because we debated the Bill in the House, we debated it in Committee, we debated it on Report, and then it was considered in Committee and on Report by the other place; there was the so-called Consultative Document on the Bill and there was the other so-called document on the code of practice. We have had all that, but the one thing we have not had is consultation. Indeed, the first document was aptly termed by many of my hon. Friends "In Place of Consultation". The consultation of which the hon. Gentleman spoke, so far as it related to the T.U.C, has been non-existent. Whose fault it is I will deal with in a moment, but if the Government support this Lords Amendment it means that they have themselves felt the need for repentance. Now their words speak louder than their actions.
      At least they pay lip service to the principle of consultation, and for this, at least, we are grateful and thankful to the Secretary of State, but I hope that he will assure the House that consultation means something more than telling the T.U.C. what he proposes, with advance warning that nothing the T.U.C. will say will move him from his entrenched position which he will have taken up. That has been his attitude all along. He told us that he was prepared to consult hon. Members on details, not matters of principle. Consultation must be about details, but, above all, consultation, if it is to

      635
      mean anything, must be about principles as well, and I hope that he will accept that it means that in this context.
      The Secretary of State has been reluctant to consult, but the documents which have already appeared follow directly from the Bill, and he refused any meaningful consultation with the T.U.C., and there must be grave doubt in the minds of many of my hon. Friends whether this Lords Amendment is other than a pious hope.
      We have to accept that the Government are pledged to consult——
      Mr. Carr: I know the hon. Gentleman likes to be fair, and I think he usually is, but what he is saying about my willingness or unwillingness to consult can be described, within the terms used in this House, only as the opposite of the facts.
      Mr. Rose: The right hon. Gentleman contends that he is willing to consult, but he is not willing to consult in the sense of being willing to consult on the principles of the Bill or of the code of practice, and yet the code of practice is derived directly from the Bill. It could not exist separate and apart from the Bill, and he refuses to consult about the principles in relation to the Bill. Therefore it is impossible for him to say that he is willing to consult about the code of industrial practice when he was unwilling to consult about the principles in the Bill from which the code was derived. I cannot accept his protestations, try as I will to be fair to him.
      As I say, he is now pledged to consult, and I hope that he will realise that he is vulnerable—perhaps legally, but certainly politically. He will be vulnerable if he fails to consult fully with the T.U.C. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will realise that without consultation—and this has been his failing all along—there can be no co-operation, and that without cooperation there can be no peace in industry.
      Mr. Dudley Smith: My right hon. Friend is only too anxious to consult the T.U.C. I tried to make that point in my speech. The door is open, but, so far, unfortunately, no one has come through it.
      Mr. Rose: The door is open to the trap which the right hon. Gentleman has
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      laid, because what has happened is that we now have a Bill which is totally unacceptable not only to us on this side of the House but to the trade union movement. Part of the Bill provides for a code of fair industrial practice, and that is derived from the Bill, and it takes its premise from the Bill. That is not acceptable. There is no point in the Minister saying that he is prepared to negotiate about something which was no longer negotiable. It was negotiable before the Bill was put before the House. At that stage the right hon. Gentleman refused to negotiate with the trade union movement on matters of principle.
      6.30 p.m.
      I will not stray too far beyond the bounds of the Amendment. We accept the Amendment in the spirit in which it was first moved by the Opposition. Although we are sceptical, we are nevertheless generous and, therefore, we are reluctant to disappoint the Minister. We support the Amendment in the spirit in which we believe these words should be taken.
      In doing so I again emphasise that we hope that in future these words will be acted upon and that there will be full co-operation. There have been a few indications that the Secretary of State is beginning to learn that there is a necessity for real consultation and not the open door which he thinks now exists, whereas in fact the door was firmly shut long before the Bill came before the House
      Mr. Rees-Davies: I must intervene to put the record straight, because what was said by the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) is the reverse of the truth. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has followed an open-door policy throughout in the preparation of, and in the revision of, any draft code of practice. He has always indicated that he would be delighted to consult the T.U.C. and the C.B.I. At the instance of the Opposition this is now written into the Bill. The T.U.C. does not want to use it. These are the facts. Having got the facts straight, let us try to get on with another agreed Amendment without another long debate.
      Mr. Gower: I welcome that statement made by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that there will be consultation

      637
      throughout and that there will always be consultation when there is any desire to revise. The origin of this Amendment is similar to the origin of the first Amendment. It is the result of an Amendment moved by the Opposition in another place. 1 appreciate the fact that the Government have accepted the Amendment in an honest wish to meet the Opposition's anxieties and views.
      I do not like this wording, because if there is a provision to the effect that the Government must consult two named bodies—the C.B.I, and the T.U.C.—the inference is that the Government have done all that is necessary once they have consulted those two bodies. It would have been better had bodies not been specified and if there had been some general wording requiring the Secretary of State to consult as widely as was deemed necessary. However, to meet the Opposition the Government have gone a little further than they might have felt inclined to go and have specified the bodies suggested by the Opposition. To that extent, I welcome my hon. Friend's assurance that the consultation will be constant and wide.
      Mr. Charles Loughlin: As I read the Bill together with the Amendment, it places upon the Secretary of State the statutory obligation to consult two bodies—the T.U.C. and the C.B.I.; he must do that before he can produce his code of practice. In the event of the refusal of either the C.B.I, or the T.U.C. to consult, is it the position that the Secretary of State is prevented from carrying out his statutory obligations and that the code of practice cannot be published?
      Mr. R, Carr: Of course it does not mean what the hon. Gentleman has implied. It would be totally improper and unconstitutional if a private party in the community, merely by refusing to consult when given every opportunity to do so, could frustrate the will of an elected Government. This provision imposes upon me the duty to consult. I shall do that, and I am sure that my successors will do it, with great genuineness. It cannot be put in the hands of some party entirely outside the House to deny and frustrate the will of Parliament and the will of a properly elected
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      Government acting through Parliament. If people refuse to consult or do not wish to consult, my duty is discharged.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Lords Amendment: No. 3, in page 3, line 7, leave out from "and" to "shall" in line 8 and insert:
      "shall arrange for any such advice to be published in such manner as he may consider appropriate; and, if the Secretary of State determines to proceed with the draft, he".
      Mr. Dudley Smith: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      The effect of the Amendment is to require the Secretary of State to publish advice given to him by the Commission on Industrial Relations relating to a proposed revision of all or part of the code of practice. Following what was said in the previous short debate, I make it clear that we wish to be as open and possible over the code and its subsequent revision which may take place from time to time.
      The suggestion was made in Committee in another place that it would be helpful for it to be on the record as to what the C.I.R. had said in its reference to my right hon. Friend. Eventually this Amendment was incorporated in the Bill. We can see nothing against it. We are all in favour of greater clarification. In the circumstances, I hope that the House will see its way clear to accepting the Amendment.
      Mr. Harold Walker: In welcoming the Amendment I wish to raise a small query. I do not challenge the hon. Gentleman's integrity. I hope that I have not got an over-suspicious mind. In view of the Minister's statement in another place that one reason for the Government's original reluctance was that the C.I.R. might not in certain circumstances wish its advice to be made public, will the hon. Gentleman shed a little light on the need to insert the qualification—
      "published in such manner as he may consider appropriate"?
      I hope that there is no intention of seeking to avoid any of the openness to which the hon. Gentleman has just given expression.
      Mr. Dudley Smith: I give that assurance. There is no question of trying to dodge the issue. These are the usual

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      words used in such circumstances. There is nothing sinister about them. It will probably be for general agreement between the C.I.R. and the Secretary of State of the day as to how it should be published. I take note of the hon. Gentleman's point. I assure him that there is no question of this being an effort to be selective as to the type of publication that will take place. I look forward to, and hope that there will be, very good co-operation and understanding on matters of this sort between C.I.R. and the Secretary of State.
      Question put and agreed to.

    Clause 5

      RIGHTS OF WORKERS IN RESPECT OF TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP AND ACTIVITIES
      Lords Amendment: No. 4, in page 3, line 35, leave out "if he so desires".
      Mr. Dudley Smith: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      It was felt both here during our previous debates and in another place that the words "if he so desires", taken in this context, might unduly accentuate the right not to belong to a trade union. We certainly do not wish to give that impression. I do not necessarily accept that the impression would have been created by the fact that these words were retained. Because doubts have been expressed—I think they were genuine doubts—we were happy to remove the words in another place.
      On the whole, I think that the words are not necessary. It has always been my belief that the Bill will do much to encourage trade unionism and that it is far more favourable to trade unions than many people suggest. Therefore, we will make any Amendment which we can make which will go some way towards encouraging legitimately those who are engaged in industry to join a trade union. My right hon. Friend has been on record on a number of occasions as saying how keen we are to encourage people to join trade unions, provided that they then conduct themselves responsibly within the framework which the Bill builds up. In this situation the Amendment is slightly
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      helpful and I am sure that, in view of the comments made on it in our earlier proceedings, the Opposition will be prepared to accept it.
      Mr. Heffer: I am sorry, but we must make some comments on this Amendment. It is essential to do so in order to make our position clear, for otherwise our acceptance of certain Amendments could be interpreted as being acceptance of the principles lying behind the Bill. It must be stressed again and again that, in accepting particular Amendments, we are doing so on the understanding that we do not accept the principles of the Bill.
      Mr. Dudley Smith: Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman. We accept that he is against the whole Bill in principle but that he is prepared to support certain Amendments which both sides believe will improve the Bill. Surely we can take that as read.
      Mr. Heffer: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman accepts the point. This Amendment was moved by the Opposition in another place and accepted by the Government. But I must stress that the Government accepted it only because they felt that it did not give away any of the principles of the Bill. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman has himself underlined that point. While the Amendment makes the position slightly better in this Clause, it in no way creates a situation in which the closed shop, which is something which workers want in many industries, can become a right for the workers. The closed shop principle is very much involved. I want to recall the remarks of Lord Windlesham in another place. He said:
      "Do we really need these words in the clause? They are in paragraphs (a) and (b) but, as I have explained, the Secretary of State in another place has made clear that in his view they are not equal and opposing rights. They are very important rights. By adding the new subsection (5). he has put a statement of intent on the Statute Book, to encourage workers to join a trade union. That being so, we feel that we can accept the Amendment…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 4th May, 1971; Vol. 318, c. 203.]
      It must be clearly underlined that subsection (5) does not cut across subsection (1)(b), which gives the worker the right not to be a member of a trade union. Therefore, these are not equal rights. The emphasis is still on the right not to be

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      a member of a trade union, and this in effect is acceptance of American policy which, as we have pointed out before, has the so-called "right to work" law. Whilst this is a concession, it is only minor. It continues and perpetuates non-trade unionism and strikes at the very concept of the closed shop. It does away with certain rights which our workers have enjoyed for a long time.
      The Amendment will continue to make it difficult for trade unions to recruit. It will build up the reserve of non-trade unionists. It will encourage the free riders. As my noble Friend Lord Hoy said in another place, if it had not been for the actions of the trade unions over the years, the workers would not have the good conditions which they enjoy at present. So the Clause and the Amendment do not help to improve the conditions of the workers, despite the fact that the Amendment is a concession.
      6.45 p.m.
      Up to now, under the common law, the employer has had the right to lay down almost all the conditions for those who work for him. He can tell the worker that he must join the superannuation fund or the sick fund. He can tell him that he must not smoke in certain places, that he must clock in or clock off. Under the Bill, the employer will not be able to say in future, "You must belong to the appropriate trade union". I must emphasise, therefore, that this Clause, even with the Amendment, takes certain rights away from the workers. We do not agree with that principle. We accept the Amendment reluctantly and make it clear that we are opposed to Clause 5 as a whole.
      Mr. Gower: The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) is being less than fair. Subsection (5), with or without the words "if he so desires", puts into the Statutes of this country for the first time the right of an employee to be a member of a trade union as he may choose. This is a very important right. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, there have been cases in fairly recent history of unenlightened employers refusing to employ a person merely because that person has joined a trade union of his choice. Now, for the first time, it will not be in order legally for the employer to act in that way. The hon. Gentleman could at least admit that sub-
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      section (1), with or without these words, is an important landmark in enhancing and widening the right of the employee to join the union of his choice.
      Mr. Hugh Jenkins: It would be surprising if a Bill of this length, which is purported to be of benefit to the trade unions and the working people, did not contain one Clause which might have some slight benefit to some members of the community. As a trade union official, before I began to work for the actors, I worked for the bank employees, and it is possible that in their case this right may enable their trade union to deal more effectively than in the past with the banks, which include some of the most reactionary employers in the country. There is no worse employer, from the point of view of conceding rights, although conditions of bank employees are not as bad as they are in other forms of employment. Nevertheless, I repeat that, on the question of conceding rights of employees, banks are amongst the worst employers. So there is something here.
      In Committee, we drew attention to the undesirability of the phrase, "if he so desires", and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) that the words are redundant and that we are glad to see them go. But he is right in saying that the so-called concession is unreal. Indeed, throughout the whole proceedings of the Bill—this Amendment is an example of the general tendency—what the Government have done is to pretend to give away something when they are sure that they are not giving away anything at all. Some hon. Members opposite think that the removal of these few words is a real concession, but in fact it is not. But when Ministers were asked to give practical effect to the removal of these words by making it possible for a trade union to operate a closed shop, they absolutely and entirely refused to make any concession. So an apparent concession is not carried further, and this is bound to deceive some hon. Members opposite.
      A distinguished member of the theatrical profession told me the other day that he had been sold down the river by hon. Members opposite, who had told him that the removal of these words meant that Equity would be able to operate in the future as it had in the

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      past. This is quite untrue. Ministers know it, but not all their supporters do. Ministers know that it will not enable that trade union to work in future as it has in the past. The Amendment may be accepted, but we must not exaggerate the advantages of the change—they are very small indeed.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: Will the hon. Member indicate which hon. Members on this side have ever said anything of that kind? We have had a number of long consultations with Equity and with other unions, and as far as I know none of my hon. Friends has ever suggested that they would be in the same position as before. It has been said that they would have certain special concessions which would not apply to other unions, but I am not aware of any hon. Member on this side ever saying that they would be in the same position as before.
      Mr. Hugh Jenkins: At a later stage I will quote chapter and verse in support of my statement.
      Mr. Orme: We cannot debate paragraph (b) of subsection (1) because there is no Amendment to it. Paragraph (a) gives a worker the right to be a member of a trade union, and (b) gives him the right not to be a member. The Minister knows that Clause 5 is one of the most contentious of all the Clauses, and it is a pity that we cannot debate it more fully now.
      To say that someone may be a member of such trade union as he chooses sounds very democratic but in practice it may be just the opposite, and probably will be. The Bill will encourage company trade unions. A man could choose a union not relevant to the industry in which he worked. In the engineering industry we have the Toolmakers' Society. We do not look on it as an official trade union and it is not recognised by the T.U.C., but the conflict between Society and the A.U.E.W. has had a detrimental effect on production on a number of occasions. I can see the Clause making that situation worse.
      We all agree that a man should have the right to join the union applicable to his industry and recognised by it. Thus, he might quite rightly choose between the A.U.E.W. and the A.S.T.M.S., or be-
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      tween the A.U.E.W. and the E.T.U. and Plumbing Trades Union. That is a genuine choice, but the ability to choose a trade union not generally understood to be applicable to his industry—it could be a company trade union—could injure industrial relations and lead to fragmentation of trade unions. The Minister, in Opposition, fought long and eloquently for the need to reduce the number of trade unions and to have industrial trade unionism. All that has gone out of the window now, because the Bill will have exactly the opposite effect.
      Mr. Charles Curran: We have heard many speeches from the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme), and most of them have been a good deal better than that. His speech was a classic example of how to drop bricks without having the straw to make them with. His grievance, as far as I understand it, is that the Bill gives a worker the right to join as he may choose, but the hon. Member would like him to have that right provided he chooses in accordance with the wishes of the Labour Party or the T.U.C.—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] He apparently thinks that to give the worker unfettered right of choice is very dangerous: the fellow might even exercise his right in a way very unpleasant to the hon. Gentleman and his friends.
      He instanced the worker who might be so very degraded as to want to join a company union. Must that worker be forbidden to do so? If he is so half witted, as the hon. Gentleman would term him, as to want to join such a union, the hon. Gentleman says that he must by law be forbidden to do so. When we give people a choice, it is a choice which in the opinion of some people, may be misused. That is one of the most regrettable effects of a free society. If they can choose even the party they want to vote for, some will be so degraded as to choose to vote for the Tory Party. Are we therefore to take from them their free choice?
      Mr. Orme: The hon. Gentleman has twisted the argument. We are opposed to all the legal paraphernalia in the Bill which compels workers to do this or that, or to jump through this hoop or that. We believe in a free and independent trade union movement, but we are opposed to the Minister writing in terms

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      detrimental to the established trade union movement.
      Mr. Curran: I appreciate that at this stage we cannot discuss the entire principle of the Bill, and I am addressing myself to the narrow question whether we have here a change that we should accept. I dissent from the hon. Gentleman's attempt to argue that the words "as he may choose" are dangerous because, as he tells us, people may choose to join a union of which he disapproves. There are some people, apparently who, he fears, would exercise their free choice instead of joining the union to which he belongs. They may even join a union which does not affiliate to the T.U.C. Does he say that workers shall not be free to choose such a union? Does he think that they cannot be entrusted with the right of free choice, whether or not that choice is to join a union affiliated to the T.U.C?
      7.0 p.m.
      Mr. Dan Jones: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has got the point. My hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) speaks from experience. Certain trade unions have procedure agreements with employers. That is an accepted fact. If a worker opts to join a trade union which is not a party to a procedure agreement, who will negotiate on his behalf? Is the hon. Gentleman seeking to bring in yet other trade unions to make the situation worse?
      Mr. Curran: I am astonished that that sort of argument should be advanced by the hon. Gentleman. It is simply a repetition of the general proposition that a worker is not fit to choose, and that the choice must be made for him. The hon. Gentleman is telling me that it might happen that a worker will join a union which does not have a bargaining relationship with the employer. Is not that for the worker to choose? The hon. Gentleman says that if we allow a worker the unfettered right to choose it may happen that he will join a union which does not have a bargaining relationship with his employer. That is the worker's funeral, if he chooses to do that. It is up to him. Does the hon. Gentleman seriously say that he should be forbidden to do so? It sounds preposterous.
      Mr. Dan Jones: The worker should be encouraged to join a union which has a procedure agreement with the employer.
      Mr. Curran: There is nothing in the Bill to stop the worker from being, as the hon. Gentleman says, encouraged. I wonder how the word "encouraged" might be defined. We can all think of processes of encouragement. I am taking the argument and seeking to show the hon. Gentleman that it is bogus.
      The hon. Gentleman asks what will happen if a worker wishes to join a union which does not have a bargaining relationship with the employer. My reply to that is that if a worker chooses to join such a union he should be completely free to do so, even if that is something which, in the hon. Gentleman's opinion, it is to his disadvantage to do. That is one of the snags of a free society, that we give people the freedom to choose, and that some of them, in the opinion of some of us, misuse that freedom. But that is no argument against freedom.
      The hon. Gentleman must make up his mind. Regrettably, there are in this country many people who, if they are given freedom of choice, will exercise it in a fashion that will make the hon. Gentleman's eyebrows go up. The hon. Gentleman must not behave with the timidity of a maiden lady finding herself in a disorderly house, which is what he is doing now. He must recognise, and his nose must be strong enough to take it, that, given a free society, many people will use that freedom in ways that will make him shudder.
      Mr. Dan Jones: It would be a good thing if the hon. Gentleman were not to apply for the post of personnel manager with any reputable company. He would not be liked for ten seconds.
      Mr. Curran: That may be a criticism of me but it may, equally, be a criticism of the company which would not employ me. I think that this is very much an open question.
      Having heard the most that can be urged against this proposal I invite the House to agree—and I fancy that hon. Gentlemen opposite in their calmer moments will agree, too—that the attempt to use this Clause and this debate as a

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      basis for challenging the freedom of the worker to please himself about which union he joins is something which cannot be accepted by anybody in this House.
      Mr. James Sillars: I should like to follow one or two remarks of the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran). I think he is well aware that in any society a limitation is placed voluntarily on absolute freedom, because of the necessity for organisation, on occasion, so that the society runs as smoothly as possible. As my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) said—and I know that the hon. Gentleman has as much knowledge of industry as anyone on this side of the House—in industry there is a requirement for organisation.
      The hon. Gentleman said that if a man joins a totally inappropriate trade union, it may be his funeral, but we on this side of the House know that eventually it may be the company's funeral. If there are a number of splinter unions in a company, that is not good for the company, nor is it good for the workers involved, and that was the point that was being made by my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West.
      The words frequently used by the hon. Member for Uxbridge were, "the need for freedom". May I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that in Clause 5(1)(a) there is a clear limitation of choice and freedom by a large number of what we in this country call trade unionists in this month and in this year? I say that because subsection (a) says that a worker shall have the right
      "to be a member of such trade union as he may choose",
      and that is a trade union within the legal definition of the Bill. In the next subsection he is given the right not to be a member of a trade union
      "or other organisation of workers…"
      There is an important distinction between paragraphs (a) and (b). A worker who is a trade unionist, a member of the A.U.E.W., a union which has chosen not to register under the Bill, is no longer entitled to the so-called freedom of paragraph (a) which the hon. Gentleman has been extolling with such eloquence. He does not have the statu-
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      tory right to be a member of the A.U.E.W., and I think that we are entitled to have from the Secretary of State a full explanation of why a worker who has been a lifetime member of the A.U.E.W. does not have the right to be a member of that union after the Bill becomes an Act, by virtue of the fact that it will be designated "an organisation of workers."
      Mr. Curran: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman's argument, and I am by no means waving it aside. As it stands, the subsection provides the right to a worker to be a member of such trade union as he may choose. If I understand the hon. Gentleman's argument aright, he would like the worker to have the right to be a member of such trade union as he may choose, provided that the union is affiliated to the T.U.C. Is that the change which the hon. Gentleman wants to make?
      Mr. Sillars: I am sure that it must be my fault for not having explained myself properly. The point I am making is that at present we have what are known as trade unions—for example the A.U.E.W., the engineers' union—but, after the Bill becomes law, if the engineering union decides not to register—as it has done—it is no longer entitled to the title of "trade union" and becomes "an organisation of workers". A worker will have the right to be a member of a trade union, but he will not have a legal right to be a member of the A.U.E.W. I suggest that that is grossly unfair, and that it is a proposition that is unsupportable by hon. Gentlemen opposite. I think that I have said enough at this stage.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Lords Amendment No. 5: In page 3, line 37, leave out from first "to" to "16" in line 38 and insert:
      "sections (Modification of rights by agency shop agreement) and".
      The Solicitor-General (Sir Geoffrey Howe): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      It may be for the convenience of the House if, with that Amendment, we were to discuss the following Lords Amendments.

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      No. 6, in page 4, line 15, leave out "subsections (3) and (4) of this" and insert:
      "the next following".
      No. 7, in page 4, line 24, leave out subsection (3).
      No. 8, in page 4, line 41, leave out subsection (4).
      No. 10, in page 5, line 20, leave out "subsections (1), (2), (5) and (6) of".
      No. 18, in page 8, line 20, leave out from "unions" to "in" in line 21 and insert:
      "or between an employers' association and one or more trade unions, whereby it is agreed".
      It has been suggested that with this group of Amendments we should discuss also Amendment No. 40, in page 14, line 19, at end insert:
      "() Where a worker to whom the agreement applies, and who is specially exempted, has agreed to pay appropriate contributions to a charity, and requests his employer to deduct the contributions from his remuneration and pay them on his behalf, then so long as that request remains in force—

      (a) he shall not be regarded for the purposes of subsection (5)(a) of this section as having refused to pay the contributions to the charity, and

      (b) any failure on the part of the employer to comply with the request shall not be regarded as a failure on the part of the worker to pay the contributions."

      In my view this Amendment is closely related to Amendment No. 11, and I think that it might be more convenient if we were to discuss those two Amendments together in due course.
      Mr. Rose: The only difficulty with that course of action is that my hon. Friend who is dealing with Amendment No. 11 has had no notice of that. The notice that we had was that it would be taken with this group of Amendments. We have acted accordingly, and are prepared to take them as the Solicitor-General first suggested.
      The Solicitor-General: If that be the wish of the Opposition, no doubt it can be done. It will slightly extend the range of the debate on to a matter which could be linked with the new Clause, but I am prepared to deal with it in that way.
      These five Amendments modify the structure of Clause 5 in order to incorporate the subsections there taken out
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      in the new Clause which is the subject of Amendment No. 11. Those Amendments are purely formal, paving Amendments to Amendment No. 11. Amendment No. 18 is one of two which are linked with the new Clause and can therefore be discussed separately. Amendment No. 18 has to be read in conjunction with subsection (3) of the new Clause, which is part of Amendment No. 11, and would mean that an agency shop agreement can be made not only with an employer or employers but also with an employers' association.
      That is in response to an argument urged upon the Government by some of my hon. Friends and in the other place. It is designed to facilitate the making of an agency shop agreement on an industry-wide basis as a result of voluntary agreement between the union or unions and an employers' association.
      If any dispute arises whether such an agency shop agreement should be made, it would still have to be resolved by the procedures, including a ballot, in the Bill. Amendment No. 18 makes it possible, however, for several unions and an employers' association to make such an agreement voluntarily.
      The other substantive Amendment is No. 40, which reproduces subsection (3) of Amendment No. 11. They both achieve the same object and are designed to make it plain that a system of checking off appropriate contributions is admissible in the context of an agency shop. A number of hon. Members and noble Lords urged that some move should be made in this direction. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell), who is not here at the moment, was one who urged that an Amendment on the lines of Amendment No. 40 should be incorporated in Amendment No. 11.
      The object would be to provide that where a worker objects to an agency shop agreement and agrees to pay contributions to a charity or appropriate contributions to the union, and he requests his employer to deduct the contributions from his pay and hand them over on his behalf, he shall not be regarded as having refused to pay the contributions to the charity or appropriate contributions to the union as the case may be. He will have discharged

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      his obligation by notifying his employer that that is what he wishes to have done.
      It seems to the Government, in response to a case urged on us by a number of people, fair and sensible to give the non-member worker in either situation that right to require the deduction of his contribution to the union or to the charity by his employer for him, and then to be protected in accordance with the usual provisions of an agency shop agreement. It is on that basis that we put down these Amendments. I will say no more now about the other aspects of the new Clause, which is the subject of Amendment No. 11, since I understand that we are to debate an Amendment to Amendment No. 11 shortly.
      Mr. John Page: Could my hon. and learned Friend explain that the employer, when the deduction is requested, will inform the union with whom the agency shop agreement is made that this employee is having a deduction made at source? Will that information be made available?
      The Solicitor-General: No doubt that matter will be covered by the agency shop agreement itself. Unions will know better than anyone else each worker in a place of work who is or is not a member. They will know that an agency shop agreement is in existence; they will know those who are members and paying dues to the union, who are required by the terms of the existing agreement to pay their contributions to the union through the employer. The union will also know any particular workers who, for conscientious reasons, will be paying to a charity, because the union will have agreed the charity with them.
      So the union will be well placed to name the work people from whom it requires a contribution through this machinery. It will be an agency shop agreement reached between the union and the employer. If it is an enforceable agreement, the union can enforce it against an employer. If it is not, there is nothing to stop the union taking industrial action to support it.
      So it will be in everyone's interests for it to be perfectly plain who is paying contributions in this way. As I say, the union will know who is not a member. It will go to the employer or to the
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      worker in question and ask what is happening to the contribution. If the worker has assigned it to the employer, the union will know that the employer has it.
      7.15 p.m.
      Mr. Rose: The Solicitor-General will know that we entirely reject the concept of the importation of the agency shop into British industrial relations, but it is clear that Amendment No. 5 is a necessary drafting Amendment to pave the way for the new Clause which is covered by Amendment No. 11. My hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. Harold Walker) will be dealing with this separately in great detail. We on this side have an Amendment to that Amendment.
      In another place, there was considerable cause for concern on this side about the introduction of this new Clause for the modification of rights of agency agreements, which will be articulated in much more detail when we come to Amendment No. 11. Amendments Nos. 6, 7 and 8 are necessary drafting Amendments as a consequence of replacing Clause 5(3) and (4) with the new Clause. There is no need to deal with these except to say again that this will come into the later debate.
      As for Amendments Nos. 18 and 40, apart from the fact that Amendment No. 18 deals with the definition of the agency shop agreement to provide more satisfactory wording to cover employers' associations specifically, I do not see why it has been grouped with the other Amendments, but I see no point of principle at issue. Again, that is a mater to be dealt with under a later Amendment.
      It is on Amendment No. 40 that there is real cause for concern. As I said, we reject the concept of the violation of the closed shop by this Bill. We reject the agency shop. Clause 16 is more of a concession to the knowledge that many employers appreciate the value of the closed shop than to the rights of workers to organise themselves, and there are precious few concessions to that right in this Bill.
      In this context. Amendment No. 40 seeks to protect the worker who elects to pay appropriate contributions to a charity and who requests his employer to make the necessary deductions from his pay and hand over the money on his behalf. If

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      the employer does what the employee requests, then one understands that the employee should be protected from any negligent omission on the part of the employer. He might forget or there might be a mistake in the wages department. A cheque, bankers' order or Giro credit might go astray. All these things are understandable and perhaps inevitable.
      What will happen, on the other hand, if the employer wilfully does not pay out the amount to the charity? What if there is a tacit understanding—let us not use the word "collusion"—that the employer will not pay? How is the employee to know whether the money has been paid unless the necessary information is supplied to him?
      There is an omission in that, not being a party to the contract, the charity might not know that the amount has not been paid to it. It will not be able to take action to recover the sum that should have been paid. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are concerned to protect the interests of charities and will be anxious to know what action will be open to a charity in these circumstances.
      The employee is explicitly exempted. That is the whole purpose of Amendment No. 40. There seems to be no liability whatever on the employer, however, who fails to pay the appropriate sum to the charity. This appears to be a loophole as a result of which a worker who refuses to pay union dues but who gives instructions to his employers to pay the appropriate sum on his behalf to a charity could be left in doubt whether that amount has been paid.
      It should not be the purpose of the Amendment to cosset the free rider or negligent employer. The purpose may be to protect the innocent, and I am prepared to accept that that is the intention of the Government in this matter. Nevertheless, the result may be to protect those who are far from innocent, and who are, in fact, guilty of breaking the spirit of the Clause and offending against the intention of this provision by not making the necessary payments to the selected charity.
      How is the union concerned to know that payments are being made? How can we be sure that this is not a loophole through which a man might avoid pay-
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      ing dues to the union which is working on his behalf merely by electing to pay the appropriate sum to a charity which may be fictitious? Alternatively, how can we be sure that, the employee having honestly elected to pay, the employer fails to carry out his obligations to pay the money to the charity?
      I have studied this matter in some detail and have reluctantly come to the conclusion that whatever the intention of the Government may be in this matter, there does not seem to be the necessary machinery to enforce that intention. Unless the Solicitor-General can give an adequate answer to these questions, I fear that I shall have to advise my hon. Friends to vote against the Government on this issue.
      Mr. Curran: If a worker authorises his employer to make deductions from his pay and hand over the money to a charity, and the employer makes those deductions but does not hand the money over, what will be the legal position?
      Mr. Orme: That is what we want to know.
      Mr. Rose: The obligation is on the Government to tell us the answer to that question. The misappropriation of property is a criminal offence. From the civil point of view, however, it seems that the charity that has been nominated will not be privy to the contract and, as a result, could not take action, but the Solicitor-General is better qualified than I am to deal with this matter.
      Perhaps the employee can take action. On the other hand, he may be unaware of what is happening. Perhaps he is aware but there is some sort of collusion. Again, how is the charity or trade union to know? These are pertinent questions which we trust will be answered before this discussion is concluded.
      If a criminal offence is committed, criminal action can be taken. However, that will hardly be helpful to either the charity or industrial relations—and we are told by the Government that the Bill is designed to help industrial relations. I am naïve enough to believe that that is their intention.
      Mr. John Page: I suspect that the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) is making heavy weather of this. I

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      also suspect that if a company defaulted in making payments to a charity, it would be guilty in the same way as if it did not make payments to a trade union or any similar body.
      Mr. Orme: That is precisely what we want to know.
      Mr. Rose: Can the hon. Gentleman be sure?
      Mr. Page: Companies will not, therefore, default deliberately.
      It is clear from the detailed debates that we have had about national bargaining arrangements that many of my hon. Friends and much of industry will appreciate the new arrangements.
      Mr. Loughlin: Whether or not we are making heavy weather of Amendment No. 40, it should be obvious to the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) that the Solicitor-General has a simple remedy at his disposal. He could, if he wished, simply rise to his feet and give my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) the assurance for which he asked.
      The Government say that it is their intention to assist industrial relations. We must remember that we are dealing with a multiplicity of small and medium-sized companies and not simply with large firms. This multiplicity of firms represents, in terms of total production, a substantial amount of the nation's economy and a breakdown in industrial relations among those firms could mean a great deal to the economy. That being so, the Solicitor-General should be aware of the need to include a provision which will allow trade unionists to know that any amount that should be paid by an employer to a charity on behalf of a non-trade unionist is, in fact, being paid.
      7.30 p.m.
      I am not arguing that a man who exercises his right not to belong to a trade union and instructs his employer to pay his contribution to a charity should not be protected, and the Amendment will protect him. But where in the Bill is the remedy against the employer who does not pay that contribution to the charity? The hon. Member for Harrow, West raised the legal implications of whether the charity could sue the employer or
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      whether the worker could sue his employer. The employer may decide that it would be useful to him not to pay the subscriptions to charity immediately. If the Solicitor-General will say what provision in the Bill enables sanction to be taken against the employer who fails to pay the contributions to the charity, there will be no further grounds for discussing the Amendment.
      Mr. Dan Jones: I consider this part of the Bill to be pernicious and damaging to the employee. The Minister appears to be satisfied that he has the free rider taped. The man will not pay his contributions to a trade union but to a charity, so that he is not dodging his obligations. But by the same token the man may easily be dodging his obligations to his family.
      Thousands of men and women suffer industrial injury daily. When they are injured they have to face a cold, calculating administration whose job it is simply to look after the funds. In my experience, a man who has suffered a disability as the result of an accident will be told by the Ministry that the disability is not connected with the accident, and consequently benefit is denied. This is where the trade union plays an indispensable part and sees to it that an independent specialist examines the injured man. That specialist opinion in any tribunal carries tremendous weight. How is a person making contributions to a charity to protect his interests as a disabled man? No charity could possibly look after his interests; no charity would have this right. The trade unions have a clearly defined right——
      Mr. R. Carr: The hon. Gentleman is putting a strong argument for joining a trade union, an argument which I and the Government accept. If a man or a woman is foolish enough not to join a trade union, that is his or her affair.
      Mr. Jones: I accept that, but I do not want the Minister to believe that all is now square and that he has dealt with the free rider. He has done nothing of the kind. It is wrong to encourage the free rider in a way which could be detrimental to his family at a time when he probably needs the trade union more than ever.
      Mr. Joseph Ashton: This provision provides a big loophole. A

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      man who deliberately wishes to be awkward may, after a long dispute, finally agree to pay the contribution, but only to the Conservative Distressed Gentlefolks' Association, or a similar charity, just to antagonise the union. There will then be a controversy whether this is a bona fide charity and a tribunal may take from four to six weeks to decide this. The tribunal may decide that the employer must deduct the money but, after a couple of weeks, the man who is being deliberately awkward may say that he has changed his mind and no longer wants to contribute to the Conservative Distressed Gentlefolks' Association but to the Ian Smith Action on Rhodesia Fund. There will then have to be another reference to the tribunal to decide whether that is a bona fide charity.
      The awkward employee might change his mind half a dozen times, and each time the employer may be told to pay the contribution to a different charity. By deliberately causing this nuisance the non-unionist may make the employer say that he will not pay over any money until the worker has made up his mind which charity the money should go to and how much he will pay. Once the employer says that, the man is in the clear; he knows that the money will not be passed on, and he can easily keep going a perpetual dispute about which charity should receive the money.
      A part-time cleaner who works seven hours a week cleaning a school and who earns about £1 or £1·50 a week may pay the union a special rate of, say, 3p a week. An industrial tribunal might have to sit to decide which charity this money should be paid to. Four weeks later the cleaner could change her mind and say that instead of it going to Oxfam it should go to the local Red Cross Society.
      Mr. Tom King: I thought that this was the present situation. What is new about this? The unions have always recognised that there is this right of conscience and in this situation contributions can be paid by the union.
      Mr. Ashton: In the present situation a man exerting a right of conscience in most cases agrees to contribute to a charity named by the union. However,
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      by this Bill we are legislating to put this in statutory form so that the High Court of Justice may have to decide whether certain sums should be paid and whether the man has a right to change his mind about the charity when he wishes—in which case the employer might well say, "I will not pass on the money".
      There are people on every shop floor who are called "Billy Opposites". If told that something is black, they will swear it is white just for the sake of being a nuisance and trying to throw a spanner in the works. This is what will happen. We shall have the most time-wasting and trivial arguments, which will involve industrial tribunals sitting week after week and month after month deciding these matters. It is a far better system to drop the idea of charitable contributions and to put something in the Bill to provide that, if a majority of the men vote to join a union, every member of it should accept the majority verdict. That is the way democracy works.
      Mr. Orme: We are here dealing with the agency shop provisions in the Bill, which are a real Alice-in-Wonderland concept. They involve the difficulty of how to control the free rider once it is decided to have an agency shop. The provision seeks to narrow the situation in which the employer collects the money by deducting from the man's pay, as opposed to the system in which the shop steward or foreman collects money from the non-unionist and is responsible for paying it to a charity. That responsibility is now to be handed over to the employer.
      An important principle is involved and there will be great resentment in industry if the provision is put into operation. The principle is that the shop steward and trade union will work independently of the employer for the majority of employees who decide that an agency shop should be set up. Workers will then, for their own reasons, opt out of the union. We heard a little earlier mention of the word "freedom", but such people will have to pay a subscription to a named charity.
      The effect of the provision will be that the non-unionist will run to the employer for cover and will pander to that employer. I can foresee situations in which employers may exploit the system. I have lived in various industrial situations

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      for some 25 years and I have seen these things happen. An employer could easily say, "Unfortunately I have an agency shop, but you, the worker can pay your contribution through me to a charity. Is this not a much more acceptable situation?"
      I hope that the Solicitor-General will explain the legal responsibility of the employer, because this is an important point. Will the employer be responsible under common law if he abuses the situation, or will the Industrial Court and all the paraphernalia of the Bill be brought into operation on such a matter?
      7.45 p.m.
      We are dealing here with a workers money which he entrusts to his employer to pay to a charity. It will be extremely difficult for the trade unionist in a factory to discover whether the money has been deducted. Will the trade union in the factory have the right to see the wages slip of the employee? Will it have the right to ask the employer for a receipt showing that the money has been paid to a charity so that it can be seen that the bargain is being carried out?
      When one examines the details of how this will work, it can be seen how ludicrous the situation will be. This is why many unions will not operate an agency shop under the Bill. They foresee the sort of problems which will arise once the Bill is in operation.
      We are entitled to ask the Solicitor-General to spell out the legal implications and responsibilities, and indeed the rights, of the trade unions. We are in this respect moving on to new ground which has never been trod before. If we are to operate on the lines laid down in the Bill, the situation will be quite ridiculous.
      The Solicitor-General: With the leave of the House, I should like to reply to this short debate. On the point put by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Dan Jones), I believe my right hon. Friend has already answered his point. The hon. Gentleman has advanced his argument a number of times in the past, and I entirely sympathise with him. If two people persuade a third person to join a trade union, the argument will remain as strong as ever.
      Mr. Dan Jones: Has the employers' confederation, with which I understand
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      the Government have consulted on this point, given its blessing to this part of the Bill?
      The Solicitor-General: I am not quite clear what point the hon. Gentleman is on. If he is referring to the whole agency shop context, I should be out of order if I sought to discuss that matter.
      Mr. Dan Jones: I am on the free rider point.
      The Solicitor-General: The free rider is not an admissible concept. The agency shop provision is designed to prevent the free rider. He will not be riding free. He may be riding light of benefit.
      Mr. Dan Jones: He will so far as the trade unions are concerned.
      The Solicitor-General: So far as the trade unions are concerned he will be riding as a contributor to the union, except when he establishes conscientious grounds not to contribute. Hon. Members opposite have said that they are concerned to continue to protect the rights of the conscientious objector. In the agency shop context this provision does no more than to extend this concept of a free rider. The trade unions have said that they want this since they recognise the right of the conscientious objector to ride free, paying to a charity. But the rest of the agency shop provision makes plain that the union will be getting dues from the man. He will not be riding free in terms of payment, but will be riding without benefit. He will be free of benefit, but not free of cost. This is an important argument which remains open to the union and to union secretaries.
      Mr. Dan Jones: As far as the trade union is concerned, he is still a free rider because, if the money is going to a charity, it is not going to the union.
      The Solicitor-General: With respect, the hon. Gentleman has not taken the point of the distinction which I am drawing. If he is paying to a charity, he is riding free so far as the union is concerned, save that he does not in that context have the advantages of union benefit.
      Mr. Dan Jones: But he has the benefit of having the conditions in the factory negotiated by the union.
      The Solicitor-General: Of course. I do not want to go back over the whole analysis, but this point, surely, is clear. Unions have said, and hon. Members opposite have said time and again, that it is entirely recognised that the conscientious objector should be entitled to object on the ground of conscience. Such a man now pays to a charity. He has the benefit of the collectively negotiated conditions, but he does not have the benefit of the individual advantages available to him through union membership. So a charitable man, so to call him, or a conscientious man, is and always has been a free rider save that he is paying to a charity; and that is exactly what will happen now in respect of exactly the same kind of man. The agency shop contributor will be riding free of benefit but not free of cost.
      Mr. Rose: May I try to assist here? I think that what concerns my hon. Friends is this. Although they recognise that he is not a free rider in the wider sense of the term but a conscientious objector, so to speak, he may become a free rider in the wider sense by reason of the provision here which allows a loophole in that the employer may well not make payment to the charity.
      The Solicitor-General: I appreciate that that is the substantial point made by the hon. Members for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) and for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton), but I was trying to clear out of the way certain other misconceptions and establish common ground up to that point.
      The hon. Member for Bassetlaw said that, by allowing a statutory scheme for the determination of conscientious objection instead of leaving it to the union in whatever arrangements it may have to establish that, we are making it more likely that more people will object on grounds of conscience, and therefore—this is the point which the hon. Member for Blackley (Mr. Rose) has just raised—there will be more free riders in that sense.
      I deal with that point in this way. If one is dealing with the kind of character whom the hon. Member for Bassetlaw has in mind, the sort of man who will be deliberately awkward—we all know that in all walks of life there are the "awkward squad"—and he goes before
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      an industrial tribunal to establish that he has grounds of conscience for objecting, he may well be able to establish plausibly enough the first time that he is overcome with charitable instincts towards, say, the "Distressed Labour Gentlefolks' Association", and he might conceivably upon a second occasion qualify to contribute to some other charity if he was doing it after a fairly long lapse of time; but in this context, as in any other, conviction would begin to diminish if his charitable instincts changed frequently.
      One must look at this question seriously. He will have to establish his case to a tribunal consisting not of people born yesterday but of people who are considering matters of this kind in a different context in industry the whole time, the kind of people who sit on national insurance appeal tribunals, or the kind of people who used to sit on conscientious objectors appeal tribunals during the war. They will not be persuaded to take seriously that a man's conscientious objection is so powerful that he is determined to attach himself to one charity after another and be persuaded by that. It will, I suggest, be sufficiently difficult, but not too difficult, for the conscientious objector to establish his case at the outset——
      Mr. Ashton: I accept what the Solicitor-General says about the members of tribunals not being born yesterday and not being ready to give permission to change the charity. But will the tribunals not be compelled to give him a hearing, and will this not be an administrative nuisance which could be repealed ad nauseam?
      The Solicitor-General: Of course, he could not be denied a hearing. But this is the kind of case with which tribunals as constituted now have to deal, and, if they thought that a man was asserting rights of this kind frivolously or vexatiously, or because he was an awkward customer, such a case could well be one in which he could expect to have an order for costs made against him. It is only in that very limited area that that would arise.
      I come now to the last question—I do not wish to detain the House too long—how does the union ensure that the employer complies with the wishes of the

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      man as expressed under this Amendment? It is perfectly straightforward. By definition, we are dealing here with a situation in which an agency shop agreement or an approved closed shop agreement exists. Quite apart from any other provisions of that sort of agreement, it would be possible, and, I should have thought, sensible and almost inevitable, that the union which had made the agreement would extract as one of its provisions an obligation upon the employer—an enforceable obligation under Clause 36(1)(b) as it now is, even if no other part of the agreement was enforceable—to that end.
      It is not really for us now to draft the terms of such a clause in the agreement, but I suggest that the effect would be as follows: (1) to tell the union the names of people contributing to a charity; (2) to advise the union of the receipt of the moneys; (3) to pay the money over to the charity. One cannot imagine any real reason why an employer should not agree to that. He would be doing it, after all, in order to establish a broad pattern of industrial peace in his factory or establishment. He is agreeing to an agency shop agreement, and in the overwhelming majority of cases one would expect him to say, "Fine. I shall make a legally binding agreement. I welcome the fact that you, the union representatives, attach importance to legal enforceability being enshrined in this agreement, and I am willing to accept an obligation to tell you about what is being collected and to pay it over to the charity."
      Mr. Rose: But does not the Solicitor-General acknowledge—this is the difficulty we are in—that there is no obligation written into the Bill as it stands which imposes upon the employer the duty to tell the names, to advise the receipt of money, or to give details of that kind? It seems to me, moreover, that there is no means by which the charity itself could enforce payment. In the absence of those matters, it may well be an enforceable obligation could be entered into, but there would be no certainty about it. There is nothing in the Bill which makes it necessary, and, as the Solicitor-General knows, enforceable obligations are something which we on this side find abhorrent in the wider
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      context of the Bill as it relates to collective agreements.
      The Solicitor-General: There is here an inconsistency in the attitude of hon. Members opposite. The hon. Gentleman has expressed again the objection that employers will seek to impose enforceability upon unions, and the unions will have to struggle to escape this idea of enforceability. Yet, in the present context, when they are understandably anxious on this aspect of the matter, they cannot accept the logic of their own argument that employers in the vast majority of cases will be happy to make enforceable agreements.
      If an employer agrees in that way, even if only on this one point, the agreement can be enforceable against him. Under Clause 36(1)(b) as it now stands, an enforceable obligation can be attached to only one part of an agreement, and in that way, as I have said, the union can enforce its remedy.
      The hon. Member for Blackley asked about the position of the charity. The charity could proceed to a civil remedy because it would be entitled to found an action on money had and received; I think that it would probably be an action in quasi-contract. Certainly, if money was being received to the account of the charity by the employer from the contributors, the union would be able to exercise that remedy. If the employer makes such an agreement with the individual worker, and if he declines to pay the money over and the unions discover that, the employer could not sack the man who made the request, because he had done all he could, nor could the union require him to be sacked. But it would be in no sense an unfair industrial practice for the union to take industrial action to require the employer to hand the money over.
      That is the remedy it would assert at present in the absence of an enforceable agreement. So there are all those ways in which it could be done, and I must ask the House to accept that Labour hon. Members are making a tremendous mountain of a modest molehill of no consequence. They have said time and again that they recognise the rights of people not to contribute to unions on grounds of conscience. If they approve

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      of the concept of contribution to charities, they must surely approve such a provision.
      8.0 p.m.
      Mr. Orme: The hon. and learned Gentleman correctly states that at present the question of conscientious objection in the trade union movement is dealt with, but it is a relatively small matter. There has not been much evidence to suggest otherwise. But we fear that the Bill and the terms of the agency shop agreement will widen the whole basis, and there will be far more people applying for those terms than at present—not a fantastic number, but enough to make the system very difficult to work. We can see all sorts of problems which I do not think the Solicitor-General envisages.
      The Solicitor-General: I can see that the fear is expressed with sincerity, and I hope that I acknowledge that it exists. But it is entirely without foundation. The establishment of rights of conscience of this kind will be judged under the Bill by an industrial tribunal whose composition I have described. I cannot conceive that the fears of hon. Members opposite will prove to be justified by the decisions of those tribunals. Conscience is acknowledged on both sides to be worth while, and it will be independently assessed under the provisions of the Bill. We believe it right that a person should be able to establish such grounds in this way, and require his contribution to be routed to the charity as is provided. There is no reason for hon. Members opposite to fear the consequences of that, and no reason for the House to be dismayed or ashamed of the provisions we place before it for establishing the rights of a conscientious objector, without fear or favour, in a way which is entirely acceptable to the people of this country.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Subsequent Lords Amendments agreed to.
      Lords Amendment: No. 9, in page 5, line 8, at end insert:
      "() Where an employer offers a benefit of any kind to any workers as an inducement to refrain from exercising a right conferred on them by subsection (1) of this section, and the employer—

      (a) confers that benefit on one or more of those workers who agree to refrain from exercising that right, and
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      (b) withholds it from one or more of them who do not agree to do so,

      the employer shall for the purposes of this section be regarded, in relation to any such worker as is mentioned in paragraph (b) of this subsection, as having thereby discriminated against him by reason of his exercising that right."
      Mr. R. Carr: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      The Amendment makes it an unfair industrial practice for an employer to confer a benefit on some of his workers for agreeing to refrain from exercising the right to belong or not to belong to a trade union while withholding it from other workers who do not so agree. In other words, it makes absolutely safe a worker's right against discrimination by his employer on the important question of belonging to a trade union. It fulfils undertakings given by the Lord Chancellor and other Government spokesmen in another place in response to arguments strongly pressed on them there by Front Bench and other Opposition spokesmen. I hope that in view of that there is no need for me to expand on the Amendment further at this stage.
      Mr. Heffer: The right hon. Gentleman has correctly said that this was an Opposition Amendment accepted by the Government in another place. That acceptance was welcomed by Lady White on behalf of the Opposition. The noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, moved what was Amendment No. 39 in another place, supported by Lord Beaumont of Whitley.
      The Amendment shows how impossible is the situation the Government have got themselves into. Subsection (1) confers certain rights on workers either to belong or not to belong to a trade union. An unscrupulous employer, by the use of hard cash, could induce a worker not to belong to a trade union. The Amendment make that an unfair industrial practice, and we are very pleased about that. Lord Windlesham said in the other place on 4th May:
      "Moreover, in Clause 52(a) it is an unfair industrial practice for an employer 'to prevent or deter a worker', and I think that by many members of the Committee the offering of an inducement—perhaps a financial inducement or an inducement of some value—would be regarded as an act by an employer which would deter in the way in which the word is used there.… We agree entirely that the offer of

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      an inducement for such a purpose should be regarded as an unfair industrial practice, and will undertake to introduce words to make this point explicit while avoiding the consequential drafting problems which would arise from simply adopting the terms of the Amendment…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 4th May, 1971; Vol. 318, c. 318–19.]
      In accepting the Opposition's Amendment the Government have accepted the position they have brought about in the Bill by giving the worker a right not to belong to a trade union. But for that, the Government would not have got themselves into the present complicated situation.
      We obviously shall not oppose the Amendment; we welcome it. But we have felt it necessary to point out once again how complicated the situation has become, precisely because of the Clause and the Government's insistence on the right of a worker not to belong to a trade union.
      Mr. Ashton: The first line of the Amendment says
      "Where an employer offers a benefit of any kind…"
      Just how far does that go? For example, would a tied house for a farm worker be classed as such a benefit if the farmer told the worker that he could live in the cottage provided he was a non-unionist? Similarly, what about holidays and so on? Does
      "benefit of any kind"
      literally mean anything appertaining to the job?
      Mr. Carr: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that it does.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Subsequent Lords Amendment agreed to.

    New Clause "A"

      MODIFICATIONS OF RIGHTS BY AGENCY SHOP AGREEMENT
      Lords Amendment: No. 11, after Clause 5, in page 5, line 23, at end insert new Clause "A":
      "A.—(1) Where an agency shop agreement is for the time being in force, a worker to whom the agreement applies shall not have the right, as between himself and an employer to whom the agreement applies, to refuse to be
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      a member of the trade union with which the agreement was made unless he agrees to pay appropriate contributions to the trade union in lieu of membership of it.
      (2) In accordance with the preceding subsection, it shall not be an unfair industrial practice for an employer to whom an agency shop agreement applies, or for a person acting on behalf of such an employer,—

      (a) to dismiss, penalise or otherwise discriminate against any such worker on the grounds that he is not a member of the trade union with which the agreement was made and has not agreed, or has refused or failed, to pay appropriate contributions to it, or

      (b) to refuse to engage a worker who, if engaged by the employer, would be a worker to whom the agreement applies, on the grounds that he is not a member of that trade union and refuses to become a member of it and also refuses to pay appropriate contributions to it.

      (3) Where a worker to whom an agency shop agreement applies has agreed to pay appropriate contributions to the trade union with which the agreement was made, and requests his employer to deduct the contributions from his remuneration and pay them on his behalf, then so long as that request remains in force—

      (a) he shall not be regarded for the purposes of subsection (2)(a) of this section as having refused to pay the contributions to the trade union, and

      (b) any failure on the part of the employer to comply with the request shall not be regarded as a failure on the part of the worker to pay the contributions.

      (4) In the application of the preceding subsections to an agency shop agreement made with two or more trade unions, references in those subsections to the trade union with which the agreement was made shall be construed as references to one of those trade unions.
      (5) In relation to a person who, in accordance with section 8 or section 9 of this Act, is permitted on grounds of conscience to pay contributions to a charity instead of contributions to a trade union, subsections (1) to (3) of this section shall have effect as if any reference to appropriate contributions to a trade union were a reference to equivalent contributions to that charity.
      (6) In this Act references to an employer to whom an agency shop agreement applies shall be construed as follows, that is to say—

      (a) in the case of such an agreement made by one or more employers, or made by an employers' association and expressed to be made on behalf of one or more employers specified in the agreement, any such reference shall be construed as a reference to that employer or any of those employers, as the case may be;

      (b) in the case of such an agreement made by an employers' association otherwise than as mentioned in the preceding paragraph, any such reference shall be construed as a reference to any employer who is for the time being a member of that employers'

      669
      association, whether he was a member of it on the date on which the agreement was made or not."

      Read a Second time.
      Mr. Harold Walker: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, leave out subsection (3) and insert:
      (3) Every agency shop agreement shall provide for authorised representatives of trade unions or independent organisations of workers to whom it applies to be provided with, by the employer, at intervals of not more than three months, lists of names, numbers and descriptions of workers who are liable for payment or contributions in lieu of trade union membership subscriptions, and every such agreement shall make provision for the method of payment by the employer to the trade union or independent organisation of workers of such contributions in lieu of trade union contributions such payments to be made at intervals of not longer than two weeks.
      (4) Every agency shop agreement shall provide that the employer shall be responsible for transferring to the union or independent organisations of workers, at not less than the stated interval, such sums as may be due in respect of appropriate contributions in lieu of membership, and facilities shall be afforded to authorised representatives of the trade unions or independent organisations of workers to scrutinise an account which the employer shall make of such payments whenever such representatives deem it appropriate to do so.
      In the debate which concluded a few minutes ago we inevitably travelled over much of the ground relating to this Amendment and its aims. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) and others made absolutely clear in Committee and on Report our fundamental opposition to the agency shop concept. It was a matter of some regret that we had to do that against the pressure of the guillotine with the thunder of the tumbrils rolling in our ears very late at night and for that reason we did so very briefly and inevitably. This debate gives us the opportunity to repair one or two of the omissions of that occasion and perhaps further to expose the weaknesses of what seems to be an attempt to graft an alien concept on the British system of industrial relations.
      The Secretary of State has frequently said—he did so this afternoon, as did the Solicitor-General—that the agency shop provision would check the free rider, a longstanding source of complaint in the trade union movement. We are told that the requirement to pay appropriate contributions in lieu of membership achieves this end.
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      8.15 p.m.
      There is sometimes confusion about the free rider and the effect of the agency shop provision. Sometimes, the conscientious objector is confused with the non-unionist, the non-payer per se. The conscientious objector creates a miniscule problem which the British trade union movement has always been able to take in its stride. The more fundamental problem is that of the very large number—and I confess that with great regret—of those who are not members of trade unions. In spite of the rapidly growing membership of the T.U.C., it is a sad fact that fewer than 50 per cent. of the workers in British industries are organised into trade unions. One would welcome anything which helped to induce, if not coerce, more workers to join trade unions.
      While the Bill sets that out as the proclaimed aim, it is silent about the machinery by which it is to be enforced, and that is why we have moved the Amendment, in spite of the words of the Solicitor-General, to whom I listened with great care when he seemed to be replying to this debate in advance. I am sure that his earlier words will be similar to those with which he replies to this Amendment.
      The Bill does not describe who collects what from whom. The Solicitor-General said that it would be the responsibility of the trade unions to collect the cash from the non-unionist who was paying in lieu of membership. I wonder whether he has thought of the gulf between that hope—and it cannot be much more—and the reality of the workshop floor. In the Amendment we seek to place an obligation in detailed terms on the employer, and we do so because it is the employer and the employer alone who is in control of and who has full knowledge of the situation. The Solicitor-General may believe that in the mixed situation with which we are dealing, with non-unionists and unionists, the unionists will make their identity known to the trade union official, so that all the official or shop steward will have to do is to deduct the known unionists from the global total so that the remainder are non-unionists liable to pay either appropriate contributions in lieu, or contributions to a charity. But that does not correspond with the reality of life in the workshop.

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      First, it would be very nice if that limited facility were accorded to officials and shop stewards, but not only is it not, but it begs the further question of how, even if it were, the official or shop steward would proceed to determine what appropriate contribution should be paid and how it should be collected. Reading through the reports of their Lordships' debates, I noticed that it was assumed that when a union or unions had a shop agency, there was a simple straightforward contribution due to that union or unions; but with my own union—and this no doubt reflects the position of many others—there are differing contributions based on differing classes of membership which are based not merely on an occupational classification, but according to certain wide-ranging friendly benefits. It is therefore extremely difficult for the official at the factory, who under the provisions of the rules is not the one ordinarily charged with the collection of union dues, to determine what the appropriate contribution should be.
      I quote my own union as that of which I have first-hand knowledge, but no doubt it can be paralleled by many others. It has a provision that the member must go to the branch to pay his subscriptions, and that is based on a geographical unit and not necessarily the factory. The rules preclude any moneys from being taken outside the branch, except in certain well defined circumstances, and the proposal in the Lords Amendment would not conform to those circumstances. In that kind of situation, how could we advise the non-unionist to attend the trade union branch to make contributions?
      Mr. David Mitchell Mr. David Mitchell indicated assent.
      Mr. Walker: I see the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell), who knows something of these matters, nodding his head. No doubt he will tell me that the union ought to change its rules.
      Mr. Mitchell: No.
      Mr. Walker: I am glad that we are at one about that. He will share with me the recognition that practical difficulties will arise.
      But that is not the only practical difficulty. When the agency shop has been established, the only individual who will be required to pay the appropriate contributions in lieu of membership is the
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      non-member, but he may be a member of another union. If a union has established an agency and a member of another union seeks employment in that factory, and there may be unions with overlapping recruitment areas—in engineering, for example, we have a plurality of unions and there may be different unions catering for an identical range of workers—he will have to pay double contributions or transfer his union membership.
      The second course may not be easy. For example, in my constituency we are enduring unemployment at a penal level and an engineering fitter may be compelled to seek what would otherwise be uncongenial employment in the coal mining industry as a fitter. But the National Union of Mineworkers has an agreement with the National Coal Board that all manual workers in the industry shall be members of the N.U.M.
      The A.E.U. fitter has to say, "This is purely temporary employment for me. There may well be a Labour Government in three years and employment will take up and I know that I can get back into a decent job out of this rotten industry. Therefore I do not want to surrender my passport, my union membership. I want to keep my A.E.U. membership."
      Equally, he will be reluctant, because contrary to popular belief it is not a highly-paid industry, to incur the financial penalty of paying to both the N.U.M. and the A.E.F. Under Clause 5 he would be entitled to say to both management and union representatives, when asked: "What union do you belong to, if any?", "That is my business and none of yours. I refuse to divulge it." They would not be able to take any action against him. He has the right to be or not to be in his relationships with his employers. It would seem to me that this is one of the attractions of the new Clause, that if the employer were prejudiced against employing a man who refused to divulge then the man might have cause for taking the employer to court.
      Mr. David Mitchell: In the earlier part of the hon. Gentleman's speech he referred to the situation where a man might be faced with having to belong to two unions because he held a union card for one, in the engineering industry, which he did not wish to lose, and was working

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      in what was formerly a closed shop, now an agency shop in the coalmining industry. This would impose financial difficulties upon him. The hon. Gentleman is experienced in these matters and must realise that that situation exists now, except that the man will have to belong to both unions if he wishes to retain his card in the engineering union and wishes to work inside a closed shop in another industry where that closed shop is not the engineering union.
      Mr. Walker: This is true but the hon. Gentleman misses my point. What I seek to expose is the impracticality of the agency shop proposals because——
      Mr. David Mitchell Mr. David Mitchell indicated dissent.
      Mr. Walker: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head but it has been our case all along that because of this kind of situation the agency shop is an impractical proposition. I used an argument in Committee to expose that. It was that a situation might arise where there is rivalry between two unions which co-exist uneasily side by side. After enactment one may seek to establish a sole agency in a factory with the result that the union or unions which lose out in that agency shop situation will be confronted with having to tell their members either to transfer to the victor union or to pay a double fee. I exampled the position of the railway workshops at Doncaster where the N.U.M. and the A.E.F.—I am not even sure whether it is the A.E.F. or the A.U.E.W. in these days of change—had over-lapping recruitment areas, geographically and in terms of classification. After enactment one or the other might seek to establish a sole agency.
      Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Does the hon. Gentleman not realise that we would think this to be a good thing? He might not say so but in his heart of hearts I believe he would accept that if more unions had greater control there would be less inter-union rivalry and greater industrial peace. Secondly, this will work both ways so that while one union will gain at one factory as against another, if it is a majority union, in another area the union which has lost out earlier will gain by becoming the majority union. It will work Box and Cox.
      Mr. Walker: We agree that an important element in this situation is the variety of unions and the overlapping of recruiting areas which often leads to complication. I am on the record when we debated the agency shop arrangement in Committee as saying that the Secretary of Stale was tilting at a problem which undeniably existed. We say that this is not the right way to resolve it. Having diagnosed the problem, this is not the prescription which we would support. It seeks to import from the United States a system of industrial relations in the belief that it will transform our industrial relations. We do not believe that the trade union movement or industrial relations generally can be transformed in that way.
      The movement is an organic thing, it has grown, it has modified itself—perhaps too slowly for changing circumstances. We believe that this is the right way for change to take place, perhaps more rapidly than has been the case. It should happen as an organic thing, responding and evolving through changing circumstances. The trade union movement is changing rapidly. I referred to my confusion over my own union—the A.E.U. the A.U.E.W. or the A.E.F. It is an indication of the rapidity of change.
      Last week I was at a meeting and I had to query the name of a union I had not heard before. I was quietly told that it was the new name for the building trade workers, the General Federation of Construction Workers, I believe. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) is familiar with it, he belonged to the industry that it represents. That is the way evolution should come about, in response to changing circumstances.
      Turning to the second point raised by the hon. Gentleman I am bound to say that he sees this in terms of the abstract rather than the real problems which arise for members. It is no solution for the individual to be told that his union has lost out at the railway workshop and that he has to change his union membership and forfeit the benefits he has paid for for years.
      Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Oh !
      Mr. Walker: With respect, this shows the hon. Gentleman's lack of understanding. He scoffs when I make that point. I would point out that my union operates

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      a superannuation benefit, a pitiful few shillings it is I know, but many A.E.F. super-annuitants are desperately dependent on those few shillings extra because it means the difference between absolute penury at the normal pension level and the odd ounce of "baccy". It is important to him. He may be on the brink of retirement after 30 or 40 years' service and qualifies for superannuation benefit. He will not take kindly to being told, "The union has lost. You will have to join the others or pay a contribution in lieu". The hon. Gentleman seems to think that it will be some consolation for him to be told, "It does not matter because we have won against them down the road, so our union membership will remain balanced. We have lost 200 here, but we have 250 of their lot". If the hon. Gentleman says that it is desirable to have all the workers in the establishment in one union, we agree with him; we see the advantages of it. But the Bill seeks to impose this when there is an agreed agency shop situation——
      Mr. Kenneth Lewis: For years we in the House have been talking about the transferability of pensions from firm to firm. [HON. MEMBERS: "We on this side have."] So have we on this side of the House. If that is what we want in industry, surely we may expect that the trade unions, when there is a change, whether arising from this Bill or not, will be responsible for their members' benefit and that they will ensure that their members do not suffer but will arrange the transfer of benefits with the object of having one union to represent one factory. Surely they will ensure that their members do not lose.
      8.30 p.m.
      Mr. Walker: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for responding roughly to him. He is usually a most genial debater for whom I have respect. But it ill lies in his mouth to talk about the transferability of pensions when my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) sought to achieve transferability by means of a very large Bill which was received with nothing but abuse from hon. Members opposite. The hon. Gentleman does not understand the reality of the trade union movement when it comes to the transferability of pensions and other benefit provisions be-
      676
      tween unions. Every trade union is a distinctly different animal from the rest. There are deep differences between their rules and other provisions.
      Hon. Members opposite seem to see this as an easy way out every time they come up against the problems of the structure of the trade union movement. Those problems are recognised not only by hon. Members on this side of the House but by trade unions and trade unionists. The movement has inherited problems of structure because it is the oldest trade union movement in the world. We taught trade unionism to the world. It is not good enough for hon. Members opposite to suggest or imply that the unions should change their rules.
      Having realistically posed some of the problems which are likely to arise from the agency shop concept, and recognising the Government's intention to catch the free rider, we say that the sincerity of their aim is tested by our Amendment. One lamentable failure on the part of those who drafted the Bill is the omission from it of machinery for collecting the payments made in lieu of trade union membership contributions. The Solicitor-General said that this was the task of the trade unions. I say in reply that in the majority of cases the trade unions cannot know who are non-unionists and who are unionists. Dual membership, except in a few cases, is a contravention of the T.U.C. Bridlington Agreement. I am sure that that will bring forth the riposte from the Government Front Bench and that the Bridlington Agreement will have to be scrapped. This is the kind of cavalier treatment to which the trade union movement has been subjected by the Bill.
      Reverting to the difficulty which we are seeking to overcome with the agency shop provisions, we say that if the Government are sincere in their intention that the free rider should not be able to evade his obligations, but should meet them, then the right way to do it is to make the employer responsible for taking the money. A union cannot take money from non-unionists. That is nonsense, is it not? Non-unionists cannot attend a union branch meeting. There seems to be running through the whole of the Government's proposal the assumption that employers are falling over themselves to let

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      trade union officials or shop stewards go round catching up with the lads in the factories to collect the money. I wish they were, and the Solicitor-General should address himself to the employers if he really believes it is the job of trade union officials in the factories or on the sites to go round collecting the cash from the boys. However, I do not believe that that is the practical or proper way to do it.
      When this Lords Amendment was debated in another place the Government spokesman said, if I recall aright, that the Government wanted to keep the agency shop agreement provisions in the Bill as simple and free from detail as possible, and he spoke of the difficulties of enforcement of the proposed Amendment. The Solicitor-General made a point of this. He said we were being inconsistent on this point of enforceability. I must point out to him that under terms of Clause 10 of the Bill as it stands at the moment the appropriate contributions for trade union membership will be an integral part of the individual worker's terms and conditions of employment. We are only saying in our Amendment to the Lords Amendment that if this provision is to stay there must be the provision for the machinery by means of which the contributions shall be collected. Note that we are not talking of legal enforceability. We are talking in the same terms as the Bill, and saying that this provision should be written into the agency shop agreement whether that agreement is legally enforceable or not.
      I hope that I have made it clear, and that the preceding speeches of my hon. Friends speaking on previous Lords Amendments have made it clear, that we are opposed in principle and in practice and fundamentally to the provisions in the Bill anyhow, and we recognise the impracticability of these provisions as they stand, but we say that if they are to be there they ought to be able to work properly, and our Amendment to the Lords Amendment is a test of the Government's sincerity.
      Mr. David Mitchell: I rise to welcome the Lords Amendments in this case and to urge upon my hon. and learned Friend the rejection of the Amendment to the Lords Amendment moved so eloquently
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      by the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Harold Walker).
      Mr. Harold Walker: I am deeply sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but I rise on a point of order. May 1 assume that subsequently we shall have a separate or further debate on the Lords Amendment itself? I deliberately withheld some remarks which I should like to address later to the Lords Amendment.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): The hon. Member is quite right. It will be in order to have further debate on the Question later, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
      Mr. Mitchell: I trust that that will not prevent us from being able to talk about two matters which are very closely interrelated. I believe that some representations which I passed on to the Solicitor-General from trade unionists and non-trade unionists in my constituency may have played some part in bringing the attention of the Government to the problem which was present in the Bill in the form in which it left this House. I refer to the problem of the non-trade unionist having to pay a subscription to a union and the physical method of transferring the money.
      The hon. Member for Doncaster recognised the problem of the non-trade unionist attending a union branch meeting. It is not only the problem of the non-trade unionist being asked to come on to hallowed ground. The last time I attended a meeting of what is now the A.U.E.W. the main branch meeting which I was addressing was being held at one end of the hall. Union members were entering at the back of the hall, paying their subscriptions to the treasurer and, if they did not wish to take part in the meeting, slipping out again.
      One can imagine the unpleasant reception which the non-trade unionist would have at some of the more militant branches when he turned up to pay the subscription required by law. I do not suggest that he would be wet-towelled, but he would encounter tough picketing and have a tough reception from the more militant members who objected to his non-membership.
      It is therefore essential that the Government should interpose between the non-trade unionist and the union

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      branch and the union membership somebody who is not involved as the collector of the money, who can hand the money over without there having to be a regular personal problem of the type which would face the non-trade unionist. The Government have obviously reached the right conclusions. The only person who is available in a non-personal capacity and who is continually there is the employer. Therefore, that the money should be handed to the employer and that the employer should hand it to the union at appropriate intervals is a logical and sensible way of dealing with a very considerable personal problem which would otherwise arise for the non-trade unionist. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman recognised at least part of this problem.
      The purpose is to remove bitterness. I am certain that the result of a non-trade unionist's going to a union meeting would be anything but to remove bitterness. It would indeed bring it to a new tension at regular intervals.
      The Amendment to the Lords Amendment is very curious in a number of ways. There is no logical reason for stipulating three months in line 3, two weeks in line 8, and the right of
      "authorised representatives of the trade union … to scrutinise an account".
      Provided that the money was handed over once every six months with a list of those to whom it applied, that should be adequate and could be covered under the Bill's existing proposals. I have no doubt that the worthy Solicitor-General will guide us if I am in any way misinformed.
      I hope that the House will reject the Amendment to the Lords Amendment and accept with alacrity the Lords Amendment.
      Mr. Robert Hughes: I cannot forbear from commenting on the rather amusing thought that entered my mind when the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell) spoke of a non-trade unionist going to a trade union branch meeting. He might not exactly be wet-towelled. I come from a trade union background and would not pretend that the language used by trade unionists and the feelings they express towards non-unionists are exactly polite at times; but wet-towelling is one of the
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      things which belongs to the public school sixth-form novels which are not part of the reading and discussion of unionists. That kind of remark clearly shows the background from which the hon. Gentleman comes. I am not suggesting that he should be ashamed of it, but I am saying that it is the kind of background which does not enable him even to begin to understand or have any feeling of what trade unionism is about.
      8.45 p.m.
      Mr. David Mitchell: It will help the hon. Gentleman if I clarify my qualification in this context—six years' membership of the Transport and General Workers' Union, which is not normally classed as an upper-class Tory organisation.
      Mr. Hughes: It is obvious that the hon. Gentleman learned absolutely nothing in those six years. The great shame of it is that his membership did not rub some good sense into him.
      Mr. Mitchell: Since the hon. Gentleman has made that point, perhaps I can point out that the union took the view that I was at least absorbing enough knowledge to send me on a scholarship to its summer school.
      Mr. Hughes: First, the hon. Gentleman needed it, and, secondly, it shows that even in the great trade unions there are aberrations of judgment.
      I come now to the more serious point of the Amendment to the Lords Amendment. Although it really goes against the grain, we on these benches have to try to mount some kind of rescue operation for the Bill and the agency shop provisions. The Government are having their way on the agency shop agreement and probably at the end of the day they will carry the Lords Amendment. Nevertheless, the difficulties involved in the agency shop are such that it is necessary to take such steps as we can to try to remove the kind of bitterness and distress which will arise in factories and which hon. Members opposite fail to understand will exist in even greater degree that now between trade unionists and non-trade unionists.
      The Solicitor-General seemed to suggest earlier that the free rider is being eliminated in the sense that no longer will he be absolutely free of cost, that

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      he will have to pay either a contribution in lieu of membership or to a charity. I do not want to deal now with the problem of the genuine conscientious objector, but with the kind of person whom we regard as a free rider. As I understand the Bill in its present form, the amount of contribution by the non-trade unionist will not be the full cost of trade union membership. It will be at a reduced rate which takes care of the service which is being provided for him by the union.
      Hon. Members may think that that is the end of the matter. One might argue straightforwardly that any man who does not pay his full contribution by becoming a union member is losing all kinds of benefits. My own union—the A.E.U.W. in its latest incarnation—provides in addition to superannuation, unemployment benefit, sickness benefit, tool benefit insurance and various other services. Non-trade unionists, by not paying this element of the subscription, will not only be denying themselves benefit but also denying benefit to trade union members. My union takes the view that the more members it has and the more who pay into its funds, the greater the benefits paid. The rules say that when contributions have reached a certain monetary level the benefits to union members increase. Here is the first source of friction in that the benefits which could be made available to union members will be eroded—although not to any great extent—by people who are not paying the full contribution. We are not arguing now in terms of the actual physical reduction in benefit. What we are talking about is the kind of distress and resentment which will arise and which is to be backed by the full force of the law. That is one aspect.
      The other aspect is that when a person seeks employment in a factory, amongst the things which will have to be explained to him are the regulations if an agency shop agreement is in operation. Some hon. Members opposite have the fond illusion that employers are falling over themselves to get their workers to join a union. My experience in my 16 years of working in factories is the very opposite to that. My experience is that any opportunity an employer finds to discourage people from becoming trade union members he will take.
      682
      It would be quite legal, possible and likely under the Bill for employers to say, "We have an agency shop agreement here, and a trade union, but it will cost you less if you opt out"—because this is what the agency shop agreement amounts to. In explaining the different provisions an employer can suggest that a man will be better off not to join by the very manner in which he speaks, so that the person going for the job recognises the employer's attitude. It is no good the hon. Member for Basingstoke shaking his head: anyone with any real experience of industry knows that this is precisely what happens.
      Mr. David Mitchell: I was not shaking my head at that, but at the interpretation of the Bill. It is wrong to say that the non-trade unionists will not have to pay the full minimum subscription which the trade union member pays, because the only thing he will not have to pay is anything which is voluntary to the full member not to pay.
      Mr. Hughes: That is an interpretation which may be put on the terms of the Bill, but my belief is that by the time the rules of the registered trade union have been examined, we will have to ask ourselves what a full subscription is. In my union the minimum is section 5 membership. That does not carry the full benefits conferred by section 1 membership. Those in the skilled trades can choose either section 1 and have the benefits of full membership, or section 5, in which case they pay the absolute minimum. If the agency shop agreement is in force, it is highly unlikely that the basic contribution will be regarded as anything but the minimum contribution.
      As I was saying, the employer could by the very tone in which he discussed the various conditions encourage the prospective employee not to join the trade union. That would mean a growing number of people not becoming trade union members. I say that they are still free riders even though they are paying something, because they have no responsibility towards the trade union; no responsibility to try to promote its aims and ideas. That is bad for trade union membership.
      The Amendment would mean that conditions would be laid down by which shop stewards or trade union representatives could find out who was not a

      683
      member of their trade union, who was paying reduced subscriptions, and who was a conscientious objector and making a payment to a charity. It is vital that we should know.
      If a shop steward asks a new employee, "Are you a member of the trade union?" the employee can either say that he is not, because he has not got a card—and that is all right—or he may say that he is a conscientious objector, and thus paying to a charity, or that he is paying a reduced subscription to the trade union. On the other hand, the shop steward may get a dusty answer, and be told, "It is none of your business. I am not a trade union member. You have no control over me. You have no right to question me." But if the employee says that he is paying to a charity, how is the shop steward to verify that statement? He may ask the management, but if the management refuses to answer, where does he go to then? If there is an employer who is particularly difficult, he could make out a case of harassment by the shop steward who was continually asking non-unionists whether they were paying any subscriptions. As I understand it, that would be an unfair industrial practice, and things could develop into a real conflict.
      The whole problem of industrial relations is one of psychology. The Government have totally failed to understand the feelings of trade unionists in this kind of situation. The agency concept is bad. It will not work. It is better for people to solve their problems by themselves, but if there has to be conflict, let it at least be among equals, among people on the shop floor. If the law is interposed, and employers are interposed, it results only in greater distrust. It is a prescription for disastrous industrial relations. It is wholly bad, and I think that the Government could begin at least a minimum salvage operation by accepting the Opposition's Amendment.
      The Solicitor-General: I do not propose to take a great deal of time to reply to the debate, because a large part of what the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Harold Walker) said, and almost the whole of what was said by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes), was devoted to a general description of the principles of the agency
      684
      shop, and a discussion at any length on that topic would be out of order on this proposed Amendment to a Lords Amendment. In so far as the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North covered again the arguments about the growing number of free-riders, I can only reply that that is a topic with which I dealt in my reply to the last debate, at perhaps more length than was necessary.
      The hon. Member for Doncaster warned the House that there was a danger that my reply to this debate would follow closely my reply to the earlier debate. That arose only because the argument put forward from the other side of the House on the earlier debate drew me on to this territory.
      Most of the debate on Amendment No. 11 has been held on an earlier Amendment but, in the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell), perhaps I might repeat what I said then. The appearance of subsection (3) in this Amend-mena and a similar phrase in Amendment No. 40 is due to the representations made to the Government by my hon. Friend, and many others, on this very point.
      On the narrow point now being discussed, namely, the Opposition's Amendment to Amendment No. 11, as I said in reply to the earlier debate, it is not necessary for any such provision to be included as a matter of course in an agency shop agreement. Points of this kind can be covered by the collective agreement in which the agency shop agreement will be comprised. They could be the only legally enforceable points covered in such a clause of an agency shop agreement. An agency shop agreement could include, as many union or closed shop agreements do, a provision for the check off system to apply, whether generally or selectively; in other words, for all the people employed in the factory, or only in respect of those who were appropriate contributors.
      The union, of course, would be entitled to ask the employer where there was a collective agreement, whether contributions were being received under the proposals in subsection (3) of Amendment No. 11. The union would be entitled to ask the worker whether he was making a contribution, and if he were ill-advised enough to reply that it was none of the

      685
      union's business he would soon find that that was an unwise response, because it is the union's business to know, just as it is the employer's business to know, whether, in an agency shop, a member is paying his contributions. Either he pays to the union as a member of it, or the union and the employer are entitled to know whether he is paying his appropriate contributions.
      It is in the employer's interest to satisfy himself that these people are paying their contributions. It is in the employee's interest to satisfy the union that he is paying his contributions. But it is in the employer's interest to satisfy the union as well.
      Therefore, quite apart from any agreement, the provisions would follow as a matter of course from everybody's interest in such a situation. Also, collective agreements could provide for it, and, beyond that, if an employer were collecting contributions on behalf of an individual and not passing them on, it would also be open, in the last resort, for the union to take industrial action to enforce payment.
      In fact, one cannot see a situation in which a union would not know its own membership in such a situation. Therefore, it would know that it was entitled to receive contributions from all the employees in the shop or factory who were not its own members or who had not agreed with the union to pay to a charity, and it would know the number of members in respect of whom payments would have to be made, either direct or through the employer to the unions.
      The Opposition fear unnecessarily. Their anxiety about the agency shop is well understood. It is not the subject of this debate. Amendment No. 11 is perfectly reasonable and workable without this complex addition.
      9.0 p.m.
      Mrs. Castle: We are in some difficulty, because we are discussing our Amendment in isolation from the last Amendment. The two obviously hang together. What the Solicitor-General has not answered is my hon. Friend's telling remark that if subsection (3) of the proposed new Clause is necessary and desir-
      686
      able—the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Devid Mitchell) welcomed it and the Solicitor-General applauded it as meeting a valid point—then our Amendment is equally necessary and desirable.
      We cannot be told, "We have that subsection (3) in the new Clause," and then, when we say that this provision is not adequate and that we want a stronger one, be old, "You can do it all through the collective agreement". That is fobbing us off with an attempt to get the best of both arguments.
      My hon. Friend said that we accept that we have to make provision as to whose responsibility it is to see that these contributions in lieu become a valid part of the agency shop agreement. We do not accept that subsection (3) makes that explicit or goes far enough. The hon. Member for Basingstoke welcomed the subsection as getting over the problem that one cannot expect the union to be responsible for collecting from non-unionists, and he said that the Opposition's further Amendment was unnecessary.
      But subsection (3) helps us only where the worker who is making the contributions in lieu or who has applied to make them requests his employer to deduct his contributions from his wage. That is a slightly Alice in Wonderland situation. If a non-unionist chooses on principle not to belong to a union, and if he is a member of the "awkward squad", in a union shop, and if he will be taking advantage of the legal loophole which the Government are giving him to exercise the statutory right not to belong to a union, if he will glory in it and then request his employer to deduct his contributions from his pay, that is not a reasonable solution.
      Mr. David Mitchell: The right hon. Lady will agree that there are circumstances in which it is usual for union subscriptions to be collected at the place of work rather than at a branch meeting, which might occur in a different situation. It may be perfectly reasonable for money to be handed over to the union collector in this case, when and where the other subscriptions are being handed over. The Bill will, therefore, provide flexibility so that either situation can be met.
      Mrs. Castle: It is reasonable for the check-off system to apply, but let us consider the wording of the Bill and not what the hon. Gentleman thinks it says. The Measure talks about the worker requesting his employer to deduct money from his pay, which means that an initiative must be taken. Does the hon. Gentleman think that non-unionists will not wish to sit on their money for as long as they can? Does he believe that non-unionists having decided to make contributions to charity, they will queue up to take the initiative and say to their employer, "Please apply the check-off system to me. I would hate to be outside the law in this matter?"
      The Solicitor-General managed, with one of his usual labyrinthine answers, to avoid answering our questions.
      The Solicitor-General: Perhaps the right hon. Lady overlooks the fact that, labyrinthine or not, I explained the matter clearly when answering the debate on the previous Amendment. She was not in her place at that time. On that occasion I gave a detailed response to a number
      of questitons from her hon. Friends. I do not wish to go over all the steps again.
      Mrs. Castle: I listened to his answer on this occasion, in which he said he was summarising what he said previously. I have also been given some information by my hon. Friends about the earlier answer he gave. I came in towards the end of his answer to the last debate and I challenged him about being on the horns of a legal enforceability dilemma. He wants to lure us into his legal enforceability trap by saying that this is negotiable as part of the closed shop agreement, but that is no answer.
      If it is necessary to spell out this provision in the Bill, then let it be spelt out in the way we suggest and not in the manner he suggests. If the Government wish to achieve a certain end, they will prove their integrity by choosing our, more effective, means of securing that end.
      Question put, That the Amendment be made to the Lords Amendment:—
      The House divided: Ayes 255, Noes 286.

      Division No. 440.]

      AYES

      [9.8 p.m.

      Abse, Leo

      Crawshaw, Richard

      Fraser, John (Norwood)

      Albu, Austen

      Cronin, John

      Freeson, Reginald

      Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

      Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Galpern, Sir Myer

      Allen, Scholefield

      Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

      Garrett, W. E.

      Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

      Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

      Gilbert, Dr. John

      Armstrong, Ernest

      Dalyell, Tam

      Ginsburg, David

      Ashton, Joe

      Darling, Rt Hn. George

      Golding, John

      Atkinson, Norman

      Davidson, Arthur

      Gourlay, Harry

      Bagier, Cordon A. T.

      Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

      Grant, George (Morpeth)

      Barnes, Michael

      Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

      Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

      Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

      Davies, Ifor (Cower)

      Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

      Barnett, Joel

      Davies, S. O. (Merthyr Tydvil)

      Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

      Beaney, Alan

      Davis, Clinton (Hacknev, C.)

      Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

      Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

      Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

      Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

      Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

      Deakins, Eric

      Hamling, William

      Bidwell, Sydney

      de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrev

      Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

      Bishop, E. S.

      Delargy, H. J.

      Hardy, Peter

      Blenkinsop, Arthur

      Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

      Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

      Boardman, H. (Leigh)

      Dempsey, James

      Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

      Booth, Albert

      Doig, Peter

      Hattersley, Roy

      Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

      Dormand, J. D.

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Bradley, Tom

      Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

      Horam, John

      Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, w.)

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

      Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

      Brown Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)

      Driberg, Tom

      Huckfield, Leslie

      Buchan, Norman

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

      Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

      Dunnett, Jack

      Hughes, Mark (Durham)

      Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

      Eadie, Alex

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

      Cailaghan, Rt. Hn. James

      Edelman, Maurice

      Hughes, Roy (Newport)

      Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)

      Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

      Hunter, Adam

      Cant, R. B.

      Edwards, William (Merioneth)

      Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)

      Carmichael, Neil

      Ellis, Tom

      Janner, Greville

      Carter, Ray (Birmingham, Northfield)

      English, Michael

      Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

      Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

      Evans, Fred

      Jeger, Mrs.Lena (H'b'n & St.P'cras, S.)

      Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

      Faulds, Andrew

      Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

      Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

      Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

      John, Brynmor

      Cohen, Stanley

      Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

      Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

      Coleman, Donald

      Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)

      Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

      Concannon, J. D.

      Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

      Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

      Conlan, Bernard

      Foot, Michael

      Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

      Corbet, Mrs. Freda

      Ford, Ben

      Jones, Dan (Burnley)

      Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth. C.)

      Forrester, John

      Jones, Rt.Hn.Sir Elwyn (W.Ham, S.)

      Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

      Miller, Dr. M. S.

      Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

      Jones, T, Alec (Rhondda, w.)

      Milne, Edward (Blyth)

      Sillars, James

      Judd, Frank

      Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)

      Silverman, Julius

      Kaufman, Gerald

      Molloy, William

      Skinner, Dennis

      Kelley, Richard

      Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

      Small, William

      Kerr, Russell

      Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      Spearing, Nigel

      Kinnock, Neil

      Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Lambie, David

      Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

      Stallard, A. W.

      Lamond, James

      Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

      Latham, Arthur

      Murray, Ronald King

      Stoddart, David (Swindon)

      Lawson, George

      Ogden, Eric

      Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

      Leadbitter, Ted

      O'Halloran, Michael

      Strang, Gavin

      Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      O'Malley, Brian

      Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

      Leonard, Dick

      Oram, Bert

      Taverne, Dick

      Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold

      Orme, Stanley

      Thomas, Rt.Hn.George (Cardiff, W.)

      Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

      Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)

      Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Padley, Walter

      Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)

      Lipton, Marcus

      Paget, R. T.

      Tinn, James

      Lomas, Kenneth

      Palmer, Arthur

      Tomney, Frank

      Loughlin, Charles

      Parker, John (Dagenham)

      Torney, Tom

      Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

      Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

      Tuck, Raphael

      Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

      Pendry, Tom

      Urwin, T. W.

      Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

      Pentland, Norman

      Varley, Eric G.

      McBride, Neil

      Perry, Ernest G.

      Wainwright, Edwin

      McCann, John

      Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

      Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

      McCartney, Hugh

      Prescott, John

      Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

      McElhone, Frank

      Price, J. T. (Westhoughon)

      Wallace, George

      McGuire, Michael

      Probert, Arthur

      Watkins, David

      Mackenzie, Gregor

      Rankin, John

      Weitzman, David

      Mackintosh, John P.

      Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

      Wellbeloved, James

      Maclennan, Robert

      Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

      Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

      McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

      Rhodes, Geoffrey

      White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

      McNamara, J. Kevin

      Richard, Ivor

      Whitehead, Phillip

      Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

      Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

      Whitlock, William

      Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield. E)

      Robertson, John (Paisley)

      Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Marks, Kenneth

      Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Br'c'n&R'dnor)

      Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

      Marquand, David

      Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

      Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

      Marsden, F.

      Roper, John

      Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

      Marshall, Dr. Edmund

      Rose, Paul B.

      Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

      Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

      Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

      Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

      Meacher, Michael

      Sandelson, Neville

      Woof, Robert

      Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-uncler-Lyne)

      Mendelson, John

      Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Mikardo, Ian

      Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N.E.)

      Mr. Joseph Harper and

      Millan, Bruce

      Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

      Mr. James A. Dunn.

      NOES

      Adley, Robert

      Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

      Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

      Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

      Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray & Nairn)

      Emery, Peter

      Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

      Carlisle, Mark

      Eyre, Reginald

      Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

      Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Farr, John

      Astor, John

      Channon, Paul

      Fell, Anthony

      Atkins, Humphrey

      Chapman, Sydney

      Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

      Awdry, Daniel

      Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

      Fidler, Michael

      Baker, w. H. K. (Banff)

      Chichester-Clark, R.

      Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)

      Balniel, Lord

      Churchill, W. S.

      Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

      Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Clark, William (Surrey, E.)

      Flercher-Cooke, Charles

      Batsford, Brian

      Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

      Clegg, Walter

      Foster, Sir John

      Bell, Ronald

      Cockeram, Eric

      Fowler, Norman

      Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

      Coombs, Derek

      Fox, Marcus

      Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

      Cooper, A. E.

      Fraser, Rt.Hn.Hugh (St'fford … Stone)

      Benyon, W.

      Corfield, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Fry, Peter

      Berry, Hn. Anthony

      Cormack, Patrick

      Galbrarith, Hn. T. G.

      Biffen, John

      Costain, A. P.

      Gardner, Edward

      Biggs-Davison, John

      Critchley, Julian

      Gibson-Watt, David

      Blaker, Peter

      Crouch, David

      Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

      Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

      Crowder, F. P.

      Glyn, Dr. Alan

      Boscawen, Robert

      Curran, Charles

      Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

      Bossom, Sir Clive

      Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutstord)

      Goodhart, Philip

      Bowden, Andrew

      d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

      Goodhew, Victor

      Boyd'Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John

      Braine, Bernard

      d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen. James

      Gorst, John

      Bray, Ronald

      Dean, Paul

      Gower, Raymond

      Brewis, John

      Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

      Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

      Brinton, Sir Tatton

      Digby, Simon Wingfleld

      Gray, Hamish

      Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

      Dixon, Piers

      Green, Alan

      Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

      Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

      Grieve, Percy

      Bryan, Paul

      Drayson, G. B.

      Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

      Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&M)

      Dykes, Hugh

      Grylls, Michael

      Buck, Antony

      Eden, Sir John

      Gummer, Selwyn

      Bullus, Sir Eric

      Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Curden, Harold

      Burden, F. A.

      Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

      Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

      690

      691

      Hall, John (Wycombe)

      Maginnis, John E.

      Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

      Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

      Marples, Rt Hn. Ernest

      Rost, Peter

      Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

      Marten, Neil

      Russell, Sir Ronald

      Hannam, John (Exeter)

      Mather, Carol

      St. John-Stevas, Norman

      Harrrison, Brian (Maldon)

      Maude, Angus

      Scott, Nicholas

      Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

      Mawby, Ray

      Scott-Hopkins, James

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

      Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

      Hastings, Stephen

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Simeons, Charles

      Havers, Michael

      Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

      Sinclair, Sir George

      Hay, John

      Miscampbell, Norman

      Skeet, T. H. H.

      Hayhoe, Barney

      Mitchell, Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeenshire. W)

      Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

      Heath, Rt. Hon. Edward

      Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

      Soref, Harold

      Hicks, Robert

      Moate, Roger

      Speed, Keith

      Higgins, Terence L.

      Molyneaux, James

      Spence, John

      Hiley, Joseph

      Money, Ernle

      Sproat, lain

      Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)

      Monro, Hector

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

      Montgomery, Fergus

      Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

      Holland, Philip

      More, Jasper

      Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

      Holt, Miss Mary

      Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

      Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

      Hordern, Peter

      Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

      Stokes, John

      Hornby, Richard

      Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

      Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

      Hornsby-Smith, Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia

      Mudd, David

      Sutcliffe, John

      Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)

      Murton, Oscar

      Tapsell, Peter

      Howell, David (Guildford)

      Nabarro, Sir Gerald

      Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

      Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

      Neave, Airey

      Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

      Hunt, John

      Nicholls, Sir Harmar

      Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

      Hutchison, Michael Clark

      Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

      Tebbit, Norman

      Iremonger, T. L.

      Normanton, Tom

      Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

      James, David

      Nott, John

      Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

      Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

      Onslow, Cranley

      Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

      Jessel, Toby

      Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

      Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

      Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

      Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

      Tilney, John

      Jopling, Michael

      Osborn, John

      Trafford, Dr. Anthony

      Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

      Page, Graham (Crosby)

      Trew, Peter

      Kaberry, Sir Donald

      Page, John (Harrow, W.)

      Tugendhat, Christopher

      Kilfedder, James

      Parkinson, Cecil (Enfield, W.)

      Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

      Kimball, Marcus

      Peel, John

      van Straubenzee, W. R.

      King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

      Percival, Ian

      Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

      King, Tom (Bridgwater)

      Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

      Vickers, Dame Joan

      Kinsey, J. R.

      Pike, Miss Mervyn

      Waddington, David

      Kirk, Peter

      Pink, R. Bonner

      Walder, David (Clitheroe)

      Kitson, Timothy

      Pounder, Rafton

      Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

      Knox, David

      Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

      Walters, Dennis

      Lane, David

      Price, David (Eastleigh)

      Ward, Dame Irene

      Langford-Holt, Sir John

      Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

      Warren, Kenneth

      Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

      Proudfoot, Wilfred

      Weatherill, Bernard

      Le Marchant, Spencer

      Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

      Wells, John (Maidstone)

      Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

      Quennell, Miss J. M.

      White, Roger (Gravesend)

      Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

      Raison, Timothy

      Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

      Longden, Gilbert

      Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Loveridge, John

      Redmond, Robert

      Wilkinson, John

      Luce, R. N.

      Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

      Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

      McAdden, Sir Stephen

      Rees, Peter (Dover)

      Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

      MacArthur, Ian

      Rees-Davies, W. R.

      Woodnutt, Mark

      McCrindle, R. A.

      Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

      Worsley, Marcus

      McLaren, Martin

      Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

      Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

      Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

      Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

      Younger, Hn. George

      McMaster, Stanley

      Ridsdale, Julian

      Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)

      Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

      FELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      McNair-Wilson, Michael

      Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

      Mr. Paul Hawkins and

      McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

      Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

      Mr. Tim Fortescue.

      Maddan, Martin

      9.15 p.m.
      The Solicitor-General: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      The substance of all the points in the Amendment has already been discussed. It is largely redrafting. Subsections (1), (2) and (5) take the place of passages which we have removed from an earlier Clause. Subsection (4) makes plain the position where there is more than one union party to a shop agreement. Subsection (6), which I have already explained in connection with
      Amendment No. 18, is designed to make it possible for an agency shop agreement to be made with an employer's association as well as with one or more employer. That provision was generally welcomed when we discussed it in the context of Amendment No. 18.
      In subsection (3), which we discussed during the last debate, provision is made for a form of check-off in respect of contributions by a contributing member.
      The only other change to which I should draw attention is in subsection (2)(b). The words "has refused" are

      693
      replaced by the word "refuses", an Amendment moved by Lord Gray in another place, so as to make plain that it is refusal at the time which is a necessary condition to show that the worker is not complying with the agency shop agreement.
      On that basis, I commend the new Clause to the House.
      Mr. Harold Walker: I have two queries to raise. The Solicitor-General said that he had referred earlier to subsection (6). I deeply regret that I was not here for the opening of his earlier speech, and I missed that reference, so he may well have dealt with the query which I wish to raise on it.
      First, however, I take up the question of subsection (2) and the change to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred, that is, that it will not be an unfair industrial practice for an employer to refused to engage an applicant for work who is (a) not a trade unionist or (b) is not prepared to pay his contributions in lieu. Does this mean that an earlier assumption of mine that Clause 5 may well preclude an employer from vetting the trade union credentials of an applicant for employment is ill-founded and the employer may so vet an applicant? In other words, is it open to him to say, in effect, that membership of a particular union is a matter which he is entitled to question, and he will reserve his judgment about whether there is in that respect a valid reason for employing him?
      Now, the question on subsection (6). I can well understand that this has probably been introduced to meet the difficulties of people engaged in the acting profession, for example, in which there is transitory employment and a plurality of employers. But does it at the same time open the door for the Engineering Employers' Federation to conclude an agreement with, for example, the A.E.F. at national level that in all federated establishments, toolmakers, say, shall be members of the A.E.F.? In other words, can a national agency be established along those lines between a union and an employers' federation on behalf of all federated establishments?
      The Solicitor-General: I did not quite follow the question which the hon. Gentleman put on subsection (2). Would
      694
      he be good enuogh to explain it a little further?
      Mr. Walker: Subsection (2) provides that it shall not be an unfair industrial practice for an employer to refuse to engage a worker who is either not a member of a trade union or refuses to pay his contributions in lieu. In other words, if an applicant for employment is neither one nor the other, the employer is entitled to refuse to engage him without incurring penalty. Clearly, that implies that the employer has the right to vet the union credentials of an applicant and to put the question, "Are you a member of a trade union?".
      In earlier debates there had been an assumption, certainly on my part, that the provisions of the Clause could put the employer at some risk if he asked an applicant for employment, "Are you a member of a trade union?" and subsequently wrote regretting that he had been unsuccessful in his application. We never had the position clarified. Would the applicant who admitted he was a non-unionist applying for employment at an establishment with 100 per cent. unionism—not a closed shop—have grounds for telling the tribunal or court, "I believe that there has been prejudice against me because I am not a union member"? It seemed to me that there was implicit in the Clause a disentitlement to the employer to ask that question. Subsection (2) of the new Clause implies that the employer has the right to ask an applicant whether he is a union member, and, if he is not, whether he is prepared to become one or to pay his contributions in lieu. Is my interpretation correct?
      The Solicitor-General: With the leave of the House, I should like to answer the two points the hon. Gentleman raised. His understanding of the effect of subsection (2) is entirely correct. With the small change that I have mentioned, it reproduces the provision in the original Clause 5. The effect is that where an agency shop agreement exists the employer is entitled to ask a prospective employee whether he is a member of Union X. If the man says, "No", the employer may reply, "If you are to enter employment here you must become a member of Union X or agree to pay appropriate contributions". It is in order

      695
      for the employer to ask that kind of question.
      Clause 18 makes it plain that the statement given to the employee under the Contracts of Employment Act would have to tell him the nature of his union membership obligations in the place at which he will come to work, and Clause 7 gives the incoming worker a month in which to join the union or pay the contribution.
      Therefore, the position is that the employer can ask, "Do you belong? If not, will you belong or contribute?" If the man refuses to reply, "Yes", to either of those questions the employer can refuse to engage him. If the answer is, "Yes", the employer can dismiss him if he does not comply with his agreements.
      I explained subsection (6) when the hon. Gentleman was not present in the Chamber, but I will run over it again shortly. It entitles an employers' association, including an employers' federation, to make an agency shop agreement on behalf of its members with a union or unions. The employers' association can do that industry-wide in so far as its membership is industry-wide. There may be some employers in the industry who do not belong to the association, and therefore could not be covered by such an agreement. Let us take, for example, the employers' association in the boot and shoe industry, which made representations to ascertain that it could make an agency shop agreement for all its members throughout the section of the industry that it covered. That association may indeed enter into an agency shop agreement on behalf of all its members. It could not bind people who did not belong to it, but within its membership, acting on their behalf as a result of subsection (6)(b), it would make the agency shop agreement so as to bind any member of the association or any employer who became a member.
      I hope that makes the position clear. Both answers are in the sense that the hon. Member wants. An employer may inquire into the credentials of a prospective employee and encourage him to join the union and the employers' association may make an agency shop agreement on behalf of all its members.
      9.30 p.m.
      Dame Irene Ward: I am getting a little worried about this interchange. I was not able to listen to the introduction to the discussion, and I am probably stepping off on the wrong foot. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am always perfectly willing to declare that I do not know something. The Opposition would be far better if they learned a little more sometimes. [HON. MEMBERS: "You should come and listen."] I had other business to attend to. [HON. MEMBERS: "The House comes first."] It is no good shouting at me, because I will just stand here until I have said what I want to say. In fact, I am rather enjoying standing here, because I can have a good look at all the hon. Members opposite. Where I am is a very good observation post.
      I want to know for certain that this provision will not affect the right of the professional engineers now involved in the C. A. Parsons dispute, many of them my constituents. [HON. MEMBERS: "What a question !"] I can stand up for them if I want to do so. [HON. MEMBERS: "They are not miners."] They are not miners, but they are professional engineers. Hon. Members opposite might as well allow me to go on, because I intend to say what I want to say and it will save time if they let me do so now.
      I want to be assured that what my hon. and learned Friend said in that interchange will not affect the right of professional engineers not to join D.A.T.A. unless they want to do so. I have been told in correspondence that when the Bill is passed, the position of professional engineers will be absolutely clear, and I want to be certain that there is no alteration to that.
      The Solicitor-General: Before my hon. Friend sits down—I hope that I may interrupt her, for I am sure that the House would not want me to speak again——
      Mr. Speaker: Has the hon. and learned Gentleman the leave of the House?
      Hon. Members: Yes.
      The Solicitor-General: I was seeking to interrupt my hon. Friend in order to answer her question. I had hoped to

      697
      catch her before she sat down from her lofty vantage point. I wish to say that a professional engineer covered by an agency shop agreement would be covered by it exactly as the agreement said. The employer could ask him whether he belonged to the union in question and whether he was willing to contribute to the union in question but he would not be obliged to belong.
      Dame Irene Ward: He would have to pay the agency shop contribution?
      The Solicitor-General: Yes, but he could not be compelled, as the union mentioned by my hon. Friend would seek to compel him, to join a union against his wishes.
      Mrs. Castle: May I help the hon. Lady?
      Dame Irene Ward: There is no need to help me.
      Mrs. Castle: May I thank the hon. Lady, who has helped the House by her pertinent question? I want to make it clear, so that we may all benefit from the Solicitor-General's answer, that he is saying about the professional workers in whom the hon. Lady is interested that if an agency shop agreement existed, they could be compelled to contribute to D.A.T.A. as well as to their professional organisation.
      The Solicitor-General: But not to belong.
      Question put, That the House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment:—
      The House divided: Ayes 285, Noes 254.

      Division No. 441.]

      AYES

      [9.35 p.m.

      Adley, Robert

      Coombs, Derek

      Gray, Hamish

      Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

      Cooper, A. E.

      Green, Alan

      Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

      Corfield, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Grieve, Percy

      Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

      Cormack, Patrick

      Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmund

      Astor, John

      Costain, A. P.

      Grylls, Michael

      Atkins, Humphrey

      Critchley, Julian

      Gummer, Selwyn

      Awdry, Daniel

      Crouch, David

      Gurden, Harold

      Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

      Crowder, F. P.

      Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

      Balniel, Lord

      Curran, Charles

      Hall, John (Wycombe)

      Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

      Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

      Batsford, Brian

      d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

      Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

      Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

      d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj. -Gen. James

      Hannam, John (Exeter)

      Bell, Ronald

      Dean, Paul

      Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

      Bennett, Sir Frederick (Torquay)

      Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

      Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

      Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

      Digby, Simon Wingfield

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Benyon, W.

      Dixon, Piers

      Hastings, Stephen

      Berry, Hn. Anthony

      Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

      Havers, Michael

      Biffen, John

      Drayson, G. B.

      Hay, John

      Biggs-Davison, John

      Dykes, Hugh

      Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

      Blaker, Peter

      Eden, Sir John

      Hicks, Robert

      Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

      Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Higgins, Terence L.

      Boscawen, Robert

      Elliott, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

      Hiley, Joseph

      Bossom, Sir Clive

      Elliot, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

      Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)

      Bowden, Andrew

      Emery, Peter

      Hill, James (Southampton, Teat)

      Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John

      Eyre, Reginald

      Holland, Philip

      Braine, Bernard

      Fell, Anthony

      Holt, Miss Mary

      Bray, Ronald

      Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

      Hordern, Peter

      Brewis, John

      Fidler, Michael

      Hornby, Richard

      Brinton, Sir Tatton

      Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)

      Hornsby-Smith, Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia

      Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

      Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

      Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)

      Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

      Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

      Howell, David (Guildford)

      Bryan, Paul

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

      Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N & M)

      Fortescue, Tim

      Hunt, John

      Buck, Antony

      Foster, Sir John

      Hutchison, Michael Clark

      Bullus, Sir Eric

      Fowler, Norman

      Iremonger, T. L.

      Burden, F. A.

      Fox, Marcus

      James, David

      Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

      Fraser, Rt.Hn.Hugh (St'fford & Stone)

      Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

      Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray & Nairn)

      Fry, Peter

      Jessel, Toby

      Carlisle, Mark

      Galbraith, Hn. T. G.

      Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

      Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Gardner, Edward

      Jopling, Michael

      Channon, Paul

      Gibson-Watt, David

      Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

      Chapman, Sydney

      Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

      Kaberry, Sir Donald

      Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

      Glyn, Dr. Alan

      Kershaw, Anthony

      Chichester-Clark, R.

      Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

      Kilfedder, James

      Churchill, W. S.

      Goodhart, Philip

      Kimball, Marcus

      Clark, William (Surrey, E.)

      Goodhew, Victor

      King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

      Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

      Gorst, John

      King, Tom (Bridgwater)

      Cockeram, Eric

      Gower, Raymond

      Kinsey, J. R.

      Cooke, Robert

      Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

      Kirk, Peter

      Kitson, Timothy

      Nott, John

      Spence, John

      Knox, David

      Onslow, Cranley

      Sproat, lain

      Lane, David

      Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Langford-Holt, Sir John

      Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

      Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

      Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

      Osborn, John

      Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

      Le Marchant, Spencer

      Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

      Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

      Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

      Page, Graham (Crosby)

      Stokes, John

      Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

      Page, John (Harrow, W.)

      Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

      Longden, Gilbert

      Parkinson, Cecil (Enfield, W.)

      Sutcliffe, John

      Loveridge, John

      Peel, John

      Tapsell, Peter

      Luce, R. N,

      Percival, Ian

      Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

      McAdden, Sir Stephen

      Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

      Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

      MacArthur, Ian

      Pike, Miss Mervyn

      Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

      McCrindle, R. A.

      Pink, R. Bonner

      Tebbit, Norman

      Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

      Pounder, Rafton

      Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

      McMaster, Stanley

      Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

      Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

      Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)

      Price, David (Eastleigh)

      Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

      McNair-Wilson, Michael

      Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

      Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

      McNair-Wilon, Patrick (New Forest)

      Proudfoot, Wilfred

      Tilney, John

      Maddan, Martin

      Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

      Trafford, Dr. Anthony

      Maginnis, John E.

      Quennell, Miss J. M.

      Trew, Peter

      Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

      Raison, Timothy

      Tugendhat, Christopher

      Marten, Neil

      Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

      Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

      Mather, Carol

      Redmond, Robert

      van Straubenzee, W. R.

      Maude, Angus

      Reed, Laurence (Bolton, E.)

      Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

      Mawby, Ray

      Rees, Peter (Dover)

      Vickers, Dame Joan

      Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J

      Rees-Davies, W. R.

      Waddington, David

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

      Walder, David (Clitheroe)

      Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

      Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

      Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

      Miscampbell Norman

      Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

      Walters, Dennis

      Mitchell, Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeenshire, W)

      Ridsdale, Julian

      Ward, Dame Irene

      Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

      Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

      Warren, Kenneth

      Moate, Roger

      Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

      Weatherill, Bernard

      Molyneaux, James

      Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

      Wells, John (Maidstone)

      Money, Ernle

      Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

      White, Roger (Gravesend)

      Monro, Hector

      Rost, Peter

      Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

      Montgomery, Fergus

      Russell, Sir Ronald

      Wiggin, Jerry

      More, Jasper

      St. John-Stevas, Norman

      Wilkinson, John

      Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

      Scott, Nicholas

      Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

      Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

      Scott-Hopkins, James

      Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

      Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

      Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

      Worsley, Marcus

      Mudd, David

      Simeons, Charles

      Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

      Murton, Oscar

      Sinclair, Sir George

      Younger, Hn. George

      Nabarro, Sir Gerald

      Skeet, T. H. H.

      Neave, Airey

      Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Nicholls, Sir Harmar

      Soref, Harold

      Mr. Paul Hawkins and

      Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

      Speed, Keith

      Mr. Walter Clegg.

      Normanton, Tom

      NOES

      Abse, Leo

      Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

      Driberg, Tom

      Albu, Austen

      Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

      Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

      Dunnett, Jack

      Allen, Scholefield

      Cohen, Stanley

      Eadie, Alex

      Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

      Coleman, Donald

      Edelman, Maurice

      Ashton, Joe

      Concannon, J. D.

      Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

      Atkinson, Norman

      Conlan, Bernard

      Ellis, Tom

      Bagier, Gordon A. T.

      Corbet, Mrs. Freda

      English, Michael

      Barnes, Michael

      Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)

      Evans, Fred

      Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

      Crawshaw, Richard

      Faulds, Andrew

      Barnett, Joel

      Cronin, John

      Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

      Beaney, Alan

      Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

      Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

      Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

      Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)

      Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

      Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

      Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

      Bidwell, Sydney

      Dalyell, Tam

      Foot, Michael

      Bishop, E. S.

      Darling, Rt. Hn. George

      Ford, Ben

      Blenkinsop, Arthur

      Davidson, Arthur

      Forrester, John

      Boardman, H. (Leigh)

      Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

      Fraser, John (Norwood)

      Booth, Albert

      Davies, C. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

      Freeson, Reginald

      Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

      Davies, Ifor (Cower)

      Galpern, Sir Myer

      Bradley, Tom

      Davies, S. O. (Merthyr Tydvil)

      Garrett, W. E.

      Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)

      Davis, Clinton (Hackney, c.)

      Gilbert, Dr. John

      Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

      Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

      Ginsburg, David

      Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)

      Deakins, Eric

      Golding, John

      Buchan, Norman

      de Freitas, Rt, Hn. Sir Geoffrey

      Gourlay, Harry

      Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'bum)

      Delargy, H. J.

      Grant, George (Morpeth)

      Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

      Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

      Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

      Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

      Dempsey, James

      Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

      Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)

      Doig, Peter

      Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

      Cant, R. B.

      Dormand, J. D.

      Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

      Carmichael, Neil

      Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

      Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

      Carter, Ray (Birmingham, Northfield)

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Hamling, William

      700

      701

      Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

      McGuire, Michael

      Roper, John

      Hardy, Peter

      Mackenzie, Gregor

      Rose, Paul B.

      Harper, Joseph

      Mackintosh, John P.

      Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

      Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

      Maclennan, Robert

      Sandelson, Neville

      Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

      McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

      Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

      Hattersley, Roy

      McNamara, J. Kevin

      Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

      Short, Mrs. Renée (W 'hampton, N.E.)

      Horam, John

      Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

      Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

      Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

      Marks, Kenneth

      Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

      Huckfield, Leslie

      Marquand, David

      Sillars, James

      Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

      Marsden, F.

      Silverman, Julius

      Hughes, Mark (Durham)

      Marshall, Dr. Edmund

      Skinner, Dennis

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

      Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

      Small, William

      Hughes, Roy (Newport)

      Meacher, Michael

      Spearing, Nigel

      Hunter, Adam

      Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Spriggs, Leslie

      lrvine, Rt.Hn.SirArthur (Edge Hill)

      Mendelson, John

      Stallard, A. W.

      Janner, Greville

      Millan, Bruce

      Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

      Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

      Miller, Dr. M. S.

      Stoddart, David (Swindon)

      Jeger, Mrs.Lena (H'b'n&St.P'cras, S.)

      Milne, Edward (Blyth)

      Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

      Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

      Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)

      Strang, Gavin

      John, Brynmor

      Molloy, William

      Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

      Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

      Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

      Taverne, Dick

      Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

      Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      Thomas, Rt.Hn.George (Cardiff, W.)

      Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

      Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

      Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

      Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

      Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

      Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)

      Jones, Dan (Burnley)

      Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Tinn, James

      Jones, Rt. Hn. SirElwyn (W. Ham, S.)

      Murray, Ronald King

      Tomney, Frank

      Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

      Ogden, Eric

      Torney, Tom

      Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

      O'Halloran, Michael

      Tuck, Raphael

      Judd, Frank

      O'Malley, Brian

      Urwin, T. W.

      Kaufman, Gerald

      Oram, Bert

      Varley, Eric G.

      Kelley, Richard

      Orme, Stanley

      Wainwright, Edwin

      Kerr, Russell

      Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)

      Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

      Kinnock, Neil

      Padley, Walter

      Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

      Lambie, David

      Paget, R. T.

      Wallace, George

      Lamond, David

      Palmer, Arthur

      Watkins, David

      Latham, Arthur

      Parker, John (Dagenham)

      Weitzman, David

      Lawson, George

      Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

      Wellbeloved, James

      Leadbitter, Ted

      Pendry, Tom

      Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

      Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Pentland, Norman

      White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

      Leonard, Dick

      Perry, Ernest G.

      Whitehead, Phillip

      Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold

      Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

      Whitlock, William

      Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham N.)

      Prescott, John

      Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

      Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

      Lipton, Marcus

      Probert, Arthur

      Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

      Lomas, Kenneth

      Rankin, John

      Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

      Loughlin, Charles

      Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

      Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

      Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

      Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

      Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

      Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

      Rhodes, Geoffrey

      Woof, Robert

      Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

      Richard, Ivor

      McBride, Neil

      Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      McCann, John

      Robertson, John (Paisley)

      Mr. Ernest Armstrong and

      McCartney, Hugh

      Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Br'c'n&R'dnor)

      Mr. James A. Dunn.

      McElhone, Frank

      Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

    Clause 6

      PRE-ENTRY CLOSED SHOP AGREEMENTS TO BE VOID
      Lords Amendment: No. 12, in page 5, line 39, at end insert:
      "(1A) Any worker who, on application to an employer, has been refused engagement, and who claims that the refusal was attributable (wholly or in part) to a provision in an agreement which had the effect of precluding the employer as mentioned in paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section may apply to the Industrial Court for an order under the next following subsection.
      (1B) If on such an application the Industrial Court finds—

      (a) that an agreement is in force consisting of or including a provision so formulated as to have the effect specified in subsection
      702
      (1A) of this section, however that provision is expressed and whether it purports to have that effect or not;

      (b) that the refusal of the employer to engage the worker was wholly or partly attributable to that provision; and

      (c) that the provision in question constitutes a substantial derogation from the rights conferred on workers by section 5 of this Act,

      the Industrial Court shall make an order declaring that provision to be void".
      9.45 p.m.
      The Solicitor-General: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      I suggest that it might be for the convenience of the House to discuss at the same time Lords Amendment No. 13, in page 5, line 40, leave out subsection (2),

      703
      and Lords Amendment No. 61, in page 24, line 26, at end insert:
      "() knowingly to induce an employer to comply with a provision declared to be void by an order of the Industrial Court under section 6(1B) of this Act, or"
      This group of Lords Amendments, two of them to Clause 6 and one of them to Clause 31, is designed to deal with one point, namely, the situation where although a pre-entry closed shop agreement does not exist as such, another agreement or arrangement has the same effect as a pre-entry closed shop agreement. The House will know that the Government are opposed to the continued existence of the pre-entry closed shop whereby somebody is unable to secure employment unless he is already a member of a given union. It is clear from Clause 6 as it stands that without this Lords Amendment it would be possible for a pre-entry closed shop to be maintained by virtue of an arrangement or agreement which had the same effect. Lords Amendment No. 12 enables a worker to make application to the industrial court if he can show that as a result of an arrangement of that kind he has been refused work and is not therefore able to establish his rights under Clause 5 to work. Clause 6(2) is to be removed by Lords Amendment No. 13 because there is, on further consideration, no need for that to appear there.
      The third Lords Amendment in this group, No. 61, is an Amendment to Clause 31 making it plain that if an industrial action be threatened or taken with the intention of persuading an employer to deny a worker his rights under Clause 6—in other words, if industrial action be taken with the object of enforcing the pre-entry closed shop, whether explicitly or implicitly—that is also industrial action to be regarded as an unfair industrial practice.
      There is no further consequence of this trio of Lords Amendments, which are designed to make clear and effective the clear intention of the Government as originally set out in Clause 6, namely, that pre-entry closed shop agreements are to be void.
      Mr. Heffer: The Amendment is designed to plug what the Lord Chancellor described and what the Solicitor-General has described in a different way
      704
      as an obvious gap. In other words, there could well be a pre-entry closed shop agreement between an employer and trade unions which has existed with amicable arrangements between employer and unions for, say, 20 or 30 years, but, because the Bill when enacted will make the agreement null and void, the unions and employer can make a verbal agreement to continue the long-standing agreement which has worked well over the years.
      The Government realised this and therefore decided that the gap must be closed. Yet the Tories say that they are not against the trade union movement. If ever there was an example of the extent to which the Government are against the trade union movement this is one. The Government therefore produced the Amendment which will secure that any worker who goes to a shop of the type I have described and asks for a job, and who is put off by the employer because he is not old enough or because he is not the type of worker the employer requires, and who thinks there is an agreement between the employer and the unions to perpetuate a closed shop arrangement, can make an application to the Industrial Court.
      Hon. Members opposite are delighted with the Amendment. This is a good example of their class politics. The Solicitor-General used the very words which we have said are in line with American policy. He referred to the right to work. He revealed that the Tories believe in the American concept—the right of the union shop and the right of the non-unionist to have protection under the law. It is right that the Solicitor-General spelt the situation out more clearly than it was spelt out in the other place by the Lord Chancellor.
      Mr. Dennis Skinner: My hon. Friend makes an alarming statement, though I do not deny that he is correct. Perhaps he will take the example of the National Union of Mine-workers. Since nationalisation a form of pre-entry closed shop has been in operation. It seems that my hon. Friend is saying that the Amendment can mean dislocation in the mining industry with men attempting to work underground without being members of the union.
      Mr. Heffer: Of course it can work out like that. Further than that, not only

      705
      are all pre-entry closed shops void, any informal arrangement between a union and employer which appears to be continuing a closed shop equally becomes void as a result of the Amendment. In other words, the Government have seen that there is just a remote possibility that such arrangements could be made and in order to ensure that the gap is closed they have introduced the Amendment. It reveals their real thinking. The Lord Chancellor did not so clearly reveal the situation as it has now been revealed by the Solicitor-General.
      The other point about the Amendment which needs underlining is that the application will have to be made by a worker to the industrial court. Obviously, once the application is made, the worker has to prove his case. But he will not be doing so on his own. At that stage, the lawyers will become involved. We have described the Bill as a lawyers' picnic and this is a very good example of the sort of pickings that the lawyers will be able to get out of the Bill. The trade union will have to employ its lawyer, the worker will be employing a lawyer, and the employer may well have to employ a lawyer. One can envisage an extremely complicated situation which will be totally unnecessary in that it could be destroying an arrangement which has existed perfectly logically and happily for 20 or 30 years.
      We are opposed to the whole concept that the pre-entry closed shop should be destroyed. We are equally opposed to this Amendment because it is a logical extension of the Clause. On that basis, we shall vote against the Amendment.
      Mr. Robert Edwards: I have signed quite a number of closed shop agreements in the chemical industry. I have always been opposed to the closed shop. I think that one must hold union members by the services one gives them and not by any duress. But from time to time I have discovered that the managements of certain chemical factories have thought that, in their own interest, it would be better for themselves and for negotiations to make it a condition of employment that the worker should be a member of the appropriate trade union. I have signed six such agreements. We have never had any trouble in those firms.
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      I do not know how one can apply this Clause, because those trade union members covered by the closed shop will not give up this right without a fight. Many millions of workers are in this kind of situation. If the Government try to apply these provisions, they will witness some of the biggest industrial upheavals this country has seen since the general strike.
      10 0 p.m.
      I give as an example the more than 100 co-operative societies where union membership is a condition of employment. The relevant rules have been confirmed by the membership at their quarterly and annual general meetings. Their reason for having the closed shop arrangement is that part of the union work relates to benefits such as pensions. No retirement pension is payable unless all the employees are union members. Without that, the organisation cannot function. The union negotiations relate not only to wages but to holidays, sickness payments and retirement pensions. Negotiations of this kind create harmony within the service industries, particularly those covered by the co-operative movement, and that work cannot be carried out without the closed shop.
      How will the Government deal with over 100 such powerful consumer organisations? Those co-operative societies have 12½ million members, over half of whom are housewives, and the rules are confirmed by those members at the annual general meetings. How will the Government deal with that situation? Do they think that these societies will change their rules just because a Tory Government bring in this Measure? They will do no such thing.
      You will have trouble in the distributive trades as well as throughout British industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) says that you are fighting class warfare, and I am afraid that lodged in the minds of millions of industrial workers is the firm belief that you do not talk class war—you wage it, once you get power——
      Mr. Speaker: Order. This may be a formality, but, technically, the hon. Member is addressing the Chair.
      Mr. Edwards: I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker. I would not dream of suggesting that you were waging class warfare

      707
      I therefore hope that it is not too late for new thinking in this respect. The new Clauses will not work. The trade union movement will not give away rights it has won after a hundred years of struggle, as the Government will discover to their amazement once they try to apply this kind of legislation.
      Mr. Orme: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston (Mr. Robert Edwards), who has put an excellent case, I believe that where it can be obtained we need 100 per cent. trade unionism, as opposed to inflicting a closed shop from above, as it were, on trade union members. The interesting point to note is that the majority of the closed shop agreements result from the behest of the employers. For instance, for safety and for other reasons, it is as much in the interests of the National Coal Board to have 100 per cent. union membership as it is for the National Union of Mine-workers.
      Let us suppose that a man seeks work at a factory with 100 per cent. union membership and where there is an agreement that before a worker starts, the management will ask him whether he has a trade union card—always assuming that it is satisfied that he can do the job. He may not have a card. He may have lapsed his membership, or he may have left his trade, or something of that kind. The manager tells him, "We have here a 100 per cent. trade union organisation, but it is not a closed shop". In certain industries prior lack of a card precludes a man from getting a job.
      I can see the argument for this, and I operated this kind of arrangement in industry when I was a shop steward, and a shop steward convenor. If the manager tells the person concerned that he considers him to be suitable for employment in the firm, but asks whether he is prepared to join the appropriate union after he has been at the firm for a week, or three weeks, or a month, and has proved himself to be a suitable employee, how will this provision apply? The person concerned has to give an undertaking, before he starts work, that he will join a union in due course, but he does not have a union card at the time of starting work. In such a firm as that, one often finds that there is an agreement between the trade union and the employer that if
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      either side finds someone unsatisfactory his employment will be terminated.
      In many industries the very fact that a man holds a union card almost guarantees that he has the necessary skill for the job. [HON. MEMBERS: "Almost."] Not always, but almost always. I am not trying to be pedantic: I am saying that in many cases it proves almost overwhelmingly that he has the necessary skill.
      The Solicitor-General: I do not want to seek the leave of the House to speak again, but if I may I should like to answer the question put to me by the hon. Gentleman. The Clause does not affect the situation that he has posed. It affects only the situation in which a worker coming for a job has to be in possession of a union card. If he does not have a union card, and the employer says that he must join a union, that takes us back to the agency shop provisions. An employer cannot tell the man that he must join a union. He must tell the man that he must join or agree to pay the appropriate contributions, but that is dealt with under the agency shop provisions. What we are concerned with here is the position of a man not being able to get a job unless he can, at the moment of application, produce a union card—the pre-entry closed shop.
      Mr. Orme: I understand that, but if that man is refused a job and he feels aggrieved and goes to the industrial court, it will be up to the court to interpret the situation. I think the Solicitor-General will agree that it is likely that the industrial court, which will be an independent body, will reach a decision different from that which the Solicitor-General would like it to reach, but it will be based on the terms of the Bill and on the agency shop agreement.
      The other matter to which I wish to refer is that of the chaos that will be created in industry. Quite often when a difficulty arises over industrial relations, the fact that a man is a member of a trade union, which means that he is a skilled man, is of great assistance to the employer as well as to the trade union. Sometimes people get trade union cards illegally. Sometimes they are filled in wrongly. This has happened. I have known people start work and then the management discover that they do not

      709
      have the necessary skills or qualifications for the job.
      If there has been a previous arrangement with the trade union and the union is satisfied that they are not qualified or satisfactory, an agreement can be reached between the management and the employees which in the interests of industrial relations prevents industrial strife". These are the arrangements which are going on in British industry and they are conducted by shop stewards who are responsible to their members and have as much responsibility as works managers.
      The pre-entry closed shop will be smashed and there will be the problems of the agency shop, of contracting out of a union and of a shop steward chasing around to see whether the subscriptions have been deducted. All these things could be exploited by employers.
      Hon. Members opposite with experience of industrial relations from an employer's point of view know that, in a shop with proper trade union organisation, where agreements are mutually made and kept, there is a far happier atmosphere than in badly organised nonunion shops.
      The Clause will make industrial relations more difficult and create all sorts of problems. Recalcitrant men who want to be genuine trouble makers could create all sorts of problems. This Clause, which says that the pre-entry closed shop is finished, is central to the Bill and must be opposed by this side of the House.
      Mr. John Prescott: I apologise for having been away for the opening speeches on these Amendments. I have been sitting here since the debate started and only retired to eat.
      We are opposed to these proposals. If someone is precluded from employment because he does not have a union card, if an agreement between a union and an employer includes a provision denying him that employment, he will then be able to appeal against this provision.
      Hon. Members look to their own experience. My industry is shipping. The Government have faced considerable difficulties in interpreting the Bill with regard to shipping and have had to adjust it—although they have not done so very well. One of the difficulties in the employment
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      of seamen is the provision of the agency shop or the approved closed shop. There was the difficulty of the seaman who was away and who chose to disobey a master's lawful command. In this situation he faces severe penalties. It is against the law for him to do what he considers is his right, which is to refuse to work with such a person. Any agency shop or closed shop agreement which is reached must include a provision which will prevent this problem from arising, which means that a man will have to make his decision about whether to join a union before the ship sails.
      The Bill says that the Secretary of State will have power to adjust the periods during which men will have an opportunity to decide whether or not to belong to a union, and I understand that the periods envisage are from one to three months. This brings me back to the difficulties that will be faced by a man joining a ship. If he has up to three months to decide whether or not to join a union, all sorts of problems might arise. For example, he might be in another part of the world while problems are having to be faced on the ship itself.
      10.15 p.m.
      It has been suggested that a man joining a ship in this situation will have to make his decision before the ship sails. If an agreement contains a clause to that effect, how will it overcome the difficulty that the man's employment on the ship begins from the moment he signs his contract and joins the ship? Technically, therefore, it is almost impossible for him not to be a member of a union before signing on.
      It seems that a closed shop or agency shop agreement will have to include a provision that men must make their decision about whether or not to join a union before they join their ships. How this dilemma will be overcome it is difficult to see, though we have made it clear that we reject the Bill in its entirety.
      Mr. J. R. Kinsey: We cannot allow this part of the debate to pass without a word from these benches. I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Liverpol, Walton (Mr. Heffer) talk about the situation working happily. One of the greatest forms of tyranny that the trade unions exert is.

      711
      the denial of the right to work—[HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."]—and this remains one of the greatest tyrannies that the unions can impose.
      A man who falls foul of his union by one means or another may find his union card withdrawn, and that will mean not only the loss of his job in his present firm but probably an inability to get another job with another firm in the same industry. This applies as much to shipping as to anything else.
      This must be altered. The hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) spoke about the "awkward squad". Why should not even the awkward person be allowed to work? If it were not for him, one or two hon. Members would not be in the House of Commons. A constituent of mine has suffered very badly from this and, by ensuring that nobody else suffers as he has done, we shall do a great service to the trade unions.
      Mr. Skinner: The question of the pre-entry closed shop is typified by the coal mining industry and by the industry which my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) represents. Ever since nationalisation there has been a pre-entry closed shop in the mining industry, and one cannot visualise how the mining of coal could be carried out without a pre-entry closed shop. If workers in the mining industry were allowed to decide that they would not join the union, many measures would have to be taken by the union and by the management to deal with the situation.
      For instance, there are consultative committees at national area and pit level. In the mining industry consultative committees are set up to represent the National Coal Board, the unions at management and junior official level and the N.U.M. I cannot visualise consultative committee meeting every fortnight to discuss production without being fully representative, as they are at present. Nor can I visualise the safety committee which meets once a month to discuss dust hazards and other safety problems making a decision on the basis that there are some men working underground who are not within the union. It cannot be tolerated, and it will not be tolerated.
      Mr. Adam Butler: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Skinner: I will give way. The hon. Gentleman obviously knows all about the industry.
      Mr. Butler: I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that, if he has experience, as I have, of an industry which is not fully unionised, he will have had experience of works councils. A works council does not automatically represent only union members, but represents members of the unions and workers who are not members of the union. Workers are elected from the shop floor to the works council. The problems which the hon. Gentleman is discussing are those which I assume are discussed at the consultative committee in the National Union of Mineworkers.
      Mr. Skinner: There is a big difference between a works council and the men who represent the unions on the consultative committees at the pit. I can only describe the people referred to by the hon. Gentleman as stooges. The people who represent the miners on the consultative committees and safety committees are of a different calibre from those mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.
      To take the argument a little further every three years we elect workmen's inspectors under Section 123 of the Mines and Quarries Act, to see that the safety regulations are being carried out by the management. It would be a farcical situation if the workmen's inspector, elected by the men at the pit had to investigate the activities of non-union members who were contravening the Mines and Quarries Act. Can anyone imagine that the miners' union would tolerate a situation like that?
      Let us take it a stage further. We have joint committees on the allocation of miners' houses. Can any hon. Member opposite in his right mind imagine a joint housing committee, comprising men elected by the respective unions, particularly the National Union of Mineworkers, allocating a house to a man who refuses to join the union? It is not on. I would more than hazard a guess that in some instances that man would not even be allowed to go into the local welfare and enjoy his pint with the rest of the men, and he would not deserve to do so either. Therefore the Clause, affecting the mining industry particularly, cannot work, whether it is lawful or not.

      713
      Had not this long stop, as it was described so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), been introduced by the Government, it is fairly clear to me that the consultations which at present take place would without doubt have resulted in the National Coal Board, the National Union of Mineworkers and the deputies' union—N.A.C.O.D.S.—agreeing in verbal fashion to the pre-entry closed shop continuing as it has done up to the present.
      The people who will be affected in this situation are not men of 20, 30, 40 or 50 entering the mining industry. The people who will join the union in future are the young lads of 15 coming from school. What kind of situation will it be when a young boy turns up at Grass-moor training centre wanting to start work at Oxcroft Colliery—if it is not closed beforehand—and being put in the situation that he is given the privilege of not signing a form which hitherto all miners have signed?
      We at the Grassmoor training centre have put people in the position of lecturer to lecture not merely on mining practices but on the rôle of trade unionism in the mining industry. If the Clause is passed in its present form, we shall need not one lecturer to deal with the rôle of trade unionism in the industry; we shall need another to lecture about how not to have trade unionism in the industry.
      Mr. Robert Redmond: I am bothered about the arrogance that the hon. Member is showing in this matter. In one instance he says that the National Union of Mineworkers does such a wonderful job for its members that it has to keep its members by compulsion and it does not allow anybody the opportunity of not joining the union because it dare not. That is absolute nonsense. I listened to the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) speaking from my own industry; I always feel that the hon. Member speaks with great sincerity, although I do not agree with
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      everything he says, and I follow him with great interest.
      This arrogance on the part of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) in saying that the N.U.M. will demand membership from everyone because it cannot encourage people to join by its example of what it does for its members is the most outrageous conduct I have ever known from a trade unionist and it must be refuted from this side of the House. [Interruption.] The collier is a skilled man—[Interruption.]
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman knows that interventions must be brief.
      Mr. Skinner: Maybe the hon. Gentleman does believe that I am arrogant. I am not saying that I am, but perhaps that is the result of the environment in which I was brought up.
      The hon. Gentleman talked about compulsion. I am saying, and have said from the outset, that it is not a question of people refusing to join the union in the mining industry. There will be very few idiots who will prefer that course. I am saying that the law as it will be if the Clause and the Amendment are passed will result in chaos in the industry, because neither management nor union could carry it out in practice. It is intolerable to think that a situation could arise whereby 900 men were working underground at the same time as half a dozen who were not in the union. It cannot be done. That is the point I am trying to make.
      Whilst the N.U.M. and other unions, but the N.U.M. in particular, have engaged lawyers over the past 40 years or so to fight for damages at common law and under the old workmen's compensation provisions, there is no doubt that they will not be engaging lawyers to see to it that blacklegs and scabs are kept out of the mining industry. They will resolve that matter in the orthodox way they have used in the past, by stopping the wheels if necessary.
      Mr. Carter-Jones: I am a bit puzzled, because the Solicitor-General has said that we are talking about making it much easier for shop stewards to conduct industrial relations. I am thinking of the ordinary shop steward who goes to a man on the factory floor and says, "Look, Fred, there's a problem for you here. Under Clause 6, at line 39 on page 5 of the Industrial Relations Act, 'Any worker who, on application to an employer, has been refused engagement, and who claims that the refusal was attributable (wholly or in part)'"—and remember that this is a poor guy on the shop floor explaining to his mate why he cannot get in—" 'to a provision in an agreement which had the effect of precluding the employer as mentioned in paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section may apply to the Industrial Court for an order under the next following subsection'."
      Will the Solicitor-General be there, holding the shop steward's hand, saying to him, "This is what's involved, mate"? No. There is only one Solicitor-General in this country—thank God!—and he cannot be everywhere.
      The Clause is a Eunuchs' Charter. It is a device whereby over the years men with a large number of wives have protected their interests, by castrating those who are caring for them. This is emasculation taken into industrial relations. It is making quite sure that those who can come in under the Clause shall be harmless. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but that is the truth.
      We have a choice. One course would be to multiply the Solicitor-General by one million, and I fervently hope that we do not. But if the Government want Clause 6 to work, every shop steward will have to have a solicitor, pure, unblemished, unsullied, non-Tory. If Clause 6 does not work in that pure and unsullied fashion required by the purists of the Tory Party, it will have to work in the other way.
      It goes to the root of Tory philosophy. It is said to be a method by which to improve industrial relations. I have read it carefully and found it to be complicated, and even the Solicitor-General does not understand it. He is waiting for judges' law. He is waiting
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      for the judges to rule, in the hope that they will grind the unions down. If he cannot now rise to explain it in terms understandable by the simple people who will have to advise about it, ordinary guys in the street, perhaps one in 30, or 100, or even 1,000, he will be openly admitting that he is waiting for judges' law to prevail, hoping that any rulings from the courts will clamp down on union activities.
      He is making sure that all the trouble makers are kept out of the unions. From time immemorial, ladies who have wanted to keep torn cats have treated them in advance, and that is precisely what this Clause will do to active unionists. It seeks to ensure that there are brought into the factories and the workshops people who will not fight and who will not have much regard for human dignity.
      Mr. Ashton: I return to a more serious basis. The Clause is concerned with discrimination. It means that a man who applies for a job and believes that he is discriminated against if he does not get it will have the right to appeal to the court and say that the union and the employer are acting to keep him out of the job.
      The Clause may result in severe embarrassment for personnel officers, and it is one of the Clauses which employers regret. It has the undertones and difficulties associated with other legislation which went through the House about two years ago, the Racial Discrimination Act.
      There will be the feeling, when anyone applies for an unskilled job or one requiring a low level of skill and is refused, that he or she has been discriminated against. This will lead to severe embarrassment among employers. If a coloured man applies for a job and does not get it, because he does not have the qualifications, or is not suitable—and sometimes this happens with the best will in the world—he can allege, perhaps without foundation, that there is a conspiracy between the employer and union to keep him out of a job. He could appeal to the court on the grounds of racial discrimination, saying that there was some sort of tacit agreement to keep a coloured man out of a job. It could be very embarrassing for the employer if he had to explain it in the cold light of day.
      There is another angle to this Clause which will grow over the years, and it is to do with discrimination against women. Suppose there is a vacancy in a police force and a policewoman applies for the job, saying that she can do it as well as a policeman. Suppose too, that the chief constable has decided he wants 20 per cent. policewomen and 80 per cent. policemen. Is she entitled to say that this is discriminating against her because there is a tacit agreement between the chief constable and the Police Federation?
      The same can happen in many other jobs. Suppose there is an advertisement for a journalist to report football matches at the Arsenal. A woman applies and the editor says that he prefers a man. Can she then take the paper to court and say she is perfectly well qualified to do the job but is being discriminated against because there is a tacit agreement with the union? Women are trying to break into engineering. There could be the same thing there. A woman could apply to work in a factory or a coal mine.
      The bureaucratic machine could be built up until anyone could say that there was a tacit agreement between employer and union to keep him out of a job--because he will not join a union, because he was coloured, not qualified, or too old to join a pension scheme. It opens the door wide for anyone to go to the tribunal saying that they have been discriminated against.
      Earlier the Solicitor-General said that there would be certain trouble makers who would always bring these things forward and object on some grounds. I am certain that this is true. There are certain people in the women's liberation movement who would challenge refusal of a job on the ground that they were entitled to do it and were being discriminated against—because they would not be admitted to the union, because the union had a rule which said "men only". The union might not be discriminating against them because they were women but because no women had applied to join the N.U.M. in the past and it had no rule to deal with it.
      This is the lawyers' paradise part of the Bill. Once we begin to examine the ramifications of the Bill and how it can be exploited by any little pressure group which wants to make a nonsense of the Measure it will be seen that the door
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      is open to all who apply for a job. They can stand up and say that there is an agreement between the union and employer and that is why they are not getting the job, because they are women, because they are over 61 years, that they are willing to join the union but are not eligible under the rules. There has been a rule of no women in the Stock Exchange. It probably does not come under the head of "employer". There are certainly many cases where anyone who applies for a job and is refused can invoke clause 6. This is one of the many aspects of the Bill which turn it into a lawyer's paradise and a nonsense.
      Any employer or person with experience will admit that the system of my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) is better whereby if a man is a clause 1 member he is a fully skilled engineer and can do the job of fitter or turner or if he is a member of the N.U.M. he is fit to go down the pit. The system has been built up in industry of applying for and accepting jobs by means of a rule-of-thumb procedure which has been accepted through trial and error over a century by personnel officers who are not fools and shop stewards who know whether a man can do the job. The Government are driving a wedge into this system which destroys the established fabric of hiring and firing or hiring and testing for a certain time and leaves the door open to any pseudo women's "lib" organisation to exploit the situation.
      10.45 p.m.
      Mr. Ted Fletcher: I wish to comment on the impact which the Amendment is likely to have on the shop floor. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Ashton), in a very powerful speech, has outlined the consequences which the Amendment is likely to have in the coal mining industry. As a Member for a constituency in the County of Durham, I endorse what he said because I know from my knowledge of the psychology of the Durham miners that as soon as a non-unionist enters the mines in Durham the whole industry will stop. The Government have not considered the consequences of their action in this Clause.
      I wish to give one or two examples from the engineering industry. Imagine a factory employing 1,000 workers in a

      719
      pre-entry closed shop. A man applies for a job. He is not a member of the union, but the employer decides that he is too old for the job or has not enough skill for the job. Consequently he declines to employ him. He can go to the National Industrial Relations Court and claim that there has been discrimination against him. Suppose that the court upholds his case and the firm is told that it must employ him. What will happen in a union-organised shop with 1,000 members when one non-unionist is brought in? Will the 1,000 men cooperate with him—men who have spent their spare time, energy and money building up a union organisation? Will they co-operate with someone who has made no contribution to building up the union but who is prepared to take the benefits?
      Have the Government consulted the Engineering Employers' Federation or any personnel officers about this matter? There is no doubt that if non-unionism is introduced into factories by this Clause, it will cause disharmony in establishments and institutions which perhaps have not had a strike for 30 or 40 years.
      There is a difference between the arid lawyers' approach and the real problems which are understood by millions of people who work in factories. People who were in the mining industry spent 200 years in building up an organisation in face of persecution, deportation, harassment, imprisonment and victimisation to achieve better terms and conditions of employment for the men in the industry. Will the present members allow them to be undermined by individuals who have no allegiance to the union but who take the benefits built up not only by themselves but by their fathers and grandfathers? Will they allow all these benefits to be dissipated by this Clause? Of course they will not. Not one miner will respect this provision. Not one engineering worker in a closed shop will be prepared to welcome with open arms anyone who is not a union member who tries to claim the benefits that union organisation has secured.
      This will be a lawyers' paradise. If there is only one awkward individual in every thousand, in the 10 million trade unionists that is 10,000 cases to be taken to the Industrial Court. I do not often disagree with my hon. Friend the Mem-
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      ber for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), but on this occasion he was guilty of an under-statement when he said that this would be a lawyers' picnic. I disagree. It will be a lawyers' banquet. The only growth industry under the Tory Government is likely to be the legal industry with thousands of cases going before the Industrial Court. When the Court has decided that an employer must take on a particular man whom it has refused employment on grounds of discrimination, hon. Members must not think that the workers will be prepared to accept such a worker. It is not the end of a case when a judgment has been given. Those on the Government Front Bench seem to be pinning their faith in the legal system and in the qualities of capitalist society. These are not the facts of life in the society in which we live.
      The Bill is designed to bring peace and harmony into industrial society, we are told—to make relations between employer and employee more perfect. It is a Bill designed to reduce the number of strikes. I believe that the Bill will produce anarchy. If these provisions are allowed to come into force, they will result in industrial dislocation.
      I advise right hon. and hon. Members opposite to speak to people with some experience in management in the engineering industry. Let them speak to personnel officers and ask them what the consequences will be of a pre-entry closed shop if any endeavour is made—it does not matter about the legal apparatus and the majesty of the law behind it—to introduce non-unionism through the back door.
      Mr. Tom King: As somebody who has worked in management in a pre-entry closed shop, I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's comment. A little earlier in the day complaints were made about the need to deal effectively with the Lords Amendments. The hon. Gentleman is making a trenchant and powerful Second Reading speech on Clause 5, which we have already been through.
      Mr. Fletcher: I am making specific reference to an Amendment. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would rule me out of order if I were not in order. The hon. Gentleman's experience does not accord

      721
      with that of many managers and executives in industry with whom I have discussed the matter. I speak as a former trade union official. Those with whom I have discussed this matter believe that this provision will cause dislocation in industry. They hope that even at this late hour the Government will have second thoughts. I plead with the Government to think carefully about this. This is a recipe not for industrial peace, but for industrial anarchy.
      Mr. James Tinn: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Ted Fletcher), I believe that the Government do not appreciate the disruptive effect this provision will have in many industries. Because the Government have listened to too much of the nonsense which has been spoken about pre-entry closed shops, even recognising the few individual cases which can occasionally occur, the Government have fallen into the trap of ignoring the old saying that hard cases make bad law. I believe that this is a very bad law indeed.
      What representations have the Government received, not just from the engineering industry but from other industries concerned—from employers and managements—for the inclusion of this provision? What contrary representations or doubts have been expressed to them? Few things can be more disruptive of harmonious relations than the existence of the industrial maverick, the person who for one reason or another, will not cooperate with his fellows.
      The motives behind such a provision as this arise, I believe, from a fundamental misunderstanding, or lack of understanding, of how our trade union movement has developed. There is significance in where the pre-entry closed shop conditions have developed. They have developed in certain industries such as shipping and mining, for example. The warmth and vigour of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) in putting his case should not be mistaken for arrogance. Although I do not represent a mining constituency, I come from a mining area. The mining industry is a great example of where history and conditions of work have imposed co-operation—the necessity of working and living and co-operating together. Through these years of struggle
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      and out of the daily necessity for cooperation, there has developed a genuine and worth-while and proud tradition of unity.
      This kind of provision basically offends against some of the deepest instincts of trade unionism by trying to break or impinge upon the fine traditions of unity, and the effects can be incalculable. Even at this eleventh hour, I urge the Government to have second thoughts on this provision. I urge them to forget the prejudices which the Press and propaganda have cultivated over the years. I urge them to look at industry as it really is and see why our movement has grown up as it has and why it has developed these practices as it has done. They will see that they are not as unreasonable as they have been represented. If the Government do that, they will realise that they will be doing far more harm than good if they press ahead with this provision.
      Mr. Alex Eadie: I have felt at times during the debate that it has not been as serious as it should have been. I hope that the Government fully realise the significance of the proposition they are putting forward here, because it is a prescription for industrial and economic anarchy and it gives to some extent the lie to what we are discussing—the Industrial Relations Bill.
      Hon. Members are aware that I have associations with the mining industry. I resent the suggestion that there are trade union representatives in this House who probably would not have been here if they had not been so militant. As an active trade unionist, under successive Governments I have been appointed to Government bodies of responsibility to serve on behalf of the men I have sought to represent.
      11.0 p.m.
      My hon. Friends have pointed out the peculiarities of the mining industry. The Government are putting forward propositions that will mean a momentous change. They are saying that the mining industry, employing hundreds of thousands of men, will help the country to achieve greater economic stability. If we do anything to imperil the Bill it will not merely be a question of miners and their families suffering; the whole country will suffer.

      723
      There always has been discipline in the mining industry. There has to be, from the very nature of the work. As my hon. Friend said, when men are thousands of feet underground they cannot have anarchy; they must have discipline, with co-operation between man and man. They cannot bicker with each other because the moment they do they jeopardise the lives of hundreds of other men. I wish the Government appreciated the significance of the proposition that they are putting forward.
      My first experience of trade unionism in the industry, as a young kid, was the card inspection at the pit gate, to make sure that everyone was a member of the union. That was necessary then, because men in the trade union movement were trying to establish themselves as representatives of the mineworkers. It was not a question of trying to win more wages and economic sustenance; at that time we had a colossal toll of accidents in the industry, with great loss of life. We were fighting to establish safety in the industry.
      We knew that we could not establish safety if the proposals for safety came only from the men; there had to be a combined approach with management. That is not possible if there is anarchy among the employees with some in the union and some outside it. That is a prescription for anarchy in any industry.
      Mr. Kenneth Lewis Mr. Kenneth Lewis rose——
      Mr. Eadie: The hon. Member has just come in. He is a sort of scavenger. I would give way to anybody but him.
      The mining industry is a very democratic one. It is not a question of trying to impose our will on people. We have democratic votes. When we appoint a safety committee its members are elected by the men, by ballot. That is a good British tradition—something that this Mother of Parliaments would not resent.
      One of the sad aspects of the situation is that dying with the industry are some of its cultural activities; our pipe and brass bands are dying. They were maintained in the past because we had a vigilant union membership. Something goes out of our lives with the loss of the pipe and brass bands, and the children's galas.
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      It is not a question of our being militant; it is a question of the Government being sensible. If the Government are serious about this being a Bill dealing with industrial relations they should make sure that they are not prescribing industrial anarchy. If there is a fuel shortage the Government will have to take responsibility, and they will introduce a Bill that brings it about at their direst peril.
      Mr. Loughlin: The hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Tom King) intervened a short while ago to say that he had been employed in management, in a pre-entry closed shop. According to right hon. and hon. Members opposite, the Bill deals with industrial relations. It is imperative that both workers and management should understand, to a certain extent if not wholly and completely, the Bill's implications. It does not make the slightest difference what our views are about the Bill, how good it is or how bad it is, unless we can produce at the conclusion of our deliberations a document which can be readily understood by the work people on the shop floor and by management. Unless we can do that, the Bill is completely abortive. It is no use any Legislature in the world producing what may well be in the legalistic sense perfect legislation unless the terminology used in that legislation is understandable to the ordinary people to whom the legislation applies and there is a high acceptability factor in the law.
      I return to the hon. Member for Bridgwater. He made a claim to which we should pay some attention. [Interruption]. I am willing to give way to the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) if he wants to make a reasoned intervention.
      Mr. Kenneth Lewis: I wanted to ask this question of the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) who was talking about unity. We have with us on this side of the House a recruit in the shape of the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) who has joined us on this Bill. He is sitting on the Front Bench, below the Gangway.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. Interventions really should be serious.
      Mr. Loughlin: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps I may return to the

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      hon. Member for Bridgwater. He claimed that he had experience in management of the pre-entry closed shop, and I should like him to give us the benefit of that experience. When I was discussing this Bill in Committee I repeatedly had to complain that there was bound to be great difficulty among people on the shop floor in understanding fully the implications of the Bill. I think the Solicitor-General will agree that I repeatedly complained to him that we ourselves had difficulty in understanding the full implications of the Bill-I wonder whether the hon. Member for Bridgwater could help me. I recognise that there are two parties who will be concerned with the Bill. I have to recognise first that the Bill will affect the individual worker and also that in the generality of British industry there is a multiplicity of small and medium-sized firms which will not have the expertise which might be necessary—and I use "might" deliberately—to enable them to keep within the confines of the legislation we are proposing.
      I should like to know how many ordinary employers, not workers, would be able to follow through the Amendment as it is laid down. For the benefit of those who may want to look at it, it is on page 3 of the list of Amendments—[Interruption.]—The hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls), as far as I know, committed only one fact to memory—his majority of three in 1966.
      Mr. Speaker: That is not relevant to this debate.
      Mr. Loughlin: Mr. Speaker, I will stop immediately and apologise to you, but neither was the hon. Member's intervention.
      Mr. Speaker: I did not hear his intervention.
      Mr. Loughlin: That was a pity. I did; but, to be serious, I challenge either the hon. Member for Bridgwater or the Solicitor-General to look at the Amendment and to say categorically that even 5 per cent. of the managements of this country could relate this through its various paragraphs—they should not forget that it relates to paragraph (a) and
      726
      paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this Clause, and goes on ad nauseam.
      If one has legislation of this kind—and these are the words to be used in the Bill—how, in heaven's name can one expect the workers on the factory floor and the employers to understand? This deals with employers' responsibilities and with the right of any worker who, on application to an employer has been refused engagement and claims that the refusal was attributable in whole or in part to a provision in an agreement which had the effect of precluding the employers, as mentioned in paragraphs (a) and (b), etc.
      How can one expect any employer, let alone a workman, to understand the ridiculous language and implications of legislation of this kind? I am interested, because I believe—and I may be wrong—that it is the responsibility of the legislature to frame legislation in such a way as to ensure that at least the general principles will be known and will be acceptable to the general populace.
      11.15 p.m.
      We all have to engage lawyers, but this is a riot for the lawyers. It is not a lawyers' paradise, but it is complete and utter nonsense to the layman. If the Government apply this kind of yardstick to industrial relations and say that it will contribute to industry harmony, I say that not only is the Solicitor-General barmy, but the whole House is barmy if it thinks that this will be effective. The most sensible thing for the Solicitor-General to do, even at this late hour, is to take this back and say to his lawyers who are responsible for framing the legislation, "If you cannot do better than this, go and find yourself a job digging trenches."
      Mr. Rees-Davies: I want to intervene briefly to cover three main points. After seven Second Reading further speeches to the Lords Amendment, the speech we have just heard from the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) was in some degree an exception, and that was a pleasure.
      Once the House has passed and accepted, however strongly it is opposed, that there shall be pre-entry closed shop

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      agreements, it is essential to include protection for the worker, which the Amendment provides. It provides that if a worker is refused an engagement by an employer, he will be able on application to have the matter referred to the Industrial Court.
      However much one may oppose the original principle, which has been opposed in the many speeches we have heard tonight, once that principle has been accepted it is necessary to introduce an Amendment which gives, as the Lords Amendment gives, protection to
      "Any worker who, on application to an employer, has been refused engagement",
      and who complains that that is due to the existence of an agreement which contravenes the main provision, to
      "apply to the Industrial Court".
      Whatever view might have been taken originally, I find it difficult to understand how the Opposition can refuse the Amendment once the principle becomes law.
      It is said, secondly, that the main provisions are a recipe for anarchy. All one can say is that we had a number of synthetic speeches from the members of the miners' union, who have now mainly left the House having delivered themselves of those speeches. [Interruption.] At least, two have walked out having delivered their speeches. Both of them used the same language, that it was a recipe for anarchy, but neither referred in the slightest degree to the Amendment. Neither of them having understood it, they have, no doubt, gone to check their speeches for their constituencies or for their trade union without being interested in whether their speeches were relevant.
      In making those speeches and dealing with the matter in that way, those hon. Members deliberately overlooked a most important fact. They know perfectly well that the National Union of Mine-workers has so far stated that it does not intend to work the Bill when it becomes an Act. The N.U.M. knows that it could constitute itself an agency shop agreement and, if it did, it would not be subject to the pre-entry closed shop agreements envisaged in the Clause. It knows this perfectly well.
      I have seldom heard the like of the utterly hypocritical, insincere rubbish and
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      claptrap that we have sat through tonight.
      Mr. Skinner: We are getting some now.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: It may be that the National Union of Mineworkers does not intend to work the Act. The dilemma for the mineworkers and other unions which do not work it is that if they do not have agency shop agreements or do not have approved closed shop agreements which will apply to certain more professional types of union, it follows that they will be bound by the Clause. It hardly lies in their mouths to complain if a number of the more modern-looking men decide that they do not want to be members of the N.U.M. They may have a constitutional viewpoint and object to being members of a union which is not prepared to uphold the law of the country.
      For how long are we to go on abusing the ordinary constitutional processes of the House of Commons? I have sat here since 4 o'clock this afternoon. From 5.30 until 11 p.m., because this is an industrial Bill, we heard speech after speech which was manifestly a Second Reading speech, and wholly irrelevant and out of order.
      Hon. Members: That is a reflection on the Chair.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: Hon. Gentlemen opposite say that, but they have not the faintest interest in the relevance of the debate. They want to go back to Second Reading speeches and at the end, I suppose, to be able to say that there was insufficient time to debate the Lords Amendments. Had they been relevantly contained, everybody knows that the first seven Amendments could have been dealt with within half an hour.
      It is not a question of opposition. Lords Amendments are not designed to be, and were not laid down and intended to be, a cause for going back to Second Reading speeches hour after hour, day after day. They were intended to pinpoint particular issues, and we have to decide whether we agree or disagree with their Lordships. What has happened here is that the Labour Party has taken over the House of Commons, and hour after hour hon. Gentlemen opposite have gone on producing the same arguments

      729
      which they deployed for many hours on Second Reading and in Committee.
      This type of behaviour is very bad for the constitutional processes of this House, and we have had no fewer——
      Mr. Speaker: Order. I doubt whether what the hon. Gentleman is saying is in order by his own standards.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: I have developed the argument, Mr. Speaker, and I leave it with you. If you read the speeches, and if on reflection you think that anything I have said is not in order, I shall be glad to withdraw it. Some of the speeches were made when you were not in the Chair. I think that tomorrow morning, in the light of day, most hon. Gentlemen will recognise that this is a rather special occasion, but it does not comply with the normal rules of order.
      Many of us—and I perhaps most of all on this side of the House—have recognised, and do recognise, the need, in special cases, to be able to have a closed shop. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) and others have fought to obtain the special exemptions contained in the Bill, and which are not the subject of the Amendment. If that be so, it hardly lies in the mouths of hon. Gentlemen opposite, even if they are going back to Second Reading speeches, to twist the Bill and suggest that it does not contain good arrangements to enable unions which want to use the Bill, and not to abuse it, to take up their proper position by having the agency shop agreement.
      I understand the view of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) who says quite frankly that he will have none of this Bill. That is understandable but, when it becomes an Act of Parliament, and when the feelings die down, the trade unions in this country will have to work this Measure, just as the trade unions throughout Europe are effectively working measures there which have——
      Mr. Speaker: Order. Is not this coming somewhere near a Second Reading speech?
      Mr. Rees-Davies: Yes, Mr. Speaker, but as you would not accept that the others were not Second Reading speeches, I take it that exactly the same conditions will apply to me. [HON.
      730
      MEMBERS: "Order."] I was about to say finally that the Amendment merely provides for the worker protection that is essential to give full effect to the Clause.
      Mr. Hugh Jenkins: When this Amendment was before the other place it went through without a vote in 20 minutes. I am glad that the issue has been thoroughly debated in this House, and I shall vote against the Amendment.
      In the other place the Lord Chancellor got away with it by saying roughly what the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) said—that it was in the interests of the workers. Indeed, when Lord Bernstein asked whether he was right to take it that the Amendment was designed to protect the worker, the Lord Chancellor replied that it was. That proves that our fears are justified, for either the Lord Chancellor did not understand the object of the Amendment or he made an extremely dishonest remark.
      It is as well that we have had this extensive debate. The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet is entirely wrong in suggesting that the Amendment will protect the workers. On the contrary, it proves that the so-called concessions which the Government have suggested are being extended to, for example, Equity, do not exist and that, from the point of view of the closed shop, whenever it is challenged it must collapse.
      I will content myself at this stage by saying that I am pleased that this subject has been extensively aired. On another occasion, perhaps on later Amendments, I will speak on this subject at greater length. In the meantime, I will resume my seat to give my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) an opportunity to speak.
      Mr. Heffer: With the leave of the House, I will comment on some of the points that have been raised in this debate, in which I have been pleased to welcome some contributions from hon. Gentlemen opposite. We regard the Amendment as fundamentally against the interests of the trade union movement. That is why we are opposing it with such vigour.
      On this issue we have heard the authentic voice of the Conservative Party. The whole idea of workers protecting themselves and trying to obtain better

      731
      conditions through union solidarity is, to hon. Gentlemen opposite, all wrong. They regard it as a tyranny to other workers who do not wish to belong to trade unions.
      The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) tried to kid us that the Amendment was in the interests of the workers. The Amendment sums up the concept which the Tories have adopted from the United States of the open shop, the right to work.
      11.30 p.m.
      We are debating also Amendments Nos. 13 and 61. Amendment No. 61 is another example of an unfair industrial practice. We are opposed to it as much as we are opposed to Amendment No. 12 and, at the appropriate time, we shall vote against it, as we shall vote against Amendment No. 12.
      There has been talk of the arrogance of my hon. Friends who have experience of the mining industry. Their speeches were not arrogant, but expressed the justified anger and frustration of workers who understand what the closed shop means to the protection of their interests. We have heard not arrogance but the authentic voice of workers in an industry which most hon. Members would never enter even if they were paid £1,000 a week. How many hon. Gentlemen opposite would be prepared to volunteer to work in the mines tomorrow morning? It ill becomes hon. Members who have led a sheltered existence to accuse my hon. Friends, who have worked in an industry which hon. Gentlemen opposite would never at any price enter, of being arrogant. The arrogance shown by the hon. Member for Isle of Thanet typifies the Tory Party view of the trade union movement which is expressed in the Amendment and in the Bill.
      The Solicitor-General: I will not follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) or other hon. Members who have rehearsed during this debate the Second Reading speech they made in Committee and on Second Reading. I will deal with the pre-entry closed shop. Several hon. Members have suggested that the closed shop is a creature which, however and wherever it exists, operates universally for the good of industrial peace. It is worth reminding the House that even
      732
      the Donovan Report said that it must not be supposed that good industrial relations are the invariable accompaniment of the closed shop. On the contrary, the closed shop is widespread in motor manufacturing, ship building, coal mining and the docks, the four industries in which strikes in breach of agreement have been most common in recent years.
      Mr. Harold Walker: Did not the Royal Commission say in paragraph 602 of its report:
      "We therefore reject the prohibition of the closed shop"?
      The Solicitor-General: That is right, but I am dealing with the suggestion implicit in what many hon. Members have said that the closed shop is a prescription for industrial tranquillity. Far from it. We are dealing in the Amendment with a much narrower section, namely, the pre-entry closed shop.
      Again, it is worth reminding the House that the pre-entry closed shop applies to less than I million workpeople. It is rejected in principle, for example, by the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. Robert Edwards) as unattractive, and, indeed, the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) acknowledged that a case could be made out against an arrangement which insisted on prior possession of a union card before a man could enter a job. We are dealing with a matter in respect of which there are plainly two views—and on a narrow front. The Amendment deals with the extent to which a pre-entry closed shop can be enforced by a device amounting to the same thing.
      Mr. Orme: I am sure that the Solicitor-General does not wish to misrepresent me. I said that primarily I was in favour of the 100 per cent. trade union shop, which in effect covers the closed shop but which can be more flexible than a rigid closed shop.
      The Solicitor-General: I do not wish to misrepresent the hon. Member. His hon. Friend the Member for Bilston said that he had always opposed the closed shop, and certainly the pre-entry closed shop, and the hon. Member for Salford, West said that he could see that a case could be made against the pre-entry closed shop.
      We are, in fact, dealing with the pre-entry closed shop. The Bill already proscribes it, and the only effect of the

      733
      Amendment is to protect the worker who has been refused employment—refused not because of the manifest existence of a clear pre-entry agreement but because of a provision or arrangement between the employer and the trade union which has the same effect and which operates to exclude him because he was not a member of a pre-entry closed shop. It is entirely logical that this change should be made.
      The hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) suggested that the Lord Chancellor had given a dishonest reply to a Question put to him by Lord Bernstein in another place. That is wholly without justification. The Lord Chancellor explained the intention of the Amendment exactly as I have done. He said:
      'the effect … is to give to a worker who is prevented from entering employment on grounds which he claims to be an effective pre-entry closed shop, an appeal to the court to establish that fact."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th May, 1971; Vol. 318, c. 569.]
      Mr. Hugh Jenkins: If the Solicitor-General is saying that the Lord Chancellor misunderstood the effect of the proposals and that what he said was a result of a misunderstanding rather than of a mistake, I entirely accept that.
      The Solicitor-General: I am repudiating utterly the hon. Member's suggestion that the Lord Chancellor gave a dishonest reply.
      Mr. Jenkins: Then it was a misunderstanding?
      The Solicitor-General: That is equally false. I am repudiating both alternatives. The hon. Member cannot get away with it in that way. The Lord Chancellor's explanation was clear—that the provision is designed to help a worker who is being blocked by a device tantamount to a pre-entry closed shop although not recognisable as such.
      I was astonished, as was the House, by the observations of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) suggesting that the provisions would be invoked in the cause of Women's Lib. I thought that he was talking about the Equal Pay Act of his right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle). He referred in passing also to the Race Relations Act. If it were right for the last Government to pass legislation to prevent discrimination in terms of pay between the sexes
      734
      and for the last Government to pass legislation to prevent discrimination on grounds of race, it is surely acceptable for this Government to pass legislation designed to secure—and I have no shame in adopting the words denounced by the hon. Member for Walton—the right of people to work without that right being unfairly impeded or obstructed by a prior requirement to belong to a particular trade union.
      Of course the individual must establish his qualifications for the job. Of course he must establish his qualification for entry to a union. But beyond that there is no cause—this is the heart of the Government's case—for excluding him from the right to work simply because he does not belong to a particular union. The Amendment is designed simply to achieve that end and to achieve it quite plainly.
      The hon. Member for Bilston suggested that managements often insist on this kind of agreement and persuade unions to accept it as desirable. Frankly, one cares not whether a barrier which is being erected in the face of a person otherwise qualified to work is erected by management or by unions, or by a conspiracy between the two We are here concerned with legislation designed to secure people's freedom in that respect. We recognise primarily the point made by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) that it is necessary in the coalmining industry, as in every other industry, to maintain safety standards, and that one of the ways of doing that is to insist upon achievements and qualifications on the part of people entering the industry. There is nothing in this legislation that would stop that.
      We also recognise the necessity for having consultative committees, whether pit or works consultative committees, to survey and maintain safety standards. All those things exist and are compatible with a system of organisation which does not go so far as to require a pre-entry closed shop. Safety standards and the supervision of safety can be maintained without going in that direction.
      Mr. Skinner: The hon. and learned Gentleman was presumably saying that pit consultative committees could work easily with someone who was not a member of the union. The point I was trying to make was that the committees

      735
      are set up on the basis of representing management and unions, not management and men. That is the distinction that must be drawn. If the provision becomes law, the consultative machinery that has been in operation for about 20 years will have to be drastically revised, and I cannot see it happening.
      The Solicitor-General: I entirely understand that the consultative committees are set up to represent management and unions. So they are in the vast majority of other industries. It is only in a small sector of British industry that the pre-entry closed shop operates. A pre-entry closed shop is not required in order to have a perfectly effective representative joint consultative arrangement between management and unions. There is no case in terms of safety, maintenance of standards or the preservation of established negotiating machinery for struggling to retain the pre-entry closed shop, which is what the provisions are about.
      Mr. Eadie: The Solicitor-General is saying that we do not have to have trade unions in order to man committees for consultation, whether on production or safety. But it is necessary to have disciplined agreement between management and men. Does not he agree that a trade union is in a better position to discipline its members than individuals are to discipline themselves?
      The Solicitor-General: I do not propose to detain the House by going back yet again over the entire structure of the approach to the legislation. All that I am saying in the context of this debate is that for the purpose of maintaining union organisation and effective union representation it is not necessary to have a pre-entry closed shop, nor to have anything of the kind against which the
      Amendment is directed, namely, something resembling, working like and having the effect of, the pre-entry closed shop. That is the simple point.
      I adopt the description of the speech of the hon. Member for Bolsover as having a touch of arrogance about it. To put it bluntly, when we hear a speech like the one the hon. Gentleman made, asserting as aggressively and as uncompromisingly as he did the right of a trade union to enforce its will upon individuals, even to the point of depriving them of access to housing or excluding them from entering a job, we have to struggle to remind ourselves that we are talking about industrial relations in a free society. When it hears such an argument advanced, the House, I feel certain, will be firm in its assessment that the prohibition of the pre-entry closed shop is a profoundly wise measure to include, and that the Amendment is doubly wise to ensure the effectiveness of that provision.
      11.45 p.m.
      Mr. Prescott: The Solicitor-General has not answered my specific question. In view of the complaints of hon. Members opposite, I was careful to keep to the detail of the Bill, and I asked specifically about interpretation. If a seaman working under an agency shop agreement or an approved closed shop agreement has to be a member of the union before he joins his ship, where he has to sign a contract of employment, would he not be in contravention of the amended Clause? Does not that mean that such agreements could not apply to the shipping industry?
      Question put, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment:—
      The House divided: Ayes 291, Noes 250.

      Division No. 442.]

      AYES

      [11.46 p.m.

      Adley, Robert

      Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

      Brinton, Sir Tatton

      Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

      Benyon, W.

      Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

      Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

      Berry, Hn. Anthony

      Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

      Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

      Biffen, John

      Bruce-Gardyne, J.

      Astor, John

      Biggs-Davison, John

      Bryan, Paul

      Atkins, Humphrey

      Blaker, Peter

      Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N & M)

      Awdry, Daniel

      Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

      Buck, Antony

      Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

      Boscawen, Robert

      Burden, F. A.

      Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

      Bossom, Sir Clive

      Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

      Balniel, Lord

      Bowden, Andrew

      Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray & Nairn)

      Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John

      Carlisle, Mark

      Batsford, Brian

      Braine, Bernard

      Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

      Bray, Ronald

      Channon, Paul

      Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

      Brewis, John

      Chapman, Sydney

      Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

      Hornby, Richard

      Percival, Ian

      Chichester-Clark, R.

      Hornsby-Smith, Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia

      Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

      Churchill, W. S.

      Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)

      Pike, Miss Mervyn

      Clark, William (Surrey, E.)

      Howell, David (Guildford)

      Pink, R. Bonner

      Clark, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

      Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

      Pounder, Rafton

      Clegg, Walter

      Hunt, John

      Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

      Cockeram, Eric

      Hutchison, Michael Clark

      Price, David (Eastleigh)

      Cooke, Robert

      Iremonger, T. L.

      Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

      Coombs, Derek

      James, David

      Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

      Cooper, A. E.

      Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

      Quennell, Miss J. M.

      Corfield, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Jessel, Toby

      Raison, Timothy

      Cormack, Patrick

      Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

      Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

      Costain, A. P.

      Jopling, Michael

      Redmond, Robert

      Critchley, Julian

      Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

      Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

      Crouch, David

      Kaberry, Sir Donald

      Flees, Peter (Dover)

      Crowder, F. P.

      Kershaw, Anthony

      Rees-Davies, W. R.

      Curran, Charles

      Kilfedder, James

      Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

      Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

      Kimball, Marcus

      Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

      d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

      King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

      Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

      d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj. -Gen. James

      King, Tom (Bridgwater)

      Ridsdale, Julian

      Dean, Paul

      Kinsey, J. R.

      Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

      Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

      Kirk, Peter

      Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

      Digby, Simon Wingfield

      Kitson, Timothy

      Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

      Dixon, Piers

      Knox, David

      Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

      Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

      Lane, David

      Rost, Peter

      Drayson, G. B.

      Langford-Holt, Sir John

      Russell, Sir Ronald

      Dykes, Hugh

      Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

      St. John-Stevas, Norman

      Eden, Sir John

      Le Marchant, Spencer

      Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.

      Edwards. Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

      Scott, Nicholas

      Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

      Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

      Scott-Hopkins, James

      Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

      Longden, Gilbert

      Sharples, Richard

      Emery, Peter

      Loveridge, John

      Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

      Eyre, Reginald

      Luce, R. M.

      Shelton, William (Clapham)

      Farr, John

      McAdden, Sir Stephen

      Simeons, Charles

      Fell, Anthony

      MacArthur, Ian

      Skeet, T. H. H.

      Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

      McCrindle, R. A.

      Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

      Fidler, Michael

      McLaren, Martin

      Soref, Harold

      Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)

      Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

      Spence, John

      Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

      McMaster, Stanley

      Sproat, lain

      Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

      Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      McNair-Wilson, Michael

      Steel, David

      Fortescue, Tim

      McNair-Wilson, Patrick (NewForest)

      Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

      Foster, Sir John

      Maddan, Martin

      Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

      Fowler, Norman

      Madel, David

      Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

      Fox, Marcus

      Maginnis, John E.

      Stokes, John

      Fraser, Rt.Hn.Hugh (St'fford & Stone)

      Marples, Rt Hn. Ernest

      Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

      Fry, Peter

      Marten, Neil

      Sutcliffe, John

      Galhraith, Hn. T. G.

      Mather, Carol

      Tapsell, Peter

      Gardner, Edward

      Maude, Angus

      Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

      Gibson-Watt, David

      Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

      Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

      Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

      Mawby, Ray

      Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

      Glyn, Dr. Alan

      Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

      Tebbit, Norman

      Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth

      Goodhart, Philip

      Mils, Peter (Torrington)

      Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

      Goodhew, Victor

      Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

      Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.

      Gorst, John

      Miseampbell, Norman

      Tilney, John

      Cower, Raymond

      Mitchell, Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeensnire, W)

      Trafford, Dr. Anthony

      Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

      Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

      Trew, Peter

      Gray, Hamish

      Moate, Roger

      Tugendhat, Christopher

      Green, Alan

      Molyneaux, James

      Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

      Grieve, Percy

      Money, Ernle

      van Straubenzee, W. R.

      Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

      Monro, Hector

      Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

      Crylls, Michael

      Montgomery, Fergus

      Vickers, Dame Joan

      Gummer, Selwyn

      More, Jasper

      Waddington, David

      Gurden, Harold

      Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

      Walder, David (Clitheroe)

      Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

      Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

      Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

      Hall, John (Wycombe)

      Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

      Wall, Patrick

      Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

      Mudd, David

      Walters, Dennis

      Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

      Murton, Oscar

      Ward, Dame Irene

      Hannam, John (Exeter)

      Nabarro, Sir Gerald

      Warren, Kenneth

      Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

      Neave, Airey

      Wells, John (Maidstone)

      Harrison, Co. Sir Harwood (Eye)

      Nicholls, Sir Harmar

      White, Roger (Gravesend)

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Noble, Rt Hn. Michael

      Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

      Hastings, Stephen

      Normanton, Tom

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Havers, Michael

      Nott, John

      Wilkinson, John

      Hawkins, Paul

      Onslow, Cranley

      Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

      Hay, John

      Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

      Woodnutt, Mark

      Hicks, Robert

      Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

      Worsley, Marcus

      Higgins, Terence L.

      Osborn, John

      Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

      Hiley, Joseph

      Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

      Younger, Hn. George

      Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)

      Page, Graham (Crosby)

      Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

      Page, John (Harrow, W.)

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Holland, Philip

      Holt, Miss Mary

      Parkinson, Cecil (Enfield, W.)

      Mr. Bernard Weatherill and

      Hordern, Peter

      Peel, John

      Mr. Keith Speed.

      738

      739

      NOES

      Abse, Leo

      Garrett, W. E.

      Mendelson, John

      Albu, Austen

      Gilbert, Dr. John

      Mikardo, Ian

      Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

      Ginsburg, David

      Millan, Bruce

      Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

      Golding, John

      Miller, Dr. M. S.

      Armstrong, Ernest

      Gourlay, Harry

      Milne, Edward (Blyth)

      Ashton, Joe

      Grant, George (Morpeth)

      Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)

      Atkinson, Norman

      Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

      Molloy, William

      Bagier, Cordon A. T.

      Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

      Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

      Barnes, Michael

      Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

      Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

      Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

      Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

      Barnett, Joel

      Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

      Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

      Beaney, Alan

      Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

      Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

      Hardy, Peter

      Murray, Ronald King

      Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

      Harper, Joseph

      Ogden, Eric

      Eidwell, Sydney

      Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

      O'Halloran, Michael

      Bishop, E. S.

      Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

      O'Malley, Brian

      Blenkinsop, Arthur

      Hattersley, Roy

      Oram, Bert

      Boardman, H. (Leigh)

      Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

      Orme, Stanley

      Booth, Albert

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)

      Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

      Horam, John

      Padley, Walter

      Bradley, Tom

      Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

      Paget, R. T.

      Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)

      Huckfield, Leslie

      Palmer, Arthur

      Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

      Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

      Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

      Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)

      Hughes, Mark (Durham)

      Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

      Buchan, Norman

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

      Pendry, Tom

      Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

      Hughes, Roy (Newport)

      Pentland, Norman

      Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

      Hunter, Adam

      Perry, Ernest G.

      Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

      Irvine, Rt.Hn. Sir ArthuKEdge Hill)

      Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

      Campbell, I (Dunbartonshire, W.)

      Janner, Greville

      Prescott, John

      Cant, R. B.

      Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

      Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

      Carmichael, Neil

      Jeger, Mrs.Lena (H'b'n&St.P'cras, S.)

      Probert, Arthur

      Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)

      Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

      Rankin, John

      Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

      Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

      Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

      Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

      John, Brynmor

      Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

      Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

      Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

      Rhodes, Geoffrey

      Cohen, Stanley

      Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

      Richard, Ivor

      Coleman, Donald

      Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

      Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

      Concannon, J. D.

      Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

      Robertson, John (Paisley)

      Conlan, Bernard

      Jones, Dan (Burnley)

      Roderick, CaerwynE.(Br'c'n&R'dnor)

      Corbet, Mrs. Freda

      Jones, Rt.Hn.Sir Elwyn (W.Ham, S.)

      Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

      Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, c.)

      Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

      Roper, John

      Crawshaw, Richard

      Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

      Rose, Paul B.

      Cronin, John

      Judd, Frank

      Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

      Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Kaufman, Gerald

      Sandelson, Neville

      Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

      Kelley, Richard

      Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

      Dalyell, Tam

      Kerr, Russell

      Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

      Darling, Rt. Hn. George

      Kinnock, Neil

      Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N.E.)

      Davidson, Arthur

      Lambie, David

      Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

      Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

      Lamond, James

      Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

      Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

      Latham, Arthur

      Sillars, James

      Davies, Ifor (Cower)

      Lawson, George

      Silverman, Julius

      Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

      Leadbitter, Ted

      Skinner, Dennis

      Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

      Leonard, Dick

      Small, William

      Deakins, Eric

      Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold

      Spearing, Nigel

      de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

      Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham N.)

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Delargy, H. J.

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Stallard, A. W.

      Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

      Lipton, Marcus

      Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

      Dempsey, James

      Lomas, Kenneth

      Stodart, David (Swindon)

      Doig, Peter

      Loughlin, Charles

      Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

      Dormand, J. D.

      Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

      Strang, Gavin

      Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

      Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

      Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Mahon, Dr. J. Dickson

      Taverne, Dick

      Driberg, Tom

      McBride, Neil

      Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W,)

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      McCartney, Hugh

      Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

      Dunnett, Jack

      McElhone, Frank

      Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)

      Eadie, Alex

      McGuire, Michael

      Tinn, James

      Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

      Mackenzie, Gregor

      Torney, Tom

      Edwards, William (Merioneth)

      Mackie, John

      Tuck, Raphael

      Ellis, Tom

      Mackintosh, John P.

      Urwin, T. W.

      English, Michael

      Maclennan, Robert

      Varley, Eric G.

      Evans, Fred

      McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

      Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

      Faulds, Andrew

      McNamara, J. Kevin

      Walker, Harold (Doneaster)

      Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

      Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

      Wallace, George

      Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

      Malalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

      Watkins, David

      Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

      Marks, Kenneth

      Weitzman, David

      Foot, Michael

      Marquand, David

      Wellbeloved, James

      Ford, Ben

      Marsden, F.

      Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

      Forrester, John

      Marshall, Dr. Edmund

      White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

      Fraser, John (Norwood)

      Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

      Whitehead, Phillip

      Freeson, Reginald

      Meacher, Michael

      Whitlock, William

      Galpern, Sir Myer

      Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      740

      741

      Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

      Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Hnyton)

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

      Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

      Mr. William Hamling and

      Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

      Woof, Robert

      Mr. James A. Dunn.

      Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

      Subsequent Lords Amendment agreed to.

    Clause 7

      APPROPRIATE CONTRIBUTIONS TO TRADE UNION IN LIEU OF MEMBERSHIP
      Lords Amendment: No. 14, in page 6, line 37, leave out from "but" to "become" in line 38 and insert "subsequently".
      Mr. Dudley Smith: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      This Amendment clarifies the provisions relating to the date from which contributions in an agency shop or approved closed shop are payable. It ensures that the worker who is already in an employer's employment when an agency shop was established will be treated as a newly engaged worker if he subsequently transfers to work covered by the agency shop.
      The Amendment commended itself to another place. It was thought that there was a defect in the Bill which should be remedied. Perhaps the House will accept this as a very small but useful contribution towards improving the Bill.
      Mr. Ronald King Murray: The Opposition agree that this Amendment clarifies the Bill. However, that does not prejudice our total opposition to the principle of the Bill.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Lords Amendment: No. 14A, in page 6, line 44, leave out "construction".
      Mr. Dudley: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      In view of the lateness of the hour, I move the Amendment formally.
      Mr. Heffer: Although he is trying to be helpful, I do not think the hon. Gentleman is being very helpful——
      It being Twelve o'clock the debate stood adjourned, pursuant to the Orders [25th January and 28th July].
      Debate to be resumed this day.

ENGLISH CHANNEL (SHIPPING CONTROL)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Weatherill.]
12 a.m.
Mr. Andrew Bowden: The English Channel is one of the busiest waterways in the world. Indeed, it could be described as the Piccadilly of the world's shipping routes. Danger to life is considerable in the Channel and is increasing, and pollution dangers after accidents are always present. At this time the Channel is overcrowded, but what about the future? A frightening picture can be painted of two massive one-million ton tankers approaching each other from opposite directions on a collision course. The tanker "Panther" exploded after a collision, so it can be readily appreciated that the damage, loss of life, and pollution that could be caused by two very large tankers colliding in the Channel would be nothing short of frightening.
The voluntary traffic routing scheme which has been in operation since 1967 has worked very well. Up to 95 per cent. of ships have observed the rules. It is the other 5 per cent. which have created the problems and which will continue to do so. What steps should be taken? There is a not inconsiderable body of opinion which believes that, unless further international action is taken quickly, Britain should consider unilateral action and that we should police and control the Channel ourselves without international agreement. This would be a drastic step and every possible course must be taken first.
I suggest that the time has come for the present voluntary traffic control scheme to be made mandatory. To set an example to the world, British ships should be compelled to observe a traffic separation scheme at the earliest possible moment. I hope that the British Government will be able to bring this into effect before the end of this year. Second, the area of the Channel which is

743
at present covered by the voluntary traffic separation scheme is far too restricted and should be extended substantially, particularly in the southern approach to the Channel. The Government and I.M.C.O. should consider a Special Channel Service to help and guide ships using the Channel. This service could not only help and guide ships going through the Channel but could also keep all ships in the area fully informed of movements; it could maintain a continuous traffic survey, and it could identify and report vessels that failed to observe the traffic control regulations. It could also play a part in helping to raise the level of seamanship and navigational expertise.
I turn to the question of oil pollution. Recently there was a sound and responsible editorial in the Evening Argus. Referring to oil on beaches in Sussex and elsewhere on the south coast, it said:
"But, on the whole, there appears to be a lot less than in previous years.
Credit for this should go first to the Board of Trade, who are responsible for dispersing the oil as soon as it is sighted.
Next in line for a pat on the back are the local authorities, who keep the water clear up to one mile from the shore.
And finally, there are the men who do most of the hard work spraying the beaches and shifting the shingle. They probably deserve our grateful thanks more than anyone else.
But although the situation has eased, there is no room for complacency… Oil pollution could still become part of our every-day lives."
No complacency—that is the key part of the editorial.
I know that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State is far from complacent about the problem because oil pollution is an ever-present danger. I much regret that there is no statutory obligation upon ships' masters to report spillages of oil outside harbour areas. We should make it compulsory within our own three-mile limit and work to obtain international agreement for areas outside it. I am convinced that time, speed and warning for anti-oil pollution squads working on our coasts is vital. Recently, there was a spillage off the Sussex coast involving over 500 tons of oil. It was nearly seven hours before it was known to the authorities and antipollution squads in the area could be alerted.
744
Unless the Government take some action to compel masters to report spillages immediately, it will only be a matter of time before a number of beaches are hit by a large amount of oil without warning. I am naturally concerned about the beaches in Brighton, but this applies to beaches at every seaside resort. If pollution of this type were to hit these beaches it could have disastrous effects on the area, seriously damaging the prospects of visitors and tourism.
It is no exaggeration to say that major steps have been taken by both Governments in recent years to increase safety for shipping in the Channel and to minimise oil pollution, but there is still much to be done.
12.9 a.m.
Mr. Roy Mason: Before the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemp-town (Mr. Bowden) sits down, I would like to point out to him, as I survey the Benches opposite and indeed those on this side, that we have had recently the Oil in Navigable Waters Act, the Merchant Shipping (Oil Pollution) Act and a debate on safety at sea, and on every occasion the hon. Gentleman was noticeably absent. The matters he has mentioned are history and have been repeated many times. He is fortunate in having obtained this debate, and he might at least have mentioned the sterling work done by hon. Members opposite and by my hon. Friends who have been helping to pass legislation in order to achieve just what he has been asking for. His hon. Friend who will reply has been most forthcoming and helpful in the House and in Committee in the past, and the hon. Member ought to have paid tribute to those who have worked when he has been absent.
Mr. Bowden: I have had a great deal of correspondence with my hon. Friend on many of these problems. The right hon. Gentleman knows that I have been active in Committee at every opportunity. If I were amiss in not paying tribute as the right hon. Gentleman claims I should have done, I happily do so now. I was careful to pay tribute to the action not only of the present Government but of the last Government, because this is a continuing problem. A lot has been done, but I submit that a great deal more has to be done in the future.
12.11 a.m.
The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Anthony Grant): I certainly want to pay tribute to the work done by hon. Members on both sides, including the right hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason), in a series of pieces of legislation, some of which stem from the previous Government. I found the greatest possible help from those Members who have taken a personal part. To be fair to my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemp-town (Mr. Bowden), in view of his constituency situation I know that he has taken a particular interest in this situation, and has certainly corresponded with me and has played his full part in the Merchant Shipping (Oil Pollution) Bill in Committee. I am grateful to him for raising this important topic, which is not only of interest to his constituents and others who live along the Channel coasts but is a matter of vital concern to a maritime nation such as ours.
I would like to take this opportunity to tell the House of the measures which the Government are taking to improve navigation in the Channel and in the Dover Strait. The Dover Strait is one of the busiest international waterways in the world, with several hundred ships a day passing through. We should bear in mind that nearly 80 per cent. of these ships are not bound to or from United Kingdom ports. To help regulate traffic a voluntary traffic separation scheme was agreed internationally in the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organisation, and was put into operation in 1967. This scheme has resulted in some improvement in the collision rate but as my hon. Friend said, more needs to be done. Indeed, recently the need to improve the safety of navigation in the Dover Strait and adjacent waters has been highlighted by a series of collisions and strandings which have caused considerable loss of life and have posed a considerable pollution threat to our British coast.
The Government have therefore sought to get effective action to achieve an improvement in navigation and in the casualty rate. In doing so, we have sought to be realistic in recognising what is likely to be achieved, and we have also had full regard to the fact that this is an international waterway and that the
746
agreement of other maritime nations is essential.
In the first place, the United Kingdom proposed to the Maritime Safety Committee at its meeting last March that States should accept an obligation to impose a compulsory requirement on ships of their flag using the traffic lanes of the Dover Strait separation scheme to proceed in the prescribed direction of traffic flow. The Committee, I am happy to say, unanimously accepted the proposal, and, indeed, extended it to all traffic separation schemes throughout the world which have been adopted by I.M.C.O.
The Committee produced an appropriate amendment to the Safety of Life at Sea Convention for consideration by the I.M.C.O. Assembly at its next meeting in October. It also asked the I.M.C.O. Working Group, which is drafting revisions of the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea in preparation for a Conference in 1972, to take account of the proposal. We have, however, been very much aware of the need to get quick action. As a result of our recommendations the organisation as an interim measure has recommended member Governments, in advance of these amendments being accepted, to make it an offence for ships of their flag to proceed against the prescribed direction of traffic flow in traffic lanes of traffic separation schemes adopted by I.M.C.O. We are confident, bearing in mind the results of our traffic surveys, that this recommendation will, in fact, lead to effective action by nations who control a large proportion of the relevant tonnage. We ourselves in the United Kingdom intend to make a Statutory Instrument applying to British ships to come into force before the end of the year.
In the second place, the United Kingdom have put forward proposals to amend and extend the present Dover Strait Separation Scheme. These were considered by the I.M.C.O. Sub-Committee on Safety of Navigation at its meeting in the week commencing 5th July and, with some reservations, have been put forward by that Sub-Committee to the Maritime Safety Committee recommending that they should be adopted. We hope that I.M.C.O. will agree to

747
these proposals and that they will come into force at the beginning of next year.
In the third place, the Committee agreed to a suggestion by the United Kingdom that there should be a meeting between States bordering the Dover Strait to consider what further measures could be adopted. This meeting, between Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom took place in London on 12th, 13th and 14th May this year.
At that meeting it was clear that none of the delegations was prepared to take action on a unilateral, or even multilateral, basis outside the general framework of a properly ratified I.M.C.O. agreement.
Mr. John Prescott: Terrible.
Mr. Grant: In view of what the hon. Member says, I must reiterate that it is important for us to live in the real world and to understand that a unilateral action is, I am afraid, not a viable proposition in a situation like this for a nation such as the United Kingdom. Everyone who thinks about it carefully will realise that that is the case. That was certainly the view of the delegation.
However, with this limitation, there was general agreement with the United Kingdom views. In particular it was agreed that measures should be taken to make effective the new mandatory traffic separation scheme in the Dover Strait. There was also agreement that negotiations should start for a regional search and rescue agreement, and that France and Britain would examine long-term measures for the improvement of safety, including the possibility of setting up a Channel navigation service. This would be a prelude to further discussions with other states.
We intend to play our full part in making effective the new I.M.C.O. recommendation about traffic separation in the Dover Strait. We are, therefore, establishing a radar surveillance station at St. Margaret's Bay and will use the helicopter stationed at Manston for search and rescue duties to identify vessels travelling the wrong way; we may also use surface craft for this purpose; and we intend to pass particulars of offending ships to their flag Governments for appropriate action. We also
748
intend to broadcast information to shipping about these vessels.
Mr. David Mudd: Would my hon. Friend give way briefly on this point? I should welcome what clarification he can give on what action he expects the Government of Liberia would take against unqualified, unskilled and unscheduled ships flying the flag of that nation and blatantly disregarding the safety regulations laid down by the Channel countries.
Mr. Grant: I stress that Liberia is increasingly playing its part in these organisations, but whatever the State is, whether it is Liberia or any other country, it is for that State to pass the internal legislation in order to provide offences of this kind, and it will be for us or whoever else may detect what we believe to be an offence in this respect, to report it to that nation for action to be taken. I have no reason to suppose that nations, including Liberia, concerned with shipping, will flout the international agreements in this respect.
We hope that once this system starts to operate there will be a substantial drop in the number of ships using the lanes in the wrong direction. The French Government have said that they may be able to help us in the identification of ships.
Earlier this year we instituted traffic surveys in the Dover Strait. These are continuing and will form the basis for evaluation in discussion with the French and other Governments of a possible navigation service to assist the movement of ships through the strait. Experience of operation of the radar surveillance system will also be useful for this purpose. In addition, work is being done on the forecasting of future traffic movements through the Channel and the possibility of traffic simulation studies.
Allied to all this we are most anxious to see an improvement in standards of seamanship and navigational competence in the Channel and indeed elsewhere. We in the United Kingdom intend to make regulations which will revise and extend substantially certification arrangements for officers on British merchant ships. Moreover, we are trying to work out proposals to put to the Inter-governmental Maritime Consultative Organisation and to the International Labour

749
Organisation in order to achieve minimum international standards of competence and training by other sea users.
I should warn the House that this is difficult and complex, because there are different standards of education in many nations which use the sea. Nevertheless, we are determined to encourage international bodies to raise the existing standard of seamanship and navigational competence. However, the British and French and other Governments are most anxious to make progress in this area. We are also pressing other Governments to ratify as quickly as possible the amendments to the Safety of Life at Sea Convention which have been agreed in I.M.C.O. and which require wider carriage of navigational equipment, in particular radar in ships.
The Government take the need to improve navigation in the Channel and to lessen the danger of oil pollution extremely seriously. This is such an anxiety to my hon. Friend and to all hon. Members who represent constituencies on the coast.
The vast majority of ships navigate perfectly safely, but we regard the accident rate as too high. The action which we are taking, and which I have explained, has two main strands. The first is to secure a quick improvement by the new rules on traffic separation and by pressing for the carriage of proper navigational equipment.
In the second place we are studying very seriously with other Governments how to make further improvements in the future such as the institution of a Channel navigation service—a step, which requires considerable work and international agreement. The service—I prefer that word to calling it a police force of some sort—would be of the greatest possible assistance to mariners and to all who use the Channel. If we can achieve this it will be a great step forward in safety at sea and in minimising the risk of pollution.
With regard to oil pollution generally, we are continually seeking to make progress in a number of ways. In the light of experience we are improving our own organisation to deal with oil slicks, for which my Department is responsible, as the Evening Argus recognises. We are responsible concerning oil slicks at sea
750
while the local authorities are responsible at the shore. Our organisation has improved very much over recent years, under both Governments, in the light of the experience which has, unhappily, been imposed upon us.
I must, however, reiterate once again that the most important steps forward in the control of oil pollution would be the acceptance by enough States of the amendments to the Oil Pollution Convention and ratification of the two 1969 I.M.C.O. conventions on the rights of coastal States and on compensation for oil pollution damage.
In that respect I am entitled to repeat, as I have said a number of times, that Great Britain has set an example to other nations by introducing and passing this Session two pieces of legislation which are of importance in this connection. If the other nations would ratify those conventions, however, this would force tankers to use the load-on-top system or some analogous system on a worldwide basis. It would be an enormous step forward in eliminating the amount of oil put into the sea. I believe we are on the road to success in this way and that there is increasing awareness of the need for action by nations throughout the world; but action, as opposed to mere desire, by other Governments is most important.
I hope that the House will agree that the Government are fully seized of the need to improve navigation in the Channel and are taking appropriate action.
Mr. Peter Emery: Before my hon. Friend leaves the pollution aspect—and I immediately declare an interest in this—may I ask whether he does not believe it right that those persons who in any way can be held responsible for pollution should meet the cost, whether incurred by the Government or by local authorities? This is not clearly understood. Those of us in the House who have been associated with these matters know that that is widely felt but it needs to be said much more strongly, because that is what the oil companies, the shipping companies and, I believe, the Government want.
Mr. Grant: That is precisely what will be achieved by the recently passed Merchant Shipping (Oil Pollution) Act.

751
I believe that this will have a dramatic effect and I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend said.
Mr. Bowden: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Grant: I am sorry, no.
Much remains to be done in this direction, but useful preliminary work has already taken place. Our approach is to concentrate on matters of practical value which will achieve real results, realising all the time that we are dealing with international traffic on the high seas. In all this work by my Department, we are assisted by a professional staff of master mariners with long seagoing experience, and not simply Whitehall civil servants, excellent though they are. We have professional expertise and my Department keeps in close touch with professional opinion outside, which is voiced by many different organisations.
12.29 a.m.
Mr. Roy Mason: In the 30 seconds that remain, I should like to say on behalf of the Opposition that we welcome the Under-Secretary's statement,
752
first, that it shall be an offence to proceed against the recommended traffic flows in the Channel as a whole; secondly, that in the Dover Straits separation schemes will be worked out and enforced by the end of next year; and thirdly, what the hon. Gentleman said about the Channel surveillance service, with radar, helicopters and surface craft. We have pressed for this and we are pleased to hear that it is being considered. Fourthly we welcome the fact that higher certification standards are to be required in the Channel.
We are sorry that it has not yet been said that there will be compulsory pilotage on large tankers and dangerous vessels. The Under-Secretary must recognise that it has to be established that unilateral action will in due course be taken by the Channel countries to control——
The Question having been proposed at Twelve o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at half-past Twelve o'clock.

ENVIRONMENT
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  Concorde
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NATIONAL FINANCE
  Royal Mint
  Royal Mint
  European Economic Community
  European Economic Community
  Rolls-Royce Ltd.
  Rolls-Royce Ltd.
  Investment
  Investment
  Fuel Tax
  Fuel Tax
SOCIAL SERVICES
  Pensions (Advertising Campaign)
  Pensions (Advertising Campaign)
  Smallpox (Vaccination)
  Smallpox (Vaccination)
EMPLOYMENT
  Scotland
  Scotland
  Wages
  Wages
  Licensed Non-Residential Wages (Settlement)
  Licensed Non-Residential Wages (Settlement)
  Pensions (Equalisation)
  Pensions (Equalisation)
WALES
  Public Expenditure (Cardiganshire)
  Public Expenditure (Cardiganshire)

Preamble
The House met at two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells.

OLTON MERE DEVELOPMENT SCHEME INQUIRY
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the local societies which objected to proposed development at Olton Mere, near Solihull, were consulted before a date was fixed for a public inquiry into the proposed development; and what parties are normally consulted before the dates of public inquiries are fixed.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (LORD SANDFORD): My Lords, my right honourable friend did not consult the local societies. The parties normally consulted about the date for an inquiry are the applicants and the local authority.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, had not the planning authority in this case received informal non-statutory objections, and were they not aware that this objection existed on the part of the local society? In such cases is it not customary to consult the local society on the date of the hearing?
LORD SANDFORD: Yes, indeed, my Lords. The objection had been put in some months earlier, but it is not the normal practice to extend the statutory obligation beyond the parties that I have mentioned. Of course, the statutory obligation is to do no more than to give
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notice of the date of a local inquiry at least six weeks in advance.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that although it may not be desirable to extend the statutory duty to consult on the date for an inquiry, yet it is not only desirable but even no more than civilised de facto informally to consult local societies about these hearings which affect them very much?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I would agree that it is desirable, and it is often the practice to go beyond the statutory obligations in respect of the advertising of planning applications, but I am sure the noble Lord will agree that by far the greatest weight of criticism about planning procedures generally is about the delays that they involve, and it is for that reason that my right honourable friend is not prepared to go further than the current practice.
LORD BURNTWOOD: My Lords, is the noble Lord saying that in point of fact there was Press publicity as to the date and place of this inquiry, which I believe is in accordance with the practice prescribed by the Government last year? If so, can the noble Lord let me know in due course in what newspapers this information was published?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, the answer to the second part of the noble Lord's question is, Yes, I certainly will. In regard to the first part of the question, both the date of the inquiry and the original application were advertised in the normal way.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, is it not most unfortunate that local societies should feel aggrieved if they find that the Minister is keeping rigidly to the statutory obligation?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I have just explained that the Minister is not sticking rigidly to his statutory obligation. He has followed his usual practice of going beyond his statutory obligation to the applicant and to the local planning authority by consulting them about the date of the inquiry.

HISTORIC BUILDINGS PRESERVATION
2.10 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have seen the report Financing the Preservation of Old Buildings issued by the Civic Trust; whether they agree with its recommendation that a National Buildings Conservation Fund should be set up, to which local and central Government would contribute half, and whether they will now reinstate the commitment of £3 million a year central and local government expenditure on historic towns and buildings which they cancelled on January 1, 1971.]
LORD SANDFORD: Yes, my Lords. A copy of the report was sent to me by the Chairman of the Civic Trust on July 19. Among its recommendations is one calling for Government initiative in attracting private capital to a National Buildings Conservation Fund, which could be used to provide loans to help local trusts to acquire and restore historic buildings. The Government are already studying the various recommendations in this useful report. These, however, differ in scope from the proposal for a conservation grant for historic towns; on this, as the noble Lord knows, the Government are deferring judgment until more experience is available from pilot projects in conservation in the four historic towns specially selected for study.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, are the Government aware that those who feel that there should be more Government money for historic towns and buildings do not perhaps care too much whether that comes about in accordance with the recommendations of one report or of another, but that all those who have studied the matter agree that there must be more money? Will they please make it forthcoming by the means of their choice as soon as posible, and when will that be?
LORD SANDFORD: Yes, my Lords. Her Majesty's Government agree with
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that general proposition, and for that reason we have already taken the step of increasing the allocation to the Historic Buildings Council by the substantial amount of £300,000.

PROBATION OFFICERS' SALARIES
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a statement regarding the negotiations on probation officers' salaries.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD WINDLESHAM): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary met the Employers' Side of the Joint Negotiating Committee yesterday, and negotiations will be resumed at a further meeting of the Committee to-morrow.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord, the Minister, for that reply, may I ask him whether his right honourable friend the Home Secretary realises the deep resentment which is being felt in the Probation Service throughout this country at the length of the negotiations, which have been taking place now for the last seven months?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, it is true that these negotiations have been protracted. On May 14 the employers' side made an offer, with the agreement of the Government. Subsequently the conference of the National Association of Probation Officers passed a vote of no confidence in their representatives and called on them to resign. There was then a period of some weeks before new representatives were appointed. But, as I say, negotiations have now been resumed and they are in progress at the moment.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, would the noble Lord inform his right honourable friend the Home Secretary that while these negotiations have been going on, namely for seven months. 25 full-time officers in the Inner London Probation Service have resigned, and 10 more are about to leave the Service within

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the next few weeks; that this will mean a loss of 11·5 per cent. of the total establishment of the Inner London Probation Service, and, what is even much more serious, it will represent 16 per cent. of the total male strength of the Inner London Probation Service?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, my right honourable friend is aware of those statistics. I do not think we can quite accept the implications that the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, has drawn from them. A number of people have, for example, transferred from Inner London to other probation and aftercare areas of the country; and I think his figure also includes about 10 people who have not left the Service but have actually applied for other posts. I do not think one would necessarily assume that they will leave; some of them have applied for probation work outside the Inner London area.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that the majority of these people are leaving the Probation Service to take up other appointments in the social services outside because of the quite unjustifiable discrepancy in the scales of pay? Is it not also the case that the figures given by my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell for the Inner London area can be repeated in the Provinces?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, we are not sure of that. The national figures do not, on the information available, seem quite so serious as the Inner London ones. In the last six months only six people from Inner London have gone to take up social work with local authorities; that is, six out of the 10.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I regret that I cannot accept the noble Lord's figures. I could give other figures. The number is greater than six.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, I think the noble Lord is verging on a supplementary speech rather than a supplementary question.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I was about to say that I recognise that this is neither the time nor the place to continue this.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I do not think we wish to prolong the discussion. This is a matter about which my right honourable friend is genuinely concerned. He has had a number of meetings; but it is difficult to add very much to what I have said while the negotiations are currently in progress.

THE ARTIST CRAFTSMAN: FUTURE POLICY
2.17 p.m.
VISCOUNT NORWICH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what arrangements have been made for the assistance of the artist craftsman.]
THE PAYMASTER GENERAL (VISCOUNT ECCLES): My Lords, the Government are setting up an Advisory Committee under the chairmanship of Sir Paul Sinker to advise them on policy for the artist craftsman. The terms of reference of the Advisory Committee are:
" To advise the Paymaster General on the needs of the artist craftsman and to promote through the central office for the crafts a nation-wide interest and improvement in their products ".
The Committee will be serviced by a central office for the crafts, and I am glad that the Council of Industrial Design have agreed in principle that Sir Paul Reilly, their Director, should be responsible for this office. Arrangements for Scotland and Wales are being discussed with my right honourable friends the Secretaries of State.
VISCOUNT BOYD OF MERTON: My Lords, speaking as a former Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths' Company, may I ask the noble Viscount whether he realises the great satisfaction that his imaginative move is giving to such Companies?
VISCOUNT ECCLES: My Lords, I thank my noble friend. Perhaps I may tell him that I have had the most excellent advice and help from the Goldsmiths' Company.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, can the noble Viscount inform me what an artist craftsman is?
VISCOUNT ECCLES: My Lords, I think I must say that this is a very difficult definition; but clearly there are craftsmen whose work really equals that of any artist in what one might describe as fine arts; there are others who are really very near industrial producers. Our intention is to go for high quality first.

FUTURE BUSINESS
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, in view of the very long list of speakers down to speak to-day on the Common Market, I think it may be for the convenience of the House if the Codes on the welfare of farm animals were not taken to-night. If your Lordships are agreeable, I propose that we should consider those Codes on Wednesday of next week.
It may also be for the convenience of the House if I suggest that to-morrow we should continue the Committee stage of the Immigration Bill until half past eight, and after that take the Civil Aviation Bill.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I have heard it said that if the Codes of welfare which it is proposed to apply to animals were applied to this House we should not be sitting as late as we are. I am sure that the revised programme which the noble Earl suggests will commend itself.

CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) (No. 2) BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

MEDICINES BILL
2.20 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE): My Lords, I understand that no Amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move,
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pursuant to Standing Order No. 43(2), that the Order of Commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment be discharged.—(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Then, Standing Order No. 42 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of July 22) Bill read 3a, and passed.

HIJACKING BILL
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD DRUMALBYN): My Lords, I understand that no Amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move, pursuant to Standing Order No. 43(2), that the Order of Commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment be discharged.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Then, Standing Order No. 42 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of July 22) Bill read 3a, and passed.

FINANCE BILL
Read 3a, and passed.

UNITED KINGDOM AND THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
2.24 p.m.
Debate resumed on the Motion moved on Monday last by the Lord Carrington, on behalf of the Earl Jellicoe; namely, That this House takes note of the White Paper, The United Kingdom and the European Communities (Cmnd. 4715).
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, first of all I should like to congratulate all the maiden speakers. I do not actually see any of them, but I expect they are around somewhere. I have noticed that some of my colleagues tend to regard a three-day debate as an occasion for one night stands only, but none the less their speeches were acceptable to us. There was the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Burgh, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Blake—who disguised himself by adding

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the word"Lord "; it took me quite a while to realise that he was Robert Blake, whose books we have all read and enjoyed so much—and there was also my noble friend Lord Robens of Woldingham (it was a pleasure to have him sitting fairly and squarely on the Labour Benches) and the noble Lord, Lord McFadzean, whose speeches were all very notable.
Yesterday we had a very remarkable debate which was very good throughout, but particularly good towards the evening. In this connection, I should like to say two things; first, that we had a quite excellent winding-up speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie; and, secondly, that we had outstanding speeches from some of my noble friends and some noble Lords on the Cross-Benches. There were outstanding speeches from my noble friend Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge and others, and I am bound to say that I am sure it must have helped them that there were about 40 to 50 noble Lords present. I hope that when my noble friend Lord Delacourt-Smith and the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, wind up to-night that they will have a House to listen to them. I should like to thank those noble Lords who have stuck manfully to the House. The noble Lord, Lord Robbins, has been here almost constantly, as have some other noble Lords in the House, and we appreciate the fact that they are prepared to sit and listen.
LORD ROBBINS: My Lords, I do not quite deserve that praise. I stole away at about half past ten last night.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I know the noble Lord stole away, but he was here much of the time when I was not. But he caught my eye, as did some other noble Lords. I will not single them out, but my praise is for those who were able to be here.
As with other noble Lords who are speaking from these Benches, and indeed from the other parts of the House, I am expressing my personal views. One point I should like to make at the beginning, with which I am sure the House will agree, is one made already by one or two noble Lords. A major factor in the besetting problem of our balance of payments has been the load that we have
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sought to carry in the world. This was particularly true in the defence field as compared with most of our European and indeed Commonwealth allies. This was a factor which led to the change in our overseas strategy initiated by the previous Government with the withdrawal from East of Suez and the reduction in defence expenditure which, with very minor adjustments and some rather skilled sleight of hand on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, the present Government have continued. We have carried a burden as victors in the last war out of proportion to our ability to do so. Nor have our friends always helped us as they might. Therefore, we do not wish to argue the case for entry into the Common Market on grounds of some national failure. Indeed, it is possible to make a most impressive case for what Britain has achieved since the war.
There is a corollary to this: that we shall not solve our problems, even going into the Common Market, unless we also pursue the right economic policies at home. I do not intend to initiate a debate—we have had plenty of opportunity in the past, and we shall have again—in regard to the. Government's policies. However, I am bound to say that entry into the Common Market will still not obviate the need for the right policies, and particularly a policy for growth. I am sure that all noble Lords will accept that the present level of unemployment is something which would be quite intolerable for more than a short time, and certainly I believe it would be intolerable within the nations who make up the European Community.
As a committed pro-Common Marketeer, I should like to say that I have never known a major issue—and I wish to say a few words about the position of the Labour Party—on which there has been greater freedom and tolerance shown within what is sometimes accused of being a monolithic Party, to those who have different views. As one of those whose position in the Parliamentary Labour Party—irrespective of what the position may be in this House—is one of being in the minority in this matter, I am bound to say that it is a measure of flexibility and intelligence, and indeed recognition that this is a great debate, that we have been allowed, without criticism, that freedom which otherwise, on other issues, might

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have led to much more bitter criticism than it has. Needless to say, I hope the views that we are expressing may serve to convert some of our colleagues and most of those on these Benches who are against entry into the Common Market. I noticed that the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, was a lonely figure, and I know that he has been lonely in the past in another place.
There has been a great dilemma confronting us, and it is a dilemma with which to a lesser degree, the other Party has been faced, too. I am grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has urged us not to concentrate on making petty points or challenging one another's sincerity, and, for the most part, I believe that standard has been well maintained. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft—and I think this will be generally accepted—that it would be a disaster if the Labour Party were to fragment and suffer the fate of so many social democratic parties in other parts of the world. It is, however, for us to face this problem and to argue it out among ourselves. But it has now led to an unusual situation. I think this is the first time I have found myself debating with my own colleagues on the Front Bench. It is a somewhat novel, indeed a very remarkable, experience and, although I feel it is slightly unnatural, as I have become accustomed to it I have found it rather enjoyable. We on this side have deliberately sought to achieve fairness and equality of opportunity for all points of view. I should not like to say that I hope I have similar opportunities frequently in the future, but I am not regretting this and I think my noble friends have discharged their duties with great fairness.
I have no hesitation in paying tribute to the high quality of the speeches generally, but I must single out in particular my noble friend Lord Shepherd, who clearly stated the position of the Party in this matter; the admirable speech from my noble friend Lord Chalfont, and the speech from my noble friend Lord Beswick, which I thought, as a supporter of the Common Market, was the most damaging speech I have heard in this debate. Indeed, were it not for the equally eloquent speeches that followed, which more than overrode his baleful influence, I should have been rather more
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disturbed. Of course, there was also the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, and I only ask the House not to be misled by his astonishing vigour which so impresses us all. One of the group of speeches which impressed me most in the delicate field of prices and agriculture was the group of my noble friends Lord Walston, Lord Sainsbury and Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge. I must admit that the case they made in terms of agriculture, in the changing nature of the Common Agricultural Policy and the success of the Community in facing problems which we have criticised in the past, was most striking. It has shown me that I and, I believe, others were out of date in regard to these developments.
Some very disturbing figures have been quoted in both Houses, and I am bound to say that I really felt some of them to be rather exaggerated. Concern was expressed about movements across the exchanges of something like £1,000 million a year. With the greatest respect to noble Lords and Members of another place, I believe this statement to be very inflated and very unlikely to occur. But to suggest that it might occur is, in my view, fundamentally to misunderstand the nature of the Community which we are trying to join. It is a Community with the objective of mutual support between its members. If we do not believe in this mutual support, then those who oppose going in at all are quite right, regardless of the terms. But the record of the Community shows beyond any doubt that they do support each other in times of difficulty. The Treaty itself contains safeguard provisions in Articles 108 and 109 in relation to balance of payments difficulties, and in Article 73 in relation to disturbances of the capital market. As the White Paper states, the Community have made clear that
" if unacceptable situations should arise the very survival of the Community would demand that the institutions find equitable solutions'."
We must accept that; otherwise, we should not be talking about entering the Common Market at all.
I sometimes find it difficult to assess the validity of the economic arguments. Who am I to distinguish between Kaldor and Cairncross? Indeed, I should be very frightened to start arguing with either of them. But I believe—and this debate has strengthened my belief—that the case

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for entry on economic grounds has grown stronger rather than weaker, especially in the last few years. In general terms, the economic case cannot be proved. We acknowledge that. Nor can the economic case against going in be proved. But there is a general view, which is growing all the time, for an association with a larger group better able to look after itself in world negotiations—and the Kennedy Round is an example—and we should not remain outside if we can help it. Those who have argued against this have sometimes forgotten the nature of the Community; and I again stress that it is the Community as a whole. Reference was made to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, and it was quoted as an argument against entry to the Common Market. I am bound to say that the National Institute did not say what was quoted. It was in a published article, which was very strongly disputed by a large number of people.
But to me the case of my noble friend Lord Robens of Woldingham, as he opened up the prospects for the coal-mining industry and the advantages of being within the Coal and Steel Community, seemed irrefutable. The same applied to the striking speech by the noble Lord, Lord Stokes. Having heard his reasoned argument, the figures he quoted and his judgment on the future, and having heard what was said by the noble Lord, Lord McFadzcan, and other industrialists, one can well understand that there have been hesitations in Europe about the impact of British industrial competition. We should not therefore forget that we are not the only people who are taking a chance on British entry into Europe.
Furthermore, there were certain obvious long-term advantages which seemed to me to be incontrovertible at any time. Whatever else may spring from entry into the Common Market, it will almost certainly help our invisible exports. I agreed very much with the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, that this is an aspect which, surprisingly has aroused little discussion. Even if we are over-confident about the capacity of our industrial leaders—and I do not think we can ignore their views—there can be no doubt that our financial institutions, the insurance world, and other institutions will not only hold their own, but will
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improve their position to the extent of building up great strength for operating within the Common Market and, therefore, an ever stronger base for the enormous amount of business which they do overseas.
I am trying to shorten my speech in the interests of the other 39 speakers. I should like to set a good example, but there are some points that I must answer. I would make only one remark on the subject of the Commonwealth. I do not believe that the change which is now going on all the time in the pattern of trade necessarily means that we are facing a conflict between the Commonwealth and the E.E.C. Indeed, we shall be more valuable to the old Commonwealth, and indeed to the new Commonwealth, if we gain greater strength and are based in a more secure Europe.
On the question of the terms for New Zealand, I am bound to say that I think the New Zealand terms are uniquely favourable: better in many ways than I had personally hoped for—and quite rightly, too, because this was a matter on which the British people felt strongly. On the subject of Australia, I can only say, having recently visited that extremely wealthy and expanding country, particularly in the field of mineral development, that I have no doubt that their position is a great deal stronger than ours, and that they will progress faster if there is more European capital available for further investment in that country. When I was in Australia we were well aware that they, too, have regional problems. Some of these regional or structural problems will increase; but as for the basic wealth and prospect for that great country, I have no doubt that my optimism as to its continued progress will be substantially unaffected by our entry into the Common Market.
My Lords, this is not the time to go through all the questions relating to the Commonwealth beyond saying that our entry into the Common Market will also open up that Market to a much greater extent to other Commonwealth countries than would be the case if we stayed outside unless, as is the case already, some independently enter into association with the Common Market and we find that they get the benefits and we do not. On regional planning, the case has been

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made very clear that there is no obstacle to the carrying out of regional policies of a kind that we, and indeed countries such as Italy, are pursuing at the moment. There has been some anxiety expressed that if the E.E.C. move towards a Community regional policy this may restrict the freedom of the members. But, surely, if this happens the movement can only be in the direction of helping those with regional problems and not in the opposite direction; and it is both important that we should be there to influence this and, indeed, that we should be encouraged that there is this consideration going on. Last night we had some notable speeches. We also heard earlier in the day from the noble and learned Lord; and I again commend the speech of my noble friend Lord Lloyd of Hampstead and, earlier that of my noble friend Lord Chorley, both long-standing members of my Party and both lawyers of distinction. Their speeches in support of European institutions seemed to me to be very valid indeed.
Criticism has been made both of the Commission and of the other institutions. There are those who are saying that the institutions are not democratic. Of course they cannot be democratic while national sovereignty remains intact. The argument, if we wish them to be fully democratic, is to move towards a Federal Europe: but this is not the issue in front of us. In the long run, I would personally hope we should not exclude that, but we are not debating that matter now. But we shall be in a position to influence the development of the institutions, and it will be vital, if we go into Europe, that we should play our full part, particularly in the European Parliament. Again, there has been surprisingly little discussion about the forms of co-operation, while the great debate goes on. But we shall need to bear in mind that the European Parliament meets, I believe, anything up to 100 days in a year. This will present a very serious problem, particularly to Members of the House of Commons in the manning-up of this Parliament, bearing in mind their duties to their constituents and their duties to the House of Commons. I hope that if we go in we shall have opportunities to debate how we see this developing, and how the British Parliament should react.
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To me, the institutions and the bureaucracy—in other words, the working organisation—is a positive advantage for good. Governments or communities of nations cannot successfully pursue policies without the organisation, without a Civil Service; and it is in the development of a European Civil Service, responsible and subject to the will of Governments or, as it may come about in the course of development, of a European Parliament that encourages me most. I do not see how else we can tackle the problems of European regional planning; nor do I see how we can tackle the problem of the preservation of the environment. We talk often about this, but the one thing that appears most clearly—and I am sure my noble friend Lord Kennet and others will have this in mind—is that we shall not be able to tackle the problem of pollution and preservation on a national basis. To start with, if one does it too rigorously one puts one's industry at too much of a handicap. Therefore, it is essential that there should be a European policy in this matter.
Parallel to the criticisms of the Commission and the Community, there has been concern expressed that, by entering the Common Market, we are tying ourselves to an inward-looking group. This phrase"inward-looking"has been bandied around so often that I only wish some real evidence would be produced to support it. All the evidence is, if anything, the other way; and when we look at the record of other countries and see that they do more in help for the rest of the world than we do, I just wonder who is calling the kettle black on this occasion. It is even a possible case—and I agree that there are historical grounds for suggesting it—that the British, despite their Imperial past, have an inclination towards insularity. Indeed, much of the argument that has been put forward against entering the Common Market—and I use this with the greatest respect—could be said to be inward-looking. A crucial argument here which bears on the economic and, indeed, the political responsibility is the extent to which we believe in our own judgment. Faith and trust really are the test. As the Prime Minister said (and this is the only quotation I am making; it is really the other

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side in the other place who are so keen on quotations, but with this I agree):
"…if we believed that the members of the Community would not act responsibly to each other arid in international trading relationships—then, indeed, the question would not be whether the terms are right, or even whether we ought to join the Community; the question would be whether we ought ever to have applied for membership at all ".
To me, this is a decisive question; and I should like to say that this is a subject which ought to appeal as much, I think, to the Labour Party as indeed to other political Parties. I ask my noble friends whether they are still prepared to dismiss the judgment of our Socialist colleagues in Europe. The fact is that nearly every important Social Democrat in Europe—and the Communists, who are not Social Democrats—are in favour of entry; and some of them are very surprised, to put it mildly, at some of the views which have been expressed. I beg my noble friends not to ignore the advice of men like Willy Brandt, Senor Saragat, Nenni, Deferre, Spaak, Mansholt and Mitterand. They want us in, and this leads me to the point as to why they want us in. I think they want us in particularly because they believe, as I do, that the British are uniquely qualified to make a contribution to the politics of Europe.
I still believe that, despite our present difficulties, this country, with its tolerance, is in some ways—in fact, I would say in many ways—the most pleasant community in the world in which to live. Our political stability is something which is recognised and admired. We do not need to be smug about it; it is history, partly, which has enabled us to come to this situation. But there is a belief that this country, and particularly, indeed, the Labour Party, have a role to play in developing a Socialist Europe, a more stable Europe, and, furthermore, one which will be even more outward-looking than it already is, and which will contribute to Europe and to the peace of the world. We ought to look at this not simply in terms of what we stand to gain or lose in Europe, but in terms of what we contribute to Europe and the world. This seems to me to be the right kind of enlightened self-interest. We are not entering a static Community. The Ten-will not be the same as the Six. This
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is a fundamental fact, both far-reaching and decisive. The centre of gravity in the political complexion and intellectual tradition moves to the side of the habitual democracies, Norway, Denmark, Britain, Benelux—all with a distinctive outlook. The elements that stand for social progress and peace in Germany, the North, the Ruhr, the Rhineland, all follow this tradition. There is the non-Communist Left in France—and we ought not to ignore the small but staunch Left-Wing Socialists and the Socialist and Left-wing Catholic trade unions. They will derive support, tremendous support, from a stable and progressive Britain.
The Socialist and left-of-Centre movements in Europe had almost come to the point of believing in the inevitability of being ground between the extremes of Communism on the one hand and an authoritarian Conservatism (that we do not know in this country) on the other. With Britain's and Denmark's and Norway's accession, powerful forces of social democracy enter into the Community which we then shall be able to claim will be the most temperate zone in politics anywhere in the world. The opportunities for solving problems in a progressive community are immense. In labour matters, in trade union bargaining, a mutual collaboration already exists in some countries in Europe between labour and management which we have yet to achieve in this country.
It has been claimed that entry into the Common Market will prevent us from developing stronger ties with the German Democratic Republic or the Comecon countries and ultimately the Soviet Union. I believe that the opposite is true. The evidence is that the Common Market is already having a magnetic pull on Poland, Hungary, Rumania and others and there is a hope that by trading with the Community which will become a more powerful and independent force in the world and not an appendage of one of the world's great Powers, the political sting which is attendant on bilateral dealings, say, with West Germany or Britain will be diminished; and even the Soviet Union is coming to accept this. The German Democratic Republic, East Germany, can also feel more safe and less apprehensive if West Germany finds more challenges and scope in an enlarged Community as a substitute for trying to recover her lost

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East German provinces. In Germany, the bugbear and nightmare of so many Socialist friends of progress in all Parties contained within an enlarged Community becomes a much greater force for good and for peace and is less likely to cause political mischief if we are all in this Community. This is no reflection on the many sincere men like Willy Brandt who see this all too clearly. This is more calculated to diminish German militarism or nationalist self-assertion than anything else.
All the above arguments are even more relevant to the Third World. Others have talked about the contributions that have already been made. Again, I believe that aid to the Third World comes better on a Community basis than on an individual national basis where political strings are all too often tied to it. I hope that this will diminish the gap between the"haves"and the"have-nots ". My noble friend Lord Pargiter spoke last night movingly—so I was told; I did not hear him, but read it—about the effect on the ordinary people. We need to remember that it is the ordinary people of this country on whose behalf we are speaking. There is concern as to whether our entry will lead to a slowing down in social progress. I believe that to think this is to ignore a cardinal fact of history. When a country joins a larger community, the inevitable development that occurs is a levelling up and not a levelling down. This is the experience of the Community. Wages tend to go up and and with the growing interlocking of interests, free movement of the working population, the benefits in one country are immediately noticed and emulated elsewhere.
It is my view that Europe can be the most positive force for peace. It is in seeing the dangers of a feuding Continent which for centuries has broken the peace and brought untold misery that the price we are asked to pay to secure this peace seems to be one which would be well worth paying, even if the terms were worse than they are. Despite that fact—and it is legitimate to argue about the terms; it may be that in certain areas they could be improved and we have heard evidence of this—I, for one, am content to urge the Government to continue towards the completion of their negotiations for entry.
2.55 p.m.
VISCOUNT ECCLES: My Lords, the enormous advantage of a debate on a deeply controversial issue which does not lead to a vote has, I think, never been better illustrated than in the last two days. Your Lordships have said what you believed to be in the interests of the country with hardly a reference to Party politics; and no speeches, if I may be allowed to say so, have been more movingly sincere and well-argued than those from the Front Bench opposite. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, gave us a speech which we shall always remember and one which I believe will have influence on doubters whether inside this House or outside. There are a great many people who have not yet made up their minds finally; and these are exactly the kind of people that a debate of this kind can help. More than 20 years ago, I took sides on going into Europe, and recently when the anti-Marketeers multiplied their objections and the White Paper brought the issue to a head, I went back over the old arguments to see whether I still held the same view. By starting my remarks with part of this reassessment I shall be able to comment on some of the major points raised by those who oppose our joining the Community of the Six.
I began to think seriously about a united Europe with Britain in it in 1948 when Sir Winston Churchill went to the Hague Conference. The next year he went to Strasbourg for the opening of the first session of the Council of Europe. My noble friends Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie and Lord Boothby and I were members of his team on both occasions, as was the noble Earl, Lord Kilmuir, who is no longer with us. Churchill was not very much interested in economics. He had seen Britain through two devastating conflicts, both of which originated in Europe, and he was determined to do what he could to heal the wounds and to prevent a third war. He never had any doubt that the reconciliation of France and Germany was the essential condition for peace in Europe. Over and over again he told us that, however well everybody was behaving then, so soon after the war, a lasting obliteration of the old rivalries would require new institutions. We used

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to talk late into the night in his villa at Strasbourg about a European Parliament and a European Army. Our hopes ran high. We were going to create a new European structure for peace and prosperity!
Then the vision faded. Old vanities and prejudices came to life again. When the Soviet Union began parading and rattling its military strength the Foreign Office turned instinctively to America. How much easier it was for us to look away from Europe, and not towards France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg! Each of the Six had surrendered or been defeated. They would always remember that enemy troops had occupied their territory. Not one of them had been strong enough to avert that disaster. We had not had that experience. We forgot that in defeat one can learn a delicate kind of wisdom that may be denied to the victors.
The noble Lord, Lord Soper, who told us on Monday that we should pass by the Community for fear of contamination with the"republicans and sinners"of Europe, might recall that the three most eminent Europeans who absorbed and expressed the wisdom learned from the war were dedicated Christian Democrats, De Gasperi, Robert Schumann and Adenauer. They believed in a Europe inspired by a single faith. I knew them all, and Robert Schumann the best. He once told my wife that the British had a bad habit of thinking too commercially and in too much detail about embarking upon great enterprises. One must take the plunge, he said, "il faut se lancer ", or the chance might pass and not come again.
Here we are in 1971, and the invitation to a great enterprise waits for an answer. Responsible people like the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, on Monday, are playing with all sorts of reasons for not accepting. One man talks about the balance of payments, another man about the price of food, another about fish or the monstrous size of the lorries on the Continent. It is as though they were determined to look through the wrong end of the telescope in order not to see the real size of the issue before us. Let us try for a moment to understand the hesitancy that has grown so fast in these last few
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months. Of course the arguments for joining in 1971 are not exactly the same as those which Churchill had in mind, partly because the economic case is now so much more important. Nevertheless, I still believe that the political argument is decisive.
Turning for one moment to the economic case—and it is a strong one—I never had any doubt myself that our standards of life would rise faster inside the Community than outside. Until about a year ago I was on the board of a textile company where the prospects of entering the Common Market were studied and the conclusion reached that when the British textile industry can export fibres, fabrics and made-up clothing to the Community without a tariff barrier it will do extremely good business. We heard yesterday, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton has reminded us, the noble Lord, Lord Robens of Woldingham, saying that the coal industry might increase its exports by £100 million a year. Yet the mineworkers' union is against going in. We heard my noble friend Lord McFadzean, in a notable maiden speech, draw on his great experience to tell us that the prospects for exports were good. The noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, showed how much our invisible exports will find new openings. There is really no doubt that the City of London will earn many more commissions and profits, with the result that British industry will have a much stronger capital market to which to look for the money it needs. Finally, we had the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, telling us that for the British motorcar industry going in is essential.
Anyone who takes the contrary view shows himself a defeatist about the competitive strength of Britain. He would be saying that British labour and management are not so good as continental labour and management, and never will be. It follows from this pessimism that British capital would be invested in Europe rather than at home. If that were true and we remained outside the Community, where in the world could we compete successfully? No one else would give us tariff preferences of the kind which the Six would continue to enjoy in their Community of 250 million. All our overseas markets would be under attack from the industry of Western Europe which we had been afraid to join because we

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believed that it was already more efficient than ours. How then could our balance of payments remain permanently favourable unless, of course, we were prepared to devalue the pound every time it showed signs of weakness? The economists among the anti-Marketeers all advocate a floating pound, which is in effect a recognition of one devaluation after another. Anyone who contends that British industry and finance would do better outside the Community has either lost his nerve or, like the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell—bless him!—believes that somehow the British can always muddle through and that all we need is the guts to be backward. Perhaps it is also true that there are trade union leaders who prefer to carve and keep their corner of power in a second-class Britain rather than take the risk of pooling their leadership and going all out for the much greater benefits for their members which success in Europe would bring. The Italians, with their industrial weakness and very old-fashioned education just after the war, must have faced this risk when they went into the Common Market on equal terms with their more advanced neighbours to the North. But what has happened? We see that great rises have taken place in the standard of living of Italian workers. If the Italians, to their great credit, plucked up courage to join, surely we can do the same?
I turn now to the political case. This remains what Churchill always said it was, the consolidation of a system of defence strong enough to deter aggression from any quarter at a cost not too great to prevent social progress in many new directions. Behind the military advantages is the question of how the combined resources of 250 million Europeans will be used to ensure peace in our Continent and beyond. Many noble Lords have said that it would be very foolish, and contrary to the experience of the last few years, to believe that without us the Community will inevitably neglect the seeds of conflict outside Europe. No one should believe that; but it does not alter the fact that we have a very special contribution to make to the policies of an outward-looking Europe.
I suppose we would all agree that unless the countries which have such a decisive start in modern technology are prepared to see justice done between them-
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selves and those who are crippled by the population explosion and are far behind in education and capital resources, the threat to peace arising from the widening gap between the two is bound to grow more serious. This is a field in which our advice and example could do much good if we were a member of the Community.
We have had, for longer than any other great Power, a sense of the world as a whole. We made our history in all the continents. We sailed our ships North, South, East and West and learned the hard way that civilisation did not begin and end in Europe. But how much can we do by ourselves? We are rather more than 50 million in these Islands, a figure not much greater than the number by which the population of the underdeveloped countries increases every year. Every 15 months a new full-sized United Kingdom is added to the Third World. Faced with a problem of this magnitude, surely we must combine our resources with others if anything approaching adequate assistance is to be provided, and provided in a helpful and effective manner.
What is the nature of the aid which the Third World wants from us? Is it confined to money, goods and technical assistance? Certainly the developing countries need all these things. But, by itself, the offer of more material aid will not be enough. It will not resolve tensions between the rich and the poor nations, nor will it remove the danger that the Third World might succumb to the political doctrines of Communism. Something more is required of us, and that is the example of a political and social system which combines personal freedom and the rights of minorities with high economic growth, and with much more widespread educational and cultural activities than are now available to the mass of the people in any country. In Asia, Africa and Latin America they are watching to see whether we are capable of building such a society.
I was recently in Venezuela, which, as your Lordships know, has a well-run democratic régime. There the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who, like his President, is a Christian Democrat, went out of his way to impress upon me how much his Government hoped that we should join the Common Market. Latin America, he said, was waiting for Europe

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to match and go beyond the political and social systems that were thrust upon it, from Russia and China and from the United States. But he added,"We shall not be able to hear what you are saying in Europe until you are as strong as the United States or Soviet Russia ".
Now, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said very well, this is also the reason why the Socialist Parties in Europe want Britain to join. They want to strengthen their own contribution to Europe's future and to Europe's answer both to Communism and to the threat, as they see it, of American capital getting control of everything. If I were a British Socialist and cared about my political friends across the Channel, I should be dismayed at the decision of some of our trade unions not to respond to the call from Europe.
The heart of the problem then is this. Should we, by ourselves alone, try to work out a social and political system that leaves behind both old-fashioned capitalism and the regimentation of Communism, or should we have a better prospect in company with others whose historic traditions are the same as ours, and whose rate of economic growth provides the margin for political reform? I think that for the answer to that question, as my noble friend Lord Bethell said in an impressive speech on Monday, and as the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, said in a speech, which I much regret I did not hear, yesterday, we must listen to what the younger generation are saying, because the moment we begin to think about the society of to-morrow we realise that it is much more theirs than ours. They were not brought up in days when the members of the Commonwealth were prepared to put each other's economic interests in front of those of the rest of the world. They have never known a Britain except in retreat from world power, and it is hardly surprising that they want to start again in a new direction.
I listen to the young and try to understand what they are saying. If they are religious, they are impatient with the Churches for taking so long to make up their differences. How can it be that men go more easily to the moon than Anglicans and Catholics can meet half-way between Canterbury and Rome? If they are appalled at the thought of a
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nuclear war, they would infinitely prefer their country to take part in the disarmament talks as a member of the Community rather than not take part at all, which is the situation to-day. If they are interested in art, the radio and television bring to their homes and their clubs music, drama and film from all over the world, art and science are showing that frontiers do not matter. I seldom observe (and I ask your Lordships if you agree) any strong feeling among our young people that they expect or want to solve their problems within a British context alone. The unity of mankind, which was not a real objective to many of us, when we were young, is becoming a real objective to all our children, and furthermore they have the good sense to see that such a stupendous objective must be approached by stages.
I can give your Lordships a somewhat lurid example of what the young are aiming at. It comes from France. The French are highly articulate and adept at revolutionary outburst, much more so than we are; thus the events in Paris in May, 1968, were significant for all Western countries. Put very briefly, the French students were trying to tell their Government that in planning life for the next generation, Ministers should use their imaginations more and statistics less. There is nothing very new in this. It is an old cry that economic growth should be for people and not people for economic growth. But it remains a key to the answer, which Europe has to give to the rest of the world about the society of the future.
We have to face the fact that no answer will be convincing unless cultural and environmental policies are adopted, which will cost a great deal of money. We cannot make urban life clean and quiet, preserve the beauty of the countryside and give our architects scope to refine landscape and skyline, unless we earn much more than we are earning now. At our present rate of growth, and given the"couldn't care less"climate which the noble Lord, Lord Crowther, described very well, the electorate will refuse to divert enough of their personal incomes for these purposes, and everybody knows that higher taxation would now be self-defeating. So where are the new wealth and the new ideas to come from? I put it to your Lordships that

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joining the Community offers the best prospect of becoming a richer and more human society, first, because our rate of growth will soon become theirs, and secondly, because our young people and theirs together will generate the enthusiasm and the vision to work out the new dimension of the politics of the West. Just as on the military level only our combined strength will contain aggression, so on the level of political and social ideas Europe has to give a combined example of justice and progress or the Third World will turn against us, and, without a shot fired, we shall be picked off one by one.
It is up to the opponents of joining the Community to prove to us that they have a more promising alternative. They must tell us how, left to ourselves, with no prospect of recreating Commonwealth preferences, no share in the Common Market, and no hope of free trade with North America, we can find the way forward to those reforms which will effectively raise both our rate of growth and the quality of life for everybody. The anti-Marketeers have not produced this evidence in the last two days in your Lordships' House, or in the other place. They cannot do so: and the reason is that almost all of them are looking behind them, at at past which has almost gone. They seem unaware of how the years since the war have changed the British people.
Every summer that passes a larger proportion of our growing population has experience of the countries of the Community. The rise in the number of British tourists visiting the Six has been astonishing. I can give your Lordships the totals for 1965 and 1970: only five years ago 2·5 million, and last year 3·5 million, an increase of 40 per cent. Furthermore, these holiday makers bring a little of Europe home with them every time. I suppose that can be seen in the 70 per cent. rise in the consumption of wine in this country in the last 10 years. But, more significant is the teaching of European languages in our secondary and junior schools. I wish I had time to give your Lordships a description of this; but since I was Minister of Education it has gone up like a rocket, and it is a strong trend that is sure to continue.
We are shedding our insularity at a rate which history will judge to be one
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of the most remarkable changes in the period through which we are living. Nevertheless, there remains the difference between us and the Six that, unlike them, we have not been invaded or defeated in war. This difference haunts us still. It is, and should be, a source of pride to those of us who took part in the last war. But we are getting old now, and what matters to the next generation is whether Britain has reached the point of inevitable decline. Historians (and that reminds me of my noble friend Lord Blake, who made such a good maiden speech) have often looked for a common factor discernable in all civilisations at the time when they began to decline.
I discussed this with Freya Stark at the time when Arnold Townbee's great book The Study of History came out, and Freya Stark said that the most reliable signal that an empire's great days were going for good was the feeling, when it was shared by rulers and the people alike, that they had nowhere further to go. Our ancestors must have experienced this feeling several times. The Burghers of Calais stand in the Victoria Gardens to remind us that for many years after the Norman Conquest the King of England ruled a large part of France. When we were pushed out of the Continent, had we nowhere further to go? We turned first to North America and then to India. We lost the American Colonies. Had we nowhere further to go? We went to Australia, New Zealand and Africa. Now we have withdrawn almost completely from governing our Dominions and Colonies, who are making their separate way in the world, and the anti-Marketeers say that we have nowhere further to go. If they are right, then at last the signal is hoisted that our decline has begun, and will continue. My Lords, after such a splendid romantic record of gaining, losing and regaining a dimension beyond these narrow and damp islands, it would be shameful to turn inwards upon ourselves.
3.25 p.m.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, in a speech which set the tone for this important debate, mentioned his relatively recent conversion to Britain's entering the Common Market. I am not going to speculate on the comparative virtue of early or late decision in a matter of this sort; to me,

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it is better to arrive than to journey hopefully. But there is virtue, as the Government Chief Whip reminded me, in short speeches, and I propose to be as brief as possible to-day. However, I want to say a little about the history of this matter, in so far as my own Party is concerned.
In common with the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and the noble Lord, Lord Robens of Woldingham, whose maiden speech, with its revelation of history and its testimony, was such a notable one, we embarked upon this line of advance in the late 1940s, under the guidance of such people as Lord Layton, Lady Violet Bonham Carter, and many others who were working closely at that time with Winston Churchill. We welcomed the Schumann Plan in 1950. We criticised the Tory failure to take part in the Community negotiations in 1955 and 1957. We pleaded for full British membership right at the beginning as a founder member; but we were rebuffed.
When the Rome Treaty was being negotiated the Labour Party were hostile, the Conservative Party apathetic. In 1960 I fought a by-election and lost it in Bolton, and I made the main issue, much against the wishes of my two opponents, the Common Market: indeed, it was said of one of the candidates at that Election that he thought the Common Market was behind the town hall. Labour was apathetic, or hostile, at that time in 1960; and a leading Conservative politician came down to that by-election and annoyed a good many European-minded people by announcing that Britain would go into the Common Market in her own good time. This was the atmosphere in which we were working. I will come to the point of this brief historical picture in a minute.
I believe that it was only with the initiative of the Macmillan Government, and in particular the hard work of Edward Heath and his assistants from 1961 to 1963—and I do not often pay him a compliment—that we began to look like a nation which was beginning genuinely to want to join the Community. I have always believed that de Gaulle's veto was prompted by the fact that British membership was getting just a bit too close and a challenge to his leadership of Europe was on the horizon. By 1963, I
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think one can say, the Conservatives were fairly well committed, and by 1967 the Labour Party made an application to join. At that time it looked to the Community as if there was a substantial majority of the leaders of British opinion who were committed to joining the Community, and the only issue was the impact of the transitional arrangements on the British economy.
The history of the last decade has been one in which all Parties have contributed in differing degrees to dispelling the suspicions of the members of the Community that we were merely paying lip service to joining them. It has been a long road. We have all come a long way. At least, I thought we had all come a long way; but now an entirely new situation has been created, and it is one that gives me great concern. There is nothing personal in what I want to say; I am not really talking about people; I am talking almost about the constitutional position. All that hard work, that experience and the confidence that was generated, is now being jeopardised and undermined by certain Leaders of the Labour Party who are seeking to reverse their support for entry into the European Community. This, to me, is a very worrying matter indeed. It is far more than an internal Party wrangle. If the Labour Party persist in this course of action they will throw so much doubt on the permanence of our membership of the E.E.C. that, even under a Conservative Government, we shall not be able to develop to the full within the Community, when we join it, our national talent for leadership. And this, to my mind, is the magnitude of the new factor which is entering into the Common Market debate.
In the light of the views that have been expressed by Mr. George Thomson, the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, Mr. Michael Stewart, the noble Earl, Lord Longford, and many others, that a Labour Government would have accepted these terms, any decision by the Labour leadership to oppose entry will be regarded here—and more importantly in the Community—as a Party manœuvre based on short-term expediency. This is what gives politics a bad name and politicians a poor reputation. As we embark, as I hope we shall, on one of the greatest political experiments ever put before a country, we cannot afford that atmosphere in

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which to begin. I say this because the official Opposition is the alternative Government and is so regarded throughout the world, and this reversal of policy introduces into international politics a tremendous element of uncertainty. It weakens the position, the influence and the standing of the Government of the day, whatever its complexion, whether Labour or Tory, and it keeps in doubt the permanence of our adherence to the Treaty.
If it is said that joining the Community was never the official policy of the last Labour Government, I can only say, my Lords, you could have fooled me! Indeed, I believe that members of the E.E.C. were fully entitled to believe that the application to join in 1967 was a bona fide one. It not only casts a tremendous cloud of doubt over political activities but introduces serious uncertainty into business decisions and into investment policies. It affects programmes for employment and regional programmes. I hope that we shall not be deterred from investing on a long-term basis, but one can imagine the doubts that go through the minds of people who have to make those decisions, if there is the prospect of a militant Labour Government campaigning—as Mr. Michael Foot has said he and his colleagues wish to do—for the withdrawal of this country from Europe. Having been in favour of this move ever since it began twenty years ago, I can only say how much better in the national interest it would have been if the leadership of all three Parties could have exerted their efforts or influence to produce an overwhelming majority for enthusiastic membership.
I am not going over the well-trodden ground of the balance of advantage for Britain in joining, but I should like to mention briefly just two or three points. It is significant that on the whole they are points which have been selected by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. When all is said and done, it is a choice between the insular and xenophobic approach and one which recognises that Britain's destiny lies within a much larger political and economic grouping. I think that the comparisons which are relevant for the future are such things as the G.N.P. and economic growth, not taken just between indi-
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vidual countries but between large groups of countries; and I think one can call the United States of America a large group, Russia too, Japan and South-East Asia, China and Europe. This is the comparison that is being made in all the studies that are being made today in America and in Europe you do not see the United Kingdom: you see Europe. And an enlarged E.E.C. will constitute 80 per cent. of this new Europe. These are the political, economic and cultural areas which are going to matter in the next few decades. It is inconceivable to me that Britain can"go it alone ".
The second point I wish to make is that we have in this country some absolutely first-class businesses, both management and workers, and these are the ones which will take advantage of the opportunities created in the new Market. This, as the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said, is where the new wealth is coming from. But, regrettably, this country has far too many"soft spots ". More and more people believe that someone owes them a living; too many people think in terms of subsidies and protection, and the removal of tariffs is regarded as a hostile act designed to interfere with the week-end golf. We cannot go on avoiding the rigours of competition. One of the reasons for the better growth figures in the Common Market countries is not that there is a bigger market but the competition which the removal of trade barriers produces. This cold douche will not be pleasant for some parts of our economy but, to my mind, it is certainly preferable to a lingering and lonely death.
The third argument, which I hope will appeal to many members of the Labour Party, is the one adduced by both the noble Lords who have already spoken. It is the sheer size of the problems which we have to deal with to-day, problems which can he dealt with only on the basis of a very large group, such as pollution, which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, mentioned, and aid to the Third World. It is not merely cash which is needed but properly co-ordinated aid efforts, which a group like the larger Community could provide, much fairer trading practices, low interest grants, in-Europe training of technicians from overseas. There are many things that can be mentioned which

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can be successfully tackled when everything is scaled up; and that is why I want to appeal, even at this late hour and despite the decisions made by the Executive of the Labour Party and the Trades Union Council to-day, to those who oppose British entry, to recognise the frightful power they are exercising by this opposition on a vital decision affecting the future of this country. It is not their sincerity which is in doubt—it is not their sincerity at all—but their judgment. I hope it is not too late for a complete reconsideration of this against a wider backcloth to be made before October; because after October I think the chance will have gone.
3.37 p.m.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, when I was young I used to sing a Sunday hymn called"Dare to be a Daniel ", and after listening to thirty speeches for the Market each day I rise to say that I am opposed to the White Paper and also to entry into Europe. I am in good company, for by 16 votes to 6 the National Executive of the Labour Party to-day has voted against entry, and almost certainly the T.U.C. has made a similar recommendation. In September and October the Labour Party and the T.U.C. will be against entry. I was surprised to hear about the wonderful, glorious picture for the miners that was painted by my own leader, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. This is a matter I know something about. The Tory and the Labour Governments closed so many pits that we now cannot supply the internal market with coal and had to import coal last year and this year; and if we join the Coal and Steel Community, where are we going to get the coal from? No more sinkings are taking place in the country. The miner has gone for good and will never come back to an uncertain industry, and if you have to reopen the old pits the capital needed will be colossal. So I would say to the House,"Do not be too optimistic about this issue "; and that is why the Miners' Union opposes entry into the Coal and Steel Community.
We have witnessed these last few weeks—and it is still continuing—the attempt to brainwash the people of our country into accepting the idea that we must join the Common Market. We are told by Lord Eccles that there is no argument.
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This I do not accept, as I have never been a supporter of the set-up of the Common Market. We are told of the dire circumstances of Britain of the future if we do not go in on the terms before us. Harold Macmillian told us that in the other place in 1955, but we are still surviving.
The country has seen a barrage of propaganda, unequalled in my time, by the Tory Government, with taxpayers' money, to sway the British people to support our accession to the Treaty of Rome, in spite of the fact that they have not been able to alter one word of it, or to alter the agricultural policy of the E.E.C. which will hit poor families very hard. The White Paper I regard as propagandist, crudely selective, emotional, shifty and evasive. It offers very few, if any, of the vital statitstics we have been promised. What the Government make clear is that they have accepted the Treaty of Rome, also the Treaty of Paris, with all the rules and regulations made under these Treaties about which we know nothing. The Government have accepted the Common Market's dear food policy and a budget payment that will fall heavily and unfairly on Britain in the years ahead. There is no lasting safeguards for the Commonwealth countries, whether rich or poor, and in an extremely serious matter like the balance of payments no attempt at all is made to estimate what will be the cost of our entry. The Government have also accepted the value added tax of the Six, which also further threatens the standard of life—and this on top of all the increases in the price of food that arise from the E.E.C. agricultural policy. It will be the working class who will suffer under this and it cannot be brushed aside as of no consesequence, as some noble Lords have tried to do.
In the propaganda campaign of the Government, I am a little concerned at the way the Press, radio and television are dealing with one of the greatest issues to face us in peace time. The attacks on the Leader of the Opposition by these media have been disgraceful. The character assassination policy they are pursuing is nauseating. From the Tories you can expect it; they did it before the last General Election. But from radio and television some of their interviews have been nothing short of a scandal. It makes it worse when members of the Labour

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Party who support going into the Market lend themselves to this disgraceful propaganda of denigrating the Leader of the Labour Party in another place. I would recall to them the words of Keir Hardie, who when addressing a conference, said:
" When the Tories cheer me I know I am wrong. When they attack me I know I am right."
Therefore I ask my colleagues on this side not to lend themselves to this shocking propaganda which has been going on in the previous weeks. I hope that we shall not talk of a free Press. Journalists on all papers except two have been told to support entry, and do their best to create a situation in which to convey to the people that there has been a shift in opinion and that it is inevitable that we go in. The weight of the papers is to plug the Common Market propaganda and give scanty reporting of the views of those who oppose the Market.
The Prime Minister, in another place, has pointed out beautiful pictures of life if we go into the Market. He painted rosy pictures before the last Election of reducing food prices at a stroke; but they have gone up by over 14 per cent. in 12 months. Why should people believe his promises now? They were taken in before, and they are not likely to be taken in again. By-elections and council elections have proved this to be true. In the White Paper the Government state that they do not believe that the overall response of British industry to membership can be quantified in terms of its effect upon the balance of trade. Yet, without any evidence, they go on to say that they are confident that this effect will be positive and substantial. It is amazing that the Government White Paper should rest on such an argument. The effect on this country of going into Europe is bound to be different from the effect that it had on the Six.
As I said in my last speech to the House, before joining the E.E.C. the Six were already following dear food policies and their living costs and industrial costs were not forced up as a result. Again, they had not created a free or semi-free trade area as we had in the case of EFTA and the Commonwealth which they would have to sacrifice. Further, a major part of their trade was with one another. On the other hand, we were trading twice
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as much with EFTA in the Commonwealth preference area as we were with the E.E.C. Also, in 1958 the Kennedy Round had not reduced the tariffs around the Six to the present level of 7 per cent. There is no evidence at all that growth in the Six has been increased by signing the Rome Treaty. The National Institute Review found that it had not been increased and the fact is that the annual growth of the Six has been lower since the Rome Treaty was signed.
It should be pointed out further that, while trade within the Six has increased since the Rome Treaty was signed, their share of exports to the rest of the world has declined. It is also not true that the gross national product is higher in any of the Six to-day, except West Germany, than it is in the United Kingdom. There has been no reputable international comparisons of real standards since 1964, and these can only be approximately brought up to date so far as 1968. They show that the United Kingdom real income per head in that year was certainly lower than West Germany, about the same as France, and higher than that of Holland, Belgium and Italy. A comparison of real wages on the latest figures available shows the same thing, assuming that the cost of living in the Six is only 10 per cent. higher than ours. Real wages per hour are higher in West Germany than here. They are lower in Holland and Belgium and much lower in France and in Italy.
Another comparison is the Government's admission that the main effects of our joining the E.E.C. on these terms would be to lower real wages in this country. Paragraph 88 of the White Paper says that retail food prices will rise 16 per cent. over the six years transition on top of the rise engineered by the levies in advance of that to make it nearly 20 per cent. In paragraph 43 of the White Paper the Government also say that the influence on wage movements of the increase in the cost of living is not expected to have any significant effect on the cost of industry. In plain English, it means that the Government and the know that there will be a major rise in the cost of living and practically no money increases as a result of entry. It means a fall in the living standards of most of the people of our land. It cannot mean anything else and this is true if we assume a rise of only 20 per cent. in food prices

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—and we have competent men like Sir John Winniforth, a former Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, telling us that the rise forced upon us by joining the E.E.C. is likely to be 50 per cent. and that the gap between E.E.C. prices and world prices is more likely to widen than narrow. The F.A.O. forecast confirms this view.
Gone is the propaganda of the pro-Marketeers that wages will be £7 a week higher if we join the E.E.C. It has been blown sky high by Paragraph 43 of the Government's White Paper on this issue. No doubt this is another reason why we have the Industrial Relations Bill. Trade unions, let there be no mistake, will fight for their standard of life to be maintained regardless of the legal sanctions that are to be imposed. The Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party will stiffen their opposition, in the light of this White Paper, against entry into the Common Market.
The long-term effects on the balance of payments are not given in the White Paper. Probably the Government were afraid to give the facts. Why are the Government so shy of telling us the price to be paid? We have to consider the budgetary contribution, the increased costs of agricultural imports from the Six, the loss of preferences for our industrial goods in the Commonwealth and the effect of the increased cost of living on the level of industrial costs. It is no good abusing the economic calculations made by other people if the Government refuse to give any, because if the Government cannot give them then there is no economic case for going in. As Douglas Jay said in another place, the cost on any realistic basis on current account is bound to be nearer £1,000 million than £500 million a year by the time we have reached the end of the transitional stage, and it could be more if the food price gap widens. The White Paper talks about a wider market. It is impossible to say whether the market will be wider or narrower until we have a balance of payments calculation, which the Government say it is impossible to make.
In all the previous debates in which I have taken part, the pro-Marketeers have always talked about the dynamic benefits that will accrue to us, but they are not
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to be found in the White Paper. Nobody yet has shown that Douglas Jay's estimate is wrong and it is the Government who must produce the figures to show that they are wrong. There is much to be said for the arguments raised in another place for the setting up of a Select Committee to probe into the cost of entry into the Common Market. If this is to be the burden, it must mean economic decline. It must mean squeezes, wage freezes and high prices to get us back to balance again. Again, it will mean great sacrifices by working people which they suffered under my own Government to get us out of the deficit in the balance of payments. The fact that the Government do not face the issues here or give figures, shows the weakness of the Government's case and also of those who support them. The Prime Minister has tried to tell the nation how little it will cost us to get into the Common Market. He said that it would be only one half of a new penny per pound per year over the six years. I do not for a moment accept this. The White Paper itself says that we shall see an increase of 2½ per cent. per annum in food prices. Over the six years there will be an increase of 16 per cent. in food prices due entirely to our entry into the Market. That 16 per cent. increase will be on top of whatever inflation takes place between now and the end of the transitional period. It will also be over and above the increases which we are now paying because of the change in the way we will support agriculture, from support costs to import levies. These increases must be taken into reckoning when calculating the overall cost of food, the increase in the cost of living and the cost of entry into the Market.
Paragraph 43 of the White Paper, if it means anything at all, means that the Government are expecting that working, people will carry the additional burden of this rise in the cost of living attached to our entry. The 2½ per cent. increase in the cost of food means in money terms that another £150 million a year will have to be found by the British housewife above our present bill for imported food; over six years that is £900 million. Even the White Paper admits that butter, cheese and beef will become more expensive and that many more food prices will rise. If we sign the Treaty of Rome these

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increases will have to be borne by our people. In the lower wage groups it means that a housewife who now spends £8·60p a week to feed her family will have to spend £10.
If the Government think that this will come about without any effect on wages, they are most certainly living in a fool's paradise. The trade unions, quite justifiably, will fight. How can men in industry be expected to accept this sort of policy? Many noble Lords will be able to withstand this increase, but working people cannot do so, especially those on low fixed incomes, the pensioners, the sick and disabled. We know the plight of our pensioners to-day, that their £1 increase in September has already been eaten up by increased prices in the last few months; and I am not too happy about the Government's promise to look after them in the light of their policy recently of taking milk from children, increasing the price of school meals, and taking away the three waiting days from those on social security.
It is said that we shall not lose a significant amount of trade in other parts of the world. I think the people who say that are in for a rude awakening. If the increased costs of living are to be retrieved by increased wages and salaries—and this is bound to happen—then our industrial costs will become much more expensive, our exports will become less competitive in other markets outside the Six, and our balance of trade will suffer a severe blow through increased imports and falling exports.
On top of all this we are to have the value added tax. This can be an even more serious threat, and it will be applied to necessities when we enter the Community. The White Paper says that we have to pay part of these proceeds, namely. 1 per cent., to the Community. It makes no attempt to assess the size of this contribution or the burden that will be placed on our people in addition to the burdens I have already described. Probably it will mean that over £100 million a year will be added to our food costs.
Your Lordships will remember that when the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster started his negotiations with the Common Market he suggested a figure of 3 per cent. of the Common Market budget. The French called this"Anglo-
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Saxon humour"He was asked to think again, and he did: he agreed to three times that figure, namely 8·64 per cent. We are asked to regard this as a jolly good bargain. It is to rise to 19 per cent. by the fifth year. The original demand of the French was for 20–21 per cent; and no matter how we look at this it is apparent that the French won the day. This is a hefty commitment because it will rise each year as the gross national product of the Six expands. This can mean anything over £200 million. The White Paper does not give the figure, but maybe someone will be able to tell us to-day.
So, to sum up this part of my speech, the terms mean that the Government have swallowed the loss of British sovereignty without consulting the people. They have accepted the whole of the Community's agricultural policy. We shall be told where to buy our food, we shall have to accept the method of financing the Community budget, and having been so dictated to we shall have to pay over 90 per cent. of the levies on our imported food, 90 per cent. of the customs duty receipts on our manufactured goods, and added to this a percentage of the proceeds from the value added tax to those on the Continent. We shall have to abide by the Treaty of Rome, and also rules, regulations and directives from Paris.
To-day, as there are many more speakers to come, I shall not deal with the effects on the Commonwealth, but from my observations I do not regard the bureaucrats in Brussels as persons who care for the economies of our Commonwealth. I predict that in 1974, when the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement ends—and in the meantime as the sugar beet industry of the Six expands—we shall have to accept the rules of the Community and give the Common Market the preference against our own Commonwealth. Monsieur Pompidou has made it clear that the deal is to enable French farmers to find markets in our country, and this is a useful market for the inefficient farmers of France.
Common Marketeers often sneer at Commonwealth trade. My Lords, our export trade with the Commonwealth is £1,695 million, out of a total of £8,000 million. This is a trade we cannot lightly cast aside. It will take a lot of making

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up in other markets. We sell to the E.E.C. countries goods to the value of £1,754 million, which is only a little more than we sell to the Commonwealth, and the figure to EFTA is £1,286 million. Commonwealth trade has slowed down in the last ten years. Because of our keenness to get into the Common Market the Commonwealth have been forced to try to seek markets elsewhere.
I now come to the regional policies within the Six. I live in the North-East, where unemployment is chronic. There is long-term unemployment, and children leaving school cannot get jobs. What is the policy towards places like Wales, the North-East, Scotland and Cumberland? In 1969, the European Commission admitted in a major survey that the E.E.C. has failed to narrow the gap between the rich and poor regions, and they had not been able to reverse the trends and overcome the natural drawing power of the centre. The same situation exists to-day. What has happened to Paris and Hamburg is happening to London, and it will become more accentuated in the E.E.C. The pull to the South-East of England will accelerate. That means that industry will go to the South-East of England rather than to the distressed areas where unemployment is high.
As a Northerner I was not surprised when the value added tax headquarters were to be located at Southend. This tends to show how, in the E.E.C., the areas I have mentioned will be too remote from the centre of affairs. We are desperately in need of employment, but we shall be too far away from the centre in the years that lie ahead. The regional employment premium is being phased out, and in any event it would not have been compatible with the E.E.C. rules. The writing is on the wall for the distressed areas of the North. Industrial development certificates will have less value under terms of intense competition. Even investment grant subsidies to these areas are in danger.
This has been happening at the Eastern and Southern edges of the E.E.C. Now our Northern edges will suffer the same fate unless before we enter generous terms of entry are made available to our regions. There is a deep feeling about
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this matter; in this 20,000 word document there are but a dozen lines on regional matters, and they contain nothing but pious platitudes which have no meaning. This aspect has come to the fore recently. Suddenly, people in these areas are waking up to the fact that, amid all the euphoria about our"bright future in Europe ", their jobs, whether in coal, steel, electrical plant or shipbuilding, may well be threatened. Though the jobs angle may not worry the Marketeers or those in the South-East, it will most certainly affect my people in the North.
In conclusion I want to say this: I am a Socialist. I have always believed in, and tried to work towards, a system of society changing from capitalist to socialist. I have always believed in a society that is run in the interests of the people and not for the personal aggrandisement of the few. I have believed in my philosophy for over 52 years. There is no hope of a socialist philosophy penetrating this bastion of capitalism about which Sir Alec Douglas-Home talked so much in the Tory pamphlet in 1969, that Western capitalism ought to co-operate in order to get the awards that were available. I have been against capitalism. I want to see democratic Socialism in Britain. You cannot get Socialism under the set-up of this great consortium of capitalism in Brussels and Paris. That is why I oppose it.
4.10 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, I ask the indulgence of the House for this my maiden speech. I feel more honoured than I can ever say to be here, to be allowed to speak to-day, to be able to speak among so many very much more distinguished than myself. It is, of course, enormously flattering still to be considered a maiden in any context, though I much regret that this is hardly an occasion on which it can be said that I am going to blush unseen. Your Lordships have been so extraordinarily kind and welcoming, and the mere suggestion—and I think"suggestion"is the right word, for I feel certain that no one in this delightful House ever uses the categoric imperative—that I might take part in the debate to-day has almost enabled me to overcome far more than a few maidenly heart flutters. I hope,

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therefore, that I have the right words for this occasion and for this subject. I shall, at any rate, be brief.
My Lords, my political experience has been in local government, and it may seem, therefore, inappropriate that I should contribute to this debate. But in local government one lives, so to speak, over the shop, and every day I meet people from all walks of life, who come to me, simply because I am the nearest person, to put questions and worries of all sorts, including those on the Common Market. These people differ enormously, from the businessman making highly specialised scientific equipment and looking for an enlarged export market in Europe, to the elderly lady who said to me,"Well, dear, I'm so worried about it all. Shall I have to speak French?"
From all the many people that I have met and with whom I have discussed this subject, I think there are three main worries. The first, I believe, is fear of the unknown, not, of course, expressed like that but in terms of worry about the future position of the Queen, of national sovereignty, of Parliament, of our institutions, and of competition. Then there is the fundamental dislike of change. Most people, in my experience, dislike change, and to many people the idea that in future they will be European, not simply British or even a part of the family of the Commonwealth, is very strange. It is easy to laugh at such an attitude, but to someone who has not travelled in Europe, or studied our common background of Western civilisation or the history of the Christian Church, the Continent of Europe can seem a world apart.
The next, I think, is fear of rising prices, and here I hope that it will not be considered improper or presumptuous in a maiden speech to ask Her Majesty's Government to say something to allay the very real fears of the elderly and pensioners, particularly on future food prices. To someone whose weekly expenditure is finely calculated, the propect of higher food prices is a very real worry. Whereas the young and enterprising can work for increased real wages within the European Economic Community, the elderly can only ask for increased pensions. Their real needs must be considered, too. I put these points because, although I am myself convinced of the rightness of joining E.E.C., it would surely be a most un-
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happy situation if the majority of the population was not similarly convinced. Understanding the fears of people is the first step to overcoming them. For this reason the White Paper and its shortened version are much to be welcomed. Increased knowledge can help to allay these fears and help people to form a judgment on this great issue.
But for a great number of people the real difficulty arises because many of the economic arguments are finely balanced and depend for their resolution on deciding the balance of known disadvantages to-day against the expectation of great benefits in the future. Entry into E.E.C. is, therefore, an act of faith and judgment. It is not a panacea; it is an act of faith. For among many other things, no one can prove now that if we enter Europe the country will get that elusive economic growth which alone will enable us to pay the higher prices and other costs, such as our contribution to the Community budget. Despite all the figures and all the sophisticated techniques of cost-benefit, we can never do a controlled experiment; we cannot choose both to go in and stay out, and see which is the better in ten years' time."When doctors disagree," asked Pope,"who shall decide"And the answer, of course, is that we must use our common sense and judgment and weigh the arguments involved.
We do know, however, that in 1957 the European countries had similar doubts as we have now, and yet I believe there is no democratic political Party in Europe to-day that does not support the Community. We know that where there has been a larger market there has been greater economic growth, whether it is within the E.E.C., in the British Empire of the world of the 19th century, or in the U.S.A. when that country expanded West. And anyone who has lived through 1939, let alone through 1914, knows that this country is a part of Europe and inevitably affected by what goes on on the Continent.
But, of course, economics is only part of the question. To someone of my generation who came of age after the ending of the Second World War, it came as a great disappointment that when rebuilding began and new political structures developed these were not large units of co-operation but often fragments

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broken off in a narrow nationalistic spirit. Almost alone among post-war developments against this tide came Western Union and E.E.C. It seems to me of supreme importance for the future peace of the world that Europe, in which we must be included, shall co-operate together, not only economically but politically. This prospect of a united and peaceful Europe must surely he the greatest prize to be gained from the whole imaginative concept of the European Economic Community. I am very happy and proud of this opportunity to add my name to those who have declared their support for British entry into Europe.
In conclusion, my Lords, I believe, like many people, that Great Britain has much to offer Europe. Many far more knowledgeable than I have given examples from British industry and technology. I started by saying that I know a little of the workings of local democracy, and it is surely our own practice of democracy that is a prime example known to us of something we have to give Europe. It is interesting to speculate whether any other country in the world could have discussed for over ten years, with such tolerance and appreciation of opposing views, an issue such as the decision to join E.E.C., could have suffered two rebuffs and yet continue to discuss it in that spirit of tolerance to-day. This, surely, is an example of our democratic system at its best. It provides one reason to have faith in our country and in ourselves. It is one reason among many to look to the future with confidence and to face the challenge of Europe when it comes.
4.20 p.m.
LORD ROBBINS: My Lords, I count it a very great privilege to follow the notable speech which we have just heard from the noble Baroness; a speech which was at once candid, forceful and felicitous. I am sure that all Members of your Lordships' House, whether or not they adopted the view which she expressed—and I confess that I adopt it wholeheartedly—will have admired her delivery, and the felicity of the arrangement of her argument. I hope that we shall hear much from her often in the future.
When the noble Lord, Lord Annan, delighted us on Monday evening with a
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very powerful speech, he treated the House to a very appropriate quotation from the works of Pascal. Rising, as I do, about No. 100 in the list of speakers, I am inclined to apologise to the House in the words of Pascal's contemporary, La Bruyere:
" Tout est dit, et l'on vient trop tard ",
which means,
" All is said and one comes too late."
I feel that I must not be daunted by this position. It may be that there are background gleanings still to pick up, surveying this subject, and I confess that I am just a little tempted to expose myself by a speech which was made by another noble Lord, Lord Willis, on Monday afternoon, when he said that he wished (I think I quote him correctly) that all economists were dead, or words to that effect. I should like to present a further target.
I do not wish to begin with economics. I prefer rather to begin by taking up a point which was also made on Monday afternoon in a very felicitous speech, with almost every world of which I disagreed, by the noble Lord, Lord Soper. The noble Lord said that he thought the day of the nation State was over. With that sentence, at any rate, I find myelf in complete agreement, with due qualifications. Ever since I began to think about the political and economic aspects of international relations, I have felt that the nation State, as it has developed in Western civilisation, is no longer a sufficient condition for human progress. Historically, doubtless it has played an important part Only a philosophical anarchist would have argued that in the modern age we could have got along without it. But even before 1914 the divisions involved had become a danger to humanity, a source of economic friction, and a menace to international peace, particularly in Continental Europe. We all know what happened in 1914, and what happened again in the inter-war period, when the absence of sufficient solidarity and adequate institutions among the peace-loving peoples opened the door to aggression and, in the second instance at least, to barbarism and bestiality.
For many years after 1914—indeed, until well into the present period—many of the best spirits of the day placed their hopes for improvement in loose planetary supranational organisations. After the

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First World War the League of Nations; after the Second World War the United Nations, and all the apparatus of secondary bodies going therewith. Heaven forbid that I should say that all that was without value! Life is far too complicated for any simple judgment of that kind. Certainly it may be argued that anything which kept alive the lamp of international sympathy in these days was better than nothing. But do we not all know, in our hearts, that we set our sights too high; and in fact missed many opportunities by cherishing the delusion that here, at this stage in history, was the instrument to maintain world order? What futilities we witnessed in the interwar period when men who feared and detested what was happening in Germany continued to oppose rearmament here and uttered impotent reproaches at those who would not rely on the League of Nations to see us through! In our day, after a Second World War which almost destroyed Western civilisation, how little has been the power of the United Nations to do anything but look after minor troubles where the great Powers did not feel that their major interests were at stake!
My Lords, I think we must face the fact that, much as we may hope for its eventual emergence, the world we have to live in is not the one world of our dreams. It is a world which is divided by rival ideologies, by unequal demographic tendencies, by unequal degrees of political development: and for those of us who believe that the traditions of the liberal civilisation of the West are the best hope for humanity it must surely be an axiom of conduct that unless the West is strong, chaos is unloosed. In the anxious years since the Second World War it has not been the United Nations which has saved the West from being dominated by creeds as inhuman, as cruel, in my opinion, as National Socialism itself; it has been the North Atlantic Alliance.
I have a confession to make. For years I personally hoped that that Alliance could deepen and widen into something more unified and permanent; that both on the diplomatic and the economic side, as well as on the military side, it could become an effective political framework of the Atlantic community enlarged, when possible, to embrace other like-
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minded peoples. For that reason, I have to admit that when M. Monnet and his friends first propounded the idea of the Iron and Steel Community, and later on when the Common Market was first propounded, I opposed them. I opposed them, not because the organisations were too large, not because they involved too much surrender of sovereignty, but because in my then frame of mind they were too small and seemed likely to be too inward-looking. I hoped for something wider, and I confess that I feared, as I still fear, the inveterate anti-Americanism of some influential Continental intellectuals.
But, my Lords, that hope has faded. We have surely played a not dishonourable part in NATO, but we did not exploit its potentialities of development. And now, with the virtual certainty that the United States and Canada—while not, I hope, entirely disengaging themselves—will look more and more to Europe to organise and defend itself, at any rate on the ground, I confess that, in the circumstances, I see our best hope in entering into the project of a consolidation of a united Europe; not inward-looking, as some of its exponents would wish, but able to co-operate on equal terms with the other components of Western civilisation, especially in North America. What form this consolidation should eventually take, I do not profess to know. I personally subscribe to the general principles of federalism as laid down in the immortal work of Hamilton Jay and Maddison. I have never seen them anywhere refuted. But I certainly would not be dogmatic in their application to the union of ancient States with strong local traditions, complex differences of law and language. The fundamental desideratum is surely only greater unity in the spheres of military, diplomatic and economic action. Otherwise, my Lords, we are eventually lost, as helpless before superior power as were the Greek City States before the power of Philip of Macedon and eventually the Romans.
From a purely academic point of view, it is certainly an open question whether an economic union is the best way to begin a consolidation of this sort. Certainly, there is the precedent of the Zollverein which preceded the foundation of the German Bund. But in that case

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politics were closely involved in that from the outset, via the surreptitious influence of Prussia. And I personally am clear that the degree of economic unification envisaged by the theorists of the European Community will indeed involve a great deal of political underpinning before much of it is workable. But this is not a purely academic question. Here we are in a concrete historical situation, with an economic community of power and strength evolving rapidly before our eyes. The beginnings were not our initiative—more is the pity I say, pondering on my own record—and we really are not in a position to suggest starting all over again. Once we are in, I think we can play our part. Our public service is rather good at that sort of thing. But now, to-day, having got the best terms we are likely to get, we have to take it or leave it; to take while there is still time the opportunity of participating in this great enterprise, or resigning ourselves to the difficulties of an off-shore island left behind in the march of events, and less and less able even to control what influences our own destiny.
That leads me to say one or two words about the economics of the problem. What about the prospective costs and gains? A great deal has been written about this question, and a great deal has been said about it in both Houses. White Papers have been published, learned calculations have been made. We heard many such calculations from the other side a few minutes ago. As an economist, I have thought a good deal about this and I am not ashamed to tell your Lordships that I am completely sceptical about much of what has been written on both sides, and I am very tentative about some of the rest.
Let me begin with the short period. I suppose that it is common ground that there will be some price to pay for the privilege of delayed entry. There will be some adverse effects on the balance of payments, some adverse effects on some—by no means all—food prices. But I am bound to say that any estimates that I have seen that seem to have any degree of plausibility, suggest that in the context of our ups-and-downs and the general economic landscape far too much can he made of this sort of trouble. I am
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unhappy to note that, so far as the cost of living is concerned, we take more in inflation in one year than we are likely to take in all the transition period as regards the rise in agricultural prices.
As for the balance of payments, experience has shown—the experience of the late Government has shown—that it is not so difficult to generate a substantial surplus, when necessary, with properly adjusted exchange rates and restraint in internal finance. I have to add at once that having regard to present tendencies, with the continuation of inflation, I am not very sanguine that we shall not have more trouble in that connection in any case. But I do not think that going into the Common Market would add very much to the difficulty, and I certainly do not think that it should deflect us from the fundamental purpose. But, frankly, there are likely to be so many variables operating at the same time that I must say that in this respect any attempt at precision, any confident prediction, smacks to me of the slightly bogus.
As for the long period, I feel rather more confidence. Let me begin by alluding to the position if we stay out—a matter so eloquently expatiated upon by the noble Lord, Lord Crowther, yesterday. I do not predict economic catastrophe if we stay out, although I certainly think that our stock in the world at large would slump pretty quickly, and internally I am afraid that the morale of many—not all—of the most vigorous and enterprising would be shaken. But I am sure that we should be confronted with increasing difficulties of competition both inside the Market, as that economic structure is consolidated, and outside—this is important—as its power to compete in the world in general is strengthened in the home base. I know that some small—States how often has one heard this—like Switzerland and Sweden, do quite well without this kind of association. But our economy is not like the economy of Switzerland and Sweden. We are geared to much greater diversity. Our horizon is much more extensive. I am sure that if we ignore this opportunity the scope for that present gearing is likely to be progressively narrowed.
My Lords, what about the advantages and disadvantages of going in as distinct from staying out? I hasten to say that I am certainly not impressed by the

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promise—I am sure it has never been made from this Front Bench—that the mere fact of going in will increase our growth rate. All that is highly conjectural; and it is not clear to me that the growth rate within the Common Market has all been due to the formation of the Common Market. Certainly merely passive entry will not raise our economic stature. Nor would I wish to minimise the absurdity of the agricultural system of which we have to become a part, although, as I think has been said already this afternoon, I think that some noble Lords may underestimate the force of the movement to change in this respect which is discernible already when one visits continental Europe. Certainly the younger political economists of that part of the world are very alive to all the deficiencies of the system under which they labour, and in the long run it is what the young people think which comes through. There are disadvantages, clearly, but I think also there are advantages which are likely to be more than compensatory—advantages arising from the size of the market.
I agree with, I think it was, the noble Marquess, Lord Exeter, who said that he would take a lot of convincing that the aggregate national product of the United States would be what it is to-day if the different States had independent powers to restrict inter-State commerce. I think certainly that some—not all, but some, at least—of the prosperity of that great union is due to the width of its market, and I see no reason at all to suppose that in the long run we, too, cannot share in the prosperity of a united Western Europe if only we have the ingenuity and the will to take advantage of the opportunity.
In conclusion, my Lords, if I appear to play down somewhat what are usually described as the economic difficulties and recommend rather tentatively the economic advantages, I would certainly not wish to leave your Lordships with the impression that I think that the achievement of a truly united Western Europe is likely to be at all easy. I think it may be easier than some think, if only because it has the power of an idea on the march, which is apt to raise the potentialities of all of us, especially of the young, who badly need some sort of encouragement of that kind. Nevertheless, there are very
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great difficulties—difficulties which have not been alluded to very much in this debate—and I think we deceive ourselves if we ignore them. There are difficulties in the economic sphere which have not been mentioned. I do not think that in the end a common market, just like that, can function well if there is not something like a common money. But the achievement of a common money must be fraught with very great dangers. It would certainly be a mistake, in my opinion, to clamp us all into the straitjacket of a common money without much more harmonisation of other policies, political and economic. In the end, surrender of the power to create money is justified on the part of any State only if there are guarantees of security, which certainly do not exist to-day. Moreover, fixed exchange rates without a common control of money creation are simply asking for trouble. Yet without something like this, without some sort of confederal financial arrangements, a common tariff and common subsidies are very apt to develop difficulties and to creak.
Then there are difficulties in the subtler spheres of mutual understanding and political co-operation. The States of Western Europe are not recently-formed political entities easy to mould to common habits and common purposes, as were the 13 colonies which founded the great union across the Atlantic. They have different languages—one of the most divisive factors in human societies. They have different histories and Constitutions. Alas! they sometimes have different ideas on the proper conduct of foreign policy. The proportionate influence of the various ideologies, characteristic of the Western World, differs in different parts. There are problems of internal stability even within the States of the present combination. So that even for the more limited functions of the supranational institutions contemplated it is very easy indeed to think of the emergence of difficulties which might imperil the whole structure. But to recognise such difficulties should not, in my judgment, lead us to be deterred by them. Surely they are a challenge to thought and to action, not limitations to reasonable aspiration. For I am sure that the alternative of declining the enterprise, of acquiescing in the status quo, has implications even more disagreeable than the danger of experimentation.

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It is true that if we go forward we may fail. It is not certain that, either with us or without us, the final European consolidation will succeed, although I would say that our accession would render success much more likely. But if we remain inert, if we neglect the opportunity, then I would say that only accident will save us from mediocrity or something worse.
4.48 p.m.
LORD BUTLER OF SAFFRON WALDEN: My Lords. I should like first to add my own word of congratulation to the noble Baroness. Lady Young, on her maiden speech. I believe that her chief interest in local government is in education, which is also my favourite subject, so I hope that we may before long meet again on the Floor of the House on this or another subject. I was somewhat appalled, my Lords, by the list of speakers, and it so happened that I was reading Stanhope's Life of Pitt, in which he says that George III, in one of his many Minutes, wrote as follows in 1806:
" It seems wonderful that the fatigue does not incline gentlemen to compress their ideas in a shorter space, which must ever be more agreeable and useful to the auditors, and not less advantageous to the despatch of business."
In view of this, one of the many witty Minutes of that famous King, I thought I would confine my observations to just a few words, the first of which is that I should like to express my view that an unequivocable decision should be taken, as in 1961 and 1967, to enter the Common Market when the vote takes place in October.
In 1961 I was chairman of the Committee of Ministers to co-ordinate our policy in relation to the Common Market, and I should like to pay tribute to the vision and determination of Harold Macmillan and the present Prime Minister at that date in forcing this decision through in circumstances infinitely more difficult than face us to-day, in 1971, and on terms and conditions many of which had not been worked out. In particular, there was no solution of the New Zealand question; there was no solution of the agricultural question: there was no support from the agricultural community in this country and yet we went forward. I think that it is incredible good fortune that an opportunity hay come our way
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again in 1971 to make up our minds, and, I hope, go forward.
The terms and conditions, as I have said, are infinitely better than they were in 1961, or indeed in 1967. Why should things be better if we decide to stay out? Here I would endorse the thoughtful and, as usual, excellent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, who preceded me, to which I would add very little, on either the political or the economic side Things will certainly not be better for home agriculture if we stay out; things will certainly not be better for us and for Commonwealth trade if we stay out. On page 31 of the White Paper it is pointed out:
" Our entry into the Communities will place at some risk only a small proportion—at most only 7½ per cent.—of Australian export trade. In 1969–70 Britain took under 12 per cent. of Australia's exports—a very different situation from ten years previously when we were still buying more than 25 per cent."
Compared to the situation which faced us in 1961, the position has completely changed in Australia's pattern of trade.
I had the honour to make a tour in Australia within the last year. I was astonished at the changed pattern which has occurred not only in my lifetime but in the last ten years. We cannot, in my view, looking at the Commonwealth, go back to Joseph Chamberlain, any more than Joseph Chamberlain went back to Adam Smith. We must move forward in economic thinking and take the risks, as my noble friend Lord Robbins pointed out. Moreover, I remember walking round with Harold Macmillan in the garden of Marlborough House in 1961. We wondered then whether we were going to get a decision through the Commonwealth Conference. We had all the robust oratory of Sir Robert Menzies; we had at that time the disgust and despair of New Zealand. Yet we decided to go ahead because, as I said to my friend the then Prime Minister,"We shall not be able to help the Commonwealth unless we are really strong. We shall not be really strong unless we go forward into Europe, enlarge our markets, enlarge our opportunities, enlarge our sphere of investment ". This is why we got our decision through then, and why we are going to get it through now.
I should like, in passing, to say something to the Government. I hope that Britain will go into Europe as a World

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Power. I read a great deal about M. Pompidou's views about the future of Europe. Of course we must subscribe to the idea of a developing European community in which we take our full share, but I hope that we shall not forget our relations with the Commonwealth or our special relationship with the United States. I believe that the Government need to spend a great deal of kind caring for Commonwealth relations. I was not impressed by Mr. Anthony's speech from Australia. Yet, there is a lot to look after in Commonwealth relations, as the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, made clear in his own speech in this House on Monday, In the case of India, I was rather shocked to hear of the alleged abrogation of the 1939 trade treaty. I understand, from inquiries that I made before my speech, that this is all being reconsidered and discussed, and that the Government are fully aware of the importance of our relations with India. Our relations with Africa will be looked after, as the White Paper makes clear, by certain degrees of association. It is as a World Power that I should like us to go into Europe and we must not sacrifice all our independence in the world in order to serve Europe alone.
Before I sit down, obeying the advice of George III, I want to mention the balance-of-payments position. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blyton—and it was the only thing in his speech that I did agree with—that the balance of payments is not very fully described in the White Paper. What is mentioned in one small sentence is that our total national income will increase with only a half per cent. higher rate of growth. If that is so, it is said that we can earn in the first year or two, or the first few years, as much as £1,000 million more. That will help balance our balance-of-payments position. I sincerely hope that that is the case. I was somewhat comforted by the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in another place on Monday, but I still feel that this is a very difficult problem in going into the Market. I have discussed it with three of my colleagues who, like myself, at different periods of time have been Chancellor of the Exchequer. We have all come to the conclusion that the balance of payments will not necessarily be better if we stay out of Europe. In fact, I
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would say that, on balance, with the rate of growth likely, the balance of payments will probably suffer less if we go into Europe. I myself, having struggled with the sterling balances for four years at the Treasury, was glad to read in the White Paper that this question of funding, or reducing, or doing something with the sterling balances is in evidence and is likely to be done.
Therefore, on the whole I would say—although I think this is a doubtful point—that on the whole we should do worse with our balance of payments if we were to stay out. I would only beseech the Government and the Chancellor of Exchequer to continue to worry about the balance. An enormous infusion of money and demand, over £1,000 million, has recently been infused into the economy. While that is a good thing for social reasons, do not let us ever forget the vital importance of maintaining our balance of payments in this country. On the financial side I only mention the statement made in this House on July 14 about the capital payments and fish. I think that both these subjects have not yet been fully resolved; I hope that, before October, the Government will come forward with more information on these subjects.
When I served Mr. Macmillan, I was asked to go round the country and talk to branches of the National Farmers' Union. I had an extremely uncomfortable and disagreeable time. Now I read on page 28 of the Green Book published by the National Farmers' Union the following sentence. This is the difference between 1971 and 1961. The farmers say in 1971:
" Outside the E.E.C. the repercussions for many sections of agriculture could be less favourable than inside the Community, with fewer opportunities for profitable expansion."
That is a big change of heart. It means that the agricultural community really feel that they have a hope in going into Europe. I noticed a very careful interchange between the Minister of Agriculture and the President of the N.F.U. The Government promise in the Minister's letter particular help for horticulture where that may be justified. Like fish, horticulture is going to be a very difficult point in the future of the negotiations.

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I therefore conclude by asking the Government, by beseeching the Government, not to leave this decision beyond October. Not only have we the decision to make, but, after it is made, both in another place and in your Lordships' House, there will be endless Orders in Council and future legislation. The whole industrial relations episode may be dwarfed by what we have to go through. At any rate, let us resolve to get a good majority to start with and to see to it that that majority is maintained in both Houses. I believe that this is a very important debate. It is a step forward as a world Power into Europe. I remember the Zurich speech of Winston Churchill; I remember the Hague meeting with Winston Churchill; I remember Ernie Bevin and the Brussels Treaty. I have just had the honour of meeting again my old friend Paul-Henri Spaak. He said to me."This is a moment of greater importance to the world than the whole of the Russian Revolution. This is a peaceful revolution in Europe which may heal many wounds." This is the atmosphere in which we should reach our decision, and I hope that that decision will be in the affirmative.
5.0 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, it is by no means an easy task to join in this debate as speaker No. 104 after 103 most notable speeches, with 99 of which I entirely agree and with four of which I disagree. My task is made the easier in that at the outset I have to thank most sincerely the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who made her maiden speech. I thank her because I am certain we all enjoyed it and profited greatly from the personal contact and experience that she brought to the debate. I have a particular debt of gratitude to discharge to her, in that she has been the instrument, by what she said, of preventing a large part of the few remaining notes which I had made in order to found my contribution upon them from being destroyed as all the rest have been destroyed.
I thought I should, in spite of the wealth of information and experience which your Lordships have heard throughout the course of our three-day debate, intervene, perhaps if for this reason: that it is, I
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suppose, the time to stand up and be counted. My Lords, I think we must say either"Yes"or"No ", and it is no longer acceptable to say that one does not know. If so, I go straight to the point and express my own view as being strongly in favour of entering the Common Market. May I go back to the noble Baroness and tell her the passage in her speech to which I should like in particular to address the remarks I have to found on the undestroyed notes? She told us of her frequent conversations with people who were bewildered by the whole huge situation with which our country now finds itself confronted. They could not understand it, they did not know what would be the position of the Sovereign, they did not relish the idea of becoming European having previously been British. My Lords, it seemed to me that in that context I might add something from my own experience, not being either an economist or an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, nor having been involved in the very intimate way in which a number of speakers have been involved in previous consideration of these issues, nor being an industrialist, nor being a trade unionist, but being, if I may use Shakespeare's term.
" a plain blunt man,
That love my friend."
Having said that, may I go back and touch upon the issue of sovereignty which the noble Baroness mentioned? Yesterday the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, made a most powerful speech analysing the impact on our national sovereignty which might result from our accession. My noble friend Lord Robens of Woldingham also dealt with it and so did the noble Lord, Lord Tangley, in very notable speeches; but I thought that possibly I might add something on the more mundane plane by asking your Lordships to consider what the Rome Treaty in terms requires from us and the extent to which it can be said directly to limit our choice, to impose upon us obligations, perhaps unacceptable in extent, and generally to alter our own internal arrangements.
As the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor pointed out, every treaty of course limits the freedom of choice, the uninhibited, untrammelled freedom of choice by any nation bound by it to take its own decisions in respect

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of any given situation. My Lords, that is the object of treaties. A treaty binds all the nations that enter into it. It is right and sensible that that should be the case. Without treaties there would be no progress towards international understanding and co-operation. Anybody who gives a promise which in honour he means to abide by realises that his freedom of choice is limited. If one understands the term"sovereignty"in that sense, of course we do substantially limit our untrammelled sovereignty as it exists at the moment. We did so when we joined the League of Nations. We did so when we joined the United Nations organisation. We did so as members of NATO. This is so in the case of treaty after treaty. The Convention on Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions and a number of treaties over the centuries have had the same effect with a useful and necessary result.
But, my Lords, apart from that, what should we be obliged to do in order to conform to the letter of the Rome Treaty? What we should be required to do by Article 189 of the Rome Treaty is to alter our domestic law so as to make it conform to the regulations which are referred to in Article 189 and which constitute the legal framework set up under the Rome Treaty. Article 189 also speaks of directives which have a less compelling effect. What I submit it is essential to remember is this: we should alter our own legislation by our existing Parliamentary process. The idea that the processes of Parliament would be in any way changed is wholly and absolutely illusory. We should introduce measures to change our law so as to make it reflect the provisions of the regulations. One has to remember that the Rome Treaty covers only a very limited extent of our activities. It covers purely economic activities, freedom of movement of labour, freedom of movement of capital, transport, agriculture and so on, and in particular, of course, restrictive practices and monopolies. The noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, who preceded me said that there would be a whole variety of Orders in Council which would have to be passed and I think he also added legislation. No doubt there will be a great deal.
Obvious candidates for change, I should have thought, would be the Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1956 and
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possibly our Exchange Control Act 1947—Acts of Parliament of that kind. But anybody going in and out of the Palace of Westminster would see it functioning precisely as it has always functioned and would see it carrying out an operation which we have carried out over and over again already. I mention, simply as an example, the Hijacking Bill which your Lordships considered a few days ago. That, I agree, is a Bill smaller in scope than the other measures we are considering, but it is a Bill we are passing in order to make our own domestic law comply with the provisions of The Hague Convention of 1970. That was not a minor change in our internal legislation. It involved our making a major change in our existing law of extradition, which is a highly sensitive area of our legislation.
It is said,"Yes, but there is the European Court, and the Commission can hale this country before the European Court if it alleges against us that we have failed to comply with our obligations ". But, my Lords, by becoming members of the League of Nations of Nations years ago we accepted the jurisdiction of the old Permanent Court of International Justice. By becoming members of the United Nations Organisation we accepted the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Both those courts had a jurisdiction which ranged over a far wider, almost unlimited, area of international activity and of international law. Over and over again in my capacity as counsel I have pleaded the cause of this country before the judges of The Hague Court, and, indeed, the cause of other countries. It never occurred to me that I was prostituting the sovereignty of this country or of any other country to some sinister alien influence. On the contrary, I thought that I was taking an extremely humble part in the furtherance of a great international purpose.
Therefore, I would ask your Lordships to approach this problem from the basis that our courts will function exactly as they function now, our common law will be the same, our habeas corpus principle will be the same. Criminal cases will have to be proved beyond a doubt, as they are now. The law of contract and of tort will be the same, as is pointed out with great accuracy in paragraphs 29

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to 31 of the White Paper. The Monarchy will stay completely and absolutely unchanged; so will Parliament; so will our Civil Service; so will the place in our society of the police—so will the Changing of the Guard, and so will our quiet and green countryside, except to the extent to which of our own free volition we choose to change it.
I notice that it is stated in paragraph 29 of the White Paper that the practice has been accepted in the Council of Europe, where matters of vital national interest are concerned, of voting only on a unanimous basis. In other words, a practice something like the veto, which at present is part of the United Nations Charter affecting the Security Council, has been incorporated in the practical working of the Treaty of Rome. That is the first point I want to make. I want to make another point of a rather broader character, and it is one that was touched upon particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, in his interesting speech some moments ago. We cannot afford another 1939. I do not criticise anybody who was involved in the inter-war years. There was no monopoly in wisdom on the part of any Government or any Party, or of any individual actively concerned in those desperately sad times. But would it be an over-simplification, when we look at the melancholy series of events which passed from 1918 to 1939, to say that the substance of what was happening was this? The victor nations were standing by and watching Germany stagger into an economic collapse that brought down with it the Weimar Republic, post-1918 Germany's great bid for a democracy that was to replace Kaiserdom and the rule of the Junkers of pre-1914. The Weimar Republic was destroyed. The road was opened to the disastrous turn taken by Germany in 1932, which led almost with the inexorable certainly of a Greek tragedy to 1939.
My Lords, if in those years we could have stood by and worked with, and supported, the Willy Brandts of those days, the countless brave German men and women who, at terrible peril to themselves and to their families, would have fought back against the Nazis, and tried to do so, how different the whole history of Europe and of the world might have
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been! Instead, we stood by, powerless, and watched while those resistors were overwhelmed by an outbreak of some of the most bestial passions known in modern history, when the vilest elements in the German community, led by gangsters, with a maniac at their head, seized the reins of government in Germany and dragged Germany and us into war. We are sadder and wiser Europeans now, especially those of us who live and work near the scenes of the former European battlefields and gas chambers. We now know that the distemper of one great European nation is the distemper of Europe, and possibly the distemper of the world.
The question which I put to your Lordships for consideration is this. If one pictures a Europe which has for years been working in association, united by the mutual exchange of ideas, by common work side by side, albeit in the purely economic field, used to making joint decisions through the Community's organs of thought and purpose, such as the Council of Ministers, the Commission and the Assembly as set up in the Treaty of Rome, would it have been possible for that Nazi situation to develop? I put it to the House that if one conceives a united Europe, working together in mutual understanding, deeply bound by common purposes, common habits and a common endeavour, over a period of years, the position of some nations' watching while one of their numbers declined into decay, bringing the others down with it, would have been an utter impossibility.
I have declared myself, as I am, a convinced pro-Marketeer. I listened with the greatest interest to the hesitations felt by the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, and I was comforted by the circumstance that although he felt those hesitations and came only with doubt to the conclusion that the balance of economic advantage was in favour of entry, nevertheless he strongly wished to enter on broader and more long-term grounds. He referred to the unification of Germany and Italy. Anybody who reads the history of modern Europe since 1858 and 1866 must discern fairly early emerging in the strands of history, as the latter half of the 19th century rolled on, the seeds of the 1914 War. I believe that the only

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way to try to prevent that kind of situation developing again is the joint endeavour of purpose and good will entry into which we are now considering.
I am ill-qualified to judge of the advantages and disadvantages in an economic sense. I can only assure your Lordships that I have conscientiously studied the White Paper, considered the arguments both ways and tried to come to an honest conclusion, as I think is the duty of all Members of this House. I believe that we must come to a conclusion now. What could happen between now and October to enable doubters to decide then, when they cannot now, I find it difficult to conceive. True it is that this is an exploratory debate; but it is also an historical debate, and it is as such that it has been conducted. I certainly respect the anxieties of those who take a view different from my own, and I hope that they respect my views. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Blyton does, because I remember not less than fifteen years ago sitting with him in the tearoom of another place when I expressed my views and he expressed his views on this subject. We differed radically; and we agreed to do so. My Lords, that is the contribution that I would offer to your Lordships, and I hope that the House will be able to come to a very clear conclusion, as obviously it is doing, that in the circumstances entry is the only possibility.
5.20 p.m.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, may I say at the outset how profoundly I agree with every word that has fallen from the last speaker. I alas! who have a variety of public duties have only been able to hear a relatively small proportion of this mammoth debate. But the last three speeches that I have heard were exceptionally encouraging, because they were made by men of great public distinction, who have contrived to depart from what can only be regarded as technical considerations, which are peripheral to this matter, and addressed themselves to the broad main issues, just as did the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, a moment ago. I do not believe that this is an issue that falls to be determined on the question of how to dispose of a quantity of frozen butter. I do not say that in the least disrespectfully, but I believe that unless this issue transcends the question
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of frozen butter, then we are wasting our time in discussing it.
What I think is important about the debate to-day and over the last two days is the immense number of people—the staggering and encouraging unanimity of view on the part of the leaders of the nation, if one may use that expression—in favour of entry into the Common Market. This has a significance all of its own; and it has a special significance in relation to one argument which I regard as a most valid argument indeed, if it were true, against entry into the Common Market. It is asserted that the nation, as a whole, is against entry. I totally doubt the truth of that proposition. I would regard it as extremely unlikely, if the immense preponderance of speakers in this House, representing people of knowledge, statesmen, leaders in industry, people who are acquainted with the true detail of this matter, hold a view in favour of entry as firmly and as sincerely as they do, that the nation could be so stiff-necked, so arrogant in its refusal to accept opinions from people who know what they are talking about, that they would be determinedly hostile to the proposition.
What I believe to be true is that nobody has informed the nation. When I hear the discussions that take place (and everybody is trying very hard to inform the nation, I think perhaps excessively so) on the B.B.C., consisting largely of one gentleman enunciating his views about the Common Market and another gentleman endeavouring to explain why he has changed his views at that late hour of the day, I can understand the total confusion that must develop in most households about what the issues really are. I think it is crucial that it should be made known to the nation that in both Houses of Parliament there is a vast preponderance of opinion in favour of this vital proposition. I do not believe that that can be over-stressed. If that is the case, I believe that it will not be long before we discern in the nation a great increase of opinion in favour of the Common Market, and before long a majority of opinion in favour. I venture to suggest the perhaps slightly disrespectful view, that if some of the opponents of the Common Market, who have been expressing their opinions with more fanaticism than reason, were to be

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employed nightly airing their views on television programmes, within about a fortnight the nation would have swung solidly behind the Common Market.
I may say that when I heard one or two of the special partisans of these viewpoints, I was reminded of the remark, attributed I believe to Disraeli in the course of a heated debate when Mr. Gladstone was being very vehement, that he felt grateful that there was a stout oak table between him and the other gentleman. I feel most grateful that there is a television screen between me and the person participating in the television debate because one thing that is certain is that this country will not be swayed by fanaticism: views that are fanatical, however sincere, will cut no ice. This issue will be decided—and I hope all issues will be decided—on the simple question of personal self-interest. The citizens of this country will assess the matter from the point of view of what is good for them; and I sincerely believe, as most speakers in this debate believe, that what is good for them is entry into the Common Market. That is my own sincere, convinced belief, and I do not believe it will be long before that view is universally shared.
My Lords, I know that I am the 105th speaker, and probably the 96th speaker in favour of the Market (in fact, if we were more sportingly inclined, I think a few like-thinking people should defect to the other side) but I should like to touch on a few of the arguments used in opposition to the Market. The noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, has discussed the question of abdicating our sovereignty, and as a distinguished lawyer, has analysed the matter, as did the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, with great care and wisdom. I am prepared to deal with this matter on a much more simple approach. I travel abroad quite a lot in Italy, Germany, Holland and Belgium. There I observe these shameless people holding their heads high, despite the obvious abdication of sovereignty that has taken place. Nowhere do I see them cowering, as they should, before the humiliation that they may have suffered in this regard. It is difficult to take this argument seriously. Where do you find a Frenchman, an Italian, a Belgian or a Dutchman who remotely considers him-
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self as abdicating a single jot of sovereignty in relation to the Treaty of Rome? This is another argument, which is advanced with great force, which in my view has no validity of any kind.
I greatly respect the sincerity of the arguments of the opponents of the Common Market, but because I respect their sincerity is no reason why I should believe in their judgment or in their wisdom. I do not regard the arguments as wise or the judgments as particularly distinguished. I think that the opposition to the Common Market arises from a number of conflicting motivations. I think they are all honourable, but I think in many cases they are not very well advised. I think it is better to say that, because I want to say a word both in praise and in criticism of the Government in this matter. I think that historically they will have earned great credit for the determination, courage and persistence with which they have pursued entry into the Common Market: and previous Governments have earned similar credit. It is some comfort to me, also, to reflect that the Opposition, when they were the Government, pursued this course with the same determination and courage as the present Government. It is only, alas, when they come into Opposition that hesitations and uncertainties emerge.
I think the Government have cause for great pride in the course they have pursued. But if I may venture a word of criticism, I do not think they have been especially wise in their domestic policies if they wished to bring a united country into the Common Market. I think the issues in relation to the Common Market are of such importance that, however strongly they felt about them, they should have sacrificed such matters as the Industrial Relations Bill, the Immigration Bill, and all the issues that were tending to be divisive at an historic moment when division was dangerous and unity was crucial. I say no more than this. I think that a lot of the responsibility for the divided state in which we are now to be found is that the Government pursued an ordinary domestic policy while failing to realise the crucial and vital matter with which they should have concerned themselves, and upon which they should have totally concentrated.
Having said that, although I know that your Lordships have another 34 speakers

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to come, I should like to take one or two points that I think have been over-emphasised in relation to the opposition to the Common Market. On the question of capital movement, we are told that there are grave risks that there will be capital movement to our detriment. One has only to look at the existing situation to see that there have been vast movements of capital, largely within the Commonwealth, nearly all one way over recent years. Could the situation be worse? I do not think it could. I do not believe that capital movement within the Common Market could possibly be worse than the present situation, in which there is no encouragement on the part of the countries to which we move capital to move their capital back again.
Then, on the question of regionalism, an enormous importance has been attached to the suggestion that this is a sort of bourgeois conspiracy, and that in the regions in this country which are under-developed and require development there will be no establishment of industry, because it will suit the Continental industries when they come here to establish those industries in the frequented and inhabited areas. All I would say—and here again I deal with the matter on a purely pragmatical footing—is that those underdeveloped regions have been underdeveloped for generations. Under a system which was not a communal system, that is to say under a non-community system, nothing to their advantage has happened at all. I venture to suggest that they cannot be worse off under the Common Market than they have been during the preceding decades, when only now people are suddenly displaying an incredible solicitude for them after having been previously totally silent. This is a consideration which weighs with me very much.
My concluding observation relates to the political issues. It is suggested forcefully that those people who believe in the true and undiluted vintage of Socialism will find that Socialism cannot be established within the Common Market. This of course is highly disparaging to the many sincere Socialist leaders and Socialist Parties within the Common Market, who have accepted the Common Market and abide by it. But more than that, just consider the conclusions. What they are saying is that a form of Socialism
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which is not so extreme that it is not to be found within the Common Market is the only form of Socialism under which the European alliance becomes a possibility. I venture to suggest that there is another word for that form of Socialism and it is a word which does not begin with an"s ". I am profoundly unimpressed by the assertion that it is only if we adopt a system of Socialism so extreme that it would be totally rejected by an overwhelming majority of people in this country that it would be possible for us to have a European alliance.
This is a debate of great and historic importance. I think it is right that those of us who have views, however tedious and however much it taxes the fortitude and endurance of your Lordships, should come here to express those views. I believe that our decision is important. It we are mistaken we are encouraged by the fact that we are mistaken in good company and in great numbers. Let us go together and move together in that conviction towards what I believe, without any doubt at all, will be a better and more prosperous future.
5.33 p.m.
VISCOUNT BOYD OF MERTON: My Lords, I should like to join in the chorus of congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for her most moving, graceful and very effective speech. She represents to many of us another welcome voice from Oxford, which will be a most useful and eloquent addition to your Lordships' House.
When I was in the Government, and before and for some time thereafter, I was against our adherence to the Treaty of Rome. But in October I shall vote for our entry into the Community. Therefore I am one of those whose change of view, according to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, could lead to further confusion in the country as a whole; but the fact that I am now giving my explanation of that change in your Lordships' House, where I can be cross-examined (though I trust I shall not be at this hour) will, I hope, acquit me of the charge of causing confusion. I hope that your Lordships will bear with me for a short while so I may explain my change of views.
My first anxiety concerned sovereignty. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, or with

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the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, or with the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, that this argument was never a runner. Perhaps to them it was not and it never has been; but to many of us it was, and to some it still is. I am very grateful indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, for his clear and eloquent exposition, which has been of great help to many Members of this House. I would never have disputed the statement that was made yesterday by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, that:
" Sovereignty is a question of fact…and not a question of legal theory."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27/7/71; col. 202.]
I have always recognised, like everybody else, that every treaty involves a diminution of sovereignty; but the Treaty of Rome is an exceptional treaty. As an earlier White Paper said of it:
" The constitutional innovation would be in the acceptance in advance as part of the law of the United Kingdom of provisions to be made in the future by instruments issued by the Community institutions."
At the time this seemed to some of us a considerable obligation, especially when we considered the consequences at that time of majority voting and the unstable condition of some of our potential European partners. But now we have, from outside, experience of how the Communities work, develop and take decisions; and it is clear, so we have been assured, that if any member country considers that its vital interests are at risk, the Community would not as a whole take action which would make that risk come about. I share with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, the view that the whole of this proposal is based on a feeling of trust and mutual support, to which I now wholeheartedly adhere. I agree with the Foreign Secretary that sovereignty is concerned with the reality of power and influence, and I am now persuaded that our country can play a greater role in the world if we are in than if we stay outside. As to stability in Europe, I share the hope which the noble Lord, Lord Blake, expressed yesterday in his arresting maiden speech, that our adherence to the Community will enhance all the stabilising tendencies in it.
The second doubt I had was the anxiety I shared with others because the Treaty of Rome is for an unlimited period. Of
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course, many other treaties are said to be for an unlimited period; but this is in many ways, I think, the most important treaty to which we shall ever have to adhere. I am now satisfied that no undertakings of the kind now before us can possibly be entered into for a limited period. I am wholeheartedly in agreement with the Lord Chancellor, who said in his speech yesterday.
" If we enter, we enter without thought of going back, as the others have entered and stay in without thought of going back."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27/7/71; c. 203.]
I confess that in past years I have been anxious about differing interpretations between people, and sometimes between nations, of juridical commitments. Many noble Lords must have had experience of people and nations who have signed undertakings and then regarded themselves as being pledged only en principe, and they do not hesitate to try to evade some unwelcome consequences of that undertaking. I remember when I was first a Member of Parliament hearing the then Prime Minister of France, M. Tardieu, coming to meet a party of Members of Parliament and flattering us by saying that the United Kingdom always performed more than it promised. I thought at that time, and have thought since, that if we are to justify such a tribute, how careful we must be before we sign anything!
I confess that I was not very reassured when Mr. Healey in another place as recently as last January, but in a more enthusiastic pro-Market phase, said:
" We regard a juridical commitment as a minimum that we guarantee to achieve. Many of the other countries regard it as a maximum at which they aim. They regard it as a guiding star rather than as a route map."
I must say that I agreed with the commentator who on the following day said of that speech that:
" We would probably be signing the Treaty on our own stuffy old standards."
But, without being patronising, may I express the hope that Whitehall standards and expertise may make a major contribution to Europe.
My final and greatest anxiety was over our Commonwealth obligations. I once shared the view of many other noble Lords that an acceptable grouping might be made through a wide expansion of Commonwealth preferences, special links

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with EFTA and a North Atlantic Free Trade Area. As the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, said in our debate last January:
'Four years ago there were other alternative policies which had not then been fully studied and explored."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19/1/71; col. 347.]
For reasons which the House knows well, there is now no answer to be found along this road, although Commonwealth trade will always be of great importance to us. A number of figures have been quoted in another place showing the sharp decline in inter-Commonwealth trade. I hope we shall all remember, as indeed the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, reminded us, that the Commonwealth have known for a long time of the anxiety of successive Governments to enter the Common Market and have rightly been making alternative arrangements which, at any rate in part, explain the decline in inter-Commonwealth trade.
Concerning Australia, I greatly welcome the readiness which the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster expressed last week to have discussions, commodity by commodity, in order to ascertain where it is thought that there may be severe disruptions of trade and where we have an undertaking from the Community that they will take action where that is shown. As to New Zealand and the sugar Territories, there can surely be nothing but praise for the sustained and successful efforts of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to protect Commonwealth interests. We have the agreed objective for New Zealand of continuing arrangements, subject to review. For sugar countries, for which many of us feel a particular obligation and conscience, there is the assurance of a secure and continuing market in the enlarged Community for the sugar exports of the developing countries, for other territories associated under Part IV of the Treaty of Rome, and for many the generalised preference scheme of the enlarged Community. I agree with Mr. Arnold Smith, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, that with Britain in Europe the Commonwealth would be more important to all the 32 members and to the Community. And, still being proud to call myself—I hope without arrogance—a"Commonwealth man ", I shall, when asked to do so, give my vote in favour of our entry into the Communities, and
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our entry, as the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, said, as a world Power.
5.41 p.m.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, I stand up to"take note of"the White Paper, and at the end of my brief intervention I hope to express a clear opinion. But first of all may I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Young, on her charming and most relevant speech. I hope that we shall hear her often. We need more women in this Chamber like her with her experience in local government.
My Lords, I am an unashamed agnostic about joining the E.E.C. I become rather puritanical when extreme pro-Marketeers ask me to share their dream. Also, when I am told that going into Europe is an act of faith I cannot oblige with the faith. Despite my deep respect for my noble friend Lord Blyton, I also feel alienated from the extreme anti-Marketeers. I cannot believe that Europe wants us to come in merely to ruin us. I have enjoyed many speeches during these long debates, but I think that I enjoyed most the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, this afternoon, because it seemed to me so balanced, giving the doubts and the hopes; and that I understand. So I have tried to sift the many arguments and to reason my way to a personal decision on Europe.
This long debate may not have produced many new arguments either way. I think that it has been a very important exercise and it has greatly helped me. There is no doubt that, whether we go in or not, the debate in the country will go on about the Common Market for many years. Even men like the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, head over heels for Europe, have warned that we are not entering the Garden of Eden, and that for a time the short-term sacrifices might appear to outweigh the long-term gains, while that stalwart, long-time dedicated pro-European, the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, is now fishing in troubled waters.
Quite recently I have indulged a little in remembering things past. It is well known that in 1962 my late husband, Hugh Gaitskell, made a strong anti-Market speech at the Labour Party's Annual Conference. That was nine years ago. When I listen to the extreme anti-Marketeers' views I feel that time has

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stood still. Recently I read my husband's speech again, and it helped me to make up my mind—though I hope that noble Lords will not jump to the too obvious conclusion from this remark. My husband was not against the Common Market on principle, as is sometimes assumed. In 1962 he knew positively that the French would veto our entry. He was a great Commonwealth man, rather like the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, if he does not my mind my saying this. In his speech my husband put forward five conditions for the terms of entry. In 1962 the logic of his speech was irrefutable. In fact, successive Governments have been working on just the terms and the conditions that he put forward: the Commonwealth, EFTA, pursuing our own foreign policy, planning our own economy, and safeguarding the position of British agriculture. Whatever we may think of the terms, time has not stood still in the past decade, and there have been many changes, political and economic, in the world. The most important one is that now we can get into Europe. That is the most important change that has occurred in the past decade.
The terms are perhaps not so much acceptable as accepted. That is the removal of the first and fundamental barrier. I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, in his opening speech, did not wax very lyrical about the terms. Personally, I think that the New Zealand arrangements are good and the sugar arrangements tolerable. But the financial contributions seem to me harsh. The White Paper engenders much heat about the financial contributions and sheds no great light on them. The economists are too contradictory, and many industrialists are prone to wishful thinking. I suppose that it is not possible to draw up a balance sheet of the likely benefits and cost of our entry into Europe, so it has been left out of the White Paper.
One of the things that worries me when trying to understand these costs and benefits is that when we want to have a balance of payments which is healthy, we ask for restraint from the people of this country; when we want growth we get into trouble about the balance of payments. I do riot believe that anybody in this House has really tried to explain
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this during the past three days. Those who understand these financial complexities assert that the Government have not thought the financial implications through or what measures they will adopt to deal with the difficulties that may arise. None of the measures, alas! introduced by the Government up to date, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has said, to deal with unemployment and the economy, gives me any great confidence in their ability to cope with the severe problems that we may encounter, especially at the beginning.
The Conservative Government were very lucky to have inherited from the Labour Government a good balance of payments, and I venture to say that without this it would have been impossible for them to negotiate seriously for terms at all. I cannot even share the gloomy forebodings of those like the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, who threaten the decline and fall for Britain if we do not accept entry. Perhaps I incline to what the noble Lord, Lord
Butler, calls The Art of the Possible, in politics. The European Community has come to stay. Even in 1962 my husband said that the economic arguments and effects were finely balanced.
As I have said, there have been changes in political leadership, in trading patterns with the Commonwealth and throughout the world. Many of us may regret the decline in our trade with the Commonwealth countries, and I hope that the links will spread out and continue in various ways if we do go in. We might begin then to try and influence the Community towards more trade with the developing world. Though their performance on aid is rather better than ours, they are very selfish somehow about trading with the developing world.
Having spent four successive years in a Committee of the United Nations, I feel more relaxed about the dangers to sovereignty than some other people do. There, after all, in the United Nations we are trying to extend and bring about new forms of international association and co-operation, as my noble friend Lord Stow Hill has pointed out. I was much reassured by the statement of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that fears of an Anglo-French arrangement about nuclear weapons were groundless. There

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are inevitably dangers in any form of association and co-operation, political and economic, with other countries, but I have less and less sympathy with those who see only merit in Britain's refusing any form of European co-operation. A substantial measure of the five conditions spelt out by the Leader of the Labour Party ill 1962 have either been achieved or been brought about by changes in the world. The interests of the Commonwealth have been safeguarded; EFTA has not been excluded and is to be brought in on its own terms. I cannot believe that we shall not be able to pursue our own foreign policy when General de Gaulle managed to pursue his so well.
In 1962, the European Community was a tight litle band of Six more inward-looking than at present. In fact, I have an uneasy feeling, like the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition when he spoke to-day, that it is we in this country who have grown increasingly inward-looking in the last years. This reminds me of an old joke, a newspaper headline which read,"Fog in the Channel: Continent isolated ". My Lords, perhaps we have tended to treat the English Channel more like a moat, and I believe that now the time has come to pull down the drawbridge and perhaps go into Europe.
Finally, I believe that we have a great deal to contribute to Western Europe, and certainly many of us in the Labour Party hope that this Anglo-Western European Community will lead to co-operation with the Eastern European countries as well. We could do much, as has been said, to strengthen the hand of Willy Brandt in this objective. I do not often indulge in thinking about what might have been had my husband lived, but I venture to say that I cannot believe that he would not have grasped the hand extended by Willy Brandt at this time. So, my Lords, at the end of my pilgrimage over this issue, I emerge agnostic, anxious, in favour of going into Europe. Agnostics, after all, deny themselves faith, but no one can deny them an irrational hope. My hope is that the journey into Europe will not be as stormy as many fear, and I believe that the Conservative Government have a very great responsibility in seeing that the most vulnerable people in our society are protected.
5.55 p.m.
LORD HARLECH: My Lords, I am sure that all your Lordships will have listened to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, with very great interest. It was a most moving speech, and one was impressed by the careful and thoughtful way in which she presented her arguments which made the final conclusion to which she came all the more impressive. If I may say so, I think it is one of the finest speeches she has made—and she has made very many fine ones. I speak as a convinced European, and I hope that the noble Baroness will not find the words I address to your Lordships too extreme.
I rise as a descendant of advisers to Queen Elizabeth I, although by no means the most illustrious in your Lordships' House, and despite the strictures of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, I do so without shame. When I think of the troubles that they had with a fragmented Europe of violently competitive States I see no reason why they should rotate in their graves to-day at the possibility of a united Europe. Indeed, perhaps more important, I think they would have slept much more peacefully in their beds when they were alive if there had been a united Europe in those days.
It is quite clear that the great debate which was billed to take place throughout the country once the terms of Britain's membership were known has not in practice materialised. We have had in your Lordships' House something more like a conference of affirmation. The simple reason for that is that opposition to entry on the terms that have been negotiated is simply not credible. I am not, of course, referring to those who have, like the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, and the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, consistently and honourably opposed our involvement in Europe on any terms, but to those who claimed to be in favour of our membership if the terms were right. One of the extraordinary features of this two and a half days of debate has been that, although that is supposed to be the official reason for opposition to our entry, at the present time I have not heard or read a speech which was based on that particular proposition. But even in the case of those who have always opposed even the opening of negotiations I notice

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a significant change in their stance. At one time, they at least tried to present the case for a convincing alternative. They talked at length about Commonwealth, and when it became transparent that neither in political or in economic terms did the Commonwealth contain the necessary identity of interest or of will to make it a realistic alternative, they talked about the North Atlantic Free Trade Area. But now we hear little even of this project because, quite frankly, there is no other Government who are interested in it. It is a non-starter.
Apparently we are now offered no alternative to entry but to continue as we are. Increasingly isolated in a world of giants, we are asked to contemplate the possibility of wrestling with the problems of the 1970s and 1980s in precisely the way that we tried, unsuccessfully, to wrestle with the problems that faced us in the 1960s. What a bleak, depressing and uninspiring prospect that would be. For 25 years we have been experiencing an unbroken decline in the relative wealth, power and influence of the British people, and what we have to decide as a nation is whether we intend to continue down that gloomy road or whether we intend to set for ourselves a new course which will give us a chance to reverse the process. That is what we are debating. That is what we of all Parties and of no Party have to decide in this year of 1971.
Until the end of June it was possible for people to say that they would favour membership if the terms were right. Now we know the terms and they are right—or rather they are about the best terms that we could ever hope to get. Naturally, this is the view of Her Majesty's Government who negotiated these terms, but it is also the view of virtually every neutral commentator around the world; it is the view of the political leaders throughout Europe, including the leaders of all the Socialist Parties in Europe; it is the view of the New Zealand Government; it is the view of the 14 sugar producing countries, and, finally, it is the view of the majority within the Labour Party who are most closely involved in Britain's most recent application to join. Indeed, I would say that anyone who launched
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Britain upon this enterprise expecting substantially different terms from those now before us, either did so hoping that the negotiations would fail, or was so totally lacking in political judgment that they ought not to be trusted to serve on a parish council.
So let us be quite clear. This debate is not really about the terms: it is a debate between those who wish Britain to take what they regard as her rightful place in Europe and those who are fundamentally opposed to entry into the E.E.C. on any conceivable terms. I hold strongly to the former view, and to-day I have little that I wish to add to the economic arguments which have been so often deployed, and deployed with great persuasiveness in your Lordships' House over the past three days.
However, I am deeply concerned about one matter; that is, about the direction in which capital investment will flow it we remain outside the Community. The noble Lord, Lord Robens of Woldingham, in his notable speech yesterday, dealt with one aspect of this matter. He spoke of the likely decisions by British industry with regard to future investment in this country or on the Continent. I want to deal with a rather different aspect. It is this. Savings for industrial investment will also continue to be generated on a vast scale by the United States of America and by the Six. Where is that capital for investment likely to go? When great companies have to make a decision as to where they are going to establish a new enterprise, or where they are going to enlarge an existing enterprise, where are they going to place their capital investment? Is it going to be placed in a community of 200 million people with a rate of growth of 5 per cent., or in a community of 55 million people with a rate of growth of 2 per cent? One does not have to be an economic genius to know in which direction that capital investment will flow. The result must inevitably be a further crippling handicap to British industry, already suffering from far too little capital investment.
I suggest that this is one answer to those who are concerned about an outflow of capital from this country. There may be some outflow; there may not be. It is a difficult judgment to make, but if there is some, the net result would be less

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serious and less damaging than it would be if we were to remain outside the European Economic Community. There will be other compensating advantages to us. Mr. George Ball, the former Under-Secretary of State in the United States of America and now a merchant banker, said this in an article in The Times last Friday:
" Thus dozens of United States companies are waiting only for the final decision before regrouping their European operations under head offices in London—the city that will, as they see it, emerge as not only the financial but the commercial capital of the new and larger Europe."
It is for these and other similar reasons that I believe it would be in our interests on economic grounds to become a member of the Community. But it is not the economic case which makes the need for British membership so vital to our future. It is the political case, as many of your Lordships have already stated to-day. For more than a decade the political situation in the world has been in a state of flux. The two hegemonies which came into existence as a result of the cold war have become eroded. They were, of course, of a very different nature: one imposed by force and military occupation, the other voluntarily entered into by the countries of Western Europe, who beseeched the United States of America to commit herself to the defence of Europe.
Throughout the 'sixties this simple division of political power in the developed world changed significantly, and in these circumstances one might have expected a revived and prosperous Western Europe to have developed an important and significant role in world affairs. She has clearly failed to do so, and most of the vital decisions which affect our interests and our security continue to be taken in Washington and in Moscow. In this coming decade we are bound to see further manifestations of poly-centralism, and perhaps even more profound changes in the world scene than we have witnessed in the last decade. For instance, a new chanter seems to be opening with regard to China's relationship with the rest of the world, and Chairman Mao himself cannot be with us very much longer. The United States of America has given fair warning to Europe that she will start withdrawing some of her forces from the Continent of
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Europe next year, and in the light of the domestic pressures upon the United States Administration at the present time it would be a bold man who would claim to know just how far such a process will go.
Then again, Soviet penetration into the Middle East and the North African littorals is a fact and its further progress could have a profound effect on the political and military balance in the Mediterranean. This involves important interests so far as Europe is concerned and so does the continuation of the bitter quarrel between Israel and her Arab neighbours. In this connection we ought constantly to remind ourselves that oil is now the very lifeblood of Western European industry, and we are overwhelmingly dependent on supplies from this area. Fifty-eight per cent. of the E.E.C. energy consumption is in oil, and of that 58 per cent., 85 per cent. comes from the Middle East and from North Africa. We in Britain are in a similar situation. Obviously the state of our relations with those countries which control the supplies of oil is of vital concern to us, and in many respects the settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute is infinitely more important to us than it is to the United States or to the Soviet Union. Yet neither we nor Western Europe as a whole have been able to play other than a very secondary role in negotiating peace for that vital area of the world. Again in the 'seventies we are likely to see the present old and reactionary Soviet leadership disappear from the scene, and we in Europe will all be profoundly affected by the type of younger men who succeed to power in the Kremlin.
Finally, although this is obviously not a catalogue of all the things that might happen over the next decade, the whole international monetary system will require a fundamental overhaul. For almost twenty years the Bretton Woods Agreement served the world remarkably well, but in recent years there have been far too many currency crises which have hurt us particularly, and the tinkering with the system which has taken place so far falls far short of what will be necessary for an expanding world trade in the last quarter of this century.
All these developments are bound to have the most profound consequences for

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Britain and for Western Europe, and in every instance we shall have a common interest in the outcome, for they involve the security and the future prosperity of us all. As these events unroll, how are we to protect our interests and ensure that they are not put in jeopardy? I suggest that we are most unlikely to do so effectively unless the countries of Western Europe harmonise their policies far more closely than they have done in the recent past. The need for closer co-operation is surely blindingly clear, and it is also clear that our entry, together with Norway, Denmark and the Irish Republic, will signal the start of more rapid progress in this direction. Everybody knows that one of the main reasons why the Six made so little headway towards a common foreign and defence policy was that there were those, and most notably the Dutch, who were not prepared to reach any final decisions in this field until they knew, one way of the other and for certain, whether Britain was going to be a full partner or not. Once, therefore, the time-consuming process of enlargement has been completed, I should expect all ten Governments to turn their minds to the problems of political co-operation and to the consideration of joint European policies that need to be pursued in relation to the rest of the world. As by then the Community will be by far the world's largest trading unit, her attitude will be crucial to the wellbeing of this planet Earth; and Britain, as my noble friend Lord Eccles said in his speech this afternoon, can play an important role in deciding what that attitude should be.
Finally, I would make a plea at this critical moment in this country's history that we should stand back a little from the present political battle and try to put the issue before us into perspective. We should ask ourselves the question whether Europe can at last rid herself of her self-destructive instincts. Fine claims are often made about the marvellous legacy that Europe has bequeathed to the human race—glittering achievements in science, political philosophy, art, music, systems of justice. That is all undeniable. But Europe has also been guilty of the most terrible examples of exploitation, and it has been guilty of unparalleled violence. Indeed, twice in
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this century she plunged the entire world into war which brought death and destruction on a scale unrivalled in history. That is why I was often amazed at Western politicians who could not understand, during the height of the cold war, why non-aligned countries would not stand up and be counted on the side of the Western Powers. Mr. Foster Dulles was, of course, a notable example of that kind of thinking. He and those like him totally failed to see that it was possible to have something less than unqualified admiration for a group of States which, whatever might be said in their favour, had a unique record of destructive competition and internecine war. So let us not forget that Europe is still on trial before the eyes of the world.
This is not the time for faint-hearted quibbling. To draw back now would not only have a catastrophic effect upon morale here at home; our standing in Europe and in every continent would receive a shattering blow. That is why, no doubt, the then Prime Minister, Mr. Harold Wilson, said only last year that a failure of the negotiations would involve a cost for Britain, a cost for Europe and a diminution of Europe's influence in world affairs. Having missed the bus in 1951 and 1957 and having been prevented from boarding it in 1963 and 1967, we have now negotiated terms for entry better than we had any good reason to expect. It is surely inconceivable that we throw away this great chance, which could well be our last. Let us finally turn our backs on competitive nationalism and help to build a Europe based upon a policy of mutual co-operation for the common good of all its peoples, a Europe which Britain can feel proud to belong to.
6.15 p.m.
LORD NELSON OF STAFFORD: My Lords, may I add my congratulations to the Government and their predecessors on bringing this important question to a point of decision, the question whether this great country of ours is to belong to a wider European community. This question, to my mind, has been an open one for far too long. Now that it is known that entry is open to us, and on what terms, it is very right that we should have ample opportunity to examine this complicated and important issue and to

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study as many aspects of the problem as is possible. This debate has given us that opportunity, and it has proved an extremely valuable one.
I decided to speak myself with some hesitation, and particularly when I find myself 109th on the list of speakers. At this stage there is not much left to say which has not already been said, and one also rather senses that the tide flowing in favour of the entry of this country to the Common Market is developing into a flood. But the issue is so important that it is right that some of the arguments should be repeated, and this is particularly so as it is such an historic occasion. The only way we can clear our minds on a subject so complicated as this is in fact to talk about it in debate, as we have done, because on so many of the issues involved many of us are ignorant to a great extent. We can speak, of course, with informed knowledge on certain aspects of which we have experience and knowledge, but many of the other aspects are to a greater extent a closed book to us and are areas where we hesitate to form a judgment.
My noble friend Baroness Young, in her very admirable maiden speech, on which I congratulate her, I thought brought out very clearly the problem we all have when she referred to the questions which are being asked by so many people of this country, namely,"What does it mean?, and What does it mean particularly to me? ". There is a great deal of anxiety on these matters and there is a great deal of fear of this great unknown. I, for my part, approach this matter from my experience as an industrialist, and I have listened with great interest to the very informed views which have been expressed from different angles. I think this debate has in fact clarified a number of important issues for all of us, and I hope this will become increasingly apparent throughout the rest of the country as the people apply their minds to this problem in the weeks ahead. One thing is clear to us all, and that is that for far too long now we have been watching steady economic progress in Europe while we here at home have been relatively stagnant. The question we have to ask ourselves is how much this is due to the Common Market, and that is very difficult to say. One
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can only note facts, and this is a debate to take note. We can note that no member wishes to leave membership of the Common Market after fourteen years. We can note that certainly nobody seems to have suffered any harm by being a member of the Common Market. And we can note that in the opinion of those who are members it has contributed greatly to their good.
In this country we have struggled now for years with economic problems the solutions of which seem to have eluded us. We have often heard it said, for instance, that our economic future and our standard of living are dependent, and will be dependent increasingly, on high technology. Now increasingly it is heard that we cannot afford high technology; the base of our market is not big enough. It seems to many of us strange, and a contradiction in itself, but it is a fact that in so many areas—aviation, defence, computers, atomic power—in spite of an excellent early position some decade ago (if we cast our minds back), we find over and over again the greatest difficulty in maintaining a position in this expensive field, in spite of the undoubtedly excellent technological teams which we have in this country. This has led now to retrenchment in many industries and serious effects on employment, which worry us all.
Additionally, in spite of sincere efforts of successive Governments at home, we have seen a steady erosion of confidence, falling industrial investment, and productivity failing to rise. This has led to a general lack of growth gradually penetrating all areas of our national life. We have also seen a rapidly changing situation in the world outside, and it is a very rapid rate of change. I was very glad that my noble friend Lord Carrington drew attention, right at the start of this great debate, to the speed at which change is in fact taking place in the world around us.
Britain's role has greatly altered, and we hear many, especially among the young, saying that we have to define a new role for ourselves. I think this is very true. Therefore, in looking at the proposal which is before us, we have to keep very much in mind these indisputable facts. Of course nothing is going to change overnight or quickly, and we must

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always remember this. The question the country has to decide is whether joining a wider European Community will help us to surmount the difficulties and limitations which have now been with us for far too long. We must take note of what has been happening in Europe. I will not burden your Lordships with endless statistics, but does our performance in recent years compare well with that of members of the E.E.C. on production, on productivity, on percentage of world exports, or on the growth in power consumption? It is not a very exciting picture that we have to look at.
Joining the Common Market, of course, will not solve all these problems overnight, nor will it be a bed of roses. It will not be easy at all. It is very easy to visualise the problems, and I can see many of them from an industrial angle. There will be a price to pay in some areas, and some changes in attitudes and practices will, without doubt, be necessary. Perhaps this will be a good thing in itself. But a move of this nature is a fundamental change of direction which will, in the long term, provide an opportunity to find a basis for an expanding future. I would emphasise however, what the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, told us this afternoon (and I agree with him) that this will come about only if we are active, and not passive, on joining.
In my judgment as a British industrialist—and not one of those, I hope, to whom the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, referred, who is taken to wishful thinking, (I do not think, by and large, industrialists are; they have a balance sheet at the end of the year by which they are judged)—we, in British industry, given the same conditions, can within a wider European Community give a good account of ourselves; and as European industry has profited so far, so can we in the future. I say this having a profound knowledge of European industry, having worked within it, and having competed against it in all parts of the world. I suggest that this is the view with which we should approach this problem, and I very much agree with those Members of your Lordships' House who have expressed this same confidence in British industry during the course of this debate.
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The noble Lord, Lord Byers, suggested to us earlier to-day that British industry would be stimulated by the competition with which it would be faced. This is true. But I would also say that much of industry is facing this same competition in the whole of the rest of the world, and would rather face that competition from a common and equivalent base than from a much smaller one here solely on this little Island of ours. I think this same situation holds in fields with which I am not so familiar: and I believe that in commerce and in banking, in agriculture and our professions, we can also hold our own, but others can speak on this aspect better than I can.
In a world to be dominated by other major States for as far ahead as one can see, one must recognise that our role on our own is going to become of less and less significance, and so will our influence. We shall be left either in a backwater, or to flow with the stream without any say in its control. Within Europe, without any loss of sovereignty—and I am glad this point has been so admirably clarified by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor in his speech yesterday—we can be an important influence on events which must affect us, and we can contribute to its strength and thereby to the peace of the world. I believe that within Europe we can make a major contribution to the part it will play in the world in the years ahead, in its social and political development, in its economic development, and in its defence role. I also believe that the Common Market will be stronger with us in it than without us.
We of course have our Commonwealth friends and our Commonwealth interests to take into account, and it would be unthinkable to join the Common Market just for our own good if it was at their expense; this we would never do. In a fast developing world, however, we cannot be of much use to our friends if we have no economic or political strength or influence. They will need money; they will need support; to these needs we can only contribute from a position of strength. Taking into account, therefore, the safeguards which have been negotiated, and the transitional period which has been allowed, and also taking into account the changing situation in the Commonwealth itself (and attention has

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been drawn to this during this debate), it seems to me that we can take this step of joining the European Common Market without, in fact, damaging our friends, and I believe we could possibly be of greater help to them from the much stronger base which I hone we shall have and that in the end they could benefit from our membership of the larger European market.
I do not think we should forget our EFTA partners. I hope the Government will have in mind the need to support their interests in the changes which are now taking place. We have worked together with them for a number of years now, and I think we should see that their interests are protected, as far as we are able, in the negotiations which are taking place. We all know how difficult it is to face decisions of great magnitude, and how much easier it is to do nothing than to do something.
One has listened with considerable interest to the arguments that have been put forward for not going into Europe; in other words, for doing nothing. I must say that I have been unimpressed by the advantages that have been put forward. But by doing something we provide opportunities to change a situation which everyone admits has been unsatisfactory for too long. As with any big decision there is a temptation to put it off because of immediate difficulties, and even disadvantages. But we must look beyond the immediate difficulties and disadvantages, to a longer-term position, one which is going to be of vital interest to our children and our grandchildren.
Over several hundred years this country has built up its population and its resources, its factories and its industries, its skills and its expertise, its schools and its universities, to serve a wider need than that of this country alone. It has peopled large areas of the world and provided the seedcorn for their advancement; it has provided men, expertise and equipment over the years for their development; and led great areas of the world to self-government and self-development—a role of which we can be proud, but which is now coming to an end. In my younger days I well remember—and I think most of your Lordships will also remember—that many of our contemporaries were planning careers in the great services overseas in India, in the
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Commonwealth, in the Colonies and in the Armed Services around the world. These opportunities are not now open to our young people, and we must ask ourselves whether we can see enough opportunity for the many excellent young people we are training within the confines of this island by itself. In contrast, I see great opportunities for our young people to make their mark in a widened European Community, to the advantage of Europe, to the advantage of this country and to their own advantage.
We must also ask ourselves whether we can see enough opportunity effectively to deploy our human and material resources, recognising that, unless they are employed effectively—and let there be no doubt about this—we cannot improve our standard of living, our social services or the amenities which we should all like to have. With a widened European Community, I see opportunities for these resources to be put effectively to work to the advantage of all.
I am glad that this Government, building on the work of previous Governments, have created an opportunity for this country to make its decision on this important step. I believe that if this opportunity is firmly grasped, it can lead to the removal of uncertainty and the restoration of confidence, and all that goes with it. I believe that it is a step which can stimulate investment and create a basis for growth. I believe it will give this country the role it has been seeking and give opportunities to the new generation, wherever they work, which they will not otherwise have.
6.34 p.m.
LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALE: My Lords, I must begin by apologising to the House for intruding on the"love feast"in which most of your Lordships have been indulging, and for introducing a note of dissent. One of the saddest experiences in public life is to reach a point at which one is at odds with those for whom one has a personal affection and a political respect, and it is particularly sad when one finds oneself almost alone. In the course of this debate, my noble friend Lord Beswick and I have been fortified by the wise saying of Sydney Smith, that minorities are almost always in the right. That of course applies only to your Lordships' House, and not to the National Executive of the Labour

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Party or the General Council of the Trades Union Congress.
But I am certain that it is to the credit of the Labour Party, and particularly of my noble friend Lord Shackleton, that, however unbalanced the debate may have been in general, our speakers at this Box have covered the whole spectrum of opinion inside the Labour Party. I am especially grateful, because it has given me an opportunity to congratulate the noble Baroness who made her maiden speech. Her distinction in local government preceded her, and her first essay in national Government has delighted us all and engaged our admiration. When we debate local government, as we shall be doing over the next two or three years, we shall look forward to the contributions which she will make at that time.
To-night, my Lords, I shall not indulge in an orgy of self-justification. Ten years ago I demonstrated with my noble friend Lord Shinwell against the Common Market. As a Minister I objected to our applying for membership when I believed that General de Gaulle would blackball us. Later, I developed a fear about what would become of us, if some of our EFTA friends went into the Market and left us outside, and I agreed very reluctantly to the approach being made. Since then, in the light of detailed studies I have made of the effects on the Commonwealth of our joining the E.E.C., I have become convinced, on balance, that it would be wrong to join, in spite of the brilliance and the skill with which Mr. Geoffrey Rippon conducted the negotiations; and the conviction that I have formed has been made stronger by what I think is the ambiguous nature of the White Paper.
I question nobody else's sincerity and I hope that nobody will question mine. Pace the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, there is no disgrace in changing one's mind as the situation develops, and as the arguments become more clear. Nor is there anything unworthy in seeking to preserve the unity of one's Party. The noble Lord, Lord Byers, apologised to me for not being here at this time, and I told him that I was going to comment upon what he had said about the Leader of my own Party, because I think that to animadvert against attempts to preserve Party unity come very ill from the Leader
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of a Party which, in another place, has been almost completely wiped out because of the disunity that existed in that Party 20 or 30 years ago.
I am sorry that one or two of our Members spoke of honour. Honour is not a word to be lightly used, and is not a quality to be lightly questioned. Indeed, from time to time as this excellent debate has developed, I have recalled—and I assure your Lordships that there is no personal innuendo whatever in this—the saying of Emerson:
" The louder he spoke of his honour, the faster we counted the spoons ".
This is too momentous an issue, too magnificent a conception, to become mixed with personalities or with debating points about political opportunism, and in my submission those who seek to introduce considerations of that kind fall far below the standard that an issue of this importance demands.
What has disturbed me most as the debate has developed is the tired, defeatist, almost desperate note that has been sounded by some at least of your Lordships; the lack of confidence in our capacity and our future. For Heaven's sake, my Lords, if we go into the Common Market let us go in with our heads held high, but without arrogance. I say"without arrogance"because I have been embarrassed by the almost patronising approach to the members of the Six which has been exemplified by some of the speeches that I have heard. We are told that we must give the Six leadership and stability, and political wisdom. We are told that we shall always have the veto up our sleeves.
I doubt whether any of those propositions will commend themselves to the exiting members of the Community. Indeed if I were one of them I would resent many of the speeches that we have heard in your Lordships' House. They would confirm any doubts there might be whether it is wise to accept into membership a nation as deeply divided as we are, and I should want to be assured that the people as a whole were behind the Government's application for member-hip. To establish that we need at best a General Election, at second best a free vote in another place. The debate in your Lordships' House, although important, is not so important as the public argument which has only recently begun.

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We have heard a number of arguments in favour of joining. We have heard rather more assumptions and assertions than arguments. But the onus of proof—and I am glad the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, has returned to the Chamber—really is on those who want to make this radical change and not on those of us who have serious misgivings. So I want to confine my own remarks to what I see as the main obstacles to the course on which Her Majesty's Government would have us embark. May I deal first with the economic arguments, and say with what pleasure I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, and with what interest I listened to the points which were made by the noble Lord, Lord Robbins? My noble friend Lord Shackleton, with that impish sense of humour of his, said he had been convinced by the economic arguments. I take a rather different view, and I want if I may to take four aspects of the economic case and to deal with them quite briefly.
First there is the cost of entry in the broadest sense. Hugh Stevenson in The Times of July 8 wrote:
" The fact is that economists have no idea within a range so wide that it is useless for policy purposes what the economic outcome of British membership will be ".
Mr. Anthony Harris has commented in the Guardian that the Government are committed to"evasive propaganda ". It has been said moreover that some speakers, at least in another place, have drawn material from a Cabinet Office study of the economics of Europe. It would be of help to your Lordships and to industry if this study could be more widely circulated, and I should like to put that suggestion to the noble Earl who is to reply to this debate. I believe that Cabinet Office study would probably provide the balance sheet for which my noble friend Lady Gaitskell was asking. Certainly without this information I think one must sympathise with the Commonwealth Industries' Association in asking,"Is this the Biggest Con' in History?"
Next, may I touch on the potential benefit in the increased rate of growth to which so many of your Lordships have referred and which is dealt with in paragraphs 44 to 48 of the White Paper? I discussed this proposition with Mr. Brian Griffiths, and I share his view that an enlarged Market is neither a necessary nor
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a sufficient condition for faster economic growth. If I followed your Lordships correctly many noble Lords are saying that a large market means economies of scale, which mean increased investment, which means faster growth. But the economies of scale and the increased investment have still to be proved. To give an example, my Lords, there has been as much of an expansion of world markets for British industry as a result of trade expansion brought about by GATT as we would get from the E.E.C., and it has not significantly increased our rate of growth.
Incidentally, my Lords, nobody has proved—to my satisfaction at least—that growth inside the Community has been a direct result of membership. To quote Mr. Stevenson once again:
" There can be no proof that this dynamic effect will work."
And I should like to hear from the Government and from the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, what reply the Government make to Mr. Douglas Jay's claim that the rate of growth in the E.E.C. countries was quicker before joining the Market than after.
I am also disturbed by the regional aspects, and my worries are not eased by the way in which the arguments of my noble friend Lord Beswick remained unanswered by the Government yesterday. It is at least probable, in my interpretation, that the preferential aid which we have been giving to the regions would be unacceptable inside the Community. I should certainly be hesitant about commending the Government's policy to those areas of Britain which have known serious unemployment and lack of investment in the past, and which are seeing the dole queues growing again. Like my noble friend Lord Beswick I have an uneasy feeling that new investment would not be in Scotland or South Wales or Lancashire. It would be in the South-East and East, or perhaps even more probably on the Continent itself.
The cost of living argument, too, my Lords, is one which I find extremely worrying. The noble Lord, Lord Garner, thought that the cost of living argument was irrelevant and unworthy. It would of course be the act of a poltroon to turn one's back on a noble concept because of the price of a pound of butter, but

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the argument goes much deeper than that. Many people in Britain to-day are the victims of rapid inflation. So indeed—and I ask your Lordships to note this—are many people in Western Europe. Mr. Andrew Alexander in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday epitomised the point in these words:
" From a Government which promised to curb inflation (and succeeded in doubling it) the admission that a step would involve definite price increases sounds alarming indeed."
It would I believe be a great political blunder for the Government to try to take a reluctant public into the Common Market when so many people are fearful of the impact it would have on their standard of living.
My Lords, I now turn quite briefly to the Commonwealth, which is still my great love and I listened with so much appreciation to the noble Viscount, Lord Boyd of Merton, whom I regard as one of the great Colonial Secretaries. I have found it wounding in this debate to hear noble Lords say that we have"got rid of the Empire ", as though the Commonwealth and the Empire were an appalling incubus from which we had to free ourselves rather than a great institution that has played, and can still play, a major role in world affairs. I was saddened too when the noble Lord. Lord Carrington—and I am quite certain that this was inadvertent—spoke of our having been alone for two years after 1940. My Lords, it was the knowledge that throughout the world there were millions of freedom-loving people in the Commonwealth fighting on our side that made our situation tolerable in those dark years. I admit frankly, my Lords, that at times I have been less than fair to the contribution that the Common Market countries have made to the developing world. I hope that that contribution, great as it is, will continue to grow, because I am far from convinced that we ourselves have adequately protected the interests of our Commonwealth friends, both developed and developing.
President Pompidou's speech about New Zealand cheese giving way to French cheese must have been disturbing to many. The issue goes far beyond New Zealand butter and Commonwealth sugar. Very many other commodities are also
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affected. But I should like to stress how unsubstantial are our much-vaunted safeguards for New Zealand and the sugar-producing countries. The continuing guarantees for New Zealand butter will have to be renewed in 1974. If I were a betting man I should hesitate to bet on New Zealand's interests being preserved at that time. Negotiations will certainly be tough, and if Denmark is by then a member of the Community she is hardly likely to be sympathetic to New Zealand's claims.
Equally, I believe that the whole future of Commonwealth sugar is very uncertain. The experiences of Madagascar and Surinam have been far from happy. It is true that we have placed on record our own ex parte interpretation of the safeguards we have received. The Six have received that interpretation rather than accepted it. New agreements will have to be negotiated in 1975, when the present Six will be under pressure, as Miss Hella Pick has pointed out, to provide the same safeguards for their own neglected ex-colonies as we hope to get for ours. It would be a tragedy if the delicate and effective international sugar machinery were to collapse under the stress created by our accession to the Community. I hope and pray that the Commonwealth sugar-producing countries have not irrevocably damaged their long term prospects. Before leaving the subject of the Commonwealth I should only add that Commonwealth Ministers, not least in Canada and Australia, have made clear that our entry into the E.E.C. could have devastating effects on our own export trade.
In conclusion may I say that I think it is probable that Britain will go into the enlarged Community. I should like therefore to make two appeals to those of my friends in this House, and perhaps those outside in the country, who share my views. I hope that between now and our entry, if it happens, we shall do nothing to lend colour to the charge that we are xenophobic. It was, I think, grossly unjust after the fine speech of my noble friend Lord Beswick that the suggestion should be made that we were motivated by considerations of that kind. Nothing is further from the truth. Indeed in my submission it is we who have the Weltanschauung, the vision of a much wider association than that provided by Western

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Europe. It was not for nothing that as a young man I sat at the feet of Arthur Henderson and George Lansbury.
We have talked to-day about socialism. If I claim to be a Socialist, as I do, I am in no position to question the socialism of Nenni and Brandt, my old friends in the Socialist International, or to cast doubts upon their conception of a new world order. The fact that I have a strain of chauvinism in me should not prevent me from seeking to relax whatever tensions may still exist between Britain and her former enemies—just as I want to relax the tensions between ourselves and Eastern Europe, an aim which I think may be made more difficult by our accession to the European Economic Community. My second appeal is this. If, in spite of all our efforts, we go into the European Economic Community—and for me it will be a sad day—we must put aside regret and hesitation. We must all of us go in determined to make it work, determined to strive for its success. Failure would mean disaster for ourselves, for Europe and for the world.
6.55 p.m.
LORD ARDWICK: My Lords, I am afraid that we must now return to at least the threshold of the love feast. But first I should like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Young. I am afraid that I heard only the latter part of her speech. May I say that I thought she finished like a classic winner, in a canter, full of breath; and some of us can look back on our own maiden speeches and feel we had no such good luck. The reason why my name is on the list of speakers to-day is that I failed to take it off. I was feeling very much like the noble Lord, Lord Robbins. I will not say what the actual words of La Bruyèere were going through my head, but certainly similar sentiments were; that everything had been said, what was there left to say? And then I recalled that the principles on which your Lordships run this Chamber come from a different European sage, from Goethe who said: "Die Zeit ist unendlich lange"—" Time is infinitely long ". During some of the debates on the Industrial Relations Bill, I felt that that was an under-statement.
I made a speech in our last economic debate, a speech that I might have made to-day. Mr. Geoffrey Rippon was return-
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ing that afternoon from his successful negotiations in Brussels, and I think that I was the first person at Westminster to congratulate him on the result. I was one of a number of noble Lords who pleaded on that afternoon for an immediate measure of reflation. Our wish was speedily gratified. I think that we can congratulate ourselves, if not on our influence, at least upon our percipience. We were pushing at that moment at an open door. I also asked in that speech for a social policy to shelter the poorer people from the impact of our entry into the Market. Since then we have received assurances in the White Paper that pensions and family allowances will be adjusted. But this does not include all the people who need to be included. There is another class, not the poorest but the poorer people who are above the poverty line but below the line of affluence. They must not be forgotten.
Nor must this emergency reflation be mistaken for the macro-economic policy that we shall need if we are going to get growth in the Market. I think that we have to be ready to finance a deficit, perhaps over several years, if our major aim is to be growth. In the Market, and with our sterling obligations reduced, the financing of that deficit should be much easier than it was in the past. I believe that we have to forget many of our fears of a temporary balance-of-payments deficit, and whichever Government is in power will have to cease to make this the subject of Party warfare, so long as it is kept within reasonable bounds. It should be regarded as a courageous investment for the future.
My Lords, to-day is an unhappy one for those of us on this side of the House who support entry on the present terms. The National Executive of the Labour Party has invited the Parliamentary Labour Party to reject the terms and call for a General Election. This, of course, was expected and it is inevitable. If this invitation cannot be accepted, the decision to reject it can be taken only sadly and with great respect. Sadly, because Party unity, as my noble friend has been saying, is the basis of our political system at Westminster, and a very high price has sometimes to be paid for it. Perhaps it requires that only people with the very

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deepest convictions can oppose their Party on a major issue such as this. This is an issue that divides not only Parties but even families. Some of the most notable political families in the land are passionately, though not I hope bitterly, divided. The trade union movement is also taking a vote to-day; and this appears to be split almost down the middle, with probably—I think almost certainly—a majority against entry. I must point out that the Labour policy remains, the compromise policy remains, that Labour is in favour of entry into the Community but not on the present terms.
I must say that, much as I should like to have a General Election, much as I should like to have this Government out, I should not enjoy an Election on the Common Market. It is too emotional. I do not think we should have anything like the reasonable debate which we have had in this Chamber. The case on either side would escalate. There would be exaggerated hopes on one side and exaggerated fears on the other, and a confused conflict, with the Parties divided among themselves. The time for a General Election will come later when the British public will be able to decide which Party is better fitted to protect them against the rigours of the early days of membership of the Common Market. I have no doubt of what that verdict will be.
7.1 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I have an apology to make to your Lordships' House. I was unable to be here yesterday. I was here on Monday and I have read some of the speeches which were made yesterday. On Monday night I was very sick. I do not know whether that was caused through trying to digest so many Common Market statistics. Anyway, I was very sick and I did not feel well yesterday so I did not attend the House.I am happy to say that I do not have to jump on any band wagon, because from the earliest days of this matter of the Common Market being debated in this House I have always been pro, of course with certain reservations. Having read the White Paper, I think those reser-
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vations have now been satisfied. My reservations concerned the fact that there was no practical alternative, and that New Zealand should be safeguarded and the developing Commonwealth should have a protected market in the Common Market. I was rather concerned about sugar as I have farmed in the West Indies and used to have a plantation there. Although I am prepared to accept the agreements that have been made in regard to sugar, I sincerely hope that, presuming we go in, we may be able to extend the sugar agreements. That is the only reservation I now make. I was of course also concerned about sovereignty, but I am happy about that now.
I felt rather inclined to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, when in referring to the statistics and figures in the White Paper he remarked that they obviously indicate a very wide margin. I think Mr. Bernard Shaw once said that if all the economists were laid end to end they would not come to a conclusion. I think that if I were an economist I would come to a conclusion only after the events had occurred. Therefore, I do not think I should be of much use as an economist. The extraordinary thing is that I have always been pro the Common Market regarding agriculture. I have farmed all my life, but I have really never understood why in the first place the great majority of farmers in this country were anti Common Market. I am happy to see that the White Paper says that there will be help for horticulturists and dairy farmers.
I have also been a manufacturer. I was rather amazed to hear the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, say that the Common Market was"a gigantic con ". The whole Confederation of British Industry, nearly every leader of industry in the country and the most experienced men in manufacturing industry are pro Common Market. There cannot be much"con"about that. This antagonism surprises me. I can understand it in relation to the ordinary man-in-the-street who has not had time to study the matter, who is patriotic and insular, and perhaps a little muddleheaded in his patriotism, but I cannot understand people like the noble Lord, who I am sure is far better educated than I am, being so very anti Common Market.

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I remember the late Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, who was extremely kind to me whenever I was in this House, having several talks with me. He seemed convinced that the Common Market was a plot by the Pope to draw us all into Papacy. He seemed quite convinced of that. I can understand the antagonism of the extreme Left of Labour. I can only presume, although I hope it is not true, that they prefer the Soviet Union to Europe. I am sure that is not true; I sincerely hope it is not. I do not want to delve into the differences in the Labour Party because they are nothing to do with me; but what surprises me is that a great number of Socialists, of whom I know a number, are so anti-Common Market.
After all, they have been—perhaps"shouting"is not the Parliamentary word—saying for a long time:
" Workers of the world unite "
but when they get the opportunity to unite with the workers on the Continent they turn their backs. Socialists appear to prefer an organisation like the United Nations, which does not do what it claims to do, while turning their backs on an organisation like the Common Market, which does in fact do what it claims to do in the promotion of trade, peace, stability and brotherhood. This is extraordinary. I agree that some people may think that I am a reactionary.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: Never!
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I am a very tolerant individual. I do not mind admitting that personally (here I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale) I would far rather have a British Empire or a unified Commonwealth, but we have given the British Empire away, for better or worse—I am afraid rather for worse. We gave it away for political freedom, but it has deteriorated in so many cases into political tyranny. I quite agree that if in the last twelve or thirteen years we had been able to organise the Commonwealth into a more united organisation in close association with the Atlantic Alliance—and I was glad to hear what the noble Viscount, Lord Boyd of Merton, said about this—it would have been preferable to joining the Common
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Market. I will not go into the reasons why we have not been able to do that.
If we look at the Commonwealth today, what have we got? Canada is in the embrace of America. South Africa has been driven out. Australia is looking to the Pacific, rather than to the Atlantic, for her trade; and one noble Lord has said that we import only 12 per cent. of Australian goods. The Indian subcontinent is usually at war and in economic chaos. Many of our former colonies in Africa are police States, liable to erupt into revolution at any moment. What alternative is this to joining the E.E.C.? I maintain that there is no alternative. I think that this is very sad, but it is a fact of life.
I was interested to read the book which the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, has just written, called, The Art of the Possible. The art of politics and of life generally is the art of the possible, or perhaps, to be more precise, the art of the practicable. We cannot look at this with emotion. We have to be practical. I believe that Britain still has an important role to play in the world, but I believe that we cannot do this by remaining a geographically small off-shore island of the Continent, grossly overpopulated—there are 56 million of us—with no raw materials apart from a little coal. We are losing our share of the world markets and we cannot exist by hanging out each other's washing. The only real asset we have is our skills and brains—and we have those in plenty. But I honestly believe that to give these full scope to-day we have no alternative but to join the E.E.C.
There is another aspect that I should like to mention. We are a part of Europe, even if we are an island. Europe has offered us the opportunity of joining their Community on what I consider to be favourable terms, and if we spurn that offer we do so at our peril. If we spurn Europe's offer, we shall become the outcasts of Europe. I consider that it would be the greatest diplomatic blunder that our country has ever made if we were now to turn our backs on Europe. It is extraordinary to hear some politicians talk as though we were being asked to join the Patagonian Indians. Some of your Lordships come from the Continent, and others have Continental blood in their veins. If we do not accept this

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offer, we are bound seriously to weaken European and therefore Western solidarity. Perhaps we could have got away with this eight or ten years ago, because at that time the Atlantic Alliance was very strong; but to-day there are signs of cracks in the Alliance, and I do not think that we can afford to hinder Western European unity. I am sure that the average person does not understand how important the question of entry into the E.E.C. is. It is probably the greatest decision this nation has ever had to take in its history. It is a vast decision, and I think it is a tragedy that it appears to be a Party issue. We see the programmes on the B.B.C. about Mrs. Snooks having to pay a shilling more or a shilling less for her butter, but that does not come into it at all. I think that on Monday, the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, hit the nail on the head, when he said that it was a matter of faith. We cannot argue the case on a few figures.
Before I end, I should like to say again that I believe that our destiny is with Europe. If we do not go in, the only alternative is to"go it alone"in a hostile world. I do not believe that that is a possible alternative. During the last few years I have never had any doubt that our destiny lies definitely in Europe and that it is only by joining our wisdom with the influence and technical know-how of Europe that we can yield the greatest benefit to mankind. I can see no alternative.
7.18 p.m.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, I listened with interest to the noble Viscount. He asked whether we would co-operate with the Patagonians. He forgot the Patagonian Welsh, who have been there for 100 years and have done very well.
LORD ST. OSWALD: Twenty thousand of them.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: And 20,000 Welsh are as good as 10,000 Anglo-Saxons, if your Lordships follow the illogicality of that. I am giving a concession to those who have come over, as the noble Viscount said, from Europe and to those, like the noble Viscount, who have European blood in their veins. I should like to kill a few
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of the absurd ideas put forward in this euphoric debate. It has been a delightful debate, and without sounding bumptious or presumptuous, as one who has not had the privilege of being long in your Lordships' House it is an honour to listen to this debate and to take part in it. May I reiterate seriously the point of view put forward by my noble friend Lord Greenwood of Rossendale. Whatever differences of view we may have, the discussion we have listened to has been a panegyric.
At the end of the day, when a decision is made whether we are for or anti the European Economic Community, if we go in it will be our bounden duty to do the best that we can for this country to make a success of it. I think that is the only fair position to take. I go back a long time—I think I was the first to raise this issue in Parliament—to when there was not even a copy of the Treaty of Rome. We have not an official copy of the Treaty of Rome at the present time, although I have three copies of different versions of my own at home. It is no dishonour to have changed one's position, because in 1957 the Government, then Conservative, produced Cmnd. No. 72, and they said:
" Her Majesty's Government could not contemplate entering arrangements which would in principle make it impossible for the United Kingdom to treat imports from the Commonwealth at least as favourably as those from Europe."
A little later (I had great respect, and honoured and liked the man, despite his idiosyncrasies) the Prime Minister, Mr. Macmillan, in speaking to the President of the United States in the 1960s, was against the European concept and the European Economic Community.
Let us kill this atavism that people are trying to arouse here. Anybody would think that we are Little Englanders. Nobody in this nation is a Little Englander. What is this noble House talking about? Come down—I will use an old-fashioned phrase—to the homes of the working classes in the hills and valleys of Wales and, God bless 'em! you see old fretwork there of the 1910s. Any of your Lordships who have read Emlyn Williams or Dylan Thomas's poetry know the weirdness of the people who used to go soldiering at a shilling a day for the Queen or the King. We had to stop the colliers from joining up

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or we should not have had any coal. All over the world the Britisher has shown his ability. What is this about us being Little Islanders, and a little island on the edge of the world? There is no edge on a sphere. Anywhere on a sphere is the centre of the world, if you have the energy so to make it. Anybody who knows a bit of spherical geometry knows that.
Let me take another canard, an illogical piece of arithmetic. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, had a lot of fun today: a vol-au-vent to politics—the French translation,"light wind ". I do not know whether the wind was light, or in which direction it was blowing, but the noble Lord made a lot of fun about sovereignty. That to me, coming from a lawyer, was a little inexplicable, because I know what sovereignty is about. I could give the noble Lord eleven cases of what sovereignty is about and where it is vital. Our excellent Ambassador, Mr. Soames (I had an affection for him, too, when he was Minister of Agriculture; but he was not quite sure then about the European Economic Community), said at Caen in Normandy the other day:
" By accepting all the laws and regulations of the Community—for we accept them all and the negotiations essentially concern transitional arrangements—we have made our choice, our act of faith."
Let us be honest with ourselves. Whatever statistics I try to bring out, they can be counterpoised with statistics from somebody else. It is an act of faith. And there is nothing wrong with faith, because faith can move mountains. But let us see how much faith we can have in these things. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, had a jovial little time about sovereignty. I should like, with all humility, to tell him that sovereignty is about our tariffs and foreign trade policy; it is about our agriculture; it is about our small farmers and our fishermen in Cardigan Bay. Sovereignty is about our taxation—and, by God! we lost the United States of America because there was taxation without representation. Has this noble House forgotten that? In the Treaty of Rome there is a move for the harmonisation of taxation. And by the Colonna Plan and the Barre Plan there is the suggestion that in ten years' time they will have had a unity of Community interest in taxation, in approaches to tariffs and in approaches
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ultimately to defence. I promise not to be long, and I will leave that, because a lot has been said about it already.
There are three things. Then, the free movement of capital will no longer lie in the discussions of the Prime Minister and the Treasury; it will be in the bureaucracy of Brussels. Perhaps I may put that interrogatively and say: will it be in the bureaucracy of Brussels? I think so. The aid for backward regions will not be entirely in our hands. Then there is the transport system, and roads. I see that the A.A. want another 2,800 miles of new roads in Britain. Heaven knows where we shall grow any corn or wheat soon if we go on like this! We are destroying man for the machine, and this is what worries me. It is the apotheosis of the multi-national firm. We are doing with the calculus and figures and bits of paper marvellous graphs and parabolas about the wonderful time we shall have in the Common Market, and forgetting the simplicity of the human being.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, in making her maiden speech, opened it with first-class words of wisdom. If I may be allowed to say so, I very much enjoyed her speech, because she dealt with the simple people. The purpose of this Parliament, which over a thousand or more years of history we have tried to build, was to try to protect the simple, sometimes illiterate, but sometimes very wise people. A man can be illiterate and infinitely wise. As I said once before in this House, when God asked Solomon what gift he would like, he did not ask for cleverness; he asked for wisdom. I do not pretend that I have it. It is one of the greatest gifts that God can give. But this is what we need at this moment: and we do not get it by denigrating Harold Wilson. Nor do we get it by denigrating Ted Heath, if you like to put it that way. That is what upset me when yesterday my noble friend Lord George-Brown and the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, spent most of their time dealing with Harold Wilson. I remember the debate quite clearly. I was in the private meeting of the Party in another place when we agreed on the terms, and it was my noble friend Lord George-Brown who said that he wanted at least 20 years' transition period for New Zealand to learn the new way of life. It is vitally important to us to know these points.

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Another point is this. Shall we have control over our social security? I had the privilege of being a Minister in the Ministry of Social Security, and had I the time I could point out vital differences between the European system and ours. I do not say it would be derogatory, but our sovereignty would be lost. Mergers and monopolies are fine for the multinational firms, but they are not fine for the hill farmers. State purchasing policy, State aid for research and development, our monetary and economic policy, and our regionalism have all been dealt with by other speakers to-day.
Consequently, summing it up, what do I want from whatever system we are developing? I was delighted with Willy Brandt's efforts of Ost-Politik. I have had the privilege, like others, of meeting the man. But I can see a world now that is moving rapidly forward. I remember talking to Mr. Trudeau. I had the privilege of being with him and talking about his effort to get into China. We see Mr. Nixon looking anew at China. Things are moving in the world. Maybe we do want this united Europe, but I want a united Europe that brings in the East and the West, and where there is a real effort to get a modus vivendi between the Eastern Powers and the West. How much I agree with so many of the historians and others who take both sides of the debate in this House! We have fought and shot at each other for too long. I hope we can find an answer. But, please—I say this to noble Lords in this House who think we are troglodytes who happen to question going in—at least Dive us our due in believing that we are sincere, even if you think we are wrong, in questioning the haste with which at this juncture we seem to have rushed into Europe. We need to beware. That is all I wish to say, and I keep my promise and finish at half past the hour.
7.31 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, this whole issue is one which, by its nature, provokes evangelical ardours. Although my own ardour was ignited many years ago, and has been burning steadily ever since, it is wise in this debate to recognise a clash of evangelisms (particularly after listening to the noble Lord who has just sat down) between those who, with
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equal sincerity, desire or oppose entry to the European Community, It does not seem proper to me in the context of a"take note"debate to add my evangelical fuel to the conflagration at this point. Therefore, although in a speech on this subject the easiest passage to compose is the peroration, I have purposely, somewhat self-denyingly, abscinded my peroration so that this speech will end in some minutes with neither a bang nor a whimper.
There are many arguments posed by the objectors which puzzle me, many illusions which seem to me to lead them astray. I am told that the witty wife of a diplomat of one of the Six countries, posted in London, remarked, though not in my hearing:"You British are certainly very unusual in some ways. You seem to think that if you officially take up membership of the Community at midnight on a particular date you will wake up at seven the next morning, wearing a beret and a thin black moustache and smelling of garlic. It isn't true!" My Lords, that is fanciful enough at face value, but I have a feeling that some noble Lords—and one example might be the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek—are tormented by exactly that kind of nightmare. I see his dreams as being haunted by that kind of vivid prospective peril. In view of the fact that the moment of technical entry is likely to be at midnight on New Year's Eve, such a transformtion would presumably take place during the singing of"Auld Lang Syne ", which might be even more disturbing and ironic. It might find the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, breaking into Breton, which is, after all, related to Welsh among the Indo-European languages.
Of course, that is no more than a colourful extrapolation of existing anxieties, themselves I believe figments of a somewhat nervous imagination. I wonder whether it is possible to say anything that has not been said before to allay these needless, baseless and I believe harmful anxieties. There is no effort, there is no intention, there is no desire within the European Community to suppress or to eliminate national characteristics or to transpose them. If there were such an intention it would fail. Far from being an endeavour to extinguish

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the historic attributes of proud and distinctive nations, the concept of the Community is to co-ordinate those attributes and so derive the maximum benefit from them. Is there not as much to gain for Britain as for anyone in that concept? Is there not as much to be given by Britain as by anyone? What has to be eliminated, because it wreaks harm, is the suspicion of centuries. We must scotch that suspicion; we must scotch the snake which has whispered enmity between neighbours so effectively for so long.
We have the example of how it was done in the course of building the Community. My friend of long standing, M. Alain Camu, has done some specific and productive research—in some cases even embarrassing research upon which I shall plagiarise selectively to-day. Alain Camu is a Belgian and a European, Economic Adviser to three Belgian Prime Ministers, a graduate of Oxford, Louvain and Yale, with an English wife and a knowledge of this country which is translated into deep and intelligent affection. He has made the effort to look back and tabulate the kind of fierce objections being made against the European idea in all of the six potential member countries, and among their leaders, during the months of decision which led to the forming of the Community. In retrospect, he finds that they are being matched in every instance by the objections being made in our country to-day. He selected 14 instances from among many more, and I will no more than touch upon a few of them to-day.
There was the fear of a technocratic Europe ruled by faceless bureaucrats. In Germany, Herr Mommer, of the Social Democrats, was critical of too much power being given to that bureaucracy; and in Belgium M. Pierson, a Socialist, feared a transfer of sovereignty from the people to an institutiton relying on experts and international civil servants immune from control, either by Governments or Parliaments; while M. Moureaux, a Liberal, saw the masses becoming distrustful of the European institutions, and this mistrust degenerating into malevolence. From another direction came the fear of a member country being swamped with foreign agricultural products. Belgians, Luxembourgers and Germans all expressed this vivid fear, and the particular
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fear that small farmers would be the first to be affected. The French joined them in this anxiety, and the Germans were particularly affected by the menace of"an impossible balance-of-payments problem ". This was a fear for the Germans! There were anxieties as to the increased cost of living, strongest in the Netherlands and Germany. In Holland, Mr. Korthals of the Popular Party for Liberty and Democracy said the Netherlands had been pursuing a policy of a cheap cost of living which would be imperilled.
There were warnings of a sacrifice of social advantage, brought about by the harmonisation of social systems—what was referred to as a levelling-down process. The French trade unions were particularly vehement in charging that their recent gains would be"wiped out ", and M. Mendes-France called the prospect"fearsome ". Many fears were expressed as to the threat of lower wages, unemployment and the invasion by cheap foreign labour. In France, Mr. Georges Villiers, the trade union leader, told the Conseil National du Patronat in January, 1957:
" If France enters the Common Market today, with the economic and and financial conditions imposed upon her, both unemployment and appalling economic disorder would be inevitable."
Both Left and Right in most of the countries were certain that the growing German colossus would swamp their economies. There was a widely shared prophecy of a disruption of the industrial structure and a threat to all small businesses. Monsieur Raymond Scheyven, a Minister in many Governments before and since, declared:
" Belgium with its antiquated industrial structure is sure to be crushed! "
There was a charge that development areas would be neglected.
There were, characteristically, two quite contradictory alarms: first, that Europe would become capitalist dominated, and second that Europe would become Socialist dominated. In every country, without exception, the charge was levelled that entry had been negotiated on bad terms, with needless concessions; that the whole thing was being rushed through, and that public opinion was not sufficiently informed. In France and Belgium there was a vigorous

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concern that association with former Empires would be destroyed.
The main and most ferocious complaint in every country was that sovereignty would be surrendered. The quotations of distinguished men voicing this certainty are beyond numbering. M. Leo Hanon, the present Secretary of State to the President and Government of France said:
" The treaty strips France of her personality, deprives her of her rightful place and means the end of a way of life which, as the country will see when it returns to its senses, is being sacrificed for a mirage."
M. Debré spoke of"digging France's grave "; and M. Raymond Dronne, Progressiste, said that the idealists favouring entry were neglecting economic and political realities and would be brought down to earth; while the Communists declared that France would become a mere province ruled by a German/American capitalist coalition. Mr. Korthals of Holland declared,
" This transfer of power means that the keys to the life of our national community will be handed over to others."
In each prospective member country equally savage denunciations were being uttered. Despite them, the Community came into being, not simply to the satisfaction and advantage of all the populations concerned but to the satisfaction of virtually all the former opponents, individually. Herr Margulies, of the German Free Democratic Party, who had said in May, 1957, that the measures were incompatible with the Basic Law, is now a convinced European and a member of the Euratom Commission.
None the less I have been told seriously, gravely and I have no doubt sincerely, by some opponents of British entry that one country or another in the present Community would be glad enough to withdraw. Holland has been mentioned as a case in point. I have been told this by my colleagues in my own Party. Yet every scrap of first-hand evidence I have been able to obtain directly and categorically contradicts any such belief. The testing time came for the Community from July 1, 1965, to January 17, 1966, the period of the"empty chair ": seven months during which General de Gaulle withdrew all representation from the Council of Ministers and all France's
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permanent representatives from all activities, so bringing the evolution of the Community to a standstill; seven months during which he arrested the very dynamic on which the Community depended. That was the time when the Common Market would have collapsed, if it was going to collapse, if it had lacked the inner strength, stamina, conviction and the popular support essential to survival. During that time I went several times to conferences and seminars held in one or other of the Six countries and heard many expressions of dismay, even of bitterness, and a few proposals as to how the Community might have to adapt itself, but never a suggestion, however hasty, that the whole concept might have to be abandoned.
In the event, the Community lived through this testing period unchanged and undeterred, and nobody seriously doubts its health and sense of purpose to-day—at least no one within it. The Community survived even that ordeal without us to strengthen it. I am one of those who regret that we were not in from the beginning. But this late arrival on the threshold gives us one kind of advantage, it seems to me. The faults and deformities of the European structure, upon which our own national debate is focusing at this moment, have been shown to be, at worst, unimportant, on the European test-bed in the course of 12 years. The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, said yesterday that if it were shown that a majority of opinion in the country were against entry to-day, that would not mean to him that the same would apply in six months. I agree. What is equally pertinent is that even if scepticism should persist up to the moment of entry, in the light of Continental experience we can expect it to dissolve once that experience has been shared. Measured against the prize, we can face the ordeal.
This, I had supposed, was in the mind of Mr. Harold Wilson when on January 23, 1967, addressing the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, he said:
" I believe that understanding, that spirit of give and take, the creation of the right conditions in the task on which we have embarked will enable us to carry the goodwill and support of the vast majority of all our peoples. And above all, the goodwill and support of the young people of Britain and of the other countries represented here."

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He continued with words which moved me, as a political opponent, at the time, and which move me to-day:
" Those of us who are entrusted with the responsibilities of Government have the challenging duty—and it is an exciting one—of leading an impatient generation. It is a generation impatient of the mumblings and bumblings and fumblings of what has too often passed for statesmanship."
He continued by saying that this generation, which would write the next chapters of history—
'will condemn beyond any power of ours to defend or excuse the failure to seize what so many of us can clearly see is now a swirling, urgent tide in man's affairs If we do fail—I want this to be clearly understood—the fault will not lie at Britain's door. But the cost, and above all the cost of missed opportunities, will fall, and in increasing measure, on every one of us."
Those are Mr. Wilson's words, quoted directly from the Council of Europe report. What may also be significant is to recall the response to that speech, given before the Assembly in Strasbourg, by the Leader of the Conservative Party delegation. That was Sir Alec Douglas-Home, himself a former Prime Minister, and he declared:
" I wonder if he will permit me to make it clear that the Conservative members of the United Kingdom delegation to the Assembly fully support the initiative which he is taking and that therefore the movement for British entry into the European Community may now be seen against the background of broad national unity in Britain."
My Lords, it is not necessary either to emphasise the heartening effect of that exchange upon our friends in Europe or to labour the discrepancy between the political climate which prevailed then and which prevails now. Neither, I should like to make plain, in case there should be any misconception here, am I quoting Mr. Wilson in order to score, still less to taunt. Such urchin antics have no appeal in this debate. I quote him in this instance in order to recall that when statemanship was called for in 1967 he was ready to provide it, assisted by what might be called a touch of the"pop"vernacular of modern statesmanship—" mumbling, bumbling and fumbling ". To-day that opportunity recurs. The frustrations and concomitant strains and pressures of Opposition are known to all of us, and it behoves us to try to understand. Yet I wonder whether there has ever been a time when a Leader of the Opposition had such an opening for an
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act of definitive and enduring statesmanship. It looks to-day as if the portal to that act of positive statesmanship has been deliberately closed by Mr. Wilson. The only point of introducing this recollection to-day is to express the hope—although it may appear fairly naive (to-day of all days) that between now and October he may reopen that portal with equal deliberation, and so earn the gratitude of his thinking countrymen and of those on the Continent who would infinitely prefer to welcome a Britain openly united in purpose.
I agree with what the noble Earl, Lord Longford, said yesterday, that no Party is likely, or deserves, to gain by saying that it has been wiser than any other in this matter. As I view it, this endeavour was embarked upon by one Conservative Government and by two Labour Governments, and the second attempt of a Labour Government is now being carried on by a Conservative Government. This would seem to me a fair division of effort, rewarded, or at least acknowledged as I should like to have seen and should still like to see, by a fair division of tributes at the end of the day.
I have only one more thing to say, and it will be no more controversial in tone than anything I have said up to now, though it will reveal a certain comprehension-gap as between the opponents and proponents of entry. The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, is one of those, as he declared on Monday, who believes that our desire to join Europe is impelled by"defeatism ". With all respect. I see it exactly the other way about. In our eyes it is reluctance to join which seems anchored to defeatism. So many of the arguments of the opponents seem to be rooted in the assumption that we in Britain cannot compete. If they needed a campaign slogan, it could hardly be more apt than."Anything we can do they can do better ". With every fibre of my conviction, I reject this, though not so roughly as the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, when he said, in his outstanding speech of yesterday,"If we are afraid, we had better pack up and go home and try to get back to a peasant society ". But there is far more to it than a rejection of an inferiority complex. The purpose of membership of the European Community permits competition and requires it, but it is the very opposite of a rat

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race. The principal theme is collaboration.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark spoke yesterday of the"family"of Europe which we would be joining. It might be fair to call it a family business, in which we shall have an important seat on the board when we care to join, but not until and unless we so choose. The kind of welcome which awaits us, surely, is illustrated by the course of the recent negotiations. True enough, those negotiations, as they had to be, were a form of bargaining, and accepted as such by all those taking part. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, opening for the Opposition on Monday, said of the terms which had emerged that they were"not harsh or intolerable; but on the other hand they are far from generous ". In a somewhat artificial parenthesis, while referring to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, I should like to say how firmly I declare myself in agreement with him when he speaks of his vision of Europe eventually embracing East and West. I join with the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, and with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, in saying that Europe does not end at the Elbe. That is certainly a vision that I share with them, and I am certain that it will eventually be attained by a peaceful process of which this is an early step. But the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, spoke more immediately of the terms, and he did not find them generous.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, was, not many years ago, a businessman, and I have no doubt a shrewd business man. If, in a business deal, after the bargaining, the other party declared that Lord Shepherd's terms had been"generous"he might well have been somewhat dismayed if not offended. If the terms reached on this wider matter had been regarded by us as"generous"they might have been considered rash and improvident by many of the people of the present Common Market. That might have had the effect of undermining the authority of those negotiating for the Community, and could have caused some resentment against us, before or upon our entry. That would have been in nobody's interest. In fact, I will take very mild issue with the noble Lord, purely in terms of interpretation or
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evaluation, and say with regard to New Zealand, for instance, the terms could be regarded as generous and are certainly so regarded by the Community.
And here I end by saying, once again, that we must leave suspicion behind and enter in a mood of bold but informed confidence. That is the mood which will best serve the mutual interests of ourselves and our partners-to-be. If the course and climate and proven intention of the recent negotiations is to be taken as a measure of our future fraternity, as I believe it can be, then in sober assessment we have abundant cause for that confidence. If the attitude of the founder members in those talks was an earnest of the welcome which awaits us, such confidence in a strong and abiding partnership is justified and, I would say, unconquerable.
7.55 p.m.
LORD CONGLETON: My Lords, I should like to commence by offering my congratulations to all those who have made maiden speeches during the course of this great debate: to the noble Baroness, Lady Young; to the noble Lord, Lord McFadzean; to the noble Lord, Lord Blake, and the noble Lord, Lord Robens of Woldingham. I should like to offer my apologies to the noble Baroness for having been absent during the course of her speech, but I will read it to-morrow with the greatest interest. I should also apologise to your Lordships for having been absent for a considerable period yesterday afternoon when it was not possible for me to be present in your Lordships' House.
I have set myself just two tasks in addressing your Lordships on this great national issue which is before us, and I shall be brief. The first is to make my own affirmation of faith as to the wisdom, or otherwise, of the Government's initiative in seeking to gain entry for this country to the European Economic Community; and the second is to draw attention to a specific matter (of which I have given previous notice to the Government) which might well be described as being concerned with one item in the small print of the White Paper proposals. It has to do with the Common Agricultural Policy.
As I have listened to this debate over the past two days I have become gripped

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by something akin to a feeling of inevitability. I do not know whether I am alone in this, but the experience of hearing from so many wise and distinguished figures, representing an array of interests and experience, is quite remarkable; to have listened to this almost uninterruptedly favourable expression of opinion for the Government White Paper (Cmnd. 4715), which is before us, is beginning to have a numbing effect upon my own mental processes. It seems that there has been a massive vote of confidence, both in quality and in quantity alike, in the Government's efforts in this matter. Before I came on Monday to your Lordships' House I had decided that, unless there was something totally new and undiscovered which was unfavourable, or which cast a different bias upon the matter, I would offer my voice to support the Government on this issue. Having heard the remarkable and distinguished speeches, I am now further confirmed in my belief that the country's best interests would be served by gaining entry to the E.E.C., and that the terms now offered are acceptable. I further express this hope—and it is a hope that stops only just short of a belief—that I should have had the good sense to speak in this vein had the terms offered been presented by a Labour Government. For this really is a national issue: of that there can be no shred of doubt.
Not a great deal has been mentioned about the other countries who at this time are also seeking entry to the E.E.C. I will not take up your time with personal reminiscence and recollection, but I feel a personal sense of involvement, since I am a member of a generation of my family, the first to be born and wholly domiciled outside what is now the Republic of Ireland, for over 200 years. However, I have a connection with Norway, a country which I have known for over twenty years. It strengthens my belief that this is a truly European operation. We are going to join our friends, and our friends are with us as we move forward to that end. I share the hopes and aspirations that have been expressed before me in this debate, and with an eloquence which I cannot hope to match, that the joining of this country within the E.E.C. framework will lead to a better life in a better society for all who may live to enjoy it—I do not mean just inside the
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E.E.C. framework, but outside those boundaries right across the world.
It is a fine thing to express these honourable, noble and ideal sentiments, and I hope that I shall not be thought carping or churlish if I turn for a moment to something which is both immediate and practical. After all, the edifice we seek to construct must be properly put together. I suggest that it is not altogether out of place to consider at this stage what might be called the"nuts, bolts and screws"in the whole matter, and I will detain your Lordships with my verbal screwdriver for a very short moment. I am a farmer; I am also other things, but I speak now as a farmer. The Government are dismantling the provisions of the Agriculture Acts 1947 and 1957 which allowed farmers guaranteed markets for certain produce, and I refer specifically to meat and cereals. The deficiency payment is being phased out and will become a thing of the past whether we enter the European Community or not. It seems to me that this has dispersed responsibility for the marketing of the two agricultural products which I have mentioned, cereals and meat, in two directions: one, towards the Minister with special responsibility (I suppose in consultation with the Board of Trade) for minimum import prices and levies, and in the other direction towards the individual producer who will be thrown back on his own resources.
The individual farmer will seek to form trade associations, and will get together with other producers so as to strengthen his position in the Market. This process of strengthening the individual producers in the Market can only come about, it seems to me, with a certain amount of Government encouragement. I believe opinions have been expressed that the Government feel that this will be a desirable thing to happen. But there is a difficulty. The operation of the Restrictive Trade Practices Acts 1956 and 1968 at present appears to be inimical to the formation of trade associations which would, as I have suggested, lead to the strengthening of the hand of the individual producer in the Market. There is a difficulty in this area. I will not argue in great detail the case against restrictive trade practices legislation and its effect on the farmers' marketing position, but there are two points to be made. First,

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this legislation is apparently already frustrating attempts by individual farmers to get together with others to make some sense of what might otherwise be a rather chaotic marketing picture; and secondly, similar legislation enacted by member countries is much more liberally interpreted by the Council of the E.E.C.
My Lords, we have to get this position straight and clear before entry into the E.E.C. becomes a fact, otherwise farmers in this country will not be operating on fair and level terms when offering their produce in the Market. There will be a bias in favour of the other countries of the E.E.C. What I seek from the Government at this stage is some undertaking that they will look at the situation in order to correct the difficulty which is created by the present operation of the restrictive trade practices legislation. This is not just some esoteric topic which I have dredged up at this late hour in order to lend some semblance of individualism to what I have to offer this afternoon. There is a problem here, and I hope that the Government will be able to offer some reply, perhaps in the winding up speech. I have no quarrel with the Government's attitude towards the agricultural industry in this country. With the adoption of the Common Agricultural Policy provisions it seems to me that they have gone a long way towards offering the farmers of this country a very good chance of competing on fair and level lines with our Continental competitors.
I shall sit down very shortly. There is just one other thing I wish to say. It has already been stated, I think in particular by my noble friend Lady Sharp, by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, and the noble Lord, Lord Blake, that there is a feeling that the ordinary people of this country do not understand what this debate is about. I have said outside your Lordships' House on previous occasions that I believe this to be so. I should like the Government to make some effort to get the full facts before the country as early as possible.
My Lords, I support the Government on this issue. As a farmer I have no fears for the future, apart from that one particular matter which I have already mentioned. I cannot believe that the
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farmers of this country can do other than support the proposals. Again I reiterate the hope they will have the good sense to do so. I think that they would have had sufficient good sense to do so had the proposals been put forward by a Labour Government.
8.5 p.m.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, at this late stage of the debate I have no desire to detain your Lordships unduly, nor to attempt to cover again the economic and political arguments so convincingly deployed again to-day, not least by my noble friend Lord Harlech. However, as one who has been actively involved for nearly 25 years in promoting the cause of European unity, I hope you will pardon me if I say a few words on this momentous occasion. For me it is a matter of deep personal satisfaction that the Six have finally accepted our application and that the Government negotiators have been able to secure conditions and other arrangements which make it possible for us to go in
But when we say that this decision is momentous, let us not forget that it is all part of a process of advance towards European unity which has been going on for a very long time. It is hardly a question, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek said, of rushing into Europe. It was Mr. Attlee who, in the early days of the last war, said that when hostilities were over Europe must federate or perish. This theme naturally had a deep appeal to the shattered and newly liberated people of the Continent. It also met with an immediate response among many people in this country; and very much the same combination of men with widely differing political views have kept up the pressure over the years which has finally led to the present situation.
After the war many steps forward were taken in Europe in different fields—economic, military and political—not necessarily federalist, but all leading to a wider degree of unity. There was the great lead given by Mr. Churchill in his Zurich speech in 1946; there was the Brussels Pact of the Six negotiated by Mr. Ernest Bevin; there was the establishment of the Council of Europe with its Consultative Assembly in 1949; there was the Schumann Plan, later known as the Steel

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and Coal Community; and finally, in 1957, there was the Treaty of Rome.
Very soon after I became a Member of another place in 1950 there was a debate on the Schumann Plan, which some noble Lords may remember. It took place on June 26, 1950, and was opened by Mr. Anthony Eden, as he then was. In a Motion calling on the Labour Government to take part in the consultations in Paris with a view to setting up the Plan he said, speaking of Franco-German relations:
" It is universally recognised, except by the Communists, that the French initiative towards an entirely new relationship with Germany is fundamentally a movement for peace."
He went on to say—
" It must not, it cannot be allowed to fail."
Unfortunately, the Government of the time, in the person of Sir Stafford Cripps, rejected the Motion in terms not dissimilar from many of the views we hear expressed to-day. I believe it was largely the fear of a supranational authority, so well described by the noble Lord, Lord Robens, in his speech yesterday, which lay at the root of this reluctance to be drawn into European affairs. At that time this was perhaps understandable. Yet then, as now, had we done so we should no doubt have secured modifications in what are now known as the terms.
It is notable that it was on that occasion that the present Prime Minister, who has been so largely instrumental in achieving success on this theme of Europe, made his maiden speech. It is also significant that my right honourable friend—my old friend—Mr. Enoch Powell, quite consistently abstained on our Motion, which was defeated by, I think, only 20 votes. This rejection, which was followed by the refusal of Mr. Bevin to support the proposal made at the Council of Europe for a European Army, was met with nothing but dismay on the part of our friends on the Continent.
I thought that my noble friend Lord Boothby, in his speech on Monday, rather unfairly accused my noble friend Lord Avon of being passionately opposed to anything beyond a vague association with Europe. Whatever Mr. Eden (as he then was) may have thought about supranational organisations, what is quite certain, it seems to me, is that the debate to which I have just referred, and his
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further action in bringing Germany into what had then become Western European Union, and the guarantee to maintain British troops in Europe indefinitely, refute the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Boothby. However this may be, one thing is certain: at that time we could have come into European institutions entirely on our own terms. By 1957 the position had hardened, but even then I believe that great concessions would have been made to us if we had been willing to sign the Treaty of Rome. There again an opportunity was missed, but on that occasion it was by a Conservative Government. As I have mentioned this, I must say that this is a matter which has always transcended British Party political lines. From the earliest days in the European Union of Federalists, in the United Europe movement, in the Council of Europe at Strasbourg, members of all three political Parties have sat on the same committees, joined in the same debates and pursued the same objects. I can think of no other political field where Party political differences have been so consistently overridden by a higher political ideal. So it is to-day.
Of course, the converse also is true. The opponents of the European Unity in both Parties feel just as passionately, and I am sure quite sincerely, that we cannot abandon our insular position. We respect their views, but we cannot always understand them. I have sometimes the feeling that they recall with thankfulness the fact that we are an island and that the existence of the Channel has ensured the preservation of this country from invasion by Phillip II, by Napoleon and by Hitler. I feel myself that such thinking is a little out of date.
The question of sovereignty has been raised again and again, and once more yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, who I am sorry to say is not now in his place. The fact that so many opponents of the Common Market or of a United Europe seem to ignore is that every time an international treaty is signed there is a secession, or a partial secession, of sovereignty. In the case of the United Nations, as in the Treaty of Rome, this is unlimited. Yet the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, who objects to sitting down with Europeans, presumably does not object to the conduct of our affairs being the

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subject of decision—I do not say"dictation"because of the Security Council veto—by 120-odd nations, many of them one-Party States, police States, Communist or military dictatorships. The noble Lord sees nothing strange in this.
During the past three days we have heard a great deal about the Commonwealth, and here I speak as one who, in our former Imperial days (and the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, will perhaps recall some of our interchanges in the other place) was sometimes considered to be Right Wing or perhaps even downright reactionary. I would only say that it is undoubtedly the case that had we gone into the Steel and Coal Community in 1951, had we entered the Common Market in 1957, had we in fact put ourselves at the head of the whole European idea, we could certainly have obtained far better terms for the Commonwealth than we have to-day.
I can remember well that in the late 1940's, and in particular at the unofficial congress in The Hague in 1948, the German, French and Italians and the smaller Powers were really on their knees, imploring us to come in and lead them. I remember being present when a German delegation, headed by Dr. Adenauer (and one must remember that these people were still virtually regarded as international pariahs) were first intoduced to Mr. Churchill. I spoke to Dr. Adenauer and his colleagues afterwards and they, just as the French and others at that time, assured us that we could obtain practically any terms we wished regarding the Commonwealth if only we would join in European unity. Of course the details were never thrashed out. But certainly some leading Commonwealth statesmen saw the advantages of a unification of Europe, which on at least two occasions had caused them to send their sons to fight and die alongside ourselves in Europe on account of Continental quarrels. There can be no doubt that those disputes, which lead to such terrible slaughter, were not solely dynastic, nationalistic or ideological but were due also in large measure to uncontrolled economic ambitions and pressures.
In the debate on the Schumann plan to which I referred, Mr. Eden quoted a speech made at about that time by Mr.
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Robert Menzies, the Prime Minister of Australia. He said this:
" A peaceful and prosperous Europe would be a godsend to the British people the world over. I for one am not, therefore, hostile to the basic idea of European union but friendly to it and hopeful for it."
I have always been convinced that the Commonwealth, including the developing territories, could only benefit from a strong and united Europe. Take the case of Africa. I think I am right in saying that it was Mikoyan who said:
" Europe without Africa is like a chicken plucked and ready for the pot."
The same is true in reverse. Surely we did not develop and encourage our African Colonies, and ultimately bring them to independence, solely to enable them to be handed over to some harsher and far more terrible grip. I believe that as members of the Common Market we can offer to our former colonial territories advantages which they did not even enjoy in the heyday of Imperial Preferences which after all never went very far. With the agreed continuation of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement for the interim period, with the numerous concessions as associated States offered under the Treaty of Rome, with all the special arrangements which have been made and which can in future be made, I believe that the Commonwealth countries can and will obtain an access to great markets which will only increase as the years go on.
Let me take just a small case, in regard to New Zealand—I am not dealing with the matter of dairy products, which of course goes far wider. At the present moment, the sale of frozen lamb—in other words, New Zealand lamb—is for practical purposes virtually forbidden in France, Germany and Italy by national regulations; that is to say, regulations banning frozen meat or forcing it to be sold in special shops. Does anyone imagine that this sort of regulation would be allowed to persist once we were in and well established in the E.E.C. at all levels? Of course not.
My Lords, I turn finally to the political aspects. Mr. Dean Acheson made the remark that Britain had lost an Empire but had not discovered a role. This has been profoundly true, though I still believe that since the break-up of our Empire we have been able from time to

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time to play a useful part as a link between the United States and Europe and s the centre of the Commonwealth; a useful part, but never a part which gave full range to our national political genius. I fear that we have felt lost at times, frustrated and sometimes humiliated. I have no doubt this has also had a demoralising effect on our young people. Here in Europe, in the Common Market, with our vast experience and our worldwide connections and influence, our chance has at last come. Here we can once more play a leading and decisive role in world affairs in one of the world's greatest economic and political communities. Here we can once more, not now as head of an Empire, but as one of the leading members of a powerful European community of nations with a common historical, intellectual and religious background, resume the mantle of greatness which for the past ten or fifteen years has been slipping from our shoulders.
8.20 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, although over the last three days we have already had well over 100 speeches in this debate, it is a subject of such tremendous importance that I do not think we need apologise for having so many members from all Parties taking part—both here and in another place—because of all the crucial decisions in this century, or, I suggest, for a good many centuries, this is surely the most crucial. Few people would disagree that we have somehow to sort out the ideology from the practical when we discuss a matter of this kind. We have what some people perhaps may think the ideological aspect of the Commonwealth, old and new, as against the practicalities of a greatly enlarged market and of a closer association with European countries.
We have had in the course of this debate some very notable speeches; we have had, I think, four maiden speeches of great calibre. But the speech which impressed me more than any other was that of the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, not because I agreed with it—there may well be many noble Lords who disagreed, as I did, with certain parts of it—but I believe he did a great service to this House by pouring a douche of cold water, unwelcome as it might have been, at a time when we were in danger of becoming overwhelmed by euphoria.
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I am, broadly speaking, for going into Europe, but if it came to a vote now I could not put my hand on my heart and vote for going in at this particular moment of time. It is rather like the batsman who has taken a long time to play himself in because he has not found the right ball to crack to the boundary. That may well come, and when I have read all the debates here and in another place I, and perhaps a number of other noble Lords, may come to a final decision.
It can fairly be said that the issue of the Common Market has had a good deal of publicity, particularly over the past few months, in Press, television, radio and so on. But the fact remains, as was pointed out by, among others, the noble Lord, Lord Blake, in a particularly outstanding maiden speech, that the general public of this country still has to be convinced that it is a good thing for Britain to take this major decision. The Government have not a great deal of time in which to convince the public, and the question is how this is going to be done.
It seems to me that we have two important aspects here. First of all, on the economic side, I think there are tremendous overriding advantages of going into Europe on those grounds. I agree so much with my noble friend Lord Selsdon, who made an admirable speech, based on his own experience of international companies; and bring in my own experience of 18 years in insurance with Lloyd's, and at present five years as a management consultant with, so to speak, an international looking faith. On those grounds I am convinced that entry into Europe can only be good.
When I say Europe, we have heard a good deal about the countries of the Six but we have not heard very much about the European Free Trade countries. The noble Lord, Lord Congleton, mentioned Norway. I have been recently to Finland and Denmark, and I believe in those countries we have pretty good prospects. Last year there was a"Britain in Finland"trade drive, and we increased exports by something like 70 per cent. Next year there is a"Britain in Denmark"trade drive, where again we have considerable prospects, particularly, I think, in industry, possibly in the building of new ports, and in farm implements

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and so on. These countries must be considered very seriously, in addition to the benefits to be derived from the Six.
So my concept of a European Community is not only a partnership of the European Economic Community, where admittedly the financial strength lies, but with the European Free Trade countries, where I believe the good will resides. I think this is a point which has not been brought out enough. I wonder whether my noble friend the Leader of the House would have anything to say on that point when he comes to reply, whether there will be consultations with the European Free Trade countries, both before and after we join, assuming that we do join, so that all this can be made perfectly clear.
My Lords, I turn for a few moments again to New Zealand. I would not go as far as some noble Lords and say that the terms are very generous. I think they are generous, but I would not go further than that. I spoke with Cabinet Ministers in New Zealand when I was there two months ago, and I have spoken to New Zealand businessmen, both there and recently when they have come over here, and they mostly subscribe to that view, that they are generous terms; but I do not think we should get too carried away by this, because the real nub of the problem will come in 1977.
Reference was made to Denmark by a noble Lord, earlier on this afternoon, with the comment that possibly Denmark would not look too favourably upon New Zealand getting too much of the butter requirements. I was in Denmark for a short time last year. They and New Zealand have one thing in common so far as this country is concerned: they are both great allies of this country, and both Denmark and New Zealand have seen us through a number of problems, in peace and in war; and it is fair to say that Denmark may well take a more sympathetic view towards New Zealand than perhaps even some of the other European countries might do.
I think one thing is essential if we do go into Europe (and I speak now wearing a business hat, so to speak); I believe the setting up of a European management centre is an essential requirement, because one great advantage of our enter-524
ing a European Community may well be that our European partners will seek more knowledge of, and experience of, our business methods. I would hope that the Government will think seriously of setting up a specific European management centre in this country, run by this country and not by another power, because at the moment, so far as I know, we have not got one.
May I turn for one moment to the social services. We have not heard a great deal about this in the discussions so far, but one thing does worry me about the National Health Service. In the shortened edition of the White Paper there is a rather short and almost curt reference to the fact that the National Health Service would not be affected, but what happens to arrangements with the Six countries where there is not a reciprocal arrangement with health charges? Supposing one is taken ill in France. At the present time, as I understand—and I may be wrong here—there is no reciprocal arrangement for National Health treatment. Will this be remedied if we go into Europe? It seems to me that this is quite an important point to bear in mind.
There will be need for more extensive consultations with Commonwealth countries if we go into Europe. I agree with the expression of view that we have lost many links with the Commonwealth over the years through independence and for other reasons; but I would hope that we never refer to the Commonwealth in the kind of attitude,"Oh, them! ", because we still owe a considerable allegiance not only to Australia and New Zealand, but to countries like Canada, Fiji, and parts of Africa who, after all, have helped us in the past even if at the present time some of these countries are not as friendly as we should like to see them. I think it would be a great mistake in approaching this very big decision if this was completely neglected.
I say in conclusion that it is the young people of this country, and perhaps even more the middle-aged, who will have to act upon the results which emanate from this decision. We have to think of five, ten, twenty, perhaps fifty years' time, when some of us may not be here, but this very historic decision will still be with us. Whatever happens, I would hope that the Government will make quite

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sure, during the few weeks which pass between now and the final great decision in October, that the general public are really fully informed in simple and understandable terms of what all this means, because at the moment, while Parliament may largely be convinced here and in another place, the general public at large, the electorate of this country, have still to be properly convinced.
8.35 p.m.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, I, too, should like to add from this side of the House my warm congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, on a truly excellent maiden speech. Those of us who have had the privilege of knowing her can feel that her speech more than fulfilled all our expectations. I am sure that many of your Lordships, from all sides of the House, look forward to the time when she will gradually be able to release herself from the heavy burdens of local administration, and be free to participate actively in the debates of your Lordships' House.
There can now be little doubt that the idea of a united Europe is one that has already fired the imagination of the young people of this country. The opposition to it seems to come mainly from those who still have their doubts, whether they be found on the extreme Right or the extreme Left or somewhere in between. But the anti-Marketeers seem unable to decide among themselves on an agreed alternative course for our country to follow. The imperialists to-day are no more, as the Empire no longer exists. Instead, the anti-Marketeers are divided between the Commonwealth supporters and those who Want to"go it alone ".
But for the young, as my noble friend Lord Chalfont said yesterday, the idea of a European Community makes a direct appeal. To them, the hope of sharing political ideas, and a pooling of our economic resources, with the rest of Europe is a cause worth striving for, even worth sacrificing for. Because temporary sacrifices will be called for, and they must be faced. It is a delusion to maintain that any great step forward can be acquired cheaply, or is something for which other countries can be expected to contribute heavily in order to enable us to share in its privileges and opportunities. We must be prepared to pay some price—if need be, for
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a time, even a heavy price—to join with Europe at this late hour.
For one thing is now quite certain: go into Europe we shall. Of that there can be no doubt whatever. Both Parties have already gone too far to retract, and public opinion is only now beginning to face up to the tremendous realities of the present situation. For the now steadily dwindling band of anti-Marketeers it may be some comfort to know that we have already saved ten years of annual contributions by not having joined in 1961. That represents, at the rate of £500 million a year, some £5,000 million. That is no mean sum to have saved already. But I believe the amount lost to this country, by our having missed the bus ten years ago, is a sum vastly greater than even £5,000 million. We must expect the costs of our entry now to be far greater than they would have been ten years ago. Can anyone pretend that our bus fares have not gone up during the last ten years? Equally, can anyone, on either side of the House, assert that all our costs are not likely to go up still further during the next ten years? Even during the next ten months?
I am convinced that this country will have a vastly heavier price to pay for entry if it misses the bus on this occasion and has to wait perhaps another ten years, or even longer, before any opportunity presents itself once again to join the Common Market. Wisely negotiated, and with hard terms wisely bargained for, the Government need not fear too much for the future. The Conservative anti-Marketeers are slowly melting away. In their ranks is occurring now a mass conversion, if not of Latter-Day Saints, at least of Eleventh Hour Adventists.
Here may I digress in order to ask a question of the noble Earl who is to wind up this debate on behalf of the Government, because it is most important, whatever may be the ideological considerations, that we should be fully informed of the facts. Can the noble Earl tell us what induced Sweden to withdraw her application to join the Common Market? I know there is no useful comparison between Sweden and this country. Sweden is a vast country with rich natural resources and a tiny population, smaller than the whole of London. But Sweden was one of our original EFTA partners

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and, in some ways, one of our most important partners. Is the reason for her opting out due solely to her policy of neutralism, a policy which has served her so well during two world wars? In other words, are her reasons wholly political, affecting her future relations with Soviet Russia, or are they partly economic as well? And does she now intend instead to apply for associate membership of the Common Market? I shall readily understand if the noble Earl finds himself unable to give a categorical assurance, but it is important that the full facts affecting our EFTA partners should be made known and that nothing should be deliberately withheld.
The people of this country will. I believe, be prepared to pay a price for our entry into the Common Market, even at the cost of some temporary initial sacrifice. I remember in the early days of the war how appalled we were at its mounting daily cost. First, we were shocked to hear that it was costing us £5 million a day. Then the figure rose and the costs mounted steadily to £10 million each day, then to £15 million and even £20 million as the war went on. Afterwards, we just ceased to reckon the cost, without any idea of when the war would end or what the final bill would amount to. That was when we were locked in a desperate struggle for survival. That was our finest hour, while thousands of lives were being sacrificed. Perhaps to-day another hour may be dawning, without the sacrifice of precious lives. What a pity if we should be concentrating only on its cost, without balancing against that cost the greater freedom, the greater opportunities, the greater chance of leadership that we are now being presented with by our entry into Europe. We have just emerged from being a leading Power controlling the destinies of a large part of mankind. We have lost a vast Empire but are still struggling to take our rightful place in the new world that is taking shape all around us. Meanwhile, the Common Market has already taken shape and our rightful place is within it. I believe that any step that brings any nations of the world closer together must bring them that step closer to peace.
Of course we shall have to bring our friends in Australia and New Zealand in with us. In the early days of the Western
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Desert campaign, I was sharing a tent with a young Australian pilot who was engaged on the daily postal run to Tobruk. He was a zoologist who had recently graduated from Cambridge, and before the war had been in Kenya collecting specimens of animals for English zoos. We did not talk of butter or even of fish, though at that time we were desperately short of both. We talked of the war and of what we expected afterwards. It was the time when the Messerschmitts had just arrived in the Western Desert and our slower Blenheims were being shot down one by one. I remember how one evening he sat, pencil in hand, working out his expectation of life and reckoned it to be just 30 days. Within one month he was shot down and another Blenheim was written off. I think that we who are left to-day still owe a duty to those who died during the war, who made sacrifices far greater than ever we are now called upon to undertake.
To-day peace, too, can have her victories, and this is one from which we must not shrink. Other speakers have reminded us that we are now called upon to take a decision as momentous as any other taken in our lifetime. Perhaps this is indeed a time for greatness, even more than we fully realise, even more than Her Majesty's Government, who now have greatness thrust upon them, may realise. But also, because I realise that better terms are now unobtainable, I believe that it is the duty of every citizen in this country who believes in the principle of a united Europe to lend support to the Government, to any Government, even to a Tory Government, who are faced with such heavy responsibilities at this critical hour.
8.46 p.m.
VISCOUNT MONCKTON of BRENCHLEY: My Lords, I am not in the happy position of the noble Lord opposite of knowing my mind so firmly. I am much more like the general public who have not yet made up their minds. My heart says, No and my head says, Yes, and I wish to know far more before I can marry the two. One has been surprised to-day that that most conservative institution, the Labour Party Executive, decided in half an hour, by 16 votes to 6, I am told, although the Trades Union Congress, which I suppose most people will consider even more conservative, took longer

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and had a much closer vote. There seems to be an extraordinary dilemma across the Benches of Parties and politics. I only hope it is a dilemma and not politics. As a past soldier and now a farmer, I see the difficulties.
Unlike many of your Lordships, I lived in one of the E.E.C. countries, in Germany, for eleven and a half years, off and on, as a soldier and I was there again last week. I am told that prices of food in Germany have gone up in the last three weeks and are still going up. Does that mean that the estimated increase in the costs of food for us, as given by the Government, is based on the costs as now known in the E.E.C., or as they are expected to be then? We should know this because, at least in Germany, the costs are going up and up at this moment. Admittedly, also, one must be honest about the success of life for everybody in Western Germany. One has seen it rise up from the devastation at the end of the war, through its own efforts and with the help of this country. This country advised them on the number of unions they ought to have, and it was the Labour Party who were in power at that time and so advised them. I think they had only 12 or 13 unions. As a result, their wages are, for the most part, higher than ours, and their holidays are universally longer. Their standard of living is, for the most part, much higher, as those of us who have lived there have seen. In fact, I saw it again last week. One has only to fly over it to see the number of swimming pools in an enormous variety of small houses, small towns and small villages. There is hardly a village in Germany without a proper swimming pool. Compare that, my Lords, with the difficulties we have of finding one over here.
It is not for me to argue about the big issues. That has been done by better speakers, and the principles have been argued for nearly three days, both here and in another place. As a farmer, I feel that it is for me to put the small points which we ask the Government to look at before the final commitment is made. Fruit is going to be very difficult for any farmer in England once we are in. The apple market in Europe is dominated by France, the pear market by Italy. In France, they are helped by a system of declaring their tax at a convenient time
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for the fruit farmers, and not like everybody else; and certain arrangements are made for the transport of fruit. Things are totally different from the large tax and cost of transporting fruit that we face in this country. Above all, they have a climate which does not produce a late May frost. Those of us who are small fruit farmers–50 acres or less—are in fact going to be ruined unless we are compensated. We have been told by the Government that we are to receive a grubbing grant, which will exactly pay for the cost of removing the fruit trees that we are now cultivating. It will leave us with, say, 30 acres of grass, some highly expensive buildings for storing fruit, gas and cold stores utterly useless for any other purpose. It means that the land has either to be turned into villages and buildings or it has to be left to rot. There is nothing else one can do with it.
There is one other small point—and I accept that these are small points. But the big points have been made, and I think it is for us who are speaking late to make small points of detail which should eventually be answered. We have a large export market of pedigree cattle and stock, and a growing export market in the semen of British bulls. This, unless we are careful, could be lost entirely by the E.E.C. regulations on foot-and-mouth. They vaccinate their cattle; we slaughter those of ours which are affected. If we allowed the import of vaccinated cattle, we should lose the right to export to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and many other countries which will not take semen and cattle from countries which only vaccinate against food-and-mouth.
My Lords, I said I was going to be short because we are late and that I was going to make only small points. I have not much more to say other than that I agree with what the Duke of Edinburgh said the other day. To be efficient in farming in the E.E.C.—and we should not believe that the French are inefficient: they are not; they are extremely efficient farmers—it is going to be cut-throat. We shall have to cut down every hedge that is in the way on our farms. We shall have to remove every copse which looks nice but does not produce money. If that is what we are going to have to do, it must be by the will of the people. But that is what is going to happen. Having said that,

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my Lords, I would add that I know the majority of youth in this country are for looking outwards and not inwards, and that we old ones, who with our hearts, perhaps, look back, may be in the wrong.
VISCOUNT ECCLES: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, may I tell him that he really must not say some of the things he put forward. I am a farmer in Wiltshire. We do not have to cut down any hedges. Our stock-raising, is so efficient that the French come and buy our calves from us every week of the year.
VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY: My Lords, my noble friend must be a very rich farmer, if I may say so. Those of us who are just making ends meet do have to cut down hedges, and I can show my noble friend plenty of other farms that also do that.
8.53 p.m.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, I want only to add my voice to those of many of your Lordships who have expressed approval and support for the Government's proposal as set out in their White Paper. The arguments for this course have already been rehearsed many times with greater eloquence and with greater authority than I can offer, and I am perfectly content to anchor myself behind either the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, or the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, both of whom, if I may be allowed to say so, I thought made outstanding speeches at the opening of to-day's session.
On the economic side, I agree with those who say that in the first place it is impossible to quantify the calculations, and that in the second place they are clearly rather finely balanced, and in consequence the decision we reach must be a matter of judgment. I do not go all the way with those who think that if we do not go into the European Economic Community there is nothing but ruin facing us. The noble Lord, Lord Crowther, in what I thought was a most interesting speech, outlined our economic position, and certainly it sounded pretty depressing. But he then went on to analyse this, and to suggest that, perhaps, when we go into the Market, as I am confident we shall, this will provide just
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that jolt which may get us out of the rut; just a jab in the arm to start the cure of"the English sickness ". I hope that this will prove to be the case, and I was greatly encouraged in this hope by the speeches we had from leading industrialists—from the noble Lord. Lord Thorneycroft; the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson; the noble Lord, Lord Robens of Woldingham, who made such an interesting speech; and, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Stokes. What we have to recognise is that going into the Community is not itself the cure—and that, I know, has been said already. If I may continue my metaphor, it is rather like going to the spa at which we hope to find the cure.
Here, I am bound to say, as we are, at any rate in form, discussing the White Paper, that I join with some noble Lords who have been critical of the objectivity of the White Paper. It seems to me that the Government, in drawing it up, rather went out of their way to emphasise the advantages, as they saw them, and advantages as I see them, and perhaps not to make quite so much comment about the disadvantages. This has been even more the case, I think, in some of the publicity put out since the White Paper was published. We hear a great deal about the great market on the Continent now open to us, but we hear a great deal less about the market in this country now open to our Continental competitors. We hear that the gross national product of the members of the Market has grown much faster than ours. I know that those figures have been challenged, and for the purpose of my argument it does not matter very much whether they are absolutely right. But what has not been pointed out, for instance—and I do not think it has been mentioned during this debate—is that an even greater advance has been made by Japan, which is of course not a member of the European Economic Community at all. One is indeed sometimes left with the nasty, nagging feeling that our comparative lack of success may have something to do with the fact that we do not work quite so hard or quite so efficiently as some of our competitors.
However, as I say, I was tremendously encouraged by the reception given to this proposal by those noble Lords who speak

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with great experience of industry, and I hope that Lord Crowther's prognostication will prove right and that the challenge presented by going into the European Community and working on equal terms with our European partners in a much enlarged market will shake us up and make our growth reach something approaching the rate which our colleagues on the Continent have had.
But, my Lords, like most other noble Lords—and I have certainly felt this very much more as the debate has gone on—I have come firmly to the conclusion that the political implications of joining the Economic Community are far greater, far more important, than the economic considerations. I see it not as an answer in itself but as a first step towards a much closer, wider, deeper unity in Europe. This brings me, with some reluctance and a good deal of diffidence, to raise again the question of sovereignty. The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, yesterday evening said that any further reference to this subject could only serve to confuse the issue—which I took to be a rather elegant way of saying"This correspondence must now cease'. But the issue was taken up again to-day by the noble Lords. Lord Stow Hill and Lord Goodman, and that is why I dare to tread these fields again. I would draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that everyone, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, Lord Lloyd. Lord Stow Hill and Lord Goodman all are associated with the law.
I am sure that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor gave us a perfectly correct legal definition of sovereignty. But I do not think that that is quite what the man in the street, whom I seek to represent, means when he thinks of loss of sovereignty. The questions he asks himself are these. Are important decisions within a certain field which are taken by Parliament in Westminster going to be taken by someone else? Are certain decisions which we can now control going to pass outside our control? The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, made the point, and it was quite a valid one, that in any treaty we agree to do something. I think that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor put it very succinctly when he said that it is just a matter of contract. If I understood him correctly he
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was saying that if Parliament approved the contract then Parliament has exercised its sovereign will; a contract is a contract and there we are; and that is no loss of sovereignty.
The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, asks: How does this differ from any other treaty? I will venture to answer that. I think it is different because in an ordinary treaty we know exactly what we are agreeing to do or not to do. But this is a treaty, as I understand it, which says that when some other body, in which we are represented but which is not under our control, says,"These regulations are the regulations of the Community ", we are then bound to adopt them. The noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, said, perfectly correctly, that this means that a Bill will be introduced into Parliament—a Bill like the Hijacking Bill, to which he referred—and therefore Parliament is still controlling the issue. I venture to suggest that this is something different. In the case of the Hijacking Bill, Parliament thought there was a good international convention and therefore Parliament passed the Hijacking Bill; and I am very glad they did so. But in the case of the regulations of the Community, Parliament, although it has the theoretical possibility of throwing out the Bill, in fact cannot possibly do so. This is rather like delegated legislation when the Minister is not responsible to Parliament. It seems to me that this is a point which the Government, in endeavouring to persuade the people of this country—as I hope they will—that going into the Common Market is right, ought to try to explain in a little more detail.
As I understand the position, the Minister, or someone like him, will come back with a Bill and say,"This is to give effect to the decision of the appropriate organ in Europe. We have got to give effect to it because that is what we have agreed to do." The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, actually gave me my case, although I do not know that he meant to, when he said,"Of course, what we agree to has got to be translated into a Bill in Parliament." This is the point:"has got to be ". It seems to me that it is different from an ordinary treaty and, from the point of view of the man in the street, to that extent we have given away part of our sovereignty. I want to make it quite clear that I think this is

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absolutely right. I am not arguing that we should not do it, but I do not think that in trying to explain the position to the country it is right to pretend that we are not. My feeling is that in Parliament—I think in both Houses—the battle is won. But the battle is not yet won in the country. We must all seek to win it but not, if I may say so, under false colours.
It is not really any answer to say that, after all, this is only in a very narrow field. Anyway, is it in a very narrow field? I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to paragraph 47 of the White Paper. It is talking about the development of large business, of international business on the Continent. It says:
" The different national systems of corporate law and taxation in Western Europe make it difficult for European firms to combine and co-operate effectively to meet competition…"
from, let us say, the great giants from the U.S.A. It ends by saying:
" Together, the Western European nations can organise themselves to compete with these giants."
If the implication of that is not that, under the new arrangements, we are going to have a common system of corporate law and taxation, I do not know what it means. That is quite a wide field.
Then let us look at the objects of the Six in their original arrangements. They go very much further. During the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, intervened to ask about monetary union. Monetary union may be some way away, and the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, referred to the great difficulties there would be in achieving it. Although it may be some way away it is quite clear that people are already thinking about it. I was astonished to hear, in one of the earlier television programmes after the White Paper was published, a distinguished member of the last Administration (a man for whom I have a considerable regard) say that he did not see any difficulty in having a European currency without having a supranational body to control it. I should have thought this was quite impossible. If one has a currency there must be some Government call it what you will—in charge of it. We can fore-536
see possibilities of a situation where the question of revaluation might arise. Who is to decide that question? These and other matters, which are obviously on the horizon although some years away, seem to make clear that some kind of effective supranational authority will have to be established to deal with them.
I take the point made by opponents of going into Europe, that indeed the present organisation will need some kind of modification to make it more responsive to public opinion in the various countries. That is something that I feel the British with their considerable skill and experience in the art of government may well be able to contribute to the Economic Community. I am not at all afraid of this. I feel that we should not go into the Economic Community unless in fact we regard it as a first step to a much closer and wider union. I think it would be wrong to do so. If it is a first step, I do not think it does any harm to look a little further ahead to see the sort of institutions which will have to be set up to control a united Europe.
I wish to make only one other comment, on our relations with the Commonwealth. I believe that in his speech the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, rather threw out a challenge to the effect that he did not see why, because we increased our trade with Europe by going into the Community, we should necessarily be throwing away our trade with the Commonwealth. I have not heard that point taken up by subsequent speakers opposing entry. It does not seem to me that it follows that we need be regarded as turning our backs on the Commonwealth trade-wise. In fact, the question links up with an old-fashioned idea of colonial trade by which, on a bilateral basis, we bought raw materials from the Colonies and exported manufactured goods to them. All our Commonwealth partners are now grown up and engaged in international trade. It is not necessary for our trade to be precisely balanced by their trade with us. I am sure that they will find many people, apart from ourselves, to buy their raw materials, and they will buy their manufactured goods where they want to buy them, but one hopes, the very long established links with the Commonwealth—I am thinking particularly of the developing countries

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of the Commonwealth—will be of assistance to our manufacturers and traders.
As to the political relationship with the Commonwealth, of course we have had no organic political relationship since the Statute of Westminster. I certainly do not understand why our links, leading as they do to consultation on all sorts of matters, should be damaged in any way. If what we were trying to do were damaging to the Commonwealth nations themselves, of course I could quite understand that we might find ourselves making bad friends, but I do not see that happening. I certainly hope that our relations with the Commonwealth will be able to continue on just as friendly and useful a basis as now. In this matter I was very much impressed as I am sure all noble Lords were, by the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Burgh, who suggested that this might develop into a most valuable interchange of ideas between Europe and Commonwealth countries, both developed and developing. If I felt that there was a risk that going into the Community would be really damaging to our relations with the Commonwealth, I should certainly want to think again, although in that unhappy event I think I would reach the same conclusion.
Finally, I wonder whether it would be impertinent for a quite unimportant Member on these Cross Benches to say a word to the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, who unfortunately is not now present. I wanted to thank him for the very fine appeal he made at the end of his speech. As a non-Party man. I was immensely impressed by his courage and his statesmanship in making that appeal to those of his friends who are taking the same view as he has now, that if Parliament decides that the country should go into the Common Market he and his friends should throw all their energies and enthusiasm into making it a success. May I ask whether he or one of his colleagues could make the same appeal to the Trades Union Congress? It would be tragic if, when we get into the Common Market, we cannot make the best of our enormous opportunities there because of the opposition of organised labour.
9.14 p.m.
LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX: My Lords, first, I should like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Young, on her excellent maiden speech, and to say that I hope she will grace your Lordships' House more often. I should also like to apologise to your Lordships because I shall have to slip away immediately I have finished speaking, as my wife is not very well to-night.
In speaking in this very important and historic debate, although there is a much more historic debate to come in October, I must apologise to the House in case some of the things I say have already been said, although, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, said, one should not apologise as this is an historic occasion. As the hour is getting on and there have been many speakers and still more to come, I shall be brief. I must state that I welcome the White Paper and the terms negotiated. I am in favour of entry into the Common Market. I am in whole agreement with what the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, said in the debate on our entry negotiations on January 19 of this year. The noble Lord said:
" If we have to stay out, or if we choose to do so, where do my friends think that the future investment of the large international, almost uncontrolled corporation will go? Will there he investment in Skelmersdale? In the North? In the North-West, or Wales? And what about trying to sell over a 22½ per cent. tariff barrier? Or will there be investment in Rheims or Lyons; or in Italy or Holland, within the tariff barrier? What do people think the effect on job opportunities for ordinary men and women here is going to be if we allow that to happen? We have to face particularly almost the certainty that job opportunity would desert us for the mainland of our Continent if we do not face up to this matter."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19/1/71; col. 371.]
This must be a fact, and so far as I can see no one has denied it. It must make for better job opportunities if we go in. On the other hand, if we stay out, there will surely be higher unemployment (if that is possible) due to lack of foreign investment. I am also convinced that the British worker has nothing to fear from the movement of labour as he is much more reliable and trained to a much higher standard than his counterpart in Europe. But on the other hand, I would utter a word of caution and say that he will have to get rid of the apathy which exists in some sections of our community,

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or else face the consequences. Furthermore, the United Kingdom has more to offer the Community in the form of know-how and expertise than the Community has to offer us.
So far as the Commonwealth and our dependencies are concerned (and I have been to many of the Commonwealth countries) I feel that the terms that have been negotiated are very fair. I would compare the United Kingdom going into Europe, so far as our dependants are concerned, to a large family with children who have become of age and have become self-supporting and independent. They leave home and the parents have to look after their own future. The problem they have to face is whether to retire and grow weak, or to face up to the new situation and prosper in new surroundings.
I feel that this is what we are facing and I believe, as other noble Lords do, that the future of the United Kingdom is in the Community. It is time that we looked after our future, like other parts of the world and other parts of the Commonwealth. Canada and Australia have opened new markets in the Far East and elsewhere. As noble Lords will see from the White Paper, Australian exports to the United Kingdom have gone down to 12 per cent., compared with 25 per cent. ten years ago, and only 3 per cent. of these will be affected if we go into the Common Market. If Australia and Canada can find new markets, then it should not be too difficult for New Zealand and other countries to do so, too. A farmer from Australia was telling me last night that most of the meat and butter that comes from Australia over here is only second-grade stuff, anyway; so they are not too concerned.
In conclusion, my Lords, I believe that the message that should go from this House to the country should be that we would be more united and better off in the Community, and that it is time some people started thinking about the future of No. 1: in other words, of this country's future, and not a personal and Party one. Joining the Community should not be a political issue, but should be for the good of the country. Come October, I shall support and vote for entry into Europe because I say so, not because any Party or Party backer says so.
9.21 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, it is just a little over 21 years ago since I first had the privilege of addressing your Lordships. The topic of discussion then was the Schumann Plan for the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community. I welcomed that proposal for eliminating tariffs and other restrictions upon trade, for abolishing price discrimination and unfair trade practices, so far as they affected those fundamental substances of national production and national enterprise. I thought it was a wise and imaginative proposal. It is true, however, that there was objection to it then because it involved the establishment of a supranational authority; and that difficulty still runs through the debate to-day. I thought then that this machinery was unduly elaborate for tile purpose which was in view; that a great deal of the objective could have been achieved by simple agreement or treaty between the participating countries; and I urged that our Government, a Labour Government, should enter into negotiation about the Schumann Plan and endeavour to secure a simplification of the machinery. Unfortunately that opportunity was lost.
In 1957 the Six decided by the Treaty of Rome to establish the European Economic Community, and again we lost the opportunity to enter it when we would have been better able, if we so thought fit, to modify the institutions by which it is governed. Now, in 1971, those institutions have become strongly established, and the opportunity of modifying them, if they require to be modified, is much smaller. Nevertheless, I still think that tile object of abolishing tariffs, restrictions upon trade, unfair practices and things of that kind is something that ought to be done, and therefore that we ought to enter the European Community.
It is not going to solve every problem; nor is it possible for even the most clever economists and statisticians to quantify what the results of entering the European Economic Community will be. I do not know that it is necessary to do so. Two centuries after Adam Smith it ought to be self-evident that there are very great benefits to be obtained out of having a wide, free market, without any tariffs or other barriers between the parties who are members of it, and that this is something

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which does not now require to be demonstrated. But of course what advantage will come out of it depends entirely upon the energy and initiative of individual producers and traders. They are the effective means by which economic policy is carried out, and if they do not take full advantage of the opportunity then we shall not gain so much. But I am confident that extending the Market as widely as it will be extended is bound to produce substantial benefits.
At one time in considering these matters I was rather concerned at the possibility that the European Economic Community would become an entirely self-centred and self-supporting body of people who would cut themselves off from world trade and, in addition to abolishing their own economic barriers, would not bother to try to reduce those between themselves and the rest of the world. I feel now considerably reassured about that when it appears that they are perfectly willing to admit other members of the European Free Trade Association and to give the benefits of freedom of trade between those countries and the countries of the Community. I also feel reassured upon this point by the apparent willingness to admit Commonwealth countries to Associate Membership. Those seem to me to be very large steps towards a greater freedom of trade and commerce throughout the world.
It is perhaps well in this connection to remind ourselves that the Treaty of Rome lays down expressly that the objective of the Community is not merely to establish economic freedom and benefits between the members, but also to endeavour to secure a reduction of obstacles to trade between them and other countries in the world. On those grounds, therefore, I think that entry into the European Economic Community can be a very substantial benefit to trade and production generally, not only for us but for many other countries as well even although they are not formally members of it.
It is true that we must pay a price for this, and a considerable part of that price consists in the contribution which must be made to the agricultural policy of the Six. However, let us remind ourselves that in this country both of the major Parties in the State (I do not remember how the Liberals stand upon
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it) have for many years past committed themselves to supporting agriculture by subsidies in one way or another. The way in which it is going to be done if we enter the Community will be somewhat different, and I hope that eventually the time will come when the amount of support given to agriculture will be reduced, because this is quite an inefficient and uneconomic arrangement. It may have a justification as a transitional policy, but it is not sense that we should go on subsidising this particular branch of production any more than we should subsidise other branches of production.
If the members of the European Economic Community follow out to their logical conclusions the principles which have already been laid down for avoiding discrimination and interference with trade, they must themselves come to the conclusion that a more rational agricultural policy will have to be established. If there is to be greater freedom of trade between the Community and the rest of the world, then there will have to be lower tariffs on imports of agricultural products—which is a very desirable thing to achieve because in the world there are many countries in different states of development, and a large number of them are dependent upon agricultural production and ought to have the benefit of the European market. I hope indeed that they will have it, and, if so, that might be one of the great contributions which could be made to the prosperity of the developing countries.
There has been a considerable amount of discussion about the question of sovereignty. So far as I am concerned, I do not view this with any alarm. It is necessary, if one is going to have an institution of this kind, that there should be some means of carrying out its purposes. We must not forget that one of the purposes is, as I have said before, to equalise conditions of trade and, in effect, to promote the greatest amount of competition. One of the means by which the Community is endeavouring to do that is to simplify the law regarding commercial transactions. At present, the process of evolving a common commercial law for the whole of Europe is going on. A number of people in this country may feel some aversion to our subjecting ourselves also to the Common commercial law now being evolved, but in fact we are

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being subjected to it already: we have to consider it in every export and other transaction that we make with countries within the Six. Our lawyers are at the present moment studying all these things and are devoting a great deal of attention to them. By and large, although the transition may be a little difficult, surely it is just as well that there should be a common system of law relating to such transactions. In so far as that is established by the institutions of the Six, one can say that a certain amount of sovereignty has been taken away from the British Parliament. That is a true proposition.
On the other hand, we have to remember that the Treaty of Rome contains a quite elaborate system of checks and balances by which these operations can be controlled. There is the Commission, which is the executive or formulating body, but there is also the Council of Ministers and, ultimately, there is the Court of Justice, which will decide if any particular measure exceeds the objectives which are contained in the Treaty of Rome. Decisions on certain questions—this is set out in the White Paper—have to be taken by certain specific majorities, on important questions by a substantial majority of the number of votes, and on questions affecting the vital interests of a country, by a unanimity of votes. So a country which feels that it is being seriously and adversely affected has a veto which it can exercise.
I do not consider that the sacrifice of sovereignty which is involved is of a large or vital nature. On the other hand, although these are opinions which I have formulated to myself, I was a little disturbed within the past 24 hours to receive some information on what I thought was the Commission becoming a"busy-body"in other people's affairs, under the pretence, apparently, of equalising the conditions of trade. I was told they had made a proposal with regard to the trade in beer that countries which did not observe the high standards of quality and the avoidance of the use of any artificial materials—which prevails in Germany—should be allowed to export their beer without any labelling to show that it was a different quality—I will not say an inferior quality, but a different quality. I do not think that any institution should
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be used for a purpose of that kind which, instead of being in favour of greater freedom of trade, is countenancing a form of deception or concealment of the quality of the goods being sold. I hope that our Ministers will look into this question and give it serious consideration. We certainly do not want to be involved in anything of that kind.
Not only do I support entry into the E.E.C., but I regard it (and I was of this opinion when I spoke 21 years ago) as being a step towards a much larger unification of Europe that will help to prevent the dissensions and difficulties which on so many occasions in the past have plunged Europe into conflict. I consider that to be an objective which will be well worth a great deal of sacrifice, because the sacrifices which may otherwise be thrown upon us are quite incalculable. But I do not think that the institutions of the Six are suited to that purpose. It would require a totally different political set-up in order to achieve a real political unification of Europe—probably something of a federal nature, certainly not of the nature of that which controls the limited economic objectives which the Six have set out to pursue. So, my Lords, I welcome the success which has been achieved in the negotiations for our entry into Europe and I look forward in due course to our becoming a member.
9.40 p.m.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, I should first apologise to your Lordships' House that I have been unavoidably absent from the earlier stages of this debate. I hope to atone for this discourtesy by making what I hope to be the shortest speech of the 115 in the debate.
I want to talk about one subject only, and that is regionalism, and the problem of the development areas, particularly that part of England, the North-East, which I know myself. First, I think it is an accepted fact that the attraction of new industry is the key to the problem of the region. Secondly, I believe it is an undoubted fact that many new and successful industries which have moved into this region, and are successfully expanding and doing very well, are international firms. Thirdly, it is a regrettable fact that at this moment there are almost no new industrial inquiries in the pipeline.

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I am sure that the Opposition would like to say that this is a direct result of Government policies; but of course, apart from being totally irrelevant from the subject to-night, it is not even true. This Government's policies at the moment are basically the same as those of the last Government, only a good deal bigger and better.
Fourthly, it is in my opinion certain that both British and international industry is waiting for a favourable decision in Parliament on this matter before investing in the region.
LORD SAINSBURY: My Lords, I do not want to interrupt the noble Lord, but can he explain the large increase in unemployed men, women and resources as an indication of a better condition of the economy under this Government than under the previous Government?
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, I should be delighted to explain this but it would take longer of your Lordships' time than I think is justifiable; nor do I think it is the subject of this debate. I am trying to say that I believe it is a fact that the reason there are no industrial inquiries for the North-East at this moment, and the reason unemployment is rising is that industry generally is waiting for a favourable decision on entry into the Common Market. I am confirmed in this opinion by my own personal, if brief, impressions of a visit to Germany where there is a great deal of surplus capital—perhaps an embarrassment in that respect—and a tremendous shortage of labour which has existed certainly since the end of the war and possibly before. I do not think that new industry is likely to go to a region which is already supplied with labour, and where there is a shortage of labour I am certain that new industry will look for new locations. We are, I think, in respect of regionalism—and I speak on no other subject to-night—on the brink of a major revolution which will come once this country has made it clear that it intends to enter the E.E.C.
Fears have been expressed throughout this debate, and by somebody called Foot in another place yesterday, or the day before, that there is going to be a sort of magnetic force which will draw and drag prosperity from the regions towards
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the centre. The noble Lord, Lord Beswick, used the word,"centripetal "—and I am indebted to him for the right pronunciation, if it is right, because I am not quite sure. What one means is the opposite to"centrifugal ". I do not think this will happen. My greatest fear in this respect is that if we do not enter the Economic Community we in the North-East shall see and will suffer a recession more serious, more desperate and more damaging than anything that has happened in that part of the world before.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, before the noble Viscount completes his speech may I ask whether he considers that the shipbuilding industry of Tyneside supports him in this view?
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords. I am aware that the noble Lord believes that the General and Sir John Hunter do not support this view. I would love to argue with him Sir John Hunter's personal views, which are not shared, I think, by anybody else on Tyneside.
9.45 p.m.
LORD STRANGE: My Lords, I offer my congratulations. I am not holding out a beggar's bowl for the Isle of Man because we seem to be quite happy with the promise of associated membership. We believe that our House of Keys will be left as it has always been, with our own particular form of sovereignty to look after us as it has done in the past. It happens to be the oldest Parliament in the world, and we respect it.
I am talking in rather a peculiar way about this because I feel it as deeply as I feel anything—which is not very much. About three weeks ago I threw a party for a very beautiful lady who happens to be a Member of your Lordships' House, and I invited an old friend of mine who was a most distinguished Ambassador at the time we were trying to get into the Common Market. During dinner I made a few mild jokes to him about his views on the Common Market and he made a few very mild jokes to me about it. Afterwards my wife said,"Your face swelled up; it turned mulberry colour and you yelled across the table. His face turned white and he screamed at you in a high soprano ". Women always take a rather dim view of our conversations, and I do not think the

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occasion was quite so bad as that, although we did exchange notes of apology the next day. I do not think I was at all irritated, but I did chaff him a little because he was a distinguished Ambassador at the time when we had been asked to go up the red carpet, the champagne being at the other end (as your Lordships know) and we did not go up. Then the European countries put up a fence, the grass started to grow on the other side of the fence and everybody wanted to nibble the grass of the Common Market. His job at that time, along with a number of other people, was to formulate a sales policy for going into the Common Market.
My Lords, unfortunately, or fortunately—and do not think this applies so much to myself—nearly everybody, including salesmen and certainly diplomats and politicians, are driven into making sales arguments to sell their products. They cannot help it; it is the only way to go about matters. Later, of course, they have to think of objections that may be raised by their customers. About forty-five years ago I knew a man who had started to manufacture a very new and expensive form of gas geyser to put up in the bathroom and it performed exceedingly well. His salesman had learned all the stuff—he was very good salesman, and against a rather resistant customer he put one of these geysers up in his bathroom and make it work. It turned on and turned off and hot water came out at the right time. He went downstairs for the customer to sign the agreement and write out his cheque. He was telling the customer about the wonderful after-service that was available and suddenly there was an enormous explosion and part of the roof of the house started to fall on to the lawn. The traveller had to say something quickly, and he said,"Well, you know the excellence of our product and how it has to be mass-produced to give the best results to the customers; you just cannot expect them all to be good "!
The point of a sales argument is that there must be counter-arguments. My friend the Ambassador had gradually learned most of the arguments that were prevalent in those days. A terrible thing had happened to him, something which may happen to anybody: that you learn
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off your sales argument, you do not really believe it; then you learn off your counter-arguments and you live with them and gradually you come to believe them. You have the right answers and, finally, a terrible thing happens—you become"hooked ". This is deplorable, because when a man loses his autocracy, his free-will, and becomes completely automatic, he is like a rat that is shut up in a cage. He cannot get out. Now, however kindly to animals one is, if you try to release a rat from a cage you will find that it will bite you. It does not quite get your intentions.
This is rather a terrifying thing that has happened so frequently in the last twenty years: people, with great sincerity, make up what I call homemade ideals and they start to have sales arguments for them, and the awful thing is that they start to believe them themselves. Having believed them themselves, they get hooked, and become rats in a cage, and lose their free will. You must not try to get them out of the cage because they will bite you.
In my last few years—well, I do not know; I am on a weekly tenancy; this is personal but it comes into the argument—I am trying to make my life as happy as I can, and I have learned two things. The first, which is very simple, is that when people ask you for your advice you find out what they want to do and advise them to do it. That saves a lot of trouble. If you find that people have become rats locked in a cage, let them tell you what their home-made ideology is and how much good it is going to do everybody. Then you say"Marvellous! what a wonderful thing! This must be Christianity or Mohammedanism; this is marvellous." Do not argue, because they get very angry, and think there is something wrong with you.
I have a great deal of sympathy with people who become hooked. In my childhood I became hooked and nearly lost my free will on nursery rhymes. I remember them to this day as I learned them as a child:
" Mary, Mary, slightly airy.
How do the fashions go? "—
I am not sure that that is quite right—
" Vertical all in a row "
I will try another one:
" Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,

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All the Queen's horses and
All the Queen's men,
Couldn't put the Commonwealth together again."
That is a very sensible one I learned as a child.
I went away at Christmas time and stayed with my daughter and son-in-law. He is in NATO, and that explains how we went to Brussels. I saw the Common Market from the outside looking in. I would cut off my speech to say that I consider the best speech made in this House, which I read because I was not here on Monday, was that of the noble Baroness, Lady Emmet of Amberley. Not only is she the daughter of a distinguished Ambassador, but she is more in touch with the top people in the Common Market than anyone else in your Lordships' House. She knows them all. She speaks their languages—they usually speak English, of course, but she speaks their languages if they want to. She spoke extremely well. Her speech read very well; I do not know how she spoke—she usually speaks well—but, it read well; and I was very impressed by it.
It interested me because when I was there, as a somewhat unusual person, I thought I would try to find out about the Common Market by looking into it as if I were one of the factory managers—or perhaps higher up than that, an executive: how he would think of it in his own mind. I looked at it in this way, through his mind. Once, your Lordships may remember, I spoke to you as a seal: I am still at large. I thought to myself that, if I were talking like him, I would say,"It is very satisfactory. Where people are in the Common Market, however lowly paid they are, we see to it that they have enough money to eat quite well and enough money to buy all our products. They can fill up their flats with everything we have got, vacuum cleaners, all quite cheap, and they can have two motor cars. We have been very clever with motor car production. It is very important. We have managed to get the associated Governments to make extremely good roads all over the country ", which is very good sales talk."It is good. You can motor anywhere in cars at great speed. Of course we take great care that the casualties are not published." I am being funny.
The only thing which they complain about is that we cannot get them enough
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money to buy houses, because unfortunately a house is not really a factory product. There is no point in selling a house as a factory product. It is a"ticky tacky"affair which you put up, but you must not press the walls or you will go through. But it costs about £20,000, which is rather above the lower factory worker's range; but if they get in the top grades, especially in the bureaucracy, then they can build themselves a house. They have plenty of money. You see these lovely modern houses, bungalows, filled with everything the Common Market can sell, all over the place. The gardens did not happen to be in flower at the time I was there, but I have no doubt they come out with man-made flowers. I have tried to think of this from his point of view. I am sure that is how they do think of it. This is not the top people, but this is the people who influence them—those to whom they have to listen. They have to listen to those sort of tough arguments.
Now I come to agriculture. I think I know quite a lot about agriculture, I was over on the Continent before the War. The trouble with agriculture is parcellement, which is from the Code Napoleon, as we all know, which divides the thing up among the family. One child gets one field and another child gets another, and they sell it to somebody else; so the farming there is like a chessboard with a lot of squares. The chap has to walk up to half a mile sometimes to one field, and there are some over here and some over there. This makes the venture uneconomic, but the land is farmed extremely well. It is farmed with horses and hands, and the occupiers do not use artificial manure but proper manure and compost. Their crops are extremely good, and even quite a big field will look like a tidy vegetable garden.
Speaking as my top executive, this has been a problem to us because we cannot sell these people very much. They are badly off, and they cannot buy much from us. But we are going to cure all that. The British want to come in, and we are charging the British a great deal of money to come in and we can spend the money they give us in doing away with parcellement, which will be a great improvement. In my thinking it over, what are my sales arguments? First of

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all, we want to make economic units. That does not mean that the farmers are to have the fields a little nearer their houses; it is making them large enough to have tractors and all the appliances for tractors, which rust up in their sheds in the winter so that they have to buy new ones every few years. This is very good policy. We can also sell them poison sprays and artificials, which they have never used before, and we can really get into this farming and make it another profitable money-earning venture for the Common Market. It is a tremendous step forward.
We have a very good sales argument about that. We say, perfectly truthfully, that these peasants die far too early in life, and that this comes from walking down the roads, driving their horses, and stooping to pick up; and we are trying to save their lives and help them in every way we possibly can. When they are young the peasants are so poor they cannot afford to feed their children properly because they have to sell their own products and they suffer from malnutrition in early youth and so they die early.
But I would say that Europeans have never liked peasants very much. When Frederick, who called himself the Great, was in winter quarters some time ago he had a mixed army of Germans and Russians. The Germans, who were very polite people, turned the peasants out of their houses before they set fire to them to keep themselves warm. But the Russians, who have a sense of humour, shut them into their houses before they set fire to them because they thought it was funny. That is the view that Europeans have about peasants. There is no question of putting in machinery to help them live longer. They do not care what happens to them. That has always been their view, but it is not exactly my view.
I was on the River Severn in March, and I saw a ship which was so long that I thought it would never come to an end. I was curious about this ship, so I looked in the local paper and there it was. It had landed at Port Talbot the largest cargo of iron ore ever landed in Britain. The natives behind there are still trying to dig up some iron ore out of the hills.
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At Barry Docks, before we went off in this banana boat, I found they were unloading coal from Australia. Now this is close to the Rhondda Valley. Hitler could not have afforded the War unless he had stopped and taken Norway to get the iron ore from Narvik, because the Ruhr Valley is holes in the ground. The whole of Europe is going very short on raw materials. They are nearly exhausted.
So my imaginary tough-guy executive would think something like this. We have to get raw materials. If we get the British in, we can get the raw materials from their Commonwealth because the British are completely mad. George II fought against the French Canadians to get America. George III fought against the Colonists. Recently, they have shut up one of their great resources, Rhodesia, and they have sanctions against it. You cannot deal with the British. They are completely"crackers ". They fought against the South Africans and won, and then they gave the country back to them. But now they will not sell them anything at all if they can possibly avoid it. You cannot deal with people like that. The British have no sense. But by our scheme we can stop them importing New Zealand materials—
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I forbear to interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Strange, but I wonder whether he has in mind the advice which my noble friend Lord Carrington gave, and followed very well himself, at the start of this debate, that we should confine our remarks within a reasonable canvas. It is rather late and the noble Lord has amused us all, and has spoken with his usual wit which we have all enjoyed, and perhaps he can come to the concluding point of his remarks within a reasonable compass of time.
LORD STRANGE: My Lords, of course you have only to ask me and I shall be only too pleased to stop. I have not got to the point, but I shall finish my speech by saying. Good-night.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, it is unfortunate if the noble Lord is stopping short of his proper conclusion.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, may I hastily re-interrupt to say that the last thing I would wish to do is to stand

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between the noble Lord and his proper conclusion.
10.4 p.m.
LORD GISBOROUGH: My Lords, as about the one hundredth speaker, there can be very little more to say in support of this great enterprise. Suffice it to say that the sovereign States of Europe have torn themselves apart for hundreds of years, and it would be a great disservice to our children if we did not grasp now this magnificent opportunity for the unity of Europe. It would be terrible if they were to grow up so close to this enormous grouping of nations and unable to play any part in the way thos nations went and unable to bring any influence upon them.
There are two quesions I should like to ask, and I would be most grateful if there could be a reply to them. The first concerns the Health Service when we join. In this little booklet, The Housewife and The Common Market, it says:
" It is true that no other country has the same comprehensive service as that given by our own National Health Service."
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Does this mean that once we are in a great number of Europeans who are not covered by their own health services will be able to come over here to work for a fortnight, or whatever it may be, and then take advantage of our Health Service, and be a drain on it? I think it could be a great problem.
The second point is, I am afraid, rather mundane. It concerns potatoes. In the new agricultural support arrangements and in the White Paper, and indeed in Barclays Bank—Farming Policies, there is not even a mention of potatoes when we join the Common Market. They account for 23 per cent. of the crop output of our farmers, and they are enormously important, not only as part of our output but also as a break crop. The crop is not supported in the E.E.C., so far as I know. We shall be subject to a free market, which has always been like a yo-yo in England. Inevitably, one gets over-production and under-production; and I hope that some assurance can be given that, like the other crops, potatoes will in some way be covered.
10.7 p.m.
THE EARL of BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, at this late stage on the third day of our long debate all I really want to do is to stand up and be counted. I think that many other noble Lords want to do that, too—and to be counted among the vast majority of your Lordships who have spoken in favour of entry. There is little more to be said. Having spoken on various occasions in this country and abroad in favour of our going in; having studied the White Paper; having listened to every word of that amazingly effective World Press Conference given by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister; having read his speech at Central Hall, most of the Factsheets and most of the speeches in both Houses, including that of my noble friend Lord Carrington and my other noble friends on the Front Bench here; and having, I may say, taken note of the speeches of noble Lords on the other side of the House who, as Ministers, were responsible for these matters in 1967, I must say that it seems to me now inconceivable that anyone could say that we are not part of Western Europe or that we should not go into the European Communities on the reasonable terms set out in the White Paper. There may be a few outstanding problems still to be settled—for example, in regard to regional policy, about which Lord Ridley spoke—and also in regard to fisheries. But these should not be divisive and they should not be decisive. Clearly, we must not miss the opportunity to join on account of them.Notwithstanding the remarkable maiden speech by the noble Lord, Lord Blake, and the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, and the noble Lord, Lord Tangley, I sometimes think that outside your Lordships' House, if not within it, our European historical background has not been given sufficient emphasis. My noble friends Lord Eccles and Lord Harlech, and my noble friend Lady Emmet of Amberley, touched on this aspect of the problem, the historical background, with great felicity, as indeed did my noble friend Lord Hood. But where would this country be, my Lords, were it not for the civilising influence of the Romans, their roads and their palaces; for the sturdy contributions of the Angles—they were a German tribe,
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and by no means Britons—of the Danes and the Jutes who were Teutonic? Where would we be without that whole complex of Anglo-Saxon breeds, followed by the more sophisticated influence in architecture and land tenure of the Normans and those great Plantagenet Kings? They certainly improved our English blood and manners.
It is significant that within two centuries of the Conquest the distinction between Normans and English became obsolete. How many Members of your Lordships' House and of other families in England are decended from the Normans? I believe that I am; and I believe that even the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, from the first part of his name might also come from foreign stock. Would we have created our great British Empire without the descendants of our Continental European ancestors? Now that the old British Empire has become a free association of sovereign nations who have grown up, and who are growing up, and are certainly entitled to go their own way, has not Britain the greatest of the European countries, the right to return unto her own.
Where would Europe be without us? Is it not true that English kings ruled Aquitane longer than any French kings did, as the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud pointed out? And what would be the situation in Western Europe had we not supported France in 1914–18 and, more recently, had we not stood alone in 1940? I recognise that Canada, Australia and New Zealand as well as South Africa were with us in those days, and no one forgets their sacrifices before America came in. But in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, we are not letting them down. Our Commonwealth will benefit in the long term and in the not-so-very-long term from our entry into the European Community.
Only by joining can Britain regain her strength and not tend to become a somewhat ineffective off-shore island. I have heard it said by some that that should be our role, the role of a much-respected country such as Sweden or Switzerland. The noble Lord, Lord Robbins, made this point. I have often heard women, who hate war, say this. But it is not my view. Our heritage and our destiny cannot be

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to follow the neutral line, however commercially rewarding it might be. We in Britain are part of Europe and we can help lead a united Europe to resolve the great problems which lie ahead. We must therefore join with our Continental cousins to help resolve those problems. They are cousins with whom we have had such close links in the past and to whom we are culturally so much indebted, as they are to us. Those of European stock in North America are broadly united, whatever difficulties there may recently have been between French-and English-speaking Canada. Let Europeans in Western Europe be united, too!
When some months ago I moved a Motion on European technological and industrial co-operation, I advocated more of it. If we now join the Community, this co-operation should in my view be easier to achieve. My noble friend Lord Thorneycroft spoke of sharing research and development expenditure, and there was a great deal of good sense in what lie said. There can be no question but that British industry, and in the long run our whole economy, will gain. I believe it is certain they will gain in the fields of commercial vehicles—Lord Stokes knows that—in chemicals, electronic equipment, paper and board, to mention only a few; and now, from a remarkably able maiden speech by the noble Lord, Lord Robens, it seems that our coal industry will benefit, too. I know that we shall be facing strong competition, but we must be gainers in a greatly enlarged home-based market. For us the size of the market is increased by 400 per cent.; for the Six it is increased by 25 per cent. Let us hope that what we gain in quantity, they will gain in quality.
I have not come lightly to the view that our destiny lies with Europe—that the destiny of our Commonwealth, too, can best be served by our entry. Like others, I have had my doubts in the past—doubts because I felt that after two French rebuffs we would only be admitted to the club on terms which might well be unacceptable. But my doubts are now proven unfounded, for the terms in the White Paper are fair terms. They are fair terms for the initial entry period, and we must not forget that if we join our voice will help to fashion all future
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arrangements. I do not suggest for a moment that we will sink if we keep out, but I do suggest that we shall be very inward-looking and parochial (I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, in this) if we miss the chance to weld ourselves into a Europe that, united, can be only for the good of the world as a whole. In the words of Field Marshal Smuts:
" the whole is greater than the sum of the parts."
Before coming to the conclusions, I have tried to view our entry from all levels within our community. I have tried to see it through the eyes of our farmers (and I am one), our workers (and again I am one), our management staff (I am one of them also), our housewives (and my wife is one), and as an old-age pensioner on a fixed income (which I may well become). I have no doubts. I have no fears either, like the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, who made a typical brilliant speech, on the question of sovereignty. In the Community we shall all remain individual sovereign nations with different characteristics. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has made this clear on more than one occasion. No one can pretend that the Commonwealth itself is made up of just one nation either, but great strength lies in a unified group.
How fascinating it was to read that article by Monsieur Massigli in The
Times over a week ago about the differences between the French and the English. Was it all the fault of Descartes or was it the fault of Locke? These are weighty matters to which I have given much thought over the years, having a French mother and having served for many years in our Embassy in Paris. There are without doubt great differences in our culture and in our ways of thought and living; and the promotion of good Anglo-French relations has for generations been a crusade which never seemed to end. But now there is a real opportunity of bringing our disputes and differences to a stop. They must stop, and I believe that our present Ambassador in Paris is making a great contribution to that end. With close Canadian connections and also an American wife I have not in the past, like the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, been unsympathetic to the idea of an Atlantic free trade area, but as the

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White Paper says this simply is not on. Neither Canada nor the United States wants it. There is no choice.
I have no doubts at all that if our future is to be as dynamic as our past we have no choice, for we are Europe and Europe is us. The young believe this. I think my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and Mr. Geoffrey Rippon should be congratulated very warmly on the terms which have been negotiated. But I would say this in conclusion. However much we have to pay it could not be more than we would lose if there were to be another world war starting in Europe.
10.17 p.m.
LORD RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, one recalls the story of the Shaw first night when"G.B.S."took a curtain call to vociferous applause and from the gallery there was a solitary"Boo! ", to which Shaw replied,"I entirely agree with you, but what am I against so many?" Speeches in your Lordships' House have been so everwhelmingly in favour of entry into the Common Market that one hesitates to say,"Boo! ". I think I have heard most of the speeches, and I have been impressed, as anyone must have been, by the consistently high quality and, as usual, by the personal authority, insights and information which noble Lords provided. Many have retracted from previously held opposition, and their frankness does them credit. There is no doubt about the mood of this House. It is almost churlish at this late stage to question the motivations of those who have spoken.
I am not questioning anyone's sincerity nor integrity, but I am sure that a latter-day student, on close examination of the arguments deployed in this debate in your Lordships' House, and indeed in the wider debate outside, including the page advertisements, and so on, will find the alignments extremely illuminating—rather like reassessing the special pleadings and the personalities at the time of the Act of Union between Scotland and England. Yet some of us are entitled to our doubts, and indeed our profound misgivings. I share the misgivings expressed from these Benches by my noble friends Lord Beswick, Lord Brockway, Lord Blyton
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and Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, about the consequences of going in. My noble friend Lord Longford asked his noble friends on this side of the House to search their souls on internationalism and on world government, which had been our Socialist objectives. I can asure him that I have done a great deal of soul-searching. I am sure that none of my noble friends, or any noble Lord who has heard my speeches in the House over the last five years, can doubt my dedication to internationalism and to the ultimate objective of world government. They may even concede that my reservations about the Common Market may derive, as I assure the House they do, from this sense of dedication. I would certainly resist and resent the idea that criticism or even rejection of the proposals now before us would be a betrayal of our principles. And I am not talking about expediency but about real principles. It is not a rejection of our principles, because everything we are doing and discussing now must be related to what my noble friends and I stand for.
My Lords, in 1941 we had in this country another great debate. Probably it is almost forgotten. It was in fact called,"The Great Debate ". It was a debate on the rights of man, and H. G. Wells was the chairman. It resonated round the world and was being vigorously discussed in Europe until, at the end of the"phoney"war, Hitler overran four of the present Six. Most of the rights spelled out in that consensus of the British people in a state of war, remember, have been embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. What I think is relevant to our present discussion are the arguments used by H. G. Wells in initiating that debate. He pointed out that with the development of science and technology there was bound to be a gravitation of power towards the centre. He used, I remember, the illustration of the electricity grid. But he pointed out the ideological analogy. Hitler and Nazi Fascism were an evil attempt to grasp and concentrate the political power at the centre; but that aside and the war aside, power and the manipulation of the modern means of power, the actual power, technological power, would gravitate towards monolithic communism and monolithic capitalism.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us where this debate was held?
LORD RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I think that perhaps the noble Lord was not around then, but I will give him full information later. Obviously this debate has been forgotten. I think, if I am not wrong, that in the course of his activities the noble Lord may actually have handled the material of that debate, which was supplied and embodied in the United Nations Declaration.
The point I am making is not whether there was a debate, or whether the rights of man was involved; but that Wells was talking about what I believe to be demonstrably true in present circumstances: that this movement towards monolithic Communism and monolithic Capitalism was almost inescapable, and in terms of the technocracies which administer these technologies there would be very little except adjectives to distinguish them. The real power would lie in the hands of a few men, and the politicians would be only their front-men. Wells's contention was that historically, whenever people became aware of this concentration there had been a reassertion of human rights. I agreed then and I agree now with Wells, and therefore I look with the profoundest suspicion on any restructuring which would make ordinary people the hostages of any system which they could not influence or control. It think that this is inherent in everything that we are discussing now, and I want before I finish to demonstrate that it is moving out of our control.
At another stage I was involved with David Mitrany and others in"functional internationalism ". The idea was that national frontiers and the entrenched hostilities behind them could be transcended by making countries interdependent through the resources of modern technology. I remember the scheme for the Danube Valley in which the countries of Central Europe and the Balkans would be laced together by mutual dependence on power-generation and collateral industries. It was rather like the hopeful plans for the Lower Mekong delta in Indonesia, which if they had been promoted and pressed effectively might have prevented the horrors of the Vietnam war. That functional internationalism
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had in it the elements of the Coal and Steel Community. Therefore, in my thinking I have not been hostile to that kind of getting together. My question has been throughout, and is now,"For what? ".
I have never been a Little Englander nor a Little Scotlander. I have recognised that we are Europeans, and to think otherwise would be as unrealistic as towing these islands across the Atlantic to become the 51st State of the United States and the 51st star on the Star-Spangled Banner. What I am getting at is that when we are examining where we stand as of this moment—and we have all been doing it—we go through our own personal historical past and records, and we must come to the question not just of where did we stand, because as has been repeated, and I accept it, circumstances change.
But I still believe that after the Second World War we missed a great opportunity. When Europe was physically and morally ravaged, I argued passionately that Britain should use her unquestionable moral authority to convert the resistance and resurgent movements into constructive forces for consolidating a European system. There was nothing insidious or politically sinister in that suggestion, and nor was I suggesting a take-over bid by Britain. Our greatest asset at that time was"The Voice of London"from the B.B.C., which had been throughout the war the beacon light to which the whole of Europe had loked for guidance. Instead of it being the mentor of the new Europe, we dismantled the European services, we dimmed the light and left our friends to flounder. As T. E. Lawrence wrote in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom:
" And when the young men had suffered and given of their manhood and had won the victory, the old men came out again and took from us our victory and shaped again the world that they themselves had known."
So it was after the Second World War. We could have been at the top of the staircase welcoming the peoples of Europe to a new concept. Instead, we are going in through the tradesmen's entrance, and after snubs at the front door.
My Lords, during the past twenty-six years my abiding concern has been with the developing world, the underprivileged

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nations, not just of the British Commonwealth. But here I would say that, having been a lifelong anti-Imperialist and anti-Colonialist, I never have, and do not now, regard myself as a pallbearer of the British Empire, but rather as a trustee for the heirs of that Empire, and we shall disinherit those heirs to our eternal disgrace.
In the Commonwealth, with a free association, we had every opportunity, with them, and in concert with them, to have been the kind of thing which the world to-day, not just in Commonwealth terms, is looking for. It is about the consequences to the Third World in general—not just the sugar growers of the Caribbean—that I am most concerned. I have listened to the reassurances, or attempted reassurances, in this House. The Common Market can perhaps be justified in terms of enlightened self-interest. Please, do not let us carry those justifications of self-interest into transparent hypocrisy. The selfish interests—and I am not being censorious about them—have been gloriously deployed by the industrialists, the financiers and the economists in your Lordships' debate; but those interests can be secured only at the expense of the developing countries.
The Common Market is designed as big business—I repeat that, big business—always is: to buy cheap and sell dear. We are told that, out of the abounding prosperity, out of the surplus wealth we shall create through the Common Market, we shall have the money to increase aid to developing countries. My Lords, this is the John D. Rockefeller complex; you use every device to squeeze workers and customers, crush competitors and acquire wealth, and then set up a foundation and say:"Send in your application in triplicate and we will tell you what you can have when we decide to give it to you."
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, if I may intervene, does the noble Lord really think that if we stay out of the Community we shall have more money to devote to aid for underdeveloped countries than if we go into it?
LORD RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I am sorry but I must ask the noble Lord
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to let me deploy my argument. I am saying that if we simply treat this whole matter of accumulating money which you are then going to dispense as charity—
LORD GLADWYN: That is the thing, my Lords.
LORD RITCHIE-CALDER: It is not, my Lords. I have never regarded technical assistance and technical aid merely as a deployment of money.
LORD GLADWYN: What can it be, if not money?
LORD RITCHIE-CALDER: Of course it is not money, my Lords. It is people—you and I, and everybody who goes out and does positive things. It has nothing to do with money except as a bookkeeping transaction.
LORD GLADWYN: Nonsense!
LORD RITCHIE-CALDER: I am sorry, my Lords, but it is not. The developing countries do not want charity—that is the point I am coming to. The word"aid"has been degraded into charity, so that a blind man's thanks is muttered as a curse. Developing countries want a chance to earn, by fair trading, the means to advance their own industrial prosperity. Nothing I have heard in this debate, even the honeyed words, has convinced me that the Third World will not be disadvantaged and retarded by the Common Market. If the noble Lord wants to go in for bookkeeping, I will follow him. But this is not a question of book-keeping; it is a question of attention; of how we are going to treat the real problems of the world.
That brings me to the real nature of the Market—the real nature which disturbs me. On June 16 we had a debate on international companies and their relations with States. To me the Common Market is a product of the multi-national corporations which we see growing up around us. This is not a question of individual corporations; it is part of the nature of the system which is now developing within the world which we are calling the multi-national corporation. I do not want to pursue that point because it was elaborated at great length in the debate on June 16. But this is

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going to mean in European terms the take-over bid, not only of industry, but indeed of Governments.
10.34 p.m.
LORD REAY: My Lords, I fear that by now this colossal debate, this oratorical banquet, which history through your Lordships is treating us to, will have produced in your Lordships a sense of surfeit and that by now even the soundest or the most popular argument can hardly be expected to be received with more than a weary tolerance. This debate has I think been remarkable for its extraordinarily high general quality; and remarkable I think also for the fact that the speakers in this debate, like those in the debate in another place, have by and large confined themselves to the issues and have ignored the attractive possibilities that this subject offers to comment on other people's behaviour.
I think the debate has profited from this somewhat unpolitical self-discipline because the issue is thereby given emphasis as being an issue out of the ordinary. For this is not a question of policy like any other: it is a question of national direction which is unlike any decision since 1939. In 1939, it was a question of whether we waited and risked subjection by a Continental power which was growing to a far greater position of strength than ourselves. To-day, it is a question of whether we wait and risk the consequences of being ignored by a Continental Power which is likewise growing to a position of far greater strength than ourselves.
If I were to select a single characteristic to describe the situation of Britain since the last war, it would be that she has been static. Our most notable achievement in foreign affairs, perhaps, has been to allow our former colonies to take their independence; but that was in one sense a negative achievement, and certainly a passive one. Moreover, there is no doubt that the form the Commonwealth took, and the way we behaved towards it, indicated a desire on our part to deny that those events had taken place. Our wish to continue to claim a moral responsibility towards the Commonwealth, whatever else it has done, has also meant that our role in the Commonwealth has been continuously defensive. Our role as an
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international peace-keeper has been abandoned no less reluctantly. In the range of our commitments we have been continually on the retreat, never ahead of events but always withdrawing long after it has become plain that we should finally have to. When we have taken, often amid much national excitement, initiatives of our own, it has always been within the framework of these dying patterns.
If I were to single out one recurrent event for its negative aspects, it would be the Summit Meeting. Those journeys to Moscow, Washington or elsewhere, undertaken by every Prime Minister in this country since the war, including the last Prime Minister, may not have been useless. They may, even, in some cases, have been necessary. But each visit carried a heavy British investment of nostalgia for the past. Their importance was inflated by us, and they were without consequences for ourselves commensurate with the diffuse emotional expectations that surrounded them. They were bound to disappoint us even before they were undertaken.
Domestically, our situation since the war has also been static. To speak only economically, the pattern of low investment, low rate of productivity, low growth and recurrent deflation to protect a threatened balance of payments, as well as the blow to our confidence each time a balance of payments crisis arose again—these have continually disappointed and frustrated us. It may be correct for modern philosophers to argue that we over-valued economic growth as a goal; but there is no doubt that our failure to achieve it has been profoundly dissatisfying for the people of this country as a whole. I believe that the value for us in entering the Common Market is that for the first time since the war the present will become more important to us than the past. Because we have never abandoned the possibility of a non-European future for ourselves, we have never applied ourselves wholeheartedly to the task of keeping up with and competing with our national rivals in Europe. If we enter Europe we shall, of course, be partners with France, Germany and the rest, but we shall also be rivals both politically and economically. I believe that it is that competitive situation which we have so long avoided, and which

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Europe will supply, which gives us ground to believe that problems, such as our apparent inability to identify with our economic performance, will solve themselves and that it is this prospect which entitles us to expect that we may develop a higher rate of economic growth.
I should like to say this about some of the arguments currently most in favour with those opposed to our entry into Europe. Against such a back ground as I have described, it seems frivolous to argue that the terms secured for New Zealand and the sugar-producing countries, while acceptable to the countries concerned, are not acceptable to us. The argument that our economy is now too weak to permit us to enter, seems to me more an attempt to stimulate opposition to the decision taken to enter the Common Market by stimulating opposition to the Government. It is a curiosity that an argument which is based on the stagnation of our economy, and which has long been used by those in all Parties in favour of entry, should now be making its appearance in the service of those arguing in the other directions. As for an argument based on the terms, it must be up to the country to decide whether there is any inconsistency in those who made earlier applications for us to enter the Common Market arguing now that those terms are unacceptable.
So far as the demand for a referendum is concerned, I see no consistency at all in those opposed to entry on principle, who wish to preserve inviolate all our formal traditions, apparently being ready to make, for the sake of securing their objectives, a derogation of Parliamentary responsibility which we have never made in our history. Though many of the arguments may be weak, sentiments are strong, and we cannot expect to enter Europe without a substantial minority, at least, being opposed to the decision. The substantial majority against the decision in the trade union movement is another instance of the fact, proved already in our economic affairs, that we have failed to integrate the Labour movement into our national purposes.
None of us can quantify the economic consequences of entering Europe, and, perhaps more important in the short to medium term, we cannot be certain of
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the timing of the consequences. Even if an optimistic economic assessment of the consequences of entry is proved in time to have been correct, it is still possible that before that time is proved there may be a period in which the balance of payments runs into a substantial deficit. However, if such a situation arises, even in quite a severe form, it will be essentially quite a different situation, quite a different balance of payments problem, to those we have suffered from in the past.
In the past there has been a sense of despair, both in ourselves and in our creditors, at the moment we have arrived again at a point of deficit. To our creditors, such an event, each time it recurred, has offered again proof that the structural inadequacies of our industry and our economic approach have not been repaired. There has been a revival of scepticism that we lacked the will to compete and adapt in the modern world. And the suspicions of our creditors have been a cause to doubt ourselves.
But if such a phenomenon recurs as an initial consequence of the adaptations we are making as members of the E.E.C., the situation then would be altogether different. For a balance of payments deficit is in essence simply an overdraft, and there is nothing worrying about an overdraft except the doubts of the banker or the debtor in a future capacity to repay it. In such a situation, because it will be a fact of the situation that our industry is adapting to the modern world, and because it will be a fact of the situation that the calculated advantages of entry will not have begun to accrue, such a deficit will carry none of the connotations that it has in the past. In such a situation, provided there are no insupportable differences in price levels owing to a difference in rate of inflation between ourselves and our competitive partners, the correct policy must be to ignore the deficit.
I believe the Government should acknowledge these possibilities. They may also, if such a situation arises, need to borrow. But their present borrowing policy is not a very good preparation for such an eventuality. At the moment the Government do not miss an opportunity to demonstrate that where the previous Government borrowed the present Government repay. It is true of course

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that a proved willingness to repay can be argued to be the best guarantee of future loans: but for the situation we are discussing, in the alleviation of which our European partners would have as much interest as ourselves, such guarantees are unnecessary. The Government, in their present policy, are stimulating a belief in a somewhat naïve symbol of security, in a manner which may well cause them to hesitate before changing the policy when the time comes when they should change it.
My Lords, I have concluded. I believe that this stands out as a decision of importance beyond anything in my lifetime. I believe it is a decision between the sentiment of tradition on the one hand, and the instructions of reason and experience on the other. I believe that we shall take the decision to go in, because our greatest tradition has always been that ultimately we have taken the decision which reason has shown us to be in our own best interests.
10.46 p.m.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, we have listened to three days of remarkable debate. Unfortunately, I was unable to be here on the first day, but I have heard the speeches of yesterday and to-day and I think they have been among the finest that I have heard in your Lordships' House on any subject. I should like particularly to remark on the speeches made by three of my noble friends. The winding-up speech made by my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie last night was something that I think none of us will ever forget. It was brilliantly done, and altogether remarkable. Then I thought that the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, this afternoon was most moving and interesting: she made a great contribution. The third was the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, which we all enjoyed. She, too, made a great contribution to this debate. We have had some really remarkable speeches, and I hope that to-day our Front Bench will feel that from both sides of the House they have the encouragement which they require in order to take this great step forward into a new conception of our role in Europe.
My first point is simply that we in Scotland have always felt a very close
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affiliation to Europe. For one hundred years or more we were in fact allied to France. Our students went to universities on the Continent—to Paris, Prague, Bologna. Our ill-fated and romantic Mary Queen of Scots was married to the Dauphin of France for a year. We have always honoured the"Auld Alliance "; and even to-day people know and appreciate and understand about our affinity and our close association with France. We can see it in the architecture. Many of the beautiful ancient buildings in Scotland are very French in design. Also many of the words that we use to-day in current conversation are derived from the French. Ordinary people talk about a"gigot"of lamb; ordinary people talk about an"ashet ", meaning "assiette"; and I could give many more words of that kind that are in our language to-day. So I do not think it is difficult for those of us who live in Scotland to feel a close affinity to Europe and to urge the Government to pursue the line they are taking in the White Paper. I am not speaking of the Scottish Nationalists—I am anything but that. But I do live and work in Scotland, and I have a great many of my interests there. Therefore it is from that point of view that I look at the White Paper.
From both sides of the House we have had the economic arguments put most brilliantly, and I would not for a moment repeat them. For me it is a simple thing to see that there are within half an hour's flying time of the United Kingdom some 250 million people all of whom have a standard of living that is higher than—or anyway quite as high as—our own, and all of whom could, if we succeed in our attempt, buy the products that we produce in this country. I live in an area where the woollen textile industry is of great importance, but at the present moment there is a considerable slump in the sales of this particular commodity. I am perfectly certain that if we do get into the Common Market the production from this particular area will have a ready sale in Europe, as the quality and excellence of the product are, I think, better than anything produced on the Continent at the present time.
Again, we have in Scotland a large agricultural industry, and I find in the White Paper very encouraging plans for helping certain areas, such as the hill

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farming areas. As a farmer, however, I do not fear at all competition from Europe, since our industry is an extremely efficient one; it is modern in outlook, and even to-day we export. The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, in his intervention, said he was exporting beef to France. We export mutton and lamb, and it is only when the French shut down and, for some reason or other, will not take any more that suddenly these products are thrown back on our market and we have to look for other markets in order to sell our products. So I feel that our great need, which has been stressed throughout the debate, is for more buyers of our products. We can produce most efficiently; we can sell efficiently. What we need is markets for our goods. I am quite sure that in the Common Market we shall find buyers for many of our products, whether they are industrial or agricultural. I did not hear the noble Lord, Lord Robens of Woldingham, speak yesterday, but I read his speech, and nothing could be more encouraging for Scotland, where we still have a large mining and heavy industry, than the facts he gave in his speech showing what a very big increase in exports could be gained for our heavy industries, particularly coal, if we went into the Common Market.
I was tremendously impressed by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, who knows Scotland well and is a great ambassador for us. He recommended us to join the Common Market. I agree with him about the foreign countries which have established factories in Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom. This sort of thing has been of very great assistance, and I am sure it will be encouraged when we become part of the Common Market. My Lords, all these arguments are very powerful, but the most compelling of all, for those of us who have lived through two world wars, and experienced the terrible bereavements and tragic consequences which follow war, is that we can see that the unity of European countries, France and Germany, in particular, is the greatest hope for peace in Europe and the rest of the world. If for no other reason, I would support wholeheartedly the White Paper and our entry into Europe to-day.
10.53 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, this has been a very long debate in a summer of long debates, and about an hour or so ago I found that the length of it, excellent though it has been, productive of a kind of nightmare to me, in my capacity as an Assistant Whip, or, as the noble Earl, Lord Longford, was bandying about Latin, as a kind of Servus Servorum Dei. This nightmare was that I was in the Lobbies when a Peer, unidentified but fairly elderly and of my Party, came up to me and wanted to know whether the dumping of surplus peaches could be considered a restrictive practice, and whether persons of Burgundian descent counted as patrials or non-patrials; and could he, in any case, please go home. I think this hallucination must have been reinforced by the knowledge that it was the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, who is going to wind up for the Opposition Party. In any case, this experience could not have been more surreal than something which really happened to-day, which was that the National Executive of the Labour Party seems to have adopted for its motto the great words of not the present Lord Redesdale but a former Lord Redesdale:
" Abroad is bloody, and foreigners are fiends."
I should like to add my congratulations on the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Young. She told us, if you remember, of the old lady who came up to her and said,"Will we have to speak French, dear?" I would only say to the noble Baroness, if she reads this, that that seems to be the worry also of M. Pompidou, only that he will have to speak English.
My only reason for intervening so late, and with so much so well said, is that I feel, in common with my noble friend Lord Bethel', and the noble Lords, Lord Reay and Lord Burgh—whose maiden speech I enjoyed—not only that it is time to stand up and be counted, but that my particular generation has a peculiar position vis-à-vis the Common Market, and this perhaps should be mentioned. It is roughly that we are liable, in midcareer—when our careers, for better or for worse, are at their most active—to benefit most from this move into Europe.

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We shall not take it for granted like the next generation, and we will perhaps not have the doubts of the former generation.
As a university lecturer I want to identify very much with the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont. Certainly in my university there has not been the whiff of a"demo"or a sit-in about this issue. If I may be personal for a moment, any incoherence in my delivery tonight is occasioned by euphoria, because I have just learned that two of my pupils have got Firsts. That is the nicest thing that can happen to any don. Of course students are not the only preoccupation of dons, and I want to say a word or two about research. I do not mean my own kind of academic research, but the crucially important subject to this country of research and development in industry.
I have produced some figures about this, but this does not seem to be the time for figures. Sufficient to say that, in the last decade, the United States had four times as many scientists as the E.E.C. countries, and spent seven times as much on research; and I think that the figures would be roughly comparable with Japan. My noble friends Lord Thorneycroft and Lord McFadzean have emphasised the crucial and critical need of more research in industry, and more research in science and technology. For my own part, as somebody who, though he works in the Humanities is in contact with colleagues in the sciences, I cannot see how England can maintain an expensive research budget alone.
Entry into the European Market will, in addition, go a long way to redress the brain drain. Your Lordships will remember the old saw:
" The squirrels that don't stock up on nuts are dead by spring ".
That applies in research, and it applies also in investment. The two, to me, seem to be more or less co-terminous. We know that the Japanese investment/output ratio was something like 29 per cent. investment to 10 per cent. output, and that the British equivalent figures were something like 16½ per cent. to 3 per cent. I feel that many noble Lords have echoed me in saying that this is liable to be im-
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proved on our entry into the Common Market.
My own special field of study is in American history and literature, and my first higher education jobs were in America, so I want very briefly to say one or two words about America in the context of our entry into the Common Market. For a start, I think we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to America, not only for her tolerance of our entry into the Market but indeed for her encouragement of it as an act of policy, because America knows full well that to some extent this is against her interests. I was very impressed by the speech by Mr. Duncan Sandys last Monday which I read, and was glad that it was echoed by my noble friend Lord Carrington and, from the other Benches, by the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, saying that European safety depends as much as ever on the continued cohesion of the Western World whose defence is indivisible, and that in no sense are we going into Europe in order to try to separate from America in this context.
However, noble Lords will perhaps know, if that is not hubristic of me, that I have been critical of American foreign policy, like almost all academics of my generation who have been there, and they may find it inconsistent of me to be, as it were, a hawk in Europe and a dove in South-East Asia. I can only say that, whatever one thinks about the means by which the Pentagon Papers, so-called, got into public hands, I was very much reassured by the evidence shown of the wonderful part played by my noble friend Lord Harlech, as Sir David Ormsby-Gore, by proxy of the then Government, in trying to dissuade the United States from the sort of disastrous escalation which has jeopardised our interests and hers in Europe. If further evidence is needed, I think it was President Nixon himself who said recently that Vietnam has almost totally obscured our vision of the world. My own views on defence in Europe could not be better expressed than in the words of Franz Josef Strauss, who said that Europe is obliged to unite if it is to keep sufficient American protection which it still needs.
Another capacity in which I speak—if your Lordships will forgive my relating things to my experience rather than to

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any expertise—is a sadder one, as an Anglo-Irishman at this time. I enjoyed very much and admired the speech of the noble Lord. Lord Shackleton, but when he talked about Britain being a temperate political zone I think he was temporarily overlooking events in my country. I cannot say—I should like to be optimistic—that entry into the Common Market, as some have said, will solve the troubles of Ireland, but I think it can only improve them. Certainly, the Flemish-Walloon tension is an area of experience from which we can learn, and the ethnic problems of the Alto Adige, the Austrian Southern Tyrol and Northern Italy, have shown a slight amelioration in recent years. We must hope that entry into the Common Markel, which is so greatly in the interests of both Northern and Southern Ireland, will do something to help this most crucial of all our present problems.
On a happier note, it is nice at the present time and at the end of this debate to be a Conservative. One can thoroughly enjoy seeing a long-planned, hard fought for policy approaching fruition. Industrial reform, we know, was attempted by the other side, and so was entry into the Market, and I do not think noble Lords opposite will think it in any way gloating of me to say that I am of course pleased that it is my Party that seems to be bringing both to fruition. However, noble Lords everywhere might take with a very large pinch of salt any praise that I should make about the present Government. But I think it is worth saying that this must be a triumph for the Prime Minister. Ever since I really was able to observe the Prime Minister in action, when I was an undergraduate at his old college of Balliol, I have noted this persistent will towards Europe. When I was a youngish don at Harvard he delivered the Godkin lectures there, and talked about it. I think it is deeply impressive to see this kind of persistency of application, which has been somewhat wanting in our policies, recently. I should also like to pay tribute, if he will take it from me, to my noble friend Lord Harlech. I do not think any man outside Government has done so much in the last five or six years to promote the cause of Europe up
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and down the country and in industry, and certainly my own thinking on Europe has been enormously coloured by his.
While we are briefly on Party points, I feel that a point put by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in, to me, an otherwise, as always, excellent speech, should be answered. He regretted that the Industrial Relations Bill should have been pushed forward at the present time, when all our energies were required for, as it were,"selling"Europe. It seems to me that industrial relations have two critical phases, and the most important is still to come. The most important, in my view, is that the greatest division in life, perhaps the greatest class division left, is between people with boring jobs and people with interesting ones. But I do not see how the problems of partaking pleasure in your work, of finding your work situations pleasurable, can be solved unless there are clear ground rules for all as to in what circumstances you undertake your work in the first place. I do not think the noble Lord should, with all his brilliance, get away with that one.
What I thought was a decisive and clinching argument was, of course, that of the noble Lord, Lord Stokes. We know of the importance to this country of the motor car industry; we are very conscious of the excellence of our motor cars and how well and how much better they will be able to compete once we are in the Market. Of course, to people like myself and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, who is following me, this is a rather vexed question: on the one hand, the importance of the motor car industry and what it has generated for us; on the other hand, the enormous social, civic, civilised costs of that machine. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, this question. Can he and others in his industry who have put so much managerial, scientific and engineering talent into producing these machines come up with something about their control and use? It would seem to me that before government, whether local or national, is forced into a kind of severe and restrictive action about the motor car, the motor industry itself is the place to look for ideas. It is, after all, enormously in their long-term interests. A piece of good news hot off the Press from Italy, a country which does not take its motor cars lightly, is that Rome is at

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last doing something about its traffic problem. When we are in the E.E.C., we must remember that every country there—this is perhaps a point for the anti-Marketeers has a higher accident record than our own. I think that is a fact. Deaths in France in the last decade accounted for something like 122,000 souls. That to me seems a totally unacceptable figure, our own of about 70,000 being equally unacceptable.
Penultimately, on the subject of pollution, may I urge your Lordships who have not done so to read the speech in the House of Commons in this debate of the Member for Berwick and East Lothian, Mr. John Mackintosh, who I think dealt with the vexed question of the Common Agricultural Policy best of all. He found it curious that people in his own Party, in the name of socialism, should call criminal an agricultural practice designed to make a difficult period of transition easier for those undergoing it, particularly the farmers. I would say, too, to my noble friend Lord Monckton of Brenchley that an inefficient agricultural policy, even if it is expensive, does in fact produce very beautiful countryside and many more hedges, I would have thought, as is the case in France; and, as my noble friend Lord Eccles pointed out to-day, these privileges have to be paid for.
My next point is, again, a personal one. I am very conscious that I owe my place in your Lordships' House which I value highly, to Australia. And therefore it would be quite wrong of me to make a speech about the Common Market without acknowledging this fact. Australia—to which, alas! I have never been but have every intention of going—has been very kind to me in my life, and to my family. When I needed funds for a tricky piece of higher education in America I got them from Australian sources. And no-one with my name could have anything but devotion to that country. I would say to those who are worried about the position of Australia two things: first, that no Member of this House could be more involved, even than I am, in Australia, than my noble friend Lord Carrington—and if he is happy about Australia, I think we all can be; and, secondly, that the Prime Minister pointed out that, thanks to the success of our own negotiations, we have
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ensured that the vast majority of the countries associated with us can share in special arrangements or work out their own trading agreements. I do not believe that a country which, like Australia, has the welfare of this country always at heart can really be against this critical move at this time in our history. I feel that my noble friend Lord Boyd of Merton would agree with that.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Crowther, talked about our initial refusal to enter the Market on our own terms. He said it was the biggest political mistake for 200 years that we should have refused to become a founder member. I am not sure about that; but I think it would be our biggest mistake since the Battle of Hastings if now we refuse for a second time.
11.12 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, thirty years ago this summer, being then 17, I left school and was precipitated with hundreds of thousands of others into a world of universal cold, pain, horror and grief. I asked myself,"What is this?—because, whatever it is, there is only one course of life open to such as me; and that is to devote ourselves, above all other things, to preventing it ever happening again." I found it was a European war, a world war certainly, but one which started in Europe and the course of which was determined by Europe. It was the same as the war which mutilated my own father and uncle; it was much the same as the war before that, and the one before that, and all the wars before, in which my ancestors had with unquestioning and docile courage taken to the cold sea to kill and be killed.
After the war I returned to finish a wretchedly curtailed education because the Foreign Office told me, in their language of the day, that they"needed young men like me to help rebuild Europe." So, at my university I studied the history and the languages of Europe. In the Foreign Office I worked on its economic and political history. I spent ten years as a writer and journalist and editor—always about Europe, its history, its national divisions and difficulties, its parts and the prospects of uniting them. After that, when I became a Member of this House, I went on the delegation to the Council of Europe and the Western

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European Union and became, in time, the rapporteur of the Defence Committee of the latter—again Europe, its divisions, its attempts to heal them.
To-day is the first opportunity I have had in five years to speak on this subject in Parliament. I will therefore use the words of Sir Thomas More, on an occasion more important to him, but not more important to the future of England:
" I will now discharge my mind."
When in the first years after the war the Anglo-French Treaty, the Brussels Treaty, Benelux and UNISCAN succeeded one another I, and many like me, conceived that here at last began that fusion of proud and ancient nations and proud and hateful nationalisms into a Europe which should at last realise its full potentiality. I and many like me then watched with distress the failure of the attempt to unite Western Europe wrong end first, by means of the European Defence Community. How can one unite the armed forces of several countries before we have even given them a customs union, let alone united their administrations, harmonised their tax structure, taken joint economic initiatives of one sort or another? One cannot. It was preposterous to suppose that one could. In fact one cannot do it without a common federal Parliament elected by federation-wide parties.
Then I and many like me admired the speed with which the Six picked themselves up after that disaster, dusted themselves down and produced the Treaty of Rome, which began right end first with an Economic Community. We were distressed that the Macmillan Government of those days did not go to the Conference at Messina and stood aside, as Churchill never did, from the new and successful attempt. Distress, let me admit it, turned to incredulity when, within only three or four years, the Conservative Government started to run after the bus. We were incredulous, not at the change of heart—which came better late than never—but at the inability of the Government of those years to understand the conditions that France would impose on our entry. Mr. Macmillan sat for hours at Rambouillet with General de Gaulle. Mr. Heath sat for days and days with de Gaulle's representatives in Brussels.
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It was as though the Frenchmen were invisible to us. De Gaulle was on all counts the dominant statesman since the War in Western Europe; he was a Titan. We were first abashed and then annoyed by his extraordinary sense of destiny and grandeur, but it was we who had given him that sense, we and the Americans, when during the war we made light of his country, the reality of which was then incarnated in his enormous and ungainly person.
Neither then nor when the Labour Government applied again in 1967 did we understand that the price of entry was to cut some at least of those curious cords which tied us to the United States of America. In 1961 I thought we had little hope of succeeding; in 1967 I knew that we had none at all. But now that the great personage has gone to his grave, and now that the strange and brittle hatreds that he aroused in the British Establishment are stilled, we can succeed. Indeed, we have succeeded in rectifying at last that costly error of Macmillan's in 1957. Now we have got agreement, we do not want it. Well, of course, how could we? How could public opinion be expected to remain alert and convinced for 10 or 15 years after so much failure and disappointment? Do we not know in our own lives that when the obstacle to that which we desire is suddenly removed our desire cools? The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said yesterday:"If you do not when you may, you shall not when you will." That applies both ways round. For ten years France would not accept us, when she might.
But the analogy between nations and lovers is only good for part of the way, and like my noble friend Lord Chalfont, I am not surprised to see that public opinion is now beginning to swing back. The actual argument in Parliament to-day seems to me strangely lopsided, in that those who favour entry say,"Look, let us go in, because then we shall be better able to do this, that or the other better than we should be able to do it if we stayed out ". Those who say,"Let us stay out ", have never fully answered these points. They do not say, either, that it does not matter if we do not do these things better or that there are other international units in which they could be better does than in the E.E.C. These are

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all things that must be done in any case, and I would like to take a moment to enumerate them.
First of all, is routine foreign policy co-ordination. If the nations of Western Europe turn up in the councils of the world all facing in different directions, they will cancel each other out, and Western Europe will go unheard. Where can we co-operate better than in the E.E.C.? Western European Union is not appropriate, since it has built into it from its foundation the role of disciplining and controlling West Germany, now a free, equal, democratic and rightly proud allied nation. If, as seems likely, part of the American Armed Forces in Europe go home, there will be much indeed to talk about among the nations of Western Europe in face of the Brezhnev doctrine. Again, in preparation for a European Security Conference, the interests of the nations of Western Europe and those of North America are not identical, and where can we discuss the former bettor than in the E.E.C.? Where I repeat to the anti-Marketeers. Of all the Communist countries, it is only the Soviet Union that wants us to stay out of the E.E.C, The Roumanians and the Yugoslavs will sleep sounder if we are in. I think that is plain. Again, if the trade war we all dread develops between the United States, the Six and Japan, in what convoy shall we float best? Alone?
Then there is the degradation and pollution of the environment. The Commission of the E.E.C. is making specific recommendations within the next few months about the very heartland of this matter, without which no progress can come: I mean co-operation between States in enforcing pollution regulations, both within their own territories and between them, as, for instance, on the North Sea. The North Sea is entirely surrounded by members or candidate members of the E.E.C. Where better can we handle these matters, I ask the anti-marketeers, than in the E.E.C.?
Next, the international companies, which this House debated so recently. In which unit can our Governments band together for the common good of their peoples, acting in the interests of their close and similar democracies and in the interests of other peoples into whose lands these mammoths are moving? In what unit better than in the E.E.C.? Lastly,
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the United States and the Soviet Union are now capable of putting up communications satellites which can beam programmes into anybody's television set anywhere. Britain is not capable of doing that; but the countries of Europe would be capable of it together. If we want to be in this global mass communications business, do we wish to rely on programme time hired from the Americans, or perhaps from the Russians? Where better can we play our part than working to its through ESRO, an organisation which at long last seems to be coming back to life? The same conditions apply to questions of aid to the Third World, which I will not touch on because it has been well discussed in the debate already.
I do not attack, impugn or even allude to the sincerity, or even the good judgment, of those who are against our entry. This is a debate, and I should like to have out on the table for the first time for the purposes of debate, since I do not necessarily trust my own judgment, the views of those who oppose our entry on where these matters would be better tackled by Britain than in the E.E.C. I do not share the view of those who say that there has not been a debate in the country on whether we should go in or not. I believe there has been a highly informed debate, a highly articulate debate, a highly heated debate between persons of the highest intellectual qualification and the greatest political experience. It has happened within the Labour Party. This has been uncomfortable for some of us, but I conceive that among the national duties a Party may set iself is uncomfortably to debate those matters which remain undebated elsewhere. The Labour Party have done it for the country.
My Lords, may I now look for a moment at this terrible bugbear of the Common Agricultural Policy? Why, say the adversaries of entry, now that we have carried our own agriculture to a pitch of efficiency never seen before in the old continent, should we take on the burden of subsidising somebody else's? And how can we responsibly accept a structure of international payments of subsidies which we believe is unalterable? What such people forget is that though the policy is unalterable, the famous French peasants are not. We have quite a few marginal farmers ourselves, and we do a great deal through grants to help them.

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But more important than this, in my view, is the fact that the number of the French marginal farmers is dwindling all the time. I believe that their average age now is 57. Their children are no more anxious to live on the benefits of an international system of welfare payments than you or I would be. They are leaving the land; and so they should. Should we in the meantime hold up our hands in horror at being asked to help them? Do we not have problems of our own, of elderly workers, in the collieries and elsewhere, who cannot convert to other trades? If other countries have their problems of transition, does not the very concept of"community"itself require that we should help them? To miss this, I think, is to miss the whole point.
My Lords, I started by speaking of war and peace. I did not mean by this to suggest that, if it were not for the E.E.C., Germany and France, and Germany and Poland, would once again be at one another's throats and that we should be dragged in. It is not like that. We live now in the age of nuclear deterrence, and that has had something to say to the course of our history in the last quarter century. The question is: will British accession increase or decrease the risks of war in Europe? I have thought much and written much about this, and I will not burden the House with my reasoning, but only with my conclusion. I believe that the accession of this country, of Denmark, of Norway and of Ireland, to the Treaty of Rome will somewhat increase the chances of peace in Europe; will impose certain short-term economic burdens on us; will bring considerable long-term economic benefits to us; and is in step with the search for a full, decent and meaningful life for all our people, which it is the duty of every Socialist and every democrat to pursue. What Julius Caesar did by force, and many lesser souls have since tried to do by force, our generation can do by agreement.
11.30 p.m.
LORD GORE-BOOTH: My Lords, when the wheel of fortune has spun round and the blindfold pin has landed on the page, one then asks oneself what one's function is as the 38th batsman on the third day of a three-day test match.
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It occurs to one that one is a night watchman, and then one wonders what his function is. The word stays with me because it must presumably mean that I am expected to stay in for a few minutes. I regret to say that I shall. I shall be a brief as I can, but after this notable debate there is still quite a lot to be said, and I will say a few of the things which are on my mind.
However, first may I pay a few compliments? This very notable debate is particularly notable for the fact that it has produced no fewer than five distinctive, relevant and immensely interesting maiden speeches, and the House is richer for that having happened. The second compliment I should like to pay, in company with other noble Lords, is to the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell. We were all very much moved by her description of the mental pilgrimage that she has been through in this matter since the terribly premature death of her distinguished husband.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD GORE-BOOTH: Then, my Lords, I should like to pay one more tribute. We have paid tributes in this debate to political leaders, quite rightly, including our distinguished Ambassador in Paris. It is time for somebody to pay a tribute also to those teams, mostly anonymous, who have made the successful negotiations possible for the leaders of our Governments, whether the previous Governments or this one. One cannot name too many names, but I would associate with this tribute particularly the names of Sir Con O'Neill, Sir William Neild, and our patient Ambassador to the Community, Sir James Marjoribanks.
I should like to say before I continue that I very much enjoyed the stimulating speech of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, who has just sat down. I very much agree with his conclusions, although I am not altogether with him all the way on the historical analysis of how he got to them. But he will expect that.
I should like to do three things. First, I should like to make a rather formal statement on one point of history which I think perhaps is of importance even at this time. I should then like to try to analyse a little the general feeling behind the anti-Market philosophy; and

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then perhaps allude also to the general colour of the pro-Market philosophy.
First on the historical side, I should explain to your Lordships that I have had two periods in my official life when I had closely and directly to do with these matters. The first was the period from 1956 to 1960 in the Foreign Office. I will say just one word about that, because the account I gave in a question two days ago was queried and I think I must have the correct version of it on the Record. From 1956 to 1958 the Foreign Office was engaged on one task only, which was to try to help, if we could, to sell the Free Trade Area project to Europe. We, and the rest of us, failed. From then on the next job was to achieve the highly successful, and grossly underrated, accomplishment of the foundation of EFTA. From then we proceeded to the transformation of the O.E.E.C. into the O.E.C.D., and an effort in which, as the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, so rightly said, there was magnificent support from that great civil servant Sir Frank Lee, to reach better understanding with the Six. By 1960 the situation had been achieved which gave the Government of the day choices as to whether they would go forward or mark time, or what they would do; and of course we know that they elected to try for the first time to achieve entrance into the Common Market.
Then in 1966–67 I had the privilege of being the principal adviser on foreign affairs generally to the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, in the period during which the previous Government again attempted to obtain entry into the Common Market. I should like to say rather formally that, from my experience and knowledge of that time, and from my judgment then and my memory now, I am absolutely certain that if the previous Government had been able to get the terms which the present Government have now got they would have accepted them. In this, though from a rather different point of view, I associate myself with Mr. Roy Jenkins, the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, Mr. Michael Stewart and Mr. George Thomson.
Obviously I shall not proceed further with any political allusions, but I should like, if I may, to make two comments. The first is that there has been some
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comment to the effect that individual members of the previous Government would have been in favour of acceptance. That is not what I have said. I have said, in the British Constitutional sense,"the Government ". Secondly, it has also been said that the previous Government were not bound to accept the terms which have now been agreed. Of course they were not. Through no fault of their own, they never reached the point when this question arose. But what I have said, of course, implies that if you are going to be against the terms it is necessary to prove that the situation in this country has greatly deteriorated in the meantime—and that, on balance, would be difficult.
Turning now to the philosophy behind being against this project, I have thought a great deal about this and can only arrive constantly at the conclusion that opposition arises largely from fear. I noticed that in his very moderate speech of opposition the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, kept using the words"I fear ". I find this to be at the basis of so much. For instance the attitude,"We are going to have a great deal to do with a lot of foreigners who can outvote us, so let's be frightened.""Possibly we are not going to be able to afford the financial and commercial risks which this project entails—let's be frightened." Or,"Prices are going up—very frightening." What I regret about this—and I do not think my analysis is incorrect—is that there should be going round the country people of great influence and well known in public life who are in fact, whether or not they know it, saying,"Fellow British citizens, please be frightened."
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, would the noble Lord forgive me intervening for one moment? He has used the expression"fear"with regard to those of us who have been opposed to the Common Market. I have never, I think, used the word"fear"at all; and I would say that my observation is based not on fear but on complete confidence in this country. I am a little surprised that he should use the word"fear"in this way.
LORD GORE-BOOTH: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, and I am sure that this is true in his case. I shall not even suggest that he is subject to unconscious fear. But a great many people are; and

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it does not derive from any lack of confidence in our country. That I insist upon, and in that I am entirely at one with the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, who said that we must go into the Common Market, if we do, upstanding and with our heads held high. With that I entirely agree.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, may I, too, interrupt the noble Lord? I think that what he has said is absolutely offensive. So far as my friends are concerned, they have no fear at all; indeed, they accept the challenge of a wider world, rather than the fearful approach of some of those who want to go into Europe.
LORD GORE-BOOTH: My Lords, there may well be those who are afraid, and want to go into Europe. What I am saying is that the arguments against going in constantly revert to:"No; do not let us do this because it involves us with foreigners ". This constantly happens. I have argued a great deal over this; I am not reproaching any individual person.
I wish to take up one or two points in the opposition argument. That has not been referred to very much in this House and it should be discussed for the Record. I take first the use of statistics. The difficulty that the public will have in judging this matter is that certain negative or detrimental statistics are quite fixed, quite identifiable and absolutely true. We know from the White Paper that by 1977 we shall have an adverse balance of payments item of £200 million. The White Paper also says that there will certainly be another £50 million to add, and it is perfectly fair to assume that when we come on to the next two years—and I have some sympathy with the noble Lord who pointed out the indefiniteness of the remarks about the next few years—that that figure may indeed double.
On the other hand, we must remember that these figures are gross as opposed to net, and cannot take account of what will come in to set off some of the money which will flow out. I agree with noble Lords who think that on balance we shall have credit items during that period. We may have more American investment. The noble Lord. Lord Stokes, assured us that he will sell more motor cars. We shall earn more on financial services,
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possibly not more on insurance, but across the invisibles generally. I put that out as a general warning that one must be careful of the figures that are certain, because the only balance against them is bound to be figures that are uncertain. It is only fair in this context to refer to paragraph 96 of the White Paper, which quotes the Community as saying to us that the very survival of the Community would demand that institutions find equitable solutions in these cases.
I now come on to arguments about the share of trade—and I fear that I shall again be in trouble with the noble Lord, Lord Beswick. It is also misleading to say that we are making too much fuss about 20 per cent. of our trade and neglecting the other 80 per cent. Taking the figures used by the E.E.C. and EFTA together you get something like one-third of our trade, and I do not think it is placing a wrong emphasis that we should endeavour to turn one-third of our trade into higher absolute figures. This seems only common sense, the more so because some of the rest of our trade is, for instance, with the United States, and we have agreed that we cannot go into special arrangements with the United States. Another useful percentage, in economic terms, is with South Africa. I am sure that no noble Lord will want to go into special arrangements with South Africa. What we are doing, purely in terms of trade, is of much greater significance and benefit to this country than the original statement would have one believe.
On the strictly economic side, one matter about the White Paper which I do not find reassuring or satisfactory concerns paragraphs Nos. 129 to 131, about capital movements. I know that this is bound to be an uncertain subject and I appreciate that it is difficult to write in any depth, or with any argument, about things that are still under negotiation. But I hope that the noble Earl will be able to tell us a little more than the rather bland platitudes that are contained in those paragraphs, because the question as to which way capital will move has some effect on one's judgment of this question as a whole.
There is also the subject of aid. Here I feel bound to take issue with the somewhat astonishing doctrine that if we join the E.E.C. it will be at the expense of

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the developing countries. I simply do not follow this argument. Fortunately, I do not have to argue in great detail because the noble Lord, Lord Walston, produced a remarkable assembly of figures to show that if we do go into the Common Market it will not be we who will be setting a good example; we shall be following. I am very glad that that is the case, because in the debate on overseas aid, and particularly as regards private aid, I expressed the view that the Government aid percentage should be higher than it is. Quite apart from that, it surely has to be accepted by people in this day and age that you cannot distribute wealth unless you create wealth. You must control it but you must create it; and the amount of aid that is given, provided that we all retain our democratic institutions, is in the end the amount by which the taxpayer can be persuaded that he should delay the improvements that he wants in his own country because the needs of others are greater—and they certainly are greater.
Then, my Lords, there has appeared, too, a somewhat more sophisticated comment on what we should do rather than that we should not do anything; that is, that we should join the Common Market but that we should join it, not now but perhaps later. That seems to me to be the worst possible point of view. The noble Lord, Lord Crowther, shot half of it down yesterday when he asked, in the simplest language,"Well, what do we do in the meantime?" But that is not all. That view is based on the logical fallacy that some day within the foreseeable future, nature or virtue or luck will deal out a hand containing all the honours in what will be trumps, and several aces into the bargain, and then you will be able to play. But fortune does not do that. As I previously implied, our position is less good than it was in 1967 in respect of inflation and employment, but is better in respect of the balance of payments; and we are probably in as good a situation now as we shall be at any time (even if we do quite well in our affairs) for seeking entry to E.E.C.
Then there is one other strange objection which has suddenly popped its head up within the last few days, although I must say that it has been in my mind for some time. It is the old objection that perhaps the Russians might not like
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it. Mr. Brezhnev has said from the heights of the Caucasus that now is the time for all good Social Democrats to cease their aid to the party—the party being NATO. The implication there for the question we are discussing is that we should ignore the red carpet of welcome that is put out for us by the Social Democrats of Europe—by Herr Willy Brandt and others; that we should throw away the bird in hand until some day"the red, red robin comes bob, bob bobbing along"and tells us what we are to do. This cannot be the right way to bring about a détente of understanding, and it is not a reason for hesitating at this particular moment.
So, my Lords, in these circumstances I am bound to arrive at a conclusion which may not be popular to all noble Lords but which I really feel is right at this particular moment. It is that if now we were to be within sight of the goal, a goal for which one Government of one Party and two Governments of another Party have striven, if we were now to look at that goal and then turn around and go home we should certainly lose our credibility with our friends in Europe, including our Social Democrat friends. Not only that, but a procedure like that over a decade will cause us to forfeit a great deal of credibility, perhaps a majority of credibility, with the rest of the world as well. If we could do that, what else could we do.
I feel strongly about this. I feel strongly enough to quote a very famous line from a citizen of pre-Common Market Europe called Dante Alighieri, and it is a line in Dante's Inferno in which he sees a shadow, a ghost of a man who had failed in a great decision, and he wrote the unforgettable line
" Che fece per viltate il gran rifiuto "
which means, as near as you can translate it:
" who made through timidity the great refusal."
But the point of the story in a way is that the place where he saw the shadow was the gates of Hell.
May I turn to the more cheerful aspect of this subject, the more positive aspect? We have tended to have Europe sold short to us ever since Spengler wrote about The Decline of the West. If one thinks of the history of Europe, what one really identifies Europe with over all

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other qualities is resilience. The resilience of Europe through history has been quite incredible. They bashed themselves to pieces in the Thirty Years War, followed by the glories of Louis XIV. Then knocked themselves to pieces in the Napoleonic wars, followed by the tremendous economic, industrial upswing of the nineteenth century, and in this century, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, so graphically described, again Europeans twice fought themselves to a standstill, and this time with modern weapons, and we have only to go across the Channel to see the result. That is the kind of resilience which surely we want to be identified with.
This is where I join myself particularly with the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, and also the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles and others. This is the kind of upward swing and forward swing with which young people in this country want to be identified. As the noble Lord, Lord Reay, said, for 25 years we have been going backwards—respectably backwards, honourably backwards, and, except for one or two bad mistakes, on the whole sensibly backwards. But here at last is a chance to do something which is not defensive, which is not backward-looking, which is new among people whom the younger citizens of this country do not regard as foreigners. They regard people in a way which is quite startling to my own generation, simply as people, and they do not think it funny when they hear one of their own countrymen speaking German, Italian or French badly, which was the bad habit in my generation.
So there is this great forward movement with what the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft called a feeling of adventure about it, and the feeling of conviction. This is fortified by one other thing. Let us not forget that in this enterprise we are welcome. There is often the still surviving feeling that somehow we arrive in Brussels and find a whole lot of hostile foreign faces. That is not the case. We have friends among the Six. And not only that, but we have one remarkable piece of good fortune in this situation. We are not sitting, like the Japanese, off the coast of a mainland faced with nothing but super-Powers.
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Our neighbours include three peoples of somewhat similar size and wealth and power to ourselves. That makes the foundation of a good club. You add our good commercial partners of Benelux and our persistent friends the Dutch, and it is a very good club to which we need not hesitate to belong.
In closing these remarks I would make one more quotation. The noble Lord, Lord Redcliffc-Maud, brought Zeus the premier ancient Greek God into this debate. The poet-dramatist Aeschylus in a very epigrammatic little line spoke of someone being
" a welcome volunteer in the ranks of Zeus."
We can be a welcome volunteer in the service of Europe and the world. I hope we shall be.
11.55 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords I should like to add my tribute to the five admirable maiden speeches that we have had in this great debate, and also to add my word of congratulation upon the range of remarkable speeches we have had in these three days. I am constantly lost in admiration and respect for the originality and authority with which noble Lords speak from all parts of the House, and it is quite remarkable to hear, at the end of a long debate, speeches of the originality of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and the authority of the noble Lord, Lord Gore-Booth. I remember that when I was in another place I used to read the debates in this noble House on great occasions, and I can particularly remember reading the House a Lords Hansard on the Common Market debate in 1963, and at that time feeling how immensely informative and authoritative it was. I only hope that this debate, which in my judgment is even greater, will be read by many honourable and right honourable friends in another place. I feel that they would gain much by it.
I am privileged to stand up and be counted in favour of entry into the Common Market. I do not propose to traverse the economic and political arguments which have already been so splendidly dealt with. I should just like to invite noble Lords to cast their minds forward to three months' time, when the vote is taken, and the state of mind that our

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country may be in. I feel in my bones—and I think most noble Lords do as well—that we shall go in this time. I was particularly interested in the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, who, despite his charming manner, had some very sharp things to say about the Common Market. Nevertheless, he felt that we were going in, and he added what I myself feel passionately: that if we go in, let us go in wholeheartedly. I could not agree more with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Byers, in his excellent speech: that it would be disastrous for us to go in in a half-hearted way. There are great opportunities there, but they are only opportunities, and we shall not make the best of them unless we as a nation go in with vigour and determination and, so far as is humanly possible, united as a nation to do so.
There is no doubt that in this House the great majority of your Lordships in all parts of the House are in favour of entry. But, of course, our anxiety at this time is how the vote will fall in the other place. In this context it will not have escaped your Lordships' attention that when the debate was taken in the other place in favour of applying for entry in May, 1967, the Labour Government of the day received the official support of the Parliamentary Opposition of the day, under the leadership of my right honourable friend Mr. Heath; and the result was that on the main question the overwhelming vote in the other place was 487 votes to 62. Secondly, the interesting point is that, had the Labour Government decided to run their full five year term until this spring, with the saving of a month or two in the negotiations which were undoubtedly lost by the change of Government, and assuming that the same terms were achieved, it would have been the Labour Government which would have led us into Europe with a similar overwhelming vote in the House of Commons, and no doubt an overwhelming vote in this House as well. This would have given the clear lead to public opinion which undoubtedly most people in the country are now looking for. It would be ironical if the choice of the date of the General Election should adversely affect our nation's prospect in this great adventure.
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The present position, with the much-publicised differences of opinion in the Labour Party, is undoubtedly adding to the confusion in the minds of the public. The public complaint which we all hear, that people do not know enough about the matter to make up their minds, is really founded on a misconception. They have all the information—after all, we have been discussing it now for at least ten or fifteen years—but the fact is that the average person is unable to get his mind in focus to decide where the national advantages lie and, indeed, where his own advantages lie. But it has been said many times, from all sides, during this debate that it is impossible to prove 100 per cent., either economically or politically that we should make entry now. The decision must at the end of the day, be a matter of personal judgment.
I have two points that I should like to make. First, the huge majority of noble Lords in all parts of the House, including the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, who have spoken firmly in favour of entry, will undoubtedly inform and influence public opinion substantially in the coming three months and will help people in reaching a decision. In my opinion, it would be hard to find a better informed or more authoritative source than this debate which we are concluding. Secondly, far more striking than the present change of course by the leadership of the Labour Party was the change in 1967 to apply for entry. In 1961, the Labour Party, with a few distinguished exceptions like Mr. Roy Jenkins, was solidly against entry and voted so in the House of Commons. But in 1967, the Labour Party in Government, in the driving seat with the books of the country opened in front of them, decided that this was the best policy open to the country, whatever the difficulties and the risks they might encounter by going in, and in spite of the known dissensions they would be bound to meet in their own Party. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, said earlier,"All credit to them! ", and certainly I join with him. And I should like to say that we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, for his graphic account of the preparatory steps leading up to the application for entry.
But this is the point. This conversion of the Labour Party to the merits of

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entry when they were in Government, when they had the facts of our national life before them, is one of the few incontrovertible facts in this vast hazy situation that strikes the minds of the public, and I believe that this will have a considerable impact in helping people to make up their minds where the advantage lies. I think it will have far more impact on them than the changes that are going on at the present time. Of course I regret, like everybody else, that the leadership of the Labour Party has made a reversal of policy now, but personally I would be sparing in my criticism. Like other noble Lords who have served in the House of Commons and played an active part in the inner organisation of their Party, I understand that ever-present problem of maintaining unity behind the leadership of the Party. The noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, had some wise words to say about this, and he was completely right.
It was epitomised in a story of the great Lord Melbourne, one of the great Prime Ministers of the last century. Lord Melbourne was forming a Cabinet on one occasion and he approached a leading member of his Party to invite him to join the Cabinet. This man replied rather cagily:"Well, yes, I agree to join your Cabinet, and I will support you so long as I think you are right ". To which Lord Melbourne replied:"That is no good to me. I want men who will support me when I am wrong." How profoundly true it is, as all of us who have been in the hurly-burly of the Commons know, that everybody is wrong sometimes, and that unless a Leader can get the support of his friends then it is quite impossible to run a political Party! So I would only say that I hope that in due course the Labour Party will find a better rallying point than opposition to the Common Market.
Some noble Lords have already predicted that public opinion will swing in favour of entry; and now that the terms are settled and. Ministers can explain the benefits, as well as the costs which have been set out in the White Paper, public opinion is undoubtedly already beginning to swing, especially among the young people—and this has been felicitously referred to by a number of noble Lords,
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notably in a striking speech by my noble friend Lord Gowrie and a quite remarkable speech by my noble friend Lord Eccles. The young undoubtedly see the prospect of entry as a challenge and an opportunity, and they are not inhibited, as are many of us in the older generation, by our sense of an Imperial past and the suspicion of foreigners with which many of us started. I believe that public opinion will continue to swing, and I believe that we are set to vote in favour of entry in October and that we shall carry a large majority of our countrymen with us.
12.6 a.m.
LORD DELACOURT-SMITH: My Lords, we have had a long and wide-ranging debate which has shown a wide spectrum of opinion on both sides of the House on the subject before us. As noble Lords have said, it has been a debate which has been marked, among many other things, by the number of excellent maiden speeches to which we have had the privilege of listening; and, if I may, I should like to make particular reference to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who combined, on the one hand, a lucidity and clarity of thought and expression with, on the other hand, a warmth and humanity of thinking which I believe made a great and direct appeal to your Lordships' House.
My Lords, almost inevitably each noble Lord who has taken part has felt it appropriate to make an explicit statement of his personal position, and I can unequivocably state my own. It is that I have been for some years now of the view that we should be well advised to join the European Economic Community, and that the best thing, of course, would be if we could enter with well thought-out policies for action within the Community, with the support of the overwhelming majority of the people of the country, who knew what was involved and who believed that what was involved in this decision was fair and reasonable for them.
But despite that general declaration of my point of view I may not see the issues before us in quite the same way as some noble Lords have done, for I believe that there is a much greater obligation on the Government than many noble Lords appear to believe there is

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to answer more effectively than I have so far heard answered some of the questions and points raised by critics of the Government's proposals. My Lords, I favour going into the Market, as I have said, but I do not regard the advantages as so automatic as some who have taken part in this controversy, not in the last two or three days but over a period of years, have seemed to me to do.
I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, who earlier referred to euphoria; and he praised my noble friend Lord Greenwood for having perhaps contributed to checking any tendency in that direction. I am not speaking of the last three days but of a long period of time. I feel that there has been a tendency on the part of some of those who are the warmest advocates of entry into the Common Market towards a degree of euphoria which, despite my conclusions on this subject, I cannot altogether share. I am bound to observe that I have heard in the course of this debate a number of answers to arguments which, for my own part, I have never heard advanced, certainly not advanced with any great emphasis, by anti-Marketeers whom I know. But I have not heard answers to what I felt myself (even though I reject them) would be the most formidable criticisms that were put forward.
It is a basic argument that if we do not enter the Market we shall find ourselves in a world where, economically, the prospects and opportunities get narrower and narrower. I will not seek to embark on the political argument, although I am very conscious of the considerations which have been put, for example, in such exceedingly moving terms by my noble friend Lord Stow Hill; but I believe too that the political argument to some extent rests on the economic strength which this policy can expect to secure. It is true that those who oppose entering the Market can point to the strong foothold we already have in growing markets, such as Australia, and to the various substantial footholds we already have in the Community itself. But to my mind this line of argument ignores the fact that world trade patterns are changing, and will change with increasing rapidity in the future.
This line of argument ignores in particular the effect which the E.E.C. itself will have upon world trade patterns—
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an effect which it will have whether we are in the E.E.C. or not. If we remain outside we shall find to an increasing degree in the years ahead that the Community becomes a most powerful competitor in those markets where at the moment we enjoy a satisfactory position. The Common Market has remained until now largely a Customs union. If one compares it with the U.S.A. one sees at once a striking difference. The Community has no common currency, no central bank, no common tax system, no common company legislation. It is still divided by its varying practices and standards in matters of health and welfare, which can affect manufacturing as well. But, of course, this is the current situation. It is a situation in which the present industrial structure is not adapted to the full use of modern technology. Hence the paradox that has been so often remarked on, that it is very largely the U.S. firms which have been investing in Europe and establishing themselves in Europe, and have in some ways exploited the facilities of the Community to the greatest degree; but in my judgment this is a situation which will not last.
It is only now that the Community, as I read the situation, is about to pass, or can be about to pass, into a new phase of great importance, where it becomes an area in which large, unified industrial units come increasingly into existence. This is not the time to develop this point; but the discussions of the concept of the European company, the discussions of the new industrial policy, all underline this immensely important new phase which the Common Market is entering.
My Lords, the debate in your Lordships' House has shown great support for entering the Market, but I think we are conscious of the fact that there is, and there has been, a wider gap between opinion as expressed in this House today, expressed in another place on earlier occasions and expressed by the political Parties, all three of which, in their various ways, have accepted the principle of entering the Community—a wide gap between that and a great deal of public opinion in the country. I am well aware of the fact that among trade unionists—it is no good refusing to face this fact—there is widespread scepticism, anxiety and hostility to the idea of entry,

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at any rate on the basis at present proposed. Political leadership has its scope and its rôle, but in the end political Parties and trade unions exist to represent those who are members of them. Anybody, for example, who saw the televised proceedings of the Labour Party's special conference a fortnight ago could not doubt the sincerity and deep conviction with which conflicting views on this subject were being held and expressed.
Reference has been made to those who were Foreign Office Ministers in the previous Administration and who were, or would have been, concerned with negotiations on this subject: They have made clear that they would have been prepared, as I understand it, to recommend the terms which the present Government have accepted. That is a clear situation, and they are men of integrity and of high ability. What I am not so sure of is whether they or anybody else is entitled to suggest that the same degree of unanimity would have been applied to that recommendation by Ministers who were concerned with economics, with trade and industry, with employment and with the other aspects of the living standards of our people. We must of course look at the terms, at the White Paper, at the prospects which it implies, at what it discloses and, if I may say so, at what it does not disclose as well. I think the Government case follows now a fairly clear pattern, and a part of that pattern—not the whole of it, but a part of it, the part which is material to my argument—is an enthusiastic, but I would accept a somewhat uncritical, account of the prospects which will arise on entering the Market. But of course it does inevitably and generously admit that prices will rise and that there will be problems during the period of transition.
I am bound to say that notwithstanding my good will towards entry to the Community, I do not believe that the case as stated in the present White Paper will go as far as is necessary in winning confidence. I do not believe that the White Paper deals convincingly with a number of aspects of great importance. The debate in another place revealed that there were Members on both sides of the House who made searching criticisms of the White Paper, criticisms which I
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believe merit a fuller answer than they have, so far as I have seen, yet received. The Government I believe would be wise, the Party opposite would be wise, to recognise how genuine and widespread anxieties are. Those anxieties ought not to be brushed aside as, quite frankly, some noble Lords in our debate have tended to brush them aside, as trivial and unimportant against the great prospects, against the great conception, which is embodied in joining the Community. These are anxieties of which nobody need feel ashamed. The Government, since they are advancing these propositions to the people, are responsible for doing whatever they can to allay these anxieties.
There are anxieties about regional policy, which have been voiced in your Lordships' House. I do not think that these anxieties will be fully met by expressions of the expectation that entry into the E.E.C. might stimulate a larger amount of American or West German investment in some of the areas which in the past have benefited from regional policies. I do not think that that is an adequate answer to the anxieties which are undoubtedly felt. It is no good believing that one can leave out of account what has happened in the last twelve months. When a Government advance a new policy, an important stage of policy, such as the present Government are advancing at the moment, then what people have experienced in terms of prices, unemployment and the Government's conception of social justice will seem to people to embody the values and principles of that Government, which they expect will be reflected in the way the Government carry through their new policies in the new sphere. I believe it is wise to recognise these facts and not to suggest that those who argue, as I am doing now, are trying to invent or magnify arguments against the Government's policy. It is no good trying to brush these anxieties away.
There are anxieties about prices. The repetition which, with respect, is all I have so far heard by way of reply, of what is in the White Paper about the expectation of a 15 per cent. rise over five years, does not seem to me, in view of some of the contributions that have been made by other noble Lords who

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appear to speak with a degree of authority, to be a sufficient answer; and some amplification of the basis upon which these calculations are made is required. There are anxieties about the balance of payments. It has been suggested that the impact upon our balance of payments will be far greater. This, too, requires that the fullest information that is in the possession of the Government should be made public. After all, we have seen what an effect upon our economic position the balance of payments has had over the last few years. There are anxieties about our future relations with the Commonwealth. There is a deep sense of loyalty to and kinship with the Commonwealth countries. I urge the Government most seriously to take heed of the words of the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, when he said:"There is much to look after in Commonwealth relations." I am sure that those words are wise words, which reflect a real anxiety and a need which people feel.
Then there are the direct trading consequences in the transitional period. The Secretary for Trade and Industry, I see, is quoted as saying that there will be an initial position of disadvantage, since the adverse effect of applying the Common External Tariff will be felt more quickly than the expansionary advantages of progressive abolition of the tariffs between ourselves and the Community. What effect will this have on jobs?
The answer to all these questions which is offered by noble Lords opposite is that these are mere temporary, relatively trivial, considerations and difficulties, and that one should dismiss them from one's mind and concentrate upon the beneficial long-term effects. I am one of those, as I have said, who accept the beneficial long-term effects; but I do not believe that one can so easily brush aside the transitional difficulties that are going to arise. How long indeed (I know that nobody can answer this question) is this period of short-term difficulties going to last? My noble friend Lord Pargiter reminded us that there are many people who, for reasons of age, are inevitably concerned with the short-term. There are many sections of our population whose standards of living are such that they cannot calmly or with equanimity accept the idea that it is going to be lowered
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further, or imperilled in some way, even for what is represented by the Government as a temporary period, to be much more than compensated for by the long-term improvement.
These, I believe, are problems which need to be faced and need to be recognised. The Government must show more candour in handling these matters. I believe that it would be possible for the United Kingdom to enter the Community with the support of the great majority of the people, but this is only likely to be achieved by a Government who can end the divisive policies with which we have become unhappily familiar; who can bring down, and show that they are bringing down, the unemployment figures which create such a background of anxiety and uncertainty for working people; who can give effective assurances that living standards will be protected against the hazards of transition; who show, by their record, a real determination to pursue constructive regional policies, and who recognise a need for a measure of intervention in terms of the E.E.C. industrial policy.
Let me, in conclusion, ask the noble Earl whether, when he comes to reply, he will say something about the question of the mandate. Is he satisfied that the Government have a mandate in the present Parliament to reach such far-reaching decisions and to undertake such far-reaching commitments? A mandate of a Party at a preceding General Election is of course a document in which your Lordships' House has always taken great interest. I would echo, though, the words of my noble friend Lord Greenwood of Rossendale: that if indeed we do, after whatever debate and after whatever process, go into the Common Market, we must make every endeavour to ensure that it can be a wholehearted participation in which we take a share with a willingness to see that as a nation we play our part in this enterprise.
12.29 a.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I must confess that when two days ago—it seems a little bit longer—on Monday afternoon I looked down the list of the prospective speakers, five score and ten, I wondered whether our three-day marathon would be a good thing. Now, two days later, after some 28½ hours

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of discussion, it is my firm view that this debate has been a good thing; that it has had real meaning, and has been eminently worth while. I speak of course in support (though we are just taking note of it) of the White Paper, and I am naturally glad that in your Lordships' House that White Paper has received so overwhelming an endorsement. I trust that that endorsement will be noted outside your Lordships' House. This is a forum where opinion can be firmly held, but almost invariably moderately expressed, but it does not lose from that. It is above all a forum which permits, nay, encourages, the expression of free and independent judgment, and it is therefore worth remarking that in this forum in this exploratory discussion, to the question whether Britain should enter the Community your Lordships have replied with a pretty clear-cut and a ringing affirmative. I think I am 112th in the batting order. I believe there have been 13 speakers against; there has been one sitter on the fence, and there has been that notable agnostic Lady Gaitskell, who I think slid away a little bit from agnosticism in a speech which I also should like to acknowledge for its distinction and very moving quality.
The response which your Lordships' House has given has not only been a quantitative response; it is true to say that it has also been a response of quality, not least, if I may say so, from those who have spoken either balancing or against—like the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, in a very notable speech opening our debate yesterday afternoon. And that response has come from all corners of your Lordships' House. It has come from elder statesmen and, I am glad to say, from a number of the younger Members of your Lordships' House in speeches of the very highest distinction. The five maiden speakers must be almost weary of hearing praises heaped upon them, but our five maiden speeches in this three-day debate have been of quite extraordinary quality.
My Lords, in listening to this long debate, what has struck me is that this response has been drawn from many different sources. There are those who have said Yes for mainly pragmatic and economic reasons; there are those who have said Yes mainly from political and
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idealistic reasons; there are those who have said Yes who were formerly doubters, and there are those who have said Yes who have been in favour of our joining the Community for a very long time. It is significant that so many different routes have brought so many of your Lordships to precisely the same conclusion here and now in July, 1971.
Like some other noble Lords, I did not reach this conclusion at a stroke. I was concerned with European affairs when I joined the Foreign Office after the war, and I believed then in a closer association between Britain and Europe. But I was not, I must confess, thinking of a close organic association of the kind which the Community represents. Like others at that time, my political imagination was beguiled by the grand Churchillian vision of Britain at the centre of three great concentric circles: the North Atlantic circle, embracing a special relationship with the United States; a Commonwealth circle, with Britain at the heart and centre, the nexus of Commonwealth countries; and a European circle, which again would rest on Britain at its outer edge. That was a beguiling vision and a flattering one for those who live in this country. But as the 'forties faded into the 'fifties, so did that vision begin to fade and to tarnish, because, sadly, it was based on false premises: a false premise of our relative weighting in the world vis-à-vis the United States; a false premise of the Commonwealth's developing to greater organic unity; a false premise—in this case a pessimistic one—of the speed of European recovery from the war and of the speed of the progress towards greater European unity.
Thus it is that I became, a decade or so ago, and have remained, a strong believer that our destiny as a nation lies with Europe, although at the same time we must, in my view, maintain the firmest possible links under the North Atlantic Alliance with the United States, while nourishing and fertilising wherever possible the Commonwealth connection. I have stated my reasons for that belief at some length on a good many occasions in your Lordships' House and I will not expand on them at this moment, but I should like to summarise them in the following words because what I believe here represents what many of your Lordships have said in this long debate.

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I believe that membership, with its access to a market of some 300 million people and with the further access which will come with it—and this is a point which has hardly been touched on during this long debate—to a further 100 million people who are in association with the Community, will be decisively to the advantage of British industry. I believe that that applies to those companies able and willing to seize the opportunities that are presented, be they giant, large, medium or small. I also believe that we should thus have the possibility of attaining a rate of economic growth which has eluded us, but not our neighbours, over the last decade or so, and, with that economic growth, the possibilities of investment and a higher standard of living. I concede straight away that these beliefs are not provable by statistical analysis, whatever intricacies of statistical analysis have been or could have been put into a White Paper. However, I know that my views have been shared by bodies like the C.B.I. and I see that they have been endorsed—and more than endorsed—in a series of brilliant and convincing speeches in this long debate made by the noble Lord, Lord Robens of Woldingham, the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, the noble Lord, Lord Plowden, to-day by the noble Lord, Lord Nelson, and by many others. And these views are supported not only by the testimony that we have heard in the last three days but by the evidence of the performance of the Six themselves.
Having said that, I would concede that economic growth by itself should not represent the be-all-and-end-all of national policy but, by the same token, I see no reason for us to be masochistic about growth, as I thought the noble Lord, Lord Soper, was on our opening day. Of course, I agree profoundly with what my noble friend Lord Eccles said in a very distinguished speech at the start of our debate to-day—that growth properly directed and wisely used can enormously enhance the quality of life in this country and can enormously increase our influence for good in the world.
That is the positive side of the economic coin. The negative side is the grave and growing danger that if we are excluded—nay, rather, what I think is the main possibility now, if we succeed
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in excluding ourselves—over a period of time our industrial base would become too narrow for our high-technology industries, as the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, and my noble friend Lord Bessborough have said. Progressively, if that should happen, we could become the drawers of water, the hewers of wood and the sub-contractors for the mainland of Western Europe. But exclusion could also impose perhaps an even heavier economic penalty. Progressively as Western Europe exerted its influence as a great trading bloc, progressively as it harmonised its economic environment, we could find ourselves shut out from a leading role in the decision-making process, the things that make the world's economic and monetary systems tick. These negative arguments are, I believe, a very strong positive argument for entry.
So much for the economic situation. My Lords, I am not a Marxist, and I do not therefore admit the automatic primacy of things economic over things political. I do not wish to quibble over whether the economic or the political arguments for entry are the strongest. Both are strong; but the political arguments, as we have heard them expressed in this debate during these last three days, are very strong indeed. Put very simply, I have a profound belief in the political genius of our 50 million people and of our ability to contribute thereby to saner policies in this sometimes rather neurotic world. In a world increasingly dominated by the four or five actual or emerging power clusters, it is my profound belief that if we do not accept the Community's invitation to join, we shall find it increasingly difficult, year by year, and decade by decade, to exert that leverage on world affairs which most of us would like to see us exerting. I believe profoundly that for that reason alone it must be to our advantage to join.
But there is a mutuality of interests here, my Lords, as in all good bargains. I believe that it is likewise in the political interests of the Six that we should join. With an enlarged and more united Western Europe we should be able, possibly, to banish for ever the spectre of European civil war, and let us remember, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, reminded us in a notable speech, that the last two world wars were, in origin,

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European civil wars. It is also my belief that through a stronger and more united Western Europe—not through a weaker and more fragmented Western Europe—that the pressures and initiatives and the generosity which will be generated can best serve to heal that tragic breach in Europe between its Eastern and its Western wings. This is an article of faith, to a certain extent, but I believe that that is the way to greater unity in the Europe which will one day become again one Europe.
A united and enlarged Western Europe will be better able to pursue generous and co-ordinated policies of trade and aid towards the developing world. It is through the enlargement of the Communities, through a more united and stronger Western Europe, that we shall attain a healthier and more stable relationship and balance between the new world and the old. In sum, I believe profoundly with what my noble friend Lord Harlech said in a speech of remarkable power and force that if either we in Britain, or we in Europe, wish to have some chance of ensuring that all the big decisions which intimately affect us are not taken over our heads, then we should go for British membership of an enlarged Community.
Those, in shorthand, are my fundamental reasons for having felt that it was right for us to join so long as we are wanted and so long as the terms were reasonable. I have not been a"join at any price"man any more than my noble friend Lord Carrington, or the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, and I have had my doubts over the years totally dispelled only within the last few months that the Six—all the Six—wanted us in. I have no doubt at all about that. That, as the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell said, is the decisive difference in the position now compared with the position in 1969 or 1961.
What of the package? It is getting late, and I do not expect noble Lords will wish me to go into the details of the package. Some claim that it is unacceptable; some have doubts about it; some of those doubts portray the fears which I think the noble Lord, Lord Gore-Booth, was intimating, although he did not seem to meet with a great deal of approval. It is difficult to maintain that the package
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is unacceptable when Minister after Minister in the last Administration, those who were most intimately involved with the negotiations, have testified precisely to the contrary. It is difficult to maintain this when an honest and honourable man, the deputy leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party, has so testified. It is difficult to maintain this when the last Foreign Minister in the last Government has so testified, and not only the last Foreign Minister but all three—Mr. Michael Stewart, Lord George-Brown and Mr. Gordon Walker. And it is difficult to maintain this somewhat acrobatic stance when not only the last chief negotiator, Mr. George Thomson, has so testified but also his predecessor, Lord Chalfont. I think the same thing underlay the brave, courageous speech with which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, opened our debate today.
My Lords, I could attempt to score back debating points on some of the issues, be they sovereignty, so brilliantly discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, or the cost of living, and especially the very important point of how entry will bear upon people with fixed incomes and older people—the point made by the noble Baroness; or regional policies or fisheries or balance of payments. But I think perhaps it would not be the right moment to deal with these. I could also deal with the Commonwealth points.
I should like to go straight on and say in conclusion why I believe this debate has been so justified and so worth while. I would like to make it clear that I do not feel that this debate has been justified for the partisan reason that your Lordships seem willing to enter the ark of the Community in droves, two by two and fifty by fifty. Or that the radical"antis"seem to have been stranded, perhaps momentarily, certainly with dignity and in all sincerity, on a rather lofty but solitary mountain.
I think this debate has been justified by the very large consensus which seems to have formed on a certain number of really fundamental and cardinal points. The first is the importance of this issue. I think we are all agreed, pro or anti, that this is not a mere matter of kangaroo meat or butter or fish fingers. It goes beyond that. Our decision may well change the course of our nation's history. More often than not historians tell

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us to regard historical developments as a stream in which no single event or any single year is of decisive importance. Perhaps they are right. Be that as it may, I find it hard not to look upon 1971 as a decisive year, not only for Britain but for Europe; as decisive in its way as some other traumatic milestones which many of us have passed, be it 1914, 1939 or 1945, the lowering of the Iron Curtain, or 1958, the Treaty of Rome.
The second reason is that I think the view has come across in this long debate that this is an issue which none of us who cares about our country can doubt—and I know we all care about our country, pro or anti. I know that in politics"now"can prove a very moveable feast and"never"a rather dangerous word. But I believe, and what is more I believe that the majority of your Lordships also believe, that in all probability we are now faced with a"now or never"decision. We have certainly missed marvellous chances of boarding the European boat in the past, and of being the skipper if we had wanted to be. It is my conviction—and I am here only echoing the sound which we have heard time and time again repeated in this debate—that if we forgo the opportunity this time it will not recur; and if perchance it did recur it could not conceivably recur on such favourable terms.
If the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will forgive me, I think that our children and grandchildren, when they learned of that decision, would think that we were just"stark staring bonkers"to have said No, if we could perchance dream of saying No. I believe this, because it is my belief that the damage which could flow from that negative"Never ", could be almost incalculable. We could certainly damage ourselves. As the White Paper so succinctly puts it, in a single generation we should have renounced an Imperial past and rejected a European future. Of course, I would not suggest that we should suddenly as a nation be struck with palsy. But I do think that we should then be faced with a sad rundown to mediocrity—the term of the noble Lord, Lord Robbins. I do not believe that the damage would only be to our national morale. I believe that if we were to take such a light and frivolous decision it would put us into the pillory
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all around the world. Furthermore, I believe that it would do grave damage to morale in Europe, and could put back the clock of European unity, at a moment of considerable promise, perhaps decisively.
The third conclusion which I believe has emerged from this debate is that while the opponents of our entry have sought to destroy the validity of the arguments with which we advocate entry, most conspicuously they have revealed that their own larder is barer than bare. Quite frankly—and I say this very sincerely—those noble Lords who in their turn very sincerely are opposed to the policy of entry—have not advanced, nor even sought to advance, a convincing alternative strategy for this country to follow in the last one-third of this century.
And the fourth conclusion flows, I suspect, from the last one. It has seemed to me, listening to this debate, that even some of the most ardent opponents of entry are coming to recognise that, right or wrong, this country will almost certainly be a member of the Common Market by January 1, 1973. If this is right, it is my view—and here again I think this is a view fairly widely shared in your Lordships' House—that more and more people should be giving thought, not to whether we should, in an ideal world, enter these communities, but rather to the question as to how, when we enter them we shall be able to make the best possible contribution which is good for us, good for Europe and good for the wider world. That is why I so profoundly agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Annan, when he said on the first day of our debate that we should remember that we are not going into Europe in a static role. There is a tremendous difference in being in and being out. Europe for us these last two decades has been something of a spectator sport, and it is time, in my view, for us to get on court.
My Lords, if, as I am virtually certain, Parliament does in fact vote in principle for the White Paper in October, and if we adhere thereafter to the programme, there will be only a bare 14 months between the October decision and the start of our actual membership; a short time in which very much will need to be done. I am not

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thinking only, or indeed primarily, of the legislation which will come before Parliament next year in that event, and which will doubtless exercise a great deal of your Lordships' time, although somewhat less, perhaps, than a little Bill which we have just despatched to another place. I am thinking rather of the work of preparation apart from legislation, of the things which we as a nation should be prepared for if we are going to be able to put our best foot forward when we arrive a bit belatedly—15 or so years late—on the Brussels scene. There are great opportunities awaiting us, and I believe, and I believe many of your Lordships believe, that we must prepare now to seize them in partnership with our future partners.
I hope, for example, that industry in this country will now, where it has not already done so, be preparing itself for membership, because membership is bound to have its impact upon the planning and decision-making of companies up and down this country, on their investment planning, on their research and development programmes, on their organisation, market analysis and so on. I know that a great deal of preparatory work has gone on, especially in our larger firms, and I hope that our companies who see larger horizons opening up for them in Europe will now be preparing themselves, and this applies I think particularly to the medium size and smaller companies. What applies to industry applies equally to the City and to other invisible earners, to our service industries and indeed to agriculture.
Much of this preparatory work will affect not industry alone but industry and Government. We have heard a great deal of talk these last three or four years, for example, about the European technological Community. It will soon be time for us to help to graft real flesh and blood on that rather vague concept. There is a tremendous lot that could occupy our minds in this and in other spheres. It is my belief that we should be planning now for better and more coordinated European policies across a very wide spectrum; on research and development, on co-operative projects (some of them fairly near the frontiers of science), on transport, on industrial
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and management problems, on European company law (the point of vast importance made by the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith), on regional policies, on urbanisation, on pollution, and, not least, on the development of European political institutions. We should be thinking about the encouragement of exchanges between the younger peoples of Europe; young teachers, those with professional skills, trade unionists, and so on. We should be thinking about the contribution in administrative and planning skills which we will be called upon to make to the Commission. As the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, said, we are rather good at this sort of thing. We should be thinking too, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, suggested, about the implications of membership of the European Parliament, and about the future of European institutions. We should, in sum, be planning now, not only how best to protect our own interests in Europe (and that is important) but also how best to pull our weight in a growing partnership, to make our common contribution to the pool of positive thinking in Brussels.
This has indeed been a very considerable, indeed a great debate in your Lordships' House, and a great debate on a great national issue. It has, I also believe, been sustained at a level, and with an absence of rancour, which I believe has done credit to your Lordships' House. It had been my hope that when Parliament was asked to come to its decision on this matter that the policy of entry would be endorsed, as it was in 1967, by an overwhelming Parliamentary majority. I should say to noble Lords opposite, and I say it in no Party spirit, that I am certain beyond doubt that, if their Government had negotiated the terms that are now before us, this would have been the position. Despite a decision taken elsewhere today, this remains my hope. It remains my hope because nothing would do more to reinforce our hand in world affairs, and I am speaking here of our national hand and not of some small Party hand. Nothing would do more to reinforce our hand as a nation than for our decision in October to be seen by Europe, and the world, as one commanding widespread support both in Parliament and the country. That is why I was very pleased to hear what the noble

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Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, said in winding-up, and what the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, said in his speech. I quote the noble Lord's words:
" If, in spite of all our efforts we go into the E.E.C. we must put aside regret and hesitation, all of us, and go in determined to make it work, determined to strive for success. Failure, my Lords, would mean disaster for ourselves, for Europe, and for the world."
I should like to say how entirely I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, has said, and indeed how very glad I am that he, and the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, said what they did in that respect.
Those are the reasons why I am convinced that, as a nation, we should now decide to pull our national weight between the shafts of a generous and constructive European policy. We have been waiting outside the door of Europe for a very long time, and we have been knocking at the door of Europe for a long time, too. Now that those inside the house of Europe have invited us in, it would be folly if at the very last moment we were to spurn that invitation.
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I feel myself that the material considerations point in favour of entry. But material considerations are not everything, and I trust that all of us, and not only the younger ones among us, will also try to hold a vision of a less material Europe, of a civilised civilising, generous and moderating Europe in front of us. I believe that a great adventure lies ahead of this country, an adventure not unattended with risks; but if we have the wit and the will to embark on it, an adventure of almost certain rewards. That is why I sincerely hope that we shall, as a nation, decide in October to opt not for the rather sad solitary road that leads downhill, but for the more adventurous high road, for membership and for that larger vision.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES
Fifth Report from the Select Committee made, and to be printed.
House adjourned at one minute after one o'clock, a.m.