Sitting of 13 December 1972

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  GLAMORGAN COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords] (By Order)
  Read a Second time and committed.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  SCOTLAND

    Cattle and Sheep (Exports)
    Sir J. Gilmourasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many live cattle and sheep have been exported from Scottish ports in each month of this year; and what number was exported for slaughter in this total.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs and Agriculture, Scottish Office (Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith): Up to the end of November a total of 7, 971 cattle had been exported by sea, all for immediate slaughter. With permission, I will circulate the monthly figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT. In addition a total of 203 cattle and 12 sheep were exported by air for breeding purposes.
    Sir J. Gilmour: Does my hon. Friend agree that in the interests of our economy, of efficiency and of animal welfare it would be much better to aim at the exporting of cattle as carcases and not as live animals?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I agree that there is certainly scope for the export of carcases. At the same time my hon. Friend must realise that we are careful about the welfare aspects and we export animals only to those countries which have given the Balfour Assurances.
    Following are the figures:

    EXPORTS OF LIVE CATTLE FROM SCOTTISH PORTS IN 1972 FOR SLAUGHTER

    Monthly Total

    January

    83

    February

    49

    March

    214

    April

    1,966

    May

    2,098

    June

    1,967

    July

    482

    August

    230

    September

    172

    October

    386

    November

    324

    North Sea Oil
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will now proceed to establish formal consultation machinery between the Government, the fishing industry and any oil company with proposals to lay pipelines on the sea bed.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: My hon Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Development, Scottish Office, has explained the situation fully in correspondence with my hon. Friend and has offered to help in promoting direct contact between the fishermen's associations and the oil companies should the need arise.
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: Is my hon. Friend aware that so far all we have had from the Government on this matter has been words? While we are grateful for their sympathy and good wishes, will my hon. Friend acknowledge that we are all interventionists now and that this is a matter in which the Government can play a direct part in helping to allay the fears of the fishing industry by establishing this machinery?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: There has been a great deal more than words. My hon. Friend must remember that of the developers BP, which is the only company with a definitely projected pipeline, has already had meetings with the inshore fishermen and the Scottish Trawlers Federation. Later this week I shall be meeting the Scottish Trawlers Federation. I certainly accept what my hon. Friend says about the need for proper consultation.
    Mr. Strangasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what further representations he has received regarding the contribution which Scottish firms can make to the exploitation of North Sea oil; and if he will make a satement.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Gordon Campbell): I have not received representations but the Scottish Office responds speedily to inquiries from Scottish firms about developments in the oil industry. The recent trade mission to Houston, Texas, sponsored by the North-East Scotland Development Authority and with 45 firms represented is a good example of a Scottish initiative.
    Mr. Strang: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Scottish industry is awaiting with interest the publication of the IMEG report before Christmas? Will he assure us that when the report is published alongside it there will be a detailed statement of the Government's reaction to the report indicating how they will ensure that Scottish industry gets a fair share of the market for goods and services associated with North Sea oil? Will he also assure us that he has not ruled out the possibility of setting up a North Sea Oil Board?
    Mr. Campbell: I have not ruled out any possibilities, and when the report is published we hope to have the Government's first reaction stated at the same time.
    Mr. Douglas: In view of the complexity of all these issues, including the contribution of Scottish industry, will the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that what is necessary is a White Paper and that we cannot continue to be fobbed off with annual reports and other glossy documents?
    Mr. Campbell: Governments continue to pour White Papers on Parliament. In this case, as the hon. Gentleman knows, because it was announced by a Minister, a report is to be published in the very near future, which will be the most convenient way of dealing with this kind of information.
    Mr. Sproat: Will my right hon. Friend accept that the announcement of an annual report was widely welcomed in Scotland? Also, will he not allow the Opposition to under-value what is hap-
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    pening in particular in the North-East of Scotland where there are 125 new companies and 175 companies which have diversified, with 1,500 new jobs and another 5,500 in prospect?
    Mr. Campbell: Things have moved very fast in the North and North-East of Scotland in the last year and a half, which is since commercial quantities of oil were discovered, and it would be a pity if we appeared to devalue what had been done.

    Institute of Geological Sciences
    Mr. Douglasasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the official contacts between his Department and the Institute of Geological Sciences.
    Mr. Gordon Campbell: The Scottish Office keeps in regular touch with the work of the institute including its Continental Shelf Unit in Edinburgh. My noble Friend the Minister of State hopes to pay an official visit to the institute in the New Year.
    Mr. Douglas: While thanking the Secretary of State for that reply, may I ask him to go to the institute and see the work that is being done with a view to co-ordinating it with work being done by the Institute of Offshore Engineering, established by the Heriot-Watt University in Midlothian, so that we do not miss the opportunities for developing the under-water technology that will be needed when we go to very deep waters for North Sea oil?
    Mr. Campbell: I am well aware of the Continental Shelf Unit in Edinburgh. It makes its assessments available to the Government. Those assessments include information which the exploring companies have to provide under their licences. I have announced to the House the new institute at the Heriot-Watt University.
    Mr. Eadie: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we are discussing the resiting of the new technological university in my constituency which will be among the most modern in the country? Does he also agree that it is not sufficient for the Government to depend on money coming from private individuals, welcome

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    though that is? Do not the Government have a responsibility to be more specific about this instead of simply talking about the matter being dealt with by the University Grants Committee?
    Mr. Campbell: I am very much aware of what is happening in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. As he will remember I laid a foundation stone for the Heriot-Watt University last year. I also announced that Aberdeen University will be undertaking an important survey connected with the oil industry in Scotland.

    European Economic Community
    Mr. Lawsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish a White Paper giving his analysis of the particular advantages likely to accrue to Scotland in consequence of the United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Community.
    Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish a White Paper giving his analysis of the particular advantages and disadvantages likely to accrue to Scotland in consequence of the United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Community.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I do not consider it practicable to attempt to assess in detail the consequences of entry for Scotland, with the decision taken and our entry to the Communities less than three weeks away. I have no doubt however that the accession of Britain to the European Economic Community is very much in the best interests of Scotland.
    Mr. Lawson: Does not the hon. Gentleman think it is about time to unfurl the banner for Scotland and get rid of so much of the pessimism and back-biting which takes place in this House and to a large extent even on this side? Will he undertake a wee bit of education of hon. Members of this House in the excellent advantages which, because of Scotland's geographical position, can accrue to Scotland through our entry into Europe? Will he do something urgently about it at this stage?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: The Jeremiahs in this House are in complete contrast with Scottish industry. Scottish industry
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    and Scottish firms have already demonstrated that they are export oriented and ready to grasp the opportunities of our entry into Europe to the benefit of Scottish industry and the people of Scotland.
    Mr. Lewis: Will the Minister confirm or deny that Scotland, like the rest of the United Kingdom, will be bound by the Council of Ministers' decisions, which may or may not be in the interests of this country or of Scotland, and that those decisions will have to be implemented and carried out without this House having a chance to alter them unless we can use the veto, which can be done only if we can show that a decision is directly against the best interests of this country? How can that be democratic or good or in the interests of this country?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: What the hon. Member ignores is the fact that after 1st January we shall be taking part with our partners in Europe in the decision-making process instead of being simply at the receiving end on the outside.
    Mr. Sproat: If my hon. Friend will not publish a White Paper will he at least accept the suggestion of the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) and do as much as he can to publicise the new markets that will be open for Scotland, the new sources of private investment for Scotland and the fact that for the first time we shall have access to the Community's regional fund, the European Investment Bank, and the social fund of the Community—access which we would not otherwise have?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I agree thoroughly with what my hon. Friend says. The Scottish Council and individual firms have already done a great deal to get into Europe, and one example is the agricultural industry, which has been preparing itself for entry and is already oriented towards Europe.
    Mr. Russell Johnston: The Minister mentioned the decision-making processes of the Community. What specific Scottish representation will there be in those processes by which Scotland will be better enabled to further her interests?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: The hon. Gentleman knows that I myself have taken part in the negotiations. I see no reason why Scottish Ministers should not continue to

    417
    take part in the process as demonstrated in the negotiations.
    Mr. Ross: Will not the hon. Gentleman have another look at his answer? Can we be given these analyses of particular advantages? One of the difficulties is that if he does not publish such a While Paper many of us will begin to think that even the Government have no idea of what the particular advantages are.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I thought it too much to expect that we should get through this Question Time without gloom being spread through the proceedings, but I remind the right hon. Gentleman of an answer he gave on 16th July 1969 when he said that it was not practicable to give a detailed analysis for different parts of the United Kingdom but that he was confident that United Kingdom membership of the Community would be of economic advantage to all parts of the United Kingdom. It is the right hon. Gentleman who has changed.

    Feuduties
    Mr. William Hannanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he can now announce his promised proposals for the abolition of feuduties; and when he proposes to introduce legislation.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: My right hon. Friend published on 25th July a Green Paper containing proposals for a major reform of land tenure in Scotland, including the abolition of feuduties. Detailed consultations on these proposals are now proceeding, but I cannot yet say when legislation will be introduced.
    Mr. Hannan: These proposals for legislation have been promised for a long time. While we all appreciate the Green Paper, will the hon. Gentleman now answer the question which was asked some months ago—what bodies were consulted about the potential advantages to potential purchasers of homes? Will he remember that feuduties are of importance not only for those investors but also for social needs in house building?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I entirely accept what the hon. Member says about the importance of the subject and about those involved, but equally he must appreciate that the Government have gone in depth into what is an extremely
    418
    complicated subject. We published a Green Paper only in July this year. We are still in the process of consultation and we wish to see this through before we come to any conclusions.
    Mr. Grimond: Will the hon. Gentleman indicate that when legislation is introduced he will safeguard the rights of udallers as regards the foreshore?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Yes.
    Mr. Grimond: I thank the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Buchan: And, I hope, also scat. Does the hon. Gentleman remember that it is now three years since the Labour Government published a White Paper setting out the form of abolition of feuduties? After three years, and after a General Election and a series of broken promises, the present Government have taken three vigorous steps backwards by producing a Green Paper. Will the hon. Gentleman keep in mind that his right hon. Friend, snorting in the nostrils like a warhorse, to use his own metaphor, wondered why we did not abolish them in 1969, and that all we have had are assurances and disgraceful delay, and nothing has happened since?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I am afraid I cannot be encouraging about scat. This is in the White Paper. The hon. Member should read it. His ignorance on this subject equals his ignorance generally, because what his Government and he did was only to tinker with the question of feudal reform. What we are proposing is very much more radical than anything his Government put forward.

    Housing Finance Legislation (Implementation)
    Mr. Sproatasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many persons in Scotland are now paying more in rent than they are legally required to do because of the failure by certain local authorities to implement the Housing Finance Act.
    Mr. Gordon Campbell: Comprehensive information is not available, because in many areas individual entitlements will not have been assessed. The number of council tenants who are being deprived of more generous rebates under the Act must amount to many thousands, and

    419
    there are about 100,000 private tenants in the areas of those Scottish authorities which have said they are not implementing the Act.
    Mr. Sproat: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it really is shocking that so many people in Scotland should be done out of the cash benefits to which they are legally entitled by the illegal actions of certain Labour controlled local authorities? Could he give an example of a typical case of people being so deprived?
    Mr. Campbell: I agree with my hon. Friend that some local authorities are unfortunately depriving their electors, both ratepayers and tenants, of the benefits of the Act. I cannot pick out any particular authority. I would say that the large majority of authorities in Scotland are carrying out the Act.
    Mr. John Smith: Will the Secretary of State be fair and remind the House that the so-called benefits are reductions of increases in rent which were introduced by the Act? Will he tell the House how many people in Scotland are paying much more in rent now since the Act has come into force?
    Mr. Campbell: The Act is taking hardship out of rent-paying in Scotland. For the first time there is a comprehensive rebate scheme extending into the unfurnished private sector. That means that in future no family in Scotland will be asked to pay ordinary rent if it cannot afford to. As I indicated in my original reply, the exact numbers of persons involved cannot yet be assessed, because the rebate schemes themselves depend on individual assessments, but it is clear that gradual increases in ordinary rent are accompanied by the fact that no one will be expected in the unfurnished sector to pay ordinary rent in future if he cannot afford to.
    Mr. Lawson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that my constituency, where the Act is being and has from the beginning been implemented, is being deprived because of the Act of something like £l¼ million per annum on which the Government have welshed? Does the right hon. Gentleman think that this is a good example of pleading with people to implement the Act when the Govern-
    420
    ment themselves have gone back on long-established undertakings given to the local authorities?
    Mr. Campbell: As the hon. Member knows, the amount of money from the Exchequer towards housing in Scotland is increasing and in most cases local authorities are getting more. Glasgow, for example, is due to get no less than £4 million more this year than in the previous year.
    Mr. Ross: Is the Secretary of State denying that the specific purpose of the Act is to increase local authority rents by amounts laid down by the Government without the agreement of the local authorities?
    Mr. Campbell: The right hon. Gentleman knows that up to 1st October Scottish ratepayers were contributing 35 per cent. of the cost of council housing and the tenants were contributing 40 per cent., and that in England and Wales the equivalent ratepayers' percentage was only 8 per cent. Therefore it has been the object to increase the Exchequer contribution and end the distortions by enabling the tenants to contribute more and reducing the burden on the Scottish ratepayers while protecting those tenants who cannot afford to pay an ordinary rent. The rent increases are carefully staged to be gradual.
    Mr. Ross: Will the Secretary of State now answer the question?
    Mr. MacArthurasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will now make a further statement about the implementation by local authorities of the Housing (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1972.
    Mr. Gordon Campbell: Following public local inquiries held on 20th and 23rd November I found that Glasgow Corporation, Lanark County Council and Falkirk and Kirkcaldy Town Councils have failed effectively to discharge their duties in relation to rents and rent rebates under the Act. On 1st December I made default orders directing these four authorities within 14 days to instruct their officials to prepare rent rebate schemes in accordance with the Act and proposals for increases in standard rents in accordance with the requirements of

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    the orders. Lanark County and Kirkcaldy have now resolved to implement the Act.
    I have appointed reporters to hold similar inquiries on 27th and 29th December in relation to Midlothian County Council, and Clydebank, Dunfermline and Kilmarnock Town Councils; and I will arrange further inquiries as necessary.
    Mr. MacArthur: Will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking that there will be no delay in pursuing this matter? Will he agree that this defiance of Parliament cannot be tolerated any longer? Will he confirm that this continued defiance of the law by Glasgow and 17 other local authorities is costing the ratepayers in those areas a great deal of money and is denying to the many thousands of tenants in need the more generous rent rebates which are provided under the Act?
    Mr. Campbell: I can give my hon. Friend an undertaking that the 1947 Act procedures have been and will be carried out as quickly as possible. There is a timetable involving the amount of notice that has to be given for local inquiries, which is 28 days, but the procedures have been followed as quickly as possible. I also confirm that an extra burden is being added to the ratepayers of the authorities concerned who are being punished by this action.
    Mr. Ewing: May I bring a very out-of-date Secretary of State up to date by informing him that Falkirk Town Council has also agreed to implement the Act? What action does the Secretary of State propose to take in respect of the housing subsidies which he withheld to blackmail local authorities in Scotland?
    Mr. MacArthur: No, no.
    Mr. Ewing: When does the right hon. Gentleman expect to pay those subsidies? Will he also comment on the farcical nature of the inquiries which he orders?
    Mr. Campbell: The inquiries are laid down by the 1947 Act. There is no question of their being farcical; they are required by this House. It had been arranged that advance payment of subsidy to authorities would be made by the Government in November under the Act. If certain authorities are refusing to carry
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    out the Act, they cannot expect to get an advance subsidy arising from the Act.
    Mr. Ewing: On a point of order. The Secretary of State has not said when those local authorities—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. That is a matter of content, not of order.
    Mr. Buchan: Does the Secretary of State agree that, no matter what legalistic right he may feel he has on his side, the people of Scotland will condemn him for his moral wrong and bullying? Will the right hon. Gentleman promise to look into the details published in today's Glasgow Herald showing that at one such meeting CID members were present making notes, and that the police were present yesterday at a perfectly fair deputation of tenants to protest against his vindictive Act?
    Mr. Campbell: Until the hon. Member rose two minutes ago I had thought that hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition Front Bench were also advocating that local authorities should carry out this Act of Parliament, but from what the hon. Gentleman has said it sounds as though he is not. I only know what I have seen in the newspapers today and I cannot comment on the Glasgow Herald article.
    Mr. Buchan: We asked the right hon. Gentleman to investigate this matter and I hope that he will not, like his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, continually distort our questions. Since we have asked the Secretary of State to report on a serious allegation, surely he will promise us that.
    Mr. Campbell: If there is anything in the newspapers which affects the Government, we shall look into it.
    Several Hon. Members—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Ten questions in 25 minutes is not very good progress.
    Mr. Doigasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give the dates on which Dundee, Edinburgh and Lochgelly local authorities, respectively, decided to comply with the Housing (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act and the dates when he authorised the payment of the withheld portion of their housing subsidies.
    Mr. Gordon Campbell: Their latest decisions relating to compliance with the Act were taken by Dundee Corporation on 29th August, Edinburgh Corporation on 5th October and Lochgelly Town Council on 13th November. On 16th November I authorised payment to Lochgelly Town Council of the withheld portion of its housing subsidies. In the light of developments I have now arranged for payments to be made also to several other authorities, including Dundee.
    Mr. Doig: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that rather belated action may I ask whether he is aware that the people of Dundee feel that they have been discriminated against by the Secretary of State, as the dates of these sanctions show, and that the withholding of £1 million in subsidy from the city of Dundee is costing the ratepayers £1,400 per week in interest charges alone?
    Mr. Campbell: I am aware of the second point, and I say straight away that no Government can completely insulate ratepayers from the follies of their elected representatives. As regards the payment of subsidies, in reply to a previous supplementary question I explained that I could not make payment of a subsidy in advance under an Act which a local authority was refusing to implement.

    Housing
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland why the total number of houses under construction fell from 42,997 in the first quarter of 1971 to 38,788 in the first quarter of 1972.
    Mr. Gordon Campbell: Because of the low level of tender approvals for public sector houses in 1970. I am glad to say that the number of approvals has been steadily increasing since then.
    Mr. Hamilton: The right hon. Gentleman is not telling the truth—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—as he will see if he looks at his own figures. Does he not recognise that at a time when there is an acute housing shortage in Scotland it is little short of a scandal that the total number of completions in 1972 is likely to be less than 35,000—the lowest figure since 1963, which was the last full year of 13 years of Tory Government?
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    What does he intend to do about increasing the number of completions instead of steadily refusing approvals as he has done over the last two years?
    Mr. Campbell: The hon. Gentleman has clearly got his figures muddled.
    Mr. Hamilton: I have not.
    Mr. Campbell: He is talking about completions in 1972, but they are dependent on approvals during 1970, for half of which the Labour Government were responsible. He is incorrect about the change in trend, because more houses were approved in the first nine months of this year than in the whole of 1970.
    Mr. Sillarsasked the Secretary of State for Scotland, in view of the difficulties facing many young people seeking housing in the private sector, what action he proposes to take to assist people to overcome these difficulties.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: My right hon. Friend is taking continuing action to promote an increase in the supply of private housing, on the lines indicated in his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) on 27th April.—[Vol. 835, c. 361–4.]
    Mr. Sillars: Is the Minister aware that the greatest difficulty encountered by young couples is in accumulating enough money for the deposit on a house? In the fruitless pursuit of houses which are constantly priced out of reach they may have to spend £25 on surveyors' fees on three or four houses, with the result that their deposit money is reduced until it sometimes disappears altogether. We cannot wait much longer for Government action on this matter which causes such acute difficulty for young people.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman says about the difficulty which faces young people. The basic answer is to try to increase the number of houses built for private ownership. It is significant that 1971 was a record year for private house-building in Scotland.
    Mr. Ross: It is not just a question of the number of houses. The hon. Gentleman must be aware of the alarming rise in the cost of houses, particularly in the

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    last 18 months. In the area in which I live, which is represented by one of the Ministers, prices are rocketing; young people do not stand a chance.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: As I said, I appreciate the difficulties. It is more than the simple question of increasing the number of houses although the increase in the number of houses is of enormous help. The fact that an increasing number of houses is being built demonstrates the increasing demand for them.
    Mr. Ewingasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many houses were submitted by Scottish local authorities for approval in each of the first three quarters of 1972; and what were the figures for the corresponding three quarters in 1971 and 1970.
    Mr. Gordon Campbell: With permission, I will circulate the figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Ewing: That is a very unsatisfactory answer, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate. Will he say whether the number of submissions in the third quarter of 1972 is drastically lower than they were in the third quarter of 1970 and what are the future prospects for council house building in Scotland?
    Mr. Campbell: There are about a dozen figures as well as the different quarters to be recited, and I believe that the OFFICIAL REPORT is the place for those details. The first quarter of 1972 was affected by the building strike, so there is a difference there. Finally, the figure for the last quarter of 1971 was very large because of the possibility of Government subsidy to local authorities.
    Dr. Dickson Mabon: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that in Committee on the Housing Finance Bill he promised that the so-called "1st December houses" would continue in submission for the next few years? Therefore, it is vital to know whether in these three quarters there has been a substantial increase.
    Mr. Campbell: Yes, I confirm the situation in reply to an earlier supplementary question. The number of approvals in the first nine months of this year has been greater than for the whole
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    of 1970 and the whole of 1971. The Question asked for the dates, and submissions for approval is a different matter. Approvals have varied and have been spread in subsequent quarters, as the hon. Gentleman has suggested.
    Following is the information:

    LOCAL AUTHORITY HOUSES

    1970

    1971

    1972

    Submitted for Approval

    Submitted for Approval

    Submitted for Approval

    1st Quarter

    4,860

    4,850

    64

    2nd Quarter

    3,709

    5,662

    431

    3rd Quarter

    5,701

    4,942

    612

    4th Quarter

    6,731

    28,611

    —

    Mr. Gourlayasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many municipal houses were completed in each of the financial years 1968–69, 1969–70, 1970–71 and 1971–72 in Buckhaven and Methil and Kirkcaldy, respectively.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: With permission I will circulate the available figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Gourlay: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that only 88 houses were built in Kirkcaldy in the last financial year ending May 1972 and that in only two years since 1945 have fewer houses been built in that burgh? Does not this indicate a complete failure of the Government's latest housing Act? Will the hon. Gentleman therefore withdraw that Act and substitute something which will provide more generous subsidies that will enable local authorities to built more houses?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: The hon. Gentleman should realise that house completions in 1971–72 reflect tender approvals in 1969–70. That is the lesson he should draw from that situation.
    Following are the figures:
    Numbers of local authority houses completed:

    1 April–31 March

    Buckhaven & Methil

    Kirkcaldy

    1968–69

    106

    62

    1969–70

    122

    436

    1970–71

    214

    268

    1971–72

    17

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    "No Place to Call Home"
    Mr. David Steelasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will consider acting on the recommendations contained in the recently published Shelter report, entitled "No Place to Call Home", a copy of which is in his possession.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Education, Scottish Office (Mr. Hector Monro): Most of the recommendations deal with matters which are the responsibility of the local authorities. My right hon. Friend is considering whether any action is necessary on his part.
    Mr. Steel: Will the Secretary of State consider two points: first, the conflict between housing authorities and social work authorities in different parts of Scotland on the same issue; and secondly, the fact that in Scotland in 1970 there was only one place of temporary accommodation for every 11,000 people whereas in England in the same year there was one place for every 2,000? Does he not think that this matter requires Government action?
    Mr. Monro: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's interest in this valuable report which we are studying carefully. We shall look specially carefully at the two issues he has raised.
    Mr. Carmichael: Will the Minister pay particular attention to the point raised by the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) about co-ordination between social work departments and housing managers? Will he call a conference of those officers and his own social work advisers with a view to ensuring the coordination of policies, which differ widely throughout Scotland, and removing some of the cases which ocupy the homeless list administratively, leaving the difficult cases to be dealt with more thoroughly and in greater depth?
    Mr. Monro: It is too early to say whether we should call a conference. My Department wants to look carefully at the suggestion of co-operation between housing departments and social work departments. The report has been out for only 10 days. When we have looked
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    at it in detail we will consider whether a conference is necessary.

    Electricity Supply (Debt Recovery)
    Mr. John Smithasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give a general direction to the South of Scotland Electricity Board to revise its policy on the recovery of debts for electricity supply.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: This is a matter of commercial management which is entirely for the board, but any consumer who feels he is being treated unfairly may approach the Electricity Consultative Council for the board's district.
    Mr. Smith: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the practice adopted by the South of Scotland Electricity Board when disconnecting the supply of electricity because of non-payment of accounts—namely, to insist on a deposit of £40, £50 or even £60 before the supply is reconnected? Since many of those concerned are poor families living in all-electric houses—families with young children of a tender age—does he not agree that it is extremely serious when there is no electricity supply to such households? Does he believe that boards should make these demands when the people concerned cannot pay them out of supplementary benefit or any other income, and does he not agree that this problem bears heavily on deserted wives? Therefore, will the Government ask for electricity board to stop demanding deposits and to tie its accounts to a shorter period than three months?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I can appreciate that hardship is sometimes caused, but one cannot generalise and one has to relate these matters to individual cases. I have been assured by the board that it is well aware of the hardship and distress which can be caused. The board also assures us that through our good offices it has contact with social work services, and we believe that this is the right approach.
    Mr. David Steel: Will the Minister reconsider this matter and not simply leave it to the commercial judgment of the board? Would it not assist if more burglar-proof prepayment meters were installed in houses?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I accept that this relates to my responsibilities in crime prevention, and we believe that this would be helpful.

    Edinburgh Airport
    Mr. Eadieasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will now make a statement on future developments at Edinburgh airport linked with the report of the public inquiry he now has before him.
    Mr. Gordon Campbell: I have at present nothing to add to the reply given to the hon. Gentleman on 21st November.—[Vol. 846, c. 389.]
    Mr. Eadie: Is the Secretary of State aware that the continuing delay in reaching a decision on Edinburgh airport smacks of complacency probably unequalled by any Secretary of State? Secondly, is he further aware that yesterday one of his hon. Friends notified me that nothing can be done about the structural faults in taxiways until the right hon. Gentleman reaches his decision on the future of the airport? Does he realise that we are discussing jobs, airport revenues—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. We are not discussing anything at the moment. We are in the middle of a supplementary question.
    Mr. Eadie: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the question embraces revenues from the airport, jobs and interruption of flight schedules and that this whole matter typifies the image of the capital city of Scotland—namely, Edinburgh?
    Mr. Campbell: The hon. Gentleman should know that under the provisions of the various planning Acts I have to consider the report made by the reporter, as a result of an inquiry which took 38 days and at which detailed and complex evidence was led. I am dealing with this matter as quickly as I can. Indeed, I am probably more concerned about Edinburgh airport than anybody else since I use it so frequently.
    Mr. Ronald King Murray: I appreciate that this is not a time at which to comment on the merits of the proposals
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    for Turnhouse airport, because the Secretary of State must reach a judicial decision on it, but will he agree that we have a duty and a right to ask whether he is aware that the whole future of the airport is at risk as long as the taxiway is not fit. Does he agree that employment which depends on the existence of the airport is also at risk?
    Mr. Campbell: I have been trying to make progress on Edinburgh airport for several years. An inquiry had to take place because a number of leading bodies and individuals raised objections, as they had a right to do. Those objections were detailed, and I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman will know that these are matters which cannot be decided overnight.

    Edinburgh Opera House
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he hopes to complete his consideration of the revised proposals for the opera house, sent to him by Edinburgh Corporation, involving a substantial increase in the estimated cost; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Gordon Campbell: I hope to let the corporation have my considered views on the revised proposals early in the New Year.
    Mr. Dalyell: Is there to be a limited competition for the new opera house?
    Mr. Campbell: This is one of the points I have discussed informally with the Lord Provost, but it is a matter for the Edinburgh Corporation to decide. The Government put forward a generous grant in respect of the original proposal last year. A different proposal has now been put forward and the Government have had to consider this matter again.

    Electricity Generation (Coal Consumption)
    Mr. Adam Hunterasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the total coal consumption per year of coal-fired electricity power stations in Scotland; and what percentage this is of the total amount of fuels at present required to generate electricity in Scotland.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: A total of 5,793,000 tons of coal was used in Scottish power stations in 1971–72, representing 55 per cent. of all fuels used.
    Mr. Hunter: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that his reply indicates that coal is still important to the Scottish economy, particularly in the generation of electricity? Will he also agree that it is high time that the Secretary of State made a close study of the rôle that coal should play in Scotland in the years to come? Furthermore, will he agree that energy policy should be considered in a Scottish context?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I agree that coal is important to the Scottish economy, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the statement which was made on this subject earlier this week by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is a positive demonstration that this is the Government's view.

    Scottish Council (Development and Industry)
    Mr. James Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will seek a further meeting with the Scottish Council (Development and Industry).
    Mr. Gordon Campbell: On 8th December I had a very useful meeting with representatives of the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) when we discussed the current industrial and economic situation in Scotland.
    Mr. Hamilton: Will the right hon. Gentleman take cognisance of what was said to him by this non-political body and bear in mind that the chairman of the Scottish Council is very conversant with the steel industry? Will he particularly note that the chairman's view was that in the interests of the economy of Scotland it is of paramount importance that the complex should be sited at Hunterston? Is he prepared to say that on Scotland's behalf he will be the leader in the Cabinet to ensure that the complex comes to the Scottish economy?
    Mr. Campbell: I took close note of what the chairman of the Scottish Council said, and I have been in touch with him. I must inform the hon. Gentleman
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    that I am certainly leading the Scottish interests in making sure that we have a viable, balanced steel industry which can provide length of production for steel-using industries in Scotland in the future.
    Mr. Russell Johnston: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that the Scottish Council has shown a great deal of sympathy for the idea of a development body in Scotland financed from oil revenues? Will the right hon. Gentleman give this matter further consideration?
    Mr. Campbell: I think we have all taken an interest in a whole lot of different ideas that have been put forward, but that is not one which the council has specifically put to me.

    Forth Road Bridge (Finance)
    Mr. Russell Johnstonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects the toll income from the Forth road bridge to begin to pay off the accumulated debt.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Provided that recent trends in growth of traffic, toll revenue and expenditure continue, it should be possible to start paying off the accumulated debt within the next 18 months.
    Mr. Johnston: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a considerable time will elapse between the final construction of the bridge and the beginning of paying off the debt? Would it not be much more sensible, and save time and money, to scrap the tolls and allow traffic to flow freely without the disruption that is caused by their collection?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: The hon. Gentleman must remember the agreement that was made between the Government, local authorities and others involved about the basis on which the bridge should be built. That policy has been carried out by successive Governments.
    Sir J. Gilmour: Would my hon. Friend agree that the long delay in making the bridge financially viable is due partly to the Cramond bridge which is used by traffic not going over the Forth Bridge but is charged against the cost of the bridge and has to be recovered from tolls? The Government could help

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    by relieving the road authorities of this burden.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: As my hon. Friend knows, this question has been fully considered on a number of occasions. I do not see any reason why the cost of providing bridges should be excluded from being recoverable from the tolls.
    Mr. Gourlay: As the Local Government (Scotland) Bill will take part of the south of Fife into part of the Edinburgh region, would it not be sensible for constituents in that part of the county to have free access to the regional headquarters in Edinburgh?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be able to deploy that point in Committee.

    Hunterston
    Mr. Lambieasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received from Ayr County Council about future industrial developments at Hunterston.
    Mr. Gordon Campbell: Ayr County Council has recently written to me about the case for setting steel production targets which would justify the construction of a major steelworks on a green field site, and for siting such a steelworks at Hunterston. These arguments were of course well known to me.
    Mr. Lambie: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that Ayr County Council is afraid that he will use the outstanding application by ORSI for oil and steel development at Hunterston, attracting only 2,000 jobs, as a substitute for the British Steel Corporation's proposal for a green field site integrated steel mill at Hunterston, guaranteeing the future of 26,000 jobs in the steel industry in Scotland which are being threatened by the Government's decision to enter Europe?
    Mr. Campbell: I am the planning Minister for Scotland, and I have two applications in this area to consider. As I operate in a quasi-judicial capacity I cannot comment on them here, but in my decision two years ago I kept open all the options at Hunterston and in doing so I rejected an application by an oil
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    refinery. That was much criticised by some hon. Gentlemen opposite.
    Sir F. Maclean: Can my right hon. Friend say when the Hunterston Development Company which he helped to set up will publish its conclusions on this important subject?
    Mr. Campbell: I understand that the company is considering the report of the consultants and that in due course it will decide what statement to make.
    Mr. Ross: The right hon. Gentleman said that he was leading the fight for a balanced steel industry in Scotland. Does this include an integrated steel plant at Hunterston?
    Mr. Campbell: My answer mentions a green field site, which is what was put to me by Ayr County Council, but the House will know that the British Steel Corporation's plan which is before the Government does not include a green field site.

    Picketing
    Mr. Galbraithasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will call for reports from chief constables as to the steps they have now taken to deal with future strike picketing.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: My right hon. Friend's Department has had discussions with chief constables on this matter, and I am very much aware of the problems of enforcement which the police have had to face.
    Mr. Galbraith: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, in so far as it was an answer. Is he aware that there is a great deal of public concern about this matter? Can he say who is the ultimate authority for the maintenance of law and order, so that in the event of failure again to prevent intimidation by unlawful picketing we may know whom to hold responsible for that failure? That is what the country wants to know.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: In specific situations it is obviously the responsibility of the senior police officer present. What I must emphasise is that the problem is not so much what the law is, but its enforcement. It is on the latter point that we have had discussions with chief constables, and we hope that the

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    position has been clarified about how the matter should be handled. I think that we should praise the police for the efficiency and great restraint with which they have handled the problem in recent disputes.
    Mr. Ronald King Murray: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in the Industrial Relations Act 1971 the Government, while limiting the right to picket, recognised the right to picket? Will he include within the terms of reference of his activities the need to give protection to those who lawfully engage in picketing?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Yes, I agree that there are certain rights relating to picketing. What concerns the great mass of the general public more than anything else, whilst appreciating that the majority of responsible trade unionists do not condone acts of violence, is not only the right to strike but the right to work.

    Scottish Assembly
    Mr. Grimondasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when Her Majesty's Government intend to set up a Scottish Assembly.
    Mr. Gordon Campbell: In accordance with the recommendation in paragraph 322 of the report by the constitutional committee presided over by my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, the Government have not at any stage contemplated that proposals would be put forward before action had been taken on local government reform and therefore before Parliament has passed the Local Government (Scotland) Bill.
    Mr. Grimond: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that action is being taken on local government? There is a Bill before the House which he may have noticed. Will he give a firm undertaking that a Bill to set up a Scottish Assembly—whatever anyone may think, it was part of the Tory election pledge—will be introduced within a year?
    Mr. Campbell: We have just had Second Reading of that Bill, on which the right hon. Gentleman will have noticed that there was a considerable difference of opinion. I certainly should not wish to prejudge Parliament's decision on the Bill before it has even gone into Committee. We have made this
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    quite clear. As there has been some speculation on the second point, perhaps I may say that when the time comes for such proposals to be put forward a Green Paper would seem a suitable way of doing it.
    Mr. Donald Stewart: Since the right hon. Gentleman is aware of the threat by Miss Wendy Wood to fast unto death until a date is announced for the setting up of the assembly—first, it is a minor degree of self-government compared with what Miss Wood has been contending for all her life, and secondly, as mentioned by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), it is in accord with a promise made by the Conservative Party that a Scottish Assembly would be introduced, as announced by the Prime Minister in the Declaration of Perth amid a grandiose fanfare over three years ago—surely it is not an unreasonable demand, to prevent this happening to Miss Wood, that the Secretary of State should announce the date for the setting up of the assembly.
    Mr. Campbell: I described in my original answer what our position has always been on this matter and the order of events. I am extremely concerned about Miss Wood's health. I have managed to get messages through to her which I think have corrected her original misunderstanding. I hope that what I have said about a Green Paper coming forward at the appropriate time will meet her wishes.
    Mr. MacArthur: Will my right hon. Friend make it quite clear to the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Donald Stewart) and others who have misunderstood the position completely, and probably deliberately, that everything he has said today is precisely in line with the clear statement by the Prime Minister in the Declaration of Perth and that we have done precisely what we said we would do and will go on doing precisely what we said we would do?
    Mr. Campbell: My hon. Friend has expressed the position very concisely.
    Mr. Ross: Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider and give a definitive answer? It is about time that the country knew about the situation. I do not go back to the Declaration of Perth: I

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    go back to the first Queen's Speech of the present Government in 1970 when this subject was singled out for mention. There was nothing about Green Papers then. It was a specific statement that this was to be done. Will the right hon. Gentleman now tell us when?
    Mr. Campbell: If the right hon. Gentleman will look up that Queen's Speech he will see that it stated that proposals would be put forward in the life of this Parliament, not in the first Session. It was done because people were interested and needed to be reminded of what we had said and the timetable.

    Agricultural Land (Development)
    Sir J. Gilmourasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what amount of land in Scotland has gone out of agricultural use for development in each of the last five years.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: The amounts of agricultural land taken for urban and industrial development for the individual years from June 1967 to June 1972 were respectively 5,250, 6,108, 4,280, 3,827 and 3,447 acres.
    Sir J. Gilmour: Does not this considerable loss of agricultural land show that there is a need to stimulate land reclamation in Scotland?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Indeed it does. I think that the Government, in their policies on reclaiming derelict land in particular, have demonstrated their realisation of this need.

    Fire Prevention
    Mr. William Hannanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will specify, and state the number of, the Statutes containing provisions in respect of fire prevention requirements.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I would refer the hon. Gentleman to Appendices E and F of the Report of the Departmental Committee on the Fire Service—The Holroyd Report, Cmnd. 4371. In addition there is the Fire Precautions Act 1971.
    Mr. Hannan: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that that Answer is certainly not
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    appreciated? In view of the over-riding dangerous situation of many buildings in Glasgow and the frequency of fires, is there not a real need for clarity of the situation by defining the responsibility and powers of the proper authorities for fire prevention? Will the hon. Gentleman take some action in the matter?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I share the hon. Gentleman's concern. This whole matter of fire prevention is very important, particularly in the light of recent events. The number of Statutes involved is considerable, though a measure of consolidation has been carried out in the Fire Precautions Act 1971. However, the responsibility for this matter rests firmly with the fire authorities. I have no evidence that fire authorities are unaware of or are unwilling to carry out their responsibilities in this direction.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS

    Parliamentary Building
    Mr. Dormandasked the Lord President of the Council whether it is still expected that the new parliamentary building will he completed in 1978; and if he will make a statement.
    The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. James Prior): This is a matter which must await the outcome of the debate, which I have already promised.
    Mr. Dormand: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many hon. Members are becoming cynical about this matter and feel that the building will not be completed this side of 1980? Is he further aware that some of us believe that the kind of exhibition which is being shown upstairs is merely an exercise to keep our morale high? Finally, may I ask him not to forget the dreadful conditions in which many hon. Members and secretaries have to work, flouting laws on this matter that were passed by this House? Will he try to expedite the completion of this building?
    Mr. Prior: The hon. Gentleman has made a strong case for an early debate on this issue, which I should very much like to provide, because until the House has

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    taken a decision we cannot proceed. Provided that the House takes an early decision on the matter, there is no reason why the new parliamentary building should not be completed in 1978 for occupation in the autumn of that year.
    Concerning the working conditions of hon. Members, secretaries and others who serve the House, I am aware of the great difficulties that exist. The Services Committee is actively considering what extra can be done to help.
    Mr. Sydney Chapman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the decision and a debate must take place in this House before the end of January? As the existing buildings on the site have to be demolished and excavations undertaken before any new building can go up, could not work on this side start as soon as possible, bearing in mind that, if there are archaeological finds, the sooner they are found the better and the less likely they will be to delay the subsequent building work?
    Mr. Prior: I certainly cannot promise a debate before the end of January. We shall be back here for only one week in January after the recess. The end of January might be sooner than we can manage. If we obtain the approval of the House—that must be a matter for the House—demolition could start after the summer session is completed. Obviously the sooner it starts the better.
    Mr. Lipton: May we have another debate at the same time about this wretched new car park in New Palace Yard which is becoming—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The Question concerns the new parliamentary building.
    Mr. Cormack: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us are not as impatient as has been suggested and that we would prefer extra delay rather than the destruction of Parliament Square by this hideous new building?
    Mr. Prior: That must come within the debate.
    Mr. Arthur Lewis: Will the Minister give two further promises: first, that he will not try to slip the debate through on a Friday at five minutes to four, as he did with the car park debate; and secondly, that he will ensure that the
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    views of this House are considered, because we would not like to see the mess, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) was about to refer just now, repeated when this new building is constructed?
    Mr. Prior: All I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that I think a half day's debate on that topic would be suitable. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, that is not enough."] This is the problem. I will discuss this matter with hon. Members.
    Mr. Jessel: Will my right hon. Friend examine the relationship between the proposed new building and the traffic problem in the vicinity of Parliament Square? Will he give very careful consideration to the request of the Greater London Council and take the opportunity to put in one more traffic lane for eastbound traffic in Bridge Street? This would make it possible to alter the phasing of the traffic lights and speed the traffic down Whitehall. Further, is my right hon. Friend aware that this could be done without setting back the main building and that it would mean only cutting into the surrounds?
    Mr. Prior: I recognise the importance of speeding traffic down Whitehall. The other point which my hon. Friend has mentioned would be more appropriate for the debate.
    Mr. Russell Johnston: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many Members would not be satisfied with a half day's debate? Despite our sympathy with the remarks of the hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand) about lack of accommodation, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that many Members think that the new building is completely out of character with Parliament?
    Mr. Prior: I was asked whether I would refrain from slipping the debate through at five minutes to four on a Friday afternoon, and I said in reply that I thought half a day would be very suitable for a debate. However, I have noted what hon. Gentlemen in all parts of the House have said. All I can say is that if we are to give this subject the time that hon. Members think it deserves, something else will have to fall out of the programme.

COLDHARDOUR HOSPITAL (FIRE)
3.33 p.m.
The Secretary of State for Social Services (Sir Keith Joseph): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement on the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the fire at Coldharbour Hospital, Sherborne, Dorset, on 5th July 1972, when 30 mentally handicapped patients so tragically lost their lives. I should like to pay tribute to the Committee under the Chairmanship of Mr. Desmond Vowden, QC, for the thorough and expeditious manner in which they carried out the inquiry. The report is being published today as Cmnd. Paper 5170. Copies are available in the Vote Office.
Publication of the report had to be deferred because, in view of certain of its findings, I thought it right to refer the papers to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The Director has now decided that the evidence does not warrant criminal proceedings against any person.
The Committee of Inquiry finds that the night staff were absent for a much longer period than is acceptable; and that the spread of the fire was accelerated and its effect made more serious by the materials of the partitions and furnishings in the ward, the specification for which had been altered in some respects without the consequential effect on the standard of fire resistance having been fully appreciated. The Committee considers that the fire alarm arrangements were adequate and worked well; that the actions of the fire brigade, once alerted, were efficient; and praises prompt and brave action taken by the hospital staff once the fire had been discovered. The report makes various recommendations on fire precautions and other matters. Some of these apply specifically to Coldharbour Hospital; others are of more general relevance.
I accept—and so does the Chairman of the Wessex Regional Hospital Board—the findings of the Committee of Inquiry as to the causes of the fire. The Committee's general recommendations are being urgently studied, and meanwhile I have asked all hospital authorities to review their safety measures in the light of the report. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who is responsible for
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the Fire Precautions Act 1971, has agreed that, as recommended in the report, the designation of hospitals under that Act should now proceed as soon as practicable.
The report records full approval of the policy that mentally handicapped patients should live in a more domestic atmosphere, and of the principles followed at Coldharbour to achieve this. It stresses, however, that the highest standards of safety must also be provided. These two objectives are inherently in conflict but I am seeking to reconcile them as nearly as practicable. No one would wish to go back to the dismal old institutional designs and furnishings which used to be the rule in hospitals for the mentally handicapped. That environment was not only bad for the patients, particularly for the preparation of those who will return to the community; it was also bad for the morale of staff. I am, therefore, reviewing the Department's guidance to hospital authorities, taking into account research into flame-retardant materials and consulting my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for the Home Department and for the Environment.
The report also refers to the need for more specialised security accommodation for patients who present a risk to others, and to the danger of leaving wards with such patients unattended for more than a very short time at night. The specialised medical and nursing care required for patients who may be a risk to themselves or others may take various forms, including either separate accommodation or special supervision in accommodation shared with other patients. My Department has a working group considering what further guidance is needed in the provision of such accommodation. I have meanwhile asked all hospital authorities to review staffing levels and supervision, including night care, in wards where such patients are housed with others who are not capable of looking after themselves. I have also asked hospital authorities to consider in this review what instructions should be given to nursing staff to ensure that they are under no doubt what is expected of them in such matters as leaving wards unattended at night for more than a very few minutes.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Wales has taken

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similar action on the general recommendations in the report, in relation to those hospitals within his responsibility.
With the best will in the world, it is not possible to guarantee that such appalling accidents as that at Coldharbour will never occur again; but we are determined that the lessons learned at such cost at Coldharbour will not be forgotten.
Dr. Summerskill: I am sure the House will agree that it is with tragic regularity that we seem to be discussing hospital fires. As many as 33 fires have occurred in institutions for the mentally handicapped since March, 1969. Would the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that, as I pointed out when he replied to a Private Notice Question on 5th July this year, at least four other major hospital fires occurred in 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1971? The thing that these fires had in common was that they all occurred at night and that they all occurred in geriatric or mentally ill or handicapped hospitals.
Will the right hon. Gentleman also bear in mind that the results of the inquiry bear out that there is a particular risk to these categories of patients who clearly require extra special supervision, particularly during the night? They also require additional fire precautions as they seem to be more vulnerable to fire, either because of the age of the hospitals—although that was not the case in this hospital—or for other reasons.
Will the right hon. Gentleman recall his statement on 5th July when he pointed out that the proportion of staff to patients at this hospital was well above the recommended minimum ratio? Will he reconsider what the recommended minimum ratio should be, as clearly this was not adequate? Will he consider quality of staff as well as quantity, because in this instance the staff were shown not to be on duty when they should have been? Appreciating that it is extra hard to acquire staff for this type of hospital, would the right hon. Gentleman also give consideration to the employment of auxiliaries who might in serious situations of shortage help out at night?
Finally, will the right hon. Gentleman say whether he can provide the money sooner than was expected to bring all hospitals up to the fire authority stan-
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dards? Is he aware that £5·75 million is required and that only £2·5 million was spent in 1971–72?
Sir K. Joseph: Mercifully, most of the fires to which the hon. Lady refers did not lead to loss of life. We are dealing here with the elderly, psychiatric patients and the mentally handicapped, with groups of patients who are often a danger to themselves. I am very willing to look into all the points which the hon. Lady made. In this tragedy, it was not a question of numbers of nurses or of staff ratio. It was a matter of two nurses absenting themselves from their duties for far longer than was legitimate.
As regards money, it is true that £2½ million was spent last year. I have made an extra allocation of £1½ million on top of an expected repetition of £2½ million this year, so I hope that the gap between desirable fire standards and actual fire precautions will be rapidly overtaken.
Mr. Wingfield Digby: Will my right hon. Friend make clear that the Sherborne fire crew acted efficiently and gallantly as soon as they received their somewhat delayed call, as it appears to have been? I welcome what my right hon. Friend had to say about combustible materials and layout, which must, surely, have led to the rapid spread of the fire. Is he convinced that all steps are being taken to keep combustible materials, matches and so on, away from patients, some of whom may have a tendency towards incendiarism? Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that nothing more can be done in this respect?
Is my right hon. Friend convinced that, if there had been early detection of the fire—which obviously there was not—the evacuation of these patients could have proceeded? Finally, could he give me an assurance that drugs played no part in the apparently slow reaction of the patients to the fire?
Sir K. Joseph: I am glad to repeat my tribute to the Sherborne Fire Brigade. I am not sure that there was a very rapid spread of the fire. I think that the tragedy here was that nurses were, apparently, absent for so long, and a fire which would never have caught a grip had the nurses been away for only five minutes was allowed to catch a grip.

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There is a problem regarding combustible materials, which the nurses seek to avoid by removing them from those who have tendencies to pyromania of some sort. I am convinced that the evacuation could have been carried out perfectly safely had the fire been discovered earlier. I am not aware—indeed, the report does not refer to it in any way—of any impact of drugs on the patients.
Mr. Mayhew: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is still a great lack of furnishings and furniture which are pleasant and comfortable while at the same time unhurnable, unbreakable and untearable? Will he do more to encourage research into the development and provision of such furnishings and furniture for hospitals of this kind?
Sir K. Joseph: A lot of progress has been made, but there are more problems than those to which the right hon. Gentleman refers. For instance, there is the question of the opaqueness of curtains and the capacity of bedding to be laundered while still retaining fire-resistant qualities. I am concerned about the progress of research into this, and I am arranging with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that I shall visit the Fire Research Station early in the new year to see a large number of flame-resistant and fire-retardant materials and fabrics.
Mr. Robert Cooke: Did my right hon. Friend see the recent terrifying television documentary about the effects of fire even in quite new buildings, where modern materials, even if not actually being burned, produce toxic, killing fumes under heat? Also, will he give attention to the problem of furniture made of foam rubber or plastic, in particular, which may produce toxic fumes and spread fire?
Sir K. Joseph: I did not see that documentary film, but my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department tells me that the Home Office is following up the toxic dangers to which my hon. Friend refers.
Mr. Russell Johnston: The Secretary of State may know that the largest hospital for the mentally handicapped in the north of Scotland lies in my constituency.
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I notice that he made no specific reference to the results of the inquiry being applied to Scotland, although he referred to Wales. I see the Scottish Minister responsible for these matters sitting beside the Secretary of State. May we be assured that the constructive lessons of this inquiry will be applied to Scotland? Second, may I underline what was said by the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke)? I saw that television film showing the toxic effects of burning plastic materials, and I assure the right hon. Gentleman that it was quite horrifying.
Sir K. Joseph: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland is on the bench with me and he has noted the hon. Gentleman's comments. As regards England, I am today sending a letter to all hospital authorities enclosing a copy of the report and drawing the lessons of it to their attention.
Mr. Arthur Lewis: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the possibility of installing in all these hospitals strategically placed, out of the reach of patients, special fuse devices which would automatically go off when, as the result of either heat or toxic smoke, the danger point is reached, so that there would be a direct line of alarm to the fire station? Would this not help in the matter to which the hon. Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby) referred, namely, the speed of coming to the fire, since such automatic devices could be directly connected to the fire station and in that way help to save lives?
Sir K. Joseph: Both the report and my letter to hospital authorities refer to the possibility of automatic detector systems. However, they should be necessary only where, for some reason, staff coverage cannot be as good as it should be. In this case there was the human element—two nurses were absent.
Dr. Stuttaford: Does my right hon. Friend recall that the Press photographs of this disaster showed that the patients were living in bunks? Were they not in overcrowded conditions, as is common in these hospitals, even modernised ones, and was this not a contributory factor not only to the start of the fire but to the death rate? Will my right hon. Friend say whether the patients who had died

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were found in their beds, or had they tried to get out and been overcome by fumes or smoke?
Sir K. Joseph: Most of the patients, who had a mental age of five years, were killed by asphyxiation in their beds, which, considering the nature of this disaster, was, I suppose merciful. I do not accept my hon. Friend's comment that they were overcrowded. They were living in domestic conditions, not in vast institutional wards. They were living in relatively cosy rooms, admittedly with some in two-tier bunks, but in homely conditions. I am not sure, but I do not think that the inquiry refers to any possibility of overcrowding.
Dr. Summerskill: Will the Secretary of State clear up an important point? He seems to be saying that it was not a matter of staff shortage but that there was a human element. Ought we not to allow for human failings to some extent, bearing in mind that in this case the night nursing assistant, Mr. Rawles, was absent from the dormitory for much longer than was acceptable? Should there not be provision for such an eventuality? If a ward of patients with a mental age of five years had adequate
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staff, could not that eventuality have been covered by other staff coming in?
Sir K. Joseph: The nurse had earlier been relieved for his meal by another nurse. Later he left the ward again and his charge nurse absented himself with him. When two human elements fail, I think that it is, perhaps, not reasonable to expect a third human reserve. I am well aware of the strain on nurses in these hospitals, but I am emphasising to all hospital authorities that the duty of nurses at work at night is not to leave wards of this sort for more than a very few minutes at a time, and it should be possible to rely on their charge nurses to see that this is so.

COLDHARDOUR HOSPITAL (FIRE)
  WEIGHTS AND MEASURES (UNIT PRICING)
  Mr. Patrick Cormack presented a Bill to amend the Weights and Measures Act 1963 to give power to the Secretary of State to require by order made under section 21 of that Act that goods should be marked with the price per unit of measure: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 9th February and to be printed [Bill 44].

FOOTBALL BETTING LEVY BOARD BILL
3.49 p.m.
Mr. Joe Ashton: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the establishment of a Football Betting Levy Board with powers to impose levies on football betting and allocate such moneys to the sport of football in general; and for purposes connected therewith.
I shall not take up the time of the House in talking about the current financial crisis which is affecting the national game of football since there have been one or two debates on the matter recently, but I wish to put on record certain facts. The Government intend to take £4 million out of the game through value added tax in April. Following the Wheatley Report on crowd safety, which came after the Ibrox disaster when 65 people were killed, we understand that the Government have proposals to compel football clubs to spend a lot of money on improving the safety and amenities of their grounds.
These proposals come at a time when football in general is in a financial crisis. Attendances have fallen dramatically. Whether this be due to the effect of television is, perhaps, arguable, but attendances have certainly gone down. The clubs have tried to rectify the position by putting up admission charges, and the situation has been getting worse day by day. Well-established clubs such as Doncaster and Barnsley are drawing only 2,000 spectators or fewer.
There is the question of the size of transfer fees. People ask why clubs cannot finance themselves adequately if transfer fees are so high. The trouble is that transfer fees are money which stays within the game, not fresh money brought in. It is rather like food which is passed around a table while no fresh supplies are coming in through the door. The clubs keen each other alive—and only a few clubs are concerned with transfer fees anyway. A fresh injection of cash is needed from outside the game or many clubs will face a financial crisis. Some of them will go bankrupt, if not this season then next.
The House called for a report on football to go into the game in detail
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and accordingly a report was made in 1968. It was the Chester Report which was commissioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Denis Howell) who was Minister for Sport at the time. One of the recommendations in the report was that a football betting levy board should be set up along the lines of the Horserace Betting Levy Board, which was introduced under the Betting and Gaming Act 1963. One of my former right hon. Friends, Lord Wigg, took over the chairmanship of that board in 1968 and he has turned it into a great success.
The recommendation for such a board for football was never implemented because in 1968 the clubs were doing very well. That was the period just after the World Cup Competition. Because of the interest generated by that event, attendances were very high and the clubs' incomes were satisfactory. At that time, also, the football pools were not doing too well.
Since then the situation has changed drastically. The pools, particularly in the past two years, have become very profitable and the football clubs have been running at an ever-increasing loss.
Several factors have affected the football pools in the last two years which have boosted their revenue considerably.
First, they introduced a system called score draws which meant that the number of winners went down, the size of dividends went up and pools winners were picking up about £500,000 for the first prize. That, attracted a great deal of publicity and it tempted more people to bet with the pools. The second thing to boost revenue was decimalisation because it increased the smallest unit of currency, and the minimum stake went up by at lest 20 per cent. The third was unemployment. As unemployment increased, more and more of the unemployed risked 25p or 50p a week to try to win the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The fourth factor was the postal strike. As a result of it the pools firms concentrated far more on door-to-door collectors. The collectors were anxious to get their commission and they kept up colleting right through the summer, thus giving a boost to betting on Australian football.
The fifth factor was the natural technological development of computers so

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that firms like Littlewoods were able to cut their staff by 50 per cent. That boosted revenue by 29 per cent. Their total revenue is now £168 million, although less than £1 million goes to the sport, under an agreement drawn up with the Football League for the copyright of the fixture list. The agreement was unfortunately drawn up to run until 1980 and has consequently been overtaken by inflation.
The pools pay the 30 per cent. betting tax but so do the bookmakers. In horse-racing, however, the bookmakers also have to pay a levy to the Horserace Betting Levy Board, and that levy is ploughed back into horseracing to improve amenities at the tracks, to increase the prize money and to encourage the breeding of horses. It has done nothing but good to the sport.
The Financial Times published figures about pools on 11th March, 1972 and on 4th September, 1971. They showed that revenue rose by 29 per cent. last year. Mr. Paul Zetter was reported as saying that the boom was only just gaining momentum. For every one person going through the football turnstiles and paying admission, 25 are betting on the pools but contributing nothing to the game which helps to keep the pools alive. The Financial Times said,
"Last year the pools companies reported astonishing increases in revenue."
I consider that the pools companies are almost in need of examination by the Monopolies Commission because there are only five companies. They are private and they do not produce a detailed balance sheet and it is difficult to arrive at an accurate analysis of their profits. They claim that they make only
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3 per cent. profit on turnover. That means that they make about £7 million profit on £168 million turnover. But profit on turnover is very different from capital employed. It could well be that the pools are making £7 million profit on annual expenses of £35 million to create a turnover of £168 million. In other words their actual profit is not 3 per cent. but more like 20 per cent.
If football is to survive—and it must, because it is a national game giving great enjoyment to the millions who watch it on television and bet on it on the pools—the House must take notice of the Chester Report and introduce legislation to set up a football betting levy board.
In conclusion, I should like to quote what the Chester Report said about the proposal for a betting levy board:
"We hope that the very modesty of our proposal will charm the Government and Parliament into giving general support to the necessary legislation."
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Ashton, Mr. Dalyell. Mr. Concannon, Mr. James Johnson, Mr. David Clark, Mr. Mason, Mr. Harold Walker, Mr. Varley, Mr. Forrester, Mr. Booth and Mr. McBride.

FOOTBALL BETTING LEVY BOARD BILL
  FOOTBALL BETTING LEVY BOARD
  Bill to provide for the establishment of a Football Betting Levy Board with powers to impose levies on football betting and allocate such moneys to the sport of football in general; and for purposes connected therewith, presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon 26th January and to be printed [Bill No. 45].
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  FAIR TRADING BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  3.57 p.m.
  The Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs (Sir Geoffrey Howe): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The Bill has two principal purposes—first, the promotion of increased economic efficiency and, secondly, the protection of the consumer against unfair trading practices. It is as well that there should be no misunderstanding about the way in which these two purposes are complementary to each other.
  They are both founded on the Government's firm belief that competition provides a means of diffusing power and responsibility throughout the community and of continually widening the area of freedom and opportunity. Competition provides spurs to efficiency and incentives to seek out and supply the varied wants of the consumer and methods of sharing the benefits of technical progress in lower prices and higher incomes. Finally, it offers the means of discovering what to produce and where and how to produce it. It is on that basis that the Bill recognises and in no way impairs the importance of the role played by the army of traders, entrepreneurs and retailers in our market economy. By serving themselves, all these people serve the wider community as well, and the Bill is clear in its acknowledgement of that.
  But the Bill acknowledges two other factors as well, factors that market economists have acknowledged since the days of Adam Smith, and before that for all I know. The first of these is that competition is not an automatic panacea and that the freedom it provides may be used to concentrate power, to limit competition, and may be used in ways contrary to the public interest. It thus requires—in the interests of the community as a whole, within a properly designed framework of law—a competition policy. The second factor is that the sovereignty of the consumer, which is the most important element in the operation of the free competition market, is not to be taken for
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  granted. Consumer sovereignty requires that the consumer should be adequately and accurately informed and adequately protected against unfair or misleading marketing techniques, and adequately protected, finally, against abuse of market power, monopoly or aspects of imperfect competition.
  Just as fair trading is good business, so consumer protection is itself an integral part of the market economy. That is why competition policy needs to be considered, as it is in the Bill, as a whole. It is this integrated view of a competition policy that leads to the first institutional innovation proposed in the Bill—the appointment of a Director General of Fair Trading. This is an important change from the present position, in which Ministers, with the help of their Departments, are required to undertake a diversity of tasks, keeping under review the general workings of competition in the economy, conducting preliminiary examinations of mergers, deciding on references to be made to the Monopolies Commission and taking appropriate action following adverse reports by the Commission.
  The Government have concluded that, given the specialist and detailed nature of the work and the need for continuity in its performance, it could best be done by an independent official body. In most other countries that have an active competition policy, this task is already performed by a separate Government agency—for example, the Federal Cartel Office in Western Germany.
  The possibility that this function could properly be given to the Monopolies Commission itself has been considered, but the Government have decided instead in favour of the appointment of a distinct and independent agency in the person of the Director General. This has the advantage of maintaining, as an impartial, quasi-judicial body, the Monopolies Commission.
  Apart from this, the present institutional framework for the promotion of competition remains broadly unchanged. The Monopolies Commission, which is to be renamed the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, will retain the function of investigating those matters referred to it. The Restrictive Practices Court will also retain its present place, but the scope of its work will be significantly expanded.

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  The Director General of Fair Trading, however, will now be working alongside these two bodies. His or her appointment is provided for in Clause 1, and under Clause 2 his general duties are defined. They are: keeping under review monopoly situations and uncompetitive situations, keeping a constant watch on consumer trade practices, as defined in Clause 3, which might adversely affect the economic interests of consumers, and giving information and making recommendations generally to the Secretary of State or other Ministers for action on these matters.
  The Director General is given further specific powers under Parts II and III of the Bill. Under Part II, these powers include making proposals for the exercise of the order-making power in relation to trading practices which are found adversely to affect the economic interests of consumers, and under Part III to take action against people who consistently maintain a course of conduct which is unfair and detrimental to the interests of consumers.
  Under the monopolies and mergers provisions of the Bill, the Director General is empowered under Clause 46 to make monopoly references to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, and in that respect he is subject to the broad policy direction of the Secretary of State and to an ultimate right of veto, which must be exercised openly.
  By Clause 71, he is required to vet mergers and to make recommendations as to merger references and to advise and assist Ministers in the implementation of the commission's findings, including the negotiation of voluntary undertakings, where possible. When he is conducting preliminary investigations into monopoly situations, the Director General will additionally have a limited power, conferred by Clause 40, to seek information of an essentially statistical kind to assist him in deciding whether to make monopoly references.
  In relation to restrictive trade practices, the Director General will take over the functions and staff of the Registrar of Trading Agreements. He will also have other powers and functions which we shall have further opportunities to examine.
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  I propose now to invite the House to take a closer look at the role of the Director General in relation to consumer protection. Consumer protection is an on-going task, which calls for continuing action because the consumer has to exercise his important influence in a world of continuing change. An increase in disposable income gives rise to an increasing number of decisions as to what to buy. The choice available for the consumer becomes increasingly wide. Goods and services available themselves become increasingly complex and, at the same time, some of the enterprises with which the consumer must deal become increasingly monolithic.
  Perhaps the most important of all these changes are the continuing changes in the techniques of marketing and promotion, new ways of persuading the consumer to enter into a transaction, new ways of arranging the transaction and new ways of arranging payment for a transaction. Many of those changes themselves extend the field of consumers' influence and the field of his choice, but some of them increase the hazards to which the consumer can be exposed. That is why there is already much protective legislation on the Statute Book, introduced from time to time to bring consumer protection up to date.
  One of the most important provisions of this kind has in practice proved to be the Trade Descriptions Act, 1968. Although that was introduced by the last Labour Government, it was of course largely founded on the recommendations of the Molony Committee, appointed by the preceding Conservative Government. This therefore illustrates the broadly bipartisan approach to much of this field.
  On Second Reading of that Act on 22nd February 1968, the then Minister of State at the Board of Trade, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) described the Bill as
  "…a charter for fair trading which will serve as basic law for a long time to come".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February 1968; Vol. 759. c. 675.]
  It is right to acknowledge that the 1968 Act has indeed proved, not least due to the enforcement efforts of local weights and measures authorities, an extremely effective one, but, in retrospect, I dare say

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  the right hon. Gentleman would acknowledge that it has not fulfilled all his expectations.
  The Act dealt quite comprehensively with the practice of misdescription, but misdescription is of course only one of the practices that can be unfair to the consumer. It is possible, for example, without using a single word in a deceptive way, to subject a consumer to a contract of sale which is quite inequitable. There are other examples which have been raised in the House in recent weeks and also over the years.
  The truth is that, in a complicated and changing world, it is always possible for an astute minority of traders—I emphasise the word "minority"—to devise new ways of outwitting the consumer. In the face of changes of that kind, Parliament in general has to find time for a new Bill every time a new abuse hits the headlines. That is not always easy or even possible, as the House will appreciate.
  That is why the Government have decided to introduce this Bill, which will provide, with suitable safeguards for the overwhelming majority of fair traders—I emphasise the word "majority" as well—a much more flexible machinery for responding to changing consumer needs for protecting the consumer against new unfair trading practices as they are identified. In the office of the Director General of Fair Trading, the Bill creates this machinery, whereby a continuing watch can be kept on new developments which are likely to damage the consumer's economic interests.
  I emphasise that this does not mean an army of central Government snoopers prying into the affairs of those engaged in business. It means the creation of a focal point of experience of unfair practices, at which information can be gathered from all sources, including in particular the weights and measures authorities who obviously have, from their existing activities under the existing law, a wide knowledge of how the market place works, and that information can be impartially assessed. Clauses 1, 2 and 3 essentially bring that basic machinery into being.
  It is Part II which establishes the system whereby trading practices which are found, after full and proper consideration, to have a really adverse effect on
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  the economic interests of consumers, can be dealt with by statutory order, subject to the affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament. That machinery can be activated whenever the Director considers that a particular abuse has undesirable effects that merit regulation. But before the machinery can produce an order for the approval of Parliament, there are a number of checks and balances to he taken into account. I am sure that the House will agree that they are essential, given the wide-ranging powers that the Bill will provide.
  Clause 17 provides, when the Director considers that a particular practice has one or more of four undesirable effects, that the Director can submit proposals for new regulations to the Consumer Protection Advisory Committee. The committee will consist of people possessing the kind of experience that will enable them to judge properly matters of that kind. That is set out in Clause 4. It will consider whether it agrees with the Director's proposals, which will be published. It will take into account representations from persons who have a substantial interest in the matter.
  It will submit a report to the Secretary of State setting out whether it agrees that the practice adversely affects consumers' interests in the way that the Director has said it does, and whether it agrees with the proposals for new regulations which he has submitted to it. It is only when the committee has agreed with the Director's proposals for new regulations or with modifications to those proposals that the Secretary of State may make a statutory instrument to carry the proposals into effect. That is set out in Clause 22.
  As I have said, an order of that kind will be subject to the affirmative resolution of both Houses. Such orders will be able to ban particular practices or to allow them to continue subject to certain requirements, some examples of which are set out in Schedule 6. The responsibility for enforcing such orders will be placed upon local weights and measures authorities, who already have experience in that direction.
  Mr. Nicholas Ridley: Is it intended that the experience which has been accumulated by the weights and measures inspectors

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  should be made available to the Advisory Committee or to the Director General? As enforcement officers, they will have a lot to contribute to the understanding of how best to proceed.
  Sir G. Howe: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that matter. The weights and measures inspectors have a great deal of experience, which will be made available to the Director in a number of ways. First, the existing provision, whereby weights and measures inspectors report to the Department of Trade and Industry intended prosecutions, will be changed so that they report intended prosecutions to the Director General. He will, in addition, be able to receive information submitted to him from the inspectors, formally or informally. He will also be able to receive information from any other source. He will produce an annual report and additional reports as he thinks necessary.
  It is expected that there will be a series of antennae available not only to the inspectors but other people who are active in such matters. It will become the depositor of much of the wisdom which they have to contribute. There will be a centralisation of that kind of information.
  The powers that are given by the Bill and the provisions concerning penalties and offences are virtually the same as those set out in the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. It can be concluded that Part II establishes a reasonably swift and sensitive piece of machinery that will enable Parliament to respond to consumer grievances about the state of the protective law.
  One point worth noticing about Part II is that it extends significantly the area within which compensation can be available to an aggrieved consumer. The House will recall that the Criminal Justice Act, which comes into force at the beginning of 1973, was subject to an amendment moved by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) to provide for compensation to be payable in respect of convictions under the Trade Descriptions Act.
  The same provisions of that Act will apply from 1st January 1973 to convictions for offences under subsequent legislation in the same way as they apply to legislation already on the statute book.
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  Therefore, there will be no need to write into the Bill any special provision to ensure that a consumer is eligible to receive compensation for personal injury, loss or damage resulting from conviction of an offence against a statutory order made under Clause 22. That is important, although by no means a complete expansion of the area in which compensation will be available.
  The provisions of Part III have a different but equally important purpose. They aim to bring about a sharp reduction in the number of occasions in which a consumer will have to complain about a denial of his rights under the law as that law has been enacted by Parliament.
  The purpose of Part III is to create a climate in which the overwhelming majority of traders, who deal fairly with the public, can continue to flourish without interference and in which the minority of traders, who maintain an unhelpful attitude to the justified complaints by consumers, will see sense and, in the end, the necessity of mending their ways and improving their standards.
  The way in which we aim to bring about a reduction in the number of occasions on which consumer grievances will arise is that set out in Part III. The Director, under Clause 35, will be able to take action in the courts against traders who persistently conduct their business in an unfair, unsafe or unhelpful way. Any trader who has been convicted of a series of criminal offences—for example, under the Trade Descriptions Act or the Food and Drugs Act—or who has committed a series of breaches of contract is likely to attract the attention of the Director.
  He will first be invited voluntarily to mend his ways. If he declines to do so or fails to keen an undertaking to do so, the Director will be able to take him, as the Bill provides, before the Restrictive Practices Court, which may accept an undertaking that he will act differently in future Or make an order specifically requiring him to do so. We expect the provisions to operate in the main by conciliation and voluntary response. The provisions enable the Director to do a great deal to bring the performance of the laggard minority of traders up to the standards of the best.
  The provisions of Part II and Part III taken together represent a leap forward

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  in the protection of the consumer which outdistances any taken in the past.
  Mr. Ted Rowlands: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell us whether the provisions which he described at the beginning of his speech cover contracts between home buyers and builders?
  Sir G. Howe: The definition clause at the end of the Bill defines goods as including houses, or services relating to the provision of housing.
  Mr. Michael Meacher: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell the House how an individual claimant, without going through all the cumbersome and expensive procedures of the courts, can get redress apart from the use of the Criminal Justice Act, which is very unlikely to come about?
  Sir G. Howe: I will deal with that point later. I remind the hon. Member that the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act attach themselves to the Trade Descriptions Act. Any new orders made under the Bill will extend the area in which an individual aggrieved consumer can get compensation if criminal proceedings are being brought.
  Mr. John Smith Mr. John Smith (Lanarkshire, North) rose—
  Sir G. Howe: I do not want to give way. I appreciate that this is a matter which needs further consideration and I will say a word or two about it in a moment.
  I turn to the provisions concerning monopolies, mergers and restrictive practices, which are not as formidable as the scale of the Bill suggests. A great part of the Bill's size is due to the fact that we are repealing and consolidating the basic statutes of 1948 and 1965.
  The main changes were mainly fore-shadowed by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when he was Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on 17th December 1970. I take this opportunity of paying tribute to him and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) for the extent to which the Bill is the result of their work over many months past.
  I will identify the main changes. The proportion of the market, including im-
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  ports, by reference to which the monopoly situation is defined, is to be reduced from a third to a quarter. In addition, Clause 10 brings local monopolies within the scope of the legislation for the first time. We thought it desirable to widen the field of reference of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to cover potentially at least a greater number of situations in which the provisions for the exercise of monopoly power may be present. That does not mean that firms which have a quarter share of the relevant market will automatically be referred to the commission in future, or anything like it, any more than references have been made automatically in the past. But it does mean that it will be possible to deal effectively with all these situations, national or local, where lack of competition may be impairing efficiency or harming the consumer.
  We have also decided that the provisions relating to the form of monopoly references should be simplified, so that once the commission has confirmed that a monopoly situation exists it should be able to proceed straight on to an assessment of whether practices of the kind specified in Clause 45(3) are against the public interest. This is a useful alternative to the traditional more wide ranging inquiries.
  We have also decided to drop the proviso in Section 3(2) of the 1948 Act, under which common action by firms as employers cannot in any circumstances constitute a situation about which a reference can be made. There appears to be no reason why monopolistic practices by firms acting as employers should be wholly exempted from inquiry.
  One significant change concerns the nationalised industries. The Government consider that it is anomalous that the monopolies legislation which applies to private industry should not also apply to them, and we have therefore decided to remove the present restrictions on the reference of statutory monopolies, for it may be desirable to seek the commission's views on the consequences for the public interest of the way in which a statutory monopoly is exercised. It is the Government's view, however, that in such cases—broadly defined in the first part of Schedules 5 and 7—Ministers and not the Director General should take

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  the responsibility for calling in the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
  The mergers provisions in Part V of the Bill reproduce with little substantial modification the provisions of the 1965 Act. The Secretary of State will continue to have the sole power to initiate merger references, but the Director General will be able to draw such matters to his attention and to make recommendations about them. There are no changes in the special provisions relating to newspaper mergers.
  As regard other mergers, there will be two changes. First, the market share criterion for merger references will also be reduced from one-third to one quarter, but the size of assets criterion will remain at £5 million. The second change is the introduction of a new power in Clause 65(3) to refer to the commission, not the broad question of whether a merger as a whole would be contrary to the public interest, but a narrower question relating to a particular aspect of a merger which gives rise to concern.
  I am not now able to discuss further the many questions that arise in connection with the making and consideration of merger references. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry dealt with some of these on 24th November 1972, when he explained that we are now reviewing them.
  Mr. Eric S. Heffer: But surely the right hon. and learned Gentleman is not going to dodge round Clause 74, which relates to the question of labour restrictive practices. Is he not going to explain why it has been included in the Bill? Will he not also explain why it applies only to the trade unions, particularly the blue collar workers, while it in no way affects the professional people, such as barristers, solicitors and so on? Why is it directed against the trade unions and not against the professions?
  Sir G. Howe: I intend to and shall deal with both those points. Even had I not intended to do so, the hon. Gentleman's presence would have inspired me to do so, because I can well imagine that this is where he has a particular interest in the Bill.
  Sir Tatton Brinton: My right hon. and learned Friend is apparently about to leave Part IV and Part V. Why does the Bill in general not contain any criteria on which the public interest should be judged by the commission when a reference is made to it?
  Sir G. Howe: I was not going to leave that matter but was about to refer to it.
  The form of the Bill, in particular Clause 79, exposes our view that it is not only difficult but may well be positively undesirable, despite the pleas for certainty which are made from time to time—for example, over last weekend—to provide an inflexible check list on such matters. The right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) dealt with this in a way which seems to me to represent the practicalities of the situation on a number of occasions when he said that a rigid series of criteria
  "…would impose a degree of rigidity which would make no sense in a country so heavily dependent on international trade and so subject to international competition as we are in Britain. It is not even clear that they would eliminate uncertainty."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 17th April 1969; Vol. 781, c. 1358.]
  He put the conflict perhaps more clearly when he said, on 28th February 1969:
  "…it is difficult to lay down guide-lines which are not either so platitudinous as to be useless…or so rigid or inflexible as to stop many desirable mergers."
  That does not mean that we have not given consideration to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir T. Brinton).
  In Clause 79, however, I would draw particular attention to three features which are taking the place of Section 14 of the 1948 Act. It contains explicit reference to the desirability of maintaining and promoting effective competition, the interests of consumers, and the balanced distribution of industry and employment within the United Kingdom. We can discuss these things in detail at a later stake, but I hope that I have answered my hon. Friend in general terms.
  Mr. Bruce Millan: Quite apart from what is in the Bill, what we want to know is whether the Government are going to adopt a more active policy towards referring mergers to the commission. In 1971, for example, out of 110 mergers which came within the existing criteria, only one was referred

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  to the commission. Is this to be the trend in the future?
  Sir G. Howe: The hon. Gentleman will find his answer in column 1829 of HANSARD of 24th November. It was given by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State.
  Mr. Milan: Answer now.
  Sir G. Howe: I repeat what my hon. Friend said about what the Secretary of State intended to do. My hon. Friend said that the Secretary of State
  "…intends to make greater use of the Monopolies Commission in major mergers, and if there is doubt as to whether a reference is desirable the balance is likely in future to be struck in favour of referring rather than not ref erring."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th November 1972; Vol. 846, c. 1829.]
  That was the position stated to the House a couple of weeks ago.
  Parts IX and X of the Bill relate to the restrictive practices legislation. This legislation has proved to be invaluable in ridding the economy of restrictive agreements in the production and supply of goods. Here I am sure that the whole House would wish to express its appreciation of the admirable way in which Sir Rupert Sich, who has held the post of Registrar since its inception, has carried out his task. The duties of the post will now be transferred to the Director General.
  The changes which are being made in the legislation are largely technical and are set out in Part IX. The major change in the scope of the legislation is in Part X which extends it to commercial services, a large and important sector of the economy. This is a logical development of competition policy. In 1965, monopolies legislation was extended to the supply of services and there has subsequently appeared to be no reason to believe that restrictive practices in the provision of such services are likely to be in the public interest.
  Restrictions in the supply of professional services—a point mentioned by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer)—raise issues different in kind from those raised in connection with goods and commercial services. This was recognised in the general report of the Monopolies Commission published in
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  October 1970. The relationship between a practitioner and his clients is not purely commercial. Restrictions may well be justified to safeguard proper professional standards in the interests not only of the client but also of the public generally. There can be no overriding presumption that restrictive practices in the supply of professional services are against the public interest, although, again as the Monopolies Commission pointed out, some of them may be.
  The restrictive practices legislation would therefore be inappropriate for professional services. They are listed in Schedule 4. But that does not imply that the Government intend to remain inactive in relation to professional practices which may give rise to justifiable public concern. On the contrary, for particular professional practices, or the practices of individual professions, can, of course, be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission for inquiry and report. That was the procedure recommended by the Monopolies Commission in its 1970 report, and the Government have that recommendation well in mind.
  Mr. Douglas Jay: As it is now two years since the Monopolies Commission's Report on Supply of Professional Services, can the Minister tell us what the Government have done to follow up the report in the last two years?
  Sir G. Howe: I have expounded to the right hon. Gentleman the position of the Government at present. I hope that he will mark what I have said. I have drawn attention to the distinctions made by the report.
  Mr. Jay: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman mean that no action has been taken by the Government in these two years?
  Sir G. Howe: The right hon. Gentleman must wait and see. I have told him that the Government do not intend to remain inactive. He must contain his impatience for a little longer.
  I turn now to the provisions in Clause 74 whereby the Secretary of State can ask the commission to report on practices, whether of employers or employees, which may unjustifiably restrict the use

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  of labour. The reason for the introduction of this new type of "study" reference is that the Government believe it is desirable to take power to investigate the economic aspects of restrictive labour practices, to establish the nature and extent of such practices, and to determine how far they may be contrary to the public interest.
  The Bill provides only for the commission to investigate the wider economic implications of such practices. There is no provision for subsequent orders, sanctions or penalties of any kind, either on organisations or on individuals.
  That appears to be an entirely sensible, practicable and worthwhile conclusion, in line, incidentally, with those foreshadowed on behalf of the Government before the General Election.
  Before I close I want to say a few words about the place of the Bill in the whole policy of the Government in relation to consumer affairs. The Bill is just one consequence of the detailed study of the consumer's current needs and problems. It deals mainly with one area of commercial policy. It will enable Parliament, with the assistance of the Director General, to keep consumer protection law up to date. It will enable the Director General to play a significant part in ensuring that the minority of unfair traders live up to the standards observed by the best. It will enable a larger number of consumers but by no means all to obtain compensation for their grievances.
  Even so, I am the first to recognise that there are other matters equally deserving of attention. There is, for example, the question of consumer advice—local, accessible advice to enable the individual consumer to sort out his problems. Purely legal advice will be more easily available next year due to tile Legal Advice and Assistance Act. But the greatest need is still for informal advice and conciliation. This is already available from over 500 citizens advice bureaux and from those local authorities which have set up their own consumer advisory services.
  Without wishing to belittle what is already being achieved, we must recognise that there are parts of the country in which that kind of advice is still not
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  available. I hope as part of a continuing programme to be able to identify ways in which the Government can act to secure the establishment of a network of local consumer advisory services that will be comprehensive and nationwide.
  Another important area is that of consumer redress. There will always be difficult cases in which conciliation does not succeed. How then can the consumer get his wrongs righted? And how then can the trader secure fair disposal of complaints brought against him?
  I appreciate the dissatisfaction which exists with existing machinery to deal with consumer claims and I understand why one should be reluctant to go to law, particularly about a relatively small transaction. The major changes in county court procedures which came into force last March were aimed primarily at making the courts simpler, cheaper, swifter and more approachable.
  But there are many who argue that we should go further still in improving the existing machinery. Clearly we cannot cover all these areas of consumer need at once. I am very ready and willing to listen to those who have ideas for disposing even more simply and expeditiously of consumer complaints and, indeed, I am willing to study the limited experiments that have so far been initiated.
  I hope that this makes it plain that the Bill must be regarded as just one part of what is and must be an evolving and continuing policy. The Government are well aware that policy in this field is not to be found wholly or even mainly in legislation. The Government are also aware of the importance of keeping in mind the invaluable part played by industrialists and traders in serving consumers as they serve themselves.
  Effective publicity, effective voluntary schemes evolved by trade and industry itself, have played and can continue to play a vital role in combining the virtues of competition with the good business sense of serving the consumer.
  There is nothing in the Bill which need be feared by those honest, good, traders who make up the large majority of British commerce. On the contrary, there is much that they will welcome.
  The Bill will indeed make an important contribution to the fair and open operation of the free market system, by

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  means of which consumer, producer and distributor are conducted by an invisible hand in the service of each other's needs.
  Upon that basis I commend the Bill to the House.
  4.35 p.m.
  Mr. Alan Williams: I fear that the speeches from this Front Bench and from hon. Members on the back benches on both sides will he characterised by an unusually large number of questions about detail, perhaps more so than is usual in a Second Reading debate. This is inevitable, because there has been no White Paper before presentation of the Bill to explain the Government's thinking.
  For over a year the Government have carried on a process of concealed consultation. The Confederation of British Industry has been told. The Trades Union Congress has been consulted. The Consumer Association has been consulted. The House of Commons has not been consulted. Within the last year two documents have been circulated by the Government both classified as confidential. I need not remind the House how seriously the Government take the classification of confidentiality, carrying with it the massive power of the law, the threat of secret police swoops, and hurried searches through documents in offices.
  Ministers laid down more than a year ago not only that the Opposition should not be allowed to see what the options were that were available to the Government but that their own back bench lobby fodder would not be allowed to participate in the process of evolving Government policy. I appreciate that the Minister recognises that there are on his own back benches many potential national disasters, but I do not see any of them as security risks.
  The public were not consulted. One can almost hear the Prime Minister saying, "These proposals are about consumers. What has that got to do with the public?" Surely if there is any issue in which there should have been consultation and public participation, it is an issue on which every housewife probably knows more than any Minister.
  Where is the Government's promise of open government now? Indeed, what does "open government" mean? It
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  would be presumptuous of me, as it was not my phrase, to offer a definition. Instead, I take the most up-to-date definition available to us, that given at the Dispatch Box yesterday by the Prime Minister:
  "Open government consists of the Government's having the opportunity to consider the options and publishing them in a Green Paper, or in another way, for public debate in the House."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th December 1972; Vol. 848, c. 233.]
  That is the Prime Minister's concept of open government—publishing options for those options to be discussed in the House.
  Where is the green paper? Where are the options? Instead, we have been presented with a governmental fait accompli. The Prime Minister's pious comments at the Dispatch Box yesterday are just another example of his contempt for the House and of his hypocrisy when he talks of open government. The Prime Minister does not want his left face to know what his right face is doing and his style percolates through the Government.
  Mr. Michael Jopling (Lord Commissioner of the Treasury): Nonsense.
  Mr. Williams: We shall see how much of a nonsense it is. It is already established that there was no consultation and no opportunity for it. The Government produced this complicated Bill of 123 clauses and 13 schedules only 12 days before we have to discuss it. I have no objection to such haste if it will get extra protection for the consumer. But it is understandable that hon. Members have had difficulty in carrying out proper consultation about the significance of the Bill.
  Last week I telephoned the Minister's Private Office and explained the predicament of the ordinary, non-lawyer Member trying to find his way around a massive legalistic document. I asked whether it would be possible to have a copy of the Press handout. Surely there is nothing more innocent than that. The handouts are available to every Tom, Dick and Harry in the Press Gallery. But they are not available to the Opposition. To this day I have not seen a copy of a Press handout. Before I returned to "shadowing" Trade and Industry, I "shadowed" the Department of Education and Science, and I can tell

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  the hon. Gentleman that the Under-Secretary at the Department acted with far more courtesy to the Opposition than does the hon. Gentleman, because Press handouts were automatically sent to us.
  The Minister may recollect that when the then Paymaster-General and I were piloting the Gas Bill through its Committee stage in the last Administration he and his right hon. Friend, the present Minister of Posts and Telecommunications came to me part of the way through the proceedings and asked whether they could consult my officials on points of fact. I readily agreed to this, yet here we are today without any preliminary discussion, without a preliminary outline of the Government's thinking. We have had no White Paper and we have been unable to get even a copy of the Press handout. This is hardly a good start on the long road to consumer emancipation.
  Sir G. Howe: I wanted to go as far as I could in checking the facts of what the hon. Member has been saying. I recollect that at some point last week an inquiry came to be personally about whether a copy of the Press handout could be made available to an hon. Member, I think on the Opposition benches. My response was, "Yes, certainly." I have not been able to check whether that inquiry came from the hon. Member but there would be no intention of withholding that kind of information. If the hon. Member was so denied, I am sorry that it happened.
  Mr. Williams: I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I give him my assurance that I would not have made such a statement if the facts were not as I have given them. I have not seen a copy of the Press handout. I did make such a request. Since we appear to have created a mood of temporary good will, it would be helpful to establish the kind of practice operated by the Department of Education and Science, certainly on the higher education side, and to make arrangements for Press handouts to be sent to us as a matter of course. It would be extremely helpful.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke clearly and legalistically for over 35 minutes. It was the clearest, most legalistic and longest confessional in the long history of repenting sinners. The
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  right hon. and learned Gentleman admits that the Government were wrong to execute the Consumer Council instead of strengthening it, as wrong as they were to abandon investment grants, to declare their "lame duck" policy and to condemn prices and incomes policies. More importantly, he declared quite clearly that the doctrinal base of the prejudiced decision to assassinate the Consumer Council was utterly wrong.
  The pity is that for two years consumers have been denied the protection of the Council while the Government have learned their lesson. The public has had to pay for the Government's education. This same Government, who have denied public participation in the evolution of a new consumer policy, previously scorned advice when it was offered at the time of their decision to abolish the Consumer Council.
  In 1970 the National Council of Women, at its annual general meeting, passed a resolution condemning the abolition of the Consumer Council as
  "leaving consumers without a powerful and influential spokesman."
  But the Prime Minister brushed the women aside then. He also spurned the previous Director of the Consumers Association who said at that time,
  "The Consumers Association and the Consumer Council have always been complementary, not competing organisations."
  At that time the Government wilfully destroyed the partnership that had been built up over the years—all to save less than ½p per head of the population per year.
  One of their reasons was economy, but there were other, deeper-seated reasons. In 1970 the Government were still suffering from their Selsdon man complex—still having to prove their political virility. So we find the explanation if we explore comments made then, first of all in the publication Trade and Industry of 4th November 1970. The Government said then,
  "other consumer organisations have grown in number and in strength, and the consumer's interest has been widely recognised and protected. The Consumer Council has played a useful part in this development. However, in the different situation which now exists, the Government have concluded that an adequate advancement and presentation of the consumer's interest no longer requires the maintenance of the Consumer Council at public expense."

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  In case the message was not becoming clear, Lord Drumalbyn said in another place on 1st December 1970,
  "In 1962 the private organisations in the consumer field were struggling infants; now they are lusty adults. By their vigorous growth they have demonstrated that consumers have the initiative, the will to provide and the confidence to support with their purses services to meet their needs."
  Note the phrase "with their purses". It is the same philosophy we found at the time of the decisions on school milk, meals and museum charges. Again the noble Lord, recognising how capricious the public is, said that the public would pay only if it were made to pay. The public had to be forced to stand on its own feet. It did not need governmental support, the sort of organisation that we are instituting today. He went on to say,
  "True, some of the needs of the consumers are not likely, perhaps, in the immediate future…to be looked after."
  He was certainly correct there. He went on,
  "But as long as some part of those needs was met by the Consumer Council, sponsored and supported by the Government, it was unrealistic to expect private initiative to deal with the entire sector of the activity the Council covered."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 1st December, 1970; Vol. 313, c. 506.]
  That was the basic philosophy, that the public should be forced to set up its own organisation.
  Mr. John Gorst: Is the hon. Gentleman's argument that the old arrangements with the Consumer Council were better than what is proposed in the Bill, or is he conceding that the Bill is a great improvement on the situation that existed in the past?
  Mr. Williams: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman must have nodded off at the time that I made the point that not only should the Government never have abolished the Consumer Council but they should have strengthened it. If he looks at HANSARD tomorrow he will see I made that point. I am only too happy to cooperate in any measure that will strengthen the Consumer Council or whatever it is now to be called.
  Sir G. Howe: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that he has spent 15 minutes discussing matters that have
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  nothing to do with the substance of the Bill, which I gather from what he now says he welcomes and endorses enthusiastically? It is a curious commentary. Will he also accept that the institutions provided by the Bill are wholly different in kind from the Consumer Council and are designed to exist alongside and march together with the existing growing and strengthened independent consumer organisations? They make an entirely coherent pattern and the points he has been making for the last 15 minutes have little to do the merits of the argument.
  Mr. Williams: I can understand the Minister's embarrassment at discovering the mistakes his Government have made. Let me remind him that it was he who said that the process of protecting the consumer is a continuing one. People who in any way abuse the consumer are continually evolving new methods of doing so. It was this Government who, far from continuing the process of consumer protection, set it back two years, and so we are wasting our time today trying to set up again something which the Government wilfully destroyed.
  If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is so sure that I am wasting time in discussing this, how is it that two years ago the same Minister, Lord Drumalbyn, was able to boast of
  "the achievement of a near-comprehensive system of protective law".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 1st December 1970; Vol. 313, c. 505.]
  In this Bill we have 123 clauses and 13 schedules to show we have not got and did not at that time have a near-comprehensive system of protective law. Indeed, the same Minister discovered that we operated in a moral environment different from that of anyone else. He said:
  "What distinguishes us from other countries"
  —he meant those countries with which the Government have pitchforked us into partnership—
  "is that by and large we do better than the law requires"
  —and then he got cold feet and added—
  "at least in this field."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 1st December 1970; Vol. 313, c. 505.]
  Sir G. Howe: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again but I must ask him to consider this point. Does he not

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  consider that the kind of sterile denunciation in which he has been indulging for the last 15 minutes is calculated not to impress but to depress consumers of politics as well as consumers generally? This is the level of debate at which he has arrived.
  Mr. Williams: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has to understand that there is something far more profound—that nothing discredits politics more than the sort of thing which his Government have done continuously: after winning an election on specific mandates, reversing those mandates two years after coming into office. This is completely out of accord with the concept of democratic government. It is important that when the Government fail in their mandate, and when the Government deliberately reverse their policies, it should be pointed out. I can understand why the right hon. and learned Gentleman is trying to squirm away from the discussion.
  Mrs. Sally Oppenheim Mrs. Sally Oppenheim (Gloucester) rose—
  Mr. Williams: I am sorry, but I cannot give way. We are going on at some great length because of interruptions. If we had had a White Paper perhaps one would have been quicker and it would not have been necessary to raise some of these points.
  Only in the last two years the Government have decided that the moral standards of this country have slipped somewhat and that, therefore, we now need to reinforce the consumer's position with legal support. Anyhow, however we got there, we have got there. The worm has turned. Indeed, this Governmental worm has turned so fast and so often that Ministers positively stagger around the corridors of this Palace. The Prime Minister's new style of open government consists quite simply of spending the first two years of a term of office passing laws and the next two years repealing them. But, as I say we have got there. We have now a conversion, but—oh—what a reluctant conversion it is—when we explore the nature of it.
  The consumer can have adequate protection only if the machinery is right. I would quote from the Observer of 15th October, and a statement by the previous
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  Director of the Consumer Council, Dame Elizabeth Ackroyd:
  "Someone within the administrative machine dealing with abuses is only half the answer. When it comes to the final crunch the monolithic Government view is bound to have its way."
  To quote the current Director of the Consumers Association:
  "I think it is important that the new Ministry is not sited in the Department of Trade where it will be cheek by jowl with industrial and commercial pressures all the time."
  What do we have? We have a so-called Minister of Consumer Affairs. And where do we find him? Lurking within the principal sponsoring Department of Trade, subject to all the pressures which are bound to exist within that Department, and in channels which have been built up over the years from industry into Whitehall. He is not even head of the Department. He is a subordinate member of the Department, whether of Cabinet rank or not, I would point out before the right hon. and learned Gentleman gets too confident about his position.
  Mr. David Crouch: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Williams: Let me develop my argument. Hon. Gentlemen cannot, on the one hand, complain that time is passing, and, on the other, want to divert one every few seconds by means of interventions.
  Mr. Crouch: What would the hon. Gentleman do?
  Mr. Williams: The hon. Gentleman will find out.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman is a subordinate Minister in that Department. He is not even a comprehensive consumer Minister. All he pulls together are consumer interests within the Department. The set-up is so ramshackle that it needs what industry accepts as the hallmark of inefficiency—a co-ordinating committee.
  I believe that it has five junior Ministers, from a very wide range of Departments, none of them, to my knowledge, having the primary duty of consumer protection, unless, possibly, it is the junior Minister for Agriculture, and if this is so it hardly fills me with confidence, since I read in the Daily Mirror the day after her appointment that when she was asked,

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  "What can we do about prices?", she answered,
  "I do not know. The Prime Minister will tell us tomorrow."
  There has not been such an instance of blind faith in a leader since the walking on the water, or of such blind support from a follower. The Government have not got the same blind support from the housewives.
  So we have five junior Ministers in the co-ordinating committee all briefed to protect, to look after, their own Department's interests. This is a perfect blocking system stalling any excessive action on behalf of the consumer.
  There should be a separate consumer's Department. This is clear. It should have a—
  Mrs. Oppenheim: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us what provision was made by the last Labour Government for either a consumer Minister or for consumer responsibilities in any Department, even at junior level?
  Mr. Williams: If the hon. Lady will allow me I will develop policy points as I go along. As I say, I believe there should be, first of all, a completely independent Ministry, which is a lot further than the Government have been willing to go.
  As for the Director, there is considerable confusion about his rôle. The right hon. and learned Gentleman tried to clarify it somewhat today. He will appoint his own staff, we gather. Will this be from within the Civil Service, or, outside? He will have power to refer existing monopolies to the commission, but he does not have power to refer to the commission mergers which can give rise to harmful monopolies. He certainly has no such power. He can make recommendations for orders when he considers that there are adverse effects on the economic interests of the consumers. Why should he not do so where he considers that there are adverse effects on the health and safety of consumers? Crowther recommended a consumer credit commission. Is the Director to have the same degree of independence as Crowther recommended for that commissioner? Or is the Director being seen as a substitute for the consumer credit commissioner?
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  As for the Consumer Protection Advisory Committee, what a timid mouse of a body it turns out to be. It is to be appointed by the Minister. He may choose the heads of the consumer bodies. It is up to him. He appoints and chooses the members of the Advisory Committee. Not one of them will sit there as of right, in his own right. All will be subject to ministerial patronage. There is no necessity for a majority representing consumer interests. There is a derisory budget of some £10,000 a year to carry out this work. It has no meaningful staff backing. It will be effectively part-time. It has no power to initiate. It can only wait for either the Director or the Minister to ask it to work. If this body is to have teeth it should be able to initiate, it should have adequate funds, it should have adequate staffing, and it should be guaranteed a consumer majority, a majority from the consumer side, to be there as of right, as a result of certain offices they hold—for example, as that of Director of the Consumers Association.
  The Minister will gather that I am not terribly impressed with the machinery which he has set up. Nor, frankly, am I impressed by the way he has started his new duties. The Bill specifically excludes professional services from the extension of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act. We have already noted the disparity of treatment between the industrial worker and the professional worker. Yet the Monopolies Commission Report to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred makes clear in paragraph 350 that professional services are of extreme importance, of greater importance than their size may make them appear to be. In paragraph 352 the report goes on:
  "Professional bodies are, on the whole, sincerely convinced of the desirability of their practices and some of their views on this subject appear to us to be based on an idealised view of their functions. To this extent, and also because an element of self-interest is inescapable in all these matters, we cannot regard them as entirely reliable or impartial judges of the public interest."
  At a meeting with the TUC towards the end of last year I understood that the TUC was convinced that the professional services were to be included. Although I have not seen the first confidential consultative document, I am assured that professional services were included in it.

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  What happened between Document No. 1 and Document No. 2?
  Where does the Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs stand as a lawyer on this issue? Why is he treating his own profession preferentially? Will the Minister come clean and tell the House? Was it his personal decision, or was his own wish changed by the Cabinet? More than one-third of the members of the Cabinet are lawyers; there are seven from this House alone. I suppose we should say six if we discount the Secretary of State for Wales. As we in Wales know to our cost, he has not won an argument in the Cabinet in the last 2½ years. Where was the decision taken? Was the decision to exclude lawyers taken by the lawyer Minister or the lawyer Cabinet? Where was consumer protection then? The public will not believe that their interests are being properly protected if professional services continue to be excluded.
  As the Observer said on 3rd December,
  "The exclusion of the professions from this whole area of inquiry cannot be justified."
  The public will note that the Minister's first decision was to surrender to his own professional lobby. What hope can they hold out that he will be able to stand up against the industrial lobbies, the departmental lobbies, against on occasion his own Secretary of State and, indeed, his own Cabinet?
  Another bad omen is that there is no provision in the Bill for compensation. If the Director says that a commercial practice is wrong, if the Advisory Committee says that a commercial practice is wrong and if the Minister agrees, still there is no automatic redress for the abused or wronged consumer—only through the existing court procedures.
  Surely the Minister must be aware that the consumers who are most in need of protection are those who neither know nor understand the law, and that the majority of consumers who need protection are afraid of the cost of legal redress and of the formality and atmosphere of the courts. What is needed, therefore, is either a network of small claims courts or an extension of the small claims arbitration system as exercised in Manchester and a nation-wide High Street consumer advice system. Even here we find that the Minister's commitment to
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  a nation-wide network was not announced first to the House. He made the announcement in a speech outside the House, and the Press carried the story last week. It is small wonder that the House feels that it is being ignored in the preparation of this legislation.
  When the Under-Secretary of State winds up the debate, will he explain how he refutes the National Farmers Union's allegation that the Bill is
  "grossly unfair to small undertakings"
  particularly in view of what the Bolton Committee said about the need to ensure that small firms do not suffer adversely and disproportionately as a result of the restrictive practices law? Will he tell us why the exclusion clause relating to central pay agreements, which was included in the 1948 and 1965 Acts relating to monopolies, has been dropped? What are the implications of this? What does it mean for the future development of collective bargaining? How will its impact vary between capital-intensive and labour-intensive industries?
  I have the impression—as has the TUC—that the Government are not wilfully out to damage the negotiating position but have just not fully considered the implications of their decision. If that is so, will the Minister, before it is too late and before the Bill is considered in Committee, meet the TUC to discuss this point further with a view to the possible amendment of the Bill in Committee?
  I warn the Government not to use the existence of the Bill, its passage through the House and the setting up of the machinery as an excuse for failing to do other things which need to be done. The right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the importance of the Trade Descriptions Act. He will be aware of the motion tabled by my hon. Friends and myself concerning a recent decision by the Lord Chief Justice which makes it clear that certain defences which the House thought it had given to consumers do not exist. The Business Supplement of the Sunday Times in a report by one of its Insight consumer units sums up the Lord Chief Justice's decision as saying that:
  "the Act should not apply to promises made by a trader about future services offered by him but only to false or reckless statements about what he had done in the past."

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  The tourist trade lives on promises about the future. Many people have found, to their cost, that the tourist trade does not always live up to its promises. It was thought, until this decision, that the House had given them some protection. We are now well into this year's booking season. It would be simple for the Government to put forward an amendment—and we would readily cooperate in getting it through as rapidly as possible—to the Trade Descriptions Act to cover the loophole revealed by the Lord Chief Justice.
  Two years ago the Crowther Report was published. What has happened to it? When shall we see it fully implemented? Is the Bill seen as a substitute? Housewives are being cheated daily through the abuses outlined in the Crowther Report, yet the Minister refuses to act.
  There has been great publicity on pyramid selling, but that is not covered by the Bill because the abuse is to a seller and not to a consumer. It is the self-employed salesman who suffers maltreatment. The Minister must have seen the damning report about pyramid selling produced by the Public Interest Research Centre. Is it true that for more than a month the Ministers within the Department of Trade and Industry have been sitting on a report on pyramid selling produced by officials?
  The Director has insufficient staff to give the Act teeth. The Minister will be heavily dependent on the Weights and Measures Inspectorate. Has the Weights and Measures Inspectorate enough staff to cope? Should it remain in its present form? Who should pay for it? We should like answers to these questions.
  The Bill is wrongly conceived. There should have been two Bills, not one. It would have been simple to divide the consumer protection sections from the monopolies and restrictive trade practices sections. The consumer elements in the Bill are needed urgently; they are needed before April. After April the housewife will need all the support and help she can get against the Government's actions.
  For 2½ years the Government have known that they were introducing VAT which will affect 1,500,000 firms. Some of those firms pay selective employment tax for all workers; some do not. They
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  will have varying dependence on goods—exempt, zero-rated or fully rated. It will be impossible for the public to know what the new fair price level is to be. There will be, as has happened in virtually every European country into which this tax has been introduced, nationwide price chaos.
  The Government have done nothing to forestall this situation. They have not even introduced protective measures so that they may be in existence in time to be implemented when VAT is introduced in April. I appreciate that the Government believe that VAT will not have these effects, and they deny that the public will need protection from the present Government's actions. Either the Chancellor of the Exchequer is living in a sort of dream world, having squandered £1,000 million of our balance of payments surplus in the space of a year and having also brought about a devaluation, or he has come to the conclusion that one can fool all the people all the time. I suppose it is understandable when one realises that at one moment the Chancellor of the Exchequer can demand wage restraint in this House and in the very next moment go stomping round the country claiming credit for the higher purchasing power which has flowed from those wages. The Chancellor must think that he can get away with anything.
  In a debate in this House last week the Chancellor said, as reported at column 1129,
  "…we shall take steps to ensure that following the change-over to VAT the benefits of tax reductions are passed on in lower prices to the consumer and that prices are not increased by more than is strictly warranted after making full allowance for the abolition of SET and purchase tax".
  How will he achieve this? Would it not have been helpful to have some consumer protection measures ready to be brought into operation? Because of complacency, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs believe that there will not be a flood in increases following the introduction of VAT, they have done nothing about the situation.
  Next April when the Chancellor disappears beneath a flood of rising prices he will still be gurgling, "It is all a Labour 'con' trick". The Minister for

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  Trade and Consumer Affairs recently said on television that prices will not rise on average as a result of the introduction of VAT. Therefore, I assume that he believes that the consumer will not need the protection of the Bill. I hope that the Minister will listen to what I am saying. After all, I listened to his tedious speech, and I think he should have the courtesy to listen to mine.
  If I told the Minister that the Morning Star said that
  "VAT will cause a substantial once-for-all rise in the cost of living index…"
  or if I said that Tribune took the view that
  "retail prices will go up as a result of VAT…the public will certainly notice the increases"
  no doubt the Minister would dismiss those allegations on grounds of political bias. But Tribune and the Morning Star did not say those things. The first statement was made by The Times on 7th December; the second statement was made by the Sunday Times on 10th December. Does the Minister accuse those newspapers of being part of the same Labour confidence trick to which he referred?
  In the debate last week the Chancellor of the Exchequer said:
  "the Labour Party by its attempt to 'con' the housewife, is thereby giving active encouragement to that very small proportion of shopkeepers who might be tempted to cheat"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th December 1972: Vol. 847, c. 1129–30.]
  Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman saying that The Times and the Sunday Times are also giving active encouragement in pointing out that in April the consumer will need more protection than he is getting at the moment?
  If he is so convinced of the rightness of this pretence that there will be no flood of price increases as a result of VAT, let him show the strength of his conviction. Let him say that, if he is proved wrong, he will feel that he has failed in his duty as Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs and after April, if price rises occur, will offer his resignation. We have warned him about these things and he has denied that they will happen. Such an attitude on his part would at least convince the public that he is sincere
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  in his belief. It would certainly represent one of the shortest periods of time any Minister has had in a Cabinet.
  The Government's prices policy has been torpedoed by the Government's own taxation policy. From April the pretence of a prices and incomes policy will go; prices will be out of control—
  Sir G. Howe Sir G. Howe rose—
  Mr. Williams: Just allow me to finish my statement. Prices will be out of control and there will be no protection from this Bill because it will not by then be enacted. In April, all the Government will have left is an incomes policy and there will certainly be no prices policy.
  Sir G. Howe: What the hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) has been saying in the last ten minutes—a period of time which has been devoted to dealing with matters which are not within the Bill and which have sought to deal with matters which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer answered last week—reveals the total barrenness of the Opposition's policy in reference to the consumer and their inability to be able to say anything relevant about this important piece of legislation.
  Mr. Williams: What the right hon. and learned Gentleman has revealed is his ignorance of a problem which will concern consumers whom he has been appointed to protect. He refuses to face the fact that there will be a series of price increases as a result of VAT. He refuses to see the point that it would have been marginally helpful if, instead of producing this massive composite Bill, he had separated the consumer protection elements so that they could have been brought into operation before VAT came into effect.
  I conclude by saying that the Bill is a reluctant Bill. The Government are still insisting on controlling all the reins. They are afraid to appoint an independent director, an independent advisory committee or indeed an independent Minister. We believe that there should have been two Bills instead of one to help the consumer after April. There are many areas in which the consumer needs to be helped which are not covered by the Bill, and these are areas where urgent assistance is needed. The method of presentation

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  of the Bill, without any White Paper and without time to consult is an act of contempt to the House.
  5.19 p.m.
  Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: I must say to the hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) that when the Labour Government decimalised currency they did nothing to prepare the public for the subsequent price increases. On this occasion the hon. Gentleman surely must agree that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has taken advance steps. Surely the hon. Gentleman agrees that the recent by-elections have shown that the public knows what the Labour Party is against, but does not have the foggiest idea what the Labour Party stands for.
  We have listened to a long sequence of irrelevancies and have heard nothing appertaining to this important subject which is dealt with by the Bill. I should like to refer to the Consumer Council and to emphasise that it had no powers. My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs has put in its place a body which is independent but which has statutory powers—powers which could be extremely useful in bringing out the points which he outlined.
  The contributions which can be made by Clause 17, Schedule 6 and Part III will be extremely useful for the consumer. Furthermore, when we bear in mind the restrictive practices which could be taken before Restrictive Practices Court to deal with land problems, we must agree that this again could be most useful.
  The legislation on restrictive practices is contained in two Acts of Parliament, the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956, and the Act of 1968. In those provisions it is deemed that restrictions which have been agreed between participating parties are against the national interest. This is contained in Section 21 and Section 10 of the respective Acts. However I believe that both those pieces of legislation put the onus on the wrong foot.
  It must not generally be assumed that the consumer is always right and the industrialist is always wrong. What I am suggesting is that the industrialist must live by the consumer because he must sell his goods. Therefore it might be practical to link these proposals more
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  closely with the European concept under Article 85. That may be more advantageous for all concerned. The existing machinery has proved expensive in the past, and it has often acted to the detriment of industry without totally benefiting the consumer.
  Further, it has prevented the formation of agreements between participating parties which could lead to rationalisation, specialisation and industrial efficiency, and I should like to make a recommendation. Would it not be practicable to include Sections 7 and 8 of the 1956 Act and Sections 2 and 4 of the 1968 Act in block exemptions? Would it not be useful, with agreements between small companies which are calculated to give support to the recommendation of the Bolton Report, to ensure that these were given block exemption? This would probably fit in comfortably with the arrangements that are being concluded by the Commission in Europe under Article 85.
  I support one suggestion made by the hon. Member for Swansea, West, that an agreement between groups of farmers for developing co-operatives and orderly marketing could usefully be considered separately, but the provision that is available under the Agriculture and Forestry Associations (Trading Agreements) Act 1962 does not appear to be working very profitably. There could be another classification. One could consider agreements prima facie sound. This could be reported, and if the Restrictive Practices Court took no action within three months registration could be allowed to lapse.
  Mr. John Roper: Does the hon. Gentleman intend, by this block clearance, to include price agreements, or only other kinds of agreements?
  Mr. Skeet: The Commission in Europe has decided, under considerable case law, where it can best help the small trader or the small commercial man, and it has given block dispensations. The same thing would apply. Where there are cartels fixing prices, they would have to be notified and the court would take decisive action.
  Section 9(2) of the 1968 Act has been used as an escape route in the past, and I dare say it could be so used in the future. It seems to me that industry will he faced with the problem that by

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  1st July 1973 it will be obliged to notify its agreements under Article 85 to the Commission under the EEC treaty, and on 1st April 1973 it will have to make its notification of agreements under Article 65 of the ECSC under that treaty.
  I wonder whether my right hon. and learned Friend intends gradually to harmonise his legislation with that in Europe and to move along European lines, or whether he wants a system in the United Kingdom which is particularly harsh here while we are experiencing on the continent a breath of liberality. Might it not occur that one could have a clearance before the Commission but, at the same time, because of the provisions of the three Acts that will consolidate the law, an agreement could be disallowed in the United Kingdom? This could lead to serious problems and a conflict of the law.
  I should like to tell the House of one or two observations by a learned jurist when speaking to a meeting in this country earlier this year. He said then:
  "the national authorities and courts as well as the Community organs are competent to institute or continue proceedings since the objects of the prohibitions for the control of restrictive practices in these two legal orders are not the same. However, and this is the important part of this judgment, national cartel law may be applied only insofar as it does not restrict the uniform application of Community cartel law and any measures taken for its enforcement throughout the Common Market."
  In other words, it would appear to me that there could be double sanctions on parallel proceedings.
  He went on to say:
  "Although the Court held that the European Court was not a foreign Court and must be treated like a German Court"
  —because this was a German case—
  "with the consequence that a conviction pronounced by such Court would in principle prevent the institution of proceedings in Germany against the same person for the same conduct, it nevertheless affirmed the lawfulness of the institution of proceedings in Germany because the violation of both German and Community Cartel Law could not be dealt with by one Court only as the German Courts had no power to adjudicate on an infringement of Community law whilst the Commission and the European Court were lacking jurisdiction in respect of offences against German law—. The Federal Supreme Court emphasised that 'it would be unbearable and incompatible with the principle of the rule of law if the German State imposed a fine without taking into account that the
  488
  person concerned had already been ordered to pay a fine by an organ of the Communities'."
  I should like my right hon. and learned Friend to give an assurance on this. Will it be practical, in the circumstances, if a firm is fined by the European court and is also fined by a domestic court in the United Kingdom, for the equitable principle to prevail and for one fine to be subtracted from the other and only the balance paid?
  Clause 74 deals with a matter that was raised by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) about trade unions and employer restrictive labour practices. I should have thought that this was reasonable. This is one of the problems that is affecting the country—and the public are aware of it—and it could lead to serious economic difficulties. It is possible that with both union and employer associations this could lead to a restriction of competition and to considerable disruption. They can apparently act with impunity even though millions of pounds may be lost. Should not this—and I put it in all reasonableness—be referred to the organs under the Bill for dispassionate inquiry?
  Mr. Heffer: What sort of restrictive practices has the hon. Gentleman in mind? An awful lot of rubbish is talked about restrictive practices. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will explain what he has in mind, and then we can discover whether he is talking about genuine restrictive practices or about practices which have been the custom within an industry for a long time and which, if they were changed, would lead to more disruption.
  Mr. Skeet: I have in mind some of the manning agreements in industry and some of the restrictive practices adopted by the print unions and a number of others. These may be agreements which could be referable to the body to consider whether they are in the public interest. If this is an independent court, and if the matters being referred are in the public interest, innocent people will have nothing to fear. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that he does not want any reference at all to the court he is putting himself in the position of supremacy above the law, and I should have thought that as everybody else has to support it there is no reason why he should not do

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  so as well. There is the safeguard that anything done in contemplation of an industrial dispute will be disregarded even though the union is unregistered, and this is a big concession.
  Study reports will be available but, unfortunately, no sanctions will be possible. If we are to include Clause 74 in the Bill, I should have thought it reasonable to have some sanctions which could, if necessary, be discussed with the unions and the TUC. If the provision is to rely purely and simply on notification and discussion amongst the public I cannot see how, with the unions holding their present views, it is likely to lead to any change, but I dare say that this can be considered in Committee.
  I also refer to the nationalised industries to which I find reference in Clause 16. It says that the Director General can make reference to the CPAC. There is a list in Schedule 5 which requires the assent of the Minister, and Clause 46(2) provides that the Director may make reference to the merger commission. That is in a monopoly situation under Part IV. He can do so jointly with others under Clause 47(2).
  The matter which concerns me is that some of the consumer protection interests of the nationalised industries have not proved successful in the past, although I appreciate that they have done their best to strengthen them.
  There is a weakness here because the consent of the Minister is required. This may be a Minister who has a vested interest in the matter under consideration. This could be a weakness, because which Minister will recommend that there should be a reference when his own Department is involved? I do not call that entirely independent.
  Schedule 5 contains no reference to either coal or steel. Are we to assume that steel has been eliminated partly because there is provision in Section 30 of the Iron and Steel Act 1967 which affects private holdings? Is it true that it falls within the ECSC and therefore does not fall within the domestic law but falls within the Community law? If so—we now have the Hirshfield Report—it might be a reasonable suggestion to put to my right hon. and learned Friend that in view of the recommendations made by Lord Hirshfield, that the private
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  sector has a reasonable complaint against the BSC for its unfair squeeze on their margins for reinforced bars, soft wire rods and hot mill rolling, etc., and that if an application was made to the ECSC after 1st January 1973 it would have the Government's blessing, they having expressed their inability to do anything to remove these inequities because of the continuance of the freeze.
  I think it is reasonable that a statement should be made so that we have some view how the other nationalised industries are to be considered and whether a realistic policy can be worked out for them.
  For the record I should mention Clause 79. By laying down the provisions with such clarity, my right hon. and learned Friend has made this of remarkable interest. It refers to the public interest, which has a singularly important stance in all our legislation. The public interest is unknown in Europe. Would it not be better to revise this and have a new terminology? The terminology might be "to take improper advantage of dominant position." It might be useful to move an amendment in Committee to see whether something along those lines could be effected.
  Clause 10(1) refers to a monopoly situation limited to part of the United Kingdom. How is it that the word "substantial", which was in the 1948 Act, has been dropped? Is there any reason for that?
  Clause 7 relates to a monopoly situation in relation to the supply of goods. A monopoly situation is taken to exist where 25 per cent. of the market is in single or associated hands. I should think that would favour the integrated enterprise. Small businesses linked together would be extremely vulnerable even though they could be a fraction of the size. Most of the points I have considered can be dealt with adequately in Committee.
  I fire this shot for what it is worth. This is a good piece of legislation and I welcome it, particularly on the consumer side, with which I shall not deal today. I have been dealing with monopoly and restrictive trade practices. However, will it not have to be revised at a later date? I understand that it can he outdated largely because of the continued growth

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  of large domestic and multi-national companies in the private sector. The number is growing fast. We already have a report in a well-published book by Andrew Jackson and Dr. Newbold which indicates that towards the middle of the 1980s we may have about 20 major companies in the private sector. There are difficulties in the public sector, because even this Government have contributed to a number of the nationalised industries. We hope that practice will be discontinued.
  There seems to be an acceptance of the need for fewer industries in the technological sector. I wonder whether hon. Members are aware that in the western world markets of 1970, 9·5 per cent. of aerospace industries were held by European companies and 90·5 per cent. by United States manufacturers. Air frame manufacturers in the same area were as follows: three in West Germany, two in France, five in Italy and four in the United Kingdom. These may all constitute monopolies, but because of the technology involved and Government investment there is no way of seeing this position altered substantially. Even though they may have more than 25 per cent. of the market, it is essential because of the technology that they be allowed to continue.
  In 1970 the Western European market for computers was as follows: 76 per cent. held by IBM and Honeywell, 9 per cent. by ICL, 3·5 per cent. by Siemens and 1·5 per cent. by CII of France.
  The whole structure and balance of industry may alter in the next 10 years and we may find that this legislation will have to be radically altered.
  I come back to the major point with which I began, because I think it is singularly important. There will be an evolution in the pattern of European legislation particularly relating to restrictive trade practices. A lot of law has been assembled on this matter. We have a great need to assimilate that law into our own law. I think it is a pity that a start has not been made on this occasion.
  I certainly welcome the Bill. It is heading in the right direction. I hope that when it goes into Committee a more conciliatory and sympathetic attitude by the Opposition will enable progress to be
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  made. If Opposition policy is simply that everything this Government have done is wrong because they do not like two clauses in the Bill, that could be a fundamental mistake.
  5.36 p.m.
  Mr. George Darling: I shall be brief and confine my remarks to the consumer protection parts of the Bill.
  I thank the Minister for the tribute that he paid to the Trade Descriptions Act, which was a very good piece of legislation carried through with the help of both sides of the House. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, it developed from the Molony Report. The Molony Committee was set up by a Conservative Government. I am sure that when the Government get round to dealing with consumer credit tribute will be paid to the Labour Government for setting up the Crowther Committee. This is the way that these matters go on.
  I agree that the Trade Descriptions Act was not comprehensive. I am sorry that some of the amendments that needed to be made to that Act out of experience have not been made during the last year or so. I am also sorry that the provisions for definition orders and informative labelling, the more constructive side of what was a piece of criminal legislation, have not been introduced. Many opportunities have been lost to do some positive, active work on behalf of the consumer out of the provisions of the Trade Descriptions Act.
  As we are going into Europe—a phrase that I dislike intensely, because we are already there—it is worth looking at European experience in this matter. My examination of consumer protection legislation and administration in Western Europe, the United States and Canada leads me to believe that the Government are not setting about the job in the right way. A report, compiled with the help of quite a lot of research by the OECD and to be published by the Council of Europe, suggests that the right form of consumer protection legislation, assistance and advice is to have a comprehensive set of laws covering the whole sphere, outlawing practices which should not be allowed to go on, with local administration at grass roots level where pre- and post-shopping advice can be obtained on

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  how to deal with complaints, and so on, enforcement officers being available to bring into court those whose illegal behaviour is such that, to quote the Act, to a material degree it should lead to prosecutions.
  In the middle there should be a strong body to represent the interests of consumers. In this set-up which is proposed by the Government, that essential middle link is missing. It is a great mistake. After all, the advisory committee which is proposed in the Bill cannot initiate anything. It can only deal with references made to it by the Director General. This Director General is going to be something of a superman because he will deal all over the field, not only with consumer affairs and consumer complaints but with restrictive practices, mergers and monopolies. It is an enormous task. It might be done by any organisation which has a man in charge of it, but, of course, the oganisation has to be split up into departments to do the job properly, and we have no idea in the Bill about the kind of staff which is to be provided to do this work.
  I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) that we ought to have had a White Paper to explain the whole to this of policy in detail before coming to the Bill. I fear that I shall be involved in the Committee. We shall be renewing some of old acquaintances. Obviously, the number of probing amendments that will have to be put down to find out what the Bill about will be staggering, and the size of the amendment paper, I think, will be formidable.
  But without a strong consumer organisation in the middle—a body broadly resenting consumers—I do not see how the pressure can come upon Ministers to get things done which need to be done, such as changes in the law, and regulations, and not just regulations banning certain practices but regulations, as provided in the Trade Descriptions Act, for giving information and advice to customers.
  I think it is important, too, to follow up another point which my hon. Friend made, that the Minister is the Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs. He will be dealing with trade associations and particularly the CBI. As hon. Members
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  know, a recent report suggested that the CBI should be greatly strengthened. If we are to be equitable on behalf of the consumers, we need a consumers' organisation that can speak with the same kind of authority as is enjoyed by powerful trade associations in speaking on behalf of their members and in the trade interests of their members.
  Therefore, I am dubious, first of all, about the organisation of the office of the Director General. Experience, for instance, of the Swedish Ombudsman and his Market Court is, I think, pertinent here. The Ombudsman has been snowed under with trivial complaints, and the job of sorting them out has inevitably led to delays. In fact, if all our consumer complaints are sent into one central organisation, obviously there will be delays, and delays mean that certain practices which ought to be banned will be continued because of the delays. This is what has been happening in Sweden. I gather that more legislation will be brought forward in Sweden in order to try to remedy that situation.
  One should also remember that in this country, almost by accident, we have, I think from my examination of the European scene, the best form of administration on protective laws and the provision of advisory services in any of the European countries, and certainly better than in the United States and Canada. This is because we have always given the job to the local authorities.
  I do not think the Government have taken sufficient notice of the changes which now come about in England and Wales because of the new Local Government Act, and I would assume that the same sort of system will be followed in Scotland, so that instead of having throughout the country 300 weights and measures authorities we shall have about 60 county authorities or metropolitan authorities. This gives these large authorities a far better opportunity than before not only to co-ordinate their services throughout the country, which is important—we do not want different policies in different areas—but also to provide, because they will have the resources to do it, the advice centres in every main shopping area. They would, of course, take over the weights and measures offices, or trading standards offices as they are now

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  being called, of the old borough councils, the new district councils, in the new county authorities.
  As I say, they will have the resources and the staff to provide this network of services. This is to be retained within the Bill, but I think we must be clear about who is to do the job. There is a tendency, particularly on the advisory side, to get people who are—I want to be guarded; I do not want to be offensive to anybody—not qualified to give the very technical advice about the quality of carpets, for instance, for which members of the public quite rightly can ask. Of course, it goes over a much wider field than carpets, to things such as boots and shoes and electrical appliances, and questions of what appliances are most suitable for certain types of homes. This is advice which can be given only by qualified people.
  That kind of qualification should be associated with the qualifications of what used to be called weights and measures inspectors. We are still calling them by that title in this Bill, although they now want to call themselves Trading Standards Officers, which more accurately describes the scope of their work. The quality of staffing at the local grass roots level is tremendously important if the work which is going to be thrust on them by this Bill is to be carried out efficiently. I think it will be carried out well.
  Apart from my dubiety about the system of administration that is being provided, there are many other questions that need to be raised. For instance, I notice with a certain degree of pleasure that whole sections of the Trade Descriptions Act are now, as it were, spatchcocked into the Bill. But unfortunately the pieces that are taken out of the Trade Descriptions Act and put into the Bill are the pieces that we wanted to amend, in some cases because of court decisions, and which quite clearly are contrary to the intentions of Parliament.
  Therefore, as we go through the Bill—and I am sure the statements which were made about getting this job done in a co-operative spirit will really apply—I hope the Government will not be stubborn and stick to the wording of the Bill when it can be proved that the Bill ought to be changed in the interests of
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  the consumers. I am not dealing with any other part of the Bill.
  With that I give the Bill a very guarded welcome, and we will try to make it a far more effective instrument for the benefit of consumers.
  5.50 p.m.
  Sir Tatton Brinton: So that the House may evaluate what I have to say, I shall give my qualifications. I am a carpet manufacturer.
  Mr. Skeet: Not a carpet-bagger, 6f course.
  Sir T. Brinton: No, not a carpet-bagger. I was born and bred in the town which I represent. In my capacity as a carpet manufacturer, I had some occasion to visit the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) when he was a Minister at the Board of Trade, and I take this opportunity to thank him for the unfailing courtesy and justice with which he always listened to what we had to say about the problems of our industry—and, I am sure, of others. But perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me now if I do not take up what he had to say, since I wish to direct attention to another aspect of the Bill which has not so far had much attention from back benchers. I refer to Part V, the provisions regarding monopolies and mergers.
  The objects of the Bill were described by the Minister as being to achieve economic efficiency, on the one hand, and consumer protection, on the other; and he went on to say that in that connection it was necessary to avoid the dangers of monopoly situations arising. I have paraphrased what my right hon. and leaned Friend said, but I think that that is a fair summary of the underlying philosophy of the whole Bill.
  I submit that it does not go far enough and that there are other aspects of the dangers of monopoly and mergers which should be considered in the context the Bill. These matters are very much more part of our lives than question only of pounds and pence and prices the shops.
  First, what are the motives which prompt mergers? Sometimes, they have little to do with economic considerations. Often, they arise from questions

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  of high finance or of taxation. For instance, a big overseas company may find that it pays it to acquire a somewhat uneconomic company in this country merely because it has a domestic revenue and this is a tax advantage. To my mind, such considerations do not advance the general public interest.
  Another reason for the acquisition of a company is what is known in industry as diversification. One has some spare money or some spare brains, so one thinks, and the idea is that one could run someone else's business better than he runs it himself, even though it does not happen to be in one's own trade. In my view, such motives ought not to be encouraged.
  On the other hand, it is sometimes argued in favour of mergers that a better management team at the disposal of a firm taking over another may be able to do something for those taken over. I am not easily convinced by that argument, either. It is true that managements vary greatly in their capacity, but it does not follow that, because one company has good management, it can necessarily water that management down to the extent necessary to take on large additional chunks of responsibility for other companies and make an equal success of them. It is a common enough experience that expansion strains management resources—it may strain financial resources, too—and it is not always effective.
  It may be argued that it is necessary to rescue a sinking ship, that a firm taken over had only itself to thank because it had become a dying concern and was, therefore, ripe to be taken over by someone else. I accept that there are such instances, and they are justifiable.
  Another principal argument for merger is the "economies of scale" argument. This is a relative matter. Two small companies may achieve economies of scale by amalgamating, but it hardly seems possible that two very large companies could benefit. Indeed, when one sees the gigantic heavings and groanings as the dinosaurs get together, one wonders what will ever come out of it, and, even more, when we see, as we did recently in the case of the unsuccessful proposal between Bovis and P & O, the elephant trying to mate with the whale,
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  one can only wonder what sort of miscegenation we are witnessing. To my mind, such mergers do not have, and cannot have, any real economic basis.
  How effective do these mergers prove to be? I do not know. Perhaps other hon. Members may be able to give a better answer than I can. From my experience on a fairly narrow front, my impression is that many mergers do not appear, in the light of the subsequent three, four or five years, to produce any great advantage. If one is to judge by profit results—I do not say that profit is the only criterion, but it is a useful one nevertheless—it does not appear that the amalgamation of two, three or more businesses necessarily produces any significant increase, or, at least, any greater increase than one might in many cases have reasonably expected from the component parts had they remained separate.
  Very often, the arguments for putting like and like together are doubtful. It seems to me that there are strong arguments against putting together like and unlike—the conglomerate. There was a great fashion for this. As we know, it started with a very successful American firm, which was primarily a finance house. It built up an enormous conglomerate, and for some time it did extremely well. But from this distance it seemed to me that, when it said that it was doing extremely well, the truth was that it was very well thought of by the stock market, and one had reason to doubt its true success in terms of the basic prosperity, real productiveness and real profit-earning capacity of that great empire of disparate elements.
  There is another kind of merger, the vertical merger, and here I come to a case within my own experience. I shall be at risk of mentioning names, but it is an example which, I am sure, may apply to other industries, just as I know that it applies to mine. I refer to the vertical monopoly when the supply of a basic raw material is in the hands of a single company, or virtually in the hands of a single company. Courtaulds produces virtually 100 per cent. of the rayon fibre and yarn made in this country. In fact, it produces 33 per cent, of the entire rayon available in Europe this side of the Iron Curtain, which is a pretty substantial proportion.

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  It is true, as Courtaulds has frequently said, as it said when investigated by the Monopolies Commission, and as I know to be true as a user of its rayon, that it has done a great deal to develop and improve its product. Nor is the price particularly unreasonable. Nevertheless, a monopoly situation prevails, and it was criticised by the Monopolies Commission in 1968.
  As the Bill stands, there is nothing to prevent Courtaulds acquiring up to 25 per cent. of my own industry, which is virtually dependent, at least at present, solely on Courtaulds for its rayon supplies. When I say that rayon represents 28 per cent. of all the pile fibres used in carpet manufacture in this country, the House will realise that it is a most important fibre and not one easily replaced. It is cheap, and it is quite a good substitute, especially in what are called budget price carpets. Hon. Members will understand that we do not make such things as "cheap" carpets.
  I mention that as a case which the Bill is not designed to cover. Yet, in such circumstances, could not an indirect monopoly situation arise, and ought it not to be dealt with on a considerably more restricted basis than that of 25 per cent. or £5 million assets?
  There are other dangers in mergers. We are told throughout the Bill that a merger must not be against the public interest and the criteria for this are laid down in Clause 79. They are mainly economic but they do not take account of the human objections to the excessive concentration of industry. This is an aspect which worries me very much because I believe that enterprises, whether they are shops, professional organisations or manufacturing concerns, have a corporate personality of their own for the people who work in them and who deal with them. They are important human institutions, although the larger they are the less that is true.
  The larger they are the less the people working in them feel that they are important and have some individuality. It is therefore in the public interest that we should not over-concentrate our industry without good reason. I do not suggest that those reasons do not exist. Sometimes they do, but often they do not. I would have preferred the Bill to make it
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  more difficult for takeovers and concentrations of businesses to take place without good reason and without the acknowledgement of the Monopolies Commission that the reasons are good.
  Mr. J. T. Price: The hon. Member's argument is fascinating. It makes me glad that I came into the House by accident tonight. But the hon. Member has not mentioned the most important reason for takeovers by the conglomerate financial institutions—that is for the purpose of stripping the assets of businesses. Often the assets are in land, the most valuable asset of all. I can testify that in the North of England old-established family businesses have been taken over because of their land assets which have been sold off and the businesses closed down on the diktat of the financial holding companies in London.
  Sir T. Brinton: I am grateful to the hon. Member for mentioning that type of takeover. I include it in the list about which I said that the motives were purely financial and not economic. I accept what the hon. Member says and I agree that such takeovers occasion considerable worry, but I hope that he will not assert that the worry is confined to the Opposition.
  When takeover fever is in the air there is genuine fear at local level. The employees are worried about what will happen to their jobs and to their firms. They worry that their firms will be bought out overnight and they worry about the position of the staff and about who will be in charge of them. I do not believe that we are taking sufficient account of this.
  In the last 25 years in my constituency, where I also live, the little shops in the High Street have disappeared one by one. Businesses have been gradually amalgamated and well-known names in Kidderminster have disappeared and have been replaced by enterprises which, although excellent, are impersonal. They are run by managers who come and go and who are no longer part of our local life because they move on when promoted. I say the best of luck to them, but it is not the same as when the drapery shop was run by a highly respected local citizen who was a member of the council and served on the education committee and so on. These are real losses of independence and identity. I believe that we

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  should consider what sort of criteria we should add to the Bill to stem this tendency. For a start, the criteria for judging takeovers should not read, as they normally do:
  "not against the public interest".
  They should read:
  "In the public interest".
  I do not believe in double negatives and I should therefore like to see that criterion turned into a positive statement.
  I should like now to consider the effect of insisting that takeovers should normally not be sanctioned unless they are paid for in cash. There might be something in this. Many takeovers are in exchange for paper—shares—which is easy to issue. They are much more easily issued than a large cheque which might have to be covered by an appeal to the general public to confirm that the company is doing the right thing. Such a requirement would impose a financial discipline which is not imposed by the mere issue of shares for a business.
  In Clause 79 I should like to add words to the effect that there shall be no unnecessary aggregation of enterprises where there is no demonstrable economic advantage. Such a provision would underline more clearly our rejection of the belief that mergers and the concentration of industry is a neutral matter for the public or even generally beneficial unless proved otherwise. The attitude we should adopt is that takeovers are suspect and the case for them should be fully proved before they are allowed to proceed.
  My criticisms are criticisms of detail and, to some extent, of principle. I welcome the rest of the Bill. In Committee no doubt more criticisms will be forthcoming but the Bill represents a further step forward in the control of trading to the benefit of the customer and to some extent in the control of excessive mergers and takeovers. I have indicated where I believe the Bill can go further and I hope that Ministers will be prepared to consider my suggestions.
  6.7 p.m.
  Mr. John Pardoe: I fully share many of the points raised by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir Tatton Brinton) and I particularly welcome his insistence that the public interest should be defined in the legislation in
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  positive rather than in double negative terms.
  The Bill covers an immensely important subject and touches the very foundations of our economic system. Not even the most fervent and unrepentent capitalist could opine that capitalism without competition is efficient. Capitalism without competition is probably less efficient than Communism. For that reason the Liberals have long fought for a much tougher competition policy. In this respect the attitude of successive Governments has been ambivalent. Perhaps it was the ambivalence of the Labour Government's approach that led the Opposition to decide not to divide against the Bill tonight.
  Of course, we want co-operation. A co-operative approach is essential. But the increasing concentration of modern private industry is not due to its desire for Liberal or even Socialist co-operation. I would have thought that every hon. Member would accept that capitalism inevitably tends towards a monopoly. I believe that it is the rôle of government constantly to be stirring outwards the monopolistically inclined elements of the capitalist system.
  We have to ask ourselves whether competition in the old sense of the word is possible. Perfect competition is not possible, of course. But then to go on and say that because perfect competition is not possible we need not legislate for any sort of competition is like saying, "I do not believe in perpetual motion and therefore I do not believe in the motor car."
  I give this outline of basic Liberal attitudes to competition in the economy because it is the background to our decision to vote against the Bill tonight. I make it clear at the start that we are not voting against those parts of the Bill which deal with consumer protection, except to say that those parts which deal with consumer protection are an abiding monument to the irrelevance of the two-party system in the 1970s.
  The Government must try to say, tonight or at some other time, just why they have stood on their heads over consumer protection. This was a question aimed at them frequently by the hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams). I do not apologise for reminding the Government yet again of

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  what they said when they disbanded the Consumer Council. Their excuse then was,
  "Other consumer organisations have grown in number and in strength, and the consumer's interest has been more widely recognised and protected."
  What has changed? If consumers could stand on their own feet two years ago, why not now? If they cannot stand on their own feet now, why then?
  The Government have given no convincing answer to this. The Minister made no attempt to deal with it. So perhaps I should look elsewhere for the reasons. I can only suggest that the Government's disbanding of the Consumer Council derived from the "damned bitter" approach to policy making. Instead of giving the Conservative Party's policy-making committees in opposition terms of reference to assess, rationally and coolly, in the public interest, what policies were required to deal with the problems that the country faced, the Prime Minister said to those committees, "Find out what the Labour Government is for and then be damned bitter about it." This is a symptom of the two-party madness.
  If the Minister rejects this reason as to why they were against the Consumer Council, may I suggest another which perhaps is even worse? Shortly before the Government came to power, a new Director of the Consumer Council was appointed, by the name of Des Wilson. I yield to no one in my admiration for the former Director, but the Consumer Council under Des Wilson would have been much more troublesome both to this Government and to its industrial friends than under the former Director. I have no doubt that the Government and some of their industrial friends had nightmares about a British Ralph Nader. Therefore, great pressure was brought to bear on the Government by the Tory Party's friends in industry.
  One can see the sort of pressure that was brought when one considers the publication of the Industrial Policy Group, entitled "The Control of Monopoly", published in May 1971, which said,
  "The Commission need no longer concern itself"—
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  this is the Monopolies Commission—
  "with the elusive concept of the public interest"
  The list of people on the group reads like a Who's Who of contributors to the Conservative Party, and one is tempted to say, "Well, they would, wouldn't they". Whatever were the reasons for the decision to disband the Consumer Council, with this Bill we hear the cry, "The Consumer Council is dead; long live the Consumer Protection Advisory Committee."
  The powers that the Government are taking and giving to their agencies to protect the consumer will of course be effective if they are vigorously implemented. Unfortunately, past experience suggests that only the most blatant cases will be tackled, and then somewhat reluctantly. I have to ask the Government, why should be believe that these things will be tackled vigorously now?
  One particular concern that I have about the Consumer Protection Advisory Committee is its make-up. Who will these people be? They will be appointed by the Secretary of State and we are told that they will be drawn from those with relevant trading experience, as well as those who have had experience in administering the weights and measures legislation and the Trade Descriptions Act. What about consumers? In June 1962 the Liberal Party published a report on consumer protection. One of its main proposals envisaged the setting up of a national consumers council. Yes, this is ten years ago—
  Sir G. Howe: I am sure that the hon. Member would not wish to make a false point. In Clause 4(5), he will find, the two categories he mentioned are prescribed; in addition, the members of the Advisory Committee are required to include persons appearing to be qualified to advise
  "…on consumer trade practices by virtue of their knowledge of or experience in organisations established, or activities carried on, for the protection of consumers."
  The consumer interest is one of the three specifically provided for.
  Mr. Pardoe: One of the three—my whole point. I should like to remind the Minister of exactly what was said ten

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  years ago on this question in the report I mentioned:
  "It should be a representative body, not a Government-controlled one or a Government Department, although it must clearly be established and financed by Parliament. Administratively, its model should be the Arts Council. By a representative body, we mean a body representing the consumer and the consumer only."
  That is the point which the Minister's intervention has not answered at all.
  We went on:
  "We do not trust the type of representative body on which all the interests possibly concerned are represented under a neutral chairman and in which the balance of interest is so nicely calculated as to make agreement improbable and action impossible."
  This is the essence of the constituent elements of that body; if they represent all the interests, and if there are people there to argue, as there always are, for the interests of industry and for restrictive practices, then the consumer interest will be outweighed.
  Mr. Gorst: It is not clear whence the hon. Member draws the conclusions that all these people will be from these bodies. It is certainly not in Clause 4(5).
  Mr. Pardoe: No, it is by no means clear, and the Minister in his intervention has accepted that the two categories that I have mentioned will be there. He said that there will be a third category—namely, consumers. So my major objection is that this body will be representative of all the interests; I want it to be representative of consumer interests alone. If the hon. Member can find, anywhere in the Bill, any indication that it will be representative of consumer interests alone, he had better tell his right hon. and learned Friend, because I am sure that, since he knows the Bill backwards, he would have told me in his intervention where this is provided for.
  I wish to turn now to the provisions relating to monopolies, mergers and restrictive practices. The Minister said—I hope that I do not misquote him and have understood the tenor of his remark—that the proposals on monopolies, mergers and restrictive practices were not as formidable as the size of the Bill might suggest. He can say that again. They fall far short of what is needed. They fall so far short of the Government's own stated intentions as to cast
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  doubt on their integrity and their honesty of purpose.
  Competition is on the way out in large sections of British industry and barely a protest is audible. Every reason is trotted out to excuse and defend the limitation of competition. The spread of merger-mania is condoned by successive Labour and Conservative Governments. People have even invented a euphemism to describe it—"responsible marketing" is the term in the best industrial circles.
  I do not believe that competition can be the only criterion. The effect on employment should also be an important consideration, although of course redundancies in isolation are not necessarily reason enough to reject a merger. But redundancies in an area of high unemployment should require remedial investment in that area as a condition for allowing the merger. I see nothing in the Government's approach which would lead me to suppose that they would be prepared to do that.
  Now let us look at the history of this matter. Between 1948, when it was established, and 1964, the Monopolies Commission made 25 reports, 18 of which called for action to end monopolistic or restrictive practices. In only two cases did the Government of this country make orders to implement those recommendations. Of course, the Government do not want to implement such recommendations, because they were grievously embarrassing to their friends in industry. They were also grieviously embarrassed politically by not implementing the recommendations in all those reports, so they changed the law and introduced the Restrictive Practices Act, 1956.
  Like this Bill, that measure was supposed to be tougher than what had been there before. But it did not work out like that at all, and I do not believe that the Bill will do so. Since 1956 the law has been there. The power has been there. But the will has not. Why should we believe that the will is there now? Nothing in the Bill leads me to believe that it is. The powers to tackle monopolies and restrictive practices still remain unsatisfactory. The exercise of the powers is left far too much to the discretion of Ministers, who over the years, in both Labour and Conservative Governments, have shown a remarkable

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  unwillingness to give the public interest the benefit of the doubt.
  Behind the scenes unwritten understandings by big business will remain entirely untouched. How will the director discover what the agreements are? I suggest that we need a section of the CID equivalent to the Fraud Squad to investigate unwritten agreements.
  Sir T. Brinton: Liberal police.
  Mr. Pardoe: Yes, I am prepared to extend the workings of the criminal law to people who offend against the public interest in this way.
  Sir G. Howe: Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge—I do not know the nature of the case which he is making—that in relation to the Monopolies Commission reports, quite apart from the cases where orders were made, undertakings were given in other instances which had an equivalent effect? The 1956 Act, which he denounced as being wholly ineffective, led to 45 cases being contested in the Restrictive Practices Court, and 34 agreements were struck down. That led to 2,900 agreements being registered and 1,600 being withdrawn. Therefore, I suggest that it is wrong to suggest that the Act was as ineffective as the hon. Gentleman suggested.
  Mr. Pardoe: The Minister is so innocent and naïve of the procedures within industry and how industry gets round the legislation against monopolies that it terrifies me to think that the job of policing and ensuring the protection of the consumer is in his hands. Eighteen of the 25 reports of the Monopolies Commission which I quoted from 1948 to 1964 were recommendations against monopolistic practices, and in only two cases were orders made. That was excused on the ground that industry, quietly and nicely, and in a gentlemanly way, accepted the recommendations and gave undertakings. But all it did was to go behind the scenes. The Minister has only to look behind the scenes—
  Sir G. Howe Sir G. Howe rose—
  Mr. Pardoe: Let the Minister wait a minute. I am coming to the recent report of the Monopolies Commission of 1965, on petrol prices. I will show him how
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  that report, which was implemented by orders in this House, has been repeatedly circumvented. The Government have sat by and done nothing about it.
  Sir G. Howe: I am not seeking to say that in every case have the recommendations been wholly accepted, and that they are completely effective, but it is idle to pretend that the legislation has no teeth. Many proceedings have been brought against firms which have not complied with the recommendations, and the recommendations have been enforced by the most swingeing penalties, sometimes amounting to £100,000. That is an indication that the legislation means business. The reason that we are making these changes is to demonstrate that we mean further business.
  Mr. Pardoe: That is the point that I am making. Since 1956 the law and the power has been there, but the will has not. Companies have been able to circumvent the law. It is easy to do, and it will be easy under the provisions of the Bill.
  Mr. Wilfred Proudfoot Mr. Wilfred Proudfoot (Brighouse and Spenborough) rose—
  Mr. Pardoe: I must make some progress with my argument. The Minister has now interrupted me three times.
  The fact is that these matters are extraordinarily difficult to deal with, and I illustrate just how difficult by reference to two examples within my own experience. The first represents a major success—namely, the reference of the cross-channel ferry charges to the Monopolies Commission. First, I asked a Question in the House and caused some publicity to be focused on the fact that cross-channel ferry charges had gone up by exactly the same amount. They had been exactly the same for all the cross-channel crossings of all the companies, irrespective of length of crossing. It was a clear case of collusion, but I could not bring other than circumstantial evidence.
  However, because of the publicity which was given in the Press to my accusations, I was asked to meet a representative of British Rail and a representative of Townsend Thorensen Company on B.B.C. radio. At the end of the interview I said, "Come off it. Did you or did you not, in June of last year, meet together, all you companies,

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  to fix the charges?". The B.B.C. representative sat back in his chair and said, "Mr. Pardoe, you have got it all wrong. The meeting was in August." That was the first evidence I had that such a meeting had taken place.
  I produced a long memorandum which I presented to the Minister, which he has now referred to the Monopolies Commission. And I remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I took one other precaution; I sent my memorandum to the Brussels Commission. The commission has conceded that it is against the provisions of the Treaty of Rome, and it will investigate the matter. So if the Government want to hush up the report of the Monopolies Commission, which will be in accordance with my memorandum, it will not be able to do so this time. That is one advantage of going into Europe.
  I have not been so successful on petrol prices. I wrote to the Under-Secretary of State on 15th September, saying that petrol prices had gone up by exactly the same amount and that they had done so on every occasion for goodness knows how long. I said that British motorists were getting a raw deal compared with European motorists. I alleged collusion, and I believe that no reasonable man looking at the increases in petrol prices could say otherwise. But I received a letter from the Minister which said:
  "In your letter you suggest that there is collusion between the companies to fix prices. If you have evidence that this is so, you should bring it to the attention of the Registrar of Restrictive Trading Agreements. Such evidence should be sent direct rather than through the Government."
  Collusion is extremely difficult to prove, and it would have been easier for the Minister who wrote that letter to produce evidence of collusion. He would have known only too well whether collusion had taken place, because he would have been party to it only months before he became a Minister. It is extremely difficult to fight a Minister on those grounds.
  Sir G. Howe: Which Minister is the hon. Gentleman talking about? He has not named the Minister who he suggests was a party to the collusion.
  Mr. Pardoe: He was an Under-Secretary at the time in the Department of Trade and Industry. I understand that he
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  is winding up tonight. I refer to the hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery).
  Mr. William Hamilton: He was in the oil business.
  Mr. Pardoe: That is right. He was a director of Phillips Petroleum UK Ltd., and knew all that there was to know about collusion in the oil industry. He did not need me to tell him about that.
  Petrol is an example of the weakness of evil in this matter. The big companies have openly flouted the monopolies and restrictive practices legislation. It was recommended by the 1965 Monopolies Commission that the petrol companies should desist from forcing the petrol stations which they owned to stock only their own oil and batteries. They gave an undertaking in a gentlemanly way and the Government believed them. But the fact is that this is still going on.
  There are now far more stations owned by the petrol companies. I can produce documentary evidence that oil company representatives go on to the forecourts of the stations with the tenancy agreements under their arm. The tenants know what that means. It means, "You will stock our oil and batteries, or else."
  The Government's attitude was typified by their decision to refer the merger of Reed International Ltd. and Bowater Ltd. to the commission. The merger was referred to the commission, but the Government specifically allowed the merger to go ahead. Supposing the commission had reported that the merger was against the public's interest?—the merger would have already taken place; what good is that?
  I believe that we need to distinguish between monopoly and non-monopoly companies. Where monopolies exist and where they are not going to be broken up, they must be regulated. The choice must he between State regulation and enforced competition. There must be no freedom to exist in a limbo state between the two. Regulated companies should be required to pay additional corporation tax on the part of their gross profits which come from regulated products and services.
  Another matter which I find somewhat distressing about the Bill is that the Minister has not yet replied to the point put by the Opposition about the reason why professional services are outside the

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  scope of the Bill. As it happens, we in the Liberal Party have been arguing for a long time that if there are labour restrictive practices there is no reason why they should not be controlled. They should be referred to the commission and investigated. But if one does that, why should lawyers be exempt? The only conceivable reason is that the Minister himself is a leading lawyer and has surrendered to his own faction.
  Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: This is the third time that it has been said in the debate that lawyers and other professional people are outside the scope of the Monopolies Commission. It is untrue. They are outside the scope of the restrictive practices legislation, but so are workers and others. Lawyers are not excluded from inquiries by the Monopolies Commission.
  Mr. Pardoe: That is not my interpretation of the Bill. Industrial workers are specifically brought within its terms. If the hon. and learned Gentleman thinks that the Bill has fooled me, then it has fooled the Daily Telegraph as well because it made the same point in its leader of 2nd December. I am by no means the only person who has failed to discover the Government's toughness of attitude towards lawyers.
  Sir G. Howe: The hon. Gentleman is making a false point through his misunderstanding of the Bill. It is right that he should be put right. The Bill includes provision for reference to the Monopolies Commission. Certainly they are not included in the restrictive practices legislation, but they are in fact already subject to the Monopolies Commission, and under these provisions, orders can be made in relation to their practices. The attitude I have outlined is precisely in line with that set out in the last report of the Monopolies Commission. It is wrong to say that they are not amenable to reference. That point cannot be too clearly understood.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that this is not the Committee stage but the debate on Second Reading.
  Mr. Pardoe: I apologise to hon. Members who are waiting to speak, but I have now been interrupted four times by the Minister in lengthy interventions.
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  I had no intention of taking up so much time.
  This Bill is window dressing. The Daily Telegraph of 2nd December said:
  "Out goes the stuffy, old-fashioned Registrar of Restrictive Trading Agreements; in strides the brisk, up-to-tile-minute Director-General of Fair Trading. The Minister has given us mostly words rather than action."
  That is a fair summary of the Bill. The spirit of honest, open competition has been smothered by the lust for power, position and wealth. The giant corporations are here to stay and they will see that competition is squeezed or merged out of existence. Something called capitalism will linger, but private enterprise is in its death throes in Europe. There has to be a wider degree of Government control and intervention in the affairs of big business. Liberals are not afraid to say so. We have a policy to do it. The Government have not.
  6.33 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: The purpose and principles of the Bill are excellent. If the Liberals vote against the purpose and principles on Second Reading, it will not be understood. The Bill may need strengthening—I think that it does in various places—and perhaps various organs within it may come under criticism. Indeed I do not disagree with some of the points which the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) has put, but the principles and purpose of the Bill deserve the support of the House and the Labour Party is quite right not to vote against it.
  My criticism of the Bill has been somewhat diminished by the concluding words of my right hon. and learned Friend in his excellent speech. He said that the door was not closed to other measures designed for the protection of the public and of commercial interests which may be squeezed out by monopolists in the sense that there will be perhaps in future opportunities for private enforcement. I was, on reading the Bill, somewhat dismayed by the bureaucratic nature of machinery provided. It contrasts very directly with the Government's policy on industrial relations as exemplified in the Industrial Relations Act. There, in my view, rightly, the Government left it to private enforcement. There was not to be intervention by public agencies or by the

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  Government—or at any rate as little as possible. Now, in this comparable sector, Government agencies are all-powerful and there has been no sign that the requests for consumer courts and other means of bringing in private enforcement have as yet produced any fruit.
  But in his concluding sentences my right hon. and learned Friend did not exclude that for the future, and I was glad to hear it because otherwise one might have thought that the bureaucratic embrace had been total and that probably the Government were frightened that there would be some sort of consumer "Goad" or even an industrialist "Goad" which might have been inconvenient. But I am glad to know that that is not the intention.
  The registrar of restrictive practices is to give way to the director, who is to be the linchpin of the whole structure. He is also now to be the registrar for references to the Monopolies Commission, and this of course fulfils a long expressed policy of the Conservative Party exemplified on the Second Reading of the ill-fated Commission for Industry and Manpower Bill, when my right hon. Friend the present Home Secretary said:
  "We think that the initiative"—
  of reference to the Monopolies Commission—
  "ought not to be solely in political hands."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th April 1970; Vol. 799, c. 584]
  That promise has now been fulfilled in this Bill because, although political hands will figure, they are not the sole agency for making references to the Monopolies Commission. The registrar, however, does not make references in the case of mergers, and I wonder whether that is really right. There is, as my right hon. and learned Friend knows, considerable worry about the effect of references of mergers, particularly recently, because it is thought, and to a certain extent thought rightly, that a mere reference prejudges the issue.
  We have the recent example of the threatened merger or takeover of Timpsons, the shoe manufacturers, where there was the reference of one of the bidders, Sears, but not of the other, UDS. This has totally prejudged the issue. If this is to be done, surely it is not right
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  that such a reference should be in political hands, however capable they may be.
  The justification for the Monopolies Commission is that it is a purely judicial body. One of our criticisms of the Labour Government's Commission for Industry and Manpower Bill—about which we have heard nothing today, although it is only two years ago that we were locked in combat over it—was that it mixed up highly charged political matters with less highly charged matters of competition policy.
  If the Department of Trade and Industry is to be the sole referrer of mergers and if the result of a reference is to kill the merger or takeover before the Monopolies Commission has a chance to report, I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend will see the lurking dangers. There are great problems connected with legislation regarding mergers. It is not surprising that Europe has shied away from this. Although the Community's monopoly and restrictive practices law is strong, it has no merger law and attempts to introduce it by the hack door have been firmly squashed in the recent Continental Car case.
  I should like the director to have the same power to refer mergers as he has in the case of monopolies, because I believe that that would be in accordance with the policy of the Conservative Party which is to keep politics out of the work of the Monopolies Commission and the Restrictive Practices Court as much as possible.
  In the monopolies field, strictly so-called, the Department of Trade and Industry will have a veto over the director's references. This may he justified but it requires justification and I have no doubt that it will be justified either tonight or in Committee. Clause 13 provides that the Secretary of State may give general directions to the director as to the principles upon which he is to make his references, but the Secretary of State is placed under no obligation to express his own principles when he makes references of his own motion or when he vetoes references made by the director according to those principles.
  Although it is a great step forward to have someone the equivalent of the Registrar in the Monopolies and Mergers

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  Commission field, it has not gone quite far enough.
  I greatly welcome the commission's new terms of reference embodied in Clause 79. My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir T. Brinton), in his splendid speech, expressed the desire that in future the neutral attitude towards mergers should be departed from and they should be treated as suspect until justified—in other words, that there should be a presumption.
  I read something on those lines in the new terms of reference set out in Clause 79. Although it does not say so ipsissima verba, there is in Clause 79(a) very much of a presumption in favour of competition and anybody who, to use the words of others, wishes to eliminate or suppress or reduce "independent decision making units" must justify it. That phrase comes from the general observations in the Report of the Monopolies Commission on the Allied Breweries case, when the commission went out of its way to invite a change of emphasis on the question of the presumption. I support that. Clause 79 goes some way towards embodying it.
  Clause 79 also embodies matters which are not strictly matters of competition policy. Clause 79(d) gives the commission the task
  "of maintaining and promoting the balanced distribution of industry and employment in the United Kingdom".
  This is a very important function, but it is a highly political one. One of our criticisms of the Commission for Industry and Manpower Bill was that that sort of consideration was to be introduced into the Monopolies Commission perhaps to an even greater extent than here. I see the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) here. He will remember that I objected to it on the grounds that that would introduce politics into the commission. I greatly hope that the inclusion of (d) will not have the same effect.
  I keep harping on the need for the judicial approach which requires very strict terms of reference rather than the more generalised question of employment, regional policy, and so on, because of the peculiar nature of our competition law.
  We do not take the "structural" approach which the Americans take. In America an examination is made of the
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  share of the market, the structure of the industry, the degree of verticalisation, the degree of horizontal or conglomerate dominance or whatever it may be and it is then said, "That is a sufficient monopoly to be attacked." We proceed primarily on the conduct of such set-ups, whatever the structure. If the conduct is or is likely to be bad there is a condemnation. When people's conduct, particularly their future conduct, is being judged, it is impossible to carry confidence if there is any question of political motivation in the judgment.
  During the course of the debate, particularly in the speech of the hon. Member for Cornwall, North, anxiety has been expressed about the effects of orders and inquiries and doubt has been expressed about the extent to which they are policed. First, what are the effects of mergers which are allowed, either those which are not referred or those which have been referred and are permitted?
  In its general observations in the Allied Breweries Limited case the Monopolies Commission made strong recommendations about the need to acquire information about the results of such mergers. Those recommendations were given effect to in The Commission for Industry and Manpower Bill. That was about the only good thing in that Bill. I am sorry that there are not such provisions in this Bill.
  The Monopolies Commission pleaded for opportunities to inquire into the consequence of mergers and stated in paragraph 32 of its observations:
  "We regard this question of information"—
  that is, about the results of mergers—
  "as important and all the more so in view of the number of points on which at present detailed information need not be made available. We accept the view that in the present state of affairs the increase to date in the scope of merger activity is unlikely to lead to any general collapse of confidence. Nevertheless, this increase could continue and even accelerate and we cannot wholly dismiss the eventual risk of such collapse. This makes it advisable that shareholders should be given fuller and more accurate information, so as to make it easier for them to interpret both the prospect of mergers and their results."
  The commission stresses constantly the need to provide "more detailed information" of the results of previous mergers
  "which might deter companies from going ahead with mergers designed merely or largely

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  to buy the assets and/or profits of the acquired company cheaply."
  There is a need for the results of mergers to be more easily discovered and made widely known.
  Another important matter was touched on by the hon. Member for Cornwall, North. Cannot we have in dealing with these undertakings the same opportunities for private enforcement—that is, for enforcement at the suit of private individuals—as we have in the case of the judgments of the Restrictive Practices Court? There is a statutory duty to obey such judgments which is provided for in Section 4 of the 1964 Act and Section 7 of the 1968 Act. Any private citizen who is damaged by a failure to obey such a judgment can sue for breach of a statutory duty.
  I am not sure whether a private individual can sue for breach of an order of the Monopolies Commission. A private individual who is perhaps a competitor may be damaged by a course of action by someone found by the Monopolies Commission to be doing something against the public interest. I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend that it is far better to have an undertaking if it is forthcoming in the proper terms, than to make an order. There is no virtue in making orders simply for the sake of showing that one is virile and important. An undertaking is much better. However, to be the equivalent of an order, the undertaking must first be pubished. I am not sure whether there is any requirement to publish such undertaking so that third parties, who often are intensely interested in the matter, may know what they are. But above all, it must be possible for third parties to sue if there is to be the degree of private enforcement which I should like to see. Although the Government do their best to enforce these matters, there is nothing like a little bit of private enterprise to keep them up to the mark.
  I come to something which is not in the Bill but which I regard as perhaps the most important thing to stop the present mania of merger and takeover which I sense every hon. Member feels has gone too far. That is the taxation position. This is not a taxing Bill, and therefore the matter cannot be dealt with in it. However, there is no doubt that
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  the tax advantages of merger or takeover are often very great whereas the tax advantages of demergerisation and divesting are nil. All the tax advantages in mergers are on the side of ever larger units and it is almost impossible, even with the greatest ingenuity, to split these things up, even though the member parts of the constituents may wish to, without incurring enormous taxation bills, particularly as a result of capital gains.
  Therefore, the Bill should be supported by an inquiry, and an eventual reform of the taxation system, which would give the drive towards smaller independent units of decision, which we all favour, the tax advantages which at present are given the other way round.
  6.54 p.m.
  Mr. John Roper: It is always pleasant for me to follow the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) in debate, particularly when I am able to agree with him, as he has the misfortune of having me as one of his constituents. I agreed in particular with his comments about the importance of Clause 79. What he said about the need to continue monitoring of the results of mergers was important. Clause 83 makes provision for the monitoring of certain orders and possibly of undertakings and it should be amended in such a way that mergers could be monitored as well. The Commission for Industry and Manpower Bill, which the hon. and learned Gentleman criticised but also praised a little, included the provision about an asset size of £10 million as an alternative ground for possible reference to the Monopolies Commission. If that provision were reinstated, it would cover a number of the cases and would enable more monitoring of mergers to take place.
  Other Bills for which the Minister has been responsible have been much more controversial than this Bill. It is a little ironic that this Bill makes a start on achieving some of the objectives of my right hon. and hon. Friends, because in Schedule 13 it begins the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972 by repealing Section 10(3). Therefore, I suppose that the Bill establishes something of an important constitutional point by showing that, while the European Communities Bill was unamendable, the

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  European Communities Act is amendable. My right hon. Friends the Members for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) and Stepney (Mr. Shore) were most interested when they spotted this point. Perhaps we shall see them and the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) extending this part of the Bill in Committee.
  I, too, critically welcome some parts of the Bill as being a step forward in the development of competition policy. Certainly not all of it is satisfactory. We on this side of the House take considerable exception to parts of it. We believe that some of it is totally unnecessary and other provisions in it, which might have had a place within the broad scrutiny of all industry which was intended under the Commission for Industry and Manpower Bill, cannot be accepted in a limited Bill of this type.
  Also, a number of things which should have been done by the Bill had not been done. I shall consider one or two of them later and I hope that we shall have the chance of dealing with them in Committee. As the hon. and learned Member for Darwen mentioned, there are one or two important developments in monopolies policy. Although I hope that it will be possible to improve it in Committee, Clause 79, which defines the public interest, is a good deal better than Section 14 of the 1948 Act, which it replaces and which successive Monopolies Commissions have shown to be virtually useless in assisting them in their inquiries. In fact, it has been little used in those inquiries.
  The presumption that competition is an objective in itself and, therefore, that monopolies are bad, is made much more explicit in the Bill, although it is important that this should be taken in the context of other provisions which make it clear that social factors, such as regional policy, the distribution of industry and technical development in industry, continue to be important. As the hon. and learned Member for Darwen said, we have not followed the structural approach which has found favour on the other side of the Atlantic. In our approach to monopolies we have assumed that we should have a pragmatic policy which attempts to make some assessment of the social costs and social benefits of
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  each monopoly situation. Plainly, in such a pragmatic approach definition of the public interest is one of the most difficult problems but perhaps the most important. Once defined there is still doubt whether this will be used by the commission, but it is certainly important that the objectives are properly settled.
  I hope that the Minister can say something more than his right hon. and learned Friend did about the introduction of the concept of a complex monopoly situation. The situation described here might go some way towards meeting some of the misgivings of the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe). I assume that the new provisions for complex monopoly situations taken in conjunction with Clauses 7(2) and 8(2) are designed to catch the non-collusive oligopoly—that rather elusive animal which has eluded successive Presidents of the Board of Trade and Ministers in the Department of Trade and Industry ever since my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition expressed some hope of dealing with this when the 1948 measure was going through the House in 1947.
  I hope that we can pursue in Committee these new provisions for complex monopoly situations and the possibility of these non-collusive oligopolies being brought under scrutiny. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heifer) inquires, "What is oligopoly?" This is when a limited number of producers gang up against the public interest. If they get together and make an agreement it is a collusive oligopoly; if they do not, and there is one who is a price leader and the others follow, it is a non-collusive oligopoly. The second situation has been the most difficult to catch in previous legislation. I hope that these provisions will cover it.
  I turn to price rigging and market rigging. I hope that the application of this new power to the director general will not cause too much trouble to those operating legitimate agreements. I suspect that the powers given to the director general under Clause 83(5) for continued monitoring of orders or undertakings following a Monopoly Commission report is a valuable extension of the director general's powers. I agree that we should see whether we can extend this—whether

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  there can be a similar continuous monitoring of the merger reports. That would be particularly valuable in the light of the further powers given to the Secretary of State under Clause 88(3) and (4). These enable him to take action in court if a firm fails to comply with an order. This is still at the stage when an order has been made.
  When undertakings are given rather than orders being made a proper way must be found to know what the undertaking is. Secondly, there must be a proper way for the director general or Secretary of State to take action if they are not complied with. That is certainly not covered by Clause 88 as it stands.
  Before dealing with some of the problems of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1956 I ask the Minister to tell us the intentions of the Secretary of State about making orders under Clause 98—the clause which will enable the Secretary of State gradually to bring the services under the scrutiny of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act. Although we all regret the exclusions, under Schedule 4, of professional services from the services, it would be helpful to know whether the Secretary of State intends to bring the other services under scrutiny within a year, two years, or whatever.
  Clause 96 extends the powers of the Restrictive Trade Practices Court to make orders against trade associations. A number of people will regret that opportunity has not been taken in the Bill to clarify the position about some types of agreement as they affect small firms and trade associations. I return to the point raised earlier by the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet). There were fairly clear recommendations in the report of the Bolton Committee. I would particularly like to deal with the position as it affects distribution. I should declare a non-pecuniary interest as a director of a co-operative society.
  For some years there has been considerable concern in distribution that there is one law for the multiples—the big boys—and another much more stringent law for the independent shopkeepers, the family groups and the co-operative societies who become enmeshed in the interstices of the 1956 Act. This point was made clear at the Board of Trade's own conference on monopolies, mergers
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  and restrictive practices held in Cambridge in September 1969, when Sir Hugh Weeks, the then Chairman of the Economic Development Committee for the distributive trades, said, dealing with the Restrictive Practices Acts:
  "let us consider the effect of the Acts on distribution. It clearly favours the multiple organisation with a number of units under its financial control, for instructions given to branches on prices, promotions, policy, opening hours and the like would of course not fall foul of the Acts. On the other hand, if a voluntary group which is developed to compete with the multiples sends similar instructions or even makes suggestions to its members on exactly the same points, this would appear, to be a registrable agreement.…Broadly speaking it seems likely that the application of Restrictive Trade Practices Acts to distributions is frequently irrelevant: takes no account of the widespread and flexible competion within the distributive system, and is likely to impede the desirable efforts of voluntary groups and trade associations to improve the efficiency of members."
  I would not completely agree that all the agreements which are made by trade associations or voluntary groups should be excluded from the Restrictive Trade Practices Acts. While there is a need to keep some control over associations there is equally a need to find a sensible way of doing this. I hope that in Committee we will devise some satisfactory amendment to the 1956 Act. This is of considerable importance. The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir T. Brinton) when referring to the small shops in his High Street was touching on a similar point.
  I come now to the director general. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) said that this was an extraordinary job. Certainly the Bill provides a quite extraordinary job description for any one man. He is expected to be a venturesome knight, sallying forth to protect the consumer. He is expected to be an independent assessor of monopolies and mergers and a legal scrutineer of restrictive practices. I am very sceptical as to whether a paragon with so many virtues exists as an individual, or whether he could easily co-exist within a single corporate organisation.
  In some ways it is an ambitious concept. Although I am rather critical of the "phoney" independence of the director general—the fact that he is nominally to make monopoly references but is subject to a Government veto and can he over-ridden by the Secretary of

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  State—in practice I think that it will be difficult to operate as has been suggested, and I feel that we will be amending this in the near future. Having said that, it seems a little perverse to suggest an additional function which should be in the same broad area as that covered by the director general.
  In recent years considerable dissatisfaction has been expressed in this House and elsewhere at the possible distortion of fair trading caused by a whole range of practices by multinational companies. Not only their policy with regard to taxation but also their transfer pricing policies provide enormous opportunities of unfair trading of one sort and another. These should be monitored by some public body in this country. Whether, as someone has suggested, this can be done more effectively by the Inland Revenue I am not sure, but clearly it is important to ensure that these companies pay more corporation tax—and perhaps that could be done more effectively by a reorganised director general.
  In comparison with some of the other legislation for which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has been responsible, I cannot say that this is a bad Bill, but I very much hope that the Government will allow us to make it a much better Bill before it reaches the Statute Book.
  7.10 p.m.
  Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: I am delighted on this occasion to be able to eat my own words. In the debate on the Address in reply to the Gracious Speech I predicted that we would be provided by the Government during this Session with some delectable titbits in the way of consumer measures. With the advent of this Bill it is quite clear that what we are being served with is a veritable feast.
  However, in that same debate I said that we in this country could not ignore any longer the urgent need to provide comprehensive consumer legislation, that it was an obligation which no Government should attempt to escape, and that it was an obligation which I did not believe a Conservative Government intended to shirk. Far from eating those words, I am delighted with the accuracy of my predictions.
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  I hope that the House will not think it immodest when I say that my hon. Friends and I, who spent a good deal of time this summer studying and researching what is required in the way of consumer measures and in making recommendations, will look upon this Bill with some degree of parental pride, and as partly our own offspring, and we shall want to make sure that it does not turn out to be a changeling, although I am not attributing to my right hon. and learned Friend the rôle of Oberon.
  However, this caveat vendor Bill, as it has been called, and as it will undoubtedly become known, certainly serves to provide a most comprehensive, extensive and effective framework of consumer protection, much beyond what we have yet seen in this country or in most other countries. It will create a consumer watchdog that will both bark and bite with one large tooth in the armoury of the Director General of Fair Trading, in that he will be able to bring action in the Restrictive Practices Court, as it says in Clause 35, if businesses or traders consistently pursue a course of action which is unfair to consumers or detrimental to their interests.
  The excellent definitions in Clause 3, of consumer trade practices, and in Clause 17, of the effects of certain consumer trade practices, are among the most valuable and significant features of the Bill, because not only do they apply to the supply of goods and services but, with their complementary Clauses 22 and 23, they will, allow, for the first time the law to leap with those who are usually one leap ahead of the law, by enabling the Secretary of State to take power to deal with consumer abuses as and when they arise.
  This is entirely in line with our recommendations in "Square Deal for Consumers", with regard to general enabling legislation to permit the Secretary of State to legislate by regulation when new consumer abuses arise suddenly and need more immediate action than is possible during a heavy legislative programme.
  This group of clauses would seem to me to bring within their scope the enforcement of all the labelling, warning and packaging regulations which many of us have been calling for for some time,

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  including unit pricing, standard packaging, date stamping, and hazardous product labelling in Clause 35—and doorstep selling of insurance, in Clause 17—and, I think I am correct in saying, though I stand to be corrected, that Clause 17(2)(d) brings a measure of protection in consumer credit transactions pending full implementation of Crowther.
  Therefore, naturally, I hope that powers will be taken very early in the life of this Bill, when it becomes an Act, to make those regulations, and if that proves to be the case the Bill will have been a measure of considerable value to consumers at a very early stage of its life.
  Those highly important aspects of the Bill which deal with restrictive agreements in the supply of services, with monopolies and mergers, and with restrictive labour practices and restrictive trade practices in the supply of goods and services, are all extremely welcome and valuable, but I do not intend to dwell upon their significance at length because a number of my hon. Friends have already done so and I know that many hon. Members are still hoping to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I would single out for special welcome the fact that in Clause 45 an attempt is made to deal with parallel pricing. Although the Monopolies Commission has not even reported, the qualifying point for monopolies and mergers is to be reduecd from one-third to one-quarter. Procedures for prosecution under the Trade Descriptions Act should be speeded up, because it will be the Director General of Fair Trading rather than the Department of Trade who will need to be notified.
  The provisions for enforcement both in the Restrictive Practices Court and under the Trade Descriptions Act would seem to be highly satisfactory, and the fact that there is to be some provision for compensation for traders in certain circumstances, in Clause 33, demonstrates to me the thoughtfulness which has gone into the drafting of this Bill while the penalties for contravention of the regulations have the merit of being at the same time fair and realistic, and on all these points the drafters of the Bill are to be warmly complimented.
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  I should however, like to make some comments and suggestions to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the proposed administrative machinery for the protection of consumers. Although I am only too well aware of the dangers of looking a gift horse in the mouth I think I must inevitably compare the structure proposed in the Bill with that which we proposed in "Square Deal for Consumers". In many ways it is much more sophisticated than what we proposed, and this constitutes a considerable improvement. However, I cannot help feeling that there will be some duplication in the function of the office of Director General of Fair Trading and the Consumer Protection Advisory Committee. Although it will be the function of the former to be, as it were, the catalyst who will investigate, initiate, research and recommend, while the function of the latter will be that of a consultative body of experts on both sides of the problem, I cannot help feeling that the latter body will be involved in research if it is to do its job properly, and so there could be some unnecessary, time-consuming duplication of the two offices. While the CPAC approximates only very roughly to the central council that we proposed the office of the Director General of Fair Trading and the director general himself approximate very closely indeed to the national consumers' centre which we proposed—with one very important difference, that our centre was to have its feet planted very firmly on the ground by means of close links with local, comprehensive consumer advice centres—a factor which is sadly missing from this Bill, because it could have provided not only an ideal foundation for the researches of the Director General of Fair Trading but also very valuable information from its day to day operation, and also because I believe that the provision of readily accessible consumer advice and education is of vital importance, and this provision cannot be left to voluntary organisations or to the occasional local authority. This is highlighted in Clause 17(2)(b), which speaks of traders misleading consumers and withholding information from them, without regard to their rights and obligations.
  That is the whole point, most consumers do not know their existing rights, never mind any new rights, and they therefore do not demand them. Whereas I entirely accept that such information

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  should not be withheld from them by traders, it is a sad commentary that they should in any circumstances whatsoever have to rely upon traders for this information. So the need for consumer advice and education will be as great, if not greater, after the passage of the Bill.
  Also, the office of the Director General of Fair Trading seems to have inherited one of the main disadvantages of the old Consumer Council, and that is disappointing. Although, happily, unlike the Consumer Council, it will be the specific function of this office to deal with individual complaints, inevitably it will appear to many consumers to be as remote from them as was the old Consumer Council. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will bear that in mind. I am sure he will agree that most people like to make their complaints locally, and to see them dealt with locally. However, the office of the Director General of Fair Trading would provide an ideal nucleus from which a national network of local advice centres could grow, and in addition to the advantages of such centres that I have already mentioned, they would also be able to receive initial complaints and sift them before passing them on to the Director General of Fair Trading, with a commensurate saving in time and money for that office.
  Whether the provision of such a service should be the statutory duty of a local authority or should be closely linked to the office of the Director General of Fair Trading is open to argument. It is perhaps, therefore, right that this should not be decided until there has been a degree of experience in the matter in the light of the implementation of the Bill. I am encouraged by the fact that my right hon. and learned Friend implied a great deal of sympathy with this point, and I hope that it may be the subject of further legislation if after a fair trial period it seems desirable, as I believe it will, for the office of the Director General of Fair Trading to put down its own roots and create its own local advice centres.
  I support the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) who said that in the light of the Bill it will be urgently necessary to change the title of inspectors of weights and measures to that of trading standards officers, so that they can
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  be associated in the minds of the general public with what has for a long time been their main function. I also hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will agree that their numbers will need to be significantly increased for the implementation of the Bill.
  My right hon. and learned Friend has expressed sympathy to the view that with every new piece of legislation that extends consumers' rights, especially with regard to specific legislative rights, the need to provide cheap, informal and easily accessible small claims procedure in which consumers can pursue those rights easily is intensified. It is no use legislating for consumers if they are unable to take advantage of the legislation. So, as my right hon. and learned Friend has recognised, there will still remain two outstanding consumer issues. To put it simply, they are that most consumers do not know their rights and, if they do know them, the odds are that it will not pay to pursue them. And if the highly sophisticated machinery for the protection of the consumer that the Bill provides is to be truly effective, it will I believe have to be complemented by a consumer arbitration service and by local advice centres. Without them the effect of the Bill on the consumer could be rather like the effect of putting a learner driver into an Aston Martin with a powerful engine and failing to tell him where the accelerator is and how to operate the controls.
  There has been criticism that the Bill provides no new compensation for consumers. The consumers involved in successful actions under the Trade Descriptions Act will be able to claim compensation under Section 1 of the Criminal Justice Act. It is true that this will not apply to cases in the Restrictive Practices Court; there will be no new compensation there. However, if, for the want of a better word, the policing machinery in the Bill is to be as effective as one hopes it will be in stamping out unfair practices, the result will be that the need to bring such action will diminish and, with it, the need for compensation.
  I suppose it was inevitable that hon. Gentlemen opposite would not allow this occasion to pass without sneering at the abolition of the Consumer Council. But I say this to them: if the abolition of the Consumer Council created a vacuum

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  which led to the creation of this infinitely superior Mark II model, it was worth while. It has been accepted by hon. Members on both sides that the Consumer Council was not the right body for the job it did. It had neither roots, nor was it able to initiate action. During a normal year the Consumer Council received only about 5,000 complaints, whereas the citizen advice bureaux received about 125,000 at local level, and the Weights and Measures Inspectorate received about 120,000. That proves that the Consumer Council was not in touch with the ordinary consumer and also was unable to take any effective legislative action.
  However, there is no comparison between the old Consumer Council and the machinery set up by the Bill, which is vastly more effective and far reaching, and which has wide powers to initiate action both through the Director General of Fair Trading and the Secretary of State with regard to very specific criteria. These are two vital factors missing in the Consumer Council which could not have been grafted on to it as it was.
  If hon. Members want to play politics with consumer affairs I warn them that they are on to a loser, because with this Bill, the record of successive Conservative Governments on consumer measures now far outstrips that of successive Labour Governments. And one of the important advantages of the structure which the Bill provides is that it will eliminate the need for emotive Nader-style consumerism in this country. I hope, however, that it will not be used by Ministers who are responsible for answering questions on consumer affairs to fob off hon. Members by referring them to the Director General of Fair Trading. That would be most unsatisfactory from the point of view of hon. Members who are interested in consumer affairs and of this House.
  But of course the value of introducing effective consumer protection measures does not lie simply in supplying fairer and more just conditions for consumers. Its significance is much greater than that, for it should lead eventually to the creation of a market place that is unclouded by deception and half truths, and in which quality and value regain their true place as the main elements in competition, with a resulting rise in the
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  standards of manufacturers, retailers and consumers alike.
  Finally, I extend a warm welcome to the Bill. It is very gratifying to see our offspring spread its wings and fly a good deal higher and faster than many of us expected. And I hope that the whole House will agree that the Bill constitutes a measure of considerable magnitude, and that it is probably the most significant Bill for the protection of the consumer that has been placed before the House since the Sale of Goods Act 1893. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend, my hon. Friend and the Government both on its conception and its presentation.
  7.28 p.m.
  Mr. William Hamilton: The hon. Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Sally Oppenheim) has a considerable memory, and I congratulate her on being able to speak in detail about certain parts of the Bill without quoting from it and without a note in her hand. Her memory is not all that good, however. She will recall that during the last two years she has twice voted against measures to protect the consumer.
  The hon. Lady referred to the Consumer Council. She did not vote for the abolition of the Consumer Council because it was ineffective. She voted against the Council because just after the election the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he wanted to save public money. The Consumer Council was costing about £200,000, and that was the reason it was abolished. That was why the hon. Lady and her friends supported its abolition.
  I regret that the hon. Lady was not made the Minister responsible for these matters so that she could go round Smithfield Market and see how meat prices were soaring, and could tell the housewife how to save a penny on a tin of beans. I rather suspect that the Prime Minister did not appoint the hon. Lady because she was too wealthy. It is a pity, but obviously she could not pretend to be the champion of the housewives of West Fife.
  Mrs. Oppenheim: The hon. Member must have a strange view of his constitutional duties as a Member of Parliament. I regard it as my constitutional

  531
  duty as a Member of this House to represent my constituents and their income range, and no other.
  Mr. Hamilton: I repeat that I find it difficult to accept that the hon. Lady can even begin to understand the problems of the housewife whose husband gives her £15 or £20 a week housekeeping allowance. She cannot understand that situation, and that is why, I suspect, that the Prime Minister appointed the hon. Lady the Member for Rochester and Chatham (Mrs. Fenner) to look at food prices rather than the hon. Lady the Member for Gloucester. Had the hon. Lady been appointed we should have seen less of her in the House, and in that respect we are glad that the Prime Minister made the appointment he did. But if the hon. Lady seeks to pretend that this enormously complicated piece of legislative nonsense will help the harassed housewife in the high street one iota, she and her hon. Friends should think again.
  I cannot understand the Bill, and I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) was right to say that this Bill deserved to be accompanied by a White Paper to help people to understand it. Certainly the housewife will want a good deal of explanation in seeking to understand exactly how its provisions will work and what redress she will have if she feels that she is being diddled in the high street. Let us imagine the situation of a housewife who ventures out into the high street to do her shopping, pushing a pram with two or three children trailing behind her. How will she know what action to take when she feels that she is being deceived? It is not easy for her to produce a copy of the Bill, to see which provision applies to such a case and to ask herself, "Do I go to the Director General, the Advisory Committee, or what?" There is no provision whatever to cater for a housewife who faces that kind of situation.
  I was rather amused when the Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs remarked on the limitations on the sovereignty of the consumer. He said that the housewife was often supplied with inadequate or inaccurate information and faced with abuses of monopolistic power. The Bill seeks to deal
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  with monopolies, but we have a classic example of what happened when the Monopolies Commission investigated beer several years ago. That commission said that the tied house operated against the national interest, but the Government have done absolutely nothing about the situation.
  When the Erroll Committee was set up to deal with licensing laws, the then Home Secretary wrote to the Erroll Committee saying, "You are specifically excluded from investigating whether the tied house should be abolished". So the situation remains—partly because the brewers contributed £200,000 to the Tory Party election fund in the period up to 1970. The individual drinker—and let me disclaim any interest because if the brewers had to rely on my trade they would be bankrupt tomorrow—is faced with no choice at all because the Monopolies Commission's recommendations have been completely ignored and no action has been taken.
  The Bill flatly contradicts all the philosophy on which the Tory Government were elected. In 1970 the Conservatives said that they preferred
  "…a system of competition and free choice which offers a surer protection for the shopper's rights than all the bureaucratic schemes of standardisation and control that Socialists can devise…"
  In other words, competition was of the essence and it was thought that there was no need for legislation. That was an additional reason why the Consumer Council was abolished. The Conservatives wanted to get rid of the Council and shoppers were told to shop around. If they could not afford to buy apples, one Minister told them, they should buy peaches. If they could not afford to buy beef, then they should go and shoot a pigeon—that was the advice given by the present Leader of the House.
  In many ways the Bill is vague and incomprehensible. It is not without significance that the Bill was introduced by a lawyer, the same right hon. and learned Gentleman who introduced the Industrial Relations Bill and the European Communities Bill—two Bills which have caused more trouble in this House and in the country than almost any other legislation this century. It was a legislative nightmare and will be a gold mine for the legal profession.

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  I fear that this Bill will have a very long Committee stage. There will be many amendments.
  Mr. Gorst: Surely the hon. Gentleman will not be on that Committee, too.
  Mr. Hamilton: Yes, I shall surely be on that Committee, and we shall seek to promote consumer affairs much more effectively than is provided for in the Bill.
  The consumer is the hopeless victim of more than a minority of unscrupulous manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers. Time after time we have had Questions from Conservative Members about the varying weights of packets of biscuits, detergents, and Lord knows what, and it is impossible for the housewife, who is working full time to keep her family alive, to keep contact with price levels and to judge whether they are going up or down or are stabilising. There is no very great change in the Conservative Party's philosophy from the situation in 1970. We are all interventionists now. We no longer believe that competitive forces alone will protect the housewife. We believe in the bureaucratic machine.
  Can the hon. Member for Gloucester tell the House whom she has in mind for the job of Director General and what will be his powers? Will she be consulted about the appointment? Will it be advertised? What will be the salary? We do not know the answers. He will be a most busy man or woman and will require exceptional qualities.
  We know what the total cost of the Director General and his staff will be. The Explanatory and Financial Memorandum says:
  "The total expenses of the Directorֵ in the discharge of his functions under the Bill are expected to be about £600,000 a year…."
  That is the figure which is to be paid for doing the kind of job to which the hon. Lady the Member for Gloucester referred, and to help him he is to have a staff of about 175. The expenses of the Consumer Protection Advisory Committee are expected to be about £10,000 a year. Those are the sums that we are talking about in the Bill.
  I accept the need to protect the consumer, but it is difficult to provide a framework of legislation which the
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  housewife can understand and which will make readily available and accessible to her cheap means of obtaining redress—and, if necessary, compensation from offending manufacturer or retailer. The hon. Lady is right in one respect. There must be local machinery for dealing with the problems of the housewife who goes shopping in the high street. The hon. Lady the Member for Merton and Morden (Miss Fookes) laughs, but there is no provision for that in the Bill. There is no provision to enable a housewife who has reason to complain about something in a high street shop to go to an office in that high street and to lay her complaint without recourse to legal action.
  The essence of consumer protection is to ensure that the ordinary housewife, who in any case is afraid of the legal processes and cannot afford them, has access to some machinery which enables her to express her grievance, have it redressed and receive compensation without cost to herself. What is more, this process must be expeditious, because I think most hon. Members will agree that, with the possible exception of professional politicians, lawyers are the most unpopular people in the country. The public do not like them, they do not trust them, they are extremely expensive, and very often they are worthless. Therefore anything that we do to protect the consumer must exclude the legal profession as much as possible, and I approach the Bill from that fundamental standpoint. The fundamental requirement is to ensure that the ordinary housewife gets a fair deal and that if she does not she can obtain redress quickly, cheaply, effectively and without recourse to the law courts.
  It is now generally accepted that the housewife—the consumer—is subjected to expensive brainwashing, bamboozling and deception. I looked up the total expenditure on advertising which is, I suppose, an essential part of the capitalist system. In certain circumstances it performs a useful service in so far as it is informative, but very often it is misleading. It is extremely expensive, and it often leads housewives into buying things which are either worthless or which they do not immediately want.
  The Reith Report in the Advertising Quarterly says
  "In 1948 total advertising expenditure was £121 million. In 1965 it had gone up to £590 million."

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  How many hospitals, how many mental hospitals, could we build for £500 million? If one considers display advertising, one finds that in 1970 the total cost of advertising in the Press, on television, on posters, on transport and in cinemas was £360 million.
  All advertising is not bad, but a lot of it is misleading. To some extent the Trades Descriptions Act provides an element of protection to the consumer, but only a small minority of consumers—even the literate ones—understand their legal rights. There is so much legislation involving consumers that either they are not aware of their rights, or they are not prepared to exercise them. That also applies to the nationalised industries. When legislation relating to some of the nationalised industries was going through the House provision was made for consumer councils, and so on, but if the average housewife is asked the address of her local consumer council for the nationalised industries, her reply is invariably that she does not know. It is extremely difficult to get a housewife to exercise her rights even if she knows them—and very often she does not.
  The Government have introduced the Bill not because they intrinsically and basically believe that the consumer ought to be protected by legislation but because of the enormous growth of consumer pressure in the country as a whole and because of the reaction of the country as a whole to the abolition of the Consumer Council, however inadequate it may have been. To that extent I regard the Bill as a bit of cosmetic politics. It is disguising ugliness with a touch of paint and powder. Intrinsically, the Government still believe that the answer lies in unfettered competition, and for that reason I feel inclined to go along with the Liberal Party and to oppose the Bill. But if that is not the course of action that is recommended by my Front Bench, I hope that we shall give the Bill a thorough going over in Committee because, in the view of many laymen on these benches and, I suspect, on the benches opposite, there is a lot of incomprehensible legalistic mumbo-jumbo in the Bill that needs clearing up.
  Meanwhile, the Bill will do absolutely nothing to prevent the escalation of prices that is taking place. In any event, the Bill will not be in operation before the
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  introduction of VAT next April. It will not become an Act before then.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Peter Emery): The Opposition could make it law by then.
  Mr. Hamilton: Yes, but my guess is that they will not. We know how the housewife has been bamboozled by decimalisation, and is now increasingly being baffled by metrication concealing increased prices all along the line. The Bill will offer housewives very little protection from that kind of abuse.
  7.50 p.m.
  Mr. John Gorst: I do not intend to follow the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) down the extroardinary by-ways that his speech led him.
  I found myself very much in agreement with the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) until he informed the House that he proposed to lead his weighty numbers into the Division Lobby against this Bill. However, I sympathised with his strong words about monopoly and the need to take the most stringent measures to get rid of it wherever it exists.
  I do not believe that justification for consumer protection is necessary. If any explanation is required why it is necessary to increase the protection of the consumer, it is undoubtedly the greater complexity, speed and quality of changes that are taking place in our technological society. As my right hon. and learned Friend said, it is a complicated and changing world.
  Concerning monopoly, I believe that the most important point to select from the Bill is the danger of consumer deprivation rather than the need for his or her protection. The result of monopoly all too frequently is that products become more expensive or fewer in terms of choice.
  One aspect of the Bill that I particularly welcome is the new definition in Clause 79, which refers to the public interest and the desirability
  "of promoting, through competition… the development and use of new techniques and new products".
  That is what I mean by consumer deprivation, and it can easily occur in one or more of the nationalised industries. For

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  this reason I welcome the fact that the monopoly of the nationalised industries is also to come within the province of the Bill.
  There is a particular danger in a nationalised technological industry. One thinks of aircraft and the railways, but more particularly telecommunications. I am glad that the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) is present. No doubt he will cross swords with me if I go beyond his party political beliefs in this respect.
  There is no doubt that a technological industry, such as telecommunications, can suffer, and the consumer can suffer with it, if the range of products is curtailed and the choice, whether it be of quality or of price, is arbitrarily restricted by the nationalised corporation. Indeed, in a fast-growing technological telecommunications industry there are bound to be many examples. Certainly from my experience in looking after consumer interests within this sphere over several years, I am well aware of the dead hand of monopoly, through its lack of enterprise, preventing all manner of instruments which are available in other countries being made available to the consumer in this country.
  Mr. John Golding: Is the hon. Gentleman referring to the conspiracy that is growing up between AEI-GEC and Plessey to try to prevent the development of TXE4 exchange equipment which will be the most advanced that this country could have?
  Mr. Gorst: No. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I was not thinking of housewives using big exchanges in their homes. I was thinking more in terms of the kind of subscriber apparatus which might be used in bathrooms, bedrooms, living rooms, and so on—gadgets which might or might not have amplification equipment and different designs and facilities. I was thinking of what the man or woman in the street might wish to use, not the heavy engineered equipment to which the hon. Gentleman was referring.
  I will put the point in a slightly different way. If the car industry had never been in private hands, but had been a nationalised industry, one wonders
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  whether a Rolls-Royce or a Jaguar, cars of excellence in terms of both price and quality, would have come into existence. I suggest they would not, for the reason that many products are not provided by the telecommunications industry—namely, that it is the duty of a nationalised industry to say, "It is our first responsibility to provide for the needs of everyone and then, if there is any time or money left, to deal with refinements." I wonder whether we would have had Harrods, Aspreys, or even caviar on the market if all retailing had been in nationalised shops.
  If insurance companies were now taken over wholly by the State, I wonder whether we would have any BUPA if it fell foul of the ideology of the Government of the day. If the records industry had been nationalised, I wonder whether we would have reached the stage of having anything like hi-fi, let alone stereo equipment. I am sure we would not, because everyone would first have had to be supplied with an instrument which produced sounds before having any quality.
  It is this kind of consumer deprivation which may exist in the nationalised industries to which I want to draw the attention of the House when it comes to the investigation of monopolies.
  Successive Postmasters-General and Ministers of Posts and Telecommunications have taken the line that there has been progressive liberalisation. This is not meaningful to the consumer, because the greater number of permitted attachments are ancillary equipment not directly used by telephone users.
  I shall depart from this aspect of my argument after making one further observation. I do not believe it is the job of nationalised industries to take risks and to develop new speculative equipment, however much it may or may not be desirable for the consumer at a later stage. The Director General and his Advisory Committee will have an important job of assessment to do. That is why I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) that it would be an excellent thing if the Minister would consider the Secretary of State or the Minister concerned having a power of veto rather than a power to give permission before a nationalised industry

  539
  could be investigated. It is highly desirable that such issues should be decided not on a political basis but as the result of a dialogue between, on the one hand, the Director General, the industry or the supplier and, on the other hand, the consumer. These matters should be decided on their merits, not as a result of party political prejudice.
  I should like to query some of the points that are not entirely clear—for example, the rôle of the Consumer Protection Advisory Committee. One wonders whether it will be able to get through the enormous body of work which will be referred to it. Therefore, I should like to know whether the members will be full time. Indeed, will they be able to be anything other than full time? If they are full time, what provision will be made for their remuneration? Will they be able to cope with the sheer volume of work which will be put to them? Will they have research facilities or will they be dependent upon the Director General and his staff? How local will be the inquiries that will be put to them, and, indeed, is the job of the Director General to be primarily that of a sort of consumer ombudsman or will he have the power to initiate without references first of all being made to him?
  May I put these three questions to my hon. Friend in the hope that he will be able to answer them in his winding-up speech? How far will the officers who are referred to in Clause 24, and who are no longer directors of a company, still be liable in the light of any judgments of the Monopolies Commission or the Restrictive Practices Court? Will the Minister also look at the product liability law? As I am sure my hon. Friend is well aware, under the Sale of Goods Act it is the seller who is liable to the buyer. Will my hon. Friend give consideration to a change which would bring us more into line with practice in the United States where the retailer is regarded as fulfilling the rôle of an agent rather than being the person directly responsible, and consequently could changes be considered to enable manufacturers to be more liable than they are at present? Certainly this would have the effect of ensuring that they would be more conscious of consumer requirements.
  540
  Finally, with regard to the restrictive labour practices clause, Clause 74, could my hon. Friend enlighten us on one point? Will it be possible for the restricted use of copyright, whether it be copyright relating to music, published works, plays and so on, to be the subject of inquiry along with other restrictive labour practices as outlined in Clause 74?
  I am delighted to welcome what I believe is an enormous advance in the protection of the consumer.
  8.2 p.m.
  Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I have found this Second Reading debate absolutely fascinating. In particular I found the views of the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir T. Brinton), who I am sorry is not here at the moment, a most interesting exercise, in that we had an example of the manufacturing industrialist, the industrial capitalist, arguing strongly against the finance capitalist—the manufacturer against the City of London. Anyone who believed that all the Tories and capitalists are totally united ought to have heard that speech. Here was an example of one section of the capitalist class—if one may use that term—being upset about the activities of another section of that class. I found this very interesting. I do not know whether it had much relevance to the Bill; nevertheless it was a fascinating speech which I shall remember for a long time.
  I do not want to make a long speech, and I do not want to go too much into the various consumer aspects of the Bill, because I am primarily concerned with another part of the Bill which has been referred to on a number of occasions. However, I believe that the hon. Lady the Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Sally Oppenheim) has a right to say to her hon. Friends on the Front Bench, "My hon. Friends and I have been urging something like this for the last 18 months." It is nice to be able to say, "I said this in my maiden speech." I must admit that some of the things that I said in my maiden speech never came to fruition, which is always a matter of great regret.
  Mr. Emery: Rejoicing!
  Mr. Heffer: Rejoicing probably on the part of hon. Members opposite. Perhaps

  541
  in the next period of Labour government some of the things I said in my maiden speech will come to fruition. However, that is another matter.
  The hon. Lady made an absolutely first-class speech, except when she began to defend the decision of her party in relation to the Consumer Council. That was a totally indefensible decision for the Government to take. When they took that decision, so far as I could see, they had absolutely no intention of introducing this type of legislation. The hon. Lady put her finger on the real cause of this legislaton. It arose from pressure from her side of the House and from the great row on this side of the House over the abolition of the Consumer Council. There was a general demand that something should be done in the interests of the consumer.
  She said that this will prevent the growth of some sort of great Nader-like campaign. I think she is kidding herself. That may be the intention of the Government, but I think the effect of the Bill will be to make the consumer much more consumer-conscious, and I am delighted. I do not deny that this is a great step forward; it would be foolish to deny it. But when people find that the Bill does not do the job as effectively as the hon. Lady and others of us would like, I believe that the situation will be very like the prices and incomes policy situation.
  I remember saying in this House, "If you put a freeze on incomes and introduce legislation to deal with collective bargaining in relation to incomes, you will make the workers far more conscious of incomes than they have ever been before." It was like taking the cork out of the champagne bottle. People said, "We want more money; we are jolly well going to get better wages." People were much more conscious of incomes. Similarly this legislation will make the people much more conscious of consumer rights. I think that is a good thing. I want people to be conscious of their consumer rights. I want them to be interested not only in the cost of a product but in its quality and in whether they are being fiddled and diddled by the manufacturer or the retailer or by somebody else. We have a long way to go in this matter of con-
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  sumer rights and providing the best product for the consumer.
  There are other factors to be considered. There is the factor of safety in the motor car industry. This is an issue which we have not even discussed today, but it is absolutely vital. When one drives a car one is driving a lethal weapon, not only in the sense that it can hit and destroy somebody else; and we are not using safe models at the moment. They can be made much safer. When I talk to motor car manufacturers they say, "We do no want anything like the Nader campaign in this country. We are doing our best." I do not think they are doing their best.
  Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is especially deplorable that manufacturers in this country can apparently produce vehicles with higher standards of safety for export to meet the regulations in other countries than they are prepared to produce for the home market?
  Mr. Heffer: I agree that it is deplorable, and I hope that out of the Bill and the interest created by it a greater realisation of that sort of problem will develop and that more positive action will be taken.
  I turn to two other small points on the consumer protection side before corning to the matter which I regard as having no place in the Bill whatever. The Director General will have an almost impossible task. He will be involved in so much, in my view, that he will not be able to do any job particularly well. In addition to having advisory committees at local level—I entirely agreed with that proposal —we should have officers of some sort attached to the local authorities who can look at questions of prices and standards, "fiddles" on the consumer, and so on. The two sides of it ought to go together, as I should like to see an extension of that sort of service in every local authority area.
  I should particularly like to see a system of price control officers at local level so that the housewife did not have to telephone to somebody in London—she does not get the cost of her phone call back, incidentally—but could contact local people and raise with them questions of price, standards and the rest.
  Mr. Dan Jones: My hon. Friend makes a very fair point, but I hope that he has given some thought to who would pay this gentleman, or, rather, this large number of gentlemen.
  Mr. Heffer: They would have to be attached to the local authorities and be paid by the local authorities. My hon. Friend will find this proposal in the Labour Party's green paper. I advanced it during the days of the Labour Government and I was told at that time that it was an impossible suggestion, but I am delighted now to see that it is at least part of the green paper and is open for discussion, even if it is not open for anything else at this stage. They would have to be local authority officers much in the same way as rent control officers and others are at present established.
  I come to Clause 74,
  "References as to restrictive labour practices."
  I cannot for the life of me understand why this has been brought into the Bill. We have two Bills here, one dealing with consumer problems and the other dealing with monopolies and restrictive practices, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) that it would have been much more sensible to have two separate Bills. But Clause 74 is another matter entitrely.
  I am told that the study could look into a number of matters—first, demarcation; secondly, the use of machinery; thirdly, the question of the correct use of manpower. A great deal of rubbish is talked about restrictive labour practices, and much of what is said arises from ignorance. People who advance arguments about restrictive labour practices do not understand what happens. When I first went into the shipyards, I saw that the boilermakers had a squad of workers and there appeared to be two chaps who did not do much for a good deal of the time but who were very active at certain times. I asked why there were 10 people or so in the squad, and I was told—this was immediately after the war —that before the war in the Merseyside district there were literally hundreds of boilermakers out of work, so they decided the size of a squad so that, when they did a job, there would be at least that number of workers. It was done to protect their
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  fellow workers so that at least some had employment.
  Lots of our demarcation problems spring from the fear of unemployment. When there is a clash in a shipyard, for example, between two groups of workers about who should do a certain job, it arises because both sections of workers fear unemployment. If there were a guarantee of continued expanding employment, there would never be any demarcation problems.
  In fact—a lot of people do not understand this—over the last 10 years in particular, most of the demarcation issues in the shipyards and the building and construction industry, the industries which were hit by demarcation problems more than any others, have been eliminated because the unions have reached agreement with one another about the future solving of demarcation issues.
  One hon. Member opposite spoke earlier about professional standards in the law and other spheres. We have professional standards, too. I served seven years as an apprentice carpenter and joiner. I have two boxes of tools—my tools, not an employer's tools—which I used to take from job to job. We have professional standards, and we have our own interests to maintain. We do not want to see our standards whittled away. Some of the so-called restrictive labour practices arise precisely from our demand to maintain professional standards. Other craftsmen have exactly the same attitude.
  It must be understood that this is a complicated matter. It ought not to be brought into the Bill, and doing so will only again complicate industrial relations. I do not say that there are no problems —of course there are—but they ought to be dealt with and settled through proper industrial relations, through collective agreements, through the operation of the TUC Bridlington agreement, through demarcation agreements between trade and trade. It is no good applying legislation such as this to those matters. It is totally unnecessary.
  The trade union movement is concerned about these matters. I see the hand of the former Solicitor-General, now the Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs, in this. I see behind Clause 74 the same sort of mentality as

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  was responsible for the Industrial Relations Act, as though the right hon. and learned Gentleman had not had enough experience of how that Act did not work and how it did not solve industrial relations problems. This will be even worse—no, not that; I must not exaggerate the case—but at least it will create problems.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman is amazing. He never listens to anyone. Just for once, will he listen to what is said in these debates? Will he understand that some of us have experience in industrial relations matters and that we are talking sense? If he had listened to us a little more on the Industrial Relations Bill the country would not be in its present difficulties with industrial relations, with the worst strike record the country has ever known.
  Sir G. Howe Sir G. Howe rose—
  Mr. Heffer: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman listen to me. He should listen to the TUC and be prepared to meet it and discuss these matters before the Bill goes further.
  Sir G. Howe: The hon. Member seeks to detect my hand in the Bill. He should acknowledge that the proposal he is now discussing was contained in the consultative document which was disclosed to the TUC and discussed with it as long ago as last December by the then Secretary of State. The hon. Member's detection is, therefore, without foundation in that respect.
  Mr. Heffer: I am glad to hear that I am wrong and that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was not responsible for this provision. Of course, he may have had a cup of tea with the Secretary of State who drafted it and he may have responsibility in that respect.
  This clause and Clause 7(2) cause concern, the latter being related to the question of central pay awards. The TUC is deeply concerned about it. Before the Government proceed any further on these two issues they should listen to what the TUC has to say about them. This time they should be prepared to take advice from the trade union movement before introducing a law that can complicate the industrial relations scene unnecessarily.
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  I do not approach the rest of the Bill in a carping manner, although it could be improved. It has a great deal to commend it. I hope that as it proceeds through Parliament improvements will be made. I have a horrible thought that, having spoken in the debate, I may well find myself serving on the Committee, and if I am I can assure the Minister that my main concern will be the elimination of those provisions which can aggravate industrial relations and create further difficulties which need not be created.
  8.25 p.m.
  Miss Janet Fookes: I warmly welcome the Bill—especially the part dealing with consumer protection. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Sally Oppenheim), I feel it is in part the result of the efforts of Tory back benchers. In the past I have put a number of consumer protection questions and have received somewhat dusty answers from the Department. I am therefore surprised at the gift that we now have in the form of the Bill. I feel like a poacher who is suddenly summoned to the manor house and presented with a ceremonial rabbit.
  I am delighted that the Government are taking this line, and I take the strictures of the Opposition somewhat amiss. They keep telling us that the Government have had a change of heart, but it would appear that they, too, have had a change of heart. Why else was it that during their six years of office they did nothing to set up the machinery that we are now proposing?
  Mr. Heffer: Let us be fair about this. We brought in the Trade Descriptions Act, and that should not be overlooked. Even the Government have admitted that it was a valuable measure.
  Miss Fookes: I was referring to the machinery which gives us a political head with responsibility for consumer protection and which establishes a Director General for Fair Trading and a consumer advisory committee. There has been criticism of the appointment of a Minister for consumer affairs who is attached to the Department of Trade and Industry. I believe that it is felt that the Department will have some kind of baneful influence on his activities, but it seems

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  only practical that he should be attached to the Department. If he had his own Department he would be out on a limb. Surely the sort of contribution that such a Minister will make will depend upon the calibre of the person who occupies that post, and in that respect I have the utmost confidence in my right hon. and learned Friend.
  I was surprised at the criticism of the composition of the consumer advisory committee by the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe). He paid no heed to the second category, whereby those who are experienced in the enforcement of weights and measures legislation are to be included. That was a very poor response to the excellent work done by a group which will be represented on this body. I am delighted that we are at last pinpointing responsibility, because in the past consumers as individuals have felt helpless when confronted by chain stores and the manufacturers. I welcome particularly the possibility that there will be of dealing with malpractices soon after they arise, without the need for ponderous separate legislation, through the machinery which was outlined by the Minister in his opening speech.
  Many subjects should be referred to the committee as a matter of urgency and my top priority would be a comprehensive review of the quantities in which goods are sold. I make no apology for flogging this issue, because it is exceptionally important—all the more so because of the changeover to metrication. I see metrication as an opportunity to rationalise. I hope that we shall seize this opportunity. I should like to see prescribed standard quantities for all packaged goods. If they are not packaged I should like to see a form of unit pricing, whether this be in price per lb., per kilo or per gramme.
  I am aware of the lengthy negotiations which may need to take place with manufacturers' organisations. I have been told only too frequently about the difficulties created by the difference in specific gravities between diabetic jams and ordinary jams and in considering whether soap powders should be sold by volume or by weight. I accept that the difficulties exist, but we now have the opportunity of going into these matters in detail and I hope that we shall take that
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  opportunity. But I see other opportunities for this committee, particularly over date stamping, with which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester is concerned. I am sorry to say that I did not hear her speech. She may well have mentioned that subject.
  I should also like to see some research done into packaging, both in respect of deceptive packaging, which is mostly in connection with cosmetics—some jars appear to be larger than they are—and also in respect of what I regard as excessive packaging. A report by the Prices and Incomes Board in 1969 showed that anything up to two-thirds of the value of toiletries could be in packaging, and that for cosmetics the proportion could be three-quarters. Clearly, there is a case for some research.
  I should also like to see research done by the committee on the labelling of products, particularly as regards their contents. Consumers have the right to know what they are buying. This is particularly important in what I would describe as "semi-medical" products—beauty preparations, and the like, which have a medical basis. For example, during the recent scare about hexachlorophane, it would have been helpful if one could have been sure that any product containing that substance could be readily identified by its label. I know that I shall be told that it is impractical, that there are too many ingredients, and so on, but I am sure that it is not beyond the bounds of possibility, providing that the will is there.
  Then there is the vexed question of the recommended price, which seems to have sprung into prominence only since the passing of the Trade Descriptions Act. I should like to see the recommended price, which is prominently displayed now, abolished altogether, because it relates to nothing. Often a notice is simply displayed saying that there is so much off the recommended price, and no one knows what the real recommended price is. I know that some colleagues of mine do not agree with this, but again it could be a job for the committee.
  Although I welcome the Bill warmly, there are a few imperfections in it—and I am not referring to those dwelt upon by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer). It is unfortunate

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  that the committee appears to have no power to initiate inquiries itself. It has to be done always, I believe, through the director general. Perhaps there is a good reason for this, and if so we should hear it. At the very least, one would like to feel that the committee could make recommendations to the director general. I should be interested to know what kind of relationship is envisaged between the director general and the committee.
  I am also concerned—although not perhaps for the same reasons as some other hon. Members—about the exclusion from the Bill of professional practices. I am concerned with the quality of the services offered, and whether they are always of the highest quality. I suppose that it will be argued that there is no need for such a provision because each of the professional bodies has its own arrangements for dealing with complaints. But the weakness of that argument is that they are apparently their own judge and jury. I should like to feel that the committee could at least ask a professional body to examine some practice which was causing public disquiet and ask for a report to be made by that body.
  I have been much concerned lately by bogus educational institutions offering splendid degrees, complete with Latin inscriptions and ornate decorations. I should have liked to see that kind of institution made the subject of scrutiny. But higher education and the universities are specifically excluded—under Schedule 4, I think—from investigation.
  Lawyers are sometimes criticised by their clients not so much for malpractice as for extreme delay. This is something on which the committee could do some useful work. I accept that one wants to avoid litigation as far as possible, but I am deeply disappointed that there is no provision for a small claims court or some organisation like it, in which people with a grievance could obtain redress cheaply and on an informal basis.
  I am thinking, for example, of a case with which I am still dealing in my constituency—that of a family who went to a holiday home on the coast only to find that the water supply was totally inadequate to their needs. I have been pursuing this matter for months with the weights and measures inspectorate in
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  the place they went to, but it is extraordinarily difficult to obtain any redress. The family were advised by their solicitors that to pursue a claim would be out of all proportion to any compensation that they might receive.
  I can also recall some people who had a great deal of difficulty with a fitted carpet. The whole thing was completely botched, and they were put to endless expense and trouble. Again, it was not worth while pursuing the matter in the law courts, but a small claims court would have dealt effectively with their grievance.
  I noted that at the end of his speech my right hon. and learned Friend hinted that he might be willing to consider other methods. I press upon him the urgent need for such consideration, because at the moment there is a glaring gap which I should like to see plugged. I believe that I am mixing my metaphors, for which I apologise, but I have made the point. All in all, I am delighted with the Bill. I hope that it will speedily become law, because it is very much needed.
  8.36 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Meacher: I support a great deal of what the hon. Member for Merton and Morden (Miss Fookes) said, particularly her reference to a small claims court, which I should like to pursue at greater length. However, as did the hon. Lady, I will concentrate on the consumer protection aspects of the Bill and on the enforcement of consumer rights.
  The Bill, while it has many good elements, have some weak points. I select, not in order to carp, the matter of small claims courts, because I introduced a small claims court Bill earlier last year. I am disappointed that the arguments adduced in favour of the Bill did not sufficiently weigh with the Government for them to incorporate provisions along these lines within the network of the Bill.
  The Director General will be empowered to take action against a trader who persistently does business in an unfair, unsafe or unhealthy way. Indeed, the Minister has made it clear that if a trader is convicted of a series of criminal offences under, for example, the Trade Descriptions Act, or if he commits a series of breaches of contract, he will have to give an undertaking to cease such

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  practice, which may be the courts.
  However, action to stop malpractice after a series of complaints, which is all that the Director General is empowered to offer, is cold comfort to a couple who have bought a settee and found as soon as they sat on it that it collapsed. There is no provision for automatic redress for the victims of unfair trading, even when the trader is convicted. Such consumers will still have to pursue their claims by some form of civil redress. Although I have no doubt, as the Minister said, that it might be possible under the Criminal Justice Act to pursue such claims, that, as I indicated to him, is highly unlikely to happen to the degree that is required to satisfy consumers. I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Merton and Morden that this is one of the glaring gaps and omissions in the Bill.
  The Minister made reference to the matter when he made a pronouncement on 7th December, 1972. He repeated some of that statement today. He said:
  "I understand only too well the ordinary citizen's reluctance to go to law. This is why we have recently made major changes in the procedure in the county courts, so as to make them simpler, cheaper, swifter and more approachable. But I am more than willing, as soon as I am able to do so, to resond to the pleas of those who would like us to discover cheaper and still simpler, as well as more expeditious, ways of disposing of consumer complaints."
  But modification of the county court rules is patently not enough. It is not enough for a simple form to be completed by the claimant beforehand about the nature of his complaints so that he can be advised about the presentation of his case. Similar marginal improvements in the procedure may well help in guiding claimants through the initial stages, but they will not protect them for long against an experienced solicitor who begins to pepper them for the discovery of documents, further and better particulars and so on.
  County court judges and registrars using the new rules of procedure try to assist individual litigants as far as they can. But a judge cannot produce evidence which a claimant has not brought along which might be relevant. Nor can he, against the rule of evidence, permit an unskilled litigant to tell his own story of hearsay evidence because
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  he neglected to bring along a key enforceable in witness.
  But any possible procedural changes, whether major or minor, are overridden by the fact that the formal, expensive and cumbersome image of the county courts means that consumers just do not use them. A Consumer Council survey of a 2 per cent. sample of all summonses before six courts in 1967 found that only 9 per cent. of the cases were brought by individuals whereas 89 per cent. were brought by business. This makes it crystal clear that the real function of the county court today is debt collection on behalf of mail order houses, hire-purchase companies and the other firms which sell consumer goods or services on credit. Out of 1,238 cases in the survey, there was not a single one by an individual because of faulty goods. The Minister is being absurdly optimistic if he believes that, even after these procedural changes, the county courts are likely to be used to a large degree by consumers.
  There is another strong reason why consumers do not use them. It is that solicitors will advise a potential litigant that a consumer claim, however sound, is not worth pursuing. The costs of skilled legal assistance today are so high that it just is not worth risking bringing an action that one might lose.
  It is worth giving some indication of the extent of those costs in order to drive the point home. For a day's hearing, counsel's fee may be as much as £35 and the solicitor's bill might be up to £50. That is up to £85 all round before one begins to take account of court fees witnesses' expenses and so on. If the claimant loses, he may have to stand the same degree of costs for the other side. It means that one could have to pay up to £200 or £300 in order to win £100. It is not surprising that only well-off persons are prepared to take that kind of risk.
  I believe that only a small claims court can seriously be expected to break the log jam of consumer dissatisfaction and frustration, and we can all from our constituencies quote the kind of case mentioned by the hon. Lady. Under this system, as I envisage it, the registrar of each county court would be responsible for running a small claims court, as a part of the county court system, which

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  would enable individuals to have their claims adjudicated without legal representation. The court would have jurisdiction for claims up to, say, £100 or perhaps rather more in contract and tort, and they would include not only straightforward consumer cases but also personal injury, negligence and damage to property cases.
  There can be no doubt about the practicability of these proposals because they are already in operation in the Manchester arbitration scheme. But certain qualifications would be necessary in order to ensure that the proposed court was effective. The first is the need to ensure that it functions truly as a people's court. It would mean that companies or partnerships or associations or assignees of debt would not be permitted to sue. This is designed to prevent the court from being appropriated like the county court merely in order to enable firms to collect debts.
  Mr. Proudfoot: The hon. Gentleman is quoting statistics and a lot of book-learning about causes of complaints. But how many thousands of millions of transactions go on which are totally satisfactory, and how many hundreds of millions of complaints to retailers are put right without the complainants having to seek redress in the courts? If he knew such figures, the statistics he has quoted would come unstuck.
  Mr. Meacher: The hon. Gentleman fails to realise that he is not referring to consumers. Where a consumer has a case, he is not able to pursue it legally, and there is known to be a very large pool of cases where no satisfaction is provided. Of course there may be settlements out of court in a large majority of cases, but that leaves entirely out of account the fact that 10 times more cases are brought before the county court by business than by individuals, whereas if it were working properly one would assume that the ratio would be about half and half.
  Second, to ensure that the system works properly and to preserve for the court the Franks Committee virtues of cheapness, accessibility, freedom from technicality, expedition and expert knowledge, it should be laid down that the scope for appeals from the court should be deliberately restricted to cases where the
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  judge certifies that an important point of law is involved.
  Thirdly and most importantly, practising lawyers should be excluded. This breaks with the hallowed practices of English law, but it is necessary because most claimants would not have lawyers even if they were permitted to do so, because of the expense. If lawyers were admitted, potential claimants would soon feel that they could not proceed properly without a lawyer. This is precisely what happened in the county courts. I suspect that in that situation people would be deterred from using the courts and then once again small claims would have to be sacrificed.
  Fourthly, as the parties would still be unequal, though I submit that they would not be as unequal as if lawyers were introduced, the courts should be allotted a certain investigatory function so that enough facts are known on which to base a proper and fair decision. In the tribunal system the chairman has the right to question the parties to elicit their cases so that the essential evidence can be uncovered irrespective of the capabilities of the parties concerned to present their own cases. The affairs of the court should therefore be conducted in the manner in which a reasonable man with a good understanding of the law, if asked to decide a case, would proceed. This means that the registrar would let the parties tell their stories, asking questions to elicit further information and searching out other evidence in a manner entirely at his discretion until he felt able to use his judgment reliably to assess the stories of the two parties.
  I believe that the establishment of a small claims court with procedures roughly as outlined is absolutely necessary if consumer rights are to be enforced. I am not convinced, for the reasons I have given, of the Minister's arguments about the adequacy of the changes in the county court rules. I suspect, from the way in which he presented his arguments, that the Minister is not satisfied with them either.
  The Minister said that he is willing to respond to simpler and more expeditious ways of disposing of customer complaints. This is precisely what small claims courts offer. We are waiting for that response. Until that response is

  555
  received, at least as regards consumer protection the Bill will have far too much bark and far too little bite.
  8.48 p.m.
  Mr. Philip Goodhart: I do not always agree with the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), but I am in broad agreement with his argument this evening about the small claims court, though I doubt whether the Manchester experiment has yet been in operation sufficiently long to draw any major lessons from it. The small claims court in the State of New York, which has been in operation for a considerable time and which deals with 60,000 cases a year, has well established its efficiency.
  I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on introducing an ingenious and sensible Bill. I was never in favour of the destruction of the Consumer Council; indeed, I voted against the Government on the point. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend not only on resurrecting the council but on finding an eminently sensible task for it to perform, which was not always the case when it was in its previous incarnation.
  The job of vetting consumer legislation is extremely important, because Parliament cannot simply give a blank cheque to the Executive to combat misleading and harmful trading practices. It is equally impracticable to try to combat every malpractice or deception which arises with a fresh Bill. By themselves such malpractices are not worth separate Bills, and certainly they would not be of sufficient importance to find their way into a crowded Government legislative programme.
  My Unsolicited Goods and Services Act, in which I was associated with the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson), proved to be fairly effective, but it has not been wholly effective. It needs modification and changes, but it would clearly be absurd to have fresh unsolicited goods legislation every two years or so to try to keep pace with some fresh wheeze thought up by sharp practitioners. Therefore, the Bill gives a certain degree of flexibility in stamping out undesirable trade practices, but it pro-
  556
  vides only the machinery. The question is how well it will be used.
  I do not quarrel with the argument deployed by the representative of the Liberal Party, the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe), who announced his party's intention to divide the House against the Bill and then fled from the scene. He has not been seen since.
  However, I do not think that the hon. Member was right when he launched his bitter attack, saying that it was wrong that representatives of trade interests should serve on the Consumer Protection Advisory Committee as of right. The person who suffers most from bad trading practices is the good trader. It is not surprising to find that one of the most effective bodies in consumer protection has been the Retail Trading Standards Association, which is composed entirely of people in the retail trade who know perfectly well that their businesses suffer from the bad practices of a few sharp operators. Therefore, there is room on the proposed body for traders as well as for weights and measures inspectors and people representing consumer organisations.
  What will matter will be the knowledge, personality and drive of the director-general. This should be a key post in our public life, equivalent in status to that of the Chairman of the National Coal Board, the Editor of The Times, or the Director-General of the BBC. This should be a major appointment in our public life, and a major public figure should be appointed. Having appointed a major public figure—
  Mr. Heffer: A senior shop steward from Longbridge would be a very good chap.
  Mr. Goodhart: In a few years' time the hon. Member might fill this post—when he has attended more of these debates. Having picked the right man—and I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is the right man at the moment—it is important that we give him sufficient powers to carry out his job. I am not sure that the £600,000 which seems to be envisaged for the budget is sufficient. The old Consumer Council had a budget of £240,000 and it was not able to do much with that.

  557
  The Consumers Association, with which I have some links, now spends £2 million. The Consumer Protection Advisory Committee could spend considerably more than £600,000 with advantage. One of the ways in which it could spend money would be to look at our relationship with the European Commission in Brussels. A great deal of material will be passing through that commission, much much of it of importance to consumers in this country. At the moment the Consumers Association, with, I hope, a certain amount of Government money, is holding a watching brief on the consumers' interests in Brussels. This is one job which could readily be taken over by the Consumer Protection Advisory Committee.
  I come to the question of enforcement. I am glad that my right hon. and learned Friend has paid tribute to the role of the Weights and Measures Inspectorate. Its job will certainly become even more important, and if we are to have a lasting review of any prices and incomes policy the inspectorate should clearly be the body to keep an eye on prices. The inspectorate will clearly be under substantial pressure even if recruitment increases, as I hope it will. Some of the pressure over enforcement could be removed if we had a proper small claims procedure.
  I share the misgivings of the hon. Member for Oldham, West about the effectiveness of the changes in procedure in the county courts. As he rightly pointed out, these courts are mostly used for debt collection in the consumer sphere. The changes in procedure will merely make it easier to collect debts. I doubt whether the aggrieved housewife will be tempted to take action under those procedures. Something entirely new is needed. I recognise the struggle that my right hon. and learned Friend will have to get at least some of his colleagues to agree to a worth while step forward in this direction. I am sure that till we can get some procedure whereby a housewife who feels aggrieved can obtain redress in a court without bankrupting herself or her husband there will be a major gap in our procedures.
  This Bill is not the final step along the road, but it is a most important step forward, and I warmly welcome it.
  9.0 p.m.
  Mr. John Golding: Under the twinkle of the Christmas lights I warn the Government that we shall still be talking on this subject at midsummer's day.
  The great omission from this Bill is provision to deal with credit. I was interested to receive recently from BBC Radio Stoke-on-Trent and the Consumers Association a report of a local shopping survey which showed that in 29 shops visited in the Stoke-on-Trent area interest rates varied from 14½ per cent. to 71 per cent. for people looking for the same model of washing machine. They made a difference of over £30 on the price. At one shop inquiries were made five times and in each case the total price was different. This is an instance of how the consumer is in need of protection. When we examine the Bill in detail in Committee we shall certainly want to probe the Government's intentions in the matter of credit.
  The hon. Member for Hendon, North (Mr. Gorst) raised the question of the telecommunications monopoly. He and other Members on the Government side have been pursuing this question for a long time. In the two or three minutes available to me tonight, suffice it to say that the Americans tried to break down the monopoly of installation of subscribers' apparatus, and that the experiment has been disastrous to many of the consumers because the quality of the service has suffered considerably. What is, perhaps, more important is that at the present this experiment is having grave repercussions on American industry because the result of the liberalisation has been growing infiltration by the Japanese into the American market. If it is my fortune to serve on the Committee on the Bill I am sure I shall be developing this in detail.
  Briefly I refer to Clause 74 because I find it the most obnoxious clause in the Bill. It refers to restrictive labour practices. Trade unions call them protective practices. There will be a great deal of ill feeling caused by this provocative clause because from the trade unions' point of view the worst possible time at which to raise the question of protective or restrictive practices is a time of high Unemployment, because the protective

  559
  practices are designed specifically to defend employment and, in conditions of insecurity, to defend status in employment. It is provocative, in a Bill which excludes the practices of solicitors, barristers, general practitioners and consultants, which excludes every restrictive practice on the part of the professions, and which does not consider the relationship between Members of Parliament and the ombudsman, to attack restrictive practices which are not there to maintain earnings, as the professions' restrictive practices are, but to protect either employment or status.
  I promised to finish my speech by five minutes past nine and so I resume my seat.
  9.5 p.m.
  Mr. Bruce Millan: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) for discharging his promise so faithfully. I shall divide my comments on the Bill into two parts—first, the consumer aspect and, secondly, monopolies and mergers.
  The consumer protection part of the Bill represents a considerable change of heart by the Government since the days when they abolished the Consumer Council and gave the assurance that all that was required to protect the interests of consumers was full and unfettered competition, perhaps supplemented by the work of the voluntary organisations concerned with consumer protection. As we said vehemently at the time, this was a dereliction of duty by the Government towards consumers, and we are glad that they now accept that view.
  The Bill is only a framework. I am not complaining about that, because that is the way in which the Government have chosen to tackle the problem. Since it is only a framework, it is a great pity that the Minister in introducing the Bill did not explain how the Government intended to implement its provisions. That is all the more deplorable because there has been no White Paper on the Bill, although I understand it has been under consideration within the Government for a considerable time. We are still in the dark about how the Government intend to operate the new powers they are taking for themselves in the Bill. That means that we shall expect the
  560
  Under-Secretary of State in winding up to provide some of the details. It also means that in Committee a good deal of probing will have to be done into how the Government will use the powers.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) that the success of this way of tackling the problem will depend greatly on the stature and personality of the Director General of Fair Trading. We want someone who will be actively interested in every aspect of consumer protection, an active personality, a man of standing who will see that the job that requires to be done is done in the most effective way. We shall, therefore, have to probe in Committee the Government's intention about the salary and status of the Director General and we shall need much more information about the staff which will be available to him and how it will be divided between his various functions.
  We shall want to consider carefully the composition of the Consumer Protection Advisory Committee. We shall want to consider full-time and part-time membership. One obvious deficiency is that the Committee will have no independent staff and no independent power. It simply waits on the initiative of the Director General.
  I welcome the more flexible approach which the Bill allows the Minister in introducing orders to deal with particular aspects of consumer protection which arise sometimes unexpectedly and sometimes out of deficiencies in legislation. It is not just a question of having powers, it is a question of willingness to use the powers. On matters such as date stamping, for example, there are already powers in existing legislation.
  What has been deficient is the Government's willingness to use the powers they already have. We are entitled at this stage of the Bill, and certainly in the Committee stage, to have a clearer idea of the Government's priorities in consumer protection matters provided for in Clause 13. The Government are to give general directions to the Director on aspects of consumer protection to which he should give early attention. We are entitled to know what the Government have in mind for the Director's early attention.

  561
  We have today heard mention of unit pricing, date stamping, and the unsolicited dispatch of bank credit cards, which is a matter of current controversy. There are other doubtful advertising practices which need attention, and also problems relating to travel agencies and the rest. There is a whole list of matters of consumer practice which needs urgent attention, and we are entitled to have some idea of which of these matters are to have the immediate attention of the director once he has been appointed.
  There are considerable omissions from the Bill. There is the obvious need for a very much better local structure. This is not a matter of consumer protection which can be dealt with centrally in an effective way. There is a requirement for a network of consumer bureaux spread throughout the country, much more accessible to individual consumers and effectively concerned with local interests. We have had only the vaguest indications about what the Government intend to do about these matters, and how they intend to use the powers which are already available to stimulate local authorities into taking action.
  The other matter of controversy relates to compensation and the absence of any small claims procedure. The Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs, in introducing the Bill, mentioned the limited procedure available under the Criminal Justice Act, but the vast majority of cases where the consumer might have a legitimate case for compensation do not involve a criminal prosecution. Therefore, anything that comes through the criminal procedure can be of only limited value to consumers and in the civil context we need some kind of small claims procedure to provide for compensation to be given to the consumer.
  We have had no indication so far—perhaps we shall hear something about this aspect in the Government's winding-up speech—of the Government's attitude to consumer credit. We have had the Crowther Committee's Report on this subject and it is a complicated matter which will require legislation, but we do not know in what respects the Government intend to legislate and how quickly they will do so. This is another area of activity which requires considerable attention.
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  We also wish to draw attention to the exclusion of professional services from the part of the Bill which deals with restrictive practices. Nothing we heard from the Minister today sounded at all plausible or convincing in explaining why professional services should be excluded from the earlier provisions of the Bill and included in Schedule 4. This is a matter to which we shall return with some diligence in Committee.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams), in opening the debate for the Opposition, dealt largely with consumer matters, and in winding up for the Opposition I shall deal with monopolies and mergers.
  There is nothing very much here in the way of radical legislation. What we have for monopolies and mergers is largely a restatement of the present law. There are deficiencies in the Bill—and I shall come to them—but what is missing more than anything else is a statement of policy from the Government. There was no policy statement by the Minister when he introduced the Bill. For example, the House is entitled to know the effect of Community legislation on the whole monopolies and merger position in this country. How will it affect the provisions which the Government are asking us to accept in the Bill? This legislation has had a fairly lengthy gestation and the Government are treating the House in a rather shabby way in not making a policy statement on this and consumer protection matters.
  Before turning to some of the matters relating particularly to monopolies and mergers I want to deal with two points by way of introduction, namely, central pay agreements and restrictive labour practices—matters mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) and a number of others.
  Section 3 of the 1948 Monopolies Act specifically excluded arrangements between employers which had to do with pay arrangements. That exclusion has been omitted from the Bill. A study of Clause 7 and other clauses which basically repeat the provisions of the 1948 Act shows that the exclusion of central pay agreements has been omitted. There has been no explanation from the Government whether that is deliberate. Nor have they told us how they intend to

  563
  use the monopoly legislation to deal with central pay agreements.
  Clause 74 lays down that restrictive labour practices may be referred as study references to the Monopolies Commission, but again the Government have given us no justification for this. On this issue and that of pay agreements we are opposed to what the Government have laid down in the Bill, and in Committee we shall move the necessary amendments to alter these provisions.
  It is true that the 1970 Commission for Industry and Manpower Bill provided for references, and so on, but that Bill was replacing, among other things, the Prices and Incomes Board and was importing into one piece of legislation the existing monopolies and prices and income legislation. The Government have virtually abandoned a prices and incomes policy in legislative terms, apart from the recent emergency legislation, and they seem to be importing into this Bill matters which refer to labour practices and pay agreements. We see no justification for this, and we shall oppose these provisions when the Bill is in Committee. We hope that the Government will have second thoughts about this, because if these provisions remain in the Bill they will be another element of provocation in an industrial relations situation which, because of other Government policies and legislation, is already delicate and tense.
  I propose first to say something about the restrictive trade practices part of the Bill and then to move on to monopolies and mergers. In my view the judicial approach of the 1956 Act to restrictive trade practices has worked remarkably well. It has not worked perfectly, and there are many matters which still require attention, but it has worked a good deal better than many of us thought it would when the legislation was introduced. Therefore, we welcome the expansion of the restrictive trade practices legislation to services, and look forward to hearing from the Government exactly how they intend services to be brought within this aspect of monopolies and restrictive trade practices legislation.
  We do not support, and shall attempt to remove, the exclusion of professional services. The Minister was at great pains to point out in interventions in the speech by the hon. Member for Corn-
  564
  wall, North (Mr. Pardoe) that the monopolies legislation provides for reference of professional services, but we also know that the Report on Professional Services was published in October 1970 and that the net result in practical terms so far has been nil. We do not, therefore, accept that the monopolies side of the legislation is the only or satisfactory way of dealing with professional services. We believe that they ought to come within the restrictive trade practices aspect of the legislation.
  Moving on to monopolies and mergers, I think that the background against which we must judge such legislation is the increasing concentration of power in British industry among a comparative handful of British manufacturing companies.
  In 1960 the top 100 companies in British manufacturing represented about 20 per cent. of manufacturing output; in 1970 the top 100 companies represented 50 per cent. of manufacturing output; and by 1980, on present trends, they are likely to represent about 70 per cent. of manufacturing output in this country.
  I find these figures quite frightening. They represent a tremendous growth of economic power in a comparative handful of manufacturing companies, and they have the profoundest implications in our internal domestic economic policies, in the general management of the economy, in regional policy, and so on.
  Mr. Skeet: Has the hon. Gentleman considered in his list of 100 companies the nationalised industries, which I suggest must also be incorporated?
  Mr. Millan: I am talking about manufacturing at the moment. However, there is a considerable degree of concentration in the nationalised industries.
  Another aspect of this concentration which is particularly worrying and has considerable implications for the management of the economy is that many of these companies are increasingly becoming multinational in operation. Therefore, the powers of the Government, given the present structure, to deal effectively with these companies are very much reduced. Many lessons need to be learned, not all of them strictly relevant to the particular aspects of economic policy with which we are dealing this evening. It is against that background more than anything else

  565
  that we must consider the proposals in the Bill.
  I want to make only two points concerning monopolies, because I want to relate the main burden of my remarks specifically to mergers and takeovers. First, it is an improvement that one of the criteria for referral to the Monopolies Commission is now a quarter of net output or of capacity rather than a third. However, I think that we need some assets figure as well as a proportionate figure in the Bill. In the Commission for Industry and Manpower Bill in 1970 we had a figure of £10 million. I think that something like that is vital in order to deal with the kind of situation mentioned, for example, by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir T. Brinton) in an extremely interesting and attractively presented speech. Some of the conglomerates about which he was worried are not caught by the third or the quarter, but they would be caught by an assets figure. Some of the practices in which they indulge should be referred to the Monopolies Commission. Therefore, we shall want to look at that aspect.
  Secondly, we must do something about the time taken by the Monopolies Commission to produce reports. We also need to do more to see that effective action is taken once a report has been received.
  Passing from monopolies as such to mergers and takeovers—and the two matters are very intimately related—we are at present again in one of these periods of merger mania. It seems likely that the total amount of assets involved in acquisitions and mergers in the current year will be a record figure, even exceeding the very large figure that we had in 1968. There is an accelerating trend towards mergers in this country in terms of the amount of assets involved, and the figures demonstrate that fact perfectly well. In considering this Bill, we have to take a general attitude towards this: are we in favour of it, are we against it or are we neutral? Do we think it is likely to happen in any case and that we need not have a policy?
  There are certain arguments of bigness. There are areas where, for technological or other reasons, a certain scale of resources available to an individual company is essential if it is to compete par-
  566
  ticularly on an international scale. However, bigness by itself is not a virtue. Certainly bigness by itself does not always mean efficiency.
  One of the worrying features of the present industrial scene is that there are many mergers taking place which, so far as one can see, have absolutely no industrial sense at all but seem to be very much more concerned with financial manipulation and manoeuvering, asset-stripping and the rest, than anything to do with the general economic good of the country. We have a most unhappy situation in Britain. We are probably the most experienced and expert nation in the world at financial manipulation, and we have one of the least successful economic growth records of any industrial nation at the present time. I am not sure that these two factors are separate. I think there is a very close connection between them, and many of our most able people are engaged in financial manipulation when they would be much better engaged in economic regeneration and expansion.
  There is also the human factor to be taken into account. The fact is that the present atmosphere of merger mania is extremely disturbing to many people —to workers at the work bench and also to management in small companies. It is an unfortunate atmosphere in which to appeal to work people and to management for economic expansion, co-operation and the rest.
  Therefore, we are entitled to have from the Government a firm statement whether they intend, when they have the powers of the Bill, to operate a more active merger policy. I drew the Minister's attention to the fact that in 1971, 110 mergers prospectively fell for reference to the Monopolies Commission only one of which, in fact, was referred. That merger was subsequently withdrawn and, therefore, there were really no merger references to the Monopolies Commission in 1971. We certainly have in the Bill in Clause 79, rather better public interest criteria than in existing legislation. I welcome the changes which are made there, but there is a glaring omission there. There is no reference at all to the people actually involved in the companies which are the subject of takeover bids. That again, the omission of the human factor

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  and the people involved, is a major defiency in what the Government are proposing.
  What do we need in the way of policy? I want to make six points, briefly because I know the Minister wants to wind up the debate soon. First of all, in certain cases there should be a presumption against a merger. In other words, a positive benefit from the merger should have to be proved. I think that is true in conglomerate mergers. In cases, above a certain figure of assets—which we shall have to work out carefully in Committee—involved in the takeover, there ought to be a presumption that the merger is against the public interest, and the onus of proof should be on the parties involved in the merger.
  Second, again above a certain figure, for the larger mergers there ought to be automatic referral to the Monopolies Commission. Third, when there are referrals, all the bids in a particular operation should be referred. In the present instance, mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke), the Timpson case involving Sears and UDS, one bid has been referred and one has not. That is grossly unfair to all the parties concerned, and it ought to be altered.
  Fourth, we need a reform of company law, particularly to deal with what is now becoming the scandal of insider dealings. I hope that we shall have that in the reform of company law which we have been promised for later in the Session.
  Fifth, we need far more stringent and effective follow-up provisions. What is in the Bill at present relates only to follow-up by the Director General of undertakings given by a company after a reference to the Monopolies Commission. What I am talking about is a genuine follow-up of the merger operation after the event to see that the claims made for it at the time have been substantiated in practice.
  Sixth, with a more active merger policy and with more mergers going to the commission, when adverse reports come from the Monopolies Commission we should have a far tougher policy regarding divestment of assets and the splitting up of conglomerates and large mergers than we have had up to the present.
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  Those points outline the policy basis on which the Opposition approach the Bill now and on which we shall approach it in Committee.
  To sum up, on the consumer protection side, we welcome many of the changes proposed, but the Bill needs fleshing out, and it calls for a considerably more coherent explanation of Government policy than we have had so far. On the mergers and monopolies side, it is largely a restatement of the law. It needs considerable improvement, and that will be one of the Opposition's tasks in Committee.
  9.32 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Peter Emery): This has been an interesting, instructive and well informed debate, covering a wide variety of matters. Indeed, it would have been surprising had it been otherwise, in view of the broad range of subjects covered by the Bill and the concern which all of us, without distinction of party, I think, feel about the need to ensure proper protection for the consumer within a vigorous and competitive economy.
  I wish, first, to take up the matter raised by the hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams)—it was almost a matter of traditional behaviour, an accusation—when he said that a request had been made to my right hon. and learned Friend's office for a Press release. I give him the assurance—I think it only right to put it on record—that it was forwarded to the House of Commons and was put on the board addressed to him, with the instruction upon it, "Leave on the board". I know from something that the hon. Gentleman has written to me that he says that lie did not receive it and that he collected his mail personally. I accept what he says, of course, but I hope that he, for his part, will accept that that is what my right hon. and learned Friend did.
  There is room for legitimate argument on whether the Bill goes far enough to secure all the objectives we want or, as certain people have suggested, it goes too far. Some hon. Members, and some commentators in the Press, have suggested that we have not been sufficiently radical in our approach to consumer protection, that the Consumer Protection Advisory Committee should have been given much

  569
  wider powers and the right to initiate its own inquiries and to engage in consumer education and research. Some want us to take a tougher line still in regard to monopolies and mergers and to lay down stricter tests of acceptability, although this is often not actually spelled out.
  On the other hand, there are those who argue that we have been, and still are, in danger of mollycoddling and of stifling a desirable degree of flexibility and freedom in the working of a market economy by surrounding traders with a maze of petty rules and restrictions through which they must find their tortuous way.
  A distinguished industrialist and a former President of the CBI, for example, when speaking about the market economy last evening said, according to a newspaper report, that the Government had enthroned the consumer before she was ready to wear the crown. I do not share that view. With respect to what Sir John Partridge said, and making all allowances for the high standards of integrity and discipline which most reputable firms set themselves, any businessman who neglects to recognise the supremacy of the consumer in the market place does so at his peril. Fair trading is good business. It is in everyone's interests that the small minority of traders who cause trouble should be subject to the most effective checks we can devise. The great majority of traders will benefit from the legislation and I hope will be put in a position to provide a still better and more efficient service than now.
  It must be understood that there has to be reason on both sides, for there are unreasonable and overbearing customers just as there are traders who do not honour their obligations. Both are equally unacceptable. In the position I occupied before I became a Minister I learned that the best bargain is that which is equally acceptable to both buyer and seller.
  A number of hon. Members opposite raised the point which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Swansea, West who suggested that we could have turned the Consumer Council into the sort of structure that we are proposing in the Bill. The Consumer Council was established on a non-statutory basis in 1963 in accordance with the Molony Committee. The council's terms of reference were to
  570
  inform itself about consumer problems, consider the best action to deal with them, promote that action and provide advice and guidance for consumers, in particular through the citizens advice bureaux and other appropriate organisations. It was not permitted to take up individual consumer's complaints or to take law enforcement action and the idea that the Director General, and the apparatus in the Bill, together with the CPAC could be grafted on to a resuscitated or retained Consumer Council is not to understand either the real working or the benefits of the Bill —[Interruption.]—or to understand the work of the Consumer Council.
  Mr. Alan Williams: Even if we were to accept the points that the Minister has put forward, why did the Government need to kill the Consumer Council two years before the new body is brought into being?
  Mr. Emery: As the hon. Member knows from what I have said and what has been said earlier, the council was not, in the Government's view, doing the task which was required of a proper consumer organisation—
  Mr. Pardoe Mr. Pardoe rose—
  Mr. Emery: I have been asked where the staff for the new structure will come from. They will come from the civil service and will be nominated by the DTI. Perhaps it would be interesting to note that no criticism was made of the fact that the Consumer Council was appointed by the President of the Board of Trade; it was never thought then that that affected its independence.
  I have been asked about the circular by the National Farmers' Union. The Minister of Agriculture is considering a comprehensive memorandum, in addition to that which had been sent to the Secretary of State, on behalf of the three National Farmers' Unions, seeking further relief for agriculture from the provisions of the previous trade practices legislation. The matters raised in that memorandum are complex and should not be considered in isolation from the review of agricultural and horticultural marketing policy, both for the United Kingdom and in relation to the EEC, which is being conducted at the moment by the Minister of Agriculture.

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  Although there are many small farms, we regard the problems of farmers as fundamentally different from those facing small firms in industry and commerce. This has been shown in other legislation on the same problems.
  My earlier reference to small farms does not imply that we have decided not to give relief in the agricultural and horticultural sectors. There is already a measure of relief for some types of agricultural organisation, and the Ministry is considering whether this is adequate.
  The Government are therefore fully aware of the points raised by the different National Farmers' Unions, and my right hon. Friend is taking them into account in his review. If further relief is required for agriculture the necessary measures will be introduced in agricultural legislation.
  Mr. Dan Jones: It strikes me that, whatever the National Farmers' Unions might decide to recommend, after 1st January the Minister knows that any of their recommendations will be of very little value.
  Mr. Skeet: Rubbish.
  Mr. Jones: Of course they will.
  Mr. Emery: That comment of the hon. Member is not worthy of an answer.
  The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) reinforced the request made by the hon. Member for Swansea, West about the position of the TUC over those provisions affecting labour and labour legislation. He asked whether we would be willing to meet the TUC to discuss, before the Committee stage or at any time, all these matters. The doors to my right hon. and learned Friend's office and that to mine are open. If the TUC wants to come to discuss this matter, of course it will be welcome, and of course we will discuss it.
  On the Crowther report on Consumer Credit, I announced in the House in our debate on credit cards two or three weeks ago that the Government intend to legislate on consumer credit, but I believe that the House will think it reasonable that these matters should not have been brought into what is already a pretty long and detailed Bill. But nothing has
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  altered our desire to introduce legislation on consumer credit—
  Mr. Goodhart Mr. Goodhart rose—
  Mr. Emery: My hon. Friend is too old a parliamentarian to expect to catch me on whether I can give a commitment about when legislation will come forward.
  There is a great deal of public concern about pyramid selling. The Government are concerned about these practices which cause particular hardship to many franchisees. I have in mind the kind of operation which prompted Mr. Justice Megarry to say, in his judgement on the Koscot case:
  "The scheme reeks of cunning and dishonesty, a swindle of a grave and far-reaching nature."
  Mr. Justice Megarry said that the mischief of the system was that it was like a general letter using glittering and deceptive means to recruit franchisees by fair means or foul. He thought that to describe misrepresentation by Koscot's as reckless may in some instances have been too mild a description.
  It is clearly not in the public interest to allow schemes which attract this kind of stricture to continue to operate. I am glad to say that it was the action of my Department that ended Koscot's life. We intend to take further action to ensure that similar companies cannot continue to operate. However, pyramid selling is not a practice which directly affects the consumer as defined in the Bill. It is the franchisees who suffer. We are considering whether the practice could reasonably be made to fall within the definition of consumer trade practice. If, as seems likely, that would mean widening the definition unacceptably, we shall take other steps to deal with it. We hope to be able to announce a decision shortly.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) asked about block exemptions. My hon. Friend will realise that the European Commission has issued only one regulation granting block exemptions for inclusive dealing agreements, which do not necessarily relate to small firms. That kind of agreement is already exempt in this country. It is important to refer not only to that aspect of my hon. Friend's remarks but about the dropping of "substantially". The answer is so that we

  573
  can use the reference "local monopolies". If "substantially" was left in, our definition for local monopolies would not apply.
  The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillborough (Mr. Darling), whom we all respect as being a great expert in these matters and with whom I have sparred on and off for the last 10 years, raised a number of matters. The right hon. Gentleman has apologised for the fact that he cannot be here for the wind up. I am delighted to say that he has gone to Strasbourg to look after certain European aspects for the Opposition. He asked me whether definition orders and information labelling under the Trade Descriptions Act could be taken by the Director General. The answer is "Yes" under Clause 2(2).
  The right hon. Gentleman raised a matter which has been raised by other hon. Members, namely, the giving of information and advice to customers and to consumers. The House may be interested to know that the Director General is empowered by Clause 109 to publish information and advice for consumers about consumer trade practices. The information will enable him to produce the sort of free information or informative pamphlets which the Consumer Council used to produce. This is an area in which I immediately admit that the Consumer Council did useful work. It seems right that a Government agency should continue to offer pamphlets in simple worded language advising consumers, by means of common sense and legal information, how to react to a particular trading practice. That is an area in which we can expect privately financed organisations to provide all that is necessary.
  Another important area of consumer information is information about particular products and the points to watch when buying those products.
  This is an area where much more can be done by the Department, preferably in co-operation with consumer organisations, and we intend to take steps to encourage greater effort. Product information is not, however, a matter in which the Director General will develop a particular expertise, and it is right to point out that I do not think that it will be
  574
  appropriate for him to produce publications of that kind on individual subjects.
  The speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Sally Oppenheim) was one of the nicest and most ably presented I have heard for a long time. She spoke as an expert, without a note, and made many valid points about the Bill. One of the points which is of interest to the House itself is that she said she did not want to feel that she could be fobbed off on the issue of Parliamentary Questions. I have never been able to fob her off on anything. Certainly it is my hope to keep the House fully informed by all appropriate means of the working out of the new policies.
  I am well aware of the ingenuity of hon. Members in finding means of bringing Questions within the principles laid down by the Chair, bearing in mind the ruling that a Minister should answer only for matters for which he is officially responsible. The hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) has shown many of us how to do it. Although the Director General will act independently, Ministers will continue to have a wide range of responsibility under the Bill, and it is not my intention or wish to see any impairment of the present freedom to question Ministers about competition or consumer protection matters.
  The hon. Member for Walton referred specifically to the report by the Monopolies Commission on the professions. We should set the record straight. He suggested that nothing had been done, but in fact it was Government action which ensured the statutory instrument which takes effect on 1st January dealing with solicitors' conveyancing fees. Other things have been done without Government action—by the Stock Exchange, for example. The report has been met in a number of instances.
  The commission found that some restrictions, such as those on fees to be charged and the restriction on advertising, were unlikely to be in the public interest except in a few cases. It indicated that more detailed investigation would be needed to determine how far restrictive practices in any profession were justified. It recommended that the professions themselves should examine their restrictive practices in the light of

  575
  the report, with a view to abolishing or amending them as necessary. The Government have asked the individual professions to do so.
  The report also suggested that the Department should refer to the commission particular professions in which restrictive practices are known to prevail. My right hon. Friend is of a mind to make early references of certain types of professional practices to the commission. If some hon. Members claim this could be inadequate, I suggest they should wait and see the references, which will prove the Government's intentions on the matter.
  I turn now to the question of Clause 74. The hon. Member for Walton suggested that this Bill is the wrong place for it. I am not certain in which legislation we have had recently he would prefer it to have been included. Perhaps that is a debating point which it is unfair to make.
  After making international comparisons of labour efficiency, the Donovan Commission concluded that substantial improvements could be made in the United Kingdom. The commission pointed to cases where increases of 15 per cent. or more in output had been achieved without any increase in the labour force. The commission recognised that all restrictive labour practices have or once had some justification, adding that the justification should be judged against the loss which the practices entailed.
  The Labour Government's White Paper of 1969 said:
  "There can be no doubt that equipment and manpower are not always used as efficiently in this country as in other comparable industrial countries. This is particularly due to customs and practices which restrict the effective use of resources including manpower."
  Mr. Heffer: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Donovan Report was published some years ago? In the docks
  industry and other industries there has been a whole process of new technology as a result of Devlin. The Government are out of date about what has happened on the industrial scene.
  Mr. Emery: Devlin had to be appointed as a special commission. It took a long time to get the Devlin Report. This is why there is sense in having this type of reference to the Monopolies Commission. There is no power for orders to be made on the recommendations. It is only the matter of publicity that the Government are using, whereas as regards the professions the Government have taken power to make orders.
  I am very grateful to those who have taken part in this useful debate. I am also grateful for the constructive suggestions which have been made. I have not had time to deal with many points. I must not cast doubt on the careful preparation which has gone into the Bill. but the House will not be surprised if I give an assurance that I have no doubt that the Bill will return to the Floor of the House with amendments. If the House gives the Bill a Second Reading, as I am confident it will, I hope that we can look forward in the new year to an equally helpful, constructive and even good humoured debate in Committee.
  The hon. Member for Fife, West and other hon. Members said they wanted the consumer provisions to be on the Statute Book by 1st April, for a number of reasons. This is entirely in the hands of the Opposition. If the Opposition wish to see the Bill on the Statute Book by 1st April they can do more than anybody else to ensure that it comes about.
  The Bill is about people, for that is what consumers are. The fair trading legislation is designed to benefit people. The competitive legislation will be necessary for the improvement of the economy.
  Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 103, Noes 5.

  Division No. 34.]

  AYES

  [9.59 p.m.

  Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

  Brinton, Sir Tatton

  Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

  Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

  Chapman, Sydney

  du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Churchill, W. S.

  Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

  Clegg, Walter

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

  Biffen, John

  Cooke, Robert

  Emery, Peter

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Cormack, Patrick

  Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

  Body, Richard

  Crouch, David

  Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

  Boscawen, Hn. Robert

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

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Bray, Ronold

  Dean, Paul

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Fowler, Norman

  Luce, R. N.

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

  Fox, Marcus

  MacArthur, Ian

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Fry, Peter

  McLaren, Martin

  Rost, Peter

  Goodhart, Philip

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

  Russell, Sir Ronald

  Goodhew, Victor

  McNair-Wilson, Michael

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Gorst, John

  Mather, Carol

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

  Gower, Raymond

  Mawby, Ray

  Shelton, William (Clapham)

  Gray, Hamish

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Shersby, Michael

  Gummer, J. Selwyn

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Simeons, Charles

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

  Spence, John

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Moate, Roger

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Molyneaux, James

  Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

  Hicks, Robert

  Monks, Mrs. Connie

  Sutcliffe, John

  Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

  Mudd, David

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

  Murton, Oscar

  Tebbit, Norman

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Nabarro, Sir Gerald

  Temple, John M.

  James, David

  Normanton, Tom

  Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

  Jopling, Michael

  Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

  Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Osborn, John

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

  Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Kinsey, J. R.

  Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Knox, David

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Lamont, Norman

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Lane, David

  Redmond, Robert

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke and

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

  Mr. Tim Fortescue.

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

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  NOES

  Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

  Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Tope, Graham

  Mr. David Steel and

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Mr. John Pardoe.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Bill read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That the National Theatre and Museum of London Bill and the Post Office (Borrowing) Bill may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Murton.]

FAIR TRADING [MONEY]
Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide for the appointment of a Director General of Fair Trading and of a Consumer Protection Advisory Committee, and to confer on the Director General and the Committee so appointed, on the Secretary of State and on the Restrictive Practices Court new functions for the protection of consumers; to make provision, in substitution for the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices (Inquiry and Control) Act 1948 and the Monopolies and Mergers Act 1965, for the matters dealt with in those Acts and related matters, including restrictive labour practices; to amend the Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1956 and the Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1968, to make provision for extending the said Act of 1956 to agreements relating to services
578
and to transfer to the Director General of Fair Trading the functions of the Registrar of Restrictive Trading Agreements; and to make new provision in place of section 30(2) to (4) of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

(1) all expenses incurred by the Secretary of State in consequence of the provisions of the said Act of the present Session;

(2) any expenses incurred in consequence of those provisions by any other Minister of the Crown or Government department, not being a Minister or department of the Government of Northern Ireland;

(3) the remuneration of, and any travelling or other allowances payable under that Act to, the Director General of Fair Trading and any officers or servants of the Director, any other sums payable under that Act to or in respect of the Director, and any expenses duly incurred by the Director or any such officer or servant in consequence of the provisions of that Act;

(4) any increase attributable to that Act in the sums payable out of moneys provided by Parliament under the Superannuation Act 1972;

(5) any increase in the sums payable out of moneys so provided which is attributable to any provision of the said Act of the present Session whereby, for the purposes of the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971, official pensions will include any superannuation allowance payable under the Monopolies and Mergers Act 1965 to a person appointed before the commencement of the said Act of the present Session to be chairman or deputy chairman of the Commission at present known as the Monopolies Commission.—[Mr. Emery.]

10.9 p.m.
Mr. Alan Williams: I have two questions. During the day there has been discussion of the possibility of giving more money to the Consumer Protection Advisory Committee. Will the Minister say whether that would be possible out of the global sums being voted by this Money Resolution or whether we shall be precluded, by passing this motion, from moving amendments to that end?
The second question is one of interest to my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself. We note that in Schedule 3(8) there is a reference to pensions for members of the commission and the reference is to a pension to "any member", whereas in Clause 5 the term used is "regular members". Does that mean that there is an innovation? I understand that in the past it has not been practice to pay pensions to part-time members. Is this an innovation enabling pensions to be paid to part-time members? Is this a new principle being introduced?
10.10 p.m.
The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Peter Emery): I think I can clear up those two points quickly. As to the second, this is not an innovation. Recent legislation has allowed this sort of provision in case it should ever be wanted. If it were not here, pensions would be excluded. They have not been paid in this way, but, as the hon. Gentleman may recall, under the recent Gas Bill the same sort of thing was done as is done here. This global sum, under which the Director General and the CPAC will come, will be a major new item of expenditure. The total expenses of the Director General and his staff will be about £600,000 a year, including about £200,000 a year in respect of functions to be taken over from the Registrar of Restrictive Trading Agreements. Potentially, there will be payment of salaries to the members of the Consumer Protection Advisory Committee and to its staff. It is intended that members of the Committee will be appointed from among persons actively engaged in other affairs, but in all probability they will not be salaried but will employ their own staff. The Committee will be serviced as necessary by the DTI. The expenditure will come from the DTI Vote. The Explanatory and
580
Financial Memorandum estimates it at around £10,000 a year.
The question being asked is, could this be extended? Because this is a global sum out of the DTI Vote I believe it would be possible. If there is any doubt about that I will clear it up with the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. John Roper: The Minister said that the CPAC will have its own staff and be serviced by the DTI. There seems to be some internal contradiction there. If the committee is to be serviced by the DTI it seems to me that the staff will be the DTI staff. It would be different if it were to have its own staff.
Mr. Bruce Milian: What we are anxious to be assured about is that we shall not find that amendments we might wish to put down will be ruled out of order because the Money Resolution will exclude them. Obviously the Minister will look into this point. In the nature of things we would not want to have a great wrangle in Committee about the advisory committee in a party sense, but we should like to feel that if we were to want to put down amendments they would not be ruled out of order because of this Money Resolution. If the Minister can say that they will not be, or that, if it turns that they could be, he will see that the Government will bring the necessary amended Money Resolution to allow us to move amendments, that will satisfy us this evening.
Mr. Emery: I refer first of all to the point made by the hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper). I am sorry if what I said was misleading. Yes, there will be staff for the CPAC. The staff will be civil servants. They will come from and be nominated by the DTI. They will inherently be doing work for the CPAC. I do not want there to be any misunderstanding about this.
As to the point raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan), obviously the Government will want to make certain that the CPAC is able to succeed and has the necessary money to be able to succeed. I think I can give the hon. Member that assurance. That, I think, is the way in which the Money Resolution is worded.
Question put and agreed to.

FAIR TRADING [MONEY]

  NATIONAL THEATRE AND MUSEUM OF LONDON BILL
  Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  Motion made and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

  POST OFFICE (BORROWING) BILL
  Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  Motion made and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

  PUBLIC PETITIONS
  Ordered,
  That a Select Committee be appointed to whom shall be referred all Petitions presented to the House, with the exception of such as are deposited in the Private Bill Office, and that such Committee do classify and prepare abstracts of the same in such form and manner as shall appear to them best suited to convey to the House all requisite information respecting their contents, and do report the same from time to time to the House; and that the Reports of the Committee do set forth, in respect of each Petition, the number of signatures which are accompanied by addresses, and which are written on sheets, headed in every case by the prayer of the Petition, or on
  582
  the back of such sheets provided that on every sheet after the first the prayer may be reproduced in print or by other mechanical process; and that such Committee do have power to direct the printing in extenso of such Petitions, or of such parts of Petitions, as shall appear to require it:
  And the Committee was nominated of Mr. Daniel Awdry, Mr. William Benyon, Mr. Richard Body, Sir Bernard Braine, Mr. Stanley Cohen, Miss Janet Fookes, Mr. J. C. Jennings, Mr. Marcus Lipton, Mr. Arthur Probert and Mr. Leslie Spriggs.
  Ordered,
  That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records:
  Ordered,
  That Three be the Quorum of the Committee.—[Mr. Morton.]

PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER FOR ADMINISTRATION
Ordered,
That a Select Committee be appointed to examine the reports laid before the House by the Parliamentary Commissioner far Administration, and matters in connection therewith:
And the Committee was nominated of Captain Walter Elliot, Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke, Mr. Mark Hughes, Mr. Dan Jones, Mr. Frederick Lee, Sir Gilbert Longden, Mr. Charles Simeons, Mr. Michael Stewart, Sir Richard Thompson and Dame Irene Ward.
Ordered,
That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records; and to report from time to time:
Ordered,
That Four be the Quorum of the Committee.—[Mr. Murton.]

PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER FOR ADMINISTRATION
  ADJOURNMENT
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr.Murton.]

MR. FREDERICK SNART (DISABILITY PENSION)
10.16 p.m.
Mr. David Marquand: I wish to raise the case of Mr. Frederick Snart—a case of extreme administrative and medical complexity. It is also a very moving case in human terms. Before getting involved in the administrative complexities I will say something about the human reality behind them. We are dealing here with a human being and not a statistic—a human being who has been treated very harshly.
Mr. Snart is a retired miner who is suffering from pneumoconiosis, and his disability was recently assessed at 100 per cent. I saw him recently. He could walk unaided only from his bed to his couch, which was a couple of feet away. He was fighting for breath, and when I talked to him I could hardly hear what he said because of the terrible rattle of his breathing.
Mr. Snart contracted the disease as the direct result of nearly 50 years' work as a miner—work which was essential to the British economy. It is a matter of elementary justice that the society in whose service Mr. Snart contracted the disease should now compensate him to the fullest possible extent—although no compensation can possibly be adequate. It is elementary that if rules and regulations stand in the way of justice for Mr. Snart those rules and regulations should be changed.
Mr. Snart first developed chest trouble over 10 years ago. He thought that he had pneumoconiosis, and on five occasions between 1960 and 1967 he applied for certification to that effect. Each time he was turned down by the pneumoconiosis board. In 1969, on the advice of Dr. Davies, his consultant, he appealed to the Central Pneumoconiosis Medical Panel. The panel decided that Mr. Snart's condition was due not to pneumoconiosis but to emphysema and
584
bronchitis. In February 1971 Mr. Snart was again examined by a local pneumoconiosis board. This time the board diagnosed pneumoconiosis and assessed the disability at 20 per cent.
In August 1971 Dr. Davies, under whose care Mr. Snart was, wrote as follows:
"There is now good evidence that my interpretation of the X-rays in 1968 was correct and that the Central Pneumoconiosis Medical Board was wrong. In these circumstances to back-date his benefit only to August 1970 does not appear to be generous. There should be no real argument that pneumoconiosis was making a substantial contribution to his disability before 1968."
That was the opinion of the consultant who was in charge of Mr. Snart's treatment and who, presumably, knew more about his treatment than did anybody else.
On the basis of Dr. Davies' opinion, Mr. Snart appealed to the medical appeal tribunal. The tribunal increased the pneumoconiosis board's assessment of his disability from 20 per cent. to 100 per cent. But although the tribunal has jurisdiction over the assessment of disability, it has no jurisdiction over the date of development. The tribunal was unable to backdate its award to a date before August 1970. I am confident that if the tribunal had possessed the power to backdate, it would have done so.
The key sentences in the decision read as follows:
"The X-rays available appear to date to 1969 and show a progressive disease…Although we have not the power in our view, to go behind the determination of 19.8.70 as to the development date, our decision is to vary the award of the Medical Board of 5.2.71 by substituting an assessment of 100 per cent. for life from 19.8.70."
That form of words clearly indicates that the medical appeal tribunal believed that Mr. Snart's disease had begun to develop before August 1970, and that the only reason it did not say so explicitly was that it did not have the legal authority to decide that question.
Mr. Snart then appealed again to the Central Pneumoconiosis Board to change the previous decision on the date of development, but the board refused to do so. So what is the present position? First, the medical body, the Central Pneumoconiosis Board, says that Mr. Snart did not have pneumoconiosis at all

585
until August 1970. Another equally eminent—perhaps more eminent—medical body, the medical appeal tribunal, said that Mr. Snart's pneumoconiosis was so serious that it should be assessed at 100 per cent. disability from August, 1970—in other words, no pneumoconiosis until August 1970, but 100 per cent. Disability for pneumoconiosis starting from August 1970.
In the nature of the illness, this is an obvious absurdity. It is inconceivable that Mr. Snart could have developed 100 per cent. disability for pneumoconiosis overnight. If the medical appeal tribunal is right in its assessment of 100 per cent. disability, the only possible conclusion is that the pneumoconiosis board was wrong in its decision on the date of development.
When I raised the case with the Minister, he replied as follows:
"I appreciate your concern about the case which is clearly one of some difficulty, but I can only say that I am unable to help. Responsibility for deciding whether a claimant is suffering from pneumoconiosis, including the date on which the disease developed, is a matter for the pneumoconiosis medical boards. Neither the Secretary of State nor I have power to intervene in their decisions."
I entirely accept that under the present regulations pneumoconiosis boards have absolute and complete jurisdiction over questions of diagnosis. I also accept that the Minister cannot intervene in their decisions, and I am not suggesting that he should have the power so to intervene, administratively. But I do not accept that the present regulations should remain unchanged.
It seems abundantly clear from this case that the present regulations have led to a state of affairs which is absurd and grossly unjust. I am convinced that the right solution is to give the medical appeal tribunal powers to override the pneumoconiosis board not only on questions of assessment but on questions of diagnosis.
I found one passage of the Minister's letter to me a little disturbing. He seemed to be questioning the medical competence of the medical appeal tribunal. He seemed to be suggesting, obliquely at any rate, that the pneumoconiosis board was more likely to have made a correct diagnosis. He said:
586
"Mr. Snart successfully appealed to the medical appeal tribunal (comprising a legal chairman, a cardiologist and a surgeon, but not a consultant chest physician).…The application was referred to a central pneumoconiosis medical board, differently constituted from the 1969 central board but again including a chest physician."
I can only assume that the reference to a chest physician was meant to suggest that the medical appeal tribunal was less competent medically than was the pneumoconiosis board, but that argument is totally irrelevant to the case that I am putting forward. I am not interested in whether the medical appeal tribunal which examined Mr. Snart's case was correctly constituted. It was not Mr. Snart's fault if it was not. If it had the wrong members that was not his fault, and he should not be penalised for it. The point at issue is simply whether the tribunal should have the power to override the board on questions of diagnosis. No one disputes that it has power to override the board on questions of assessment. If it is medically competent to decide questions of assessment, why is it not also medically competent to decide the question of diagnosis?
The tribunal which considered Mr. Snart's case consisted of three independent members. I understand that the pneumoconiosis medical board which considered his case consisted of one independent member and two DHSS doctors. I am not suggesting that the DHSS doctors were partial or biased, but I do not think there can be any doubt that a tribunal consisting of three independent members is likely to have greater moral authority than a board on which one independent member can be outvoted two-to-one.
I remind the Minister and the House that in most cases of industrial disease the medical appeal tribunal has complete jurisdiction over the question of diagnosis. Regulation 30 of the Prescribed Diseases Regulations says:
"Subject to the provisions of regulation 40 of these regulations, if a claimant is dissatisfied with the decision of the medical board on a diagnosis or recrudescence question he may appeal and the case shall be referred to a medical appeal tribunal."
Regulation 40 creates a special exception to that general rule for pneumoconiosis. It seems to me abundantly clear that the effect of Regulation 40 in Mr. Snart's case has been to create an

587
unjust and anomalous situation. I think that the powers of the medical appeal tribunal in questions of pneumoconiosis should be put on all fours with its powers over other industrial diseases, and I think that the case that I have raised this evening shows this quite clearly. I urge the Minister to take the necessary steps to bring that about. I hope that he will be able to do so soon enough for it to be of some benefit to my unfortunate constituent.
10.30 p.m.
Mr. J. D. Concannon: In this short debate of 30 minutes I should like, first, to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Marquand) for initiating it and then to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) whose father, I understand, suffers from this terrible disease to the extent of 30 per cent. There are members of my family who have this disease to a degree of 100 per cent. When we talk about a 100 per cent. disability for pneumoconiosis we are talking about living corpses. Most people engaged in the mining industry acknowledge this fact.
As a young branch official I was responsible for sending to these medical boards in Sheffield people with pneumoconiosis, emphycema and bronchitis. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield will probably agree that we were living too close to this disease, and have probably become somewhat complacent about it. Therefore, I especially thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield who, as it were, comes from outside the mining industry and is not overwhelmed. We take it as a matter of course, and that is wrong.
I also thank my hon. Friend for his references to Dr. Davies, who is recognised by all in the East Midlands mining industry as the specialist. He is the East Midlands consultant for everyone suffering from chest diseases.
For many years miners have been fighting this underground war for the nation, and the casualties are more terrible than in any modern warfare. As a young branch secretary, along with others now in this House, I have seen my comrades almost disappear before my eyes because of this terrible disease.
588
I realise that this is a short debate, and I do not want to prolong it. It is probable that my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield and I now have a larger concentration of mining and miners in our constituencies than exists anywhere else in the country. He and I, and my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield, are here to see and ask for fair play. I know that inquiries are going on into this terrible disease and others like it and that they are going on as fast as they can. However, my hon. Friends and I are seeking fair play for the people whom we send to these medical boards and who come back with what seem to them to be excuses for their not receiving compensation. I must stress again that we are seeking fair play for these people. Justice must be seen to be done in these cases.
10.33 p.m.
The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Paul Dean): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Marquand) for raising the case of Mr. Snart. As he said, we have corresponded about this matter. I should like to express my sympathy to Mr. Snart for the severe disability which he and his family suffer.
I do not accept that Mr. Snart has been dealt with harshly within the Industrial Injuries Act as it is. I am glad that the industrial injuries scheme has been able to help him. He is now getting a 100 per cent. disablement pension and a constant attendance allowance, both under the scheme, plus his retirement pension, and his wife is receiving a pension on his insurance.
As the hon. Members for Ashfield and Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) said, this is not a simple case. Indeed, it is difficult, as in so many other cases where emphysema and bronchitis are involved. These are what we call the English diseases.
The preferential rate of benefit and of conditions for benefit under the industrial injuries scheme, compared with the national insurance scheme, rest on the principle that the disease or injury must be caused or made worse by the condition of the man's work, but the scheme tries to give the benefit of the doubt in all cases. In view of the circumstances which the hon. Gentleman put to me, I asked

589
our medical advisers to examine Mr. Snart's case, and they have pointed out to me that the apparent difference of medical opinion seems to relate not so much to the extent of Mr. Snart's disablement but to the extent to which it is due to pneumoconiosis. They consider that the major cause of his disablement is emphysema and bronchitis, which are, as I have said, common in the general population.
The main argument, therefore, is not about the severe disablement of Mr. Snart but whether he is entitled to the higher benefits of the industrial injuries scheme or the lower ones of the national insurance scheme. I freely admit—and, indeed, doctors will admit—that medical science is not an exact science. Particularly is this so in areas of this kind, where one is dealing with common diseases and diseases which are prescribed, as pneumoconiosis is, and as emphysema and bronchitis, in association with advanced pneumoconiosis, are.
Persons claiming benefit for pneumoconiosis are frequently found also to be suffering from bronchitis and emphysema. There is no evidence generally acceptable to the medical authorities on these diseases which establishes that they are predominantly occupational in origin and can be attributed to the nature of the employment in individual cases with reasonable certainty. Research, which is kept under constant review, suggests they have an association with factors such as smoking, geographical location and air pollution, and possibly genetic factors. Consequently, bronchitis and emphysema do not satisfy the conditions for prescription as industrial diseases in their own right. Special provision is, however, made for these conditions where they accompany pneumoconiosis.
The question of the definition of pneumoconiosis is one of the important issues currently under consideration by the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council in its major review of the provisions for pneumoconiosis. I hope that in due course we shall receive from that council valuable advice on which we shall be able to push the frontiers forward.
Mr. Snart first claimed disablement benefit for pneumoconiosis on 8th April 1960 and was seen by a pneumoconiosis
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medical board which made a full radiological and clinical examination. The board gave full and careful consideration to all the evidence but it decided that he was not suffering from pneumoconiosis. The hoard considered that Mr. Snart was suffering from emphysema and was fairly severely incapacitated.
Mr. Snart made four further unsuccessful claims between 1960 and 1967—in 1960. 1962, 1966 and 1967. Following his claim in 1966, he was given a radiological examination only by a member of the pneumoconiosis medical panel, but in connection with the other three claims in 1960, 1962 and 1967 he was examined radiologically and clinically by a pneumoconiosis medical board which on each occasion decided that he was not suffering from pneumoconiosis.
Then on 15th June 1968 Mr. Snart claimed for the sixth time and on this occasion his claim was referred to a central pneumoconiosis medical board which, in accordance with the general practice, included a chest consultant from outside the Department. The central board, which examined Mr. Snart on 16th April 1969, found evidence of some dust in his lungs but was of the opinion that this dust retention did not amount to pneumoconiosis. The board concluded that his condition was due to severe emphysema and bronchitis which are not prescribed diseases and so do not attract disablement benefit under the Industrial Injuries scheme.
Mr. Snart made a further claim on 28th December 1970 and was examined by a local pneumoconiosis medical board in the following February. The medical board called for the radiographs and hospital reports of the investigations which had been made at Ransom Hospital, Mansfield. After considering all the evidence, it eventually decided that he had suffered from a slight degree of pneumoconiosis which they assessed at 10 per cent. since August 1970. It also decided that the emphysema and bronchitis from which he suffered made the pneumoconiosis 10 per cent. more disabling than it would otherwise be and so Mr. Snart was awarded a pension at the 20 per cent. rate from August 1970. The board noted in its report that Mr. Snart's overall cardio-respiratory disablement was 70 per cent. but that only 20

591
per cent. of this disablement was attributable to pneumoconiosis.
Mr. Snart appealed against the board's assessment to a medical appeal tribunal which, in accordance with the usual practice, comprised a legal chairman and two medical practitioners. The medical members of the tribunal were a consultant cardiologist and surgeon. It was unfortunately not possible to include a chest consultant as a member. The tribunal increased the assessment of Mr. Snart's disablement from 20 per cent. to 100 per cent. from 19th August 1970 for life, but it had no power to make an assessment before August 1970, as this would have involved a question of diagnosis on which it had no jurisdiction.
Mr. Snart then contended that the disease should have been diagnosed from an earlier date—May 1967—and he applied for a review of the decision of the 1971 pneumoconiosis medical board who diagnosed the disease from August 1970. In view of the unusual circumstances his application was considered by a central pneumoconiosis medical board, which was differently constituted from the 1969 central board but again included an eminent chest consultant from outside the Department. The central board, after hearing the views of Mr. Snart's union representative and carefully examining all the documentary evidence including the hospital records and X-rays, said that it was unable to diagnose pneumoconiosis before August 1970.
The hon. Gentleman has asked me about the constitution of the central pneumoconiosis medical board, and made the point, without making any imputations, that there were two doctors from the Department. One of the doctors takes the chair. He takes no part in the proceedings whatsoever. The other is always an acknowledged expert who
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spends his time dealing with such matters, and it has been felt—and I think that it has been generally accepted over the years—that it is better for the constitution of the board to have on it someone who is an acknowledged expert and is dealing with these matters within the Department the whole time and therefore has access to all the latest research and the like. That is the reason for the constitution of the board.
The hon. Gentleman was good enough to say that he did not in any way wish to alter the procedures so that the Minister could interfere with what are semi-judicial and highly expert medical matters, on which we should properly trust the independent adjudication procedure, relying on the best medical advice available.
He was a little disturbed about some of the procedures involved. I would like to assure him and the hon. Member for Mansfield that I am at the moment having a look at the procedures. I will want to take account of what they have said. We are extremely anxious, particularly when dealing with bad disability and with men who feel a sense of injustice, that we should lean over backwards to see that that injustice is removed wherever possible.
Although I have not been able to say anything which will be of real help and encouragement in the sad case of Mr. Snart, I hope that the hon. Gentleman feels that we are always examining our procedures and our methods of diagnosis, in order to try to improve them. The point he has made about procedure is one which I have in hand. I cannot say what the outcome will be, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will give careful consideration to what he has said.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at sixteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.

SCOTLAND
  Housing
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  Mentally Handicapped Persons
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  TONBRIDGE BENCH OF MAGISTRATES
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NATIONAL FINANCE
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  Estate Duty (Farms)

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Exeter):
The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
The Viscount Stuart of Findhorn—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

THE CONTRACEPTIVE PILL
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: 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 are satisfied with the recent report by the Committee on Safety of Medicines, clearing the contraceptive pill of cancer risks, in view of the statement by Mr. Herbert Wendel of the Department of Pharmacology, Oregon University, U.S.A., suggesting that the deductions in the report were fallacious.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE): Yes, my Lords. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services is satisfied that the deductions of the Committee on Safety of Medicines in their report on Carcinogenicity Tests of Oral Contraceptives are sound.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, while thoroughly approving of every method of birth control, with the exception of the pill, so far, may I ask the noble Lord whether he would not agree that information from countries all over the world regarding the side effects of the pill is now reaching the medical journals? The latest warning was the one I pointed out to him yesterday regarding infertility. Does he therefore say that we should disregard the experts in other countries, particularly having regard to the fact that it was an American expert
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who warned the world against thalidomide?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, we have our own experts in the Committee on Safety of Medicines, and, as I tried to point out yesterday to the noble Baroness, this is a Committee which came into being precisely because of the disaster with the thalidomide children. The Committee have carried out some very careful testing over several years, and in their report they came to the conclusion that there were no risks of carcinogenicity in the pill. While recognising that there have been criticisms elsewhere in the world of various aspects of the pill, we believe that these tests were correct, properly carried out and sound.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, if I may put one further supplementary question, may I ask the noble Lord whether he read the article in the British Medical Journal which I pointed cut to him yesterday and which showed that the degree of infertility in women who have used these pills for some time was very high?
LORD ABERDARE: Yes, my Lords. I read that article as a result of the question asked by the noble Baroness. Of course it is not referred to in this Question so I am not fully briefed about it, but I understand that whereas there may be some truth in what is said, this is not a type of infertility which cannot be put right by other means.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether it is not true that there are millions of women in the world—in America—and thousands of women in this country who are taking the pill; that the risks have been proved to be minimal, and that one has only to look among one's own children and young friends to see that infertility is not rampant?
LORD ABERDARE: Yes, my Lords. I am very glad to be able to agree with the noble Baroness.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether there is any satisfactory alternative to the pill that is of such universal application, especially in the developing countries?
LORD ABERDARE: Not within my knowledge, my Lords; but that does seem to be another question.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, has the noble Lord observed that since the announcement made by the Government the pharmaceutical industry has decided to produce six more types of the pill?
LORD ABERDARE: No, my Lords, I have not.

PERSONAL INFORMATION AND GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS
2.36 p.m.
LORD AVEBURY: 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 are aware that the fresh instructions on confidentiality of personal information in Government Departments referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, on June 20, are not being observed.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, the Government are not aware that the instructions are not being generally observed. We are. however, considering whether any steps, in addition to periodic recirculation of the instructions to staff, should be taken to keep them in mind. If the noble Lord knows of any specific cases and will inform me, I shall be glad to look into them.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Earl's attention has been drawn to the survey which was described in the Sunday People at the end of November, in which the journalists concerned telephoned to 33 different offices—not all of them Government Departments: some were banks, building societies, and so on, but the Department of Health and Social Security, the Supplementary Benefits and the Prison Departments were mentioned by name, and in none of those 33 cases did the journalists have the slightest difficulty in extracting information by pretending to be officials of some other Department. Does not the noble Earl think this is a
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serious situation which requires investigation so that he can ascertain whether the instructions mentioned previously by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, have in fact been observed at the grass roots of the Departments?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, as an assiduous reader of the British Sunday Press, I of course read the article in the Sunday People, but I should like to remind your Lordships that of the 33 cases, fairly instanced by the noble Lord. only three referred to Government Departments. However, I do not wish to hide behind statistics, because the facts of the matter are that the allegations made in the article are now under examination by the police and, secondly, inquiries are being made in the three Departments concerned.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, what on earth are the "grass roots" of the Departments?
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, will the noble Earl extend the inquiries somewhat and not confine them to the three Departments specifically mentioned by name in the article?—because if it is as easy as it appears to be to get information out of those three Departments presumably the same thing applies, for example, to the Inland Revenue Department. I wonder whether the noble Earl also noticed that the rating departments of two local authorities had no difficulty in giving out information to the supposed officials acting on behalf of the Sunday People? Has he recalled that the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said that he had no reason to think that local authorities were not capable of looking after privacy in their own organisations? Therefore if he declines my suggestion that a circular should be issued to them, while he is in the process of the investigation will he look at that suggestion again?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I was not aware that my noble friend had declined the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. I think he said that he would look into this matter, and I shall be glad to look into it again so far as local authorities are concerned. I must confess that the noble Lord's supplementary questions went on so long that I have forgotten the others.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, I asked about other Departments, apart from those mentioned in the article.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think the Inland Revenue was one of the three. If it was not, I will certainly see that the suggestion that investigation should be made is followed up.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, does the noble Earl know how many Departments in relation to this somewhat deceitful approach refused to give information? In the light of the assiduous nature of the approach, would he agree that it is possible sometimes for people to act in a tricky and dishonest way? Would the noble Earl also agree that it really is rather unfortunate that the Civil Service should be blamed for what was a trick?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition for his supplementary question, because it gives me the opportunity to say that while there is always the possibility of human error in these cases—and this is a serious matter and the instructions are quite firm—it is my general belief that staff as a whole in Government offices concerned are carrying out to the letter the instructions which have been issued to them.

DEFENCE CONTRACTS AND QUALITY ASSURANCE PERSONNEL
LORD ORR-EWING: 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 how many quality assurance personnel were employed by the Ministry of Defence (or its agents) in each of its last five years.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, the figures for April 1 in the years 1968 to 1972 were 16,150, 15,350, 14,900, 14,350 and 13,780.
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he is aware that money spent on hardware for the three Services during the last four years, in 1972 pounds, has fallen from £933
604
million to £628 million, which is a cut of 33 per cent? Ought not therefore the number of quality assurance officers to have been cut by a similar percentage, rather than by about half that proportion?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I do not know whether those figures would be absolutely accurate. In the last two years we have cut the numbers by 1,200, but I agree that there should be a further reduction. I can tell my noble friend that further considerable reductions of staff are expected in the near future.
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, may I press my noble friend a little further on this matter? Mr. Rayner, in the Rayner Report, said that when the Procurement Executive was set up there would be a very considerable reduction and that it was quite vain for Ministry of Defence officers to try to monitor the production and quality of sub-contractors—this was an unproductive process—and that if people produced inefficient equipment they should lose future contracts rather than have large and expensive monitoring organisations sitting over them all the while.
LORD CARRINGTON: That is perfectly right, my Lords. That is exactly what Mr. Rayner said. One of the ways in which we are reducing staff and will seek and will in future get a considerable reduction in staff is to place increased responsibility for quality assurance on contractors.

NORTH SEA OIL: 1980 PRODUCTION ESTIMATES
2.43 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: 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 on what basis they assume a North Sea oil production of 75 million tons in 1980.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD DRUMALBYN): The estimate of 75 million tons in 1980 is based upon the assessment by the technical staff of the Department of Trade and Industry of the results of seismic and exploration

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drilling activity provided to the Department by licensees. Due account is taken of the time needed first to determine the extent of the discoveries that have been made and then to construct the necessary production facilities.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords. may I ask the Minister to say whether in these figures he has taken full account of the favourable announcements made by the licensees during, for example, the last six months?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I believe that to be so, and I know it is so in one case of which I am aware. The information is of course based, as I have said, en the assessment of the technical staff; and in reaching their conclusions they are assisted by the Institute of Geological Sciences, who also get the benefit of the information.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, if that is so, why have the Government in the last year reduced their estimate from 150 million tons in 1980 to 75 million tons in 1980?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, initial estimates are always liable to quite a margin of error. In fact, the figure I am giving now is really composed of two parts, one part of which is reasonably firm while the other is undoubtedly open to a margin of error. It is about half and half.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, is it not the case that during the last six months every change that has been announced has been to increase the firm expectations, yet a year ago the Government put the figure for 1980 as being 150 million tons a year? After all these improvements have been taking place, they are now saying that the figure will be only 75 million tons a year. Why did they say it would be 150 million tons a year ago?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I think there is some misconception here; 75 million tons is the figure for 1980 and not for the 1980s.
LORD HUGHES: But—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order!
LORD DRUMALBYN: I have not finished answering the noble Lord's last supplementary question. It is expected
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that the figures will go up during the 1980s from 75 million tons.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the figure given a year ago was not for the 1980s but for the year 1980. It was then stated as 150 million tons. What has taken place in the interval to cause the Government to halve the figure?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am not quite certain what figure the noble Lord is quoting—whether it was an official estimate, an outside estimate or an estimate reported in the Press.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh no!
LORD HUGHES: This is the point at which I will leave the matter, my Lords, and in doing so I will quote what was said last year in the debate on the Scottish economy, by the then Minister of State at the Scottish Office, who said:
"The companies concerned are understandably guarded until further development, but it appears that oil will be available from the Northern sectors of the North Sea to the extent of at least 50 million tons a year by the mid-'seventies, and it is not unreasonable to think that it will reach 150 million tons a year by the end of the decade."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24/11/71; col. 1032.]
He was talking about the "seventies" and "the end of the decade". The end of the decade is either 1979 or 1980 and not any period beyond that.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I think the noble Lord's quotation shows quite definitely how indefinite the 1980 estimate was at that time, and a year has passed since then.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, aware that every estimate of fuel consumption in the last 25 years has been entirely wrong? Is it not silly to try to make an estimate for 1980 of something we know nothing about?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, one can make some sort of an estimate on the basis of the seismic tests that are carried out. The kind of estimates that the noble Lord is I think talking about are the estimates of world supply of energy and estimated consumption, and this is precisely why it is so difficult to

607
form a definite energy policy, a point which I have always emphasised.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, I am dealing with Parliamentary estimates and I pointed out that in the last 25 years or more each one has been wrong. Indeed, we are now faced with a measure which is designed to increase the output of coal, this after the coal industry has been clobbered for 20 years.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, if estimates were always right I do not know what would happen on the racecourse.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in this case the differential in estimating is between 150 million tons and 75 million tons? As what kind of estimating does he regard that?
LORD DRUMALBYN: As an estimate with a wide margin of error.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES
2.48 p.m.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL)THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL) rose to move that the First Report from the Select Committee be agreed to.
The Committee's Report was as follows:
1. APPOINTMENT OF SUB-COMMITTEES
(a) Administration. The Administration Committee was appointed as follows:

E. Listowel

E. St. Aldwyn

V. Hood

L. Amulree

L. Beswick

L. Brooke of Cumnor

L. Champion

B. Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe

L. Nugent of Guildford

B. Phillips

L. Strang

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords.
(b) Library. The Sub-Committee on the Library was appointed as follows:

L. Amulree

L. Champion

L. Maybray-King

L. Wilberforce

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords and to appoint its own Chairman.
(c) Refreshment Department. The Sub-Committee on the Refreshment Department was appointed as follows:
608

E. St. Aldwyn

L. Amulree

L. Beswick

B. Brooke of Ystradfellte

L. Champion

B. Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe

L. Nugent of Guildford

L. Strang

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords and to appoint its own Chairman.
(d) House of Lords Estimates (Finance). The Sub-Committee on the Estimates (Finance) was appointed as follows:

E. Listowel

E. St. Aldwyn

L. Amulree

L. Beswick

L. Champion

L. Nugent of Guildford

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords.
(e) Works of Art. The Sub-Committee on Works of Art was appointed as follows:

M. Cholmondeley

L. Amulree

V. Hood

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords and to appoint its own Chairman.
2. ACCOMMODATION
The Committee considered a scheme to provide further accommodation for the House of Lords by "infilling" building to be accomplished by building over existing structures without encroaching on the Courtyards or altering the external appearance of the Palace of Westminster.
The Committee recommend that the Department of the Environment should be asked to proceed with the scheme as soon as possible, and that the Administration Committee should consider and report on the allocation of accommodation in the space which will become available when the scheme is completed.
3. ESTIMATES
The Estimate for the House of Lords for 1973–74 was laid before the Committee and approved.
4. SUPERANNUATION
The Committee sanctioned the payment of a pension and lump sum under the 1972 Pension Scheme to Mr. Charles Ernest Babb, Door-keeper, who retired on grounds of ill-health on the 26th October, 1972.
5. PARLIAMENT OFFICE
The Committee authorised an additional part-time post of Judicial Taxing Clerk, attached to the Judicial Office.
6. NEWS SERVICE
The Committee authorised payment of the House of Lords' share of an increase in the annual rental for the teleprinter news service, subject to the Prices and Wages Standstill.
7. SELECT COMMITTEES
The Committee sanctioned a special payment in respect of expenses to a specialist witness from Washington D.C. for attendance before the Select Committee on the Anti-Discrimination Bill.
8. POWERS OF BLACK ROD
1. The Committee have reviewed the authority under which Black Rod acts as Keeper of the Doors and controls access to the House, and have also reviewed the powers which he exercises on behalf of the House to ensure security and good order in the precincts of the House especially amongst strangers admitted to the Chamber or to a Committee room of the House. They consider that the powers exercised are in need of clarification and redefinition.
2. There are at present two Standing Orders of the House relating to these duties. These are as follows:—
Standing Order 11
"11. The admission of strangers to the Chamber shall be subject to such orders as the House may make for that purpose, and the Lord Great Chamberlain shall be desired to give effect to such orders."
Standing Order 13
"13. When the House is not sitting, respect is to be had to the Chamber, and the Lord Great Chamberlain shall be desired to give instructions accordingly."
Both these Standing Orders are out of date in their reference to the Lord Great Chamberlain and in other respects do not adequately express or convey the authority which Black Rod needs to carry out his duties.
3. Having reviewed the problem both in its historical and its present context, the Committee have reached the following conclusions:—

(i) The House should retain without modification its power of attachment for contempt. It is over a century since this power has been exercised, but it needs to be kept in reserve.

(ii) Anyone who commits (or is suspected of committing) a criminal offence within the precincts of the House should be taken into custody by Black Rod and handed over to the police for such further action as they see fit to take in accordance with the criminal law.

(iii) In cases of contempt such as a disturbance of the proceedings of the House, or of a Committee of the House, Black Rod should have power to detain an offender for long enough to enable him to investigate the nature and cause of the offence and any related offence that may be threatened.

(iv) Black Rod should have power in his discretion to detain an offender under (iii) above until three hours after the rising of the House; or, if the House is not sitting, for three hours.

(v) Punishment for contempt should be reserved to the House itself.

(vi) Black Rod's responsibility for security in, and control of access to, the precincts
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of the House, including his responsibility for the parking of vehicles, should be explicitly recognised by the House.

(vii) In addition to a power of temporary detention Black Rod should have authority to confiscate a film from a camera, a tape from a tape recorder (but not the camera or the tape recorder itself) and any bugging device, which had been improperly used in the precincts of the House.

(viii) References to Black Rod should be understood to include references to the Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod.

4. Accordingly the Committee recommend to the House:—

(a) a new Standing Order of general authority to take the place of Standing Orders 11 and 13.

(b) a set of detailed rules, covering Black Rod's responsibilities in respect of—

(i) security and control of access to the precincts of the House;

(ii) order in the galleries of the House;

(iii) the limits of Black Rod's authority to deal with contempts on behalf of the House;

(iv) the parking of vehicles.

These rules, if approved by the House, will become orders of the House and will remain in operation unless and until the House decides to cancel or amend them.
5. Drafts of the new Standing Order and of the Rules are attached below as an Appendix to this Report.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES
  APPENDIX

    DRAFT NEW STANDING ORDER 11
    (to take the place of S. Os. 11 and 13)
    Duties and Powers of Black Rod
    11.—(1) The admission of strangers to the Chamber and the precincts of the House, whether or not the House is sitting, shall be subject to such orders and rules as the House may make. The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod shall give effect to such orders and rules and shall have such powers (including the power to take into custody) as are necessary for that purpose.
    (2) Respect is to be had to the Chamber, whether or not the House is sitting.
    (3) The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod shall take into his custody any person whom the House may order to be detained.
    (4) In the absence of the Gentleman Usher, the Yeoman Usher may act in his place.

    DRAFT RULES
    1. Pursuant to Standing Order 11 and as Agent of the Administration Sub-Committee of the Offices Committee, the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod is responsible for security in, and control of access to, the precincts of the House (as defined in Rule 2 below) in respect both of persons and of vehicles, whether or not the House is sitting.
    2. For the purposes of the interpretation of Standing Order 11 and these Rules the "precincts of the House" shall be understood to

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    comprise all that area of the Palace of Westminster which was vested by the Queen in the Lord Chancellor, as Speaker of the House of Lords, with effect from 26th April, 1965, as well as the adjacent areas under the control of the House in Old Palace Yard and Black Rod's Garden.
    3. Before admission to the Galleries of the House strangers may be required—

    (i) to sign an undertaking to abstain from making interruption or disturbance and and to obey the rules for the maintenance of good order in the Galleries;

    (ii) to deposit in the appropriate cloak-room all cameras, tape recorders, electronic devices, binoculars, umbrellas and walking sticks, parcels, packages, cases and bags (other than ladies' handbags); and

    (iii) to open for inspection at the request of Black Rod, or of the staff under his control, any parcel, package, case or bag including ladies' handbags, which a stranger may bring into the precincts.

    4. In the Galleries strangers are not permitted to smoke, read books or papers (other than the papers of the House), draw or write, stand in or behind the Galleries, or to make use of cameras, tape recorders, electronic devices, or binoculars. Any offence against this rule may result in the confiscation by Black Rod of the electronic device, or the film from the camera, or the tape from the tape recorder used in the offence.
    5. Where Committees of the House are sitting in public, the rules governing the admission of strangers to Committee Rooms are, so far as practicable, the same as those for admission to the Galleries of the House.
    6. Any stranger who is suspected by Black Rod of having committed a criminal offence within the precincts of the House shall be taken into custody and handed over by him to the police for such further action as may be appropriate under the law. Any such action shall be reported by Black Rod to the Lord Chancellor or, in his absence, to the Chairman of Committees.
    7. Any stranger who is suspected by Black Rod of having committed contempt of the House, including the contravention of an order or rule of the House, may, at the discretion of Black Rod, either be ejected from the precincts forthwith, or be detained by him until three hours have elapsed after the rising of the House, or, if the House is not sitting, for a period not exceeding three hours, in order to enable enquiries to be made into the circumstances of the contempt. If the contempt is of such a nature that, in the opinion of Black Rod, the House may wish to take it into consideration, he shall report it to the Lord Chancellor or, in his absence, to the Chairman of Committees.
    8. The Lord Chancellor or, in his absence, the Chairman of Committees, shall communicate to the House any report by the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod made in pursuance of these rules.
    9. A vehicle which is causing obstruction, or appears to Black Rod to be endangering security, within the precincts of the House
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    may be removed by him, or by the servants of the House or by the police on his instructions.
    The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be agreed to.
    Moved, That the Report be agreed to.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
    On Question, Motion agreed to.

THE SCOTTISH ECONOMY: NORTH SEA OIL AND GAS
2.49 p.m.
THE VISCOUNT OF ARBUTHNOTT THE VISCOUNT OF ARBUTHNOTT rose to draw attention to the state of the Scottish economy with special reference to the opportunities offered by the discovery of oil and gas off the coast; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to put this Motion before the House with no more qualifications than being a North-East Scottish farmer. However, I have always believed that the prosperity of my countryside and my community is inextricably tied up with the prosperity of the nation and of the Scottish economy. My credentials are indeed slender, but I hope that they are probably as good as many who have ventured opinions on the subject of oil in recent weeks or months.
We tend to forget how quickly this has all come upon us. It was only in October a year ago that the B.P. Forties field was proven and about that time some of us were wondering what effect their overland pipeline would have on the countryside as it came through from Aberdeenshire to the Forth. We thought we should have a meeting addressed by someone on the subject of oil, but we were told at that time that there was no one in Scotland who could do it. The Scottish Council were going to have their conference in February (which I attended) and that had to be addressed by international speakers. After that, we were able to call meetings in Scotland to which, at last, Scottish and British spokesmen could speak with some authority.
We were all dimly aware of the immense possibilities and opportunities for Scotland that lay in the discovery of oil off the coast. As a result of a conference that was called in Aberdeen in April of this year only, a Scottish co-ordinating committee of those concerned with the

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conservation of the countryside was set up under the aegis of the Development Department and chaired by the Director of the Countryside Commission for Scotland. For nearly a year there has been the Standing Committee on Oil set up by the Secretary of State, but, so far as I know, little else has transpired since then of a co-ordinating nature.
Through the summer and autumn of this year I have become increasingly aware of the uncertainty in Scotland about anything to do with oil. There is apparently no co-ordination of policy thinking, no direction, just a drift from one decision to another. At the same time there seems to be all the superficial evidence of a boom: rising prices in the property market; land hunger around Aberdeen; local authorities apparently being hurried into hasty decisions; talk of speculators, and so on. It really seems that disorder, rather than order, reigns. So where do we stand now?
I was going to say a word about the size of the resource, but I am rather frightened of doing that in view of the recent exchange across the Floor. However, I should like to make a plea for some standard unit for measuring this resource. I would much rather that we talked about "barrels", and when we are talking about production talk about "barrels per day". It is easy enough then to use a factor of 50 to multiply that into tons per year. But tons can be long or short. Some people talk about billions of barrels, but billions can mean one thing in America and something else in France and in this country. In measuring the recoverable reserves, therefore, may we not talk about barrels and use the factor of the milliard—a thousand million? The best evidence that we seem to have is that there is a considerable resource, but we should remember that only 20 per cent. of it is so far explored and another 80 per cent. has still to be investigated—admittedly, with probably progressively less successful results.
The best estimate that I have been able to arrive at is that there is the possibility of obtaining some 10 milliard barrels of oil from the whole of the North Sea, which could mean a production of two million barrels a day by 1980. That needs to be set against the Western European
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demand by the early 1980s which will be ten times that figure. But it would be nice to have some estimate of our own oil demands in the context of a total energy policy. We ought also to put this recoverable reserve in world perspective. I gather that the total Middle East reserves amount to 370 milliard barrels; there are 60 milliard in North and West Africa; 37 milliard in the United States; and 14 milliard in Venezuela—all of which areas are more fully explored and evaluated than anything in the North Sea.
Another way of looking at it is to take the highest figure that we can for the North Sea—we may have 3½ million barrels per day coming from the wells in production there—and to set that against a known 4 million a day at present in Kuwait, 10 million a day in Saudi Arabia and 4 million a day in Iran. Of course, we still have a considerable oil field oft our shore, which, after exploration and evaluation, looks like giving us an industry with a working life of 20 to 30 years at least. I believe that we should give credit to Government for the degree of success in achieving this international interest in our fields.
I believe it is impossible to calculate the revenues at present: so much needs to be taken into account and there are so many variables. Of far greater importance to me is the way in which Scotland can make use of the new industrial possibilities and win a fair share of the work that will be generated by this development. I leave it to others to enlarge on how the revenues can be calculated and how they can benefit the economy of Scotland or the United Kingdom. Production in the United Kingdom sector of the North Sea will always be important, but would it not be equally important to develop it more slowly for maximum benefit to Scotland and the United Kingdom? I do not say that the gas off England is English or even East Anglian, but is there not room for some more purely Scottish advantage from the oil found off our shores?
There seem to be two ways in which Scottish industry can become involved: there is the heavy engineering side for off-shore works and the on-shore servicing facilities. I should like to take the heavy engineering first, because everyone admits that this is an extremely difficult field

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for Scottish industry to break into. The technology is new to this country but is already very well known and developed in other parts of the world, particularly in America, Japan and Holland. The oil companies naturally have long-standing associations with companies from these other countries. The package deal concept controlled by consultants who are at present mostly American and Dutch means that the chance for British or Scottish industry to break in can successfully occur probably only when and if British consultants are increasingly brought into the production of specifications, which will then perhaps have less of a transatlantic flavour.
There must be the capability in our industry, particularly in the construction of rig modules and similar highly specialised equipment; but so far very little evidence of its participation can be seen. I believe that until a British company has a licence to build a complete rig or production platform. or build it on its own, the real involvement of Scottish or British firms will not occur where the Norwegians seem to have succeeded.
It has been said that British management was slow to react. But we have a situation where many industrial managements have not the resources in time or the cash flow to embark on ambitious diversification programmes into a highly competitive and aggressive international industry. "Stop-Go" and freeze conditions of post-war economic policies and a lack of any corporate plan for industry has been a disastrous environment for the British industrialist, and it seems possible that the very speed of the oil development organised by Government is in danger of spoiling it once again. Can we, or should we, keep up this cracking pace if it is going to mean that Scottish industry will not have the chance to catch up and get into this very competitive field?
Most encouraging at present, I believe, is the progressive action of the Scottish banks and finance groups in advancing participation of joint Scottish and European projects such as the new Viking barge. That this Scottish finance is also being sought by Continental groups is surely a healthy sign. It is preferable that it should be done this way, and the initial integration with associated companies
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gives the group immediate maturity and insight into the work and spreads the risk; otherwise, the knowledge and expertise would take too long to develop. But I am afraid there seems to be a lack of excitement and readiness on the part of many of our larger corporations to participate in this progressive planning. I should like to know what the view of the Government is on this.
Is there now really such a great need for urgent development of the oilfield? If we are looking for a life span for this industry of at least 30 years, is there not now a chance to take a little more time to allow Scottish industry to assimilate their forces and then go into it from strength? I do not believe this will happen until more British consultants can get into the field, from which we hope they will bring in Scottish and British firms. Is it not possible that perhaps the Norwegian plan, of evolving the industry from the bottom upwards and making sure that the complete package is constructed in their yards, using a growing number of their own technicians, is a better example to follow? It is a disgraceful state of affairs, in my opinion, that when small shipbuilders in Scotland are on their knees for work American Gulf Builders are boasting about orders they are bound to get from the North Sea. This is a field in which Scottish yards should be ahead of everyone, and yet we seem to be seeing preferential treatment go west.
I believe that the great need and the great gap is in development and research in the new deep sea and ocean bed technology. Surely positive Government help and assistance is needed there. There is here a great educational challenge and something to which young men and women in Scotland will react if given the chance. The new technical developments are perfect for our universities, but there has been no clear policy or lead from Government in this research field. I believe that there are also opportunities on the Clyde for the development of our underwater technology in existing experimental and research departments. The educational need, I believe, is paramount for Scotland, and it is vital to keep this expertise in Scotland and build it up there. It is a new frontier of knowledge. There is a need for a new kind of man with a new kind of approach in a new

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industry that has all the right ingredients for Scotland. But where is the drive and the guidance?
The really vital factor, however, is in the development of the on-shore supply and servicing industry. We are geographically placed in a commanding position to all that is going on in the North Sea. The advantages are there if only they can be developed correctly. I believe that we have about ten to fifteen years in which to develop that advantage, to make sufficient profits to become economically fit to go out into the wider North Sea market, which will then be a European market and finally a world one. Existing firms can be and are being invigorated by new men and new management and new management techniques. Opportunities are being grasped by local businessmen and firms up and down the East Coast of Scotland. However, the planning of this development is the most crucial aspect of all so far as Scotland is concerned. We must not see a proliferation of bases. The degree to which service industries are concentrated on existing port or urban communities should aid their development and lessen the amenity problems elsewhere.
I should like to mention one success story, because I think it has a moral, and it is in my own birth town of Montrose. Montrose had room to expand. It was geographically placed in the right area. But more important than anything was the fact that ten years ago the harbour authority decided to make itself profitable and to look for work. It now has the advantage of a good port with good labour relations, and the authority itself is co-operative and healthy. Montrose has done something for itself, and the rewards, we hope, are coming. But more important than that, if nothing else happens, it will be left with a good harbour facility, and I have no doubt it is looking forward to East Coast work with Europe in the future. It is what comes after oil that should be in our forward planning now. There is ample opportunity for local firms and businessmen, if they are ready to meet a very keen market and have done their research homework first of all. But once again one hopes that the rush to get oil ashore will not get in the way of sensible long-term planning of the various facilities and the infrastructure that is required.
This leads me to the point about which some of us feel most strongly of all. It is the whole environmental question and the participation of local government in the decision-making process. It would be a condemnation, I believe, of all our planning methods if local authorities think that they need to throw compulsory powers around purely to regulate development. Our planning system is sophisticated and stringent, and is widely accepted by developers. But local authorities surely need an overall plan to guide them, under which general supervision can be exercised from a central planning office. There has been a lack of co-ordination and direction here, in my opinion.
Shetland is a good example. There appears to be a first-class appreciation by the local authority of the needs of local people. They have produced a development plan and given it wide distribution. Shetlanders are still split half and half as to whether or not they welcome the oil industry. They on their own account have built up a fully employed work force based on their own industries and their local natural resources, especially in sea fishing. Can it be wondered at that they are a little cautious about how far to welcome this new giant industry?
But should any local authority really be left so much on its own to work out its own salvation in what must be a far wider problem? If there is no co-ordinating plan or direction from above, all the local authorities will be seen to be making too many decisions too quickly and with too few people engaged in the process. This, I believe, will affect environmental decisions most of all. There are too many overworked planners. When the cost of the infrastructure is considered in money terms, and that there is a ten-to-one investment from the public sector to help the oil company to develop its on-shore base, surely this should give a national interest for a far larger say in what is being done and where. It needs clear-sighted direction to make sure that the money is well spent at the right place and at the right time.
The social and community environment is of prime importance in my thinking. But almost as important, surely, is the question of the amenity and physical environment of the East Coast, in fact of all Scotland. Two sad examples of

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what might happen come immediately to mind, at Dunnet Bay and the Loch of Strathbeg. It would be the greatest pity if, where the oil or gas authority wants to see the development carried out, a hard pressed local authority took a planning decision towards the quick and easy development against the amenity interest. Surely the Government will make it its business to call in for decision by the Secretary of State those cases that are clearly going to be of high public concern.
Finally, I wish to follow with a philosophical note. I have been surprised at the amount of sympathy I hear on all sides for my personally held belief that Scotland feels that it is missing out on something good, and that it is not getting the right leadership or direction towards where it could be going. I do not believe that it is a matter simply of native caution; I feel that there is at the present time a basic lack of initiative within Scotland. Centralisation can be part of the problem, but I do not see independence as the answer. There seems to be a growing feeling that Scotland needs to have a clear national identity through which it can contribute fully to the development of this oil resource and thus take with us a really valuable contribution into our wider role in Europe and the world. Of course it is necessary also to identify local communities within a region, but just as important will be the need to let Scotland have an identity within Europe. Until there is a clear definition of what devolution is all about, and what it means for Scotland, there will never be a proper resurgence of the Scottish economy, and the opportunity offered by North Sea oil and gas will have been missed.
This is a serious subject, my Lords, but I should like, if you will allow me, to end on a slightly lighter note. Most Scots would deny that they had ever been born with a silver spoon in their mouth: our environment is too harsh for that. In my own case I have always associated childhood memories of a spoon in the mouth with bath time and the internal administration of oil in one form or another, and always, I was told, for my ultimate benefit. The spoon is poised again, and my fear as a Scot is that an officious nanny in Whitehall will
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tell us that oil is not all that good for us, after all, or, worse still, that a clumsy nursemaid in Dover or St. Andrew's House will empty out the bathwater by mistake and send the spoon, the oil, the baby and everything down the plug hole. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.12 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, it is a custom of your Lordships' House that when a Motion of this kind is moved the succeeding speaker should begin by expressing thanks to the noble Lord who has initiated the debate. This is done whatever the circumstances. On this occasion it is no mere formality when I say that. I could almost scrap everything I wished to say on Scottish oil because I find so little in what the noble Viscount has said that I would not have wished to say myself. Even the partly Nationalist sentiments which he expresses fit in with the views of so many of us who say, "I am not a Scottish Nationalist but …".
The noble Viscount speaks most infrequently in your Lordships' House. I think you will agree with me when I say that the loss, because of that decision of his is ours, and we hope that, for our own benefit, he will agree to take part more frequently in our debates. I do not know who decides who is to initiate these Scottish debates; and certainly the noble Viscount was not my choice. But, looking at it with hindsight, if I were now asked who should initiate this debate on the Scottish economy, I should have no hesitation in saying, "The Viscount of Arbuthnott". His speech has been in the best tradition of Scottish debates, in which we seek not necessarily to be completely non-controversial but to get as many points as possible which will have a common Scottish interest, and try to concentrate on the things that we might agree about rather than the things about which we may differ. We do not always succeed in doing that, but I think that we all try to make that our aim.
This debate is on the Scottish economy, with particular reference to Scottish oil, but it is not the wish of Scottish Peers that it should be confined to Scottish oil because we have only one debate a year on the matter of the Scottish economy. Therefore, because of the way in which the noble Viscount has spoken, I have decided to adhere to my view that I will

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go a little wider than just Scottish oil. However, if speeches are not to be too long or too boring—and I think that some of your Lordships feel that all Scottish speeches are both long and boring—one must be selective. I therefore wish to confine myself to three subjects: oil, steel, and the effects of United Kingdom entry into the E.E.C. on oil in Scotland.
During the two and a half years of this Parliament there have been three major economic events: the discovery of large oil reserves in the North Sea; the decision to enter the E.E.C.; and the effect of Government policy on employment. All of us in Scotland are worried about unemployment, whether we look at the short term or the long term. Two organisations, the Scottish Trades Union Congress and the Scottish Council (Development and Industry), have made this a major priority in their activities, and in doing so they have reflected views very widely held in Scotland. Let me take the most recent expression of these views. Last Friday week the Scottish Council had a meeting with the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. They were putting a case for the steel complex at Hunterston. First of all they emphasised the cardinal importance in all major decisions of this kind for regional needs to be kept in the foreground. I would remind your Lordships that in debating entry to the E.E.C. it was my fears that an effective regional policy for Scotland would not be possible which alone determined me to vote against entry. So far, and even with the benefit of five minutes with my noble friend Lord Diamond before coming up, my fears still remain unallayed, although I say now, as I said then, that I hope that events will prove me wrong rather than that they will prove me right.
May I quote very briefly from what the Scottish Council said during their meeting with Mr. Walker:
"While job opportunities have been diminishing, unemployment has been rising. Twelve years ago, there were 79,000 people out of work in the whole of Scotland. During the year just finished, an average of 80,000 were out of work in West Central Scotland alone. Differentials in unemployment between Scotland and Great Britain were narrowing from about 1963, but in the 1970s they have steadily widened."
It was in that context that the Scottish Council were pressing their views so strongly on the new Secretary of State
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for Trade and Industry, as they had previously done with his predecessor, Mr. Davies. The change for the worse in the last two and a half years (and it was because I knew I had this remark in my notes that I said that I did not always succeed in being wholly non-controversial; and I now enter into the realms of what noble Lords opposite will undoubtedly regard as controversial) is because of Government policy and not, as Ministers sometimes aver, despite Government policy. It is in the context of this deplorable position that steel is so vital for Scotland.
The Scottish Council, if I may quote further on this particular point of the importance of a steel complex at Hunterston, had this to say:
"The investment which has been made by the B.S.C. in finishing processes has been associated with the up-dating of some existing plants. There has been no extension of finishing processes to accompany the growth of steel-making at Ravenscraig. A large volume of Ravenscraig production will in fact be sent out of Scotland for finishing.
"The effect of the absence of any development of products has a cumulative effect in inhibiting the growth of engineering activity. This will be sharply accelerated by the forthcoming introduction of basing points, which will add further cost margins to users distant from a production base. We therefore look upon investment in finishing processes as being vital to engineering growth and therefore to employment generation—including employment in the engineering industries which may be developed to meet the expanding markets for oil equipment.
"This in turn will also necessitate an increase in steel production to feed the finishing units: in future the Ravenscraig capacity will go to the increasing production of strip steel. This is one part of our case for pressing for the establishment of a 3 million ton unit at Hunterston."
The Scottish Council went on to say:
"We realise the pressures upon the B.S.C. to obtain returns from its huge investments in other areas, and we know the careful calculations which have been made on market growth. But we believe that 10 years is too short a timescale in which to view such investment plans.
"We recall that 20 years ago we were told that 22 million tons a year as a British steel production figure was a pipedream. At the same time we were told that ore carrier, would not exceed 25,000 tons in size. As recently as 8 years ago an authoritative report set a limit of 65,000 tons. Now we are at 200,000 tons and in the future we shall certainly see very much larger ships carrying ore."

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My Lords, these changes in estimates remind me very much of a supplementary question this afternoon about estimates of 150 million tons of oil going down to 75 million in the short period of a year. As my noble friend Lord Blyton said, a number of estimates made in the last twenty years have been totally wrong; in fact, he said that they were all wrong. I would not go so far as that, but certainly the trend has been in the direction he stated. The Scottish Council went on to say:
"Only Hunterston in Britain can offer deep-water of this kind, and the new ore terminal planned there by B.S.C. is a recognition of this. Other countries are spending scores of millions of pounds in creating a resource such as nature has provided free at Hunterston. Looking beyond 1980, world markets for steel are likely to continue to be expansionist, and our approach should be to develop sites beside the ports which will handle the next generation of ships. Other steel-making areas of Britain have maximum handling capacities from 100,000 tons up to about 200,000 tons."
If Scotland is denied Hunterston steel, it will not only be a well-known Glasgow businessman who will take the view, which he has already expressed, that this Government have written Scotland off. Whether the Government do that by intention or by ignorance—and it does not matter which—it will be a point which the people of Scotland have very much in mind in all their future considerations of Government activities.
Let me now turn to North Sea oil, or perhaps I should say—because it is appropriate in view of the way in which the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, spoke to it—to Scottish oil. First of all, I should like to touch briefly on an important point which figured in his speech to a very large extent, and which would have been elaborated by my noble friend Lord Llewelyn-Davies, if he had not been laid low by flu. What he would have said—and I am summarising very much a telephone conversation that I had with him yesterday—is that in grasping all the economic advantages of North Sea oil, let us not overlook the years ahead. North Sea oil will not he inexhaustible. The day will come, as it came to so many coal pits, when commercial supplies are no longer available. Do not let us reproduce in Shetland, in the Orkneys, in Ross and Cromarty, the conditions with which we have all become too tragically familiar in so many min
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ing villages in Scotland, or in the North-East of England or in Wales. At least part of this new wealth must be used for safeguarding the future of these areas. I therefore welcome what the Secretary of State said in the Scottish Grand Committee last week, when he made these remarks.
"The finding of oil in the North Sea will have important effects on the social and economic character of various parts of Scotland, and I know a number of hon. Members have felt with me that we must examine this closely. I have, therefore, decided to ask the Political Economy Department of Aberdeen University, subject to the agreement of the University Court, to carry out a research study into the present and future impact on the areas of Scotland most affected. This study will be started early next year and will be carried out in close collaboration with the Government Departments concerned."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Scottish Grand Committee, 5/12/72; col. 14.]
I think at least Scottish noble Lords will agree with me that the Secretary of State could hardly have made a better choice for a study of this kind than the University of Aberdeen. The study will of necessity be a fairly lengthy one; I believe that the period is likely to be some three years. However, the problems will not necessarily wait three years to be created. The solutions may take a lot longer than that to find, but the problems can be created during that time. So I hope that the Secretary of State's official advisers in St. Andrew's House, together with the local authorities, will take full cognisance, as the noble Viscount has suggested, of the way in which they handle these matters at the beginning, because it will not be to the long-term advantage of Scotland if we become wealthy in the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s, but create another almost insoluble problem for our successors in the early part of the next century. I hope, therefore, that the Secretary of State will appreciate that it is not only the long-term solution which is necessary, but quick and continuing surveillance of the position as it develops, and nothing should be allowed to be done which is incapable of being reversed when the report is received in some three years' time.
In the short term, there will undoubtedly be help to the overall Scottish economy. but it will be limited. Even the best estimates of the number of jobs which will go to Scotland in the next year or two have, unfortunately, but a very limited impact on an unemployment

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figure still well in excess of six figures. But the extent to which, in the short term, the oil will produce new business and new jobs for Scotland depends, as my noble friend Lord Balogh made clear a fortnight ago, on Government policy towards the oil companies. The Department of Trade and Industry have indicated that in a few years' time the tonnage of supplies for drilling and production will reach half a million tons a year. Some of this must come from Scotland automatically, because it will obviously be the cheapest and the quickest source of supplies; for instance, perishables will undoubtedly be supplied in this way. But some—perhaps much—will come from elsewhere. Whether it is little or much really depends upon what the Government do. I think that much more is needed than is presently indicated by the Secretary of State. Speaking in the Scottish Grand Committee, he said:
"In the issue of licences to particular companies or groups the Government have taken into account the extent of the contribution which the applicants have made, or are planning to make, to the British economy, including the growth of industry and employment. The Government are now watching carefully to see that companies operating the licences do give full and fair opportunities to British industry to compete. What the Government find will be taken into account when further applications for licences are being considered. [Col. 8.]
A little later on he said:
"First, we have encouraged and assisted speedy exploration in the formidable conditions of the North Sea and we are continuing to do so. Secondly, we are aiming to win as many suitable projects and jobs for Scotland as we can".
My Lords, I do not think that that goes far enough at the present time. Is it sufficient to say, "Well, all that has taken place in the first round is water under the bridge; we will use what we have learned from this only in the allocation of future licences"? It is not outwith the Government's powers to ensure that at least some of these more favourable requirements for Scotland are imposed, if need be, on present licensees. Other countries, Norway in particular, have found it both possible and in the national interest so to do.
There is the question, for example, of the underwater pipeline. This subject was raised by an interjection during the speech of the Secretary of State. He had been talking about a contract for piping
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placed with the British Steel Corporation, but this was for a pipeline on shore. He was asked about the underwater pipe, and he said:
"But I understand that the British Steel Corporation simply does not produce the sort of pipeline which is needed in the North Sea, and it could not, therefore, have met the required delivery date. That pipeline is being supplied by the Japanese, but I, like the hon. Member, would have liked it to have been manufactured by the British steel industry. Naturally, however, B.P. could not wait for the British Steel Corporation to start turning out a new product". [Col. 11].
That may be all right for one particular requirement at a particular time, but I have heard nothing said about any decided attempt being made, either by the Government or by the British Steel Corporation, to change that position for the future. Are we going to have the ridiculous situation that pipes laid under the North Sea are, in perpetuity, to come to us from Japan? When did Japan acquire this technique? They have not been making steel for undersea oil for the last 50 years: I doubt whether they have been doing it for the last five years. Are we now in the position that a technique which the Japanese have mastered is beyond the capability of a nation which prided itself, and particularly the Scottish part of that nation, in being leaders in the engineering field? Surely we must look to some of this equipment—and perhaps the most important part is some of the contracting—being produced in the British Isles, and preferably in Scotland.
My Lords, I said that my third subject was the E.E.C. I want to talk about the E.E.C. only in its context with oil. My attention has been drawn to a magazine (it was not sent to me and I did not buy it, but I got it: I did not "pinch" it, by the way; it was given to me in the best Scottish tradition) in which there is an article by Professor Odell, who is at the Netherlands School of Economics. He was quoted more than once, I think, by my noble friend Lord Balogh a fortnight ago, and he is a recognised European expert in energy. Some of the things he says certainly give me cause for concern, and I should think they would give cause for concern to a number of Scots. The article is in the context of the difficulties which face Western Europe, with its dependence for so much of its energy requirements on oil imported from the Middle East, because, on the

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one hand, that oil is at the mercy of the Governments of those countries and of their policies of extracting the maximum possible benefit for themselves (not a concept with which necessarily we should disagree when, after all, here we are trying to do exactly the same thing for ourselves) and, on the other hand, much of that oil is then in the hands of principally American companies. So a very large part of Europe's needs are in the control of non-European parties. But Professor Odell sees a light in the darkness. He in fact saw this position as being a challenge to the possibility of the Western European economy continuing to be viable—he put it as strongly as that—but he said that North Sea oil could change that.
Professor Odell said:
"The development of this potential does, of course, require expenditure on the required infrastructure and official policies which encourage its absorption as quickly as possible into the energy economy.".
Your Lordships will recollect that in the debate a fortnight ago the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, put forward the point of view, which again, I think, was covered by the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, that it may not necessarily be in the best interests of the United Kingdom, or of Scotland, to develop these resources at the most rapid possible pace. But, my Lords, it might be very much in the interests of Europe as a whole that it should be done in that way. Professor Odell, having said that what were required were
"official policies which encourage its absorption as quickly as possible into the energy economy",
then went on:
"This unfortunately is as yet by no means automatic but as the maximum possible use of indigenous natural gas is so much in the economic and strategic interests of Western Europe, any narrow nationalistic or company policies which would have the effect of inhibiting its rapid development ought to be effectively constrained at a European level".
That refers to gas; but if, at Brussels, there is to be a European constraint on the way in which gas is developed in the North Sea, is it not reasonable to expect that they will regard oil in exactly the same way?
Professor Odell goes on to say:
"… then positive and appropriate policies become the critical element for controlling its incorporation into Europe's energy supply".
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Professor Odell is making a very clear bid, as did M. Spaak a month or two back, to the end that oil was not Scottish, that oil was not British, that oil was European. As a reluctant opponent—and therefore I would have been an equally reluctant supporter—of entry into Europe, I think this may explain to a certain extent the change of attitude of at least some of those who had previously opposed our entry into Europe. They may have realised even faster than some of us did that we had something on which Europe would like to get its hands.
My Lords, I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government to say quite specifically whether North Sea oil is to remain solely under our own control or is to be subject to the E.E.C. Since I wrote these notes I have received—it was handed to me after I came into the Chamber—a copy of a letter which the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, wrote to the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, and in it he touches fairly effectively on these points. I hope that when the noble Lord comes to speak he will find it possible to give the assurance for which I ask, because I believe that assurance is in fact given in his letter to the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale. But I think it would allay at least some fears if it appeared in the Record of this debate.
My Lords, the United Kingdom as a whole will benefit from North Sea oil. The value of that import may be anything between £800 million a year and £2,500 million a year. I want to make it quite clear, because of past misconceptions, that I am talking about the value of the product, not the revenues that come from it. To that extent it means an import saving for the United Kingdom of these figures. The benefit which will accrue to the United Kingdom as a whole is therefore this: that in these Islands it will be possible for an expansionist policy to be pursued on a scale which has hitherto been impossible, because every time we have had an expansionist policy it has eventually come to an end through balance-of-payment difficulties. I think that with an advantage of anything between £800 million and £2,500 million, obviously the need for any "Stop-Go" is pitched very far in the future beyond the year 1981.
If the United Kingdom as a whole is to get a benefit of this kind which

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will enable the whole British economy to develop in a way hitherto regarded as impossible, it is not unreasonable for me as a Scot to suggest that the benefit of the revenues derived from this oil (whether it be £100 million, £200 million or £400 million a year) should be earmarked for the redevelopment of Scotland. It is our natural resource. If we had been an independent country we should have taken the lot. The fact that we are part of the United Kingdom is no reason for depriving us of it. if this were done, in addition to what would have come to us in the ordinary course of events, the Government—either this one or their successors; because we are not talking about things that will be possible in 1972 and 1973, but of things that will be possible to the fullest extent in the 1980's and beyond—will for the first time be able to make the country of Scotland as wealthy, not merely as any part of the United Kingdom, but, as any country in Europe.
In the two and a half years of this Parliament the discovery of North Sea oil and our entry into the European Economic Community has called for a tremendous change in the way in which Scotland must look to the future. I think that all of us, whether we are in one political Party or another or in no political Party at all, must consider the extent to which these two items alter our thinking of even two and a half years ago. If we fix ourselves firmly on the lines that we were thinking about in 1970, we will do no service to Scotland in the future. I am certain that the Party which I represent are aware of this and will seek to cast their thinking accordingly. I believe that other political Parties will do the same and that any who refuse to do so will do service neither to themselves nor to Scotland.
3.52 p.m.
LORD TANLAW: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, I am extremely grateful to the noble Viscount for initiating this debate and for the way in which he did so. I think he will understand that his remarks on devolution and decentralisation were extremely well received on these Benches. I should like also to think that perhaps the lack of co-ordination and direction, as well as the lack of information that he mentioned in his speech, could be the result of not
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carrying out these policies of decentralisation much earlier.
I also agree with much of what Lord Hughes has said, and especially with his remarks about pipeline manufacture and a deep-water terminal. I was disappointed in one respect, but I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, may be able to remedy that. I was hoping that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, would explain a little more clearly his interpretation of what is public ownership so far as this concerns the oil reserves that have been discovered around the Scottish coasts at the moment. I should like to add, since he was good enough to make reference to remarks that I made about the speed of development of these reserves, that I am going to make the same remarks this afternoon. But I did say that this should be done within the context of a national energy plan and an energy plan for Europe. I should like to think that this is logical. Before coming to the main part of my remarks I should like also to say a word about the noble Marquess, Lord Aberdeen, who is about to make his maiden speech. I am looking forward to hearing what he has to say on this subject. It is a fine subject on which to start one's record in this House.
My Lords, the purpose of my contribution from these Benches this afternoon is primarly to seek information. It was almost a year ago that we had a debate of the same title as this one but without the special reference to oil. I believe that all noble Lords, mainly Scots, who took part in that debate recognised that as a constructive debate. There was also a singular lack of controversy in the views expressed as to what were Scotland's needs and what remedies were needed. These were put forward without having at that time the figures or the confirmation by the Government of the oil discoveries that are being made commercially viable. For my part, I should have been pleased to deliver Lord Polwarth's speech from these Benches and I should hope that he would have been equally at home making my more modest contribution from where he sat at that time.
I should like to pick on one of the main points that the Minister spoke of a year ago. He was at that time speaking from outside the Administration and was

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able to give us an objective assessment. For want of better words, I should like to quote his own:
"Regional policy is but one of the many responsibilities of the mastodon, the Department of Trade and Industry."
He went on to say:
"We should seriously think about a separate Ministry of Regional Development, with considerable devolution in Scotland's case to the Scottish Office and in other parts to other bodies, and through these, to the new local government regions."
I think the noble Viscount who initiated the debate has been saying approximately the same thing this afternoon. I believe that the Minister at that time put his finger on the real problem of Scotland's economic future, which is the Government's role in the economy and how it is to take effect. The economic potential of the recent oil discoveries has created an entirely new situation and called for an entirely new strategy. I look forward to hearing the Minister at the end of the debate declaring this strategy.
At the time of the last debate there was no definite indication of the potential size of the oil reserves around the Scottish coast. There were many hopes. We now have more figures and more information and, controversial though they may be, they seem always to get larger. To-day, the situation is much clearer. The effect of Scottish oil discoveries on the national economy may be as devastating as James Watt's discovery on the principle of the condensing steam engine two centuries ago. Therefore any hesitancy there may have been last year about the wisdom of developing the infrastructure through such projects as Ocean span and a deep-water terminal should have evaporated by now and there should be no doubt about finding the funds to help finance them. These projects have been on the drawing board for some time and I should like to mention them once more as a reminder to the Government, since we have heard little about their progress.
Let us take Oceanspan. So far as I am aware, there is still no official information on the Government's position or on their attitude to this project. Yet I am convinced that the latest known facts make its implementation more rather than less urgent. As the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, said, tankers are growing in size, increas
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ing in draught and unmanœuvrability. I think it is even less likely that they will make safe passage around the North Cape or through the English Channel in years to come. Insurance and environmental considerations may even ban tankers from these areas. There is also another factor: the type of crude oil coming from the North Sea may not be readily saleable in the United Kingdom and European markets without blending with Middle East oils. This will mean that more refining capacity must be built (and I should like to think that it will be built in Scotland) before the oil is sold in the United Kingdom or in Europe or is re-exported elsewhere. I look forward to hearing the views of the Minister on this subject.
The question of communications came up in the last debate, and I have no doubt that it will be raised again by a number of noble Lords this afternoon. We know something about this from a recent Question concerning Turnhouse Airport, where after ten years a second runway has still not been built, and from the leaked report about British Rail's anticipated closures, which included Scotland. From the report published in the newspapers it seems that more rail closures may be anticipated, apparently for reasons of internal accounting, without any consideration of the new discoveries and the oil development which is to take place in Scotland. I feel that there must be some clear-cut statement from the Government about what is to be the future of British Rail in Scotland in view of the oil discoveries, and at the same time we should like to see some movement over the new runway at Turnhouse.
Unemployment was mentioned in our last debate and this, too, will be mentioned again to-day. I am pleased to see that the figure of 141,000 a year ago has now come down to 126,805 in mid-November. This is a very welcome drop small though it may be. But may I draw the attention of noble Lords to the position of the unemployed young persons registered in Scotland during the year which has intervened since our last debate? It is very grave. The monthly average for the year 1970–71 was running at 8·2 thousand and has increased now to 11·9 thousand. The total increase over the past year indicates that 45,194 young persons are on the dole. I feel that

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we should not be too complacent about the overall drop, although of course we are pleased about it. Let us think about the young persons who are still looking for jobs and whose careers are still before them.
There is one main factor respecting the unemployed in Scotland. Inevitably the majority are in either the central or the western part of the country. In these areas there are technical skills, yet machinery is lying idle. Unemployed young people are a major concern to us as Liberals and they should be a concern to everybody. For this reason I regard it as essential that the Government take the opportunity during this debate to commit themselves to the projects that we have been talking about for a year and that have been lying about without any form of commitment from the Government. It is important that we get this commitment so that these young people may have careers to which to look forward.
My Lords, I would also put forward from these Benches a suggestion about which the Government have the power to do something. It is to start the revitalisation of the Clyde Belt industries immediately—not at a stroke: a hammer blow was what I had in mind, an auctioneer's hammer. A large number of exploration licences are, I understand, coming up for auction. I do not know where these licensed areas will be or which will be offered to potential buyers. But I suggest that the Government should consider that the actual areas for exploration should be covered from the West side of Scotland. It is here that we have the unemployment and empty and dying towns. I feel that already we have seen the pattern established by what has happened on the East Coast where a small town can become a thriving community and the unemployment figures start to decrease.
My point is that unemployment is primarily based on the West side of Scotland and in the Central Belt, and I feel that if exploration activities started from the West Coast of Scotland there could be equal activity and employment in the areas where it is most needed. I am thinking of areas like Galloway where, I understand, there are good prospects in the Solway Firth. Some much-needed work could be brought to Galloway, and perhaps use could be made of the port
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facilities at Cairnryan which people have talked about for so many years but which have not been used. There are many other coastal areas which could benefit, in my view, by this simple change in Government policy—if it is a change. I should like to think that this is what the Government have in mind for the next round of licences.
I should like to say a word about the Liberal proposals for a Scottish oil development corporation and a Scottish development bank. There is a real need for these organisations. Take, for instance, planning, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. Surely far too much is being put on the local planning authorities. Some of the projects before them are not related to the provision of primary schools or extensions of the sanitary arrangements at town halls. We are talking about the development of whole industrial areas of Scotland. At the moment, I think there is no correlation between industrial and planning policies. A Scottish oil development corporation could bring these two interests together and give the local people technical assistance and advice. This should be done through a Scotish oil development corporation and not through one of the myriad Government Departments or local government departments which in spite of all the hard work done, do slow down development of the infrastructure on a considerable scale.
My Lords, the building industry in Scotland is in the wrong place in relation to where the development is. Local builders in Aberdeen and elsewhere are most likely doing very well, but in my view they are not big enough. There must be a massive increase in the building industry and in the number of tradesmen available to carry out the necessary development of the infrastructure in these areas. Again I suggest that a Scottish oil development corporation could assist greatly in this direction.
The creation of a Scottish development bank has been mentioned before. I believe it is necessary to separate the funds to be used to develop Scotland and the Scottish economy from the "action men"—if you like to call them that—who would help with the planning, the co-ordination and the provision of that flow of information which has so far been lacking. I see nothing wrong about a

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development bank; in fact, I see everything right in it. Again I should like the Government to give a clear commitment, and if they do not want to create a development bank, to say how are they going to fund the development of the infrastructure.
I should like now to come back to the question of a national energy policy which I raised in a debate in your Lordships' House on November 22. I feel that the debate this afternoon is in danger of becoming academic, because we cannot discuss this Motion properly without the Government's declaration of a national energy plan. For instance, how can those responsible for the future of the Scottish mining community give a clear undertaking to their men that there is a future demand for coal without showing that there is a definite place for them in the national energy plan, not only for Britain but also for Europe? None the less, I welcome the assistance provided by the Government about which the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has been explaining to people on the spot. But I ask myself: are they giving this help as an act of faith? No doubt the assistance has been given for very good reasons, but how can they be so sure without having a national energy plan to justify it?
What about those who have to site and design power stations? Who will tell them how those power stations are to be powered unless the Government make clear from where the energy is to be drawn and when? The design of a power station is extremely important for the same reason. I hope, therefore, that during the debate the Government will give a clear indication about their power station policy. This would be helpful, especially to the Scottish mining community. When I raised the subject before, the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, suggested a debate. I am saying, with respect, that a debate may be a waste of time unless there is a White Paper on which to base it. We are already having some controversy, even this afternoon, about figures. I feel that a debate on a national energy plan is essential, but without proper information on which to base a contribution I cannot speak from these Benches and do my job properly. It seems that the figures we are being given are not enough, and sometimes they are
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not accurate. It is extremely difficult to carry on the job of trying to make constructive suggestions to what is a national problem to every Scotsman when we have not the adequate facts and figures to our hand.
In conclusion, my Lords—and I apologise for taking slightly longer than usual—I am sure that other speakers will cover in great detail of depth and sincerity many of the other outstanding problems: and I hope that they will put forward many suggestions. We should stop and think and take a long, hard look at the Scottish economy, in view of these oil discoveries. We should stop and take a long, hard look at the future energy policy of this country and of Europe. And I hope that the Government may stop and have a long, hard look at their own structures of administration, and ask themselves whether they are of the correct shape to develop the Scottish economy for the future.
I believe that there are many agencies that can help the Government to stop and think. There is Lord Rothschild's Think Tank," which is just one source from which the Government and Whitehall can draw new ideas. I should like to think that the noble Lord, Lord Rothschild, is at least considering the problem of a national energy plan and that of regional development. Finally, our friends in Norway, as the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has rightly said, and as I am sure other noble Lords will agree, are prepared to take their time; they are prepared to stop and think, and to take advice from every available source, before committing their country to long-term undertakings that their children and grandchildren may live to regret. I suggest, my Lords, that we should follow their example.
4.2 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR: My Lords, it is with a great feeling of nervousness that I, an unknown, rise to address your Lordships in this noble Chamber. I am fully conscious of the fact that it is the accident of birth that brings me here, and at the risk of being a bore I should like to give your Lordships my credentials. In 1644 Sir John Gordon had his head removed for extreme devotion to the Royalist cause. His son was the Lord

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High Chancellor of Scotland. My great-great-grandfather was a Prime Minister, and before that a foreign Minister. My grandfather was Governor-General of Canada and a Viceroy of Ireland. My uncle was very well known in local authority work in the L.C.C. and of Aberdeenshire. And my father, who lately sat in your Lordships' House, was a very brave man who commanded two battalions of Gordon Highlanders in the Great War, having turned his back on staff appointments. He was President of the F.B.I. in the last war. What fascinated me about my father was that in 1903 he was admitted to the Associated Shipwrights Society as an apprentice joiner—and I have here his union book. Unfortunately, I am not a member of a trade union but, like my father, I have the greatest respect for those excellent friendly societies.
My Lords, in Scotland we have an enormous opportunity confronting us. It is difficult for the ordinary layman, in which category I include myself, to understand all that is going on. I read of steel, with particular reference to Hunterston, and the decisions that are taken or not taken are difficult to follow. I read of the writhings of the Clyde and of the militancy of the coalfields. I read with admiration, and perhaps envy, of the complex North of Inverness. I live in the North-East, and I fancy that I know it fairly well. It is one of the most beautiful counties in Great Britain with the highest mountain massif. It has a large and fertile area devoted to agriculture and forestry, which is practised with enormous skill and, one hopes, being a farmer, success. We have facilities for shipyards and are the shore base of the largest fishing fleets. Noble Lords have touched on this matter, but I should like to emphasise that in my view we have there already most of what is required and it just wants a jolly good boost.
We also have great beauty of scene, plenty of fresh air—some say at times a bit too fresh—wild life in abundance, unspoiled beaches and every opportunity for re-creation. In an area that has become sometimes accustomed to a rather high rate of unemployment, we obviously have great opportunities in front of us. We have had mineral exploration with us for several years now, and we are of course the nearest land to the oil and gas.
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It is with mixed feelings that most of us in our county look at all these developments. I learn that the oil pipe is going to make landfall in Cruden Bay. This is the most delectable unspoiled beach, where, incidentally, I and my family take our swimming exercise—and one hopes that we shall be able to continue to do this. Rattray Head, another beautiful beach, is I understand down for industrialisation. Just by Rattray Head there is a lovely loch, the Loch of Strathbeg. I am told that the Royal Navy have their eyes on it. Please, my Lords, what do the Royal Navy want with the Loch of Strathbeg? For centuries it has been the home of every kind of wild fowl. Where a person ventured there a few years ago—it was quite an expedition—now many go to observe and to get their refreshment.
I realise that we must have power, and we are promised an immense power station at Peterhead. That is probably in the right place—and I will not go on about that. We badly need, in my opinion, a dual carriageway road from Fraserburgh and Peterhead to the South; and I have no doubt that Elgin would not say "No" to this. We are also faced in this tremendous period of change and opportunity with a change in the methods of local government. We are faced with the raising of the school leaving age.
Nothing, or very little, has been said so far about education. To my misfortune, I am chairman of the Aberdeenshire Education Committee, and we are quite desperate when we look at the problems with which we are faced. We are very short of buildings, although we have many fine schools. We have had a disastrous building strike which has meant that many schools are either half built or not built at all. We have a splendid body of schoolteachers, although it is curiously patchy in its incidence—but, of course, it is up to the local authority to deal with that. But buildings we must have and, much as I admire the Scottish Education Department, I find that their decisions are a bit slow in coming—and when they do come they are rather painfully inadequate. This morning I received a document from the Scottish Conservative Central Office —a very valuable document—and the only reference I could see concerning education was one produced by the Scottish National

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Party, who recommend that there should be 10 per cent. more spent on education. I am not proposing to become a Scottish Nationalist, but that sum is painfully inadequate. I should like to ask that it be represented to Her Majesty's Government that we need much more spent on school buildings. As a corollary, perhaps I might add that I believe school teachers are not paid enough. I imagine most people feel that; but this splendid body of people should have a reward commensurate with the work they do.
It is absolutely vital that we should have quick decisions on matters of this sort. The processing of plans and applications and the release of money is, in
my opinion, altogether too slow. I think it has been said by noble Lords that overall planning of a very high order is a "must". I should like to add to that, if I may, that it is of vital importance. We have a plethora of planning committees. They are very good in themselves and are composed largely of local people who are straight amateurs in the matter of planning. I feel that we need an overall plan administered by an overall planner.
Perhaps I might remind your Lordships of the regional commissioners who operated during the war. I remember with particular affection the splendid work done by the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, in the Manchester area during some of the worst years of the war. He had more or less absolute powers; and I think that a similar arrangement is what we need now in the North-East of Scotland. With all respect to both St. Andrew's House and Dover House, I feel that they are slightly too remote. I should like to see a regional commissioner in the North-East, moving among the people, learning about their problems and listening to what they say: someone with the power, as I say, to make quick decisions. Many people from all walks of life have come up to me and made remarks of this nature, because they find themselves so perplexed with what they are faced. I have been to North-East Lincolnshire and to North-East Durham; and I am terribly anxious that we should not turn the North-East of Scotland into the kind of wasteland of steel and concrete that those other corners have become.
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We really must conserve our resources on land and on sea, and keep pollution down to an absolute minimum. A little time ago I read that the average family has double the income it had about ten years ago and, further, that families do not spend this money on food but on gadgets and things that tend to increase pollution. We pay lip service to technology; but what does it bring in its train?—unemployment, dissatisfaction and misery. It seems to me that there are now more "drop-outs" than ever before. Of course we want prosperity, and we want it quickly; but if man, in his wild search for this prosperity, pollutes his environment and loses his soul, what is the point of it all? May I beg your Lordships to press for the most urgent and comprehensive powers to be granted for the North-East of Scotland?
4.15 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, it is with the greatest of pleasure that I start by welcoming my noble friend and congratulating him very warmly indeed on his maiden speech. He began by saying he was unknown. At least so far as I am concerned, he is not unknown—for we met in university days a long time ago, and I may say that fortunately we were generally on the same side when we were playing rugby football. I am very glad indeed to see him on the same side again now. My noble friend made an eloquent plea for keeping the beauties of Scotland and preserving what we often refer to here as "human values". He has referred also to other points which, if I may say so, might perhaps be more appropriately dealt with by my noble friend in winding up, as they come within the ambit of the Secretary of State for Scotland. But I can say to him that we very much welcome his arrival. We honour him for himself; we honour him for his father, for whom we had the very greatest respect and affection; and we hope we shall hear him speak often.
Secondly, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Arbuthnott for having introduced this debate to-day. It is in every way timely, and he has injected a
great deal of careful thought into the debate. I hope I shall be able to meet
many of the points that he has raised.

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Two things are transforming the situation in Scotland at the present time. The first is North Sea oil and the second is the operation of the Industry Act. The fortunes of Scotland have tended generally to follow in the wake of the fortunes of the United Kingdom as a whole; but the combination of these two factors offers the possibility that Scotland may lead the recovery in investment which is just beginning to take place in the United Kingdom as a whole. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, that, so far as we are concerned, there is certainly no question of writing Scotland off. I hope that in the course of my speech I shall be able to "raise his pecker" just a little from the rather low level from which he seemed to be speaking.
Nobody can deny the existence of a continuing economic problem in Scotland, but already there has been a marked recovery from the trough of unemployment at the beginning of the year. On the provisional figures for November, there were over 23,000 fewer unemployed than there were then, and the trend is downwards, despite the season of the year. The improvement is reflected also in the rate of notified redundancies. The monthly average shows a decline from 3,600 a month in 1971 to 2,000 a month for the first ten months of this year. We have, of course, redundancies in the pits and elsewhere, and the Government have just indicated the steps they are taking, at any rate to alleviate the position in the coal industry. There is undoubtedly an atmosphere of greater confidence in Scotland for 1973. No one can go into Scotland without noticing the difference now. Apart from industries related to the production and transport of oil, the sectors of industry which seem to offer the best hope of growth potential are, for example, electrical and instrument engineering, vehicle production and drink and tobacco.
The Industry Act became law in August and the regional development grants have been in operation since October. As for the discretionary assistance, known as selective financial assistance, applications are being processed as quickly as possible, but much depends on the applicant's supplying promptly all the information needed; applications for selective financial assistance must be examined properly to ensure that public
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money goes only to worthwhile projects likely to prove viable. Since its inauguration the Scottish Industrial Development Board has met several times to consider specific applications and is developing its general role of encouraging the expansion and modernisation of industry in Scotland. The new incentives will take some time to make their full impact on the investment decisions of firms; and it will take time to translate such decisions into new jobs. The fact remains that the response by firms in Scotland to the availability of selective financial assistance has been quite encouraging.
Every effort is made to draw the attention of industry in Scotland to the assistance the Government can offer. An advertising campaign is being conducted in both the national and Scottish Press. As a result of this campaign, since October 1 about 500 inquiries have been received from undertakings interested in development in Scotland, and the advertising campaign will continue. As at December 10, 61 applications were being considered by the Scottish Industrial Development Board. Offers have already been made in some cases. Of the 61 applications, some 10 came from immigrant companies.
Noble Lords will recall that while selective assistance must benefit employment, it is no longer confined to the provision of new jobs—and this is very important for Scotland—nor is it restricted to incoming industry. It is available not only to provide employment, but to maintain and safeguard it. It is available for modernisation as well as development. It remains true however that those projects which will create employment will have preferential treatment. They may qualify for loans at concessionary rates, or for interest relief grant on loans obtained from private sources. They may also qualify for removal grants for an undertaking transferred to Scotland. Other projects are eligible for loans at commercial interest rates where the assistance required cannot reasonably be obtained from commercial sources. I think I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, that perhaps his pessimism about the capacity of Scottish industry to avail itself of the new opportunities that are before it was a little misplaced.

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Training is of immense importance; assistance for it has been improved, and grants for training or retraining workers for additional jobs have been increased. Government training facilities are being expanded to 3,500 trainees a year in Scotland by 1975. As we are talking so largely about oil, and as my noble friend Lord Balerno is here, I should like to recognise in particular the initiative of the Heriot-Watt University in establishing an Institute of Offshore Engineering.
But apart from all this the situation in Scotland has been transformed by the discovery of oil in Scottish waters of the North Sea. As the article in the
Guardian put it on Tuesday, "Scotland is on the brink of something big". Of course it is said that people in general, and the Government in particular, have been slow to recognise the potentialities for Scotland. I sense to-day some thought that we were moving too quickly towards the extraction of oil. However that may be, that certainly does not apply to the Government. It is little over a year since it was definitely known that there was oil in quantities which were worth exploiting. Since then the Secretary of State and my noble friend the Minister of State for Scotland have been constantly proclaiming the opportunities that this offers for enterprises and employment in Scotland.
The Guardian speaks of the Government as rather belatedly starting to talk about Scotland becoming the Texas of Europe. In fact the Secretary of State himself used the phrase many months ago—indeed, I believe he coined it. While we are on that point, I should like to refer to the point which the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, made about our position in the E.E.C., and the general position of oil. I think he said that he had seen the letter which I wrote to my noble friend Lord Lauderdale in answer to the questions he raised in the last debate. I should like to reassure noble Lords that the position is exactly as I stated in that letter. On joining the E.E.C., the United Kingdom's energy policies will of course be shaped to take account of the needs of the community as a whole. But I must make it absolutely clear that the Government regard the petroleum resources of the
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entire United Kingdom Continental Shelf as national assets in just the same way as the mineral deposits on land in the United Kingdom. The obligations to the Community have still to be worked out, but the Government will be very careful to safeguard legitimate national interests as the Community energy policy is developed. There can be no doubt, as I said to my noble friend, that the petroleum resources of the whole of the United Kingdom Shelf will continue to be treated as national assets in our policy for their exploration and exploitation, and we shall ensure that British interests are taken fully into account as the Community energy policy is developed.
I should like to say a word about the planning aspects that my noble friends the Minister of State and the Secretary of State for Scotland have been undertaking in Scotland. It is right that at the start of this debate we should get this matter in perspective. In co-operation with the Department of Trade and Industry, the Secretary of State has been planning the work and the expenditure which will be needed to handle the oil, the vast proportion of which is likely to be landed in Scotland. There is the enormous sum of £60 million for improvement of roads, notably from Central Scotland to Invergordon; there are 700 houses to be built in the North of Scotland by the Scottish Housing Association for workers in industries connected with oil; there is the harbour and other developments at Peterhead, Wick and Lerwick. There are special liaison arrangements established by the Scottish Development Department with local planning authorities and with the statutory and voluntary conservation bodies.
If local authorities are in any doubt about planning applications, they have only to consult the Scottish Office. They are not right out on a limb, working in isolation. Special efforts have been made to draw the attention of industry in Scotland to the opportunities. My colleague at the Department of Trade and Industry, Mr. Peter Emery, has himself written to 100 Scottish firms. Many firms have already won important orders for equipment—pumps, generators, deck modules, cranes, plate bending, machinery and pressure vessels for flotation tanks. I shall come to offshore structures in a

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minute. We are greatly indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, (who is not in his place at the moment) for presiding over the committee which is in overall charge of the campaign to attract industrial investment to Scotland. No doubt this also will play its part in enabling Scotland to take advantage of new opportunities.
The noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, mentioned the subject of our general offshore policy. I will not repeat in detail what I said on November 22 about the success of our licensing policy so far. I shall simply remind the House that it has been enormously successful in achieving rapid development of our sector of the Shelf; that this development has been more rapid than in any other sector of the North Sea, and that the United Kingdom sector should in 1980 be producing more oil than all these other sectors put together. My noble friend argued that we were possibly going too fast; that we should be exhausting our reserves too quickly, and I think the noble Lord. Lord Hughes, said the same thing.
LORD HUGHES: Not quite, my Lords.
LORD DRUMALBYN: But, my Lords, there is an optimum speed at which to do this. Had we not gone ahead as quickly as we could we should not then have attracted industry to start up in Scotland to meet these opportunities. The resources were not there at the time, but the mere fact of the rapid development over this short period has already, as the article in the Guardian brought out, brought people in with great rapidity to meet the needs of the oil companies in their exploration and transport.
The three principal objectives of our policy are still: to maximise production of oil and gas; to ensure that the Exchequer gets a due return from the exploitation of a natural resource, and to ensure that British industry is given a full and fair opportunity to compete for orders.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, if the noble Lord will permit me to intervene at that point I would remind him that what I said was related to the assurance which he has given about this oil remaining a British asset; that there was a difference between developing it as rapidly
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as our interests required and developing it as rapidly as European interests required. That was the point on which I was venturing a note of caution about speed.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Yes, my Lords, I accept that. I should have to give further thought to the question of how different the policy would have been had we been developing it as fast as European industry required; but the fact remains that so far as the policy of development here is concerned, I think it has gone ahead as fast as it could possibly do, and I believe it was right that it should do so.
As I said, the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, injected a doubt as to whether it is in the national interests or in the interests of Scottish industry to encourage rapid development in the North Sea. He queried the balance of payments security advantages of North Sea oil. I do not think that the balance of payments advantages need to be proved. In 1971 our oil imports for the United Kingdom as a whole cost £1,000 million, most of it in foreign exchange. This is an enormous burden on the balance of payments and I do not need to remind your Lordships that during the last few years the balance of payments has given us a little passing trouble in the management of our economic affairs. Moreover—does the noble Lord wish to intervene?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord the Minister would reflect that what counts is a net relief to the balance of payments, not a gross relief to imports of a visible kind, and if we have too good conditions for the oil companies what we gain on trade figures we shall lose on the balance of payments in invisible exports, in terms of profits and dividends repatriated. I fear that the Minister does not wish to take this in.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this is not the first time that the noble Lord has made that point, and I can assure him that it has been well taken in. If he wishes to develop it further I think he is going to speak to-day. The point that I am making at the moment is that there is a serious adverse balance of payments through these imports, and

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whatever way one looks at it the development of our oil will mean a considerable benefit to our balance of payments. Moreover, without North Sea oil, this burden, already heavy, is likely to increase substantially. The price of oil is likely to rise in future as the producing companies increase their revenue, and if oil companies move into more and more difficult areas to keep pace with the rapid increase in demand the reduction in our import bill brought about by North Sea oil will be very welcome indeed.
The reduction in dependence on possibly insecure imports will also be valuable. The noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, pointed out, quite rightly, that North Sea reserves are likely to be very much less than those in other petroleum-rich areas, such as the Middle East. This is fair comment; indeed it is useful to put our finds in perspective like this, and I hope that some of our compatriots who have given their very proper enthusiasm free rein will take note of it. But, equally, we should not underestimate the importance of our finds. They will, in the Government's estimate, provide the equivalent of half our total demand for oil in 1980; indeed, many of our critics say that production will be higher than this. if the United Kingdom were to-day producing the 75 million tons of oil a year which the Government estimate we should get in 1980, we should be the ninth biggest producer in the world.
The noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, also questioned whether rapid development is in the interests of Scottish supplying industry. I know it has been argued that slower development, even if it had other disadvantages, would at least give British industry an opportunity to equip itself to meet the new demands falling on it. I can understand that argument, but I am not convinced by it. The more rapid development is, the more orders there are. Breaking into the supplying market requires a heavy investment in capital and expertise. Firms are naturally reluctant to commit this investment unless they can see a big market developing fast. Above all, British supplying industry is unlikely to get into the world offshore market, which may be three or four times as big as the
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British alone, unless they have a big home demand. Not the least of the advantages of the American suppliers in the world market is that they had the first, and still the biggest, home market. I invite noble Lords to look at what is actually happening. The market for oil producing equipment has developed very fast. It was only about a year ago that the first oilfield (the Forties) was proved commercially viable. But within that past year, the record of British industry has been better than ever before, as I shall demonstrate in a moment or two.
I should like to deal with one more point before I leave general licensing policy. The noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, suggested that the figure of £100 million for Exchequer benefit is an underestimate. He may be surprised to hear that I agree with him. It would be a very optimistic man who would say that oil prices will not go up. Increases in producer country revenue and rising demand will almost certainly mean that they will go up, perhaps substantially. In that case, royalties, too, will go up. Second, the £100 million takes no account of the producers' liability to corporation tax, but I will not go into that further because these are matters for the Chancellor. I will only say here that it is impossible to forecast the exact level of tax payment in 1980 or any other year.
Forecasts of revenue are based of course on forecasts of production. I know that our estimate of 75 million tons in 1980 is regarded as conservative. We do not claim that we are necessarily right. We spoke about this at Question Time to-day. The level of oil production in 1980 will be determined by how much oil there is in place, and how quickly it can be produced. Before it can be produced, vast sums have to be spent—about £2,000 million—and novel technological problems overcome. It takes six years from the beginning of the development of an oilfield to its reaching peak production. By this time-scale, and with these problems, 1980 is not so far away. Our estimate of 75 million tons is therefore an estimate, not of peak production, but of the production that will have become possible by then. It follows that there is good prospect of its being exceeded later in the 1980s, although we must always remember that production from some of the first fields to be developed

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will by then be starting to fall. Peak period production is only about three years.
I come to the third objective of the Government's policy: to ensure that British industry is given a full and fair opportunity to compete for orders. The performance of British industry in supplying goods and services to the North Sea operators is much better than has sometimes been suggested. Over the period 1964 to 1971, about 50 per cent. of the orders placed by 12 leading operators were with United Kingdom-based firms. In relation to the Forties field B.P. recently estimated that in terms of value about half of the orders for equipment have been placed to date in the United Kingdom, and they consider that this figure may increase to over 60 per cent. for the balance of orders. Seventy per cent. of their expenditure on labour is for British labour. This is encouraging but there is room for improvement, particularly over orders for the manufacture and installation of offshore structures for the highly technical and very expensive contracting services associated with offshore development. But even here British industry has already begun to show its ability to get orders, and three offshore structures are now being built in Scotland, two at Nigg Bay for the B.P. Forties field, and one at Burntisland, for Shell. Shell estimate that of their £9 million expenditure for their Auk platform about 60 per cent. will go to United Kingdom-based firms.
The British Steel Corporation, to which the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. referred. have turned a disused coal site into a plant for offshore structures at Methil, in Fife, where I believe they are making what are called the jackets on which platforms stand. They are working on a £6.5 million contract from B.P. for the 135-mile land line to the Grangemouth refinery, and they are at the present time looking into the question of offering pipes to take the place of the Japanese pipes; but, as the noble Lord knows, a Statement on steel in general is to be made before long. They are producing plate for heavy structural fabrications at Clydebridge and at Dalzell and there is a £9 million development programme in progress at Clydeside Tube Works to meet future growth in demand for seamless tubes. The B.S.C. say that they have supplied
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90 per cent. of the seamless tubes for well casing and conductor pipe in the North Sea over the past five years. There are of course delays, but they are inevitable because of the necessity to comply with planning procedures. The planning applications for an oil refinery and an ore terminal at Hunterston have necessarily to go through the normal processes.
The oil companies are working in a difficult and highly dangerous environment with complex and expensive equipment. Their investment is massive and they require very high standards of equipment and material. In these circumstances it must be a matter for them to decide, in the light of their commercial and technical judgment, where they place their orders. It is up to British industry to prove that it can compete, and many firms are already doing so successfully. Quite apart from our international obligations, it would be neither sensible nor practical to introduce protective measures aimed at forcing oil companies to "buy British" or "buy Scottish". Only a fully competitive British supply industry will be able to compete in this market and in the rapidly expanding world market for offshore goods and services.
There are, however, specific ways in which the Department of Trade and Industry can help. For a start, it is important to identify the particular problems facing British industry in its efforts to capture orders for the North Sea market. For example, we need to find out why certain orders are at present going overseas. We have therefore asked the oil companies to let us have periodic returns of the orders they have placed and will be placing for equipment, materials and services for use in the North Sea. We shall discuss these returns with the oil companies and identify the products and services which British industry is failing to supply. The Government will then see what can be done to help British industry to improve its performance in these areas, and this will involve discussions with the sectors of industry concerned. We shall provide a stimulus where it is needed. I fully agree with the noble Viscount's contention that we need more British consultants to play an active part in designing offshore equipment and structures and in project management. Perhaps it was encouraging,

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therefore, to hear that for their Brent field Shell/Esso have employed British consultants for the design of the production process facilities and utilities to be installed on one of the offshore platforms. As with industry generally, it is up to the professions to secure as much of this work as possible, and the Government are willing to help wherever appropriate.
In conclusion, I should like simply to say that the future lies in the hands of Scotland itself. The Government are there to give every possible assistance. As I have tried to indicate, they have been helping with the infrastructure as a whole. As for the supply of equipment, exploration and the rest, I would say in passing that licences are freely granted for exploration. They are not exclusive licences and they are freely granted. There is nothing to prevent exploration off the Galloway coast should anyone wish to do so. All this work is going on at a very commendable pace. Scotland can be proud of the way in which it is at present meeting the challenge that lies before it, and I believe that with the assistance which the Government hope to be able to provide we shall be able to go ahead even more successfully in the future than we have been doing so far.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, and as he referred to a limited extent to steel (understandably, because, as he said, a Statement is to be made about steel generally), may I ask him to indicate whether that Statement is likely to be made while Parliament is sitting, as it would be unfortunate if it were made during- the Christmas Recess?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am afraid that I am not in a position to give the noble Lord that assurance.
4.47 p.m.
LORD LOVAT: My Lords, in thanking the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, for introducing this debate, I wish slightly to alter the tenor of the discussion by taking him up on the first line of his Motion in which he draws attention to the state of the Scottish economy. The debate has been almost entirely about oil and a little about steel and Hunterston. I hope that I will not embarrass the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, when he comes to sum up if, on the subject of the Scottish economy in
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general and the Highland economy in particular, I touch briefly on some indigenous industries which, while they do not really find a place in to-night's debate, should be discussed fully on a future occasion. I agree with the remarks of the noble Lord. Lord Hughes, about this. Clearly, one debate is not nearly enough in which to deal with the problems which we in the North have to face. I am speaking particularly about agriculture, fisheries and forestry, and I feel that we must have a debate on these three subjects. I will to-night simply drop some marker flares, so to speak, on subjects about which the Government must be prepared to expect some subsequent quite heavy bombing.
On the subject of fisheries, which is very near to the hearts of those in the Northern Highlands, in the discussions over our entry into the Common Market not sufficient attention was given to inshore fishing. It became a bargaining counter and we are far from happy about the ten-year period which has been agreed and which will be reviewed in due course. We feel very much the same about hill farmers and the future of hill farming, something which is vital in an area in which it is impossible to grow grain or cereals.
Probably the most important point to be made about forestry is the fact that the Government White Paper must have come as a shock to noble Lords in all parts of the House. We are dependent for forestry requirements to the tune of £700 million a year in terms of our balance of payments and, as I see it, the White Paper represents a complete reversal to encouragement to grow trees where nothing else can profitably be grown. With the greatest respect to the Forestry Commission—and, of course, to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe—we cannot accept the cross benefit study, which does not make sense to private growers.
LORD TAYLOR OF GRYFE: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord just to say that the document is not a document of the Forestry Commission. I believe that should be established. The document comes in fact from the Government. I will refrain from commenting on the contents of the document, but I wish to put the Record straight.
LORD LOVAT: I fully appreciate that and I was going on to say that we knew the Commission's hands were tied.
From there, my Lords, while congratulating the noble Marquess, who is not at the moment in his seat, upon his splendid maiden speech, and on his cheerful exposé on the tremendous fortune which has fallen to those in the NorthEast—they say in Aberdeen that only a poor man washes his own Cadillac nowadays—one moves to the unattractive thought that something like 23 per cent. unemployment exists to-day in Harris, where the tweed industry is in disarray and where the whole of the Western Isles seems to be given over to things like rocket ranges and submarine torpedo-testing zones. Railway lines are being closed in an area where one day the Celtic basin and the seismic surveys indicate that there may be a great deal of oil. That seems to be an extraordinarily muddled conception both of planning and of the best use of land. I feel that an insufficient number of speakers have touched on the nuts and bolts of the infrastructure of making use of the potential which may exist in the West as well as in the East. The two parts of the Highlands of Scotland are clearly suffering from a grave imbalance. Again, although it is not a matter of oil, I feel that the tourist industry must be thought of in the context of the Scottish economy. In the Islands we do not have enough money to build roll-on/roll-off ferries and we do not have the ships to take the tourists out to look at the part of the country which they want to see perhaps more than any other.
Having said that, I should like to get back to oil, because in oil we see a tremendous breakthrough for the whole of the North of Scotland, and fringe benefits will certainly rub off on the far North. I hope that later in the debate the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie, will enlarge on the potential which exists in the Moray Firth area. Here, my Lords, I feel that the Government are not up to the mark in the organisation of the best man uses of the resources which are now within our reach. We have not the money: a penny on the rates in Inverness-shire produces only something like £1,100 or £1,200. Everything depends on the rates. We have no money, for instance, should oil be brought back into
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the inner Firths or into any protected waters, to deal with pollution and the purification of our river boards, because there is none up North. We have not the rates to do that. We do not have the rates to provide the money to improve the roads, the piers or the harbour facilities. In all these things I suggest that the Government are lagging far behind. I would suggest, also, that events have overtaken the Government. I do not think that one can say that sufficiently strongly.
I further suggest that during the present hiatus, prior to the implementation of the Wheatley Report, a land policy is required not only to help oil but to help industry, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, tourism; and, I would add, national parks, of which we do not have one in Scotland to-day. We have forest parks and parks for the conservation of rare species of animals and birds, but we do not have national parks. These things are needed in Scotland, whether in the North or in the South.
This operation should be planned rather in the way of a military exercise or manœuvre. We have a breakthrough, but there is a real risk of a breakdown. The infrastructure of the oil industry, from what I have heard—and I visit both the Invergordon area and Aberdeen —is deplorably had. If any of your Lordships from the North had wished to drive South to attend this debate he would have found himself unable, for the past three days, to get through the Drumochter Pass. How can one run something with a big hat and a Texan bodyguard? The oil men simply do not understand this kind of thing: nor does anybody else. In Aberdeen one talks of a few thousand houses being required for the oil people in the area; but behind the needs of the oil people are all sorts of ancillary and subsidiary requirements. I understood on my last visit to Aberdeen that something like 18,000 houses may be needed, and there is no water supply to service those houses. As the previous speaker said, where is the electric light, and where are all the things coming from that one takes for granted unless the Government plan now? I am not going to say any more because there are 23 other speakers, but I urge the Government to think along these lines or we shall find ourselves behind the clock.
4.56 p.m.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, as the first of the last 20 speakers I, too, must be brief in speaking because, unless we are going to be provided with refreshment to-night, we shall be lucky if we are home by midnight. I shall try to be brief and I am sure that others will be brief, too. The noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, in opening the debate certainly gave us all great food for thought, and I hope and am sure that the Government will consider very carefully the points made by him with great moderation. I should like also to join others in congratulating Lord Aberdeen, my noble kinsman, on his maiden speech.
If Scotland were a nation on its own to-day—and in this matter I feel a little as the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, and the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, did: I am not a Scottish Nationalist vet, but perhaps we are going that way—our countrymen would be in a state of great excitement. For the first time in centuries, perhaps ever, they would see ahead of them full employment, no need to worry about emigration, and a period of great prosperity. Why is that? Quite simply, it is partly because of the Scottish oil discoveries (North Sea oil discoveries, if you will) and partly because of the natural advantage of the deep waters of the Clyde—unique in this part of the world and where the great oil carriers of the future, of half a million tons or more, can come and unload: the gateway to Europe from the four Continents of the world as the Oceanspan plan foresaw.
On oil, my Lords, I shall speak very shortly. There are two points: first, when I was addressing your Lordships at the time of the Address on the Queen's Speech I regretted that the British Petroleum Company had postponed indefinitely their refinery expansion at Grangemouth. I have since heard from Sir Eric Drake, the chairman of that company, the great company which has done so much for Scotland. that I was wrong. British Petroleum is not cancelling or postponing indefinitely the Grangemouth expansion; it plans to phase it with its North Sea oil programme. That is good news. I hope that the phasing will be sooner rather than later. I would hope also if another refinery is established, as I trust may be the case, that that fact will
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not alter the company's plans. For that to happen would be too bad. This other oil refinery must surely be on the deep waters of the Clyde. Three abortive attempts have been made to get planning permission for such a refinery. I would ask the Government to consider taking the initiative in saying where a new refinery could be set up. This would be invaluable and would get things moving.
My second point on oil is the question of delivery dates of oil equipment. I hear on various sides that the delivery of this oil equipment is rather unreliable. I do not know whether this is true or not, but what I do know is that the great oil companies must have the equipment which they order on time. If something goes wrong in delivery dates their whole programme for a year can be put out, and that is something that they cannot risk. So I wonder whether the Government would consider letting us know whether or not this is the case. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, spoke a little about this matter. Perhaps what I am going to suggest is not necessary, because the noble Lord explained how the Government were watching what industry was doing and comparing notes with the oil companies, but my idea would be that they should immediately start an inquiry into the facts of this matter, the inquiry to consist of three men—one trade unionist, one from industry and one other—to check whether there are delays in oil equipment deliveries, and if so, why. However they make their report, it should be done very quickly and the outcome should be widely publicised, so that the oil companies cannot have this excuse for not placing orders in this country.
Now I come to the question of communications. Oceanspan has been debated twice in the last two or three years, but I feel, with the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, that I do not really know what is happening, or whether we are making any progress on it. It is just as important for us, and indeed for the United Kingdom, that we should be getting on with it as it is for the South of England to have the Channel Tunnel. I think it is more important. Millions are being spent on studies of the Channel Tunnel. What is happening in regard to the infrastructure for Oceanspan? My second point on communications is in

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regard to the railways. We all know about the leaked report which said that the South West of Scotland and the Highlands were not going to have any railway. I can imagine nothing worse than this matter remaining uncertain. Just think of a new company which wants to set up somewhere in Scotland. They would say, "We are not going to choose the Highlands, we are not going to choose the South West of Scotland, unless we know there are going to be railway communications there". I have given notice to the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, that I would ask the question whether he could not kill, once for all, the rumour that the Government would support such a stupidity as this.
Now I touch on steel. I will not go into it in any detail, because not only have the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) made their recommendations, but the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has told us a good deal of what they said. Rather would I try to touch on it with a very broad brush. The British Steel Corporation, helped, I think, by some of the very careful people in the Treasury, came to the conclusion that the right figure for us was somewhere between 28 and 36 million tons of steel capacity. I think that is the most chicken-hearted decision. Japan, I believe I am right in saying, already has a capacity four times as great as that. We are now talking about the future. Are we to be a fourth-rate industrial Power? Because let us make no mistake, whoever produces steel is a great industrial Power, whoever does not is not. So I hope that this matter will be reconsidered. We have an advantage in this connection in Scotland which is unique, namely, as I have said, the deep waters of the Clyde. We know that an ore terminal is to be set up to take advantage of that. But is that to be all? Surely we should have in Scotland, and near Hunterston, a real grass roots, green grass, whatever they call it, new plant set up, with a capacity of some millions of tons. I am sure it is right economically. And even if it were not. I would say that this at least is something that Scotland should enjoy in return for the Scottish oil coming from Scottish waters.
This is a one-day debate. I did not interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, when he said that we have one day in
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the year, but I certainly will give notice to the Whips—and I feel I have many others behind me—that we consider it all wrong that we should have only one or even two debates in the year. So when the time comes I hope that what Lord Hughes has said will be taken in conjunction with what I have said and the echo of support I have had from the other Benches.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Earl, I would ask whether it is not the case that this debate is in fact a sort of spillover from the last Session which was so overcrowded that we did not have time for it? Therefore we are certainly entitled to two days in this Session, if not three.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I am certainly in agreement with the noble Earl on two days if not three days. All the same, even a one-day debate I am will be studied by the Scottish Office, sure and I do not underrate the value of that, but it will not get really wide publicity in the Press and on radio. And if it does —and I hope it will—all the same it is a one day wonder. It is not good enough.
A little while ago I pressed the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, to set up the Scottish Convention as soon as possible, and he gave your Lordships a rather encouraging reply. He said that after the local government reform measures would be the time to introduce the Scottish Convention, and the Government had that in mind. That is very logical, but I am not sure that logic is always right. I would again impress on the noble Lord the need to bring in his plans for a Scottish Convention sooner rather than later. Then we could discuss, not only on one day but over the months, in Edinburgh, where the people of Scotland can hear about it, the various things which may lie ahead for us, and work out our plans for our future, this great future which is within our grasp. Then we could fill our people with enthusiasms and with the determination to work for the greatest benefit of our own country, and with that the benefit of the whole of the United Kingdom.
5.10 p.m.
LADY SEMPILL: My Lords, I welcome this opportunity of taking part in what has become an annual debate on

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employment and industry in Scotland. Much of this debate has been concentrated on oil and steel. However, I should like to concentrate my few remarks on a much older industry but one which nevertheless is of first importance to many parts of Scotland, the fishing industry. While we all welcomed the announcement by the Minister yesterday that a friendly temporary settlement of the fishing dispute with Iceland is a possibility, nevertheless it has brought considerable uncertainty to the minds of our fishermen. In the first place, it brings immediate difficulties to our distant water fleets. We all know that any limitation of their traditional fishing rights can result in serious repercussions for the middle water fleets, by a concentration in those fishing grounds where both these fleets earn their living. I should be grateful if the noble Lord, when he comes to reply, could give us an assurance that this point has not been overlooked.
I should also like to ask my noble friend about the development of industry that is being encouraged by the Highlands and Islands Development Board. Last year's report was very encouraging, and I hope that this year's efforts are no less favourable because in many villages on the Northern coast of Scotland it is the fishing industry on which they rely for their livelihood. One final point: has the Scottish Council made any searching enquiries as to home industries, or other branches of work, which could mop up the unemployment among women?
5.11 p.m.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: My Lords, I should like to start by paying a sincere tribute to my noble friend Lord Aberdeen on his maiden speech. We are also all very grateful to my noble friend Lord Arbuthnott for introducing this debate. It is of tremendous importance to the whole of Scotland, and not least to the area in which I live, where we have seen a major development on the Eastern seaboard of my own county, Ross and Cromarty. This has, of course, produced great problems which we have endeavoured, and are endeavouring, to overcome, and on this count I should like for a moment to comment on the tug-of-war which is apt to occur between extreme conservationists—often people coming from the South to find
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peace in the Highlands where they have settled—and those of us who have for so long struggled to stem the ever-increasing unemployment and exodus of our younger population. Let us be quite clear that the great majority of us who have seen the necessity for the introduction of some form of industry are just as keen conservationists as are the other side, and we certainly do not wish the most beautiful country in the world to be turned into an area of "dark satanic mills", as happened in the past and unnecessarily spoilt so many areas in the Lowland belt of Scotland and large parts of England.
Perhaps it is very much easier for us who have an intimate knowledge of the
past history of the Highlands to form a balanced judgment. To go no further back than the 19th century, we had the tragedy of the clearances, and since that period we have had two world wars which decimated the Highlands—the first one in particular, when the best part of a generation was wiped out. Since then we have seen tremendous strides in technology, which means yet again that more and more young men must leave to find employment, as ever fewer workers are required in agriculture, forestry and fishing. Their jobs have to a great extent been taken over by machines, and these industries, with the exception of tourism, were the basic and only sources of employment for the men and women of the Highlands.
Let us now look at the other side of the picture. In the area of Easter Ross there is no longer unemployment, and the young men and women are not forced from the homes of their ancestors. I hope very much that the Government will make a great effort to see that some of this prosperity rubs off on the Western seaboard and the Western Isles, especially the Island of Lewis, where the unemployment rate stands at the disgraceful figure of 23 per cent. The Highlands and Islands Development Board have undoubtedly been helpful, especially in their aid to the fishing industry, and we all agree with their policy of counter-drift, which was aimed at bringing back many of those who had to leave their homeland due to what one can only describe as economic evictions. But, having said that, I must add that, like many others, I am not enthusiastic about

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Sir Andrew Gilchrist's statement that he now wishes to flood the Highlands with Englishmen. We, like the Welsh, have our own culture and our own way of life and do not wish to see this submerged by anyone else. Perhaps his statement was made to keep the ever-increasing personnel of the H.I.D.B. employed answering angry letters from Highlanders. Sometimes one misses the down-to-earth and utterly self-disinterested work done by Mr. Rollo and his few devoted helpers when they ran the Highland Fund.
Now a brief word about the projected torpedo range in the Applecross, Kyle of Lochaish, area. As I have mentioned before, one hopes desperately to see something which will hold the population in the West, but I hope that in this case a decision can be made by the local fishermen themselves who may be affected and not by an assortment of politically motivated persons from God knows where.
In connection with the West, I hope that the Government will impress upon British Railways the social necessity for the retention of the Kyle railway line. It would, of course, greatly help those who would like to use this railway but cannot do so at present if the trains coming from the West were timed to connect with trains going East to Aberdeen and the regions South of Inverness. At last some effort is being made by British Railways to make this line more viable, which is a welcome change from the previous deliberate rundown in service and efficiency. But, my Lords, much remains to be done to re-create a good and viable service.
As well as the social necessity for this line, it cannot have escaped the notice of the Minister of Transport that the number of heavy lorries on our inadequate road system is rapidly increasing; a process which will continue. And in the summer confusion is worse confounded with the addition of tourist traffic, and especially that other menace, the caravan column. It does not seem out of place to suggest that a considerable proportion of the heavy traffic which not only pollutes the atmosphere but destroys roads, bridges and buildings, could well be channelled on to our railways, and on certain roads caravans should be restricted to specified hours in the twenty-four. All civilised residents in these islands should
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be grateful to Members of all Parties in another place who resisted the great pressures put upon them to authorise the introduction of even larger juggernauts to our roads. Let us hope that the Ministers of Environment and Transport will see to it that this decision is rigidly enforced, despite the pressures which will continue from Europe, and from certain interests within our own shores who could not care less about the quality of the environment if its preservation precluded any increase in their profits.
Finally, I wish to support my noble friend Lord Perth. I have one final question to ask the Minister; and now that the Common Market question is out of the way I trust that we may have a reply. When do Her Majesty's Government really expect to implement the recommendation of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to set up the Scottish Convention? In case the new local government reorganisation is put forward as an excuse for not answering the question, I would add that the fact of having a regional and district set-up will not necessarily make local government more local —which of course is the object of the exercise—but some form of Assembly in Edinburgh could well make decisions which are now only too often made by civil servants. It could also greatly assist the Secretary of State for Scotland, who now has the impossible job of representing every Ministry in the United Kingdom over a vast area where communications are greatly inferior to those in England, where there are Ministers galore.
5.19 p.m.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I must at the beginning apologise for my intervention. Though I see very few kilts and no sporrans, this must be considered a private occasion, and a "Lowland Hungarian" ought not to tread where Highland Scots until recently feared to tread. I am very glad to hear from the Minister that he has now organised a system by which British industry can be made aware of the supply demands of the oil companies, and that the oil companies are being talked to a little. I am all in favour of this, and if I contributed to this position, my presence here was well worth while.
I am intervening in this debate for two reasons. The first reason is one which I

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think I shall suspend; that is, the fact that certain figures which were given to us did not really come out as they should have done. But I understand that I shall have a bout with the Minister tomorrow, if the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, does not intervene to give me a lecture in etiquette. The second reason is much more important—indeed, vitally important. There is now a Conservative Government in Norway, with a sizeable stake in the North Sea, which has followed the sort of policy that I have been advocating for the last eight years. New regulations have just been issued which ought to be brought to the attention of your Lordships' House. First of all, there are to be royalties of between 8 per cent. and 16 per cent., as against our fiat 12 per cent. This is sensible, because smaller fields ought to be taxed less than larger fields. On the other hand, 12 per cent. is not sufficient in the case of the larger fields. But that is not all. The price at which royalty payments, and all other payments, are to be fixed is, unlike ours, to be a posted price; that is to say, you cannot fix the transfer price by just arranging between the production subsidy of a multi. national company and the refinery and selling end of that same company. There are no arms' length purchases in this commodity, just as there are none in aluminium.
There are also very stiff licence fees in Norway, running into thousands of pounds per square kilometre. Our fees are ridiculous at about £300-odd. What is very much more important, there are very stiff surrender regulations; that is to say, companies which have licences have to surrender after a time on the basis of a chequer-board arrangement, which allows the Crown to recoup itself for successful development. On top of that, Norway seems to have learned from the authorities in Monaco. Like the authorities in Monaco, they have a double zero which we in this country disdain from using because we are so pure. But learning from that excellent example, the Norwegians have provided that once a discovery is made they can participate to the extent of between 30 per cent. and 50 per cent. of the total, while they lose nothing on failures.
Since we last discussed this subject—in fact, this happened only this afternoon—
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there has been a speech by M. Spaak, the son of Papa Spaak, who has done so well by us in the matter of the Common Market. M. Spaak has explained to us what the Common Market will mean. According to him, the Common Market will mean that we shall have to give up the monopoly buying power of the Gas Board. He has also explained that of course there will be absolute equality in supplying the companies. There will be no preference at all for Scotland. Furthermore, the price will be so fixed that we might even have to have a further subsidy for these poor oil companies whose stake, according to my calculations, amounts to only 80 per cent. per annum. I hope that the Government will take an extremely stiff line on this matter. I fore-warned them that they would have to face dedicated men of very high ability in Brussels, especially the French who are absolutely itching to get their fingers in our pockets, and it seems to me that it behoves the Government to get a really good anti-Market representation. I think that Professor Kaldor would be a very good candidate for this job of catching them on the way into our pockets, because he is very good at anticipating.
In my last speech I said that the Government would say three things and, behold!, the Minister has obliged. I predicted that he would talk about riskiness, and he did. But there are some very interesting figures in the Financial Times—that Maoist journal. The risk overall is one in 15 in commercial discoveries, and last year it was one in eight. So that, learning by doing, we are getting better and better at it and, obviously, the risk is diminishing. But as the risk is diminishing the Government are granting better and better terms. This is economic nonsense of such absolute extravagance that one becomes simply speechless—and I am sometimes quite voluble. The other interesting fact is that, far from people being discouraged, half of the total oil reserves discovered up till now have been discovered in the last year, as have one-third of the gas reserves. So that this terrible fear of people flitting away, pulling their towers behind them, is somewhat exaggerated.
Then I said that the Minister would say that rapid development is absolutely essential. It is very interesting that he made two most important arguments

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against rapid development. So well briefed is the Minister, and so faithfully does he carry out his instructions that, in an aside, he based his argument on the fact that prices will go up because an energy crisis is looming ahead. I do not know about this energy crisis, and there are differences of opinion. But I would not base my argument on that point, as the Minister did. If prices go up, of course we ought now to buy as much oil from Kuwait as possible, carefully hoarding our oil in the sea for a later occasion when prices have gone up. But given these lugubrious predictions, it is obvious that the price of oil will rise very fast and, therefore, the policy which the Minister advocates is that much more nonsense.
The Minister also said that if we had not had this tremendously fast development, industry in this country could not have limbered up to produce the goods. But is that an argument? On the contrary, what has happened is that the Ministry consistently derided and criticised us, saying that these massive oil and gas supplies would not be available. They denied that the figure would be 2.000 million cubic feet per day; they denied that it would be 3,000 million cubic feet; they now deny that it would be 6,000 million to 8,000 million; and now the figure is between 6,000 million and 7,000 million or perhaps even 8,000 million if we take in Ekofisk and Frigg, and certainly if we take in Brent.
Of course, there is absolutely nothing in the argument that we want to become independent of the Arabs, because we cannot become independent of them. It is very sad. I should love to be independent of the Arabs: I would do anything to become independent of the Arabs. But we cannot, because even in the best of circumstances, with the most optimistic calculations, we shall be depending on the Arabs for at least one-third of our own supplies, and if Europe as a whole is taken in—and, of course, the Community has already laid its finger on the affair—then, of course, for very much more.
What is happening, my Lords, is that when the British negotiators appear the oil companies nudge each other, indicating, "Here comes the sucker". To have to say this in a Scottish debate is really absolutely terrible. I have always thought that the Scots made the Grand
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Canyon because they lost sixpence. Here they lose £1,000 million per annum, and they sit there with great equanimity, rubbing their hands. My Lords, something is very wrong in the world if Scots have lost their canniness with regard to economics.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, would my noble friend absolve the Scots from his strictures? So far as I know, the Department of Trade and Industry is not noticeably infested by Scots.
5.32 p.m.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, first let me congratulate my noble friend Lord Aberdeen. In the past I have been more inclined to sit under his hammer, for he was for a considerable time chairman of the Scottish Landowners' Federation. But this evening I feel he has talked himself into a job as the first Regional Commissioner for the North-East. I should also like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Arbuthnott: in his speech He covered, in far more fluent and coherent a manner than I could have achieved, many of the points I wanted to make. He pointed out the great prospects for development and the clamour for Scotland to participate. My noble friend Lord Drumalbyn voiced the feeling which is widely felt that we are on the brink of something big.
Then I must congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. It is not the first time we have thought along the same lines. Your Lordships will be pleased to hear that he has completed a further large section of what I wanted to say this evening. He emphasised that the oil would not last for ever. There is indeed a great fear of ghost towns and concrete jungles. Many of us are worried about what has been happening in Easter Ross. They have the very best agricultural ground in the Highlands and we were much relieved to hear last week that Ross-shire County Council are taking another look at matters. Furthermore I was pleased to hear my noble friend Lord Cromartie say this evening that he felt that a very close look would have to be taken. We cannot replace agricultural ground, but we can replace this concrete jungle.
My noble friend Lord Drumalbyn gave an indication of what the Government are trying to do, but more Government guidance is required. We have of

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course the Scottish Development Corporation and the Scottish Council (Development and Industry), but much is being left with local government. We know nothing about it. We were told that more technicians were required, but the poor local councils are really quite in the dark about this enormous oil complex which has come upon us. I wonder whether there is not a case for a special oil development body, a separate body altogether to look at the total development.
There is one section of our infrastructure which can be developed without any fear of its becoming obsolete when the oil is worked out, and that is our transport. If you go to Dalcross, the airport for Inverness, nowadays you really begin to wonder whether you are in Texas— until of course a Stornaway plane comes in. When this plane comes in you find that it is full, yet the airways tell us that they are losing money. I have great difficulty in following this. Indeed, I regret that I shall have to leave before the end of this debate because I have a public inquiry in Inverness to-morrow and I shall have to catch the only train that will get me there in time.
However, I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Government on what they have done for our roads. In the last few years they have done more than has ever been done before. They have given us vast sums of money which is only now beginning to work through the mammoth amount of paper work that has to be done before work actually starts on the ground. We have been given a new bridge at Ballachulish, these two enormous bridges across the Firths, the A.9 development (I know that there is a clamour for more dual-carriageway on this, and I am fairly happy that what we shall get in Inverness will not be too bad after all); and then we have had enormous sums of money for the West. I am most grateful to the Government, and in spite of what Lord Lovat has said about the Pass of Drumochter I hope that this will shortly also be open 24 hours per day, because if we can get a dual-carriageway on a short section we shall be able to keep it open the whole time.
My Lords, there is one small point with regard to roads which I think could
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be simplified. I mentioned this difficulty of getting through the paperwork. A landlord is not told about the purchase of a piece of ground until the draft order is published. I believe that this has occurred on account of problems which have happened in England where an early indication has been given and various different parties have wanted the road shifted. But a landlord does not hear until perhaps he gets a letter from the district valuer offering a price for his ground. If there were much earlier consultation I am sure that we should get through our road planning very much more easily. I would ask the Government to look urgently at this because I think there is a great deal of room for streamlining in this matter.
Turning again to the West, as one speaker has said there may well be considerable development of oil there, and in this area I feel that it is high time we got the piers and ferries sorted out. We are in great difficulty here; so many different bodies are involved. Each pier apparently belongs to a different body: it may be a district council; it may be the Department of Agriculture; it may be the county council concerned.
LORD HUGHES: It may be a private owner.
LORD BURTON: Yes, indeed; some are privately owned. When the regions begin to operate there will still he three regions involved. I feel that the answer here is to set up a working party to look at the whole of this system, rather as has been done for the A.9 where a working party seems to be working extremely well. If we had a working party of the officials concerned in this thing I am quite certain that we should get a very much better system and a very much greater economy than we have at the moment, where roll-on boats are being prepared for piers that are not suitable for them.
While I am on waterways perhaps I may say that I believe that there is a Consultative Paper on our inland waterways—and I am very concerned about the Caledonian Canal. This might well be handed over to our Highland Regional Authority, and we are very loath to accept this. The canal has been largely destroyed in the last ten years. I say without any hesitation that the way it

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has been destroyed is wicked. I have previously raised this matter in debate and I have been told that it is just a question of day-to-day management. But it is far more than that. Boats have been allowed to speed through there, away above the allowed speeds and their wash is pulling away that wonderful old pitching which has lasted for 200 years. Enormous destruction has been done over the last ten years. I think this must be stopped at an early date. It is quite easy; you just do not allow a boat through the next loch until the appropriate time has elapsed. It is too easy to stop it, and I do not know why it has not been done.
Things really are moving in the North. Scotland is on the move and I should like to congratulate the Government on what they have done.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Lord has spoken for only seven minutes, so before he finally resumes his seat may I ask him one question. While I appreciate his desire to give every credit possible to the Government, is he not going a little too far when he gives them credit for achievement where the only credit for at least some of these things is that they did not rescind decisions taken while I was at the Scottish Office?
LORD BURTON: My Lords, I never thought the Opposition were backward in coming forward, but I cannot remember the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, ever publicising the fact that he was going to put bridges across the Firths. I cannot remember him even saying that he was going to give us a lot of money for the A.9. It may be that Ballachulish started in his day, but I would not be quite sure.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I was not being as favourable to my own side as was the noble Lord to the Government. I was no more claiming all than he was giving any away. What I said was that in the case of some of these things all that the Government could claim was that they had not rescinded decisions taken while the previous Government were in Office. If he looks at the Record he can pick them out for himself and it would be easy for him, perhaps in the next debate, to take another two minutes at his excellent rate of speed to correct the Record.
6.40 p.m.
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, I have two apologies to make in rising. First, although I have heard the opening speeches and the speeches up to now I cannot stay for the full length of this debate because of a long-standing evening commitment. Secondly, although I bear a Scottish name my grandfather was entirely Scottish and was domiciled there—I have been a Sassenach since birth. I hope that I am not trespassing in a tender area in speaking in this debate. I had some sympathy for the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, and the Government Front Bench, when the estimates on energy were discussed during Question Time to-day. I remember 20 years ago, in 1951/52, when the Government of the day having got forecasts from most erudite and well-informed sources, said that they reckoned that in the early 1970s (to-day) 306 million tons of coal equivalent would be needed, and 200 million tons, they said, would come from the mines and that there was no chance of getting any more. That turned out to be untrue. If we had a good balance of payments we could buy all the coal we needed cheaper than we could mine it.
The second figure mentioned was 100 million tons to be provided by oil, and it would not, they said, be possible to get more because the world oil reserves are running out. This, too, proved to be totally untrue. We have the Nigeria discovery and all the under sea resources that have been discovered since and that we are discussing to-day. The last 6 million tons were to be met by nuclear power stations and as your Lordships know these have not come forward as successfully as was anticipated, despite the immense sums of public money which have been behind their research, development and early production. In that equation no allocation whatever was made for any natural gas from overseas or from the North Sea. So here was the equation of 20 years ago in which all the factors were entirely and absolutely wrong. So I am rather in sympathy with Lord Blyton's statement. I hope that on this occasion the massive sums which were announced yesterday are correct in supposing that it is worth writing off the debts of the Coal Board by £475 million and giving aid of £1,200 million to keep the coal

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mines going. I hope that the forecast is more accurate now than it was 20 years ago.
My Lords, I want to raise another matter, and in doing so find myself much in sympathy (although it is not always so) with the noble Lord, Lord Balogh, with whom I entirely agree that we ought to be far more nationalistic in the next round of allocations. There have been four rounds of allocations already, but a new one must be coming along. I think that when it does come along we should follow the example of Norway and France in their nationalistic policies and look after our own interests, particularly as, in Scotland, where unemployment is so rife and where engineering know-how is so plentiful they would benefit from a more nationalistic policy.
Understandably, some of the consortia are dominated by the big U.S. oil companies because they had the technological experience and had been tapping oil from much shallower depths-200 feet rather than 600 feet—in the Gulf of Mexico. Understandably therefore in the first allocation they had a dominant part. Many of them received allocations and blocks that they could not drill or could not develop. After a given time, these are now to come back and, in oil terms, be "relinquished". It will be for the D.T.I. to say how they should be reallocated. Alternatively, these companies, which cannot develop these blocks, may bring in another partner, a sub-contractor, to take on responsibilities which they cannot meet. I urge that if this happens the D.T.I. should see again that the sub-contractor is a British company.
Therefore in these three areas—first, the next round; secondly, the relinquishment. and thirdly, the new partners—the D.T.I. and Her Majesty's Government could insist that there are met the following five criteria: first, that they are United Kingdom companies; second, that they are based in the United Kingdom; third, that they employ largely United Kingdom personnel: fourth, that they use United Kingdom manufactured equipment; and fifth, and not least, that they pay United Kingdom taxes. If all these five criteria were adhered to I am sure that the United Kingdom in general, and Scotland in particular, would benefit. I should like an assurance that where
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private enterprise firms have got resources and funds, they be given the opportunities of bidding. I do not believe that it is sound to allow the Coal Board to use its efforts and its money to join consortia for the development of oil. It cannot be sound policy to encourage one producer of one energy fuel to take a big interest in another energy. That might have been sound when the future of coal was in doubt, but in view of this recent announcement about financial aid I suggest that other people should be concerned with the development of these offshore oil resources. I think I am right in saying that if we were operating under the United States anti-trust laws the Coal Board would not he allowed to take an interest. It is a little disturbing that one of the consortia in which the Coal Board are interested, in which they are partners with U.S. Continental Oil and U.S. Gulf Oil, they have ordered an oil rig worth £10 million, not in Scotland, not in the United Kingdom, but in Norway. So we are not getting a nationalist policy even where you have a strong bidder in the consortia which is a nationalised industry.
I should like to see the Government giving development contracts and, if necessary, launching aid, because I believe that in the long term the ability to solve the engineering problems of winning undersea raw material resources will be of use not just in the North Sea but all over the world. This will pay Britain off not only in the next few decades but in the next century; for more and more the world will continue to need raw material resources, and more and more these must come from under sea overseas as well as from the North Sea.
On October 3 I attended at the D.T.I. a maritime technology convention at which the Minister, Mr. Heseltine, was in charge. I was impressed by the tremendous opportunities and at the snags. Informed criticism was made, and I hope we are going to have soon a Government announcement. We ought to have one as a result of this criticism. Many points arose, but I do not have time to list them. We need a Government announcement showing just what will be done as a result of that conference. I was glad to see as one off-shoot that there has been established a Ship and Maritime Technology Requirement Board under

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Mr. Nigel Broakes. I hope that this will yield dividends.
My Lords, may I take one more minute to talk on a totally different subject from that which has been raised this afternoon? I plead for a little help for tourism and recreation. I am President of the National Ski Federation of Great Britain, and that covers the Scottish National Ski Council. I would remind the House that 100,000 mainly young people go ski-ing in Scotland for recreation. That is good for them; it is a challenge and shows their tremendous guts and resourcefulness in getting there and attaining a standard where they can take part with credit in international races. It is a great reflection on their character and dedication. But the roads to these recreational ski-ing places are appalling. They are bottlenecked and every weekend there is single-line traffic in both directions. I urge that when thinking about tourism we should also think of recreation. If we do not provide recreational facilities for those who are now in Scotland, and particularly for the young people, they will emigrate to England where life may be somewhat easier. So let us bear in mind not only tourism but also recreation for those who live in Scotland and who will in the future be needed to make Scotland prosperous.
5.50 p.m.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I should like first to congratulate my noble friend Lord Aberdeen and Temair on his most happy maiden speech extolling the virtues of the North-East. Speaking of tourism, I feel that perhaps he ought to be made, not Commissioner for the North East but the tourist officer. It is an area where tourism has not been developed perhaps as much as in some other parts of Scotland; but with him to do it I am sure that it would be highly successful. I should also like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Arbuthnott on the way in which he introduced this debate. I acted as a dove between Lord Perth and Lord Arbuthnott when the debate was being arranged, and he has come up to my highest expectations. I thought it was an extremely happy speech with which he introduced the Motion.
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The fact that I am going to be very brief is not because I do not appreciate how important is the subject of this debate, but because there are a score or more other speakers and much of what I wanted to say has already been said and I should hesitate to "take the clothes" of anyone who may follow me. I am going to speak briefly about four subjects. The first one is communications; and here I must declare an interest. I wish to speak about the A.9, Perth—Inverness road; and, as I expect many of your Lordships are aware, I have a personal interest in this road in that for a certain distance it passes through land which I happen to own.
My Lords, the Perth-Inverness road is being looked at from one end to the other, so far as I can make out, and I think this is a very good thing. I have no complaint about it. But what I should like an assurance about from the Government is that they will publish the result of their look as soon as possible and that when they do so they will stick to it. There has been a Dunkeld bypass on the plans for about fifteen years now which has prohibited quite a bit of development around Dunkeld. Now it appears that this route will probably be totally forgotten and the road will go somewhere completely different. I therefore hope that we shall be given some indication as to when the result of the Government's present look may see the light of day and we who have an interest in the result may be allowed to know where the road is likely to go and that, having published the result, the Government will stick to it in the future.
On the question of communications I should like to reinforce everything that was said by my noble friend Lord Perth about railway closures. This leak of the future railway plans, or possible plans, which appeared makes planning extremely difficult, because no one is going to risk building a factory or setting up a business in a place where the railway may be cut off in the near future. I think that my noble friend could do more good for the confidence of industry both in the North of Scotland and in the South-West if he could assure us that the leak was entirely untrue and that the Government have no intention of agreeing to such a drastic reduction in the railways in the

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Highlands and in the South-West of Scotland.
Secondly, I should like to say a word about dereliction. I think that anyone who has been to the Island of Hoy and seen what Lyness is like will know what I mean when I say that short-term industry and short-term employment simply is not worth while in the Highlands or, for that matter, probably anywhere—certainly not in the Highlands of Scotland. I hope that the planning authorities and the Government will not be so carried away by the thought of getting a few extra people employed for a comparatively short time that they will allow the building of oil rigs in such places as Dunnet Bay and Ardayne Point, both of which are at the moment extremely beautiful but would be absolutely wrecked if concrete basins remain there after the oil rigs have been floated away. I am sure this has to be properly planned on a long-term basis so that there will be continuous employment for those who are engaged on them. I was cheered by what the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, said he thought the noble Lord, Lord Llewelyn-Davies, would have said had he not been suffering from the 'flu. I agreed entirely with what the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, felt that his noble friend would have said.
I was slightly worried when my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn described Scotland as "the Texas of Europe". He appeared to be very complacent about this description. I have always thought (not that I know Texas) that Scotland was far nicer than Texas, and I should be absolutely horrified if the Scots became in any respect like the Texans. So I hope that this was only a picturesque phrase, and a somewhat exaggerated one.
I believe that we have to be careful not to try to correct unemployment unsuitably. We are all agreed that the unemployment figure, particularly in the West of Scotland, is far too high, but there are dangers in trying to bring in unsuitable industries too quickly. I very much hope that we shall not get so carried away by the thought of reducing the unemployment figure that industries which cannot last and cannot be viable will be introduced in unsuitable areas. I think there are plenty of job opportunities in the East of Scotland, but many people are very reluctant to move. This
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is understandable and would, I think, apply to us all. Therefore I congratulate the Government on having put through the Housing Financial Provisions (Scotland) Act. I am absolutely convinced that one reason why people are so reluctant to move (the only one we can do anything about curing, because the rest are almost entirely emotional) is the problem of finding somewhere to live. If a man is living in a house and paying a cheap rent, and knows that he has no hope of getting another house with an equally cheap rent in another area, he tends to stick where he is for the sake of paying a low rent. I think that this Act should go some way to make labour in Scotland more mobile and I hope that the corollary will be that there are houses available at proper economic rents in the areas where there are jobs. I hope the Government will see that this is so and will introduce a really large building programme in areas such as Aberdeen and Easter Ross, where there is a great demand for housing and where many jobs are available.
I should also like to suggest that many firms are too complacent about the housing of their employees. It is a recognised practice in the farming and forestry industries, but not I think in any others, that employers should provide employees with a house. This is largely due to the fact that their work in remote areas where one or two extra people on the housing list is, percentage-wise. quite a large addition. I do not think that firms have ever done this—at any rate, not to any great extent and I consider that where they are setting up in remote areas they might contemplate building or acquiring houses for their employees instead of expecting the county council or the local authority to do it all. I feel that firms could help themselves and that this is something that might be encouraged by some fiscal methods.
Finally, my Lords, I think we must all recognise that, notwithstanding the boom conditions in the East, there is still an unemployment problem in the West of Scotland particularly in the more remote parts. I would ask the Government therefore whether enough is being done to encourage mineral development and exploration. I believe there is some very promising looking diatomite on Skye—this, I think, is mentioned in the Report

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of the Highlands and Islands Development Board—and there are certain feldspar outcrops in various parts of Sutherland. I feel that at the moment mineral development is tending to be neglected. I do not know for what reason. It may be something to do with the taxation of minerals, although I thought that the situation had been improved to a considerable extent by the Finance Act introduced in 1969 by the late Government.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, if I may interrupt my noble friend, I think the trouble with this diatomite on Skye is that we have not a Skye bridge. We hope that this Conservative Government will produce one for us.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I thank my noble friend. I am pleased to know exactly what the trouble is. I am sure that as Chairman of the Inverness-shire Roads Committee he will be pressing for the bridge as hard as he can. My Lords, these are but a few brief points, and I hope that my noble friend will be able to answer them all satisfactorily when he comes to reply.
6.1 p.m.
VISCOUNT THURSO: My Lords, more years ago than I care now to remember, I worked as an under-cattleman at Mains of Haddo, and therefore it is with enormous pleasure that I start my remarks in your Lordships' House this evening by congratulating my ex-boss on a most excellent maiden speech. A very kind and considerate boss he was, except when he jibed me about my old school, my politics and my religion.
LORD HOY: He did not leave out much!
VISCOUNT THURSO: No; he did not. I am sure that we shall enjoy his contributions to our debates in your Lordships' House, and I am sure we recognise the sterling work that over the years lie has done in and for Scotland. I should like to thank the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, for introducing the debate. His was an excellent example of how to introduce a debate of this kind, although a difficult speech to follow, because he put so well so many of the points that many of us wanted to make. I hope that as we go along we shall not lose sight
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of the many important and useful things contained in his speech.
I am one of those who believe that the Government were probably right to explore at the speed with which they did at the start; although, along with the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, I agree that now they can afford to slow down. This, I feel, is where the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, slightly missed the point. Nobody was criticising the speed of exploitation. What they were criticising was the speed of exploration which the Government are on record as wishing to continue. We feel that now it is proved that there is an enormous reserve in the North Sea—we argue about the quantity —we are in the driving seat, and we ought to sit back and consider whether we are getting the right conditions for the exploitation of this immense and valuable resource, which belongs not only to Scotland, but to the nation as a whole.
What we must remember, my Lords, is that there is nothing permanent about the oil boom. The noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, pointed out that it would last for maybe 20 or 30 years. Therefore it would be extremely short-sighted if we satisfied ourselves with merely a few jobs in service industries. We have not long in historical terms to take advantage of the boom, while it is on, and what happens now will affect the future for many years to come. Therefore we must develop our oil in a positive manner; and we must develop it positively for Scotland. The value of oil is not the cash that it brings in now, but rather the momentum which it can give to the Scottish economy. It is the meanest possible short-sightedness to ask, as was asked in The Times this morning, for oil to pay the coal bill. Certainly the country should pay the coal bill and pay the miners; but it should not use oil to pay for our shortcomings in the past. It should use oil to build for the future; to justify roads, harbours and the expansion of communities, so that at the end of the day, when the wells run dry and the industry eventually has to run down, there will be no oil bill to be met.
The Government are small-minded if they think that a few tens of millions of pounds spent priming a pump, which at their own conservative estimate will feed £100 million of revenue annually into the Exchequer by 1980, is enough.

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We must feed far more into the pump at the moment so that we get a proper flow into the economy of Scotland as a whole. We have not been nearly successful enough in getting feedback into British or Scottish industry—and this has been said throughout the debate. We must build up know-how and technology, and not leave it to others outside the Government to provide the cash and the initiative. It is wonderful that the Heriot-Watt University have taken the initiative, and that the Wolfson Trust have provided the cash: but what are the Government doing?
My Lords, planning has been referred to as the key in the whole of this discussion, and with that I agree. As has been said in many speeches to-day, more imaginative planning is required. We want this planning to take place in Scotland —and this was a plea both from the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, and from the noble Marquess, Lord Aberdeen. I should like to endorse strongly that what we want is planning which will think now about the future, after oil has gone away. We want planning which will build up communities over wide areas of the country. Let me give your Lordships an example of the way in which this sort of planning and thinking can be done. We know that there is already a build-up of industry about the Cromarty Firth. We have seen the smelter; we have seen Brown and Root, and we know that Wimpeys and all sorts of people are there and are coming in. There are more industries coming into that area than there will be people to be employed in these industries.
The quickest way of achieving new workers and new places for work people to live in is to put a bridge across the Dornoch Firth. With a bridge across the Dornoch Firth you could bring into play all of the communities on the East coast of Sutherland. If you took the railway across the same bridge, and thereby shortened the route to the North, you could even bring communities up as far as Wick and Thurso into the general prosperity of the Cromarty Firth. This would be of immense value, and it is the sort of direction in which we want our planning to go: not just in a negative way, waiting for an initiative and saying "Yea" or "Nay" to the initiative,
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but by working out ways of spreading the benefit from one area to another. It is all very well being proud of providing half a dozen berths for oil service vessels at Peterhead, but if the Government asked their own consultants they would find out that four similar berths could be constructed at Scrabster for £5,000 less per berth. I feel that this is the sort of thing that should be being done now, because we know that more berths will be needed: this is the kind of thing to which the Government should be giving backing.
We want the sort of planning which, if it is decided to set up a gas-fired power station at Crimond, will be thinking now of the various industries which could be sited around Buchan, using the power which this power station could produce. Planners should be thinking now of the way in which small communities and towns can be built up as a result of these industries, and they should be thinking now of the atomic power station which will ultmiately have to replace the gas-fired one when the well runs dry. This sort of planning can take place only in Scotland. That is where the pulse of Scottish affairs can be felt. It is sometimes hard for those of us in your Lordships' House, many of whom live and work in Scotland, to appreciate the abysmal ignorance of Scotland, Scottish affairs and Scotsmen which is all too common within the general administration of this country. Yet this exists, and until we get the day-to-day decisions taken where the feeling of Scotland can be absorbed by officials (as it were by osmosis), we shall not really get the type of planning which Scotsmen desire.
The only way round it is to move large bodies of the administration into Scotland, especially those dealing with oil. We on these Benches have called for a Scottish Oil Development Corporation, backed by a Scottish Development Bank, and I have heard to-day many noble Lords from other Benches asking for something extremely similar. In calling for a Scottish Development Corporation and a Development Bank, we have not been dogmatic about how they should be provided: what we have asked for is something along those lines. We still ask for these things, but if we cannot get them exactly as we have described them we would ask that as many as possible

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of the Government offices which deal with oil development matters should be moved North to Scotland. Though it is a national asset, there is no doubt that the lion's share of the North Sea oil potential is the share which belongs to the Lion Rampant. We have it on the authority of a Government Front Bench spokesman in your Lordships' House that this makes it Scottish oil and subject to Scottish law.
Many noble Lords, in particular, Lord Hughes, to-day have asked that the revenue from this Scottish oil should be used for the benefit of Scotland. I should like to endorse that on behalf of those on these Benches. The best way to use this national asset in the national interest is to use it to get the Scottish economy into top gear quickly and get it to "takeoff". This debate must not end here to-day. It must continue, and it should continue in Scotland. I would ask the Government to give us more devolution. This would help to overcome the apparent lack of Scottish initiative which was referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott. We may not get home rule from the present Government—but what about the more refined version they promised us a few years ago: "Home" rule? Scotland is on the brink of great possibilities. We must put Scotland in a position to use these possibilities to the fullest advantage and we must not let them slip.
6.15 p.m.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, my first pleasant duty is to congratulate my noble friend Lord Arbuthnott for introducing this Motion to-day and affording us an opportunity to discuss the problems of Scotland. I also wish to congratulate heartily my noble friend Lord Aberdeen on his extremely fine maiden speech. It was witty and full of common sense—the type of speech you expect him to make, if you know him. I hope we shall hear from him many times in the future. T have, I believe, an interest to declare since I own about four acres of bog through which the B.P. pipeline is going to bury itself. I do not know whether that makes me an oil magnate or not; but anyway, there it is. The Scottish economy is of course dependent on a prosperous United Kingdom economy and a prosperous E.E.C. economy. We are now, or shall be, in a
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bigger group than we used to be; and I think we must not lose sight of that fact, because if we do we shall get into trouble.
The size of this oil boom is largely a matter of conjecture and all kinds of figures are being talked of, but there is one pleasing aspect; that is, that the unemployment figure within a twelve-mile radius of Aberdeen is lower than it has been for a very long time indeed at this time of year—I believe it is the lowest ever—but of course there are still too many unemployed in Aberdeen. Numbers are well down, however, and they are also decreasing in Peterhead, I am glad to say. I think that this represents a much more satisfactory measurement of the oil boom than any other. We want to get people working so that they can become prosperous.
The risk capital which is required is simply enormous. I believe that, at any rate in the first stages, it is right that those who put up capital and take the risk should get a reasonable, if not generous, return. You cannot expect people to take a risk if you are going to be mean about revenue. I do not say that that should be the case when the venture has been proved and people are jumping on an existing bandwagon: that is another matter. But what I believe should be stringently enforced and insisted upon is that when any firm puts up a production platform they should keep on that platform a large quantity of detergent and the particular type of sea "harrows" which have been developed by the research people for dealing with pollution. With the best will in the world, there will be spills. It is no use saying there will not be. Wherever oil has been produced so far there have been spills. We should insist on having the means to stop that spillage and to deal with it before it comes ashore. That is where the Government should be tough, and they should be damned tough.
May I just refer to Lord Balogh's figures? I am not absolutely sure what he said, but I was told during the Standing Conference on North Sea Oil which was held in Inverness last October that about 27 dry holes are drilled for each successful hole. A dry hole costs just as much to drill as one that works, and the approximate figure for that is £1½ million. Therefore, to get any oil out of a hole

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in the ground you have to spend somewhere in the order of £42 million before you start producing. That is the kind of money required; and we in Scotland at the moment are not equipped to deal with risks and technology of that kind. I am therefore happy that we are going into partnership with people who know; and it is a partnership, for more than half the crews of these drilling rigs are Aberdoneans. The service boats are largely manned by Aberdoneans, too. So we are getting this technology whether we like it or not, and it is very right and proper that we should.
A very high proportion of the cost is in back-up services. Those who supply the services, materials, et cetera, on time at the proper price will get the jobs. I do not ask for any preferential treatment other than that. We are capable of doing it, and we shall go on doing it. Nor should we be too keen on what the Norwegians have done, because that is just a racket. All they do in Norway is to get a gang of people, establish a company and say, "This is a Norwegian company". It has not worked out; they are nothing like as far ahead as we are and they are envious of what we are doing. Therefore we should get that out of our minds for a start.
Major servicing items are cement, casing pipes and drilling mud. I do not think that a single bag of this cement is produced in Scotland. I do not know how many casing pipes are produced in Scotland, and I do not know how much drilling mud is produced in Scotland. If you cannot produce it in the country, then you cannot supply it. It must be remembered that these holes are over two miles deep. A hole may require between 500 and 1,000 tons of cement. This varies a great deal, and it has to be supplied through the servicing boats. The benefits to the district come from employment, not in vast risks and major technology at this stage.
At the moment England is supplying this cement and getting a very fair slice of the supply cake. Wellheads are being built by consortia, and I am glad to see that my old firm, Dormon Long, are in partnership building one of these wellheads. This is the way that it should be done. The design work is also being done in the same way. We are not being
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shouldered out of it, although we should be on the alert to make quite sure that we get our rights. I entirely agree with people who take that attitude. Whatever the size of the oil boom in Scotland turns out to be, it is no cure for Scottish economic problems, having regard to the West Coast, the Central Belt, heavy industries, and such projects as Oceanspan and Hunterston. I will not ask the Government to earmark cash for any one project, but I maintain that the Government owe it to Scotland to take the decision to back Hunterston and give us a steel complex, and also give us Ocean-span. That is their share of the deal; they owe us that. It is no good saying, "We are getting this amount of money, you should give us that", and so on. I feel as strongly as everybody else that this is a deal that we should insist upon as hard as we can in ordinary honest, straightforward fairness on behalf of the Government to the Scottish effort, and also the Scottish luck of geography.
The tax yield that the Government seem to be getting, together with the royalties, amount to £1 million a day. From that large sum they can afford to be a little generous and give Scotland a few of those pounds for Hunterston.
The Hunterston steel complex would benefit not only Scotland but the whole of the United Kingdom. In Scotland we have an enormous opportunity, but we have to overcome an unfortunate image that has been building up of labour troubles, late deliveries and interminable red tape. If we can regain our position here we shall regain Scotland's position of leading the world in every project that we put our hands to.
The oil boom will last 20, 30 or perhaps 40 years. What then? This fact underlies the necessity of forward planning. The Scottish Office and the S.D.D. say that they are doing all that they can. I want to quote for a moment the actual happenings at a public inquiry after a planning decision was referred to the Scottish Office. The decision was challenged and they called for a public inquiry. The decision was made on a housing matter. The inquiry started on February 23 and continued on February 24, 25 and 28. The reporter took down the proceedings in longhand. There was no shorthand-writer there; there was no tape recorder—there was nothing even

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in this modern day and age. The reporter was taking down the proceedings, licking his finger, as we all used to do. The report was produced to the Scottish Office on July 5. The Scottish Office then sat on it for 140 days, which is the longest gestation period that I have ever imagined for anything. They then agreed with our original planning decision, and there we are! This does not impress me, and it does not impress the oil men. It is ridiculous to say that all the machinery is perfect because it is not. The district valuer was not involved. That is their usual get-out.
There should be some form of coordinating authority—call it what you will, for I am not sure myself. We are divided into too many groups trying to plan without co-ordinating. We do not even co-ordinate supplies. Many jobs are running late on programme, and so on, because these projects are not coordinated by one single head. I do not mind what you call it; I do not mind a Liberal, Labour or Conservative suggestion, so long as something is done. If we do not do it we will get into trouble. Another matter which I do not think has been mentioned is that I think it is vital to take the S.T.U.C. into all these considerations and in this planning. The S.T.U.C. perhaps does not have the management technique and know-how to put Scotland where we want it; but they have the management technique and know-how to put us where we do not want to be. Therefore they should be taken into full consultation.
I want now to say something about pollution and the environment. It is estimated that within 20 miles of Aberdeen in the next five years they will require 16,000 houses as a minimum. All our sewerage works are either overloaded, working to capacity or there are not any at all; the sewage just goes straight through into the sea. I want to put in a plea that the S.D.D. should tell the people who give planning consents that not one house should be built before the sewage works is installed. They build houses and say, "Oh dear, oh dear! Look at the sewage"—and then we get all these troubles. This is happening everywhere and it should be looked into and stopped.
There are two other points I should like to make. Owing to the temporary
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nature of this industry, if it is possible it is best to build a steel frame building rather than one made of reinforced concrete. It is possible to cut up a steel frame building when you have done with it, and you can even sell it. A reinforced concrete building is expensive to knock down and it cannot be sold. The house building programme will be stretched beyond its capacity, so serious consideration should be given to Swedish timber houses, of which there are several types on the market, cheaper than we can build ourselves. This should be regarded, perhaps. as a temporary housing measure. At the end of the day, if you have a wooden house at least you can burn it.
6.31 p.m.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I will be brief but I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to one or two industries other than oil and North Sea gas and to take you also down to the Borders, which so far nobody has mentioned and where some considerable industrial developments are going on. We have been talking about planning, forward planning and different kinds of employment, but so far I have not heard a single one of your Lordships mention women in Scotland. If you are going to move a great number of the population about, if you are going up to the Cromarty Firth or the North-East or the West, you cannot do it unless you also think about the women who go with their men into these new areas. With regard to employment it is important also to think of possibilities for employing the women as well as the men, because in this day and age women also want to work. The planners in the Scottish Office should give careful consideration to the arrangements to be made when large numbers of the population are being moved, to ensure that the employment of women is not left out of consideration.
I should like to endorse all that has been said about the development in the West. I only want to touch on that because I have known Glasgow and the West of Scotland intimately for some forty years and I know how dreadful it is when large numbers of people are unemployed in that area. To-day there are far too many people unemployed in Glasgow and the West, and there are

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plans, which the noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven, and others have mentioned, to develop in the West the great complex which would include the deep water port at Hunterston and the development of a new steel industry complex. That is something which the Government should think of very seriously indeed, because if you have (as you always have in Scotland) this imbalance of population, with 4½ million people living in Glasgow, Lanarkshire and the West as opposed to 1½ million living in the rest of Scotland, you must concentrate on the areas where there is heavy unemployment and give them first priority. I hope that in the great rush of enthusiasm for the North-East and for oil and gas, and so on, people will not forget that unless we get new development in the West, unless we get the steel complex that has been planned, unless the admirable development along the lines of Oceanspan takes place and unless we get the deep water port, everything else will be only an alternative for the subject of employment and development. The real employment and the real development must be in the West.
I should now like to say one word about the Border because, as your Lordships know, I have lived and worked there and there is now a possibility of development in that area which will give a considerable amount of employment. Curiously enough, in the Borders there is not any unemployment. In fact there is a shortage of labour and it is a place where, given a planned development, which we have in the Tweedbank scheme, quite a large number of people could be employed and could live in agreeable surroundings where the overpopulation, the overcrowding and the slums of many of our industrial areas simply do not exist. I know that to-day I am speaking to someone, the Minister of State, the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, who is entirely in favour of this scheme. I hope that the Government will give as much help as they possibly can to this development in the Borders. It has been planned for a long time but it has been delayed by one or two difficulties. Now the difficulties have been overcome and it is planned to start.
The scheme, which will cost £14 million, is quite a large one. Inquiries are already being made with regard to new
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factories in the Borders. The Borders cannot take them yet, because the houses are not built, but the plans are laid and the county councils—both the Selkirk-shire and the Roxburghshire councils—are co-operating; and we are hoping that the scheme will get off to a good start. Already there are in the three Border counties 37 new firms, employing 1,630 people, and by 1975 the estimate for employment is 3,248. Many of these people will come from areas of unemployment and areas where at the present moment work is not available for them. It is quite expensive to move people from, let us say, the West of Scotland to the Borders. It takes something like £8 per person per week for a family to move and to start in a new area. There is also the costly business of "flitting" from a long distance to the Borders, and I think the Government will have to make some provision to help people, either by way of grant or by way of loan, when the big drive for factories and employment is really on.
I think we can help the economy of the country enormously by developing this area in the Borders. It is true—and I regret it very much indeed—that our railway has been removed and that we no longer have a railway into the Borders. On the other hand the roads are being, improved 100 per cent. and the distances are not so great; therefore it is not too difficult to develop in that area, in spite of the fact that the railway system is now non-existent. There is a scheme, which is working very successfully, called the Border build-up, which is collecting information about the needs of industry and the practical help which is wanted in that area. The Department of Employment is being exceedingly helpful and it will be able to carry on the work which will fall upon it once the new factories are started. The Minister of State knows all this as well as, or better than, I do, because, as I have mentioned before he and I both live in the same area.
I am also hopeful that the reorganisation of local government in the area will be extremely valuable, taking four counties and making them into one region. Developing the industrial area with the four counties will, I am sure, be a valuable and good thing to do. It will also share the expense and help to see that transport is developed to lead to

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the centre, near Galashiels, where the Tweedbank development will take place. All is set for a big development there, provided we can get help for housing—the Scottish Special Housing Association is doing this work—as well as some help for the families who will move to the area.
This scheme is small compared with the schemes which the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, and others have mentioned, which run into hundreds of million of pounds. On the other hand, it is important for us to do something about the depopulation of the Borders. In this area is space for new industry and it should be developed in the interest of the whole economy of Scotland. I feel that this is likely to take place. I hope that in the whole picture of what I believe to be a very encouraging development throughout Scotland it will be realised that there is an area in the South which is anxious to share in the development, along with the area in the North about which we have been talking so much to-night and which I agree is of vital importance at this time. I hope the Minister of State will consider the Borders an area in which he has special responsibility and interest, and that he will give what financial help and drive he is able to provide.
6.43 p.m.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, I wish to begin by thanking the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, for introducing this debate and to join with others in congratulating him on the thoughtful, well-informed and elegant way in which he did so. I intend in my speech to refer to only three specific matters which, as a result of the debate, I can now class as matters of infrastructure. They are the Inverness-Kyle Railway, the confrontation which is now going on between the Scottish Transport Group and Western Ferries and the coming need for the upgrading of the A.1 road between Edinburgh and Newcastle.
It happened the other day, at a British Road Federation conference in Glasgow, that I found myself sitting next to a high official of one of the oil companies exploiting the North Sea. I took the opportunity of asking him whether he thought any of the three items to which I have referred could be associated with oil. "Of course'', he said, "they are
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all concerned with oil development in the North Sea." He said that that was so in respect of the first two because of the real prospect of further finds of oil and gas in the West, and in respect of the third because of the extensive refinery and ancillary complex which is inevitable in the Firth of Forth. This point was illustrated by the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, who spoke of the enormous amount of work which will be associated in an ancillary capacity with this industry on the East coast.
As for the attitude of British Railways towards the Kyle Railway—and not only towards the "leak" to which the noble Earl, Lord Perth, referred—it was reiterated over the week-end, in a reply to Mr. Russell Johnston. that it is proposed to close the Kyle Railway at the end of 1973. I join noble Lords who have asked whether it is not time that these rumours were scotched once and forever because this talk is coming in for very bitter criticism and as time unfolds the criticism is becoming more and more vehement as conditions in the North and West make the decision more and more inexplicable. The depopulation of the Highlands and the accompanying deterioration in the economy of the country would, as it is, be reason enough to maintain existing communications, but to this must be added the situation as it is to-day, overlaid by the prospect of oil and gas in the Minch and elsewhere in the West. How can one reconcile the establishment of our claim to Rockall and the Continental Shelf with the elimination of the main East-West artery which the Kyle Railway provides? What the noble Earl, Lord Perth, said put me in mind of something I heard on the wireless over the week-end, or otherwise read in the newspapers—namely, that a large and important construction organisation is studying Loch Carron as a site for a plant. Quoting from memory, that firm said that it was doing that "because of its proximity to the Kyle Railway." That proximity will not be of much use if that railway is to come to an end in 1973.
Will a road system in that mountainous area, in the weather conditions that are ruling there at the present time, be adequate to provide economic transport for heavy industry? Such a thing does not make sense. Other noble Lords have

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pointed out the enormous volume of material which is necessary in support of the oil industry. But what of the defence consideration? Mention has been made of the torpedo range at Raasay and similar considerations, but apart from the specific connection with the Royal Navy, surely in terms of defence an East-West rail artery is essential. In a letter from an officer of the Scottish Council for Development and Industry to me the other day it was suggested that there appears to be no liaison between the Defence Department and the Department of the Enviroment. I can hardly believe that to be so. If it is so, may we be told why it is the case?
As for the intrinsic value of the railway, I have never been satisfied with the sums of British Railways which lead them to contend that it can never pay. The noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, also referred to British Railways' sums. May I ask the Minister who will reply and who is an eminent Scottish chartered accountant with wide industrial and business experience to put on his accountant's hat and, with it on, consider the figures as they are presented by British Railways? I have been informed that the factor for interest and depreciation which they apply to the system is based on a formula laid down by British Railways' headquarters in London. But has not the basic cost of the undertaking been written off several times over by the various subventions made to the railways system by the State? If not, how is it that the figure of £750,000 for the whole thing has been spoken of as its capital value to-day? I think I am right in mentioning this figure as having been openly discussed by an organisation which contemplates taking it over as a private railway. Is the interest and depreciation factor in the present estimates of running costs based on this sort of figure or on London's formula?
I was glad to hear my noble friend Lord Cromartie say he thought that British Railways were doing something to improve the service. But are they doing enough? Why was not the heavy passenger traffic during the tourist season reinforced by additional trains? And where were the observation cars? Sold! sold! And surely not only on the Kyle railway but also on the Mallaig line these obser
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vation cars were very popular and such vehicles could be made very much more popular again.
My mind turns back to that part of the speech made by the noble Earl, Lord Perth, on November 7 in the Address in Reply to Her Majesty's gracious Speech when he said:
"London may have a new airport at Maplin and hundreds of millions of pounds are provided for that. Londoners must have better transport, so let us construct another line, the Fleet line, and provide money for that"— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 7/11/72, col. 263.]
and so on. The whole thing is incomprehensible to me and to many other of your Lordships. The noble Earl went on to say in the same speech:
"Look at other suggestions which have been made; for example, that fares on our ferries —which are essential to the Western and the Northern Isles—should be increased. Imagine what this will mean to the livelihood of many people."—[col. 263.]
That brings me to my next item, which is the provision of proper sea transport for the Western Isles, because as it is to-day, and as another noble Lord has said to-day, that is in a muddle. The Scottish Transport Group very nearly managed to swallow the enterprising, effective and profitable Western Ferries undertaking into the maw of their organisation which notched up a trading loss of £1 million last year, which after a Government grant (a Government grant. mark you!) of £640.000 made a net loss of £381,000. S.T.G. ships have been altered to compete with Western Ferries in the Islay/Jura trade. They are ships which are not only over-elaborate and consequentially overstaffed, but are too large and, what is more, in consequence they are dependent upon a pier in Islay (Port Ellen) which may be occupied by grain ships for the distilleries for many hours at a time, perhaps for a whole day. Is it not possible for some overall direction to produce some co-ordination rather than a confrontation in these shipping services?
My noble friend Lord Burton made this point: can we not have co-ordination of services such as these in order to make the best use of limited equipment until more ships are built or more bridges built and are at our disposal? Talking of coordination, I have a letter here from Western Ferries which reads, in part:
"We seek the freedom to co-exist that has been granted to British Caledonian. The Scottish Development Department have a long and

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profoundly unsatisfactory record in development. As you know, the Government announced their intention to withdraw their subsidy from MacBraynes in respect of the Islay/Jura/Colonsay and Gigha complex, and to give a very small subsidy to Western Ferries. This scheme foundered on the twin rocks of the S.D.D. and Argyll County Council's technical experts, who between them were unable to implement the provision of terminals for the company's ships. The company would, of course, prefer to provide its own terminals, since these are vastly cheaper than those erected with public money."
I believe that that is a useful point to bear in mind. But why was the Highland Board specifically barred from supporting this company, as I believe it was? The writer goes on:
"I believe that there is an identity of interest between the local community, local government, central Government and operator, in stimulating traffic, and that therefore financial support should take the form of something akin to a negative V.A.T. or a rebate on every ticket sold."—
and not an increase in fares such as the noble Earl, Lord Perth, mentioned in the speech to which I have already referred.
But, what has all this to do with oil exploitation? It is that the whole transport system of the Western Isles should be streamlined and reinforced to be ready to take advantage of the oil developments when they come. And indeed it is needed even without the oil development, to meet what many noble Lords have asked for, namely, a spread of employment in the islands where such serious unemployment exists. I hope that something will be done about this, if only to save me from the sort of ordeal which I went through when I caught the "Claymore" at 5 o'clock in the morning at Tyree and sat down to breakfast at Coll at 7 o'clock opposite a lady who had sailed from Castlebay. I was subjected to an harangue which I will not repeat to your Lordships, though I remember much of it. She was irritable of course. She was talking of the ship and said, "When do you think it arrived? At 1 a.m. in the morning. And when do you think it sailed? At 3 o'clock in the morning" So, she was pretty hungry and she finished up by saying, "What you want to do is to rub the island of Barra off the map!" My Lords, let us be saved from such harangues in the future.
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My next point refers to a quite different problem; namely, the changed situation which the oil discoveries in the East in the North Sea (or let us call it in the Scots sea) will bring to the transport situation in South-Eastern Scotland. Every effort for years has been towards developing the West Coast Carlisle/ Glasgow routes of road and rail. I refer to the development of the electrification of the railway from Euston to Glasgow and the splendid roads stretching from the M.6 to the A.74. What is happening now though? Ancillary supply establishments and vast storage and refining developments will take place on the East Coast, and Grangemouth and Leith will be among the places concerned. The time seems to have come, therefore, to upgrade the A.1 from the Forth Road Bridge to Newcastle. At long last the planners have proposed the construction, long overdue, of the Southern bypass of the City of Edinburgh, marked out as it was a quarter of a century ago. It now becomes an absolute and urgent necessity for the City of Edinburgh, already overburdened by its internal traffic upon which through-goods vehicles are superimposed. What the full volume of the coming and going which will follow the oil exploration will be, and when it is superimposed upon this, it is difficult to estimate. The situation will become intolerable and, what is more, the old A.1 via Haddington—which is bypassed—Dunbar which is bypassed—and Berwick—which is not yet bypassed—will have to be converted into dual carriageway or motorway standard as a contribution not only to the roads from the North but also from the M.8 from Glasgow, especially in conditions like they are at the moment when the A.74 is hardly passable. But to return to the Edinburgh bypass: how can it be put in hand before 1975? I urge the Government to see whether some anticipatory means can be adopted to speed up the financing of that project.
My Lords, I would end by drawing attention to a letter in the Scotsman this morning some of which refers to the accident in which an articulated lorry ran away opposite St. Giles's Cathedral and ended up against John Knox's house. As one of my English friends said at lunch: "Well, that is used to hard

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knocks!" However, the letter contains these paragraphs:
"I am unable to interpret the theology of the matter, but it is obvious that the needs of historic Edinburgh and the needs of modern transport are irreconcilable. Behemoth, the High Church and John Knox will never get along together.
"Why should a load of 20 tons of frozen meat on the way from Aberdeen to London be in Edinburgh at all, far less in the High Street? If ever a vehicle by itself could emphasise the need for a bypass the artic, in the High Street has done so."
There are two items in the debate I should like to pick up. One is the risks involved at the beginning of this enterprise. I was talking to a Texas oil man in East Lothian the other day and I asked him what insurance rate was chargeable on the rigs, and he said 13 per cent. I asked what was the insurance rate in the Gulf of Mexico, and he said 7½ per cent. I think that is a fair measure of the risks which have had to be faced by the entrepreneur in the first efforts to get oil from the North Sea, and it is very reasonable that the Government should have provided a proper reward for that.
The noble Earl, Lord Perth, talked of the exchanges he had had with the Government over the Scottish Convention, whether that could not be established before 1975. That leads me in my closing remarks to make a reference to the excellent maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Aberdeen, whose father was held in such high respect and affection in this House, and to his suggestion that perhaps, if we cannot have the Convention soon, we might have district commissioners.
7.2 p.m.
LORD LYELL: My Lords, I wish to begin my remarks by adding my congratulations to those of my noble colleague to the noble Marquess, Lord Aberdeen, on the excellence of his maiden speech. I am sure we shall all look forward to hearing from him on other wider Scottish issues in the future.
So far as oil and the Scottish economy are concerned, I do not think that any of us should consider that the East and North-East coast of Scotland bears any similarity at all to Texas or the Iranian Gulf which are the two other oil producing centres of the world. There is,
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however, a great deal of activity which would not otherwise be evident, including the building of enormous drilling rigs both at the Upper Clyde shipyards and at Ardersier, the installation of a pipe line carrying the North Sea oil from Cruden Bay to Grangemouth, and also rapid improvement to many ports, large and small, in East and North-East Scotland. The scale of all this activity is much greater than could have been foreseen even two years ago, and there is a corresponding amount of strain on the resources of Eastern Scotland; for example, in communications, in housing and in other amenities sought by the human influx which has followed the exploitation of North Sea oil. Such a strain, I believe, can be borne.
But there are certain immediate advantages which also accrue from the discovery of such large quantities of oil. Already smaller points on the East coast have been transformed by rapid and competent development. These improvements are continuing all the time, with well organised and willing co-operation in the provision of all kinds of services to the oil rigs and oilfields. Aberdeen is the natural centre for such a major development of Scotland's resources, and it is gratifying to see such examples of confidence in the future as the transfer of B.E.A.'s helicopter services and administration to Dyce airport. There is also a resurgence of confidence in other parts of Scotland as a result of the discovery of oil. We have only to look at the Upper Clyde shipyards which have obtained orders for the enormous and complicated oil rigs which are necessary to drill in the North Sea. Ardersier is also the location of another yard where rigs are under construction, and it seems that much of the activity carried on at Ardersier will have a lasting effect on the economy of the North of Scotland.
I cannot believe that we should properly consider ourselves to have reached the promised land at this stage, but there is clear evidence that the East of Scotland, and indeed the small ports, are capable of development to take the responsibilities of servicing oil rigs. Here I make no apology for mentioning Montrose, which is very near my home. These ports are already looking ahead to future prospects, and I believe that the imminent entry into the E.E.C. will ensure a large

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amount of growth in the traffic using these ports. The facilities are there; there are excellent roads and good railways connecting East Scotland with the North of England and also the West of Britain.
I should like to add my wholehearted support to the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, when he points out that the growth of the Scottish economy engendered by the discovery of oil will cause us to look more directly Eastwards to Europe, and in particular to Scandinavia, Denmark, North Germany and Holland. I believe that much of the existing export traffic is already being channelled through the Eastern ports. There are also plans for roll-on, roll-off docks at Dundee, and I do not imagine that Montrose, Aberdeen and Grangemouth will be far behind. The growth of livestock and agricultural exports is already providing traffic which will be seized by Scottish ports, as opposed to Hull, Immingham, Felixstowe and Harwich.
We in Scotland now have an ideal opportunity to ask the Government that a proportion of North Sea oil revenues should be reserved for Scottish development alone, and I believe that this should be handled by a Scottish authority, either the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) or a possible Scottish Development Bank. Such funds could contribute to seeking out the best advice from the best economists and—may one use the term?—"think-tanks" in the world, and I believe that this advice could provide a starting point for a completely rejuvenated and re-born Scotland. We have certain geographical disadvantages, but should the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) be strengthened by the availability of a proportion of oil revenues, there are two avenues of discussion which ought to be taken up. The first is Oceanspan. This could provide an utterly new and different industrial scene for Scotland. My noble colleagues, Lord Perth and Lord Lauderdale, have long been among the foremost in pressing for the implementation of this scheme, and I think they must take considerable pleasure in the prospect of its coming nearer to fruition. Secondly, following from the prospects of Oceanspan we should take as an example the country of Belgium, which is already the largest European manufacturer of partly assembled motor cars and lorries. I can forsee
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the possibility of Scotland's obtaining much of the same type of industry.
The Scottish Council (Development and Industry) will have plenty of ideas for the industrial and commercial future of Scotland; tourism, agriculture, whisky and woollens already contribute greatly to the Scottish economy. Scotland will grow or not, dependent on how we seize this opportunity to find industries which can be viable in Scotland, set them up and nurture them, and see that they can contribute to Scotland and also, I hope, to Europe. Oil and the revenues from it give us, particularly everybody in Scotland, an immense boost for the last third of the 20th century and well on into the 21st century. Already the East of Scotland is changing, for richer if not for better, and if only some of the revenues from Scottish oil are reserved for Scotland the whole face of commercial Scotland, from Aberdeen in the North-East to Ayr in the South-West can be changed. The will to change the face of Scotland, I believe, is present in the Government, and the leaders are also in evidence. The noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, the Minister, has a long and distinguished career in promoting Scotland, and we are also very lucky in the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, who shows that he has grasped the details and the wider scene which are necessary to obtain the best from Scottish oil. We have this chance to help Scotland and it is one which will not be offered again, certainly not in my lifetime. We must seize it. I should like to add my thanks to the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, who has given us the opportunity to raise these points to-day.
7.10 p.m.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, I, too, should like to express gratitude to the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, for the clarity and conciseness with which he covered a very wide field, and gave us such a good start for this debate. I should also like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Aberdeen on his maiden speech. It was certainly no surprise to me that it was of such a high standard, for in the First War his father was my commanding officer, and in the Second War I was his.
Several noble Lords have spoken about the necessity of preserving the countryside of Scotland in face of all these developments, and we must pay attention

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to getting our country fully civilised with all these people coming in. In this connection, I would draw your Lordships' attention to that focus of civilisation which exists in the North-East of Scotland centred on Haddo House. Cultural activity there is of the very highest order, and that is an enterprise which ought also to be further assisted by the State. In the same breath, I should like to make a further point about the Historic Buildings Council of Scotland, who are fairly short of cash. The Government have timidly taken some steps to enable the Council to give assistance to the ancient historic churches of Scotland. That is something which could be of help towards keeping Scotland decent and beautiful, despite all the commercial development that will be taking place.
My Lords, the main burden of my address to you to-night is on the universities, and what they can do. It has always been a tradition of the Scottish universities—and the younger Scottish universities have taken it up, too—that they have a duty to the community. I believe that they held this view in the past in an even stronger way than some of the old universities in the adjacent Kingdom. In consequence, the universities of Scotland have already started work in connection with North Sea oil, each university according to its available resources. Naturally, Aberdeen, being the nearest, is in the lead. The Geology Department has a very high reputation, and it came rapidly into action at the first hint of North Sea oil. Already they have made no small contribution, and how good it is can be judged by the fact that they are already doing contract research for some of the companies.
The noble Lord, Lord Hughes, mentioned the survey that the Government have commissioned of the Political Economy Department of the university. I think that we should congratulate the Government, because they seem to have anticipated this before the generality of Scots appreciated the importance of making this particular kind of survey. The university is also providing the oil operators with immediate servicing, such as chemical analyses, which are so important in the early stages of development. Despite the astonishing rate of development, the value of this aid from the
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University of Aberdeen is very considerable.
It is, I know, a work of supererogation to draw the attention of my noble friend Lord Polwarth to this. He knows far more about it than I do, for he is Chancellor of that University. However, he is a man with little liking for blowing his own trumpet, so perhaps I can be excused for blowing it for him. He has made a considerable contribution to his adopted university. The involvement of Strathclyde University with oil goes back well over 100 years to the cracking of the shale of West and Mid-Lothian. This led ultimately to the great complex which we now have at Grangemouth, which is going to play an even more important part in the immediate future. Latterly, at Strathclyde, work has been largely concentrated on the diversification of the uses of gas and oil. Quite notable progress has been made by their Department of Microbiology in what is really the conversion of North Sea oil and gas into protein. This has implications far beyond the welfare of the Scot. It is going to make a most important contribution to the feeding of the expanding population of the world. Strathclyde University recently mounted a special conference with the Universities of Glasgow and Stirling and with Paisley College to embark on the aspects of science and technology underpinning the industry. A great variety of new projects is thus opening up, some of them based on work already in progress. But there are no resources and no money.
My noble friend Lord Drumalbyn mentioned the gift of the Wolfson Foundation, as did the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso. The gift was to set up at the Heriot-Watt University an institute of offshore engineering. Work has already started in this field, and I should like to give your Lordships one example to illustrate it. The torpedo-shaped animal is called ANGUS. This stands for "a navigable general underwater surveyor". It is designed for underwater inspection, for maintenance, and for surveying, while the human master stays dry and warm above the water. Missions for ANGUS will include the effecting of certain repairs and making adjustments. The Science Research Council have provided some of the money to help him to develop his skills, but his perfection will involve the

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university in a considerable further sum of money. That is just one of the projects of this institute of underwater technology.
Other universities are also at work. At Dundee some very interesting work is being done on occupational medicine concerned with this work. At Edinburgh, both the Geophysics and Geology Departments are giving guidance to the companies. The Geophysics Department is helping them to find oil, and the Geology Department is dealing with the drift on the sea bed as it affects the pipelines. When a pipeline is found to be uncovered, is it the fault of the constructor, or is it the drift of the sea bed? There are infinite possibilities for litigation in the future if the exact scientific knowledge is not available. Having made inquiry of the universities of Scotland, I am impressed by the way in which their work is complementary. There seems to be no difficulty about finding plenty of problems, and this is as it should be.
Another point about the Scottish universities and oil is the training of the scientists and engineers. Aberdeen has already arranged postgraduate courses in petroleum geology, and likewise at the other universities. The major snag is that the Scottish universities have no funds for more postgraduate scholarships or fellowships, and the Minister for Education and Science has recently announced a reduction in the number of postgraduate scholarships. The students are there and anxious. But there are no funds, and if we do not train these postgraduates we have no right to belly-ache that the Universities of Texas and of Oklahoma will provide for the next half-century the top management of the oil industry in Scotland.
Whatever may be the decision of the Government about the amount to be given to the University Grants Committee over the next four years, it will not solve this problem at all. The job of the University Grants Committee is to share out this vote as equitably as possible among all the universities of the United Kingdom. But, in passing, I would say that there are large differences between the universities, the least well-provided getting some £400 per student less than those better provided. I wish to make the point that by relying on their existing methods of
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finance the Scottish universities cannot possibly make the decisive contribution that it is within their power to make to the development of the North Sea oil. It seems to me to be entirely reasonable to ask that a first charge on the revenues from these oilfields—and on the monies already coming in—should be adequate provision for the scientific and technological basic knowledge. Indeed, my Lords, I would put it much stronger. The people of Scotland expect the Government to do everything possible to ensure that the native skills and talents of the Scots get every chance in the development of their own natural resources.
Some years ago, I visited Texas and Oklahoma and I have been back since then. I was deeply impressed by the contribution which the universities were making to all aspects of the development of oil and natural gas. Let me give your Lordships an example. In the year 1909, the Pearson financial empire in Texas was threatened with total doom. In desperate straits, Sir Weetman Pearson appealed for help to the Professor of Geology at the University of Oklahoma. The Professor took along with him his assistant—salary 15 dollars a month, all paid by the State. By the end of that year, the Pearson fortunes were touching rock bottom, but within another six months the assistant had started the drill into one of the greatest of all oil strikes. Mexican Eagle was saved and Lord Cowdray had made another fortune.
Seventy years ago it was the professors at the State Universities of Texas and Oklahoma who produced the basic knowledge for the discovery, and then for the development, of oil in North America and Mexico. At that time, many people were thinking that the oil resources of the world or, at any rate, of North America, were running out. Today, the oil industry throughout the world is once again facing a whole series of new problems and, just as seventy years ago a good measure of the progress depended on the universities, so it does to-day. But to-day the scientific field is a much wider one. Not only do geology and geophysics play a very important part, but there are aspects of pure physics and pure chemistry which are fundamental to the development of the oilfields, and these are largely channelled through the technologies which

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are being developed. Electrical engineering is terribly important. The opportunity for Scotland is not merely the seabed around Scotland. If our universities develop the technologies for our own under-deepwater oilfields, then they will be applied throughout the world wherever oil and gas can be discovered. And the Scot will go with them, just as the Texan is coming to Scotland now. We just cannot afford to await the slow processes by which universities have to find support. I would make the strongest possible plea for direct grants from the Government to reinforce the success which certain university departments in Scotland have already achieved. These grants should be made now and they should be made generously, for to-morrow may well be too late.
7.25 p.m.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords. I direct my few brief remarks to-night to three aspects of the tourist industry, or matters connected with the tourist industry, which many of us who jive in the rural or agricultural parts of Scotland believe will be the salvation so far as the population is concerned. Those of us who live in Central Scotland look perhaps a little wistfully to the North-East, with the glittering but transient prospects of riches from oil; we look enviously to the West and South where vast quantities of public money are pumped in to help ailing industries; and we wonder where we stand in the future. There are many of us who believe that the tourist industry offers the best hope for those parts of Scotland which may well have good agricultural land but have a steadily declining number of people to keep up their head of population in order not to become merely week-end places of buts-and-bens for refugees from the towns. So far as the tourist industry is concerned there is no lack of ideas, and many people, such as those who travel on the infamous A.9, to which I shall return, see a lot of results of private enterprise at Aviemore and other such places. But most tourist ideas are what are called "capital intensive": they take a large amount of money to provide any revenue at all. I can illustrate that by the fact that if, for instance, one is putting up a caravan site, each pitch costs not less than £300 if it is to be up to inter
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national standards, and in some parts of Scotland, where each pitch is expected to have a caravan on it for but sixty nights, the return cannot be more than 6 or 7 per cent. on the capital involved.
The Scottish Tourist Board is an excellent institution and is doing its best with its limited resources to help those who have the bright ideas for tourist projects but who do not have sufficient cash to put them into operation. Unfortunately, applications to the Board are a cumbersome and bureaucratic process and compare most unfavourably with, for instance, an application by a farmer who wishes to improve his farm. It is perfectly possible for a farmer, if his tackle is straight, so to speak, to put in his application with whatever documents are necessary and get at least outline consent in six weeks or so for whatever he wants to do to promote the future well-being of his farm. So far as tourism is concerned, there are many cases where many people have their bright ideas in one summer but are unable to get the Board to act before the next summer, so a whole year goes by when they are unable to do anything to put their ideas into execution. I would ask my noble friend Lord Polwarth, to see whether he can somehow model the Tourist Board's method of handing out public money on that of the Department of Agriculture, which is quick, efficient and fair.
The second point on which I would dwell very briefly—and here I have to declare an interest—is that of caravan site standards. I run a small caravan site and there is no doubt that many of the tourists who bring such wealth to Scotland bring their homes behind them, as it were, in caravans. Those of us who live in Scotland are determined that caravans should not be an excrescence on the face of the land, and that they should be put in places with proper facilities. But here the local authorities in Scotland are far from being unanimous about what the proper site standards should be. Last summer, I asked my noble friend Lord Sandford whether he would comment on the proposed new model standards which were the outcome of a working party set up by the Department of the Environment and, more especially, by the Welsh Office. He was good enough to say that he would commend those new model standards, which

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are very much cheaper for the operator, to local authorities. But one local authority in Scotland announced that it was not at all bound by anything set up by the Department of the Environment, because it is English, and still less was it bound by anything set up by the Welsh Office. It said that until a working party was set up in Scotland and reported in Scotland, it intended to accept none of the recommendations at all. The situation is therefore little short of chaotic. The would-be putters-up of caravan sites are unable to proceed because they know that standards are going to come eventually, and they do not wish to put their hard-earned cash into standards which will not be necessary in the long run.
The third point I would make concerns the now notorious A.9. Any of your Lordships who travels North across the Forth and up the M.90 knows that it ends well short of Perth and that one is then plunged into Glencarse, and gloom reigns supreme, so far as I am concerned, until Inverness. I fully appreciate that the Government are committed to taking a look at this terrible road. It is inevitable, both because of the tourist traffic and more especially because of these huge lorries, that eventually it will have to be a dual carriageway. There will come a time when money will have to be spent, and I beseech the Government to take the decision earlier, rather than later, so that all those of us who travel this road, whether for pleasure or for business. will at least do so more pleasantly than we do now.
7.31 p.m.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: My Lords, what strangeness is gripping this Kingdom, that an area such as the Highlands —a space of perhaps 5 million acres—should first be held to ransom by its own people, in less enlightened times. and now be in dire peril from possibly another Beeching and others? This debate is supposed to review the arrival of the new North Sea oil strikes in relation to the economy of Scotland. But we cannot take this in isolation, since without communications there will be no oil—an oversimplification, no doubt, but fundamentally true. Highland life is by no means a bed of roses. It really is rather hard going; and the more that can be done to even it, the better. If
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railways are to be ripped up and one is to be left with highly inadequate roads for present-day communications, it will surely be very unfair to the population. It is always being said that no county can take on its own stretch of main line rather than have it pulled up. This may well be so, but think how brilliantly some men in this country run their manufactories and manpower! Could we not see even one of them taking on a redundant West Highland railway? A private railway can be run so much more imaginatively than the present indifference to order. Even if the railway is not pulled up, it would be in the interests of British Rail to put their property to the very best use to the public that they can. That would include a supreme effort at presenting their trains, staff and redundant buildings to the greatest advantage: observation cars; attracting the portage of farm animals to Lowland markets; smartly turned out personnel; and a considerable improvement in the way that the trains are stopped and started. Sudden stops and starts can be quite alarming and rather uncomfortable, especially to a person with my sort of figure.
As to transport, my Lords, in the West Highlands communication is undoubtedly the main factor to its economy. We have the odd main road already out of date although newly-widened. With the A.9, the main route into the territory is still painfully slow in its widening operations, making driving somewhat hazardous; though if ever finished it will still not suffice. But trains, my Lords, should still be regarded as the strongest link in this set-up. It was an ancestor of mine who was the first, or one of the first, to try to raise interest in building a rail-road into the West Highlands, but his great dream came to nothing. It was deemed too expensive, and the mountainous terrain too fierce to tame. Faint hearts indeed, because when the railway was constructed the West Highlands thought that it could then expect a progressive future. Now comes word—word of mouth, that is—that this line is to be pulled up. Do I hear aright? Can it be that some faceless autocrat in some British city has taken such a dotty decision as this?
My Lords, when the snow comes the roads sometimes block, but the train usually gets through. When the roads

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flood it sometimes does not affect the train. But our little autocrat would not know that: he probably thinks that we have an airport, docks and hovercraft service instead. The signs of the end are there. Many railway cottages have been wantonly pulled down, despite the pleas of homeless people and the do-it-yourself brigade; our cattle and sheep consignments to the Lowland markets are refused by the railway company; spur lines and passing places have also been ripped up; and even the harmless little stations have been bulldozed flat, often in growing villages, as indeed is the case in my own. Who is steering this ship? Is anyone at the wheel at all? Is it Government policy to turn the West Highlands back into a wilderness again? I seem to remember reading the writings of a step-ancestor of mine. Sir Walter Scott, in which he praised the great beauty of the `Nest Highlands and exhorted his readers to explore that wild and roadless countryside. It was largely due to him that roads were built to attract tourists to become more advantageous and then in time came the trains, mostly bent on much the same mission. It matters not at all whether the tourist wants the Highlander or the Highlander the tourist: they both need inland and island transport, train or packet steamer, and it is beginning to look as if neither will have either.
My Lords, the Government must realise that they cannot run down a chunk of the United Kingdom just because it is not paying its way. It is neither sporting nor far-sighted. The East Coast oil boom is bound to mean a large influx of people during the next few years, many of whom will need houses, land, entertainment, schools, fresh air and leisure occupations. What will they find? It may be narrow, bumpy roads and almost no trains—near sterility. It may seem of paltry importance to most people in this Kingdom that railways are to be pulled up and inadequate roads left to cope with the massive timber lorries, motorcars, road trains and heavy, wide construction equipment, which are the bane of one's life these days. But to those of us who live in the hills it smacks of the lack of basic strategy. I should like to see a great deal more passenger traffic on the Caledonian Canal and waterways between Fort William and Inverness, to link up
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the industrial Highlands in the East and the restful areas of the West.
My Lords, my contribution to this debate may not at first appear to have anything to do with the Scottish economy and the oil boom, but let me say that without modern communications the communities will have neither and they might as well pack up and depart—if there is any method of doing so by then. As the Government are ultimately responsible for virtually everything that happens in the United Kingdom, I hope that heed will be taken of my words; for if I am ignored Sir Walter Scott will have wasted some of his time, and time is highly underrated in a man's life—and that is horrifying if one thinks about it.
7.39 p.m.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, in following my noble friend Lord Rankeillour I cannot help remembering the wittiness of his maiden speech in one of these debates a year or two ago. We hear him too little; and how pleasant it is to follow him! On the questions of transportation, to which he referred, I shall return. I should begin by thanking my noble friend Lord Arbuthnott for introducing this debate so splendidly, so usefully, so constructively, so concisely. And I must congratulate my noble friend Lord Aberdeen on his maiden speech, which was so witty, so worthy and so welcome.
I should like to apologise to my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn because during a debate that almost matches that on the Longford Report for competition to speak, I had to nip out to slake my thirst, and therefore I missed one or two of the things which he said. But may I thank him for his long letter, which I am glad to say has been circulated to other Members who took part in the last debate on oil. I should like to thank him for going to great trouble, and to express the hope that any letters which are written to noble Lords as a result of this debate may perhaps also be copied and distributed to other noble Lords taking part, because they are of general benefit and interest. Here I take up Lord Hughes's point, even though it points to a certain salty controversality about our consensus: it is as Scotsmen and for Scotland that we speak presently in this great Council of the nation.

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To my noble friend Lord Polwarth, may I extend sympathy; because he will now have not 40 or 50 but 70 or 80 questions to answer. I think this is the first of these debates that it has fallen to him to answer. I had the privilege of putting to him the first Question that he took at the Box. He took that ball pretty well, and I know that he will take this one; but may I say, I think on behalf of everybody, how much we welcome him at the Box, and as our Minister of State. That cannot be said vigorously enough. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, has disappeared from the list of speakers. One would have waited for him even if one had not to wait for one's own speech. The noble Lord, Lord Lyell, was good enough to make complimentary references to my enthusiasm over Oceanspan—now "old hat"; it is everybody's talk.
Perhaps one should say a word about the honorary Scotsman among us to-day from the plains of Hungary. I do not believe that either the revenues or the degree of public sector participation in the oil industry is a serious and fundamental matter. I believe that this is tilting at a windmill; and when Mr. Cross-man betters the noble Lord, Lord Balogh, to-day in The Times by saying that the oil companies' profits might well in the general interest be limited to 40 per cent., I believe that they will take that up quickly enough. On the current targets of 50p a barrel that are being talked about in knowledgeable quarters against capital costs, operating costs and interest costs of about 40p per barrel, private enterprise would be happy if a 25 per cent. return could be guaranteed; but those figures discount exploration costs—
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, the noble Earl's figures disprove his contention.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: What is always so agreeable about the noble Lord, Lord Balogh. is that we go round in circles as in a danse macabre. This is not the moment to go to quite the depths that he was able to descend to in the North Sea oil conference this afternoon. if the oil companies could be guaranteed 25 per cent. I think they would be very pleased. But those figures discount exploration costs and the critical
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difference between the reserves in being and the reserves recoverable—which in the Forties field is not more than 40 per cent. They overlook the facts that not all the acreages are equally good (and the public sector has done pretty well); not a single platform is yet in place in the North part of the North Sea; not a single exploration rig is active in the North part of the North Sea; not a single mile of deep-sea pipe has yet been laid in the North areas of the North Sea. To the noble Lord opposite (who is itching to be back on his feet) and to Mr. Crossman, I would draw attention to Henry V, "the man that once did sell the lion's skin while the beast lived, was killed with hunting of him".
LORD BALOGH: I must say that the noble Earl is the nearest thing to a cuttlefish because he has now, to mix my metaphors, raised so many hares, that one is hardly able to follow him. He is so nimble in spite of his bulk. It seems to me, however, that if he is talking about the profit as a percentage of the price, this has nothing to do with what amount is earned on the investment—and we now know what the investment will be not of the British but of the Norwegian side in Ekofisk. I can assure the House that I should be willing to grant them 25 per cent. on capital investment, including all these complicated matters that the noble Earl so ably enumerated and which left his own side of the House absolutely aghast and gaping with admiration.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I must not weary the House by pursuing this dialogue, except to say that I confess I get the same sort of pleasure out of seeing the noble Lord, Lord Balogh, on his feet on this subject as I did out of seeing the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, on his feet whenever I spoke on the Common Market.
On the industrial spin-off the picture is a mixture. Half the development expenditure after drilling is in permanent hardware. Only 15 per cent. of that is material; 85 per cent. of it is hookup, packaging and craftsmanship. So there are good and bad points. A good point, for example, is that at Nigg Bay Brown and Root, in training welders, riggers and fabricators, have had a 94 per cent. success from training 672

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unskilled people. The bad point is that in delivery terms one gets comparisons of this kind: platform cranes, Britain, 14 months; U.S.A., nine months; pumps, Britain, four months; U.S.A., 2½months; pressure vessels, Britain, 26 weeks; U.S.A., eight weeks—though I am bound to say, for good or worse, 28 weeks in the rest of the Common Market. A good point is North Sea Assets Investment's part in this 65-milliondollars Viking Marine Equipment plan to finance a semi-submersible pipe-laying barge. It is a critical enterprise, for only by practice in this submarine field can we hope to sell future research results to companies busy in the North Sea. We must show we have had this experience undersea in order to reap the future fruits of our research. The bad point is that this barge is to be made in Holland. Another good point is that 100 million tons per annum, or 2 million barrels per day output in the United Kingdom sector means 10 major fields of about 200,000 barrels a day, or 35 platforms by the 1980s, or three or four platforms per annum. The bad point is that no indigenous United Kingdom platform design capability exists at the present time.
Here are four practical points which have been distilled, I quickly say not by me, from a slim volume which reached me this afternoon covering a conference, the Oil in Britain Convention, at Windsor at the beginning of this week. It was organised by the World Oil Technical Services Limited. These points on industrial spin-off are worth mentioning. One item is that British industry appears to be looking for a lower risk point in its investments in North Sea oil than that expected by the exploration companies. The second conclusion is that some difficulty is experienced in interpretation between American, European and British standard specifications to determine the minimum standards required. The companies, to be successful, need detailed market research on oil company requirements. This, no doubt, is forthcoming from various activities set in hand by the Government; but it was admitted at that Conference (and I think this is generally agreed) that American companies have an advantage in that they enjoy what they call "in house", inside knowledge,
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of pending contracts and development. That gives them a lead.
But more important questions, I believe, relate to energy and price policy for Britain in general, and this matter was raised by implication by the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott. We in Britain are now moving into a high food cost and therefore a high wage cost economy in Western Europe, in the greatest economic policy change since the repeal of the Corn Laws. I would suggest that it is in United Kingdom, and indeed therefore even in purely Scottish, interests that we should seek a policy to offset these new high food costs, on-costs, by cheaper power. Whether it be oil, steel, or chemicals, electricity costs to British industry are the highest in Western Europe so high that many companies, like I.C.I. at Stevenston, have had to set up their own power plants, which only have the effect of reducing the load factor on the nationalised energy industry and thus raising the cost to industry in general.
But, thanks to our geographical position, to which the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, alluded rather more delicately than I propose to do, our offshore oil prices could be manipulated greatly to the British advantage. I therefore welcomed Lord Drumalbyn's assurance in his letter to me of December 12, which was circulated to others who took part in that oil debate, in which he said:
"The petroleum resources of the whole of the U.K. Continental shelf will continue to be treated as national assets in our policy for their exploration and exploitation and we shall ensure that British interests are taken fully into account as Community energy policy is developed."
That, I believe, is a most important statement, and we are very glad to have it, but I should like to press the Government to do a little better than my noble friend's answer in the same letter when he said that in formulating the Community's common energy policy he could not at this stage attempt to "anticipate or indicate the Government's assessment of the individual points before the discussions are under way."
My Lords, I, and I think others, would like to know what is our policy in approaching the Common Market countries on energy policy. The simple fact is—as the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, hinted and I am saying quite

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bluntly—that Britain's share of the Continental shelf, let alone the slope, is Europe's largest. So it may be that Britain could apply (this perhaps will appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Balogh, who is now in a more relaxed, more recumbent, position; and let him stay that way!) an OPEC-type kind of tactic. We might say, tax crude exports, so as to be able to negotiate a high "posted price" or its equivalent for Western Europe; and, having done so, we might subsidise British consumption by fiscal devices and drawbacks, thus to ensure that we subsidise our energy supplies and so offset other high living costs that we are going to encounter inside the E.E.C. I ask my noble friend Lord Polwarth not to try to answer me now. I know that in due time there will come out of the machine a letter over his signature which I shall be very glad to have and which I know will not be signed without his own very careful attention to it.
A number of noble Lords—the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott; the noble Lord, Lord Burton; the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, and the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso—have drawn attention to the need for infra-structure planning. In the Common Market, incentives to industry are going to be closely monitored so far as the peripheral areas are concerned to make sure that what is known as "parallelism" takes place. But there is nothing in the Common Market regional policy prospects which would prevent infrastructure aid to peripheral areas, even on a massive scale. My noble friend Lord Polwarth, in his first Parliamentary reply in this House, said, on April 27, that there was no need for a special department within the S.D.D. to watch the oil situation. However, his colleague in another place, Mr. Younger, told an Edinburgh conference in June that infrastructure should match—"match" was the word—the progress of oil development. I would go further: infrastructure should anticipate oil development and, taking four or five examples in turn, let us go back to the road business because the more this is hammered into Ministers' heads, the better. Here I take up Lord Perth's point that the A.9 is as vital to Scotland as is the Channel Tunnel to the South of England. The noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, the noble Lord, Lord
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Mansfield, and the noble Lord, Lord Rankeillour, have all spoken about it and the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie, referred to the trucks that hurtle along that road.
My Lords, by 1975, each of the 27 rigs then expected to be operating in the Northern North Sea out of the East of Scotland and the Orkneys and Shetlands will need something like 25,000 tons of freight per annum; in other words, 675,000 tons of freight a year. That, of course, supports the case for keeping open the Highland Railway. But much will go by road anyhow because of the dockside door-to-door advantage and above all, in the case of the Orkneys and Shetlands, the roll-on/roll-off facilities to be had at Scrabster. Split up into loads, this volume of freight could be about 2,700 tons each working clay or 135 30-ton trucks each way daily on the A.9 and the A.94 together. If that is now shortly in prospect for the routes to the North and the North-East, what about the routes to the West—Kyle, Ullapool and so on—and what about preparation now for developments in the Minches and the Hatton Bank? In the face of all the arguments deployed to-day, do the Government still stand by the old-fashioned approach, this cost-benefit analysis approach, that road decisions should be taken on the basis of current use? Will they write a serious letter on that subject to all of us who have asked this question?
My Lords, another aspect of communications relates to radio and telegraph frequencies. Rigs that may be 120 miles out at sea, say in the Auk, must take care to avoid interfering with merchant shipping frequencies. Very often they cannot use a teleprinter circuit at night because it is overloaded on land. A tool-pusher may well have to book his call to his headquarters through Stonehaven and then just wait, and in this business you cannot wait save at a very heavy cost. Data link facilities—the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, will remember that I raised this matter in the first debate of this kind that I attended and which he answered so ably, as he always does—depend on siting the trunk switching centres which presently are limited to Aberdeen, Inverness and Oban. What about Wick or Thurso and also Lerwick?

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The noble Lord, Lord Lovat, raised another point in connection with infrastructure; namely, water. He did not say so, but I am passing on the information that each rig needs about 12,000 gallons of fresh water each day, about two-thirds of which is distilled on board. This could build up to a demand of about a quarter of a million gallons a day on the North and East coasts. Any refinery which was established in those parts could be a large user of fresh water, anything up to 2 million gallons a day for a throughput of 10 million tons per annum of crude. These are quite large figures related to the presently impounded and linked sources of supply. We all know that Aberdeenshire housing has been delayed by the water shortage. The North-East of Scotland Water Board, and others, have been pressing for a water grid pipeline from Loch Glass in Easter Ross down to Inverness-shire then the North-East and eventually to Central Scotland. I ask the Government—again this is no doubt a matter for a letter later—what studies do they have in hand on this?
Then, my Lords, energy North of the Caledonian Canal. There is scarcely an over-supply of this just now: say, 300 megawatts from Dounreay once the prototype fast reactor is in operation, and 200 megawatts from hydro—say 500 in all. But the trunk line south of the canal goes by Kintore and is vulnerable to weather. Surely there is a case here for considering the extention of the national gas grid North of the Caledonian Canal, instead of simply to a terminal at Crimmond? And secondly, is there not a case for pricing, to entice Frig! Field gas ashore at Nigg, for extra power in the far North, for butane for carbon blocks for British Aluminium and as a petrochemicals feedstock? Surely here there is a case for enticing, or at any rate studying the possibility of enticing, crude oil refining on the Cromarty Firth so that the lower fractions could serve power generation and the lowest fractions could provide petro-coke to British Aluminium while the balance went for petrochemicals feedstocks.
Then, my Lords, the fourth example. What about land use, which has been referred to by my noble friends Lord Lovat and Lord Stonehaven. There is a
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virtual black market traffic in land options at the present time. Lawyers' letters pass from hand to hand. The trade is brisk, invisible and frightening. Often options are sought and bought irrespective of planning prospects, because those who engage in this traffic believe that the economic pressures will be stronger than the planning authority's power to resist them. Since only land ownership is recorded in the Register of Sasines there is no official track of this traffic. It all means of course that land tends to be held back and sterilised. It makes the district valuer's figures a laughing stock. Surely land use studies, useful as they are, cannot be enough by themselves. Do we not need a policy towards speculative developers trafficking in these pieces of paper? Do we not need some policy towards keeping track of this traffic? What is the Government's view about that; and will they write in due time?
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood anticipated me with a plea about the Borders. The Borders have got very little out of this bonanza. Berwickshire at the last census (and now we have the full figures) showed another drastic population drop—about 7·4 per cent. over a decade. This reveals the same sort of sociological conditions as we have known in the past in the Highlands: an above average proportion of the elderly—in this case 14·8 per cent. of the men—are more than 65 years of age. Can Berwick-upon-Tweed, can Eyemouth, come in on this bonanza? About 100 exploration blocks lie within reach of Berwick-on-Tweed. The Auk Field is about the same distance from Berwick as it is from Aberdeen—142 miles.
Then there is the old question of the East-West trunk road between the Borders and the Clyde. For several years we have heard the arguments about there now being insufficient traffic. We know that the same argument can be used, and has been used, of the Highlands. But if the maximum benefit from the Tweed-bank scheme is to be obtained, then there must be a proper road link, worthy of the name, able to carry heavy traffic from the North-East of England and the South-East of Scotland to the Clyde. Then, of course, on the same theme there is the question of dualling the Al trunk road between Newcastle and Inverness.
My Lords, whether it be roads, I

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believe that the Government are largely trailing behind events; whether it be water, I believe they are largely trailing behind events; whether it be power supply, I believe they are trailing behind events; whether it be radio telegraph or data link communications, I believe they are largely trailing behind events; whether it be land use action against the traffic in paper options, and social provision in terms of housing and other amenities, I believe that the Government are still trailing behind events. Do they really think that the case is no longer proved for some central co-ordinating authority, be it a special division of the Scottish Development Department, or be it in some other form? If the North Sea Shelf is 600,000 square miles, the European Shelf is three times as big at 1,800,000 square miles, and the world shelf is 50 times as big at more than 27 million square miles. My Lords, such is the scale of our opportunity.
8.5 p.m.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, I intrude only briefly into what has been a most interesting debate with notable speeches, during which many suggestions have been put forward for the strengthening of the economy of our country, with much attention given as to means of taking advantage to the greatest possible extent of the discovery of oil in the North Sea. The possibilities in that connection are enormous, and one can only hope that they will be seized with avidity and exploited with courage, determination and resolution. The Government and industry each have a great part to play. There must be no dithering, no vacillation, if we are to secure the great prize which is well within our grasp. But, at the same time, we must be careful not to forget to cherish those industries which have over the years served us well, and continue to do so.
In that connection, I should like to look with your Lordships for a moment at what I believe is, if not our greatest, certainly one of our greatest industries; namely, Scotch whisky. Here I must declare an interest. Not only do I like a little drop of it every now and again, but I also hold shares, and have for many a long year, in the Distillers Company, as do other members of my family. While industrial rate of growth during the past five years has been disappoint
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ing, being only about half of that of the United Kingdom as a whole, the whisky industry has a robust record of growth. Last year it exported over 70 million gallons, valued at £227 million. Over the last 20 years its exports have grown annually at a rate of 9 per cent. in volume and 11 per cent. in value, and that in spite of discriminatory taxation against it in the United States, Australia and New Zealand; while in Canada it has to fight domestic whiskies on a most unfair basis. Much the same discrimination is shown in France and Japan, while in South America inferior spirits locally brewed are frequently passed off as genuine Scotch whisky. Our entry into the Common Market provides more problems, but here I am glad to think that the Government have been alerted and are working to ensure that, should an alcohol régime be established in the Community, Scotch whisky will not come under its control. On that issue, it is absolutely vital for the future of this industry that the Government should succeed.
One would not expect that an industry with such a wonderful export record—an industry employing over 23,000 people, many in remote areas where alternative employment is difficult to find; which provides much work for transport and at the docks, one-third of the traffic going through the Clyde Port Authority being supplied by this industry, and which over the last four years invested no less than £100 million in new plant and machinery—would be called upon to face discrimination in favour of imported wines in our own country. The level of duty on imported sherry, for example, in relation to alcoholic strength, is only one-third of the duty which has to be paid on Scotch whisky—and on that product the duty is also very much higher in the United Kingdom than it is on other alcoholic drinks, whether they be beer or British fortified wines. In addition, the duty on whisky has to be paid before it can be released from bond. In effect, it is just an additional tax.
In view of its record and the revenue which it produces, this great Scottish industry is truly worthy of Government assistance and help—help to obtain for it fair trading terms in the United States, in Commonwealth countries and elsewhere in world markets where it faces discriminatory high taxation; help by

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diplomatic pressure to remove restrictions in countries where imitation is prevalent; help through a substantial cut in excise duty, such as is needed (I am advised) to protect it within the Common Market. My Lords, is it not really high time that a better way be found to tax alcoholic drinks by charging a flat rate of duty according to the degree of alcoholic strength?
Finally, the Government should surely allow, as is general in commerce, a period of credit for the payment of duty. I know of no other industry in the United Kingdom which is called upon to bear such a savage burden of taxation as this great Scottish industry. It does not seek, or ask, for favours. It asks for fair dealing and justice from the Government and the Treasury, which are situated here in the capital city of our much larger and wealthier partner and neighbour.
8.13 p.m.
LORD HOY: My Lords, it falls to me to wind up the debate from this side of your Lordships' House. I should like to mention the last two speeches first, because it was interesting to find that in one of them the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, talked of having been away slaking his thirst, while the last speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, extolled the benefits to be gained from drinking Scotch whisky. For a quarter of a century I may say that I had an interest in this subject because I represented Leith in the House of Commons, and in my constituency we had almost every blend of whisky to be found in the country, so that this trade was not unimportant so far as my constituency was concerned, both from the point of view of employment and of revenue. I would just add the wish—and I do not want to introduce any dispute at this time—that the company with which the noble Lord is associated would reach a settlement in connection with another matter; and I am certain it would be a settlement along lines that would be welcomed by everyone, both in your Lordships' House and elsewhere.
We are grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, for opening this debate, I should like to add my congratulations to those of other noble Lords on the way in which he did it. May I also congratu
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late the noble Marquess, Lord Aberdeen, on his maiden speech, which I enjoyed enormously. He pinpointed a little problem which is not new to your Lordships' House: that is, the question of amenity and employment. The noble Marquess seemed to think—and I am sure he was sincere in this—that he would give up the right to preserve his own private bathing quarters if in fact a little industry could be introduced into that particular bay. We often hear noble Lords saying in connection with this question—and not only noble Lords, but all of us—that we must have employment. I remember one noble Lord saying that he did not mind just how well the economy developed, because we must really develop it, provided that we did not have people. Of course, that is rather a limiting factor. If you are going to have development then you must have people. I am certain that the noble Marquess would welcome people if it meant that they were going to have a job of work to do there.
May I turn now to the question of employment in Scotland. I was delighted to hear the noble Lady, Lady Sempill raise the question of the fishing industry. We all talk about the importance of oil, steel and many other industries, but do not let us forget that this particular industry is equally as important to the fishing villages of Scotland as the larger ones. I believe that the noble Lady was asking your Lordships' House, even if we get into what might be regarded as a quarrel (even an international one, as in the case of Iceland and ourselves), not to forget the importance of this industry to certain ports in Scotland. I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Lady for the contribution she made.
The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, encountered a little difficulty with his employment position. He seemed to be congratulating himself on the reduction in unemployment figures recently. I do not want to appear Party political on this issue, but I have seen it happen so frequently in days gone by. After all, the noble Lord did not say that it was his Government which got the figures up to this height; and now that they have got them down a little he wants congratulations. I am bound to remind him that during the 1969-70 debate, when the unemployment figures were considerably

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lower than they are to-day, the noble Lord and his noble friends were lambasting the Government of that day for having such high figures. Yet they compare more than favourably with those that we have to-day. I agree with him that unemployment is a scourge. Indeed, as a member of a family which lived with unemployment many years ago, I can personally remember the poverty and misery that it created in our household. Therefore we congratulate any Government, regardless of their political persuasion, which can reduce unemployment figures. But just let me remind the noble Lord and his noble colleague, Lord Polwarth, that unemployment figures are far, far too high for the good of Scotland and its economy.
The question of oil obviously always brings troubles. I do not claim to be an expert on the oil industry. To-day we have so many experts that one begins to wonder where the truth lies. My noble friend Lord Hughes to-day raised a question with the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn; and it is amazing what people can do, not only with figures but with language. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said that the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir (the predecessor of the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth), had not been precise in her language, or that she was "not sure". Whatever else one might accuse the noble Baroness of, one cannot make the accusation that she is not precise. She is always extremely careful. What she said in the debate on November 24, 1971, at col. 1032, was this:
"Coming as I do from the North-East of Scotland, I am of course immensely interested in the development of the major new oilfields of the North Sea. The companies concerned are understandably guarded until further development, but it appears that oil will be available from the Northern sectors of the North Sea to the extent of at least 50 million tons a year by the mid-'seventies,…
Then she made a forecast that it would rise to something like 150 million tons by 1980. It may be that there has been a re-thinking. It may well be that people have had to revise the figures.
All I say to the noble Lord is that if a figure of 50 million tons is to be reached by 1975, it is going to be a poor performance if between 1975 and 1980 we can add only another 25 million tons. So the noble Lord had better look at the
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figures again because I have seen other figures raised in a debate on this subject in another place. During the debate on oil in Scotland Professor Odell, who is also regarded as one of the great experts in this line, was quoted as suggesting that the figure quoted by my honourable friend Mr. Douglas might well reach 300 million tons. This really is a tremendous figure. The Secretary of State then interrupted to make sure that the figures my honourable friend had quoted were correct. My honourable friend gave them again and quoted the source for so using them.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, it may help if I made it clear that what my noble friend was doing was to repeat figures that had been given in another place in a debate a few days earlier in Committee, and quoted by Mr. Younger there. He made it quite clear that the Northern sectors of the North Sea to which he was referring were both sides of the Northern sectors, both the Norwegian and the United Kingdom figures. We have been able to look this up since the Question was asked.
I notice that in the Financial Times to-day the Deputy Director-General of the Norwegian Ministry of Industry quoted a figure of 50 million tons as the likely rate of production in 1980 for the Norwegian side. The noble Lord may be right in saying that we may do better than that. We may, but I was being asked about the estimate and the disparity between the 75 million tons plus the 25 million tons, and the 150 million tons. The disparity is not that great if you divide it between the two sides. That lessens the difference still more.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, even on that point, the arithmetic is still not right. In the part of Scotland that I come from —and I am not a chartered accountant—75 and 50 do not add up to 150.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I have just said that. I have just said that between 125 and 150 there is a disparity of 25. Admitted that there is a disparity, but not the large disparity that we were discussing earlier to-day.
LORD HOY: My Lords. I think it is a very large disparity. Even with 25 million tons it is one-sixth of the total quantity that we are discussing. That is

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large, and the noble Lord has now said that since the Question they went back and had another look at the Answer. This Answer was made 12 months ago. That is a long time ago. It seems a little reticent to wait for 12 months to find out what the true answer is. All I am saying is that this bandying of figures strengthens the case that has been made in another place, and this House, for a White Paper laying out the facts of the situation.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Lord, the Minister, knows that Professor Odell has further modified his estimates. His estimate is. including the Irish Sea and also the Northern Approaches. that the figure is more than 300 million tons, and it is more like 500 million tons for Europe as a whole. Professor Odell's figures have always been denied and derided, but he has always come out top.
LORD HOY: I am grateful to my noble friend for the information that he has given us. I will not take the matter any further, except to say that when the original Answer was given Norway was never mentioned at all.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, it was in the other place, as I said. My noble friend quoted the same words, but did not complete the meaning by making it clear, as my honourable friend in another place had done. It covered both sides, and mentioned specifically the United Kingdom and Norway.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I am sorry that the interpretation given to your Lordships was faulty.
LORD DRUMALBYN: It was not.
LORD HOY: Yes it was. My Lords, if a part is left out, then of course it is not a correct position. All we can go on in this House is the information supplied to us. However, as I have said, I will take the matter no further at the moment, except to say once more that it strengthens the case being made on all sides for a White Paper, so that the matter can be explained easily to people like me—I had better not include anyone else. I am certain that when I say that I speak for myself in wanting to be able to under
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stand this matter clearly, I am also adding a word for many other Members of your Lordships' House.
What is to be done in the future? We have also had a discussion about the profits that are to be made. I see varying figures. I have listened to my noble friend Lord Balogh. I have known my noble friend for a long time and I do not doubt his figures. Yet I have had another set of figures given to me to-day by one who is regarded as an eminent professor. His figures show that the profit per barrel on the average cost in Britain is somewhere in the middle of the scale. In other words, he is saying that the profits which are going to be made by the companies are not exorbitant if you consider them in relation to either the top bracket or the lower bracket.
What I agree with—and I do not seek to dissent from it—is this. When the decision was first made it was said that speed was the essence. This was agreed by both Governments. Surely it is not unusual, after one has got under way. to think out what has been done, and what the terms might be in the future. I should have thought that it was incumbent upon any Government to take this into account; and that this Government, no more nor less than any other, would do so. There are a considerable number of fields yet to be allotted. There is a strong feeling in the country that public participation has not been as great as it ought to have been, and that the proceeds from this industry will not find their way in any considerable quantity back into the national Exchequer. We are arguing —as most people are to-day—that this natural resource at least ought to be of considerable direct benefit to the country. We know and appreciate that it will provide employment; but even then there is a great deal of doubt as to the number of jobs that it will provide.
In the future I see two things: one is on the educational side, because I was interested, as all of us are, to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, said about the research work being undertaken by the Heriot-Watt University. He will tell your Lordships, and be glad to do so, that this has been made possible to a great extent by the generosity of the Wolfson Foundation. But the university requires more than that if the job is to be undertaken. The noble Lord was making a

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serious statement when he said that there were post-graduate courses and graduates to do the job, but that lack of finance was preventing them from taking up these jobs. If this is so, the Government must look at it again; and indeed they must do more than that on the educational side. I think they will have to expand the whole of the training and educational facilities of this country with regard to oil, so that we shall be training our own people to undertake these tasks and be, if not independent, at least much less dependent than we are at the moment on other countries supplying these experts and technicians to us.
In paying this tribute to the Heriot-Watt University may I also remind the Government that they have asked the Aberdeen University to undertake a piece of specific research? I should like to ask the noble Lord whether in fact money has been made available. My information is that the University is having considerable difficulty in getting this piece of work off the ground, purely because cash is not available. I do not know whether that is so or not; all I will say to-night is that if the Government want to ask universities to do this work they must make the finances available to them.
There is one other subject to which I wish to turn now, because the hour is getting late. This is a memorandum that I have personally received from the Metallurgical Plant Makers' Federation. They are complaining that, owing to a lack of Government decision, it is impossible for them to get on with their job. As I understand it, they operate in the main in the South, although there is a very large firm in Coatbridge and there was a second in Glasgow, but because of lack of orders the whole thing had to be transferred from Glasgow to the South. These people say that they must have a decision in regard to British steel very quickly, because the long-term arrangements for the British Steel Corporation simply cannot be gone ahead with, owing to the fact that the Government will not make a decision. If these plant-making organisations are to play their part, they must have information from the Government at an early date. As I understand it, the Federation comprises seven associations of about 69 companies. It represents suppliers to the home and overseas
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markets in the full range of metallurgical plant, from ore unloading to the handling of finished products. They then go on to point out that the great problem once more is the home market, and they tell me that this is clearly shown by the value of orders placed by the British Steel Corporation with member companies of the Federation. They were as follows: in 1969, £18 million—I am giving the sum in round figures—in 1970, £107 million; in 1971, £45 million. As a consequence, this very important section of the British economy is finding it extremely difficult to go ahead with its work. It seems to me that unless we can get these companies and this type of business working our economic recovery will be greatly retarded. I say to the noble Lord that not only could we have this undertaking in Glasgow but (who knows?) if we get this information early enough we could get an expansion of this type of work in Glasgow and in Scotland generally, where we are not inexpert in this field of industry.
So I say to the noble Lord that these are the issues which are standing out in the country to-day. I think the Government must provide a paper in regard to oil; they must tell us what they are going to do on education; they must tell us what the real prospects are, and indeed what the forecast will be, so that we may get rid of these differences. There is no need for any quarrelling between both sides: if we know the facts we can make the decision. Secondly, the noble Lord must look at the job of the industrial constructors. I am willing to send the correspondence to the noble Lord, but he must make a decision on it.
Finally, I wish to say one word about roads. I will not repeat what has been said about the A9. I am told that the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, in my absence was quoting his own case, which is fully reported in the letters to the editor of the Scotsman this morning which the writer claims made a greater justification for the ring road than all the work done by the noble Lord. That is rather a backhanded compliment; but the way in which he related how the refrigerated lorry left the doors of St. Giles's Cathedral very rapidly, proceeded down the High Street, crossed the bridge, went down the next part of the High Street and finished up in John Knox's house, I

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thought made the case very tellingly. On all these subjects we must get decisions. What we have sought to do in the course of to-day's debate has been not even to criticise. We have not resorted to the virulent language used by the noble Lord, Lord Rankeillour, nor to the rum-bustiousness of the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie. All we say to the Government to-day is this: these are the subjects with which Scotland is confronted; please give us the answers.
8.37 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD POLWARTH): My Lords, we are getting to the end of a wide-ranging and, I have found, absolutely fascinating debate which I can say quite genuinely has been almost entirely helpful and constructive. I am extremely grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, and to all those noble Lords who have given of their time and talents to bring this about. A great many suggestions have been made and a great many questions have been asked. To attempt to answer them is a daunting task, and if at this hour I concentrate on the main issues and do not attempt to reply to every point made I suspect that I shall have your Lordships' gratitude rather than the reverse.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, asked us to take a look at Scotch whisky. I suspect there are a few of us who will want to do something more than that to it. I can, however, assure the House that my colleagues and I will look seriously at everything that has been said in the debate and will do our best to answer by correspondence where, for reasons of time or otherwise, I cannot deal with the questions to-night.
To start, may I, too, offer my congratulations to my noble kinsman Lord Aberdeen on a knowledgeable, persuasive and human speech. We all know the record of service of his family, and the notable contribution which his father made to our debates from practical knowledge starting on the shop floor in industry. I am glad to recall the fact that our mutual ancestor was the Lord Aberdeen who subsequently became Prime Minister, and I understand that he made his maiden speech 165 years ago. The knowledge of the noble Marquess, Lord Aberdeen, in regard to the North-East
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of Scotland is of great value. I hope that the arrival of the pipeline at Cruden Bay will not unduly disturb his bathing activities—I think probably it will not. May I assure him at this point that no decision has yet been taken about developments at the Loch of Strathbeg, to which he referred, nor indeed at Dunnet Bay. Both are cases of difficulty and problems and they are being looked at extremely carefully before any decision is made. This brings out the point which has been made to us on a number of fronts; namely, the time taken to arrive at decisions in matters of planning. Here lies the problem. Surely it is better to arrive at the right decisions rather than at over hasty decisions. Somehow a balance must be struck.
These debates on the Scottish economy have become almost an annual event and when, a year ago, I was rash enough to initiate the last of them myself, little did I suspect that this year I should find myself on the other side of the fence —on the receiving rather than the delivery end. The Motion refers particularly to the effects of the development of North Sea oil and gas, and much of the debate has concentrated on this aspect. I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn for dealing so fully and so ably with much of this aspect earlier on. But, however vitally important it may be. we must keep it in perspective and remember it as only one of the factors in the equation which is the economy of Scotland, the equation the solution to which is the clue to our prosperity.
As I said in the debate a year ago, Scotland's economy is a microcosm of that of the country as a whole. It reflects in a particularly vivid way some of the problems which the whole country is facing. Scotland's fortunes are inextricably bound up with those of the United Kingdom. That said, Scotland's particular troubles are the legacy of our industrial past—of an early industrial development, of the impact of two cataclysmic wars and of the depression years between them. As a result, we have been faced with a great problem of modernising and restructuring our industry. Much has already been achieved but there is still more to be done.
One effect of this state of affairs is that changes in the British industrial

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climate are felt more sharply in Scotland, certainly as regards the downward trend. The upward trend takes longer to develop and tends to reach a lower peak. In the long-term, the development of oil—that includes gas for the purposes of this debate—with its stimulus to industry can, I believe, play a large part in making Scotland as strong industrially as the rest of the country. Basically, we are indeed strong, as I am convinced following the visits I have paid during the eight months since I took office to over 30 companies throughout Scotland, some old-established, some newcomers, some large and some small. Generally, I found a feeling of quiet confidence, an awareness certainly of difficult markets but no atmosphere of the dejection or despair that one might expect from so much one reads or hears about in Scotland to-day.
Companies on the whole are slimmer and more efficient. This has not helped the employment figures, but as successive Governments have ceaselessly preached we must be efficient if we are to compete successfully in the world of trade. I have the impression that that shake-out of labour has now largely taken place, leaving us better placed for the fresh advance. On one other point I found nearly all these managements agreed; namely, that they were poised for recovery and growth of business but that all that was missing was that clement of confidence which is so necessary above all if industry is to invest in modernisation and expansion of new premises and plant—something of the greatest importance to Scotland, where the making of capital goods is still such an important part of the pattern of our industry. That confidence they were all agreed will return only when it is clearly seen that the monster of inflation is being contained. As your Lordships know well, the Government have taken this as their first and most urgent task. It is vital for the country's future. It is doubly so for Scotland's, for only if inflation is contained can we look forward to that period of sustained economic growth which is the prerequisite for Scotland's emergence from the uncertainties of the present to the assured prosperity which I believe North Sea oil can help us to achieve.
As I said a year ago, and as I repeat to-night, all of us must realise that we have a great responsibility to do every
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thing in our power to create a state of affairs where no able and willing man or woman should be unable to find a reasonable job of work. I share the regret of the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, that the unemployment figures are not better. I am happy at least that there has been some improvement, an improvement both from the time I spoke a year ago and over the last six months, where the trend is clear. On the national level the signs of demand and output continue to show an improvement; I do not think I need go over all the encouraging signs that we now have. Certainly there is no doubt that Scotland is sharing in the consumer boom that is evident elsewhere in the country. We have only to go into the shops at this Christmas time to see this, and the C.B.I.'s Industrial Trends Survey confirms that the trends in Scotland are following the national pattern. This is a very valuable survey on which I congratulate the C.B.I.
My Lords, the other encouraging point to remember is that we in Scotland have still to feel the impact of the very substantial range of inducements provided under the Industry Act, of which my noble friend spoke and under which some applications have already been cleared and others are well advanced in the pipeline. We in Scotland have an added attraction to our advantage, and that is the supply of high-quality labour available for industrialists coming from outside. We have particular opportunities in relation to the European Community, in many countries of which there is a shortage of labour. I believe that with our entry into the E.E.C. we shall find ourselves an attractive location for American industry, which has provided so many of the new jobs in Scotland since the war but which latterly has tended to establish within the Common Market bounds. I, too, would like to pay tribute to the work of the Committee under the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, who unfortunately is not in his place at the moment.
I have been very much impressed since coming to the Scottish Office by the close links that have been established there at official level between ourselves and Brussels. These have been fortified by the visits to Scotland of a number of Commissioners of the E.E.C. I have made a return visit to Brussels and discussed with them our mutual problems,

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and I have formed the impression that our regional policies here are most unlikely to be considered incompatible with Community rules in this respect. Furthermore, an important step was taken at the Summit when the Commission were asked to review again the regional problems of the members and to establish a Community Regional Development Fund, the principles of which are to be worked out during the next six months. I have found that there is in Brussels a considerable understanding of the regional problems affecting Scotland, and I believe that Scotland will benefit in due course from those regional policies. We will maintain those contacts. To-morrow morning—to be precise, in about 12 hours from now—I am leaving on a visit to France, at the invitation of the French Government, to exchange experience with their Minister responsible for regional development on their problems in this field and to see something of their actual achievements, and I hope to visit Germany in the same cause later on.
Coming to the nub of this debate, namely oil, so much has been said and so much more could be said that I will try somehow to keep my remarks brief. A great deal has been said about the need for the Government to take initiatives. I am all for the Government taking initiatives in those fields where they can usefully do so, but we must recognise that in many spheres the Government are inevitably unequipped and quite unsuited to take initiatives. We are here moving into what are largely uncharted waters. This oil business is all new and our experience of it comparatively short. I think we still have, as it were, almost a love-hate relationship with it; we want the oil, but we are a little frightened of what we shall do with it and what it will do to us. One is therefore getting a diversity of views and an even greater diversity and number of experts, as we have already been reminded, and there is something of a tug-o'-war as to what should be the priorities in our development of it.
While I have been previously attracted by the proposition advanced by some noble Lords to-day, and by myself a year ago, for the earmarking of revenues from oil against the infrastructure building up
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and so on, I am bound to say that for a variety of reasons I have changed my view, not least because of the number of claims that have been advanced during this debate against those revenues. They would be hard put to meet all the claims that have been made upon it. But seriously, from a more practical point of view, those revenues do not start to flow for a year or two yet and will not build up for some years thereafter. What we must do is spend and spend now on infrastructure and other support for the industry and that is what the Government are doing.
We are beginning to see the results very clearly. Developments already announced, at least two years before the oil starts to flow, stand to provide at least 8,000 new jobs, with perhaps another 3,000 at the peak of the construction of the B.P. pipeline. About a dozen oil rigs were serviced out of Aberdeen during the summer and the number operating off the coast will be building up rapidly over future years. My noble friend has given other examples of the work going ahead on the construction of platforms on the East Coast. Here I think I heard my noble friend Lord Lauderdale suggest that there was no British effort in the building of platforms. I may have been mistaken.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, may I correct the noble Lord? The point I was trying to make was that there is no indigenous design capability in that field.
LORD POLWARTH: I stand corrected, but having myself visited the scene of the construction of one by Redpath, Dorman Long at Methil at least I can say that it is being British built.
My Lords, the Steel Corporation is sharing well in the orders for the land pipeline and in a number of other directions. Many Scottish companies are already now in the business. The other day my right honourable friend the Secretary of State saw the pumps waiting ready two weeks ahead of delivery time, which will propel the oil from the platforms of B.P. through the pipelines all the way to Grangemouth. Many companies are actively seeking business. The North-East Scotland Development Association's mission has just returned from

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Texas. Some sixty members went there and a number of orders have been already secured. There is intense interest and hopes of more to come. That is what we want to see and it is encouraging to see it happening.
This too, I believe, as other noble Lords have said, is only a beginning. I do not think that there is any question of waiting ten or fifteen years for this to become a British world-wide oil industry as one noble Lord suggested. I believe this is one of the reasons for getting ahead with this operation speedily rather than holding back. We stand more chance that way with our industry going in at the deep end, getting the skills now, and in a year or two's time being in a position to go out and get orders throughout the world as oil is developed elsewhere.
May I say a word now on the question of infrastructure—that unlovely word. I offered a prize for an alternative word a few years ago which still remains to be claimed. The additional money, as I said, is being spent well before the royalties are coming in and on a broad front: on port facilities in Peterhead, Aberdeen Harbour, Lerwick, Montrose, Dundee and Leith.
The road programme has been mentioned by many noble Lords, and notably that famous, or infamous road as it has been called, the A.9. I would only say that at least this Government are tackling the virtual reconstruction of this road throughout its length but it cannot be done overnight. Apart from anything else, here again we shall have the problem that in safeguarding the rights of the individual there may well be many inquiries to be held before this can be finally dealt with. This is just another of those conflicts with which we have to deal. But for those who seek a dual carriageway the whole way North, I would say that personally nothing would give me greater pleasure. But in looking at the total resources available, surely the important thing to do is as quickly as possible to get a reasonable single carriage way for as much of the way as possible at first and let the luxury part of it come later. As has been said before, we are extending the improvement North
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right across the Black Isle, bridging two Firths in the process, and even if we cannot include the third at this time as was suggested, let us hope that one day that can come too.
My Lords, a great deal is going on on the front of house building.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, would the noble Lord permit me to interrupt now that he has left that subject? Would it be possible for him to write to those of us who are particularly interested in the A.9, letting us know what the difference in cost would be between the road as it is projected by the Scottish Development Department and what it would cost if it were made dual carriageway for its entire length? Because if I disagree with anything that the noble Lord has said on this subject, it is that there are few of us who would accept that a dual carriageway in the context in which we are now discussing it is a luxury.
POLWARTH: My Lords, I shall certainly see whether that information can be provided and, if so, that the noble Lord is given it. There is then the question of how this is all to be organised. During the debate there have been a number of calls from noble Lords for the setting up of special departments, special bodies, to deal with the problems of oil. That is a natural reaction to a new and largely strange problem, but we should look very carefully before we set up new bodies because there is clearly room for conflict with the functions of existing ones, and local authorities and others are rightly jealous of their functions. A number of Government Departments are involved, and the right way to set about this is to ensure the maximum co-ordination and development of the functions of existing bodies, Government Departments, and others. The Scottish Office, through the Economic Planning Board, keeps all the Departments in Scotland in very close and constant touch. This is under the chairmanship of a senior member of the Regional Development Division of the Scottish Office with whom I personally am in very close and regular touch, and to those who ask for a special division of the Regional Development Division to deal solely with oil, I would say only that virtually all their members are involved in one way

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or another with the problems arising from the oil industry and are very closely aware of them. This machinery provides the necessary co-ordination, but we keep an open mind on how it should be operated. Here again, the important thing is the maintenance of maximum flexibility. The oil situation is changing and developing all the time and we must be ready to respond to those changes in what is the right way.
May I say in connection with the support of Departments that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment announced to-day in another place that a branch of the Ports Directorate will soon be stationed in Edinburgh. It will be working in close co-operation with the Scottish Office and with the National Ports Council and will be responsible for co-ordinating advice to Scottish harbour authorities and others concerned with port developments in Scotland. That will be particularly valuable for the North Sea developments.
There are many other aspects: there is the question of environmental control, and that is a whole great field of its own. We have a planning machine. Doubts have been cast on its ability to cope with the current situation. The right thing to do, and what we are doing, is to back up the existing planning machinery giving it the necessary resources where it does not have them, and the necessary advice. That is the way we are moving, and as we come on to local government reform we shall have much stronger and more effective machinery in this whole field of planning. I would be the last to claim that the planning system was perfect, but we have this problem of balancing private interests against public development and that is not as simple as one might always think. We are concerned to ensure that the procedures move as quickly as possible compatible with proper planning, and as a new step towards this, and to avoid delays of the kind mentioned by one noble Lord, we have just appointed a full-time inquiry Reporter in addition to using the services of part-time ones.
The local authorities are becoming increasingly aware of the need to maintain proper control of these developments. Shetland County Council have lodged a provisional Order seeking powers in this
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connection, on which I cannot comment as it is now lodged. It will be duly going through the process. Ross and Cromarty County Council, whose convener, the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie, spoke with such vigour, have, I understand, placed a standstill on planning permission on that busy stretch of coast until they can sort things out to see what there is room for in the future. So I do not feel that there is a serious risk of development running riot.
May I try to deal at this late hour with only a selection of the points raised by individual speakers. I should particularly like to refer to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, and others concerning the plans for the future of the steel industry. It is common knowledge that after long consideration these plans for development have now been put forward, and at this moment are under close scrutiny by the Government. It will, therefore, not surprise your Lordships when I say that I cannot make any statement on them to-day. But about certain basic facts there is no secret. On the one hand, if our steel industry is to compete in world markets, it must be modern and efficient, and it is widely agreed that this must inevitably result in fewer jobs for the same or even a greater output of steel.
On the other hand, the Government have made it clear that in considering the Steel Corporation's plans, social and regional considerations will be taken into account, which is right and proper for an industry occupying such a central place in our industrial scene. It is between those two principles that a proper balance must be struck: between the right and the need for the Steel Corporation's management to exercise a proper degree of commercial judgment in forming their future plans, and the needs of industry and the community at large. What has been represented to Ministers as Scotland's real need—represented by responsible bodies such as the Scottish Council, the S.T.U.C. and C.B.I.—is a steel industry thoroughly viable in the long term and able to meet Scottish industry's essential needs for steel, not forgetting those for North Sea oil equipment. That seems to me a thoroughly reasonable goal, the logic of which I am sure my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is doing and will do

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his best to impress on his colleagues when the plans for the Steel Corporation and the cases of all the different areas of the country in this connection are under consideration, as they are just now.
The noble Viscount, Lord Arbuthnott, covered a wide range in his initial speech and I hope he will excuse me if I do not deal with it blow by blow. I would refute his suggestion of a lack of leadership and direction. In this business of oil there are so many different aspects. I think that there is leadership; there is leadership at the oil company level; I think that there is leadership in Government in those matters in which it is proper for Government to lead. What I sense is a very great determination in Scottish industry to get in and make the most of these great opportunities before them.
The noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw. spoke of the Oceanspan project, as did other noble Lords. I have always emphasised that this is not a project but a concept, and a very imaginative one. We are well aware of this valuable asset of deep water. But we cannot compel individual enterprises to make use of it. Hunterston is there. We have already the oil terminal construction which is agreed, and we have a planning application for an oil refinery with adjacent industrial works. That is before my right honourable friend. We must try to ensure the best development of that site in the light of the applications to make use of it, and indeed in the light of the environmental consideration as well, and this we shall do our best to do.
The noble Lord, as well as others, also raised the question of Turnhouse Airport and an additional runway. I can only say that no one is more keen than my right honourable friend and myself, as very frequent users of that airport, to see this matter resolved. The inquiry was lengthy and complex, as was the reporter's report, and I can only say that we hope to be able to announce a decision comparatively soon.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I do not want to interrupt the noble Lord, but is it not a fact that the reporter's report has been at the Scottish Office for three months now?
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, that is so: and of course while it is sub judice I must not discuss details. But the important thing is that the right decision should be reached rather than a hasty one. I have done all in my power to expedite the decision, and I do not think the noble Lord will have to wait long.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, from the fact that the report has been three months with the Secretary of State, it seems that not only was it a stinker of a problem but that there appears to have been a stinker of a report.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I think I had better not be drawn in that respect. We are well aware of the problems of the rail closures. I do not think it would be right to be drawn by the noble Earl, Lord Perth, into categorically denouncing or writing off an individual report or projection that escaped somehow from the Department where it was hatched. I can say that I have been in close touch with my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport Industries; that he is very well aware of the problems of Scotland—he has visited it in my company recently—and that there is a considerable range of options under consideration.
The Kyle line is a difficult case. The decision was made, duly announced and promulgated, to close this line about a year ago, subject to its continuance to the end of next year, 1973, and to the provision of suitable alternative bus services. If other conditions arise which could make it a somewhat more viable project than at present—I understood it receives a subsidy or requires a subsidy, of £180,000 a year—then I have no doubt the case may be reopened. We must remember, however, that we must consider the conflicting claims on public resources of the maintenance of a road system to take the increasing volume of road traffic for which there is such a preference, alongside the railway system as well. I am all in favour of railways; I am an enthusiast for them, and I hope to see the maximum amount of Scottish railway retained when these plans are brought out.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, will my noble friend not agree that until

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the so-called "leak" report is denied, people are not going to invest large sums of money in those parts of Scotland which may, in the future, have no railways? I should have thought, therefore, that it was essential for the Government to deny this report as soon as possible.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I will convey the noble Duke's comments to my right honourable friend. I think that is all I can undertake to do.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, many others of us feel exactly the same way. And may I ask that it be represented to the Secretary of State that we do feel in that way?
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I have given the undertaking that I will duly represent it.
Time runs on, and I do not think that we can possibly cover everything that has been raised. We return to this fundamental issue of who gets what out of the oil, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Balogh, with his customary knowledge and skill. I think I had better confine myself to saying that I might be even wiser to avoid arguing with him in his absence than in his presence. I was grateful for the congratulations accorded by one or two noble Lords on some of the things that the Government have done—particularly the noble Lord, Lord Burton, with regard to roads. It is good occasionally to have a pat on the back. I could not entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, when he wanted us to adopt what appeared to me to be a totally nationalistic line regarding the further development of the further round of oil licences. I believe that that would be going just a little too far in an international world.
I think at this time I really must be drawing to a conclusion, except that I might mention one subject that is of much importance, and that is the contribution which is being made, or which can be made, by our universities to research in this field. We had a notable contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, and I congratulate Heriot-Watt, of whose Court he is the chairman, on their enterprise in getting ahead with this underwater technology project. I was glad to have from the noble Lord, Lord Hughes,
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the commendation of Aberdeen for their efforts in this field, particularly since I am their Chancellor. That does not mean that I know any more about it, because Chancellors are never told what the university is doing. On the question of finance for this project, I can certainly assure the noble Lord that it is being provided by the Government to the tune of £35,000.
I realise that there is a problem here of the finance of universities. Universities are financed on the principle of receiving block grants through the Universities Grants Committee, and it is left to them, I think quite rightly, to determine within that grant their own priorities. For specific research projects universities look to the Research Councils for specific grants, and I understand that the Science Research Council has been looking into the question of research into marine technology and is prepared, in principle, to make grants for specific projects in fields related to oil exploration. I think that the parallel was drawn of American universities. There are some fundamental differences here. So far as I know, by and large they are not financed federally. Some of them are State financed, and many of them depend to a much greater extent than we do on outside support, including the oil industry. I think it would be not unreasonable to look to the oil industry for a greater measure of support for research projects of this kind in our universities. The problem of lack of funds for postgraduate scholarships was mentioned. I understand that it would be open to universities to make a case to the Research Councils for more awards to be given to post-graduate students. But, by and large, I have much sympathy with the thought that more funds should be forthcoming for this kind of work, and I should like to take the matter up with my right honourable friend in whose field universities lie.
I think I should draw to a conclusion, but, in a way, I take some comfort from the almost equal division of speeches this evening between two ideas—the thought, on the one hand, that Government policy is allowing too much development too fast, and the thought, on the other hand, that it is allowing too little. Indeed, one or two speeches seemed to lean in each of these directions

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at different moments. I think this suggests that in seeking to ensure a proper balance between industrial growth, on the one hand, and the protection of the environment, on the other, the Government are having some success. The last thing I would claim is that all Scotland's problems will be solved—whether by the good fairy Oil, or by any other cause—by the time of next year's Scottish debate, if we have to wait so long for one. That would perhaps be expecting too much. But, as I said before, I think we have reasonable cause for calm confidence that a brighter future lies ahead. How bright a future, and how far ahead, lies very largely in the hands of us all Government and politicians, management and men, ordinary folk up and down the length and breadth of Scotland. But the fact that so many noble Lords have taken part to-night is evidence of a widespread interest, which is extremely good.
Government's role in this whole field of industry and development, including off-shore oil, is. I firmly believe, not to initiate, direct and control, so much as to provide the conditions, the guidance, the back-up support to private enterprise. This, I submit, the Government are doing on a considerable scale. As regards enterprise, the oil companies themselves have given a great lead which is being followed to an increasing degree by the potential suppliers to it. Alongside these efforts, we must all play our parts. We must seek the opportunities rather than sit at home hoping for them to come to our door. Rather than moan about our shortcomings, we must blow our trumpet and tell the world our undoubted stories of achievement and success. Above all, I would ask all Scots in every section of the community to make their own resolve to play their part in the months ahead in the fight against inflation, for it is only by a united effort that we can win this fight; and unless we win we shall never attain that prosperity and happiness which we all so dearly desire for our native land, and which oil brings within our grasp.
9.17 p.m.
THE VISCOUNT OF ARBUTHNOTT:My Lords, it is my pleasant duty to hasten your Lordships to the slaking of your thirst, but before I do so I have an even more pleasant duty; that is, to add
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my congratulations to those of your Lordships to my noble friend Lord Aberdeen on his maiden speech. Indirect reference has been made to Haddow House and its choral society, and I can assure your Lordships that he would have bettered his performance to-day only if he had sung it instead of saying it. May I thank all of your Lordships for taking part in this debate. I entered your Lordships' House with trepidation, and I was very grateful to find how many of the points I raised seemed to find an echo in what was said later on. Of course I am also grateful to my noble friends Lord Drumalbyn and Lord Polwarth, for their replies to some of the points that I made. I must confess that I think the role of Scottish industry, British industry, and the part it is taking so far is perhaps still being exaggerated. I still think there are many of us who doubt whether effective guidance is being given to local authorities in the very wide problem which they are facing. Nevertheless, I hope that this debate has brought those problems out to full discussion. Without further ado, my Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

  PAKISTANI RESIDENTS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
  PAKISTANI RESIDENTS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
  OVERSEAS PENSIONS AND TAX RELIEF
  OVERSEAS PENSIONS AND TAX RELIEF