Sitting of 7 June 1973

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Hereford.

E.E.C. AND AFRICAN AND CARIBBEAN STATES
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what decisions have been made by the E.E.C. Commission regarding relations with the independent nations of Africa South of the Sahara and of the Caribbean.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE): My Lords, no decisions have been made by the E.E.C. Commission. The Council of Ministers decided on June 4 to invite the Governments of the developing countries which are members of the present Yaoundé or Arusha Conventions, or which are covered by Protocol 22 of the Treaty of Accession, to be represented at a conference in Brussels on July 25 and 26 to open negotiations on their future relations with the Community.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that Answer. At the Brussels Conference on July 25 would Her Majesty's Government seek to extend to the black African countries and the Caribbean countries the proposal made for the Mediterranean territories of free trade in industrialised goods, liberalised agriculture exchanges, guaranteed prices for basic commodities? Would she consider inviting representatives of the O.A.U., which represents the 34 independent African countries, to that discussion?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, this particular discussion is concerned with the present
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associables and those who are eligible to associate. This would be only the opening of a long period of negotiation, and would be the first meeting. It would then be adjourned, probably until towards the end of September, which will give the developing countries longer time to consider the position. There are a great many points of that nature which it is far too early to consider.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I appreciate that reply and the realisation that this is a long-term matter. Would Her Majesty's Government consider that the present proposals should be extended to Asia and Latin America, because 85 per cent. of the population of the Third World would now be left out? Would it not be desirable that when the European Conference for Security and Co-operation was established there should be a Commission which would seek to make arrangements with all in the Third World to deal with these problems?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, the noble Lord will remember that there was a Declaration of Intent concerning India and Asia in the Treaty of Accession which is treated rather separately. There are no definite proposals yet. There is an E.E.C. Memorandum from the Commission, but this is to be considered by the Council of Ministers. There is no negotiating mandate.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I welcome the view expressed by the noble Baroness that the emerging countries and the countries which will be negotiating together should have ample time for negotiation. Would she recognise that the British Parliament, and the British Government in particular, have a special obligation particularly to the sugar-producing countries? When the proposals have been formulated would the noble Baroness consider, if she cannot now so undertake, whether they may be made available to the British Parliament through a White Paper, instead of by the rather more awkward method of getting information out of the Commission?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I will certainly convey the noble Lord's suggestion to my right honourable friend; but this particular memorandum does not,

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of course, as yet, represent the Community position, or even formal proposals.

MENTALLY HANDICAPPED PATIENTS'POCKET MONEY
3.10 p.m.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, I beg 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 arrangements have yet been made for the Supplementary Benefits Commission to provide pocket money for patients in hospitals for the mentally handicapped and the mentally ill as they do in all other hospitals for all people who are eligible, including the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE): My Lords, I regret that, in deciding what priority to give to proposals for increased public expenditure on social security benefits, we have not yet found it possible to provide the additional resources necessary for the transfer of this function from hospital authorities.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, in view of the fact that it is now over two years since I put down an almost identical Question, the noble Lord will not expect me to be very satisfied with that Answer. On the last occasion he indicated support, at least in principle, for the proposal I was then making, and I was very hopeful that by waiting for this period the Government would be in a position to remedy what I think most of us would regard as a gross injustice to the patients in the hospitals for the mentally ill and mentally handicapped. Can the noble Lord say what this change would cost in net terms, not in gross terms, because in fact it would be a transfer of responsibility for expenditure from one side of his Department to another?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, the noble Baroness may be assured that in principle we absolutely accept that this would be the right thing to do, but we have made a number of improvements in
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social security benefits which we have thought have a higher priority than this one. The fact is that the cost would be something like £3 million a year to make this change, and there are many other demands on scarce resources.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, does that mean that the Government are saving £3 million from allowances which should be paid as of right to all citizens in N.H.S. hospitals, regardless of whether they are mentally ill or mentally handicapped or whether they are patients in our acute hospitals?
LORD ABERDARE: No, my Lords, this is not a saving. These arrangements have been in practice since the early days of the National Health Service and they obtained in the days when the noble Baroness was in my position.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, was not one of the purposes of the Mental Health Act of, I think, 1960 that patients in mental hospitals should be treated in exactly the same way as patients in general hospitals; and should not that therefore apply to the pocket money that they get?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I agree that it is desirable and we certainly have it in mind; but it has to take its place in the queue.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK; My Lords, would the noble Lord agree with me that part of the psychosomatic treatment of a patient, especially one who is mentally handicapped, is to let him feel that he has a little money of his own in his pocket? Would the noble Lord take a suggestion from me to the Treasury that if they postponed the Channel Tunnel for six months and put that £20 million in the bank they could easily raise the £3 million needed next year for the pocket money of the mental patients?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, the fact is that the hospital authorities do pay pocket money to people in psychiatric hospitals. It is not as though they are not getting anything. So far as the Channel Tunnel is concerned, that matter seems to be rather far ahead.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, is the Minister not aware that since my noble friend first raised the matter some two

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years ago the Government have had ample time to consider the suggestion? The Minister has said in his Answer today that these patients can take their place in order of priority. I am a past member of a hospital management committee and was associated with Sedgefield Mental Hospital where we had over 4,000 patients to be cared for. I am sorry if I am making a speech, but I am trying to get across to the Minister the seriousness of the position. Would the Minister not agree that the people concerned, having to be looked after in the way they do, ought to be put at the top of the list and not further down as he has indicated?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I have spent a great deal of time recently going round psychiatric hospitals and I can assure the noble Lord that there have been enormous improvements in them, even since the days when he was a member of a hospital management committee. It is not that we are not doing anything for the mental hospitals: we are. We have accomplished a very great deal. It is simply that this particular improvement we think has not yet got priority in front of other very desirable improvements.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree, on consideration, that he could perhaps regard this payment as part of the therapy? These patients have such a limited life. They are enclosed in a building without their relatives. The smallest change in their lives makes a difference to their outlook, and the very thought of being able to spend a small sum of money on sweets, or whatever it may be, would give them something to think about for days. Will the Minister not reconsider this matter?—because I think it is a piece of meanness that really is not acceptable.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, the noble Baroness is assuming that they are not getting any money. They are getting pocket money, but it is paid by the hospital authorities instead of by the Supplementary Benefits Commission.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: May I just put a supplementary? Did not the noble Lord say that this would cost £3 million and therefore these patients must take their place in the queue?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I did say that, because additional staff would be required by the Supplementary Benefits Commission and this would be in addition to a probable increased payment to each individual.

NATIONALISED INDUSTRIES AND CHANGES IN POLICY
3.16 p.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: 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, as it is accepted Government policy that nationalised industries are expected to discuss the broad outlines of any major changes in policy with the bodies representing consumers before taking final decisions, they will state those nationalised industries to which this policy does not apply.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD DRUMALBYN): My Lords, the statement of policy to which the noble Baroness refers was contained in the Government's reply to the Report of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries on Relations with the Public. In that context, it applies primarily to those nationalised industries covered in the Select Committee's Report, which were in almost all cases corporations set up as statutory monopolies for the supply of goods or services to the public with statutory consultative councils. A distinction must obviously be made between them and statutory corporations which are in direct competition with other undertakings, and for which Parliament has not provided for statutory consultation machinery. Nevertheless, Her Majesty's Government expect all nationalised industries to take into account the effects of major changes in policy on the interests of their consumers and, whenever appropriate, to discuss them with such bodies as appear to them to represent those interests.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that answers of such a length as that are always unsatisfactory and that if a satisfactory answer were to be given it would

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be a great deal shorter? May I further ask the noble Lord whether he is not really ashamed to give a reply like that? Is he aware that we in your Lordships' House regard him as a spokesman for consumer matters, which have always represented one of his great interests? Is he not also aware that it is quite untrue to say that the nationalised airlines, B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. (now called British Airways) are not a nationalised industry? Why is it that the Government are not prepared for a council to be set up to which air travellers can direct suggestions and comments?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am sorry if the noble Baroness found my Answer long. I was trying to answer the Question fully and I thought that perhaps a shorter answer might have left a misleading impression. I am not in the slightest ashamed of the length of my Answer. As to the question of nationalised industry, I think it is right to make the distinction between an industry which is entirely nationalised and a statutory corporation operating in competition with other undertakings in the same field. In that respect, of course, B.E.A. and B.O.A.C. are in a separate position. They are responsible for receiving consumer complaints. They deal with them, and it is up to them to decide whether or not to set up voluntary consumer consultative machinery.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I find it very difficult to remain polite while commenting on that supplementary answer? Does he not realise that this House, I think on all sides, has become very weary of these repetitive answers which get us nowhere on this particular matter? Is he further aware that all I am asking for is that consumers in the air should have the same opportunities as consumers in other areas to take their complaints and suggestions to a body which is independent of the industry concerned?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I realise that that is what the noble Baroness is asking for, but my answer must remain the same: that at the moment this is not a matter which is covered by legislation. It is a matter for the corporations concerned as to
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whether they should set up their own voluntary machinery—as indeed it is also for the Civil Aviation Authority. I am bound to add that the Government are watching this whole area carefully. I would ask the noble Baroness to be a little more patient still because the Civil Aviation Authority has not been in operation so very long and the British Airways Board has only recently been set up.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, is the noble Lord implying in his last answer but one that because the Airways Corporations are in competition with private enterprise, therefore it is perfectly all right for them to ride roughshod over the consumer in a way which a fully nationalised industry would not do?
LORD DRUMALBYN: No, my Lords; I was not implying that at all—indeed, in some respects the more the competition, the more those engaging in the competition have to have regard to what the consumer really wants. The point is that the issue is not as simple as the noble Baroness was making out the other day. She wanted to establish an air travellers' national council; that is a different proposition from the one put by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, the other day that there should be a consultative body for the Airways Board.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord could tell my noble friend—by letter at any rate—what was our experience over a matter of some15 or 20 years of the Council established under the 1948 Act that provided specially for consumer representations.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I can tell the noble Lord straight away. It covered a very wide range of interests coterminous, roughly, with the Civil Aviation Authority's interests, and it fell into desuetude simply because it had no real bite; it covered far too wide interests. That is the previous experience. It would be unwise to set up the same kind of body again. It does not follow that we should not have a voluntary body set up at some time or another if this is what the airways themselves decide.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I am not suggesting that anything should be set up without bite. I

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could make some excellent suggestions to give such a body bite.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, the noble Baroness does not surprise me.

NORTHERN IRELAND: ALDERGROVE AIRPORT SECURITY
3.22 p.m.
LORD O'NEILL OF THE MAINE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will take all necessary measures to ensure that Aldergrove Airport, a vital link between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, remains open.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD WINDLESHAM): Yes, my Lords. Security is kept under review, and all necessary measures are, and will continue to be, taken. Her Majesty's Government fully appreciate the importance of air services between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Security precautions at Aldergrove Airport are maintained at a high level.
LORD O'NEILL OF THE MAINE: My Lords, is the noble Lord the Leader of the House—and I am glad to be able to address him in that way—aware how gratified people in Northern Ireland will be by that Answer? Does he also appreciate the fact that we have been drawing a comparison between the calm, cool and collected way in which British Caledonian Airways have been reacting to the threats and the apparent "flap" which B.E.A. has recently shown? Is it a fact that mail and papers, et cetera, have not been delivered because of that recent "flap"?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I should say that I am replying to this Question rather than my noble friend Lord Belstead, who will be joining the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, simply because I have a direct responsibility for the arrangements for security at Aldergrove Airport. I am therefore familiar with the background to this question. We have had discussions with
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the main users of Aldergrove Airport and I have had an opportunity to meet the chairman of British European Airways. The airlines are properly concerned to ensure the safety of their passengers, of the freight they carry, of the aircraft that operate in and out of Aldergrove and of the airport terminal. We have reviewed the nature of the risk and have had the closest possible consultation with the airlines at senior official level since the meeting that I had some two weeks ago. There have been some delays and some cancellations; but I understand that only one flight, in and out of Glasgow, has been cancelled this week.

ASHDOWN FOREST BILL [H.L.]
3.24 p.m.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. The sponsors of this Bill are the East Sussex County Council. My noble friend Lord Gage is a member of that body, as well as being a keen supporter of the Bill. Alas! for him, and for us, he is prevented from being here this afternoon by an engagement of long standing and he has asked me to express apologies to your Lordships. In his absence his mantle rather mysteriously, as is the mysterious way of mantles, has descended upon me, and I apologise. I am not a member of the East Sussex County Council—in fact I live in West Sussex. But I am empowered to speak with the authority of the County Council and the Conservators.
The Ashdown Forest (which is probably well known to many of your Lordships) lies in East Sussex to the extent of about 6½ thousand acres South of East Grinstead—one of the most beautiful and desirable large tracts of open country available to the public in the South of England. It is not comparable in size as a forest in the strict sense of the word —by which I mean being heavily wooded —with its elder brother the New Forest, but it is a varied piece of country with woodlands and open land, and all common land, lying within the manor of Duddleswell in the rural district of Uckfield. The administration of the common is in the hands of a Board of Conservators which up to this moment has been manned partly by local authorities and partly by the Commoners

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themselves, the local authorities being the East Sussex County Council, who have one vote, and there are five members of the East Grinstead Urban District Council with one vote; and the Cuckfield and Uckfield Rural District Councils have one and three votes, respectively. The lord of the manor has one vote to himself or his nominee, while the elected Commoners have nine. This gives a total number of ten appointed Conservators from the local authorities, including only five on the county council as against nine Commoners.
The Bill proposes to change the constitution of the approved Conservators for various reasons (which I will touch upon lightly) and give them enlarged powers. At this point I find myself in a slight difficulty to know exactly how much I shall say without leaving your Lordships, on the one hand, woefully misinformed, or bored to tears on the other hand. Not by any means for the first time, we have an odd situation in which a Bill is being presented to your Lordships for debate—I am initiating a debate I am conscious of that—on Third Reading but which has not been before your Lordships on the Floor of the House at all. This comes about through a perfectly ordinary but not usual quirk of procedure, in a manner I am about to describe.
The Bill was referred in the ordinary way to a Select Committee —I was a member of that Committee —which in fact never met. There were two Petitions submitted to that Committee—after all it was formed for the purpose of hearing Petitions—but they were withdrawn. The more important of the Petitions was submitted by Uckfield R.D.C. It appears that another body of persons approved heartily of the Uckfield Petition but did not ally themselves with it officially in any way. Then they found that the Uckfield R.D.C. had withdrawn its Petition and they were, in a sense, left out in the cold. The rights or wrongs of that procedure are, so far as I am concerned in connection with the Bill, neither here nor there. They are germane to any particular discussions we may have on the general points of procedure—I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, will have an
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observation or two to make on that point. The fact is that the Bill has arrived at this point without having cleared the last hurdles of controversy. Therefore, it is necessary for me to say something about it, but I propose to say, I think, almost as little as possible; simply to explain what it is it intends to do.
I have explained, with almost extreme brevity, what the position is at present. I now make a comparison with that by explaining what the new Board of Conservators is intended to consist of. There will be nine members of the East Sussex County Council, two of the Uckfield R.D.C., the lord of the manor, as before, and five elected Commoners. This gives the county council an overall majority of one. It therefore has the controlling interest in the affairs of the Conservators, which it did not have before. There are various reasons for this and one of the more compelling is finance. The number of Commoners is about 590, who pay an annual rate, a forest rate, to the Conservators based upon the common rights that they enjoy. That forest rate brings in annually a total of about £1,300. The actual running of the forest costs a good deal more than that and the difference is made up by the local authorities: the county council and Uckfield. The difference that has to be made up at present is about £11,500. This is the burden that falls on the local authorities, and that of course under inflation is increasing year by year, whereas the rates do not.
The proposal under this Bill is that the county council shall become entirely responsible for finding the extra money; the forest rate will continue as before. If that is to be so it is reasonable, I submit that the county council itself should enjoy a measure of control; in fact, should have a majority on the Board of Conservators. That seems to be reasonable, to put it at its lowest. Also, the county council is almost certainly, I would submit, the best authority for administering such a large public amenity, for that is one of the ways in which it should be looked at. Increasing numbers of people come from all over the country, including London, to enjoy the countryside. Much has to be done in the way of conservation for their benefit, for the benefit of the local people and for the benefit of the land as a whole.

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There is no better authority for that purpose than the county council's with its financial resources, the powers and the general expertise that are always at its disposal. That therefore is the proposal of the Bill. It can be stated in short by saying that the county council will take control and will find most of the money.
Now, they require certain more powers, which I do not propose to go into in any detail, over and above the powers already enjoyed by the Conservators. But there is one particular clause in the Bill which I wish to stress at the very outset. It will probably arise again as we go on. It is Clause 16, at page 10 of the Bill, headed "Duty of Conservators", which says this:
" It shall he the duty of the Conservators subject to the provisions of this Act at all times as far as possible to regulate and manage the forest so as to protect the existing rights of common upon the forest, to protect the forest from encroachments, and to conserve it as a quiet and natural area of outstanding beauty."
My Lords, everything else that comes within the Bill after that comes under the shadow of that particular clause. There have, I have heard, been criticisms levelled against the Bill of what I might describe as, I think, "a nervous kind". Is it right to put all this authority in the hands of the county council? One might almost think from some of the things I have heard, that this was a body of totally irresponsible people who really do not know what they are about and will let the whole place get into trouble. But it should be remembered that they themselves have inserted that clause under which they must operate, and the operative words I think are that they shall:
" conserve it as a quiet and natural area of outstanding beauty."
That clause is followed by one which sets out the general powers of the Conservators. I think it might be reasonable if I were to run rather quickly through these—there are not very many of them. They shall:

" (a) subject to the consent of the lord of the manor, …engage in arboriculture which shall include the planting, felling, cutting and lopping of trees and shrubs, the enclosing of newly planted trees or groups of trees, and the selling and disposing of timber;

(b) to protect any part of the forest and erect fences therefor;

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(c)to conserve fauna and flora and (so far as consistent therewith) to improve grazing;

(d) to conserve and maintain those parts of the forest which are of historical, archaeological and physiographical interest;

(e) to provide and maintain vehicles. plant, machinery, apparatus and equipment and buildings required in connection therewith;

(f) to provide and maintain recreational facilities"—

with a particular provision which I shall not bother to read out—which
"do not involve the erection of new buildings or structures of any kind, the siting of caravans or the provision of camp sites;

(g) to make, provide, maintain and extend parking places for vehicles with means of access thereto and sanitary facilities for the convenience of the public;

(h) to appoint officers and staff for the purpose of more efficiently and properly carrying out the duties of the Conservators and for the proper regulation and management of the forest and to allow or pay to them such fees or salaries as the Conservators shall think fit."

Those provisions appear to me to be perfectly reasonable and I think your Lordships will probably agree with them. I do not know of any particular opposition that is likely to come to that list of duties or powers.
The criticisms of this Bill are not for me to set forth. They will be put forward, no doubt, by opponents of the Bill. I think probably the best thing I can do is to leave matters just there at this moment; to allow criticisms to come —they will probably come from the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and possibly others—and to do my best later on to dodge or parry such arrows as may be fired at me.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Cork and Orrery.)
3.36 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the last thing I thought was likely to happen to me was to make a speech about Ashdown Forest. It is an area of great beauty which I have passed through and occasionally stopped at on a number of occasions, and I start by declaring no interest other than what I conceive to be the public interest and the interest of those who are affected. I am intervening only because I have, as I studied this Bill and some of the objections that have been raised to it, become more and more concerned that a Bill which in fact contains

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items of very high controversy among certain people should pass through your Lordships' House without a single word being said in this respect.
Some of the difficulties that we are in spring from our own procedure, and if I have to make criticisms they certainly are not criticisms either of the Lord Chairman of Committees or of those who advise him; nor indeed are they in that sense criticisms of the sponsors of the Bill. The procedure has been followed correctly. The Bill, in fact, if I may correct the noble Earl, has been before the House, because it had a Second Reading—it must have had a Second Reading to have come into this House—and no objections were raised. It then was due to proceed to the Opposed Bill Committee, when Petitions would be made against it. It has been the practice of your Lordships' House in regard to Private Bills that we do not, as a rule, feel competent to deal on the Floor of the House with matters which are better dealt with by a Committee, with evidence put before it in a semi-judicial capacity. When I was Leader of the House, I had on occasion on Third Reading, to intervene to say that the House would be well advised to accept the conclusion that the Committee had come to. I remember one case when the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, was the Chairman of such a Committee. But in this case one of the Petitioners, as the noble Earl fairly said—this, I think, was Uckfield—withdrew their Petition on being satisfied, and no doubt genuinely satisfied, that their concern had been met by suitable Amendments to the Bill. It is true that a section of the Cornmoners—and I must be precise when I speak about the Commoners—were gravely dissatisfied, but it was then too late for them to petition.
My first point—and this is again a procedural point—is that when petitioning against a Bill, in order to give notice to those who are sponsoring the Bill petitions have to be in by a certain time. It is then possible for the sponsors to prepare their arguments and meet the case. But in this case the Petition on which those Commoners who objected to the Bill were replying was withdrawn, and it was then too late for them to petition. They then had no means of making the objections, some of which I believe to be quite
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serious, and getting them before the Committee. Noble Lords may be aware that an unopposed Bill goes to the Unopposed Bill Committee. Here again I make no criticism of those who have to deal with it, but it is not possible for the Unopposed Bill Commmittee to do very much except to tidy up the Bill. They have no evidence before them—indeed if I may say without disrespect to the Lord Chairman himself, they have no membership of the Committee. It is an onerous task that has been put upon the Lord Chairman, with his admirable legal adviser, to decide what to do. On the occasions when I have spoken to the Lord Chairman I have found him not only immensely courteous but extremely helpful and anxious to please. But the fact is—and I shall seek to show why in a moment—that this is a Bill which raises some fundamental issues which are not of a kind than can satisfactorily be dealt with alone on the Floor of the House on Third Reading. I could have put down Amendments to the Bill, but again on general grounds I would not have said that that was desirable because I should not really know whether there was a valid objection to the Amendment. Therefore I thought it would not be responsible for me to seek to amend the Bill.
Furthermore, we have had concern expressed before in this House, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Molson, that in the consideration of these matters we do not cater adequately for the public interest. Up to a point, the Select Committee will take into account the public interest, but basically it is a process of semi-judicial dispute; and although it may be possible to give instructions to the Select Committee to take into account some aspects of the public interest, none the less I am increasingly concerned, as life gets more complicated and as action in one case impinges upon and affects people possibly far beyond those who actually have a locus to enable them to petition. It is a fact that Commoners are never very popular when it comes to legislation. As the noble Earl, Lord Malmesbury, the Official Verderer of the New Forest, will know, the Commoners are not necessarily the easiest of people to deal with; but they have rights, and those rights ought not lightly to be removed without proper consideration being given to them. It is a fact that whereas we may seek to protect property

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rights in the sense of possession of land, there is a real danger all the time—and it may come from the public at large as the public move into areas of common land—that the Commoners in a particular area may find their rights diminished and that there will be no compensation.
The fact is that this is a controversial Bill. Under Parliamentary procedure it will go to another place. I have always thought that it was a wasteful procedure that Private Bills should go through the same procedure in both Houses and both go before Select Committees, but I am bound to say that in this case I am thankful that this is the procedure, because it will be possible for this Bill to be petitioned against in another place. That is one reason why I do not propose to advise the House to reject this Bill on Third Reading, although, depending on the answers that we get from the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, I may wish to consider whether the debate ought not to be adjourned or whether the Bill ought not to be sent to a Select Committee.
Turning now to the objections to this Bill, I would point out that it is a fact that the voting rights of Commoners in Ashdown Forest are not based on what might be called an obviously democratic system. In the New Forest, as the noble Earl will know, every Commoner with rights has a single vote. In Ashdown Forest 17 big Commoners with 55 per cent. of the acreage have 55 per cent. of the voting power. That would be all right if they paid proportionately, but they do not. This is a striking example of representation without taxation, because in fact those who hold 55 per cent. of the votes pay only 9 per cent. of the rate, and those who pay 91 per cent. of the rate have only 45 per cent. of the votes. Therefore there is a schism between the 17 big Commoners and the rest.
It is not possible in this Bill to amend the voting right and it is extraordinary to me that a matter of such obvious injustice should not have been put right in a Bill where there is provision with regard to the conduct of the Conservators. Indeed it is not now possible to put it right because it would extend the scope of the Bill, and that would be unparliamentary. I am bound to say, however, that if we let this Bill go to another place the Conservators under the old system would be very well advised—and I understand
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they have certain proposals—to readjust this matter, as it is crucial to the attitude to the Bill. It is the dominating Conservators, who have 55 per cent. of the votes but who pay only 9 per cent. of the rate, who are supporting the Bill and have come to terms with Sussex County Council, while a large number of the smaller Commoners are opposed to it. I want to make it clear that if Sussex County Council are going to pay the piper I do not object in principle to the idea of their having a minority—although I shall be careful on this point, knowing of the New Forest Bill which we are likely to see in the autumn and which will also raise this controversy. But, as I understand the situation, it is likely that the majority of the Commoners would not have supported this Bill, but they did not have the vote.
Furthermore, we find further tendencies to erode the rights of the Commoners. For instance, Clause 20 gives certain power to the Conservators, who will now be dominated by the County Council—and again there is no reason against it, because the County Council is a democratic body and I regard local Government as democratic and fit to carry these responsibilities. The fact remains, however, that there are local interests of long standing which can be overridden, because not only will the County Council have a majority of the Conservators, as in future the proportion will be 9 to 5, but these Conservators will be able to exchange land outside the Forest—outside the perambulation, or whatever they call it. In fact, I do not think one could apply "perambulation" to Ashdown Forest because it is such an unusual shape. It will be possible for them to exchange land inside the Forest—and perhaps the noble Earl will be able to satisfy me on this question—for land outside, to which common rights would not attach or would be extinguished.
While not wishing to be sentimental about Commoners, we know that in the New Forest they are crucial to the nature of the Forest. It is their animals which very largely make the Forest. Inevitably there is a conflict of interest between those who have certain rights, under which their animals can take in through their mouths herbage from the Forest, and others. I do not know whether they have rights of

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turbary or what rights they have in Ashdown Forest. They have rights to collect litter. The fact is that a number of animals are depastured in Ashdown Forest—there are no marking fees there —and this may be diminished. There is power within this Bill to diminish it. Furthermore, one of the most extraordinary things is that in addition to having a majority, namely, of nine to five, the appointed Conservators also form the quorum. Under Clause 12 the quorum for a meeting of the Conservators "shall be six appointed Conservators". When it comes to the point, the elected Conservators, even if they move to a democratic system of election, can consistently be outvoted. I find it extraordinary that this provision should be in the Bill.
It is an argument, of course, that if the County Council are going to provide the finance they should have a major say in how it is spent, but since there is also provision in the Bill under which they have to approve the expenditure of the Conservators, it seems to me that this particular matter has been tied up so tightly that, having regard to aspects of the public interest and in terms of equity, this Bill ought to be further examined. On the whole, in these matters I try not to pursue an irresponsible policy and hold up a procedure which is expensive, even though in certain respects it may not be entirely satisfactory. I am bound to say, however, that I think we ought to look at this matter again. The Brooke Committee are looking at procedure on delegated legislation, and the definition of public interest in Private Bill legislation is one which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, who wrestled with the Brighton Marina Bill, will know is of great difficulty. I hope, therefore, that the noble Earl will be able to satisfy me that when this Bill goes to another place and when it is, as I understand it will be, petitioned against, the County Council will not just dismiss these arguments as being essentially arguments of backwoods Commoners but as arguments on a matter which is of great importance to them psychologically. For that reason I do not propose to advise the House to divide against the Bill, but I do not think that a Bill of this importance which involves great concern among some of the Com-
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moners—no doubt people will think they are being unreasonable—should leave this House without some voice being raised to put their case before your Lordships.
3.54 p.m.
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, all the advice that has been given to me is that the system under which the Forest would now be managed is a very much better one and more in the public interest than the old system. The conservation, protection and enhancement of the Forest is very much advanced by this Bill. That advice has come to me in two parts: part of it has been largely amenity advice. I do not speak for amenity societies, but I have taken the trouble to find out what the Council for the Protection of Rural England feel; what the Commons and Open Spaces and Footpaths people feel; what the Ramblers' Association feels; and indeed about what the Nature Conservancy feels. All of them without exception are satisfied that this Bill is in the public interest and will promote the conservation of the Forest.
Secondly, the advice I have tried to get is whether those interests of property rights—which is what the Commoners' rights are—are in any way damaged. I understand from both the National Farmers' Union and the Landowners' Association, that this is not so and that those rights of property which the Commoners enjoy are in no way spoilt or diminished. It would be a very great pity if this Bill, which, as I say, all the advice I have been able to get suggests is a very good Bill, should fall down. The noble Lord has assured us that it will not fall down in this House, but that it should fall down anywhere merely because of constitutional difficulties with regard to the procedure of Private Bills is really what the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, amount to. He has suggested that it is a matter of high controversy. I do not believe that this is a matter of high controversy and I shall try to show why. All his arguments revolve around the difficulties which confront any Petitioner in any Private Bill, just as much in this Bill as in any other. First of all, those Commoners who feel that they have not been treated fairly are in fact about 2 per cent. of the 583 Commoners. And of that 2 per cent. none, I think I may say, is

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among the 20 per cent. of Commoners who still exercise their rights of common. The rights of common are mostly those of grazing but certain ones of turbary, estovers and all the other things like it. The noble Lord mentioned the collecting of bedding—heather, bracken and so on. Only some 20 per cent. of the Commoners still use those rights and of the 20 per cent. none is among the 2 per cent. of dissidents—if I may so call them.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord where he gets that figure of 2 per cent, from?
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, I got my figures from the Sussex County Council and if they are open to question, no doubt the noble Lord will follow that say, first, that the voting is unfair and figures have been given to me in good faith, and I accept them. It is not a very difficult matter to check up. There are 583 Commoners and it is known who they all are and exactly what their views are. Those dissidents—if I may put it that way—could perfectly well have petitioned in the first place. They did not. They could have petitioned either on their own account or with the Uckfield District Council and when Uckfield withdrew they need not themselves have withdrawn. It would not have been altogether fair to say that it has been impossible for them to have petitioned at all.
May I go on to this question of voting rights? It is a false analogy to suggest that the system of voting rights here is undemocratic. The idea of one man—one vote which has been put forward by some of the dissidents is an unreal one. These are not analogous to a man with his rights in society having one vote. They are the votes attributable to the rights of property which certain individuals have. It seems to me that it would be not unreasonable that those votes should be exercised in accordance with what property a man has. May I go on from there to say that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, is quite wrong in suggesting that there is no provision to amend those voting rights. May I have the ear of the noble Lord, because I am challenging one of his statements?
LORD SHACKLETON: I apologise.
LORD HENLEY: I am challenging his statement that it is not possible to amend those rights. It is possible to amend those rights, and dissident Commoners have been informed by a letter which I have before me, dated May 25, reminding them of the provisions which are available to them. If the noble Lord would like to have the letter from which I am quoting. I will pass it along the Bench to him.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, since I shall have no right of reply, as this is a Third Reading, may I say that the noble Lord is being quite unfair. I never said that there was no possibility of amending the voting rights. I said they ought to have been amended in this Bill; it is not now possible to do it in the Bill, and there ought to have been provision. I am well aware of the proposals, and, if the system is so undemocratic, I am surprised that they are now proposing a more democratic system.
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, if I misunderstood the noble Lord, I withdraw that remark entirely. But I must stick to my point, that it has always been possible for the system of voting laid down in 1887 to be changed if it had been so wished. The noble Lord then took up the point as to rates charged. Here again, I think the noble Lord has got his figures wrong. As I understand it, the forest rates could by analogy be described as a subscription paid by those Commoners in relation to what their rights are. Again, if you look at the figures, you do not get the proposition which the noble Lord suggested; namely, that 90 per cent. of the rate is borne by 45 per cent. of the actual Commoners; you get a quite different picture. You get a picture in which the rate is borne in proportion by those who can afford to hear it in so far as it is assessed upon their rights. So far from this being a striking example of taxation with representation, it seems to me exactly the other way round. Does the noble Lord want to intervene?
LORD SHACKLETON: I am afraid I must, my Lords. I did not say" taxation with representation"; I said "representation without taxation". The noble Lord is not listening as carefully as usual. Does he question the figures I gave, which

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I repeat again, that 17 Commoners have 50 per cent. of the votes even though they pay only 9 per cent. of the rate? If he wishes me to give the figures, in fact the 17 Commoners with the majority of the voting pay £119, whereas the other larger number of Commoners with 45 per cent. of the acreage in fact pay £1,080. I do not see how one can get round those figures, but the noble Lord can go on trying.
LORD HENLEY: I have those figures before me, as the noble Lord has.
LORD SHACKLETON: I can read them out.
LORD HENLEY: I could have read them out just as well. What I said was that they give a wholly false picture of what the rate is. I am saying it is not a matter of high controversy in that some people's rights have been ridden over roughshod; I am saying it is a total misunderstanding of the state of affairs to say, firstly, that the voting is unfair and cannot be changed; and, secondly, that the rate is unfair and is being borne in the wrong proportions. This is a picture which does not emerge from my reading of the figures. What I am saying is that there are 2 per cent.—and I stick to this figure—of the dissident Commoners who are dissatisfied with the state of affairs. They have been singularly unwilling to co-operate with the county council, with the other Commoners; and, that being so, I think it would be quite unfair to say that if the voting had been put on a fairer basis, or on a basis that they wished it to be on, the majority of the Commoners would not have borne with the Bill. I do not believe that to be the case. I am saying that all the amenity bodies and those bodies concerned with rights of property are satisfied that it is a sensible Bill in the public interest for the advancement of the beauties and attractions of Ashdown Forest. I think it would be a great pity to let it fall down because of the misunderstanding of the noble Lord as to the rights of the Commoners in this respect, tied to what clearly are difficulties with regard to our procedure on Private Bills. I hope that what I have said will go some way towards convincing noble Lords that the controversy here is not, as the noble Lord suggests
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between one body of Commoners and another, but is really a controversy which revolves around the difficulties of Private Bill proceedings, and as such is in no small measure irrelevant to this Bill.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask whether he can tell us how the voting power of the Commoners can be changed?
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, I offered to pass the letter which has been sent to the Commoners along the Bench. May I do so now?
LORD SHACKLETON: I have already got it.
LORD HENLEY: Perhaps the noble Lord would pass it to his noble friend.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, would not the noble Lord have thought it possibly worth while doing it in the Bill, since now it is going to be done?
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, I do not think that is necessarily a reasonable question for me to answer. I am not the Promoter of the Bill. If in the first place the Commoners had felt that the old system of 1887 was unfair, it was perfectly possible for them to have said so during negotiations for the complete change, was it not?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, it is a deathbed repentance.
4.7 p.m.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition was kind enough to give me notice the day before yesterday that in the course of his remarks this afternoon he might make some reference to the procedure of the Unopposed Bills Committee and possibly to the proceedings of this Committee on the Committee stage of the Ashdown Forest Bill; and, of course, he mentioned the Third Reading, but this does not concern me because it is the responsibility of the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery. Out of courtesy to the noble Lord opposite, and in the hope of giving him an even fuller reply than he will get when the noble Earl. Lord Cork and Orrery, deals with the merits of the Bill, I thought I ought to say a few words about the procedure of the Unopposed

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Bills Committee—which is perhaps all the more desirable because it is a procedure that is unfamiliar, I think, to many noble Lords, and which I sometimes find rather difficult myself—and also a word or two about the proceedings of the Unopposed Bills Committee on this Bill.
May I say first of all, taking your Lordships back to the Second Reading of Private Bills, that when the House decides to give a Private Bill a Second Reading it does not, of course, decide on the principle of the Bill, as it does in the case of a Public Bill. It merely decides to refer it to a Committee. If no Petition has been deposited against the Bill, as was the case in the Ashdown Forest Bill, it is committed—and here I am quoting the Journals of the House—
"…to the consideration of the Chairman of Committees and such Lords as think fit to attend ".
It is, therefore, an open Committee, and not a Select Committee with a named and limited membership like the great majority of the Committees of your Lordships' House. There have in fact been a few cases where a Peer interested in a particular Bill has joined the Unopposed Bills Committee considering it, but so far as I am aware none has ever taken any part in the proceedings of the Committee.
Normally, however, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, rightly pointed out, the Committee consists of the Chairman of Committees sitting with his Counsel. May I, speaking especially on behalf of my Counsel, thank the noble Lord for the kind remarks he made about both of us. What the Committee goes on to do, once its work has started, is, first of all, to scrutinise in great detail—and the scrutiny is done in great detail by the Counsel to the Chairman of Committees—the terms of the Bill; and then the comments of the Counsel to the Chairman of Committees, approved by the Chairman of Committees, are sent to the Agents, comments covering both the merits and the form of the clauses of the Bill. The Unopposed Bills Committee, when it considers the Bill, takes up these points with the Agents of the Promoters of the Bill. They appear before the Committee bringing with them any witnesses they may wish to bring. Also,
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here are, of course, representatives of Government Departments who have sent in reports about the Bill. They are represented at the meeting of the Committee and may speak on their reports and give an opinion on questions or amendments. The Bill, when amended or not amended as the case may be, is reported to the House and is then ready for Third Reading. That is the stage which we have now reached in the Ashdown Forest Bill.
My Lords, may I now say one or two words about the proceedings of the Unopposed Bills Committee on this Bill. I should not like the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, to think—though I do not suppose he does—that the Committee was in any way unconscious of or oblivious to the rights of the Commoners in Ashdown Forest. The Committee was fully aware that it was one of its responsibilities to concern itself with those rights. As the noble Lord has pointed out, the voting system did not come into question because the voting system in the Bill could not be altered without an additional provision. On the other hand, there is an extremely important clause dealing with exchange of land, and this was the clause about which the Committee felt that it should closely question the Promoters about the safeguarding of the rights of the Commoners. The proposal in the clause was to give power to the authorities concerned to exchange land in the Forest, which of course is common land, with land adjacent to the Forest. As the noble Lord is aware, the Forest is a rather peculiar and irregular shape, and it was thought that it might he convenient to exchange certain outlying areas of the Forest for certain areas adjacent to the main part of the Forest which are of course at the moment in private ownerships.
My Lords, we secured and indeed insisted on—and this was at our initiative —an Amendment to this clause to safeguard the rights of the Commoners in the case of any proposed exchange of forest land. Clause 20(3) allows the authorities and an owner with land adjoining the Forest to agree to alter the boundaries of the Forest by exchanges of land. Forest land would thus be exchanged for an equal area of land outside the Forest. At our request, the Promoters inserted an Amendment giving any

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Commoner the right to object to proposals to exchange land. If objection is made, the exchange may not be effected without a local inquiry. An Amendment was included in Clause 20 which now ensures that Commoners are first of all informed by notice of their right to object before an application is made to the Secretary of State; and, secondly, if any Commoner—this of course includes the large landowning Commoners and the small landowning Commoners—makes an objection, and the objection is not trivial or vexacious, the Secretary of State is bound not to consent to the proposal without a local inquiry. It was our hope that this would safeguard the rights of the Commoners in any proposed exchange of existing common land for land which is not now common land. My Lords, with those few words I hope I may have assisted in giving a fuller reply to the noble Lord than he would otherwise have received.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I do not concede it to be any part of my duty or function to remark about the criticism of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, of the procedure in any way at all. It will be dealt with most ably and most properly by the noble Earl, the Lord Chairman.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I entirely accept that. I felt that it was appropriate to put before the House the difficulties in procedure and I do not necessarily expect the noble Lord to answer.
4,15 p.m.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lord I thought that was the noble Lord's attitude, but it is for me to reply to some of the noble Lord's remarks which I shall do in addition to the most able remarks that have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Henley. With him, I would fix on the words of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton (I do not know that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, actually quoted these words), "a section of the commoners" and then again "a large proportion of small commoners". These are the people on whose behalf the noble Lord speaks and no doubt he knows how many there are. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, said that he is informed that they represent 2 per cent. of the total
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of Commoners. I have not the same figure in the form of percentage, but I have a numerical figure, and my information is that the number is about twelve individuals out of a total of about 590. The noble Lord challenged that figure with a question, but as he is speaking for these people presumably he knows how many there are, and if he doubts the accuracy of these figures no doubt he will say so. I think this is a very small number, twelve out of 590.
In the matter of voting, I do not know whether or not democracy has anything to do with it. I very much doubt it. However, I do not think the question is particularly relevant. The question is whether or not the existing system is a good one. It is certainly a great deal less undemocratic than that actively antidemocratic method of voting known as a card vote. The question is whether this system of voting is to be continued or not. Provision is made in the Bill for it to be changed, and the answer to the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, is that if this provision is made in Schedule 1 to the Bill under the authority of Clause 14 it can be made by a meeting of the Commoners after the Bill has passed into law. The question is whether the Commoners will make the change.
In a letter which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Henley, Commoners have been circularised in this connection, and here I think I am bound to take a leaf out of the book of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, himself by reminding him of the number of times that we have seen him, particularly from this side of the House, look around the House with a bland and charming smile and say, "My Lords, I am astonished". My Lords, I am astonished that the noble Lord himself has been so totally misinformed. He is in touch with people who have this information that I am about to give to your Lordships. What was proposed to all the commoners was that a committee should be set up to discuss the possibility of a new system—and I will say in a moment what this system is.
The dissident (if I may use the word) commoners for whom the noble Lord speaks declined to join this committee, saying that they proposed to petition another place and were advised not to enter into any controversy at the

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moment. Therefore they let this committee proposal go by default and took no part in it.
The result of this inquiry, by whatever means it was held, was to change the voting structure. At the moment the largest landowner, voting according to his acreage, has no fewer than 500 votes, with the lowest having only one; and, as the noble Lord correctly said, on that basis an extremely small number of Commoners can control the vote of all. The new proposal is that a commoner with less than one acre shall pay 50p, and so on pro rata up the scale in a rather complicated way, which I will not go into, until the top man, who pays £20, gets a voting number of 20. He has 20 votes as against the common man's one—a very considerable reduction from 500; and by these means the voting majority of the large landowner is entirely blotted out.
Why there should not be one man, one vote is another question. This would go far more in time towards extinguishing the votes of the Commoners themselves, because there is a tendency for the number of Commoners to increase. Every time a piece of land is sub-divided and built on—this happens on certain parts of the common, and there is development—then you get a new Commoner with no holding and no rights that he chooses to exercise. He may be a townsman and he may have nothing whatever to do with the Forest at all. One man one vote would produce the effect that the old voter, the countryman, would gradually decrease in number in comparison with the total number of Commoners, and this cannot be in the genuine interest of the Commoners or of the Forest.
What was the reply to this suggestion? The reply was that 305 Commoners replied in favour of the new scheme, which is 51·7 per cent. That is a majority of 51·7 per cent. in spite of the fact that 43 per cent. did not express an opinion at all. Although the numbers are not complete, we have an overwhelming majority already for our proposal for this new scheme. The Commoners in fact stated that they are for it, and they will do so at a meeting which will be convened after the Bill is passed. Those who voted in favour of the new scheme
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included all the big 17 Commoners except one. That one stood out because he personally was in favour of one man one vote. The dissident Commoners, the group that the noble Lord, Lora Shackleton, represents—
LORD SHACKLETON: My Loras, If I may interrupt the noble Earl, I wish he would stop saying that I represent anybody. I merely felt that a case needed to be put. I think that the noble Earl is being a little unfair when what seems to me to be a legitimate argument, which had not been heard, is being put forward, as he said, by the "representative of a dissident group". I think that this is an unworthy argument. As he keeps on harping on this 2 per cent., may I say that it was in January that an extraordinary general meeting at which there were 121 Commoners present voted 95 to 26, which actually represents something like 20 per cent. of the number of Commoners, asking the Conservators to withdraw support for the Bill, which they did not do.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I apologise if I have described the noble Lord in any way unfairly. There is nothing further from my intention. I merely thought it a convenient method of referring to the people that I thought he did represent. If he does not represent them I take it back and I apologise. May I put it as those on whose behalf he speaks?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the noble Earl has been in the House a long time and he knows that nobody in your Lordships' House represents anyone. This is a fundamental point. The noble Earl knows that in this sense we are not representative. Every noble Lord speaks upon his honour individually, and the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, will support me on that.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, this is too much! I have withdrawn that and said I apologise, but I think that the noble Lord is speaking on behalf of these people. I do not know what they say in regard to these votes, but I am informed that the leader of them —they call themselves "the Commoners' Action Committee" or "the Commoners' Committee", according to which page of their manifesto you read—did not reply. This does not argue a very passionate

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feeling one way or the other on their behalf. The loathed and despised voting system at present is bound to go. It will be succeeded by one which is approved by an overwhelming majority of the Commoners. And what, I ask myself and everybody else, can be fairer than that?
The noble Lord turned to Clause 20 and the matter of the extinction of common rights. The noble Earl, the Lord Chairman of Committees, referred to this in one respect and I should like to touch on it in another. If I did not misunderstand him, this is the question of whether or not Commoners could find their rights extinguished by finding that the piece of land on which they have rights has been exchanged for a piece of land outside the Common on which they have no rights. The answer is one of law. Common rights are statutory and they cannot be extinguished, so whatever happens about the piece of land the Conservators choose to get rid of, for whatever reason, the common rights of the Commoners will continue, and cannot be extinguished except by an action of Parliament. Therefore, they are safe.
Clause 12 says that a quorum shall be 6 appointed Conservators. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, objected to this on the ground that it confirms in Committee meetings the majority which is already built into the constitution of the Conservators by which the county council has an overall majority. But it does not. It says that the number of appointed Conservators, 6 of whom form a quorum. is 11, and of those 9 only belong to the county council and 2 to the Uckfield Rural District Council. Therefore, this quorum of 6 may consist of 4 county council members and 2 Uckfield R.D.C. members. There may be present at the meeting the lord of the manor and 5 elected Commoners, making 8 members outside the county council to 4 on the county council. In spite of this quorum, the county council might find itself in a minority at any meeting, so I think that there is nothing in that point.
The noble Lord has asked me for assurances. I cannot give any assurances of any kind. I am not authorised to do so, and I do not think that it is reasonable to ask for them. Every opportunity
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has been given at various stages for persons who disagree with what is proposed to put forward their arguments. Opportunity has been given to them and they have declined to take advantage of it, and I do not see what useful purpose can possibly be served now by interfering with the further progress of this Bill. Whether or not there are constitutional objections to what has happened is another matter, with which I do not concern myself. I do not think that this number of people, whether large or small, has really any grounds for complaint at all, and I shall be very disappointed, and indeed saddened, if the noble Lord persists with his attitude against the Bill on this ground. My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

PROCEDURE OF THE HOUSE
3.29 p.m.
Second Report from the Select Committee considered.
The Committee's Report was as follows:
1. UNSTARRED QUESTIONS
In order to give effect to the recommendations made in their First Report that the appropriate provisions of Standing Order No. 29 should be extended to Unstarred Questions, the Committee recommend that the following new paragraph be added to S.O. No. 29:—
" (2) No Lord is to speak more than once to any Unstarred Question except, with the Leave of the House, for the purpose of explaining himself in some material point of his speech (no new matter being introduced)."
The Committee reaffirm the established practice whereby the Lord who is to reply to an Unstarred Question waits until he is satisfied that no other Lord wishes to speak on the Question.
2. SECOND READING OF PRIVATE BILLS
The Committee have considered alternative procedures for taking the second reading stage of Private Bills more swiftly, but recommend no change in the present procedure. They note with approval the Lord Chairman's intention to move the second reading of Lords' Private Bills in the week following 6th February, when petitioning time has expired. They understand that he will exercise his discretion to take these second readings at the end of business. If any Lord gives notice that he wishes to debate the second reading of such a Bill, the Lord Chairman may defer the second reading to a more convenient time.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now agreed to.
Moved, That the Report be agreed to.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SOCIAL SECURITY BILL
4.30 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That it be an Instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the Social Security Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order, vizt.:—

Clauses 1 to 4,

Schedule 1,

Clause 5,

Schedule 2,

Clauses 6 to 9,

Schedules 3 and 4,

Clause 10,

Schedules 5 and 6,

Clauses 11 to 15,

Schedule 7,

Clauses 16 to 24,

Schedule 8,

Clauses 25 to 30,

Schedule 9,

Clauses 31 to 37,

Schedule 10,

Clause 38,

Schedule 11,

Clauses 39 to 47,

Schedule 12,

Clauses 48 to 60,

Schedule 13,

Clause 61,

Schedule 14,

Clauses 62 to 64,

Schedule 15,

Clauses 65 to 70,

Schedule 16,

Clauses 71 to 74,

Schedule 17,

Clauses 75 and 76,

Schedule 18,

Clauses 77 to 80,

Schedule 19,

Clauses 81 to 84,

Schedule 20,

Clauses 85 to 88,

Schedule 21,

Clauses 89 to 92,

Schedule 22,

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Clauses 93 to 97,

Schedules 23 to 25,

Clause 98.—(Lord Aberdare.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

NATURE CONSERVANCY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a; an Amendment (privilege) made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

MEDICINES (FEEDING STUFFS ADDITIVES) ORDER 1973
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I beg to move that the Medicines (Feeding Stuffs Additives) Order 1973, a draft of which was laid before the House on May 9, be approved. The Order is intended to correct a small technical anomaly in the Medicines Act 1968, to enable Ministers to make comprehensive regulations relating to the labelling of medicated animal feeding stuffs. As I said, it is a small technical matter. I am perfectly happy to explain it to your Lordships if you so desire; otherwise, I will move the Order formally.
Moved, That the Draft Medicines (Feeding Stuffs Additives) Order 1973, laid before the House on May 9 be approved.—(Earl Ferrers.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

BAHAMAS INDEPENDENCE BILL
4.32 p.m.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Bahamas Independence Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest so far as they are affected by the Bill at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Its purpose, as described in the Long Title, is
" to make provision for the attainment by the Bahamas of fully responsible status within the Commonwealth…"

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The House will recall that in September last year a general election was fought in the Bahamas on the question of early independence. The ruling Government Party, the Progressive Liberal Party under Mr. Lynden Pindling, won the election, securing 29 of the 38 seats in the House of Assembly and some 60 per cent. of the total votes cast. Following that election, the Bahamas Government published a White Paper outlining its proposals for independence, and a resolution was passed in both Houses of the Legislature requesting independence. I think it is important to note that the resolution was passed without a dissenting vote. At the same time another resolution was passed which made clear the wish of the Bahamas that they should, after independence, remain a monarchy within the Commonwealth. The resolution requested Her Majesty's Government to sponsor their application for Commonwealth membership. The Commonwealth Secretary-General has consulted all Commonwealth Heads of Government, and on April 3 he announced in Wellington that all had agreed to the Bahamas' becoming a member of the Commonwealth on independence.
The present Legislature of the Bahamas is the fourth oldest of the British Commonwealth, dating back to the 18th century. The House will recall that a Ministerial system of Government was first introduced into the Bahamas in 1964, following the Constitutional Conference in the previous year. The Governor was required to act on the Cabinet's advice on all matters, except defence, external affairs, internal security and the public service. A general election was held in 1968, and this was won by the Progressive Liberal Party, under Mr. Pindling the present Prime Minister. This was followed, of course, by a further Constitutional Conference at which the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, as Minister of State for Commonwealth Affairs, presided. As a result of this Conference, the Bahamas was granted the most advanced form of Constitution possible short of independence. Following the general election in 1972, to which I referred earlier, which was fought on the basis of early independence, a conference on this subject was held in London last December, in which delegates from both the Government and
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the Opposition took part. Its purpose was to establish the principles on which the Independence Constitution should be based. The report of that Conference was presented in a White Paper (Cmnd. 5196). The Bill now before your Lordships follows the lines of previous independence Bills. As is customary, the future Constitution of the Bahamas will be laid down in an Order in Council to be submitted to Her Majesty the Queen in Council after the Bill becomes law. The terms of the Constitution have been discussed and agreed with the Bahamas Government and the Opposition.
To turn to the Bill itself, Clause 1, with Schedule 1, provides that after July 10. 1973, the United Kingdom will have no further responsibility for the Government of the Bahamas. Clauses 2 and 3 relate to citizenship. These provisions reflect the arrangements which were agreed between Her Majesty's Government and the Bahamas representatives at the Independence Conference last December. It then decided that citizenship of the Bahamas should be automatically acquired at the time of independence by, first, every person who, having been born in the Bahamas before independence, is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies; secondly, every person having been born outside the Bahamas before independence who on the day of independence is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, if his father having been born in the Bahamas becomes, or but for his death would have become, a citizen of the Bahamas. After independence citizenship should automatically be acquired by, thirdly, every person born in the Bahamas after independence of a Bahamian parent; fourthly, every person born outside the Bahamas after independence whose father was born in, and is a citizen of, the Bahamas. It was further decided that at the time of independence Bahamas citizenship should also be extended automatically to all citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who acquired that status by naturalisation or registration in the Bahamas, with four exceptions: first, persons who have dual nationality; secondly, those registered persons who were not ordinarily resident in the Bahamas at the end of 1972; thirdly, persons registering after the end of 1972; and, fourthly, naturalised persons who

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indicate that they do not wish to accept Bahamas citizenship.
With some very limited exceptions, only those persons with a close ancestral connection with the United Kingdom will retain their citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies after Bahamian independence. I have just referred to the exceptions, and they are in number very small. There is therefore no danger of this Bill creating large numbers of United Kingdom passport holders with a right to come here at some time in the future; nor will the Bill make anyone stateless.
Clause 4, with Schedule 2, modifies various Acts of the United Kingdom Parliament as a consequence of granting independence to the Bahamas. Clause 5 concerns the transfer to the Bahamas Government, on independence, of the Imperial Lighthouse Service lights in the Bahamas. There are at present nine lights operated by the Department of Trade and Industry which will be transferred on independence to the Bahamas Government, who will then assume responsibility for their operation and administration. It was agreed that the Bahamas Government should control these lighthouses after independence, because the Bahamas' heavy reliance on the tourist industry for their prosperity makes it essential to them that these navigational aids should be maintained around their coast as a protection against shipwrecks and consequential pollution of their beaches. Although the Bahamas Government has agreed to accept full responsibility for operating the lighthouse service, we realise that it will need some financial help. The general lighthouse fund, which is at present responsible for the cost of maintaining this service, is financed by dues paid by ships. This fund will meet certain terminal expenses and will also accept responsibility for meeting the cost of some automation work which had previously been agreed. The fund will also continue to meet the cost of pensions of existing pensioners.
Your Lordships will be aware from Questions asked in this House, and from the proceedings in another place, that inhabitants of Greater and Little Abaco have expressed a wish that these islands should be allowed to secede from the Bahamas on independence and to remain a Colony under the Crown. A petition was submitted to Her Majesty the Queen
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in 1971, and further representations to this effect were made to Her Majesty's Government at the time of the Independence Conference in December. A delegation of representatives from Abaco and a delegation of Members from another place called on my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
As your Lordships know, Her Majesty's Government have not felt able to accede to this request for separate Crown Colony status for Abaco, for these reasons. These islands, some of whose inhabitants wish to assume a separate identity, have always been an integral part of the Bahamas and for more than 200 years have been administered as such. The general election in September, 1972, showed that there was a substantial majority of the population of the Bahamas as a whole in favour of independence. The Abaco Islands contain about 6,500 persons of the total population of the Bahamas of 190,000— that is, about 3 to 4 per cent. of the total. Abaco has two constituencies, one represented by a P.L.P. Member and one by an Opposition F.N.M. Member. Lastly, neither of the main political Parties in the Bahamas has ever expressed any support or any encouragement for a separate status for the Abaco Islands. Both have agreed on ultimate independent status for the Bahamas. It is for these reasons, my Lords, that we believe that the future lies in a united commonwealth of the Bahamas.
In the Report of the Independence Conference to which I have referred it was stated that the Government of the United Kingdom and the Bahamas would have further discussions before independence concerning defence and financial matters. On defence, I am glad to be able to inform your Lordships that two rounds of talks, involving officials from my Department and from the Ministry of Defence, from the Bahamas Government and from the Government of the United States, have taken place, and considerable progress has been made over the future use of the defence facilities in the Islands.
On finance, I am sure noble Lords who have visited the Bahamas realise that the present prosperity of these Islands depends very largely on the development and expansion of the tourist industry. In

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fact, it accounts for 60 per cent. of the Government's revenue and for half the country's foreign exchange earnings. However, the absence of any direct taxation, coupled with economic and political stability, has given the necessary encouragement to foreign investment and the development of an international banking industry, and these also make substantial contributions to the prosperity of the Bahamas. This comparative wealth has meant that the Territory has not in the past been a regular recipient of development aid funds from this country, although Her Majesty's Government have, and have in the past two years, made a substantial contribution to the cost of building a police training college. With a high gross national product the Bahamas would not come within our normal criteria for a programme of development aid and technical assistance. Nevertheless, it may become necessary in the months ahead to re-examine the Territory's needs, especially after taking into account the future of the defence installations.
My Lords, this country has had a long association with the Bahamas stretching back more than 300 years, and the passage of this Bill ends our constitutional responsibility by July 10 this year if Parliament agrees this measure. In commending this Bill to your Lordships, I wish the people of the Bahamas every good fortune in the years which lie ahead. My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(—Baroness Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie.)
4.43 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the House will be very grateful to the noble Baroness for the way in which she has introduced this bill, and we on this side of the House give it a particularly warm welcome. I have a personal sense of satisfaction in the passage of this Bill because, as the noble Baroness said, I was chairman of the Constitutional Conference in 1968, and I can confirm to the House that the noble Baroness was, as usual, correct in saying that this was a very advanced Constitution. In fact, there was some criticism, I know, among my officials that we were perhaps going far too far for a Colonial Territory. But, my Lords, the fact that very little difficulty arose
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between the Government of the Bahamas and the British Government, as it could well have arisen, is, I think, not only a credit to the Prime Minister, Mr. Pindling, but also to the Late Governor. the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, who I see is going to take a part in this afternoon's debate. If I had any criticism of Mr. Pindling, it is that he took so long in reaching a decision on independence. Having said that, I think I can assure the House that there is no question of the Bahamas rushing into independence.
My Lords, prior to that Conference I went to the Bahamas and I saw all the political Parties; not only their leaders, but their Members of Parliament and, on some occasions, those who were actually workers within the Party political machine. There was no doubt at all in my mind that all the political Parties had independence as their objective. The only question, which again was common to all three Parties, was the question of timing. So, my Lords, we can feel satisfied that, since that Conference in 1968, that advanced Constitution has been worked and the political Parties have come back to London and have negotiated an Independence Constitution. One can always appreciate, particularly in the case of a place like the Bahamas, that one does not always get unanimity at such a Conference, but the reports I have had are that where there have been objections, those objections were not pushed to the extent at which Her Majesty's Government had to intervene and make a ruling, which is never very palatable. So I think we can safely say that the political Parties are content and can work the present Constitution.
I was particularly pleased that the noble Baroness said something about possible aid to the Bahamas. She is quite right that the present gross national product is such that the Bahamas have not in the past received direct economic aid. But, my Lords, one of the ironies of the beautiful islands that one finds around the world with their bright sunshine and glorious beaches, is that you find the anomaly of dire poverty and extreme wealth. If ever one was to see this, and all the dangers and the risks that could follow, then one sees it in the Bahamas. The noble Baroness says that the people of the Bahamas have had long ties with us. That is true to a certain extent, but

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the very proximity of the Bahamas to the United States has meant that the people of the Bahamas have perhaps looked more towards the United States in recent years than they have looked to this country. There are many Bahamian men and women who have gone to the United States and have set up their homes and created their families, but all, somehow, have retained a great affection, which is quite understandable, for their homeland.
It seems to me, looking at the number of Dependent Territories, that we are not likely to see a Bill of this nature for some time. Having said that, I now remember that there was a question about Grenada, but that will not be dealt with by a Bill, but by an Order in Council. I am not quite certain whether such an Order in Council will have to come before your Lordships. If it does not, we shall have to devise ways and means of pursuing with the noble Baroness whether the Government are correct in the interpretation of the Associated State Act; but that is another matter. But we now have few dependencies. Many of them are in great difficulty and have grave economic, social and educational problems, particularly those in the South Sea. I should have thought that, with so few now left to us, we ought to make a greater effort than we have done up to now (I refer not only to the period of office of the noble Baroness but also my own period) to see that these countries are given a standard of living which compares fairly with the standards in other countries. I must say —and I think it is a matter of regret—that in recent years we have not treated our remaining Colonial Territories in the same favourable way as our Dutch and even our French friends within the E.E.C. have treated theirs. I hope the noble Baroness, recognising now the small number involved, will feel that this is a real opportunity to make this nation proud of its dependencies.
The noble Baroness referred to Abaco. I would confirm that to the best of my knowledge no political Party has ever raised it; and during my period of responsibility to the Bahamas it was never suggested that there should be secession. The noble Baroness set out the reasons why secession had to be refused. I think there is another which is perhaps worthy of mention. There is a real risk of fragmentation. Anyone
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who knows the Caribbean knows that no island is the same, even though it is only a few miles away from another. I might suggest to the noble Baroness that she should go to a little island called Montserrat in the Caribbean. I am told that if you have a good ear, you can hear the Irish brogue behind a black face and you will see the green shamrock emblem on the Administrator's House. I inquired why, as no doubt she will. It is simply that the white settlers had a lot of trouble in St. Kitts—a name familiar to us— and some of them were put on a boat and ended un on Montserrat, leaving the Methodists in St. Kitts, the Chapel people in Anquilla and the Catholics in Montserrat. But the separate identities of these people remain.
Fragmentation could easily follow if one were to permit it in any particular area. Fragmentation could be a tremendous disaster to the whole of the Caribbeans and the West Indies, with all their problems of agriculture and life. They need to get closer together and not to fragment; they need particularly some better shipping lines in order to move their own goods and manufactures easily around. I should not like to say anything more on this subject. I think in the end there will be no difficulty and that the people of Abaco will settle in with the rest of their friends within the Commonwealth.
One likes to end a speech with a peroration. I was looking through the Report of the Committee of which I was Chairman. I think of the short paragraph of Mr. Randolph Ffoulkes, who was the Leader of the Labour Party, a small minority party in the Bahamas— although labels had not much real relation to the British position. He says of the Bahamas:
"Our history has been involved in piracy, buccaneering shipwrecking and blockade running. In the future we hope we will continue to be something of pirates, something of buccaneers, something of blockade runners. We must learn how to pirate every good idea to a safe harbour of freedom; we must learn how to shipwreck every prejudice that spells out the breaking of any link in our chain of democracies, and we seek to buccaneer every lofty idea included in the human rights provisions of our Constitution which will enable every individual to develop himself to the fullest of his capacities."
I believe these are very much the sentiments of the people of the Bahamas. If

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it comes true, if they remain buccaneers and pirates in this sense, they have a very great future. Like the noble Baroness I, personally, and on behalf of my colleagues on these Benches, wish the people of the Bahamas all good fortune in the difficult days of freedom that lie ahead.
4.55 p.m.
LORD THURLOW: My Lords, may I endorse from these Benches the good wishes expressed by the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, to the new member of the Commonwealth to which this Bill looks forward. The note to strike to-day is one of congratulation and a wish of good fortune for the future. That is the only possible message from this House. It is surely fitting that any minor point of controversy should be now put behind us and all the emphasis should be placed on congratulation, on the fulfilment of an entirely natural process of constitutional advance. The difference between the political Parties, as has been pointed out, has been not on the substance of independence but purely on the refinements of timing. The electorate of the Bahamas has now settled the time.
I recollect the reported comment of an elderly, puzzled, black Bahamian lady at a political meeting called to explain the issue of independence: "What all dis jabber about independence?", she said. "Ah've been independent all my life." This typifies the Bahamian character, to whose qualities I pay tribute from my years of happy experience with the warm-hearted and welcoming people of the Bahamas. I can say that they are the most warm-hearted and independent minded folk I have ever met in a life spent mainly in travel around different countries.
This does not make the work of their elected Government any easier. The same is true of the Government of any country; and the Bahamas Government is, like other democratic Governments, subject to extreme pressure from behind. There is a story that in pirate days a British Government representative was roasted alive. Latterly relations between Britain, as the metropolitan Power, and the Government and people of the self-governing Bahamas have been exceptionally
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happy. This is a strong foundation on which to build our association of the future within the Commonwealth. The closest links of the newly-independent State will inevitably be with the neighbouring Colossus across the Florida Straits and her sister Commonwealth Caribbean Islands in the West indies to the South, but Britain will, I hope—and I am encouraged by what the noble Baroness has said—be able to continue in various ways (especially in the field of education through supplying teachers) to give such support as she possibly can.
At this stage, I venture to suggest that matters of controversy are best left behind, but as such prominence has been given in another place to what I regard as the very minor issue of the wishes of some of the people of Abaco, I should like to state flatly that in my view there has never been any conceivable prospect of Britain on the eve of independence starting to dismember the Bahamas against the wishes of the Bahamian Government and responsible Bahamas Parliamentary Opposition. Islands in many parts of the world are occasionally attracted by the romantic notion of "going it alone". Even Lundy, with a handful of inhabitants, once claimed to be a separate kingdom, though now I am glad to say it has been given to the National Trust through the generosity of a Bahamian resident. Where there is solidarity of view in an island, as in the glaring case of Anguilla, no doubt there may be grounds for special action; but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, observed, there never has been such united solidarity in Abaco. I was therefore glad to hear of the very correct and responsible attitude of the Abaco Council, from whom I received the first Petition for separation for transmission to the Crown. I was glad to hear that this Council has now accepted "No" for an answer to their representations, made through the proper constitutional channels, and acknowledged that their duty now is to work for the success of an independent and prosperous Bahamas. That is the voice of the most responsible former advocates of separation.
My Lords, the inhabitants of the Bahama Islands have a long and chequered history. Throughout their dramatic ups and downs and usually,

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until comparatively recently, hard times —though punctuated by periods of immense prosperity—they have been dependent on their own exertions. They have had little material help from outside. They have stood on their own feet and now they have created their own administrative structure which is ready for independence. They face a potential future that can be, and I hope will be, a remarkable success story, for they have an altogether exceptional opportunity for continued development of a high standard of living. A few years ago the rate of external capital investment into the Bahamas was unhealthily high. If it had persisted the hotting up would have been such that development would have outstripped infrastructure, and tensions probably would have arisen by imbalance between the indigenous population and immigrants. The scales have recently tilted the other way, but it is entirely within the capacity of an independent Bahamas to create conditions of great prosperity marked by a relaxed and human relationship between the communities of different racial extractions and a strong Parliamentary tradition. Should a healthy rate of progress be achieved, the Bahamas can become an example of a mainly black, little nation, enjoying a standard of living comparable with that of the affluent, developed countries of the West. If this is achieved, what a beacon of hope to less fortunate islands in the West Indies and elsewhere! I am sure, my Lords, that the message from your Lordships' House today will be, "Good luck!"
5.5 p.m.
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: My Lords, this, I suppose, is one of the last, if not the last, Bill of its kind which will come before your Lordships. We have seen almost all these Bills in the last 25 years, and it might be worth while noting the somewhat changing emphasis with regard to them. In the early period of decolonisation and before the war the question was, "Are they ready for it?" It was generally assumed before the war that none of the Colonies was, and after the war there was a general agreement that the more backward Colonies in Africa and other parts of the world were not ready. Then,
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quite suddenly, we had the "Wind of change "speech, followed by a rapid, one might say hasty, withdrawal from nearly all our large Colonies. And the question became, not "Are they ready?", but, "Do they want it"? To-day one might venture to think that the question is" If they do not want it, why not?". Sometimes it is almost rammed down their throats.
In the matter of the Bill before us to-day, Her Majesty's Government have been asked by a properly constituted and elected Parliament to grant independence. The fact that a large proportion of the population is illiterate, and there is suspicion that there has been intimidation, does not, I think, alter the facts with which Her Majesty's Government have to deal. I would, however, put to your Lordships that it alters the emphasis which one should place on these facts. I do not intend to speak much about the Bahamas in general. One must hope that after independence things there will go well. I think, also, that in a free country, and Great Britain is a free country, one is free to doubt it. We have had too many of these experiences. None the less, we must hope and wish good fortune for the people of the Bahamas in their future. One might almost repeat the prayer said at the Anglican Communion, and pray that they will be "godly and quietly governed".
My main concern in speaking during the Second Reading debate on this Bill is with the position of the Island of Abaco. I have spoken recently in your Lordships' House on this matter and I will try not to weary noble Lords by being repetitious. However, this is a question which is becoming urgent, though it never need have become urgent had proper and reasonable steps been taken in time. The facts are simple and have been repeated by the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie. As long ago as 1971 a Petition was addressed to the Prime Minister asking that in the event of the Bahamas becoming independent Abaco should remain British and become a Crown Colony. I am not sure what happened to that Petition. Allegations have been made, in another place and elsewhere, that some of the signatures were questionable. Allegations of this sort have been made

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about every petition I have ever heard of. When worthy people present these Petitions they need to be prepared for the fact that that is the sort of stock answer they may be met with. Other representations have since been made to Her Majesty's Government with no result but dismissal.
Last December a deputation from Abaco was met with the answer that Abaco had been loyal to Britain for 200 years and could be loyal to the Bahamas for the next 200 years. We have had speculation with the voting figures; 62 per cent. of the electors in Abaco supported the Opposition Party in the last General Election. Mr. Watkins, the Member for Marsh Harbour, told me that in his opinion—which is only his opinion-80 per cent. of the population of Abaco would support him on wishing to remain British, if not on other matters. Her Majesty's Government says that Abaco is an integral part of the Bahamas. Your Lordships will remember things being, said about Algeria being an integral part of Metropolitan France. All this is mere speculation. Her Majesty's Government are performing a ritual dance around the subject, and one thing that they do not appear to realise is that here there is a problem. There is enough of a problem to bear investigation. But, as in the case of Anguilla, it appears that Her Majesty's Government just do not want to know. This is not the same Government, but they are performing the same ritual dance over Abaco as did their predecessors over Anguilla. I support this Government, I opposed the last one, but I do not think that the attitude which the Government have taken over this matter is good enough.
I am not speaking now with the intention of rubbing salt into anyone's political wounds, but I feel that members of Her Majesty's Government might remember some of the things they said, when in Opposition, about the Anguilla affair. I would seek to make this a non-Party issue in your Lordships' House, because we are dealing here with British subjects who are being driven to desperation because the British Government will not even listen to their case. I am asking, as were others who have
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made representations, only one thing: that the matter should be thoroughly and impartially gone into and that the real wishes of the people of Abaco should be ascertained in a legal and democratic way. Should the answer prove to be that the people of the Islands do not want to go along with the rest of the Bahamas, well and good. That is up to them to decide. At present they are being given no choice. They are being denied any hearing and, at the same time, are being subjected to the biggest and most revolutionary changes to which any people can be subjected.
They are admittedly a very small population—only 6,500 of them; but they are an island people. We sometimes make jokes about Lundy Island; we are rather less likely now to be making jokes about Iceland. The fact is that islanders are what the Scots like to call "thrawn" and tiresome. They like to be independent and to have their own way. The predicament of the people of Abaco has precedents all over the world, and not only in islands. If size of population alone were an argument against self-determination, there would he no question about what we should do with Gibraltar. The people of Abaco have been British for at least as long as have those of Gibraltar, yet we calmly give self-determination to the one and deny it to the other. We speak of fragmentation. Abaco is being fragmented from Britain. Are we to carry out this process without listening to what the people themselves want and without giving them the chance to decide for themselves what they want to do? Quite recently we gave the people of Ulster the chance to vote and decide on their own future by means of a referendum. Until then, referenda were said to be without precedent in British constitutional procedure. The question I would put to your Lordships is this: are we to wait until people start to throw bombs before we can consult them?
I would not lightly raise such a grave and serious matter in your Lordships' House, but I believe that your Lordships should be aware that this is what is what is being said in Abaco. It is being said by people whose only wish is that their desires should be taken into consideration and that they should be given a chance to voice their own views, which should be listened to. I hope that, even

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at this late hour, Her Majesty's Government will come up with some proposal whereby the wishes of the people of Abaco may be properly and democratically ascertained. If this is not to be, then I shall have to move Amendments in Committee which will be designed to ensure that in one way or another this will be done. The Amendments will be designed, as were those in another place, to set up Abaco as a Crown Colony on July 10. This would not be an irrevocable step as independence would be; and should the people of Abaco later decide, by means of a vote or a referendum, that they wish to be reunited with the Bahamas, I can see no difficulty in this.
Certain of Her Majesty's subjects feel that this country has let them down in this matter and is selling them short. They look to your Lordships as a last resort to do for them what Her Majesy's Government have so far refused to do. They are simple people and they have an abiding trust in the British Crown and the British Parliament. I believe it is the duty and privilege of your Lordships' House to act as a last court of appeal, not only in its judicial capacity but in its capacity as a House of Parliament. As my noble friend Lord Carrington said, we should not fear to send Amendments back to another place when we feel that a great issue is at stake. I believe that this is a great issue and that it is one which has not so far been given sufficient consideration.
Finally, my Lords, I understand that the Committee stage of this Bill is being put down for next Tuesday. As I have, I think, three Amendments, it seems to me that this is rather rushing things. I cannot understand how your Lordships will have sufficient time to read and study my Amendments between now and next Tuesday. I understand that the remaining stages of the Bill are also to be taken next Tuesday. This is contrary to Standing Orders. I should like to ask: are we having a vote on that, or are we not? It seems to me this Bill is being rushed through your Lordships' House with unseemly haste, and I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government and those who arrange our Order Paper to postpone the Committee stage of this Bill in order that your Lordships may have time to consider what I believe to be very important Amendments.
5.16 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, we in this House have the advantage of knowing that we shall be on the list of speakers. The one disadvantage of that is that a spontaneous debate may not take place. If I can, I always try to contribute something to the debate by making reference to the speaker immediately preceding myself. If the noble Lord, Lord Belhaven and Stenton, will forgive me, I do not propose to discuss what he said at the beginning, in his review of the advance of anti-Colonialism since the last war; but I shall be making reference to the plea he has made on behalf of some of the people of Abaco.
I am one of those who welcome this Bill. I also welcome the speech which was made by the noble Baroness, not merely because she indicated that independence is to be given to the Bahamas but also because she indicated that, if necessary, continued British economic and financial assistance would be given to those Islands. I want to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Shepherd for having initiated action to bring about the result we have to-day, and I should like especially to express appreciation for the contribution made to this debate so authoritatively by the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow. I speak with some reservations because, although I have been to other Caribbean countries I have not been to the Bahamas. However, over the years I have met and had many discussions with the leaders of the parties in those territories and I have tried as best I could, by study, to understand the situation there.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord, just to say that I am not surprised to hear that he has never been to the Bahamas? They are the biggest tax haven in the world—and he has just asked for additional financial assistance for the Bahamas from this country. They are rolling in money!
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I shall be making some reference to that later. I can assure the noble Lord that was not the reason why I have refrained from visiting the Bahamas.
I think we ought first to recognise that we do not leave the happiest situation there. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, has referred to the contrast between

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luxury, on the one hand, and the dire poverty, on the other, of so many of the people. My particular regret is that we have not done more in respect of health and education in those territories during the time that Britain has been responsible for them. I hope very much that the wealth of which my noble friend from the Cross-Benches has spoken may be used under independence for those purposes.
When we are thinking of the Bahamas we are thinking of something rather different from most of the Colonies to which we have given independence. It is a great archipelago, comprising hundreds of islands—I think they number 700. There are great contrasting conditions. Nassau, the sunshine resort of rich Americans, is almost owned by rich Americans. There are the real estates of the seaside resorts, the hotels, the restaurants, the casinos, the brothels and everything that accompanies rich tourist occupations, American owned. The contrast between that rich class which uses the Bahamas as a tourist playground and the life of the masses of black peoples is almost indescribable. I admit that in the circumstances of the Bahamas, only a few miles from Florida, the tourist industry is an important factor in the employment of the African population. But the African population are the servants of the rich tourist occupation in Nassau. If now we at last have a black Government in that country I hope that their first attention will be paid to the wretched conditions of the African people who are there.
One leaves Nassau and goes to the many other islands and the primitive living conditions of the peoples. One exception is the island of Abaco to which the noble Lord, Lord Belhaven and Stenton, has referred. I want to say at once to him that this House should have some feeling for the many Europeans who are in that island because of the history of their coming to it. Their forefathers were English troops left behind in the War of Independence which America fought against Britain. They took refuge in Abaco with other English loyalists. While the sympathy of many of us in that war would have been with the Americans fighting for their independence rather than with the British seeking to deny it, historically we should have some sympathy
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with the descendants of those who were then fighting in what was the British cause. But we should recognise that that considerable English population on the island of Abaco has perhaps from their own historical experience an extreme racial consciousness, an extreme colour consciousness, and that they fear the return of a black Government for the Bahamas as a whole. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Belhaven and Stenton, that I am trying to approach this issue in an unprejudiced way. I believe tremendously in self-determination. I believe that in the world of greatly centralised power one must be thinking in terms of participating devolution to the grass roots.
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord. He has been very fair on this subject but I should like to say that in my plea for the Government to recognise the situation in Abaco I did not raise the point of race or black and white; I was asking that the opinions of the people, whether black, white or multicoloured, should be taken into account.
LORD BROCKWAY: Yes, I apprecite that; I did not mean to suggest anything else. My Lords, I think nevertheless that racialism is the attitude of mind of many of the whites who are there. In view of the noble Lord's intervention, let me quote from Mr. Errington Watkins, one of the two representatives in the Legislature. He has spoken on the proposal that Abaco should secede from the Bahamas as an "escape route for non-blacks" and as "a haven for investors seeking to avoid taxes that the Pindling Government is levying".
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord again: but Mr. Watkins, whom I have met, is himself more black than white.
LORD BROCKWAY: Not more, my Lords; say half and half. The very fact that you had these English refugees from the American War of Independence, mostly men, meant that despite their colour prejudice a considerably mixed population has arisen and Mr. Errington Watkins happens to be the descendant of one of those. It is an extraordinary fact not only of Abaco but other territories that those who are of mixed race

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become more English and European than the English and Europeans themselves. But that is an aside.
I have tried to look at this question of Abaco in an unprejudiced way. I have come to this conclusion: the resistance to an association with the rest of the Bahamas is exaggerated. It is supported by a smaller number than the speech which the noble Lord delivered would indicate. One has first to face the fact that in the whole population of the Bahamas of 190,000, Abaco has less than 70,000—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS:Seven thousand.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, 7,000. I have the feeling that part of the explanation is alarm in the United States of America, fear of a Black Power which should be so near to them. I have quotations of a rather extravagant character from representatives in Abaco. I refrain from reading them because I believe a new situation is arising. I believe now it is becoming clear that even the majority of the white population in Abaco are prepared to accept association with the independent Bahamas. I believe it to be true—and perhaps the noble Baroness will be able to confirm this when she speaks—that the Abaco Council has informed the Government that it has agreed to work within independence and has rejected the extreme assertions that the whites and Abacos have been recruiting mercenaries for their purposes. For those reasons, and trying to look at the issue in the broadest possible way, I reject the suggestion that the island of Abaco should secede from the Bahamas as a whole.
My Lords, I want to say this in conclusion. The Bahamas themselves must be about the most disarmed Government in the world. Their total forces are 900 policemen, and only half trained. The noble Baroness has indicated that some training establishment is to be set up. They have only four patrol boats. I do not believe the threats which have been made from Abaco of physical resistance will be carried out, but quite clearly if any violence occurs it will be the duty of Her Majesty's Government to support the Bahamas Government. The only other thing I would say to Her Majesty's Government is this. In the very unlikely
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circumstances of difficulties arising between Abaco and the Bahamas Government, perhaps the Government might consider whether it might not be desirable to ask Canada (whose inhabitants, after all, are similar to those of Abaco in being loyalists who did not fight with the U.S.A. for independence) and perhaps some representatives of West Indian countries to offer their services for a solution of the problem.
My Lords, there has been an appeal that we should not engage in controversy. I have tried to reply in a reasonable way to what the noble Lord has said, but finally I want to express my deep hope that Bahamas, under independence, will be able to meet all the difficulties which they will have to face.
5.34 p.m.
LORD LOVAT: My Lords, I do not want to make a speech, but our duty to-night—and we have done it on all sides of the House—is to wish the Bahamians well in their new independence. Various speakers have rightly made reference to the contrast between the poverty and great wealth of these sunny islands, but nobody has made reference to the Free Port in Grand Bahamas. Successive Governors, from Lord Ranfurly's time, 1952 and thereafter, have considered—and I know they are right—that the whole future prosperity of the Bahamas lies in the Free Port. While we wish them well, I hope that the noble Baroness may possibly make some reference to the Free Port in her final remarks—whether we should encourage the Bahamians to go on with that development or perhaps provide them with some assistance, as the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, has suggested. I personally think that they have a lot of money, as the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, has said from the Cross-Benches. But the Free Port is the key to the prosperity of the Caribbean, and I hope we can do something to encourage the Bahamians to make full use of it.
5.35 p.m.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I am sure that, when all in the Bahamas read this debate, they will be grateful to every noble Lord who has spoken for the good wishes which have been conveyed to them on the achievement of their independence. I would thank all those noble

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Lords who have taken part. First, I would reply to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, who had such a special responsibility towards these Islands at one point and who asked me about the Order in Council. The Order in Council, when it is made, is laid before Parliament for information only and is not subject to any Parliamentary procedure. This is of course because we have an Independence Bill before us—
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I think the noble Baroness has me rather mixed up. I was referring to the Order in Council in terms of Grenada and not the Bahamas. I went off at a tangent there; I apologise to her.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, perhaps I should also say to the noble Lord that even if it is at a tangent the Order in Council which is laid for Grenada will be subject to the Affirmative approval of both Houses of Parliament.
On the question of procedure, perhaps I should at the same time refer to the point made by my noble friend Lord Belhaven and Stenton. He thought that it was rather soon to have the Committee stage next Tuesday and he wished to put down three Amendments. It is quite common, in fact, to have but a week's interval between the Second Reading of a Bill and the Committee stage. I think what he was perhaps more concerned about was whether we should take not only the Committee stage but also all the remaining stages of the Bill on the same day. I think I should tell my noble friend and the House that it is proposed to move a Motion to-morrow to suspend Standing Orders for the Bahamas Independence Bill. This is because, as is laid down in the Bill, it is hoped to have the Independence Day on July 10 and of course these matters have to be arranged some time ahead; celebrations are going to take place and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is going to be there. We have therefore just the remaining stages of the Bill here which, so far as I can see from the debate in the House to-day, has been entirely uncontroversial except for the one question of Abaco to which I should like to return. And we also have the Order in
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Council. It is for this reason, I suggest to my noble friend, that this is a perfectly reasonable procedure.
On the question of Abaco, I should like to support the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. He said that he thought that there would be a real risk of fragmentation in the Caribbean, and I am sure this is true. I was myself lucky enough to be a member of a delegation many years ago considering the Federation of the West Indies, but I have never gone as far as the Bahamas except just to land in an aeroplane en route somewhere else. But I know something of the problem of fragmentation, and I am sure that he is right.
To the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, who spoke with such affection and such intimate knowledge of the problems of Abaco, I would repeat the words he used. He said there has never been any question that this country would dismember the Bahamas against the wishes of its Government and Opposition. This really is the point, because there has been no request from either the duly democratically elected Government or the Opposition that there should be this fragmentation. My noble friend Lord Belhaven said that he thought that the British Government had not in fact taken due note of the feelings of some of the people in Abaco. I must thoroughly repudiate this suggestion. When a delegation came here on this question, despite the protest from the Bahamas Government, they were received at the F.C.O. by a Minister of State and there was a very lengthy interview with them.
I should like to put certain points to my noble friend, and he might perhaps on consideration question whether in fact it is wise to pursue this matter again, even by Amendment. If I may say so, he gave the impression in his speech that the inhabitants of Abaco unanimously desire the continuation of colonial status. I suggest to him that that is highly misleading. There are two Members of Parliament; one certainly represents a large number of the people of Abaco who want to remain as part of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, and in the 1972 Election more than a third of the Abaco voters voted for the present governing Party which campaigned for early independence-845 out of 2,286 votes.
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: My Lords, if my noble friend will forgive me, I should like to interrupt for one moment. I am sorry if I gave that impression. I did not intend to give the impression that 100 per cent. of the people of Abaco thought in one way or another. If 100 per cent. of the people of any country thought in one particular way they would probably be incapable of thought anyway. What I sought to put to my noble friend was that I thought the Government should make an inquiry of the inhabitants of the island and cease to speculate about what delegations said, how many people voted this way and how many people voted that way. There is a problem here that should have been investigated and I think it should now he investigated. If I may take up one more minute, I do not agree with my noble friend that having the Committee stage of the Bill next Tuesday is reasonable. It is not a week; it is only five days. I suggest that it would be reasonable if we had it on Thursday, but on Tuesday it will not give me very long to have Amendments printed and for your Lordships to read them.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, having often drafted and moved Amendments myself, I must say that when a Bill comes before the House one has an opportunity to look t it before Second Reading and to have one's Amendments ready to be tabled the moment the Second Reading is over. I feel sure the noble Lord is so well advanced that in fact he could table them tonight for us all to see.
I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, who said that the numbers in the island of Abaco who are apparently expressing a desire to remain a Crown Colony are not very large. I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, who has an immense experience of this matter, when he said that the Greater Abaco Council, who sent a delegation to London last year, have now changed their policy. That is perfectly true. In a meeting with the Bahamas Prime Minister on March 19 they said that they, on behalf of a majority of people in Abaco, now wished to be actively associated with the changes
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which were about to take place in the Bahamas. On April 26 the Council issued a Press Statement to the effect that, having failed—and I quote—
" in this legitimate exploration of the possibility of separation,"
they are now persuaded that
"their duty is to work for the success of an independent and a prosperous Bahamas."
The Council have said that they do not wish to be identified with a small number of Abaconians who are trying to keep the issue alive. Therefore I would suggest to my noble friend that we should remember the delegations received here, the inquiries which have taken place in the Bahamas and the change of view of those who are taking a leading part in the decisions. I would also suggest to him that in this House we should not try to encourage what is obviously a minority opinion to bring disaffection among islands which we hone will start their independence in the happiest and most united way possible.
My noble friend Lord Lovat asked about the Free Port. I understand that this was established about 10 to 15 years ago by some developers who had several agreements which are usually known as the Hawksbill Agreements. These granted widespread privileges to the developers. As a result, a Royal Commission was appointed, I think either in 1969 or 1970, to examine the working of those agreements, and they proposed amendments to remove some undesirable features. As they were entitled to do, the Bahamas Government reviewed the special immigration privileges that the developing companies enjoyed. This has now reduced the opportunities open to expatriates, but I am glad to say that it has provided new opportunities for the Bahamians.
In conclusion I think this has been a useful and interesting debate, but I hope that next Tuesday, in the Committee stage, we shall not give any impression of disunity where really only a small element of disunity exists. I hope that these very beautiful islands and the people within them will have a prosperous and enjoyable future.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING BILL
5.46 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move that the Employment and Training Bill be now read a second time. The Bill deals with three main subjects. First, it sets up a Manpower Services Commission which will be responsible for the employment and training services at present provided by the Department of Employment. It repeals the Employment and Training Act 1948 and incorporates the necessary provisions to take its place. Second, it makes certain changes in the industrial training board system, and transfers responsibilities for the Agricultural Training Board to the Agriculture Ministers by means of amendment to the Industrial Training Act 1964. Third, it sets a new pattern for the future of Careers Services for Young People. On the first two of these subjects, the Bill's proposals have evolved from the proposals put forward in the consultative document Training for the Future.
Noble Lords may remember that we discussed that consultative document a little more than a year ago, on May 3, 1972. On that occasion one or two doubts were expressed as to whether the document was really consultative or whether the Government had not in fact already made up their minds and were just going through the motions of consultation. But the ideas embodied in the Bill have been changed in a number of important respects since the original proposals of Training for the Future, and I shall be drawing attention to some of these changes. The fact that these changes have been made indicates the importance the Government attach to genuine consultations in matters of this kind. My right honourable friend would like me to acknowledge the willing and effective co-operation he has received from all concerned, including Members of your Lordships' House, before he came to final decisions on what should be contained in the Bill to be laid before Parliament. Parliament has been kept informed in a series of publications. Noble Lords will have seen that there has also been a White Paper, published in March of this year, when the Bill was introduced in another place. All this makes my task in introducing the Bill to your Lordships' House much easier.
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Your Lordships may recall that Training for the Future proposed a National Training Agency, a hived-off body which would run the Training Opportunities Scheme and would also co-ordinate the work of the industrial training boards. There was a general welcome for this concept—but a number of noble Lords expressed concern that this would separate the agency dealing with industrial training from the agency dealing with employment and the employment services. I am sure that they will welcome the provision now in the Bill to set up a Manpower Services Commission which will bring the employment and training services together under its wing. At the same time the opportunity is being taken to involve representatives of those who use the services, and of other interested parties, in direct responsibility for them. The Commission will consist of a full-time chairman, three representatives appointed after consultation with the T.U.C., three after consultation with the C.B.I., two after consultation with the local authority associations in England and Wales and in Scotland (one each) and one after consultation with professional education interests.
The Commission will be directly responsible to the Secretary of State for Employment for the manpower services. It is in fact a new type of organisation. Clause 2 succinctly lays down its main duty:
" to make such arrangements as it considers appropriate "—
that is, which the Commission considers appropriate—
" for the purpose of assisting persons to select, train for, obtain and retain employment suitable for their ages and capacities and to obtain suitable employees (including partners and other business associates) ".
This duty relates to disabled as well as able-bodied persons, and so Sections 2-5 of the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944 are repealed. Its main functions will be:
" first, planning developing and operating the public employment services (except the careers services provided by local education authorities), second, promoting training for employment—both by running the Training Opportunities Scheme under which men and women may take courses of training and education related to employment at public expense, and also by co-ordinating the work of the industrial training boards, meeting their administrative expenses, and providing funds for selective grants to stimulate key training activities, and promoting training, where necessary, in areas not covered by training boards ".

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Responsibility for these functions will rest with the Commission, and the Secretary of State will not intervene in their day-to-day management. But the Secretary of State will continue to be responsible, and answerable to Parliament, for the strategic policy objectives of the Commission, and he will have the powers of approval and of direction necessary for that purpose. This is a new and potentially very interesting experiment in giving real responsibility to representatives of employers, workers and the interests most concerned with the effectiveness of the services, while retaining the ultimate accountability of Ministers to Parliament. Your Lordships will recognise that in the case of a body such as the Commission one has to strike the right balance between, on the one hand the Secretary of State's ultimate responsibility and accountability to Parliament for its activities, and on the other excessive interference in its day-to-day affairs. We believe that under the Bill as it is this balance can be achieved. The Secretary of State will be fully able to control the Commission. His powers—mainly under Clause 3 of the Bill—are very much wider than those in relation to a nationalised industry, and so the range of matters about which he can be questioned in relation to the use of his powers—or failure to make use of them—will also be wider. Moreover, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration will be able to investigate the Commission and Agencies, and the Secretary of State will be able to direct the Commission to comply with a Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration's report.
The intention is that the Commission itself will have only a small staff. Its executive arms will be the Employment Service Agency and the Training Services Agency. These two agencies at present exist within the Department of Employment, but will move out of the Civil Service and be taken over by the Commission. They will be responsible solely to the Commission and will carry out the functions the Commission assigns to them. They will have their own budget and a management structure designed to enable them to respond quickly to changing needs. The Commission will be responsible for putting forward the plans and budgets for the manpower services to the Secretary of State for Employment;
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seeing that the approved programmes are carried into effect; and co-ordinating the work of the two agencies. Clearly the Commission will have a close interest in obtaining the best possible manpower intelligence, and it will have full power to carry out or commission research into all matters falling within its responsibilities. And, of course, it will be able to obtain information from the Department of Employment and other Government Departments, and from employers either direct or through the industrial training boards, who will retain their power to get information, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State, from the industries with which each is concerned.
Next, may I turn to the changes the Bill makes in the industrial training board system. The Government have found widespread agreement that some changes in the Industrial Training Act 1964 were necessary. Experience has shown up weaknesses in the levy/grant system which were making it a less effective weapon for promoting training, and to some extent even counter-productive. I need not go into this in detail, since we debated it fully last year. Annex 1 of the consultative document Training for the Future, contains a "Review of the Industrial Training Board System" and discusses the difficulties that have arisen. In particular, it said that the levy/grant system had tended to concentrate attention on money rather than on training, and that common standards of training set by a board did not fit easily with the particular and often unique needs of individual firms.
As I have said, the changes proposed in Training for the Future have been modified in response to the anxieties expressed in that debate and during the consultative period that they might be going too far. The changes proposed in the Bill are made by way of amendment to the 1964 Act. That, I recognise, is a rather complex way of legislating, but it has some advantages, from the point of view of the training boards, over scrapping the 1964 Act and starting all over again. After all, the training boards and those whom they exist to serve are familiar with the 1964 Act and amending the Act makes clear what the changes are to be. The provision of Keeling Schedules, one for the Agriculture

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Board and the other for the rest of industry and commerce, helps to enhance the advantages while lessening any disadvantages.
The main changes are these: first, levy will be subject to a maximum of 1 per cent. of pay-roll. There is power to make a higher levy order subject to Affirmative Resolution, but the Secretary of State has made it clear that in normal circumstances he would not consider making such an order. Secondly, a training board's levy proposals must include provision for excluding small firms from the levy. This is in line with the recommendations of the Bolton Committee that small firms should be exempted from levy. The exemption level is likely to vary from board to board. It is being discussed with individual boards. Thirdly, the board must exempt from the levy any employer whose arrangements for training and further education it judges to be adequate, in accordance with criteria laid down by the board and approved by the Commission and the Secretary of State for Employment, criteria which may include release of workers for further education. So employers with adequate arrangements will be relieved from the complications of levy. There will be a right of appeal against refusal of exemption in the first place to the board or a committee of the board and finally to an independent body set up by the Secretary of State. Fourthly, the Commission will have power to make grants to boards. The Government have made it clear that they are prepared to make available up to £35 million a year for the purposes of paying the board's administrative expenses, providing grants to encourage key training activities, and the promotion of training in sectors of employment not covered by boards.
We believe that these changes will not weaken the boards' ability to promote training in their industries. They are necessary adaptations to make the system suitable for present conditions in industry. Indeed, they reflect the direction in which many boards have already been moving. The boards will retain the powerful weapon of levy exemption as a spur to firms to give adequate training. In addition, as a new element, public funds are to be made available for boards'
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administrative expenses and for selective grants for key training activities. There will, however, be provision for a levy without the possibility of exemption, but only if this is what employers in the industry, taken as a whole, want.
The exclusion of more small firms from levy does not mean that training in small firms will be neglected, nor does it mean—and I stress this—that there will be no support for group training schemes. The Government fully recognise the importance of group training schemes. It remains the Government's policy that they should be maintained and the development of new schemes encouraged. We must remember, however, that by next year the Manpower Services Commission will have responsibility for policy about group training. We regard it as of the greatest importance that the training boards should continue to play a major role. They will prepare their own plans and budgets and agree them with the Commission.
It will be their responsibility to identify the training needs and priorities of their industries and to develop ways of promoting adequate training. This is an exacting task, and we shall need first-rate people as chairmen and members of the boards just as much in the future as in the past. The new arrangements in no way down-grade the boards. On the contrary, the removal of features in the present arrangements which some have found unfair, onerous and objectionable, should enable the boards to improve their relationships with their respective industries and so to achieve still better results.
Let me turn now to the new arrangements in the Bill for the youth employment service. It has been clear for some time that changes are needed in the present framework—under which some local education authorities provide this service but others do not—and there are obvious advantages in bringing them in simultaneously with local government reorganisation.
What are the new arrangements in the Bill? First, under Clause 8 it will be mandatory on all local education authorities to provide a careers guidance and job-finding service for young people attending or leaving educational institutions. This duty will cover not only schools (as at present) but all educational

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institutions except universities, and in the case of universities the local education authority will have a duty to make its service available to students who wish to use it. I think this move to a mandatory duty for local education authorities to provide this service will be widely welcomed by the local authorities and by others concerned with youth employment.
Second, local education authorities will also have a power to provide the same service to young people who are no longer in full-time education—and there will be no age limit for this power. So a young person who wishes to use the local education authority service after he has left education and entered employment will be free to do so without any age barrier—in particular, if he loses his job or wishes to change it, even if, for example, he has remained in education up to the age of 21 or later. And the local education authority services on their side will be able to keep in touch with those whom they have helped.
The result of having no age limit is that any young person who, after entering employment, wants further help or advice, will have a choice between continuing to use the local education authority careers service and using the general employment service provided by the Commission through the Employment Service Agency. I am sure it is right to widen the area of choice for these young people. It is very important for young people, particularly those who have difficulty in settling into employment, to be able to obtain the guidance and the help which they need. By giving them this option we are increasing the likelihood of their seeking such guidance and help, and getting it in whichever way they themselves prefer. Nor do I think this will lead to any duplication. With good sense and co-operation between the local education authority service and the Employment Service Agency—which is obviously desirable in any case—I think the new arrangements will work very well.
Let me stress that there is nothing in the Bill which in any way impedes a young person in employment from going back to the local education authority service if he wishes to do so—whatever the age at which he completed his education. All the Bill does is to give those young
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people the option of going on using the local education authority service longer than they can do at present or of using the Employment Service Agency instead.
With the repeal of the 1948 Act, the National Youth Employment Council and the Central Youth Employment Executive will technically come to an end. However, the Secretary of State will have power under Clause 5 of the Bill to appoint advisory bodies as necessary, and he is considering what form of advisory body should replace the National Youth Employment Council. As a first step, he is already consulting the members of the present Council on this question. The Secretary of State will also be thinking very carefully about the successor body to the Central Youth Employment Executive which he will be establishing under Clause 10, but the role of the new body will be somewhat different from that of the present Executive, as education authorities will have greater freedom to develop their services in ways which they think fit.
The main provisions for local education authorities will come into operation at the same time as local government reorganisation takes effect—April 1, 1974, in England and Wales, and May 16, 1975, in Scotland, if the Bill now before Parliament goes through. Over a period, unemployment and supplementary benefit work for young persons will be transferred from those local education authorities who at present do it to the Department of Employment. The total cost to public funds of implementing the policies in the Bill is estimated to be about £155 million in a full year. Of this sum about £120 million would have been expended under existing legislation, taking into account developments which would have taken place. The balance is due mainly to the sum of up to £35 million which is to be made available to the Commission for paying the administrative expenses of training boards, supporting key training activities, and promoting training in areas not covered by boards.
How will the changes made by the Bill affect the ordinary user of the manpower services? Let me take training first. I am sure we should all agree that for an individual to be able to get the training he needs is one of the most important factors in improving his career prospects

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and his satisfaction in his work. Here, the industrial training boards will continue their work to promote training in their industries, supported by the additional public funds of up to £35 million a year which the Government are making available for the boards' purposes.
At the same time we are pressing on with the very substantial expansion of the Training Opportunities Scheme, which enables individual men and women to take full-time courses of training or retraining at public expense to prepare for new employment. In 1971, under the old Vocational Training Scheme, the number trained was less than 20,000. This year we aim to train 40,000 men and women, and by 1975 we expect to be training between 60,000 and 70,000 people a year. Moreover, about 90 per cent. of the trainees under the scheme are placed in employment in the trades for which they have been trained.
I have no doubt I shall be told that that is not nearly enough, especially when compared with the numbers trained at public expense in some other countries. Indeed it may well be that our national training needs will require a further large-scale expansion of the Training Opportunities Scheme. That is the kind of matter which the Manpower Services Commission will need to consider very carefully. But at least we can claim that we are moving in the right direction, and moving fast. We have not only more than doubled the numbers being trained under the scheme since 1970; we have also widened the range of courses available. Formerly, training under the scheme was mostly at craft level in Government Training Centres or residential training colleges for the disabled. Now, training is available also in employers' establishments and, in increasing volume, in colleges of further education. The courses range from semi-skilled through craft training to technician and management levels. Noble Lords may be interested to note that we are training more women under the scheme. Women may be trained on any course which is available under the scheme, but in practice it is found that many wish to train in clerical and secretarial skills. There are now about 5,000 women in training under the scheme compared with about 500 at the end of 1970. The Secretary of State will continue in
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operation the Advisory Committee on Women's Employment under his powers under Clause 5.
Similarly, the number of disabled people being trained under the scheme has increased. There are now about 2,200 of them; there were 1,700 at the end of 1970. More disabled people can get courses nearer their homes. Wherever possible, the disabled are trained alongside the able-bodied. For more severely disabled people, the residential training colleges do a fine job in providing training. I am sure that the Manpower Services Commission will maintain the close co-operation with these colleges which the Department of Employment has always had. The resttlement services, including industrial rehabilitation, will be run by the Employment Service Agency and the training courses by the Training Services Agency. In short, so far as training is concerned, the training boards will be continuing their pressure for improvements, and the Training Opportunities Scheme will provide increasing opportunity for individuals to obtain training or re-training, whether they are fit or disabled.
Next, how does the Bill affect the employment services? The main way is by setting up the Employment Service Agency as one of the executive arms of the Manpower Commission, with its own budget and a new management structure. I will deal with this briefly, as my noble friend Lord Gowrie will say more about this later on. We want the service to play a substantially bigger role in the labour market, so that it can give much more help both to people seeking jobs and to employers seeking to fill vacancies; and also so that it can discharge more effectively its social responsibilities to those who have difficulty in getting or keeping jobs. And, of course, efforts are continuing to improve the other specialist services, not least the service to disabled people which is being thoroughly reviewed in consultation with my right honourable friend's National Advisory Council on the Employment of the Disabled and the other bodies concerned in this important field.
The Commission will be responsible for operating the specialised employment services provided for disabled people, and for training disabled people within

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a policy framework agreed with the Secretary of State, but statutory responsibility for the quota scheme and for securing sheltered employment will remain with the Secretary of State. He will, however, use the Commission as his agent where appropriate, for example, in maintaining the register of disabled people. The Secretary of State will continue to be advised by the National Advisory Council on the Employment of the Disabled on all matters concerning the employment of disabled people.
Finally, the Manpower Services Commission itself. What difference will this innovation make, from the point of view of the ordinary user of the employment and training services? The Commission will involve, as I said, representatives of those most interested in the effectiveness of the manpower services—employers, workers and others—in direct responsibility for those services. It will be formed about the beginning of next year, and the Training Service Agency will be transferred to it later in the year and the Employment Services Agency not before that. The new arrangements for industrial training boards will come into operation on April 1, 1975, in accordance with the announcement which my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has recently made. It will be responsible for the twin subjects of employment and training, and will be able to take an overall view of our national manpower needs and of the programmes required to meet them. It will be able to carry forward the modernisation of the employment and training services, and the introduction of management structures fully suited to the work which has to be done. My Lords, on all these counts I believe that the Commission has a major contribution to make. Its setting up will mark an important step forward in the improvement of the manpower services, which on both social and economic grounds is essential to the well-being of the community. I hope that these arrangements will commend themselves to your Lordships, and I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(Lord Drumalbyn.)
6.11 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND: My Lords, it often falls to my lot to offer the thanks of your
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Lordships' House to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, for a clear and helpful explanation of legislation which he has the responsibility of introducing. It is a task which I carry out with the greatest ease because I find that courtesy and sincerity walk happily hand in hand, and on this occasion once again I am able to repeat the thanks of the House. The noble Lord has, if I may say so, made the structure of a long Bill extremely clear and your Lordships will, I am sure, permit me to say that we are very grateful to him for having done so.
Having now, I hope, put him in a very good frame of mind may I go on to say that there is one further comment which I must make at this point? That is, that we are engaged now, in a week when the other place is not even sitting, on the Second Reading of a Bill which came before your Lordships' House two days ago—a big Bill, an important Bill, affecting every worker in the country, as the noble Lord has made clear. I am not complaining, but I think it my duty to draw attention to it. I am quite sure that it is a matter which must have been discussed through the usual channels and agreement reached—I am not accusing the Government of any lack of courtesy in that respect. I think it right, however, to draw attention to the fact that this is one of the ways in which your Lordships' House is compelled to function at this time of the year.
I now go on to say that with regard to the substance of the Bill we on these Benches give it our general support. We do so not only because, if I may say so, the major idea in this must claim Labour parentage. It was as a result of work started when we were in office, and I am very grateful to the Government for having adopted this brain child when we were unexpectedly but thoroughly democratically denied the right of giving it further support and maintenance. It is indeed a most important Bill, dealing with what I must regard as one of the most vital aspects of our everyday lives. Its importance stems from two fundamental reasons; first, a job, which is a method of enabling a man—and I am sure a woman—to achieve satisfaction and the fullest expression of his or her potentiality, and indeed personality. One only has to think of the fact that most of us spend most of our waking hours at

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our respective jobs to see what an important part in our lives they play. I, for one, would claim that a fundamental right of every man and woman is a right to a job. So it is of enormous importance that a man (and whenever I refer to a man I of course refer to a woman as well) should be trained to develop the innate capacity which is within him and should be guided so as to find a place where that developed capacity can be fully exercised.
But, my Lords, I have long since come to the conclusion that although it was the truth to say that every man is entitled to a job, it is not the whole truth. If one thinks of the fundamental right of a consumer, of an individual to purchase, to buy, to consume what he or she wishes to, and if one thinks of the changing fashions, needs and the pace of technological change, one is driven to the conclusion that there must be for many of us, if not for most of us, the need to learn new skills during the course of a working life. Otherwise, we shall be condemning ourselves to a situation in which for example, a man claims to be entitled to the same job for the whole of his life and therefore the manufacturer to manufacture ladies hatpins for at least a lifetime—and that makes it immediately clear how ridiculous it is to carry to its idealistic conclusion the statement that every man is entitled to one job. He is not; he is entitled to a job. but not the same job, for the whole of his life. Therefore the training and re-training and the understanding of his not superficial capacity but his inner skills is of vital importance.
The most important provision, that of advising him, is of vital importance, enabling him to continue to enjoy making his contribution to society. So for these two fundamentally important reasons this is, in my view, a most important Bill and we wish it well. But while one is engaged on such an important task one must examine all the provisions of the Bill to see whether it achieves in the best possible way the things which would be indicated by the background to which I have referred. Going through all the provisions one finds what I might call certain inadequacies, and I am going, if I may, to list for your Lordships, at not undue length, the kind of inadequacies
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which I have in mind and which we shall seek to improve, or to remove, by Amendments at a later stage of the Bill.
First, the most important body, the Manpower Commission, has all the responsibilities to which the noble Lord referred, but it has one, I think, glaring deficiency: it is not sufficiently and specifically charged with the responsibility for forward planning and forecasting. The task before it has been referred to elsewhere—a very well defined reference—as a means of achieving the right skills in the right place at the right time. I accept that completely. In order to do that it will undoubtedly have to attempt the most difficult task, a task as difficult as planning our economy; the task of planning and ascertaining and identifying manpower needs—which of course includes womanpower—very well ahead. One only has to think, for example, of the time that it takes to produce a qualified doctor. Building the necessary establishments, training and so on, takes something like 12 or 13 years all told, and that is the time you have to make your decisions in order to be able to produce the right number at the right time. That is an extreme example, but it gives some indication of the forward thinking, estimating, and forecasting that has to take place in order to enable manpower to be used in the best possible way.
The answer that this is all too difficult is not an answer that I would accept, for the simple reason that these decisions are being made at all levels all the time; and without the information they are being made incorrectly or, at all events, not as well as they might otherwise be made. Careers advisers, schoolmasters, potential employers, parents, potential employees, school leavers, university leavers are all making these estimates all the time. They are not going to the universities to take scientific courses or engineering courses because they reckon that the opportunities for exercising their skills, once they have their degrees, will no longer be there. They have no idea whether they will be there in five years', eight years', or ten years' time. It is not their fault if they are coming to the wrong conclusion. I am not saying that they are; all I am saying is that these decisions are being made at all levels all the time. They have to be. Granted there

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will be mistakes; granted there will be criticism; granted there will be people who will point the finger of scorn. But that matters not; the duty of a Government is to try to assist in the achievement of the right job for the right person at the right time. It is a very difficult task, but one which we are becoming more and more ready to accept. I would say that there is a major deficiency in the responsibilities clearly put upon the Manpower Services Commission under the Bill, and one which one needs to remedy.
May I introduce one further argument, and it is this. The Government are clearly moving at the present time, and so is public opinion, towards some form of incomes policy: that is to say, towards acceptance of the fact that it is proper for a Government to interfere with market forces which, if left alone, would determine in their own rough, cruel, but very effective way where jobs were available, where men must go to find work, and where men must go to find better remunerated work. It is right that that interference should take place, because a much more civilised way can usurp or take the place of this very uncivilised struggle of the market forces. But the corollary of that is that the Government must accept that if we are moving away from the philosophy of guidance by the market forces, we must move to the philosophy of guidance by planning and forecasting, and it is a difficult movement to make. The noble Lord said that the Government were moving in the right direction and moving fast. Certainly they are moving in the right direction, and certainly, when one looks back over two years, they have moved very fast. All I am saying is that the logical extension of the Government's own argument is that the Manpower Services Commission should be charged with greater responsibility than has been clearly laid upon it under the Bill. I am now referring to the inadequacies that I mentioned.
Secondly, I do not think that sufficient importance is attached to training. Let me say why, because the noble Lord has made it quite clear that the Government attach considerable importance to training. There are several things in the Bill which detract from that attitude and from its being made sufficiently clear to all concerned. First, there is a ceiling of 1 per cent. imposed on the amount of
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the levy. That is wrong in amount and, more important, it is wrong in principle. It is wrong in amount because already in the engineering industry, for example —one of the most important—the figure is above that, and in these days one does not want to require engineering firms in this country, which lives very largely on its engineering exports, to reduce their training. There may be many more examples. It is wrong in principle because it invites industry to reach the conclusion that training is all right provided not too much is spent on it—" It is all right if you do not go above 1 per cent. in any circumstances unless, of course, you want the business of sending a petition to the Secretary of State, and he has the power to say: 'There is something very special here; we will go above the 1 per cent.' ".I think that reading the Bill, and reading the 1 per cent., justifies me in saying that this is a mistake and tends against sufficient importance being attached to training.
Then again there is the exemption of small firms. That again is wrong in principle. It does not say in the Bill that small firms should be encouraged to train because it is very important and there are a large number of small firms in the country. It does not say in the Bill that small firms, if they find it completely impossible for a variety of good reasons to set up training schemes themselves, should join with others and set up group training schemes. What it does say is that every hoard shall have the power to agree a figure—presumably a figure of numbers employed—below which all employers shall be excluded on the grounds that they are, under that definition, a small firm. It shows a desire to exclude firms from the responsibility of training. The Bill should show the desire of the Government to include all firms so far as practicable.
It certainly may be the case that there will be some firms in some industries which are so small that it is quite impracticable to attempt to collect a levy or attempt to impose any training requirements upon them. If it were expressed in that form one would get a totally different impression. Expressed in the form in which it is expressed at the moment it again adds to what I previously said about the 1 per cent. ceiling on expenditure. It again adds

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to that to give the belief that the Government are not sufficiently interested in encouraging training. They know from their inquiries—I think that it was the Secretary of State himself who said this—that there is a proven need to use the stick as well as the carrot in maintaining—not even in encouraging or increasing—the present interest in training in industry. Again, one has only to refer to the recent cuts in public expenditure—and I myself would be the last person to claim to be totally unused to or unaware of the possibility of Governments cutting expenditure—to realise that it is a mistake for training in industry to rely too much on the Government purse strings and too little on industrial resources. Therefore, the switch that has taken place is an unwise one. It would be far better to rely more on the resources within industry. So much then for training.
There are three more matters to which I must draw attention, and the first is the Youth Emplyoment Service. The noble Lord has made it clear that the Government pay great attention to the training of youth, and to the need for this to be done. What I am suggesting is that they have not gone far enough. They are moving fast, as the noble Lord claimed, but they have not yet progressed sufficiently far. There are many who are excluded from the services to which the noble Lord referred, and there are many who can take one or other who ought, in my view, to take only one. Let me say why. At this stage of a youth's entry into life's work, all the pressures will be on the short-term monetary gain and against the long-term advantage which accrues from training and from taking jobs which do not mature to their full repsonsibility and full remuneration for some time. The young man will find himself at a coffee bar, or wherever it is, thinking of apprenticeship or of something with a small remuneration, with a long period before he can stand his round. He will be mixing with those who have taken a job navvying, labouring in the local building firm, or whatever it is, and drawing very substantial rewards for work—
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: Hear, hear!
LORD DIAMOND: My noble friend agrees with me—which requires great muscle, with which a young man of 17 or 18 is fully endowed, but which is not work requiring organising ability and skill, with which he is totally unendowed. Your Lordships are very familiar with this pressure. In all walks of life, there is the pressure of the visible advantage against the long-term less visible advantage. Therefore, at this stage, the young man or woman is not a fit person to make that choice. It may sound a little undemocratic and a little heavy-fathered on my part to make that statement, but I believe it to be true that it is far better that this alternative should be withdrawn and that young persons should continue to be sent exclusively to the Youth Employment Service, where careers guidance and long-term benefit to the individual ranks higher than immediate placement and filling a gap about which some local employer is hammering at the door of the general employment service.
So I think, first, that there ought to be more concentration on the need for guidance as opposed to placement; secondly, that the alternative ought to be withdrawn in some of the cases where it is already provided; and, thirdly, that the present scope is too narrow. Full-time education is one of the definitions, and the Bill, or perhaps the White Paper—I do not think the House will criticise me for not having been able to read everything relating to the Bill in the course of the two days which have elapsed, so I feel brave enough to carry on—states that if you are only attending part-time education after five o'clock, then you are excluded from the benefits of the Youth Employment Service. I can see the argument for that, but I cannot see it fully on the part of a Government who want to go to the extent of using every facility they can to encourage those who are capable of being encouraged into long-term training, as opposed to immediate short-term dead-end jobs. I should have thought that a young person who had found, for some perfectly good domestic financial reason, that he could get vocational guidance only by means of night school on three nights a week, was a person to be picked on, encouraged and looked after, rather than excluded from the benefits of a scheme of the kind

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which is provided for school-leavers and for those coming from university. So in scope, again, I do not think that sufficient importance has been attached to the Youth Employment Service.
My other two points relate to women and the disabled. So far as women are concerned, if I may permit myself an Irishism, I think it right to say that women are the most important source of skilled manpower remaining and one wants to make the greatest use of them. The noble Lord was good enough to give us some of the figures. He wisely selected the comparison of 50 to 5,000 over a short period, which leaves one with a very comfortable feeling that everything is fine, until one looks at 5,000 in relation to the total womanhood in the country and the total needs in the country, and until one thinks of the skilled women in industry. You can almost count them on the fingers of one hand in most large firms. There is no earthly reason why women—particularly as one is now accepting that they have an equal opportunity for every job with men—should not similarly have equal opportunity for training. I think this is something which cannot be left silent in the Bill. I am not saying that the Government are against this; I am saying that, so far as I can see, there is nothing in the Bill which says, "We realise that we are miles behind in the training of women for adequate skills and they could be used much more effectively. Therefore, one of the responsibilities of the Commission should be to have regard, in particular, to womanpower", or something like that.
Similarly, with regard to the disabled —and this is my last point—we are all very familiar with the quota difficulties; the problems of seeing that they are filled. Every Government is familiar with these problems, and it is because every Government is familiar with these problems that one is bound to conclude that they are very difficult indeed; that it really is very difficult for all willing large employers to maintain their quotas to the full. Therefore, I say that there is not sufficient sanction and not sufficient provision in this Bill to help in this difficult but necessary task. These are the areas in which, as I have already indicated, we shall seek to improve the Bill as we get to the appropriate stages. So far as the
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administration of the Bill is concerned, I am not sure that the Government have got absolutely right the position with regard to the status of ex-civil servants, or indeed the status of those who are at present employees of the boards, and one may want to look a little more carefully at this point. But as to the general principles, I want to say again that our intention on this side is to help make this Bill one of the best possible instruments for training everyone who is willing to be trained to the maximum of his or her potentialities, and a Bill for increasing the sum of human happiness through the opportunities provided for every man and woman to engage in satisfying employment. That is the task to which we shall turn our hand and shall co-operate fully with the Government in doing so.
6.38 p.m.
BARONESS SEEAR: My Lords, as one of the critics of the proposals put forward last year, I should like to join with the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, in congratulating the Government on their successful use, in many respects, of the consultancy process. Nobody can deny that, as a result of consultation, the Bill now before your Lordships' House is substantially different from the proposals which came forward last year, and that is surely all to the good. Some of the changes are beyond doubt an improvement. I would particularly draw attention, first, as the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, has done, to the establishment of the Manpower Commission for which many of us pressed very hard 12 months ago; and, secondly, to the fact that a great deal of relief, which I share, is felt up and down the country at the continuation of the industrial training boards, and their continued right to exercise the power of levy and grant. But I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, that it is a pity the figure of 1 per cent. has been set as an upper limit, because that is bound to encourage industry to believe that when they have reached that figure they have done all that can reasonably be expected of them.
My Lords, having said that, it is perhaps somewhat cavalier of me to say that I am afraid I am still not at all satisfied—nothing like as satisfied, I find, as is the noble Lord, Lord Diamond. He said—and I should like

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to say it with even greater emphasis—that it appears there is nowhere near a sufficient sense of urgency about this matter or about the importance of this Bill. Judging if only from the attendance in your Lordships' House tonight, it does not seem to be widely regarded as a matter of very great significance. But in my view this matter of training is absolutely at the heart of our economic problem. Here we are facing a boom, and we say "facing a boom" as if this was something to be feared. It is only to be feared because, once again, we are finding that as we move into boom situation, and as the unemployment figures fall, the shortage of skilled labour is emerging once again.
If I may be forgiven for saying "I told you so", in the debates last year a number of us were pressing the point that during the time of unemployment is the time to launch large schemes for training. because once full employment gets under way there is naturally great reluctance to engage in training when jobs round the corner are very easy to come by for trained or untrained people. So to a large extent we have already begun to miss the bus because the Government are not yet moving fast enough. Nor, in my view, is the scale of the operation anything like large enough. It is perhaps not entirely fair to make the point that one of the first things which has happened as a result of the cuts in Government expenditure is that there has been a reduction for the current year in the £35 million to be put forward for training. I know that additional funds are being made available for the new opportunity scheme training, but the money to go in supplementation of the training board work has, I understand, been reduced. That does not seem a very good start for a progressive scheme of large-scale training; nor, in my view, are the numbers sufficient.
Perhaps I might just briefly turn from the general criticism of the lack of sense of urgency to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Diamond—and, to my relief, he made it at some length, so I do not have to say very much about it —namely, the attitude towards the training of women, reflected not only in this document but also in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn. I would
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make the point that it really is not good enough to say that these 5,000-odd women apparently prefer clerical training and training in the traditional feminine skills. It is surely one of the tasks of the new Manpower Commission and of the new Training Service Agency to take positive measures to see that there are changes in the attitudes of women and the people who advise them towards the work for which they are trained. Of course they go on in the traditional way when it is not made plain to them that in future their opportunities and the country's needs, indeed, lie in a completely different area. However, I do not to-night, for a change, wish to say anything more about women. But, unless we are able to have a large-scale development of training and a changed attitude towards training, then I believe we are missing the best opportunity we have for combining growth with low unemployment, with high employment, and without inflation; because what we need is to make the best possible use of the manpower we have if we are to achieve these difficult objectives—and this is not done by people going on in their traditional employment. Yet, of course, this, naturally, is what people want to do. Unless very positive steps are taken to make people see training and retraining as an opportunity rather than as a last resort, then they will go on in the jobs in which they now are and will continue to believe that they have an absolute right so to do.
I should like to echo very strongly what the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, has said; that a man has a right to do a job but not the one particular job for the whole of his life; and if we can get that point across, my Lords, then this debate will have been well worth while. But the forces in the country are against this. May I quote what a trade unionist at the headquarters of the Swedish trade union organisation said to me when I was discussing this with him last year? We were talking about the expense of their very extensive and expensive training and retraining programme. He said, "Yes, it does cost a lot of money, but this is the price we have paid to win our members' support for technical change". I suggest that if a union is successful in winning its members' support for technical change, there is no price too high to pay for that; and I do not see in

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these proposals the scale of activity or the level of aspiration that we all have in approaching this whole question of training and retraining.
This, then, is a major task. To what extent are the new institutions, the new organisations put before us in this Bill, appropriate for the task that we are facing? In my view, what we need above all else is an organisation which is flexible and which is highly expert—and may we look at the proposals here having in mind those two criteria? In the first place, it seems to me that there are some odd things in the organisational structure put before us for the Commission, the Department of Employment and the training agencies, and the relationship between these three groups, which is very important if we are going to get the proper kind of organisational structures which we need to do this job. We are told that the Manpower Commission is to be responsible, as it were, for policy. In the Explanatory Memorandum it says:
" The Commission will thus be responsible for plannng, developing and operating employment and training services ",
et cetera. Then, two or three lines later, it says:
" The Commission will exercise its functions in accordance with proposals approved by the Secretary of State and subject to any directions he gives".
The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, will no doubt say that he said in his speech that the Secretary of State could not interfere with the day-to-day working of the Commission, but the Explanatory Memorandum goes on to say:
" The Secretary of State will be able to arrange that any of the Commission's main functions should be carried out by himself or by someone else ".
As an active organisation, to have a responsible board, the Commission, and to be told that any of their functions may be carried out by the Secretary of State or by somebody else, seems to be a rather odd way of determining the allocation of responsibility and authority. I suspect that running all through what has been put before us in this Bill is a compromise between the wishes that many of us had for a semi-autonomous body with a very great deal of freedom of action and the desire of the Department of Employment to maintain a considerable amount of control over what is
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happening in this field, and that such a compromise—I see the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, shake his head. I hope he will be able to prove to me that I am wrong, but I detected such a development throughout my reading of the Bill.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, if the noble Baroness will allow me to interrupt her for a moment, would she not agree that this is a difficult question of balance? Because I am quite certain that if we had made the Commission too independent there would have been an outcry about the lack of Parliamentary accountability.
BARONESS SEEAR: My Lords, I am sure that I accept that this is, as is the case with all organisational structures, a difficult matter of balance, and perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, will be able to satisfy us about what is meant by:
"The Secretary of State will be able to arrange that any of the Commission's main functions should be carried out by himself or by someone else".
But as a description of an organisation it seems to me, to put it mildly, to be a bit odd.
Turning now from the organisation, the structure of the proposed new Commission, and its relations with the Department of Employment, to look in more detail at this question of flexibility, how much fredom of decision is it going to be possible to have made at local level? To what extent are the appointments within the training fields, for example, to be subject to Civil Service controls and regulations? May I give your Lordships a concrete illustration? There is no more important post in the whole of the training set-up than the post of instructor. It is a lowly post in many ways, but it is a key post. In the days before the 1964 Industrial Training Act it was discovered by investigation that one of the weakest points in training in this country was the calibre of instructors. There is no use in saying that you have to get instructors at a given price, if instructors are not to be had at that price—even if the Civil Service regulations say that this is the price at which you are to have instructors. Not five miles from where we sit there is in one of the new manpower job centres an advertisement for a bricklayer instructor at a price offered (at the maximum rate permitted, as I understand it) of £2,300

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per annum, which is about £45 a week. The more elderly of us may say that that does not sound a bad figure; but if you step about six paces down the road you will find an advertisement for a bricklayer who is offered £51 for a 40-hour week. As your Lordships will know, no bricklayer in present times works a 40-hour week and he will easily knock up £70; so the bricklayer who takes on the job of instructor against a possible earning rate of £70 a week will be a "deadbeat"—and "deadbeats" do not make good instructors. Unless we have a flexible response to local conditions and realities, regardless of Civil Service controls, we shall have all the troubles that we have had in the past through the limitations imposed on Government training centres.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, regarding the pay of bricklayers, the noble Baroness will realise that, to a great exent, they are temporarily employed and are not employed for the whole year round because of the weather and so on. I do not think it is a fair comparison with the conditions of a yearly salary earning instructor.
BARONESS SEEAR: My Lords, it is true that the bricklayer may not make £70 a week the whole year through, but if you try to recruit bricklayer instructors at a moment when they are likely to be able to earn £70 a week, I doubt whether you will get the kind of instructor you require. The point I am making is not so much about this but about the need to have flexibility in regard to the job which is required to be done. You cannot do it if you operate under Civil Service conditions. This is why we want a semi-autonomous body with a great deal of freedom of action. So much for flexibility and the need to make decisions autonomously at a low level rather than to satisfy the requirements of the Secretary of State, the Civil Service Commission and so on.
As regards expertise, I have doubts whether it is fully understood how much expert knowledge about training there is now among the training professionals inside industry. I had hoped that the training agency would be staffed in its more senior ranks largely by people who
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are training professionals; because, unless you are going to allow this to happen, what right have such people who are not themselves experts to sit in judgment on proposals put forward by people who are? That is what is being proposed in this Bill. I know that certain key posts are being filled at the higher level for people coming from industry with industrial and managerial training experience; but it says in the Bill that the Commission must appoint the people that they are told to appoint by the Secretary of State, that they are to be taken on and that the majority of the 20,000 staff of the Agency will be filled from the Civil Service.
It is at the heart of my argument, quite frankly and with the greatest respect to the Civil Service, that they have not got the expertise and knowledge of the people in industry over whom they will sit in judgment. They have not themselves undertaken this work and the majority have not had the kind of training that is now increasingly common. We are emptying the staff of the Department of Employment into the Training Agency with a great loss of expertise. And it is expertise that we need if the agency is to run properly. I sum up by pointing out the lack of flexibility and ability to pay what is required to fill the jobs which are needed to be done and the fact that the people who are to be in control in the Agency, as they are going to sanction the grants and make decisions as to what is in the training, are going to be the people who are in a position to judge the work of those in industry, many of whom know a great deal more about it than the people who will be going into the Agency from the Department of Employment.
The final point is this. It is unreasonable of me to be critical of the composition of the Commission itself, but it is in line with what I have been saying that I should have doubts whether this was the occasion on which to set up a Commission which is representative of interests. This is a specialist and expert job, and the Board should be composed of specialist and expert people subject to the ultimate control of the Minister. I do not believe that we shall get specialist and expert people to run it on a representative basis when all except the chairman are to be part-time people. I

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do not see where the professional expertise is coming from in the Commission as at present set up. It is said that it is representative of interests concerned. It is representative of the C.B.I., the T.U.C. and the local authorities, with one person representing educational interests; but nowhere do the professional training people figure in this. They are surely interested people. Nowhere does the general community interest figure on the Commission; yet the community's great need is to have training done far more constructively than in the past; and this should have been reflected in the manning of the Commission. People who are representative on this Commission are representative of the very interests who throughout all these years have been responsible for training and who have so woefully failed to meet the training needs of the community.
6.59 p.m.
LORD SAINSBURY: My Lords, owing to the lateness of the hour and the thinness of the House but, above all, to the more than adequate way my noble friend Lord Diamond and the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, have covered very many aspects of this Bill, I am sure that your Lordships will be happy to hear that I have cut by at least half what I was going to say. I will restrict myself to the main object of my intervention which is to highlight one aspect of training which in my opinion the Bill fails to cover. It is the problem of providing adequate training facilities for overseas students, and especially those from developing countries.
My interest in this stems partly from the fact that I am Chairman of the Trustees of the Overseas Students Advisory Bureau, a charitable trust concerned with finding training opportunities for such students in industry and commerce. Your Lordships may recall that I raised this question last May when we were discussing the Government's consultative paper, Training for the Future. I also asked the Minister for an assurance that the interests of overseas students would be taken into account before any changes were made to the organisation of industrial training in this country. In his winding-up speech the Minister gave me such an assurance, and therefore it was with a sense of anticipation that I
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looked forward to the Employment and Training Bill. However, my Lords, on looking through it I can find no reference to this question at all.
Section 14 of the Industrial Training Act 1964, which enables the training boards to make arrangements for such training, has not been strengthened. I think that here an opportunity for improvement has been lost. I understand that on the Committee stage the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, who is unable to be present this evening, will be tabling an appropriate Amendment which I am sure that we shall be able to support. As it stands, the Bill does not seem to provide either the incentive, or effective machinery, to create more training places for overseas students. As a result of a grant from the Overseas Development Administration, the Overseas Students' Advisory Bureau has been able to step up its efforts in identifying and making better use of the existing training opportunities; and I think that one also should pay tribute to some other organisations which are working hard in this field. However, making better use of existing opportunities can provide only a partial answer. Unless action is taken to create more training places it will not be possible to train more than a fraction of the students who come to the United Kingdom to study and for whom practical training is an integral part of their course.
My Lords, the justifications for providing training to overseas students are too numerous to mention. However it is, I think, important to stress that upon their return home these students will use their skills acquired in Britain to further their country's economic development. Training therefore is one of the most effective and cheapest forms of aid. It has also been shown that training is a powerful long-term form of export promotion, a fact that has been fully recognised by many of our competitors, especially West Germany. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, is fully conscious of these facts, and I should be grateful if the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, who is to reply on behalf of the Government, can give the House some indication of the Government's policy in this respect.
7.5 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, may I first set the record right by

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telling your Lordships that my name was on the list of speakers but I think that the printing machine went into action a good deal earlier than it usually does. I want to make only four points. Of course, noble Lords will expect me to give a good welcome to this Bill. Like others who in the past have participated in debates on training and retraining, I share the reservations of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, and the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, regarding the 1 per cent. static levy fee, or near-static levy fee, as I share also their disquiet at the exemption of small businesses. Your Lordships will know that basically I have my being in an engineering background and engineering workshops are made up of very small, highly technical, bodies of people. It is no secret that in the past there has been a good deal of skilled man "body-snatching". In fact, since there has been a reduction in levy and a cooling-off in the apparent need for retraining, the interest has waned very considerably. I should have liked to have seen included in the Bill measures to bring home more positively the need for training and retraining—in other words, the "stick" element that we have discussed.
In particular, my Lords, I should like to suggest that there should be no need to exempt the universities from the educational institutions; that is, exempting them from vocational guide and placing service. Certainly the universities provide an adequate service already, but it occurs to me that the value to the careers officer service would be greatly enhanced if the officer had full knowledge of why people went to university and what kind of position they were anticipating on completion of their education there. It has been described to me by one education officer that so often university is planned procrastination—" because we do not know what else we are going to do and we shall see what comes out of it". It has been suggested that many graduates suddenly find that there is nothing for them, and it would seem to me far better if their interests could be served by the same kind of people who are going to serve those who finish their education a little earlier.
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I take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, on the two offices, the Commission—the job centre—and the vocation guidance and placing service. I agree almost entirely with what the noble Lord had to say. I would add that there are other very good reasons why a young person should not be given the option, after the first placing, of going to a different body. I am going to suggest that a young person has tremendous problems in getting suited into a kind of job. There are traumatic problems, there are emotional problems, there are all sorts and manner of things. I can see that, after the first placing. he is likely, as it were, to turn to himself and say. "That careers officer was not much good. Look what he landed me in. I think I will go to the other people". So he goes to the other people and tells them a slightly different story. The other people have no background knowledge of what has happened at school and later on. They place him, and more trouble happens. Again, I understand in the Vocational Placing Service many young men and women already come back two or three times, if not more. They have problems, not always of their own making. Surely it would be far better if one person, one careers officer, could see them through from the commencement of their careers until they were reasonably placed. So I do not like this option; I think it will lead to trouble. There will be two similar bodies competing for the same customers —almost "body snatching"—and this cannot be good for the people they seek to serve.
I cannot see in the Bill the kind of emphasis I should have expected on the supply of the careers officer. In 1948, when the education authorities had the option of conducting their own service, only about 80 per cent. did so, and only about 40 per cent. of these have provided —largely because of finance—an adequate service. They pay lip service to the option they took up but very many young persons, and indeed older ones, are not adequately served because of the amount of money available. I understand from my reading of the Bill that the financing of this new extension is to come from the same sources as the rate support. I cannot see that we shall be able to find enough money, or at least the amount of money we are hoping to be provided, under this Bill.

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The last point I should like to make concerns the Services. I returned from a visit to the Services on Tuesday night, having been with one of Her Majesty's ships for two days. I came away with a number of impressions, one of which (and a very strong one) was of the fear of those members of Her Majesty's Services who have entered upon a voluntary engagement of 21 years, that they are in isolation and will not be able to find a job when they finish their Service career at the age of 38 or 40. "Who wants a matelot?" I heard; "Who wants a C.P.O., unless you are a computer man?; or "Who wants a navigation officer?" In other words, all ranks had a great fear that after living on board ship or on an overseas station for some time they would not know what is happening outside or what will be available to them. I should like to suggest that the Manpower Commission make special provision for looking after the interests of those who live in this kind of isolation.
I hope that during the ensuing stages we shall be able to make the Bill stronger. Those people who are involved in education and training would like to subscribe to something which is really effective, even if the subscription rate is slightly higher than their ordinary rates and taxes.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, I apologise for intervening in this debate. but I shall be only about two minutes. I came here because I am specifically interested in the sections relating to industrial injuries. I know something of what rehabilitation meant to the mining industry. I will not delay the House to-night, but I should like to ask the noble Earl, when he replies, to bend his mind towards the repeal of certain sections of the Industrial Injuries Act. For all those engaged in heavy and skilled work in the mining and engineering industries and also for those who are quarrying and tunnelling and fighting to win raw materials from inside the earth, it is important that there should be a system of rehabilitation of which advantage can really be taken. Lastly, I have a caveat as well as a question. With all this talk of skilled women, I would urge noble Lords for Heaven's sake not to forget one of the most skilled women of all—the British housewife. The first? class housewife who can cook, look after
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her family and see that her home is comfortable is as skilled a wench as anybody else; and I hope that this point will be appreciated.
7.16 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, although I do not speak "by leave of the House" in the formal and more usual sense, I feel I must seek your Lordships' leave in general terms, because it is not very often that we have a second Government speaker in a relatively short debate. I do speak, and am very glad to do so, because I have had some little experience recently of the services which will become the immediate responsibility of the new Manpower Services Commission if this Bill becomes law. I recently visited one of the new jobcentres—or "job shops" as they are coming to be known—and last Tuesday had the honour to open an annexe to a Government Training Centre in Kent. I hope that Members of your Lordships' House on all sides will take time, if they have not already done so, to see for themselves the immense change in atmosphere that has taken place and the new hopefulness which has been brought about by the physical and emotional environment of these centres. More and more in the future employment work will be carried out in jobcentres and modern training centres which are better suited, better sited and better equipped than the old labour exchanges. I hope especially that the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, will, if she has not already done so, take an opportunity to visit some of these establishments. If she wishes, I shall be very glad to give her names and locations.
Of course, there is a long way to go, but we are well on the way, and I do not agree with the noble Baroness—I am nearer to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, in this respect—that we have altogether "missed the bus". As the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, told us—and I must say that if the list of speakers has been short it has been an experienced and distinguished one—the need to improve training, re-training and job opportunities in our country is as vital as, in principle, it is non-controversial. On the subject of re-training, the noble Lord will know that any Government Minister whose job is at the mercy of the electorate will have a special interest in this field of activity. These matters concern the present and

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the future of our national economy and of the social life and responsibilities of the working place—the place in which a very great number of people spend a very great part of their lives. I am delighted that my words here will echo those of the noble Lord. Those of us who are fortunate enough to enjoy our jobs I think have a special responsibility to help to improve attitudes towards work and the working place. I believe that this Bill, which I shall shortly ask the House to support, consolidates improvements which have been made under Governments on both sides of the House in recent years. It bids fair, in fact, to extend them.
Before I ask your Lordships for your support, I should like to thank all those who have contributed positively and to try to give the Government's views on the detailed points which they raised, or at least on as many of the detailed points as I can manage. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, came up from the rear (so to speak) and I will look at his point about industrial injuries. As to the point about housewives, my noble friend Lord Ferrers gave some vigorous "Hear, hears!" on that. I think that speaks for itself.
The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, talked of his concern about the Commission's powers to obtain information and deploy it. He pointed out, and I agree, that they are in a crucial and commanding position—or they will be if the Bill becomes law—in the economy. I believe that if the noble Lord reads the very clear speech of my noble friend to-morrow he will find that this point is dealt with. If I may put it briefly in slightly different words, it could run as follows. Through the Employment Service Agency and the Training Services Agency, particularly the former, the Commission will have a nationwide network of offices which can gather manpower intelligence and information, and, indeed, this will be one of their most important functions. The Commission will also have power under Clause 4 to collect information for employers about manpower matters under the Statistics of Trade Act, subject to the Secretary of State's approval of their proposals. Equally, the Secretary of State has power to disclose such information to the Commission and Agencies.
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Further, the Commission will be able to obtain information through Industrial Training Boards. It will have power to obtain the manpower intelligence which will be so vital to its work and conduct or commission research and studies of manpower forecasting and manpower planning. Perhaps it is to be hoped that in future the Commission will use the services of the noble Baroness in this respect.
The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, said it would not be sufficiently charged with forward planning. Obviously, the Secretary of State must retain the ultimate responsibility there but the Commission has the powers to obtain information for forward planning and relay it to the Secretary of State. I do not think this is a shortage of responsibility. The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, raised the question of the levy rate—
LORD DIAMOND: My Lords, I interrupt the noble Earl as he is apparently moving on to the next point. He dealt with something which is very important. I listened, as I always find it easy to do, to what his noble friend Lord Drumalbyn said. I also read carefully what has been said in another place. Am I not right in thinking that the all-important manpower unit is going to remain within the Department and that the powers given to the Manpower Services Commission are powers to call for and commission research? If we are to have two bodies commissioning all-important research, are we not going to get into the difficulty to which the noble Baroness referred? Is there not going to be a hopeless muddle with either one side leaving it to the other, or, more probably, the vital information not being obtained at all and falling between two stools?
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, the noble Lord in his speech pointed out what a colossal arena of national life training and employment placing occupies. The Manpower Services Commission will be a very important and powerful body. It would be quite wrong for power not to remain under the direct supervision of the Secretary of State. Also the size of the Commission is envisaged to be reasonably compact and that should make for excellent co-ordination between

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my right honourable friend's Department and the work of the Commission. I will carefully re-read—and I certainly did not mean to imply that the noble Lord was not attending to my noble friend's speech—what he has said, and I will relay it. I do not think there are liable to be great difficulties on this score.
I come to the question of the levy rate which was not only raised by the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, but also emphasised by my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth. The main question about the level of levy rate is: will it do the trick of influencing firms towards good training? Obviously there is room for different views here. If it is fixed too high the rate becomes resented; if it is too low the rate becomes an ineffective irritant. Most of the training boards have judged the rate of 1 per cent. of payroll, or rather less, to be an effective stimulus. At present, very few have levies above this figure, although I agree that the few who do are important industries. We concluded, therefore, that it would be reasonable to make this a general maximum and that it should offer sufficient stimulus to encourage firms to meet their own needs and thus secure exemption. The board's administrative costs, which were previously met from levy funds, will in future be met by Exchequer payments, and that should be a help.
Regarding small firms' exemption—another politically contentious area—the Bill contains a requirement that any proposal for a levy submitted by an industrial training board must include a proposal for the exemption of small firms. The Committee of Inquiry on small firms (the Bolton Committee) commented that the machinery set up under the Industrial Training Act 1964 was in fact inappropriate to the needs of small firms. Most industrial training boards have always excluded the smallest firms from levy. It has been Government policy since early 1971 that the level of exemption should be raised and there has been considerable progress since then. Small firms will also be eligible for Exchequer grants, and they will be encouraged to make use of group training facilities. There will be continued support for such schemes.
The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, and my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth, raised the question of young people;
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that is to say, whether local education authorities careers' services should not have exclusive rights in this critical first step in the employment world. I will deal with this at some length because it is important. The three main reasons why the proposal would be a mistake are as follows: first, any age limit on the local education authority's service to those who have left education will impose a restriction on the L.E.A.'s facilities to help young people who may still need guidance. If we introduce an age limit of, let us say, 19, what happens to the young person who leaves education at the age of 18 and wants to go back to the L.E.A. careers adviser who advised him for help with his employment problems? Once that young person passes his 19th birthday, the local education authority would no longer have power to help him. I realise that is an arbitrary case but it will serve as an example.
In a particular case the careers officer might have a heart of gold and might turn a blind eye and give the young person advice without inquiring too closely about his or her age. But I do not feel that we ought to frame legislation in such a way that careers officers are obliged to turn blind eyes to the limitations of their powers. If we want the L.E.A. careers services to be able to help young people who have left education but still want to return to their careers officers without restriction of age we should surely give them the power to do so. Secondly, there is nothing in the Bill which in any way restricts the activity which the L.E.A. careers service should carry out at present. Indeed, the Bill extends the scope of their service in respect of the over-18s who are in further education, or who have already entered employment.
There is an impression in some quarters that there will be some sort of cut-off at the point of entry into the first job, and that after that young people will not be able to go back to the L.E.A. service. Nothing could be further from the truth. Young people who have entered employment, and who want to go on obtaining advice from the L.E.A. careers officer, will still have full freedom to do so and the L.E.A. will have full power to provide them with a service. If we put in an age limit we shall not be strengthening in any way the L.E.A.'s

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power to go on providing the service that it provides at present. All we shall be doing is restricting new powers which this Bill gives L.E.A.s for the first time to help the over-18s who have entered employment.
Thirdly, I am sure it will do nothing but good for young people who have entered employment to have a choice between the L.E.A. careers service and the general employment service provided by the Commission. There I am glad to echo the words of my noble friend who introduced the Second Reading. I know that there are those who feel that the L.E.A. careers officer is the right person to advise young people and who would prefer not to encourage young people to go elsewhere for help. But we have to face the fact that some young are unwilling to go back to a service which, because it is education-based, they associate with their schooldays. The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, talked about pressures on someone to "stand their round" when they are young. Against that, I simply say that the evidence is that more and more people are marrying young and the best way to get responsibility from young people is to give them responsibility. As a result, once people have entered employment they may fail to obtain any vocational advice and simply take jobs which they hear about through friends or through private agencies or which they see advertised. Surely it is better in these cases that the young person concerned should have the alternative of going to the Employment Service Agency for guidance. I believe, as I said, that by offering young people this option we will be genuinely increasing their range of choice and improving the opportunities for guidance which are available to them.
The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, referred to the exclusion of part-time students whose classes start at 5 o'clock or later from the mandatory duties of the L.E.A.s. I think the word to stress there is "mandatory"; that is to say, it is not a duty for L.E.A.s to provide the service, but they may if they wish, and it is fully expected that they will. It allows simply a certain flexibility to them.
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The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, expressed herself less satisfied than the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, and as an old employee of London University of course it gives me great pain that that should come from her. As a Whip I must say, however, that high attendance in your Lordships' House is not in my experience necessarily an indication of the urgency of a Bill under discussion. I have not been here long, but in my experience the greatest attendance has been reserved for questions dealing with animals or your Lordships' own procedure. So I think we in fact are doing the Bill more than justice tonight. She mentioned the reductions in public expenditure recently announced by my right honourable friend the Chancellor. This will mean that Exchequer funds to training boards' administrative expenses and grants for key training activities will not now be available until April 1, 1975, instead of August 1, 1974, as proposed in the White Paper on the Bill. But there is no reduction in funds now being made available to boards; only a deferment, therefore, of the date when additional funds of up to £35 million a year will be made available.
She was bothered by the structure of the new proposals. She was bothered, I think, perhaps that the Manpower Services Commission might lack real powers because of the overriding presence of the Secretary of State. But surely when we are dealing with a Bill in Parliament we nearly always on all sides of the political spectrum write in, as it were, default powers to the Secretary of State, not necessarily expecting that he will use them, but making sure that he has the power to use them if something should go wrong. I cannot accept that the Department of Employment has been exercising what Robert Ardrey calls a "territorial imperative" here; and I would point out that the Department officials, or those who move to the Agencies, will be moving to the arms, as it were, rather than the head, though of course my friends in the Department have heads as well as arms. The noble Baroness talked, too, about expertise. I think the analogy I gave of a head and arms will do. The Manpower Services Commission is in control; the Agencies are executive agencies particularly.

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Mention has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, of the question of training assistance for overseas students, and I certainly agree with him that providing overseas students with training needs no justification at all. Certainly I would not be prepared to contradict him. He mentioned that training to overseas students was one of the cheapest and most effective forms of aid. There I think he puts his finger on the matter, as one might expect from someone who is Chairman of the Trustees of the Overseas Students' Advisory Bureau. But the operative word again here is I think "aid". If this were written into the Bill in the way he would like, training for overseas students would become part of the Manpower Services Commission, which is specifically designed of course to provide training and employment in this country. Therefore, I propose, if I may, to take what he said to my right honourable and noble friends at the Foreign Office and "ginger" them up about it.
My noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth mentioned universities. Again, this is something of the same answer that I gave to Lord Diamond in that the stress here is on the word "mandatory". The mandatory duty on local education authorities to provide a careers guidance and placing service to those in and leaving educational institutions will not apply, admittedly, to students attending universities, who already, I may say, as an ex-university teacher, are very well served by the university appointments boards. But L.E.A.s will be required to make their services available to the university students who wish to use them under Clause 8(1)(c) of the Bill. I am sure that it is right that the help available to university students should be widened in this way.
He mentioned the placing of people leaving the Armed Forces, particularly I think the Royal Navy. There are in existence arrangements for the resettlement of former members of the Armed Forces, and I feel sure that the Manpower Services Commission will not neglect this aspect of their work. But I will in any case ask my noble friend the Secretary of State for Defence to ensure that the services available, and the improvements in them, are given appropriate publicity in the Armed Forces. I
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go on to say that if the noble Lord has in mind any particular cases in which he feels these arrangements have not worked satisfactorily, perhaps he will be so kind as to bring them to my attention and I will arrange to have them looked into. He spoke about dead-end jobs and training. This is, I agree with him, a real and understandable dilemma which young people have always faced. But both adult and youth services will have details of training, both long-term and short-term, available to them. These officers of both services, will be trained to recognise problems and to give advice. Staff of the Employment Service Agency and the local authorities will certainly cooperate together.
My Lords, we have many late nights, I suspect, ahead of us and I must make an end. This is, as noble Lords have recognised, a very important measure indeed. Complex as it may appear in parts, it sets out to achieve something quite straightforward: a fundamental reform of the arrangements for promoting employment and training in this country. Responsibility for the manpower services is given to representatives of those organisations most directly concerned, and practical experience too with their operation. It is real responsibility, for while the Secretary of State will continue his responsibility for policy objectives, the members of the Manpower Services Commission will form an essentially executive body—executive where taking of decisions is concerned. The Bill deals mainly with the organisational arrangements for employment and training. It sets up the Commission and Agencies; it puts education authorities under a duty to provide a careers service; it provides for changes in the operation of industrial training boards. But of course changes in organisations are finally only means to an end. We hope to see the public employment services improved and developd so that they attract an increased share of the employment market, which means more help to people looking for jobs, more help to employers in filling vacancies and, very important, more help to the disadvantaged—to those who, for whatever reason, have difficulties in finding and keeping jobs.
This increased share of the market does not mean that the primary responsibility for training will not continue to be the

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responsibility of the employer. But the Manpower Services Commission, representative of both sides of industry and of the education authorities, will be specially well placed to make progress in the difficult areas of broad planning and thinking on manpower matters. We can all recognise the economic benefits to individual and nation which can flow from expanding manpower services in an expanding economy. Just to give one example, we hope to see continued successful expansion of the Training Opportunities Scheme planned to come under one of the executive arms of the Manpower Services Commission. I am glad to say—it has already been said, I think, but I am glad to repeat it—that in another place the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that an extra £6 million was being allocated to the scheme in order to sustain the expansion. This is especially welcome in the light of a
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general programme of cuts in public expenditure. It is a measure of seriousness about training. My Lords, on what I hope is an upward note, or rather 6 million notes, I have great pleasure and confidence in asking the House to support the Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

QUEEN MARY COLLEGE BILL [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.

BRITISH TRANSPORT DOCKS BILL
The Queen's consent signified, and Bill reported, with Amendments.
House adjourned at twenty-one minutes before eight o'clock.